Page 26 of Saving the Last Heir
“Are you hungry?” I asked. “Thirsty?”
She started to shake her head, then shrugged. “I guess it has been a while since dinner. I could use a snack.”
“Let’s see what we’ve got.” I stood and crossed the room to the kitchen.
Shyanne followed me, looking around the cabin as she did. She ran a hand over the polished wood paneling and Ralph Lauren wallpaper. I was struggling to keep my eyes off her. My gaze traveled from the gorgeous light brown of her skin across the defined muscles of her arms and legs. From the look of her, she either put in a lot of work in the garage, or she spent a lot of time in the gym. I’d always had a thing for strong women.
Shyanne turned her striking green eyes on me. I quickly averted my gaze and turned back to the freezer. The last thing I wanted was to come across as some leering creep—not when I’d already basically kidnapped her and taken her to a cabin in the woods.
“I’ve got…” I paused and winced inwardly. “Uh, I have frozen crab legs, some lobster, some steaks…” I quickly dug around and sighed with relief when I found something normal. “Frozen waffles. You up for an early breakfast?”
“That works,” she said, though her tone was somewhat distant and introspective as she went through the kitchen.
After slipping the waffles into the toaster, I opened a cabinet and found a half-empty bottle of pancake syrup.
“So, like, how long have you guys been around?” she said.
Turning, I found that she’d circled the kitchen island. She leaned on it, resting on her elbows, and gave me a curious look.
“You mean shifters?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a long story. We’ve been around almost as long as you all. I mean, obviously, my kind is the origin of the dragon myths your people have told for millennia. There are wolf shifters too, so that’s where the werewolf myths come from. Then there arethe pegasus shifters I told you about. Some Greek guy a few thousand years ago probably saw one, and then boom, they popped up in your mythology. Our written history goes back pretty far, but the specifics didn’t really survive. Most believe some group of shamans or priests in Mesopotamia created us or turned themselves into us. That’s all hearsay, though. I mean, I doubt they made usandthe yetis or giant krakens too.”
“Stop,” she said, her face going slack. “What the fuck did you say?”
“Uh, yeah, so, those are real too.”
“Bigfoot? You’re saying bigfoot is fucking real?”
The first waffles popped up, and I scooped them onto a plate, handing the plate and fork to Shyanne.
“Sasquatch, yes, they are real,” I said as I slid the syrup across the counter. “Veryisolated, and they don’t deal with us. They’re as mysterious to our kind as they are to yours. They aren’t some ape or bear, like humans have theorized. They’re magical beings.”
The look she gave me was hard to gauge. I could almost hear the gears turning in her head. The sheer volume of shocking information I’d given her in the last hour or so would have driven most people to madness. Finally, she gave a slow nod, then squirted a stream of syrup onto her waffles.
“So, what else is real?” she said.
“Oh, gosh, uhm, chupacabra. Do you know that one?”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “We’re in Texas, of course, I know what that is.”
“Good. There are also a few beings that are even more rare, things like the creature you call the mothman—it’s more like a harbinger of death and destruction. The Loch Ness monster is real too, but it’s really only one of an entire species. There are a few dozen of those around the world in rivers, lakes, and inland seas. Again, like I said, it doesn’t make sense that some random priest in the Middle East around five or six thousand years ago created all these things. I mean, how the hell would those guys have gotten a sasquatch into Canada or a big lake monster into Scotland?” I shook my head. “Nah. My theory is we’ve all always been here, evolving right beside you guys,” I said, as I dressed my own waffles.
When I looked back up, Shyanne was chewing slowly and staring at me. “You know, this is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had in my life,” she said after swallowing. “Thisisreal, right? Like, you didn’t knock me out with a wrench in the garage, and I’m still lying there, dreaming all this, right?”
Taking a chance, I reached out and very gently pinched her bicep. “Does that feel real?”
She glanced at her arm and smiled ruefully. “I guess so.” Putting her fork down, she ran a hand through her hair. “Okay, back to the main issue. This fucking car. You need it fixed.”
“And fast. He gave me three days.” I glanced at my watch. “I’ve got two days left. Do you think we can do it?”
She sighed. “It’s gonna take some specialty work. Plus, it’s not just the mirror and some paint scratches anymore either.”
“What?” Jerking my head up from my impromptu meal. “What do you mean?”
Shyanne glanced down at my hands. “You know you’ve gotreallysharp talons when you’re a dragon, right? You punched a bunch of holes in that suede roof upholstery. It’ll need to be replaced.”
