Dating a Dragon Page 2

  And there it was—his heart-melting smile, complete with the dimple in his cheek.

  Blood pulsated in her ears, drowning all sounds of the forest. Her heart beat a frantic rhythm inside her chest.

  “I think he likes me,” he said, seemingly oblivious to her inner turmoil.

  Kat frowned. Toby didn’t like anyone. In fact, most of the time, he growled whenever anyone came within two feet of him and had been known to administer a nip or two on occasion, especially to Selene; he’d never liked her friend, oddly. However, Toby appeared quite happy in this man’s arms.

  Still, something about his mannerisms put her at ease, not just Toby’s obvious contentment. A sense of something magical, something profound, hovered beyond her grasp. All thoughts of him being some psycho rapist-killer lurking in the woods vanished from her mind.

  “Sorry. If he’s being a nuisance…?”

  “Not at all. He’s a cute little fellow.” The way he spoke reminded her of someone older, kind of old-fashioned, like a grandad, but with his gravelly voice doing something tingly to her insides, this guy was as far removed from a favourite grandad as he could get.

  “Not that cute. He ran off and got both of us lost.”

  “You’re lost?” he asked, fending off another licking assault from Toby.

  His neck was visible now, as was the slope of his bare shoulders.

  Was he completely naked? She didn’t want to know… did she?

  I hope those thorns aren’t scratching his…

  She focused. “Yes, it’s how I ended up in the middle of nowhere.” She thought her explanation would prompt him to tell her why he was here. It didn’t.

  “Sorry,” she went on, “but I have the weirdest feeling. Do I know you?”

  He stiffened. “I don’t know, do you?” he whispered.

  Somewhere in the deepest recess of her mind, a vision flashed before her.

  Fire. Ice. Destruction.

  Something evil, yet something magical and good too.

  Moments passed. She shook her head to rid herself of the images. “No, sorry. I thought I recognised you for a second. My mistake.”

  The guy sighed, then held Toby over the bush towards her. The top of his torso showed. Broad shoulders, well-defined pecs. Something obsidian appeared, just behind his left shoulder. A shadow? No, it was too… sparkly?

  Odd.

  But he was definitely naked, or at least his top half was. For some strange reason, it didn’t bother her now. Maybe he was a harmless naturist—because she had a sudden need to come up with a plausible reason why he would be naked in the middle of the woods. And Toby seemed to like him…

  Stop it! Are you crazy?

  He was naked, and she was lost in the woods with no phone signal. No one knew where she’d taken Toby on his walk. A change of scenery, she’d thought, somewhere different from the park in the middle of town where she usually walked him. She questioned her sanity again.

  Get a grip and get the hell out of here.

  Kat grabbed her dog, doing her best not to stare. “I… I should go.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Of course, you have to go.” He sounded disappointed, deeply so, his tone bordering on despair.

  Confused and a tiny bit curious, she hadn’t a clue how to respond. She attached Toby’s lead onto his collar and put him down. “Come on, Toby.” She went to leave but hesitated. “Thanks for catching my dog,” she told him, cringing inwardly at her inept attempt to prolong their conversation—if she could call it that.

  “You’re welcome.” His tone was clipped now. “If you follow that path over there,” he said, pointing behind her, “it’ll take you back to the road.”

  “Err, thanks.” She looked to where he’d pointed, a pathway between the trees flanked by bluebells. Kat headed towards it. “Bye.” She glanced back over her shoulder, but the guy was gone. The naked Greek god was gone. Had she imagined the whole thing?

  Kat weaved through the trees, following the pathway as he’d instructed. Her cheeks felt cool, her forehead too, but this wasn’t an ordinary drop in body temperature. No, she was icy cold, unnaturally so.

  She zipped up her jacket despite not feeling ill or cold, and the temperature in the forest, although dropping now in the twilight, couldn’t be less than thirteen degrees.

  Then the weirdest thing happened.

  The rain on her cheeks turned to frost.

  Holy shit. I’m a freak.

