WickedBeast (10 page)

“Aunt Penny and Uncle Hank are married. It’s okay for
married people to kiss. Did you see them doing anything else?” Kelly wanted to
know.

“No. I hug dem. Dey happy and pretty colors. Den we go play
park swing.” Minuet sat at her plate. “You marry Cord. He need kisses.”

“Penny is my younger sister. Hank is her husband. They’re
newlyweds and babysat Minuet several times before we moved,” Kelly explained to
Cord. Her eyes remained glued to his chest as she studiously ignored Minuet’s
last comment.

“Let’s eat,” Cord suggested as he lifted Kelly to her chair.

“She didn’t kiss you,” Minuet stated as she looked at them.

“Mommy’s kisses are special, right?” Cord asked. “Mommy has
to be careful with them.” Cord winked at Minuet. “I think I’ll let her decide
when I’ve been good enough to get one.”

Kelly distracted Minuet by filling her plate with not only
macaroni and cheese but sliced tomatoes and baby carrots. Both favorites but
not yet part of the three-year-old’s meal planning.

The atmosphere relaxed considerably as the conversation
moved to the possibility of Barney being a good dragon in hiding. Explaining
that he was a person walking around in a Barney suit proved complicated. The
concept perplexed Minuet. She couldn’t get over the fact that a man was
standing in the Barney suit and lying to all the children.

Minuet turned to Cord and frowned. “Can you make Barney?”

“Ah, you mean shapeshift to look like this Barney?” Cord
asked cautiously.

“Yes. Make Barney but not a clothes. Be Barney?” she
questioned seriously.

“Honey, shapeshifting does not mean a person can be someone
else. It just means they look different. I could look like Barney but it would
always be Cord inside.”

“Please make Barney,” she asked with such a hopeful
expression on her face.

“I can’t right now. I’ve never seen Barney,” he confessed
with the appropriate humility. Minuet was satisfied but not done with him.
“Barney tomorrow. He on TV in a morning.”

“Oh honey.” Kelly reached over and laid a hand on Cord’s arm
as she laughed and continued. “Cord might not want to be Barney when he sees
him.”

Power flowed from her touch in a flood of unexpected heat.
She was laughing and yet her emotions were colored with such a mix of
intriguing delight that Cord sat back and smiled at her. Taking her hand in his
to enjoy the connection, he turned it over and kissed the back. “Why not?”

“Have you ever watched children’s TV?” she asked.

“No,” he confessed. “But it can’t be that difficult to mimic
a figure.”

“Ah, probably not,” she agreed. “But remember, you can change
your mind.”

There was silence for a few minutes as food disappeared.

“Cord no have TV?” Minuet wanted to know.

Cord nodded at her puzzled face. “Nope, I don’t. If I want
to hear the news, I use the radio.”

“We let you look ours,” she consoled him as if he were sad.

Done with her meal, Minuet left her chair to come to his
other side and climb onto his lap. Sitting on his thigh, leaning into his body
as one of his arms circled her securely, she proceeded to discuss the Barney
issue. Kelly hadn’t let go of his other hand, and Cord discovered the most
amazing sensations he’d ever experienced.

Minuet’s trust flowed through him with jewel-bright
sincerity. She didn’t just believe in him, as she had this morning, there was
more. Her emotions were personal, filled with her affection and trust. Kelly’s
connection mingled with it as she laughed softly, leaning across him to kiss
her daughter’s cheek. The round table allowed the three of them an intimate
closeness. In that moment, Cord found something huge.

It was bigger than his mission, bigger than all of the
history piling up on them. This was more important than any past betrayal or
alliance. He had no word for what they brought him, who he was with them, but
it was entirely different from the creature he’d been this morning.

Minuet yawned but pressed on with her case. “Cord be good
Barney. No lying.”

“The man in the Barney suit is not lying. He’s playing a
part. Acting,” Kelly assured her.

“Honey, if you want to see Barney, I’ll do my best, but you
have to remember, its Cord inside,” he promised. “Tomorrow I’ll watch him and
see if we can manage it. I might need your help.”

