The fire had all but gone out. Arabella silently cursed her own earlier carelessness when she didn’t secure the penguin skin curtain in place before she rushed out after Mr. Kinnon. She silently stoked the embers, coaxing them back to life, before she unwound her scarf from around her face.
He faced her, naked as the day he was born, after he fixed the curtain back in place. Unsure where she should look, Arabella stared at the fire.
“Can you breathe on it when it goes out?” she asked.
“Miss Greaves,” he began, but faltered.
Arabella forged on. “You don’t have to call me that. Arabella is fine. No one worth mentioning in England has ever called me Miss Greaves.”
He was quiet as he wrapped a penguin skin around his midsection, likely for her benefit. He unpacked his satchel, filled with his clothes and tins from her dirigible’s stores. She noticed he brought her bottle of Dr. Thaddeus’s Miracle Elixir, and she was touched that he remembered it. “I hope you understand my situation,” he finally said.
“That you’re a dragon and you lied to me about it? How long did you think you could keep that a secret? We’re the only two people between here and Santiago!”
He inspected a tea tin and lifted its lid, inhaling deeply over it. He wore an expression that could only be described as blissful, the only time Arabella had ever seen anything happy there. It was a marked change in appearance for him.
He should do that more often. She gave her head a little shake to remind herself about the impossible subject at hand. “How are you a dragon, anyway?”
He shrugged his bare shoulders, and his usual cautious look returned. “I suppose it came from one or both of my parents.”
“They didn’t tell you?”
“They died when I was four years old,” he replied shortly. “Twenty-seven years ago. I hardly remember them. Anyway, I don’t know any other dragons to ask. Do you suppose it’s too late for tea?”
“I don’t know what time it is. It’s always near dark or full dark here.”
“I can check my pocket watch for certain, but it’s around five in the evening. Hell, I believe I’ll boil some water. I haven’t had a cup of tea in years.” He started to rise to his feet, but Arabella stopped him with a motion of her hand.
She retrieved the dented metal bucket full of half-melted snow that he kept near the door and hauled it to the fire pit, along with the rough-hewn bowl carved by claws that held his dried penguin meat. “You never told me if you can breathe on the fire to keep it going. I don’t imagine there are a great deal of trees from which to make firewood.” She took out a strip of meat, sighed, and ate it, trying not think about where it came from. It was too fatty and fishy-tasting for her liking.
“There aren’t any trees here,” he confirmed. “To answer your question, yes, I can breathe fire when I want to.” He poured a small measure of tea leaves into a metal cup, then gently poured some water from the bucket over it. He held it over the fire, which had grown to a more respectable size.
“You won’t burn yourself?”
“No.”
“I have a teapot on my dirigible,” she said.
“I’ll retrieve that next.” The skin on his hand rippled and shifted, and Arabella blinked, unsure if her eyes were playing tricks on her.
Fascinated, she watched as a few scales formed on his arm and his hand extended into claws over the flames. She couldn’t keep herself from asking, “You can partially change? How did you do that?” Too late, she wondered if it was a rude question.
“I learned how to do it when I came here,” he replied.
“Is that why you came here?”
He gave the barest of nods, gaze not meeting hers, and held his hand over the fire until the water in his cup boiled.
“Perhaps we could go back to my dirigible for the teapot,” she said again, watching as he inhaled the tea’s steam.
“Later,” he replied. “I don’t feel like chasing you across the snow again.”
“I wouldn’t have done that if you told me the truth to begin with,” Arabella protested. A horrible, terrifying thought struck her. Would Mr. Kinnon ever let her leave, now that he knew she knew what he was? Would he keep her alive? She swallowed, a whole new wave of fear crashing into her.
He must have picked up on it, because his blissful expression disappeared. He clutched his cup, his knuckles turning white. “What is it?”
How did one bring up one’s potential murder? “Um,” she said uselessly.
His gaze probed her, and she didn’t detect a hint of malice there. “Arabella? What’s troubling you?”
She hated that her stomach did a strange little flutter that had nothing to do with fear when he used her first name. She lifted an eyebrow, and a sheepish expression crossed his face.
“Besides being stranded in Antarctica,” he added.
“What are you going to do with me?” she blurted. Her next words tumbled out, an edge of panic to them that she couldn’t help. “Will you let me leave? Can I even leave this place?”
He froze in place and didn’t reply for a moment. When he did, his voice was preternaturally calm. “I won’t force you to stay against your will. I would never do that to anyone. I’ll help you be on your way home when it’s safe to repair your dirigible. I only ask that you not tell anyone I’m here.”
“You’re not going to kill me?”
His features contorted in horror, then indignation. “Of course not.” He stiffened. “I’m insulted you would ask. If I wanted you dead, I would have left you in your dirigible or out in the snow this evening.” His expression hardened and his grip on his cup tightened. “That was a monumentally stupid thing to do.”
“I suppose it was just one more monumentally stupid thing I’ve done recently.”
“Of course.” Mr. Kinnon relaxed a little when she agreed with him. “If you’re going to leave this place alive, you have to listen to me when I say to stay in place. This isn’t an area known for its hospitality toward humans.”
Suitably chastised, Arabella reached for the bottle of Dr. Thaddeus’s Miracle Elixir. She tried to remove the cap but quickly realized it was frozen shut. “Damn,” she muttered, and set the patent medicine closer to the fire to thaw out.
He reached for it. “What is this, anyway?”
“It helps with common ailments.”
He sniffed at it. “Can you buy it in the shops without a prescription?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I can smell sugar in this,” he reported, and set down the bottle. “It’s nothing more than a placebo.”
Irritation welled up in her and she snatched the bottle away. The cold glass was almost comforting, a reminder of her life in the skies. “It helps with headaches and general malaise.”