  Frantic, she brushed the frost away.

  Maybe she was ill, suffering from hallucinations that she’d met some hot guy who she vaguely recognised, and who liked her dog. She skirted past a tree and spotted the road. He was incredibly helpful and good with directions, too.

  And naked.

  She blew out a breath. It misted the air in front of her face like a frosty winter morning.

  Weird.

  With barely any daylight left, she upped her pace, following the road. Now to find her way back to the layby where she’d parked her car and forget her strange encounter with fantasy guy.

  Kat glanced behind with a flicker of hope that she hadn’t made him up, and maybe he’d followed her to make sure she was safe. Nothing. Her cheeks still felt like she’d stuck them in a freezer, though.

  Resignedly, she put it down to a lot of things in this life—and maybe her past lives too—that didn’t make sense.

  She checked her watch and cursed. Even if she hurried, she’d still be late for work. Not that Selene would mind—the perks of her best friend being her boss—but after everything Selene had done for her, Kat didn’t like to take advantage. Although she could do with her witchy friend’s opinion on her strange encounter.

  Chapter Three

  Kat burst through the door of her friend’s swanky cocktail bar and dumped her bag on the sleek white worktop. “Selene, thank God you’re on your own. You’re never going to believe what happened.”

  Selene stopped refilling the drinks fridge and turned around. “A ‘hi’ and ‘sorry I’m late’ would be nice.” She softened her words with a smile.

  “Sorry, hi, and sorry I’m late. I’ll make it up to you, I promise, but something weird happened.”

  “Doesn’t it always?”

  Yeah, kind of true. Kat skirted around the bar and helped Selene with the drinks. “I met this guy.”

  “So what’s new? You’re always meeting guys.”

  Yeah, that was true too. “No, this guy was different. It was like… I don’t know… I think I might have met him before. You know, before, as in one of my past lives.”

  Her friend raised her eyebrows. “Really? Tell me more.”

  She relayed how she’d got lost in the woods, met the mystery guy and how her cheeks went cold enough to turn rain to frost.

  Selene touched her forehead. “You don’t feel cold.”

  “No, I’m fine now. I thought I was getting hypothermia, but obviously not. Do you think I did know this guy before?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose.” She didn’t sound convinced.

  “Isn’t there some kind of magic potion you can concoct to help me remember? Not just to remember Mr. Fantasy—because if I’d met him before, I sure as hell wouldn’t have forgotten him—but maybe there’s a spell or something that can give me a clue as to what I am.”

  Her friend shook her head, her gaze full of sympathy. “We’ve been through this before, Kat. My magic isn’t strong enough. You know I would help you if I could.”

  “Yeah, I know, but what if I’m some evil being destined to destroy the world? Or worse, what if I’m cursed by dark magic to live an eternity alone?”

  Selene regarded her for several seconds. “You need to get in the twenty-first century, girl. You’re lucky; you get a chance to start a new life each time. You can be anyone you want to be.”

  Yes, she could, but it didn’t make it any easier.

  It was different every time, but it always started with some kind of fateful accident. A car crash, f
alling from a building, knocking herself out during a drunken pub crawl, whatever; she’d black out, but not like fainting, it was more… final, somehow. When she eventually came around, she’d lost most of her memories of her previous life, as if her brain had been reset. Only vague flashbacks remained jumbled visions and snippets of who she’d been before. Maybe. They never made any sense, but she’d had to learn to live with it.

  Sometimes, she’d regain consciousness amid whispers of, “It’s a miracle she’s alive,” or “She must have a guardian angel looking down on her.”

  Well, she didn’t. She’d met an angel once, but he was saving someone else’s soul, not hers.

  On some occasions, though, the worst times, she would wake alone in the dark, not one person in the world knowing she’d befallen another fateful, untimely end.

  The only thing she could recall with certainty was her name. Katarina. Sometimes, depending on her mood, she went by the name of Katherine or Katie, but this time she was Kat Foster, which seemed as good a name as any.

