It was Cara’s turn to blush, but the heat flashed from her face to her stiffening nipples to her pussy. “I’m…starting to have an idea.”
“I can show you,” he said hesitantly. “Where, and—what’s involved. If you don’t want to do this today…”
“I want you,” Cara insisted. “Show me.”
Gus kissed her again, long and lingeringly. He stood, pulling her up to her feet as he did. “It’s a long walk, but a short flight. I could carry you, if you want.”
Cara looked up involuntarily at the wings of the stone dragon, and back to Gus. “You—you could carry me? Flying?”
Gus grinned. “Would that be bold enough for you? I promise not to let you fall this time.”
“Yes,” Cara said, because there was no other possible answer.
Gus kissed her one more time before he turned and ran out into the open space of the clearing, his arms flung wide. They stretched impossibly wide, and then they weren’t arms, they were spreading wings. His fair skin was gray scales, neck stretching and tail unfurling.
He turned back to face her and he was a dragon, and he curled his wings tight to his sides.
All aboard.
“Oh, God,” Cara said, her eyes roving over him. “Where…”
The next thing she heard from Gus wasn’t words but a sort of sudden, vivid mental image, showing her exactly how. He extended a foreleg for her to climb onto. He boosted her up that way, onto his back, between the huge expanse of his wings. She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around the base of his neck.
Ready?
“Sure,” she said unsteadily.
Cara screamed in delight and wild rollercoaster fear as he leaped into the air with no more warning than that. His huge wings beat steadily, taking them up, up above the clearing, above the trees.
The view of the mountainside and the valley below were even more beautiful from here, but Cara was mostly conscious of the power of Gus’s body beneath her. She could feel the bunch and flex of muscles and the beating of his wings. And that was to say nothing of the fact that she was flying on the back of a dragon.
She’d barely gotten her head around it before Gus was gliding down to a gentle landing in another mountainside clearing. There was a small building in this one, looking like nothing more than a solidly built shed.
The time it took Gus to transform back was enough for her to notice that it did seem to have a very sturdy door, but the door opened at a touch from Gus. He obviously wasn’t hiding a key anywhere. The shed’s interior was dim, but Cara could see that it contained only a few things. There was a row of shelves, from which Gus took a pair of pants and slipped into them.
He led her to a staircase descending underground in a tight spiral.
“I’ll go ahead of you again,” Gus told her with a smile, and as soon as he stepped on the first stair, she saw lights turning on below. The lights seemed to be welcoming them into whatever was down there.
The stairs went down through a few full turns, enough to leave her a little dizzy at the bottom. That was definitely her excuse for leaning into Gus as soon as she got there, kissing him for a few long, slow moments before she looked around.
They were in some kind of tunnel; she could see arched openings on either side.
“Oh my God, caves,” Cara said.
“Well, like I said,” Gus grinned, “dragon traditions. We do keep a lot of our treasure in banks and things these days, but we like to keep some shiny stuff close.”
“And by some,” Cara said, as Gus took her hand and led her down the tunnel, “you mean…”
“A lot,” Gus admitted. “I mean—eight generations of magpie hoarders, this stuff adds up. The one I’m taking you to is the oldest, the first—the heart of the hoard.”
Cara tightened her hand on his, and he looked over at her and smiled.
“I would think there would be more locks,” Cara said. The openings of the caves to either side didn’t even have doors; she could see shiny glints inside as they passed. “Or, well…”
“A dragon guarding it all?” Gus asked. “I mean, that’s traditionally how it works. And that’s still how it works—there’s kind of a supernatural alarm system. If someone other than a dragon tries to come in… We’ve set it up now to mostly just scare people, because once every generation or so some kid from town gets the idea to try to sneak in and figures out a way past the lock on the door—”
“It wasn’t locked!” Cara interrupted.
“It was,” Gus assured her, wriggling his fingers. “There’s gold in the lock—we have a certain affinity for gold. It does what we ask it to. There are no keys for that lock, but I assure you, I unlocked it and locked it again after us.”
“So kids pick the lock—”
“They hear a roaring sound, see some fire,” Gus said, waving a hand. “And I’m alerted, so if they don’t come running out pretty quick they get a roaring sound from me, too, or Ilie. That…solves the problem, generally.”
“People in town know, then,” Cara said, but of course they must.
Had he gone running out of the mayor’s office when he realized Ilie was talking to her? Had he changed right in the middle of Main Street, taken wing in front of Mrs. McCullough and everyone at the electronics store?
“Yes,” Gus said. “My eight times great-grandfather founded the town—financed the first church and school and so on—and the people here have always known what we are. We look after them, they keep our secrets. It works pretty well for everyone, although I really do hope Radu will come back and be mayor soon. Hannah is going to lose her patience with me one of these years.”
“It’ll be easier when you have a mate, won’t it?” Cara asked, squeezing his hand. “Your brothers can be around more?”
Gus nodded, smiling hopefully at her, and tugged her forward. They’d reached the end of the tunnel, where it led around a little curve and into the last—the first—of the caves.
For a moment Cara thought they’d stepped outside. The cave was so dazzlingly bright that it seemed like they were standing in full sunshine. But after a moment her eyes adjusted, and she realized that what she was seeing was the reflection off a mound of gold that half-filled the little cave. It covered the entire floor and heaped up halfway to the ceiling.
She stepped toward it, wanting to touch, trying to see what it was made up of, other than gold. It looked like a jumble of coins and beads, and irregular little shapes like gold-plated gravel that must be gold nuggets. There were squared-off gold bars in a few places, golden jewelry, finer gold chains winding through.
She turned back to stare at Gus, who was smiling contentedly, here in the cave with his dragon hoard heap of gold.
“The light comes down from the surface,” Gus said, like that was the part that required explanation. “There are a couple of shafts up from here, and a system of prisms and mirrors so that it’s all sealed up but the light still gets down here.”
“Gus,” Cara said, looking helplessly back at the huge pile of gold. “Can I…”
“I wish you would,” Gus said.
When Cara looked at him again, she could see his eyes were dark with want, and there was a flush on his cheeks that was spreading downward. The sparkle of gold at his throat and on his wrist seemed brighter here, reflecting back the light of the hoard. It also seemed quite restrained, compared to the incredible profusion piled up.
Cara took a step forward and then, feeling only a little silly, she stopped and took off her shoes and socks. She walked barefoot into the pile of gold as if she were walking into the water on a beach, poking her toes into the surf of coins and beads. She waded in further, feeling the heavy, cool pieces of gold part around her feet and pile around her ankles. Every move set off little cascades as more gold rolled down.