“I help,” Minuet promised solemnly with big, unblinking
eyes.

Looking down at her snuggled into his chest, Cord knew he’d
probably promise her the impossible and do it because she believed in him. Not
because she was the amazing twist in fate that she’d prove to be. No, simply
because she was Minuet.

Kelly leaned into his shoulder and smiled at her daughter as
she pushed riotous curls behind Minuet’s ear. “It’s bath time. We’ll talk about
Barney tomorrow.”

Minuet slid off Cord’s leg. “I make water,” she declared,
and ran toward the stairs, excited to test her new abilities in a way she
hadn’t thought of yet.

Kelly hurried after her. “Only enough water for a bath. Be
careful,” she directed as she rushed up the stairs after the little witch who
couldn’t wait to play in the water.

Cord gazed after them. What had just happened?

Both of them had worked hard today. He’d tried to make the
lessons part of their normal activities to get them used to the unusual. Easing
it into their world without shock or the harsh reality of how ugly unusual
could be. He suspected that would come soon enough. Even though they’d done
relatively normal things, it hadn’t been easy.

Believing in themselves wasn’t enough. To work magic, one
had to infuse confidence into each command. Knowing a thing could be done and
believing oneself capable of making it happen were two different things. It had
been easier for Minuet. She was too young to be loaded down with self-doubt.
Kelly had struggled.

Focusing on the empty kitchen, Cord waved a hand and
dispatched the dishes back to the cabinets, now clean and ready for the next
meal. He sat there trying to work through the change in himself.

Was it possible for there to be too much of a good thing?
No, that wasn’t it. His hunger was not less. It was more. More in a way that
included Minuet as a part of Kelly. One of them in his world would not be
enough, both of them had to be safe, cared for, treasured. His need of them was
more than physical hunger for the substance they provided him. The peace of
this kitchen was what he needed. Knowing they were happy. Peace.

Like love, peace was an intangible. Something worth fighting
for, dying for, but at the end of the day, peace could not be given to another.

A dragon’s life was supposed to be simple. Jesus! One day
with them and he was craving things that didn’t exist, couldn’t be “gathered”,
had nothing to do with his nature.

Dragons were creatures created by finite beings. Monsters
designed for one purpose or another, be it war or defense. Even he had been
made by the hand of a programmer. A programmer who worked in DNA, but it did
not make him a God-created creature. He had no inborn right to evolve. He was
made to do one thing, ensure the other dragons did not rise again.

This mission had been his only reason for living. It had
consumed eons of time. Hard, empty time when he’d hungered without end, and now
this? This impossible need to have what could never be captured, taken or
contained? Hungering for such things with a dragon’s appetite was a danger. His
instincts would not allow him to back away from the drive to attain everything
that had been out of humankind’s reach since the creation of man.

Small feet rushed down the stairs, this time muffled a bit.
Cord stood and turned to the door. Minuet launched herself into the air and he
caught the bundle of pink footy pajamas. She laughed in glee as he lifted her
high above his head and pretended to drop her, catching her again.

The power of her happiness shot through him with the zing of
an adrenaline rush. Laughing Minuet commanded more force than most wizards
could hope to leash. She was amazing. Cord was about to swing her around when
Kelly stopped him from the doorway.

“Time to calm down. We came down to read a book before going
to bed.”

“Cord read,” Minuet stated from her seat on his hip. “Cord
read Barney. He need ta know it.”

After two Barney books on the couch, Kelly took Minuet up to
bed. Cord stretched out and let the hazy warmth of the last half-hour melt off
him.

In some part of her brain, Minuet was aware she strengthened
him by touching. She probably had no idea why, but the little miracle child had
insisted on sitting on his leg as he read to her, making sure Mommy sat on the
other side. She’d arranged them then relaxed into his hold.

The time reading had calmed her down so at the end she
drooped with sleepy eyes, struggling to stay awake. Before going with her
mother upstairs, she’d kissed his cheek in her muzzy way.

“You better, Cord?” she’d asked, blinking. “My bear makes me
safe. You needs him?”

