Winter Kiss

  The garnet dragon fell out of the sky, his eyes closed. “Look out!” the tall man said, dragging Ginger backward instead of giving her a chance to follow his instruction.

  He moved fast, she’d give him that.

  The garnet dragon’s body crashed through the trees, breaking branches as he fell into the creek. The ice on the surface cracked and broke immediately, and his body fell through the ice into several feet of water.

  He didn’t move.

  The tall man kept his hand in front of Ginger all the same, and she noticed he was shimmering blue around his edges, just as Delaney had done in the cave below.

  Was he intending to protect her, too?

  Why?

  Ginger had to admit that having a defender in the face of fire-breathing dragons sounded like a good plan, even if she didn’t understand what was going on.

  The copper and emerald dragon joined forces with the tourmaline and amethyst ones to fight the agate dragon. The agate dragon didn’t engage, though—he pivoted and retreated, breathing slowly and deeply as he stared at the trio.

  “Dragonsmoke,” the tall man said under his breath.

  “I don’t see any smoke,” Ginger said.

  “I do. Our senses are sharper than yours.” He twitched involuntarily and urged her farther back into the woods. “It burns, that shit.” He shuddered again and urged Ginger to move away from the fallen dragon’s body.

  Ginger chose not to argue with him. Putting distance between herself and dragons, whether there was burning invisible smoke or not, was a good idea in her books.

  The trio of dragons in flight retreated with such care that Ginger understood there was something nasty about dragonsmoke. The amethyst one moved toward the agate dragon but was suddenly repelled by something that made him scream in pain.

  “Stupid,” her companion muttered, and the amethyst dragon glared at him.

  Meanwhile, the agate dragon descended steadily toward his fallen comrade, hovering just above his body. He breathed slowly and steadily, his manner almost meditative.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Defending the corpse with dragonsmoke,” the tall man said, his tone grim. “Defending himself with it, too.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s making sure we can’t take the corpse and ensure that Mallory stays dead.”

  Ginger eyed her companion, who appeared to be serious. “Is that supposed to make sense?”

  “It will.” He cast her a crooked smile, then his eyes narrowed and he looked at the sky again. “Another Slayer incoming.”

  Ginger barely glimpsed a dark shape in the distant sky before the tall man grabbed her elbow. It could have been a bird approaching, but she knew it wasn’t.

  It was much, much bigger than a bird.

  And she was sure it breathed fire.

  It paused and hovered in the distance, as if deciding what to do.

  “Time to go.” The tall man tugged Ginger toward the parking lot, setting a pace she struggled to match. The deep snow made it hard to run, especially given her height, but Ginger was motivated. She was glad when she saw her trusty red pickup truck, so reassuringly normal, dusted with a generous layer of snow.

  “I’ll just be heading out, then,” she said, marching toward her truck, sanity, and the real world.

  “Not so fast,” the tall man said, although he didn’t touch her.

  Ginger turned to look, wondering what he meant, then saw three dragons spiraling out of the sky. They were graceful despite their size, moving like prime athletes. They were enormous and the sight of their approach made her mouth go dry.

  It also excited her in an odd way. She felt a tingle, like flames licking at her toes, like desire unfurling in her belly, and decided she really needed some breakfast.

  But she couldn’t move away. She was transfixed by the sight of the copper and emerald dragon. He led the way, the tourmaline and amethyst ones right behind him, and headed straight for her.

  Was it really Delaney?

  There was purpose in every beat of the copper and emerald dragon’s massive wings as he flew closer. Ginger caught her breath at the weight of the dragon’s gaze. He was staring at her, his gaze fixed upon her as he flew closer.

  His eyes were green.

  Just like Delaney’s.

  And his manner was intense in a very familiar way.

  Ginger swallowed, but held her ground. There was a challenge in his eyes, as if he dared her to keep looking, to make the connection, to understand what he was.

  Ginger had never in her life backed down from a dare. She stared directly back at the dragon and waited for the worst. She felt that tingling heat grow as he came closer, that unruly desire that had made her surrender to impulse the night before.

