Dragos Takes A Holiday [6.50] Elder Races (2 page)

“I didn’t know it was that well understood now.”

He gave into temptation and sank his hand into her soft, luxuriant hair. “It’s unpredictable, which is not quite the same thing. There’s a tangle of crossover passageways all over the area. The routes loop around and over each other, and the shifting ocean currents make most of them virtually impossible to map, although some old legends say that pirates found passageways to Other lands where they lived in secret hideouts.”

She shuddered. “You could get caught up in one of those passageways and get lost forever.”

“Yes, theoretically, and it’s possible that the
Sebille
did just that.” He tilted his head and buried his face in her hair, which was soft like silk and scented with her floral shampoo. “But it’s also not likely, either, because they would have needed to stumble onto the exact path of the crossover passageway. If ships stick to the established shipping lanes, they’re safe enough. Probably the
Sebille
sank.”

“Have you been to Bermuda?” She walked her fingers across his chest.

“No, I’ve only flown over it several times.”

“Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Caribbean—I’ve never been anywhere like that. I bet they’re beautiful.” She sounded wistful.

His phone buzzed, and they both sighed. He pulled the phone out of his jacket pocket and checked the display. It was Graydon again. Dragos gritted his teeth. “How long before we eat?”

They had come to a mutual decision several months ago. Dragos would not take any business or sentinel calls during dinner. Pia told him, “We’ve got at least a half an hour. You have time to take the call.”

He kissed her forehead, handed Liam over to her, and stood to walk down the hallway as he answered his phone.

“Sorry to bother you.” Graydon always apologized when he called after work hours.

“Never mind, what is it?” Dragos asked.

After listening to a few sentences, he switched direction and walked back into the living room. He met Pia’s gaze. “Would you mind keeping dinner warm for me? I’ll be as quick as I can.”

She nodded, looking unsurprised. “Of course.”

He strode out and didn’t make it back until after midnight.

When he finally returned home, the penthouse lay in deep shadow, except for the kitchen, where a light burned over the stove. Pia had left a note on the counter.
Your supper plate is in the fridge. Microwave for three minutes. Love you.

He smiled. She had never lost patience, no matter how challenging this last year had become. He opened the fridge to locate his supper. She had plated the roast-beef meal beautifully and even garnished it with sprig of parsley.

Too hungry to wait while the food heated, he ate it cold, standing at the counter. Looking forward to sliding between cool silk sheets, he walked down the hall to the heart of the place, the large bedroom he shared with Pia.

She had left another light on, her bedside lamp. Wearing dark blue cotton shorts and a thin, matching T-shirt with spaghetti straps, she had tucked her legs underneath the covers and sprawled across the bed on her stomach, fast asleep. The pile of library books lay strewn around her like abandoned toys. The fingers of her right hand curled around
The Lost Elders
.

Moving gently so he didn’t wake her, he stacked the library books on her nightstand. As he leaned to pick up
The Lost Elders
, the sound of Liam crying came over the baby monitor.

Pia stirred. “Unh.”

“Stay where you are,” Dragos whispered. “I’ll take care of him.”

“You sure?” Her voice was sleep blurred. “You’ve had such a long day.”

“I’m positive.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine. Go back to sleep.”

He pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder, pulled the bedcovers up and tucked them around her. Still carrying the book, he walked into the nursery.

The mellow glow from a nightlight lit the room. In the crib, Liam had come up on his hands and knees but sank back a bit, so that he sat like a frog as he cried. Dragos set the book on the side table by the rocking chair and gathered up the baby.

“What is this?” He kept his voice soft and gentle. “Life is not nearly half as tragic as you think it is.”

Liam shuddered and hiccupped, blinking up at Dragos with violet eyes that swam with tears. He embodied innocence, his energy so bright, shining and new, and Dragos loved him with a ferocity he had never felt about anything or anyone before, except for Pia.

“Now, what’s wrong?” Dragos asked. “Is it your mouth?”

The baby nodded, and his soft face crumpled.

He nestled Liam against his chest. “I’ll make it better.”

He walked to the large rocking chair, sat and whispered a beguilement until Liam’s small body relaxed. The baby sucked his thumb for a while and fell asleep as Dragos rocked him.

