Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Nathan

It took hours before the tiger gave me back control. Not that I fought him that hard. Once he decided to keep watch over Runa and didn’t do anything awful, I stopped struggling so hard. His hearing was better than mine, and he could sense danger coming sooner than I could. He stood watch until Runa was relaxed and then got comfortable for the night.

I’d heard her talking to him. She wasn’t judgmental, and she didn’t demand an explanation. She was patient with him, explaining things to him to make things easier on me. She was right, we weren’t working together anymore. That stopped after my last assignment. The one that broke us completely. He decided I wasn’t allowed to make decisions anymore, and that was that. Since then, it was a constant fight between us, both of us wary of the world around us. The only time we felt calm was around her.

My clothes were ruined when I shifted back, but I wasn’t willing to leave her long enough to go get more. I could’ve kept my fur if I was uncomfortable, but the nights were still warm for now. I thought about sleeping on the ground, since I hadn’t bothered to get the second air mattress, but the space beside Runa called to me and I moved without thinking, crawling into bed beside her. She woke up long enough to look at me over her shoulder before she settled again. She didn’t seem to mind me being there. I curled one arm under my head, watching her as she slept.

I still couldn’t believe witches were real. I knew of humans who did rituals or whatever and said they could hex people. From what I knew, there wasn’t any actual magic like you saw on TV involved. Maybe Runa was one of those. It didn’t actually matter. She’d made the decision to keep the baby, and it was my job to protect them.

I dozed on and off, but I hadn’t slept deeply since I got home from the military. Unless you counted the night I got shitfaced and got Runa pregnant. I wasn’t willing to repeat the experience to get sleep, though. It was a slippery slope for shifters who used alcohol or drugs to handle their wayward animals. It never actually helped.

Runa’s movements woke me. She crawled out of bed, changing her clothes in the dark. I told myself to look away, give her privacy, but I couldn’t stop myself from watching her. I had excellent night vision thanks to my tiger. I saw the creamy planes of her back, the swell of her behind. My mouth went dry as she pulled her clothes on. I couldn’t remember anything of that night we had together, and that thought bothered me. She was beautiful and I couldn’t remember how it felt to touch or hold her. It felt almost like a crime.

When she crawled toward the exit and unzipped the tent, I sat up abruptly.

“Where are you going?”

“Come and see,” was her airy reply. She stepped out, leaving me scrambling to catch up. Since I ruined my clothes when the tiger forced a shift, I had to steal back the pajamas Runa slept in to cover myself. I wouldn’t admit out loud that having her scent wrapped around me like that made me a little obsessive for more. I hurried after her, following her scent through the backyard to the trail that led to the beach. She was standing in the sand, her eyes locked on the horizon as the sky turned shades of red and orange. When I stepped up next to her, she spoke low, like she didn’t want to disturb the peace.

“Take a few deep breaths. Use the waves to guide you. The spirits of nature are all around you. You just have to be clear enough to hear them.”

I had a comment on my tongue about how that sounded a little crunchy, but I bit it back. She was allowed to have her beliefs. If I wanted things to go well between us, I couldn’t be dismissive of her. When she glanced at me and raised an eyebrow, I fought back a grimace. I must not have done a very good job, because she chuckled.

“It’s alright. I’m not expecting you to believe me. But if you want to get steady again, you need to learn to clear your mind. Inhale when the wave comes in. When it goes out again, let it go. Don’t think of anything else. It’ll help.”

I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything to do as she asked. Watching the waves, I took in a breath and let it out slowly. Runa did the same, her eyes on the horizon, watching the sunrise. It wasn’t an instant fix, there was still a low level of anxiety in the back of my head, but for a few minutes, it felt good to just breathe. The wind whipped around us, tousling Runa’s hair. It dragged my attention off the waves and onto her. Most people who got up early would be clamoring for their coffees and half dead. Runa’s eyes were bright, alert, and soft, like I remembered. Even if there was no magic involved, she loved nature. She was happy out here.

When the wind tossed her hair into her face, she rolled her eyes. “I’m not playing with you until you decide to speak to me again. Don’t cause trouble.”

“Do you really think the wind understands you?” I asked cautiously.

“Of course, the wind understands. Who do you think led me to you? You never actually told me what town you lived in.”

I opened my mouth to reply and snapped it shut again. I didn’t tell her, did I? She asked what town I lived in, and I said outside Tallahassee. Still, it was weird to think of wind as a sentient thing.

“Maybe it was a lucky guess?”

Like it was listening to me, I got blasted with a gust of wind so heavy, it knocked me on my ass. I grunted as I hit the ground, whipping my head around to find the source of the power, when Runa’s laugh caught my attention. It was sweet, like bells, and her eyes danced.

“You deserved that. I warned you that the wind was temperamental.”

I was torn between grumbling some more and basking in her smile. I was getting attached to her way too quickly. Pushing to my feet, I dusted off the sand with a scowl.

“I’m almost afraid to say that it was convenient timing.”

“I’d caution against actually pissing off the wind,” she warned. “It doesn’t take kindly to challenges. How is it that you can believe in people turning into animals, but you can’t believe in magic?”

I shrugged, looking around warily. The calm I felt from before was wearing off and that feeling of being exposed was creeping in. I used to love being on the beach, but it felt like someone was watching me out there.

“I dunno. Shifters are part of evolution. Magic seems a little far-fetched.”

“And a dragon isn’t?” she pointed out.

Huffing out a laugh, I shook my head. “I didn't believe my dad when I was younger. I thought he was telling tales to entertain us kids. I believe in what I can see, and I’d never seen a dragon before. But… Aiden wasn’t the first dragon I met. He proved me wrong.”

“What happened to him?” she asked calmly.

“I don’t know. He’s probably still around. He worked with us for a while, mostly using dragon fire to deal with the bodies. But he told me he was tired down to his bones, and he left not long after that.”

She hummed, looking out over the water. “Dragons without a tether are prone to fading.”

“Fading? What does that mean?”

Her expression said she didn’t want to tell me, but Darien had been my friend. I needed to know what happened to him. I took her arm gently, turning her to face me.

“Runa… Please.”

With a heavy sigh, she looked out over the water again. “There is no exact number of how many years a dragon will live. Aiden told me he was one of the oldest that he knew of, and he is well over two thousand years old. But the reason we can never truly know how long a dragon lives is because it usually ends one of two ways for them. Either they mate, and their lifespan shrinks to match their partner’s. Or they fade. After hundreds of years alone, dragons often grow depressed. They will seek out a quiet place and let themselves waste away so they won’t have to bear living any longer.”

The thought of my friend wasting away alone broke my heart. My eyes burned, and I had to quickly turn away from her to hide it. I thought about Darien from time to time, but I never had any way to contact him and find out if he was okay. I hoped at the time that he was going to rest and recuperate, and that he’d go back to living his life once he had a break. Our job was rough on our animals, and I was tired too most of the time. I never thought he was going to hurt himself.

“Nathan. A dragon fading isn’t painful.”

Whipping around to face her, I studied her face for any hint of a lie. I couldn’t find any.

“Really?”

“Really. It’s like going to sleep. They find somewhere warm and out of sight, usually a cave or something of that nature, curl up, and go to sleep. They don’t feel pain from it. If your friend did fade, he didn’t suffer. I promise.”