  Lust roiled within her, shorting her circuits, making her forget everything except the sexy quirk of Delaney’s smile.

  “You ought to close your eyes,” the tall man advised.

  “Not a chance.” Ginger gripped her rifle but kept it at her side.

  “The transformation is hard for humans to witness,” he insisted.

  If there was a transformation, Ginger wanted to see it all. It was the only way she’d believe it possible. She stared unblinkingly at the copper and emerald dragon as he descended to the parking lot.

  “Just sayin’,” the tall man added, but Ginger ignored him.

  She forced her eyes to remain open, staring at the dragon as he drew closer. He seemed to hesitate for a second, as if he, too, would warn her of the perils of her choice, but Ginger wasn’t interested in being deceived.

  She wanted the truth.

  And she wanted it now.

  Whatever the hell it was.

  She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.

  His eyes gleamed.

  Then the copper and emerald dragon landed gracefully before her, launching a flurry of snow as he did so. Ginger halfway wondered what a hunter would make of those tracks, then she felt the desire weaken her knees, and forgot everything else but the dragon.

  He was watching her with those odd green eyes, staring so steadily at her that Ginger almost shivered. The snow melted around them, leaving a round space of bare ground.

  Then Delaney’s voice came from the dragon’s mouth. “Don’t try to make sense of it,” he advised, the familiarity of his voice wrenching Ginger’s heart. “Maybe it’s just a dream.”

  “I never got burned in a dream before,” Ginger retorted, plucking the blackened mess of her jacket.

  “Look away if it upsets you,” he said, but she heard the dare in his tone. If he thought she was some weak girl who couldn’t take the tough stuff, he could think again.

  “Not on your life,” she said.

  “It won’t come to that.”

  Ginger didn’t ask about her own life.

  The dragon shimmered before her eyes. It was strange but one minute, he was clearly a dragon; in the next minute, the perimeter of his body shone with a strange blue light. His edges flickered, like a gas flame, there and yet not. The precise distinction between him and the world around him became more cloudy, less readily discerned. His form morphed and grew less clearly defined, changing before her very eyes.

  Ginger tried to see all of the transformation at once and that was maybe her mistake. Her gaze darted over the dragon, watching for changes, noting differences, observing how one form morphed into the other.

  Impossible.

  She saw the reptilian dragon eyes become Delaney’s eyes, saw the sharp talon change to a finger, noted how the wings folded upon themselves and disappeared into his back.

  Impossible.

  She saw the sharp teeth fade away, saw him shrink to human size, saw his tail disappear as if it had been absorbed.

  Impossible.

  Ginger saw his clothes appear, seeming to be unfolded from beneath one of his scales, so that his human form was never nude in an Ohio parking lot in the middle of a February snowstorm.

  Impossi
ble.

  But happening right before her eyes all the same. Ginger forced her eyes to remain open when they might have closed. But when he was almost completely shifted, when the creature before her was snapping into the Delaney who had spent the night before in her bed, Ginger’s brain abruptly refused to accept any more sensory data.

  The change was occurring quickly, too quickly for Ginger to accept what she observed, so quickly that Delaney was able to catch her in his human form when she fainted.

  “Smooth,” Thorolf said when Ginger fainted. Delaney didn’t know whether the newest member of Erik’s team of Pyr was being sarcastic or admiring, and he didn’t much care.

  He should have felt more triumphant than he did, given that he’d succeeded in frightening Ginger again.

  Instead, he felt like a jerk.

  It was strange, but he felt the familiar combination of potency and confidence again today. He sensed that the firestorm had helped him find his old self once more. He’d hit Magnus hard enough to take the ancient Slayer down, however temporarily. He’d gotten Ginger out of the sanctuary and he’d defeated the Slayers come to do Magnus’s dirty work.

  There’d be more of that before it was over. It was time to get Ginger farther from danger.

  He scooped Ginger up before she fell and cradled her against his chest, surprised again by the persistent spark of the firestorm. He was doubly surprised by his own protectiveness toward her. She should be simply a means to an end for him, the vessel for his child, but Delaney could already sense that Ginger wasn’t a woman he’d easily forget.