Peace settled around Dragos like a warm blanket. He was tired, and he wanted to go to bed. He wanted to block out the rest of the world and make love to Pia. But this quiet, intimate time with his son was too perfect, and it would pass all too soon. He would not be too quick to turn away from moments like this.

He remembered the book and picked it up. Still rocking, Dragos opened it. He began to read, and lost himself in thoughts of ancient gold and lost treasure.

Chapter Two

“You sure you weren’t too clever for him?” Eva asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I know he’s bright. He’s Lord of the Wyr and all, but he
is
still just a man.”

Despite Eva’s skepticism, Pia remained unfazed. “Wait and see. It isn’t a matter of ‘if’ we go on vacation. It’s a matter of ‘when.’”

Bright morning sunlight streamed into Dragos and Pia’s bedroom, although calling it a bedroom was a bit of a misnomer. The room was massive, with the king-sized bed at one end, and a fireplace and white couches at the other end. When Pia had come to live in Cuelebre Tower, the room had been stark, but she had added bright patches of color with jewel-toned pillows and throws, a rich bedspread and rugs.

Pia stood beside the bed where she had piled things to pack. She swung her suitcase up and opened it.

Eva lay sprawled on the floor in front of the French doors with a thick, soft blanket spread out beside her for Liam to play on. Not that Eva was having a great deal of success keeping Liam on the blanket. He had started another new thing that morning. He was busily scooting backwards everywhere.

“You’re so sure, you’re already packing?”

“Yes. He needs a break, and he wants it. He just might not know it yet. He’s so tired he fell asleep in the nursery last night when he was rocking the peanut. That’s where I found them both this morning.” She looked at Eva pointedly. “
Dragos
fell asleep. Normally he can stay awake for days if he needs to.”

Eva scratched the back of her head. The sunlight gleamed gold on her dark brown skin. “I just hope you aren’t counting your chickens before they’re hatched.”

“Mark my words, you should pack too.” Pia wagged her finger at the other woman. “He’s remarkably decisive when he makes his mind up about something. We could be on the plane as soon as tomorrow, or even tonight. I’m going to suggest that we only take you and Hugh with us.”

Eva sat up straight. “Sweet.”

Pia paused to watch Liam scoot backwards toward her, his little diapered butt in the air, and barely managed to keep from laughing out loud. He was sharp as a whip, and he might figure out she was laughing at him. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

She told Eva, “We won’t need bodyguards, but I do want to have babysitters so Dragos and I can go out by ourselves.”

“I’ll take it.” Eva grinned. “Do we by any chance know where Dragos will want to go on vacation?”

Pia scowled. “No, of course not. But I wouldn’t rule out Bermuda, the Caribbean, or Cape Horn.”

Eva cocked her head. “Am I sensing a water theme?”

“You’re sensing a shipwreck theme.” Pia shook out a skirt and carefully folded it. “Or maybe I should say a theme about lost treasure.”

“You’re talking about those books you got from the library the other day, aren’t you? Dayum, you’re good. Does Graydon know we’re leaving?”

Pia blinked at her. “Know what? Nothing’s been decided yet.”

Eva laughed and rolled to her feet. “I’ll go tell Hugh and pack.”

As Eva left, Pia checked her toiletries bag. It was filled with miniature bottles of everything she would need. She set it in her suitcase and bent to pick up the Peanut.

She whispered, “We have to pack for you too, you know. I’m guessing we might be going to Bermuda, since your daddy read that whole book in the middle of the night.”

The baby looked deep into her eyes and patted her face.

***

Mommy carried him into his room. He thought things were going well until she set him on the thick, soft rug in the middle of the floor.

No, that wasn’t what he wanted. That was very much not what he wanted.

He was tired again, and his mouth hurt, and he was hungry all the time. Hungry for what, he didn’t know. Hungry, hungry.

So he scowled and concentrated mightily on
something that he wanted
.

And the world shifted.

He felt better. Quite a bit better, actually. His new mouth didn’t hurt at all, but he was still very hungry.

