The Island Of Dragons: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (6 page)

After about an hour of tossing and turning, I got out of bed and sent him a text, which read:
I meant to tell you tonight that I’m grateful to you for saving me from drowning. Thank you. But I’m also still angry with you, and I’m not apologizing for what I said earlier. I still think your new full name should be Lieutenant General Chief Warren James Knight, asshole.

Very soon, I received his response.
You’re welcome for saving you from drowning, and as far as your name-calling, sticks and stones, Miss Eleanor Christine Elizabeth O’Brien, esquire. Sticks and stones.

Before I could think better of it, I sent him another text, which said:
Hugh told me that you’ve experienced some betrayals in the past that make it hard for you to trust people, so I’m trying to force myself to cut you some slack on the whole you holding me prisoner thing, but you make it very, very difficult.

Warren responded:
Hugh talks too much sometimes.

I answered:
Does he?

Within a minute, Warren texted me back.
Yes. As a matter of fact, he actually told me that you threatened to “kick my scaly dragon ass” several days ago. Which now, after becoming better acquainted with your extremely ladylike mouth (sarcasm), I can hardly believe it’s true that you really said that (sarcasm).

I responded:
Don’t you have a lake to fill with rocks or something?

A minute or two later, I received his response.
Goodnight, Miss Eleanor Christine Elizabeth O’Brien, esquire. I’ll speak to you again soon.

After a brief hesitation spent deciding what to text back, I ended up sending just a single word:
Goodnight.

I was only able to finally fall asleep a long while later, and I immediately began dreaming about verbally fighting with Warren, yelling at him that I wasn’t a spy. Presently,  the dream changed. I began dreaming about Warren running his large, long-fingered hands all over my bare skin.

CHAPTER FOUR

The following day, Warren had once again taken most of his men to the lake to try to resolve whatever problems were going on there. I told Hugh I wanted to go see the lake myself, but he said no way, that was absolutely not happening.

“At least, I won’t let you see the lake up close, or get anywhere near it. But if you still want to see it, I’ll take you up the Great Hill, and maybe you can catch a glimpse from afar.”

The Great Hill was just what it sounded like. It was a tall earthen mound in the jungle, just to the north of the village. I’d seen it, of course, because it could be seen from almost everywhere in the village, but I hadn’t actually visited it in person yet, and I was excited to take a hike to the top.

It turned out to be a bit more of an arduous hike than I’d imagined it would be. I’d imagined myself admiring all the different tropical flowers and shrubs dotting the hill on my way up, but after maybe five minutes of hiking up the incredibly steep hill, I was so winded I could barely catch my breath, let alone sniff a flower.

Hugh, who had a bad knee, and I took frequent breaks, and eventually, we made it to the top of the high hill. And immediately, what I saw took my breath away. Or, took it away more than it was already gone.

From the hill, I could see what appeared to be an endless stretch of jungle, with a single clearing maybe a couple of miles away. In this clearing, I could see some sort of crater that resembled an empty lakebed, and around this empty lakebed were dozens of tiny shapes I recognized as dragons. Despite the fact that this wasn’t my first time seeing dragon shifters, the sight still struck me as unbelievably shocking.

Hugh extended a hand, pointing at one of the dragons in the distance. “See that dark gray one? That one’s Chief Knight. He’s the biggest and the strongest of us dragons, without a doubt.”

I let that sink in briefly before changing the subject, asking Hugh various questions about shifters.

After a while of watching Warren and his men working at the lake, rolling massive boulders into it from what it looked like, I told Hugh I was ready to go.

He said okay, nodding. “Want a ride down on my back? I can shift into dragon form if you want.”

I stared at him, incredulous, wondering why he hadn’t given me a ride
up
.

He cracked a slight grin, a very rare expression for him. “I’m a shifter, too, you know. Remember? All men in our village are.”

“Well, then, why didn’t you fly us both up here?”

He shrugged. “Even shifters need exercise in human form. But I think the hike up here was plenty for me for today.”

Soon, after I’d given him enough room, Hugh shifted into dragon form, and I climbed on his scaly green back.

That afternoon, after I’d located some piano music and a portable CD player, I spent several hours teaching dance classes outdoors on the wide, wooden platform. Halfway through the last lesson, while I taught the kids how to do
plies
using the platform railing as a
barre
. I caught a glimpse of an enormous dark gray dragon flying high overhead.

