Dragon Soul(13)

He was silent for a moment, trying to prod his almost-numb brain into  working. If she was telling the truth, and she didn't know …  He reached  across the table and took her hand in his. "There is a test."

"A test to see if I'm a scaly beast or not?" she asked, looking skeptical.

"Yes." He took up the paper check that would allow them to sign for the  meal, and dipped one corner of it into the candle in the center of the  table.

"Really?" Sophea eyed the burning paper with evident worry. "It's not going to be a Spanish Inquisition sort of-aiiieee!"

She screamed when he dropped the paper onto the palm of the hand he held, prepared to dash water over her hand if he was wrong.

The second the burning sheet hit her hand, there was a flash of red in her eyes, and instantly, the flames were extinguished.

"Great Caesar's ghost!" Sophea said with an audible gasp.

Rowan released her hand and watched with tired satisfaction as she  examined first the paper, then her hand, rubbing her thumb over her palm  before looking up to him. "What just happened?"

"You are a dragon's mate. That more or less makes you a dragon. Think of  it as dragon lite. One of your abilities is to control fire. If you  were not who you are, the fire might have burned your hand, although I  did have my glass of water at the ready."

"I can't be a dragon," she said, still rubbing her palm. "Or …  what do you call it …  a dragon's mate."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because … " She glanced over at Mrs. P, who had succeeded in making a  paper airplane out of a dollar bill, which she sailed over to Edvard,  and was currently engaged in making two more. "Because they don't  exist."

"Says who? Mortal beings? They do not know about dragonkin. And before  you point out that you have neither scales nor a dragon body, let me  inform you that dragons these days prefer human forms. In fact, you  seldom see one as anything but a human. I gather it makes it easier to  do things like drive a car and play a video game, not to mention keeps  down the number of curious scientists and their vivisection kits. You,  Sophea Long, were married to a dragon who looked just like any other  man, but he wasn't. And that means you aren't what you appear. You are  immortal, can control fire, and are quite possibly the only one of your  kind left, since I understand all the red dragons were destroyed or  demonized into new forms."

Sophea sat with her mouth open while he gave his little speech, finally  snapping her jaw shut to say in a voice filled with wonder, "I'm a  dragon's mate? Jian was a dragon? A real dragon?"

"He was, and you are."

She evidently thought that over for a few seconds, her expression  running a gamut of emotions, from disbelief to curiosity to acceptance.  "Jian had a special quality about him that I thought meant he was my  soul mate, but I suppose …  goddess, I was a dragon's wife. I'm a  dragonette. Why am I not freaking out at this?"

"Because you're also a smart woman who knows that you aren't just a mere  mortal," Rowan said, suddenly feeling each of his thirty-six years.  When had his life become so complicated? Had it been the night when he  was sixteen, and he had inadvertently killed four innocent dragons? Or  had it been the following day, when the demigod originator of all  dragons who ever were, and who ever would be, had called him before him  to pay for his crime?

"I thought I was perfectly normal, but I'm not. I'm a she-dragon,"  Sophea repeated, clearly having a bit of trouble wrapping her brain  around that fact. "It's really true. I squashed that burning bit of  paper with my mind. Jeezumcrow! This is amazing! I'm a dragon in human  skin!"

"Human form is, I believe, the preferred nomenclature," he told her,  wondering what he was going to do. If she wasn't with Mrs. P because  she, too, sought Bael's ring of power, then it had to be the most  colossal bit of irony that the two women found each other. And what  stance would Sophea take when she found out just how desired the ring  was? Would she use it to further her own interests? Or would she  understand that it had to be destroyed?         

     



 

"I'm a dragon. Mrs. P, I'm a dragonista," she told the old woman. "You were right! Jian was a dragon dude."

"Anyone could see that," Mrs. P told her dismissively. "Do you have any dollar bills?"

"I have like a thousand questions," Sophea said a few minutes later,  after their meals were deposited in front of them. "But I'll start with  the most important one. Are you a dragon, too?"

"No," Rowan told her, looking up from his plate. "I'm a sociologist. I believe I mentioned that."

"Now your man is lying," Mrs. P said, making kissy sounds at Edvard as  he hurried past them out of the dining room. "Tell the gel the truth."

"Yes, Rowan," Sophea said with a biting asperity, "tell me the truth."

"I'm not a dragon-that is the truth," he insisted. "And that's what is important right now."

"Hrrmph." Sophea didn't look convinced, but she let the subject drop in  favor of peppering him with other questions. "How did you know I was  dragon lite? Boy, oh boy, I can't believe that I'm saying that without  having a major mental breakdown. But that fire thing was pretty  convincing. Except …  I don't feel any different."

"You aren't any different," Rowan answered around a mouthful of sausage  and sauerkraut. "You are exactly the same person you were five minutes  ago when you hadn't the least idea of your heritage. And I knew what you  were because you looked to me like a dragon, although I've since been  corrected as to your real status. I'm told that mates appear as dragons  to the rest of the world."

"Really?" She touched her hair as if it was signaling him. "How? Do I  have dragon babe stamped on my forehead that only people in the know can  see? Do I look different from other people? Do I smell different? Oh, I  hope it's not that, because I'll be paranoid for life that I stink or  smell weird or something like that."

He managed a rusty chuckle. "You don't smell of anything but-" He closed  his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. "I'd like to say  something pleasant like wildflowers or honey, but all I can smell at the  moment is dinner, and I don't think telling you that you smell like  sauerkraut is going to flatter you."

"You don't have to flatter me," she said with another of those fleeting  smiles to which he was beginning to look forward. "So you just look at  me and …  know?"

"Basically, yes," he said, pushing around a bit of boiled potato. "Also,  I am a sociologist. I'm trained to study people in order to better  understand them."

"Do I have wings?" Sophea asked, absently toying with her food. "Do I breathe fire and hoard treasure and chase hobbits?"

"Not that I can see, you can, that's a question only you can answer, and has one been pestering you lately?"

Her smile turned into a full-fledged giggle. "Not really, no. But I'm  still coming to grips with the fact that I was the wife to a mythical  creature, and am now a quasi-one myself."

"Not so mythical, and not so different from anyone else. You simply have  the ability to handle fire, and possibly have a deep love of gold."

"Gold," she said on a long sigh. "Oh, I do love jewelry. I had to sell  everything I had after Jian died, but I fought long and hard to keep my  gold wedding ring. It was the last to go."

"I'm sorry," Rowan said, hit again with another one of those urges to be  heroic. He frowned at the very idea of him making a grand gesture to  impress Sophea-he knew full well the sorts of tragedy that could result  from such experiences, and he wanted nothing to do with any such idea.

"For the fact that I'm a widow or that I had to sell my wedding ring?"

"Both. Perhaps the latter more than the former, if I'm being truthful, although naturally, I am saddened by your loss."

"It's all right," she said, her gaze on her plate as she pushed the  sausage through the mound of sauerkraut. "We were only married for a few  minutes before he got run down. It was horrible, but not … "

"World changing?" he suggested.

"Oh, it changed my world all right-I'd quit my job to go live in L.A.  with Jian, but then he got run down as we were leaving city hall, and  there I was, suddenly alone. I didn't know who his family was, and the  embassy didn't help. My boss was furious because I'd left, and refused  to give me back my old job. I had the money in Jian's wallet-once the  police gave that to me-but it was barely enough to cover burying him. It  was surreal, to be honest. I'd met a man, fallen in love with him, and  married him all in a few days, and then he was gone and I had no idea  who he was. No one ever came forward who knew him. I left word with the  Chinese embassy, but when I last inquired, no one had even asked about  him. It was as if he never existed."