Mommy kept talking as she moved around his room. She pulled diapers out of drawers, set them on the changing table and turned to the closet. “…I want to take you to the beach and play in the sand with you, except I don’t know that we should. Are you too young to play in sand, or to go into salt water? Peanut, you are such a statistical outlier, half the time I have no idea what we should do with you.”

She turned away from the closet, her arms full of clothes. When she looked at him, she shrieked and dropped everything.

It startled him so badly he felt a burst of anxiety. He turned around to scoot backward toward her as fast as he could, but something flopped along his back, and his arms and legs weren’t quite working the way they should. He stopped, confused, and stared down at himself.

Slender white forelegs stretched to the floor. He raised a front paw, staring at the strange talons. His back felt odd too, and he looked over his shoulder, flexing sleek, graceful wings. A tail trailed the floor behind him. He reached for it with one forepaw, tugged the end and his butt wagged. The tail was attached to him.

Mommy knelt in front of him and cupped his face. He looked up into her eyes. She had grown teary, and yet she was smiling. “You are the cleverest baby ever. You’re so beautiful, and exactly how I first dreamed of you.”

Pleasure washed over him, and he smiled at her.

Her eyes went very round. She beamed at him. “That’s quite a mouthful of toofers you’ve got there, too.”

She gathered him up in her arms. He tucked his snout into the crook of her neck, and it was so good, almost everything he wanted, except…

He was
so
hungry.

He fussed and whined, and she sat on the floor and rocked him, while she dug her cell phone out of her pocket and moved her thumb rapidly over the keypad. “Dragos, you have to come home right now.”

Daddy’s sharp voice came over the phone. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong exactly, but Liam has changed and he’s upset.”

“What do you mean, he’s changed?”

The pace of Mommy’s rocking picked up, but she spoke softly. “I mean he’s in his dragon form, and I can’t tell you how beautiful he is. He’s also upset for some reason. Maybe it scared him? And you’re missing all of it. You need to come see this.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Mommy set the phone aside as Liam whined and plucked at her shirt. “Are you hungry?” she asked gently. He nodded. “I can’t nurse you when you’re like this, sweetheart, not with all of those razor-sharp teeth.”

That was the saddest thing he had ever heard in his whole life. He lifted his head and looked at her, grief stricken.

“Oh, Peanut, I’m so sorry. Please don’t look at me that way.” They considered each other desperately. Mommy’s expression turned firm. He folded his wings back and clung to her as she rolled to her feet and carried him to the kitchen.

She opened the fridge door and pulled out a pan that had the something he was craving. It smelled oh so good. His stomach rumbled and he arched toward it, reaching with both front paws.

“Hold on—let me get the plastic wrap off first.”

As she slid to the floor, he struggled to get to the appetizing smell. She snatched off the plastic wrap, set the pan on the kitchen tile, and he fell on the leftover sirloin roast. Eyes closed, his whole body tense, he focused on gorging on the meat.

Running footsteps sounded in the background, but it was only Daddy, so he ignored it. A moment later, Daddy said in a quiet voice, “Well, damn. Look at that. Hello, little man.”

A large, gentle hand came down on Liam’s back, between his wings, and contentment filled him.

“I didn’t know what else to do.” She gestured to the pan. “He acted like he was starving, and he has all those teeth. Then I remembered what you said about how he was going to need a lot of meat.”

“He gave you clues about what he needed, and you followed your instincts,” said Daddy. “You did exactly what you should have done.”

Liam finished off the roast. The hungriness had gone away, and his belly felt comfortably stretched and full. Sleepiness descended. Eyes drooping, he looked over his shoulder. Daddy and Mommy knelt on either side of him, both smiling.

He scooted backward toward Mommy. When she gathered him up, he turned to climb up her body until he lay draped along her shoulders.

“I’m telling you, this is just like my dreams.” Mommy reached up to stroke his leg. He stopped listening to their conversation, tucked his snout in the neckline of her shirt and fell fast asleep.

***

Relief had turned her leg muscles into noodles, so Pia shifted to sit on the floor, and Dragos joined her. He leaned back against the fridge while she sat forward with her spine straight. She didn’t want to disturb Liam while he was resting on her.