Some of the littlest kids clapped and pointed, saying “Chief Knight!” but I tried to just ignore him. I didn’t want him to think I was as impressed with him as many of the kids seemed to be. After a minute or so of slow circling, seeming to be checking that everything in the village was okay, he began flying north, breathing a thin stream of fire, and faded from view.

***

The following day, after the last lesson of the afternoon, a few little girls asked me if I would dance on pointe shoes for them, or as they called them, “toe shoes.” I hated to disappoint them, but I already knew there wasn’t a single pair of pointe shoes anywhere in the village. There weren’t even any ballet slippers for the kids to wear.

I put on a little dance show for the girls anyway, catching sight of a dark dragon overhead as they cheered and clapped for me. This time, they didn’t even notice Warren, and I smiled, thinking that my dance skills couldn’t be too rusty if I’d managed to steal the limelight from a dragon chief.

Once all the kids had been picked up by their moms, I sat on the platform drinking a bottle of water while Hugh sat beneath a tall palm a short distance away, thumbing through a paperback. It had become crystal clear that least
he
didn’t have even the slightest of suspicions that I was a spy anymore.

While I continued sipping my water, enjoying a warm, salt-scented tropical breeze, Melissa joined me up on the platform. We’d made plans to meet up after my last class to take a run along the beach together.

Dressed in tennis shoes, shorts, and a bright orange tank top, she glanced up at the clear blue sky, where Warren, now joined by a few of his men, was still flying around. “You know they all have increased sex drives, don’t you?”

I instantly began choking on a sip of water and spoke in a garbled croak. “What?”

While I coughed, Melissa patted me on the back a few times. “Shifters. They all do. They all have increased sex drives and stamina to match. Just trust me about this.” Pausing, she actually gave me a little wink. “Dan and I are still like newlyweds if you get what I mean.”

I was pretty sure I did, and my face was flaming, but not because of what she’d said about herself and Dan. My face was flaming because I was thinking of increased sex drive and stamina as it might relate to Warren.

I didn’t want to be thinking these thoughts. He was my captor, and no matter how many sensuous dreams and thoughts I had about him, I was determined not to be anything other than barely civil to him until he admitted that he believed I wasn’t any kind of an enemy to his people. That was going to take some distraction and redirection of my thoughts. I told Melissa I wouldn’t be opposed to taking a hour-long run or even a two-hour one.

It turned out that we made it in an hour or so with a few breaks. Hugh did surveillance on me from the air, despite the fact that I told him it was an utterly pointless task, and it was.

“What exactly does Warren think I’m going to
do
if I’m not watched constantly? Blow up the whole village with a bomb that I hid in my bra before I fell off the cruise ship?”

Hugh shrugged. “I’m not sure exactly what Warren thinks you might do these days, though I think his suspicions are decreasing maybe.”

“
Decreasing
. But he still thinks I’m some kind of covert ninja or something.”

Hugh shrugged again. “I do know one thing for sure; I think his suspicions about Dalton are only increasing. Dalton’s been a cooperative prisoner, for the most part, but he still refuses to say exactly why he decided to come here. Which has made
my
suspicions increase.”

I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about Dalton. I didn’t trust him or distrust him. Being that I’d barely spoken to him since the night we’d arrived to the island, I really had no basis to form an opinion. Though I had to admit, refusing to say exactly why he’d come to the island sure didn’t make him look very good.

After our run, Melissa, Hugh, and I ran into Dalton himself, who was trailed closely by his two guards. Like the last time I’d seen him, he was ambling along the beach, collecting pebbles and rocks, which he’d scrutinize briefly, then put into a metal pail. But unlike the last time, he didn’t look happy and content anymore. With a deep crease between his light hazel eyes, he actually looked stressed. Troubled. I wondered if being accused of being a spy was taking a toll on him, too.

That night, I slept horribly, tossing and turning. I wished that Melissa had never told me what she had about shifters, because in the absence of hard exercise or other distraction, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Which might have been in part due to the fact that it had been quite a while since I’d enjoyed any physical intimacy, and I was probably kind of starved for it.

The following morning, I casually asked Hugh if Warren would be in the village that day, or if he still had work to do at the lake. “Not that I really care either way.”

After studying me for a long moment, stroking his salt-and-pepper beard with his mouth seeming to be twitching just a little, Hugh responded. “The lake situation seems to be under control for now. It’s finally stopped filling with that ugly dark water, so it seems like Warren and the other men have finally gotten enough rocks in there. But he won’t be in the village today.”