  He was also aware of Pyr disapproval of his decision to frighten her.

  “She wanted to see,” he said, hearing defensiveness in his tone.

  “Sometimes humans are wrong about what they want and what’s good for them,” Sloane said, shifting smoothly as he landed beside Delaney. The Apothecary of the Pyr was a tourmaline dragon in his alternate form.

  Delaney bit back a sharp retort, knowing that it was Sloane who had helped him to heal as much as he had. He was glad that the Pyr had come to help him, but his firestorm was his own business.

  Both Sloane and Thorolf were eyeing the sparks that leapt between Ginger and Delaney, but Delaney wasn’t going to talk about the persistent golden glow.

  It didn’t make any sense that the firestorm still burned, but he wasn’t going to turn its satisfaction into a team effort.

  The amethyst dragon landed and shifted shape, becoming Niall, the Pyr with the greatest affinity for the element of air. Niall had also been Delaney’s business partner for years in the eco-tourism company the pair had founded. Delaney was glad to see him, glad when Niall offered him a gruff nod.

  Just like old times. They’d argued when Delaney had insisted on selling his half of the business to Niall earlier in the year, and Delaney had feared that he had ended a good friendship forever. He’d told himself then that he didn’t care, and wasn’t really surprised to learn that conclusion was wrong.

  It was good to see Niall again, good to have the Pyr come to fight with him.

  “So, it is your firestorm,” Niall said. “I wondered why it burned so strongly for me. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.” Delaney felt that familiar sense of being part of a team. He’d missed that feeling. He knew that the Pyr often felt most strongly the firestorms of those with whom they had a personal connection. He and Niall went way back, but he still hadn’t expected anyone to feel his firestorm.

  Much less come to help in defending it.

  “Why didn’t you sate it yet?” Niall asked, as blunt as ever.

  “I thought I did.”

  Thorolf grinned. “You don’t know?”

  Delaney shot a killing glance at this new recruit. “Something weird is going on.”

  Sloane pursed his lips and folded his arms across his chest, and Delaney could see that he was thinking furiously. “Figures,” he said quietly, but Delaney didn’t have time to chat about it. He had to get Ginger out of the vicinity of the Slayers. He headed for her red truck.

  He held Ginger, checked that she was breathing normally, and steadied his own thumping heart. He couldn’t believe that she had followed him and was grateful that she was uninjured. She was as light as a feather in his arms, and fit there just as well as she had the night before.

  He felt caught again between the mission he’d pledged to fulfill and his firestorm.

  “Wait a minute, you can’t just walk away,” Niall said.

  “What were you thinking, entering the sanctuary of the Elixir alone? If you were injured or even killed, any of the Slayers could have made you one of them right then and there.”

  Delaney slanted a glance at his old friend. “I intended to die in there.”

  “How would you have made sure you were really dead?”

  “I would have done it, somehow.” Delaney spoke with grim conviction, hating that Niall’s objection made some sense. “I have the motivation to make it happen.”

  “You should have called for help,” Niall argued.

  “And see you killed, too?” Delaney shook his head.

  “No, I know too much to ever put any of you into that situation by choice.”

  “We fight best as a team,” Niall insisted. “I would have answered your summons.”

  As glad as he was to hear that, Delaney knew he would never have asked that of a friend. “I have to destroy the Elixir alone,” he said, hearing resolve in his own voice. “It’s the only way.” He glanced down at Ginger and felt a niggle of doubt.

  “That’s a crazy plan. Magnus will never allow it,” Sloane said.

  “Magnus is down hard,” Delaney said. “I left him with his guts spilling all over the floor of the sanctuary.”

  Niall whistled through his teeth. “So much for your not being much of a fighter.”

  “I’ve got a cause now,” Delaney said, and Niall nodded his understanding.

  “Are they coming?” Thorolf asked as Sloane glanced back with narrowed eyes.

  “They’re tending Mallory, probably taking him to the Elixir.”

