Chapter 10

Chapter

Ten

Magnus

"What the hell are you doing?" I grabbed her hand that held the knife and stopped it from getting closer to any part of my body. I may not have had the best intentions towards this woman, but that didn't mean I was going to let her stab me over it.

"I want your blood. There's a better way than me looking at your—she looked down at my groin. Just blood, okay? I need to test it against my plants. It's the only way to figure this all out."

"What the fae hell?" I squeezed her pressure points until her fingers opened and the knife dropped to the floor. "I'm not letting you get anywhere near me with a knife. If you want my blood, you can ask me for it nicely, not stab me for it."

She rolled her eyes at me. "I wasn't going to stab you, idiot. But I will need something sharp to prick your finger."

"I stand by what I said. No sharp instruments for you." I bent over and retrieved the knife. "You want my blood? Fine. I can handle getting it for you."

I dragged the knife swiftly across my hand and blood immediately coated my palm.

"Oh shit. Wait. I don't have anything in here to gather a good sample." She turned frantically from side to side before diving for one of the cupboards. "You could have warned me."

"You were about to stab me. I assumed you were ready."

She shook her head. "Are you hard of hearing? I wasn't going to stab you. Prick. I said prick. Big difference."

As she grabbed a small bowl from a shelf, I fought to keep a smile from my face. Her outrage amused me. But when she grabbed a small towel from the handle of her stove, and then grasped my hand so that the blood dripped into the bowl, I spied the real distress in her expression.

"It's only a small cut. I've had much worse."

"I don't want to hear about worse.” She glanced up at me, and the intensity of her green eyes pulled me in deep. To her credit, she wasn't staring at my scars when she'd said it, but we both knew what she meant. “This may not be a big deal, but you don't have to be reckless. Today it's a small cut, tomorrow it could be much worse. And my first aid skills are somewhat questionable."

I doubted that, but her distress at the moment was palpable.

Unable to resist, I cupped her cheek and rubbed my fingers across her soft skin. She stilled at my touch, and I took that small moment of speechlessness to study her again. I could see my reflection in her eyes, and that was enough to sober me. The scars on my face were vivid and angry. It wasn't often that I saw them. I so often refused to look at them. I didn't need to see to remember the poisoned blade my uncle drew across my face.

Anger and disgust boiled in my gut, forcing me to drop my hand. Whatever or whoever she was, I had no business thinking about her like this, let alone touching her.

"I will heal. Even without my dragon," I said harshly. "Take the blood and go. Do whatever it takes."

She blinked, hurt rising in her gaze. I turned away from it. I refused to acknowledge its effect on me. It would serve me well not to forget that she'd poisoned and kidnapped me.

"But—but what about breakfast? I thought you were hungry."

"I can fend for myself. Finding a way to counteract the poison you gave me is more important. If you think your science can help, then you should try."

She winced. I started to say I was sorry and stopped. I did not owe this woman an apology. I'd spoken nothing but the truth, and she seemed capable of handling the consequences of her own actions.

"Fine," she said, giving me a hard look before turning away and leaving the room.

I watched her go, noticing every swish of her hips and the stiffness of her spine as she stomped across the room. She may have said it was fine, but her body language said something entirely different. I only hoped it motivated her to find a cure instead of using that blood sample to find the right amount of poison to finish me off.

What felt like hours later, she returned to the kitchen, where I sat sulking at the table with an empty box of cookies next to my arm and a package of warm uncooked bacon in front of me.

"What the heck? Did you leave that out this whole time and let it spoil? I thought you were going to eat the meat, not stare at it." She then picked up the box of cookies and eyed the empty box in obvious frustration. Join the club, sweetheart .

"Your cooking device doesn't work. There's no fire."

She rolled her eyes. "That's because it's an electric stove. Did you try turning it on?"

"Of course I did. But the coals only got warm, they never caught fire."

She was shaking her head as she picked up the package of bacon and wrinkled her nose. "It's probably fine. But it also looks disgusting."

That word fine had come up again, and I doubted it meant what it sounded like. "It's not fine."

"You're right. It's probably not." She carried the bacon over to the trash and dumped it into the container.

"No," I said. "Every time you say that word, I don't think you actually mean it."

"What word?" She whirled back and faced me, her eyes narrowing.

"Fine."

"Fine is fine. It doesn't mean everything is great. But sometimes fine is good enough. Why do men get so wrapped up in the word fine?"

