he’d have been a bright shining beacon for the Knights who hunted his kind.
Thankfully his human form produced very little dragon scent of any kind. The sunlight burned away whatever excess might have clung to him. In the old days, dragons had used the precious daylight hours to move from hiding place to hiding place, their scent signature masked. Shunning—the practice of separating males about to go into heat—had been common among the small tribes. Separate one to save many.
By the dawning of the twentieth century, new compounds were discovered by the alchemists among the dragon communities that suppressed the heat phases. The side effects were mostly intolerable and often dangerous. Stig had requested the drugs to suppress his phases during his military service. Because the Brotherhood of the Green Hide—the dragons charged with protecting their species from the slayers of the Knights of St. George—needed intel and artifacts from areas like Afghanistan and the old buried sites in Iraq, he’d been given permission to obtain and use the compounds.
They’d very nearly killed him. After leaving the service, he’d spent four months at Nico’s manor in a sort of rehab. He’d sworn then that he’d never take the drugs again. Locking himself up in the cell was better than going through that.
Stig wrapped a towel around his waist and crossed the hall to his bedroom. He paused in the doorway. The smell of bacon and brewing coffee made his stomach growl. He backed out and craned his neck at Cora’s door. It stood open and revealed a neatly made bed and stacks of luggage. He fought the urge to go inside and snoop. The odds of finding anything in her bags to tell him why she’d shown up on his doorstep were low. He’d rather not risk being discovered rifling through her things.
The ring of his cell phone startled him. He snatched it off the dresser and glanced at the display. It was Ignatius, the oldest dragon of their cobbled-together tribe and the head of the Brotherhood.
“Yeah?” Stig didn’t bother with the usual “good morning.”
“Any problems last night?” Ignatius was gruff and all business.
“No.” Stig didn’t hesitate. Mentioning Cora’s presence would just piss Ignatius off, and that was the last thing he needed right now. There was no reason for his very, very old friend to get bent out of shape. Cora would be gone by lunch.
“Good. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
The line went dead. Stig tossed his phone onto the bed and made quick work of pulling on some jeans and a navy blue tee. His work boots and belt completed his laid-back ensemble. Finding out what had brought Cora to his doorstep last night, complete with her entire apartment in boxes, remained his top priority. If she was in real trouble, he’d move heaven and hell to protect her, but if it was something less pressing, she had to get out of his cabin until his phase ended. As he dressed, Stig tried to think of how to approach the subject of evicting Cora from the guest bedroom. It sure as hell wouldn’t be easy.
Downstairs the delicious scents of a home-cooked breakfast nearly knocked him off his feet. His mouth watered with anticipation as he entered the kitchen and swept his gaze over the table near the bay window. Plates laden with his favorites took center stage: biscuits fresh out of the oven, scrambled eggs, and crispy bacon strips. Apparently she intended to butter him up with food. Frankly that was a-okay with him.
“Morning.” Cora smiled at him from behind the butcher block island. Seeing her in the same light blue camisole and striped cotton drawstring bottoms from the dream hit him like a punch to the gut. She alternated scoops of vanilla yogurt and berries into rocks glasses. “You don’t have parfait cups,” she explained, and placed the glasses on the table.
“Never needed them.” Stig poured a cup of coffee from the steaming carafe and sat in his usual chair. He grabbed a plate and piled food onto it. Across the table, Cora served herself and sipped apple juice. Bringing up the dreams seemed best done while they were occupied with food. “You sleep okay?”
“Yes.”
Her clipped reply caught his attention. Despite her downward gaze, the stain of a blush was evident on her cheeks. His belly clenched. So that hadn’t been a simple dream. His dragon had preyed on Cora’s psychic energy. That type of thing had happened before but never in such a sexual manner. In the close, cramped quarters at war, Stig often found it impossible to keep from feeding off the dream energy of his comrades. He’d joined his friends on fishing excursions and football games and the like but this thing with Cora? That was all new.
Cora held up a glass jar. “Where did you get these raspberry preserves?”
Clearly she wanted to change the subject. “Farmer’s market in town. They get together every Saturday morning on the courthouse lawn.”
“I’ll have to check it out.” She painted a thin layer of the deep red spread over a halved biscuit.
Her comment reminded him of the real issue at hand. Best to approach the situation delicately. “How long are you planning to stay?”
“Awhile?” She glanced at him as if to gauge his response. “Maybe. Possibly.” She bit her plump lower lip before continuing. Stig tried not to focus on the soft pink flesh compressed between her teeth. If he did, things might get a bit more heated than necessary. “I…um…the thing is…I’m sort of in trouble.”
Stig’s ears perked. All thoughts of a lustful nature fled. “Sort of?” He frowned. “You either are or you aren’t. Which is it?”
“In,” she said quietly. “I’m really in the shit.”
“Money trouble?”
“Kind of.” Her sheepish expression told him there was more to this story than he probably wanted to know.
Stig sighed and sat back in his chair. “No more ‘kind of’ or ‘sort of,’ Cora. Just tell me what’s going on, okay?”
“Okay.” She exhaled heavily and launched into her tale. “So you know how after Grams died, I inherited the bakery, right? Well it turns out Hector was in a lot of debt after he died. He’d started gambling, I guess. Underground stuff.”
“Shit.” Stig shook his head and rubbed his jaw. Hector had always been a little too fond of card games, races, and dice but Stig had never imagined he’d get himself in that kind of trouble. Then again, Stig hadn’t ever expected Hector to plow his truck into a telephone pole either.
“Yeah. Deep shit,” Cora clarified. “A few weeks after he died, these guys showed up at the bakery. They were so scary.”
Stig heard the fear in her voice. It rattled his core. He could just imagine what kind of lowlifes had shown up on her doorstep. “What did they want?”
“Money. Lots of it. And I didn’t have it, Stig. The bakery was barely in the black. All of the companies that we depended on for business were closing down or laying off their workers. My breakfast rush was hardly a trickle through the door. Lunch was even worse. Catering orders nosedived. And birthday cakes?” She shook her head. “When families make cuts, businesses like mine are the first to go.”
Cora went silent. Shame flickered across her face. Stig sensed her reluctance. “Cora?” he prodded gently.
“You have to understand, Stig. I’d just lost my grandmother and my brother within three weeks. I was so confused and swimming in grief. I was desperate. I just wanted them to leave me alone.” She blinked rapidly. A glimmer of tears obscured her soft green eyes. “They told me they wanted me to make some deliveries. They’d drop a box with an address at my back door. I’d hide their box in one of my bigger boxes of cookies or pastries and send my deliveryman on his way.”
Stig tried not to let the disappointment show on his face. Inside was a different matter. He wanted to shout at her, chastise her for such stupidity. He counted backward from ten to get a handle on his frustration. “What was in the boxes?”
“Drugs. Money. Guns.” Cora shrugged. “I don’t know. I was too afraid to look. What if the person on the other end of the shipment reported tampering?”
He could appreciate that fear. “I suppose something went haywire at some point.”
“My delivery guy was T-boned at an intersection during a rainstorm. The boxes of cakes and pastries and cookies went flying all over the damn road. One of them just happened to spill out a brick of cocaine.”
“For fuck’s sake!” Stig kneaded his temples. “Were you arrested?”
“No. But the story hit the evening news. At that point, I had, like, nine employees I hadn’t let go because of finances. All but four of them quit. My regulars were canceling orders left and right.” She gave a sad little shrug.
