Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

now.”
    “That’s not going to be quite so easy,” I said, hesitating. I really didn’t want to talk to Gareth about Gabriel and May. Somehow, it seemed that it would taint the relationship if I were to try to explain them to him. “I told them I’d stay for a while. I’m having . . . well, they’re kind of dreams, and they’re—”
    “I don’t want to hear about your goddamned dreams!” he thundered, breathing like a bulldog for a few minutes before continuing. “I can’t leave just yet. Ruth and I are . . . we’re following up a potential client. But I’ll send someone to help you.”
    “Will you please stop doing the Darth Vader impression and listen to me?” I lost all remnants of patience with him. “Brom and I are fine. The dragons aren’t going to hurt us. We don’t need anyone to help us, because we’re fine, just fine!”
    “Be prepared to leave tonight,” Gareth said. I clenched my teeth against screaming in frustration. “Don’t tell anyone. Stay in your room.”
    “By the rood, Gareth! If I wasn’t already going insane, you’d be enough to push me right over the edge, do you know that?”
    “Wait a minute—did you say Brom was there?”
    “Yes! Yes, I did! Hallelujah and let fly the doves! You actually listened to something I said!”
    He cursed again, but under his breath this time. “Well, it’s of no matter. They can’t want him. You’ll just have to tell him to stay there until Ruth or someone can get him.”
    “You’re nuts,” I said flatly, so flabbergasted that he actually expected I would leave my own child, my brain couldn’t come up with anything more than that.
    “They won’t harm him,” he said testily. “Just make sure you’re ready to leave.”
    The very idea that Gareth was willing to abandon Brom, his own child, to people he considered dangerous was so obscene, I sat staring at the grass in utter disbelief. At that moment, I knew the marriage was over. I could not remain married to a man who cared absolutely nothing for his son.
    Gareth, obviously taking my silence for compliance, warned me again to have nothing to do with the dragons until I could be rescued.
    “What do you expect me to do even if I were to leave the dragons?” my curiosity forced me to ask. “I’m not an apprentice anymore, and I’ve had an interdict placed on me. I can’t practice arcane magic at all.”
    “You’ll get your job back,” he said grimly.
    “How?”
    “That’s your problem,” he said, echoing Dr. Kostich. With one last word of warning he hung up, leaving me to shake my head. It was all so much to take in—first the dragons, then the dreams, and now the scales falling from my eyes where Gareth was concerned. How had I lived with such a monster for all those years?
    “Holy Mary, mother of god,” one of the girls behind me said as I tucked my phone away in my purse. “Get a look at those two. Mmrowr! I call the back one.”
    “Oh! I was going to call him. I suppose I’ll have to take the tall one in front, then. What do you think—seven? Seven and a half?”
    “Are you kidding? He’s too intense. He probably has OCD or something. Five at the most. Now, the one behind him, he’s a definite eight point nine.”
    I glanced between them to see who they were talking about. Two men were walking parallel to the bench, some thirty feet away. I couldn’t see much of the far man, although glimpses indicated he was in his late thirties, with short dark hair and a slight goatee. An intricate Celtic tattoo wrapped around his biceps was made visible by a black sleeveless shirt. His companion, nearest me, was taller, and of a similar coloring. He also wore black, unremarkable except for the way the wind rippled the man’s shirt against his chest. He moved swiftly, his long legs making nothing of the expanse of the park, his body moving with an almost feline grace.
    Something about him struck me as familiar. I turned a little more to get a better look as they continued past. The nearest man, the one with the graceful walk, had shoulder-length dark chocolate brown hair that was pulled back from a pronounced widow’s peak into a short ponytail. He was clean-shaven, although a faint hint of darkness around his jaw hinted at stubble.
    “Maybe I should go for the tall one. I love me some manly stubble,” one of the girls said, as if she’d read my mind. “He’s just one hundred percent delicious. Hey! Why don’t we see where they’re going, and if