I tried to ignore a little pang of disappointment. “Oh, really? Why is that? Just out of curiosity. Not that it makes any difference to me.”

“Right.”

“So, where will he be today?”

“Not in this dimension. He’s taking a little trip through his portal to New York City. Said he was going on some little errand that concerns you.”

I nodded, surprised, but at the same time, somehow not surprised. “Taking a little trip to try to find out more about my pre-island life and my activities as a ‘spy,’ I’ll bet. I should have expected this. Well, I hope he enjoys fruitless Google searches and paying for background checks that yield absolutely nothing.”

Hugh lifted his wide shoulders just a fraction. “Who knows what he’s doing.”

Early that evening, after a long day teaching dance in the hot sun, I ate a quick dinner by myself, and then took a relaxing lukewarm bath in my massive stone tub. I’d just finished dressing in comfortable sweatpant shorts and a t-shirt, and drying my long hair and piling it on the top of my head in a messy bun, when I heard a knock on the door.

I answered it, thinking that it might be Melissa or Melody stopping by for a visit, but it wasn’t either of them. It was Warren. Warren, holding a large cardboard box. Warren, looking damn near irresistible dressed in black boots, battered jeans, and a dark t-shirt fitted just well enough to reveal the hard contours of his broad chest.

He looked at me, his expression unreadable. “I know I’m not your favorite person right now, so I won’t ask to come in. I just wanted to give you these. All the way from a different dimension. New York City.”

He handed me the box and left without another word, leaving me standing in the doorway, stunned. Stunned and beyond curious to find out what was in the box, that is.

I took it inside, set it on the polished stone island in the kitchen, and pulled open the cardboard flaps. Inside lay at least a hundred pairs of soft pink ballet slippers in all different sizes. Each of the pairs was tied with a shiny satin ribbon, except for a few pairs of rubber-soled canvas tumbling shoes, which were presumably for a group of little boys I’d been teaching who greatly preferred learning different flips and rolls rather than pirouettes. I sighed, letting it sink in that Warren hadn’t gone to New York City to try to dig up dirt on me, after all.

With a little ache in my chest, I lifted a scrap of paper from the slippers, seeing that a message was written on it in bold, masculine handwriting. It was from Warren, of course, and it said:
Dear Miss Eleanor Christine Elizabeth O’Brien, esquire, Seeing you dancing and teaching the kids is quite possibly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen on this island, and I’ve been here a long time. Just wanted you to have what you need to continue. Sincerely, Lieutenant General Chief Warren James Knight.

After setting the note on the counter with a sudden lump forming in my throat, I began taking the ballet slippers out of the box to see them better, and underneath the first layer, I found several pairs of pointe shoes in peach, pink, and white satin, all of them in my size. I recalled how one day Hugh had been asking me a bunch of seemingly random questions about pointe shoes, such as what size I wore, which had struck me as maybe a bit odd at the time, but now made perfect sense.

Leaning against the kitchen island, I rested my face against my folded arms and cried; I didn’t even know why. I wondered if I was developing Stockholm Syndrome.

After a while, I dried my eyes, scooted my feet into a pair of flip-flops, and stepped out the front door.

Hugh was reading in a chair next to a tall, fuchsia pink hibiscus bush out front, and he looked up at me, not seeming surprised to see me in the least. “Need an escort to the chief’s castle?”

I nodded, not even knowing why exactly I was going there, or what exactly I was going to say to Warren.

Seeming to sense that maybe I was feeling some sense of urgency, Hugh flew me to Warren’s on his back, while the sun began sinking low in a sky painted with various brilliant shades of orange and gold.

When we landed, Hugh shifted back into human form, fully dressed, and spoke without really making eye contact with me for some reason. “Just so you know, Sadie and the other cook have the night off, so you can go in there knowing that you and the chief will have privacy for whatever kind of, um... ah, for whatever kind of discussion the two of you might want to have.”

Already heading to the front door, I thanked him with my face a bit hot, though not from the still-warm sun. I knew exactly what Hugh had meant, but I had no intention of having
that
kind of a “discussion” with Warren. This was a business visit. It would be barely civil, and no more. I knew this for sure, even though I still had no clue of what I intended to say.

Warren answered the door right away, wordlessly ushered me inside, and shut the heavy wooden door behind us.