  She’d considered calling herself Kate this time and, for a moment, Kate Moss, like the model. How she wished she had one-tenth of her money, then maybe she could travel the world, looking for answers as to why this kept happening to her.

  But she’d learned that being something supernatural, an immortal, a reincarnated spirit—a weirdo, most likely—meant she had to stay under the radar from the humans.

  Cardinal rule number one: Keep the existence of supernaturals a secret from the humans, so Selene had taught her.

  She’d been so lucky when Selene had found her on the day she crashed her car. What were the chances of being found in a ditch by another supernatural being, one who didn’t ask questions on how she’d survived a fatal accident? She suspected the Fates had been looking down on her that day.

  Kat checked the levels of the spirits in the upside-down bottles, then wiped down the bar, resigning herself to the fact she was never going to learn her true identity living in a deadbeat town on the south coast of England where nothing remotely interesting ever happened.

  And maybe it was for the best because knowing the truth scared the hell out of her.

  What if she didn’t like what she was?

  “If you really want to find someone and prove you’re not cursed,” Selene continued, closing the glass-fronted fridge door, “stop dreaming about a fantasy guy who doesn’t exist. Live for the now, Kat. Enjoy this life for what it is.” She smiled. “You’re a beautiful, mysterious woman—a little headstrong and a total flirt—but you could bag any guy you wanted.”

  Her friend meant well, but it didn’t quell her doubts. The guys she dated were just a way to forget her worries for a while, but none of them meant anything. “But I can’t. Not humans, anyway. I’ve never felt even a smidgeon of a connection with any of them.”

  “Who needs a connection to have sex? Overrated, if you ask me.” She squeezed Kat’s shoulder. “Anyway, the humans who come in here are totally oblivious to the supernatural world. The guys are jerks, mostly, and the women are… I don’t think women know what they want these days, but if you want a ‘connection,’ as you put it, maybe we could find you someone like us.”

  Kat frowned. “How?”

  “Love Bites, that’s what you need,” she announced with a wide grin.

  “Huh?”

  Her friend grabbed her phone off the bar, typed in something on Google then handed it to her.

  Kat read what was on the screen out loud. “Love Bites. The number one dating agency for supernatural beings. Find the magic in love.” She glanced at Selene, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “No way. There’s a dating website for supernaturals? What’s to stop humans from finding it on Google too? I thought we had to keep our world a secret from them?”

  Selene rolled her eyes. “You’re so practical and cynical. It’s cloaked by the magic veil too.”

  The magic veil that concealed the existence of supernaturals from the human world—handy if you had angel wings, or a demon’s horns, for that matter. But her friend, the witch, didn’t have to worry about those things, and neither did she; they both looked human.

  “Seriously? It does that too?”

  “Duh, like I said, it’s the twenty-first century. Us magical beings had to go digital years ago. You know, move with the times and all that jazz.”

  Kat laughed. She learned something new every day.

  “So, do you want to eye up the talent on here, or what?”

  “Need you ask? What do I have to do?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Sign up, I suppose.”

  “You mean you haven’t actually checked out the website? It could be a fake.”

  “Argh, I despair at you sometimes! Do you want to be alone forever?”

  “Ouch, that’s harsh, Selene, even for you.”

  Kat handed Selene’s phone back to her and then retrieved her phone from her jeans pocket. She typed in the name of the dating agency, and after some magical techno-wizard redirected her, the Love Bites website came up. She tapped the ‘enter here’ box on the landing page.

  A speech box appeared next to a picture of a woman wearing a headset. Hi, I’m Jamie, your Love Bites coach.

  Kat typed in the box provided, asking for instructions.

  The chat host took her through the process, and she signed up for a month’s subscription. She set up her profile with a picture—one Selene had taken of her holding Toby—and filled out a brief bio, leaving it blank where they asked what species of supernatural she was.

  Kat scrolled the profile pics of various magical beings:

  A vampire doing his best to smile without showing his fangs. No. Swipe left.