“I’m much better. Bear needs you, hon. Good night,” he’d
responded with a smile.

The two of them had trudged slowly upstairs.

The couch he was stretched out on had begun the day an
average size. Now it’s long, comfortable shape fit him perfectly. Magic had
given Kelly the freedom to decorate exactly as she wanted. When she’d gotten
over the unexpected delight, her house had taken shape rapidly with warm colors
and contrasting jewel tones.

Cord closed his eyes and listened as the voices above him
murmur soft, sleepy things. Those engaging murmurs bound him to them with ever
tightening strings.

This day had been a time-traveling experience. Where they
had been last evening bore almost no relation to where they were tonight. The
problem was, they were riding a one-way express car and they were dragging the
hounds of hell with them.

It was clear the horrific solution employed by the great
ladies of the past had been no solution at all. In fact, it had been a very
temporary fix. They had given humans a second chance to solve the same problem.
The one they, in all their brilliant planning, had failed to correct.

He heard Kelly move out of Minuet’s room, tiptoeing down the
hall. She paused at the top of the stairs. It was only for a second, but he
felt it. That moment of hesitation told him she was feeling that day’s effects
too. It spoke of her fear, her courage and made him want to rip something to
shreds. She was afraid, but she had no choice.

She would walk in here and seduce him if she had to. Kelly
was that strong and just that vulnerable. He couldn’t afford to refuse her
courage. She had no time for a courtship, no time to pretend that was something
a creature like him could give her.

She appeared in the doorway, outlined by the dark entry
behind her. Coming out of the shadows to him, the Wind Witch smiled with her
lips, but her eyes could not.

Cord slowly stood as she stopped three feet away from him.
Her gaze didn’t waver as she raised her chin to look him in the eye.

“You’re afraid,” he observed softly.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Will you hurt me?” Kelly asked.

“Probably, but never by choice,” he answered as honestly as
he could.

“Are you afraid?” she wanted to know.

“Not of this, a little of you,” he admitted.

“I scare you?” She did smile this time.

“More than you can know. But the problem isn’t yours.”

“No, it’s not my problem. It makes me feel better though.”

Cord took a small step and reached for her, he had to.
Standing so close and discussing the distance fear was putting between them was
a fine new form of torture. His palm ran down her arm from shoulder to elbow in
a soft caress. He didn’t close his fingers around silky flesh, didn’t draw her
to him. There was nothing he wanted more than to help her cross the cold space
between them, but he refused to take that choice from her too.

All she had to do was ask and he’d gladly cross it for her.
He suspected she knew that. She was looking at him from the safety of her old
life. Coming to him now would shed that illusion forever.

Kelly stepped into his body, sliding her hands up his biceps
in slow motion as she studied his eyes. His hands slipped around her waist to
hold her in a loose embrace as she chose him over her fear.

“I can make you feel better about a lot of things,” he
murmured. “But what we have to fear in each other is not one of them.” His head
dipped to her mouth, going that final step for her. She had come to him and it
was enough. Brushing her mouth with his lips in a damp caress, he concentrated
on controlling the drive to possess.

She relaxed into his body. His beautiful Wind Witch
stretched up to him with a little moan to press her mouth more firmly into his.
Cord’s hands briefly fisted at her back, resisting the response she triggered
in him. Acceptance from this woman, no matter how small, inflamed a primal
urge, the one that demanded her immediate surrender in the most basic terms.

He pulled his mouth off hers. “Close your eyes,” he instructed.
He remained perfectly still as she stared into his eyes. She needed to feel the
fact that he expected her to comply with a direction. Her hesitation was
acknowledged with his patience but that patience would not allow her any other
option either.

Kelly’s eyes closed, reluctantly. There it was, fear. A
basic instinct of her own, but one he would do almost anything to ensure she
never had to act on while in his arms. Those lessons started now.

Candles appeared on the surface of end tables, windowsills,
across the top of the armoire and flickered in the empty fireplace. The couch
beside them now had a soft cotton sheet draped down its long cushions.

He easily swung her up across his arms as he said, “You can
look.”