Chapter Thirty-Seven

Melody’s breath quickened with every bump the Suburban took over the treacherous rocks up the mountainside. Eventually, Alec stopped with the truck canted at a frightening angle, and they all climbed out and donned their backpacks.

Only the barest hint of a trail was visible amid the early fall leaves that had fallen, but she followed, confident in her father’s sense of direction. She was reminded of childhood days spent traipsing about the woods closer to home, imagining the mystical creatures that lived among the trees.

It was all too real now as they climbed higher.

“Is this where you took Mom?” she asked.

Alec didn’t answer, only holding his hand up to silence her. After that, she didn’t speak again.

Finally, they reached the summit and came out through the trees onto a sheer stone rock that overlooked the entire valley. Nothing but trees and mountains were visible below her.

Alec led them across the sun-warmed rock to the edge of a gap that faced another peak, the walls so close the sun barely found the crevasse in between but too far to jump.

Melody looked across. Another ledge was on the other side, an outcropping of rock that almost matched the one they stood on now. There were a few scraggly bushes, but the image on the other side wavered, then transformed into figures. Four of them ; three large men and one small woman. It threw her off until she recognized it as a reflection of their small party.

“What’s over there?” she asked.

“Safety,” Alec said. “Your mother’s there. And Anya and Viki, too.”

“How do we get there?” She couldn’t see a bridge, or even a path around.

Skye and Garen stepped up behind her simultaneously, hands gentle on her arms.

“I’ll give you one guess,” Garen said in a whisper against her ear that made her entire spine tingle. The little mini-dream she’d had when Skye had opened his mother’s box had lingered, leaving behind a deep longing for precisely this. A need to fly.

“Which one of you do I get to ride?” she asked, looking between them both.

“I’ll carry you both,” Garen said. “No sense both of us expending the energy for the shift, right?” He raised his eyebrows at Skye, then looked back at Melody with a wicked expression. “Besides, I’ll need replenishment once we get there.”

Skye snorted. “You’ll get it from me, and I’ll happily give it.”

“What’s on the other side?” Melody asked, anxious and gravitating to the man who she’d always felt safest with. Alec wrapped a warm arm around her and hugged her.

“Friends,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “People who are happy with whatever choices you’ve seen fit to make. They only care that the love you have doesn’t hurt them.”

“Not dragons?”

“No, baby. Friends who have tried to help us learn to live truly peaceful lives. Even as old as we are, we still have a lot of work to discover our biggest truths. I think you have a discovery of your own right now.” He gestured behind her.

She gasped when she turned and saw the huge, white-scaled shape that monopolized the entire rock beside them. Garen’s horned head craned around and his tongue darted out teasingly from his smooth snout. Hot breath gusted out of his nostrils, blowing her hair back behind her.

His head was the size of her torso, and she couldn’t help but reach up a hand to slide it over the ridge of his long, scaled brow.

“You are beautiful,” she murmured, stroking the scaled contours and moving her hand up to the smooth, translucent horn that rose above. His horns shimmered with inner light, just the way they had when she’d first seen them attached to a more human-looking head. She slid her palm up along its curled length, mesmerized by the smooth texture of it, until his head pressed against her chest and a deep, resonant groan emanated from within his massive chest.

Alec cleared his throat behind her and she turned, surprised by the flush in his cheeks.

“What is it?” she asked. “You have horns, too, don’t you?”

“I do,” he said, matter-of-factly. “But touching them in public is generally frowned on. They’re very …” He cleared his throat again and stared at the sky for a second. “They’re very sensitive, when the right person touches them. Weapons, in some circumstances. And boy, does it feel good to shove them through a man’s heart, but we rarely do that with them anymore.”

“Oh,” Melody said, reluctantly drawing her hand away from Garen’s head. She was all too aware of the needful look his huge white eye gave her just before he turned and lowered his great, scaled bulk for her to climb onto. The promise in his gaze made her quiver with longing for them to be in a private spot again.

Skye climbed on behind her and wrapped his arms around her tightly.

As an afterthought, she pulled out of his grasp and climbed back down, slinging her arms around Alec. “Thank you,” she said, kissing him hard on the cheek. “Be safe, okay? Come back to us soon?”

“I’ll do everything I can to do so, after I know you three are safe.”

She thanked him and climbed back up, using Garen’s foreleg as a step and accepting Skye’s hand for assistance. She settled back against his body and held on to the ridge of spine in front of her just as Garen spread his massive wings and caught the wind, launching himself across the void that separated them from their sanctuary.