  Meanwhile, Niall’s gaze dropped to Ginger. He said nothing, just met Delaney’s gaze steadily, his own expression thoughtful. “You can count on me,” he said in old-speak, and Delaney knew that Niall would watch out for Ginger in Delaney’s absence.

  It was a good feeling.

  Sloane trudged over to the others, his expression grim. “You left Magnus wounded close to the Elixir, right?”

  Thorolf snorted.“Just what we need—Magnus tougher than ever.”

  “And Mallory dead with friends close enough to give the Elixir to him,” Sloane said with a sigh.

  “That wasn’t his plan,” Niall said, defending Delaney.

  “But that’s how it shook out, anyway,” Thorolf charged.

  “I had to get Ginger out of there,” Delaney said. “I’ll go back and finish what I started.”

  “Alone?” Sloane asked.

  “Alone.” Delaney felt the Pyr exchange glances, but wasn’t interested in their opinions. He was glad they had come but knew what he had to do. They wouldn’t change his mind, even if they were his friends. He put Ginger into the passenger seat of the truck with care.

  “Is she injured?” Sloane asked.

  “No,” Delaney said, not hiding his relief. “Just shocked.”

  “Because she didn’t know the truth,” Thorolf supplied. “I had to tell her.”

  “You shouldn’t have!” Niall charged. “It’s just one more truth to beguile her out of believing.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.” Thorolf threw up his hands, Niall’s censure obviously hitting a nerve. “Delaney shifted shape right over her head. She asked where he went. She’s not stupid—I think she’d halfway figured it out already.”

  “Great,” Niall said again, shoving a hand through his fair hair and leaving it disheveled. “You do have a gift for complicating things.”

  “I just tried to help,” Thorolf said, hi
s manner petulant.

  “Wait a minute,” Sloane said slowly, addressing Delaney. “You consumed the Elixir, which moves you a step closer to being Slayer—you shouldn’t have even had a firestorm.”

  Delaney fixed Sloane with a steady glance. “Whom are you calling Slayer? My blood runs red.”

  The Pyr froze in shock at this.

  They all knew that Delaney’s blood had initially run black after his release from the academy, then had changed back to red when Delaney had chosen to sacrifice himself if necessary to save his brother Donovan’s mate. It had mingled since, predominantly red but sometimes tinged with black. Its changing hue had been an ongoing source of frustration to Delaney, and a cause of his despair.

  He knew what he’d seen in the sanctuary, though.

  “No darkness in it?” Sloane asked, his tone as sharp as his gaze.

  Delaney was resolute. “None.” He shrugged out of his jacket and peeled back his T-shirt, letting Sloane see the wound that Magnus had inflicted on him. The scab was as red as a ruby.

  Sloane glanced down at Ginger, then frowned in thought.

  Delaney saw that Ginger’s lashes were fluttering. Her eyes opened, her gaze fixing on Delaney. He saw her surprise, her quick glance over him as if she’d confirmed that he was a man again.

  To his surprise, she did a credible Desi Arnaz imitation. “Okay, hotshot, you’ve got some ’splainin’ to do.”

  “Hotshot?” Niall asked, his confusion clear even in old-speak.

  “We met last night and consummated the firestorm,” Delaney replied. He felt the shock of his fellows.

  “In one night?” Niall said.

  “Not wasting any time, were you?” Sloane teased.

  “No wonder she calls him hotshot,” Thorolf added, and the three Pyr chuckled together. Delaney felt the back of his neck heat and he saw Ginger glance between them. She pushed herself out of his embrace and sparks lit where her fingers landed on Delaney’s arms.

  The Pyr caught their breath as one. “Except it wasn’t sated,” Sloane murmured, his eyes gleaming. “How strange.”

  Ginger glared at the four men. “What’s so funny?” she asked. “What did I miss?” She flung out a hand in the direction of the Pyr and turned to Delaney. “Who are these guys and why are they here? What happened down by the creek? Were there really dragons?” She cast an accusing glance at the sky, her frustration clear. “And why on earth is there so much thunder?”