Thea Harrison - Dragon Bound

“Take your time,” he said, his voice quiet and calm. He rubbed her arms.

Could her mother have trapped her with the very spells that were meant to keep her safe? How could she trust Dragos so much?

They were standing in the open, but she still felt the cage inside. She had always felt she was never strong or good enough. Next to her mother’s shining, radiant beauty, she felt dull as dirt and inadequate.

She knew her mother had loved her and would have hated to find out she had made her feel this way. But her mother had always been so afraid for her. Had her father’s death made her mother that fearful?

“I don’t want to live this way any longer,” she whispered. Dragos’s hands clenched on her, but he remained silent. She turned to face him. “I can’t take off the protection spells. I don’t know how. Can you remove them?”

“Not without hurting you.” He cupped her face in his hands. “And I will not do that.”

What if I tell you my Name? she asked, unable to say the words out loud.

Then yes, I could.

She looked up at the sky and told him her Name.

The breath left his body. He shuddered and held her tight, bowing his head and shoulders, wrapping himself around her. “You’ll never regret it,” he murmured. “Never. I swear that on my life.”

She laid a hand against his cheek as she rested against his chest.

He nuzzled her hand and began to whisper.

The whispers curled around her body, stroking her, urging her to relax, to open up to him. She looked up into his dark face and shadowed, hypnotic gaze. He stole into her like a thief in the night.

The dragon filled her to the deepest part of her being, coiling his bronze, serpentine body around her, whispering, whispering. The intricate citadel of spells inside her fell away. Great gold eyes filled her vision, as fathomless as the world. There was not a single part of her he did not hold.

Then with consummate skill, he began to withdraw. She looked at what he showed her, how to tap deep into herself for her Power when she willed the shift. Then she was alone inside her head. He cradled her and whispered, “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she whispered back. “But I feel so strange.” She felt stripped, all her senses wide-open. The tiny hairs on her skin raised as the wind blew through the clearing, and the world breathed magic.

He smiled. “Are you ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever get, I think.”

He let go of her and stepped back. She could feel his Power as he maintained a light connection with her. She looked around the open space. The gryphons were shadowed, motionless sentinels.

She reached deep inside for her Power. It came readily to her, welling up more plentiful and richer than it ever had. It filled her with a roaring gush of light. She stretched and extended everything she had toward the trapped wild creature that lay inside, the elusive part of her she had never before been quite able to reach . . .

And the world shifted.

She looked intensely startled for a moment before her human form shimmered and disappeared. An exquisite creature glowing with a pearl luminescence took her place. She was the size of a small Shetland pony, but she was as far different from a pony as a greyhound was from a Saint Bernard. Her small body had willowy, racy lines. Long slender legs were tipped with dainty hooves. She had a graceful arched neck and a delicate equine head tipped with a sharp, sleek horn.

“Holy shit,” Dragos whispered. The possibility had crossed his mind from the various clues he’d been given but not with any real seriousness. In the whole of his life he had never laid eyes on a unicorn. He had heard for many centuries that the rare creatures had been hunted to extinction, but he had always been inclined to consider them just a myth.

A unicorn’s horn could dispel any poison. She could heal with her blood. She could only be captured by unfair means. No cage could hold her. Her life sacrificed could bestow immortality.

No wonder all her mother taught her was how to run and hide.

Her large, dark violet blue eyes were Pia’s. They were wide with alarm.

Predators. She was surrounded by predators. She reared and wheeled, looking for a way to escape.

The tall dark man started crooning to her. She stamped a foot and lowered her horn at him. “Shh, my darling, you’re safe. Be calm. You’re safe.”

He took a step toward her. She scrambled back, tripped over herself and looked down in confusion. She had so many legs. She looked behind her. And a tail.

The large predators at the edge of the clearing were creeping closer, their eyes wide. The man snarled at them and they froze, then changed into men too. She galloped in a circle and made a sound of distress.

Then the dark man whispered her Name. She skidded to a stop and stared at him. “Remember who you are.” He spoke the words softly but with Power.

Pia shook her head and snorted. She lifted up a foot and looked at a hoof.

Hey.

She had changed. She was Wyr.

Dragos went to his knees. Everything in him was in a suspended state of apprehension. After all they’d been through, after she had taken such a radical step and trusted him with her Name, she looked close to panic again at just being near him. It was her Wyr side. It had to be. The animal had taken too much control.

“Come on, darling,” he coaxed. He held his empty hands out from his sides. “There’s no reason for panic. You remember all of us. You like us. God, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

She arched her neck and looked at him sidelong. Was that awareness in her eyes? Did she understand what he was saying?

“Give me a sign, sugar.” Gentle, gentle. Now he had the barest hint of what she experienced when she talked him back to himself. “Let me know you’re in there.”

She looked across the moonlit open field and then back at him. A run sounded pretty nice. But there he was with his face all lit up. He looked like it was his birthday, Christmas and New Year’s, all rolled into one.

She took a couple of steps toward him. They were eye to eye when he was on his knees. The breath shook out of him. She walked the rest of the way to him and laid her shining head against his shoulder.

He stroked her velvet nose. She lipped at his fingers. His eyes glittered with a damp sheen. He sat cross-legged and pulled her onto his lap. She curled her legs underneath her like a cat. He put his arms around her and rested his cheek on the top of her head. They listened to the sound of the wind in the distant trees.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

She had trouble changing back and came close to panicking again. He had to guide her through the transition. He held her the whole time and talked to her until she was back in her human form again and kneeling on the ground in front of him.

“Why was it so hard to change back?” She gasped, clinging to his hands.

“It won’t always be,” he told her. “I’m told it’s like learning to walk or ride a bicycle. Once you’ve mastered the shift it will soon become second nature. You could shift and change back to yourself now that you’ve gone through it once, but I don’t recommend it right away. The first time, especially for a half-breed, can leave you wrung out.”

“Tell me about it.” Her tone was grumbling but her eyes were bright.

He helped her to her feet as the gryphons drew closer. All four men were staring at her in wonder. She looked at Graydon, who smiled at her.

“If you ain’t a sight for sore eyes,” he said. “I thought you were just going to end up being something small, fast and weird, like a marmoset or something.”