Noah groaned as he looked down at his plate. He knew what was going to happen. Either he accepted that Byrd wanted Kara for a mate, or he spent the rest of his days stuck in the lesser dragon’s form. His stomach protested its empty state, but he still couldn’t bring himself to eat. “I can’t.”
“Yes you can,” Kara reassured him. “Look, I’m already done.” She tilted her plate to show it off. “If you’ll excuse me, I should probably start getting ready for the day.” She stood up and picked her dishes up. “Go ahead and eat. I’ll be back down in a few minutes.”
As Kara deposited her dishes in the sink, the hunger gnawing at Noah’s stomach snapped loose. Bending forwards, he snapped up one of the eggs and chomped it down in two bites. It was disconcerting. Just a few seconds before, he couldn’t force himself to eat. Now, he couldn’t stop himself. Seeing Byrd’s hand in this, he gave in to the desire and devoured the plate of food. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of being a dragon. What next?
His only answer was a soft snicker from his other half.
The sight of Noah scarfing down his food worried Kara. He was most definitely brooding. She didn’t need to do a blood test on him to tell his hormone levels were way out of balance. They had been jacked up since she met him, but the fact that he couldn’t eat until she was done just confirmed her fears. Noah may not realize it yet, but Byrd saw her as a potential mate—a fact that her dragon was pleased with.
“He’s my patient,” she grumbled to herself as she climbed the steps. The brush of scales against her mind told her that her dragon didn’t care. It liked the messed-up little dragon in her kitchen. Biting her lip, Kara went upstairs to get ready for the day. She hadn’t really talked to Noah about it, but she planned to take him over to his house today. Not only would it help him relate to his human side more, but it would give her an idea of the man that she was starting to fall for. Only then would she know if she had any hope of saving her heart.
9
The heat of the sunbeam felt good on Noah’s scales. He stretched out his wings, soaking up the warmth of the rays. Even after his cup of coffee, he hovered on the edge of a sleep driven by warmth and food. The sound of footsteps on the stairs pulled him out of his nap. He opened his eyes as Kara stepped down from the stairs dressed in jeans and a tight-fitting shirt. The red in her top brought out the warm hues in her brown hair, which curled around her shoulders in a way that made his blood sing. A feeling of possessiveness pushed its way into his mind. He shook his head, trying to drive it off, but it clung there, overshadowing his thoughts. “She is not ours,” he grumbled at Byrd, but the soft reply of “Mine” filled him again. Letting out a deep sigh, he turned his attention back to Kara. “You look very nice.”
She smiled at him. “Thank you.” Taking the chair he hadn’t destroyed, she sat down to put on her shoes.
“Listen,” he started. He’d been thinking of a way to ask for her help since he’d finished breakfast. “Is it possible to go check on my house today?”
Kara looked up from her laces. “That’s fine.” She settled her feet into her shoes and stood up. “I’d planned on taking you over there anyway.”
“Good.” Noah folded his wings into place and got up from the floor. “I’ve got some delicate plants that need tending.”
Kara grabbed her purse as she headed for the door. “You have a garden?”
“No,” he replied, following her out. “Just a few orchids.”
“I’ve never been able to keep orchids alive.”
Noah shrugged as she let him into the car. “They’re fickle plants, but not really hard to keep once you know what they need,” he admitted. “You just have to be consistent with their care, or the whole thing starts to break down.”
Kara settled into her side of the car and considered him. “You’re a well-organized man.”
Noah shrugged again. “Have to be. Magic is a complicated field that requires attention to fine detail. If you aren’t organized, you could miss something, and the whole mess could explode in your face. Quite literally.” Several incidents early in his career came to mind. Thankfully, he’d pulled through with little more than time off to recuperate and missing eyebrows. There had only been one big explosion that had left him in the hospital, but even that wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
The conversation trailed off as they headed out. Noah sat up in the seat, watching the world passing by. He knew this part of town. It wasn’t horribly far from where he lived.
“Can I ask you a question?” Kara said, breaking into his wandering thoughts.
“Sure.”
“Can you tell me about… your collar?”
A flash of fear and protectiveness bubbled up from Byrd, but Noah reassured him gently. “She’s not going to take it from us. She just wants to know.” After a moment of indecisiveness from Byrd, the feeling eased.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want,” she added hastily.
“It’s all right.” Noah took a few short breaths to push the rest of Byrd’s fear away. He turned to look at Kara. “I just had to calm Byrd. He’s a little protective over it.”
Kara threw him a curious glance. “Why?”
“It’s a spell.”
Kara risked a longer look at him before turning back to the road.
“It binds Byrd and I together.”
Opening her mouth, she started to say something but stopped. After another second of thought, she spoke. “That explains a few things.”
“Like what?”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “Like how you’ve made so much progress in such a short time.” Kara’s hands squeezed the steering wheel as she spoke. “You’ve made more progress in controlling your dragon than any of my other patients.” She peeked at him before looking back out the front window. “What you have accomplished in days usually takes months.”
Noah sat there, stunned. “But, how can that be?” He thought over everything he had been through with Byrd. Pain rippled up inside him, but he pushed it away and studied every moment since he had put the collar on. “Could Raven have known she was going to be attacked?”
Byrd keened at him, unable to face the memories of Raven’s last hours, but Noah ignored him and concentrated hard on what he could remember. She hadn’t been herself that morning. He’d thought it had to do with the collar, but could he have been wrong? The pain and crying from Byrd got worse as he worked his way through his memories, trying to recall any detail that would give him an answer.
“Noah!”
Kara’s sharp words yanked him out of his thoughts. The most horrible sound was rattling from his chest, and his eyes burned as if someone had shoved red-hot pokers in them. Kara’s arms were wrapped around him, holding his head against her chest. Anguish like he’d never known tightened his chest and made him gasp for breath. Something hard skittered over his cheek and plinked down onto the seat next to Kara. She shushed him and whispered soft words that eased the dragon’s pain. After a few minutes, the grief lessened, leaving Byrd spent and Noah feeling like a heel.
“Are you better, sweetheart?” Kara asked as her grip on his head relaxed.
Byrd nodded and shifted back to lie on the seat. Still needing the comfort of touch, his head rested on Kara’s leg.
Running her fingers down his back, Kara settled Byrd in place before putting the car in gear and pulling back out into traffic.