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“No,” he corrected. “First, you were going to say my name.”
He could feel her glare on the side of his face without turning to look. She huffed a small sigh and relented in a throaty whisper:
“Sai.”
He practically purred at the sound of his real name in her voice. The fine, pale hairs on his human skin thrummed with pleasure.
“Come, my Lord,” she said, unfortunately sticking to titles, when they weren’t even real.
“Ask me your questions, if you have them. If not, then I shall certainly ask you mine.”
Sai did indeed have a bevy of questions on the tip of his tongue. But he held them back.
What would it gain him to know her better? He’d given her only truths that night when they danced. But getting to know her was not his purpose for this afternoon’s visit or this jaunt about the park. He was simply luring his prey and finding the right moment to strike.
“Ladies first,” he demurred.
“Very well,” she answered immediately.
“Who are you really, and why are you here? What is it you want with me? And why have I been dreaming about you for as far back as I can recall? Ever since I was a child?”
He was so taken aback by her dogged dig intotruththat he whipped his head around to stare at her.
Round, unblinking, clear green-brown eyes flashed brilliantly back at him behind wire-rimmed glasses.
“And why is a beautiful, powerful silver dragon trapped in a weak, wounded, human body? What happened to you, Sai?”
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
The magnificent “prince” looked rather flummoxed.
Brigid sympathized, but not enough to let him off the hook. He wanted to get to know her? Well, this was her:
A woman who lived more in her dreams than waking life. A woman who could sense things that others didn’t.
Most of the people around her, including the big-hearted, indulgent Rathbournes, would think her mad for having such “fanciful” thoughts. They might not consign her to an asylum, but they’d probably tuck her away in a remote tower in the Outer Hebrides. Far, far away from even their home in the Highlands.
She wouldn’t even blame them. Because she knew they would never accept the truth as she saw it, she purposely withheld it from them.
But that didn’t mean what she knew wasn’t true or real.
She found other outlets for her burgeoning need to share the world she saw with others. For, not sharing was too lonely to contemplate.
Which was why she wrote her dreams down in her journal and wove them into stories. Stories she’d tell anyone who would listen, who could appreciate what she had to say.
Mainly, these stories resonated with children, for their minds and hearts were pure and unencumbered by learned prejudices that society inevitably taught them.Of course,there were fairies, goblins and elves.Of course,there was a Pale Prince who could transform into a silver dragon.
Sometimes, these fantasies appealed to the parents as well. The women more so than the men. For women, the brave ones, followed more their heart than mind.
Society would deem these women hopeless romantics. Dramatic and fanciful. But Brigid knew that there was a man behind every myth. And, she firmly believed, a woman who loved him.
The silver dragon was new in her dreams. But so vivid, Brigid could think about nothing else. The entire time Sai had sat in the Blue Room playing his role as a potential suitor, she’d imagined him in dragon form, sleeping upon a meadow of daisies and dandelions lit by fireflies.
She could see his inner dragon even now, as she gazed into his dazzling diamond eyes. The same eyes as the serpent in her dreams.
Reflecting the same sharp pain and brittle trust.
Hedidwant to know her, she knew it to be true. He wanted to tell her things he’d buried inside for far too long. But he didn’t trust her; he didn’t trust anyone. And all she could think was—