  A warlock who looked like he’d have more fun playing with his magic wand than going on a date. Nope. Swipe left.

  A rather handsome Fae posing on the bonnet of a flashy car. Yuk. Definitely swipe left.

  All good-looking guys, but none took her fancy.

  She continued to scroll and then stopped on another profile pic. A peculiar sensation washed over her like it had when she’d met the guy in the woods. Kat peered at the man. While attractive, he wasn’t her usual type, but there was something about him. Something… familiar? Did she know him? She couldn’t recall, but it was too much of a coincidence to have the same feeling twice in one day. Kat read his bio. “Wow… he’s a dragon,” she breathed, her voice a little fangirl-y.

  “What? Let me see.” Selene snatched the phone from her. She stared at his picture for a good few seconds, then wolf-whistled. “For the love of magic, he’s a hottie. I think I’ll join Love Bites myself.”

  “I saw him first, hands off!”

  Selene handed back the phone, grinning. “It says he’s only a half-dragon,” she pointed out. “Full-blooded dragons died out centuries ago.”

  Kat hardly heard her. She clicked ‘like’ and sent the guy a message before Selene could get her witchy hands on him. “I don’t care. He’s a half-dragon; that’s good enough for me.”

  “Why the sudden interest in dragons? You never have before.”

  Kat rolled her eyes. “What century are you living in, Selene? Have you even watched Game of Thrones? Those dragons are awesome!”

  Her friend chuckled at her enthusiasm. “So, what happens now?”

  “I wait for him to reply to my message, I suppose.”

  “Okay, good. How about actually getting some work done around here? The punters will be here soon.”

  Kat’s grin widened. “You got it, boss.”

  Chapter Four

  Nix had never been more grateful to get home to his cottage. His heart weighed heavier than the curse he’d endured for centuries.

  It was her. His soulmate. Katarina.

  He took his frustration out on the door and slammed it behind him, catching the tip of his damaged wing between it and the frame. Nix swore and yanked it free.

  For one glorious moment, a single ray of sunshine had beamed into his d
arkness, and he thought there had been a flicker of recognition in her eyes, but then she’d grabbed her dog and left.

  Did he blame her? Hell, no. What woman, any woman, dragon or not, wouldn’t think it disturbing to find a butt naked fellow in the middle of the woods? He rolled his shoulder and growled. And his damn wing hadn’t helped. He’d held it low, out of her sight, hopefully.

  Nix ran up the narrow stairs to his bedroom, his wing scraping the wall, and fetched a pair of joggers from his drawer and slipped them on. No point in putting a T-shirt on; he’d never get it over his wing. Now he understood why Egan had clothes specially made with slits in the back. He made his way back downstairs and into his kitchen, then reached for his drinks cupboard. He poured himself a generous glass of whiskey and downed the lot in one.

  Savouring the burn in his gullet, he sat at the table and poured himself another.

  His landline rang several times, but he ignored it. He sat in the dark and drowned his sorrows.

  The full moon cast shadows around his kitchen, its silvery light showing the bottle of whiskey almost empty. Nix gulped the last few drops from the bottle.

  The doorbell sounded. He ignored that too.

  Someone banged incessantly on the door. Or was that his head pounding? He couldn’t be sure as he held his head in his hands.

  “Go away!” he yelled.

  “It’s me, Egan,” his brother called from the front door. More banging.

  Nix grunted. He scraped the chair across the tiled floor as he got up and then answered the door.

  “Are you okay? I’ve rung your landline about ten times. You really need to get a mobile, mate.”

  He had no need for modern devices—couldn’t see the appeal himself. What was wrong with good old-fashioned talking, face to face? He wouldn’t even have a landline if he had a choice, but Adam, the manager at Nix’s pub, needed to call him on occasion. “What do you want, Egan? I’m busy.”

  “Busy getting pissed by the look of it. I came to see if you’d managed to get your wing to shift back, but judging by the state of you, it must be bad.”