My eyebrow rose as I studied her carefully. I wasn't one hundred percent convinced, but I didn't think she was lying, either. Although, without my dragon sense of smell, it was difficult to be certain. Either way, it was time to drop it and move on.

"Did your testing yield any results?"

She brought her hand up and rubbed her forehead. "I don't have the right equipment here to get any in-depth answers, but yes, I did see that the extract I use from the valerian root reacts differently with your blood in a much higher percentage than my blood."

My eyebrows raised. "And?"

"And I don't have much else. Nothing I have here seems to make any significant improvement on the effects. I need a bigger lab, more supplies, and potentially months of study, and then maybe I can come up with a solution."

I snorted. "I do not have months to wait. We will have to do this my way then."

"Let’s say for argument's sake—and I can't believe I'm going to say this—but let’s say I believe you and that you are truly a dragon shifter. What happens if we don't find anything to counteract what's already been done?"

A shudder worked through me at the thought. "I don't know, and I'm not about to find out. I do know that we're going to need magic to fix this. We'll have to travel to Isaac and Kitra and ask for their help." The mere idea of asking Isaac for anything left a foul taste in my mouth.

A laugh bubbled out of her. "I'm guessing from that sour look on your face that this is not going to be fun."

"Far from it," I agreed. "But I see no other choice." I also wanted to get to the bottom of who—or what—this woman who'd poisoned me really was. I didn't really think she'd been sent by the king. I think there would have been some sign or I would have heard from Kitra if the seal between realms had been broken again.

Maybe.

"I don't believe that for a second. There are always other choices."

"Not ones that you would enjoy."

She shook her head and turned towards the cupboards. "Nope. I'm not even going to ask. If you think your brother and his wife can help, and no one has to get hurt, then that's where we'll go." She halted mid reach and turned back. "Where is that, exactly?"

"Edinburgh."

A heavy sigh pushed through her lips. "That's going to be a long drive. The roads out here are a mess right now and there's a lot of miles between here and the nearest motorway. And considering I drove through the night last night, we are going to have to wait until tomorrow or the next day at least depending on the weather. It's looking a bit gloomy out there and the weather service is calling for snow. Should we call them and give them a heads up about our plans?"

"And give Isaac an opportunity to tell me to fuck off? Hell no." But the idea that I had to rely on human travel rubbed my nerves. This world seemed to be more trouble than it was worth. I didn't understand at all why anyone from the fae realm would want to come here, let alone stay. I'd thought the rule that we had to hide ourselves was idiotic, but I'd found something worse.

Losing my dragon.

"Okay, then. I'll make us a proper dinner, and then we'll get some rest so we can leave in the morning."

"I can help." I stood to join her.

"This from the man who can't even figure out an electric stove."

"Where I come from, we don't need electric appliances. We use our natural resources like magic, water, wind, air, and of course fire to run things."

"That sounds smart," she said as she turned the knobs on her stove and placed an iron pan on top of the circular flat coals. "Unfortunately, we don't have magic here, and I think it's cheaper to produce electricity than it is to power everything with more natural resources. Although many places do use alternative forms of energy. Solar and wind are popular in some parts of the world.”

"You do."

"I do what?" she asked while adding links of sausage to her pan, and then reaching for the bowl of potatoes.

"You have magic here. Quite a lot, actually."

She jerked around to face me. "That's impossible." She hesitated. "Well, kind of. But I don't think we are talking about the same kind of magic. The natural energy in the atmosphere can sometimes be harnessed in very small amounts. But certainly not enough to power this cottage, let alone our cities."

I didn't respond right away. I sat transfixed watching her simple movements. The way she handled the knife with skilled precision while she prepared food, and the light sheen of moisture that had begun gathering on her skin. I wanted to lick it and see how she tasted. And once again, my gaze was drawn to the curves of her figure. The indentation of her waist, the flare of her hips, her backside that I wanted to feel in my hands...

Not to mention the long column of her neck that reminded me of some of the proud strong female fae.

The almost translucent nature of her extremely fair skin...

I blinked and jerked my gaze back to her face. I really needed to figure out what was going on. This constant pull towards the woman herself was throwing me off. Not to mention distracting me at every turn. I had to focus.

"Just because humans are unable to harness it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It does. The earth here is rich with it. Without it, there would be no portal between this realm and mine."

"You have no idea how badly I don't want to believe any of this. It sounds insane." She spoke quietly without turning to face me. The resignation in her voice told the truth. She may not want to believe, but she did. Or at least was beginning to. She'd apparently seen the science of it in my blood and now she would have to face the truth.

There was no going back.