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If I couldn’t hear him say my name…
He wasn’t there.
Traffic continued to rush past as people meandered through. There was no sign of him. Going back in, I finished my meal, paid the tab, and headed back to work.
Ember Abyss had its bad parts, but I never worried about leaving my supplies out while I was working. Nobody was going to risk grabbing my things. Getting back to the groomer’s window, I found something in the pile that wasn’t there before.
A bar of ‘Almond Supreme Dark Chocolate’ was sitting on one of my sealed paint buckets.
My lips tugged into a half smile, and I almost wanted to laugh. He had been there. I’d sensed right. I turned the bar over in my hands and was surprised to see a few scribbled words.
“You’re beautiful when you paint.”
I blushed, and then subconsciously glanced around. If he was nearby, I would sense him with that amazing scent he seemed to exude. My mind swirled guesses at what the message could mean as I tried to focus on the work at hand.
By the end of my day’s work, I was even further from deciding on an answer and had only half a bar of the very expensive chocolate left. I didn’t care about how many calories were in it; I needed the treat.
“I’m home,” I announced. I didn’t smell burning, which was a good sign, yet it also meant dinner wouldn’t be ready for a while.
Walking into the living room, my heart leaped into my throat when I saw my grandmother lying flat out on the couch. Rushing to her side, I slung my stuff to the ground.
“Gran?” I asked in a nervous voice.
She jumped a little, and then squinted and opened her eyes as she let out a few hacking coughs. I sighed in relief.
“You’re home early,” she wheezed.
“It’s five-thirty, do you want pork or chicken for dinner?” I rose to my feet. She seemed to be okay, just taking a nap. I didn’t need to scare myself like that.
“Stuffed pork chops sound good,” she said with a nod.
“Okay, good, coming right up.”
Grabbing my phone from where I’d dropped it near the door, I headed to the kitchen.
“So how was your day, Mara?” She stretched as she turned off the TV.
“It was okay.” I shrugged. A memory came to mind, something strange she used to mention when I was a kid. “Did you used to tell me stories about dragon shifters?” I asked cautiously. I didn’t want to set her off on a long rant or have her stuck on another conspiracy theory, but I could feel a nagging memory at the back of my mind.
“Ohh, yes, there’s a story or two about dragon shifters,” she replied as she walked over to the kitchen with me. Breaking into a little bit of a cough, she settled herself down at the table and watched me as I started cooking. “If I remember correctly your favorite stories were about the kingdom that was lost to the times. Like Atlantis, but pretend,” she teased.
I wanted to laugh along, but chills had run up my spine.
“What kind of stories were they?” I prompted.
“Oh, just the basic stories of how misunderstood dragon shifters are, so they had to lock themselves away in the depths of a mountain range somewhere in this corner of the continent,” She said with a shrug. “It’s all completely true—I watched a documentary on it.”
I nodded and held back from telling her that a lot of the ‘documentaries’ she watched were just sensationalist fake stories.
This was probably just another one of those.
He was gorgeous, and for some reason my mind and body were hooked on him without even so much as touching his hand, but that didn’t make his story true. If a kingdom was that close to Ember Abyss, someone would have noticed it, even if it was in the depths of the woods.
I wasn’t going to fall for this kind of nonsense.
Breaking the woody ends off of some asparagus, I wondered how I could test him without putting myself at risk. Well, more risk than I’d put myself in when I followed a stranger out into the woods.
