Page 32 of Saving the Last Heir
“We’re on for seven,” I said, sliding my empty plate into the sink. “I should really get to the shop. The guys will need help the rest of the day.” I glanced out the window and sighed. “I can’t really take that,” I said, looking at Lamborghini. “You don’t have a truck or something in the garage I could borrow, do you?”
Jackson finished his own food and began loading the dishwasher. “No need. That’s silly, even if I did have one. It’s over an hour’s drive back to the city. I’ll just fly you back.”
For a few seconds, I looked at him, blinking and thinking back on the flight in the car to this cabin.
“Uh.” I shook my head, unsure how to go on. “Like, with you carrying me?”
“Up to you. Carry or…ride,” he said, and the look in his eyes emphasized the double entendre.
Where the crude jokes and sexual innuendo from Dusty made my skin crawl, a similar comment from Jackson sent a pulsingwarmth through my stomach. A heat that eased lower, like warm honey, dripping down toward?—
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I blurted, standing up fast. “To, uh, freshen up. You know?”
Jackson nodded, but he shot me a knowing grin.
“That’s fine. I think there are some clothes that belong to my mother around here. You’re quite a bit more muscular than her, but you’re both tall. They’ll be tight, but they’ll fit. I’ll leave them outside your door.”
“Thanks,” I said, cheeks burning as I ran up the stairs.
Whydoes this guy make me feel like some goofy kid?
I knew the answer to that, though. He was possibly the sexiest guy I’d ever met. Not only that, but he seemed smart, charming,andhe didn’t hold it against me that I’d kicked him in the balls. How many guys could a person say that about? Besides, there was something inherently attractive about the way he was sacrificing everything to save his sister. I admired that. There was no way I couldn’t. With everything he was going through, it would be easy to fall apart, but he seemed in control.
As the water in the shower warmed, I skimmed the internet on my phone, reading up on dragons: myths, stories, legends—anything I could come across that might give me a bit of insight into his world. Every page had more and more information, and I had no clue if any of it was accurate. Logging as much of it into my memory as I could, I put the phone aside and stepped into the shower.
Halfway through the shower, I was struck by how easily all this had become normal. Dragon shifters, eggs, wolf shifters,magic. I’d taken it the same way you took any kind of news. A day before, I’d have said these kinds of revelations would have blown my mind, and maybe sent me into a catatonic coma. In hindsight, it really wasn’t as remarkable as it should have been.
But then, I had my own issues to deal with. The fact that there were magical creatures in the world wouldn’t stop the bank from taking what we’d built—our home and business. It wouldn’t keep us from being homeless, sleeping on the couches of friends until they got tired of us. Dad being forced to take work as a cashier at the grocery store or something. Maybe I’d end up selling foot pics online, or whatever it took, I supposed.
If I helped Jackson with this, all those problems would be gone. We could pay off the house and still have more than enough left over for the shop. I could kill two birds with one stone. Save an innocent childandsave my family. With those two things on the line, I didn’t give a shit about anything else. If someone told me demons, ghosts, and goblins were real next, I’d shrug it off and get back to work.
“Ready?” Jackson asked as I came down the stairs.
He’d been right about the clothes being tight, but they weren’t terrible. In fact, I kind of liked how the sleeves accentuated my biceps. I’d never been a girlie girl, which probably had something to do with being raised in a garage my whole life. I preferred the company of machines and the people who worked on them, and that extended to the gym, where I tended to blow off most of my steam.
“I am.” I chewed my lip, shooting him an apprehensive look. “If I’m honest, I’m a little nervous.”
“Totally understandable.”
Outside, the morning sun shone brightly down through a sky scattered with sparse clouds.
“Uhm, how are we doing this?” I said. “Won’t everyone in Houston call in a dragon sighting? You’re pretty big.”
Jackson nodded, and tilted his face toward the sky. “Remember I told you about the plague? The Vanishing?”
“Yeah,” I said, unsure where he was going with this.
“It was caused when some of my kind got the bright idea to enhance our gifts to gain superiority over the other two dragon races. That gift being our ability to camouflage ourselves to ensure humans and other non-dragons on the ground can’t see us. We sort of fade into the background, like a chameleon. The effect doesn’t work on dragon eyes, we canalwayssee through the camouflage, and that goes for drakes and wyrms too.”
“What did they want to do? Make you totally invisible?” I said, the idea is almost as incredible as shifters themselves.
“Exactly that,” Jackson said, a grim look on his face. “Something about the magic they used backfired, though. Instead of giving us a gift, they gave us a plague. Instead of being able to vanish on command, we get sick and then…” He drifted off, then snapped his fingers. “We justvanish. Gone forever. Maybe dead, maybe…” He gave a humorless laugh. “I don’t know. Another dimension? Reincarnated? God only knows. All that to say, we won’t be seen.”
“If you say so.” I didn’t know what else to say after that. The idea that anyone you cared about could disappear in the blink of an eye was terrifying. As awful as death was, atleastyou knew. You could put a body in a casket, have a funeral, and be sure you knew what happened.
Jackson took a few steps away, giving himself room, and then transformed. It was so crazy to watch. Even the second time was like the first. The strange morphing, the blurring of man and beast, the increase in size, all of it flying in the face of the known laws of science. As soon as he completed his transformation, I let out a laugh of delight.
“This is either the longest and weirdest dream of my life, or the world really is more mysterious than I ever thought,” I said, slowly walking toward him.