“It does not. It doesn’t have any laudanum in it, which would have made it effective. Unfortunately, laudanum also has undesirable and often fatal effects.”
The reason Arabella liked the elixir so much was because it was devoid of laudanum. Her stomach clenched at the mere mention of the word. “I know it doesn’t,” she said evenly. “I go out of my way to avoid it.”
“A wise decision.”
It was, but Arabella hadn’t made it for the reasons he might have suspected. It had nothing to do with research and everything to do with the impact laudanum had on her family. The memory of her mother hit her with all the force of the winds outside the cave. In that moment, she missed her fiercely. “Yes,” she said curtly. She rose to her feet, the bottle in her hand. “My mother died from an overdose of it nearly twenty years ago, courtesy of a physician’s recommendation. If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll return to my room.”
She didn’t wait for a response before leaving.
The depths of Xavier’s own stupidity could still surprise him. Stupidity, and insensitivity.
Had Arabella been foolish? Of course.
Could he have handled things better? Absolutely.
She’d been here only a couple of days, not nearly long enough to truly understand the dangers Antarctica posed. He suspected she did now, and he wished he could have emphasized them a little more respectfully.
It wasn’t just the Antarctic dangers. He’d needlessly insulted her over the harmless patent medicine she took for whatever purposes and dredged up memories of her late mother in the process. It was nothing more than sugar water dyed with beet juice, far more harmless than the scads of other patent medicines cramming apothecary shelves across England. However, it provided a measure of comfort for her during a stressful time, and he spoiled it for her.
Just like he spoiled everything for everyone.
He needed to apologize. He swallowed the last of his tea and stood up, the penguin skin blanket falling away.
I should probably dress first.
He quickly put on the clothes he’d stuffed in his satchel, and barefoot, made his way to Arabella’s room.
She sat on the floor, knees drawn to her chest. She looked up at Xavier standing in the doorway. “Hello.”
Awkwardness descended over him. “I came to apologize.”
“For what?”
“Not being kinder to you,” he replied. “I can list everything I’ve done wrong since you crashed here, if you like.”
That remark drew a small smile from her. “You’ve been right all along about my monumental stupidity.”
“I could have worded that better. I also apologize for the insults. Your medicine is important to you, and if you think it works, there’s no harm in it.” He paused, considering his next words. “I’m sorry for bringing up your mother’s passing, too.”
“You didn’t. I did that. You had no way of knowing that she was given far too much cough medicine for a simple cold.” She quickly changed the subject. “I didn’t think lizards had such a thorough sense of smell to pick up scent from a stoppered bottle.”
That pricked at his pride. “I’m not a lizard.”
“Aren’t dragons related to them?”
His lack of clear knowledge about that potential connection also rankled him. “I don’t know. Possibly. How do you know about lizards’ lack of smell?”
“Books and zoos.” She relaxed a little, unwinding her arms from around her knees. She straightened out her legs on the rough-hewn floor. “I’m an explorer, Mr. Kinnon. I’m motivated by curiosity.”
“Xavier,” he said, the response immediate.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Just call me Xavier. We’re the only two people in this godforsaken place.” Hesitating for a moment, unsure how the gesture would be received, he sat next to her, back against the wall. He could feel the marks his own claws made when he carved out this space against his skin. It was a reminder of what he was, how he didn’t belong in Arabella’s world. She didn’t move away. A small part of him rejoiced at that.
“Xavier,” she said, her voice a little cautious, like she was testing out his name.
It was the first time in five years that anyone had called him that. Maybe longer, since the research crew he traveled with called him “Mr. Kinnon” or “Dr. Kinnon.” He hadn’t realized how much he missed that small connection with someone. “Yes?”
“Will you come back to England with me?”
He hadn’t expected that question. “Absolutely not.” It was an automatic response.
“Why?”
He fought the urge to point out the obvious as rudely as possible. “I can’t go back like this.”
“You can’t be the only dragon out there,” she insisted. “There must be others.”
“There are other shifters,” he bit out. “But no dragons and those shifters are to be left as they are, by order of the government.” Arabella didn’t speak for a few seconds, and he wondered if he’d actually managed to shock her into silence. Or issued a death sentence to her. The existence of shapeshifters was a state secret. “Please forget I said anything about shifters.”
“Oh, no.” Arabella faced him, one eyebrow arched. “I won’t say anything, because everyone will think I’m mad, but you’re not going to casually mention the existence of shapeshifters under government watch and then expect me to forget about them.”
“I’ve said too much.”
“You haven’t said enough.”
“I’ve only heard rumors,” he explained. “I’ve found some corroborating evidence of a pack’s existence in the north, but I would never contact them. They aren’t supposed to be dragons, besides.”
To his surprise, she didn’t needle him for more information about the werewolf pack he suspected to be somewhere in Scotland. Instead, she asked, “Do you think it’s possible that mermaids are real?”
“I’m sure there are any number of supernatural creatures among us. As long as they keep to themselves, I say they should be left alone. That’s what I’m doing here. Keeping to myself.” Addressing her question directly, he added, “Do you think you encountered a mermaid at one point?”
“Not me. My family owns a property in a miserable village on the seaside. I never go there if I can help it. We rented it to a writer last year and there was an accident with its underwater ballroom, and…”
Xavier couldn’t help himself. “Why the devil would it have an underwater ballroom?”
“See, I’ve asked myself and my family that exact question over the years. It was an accident waiting to happen, and it did when that writer moved in. A substantial part of the house was destroyed. He and his, well, lady friend I suppose, survived it, but the property’s caretaker didn’t.” A shadow crossed her face. “His widow said he was convinced the writer’s friend was a mermaid. It was a bizarre story, and the village itself is quite superstitious and strange. I thought it was the rambling of a grieving widow, but now that I’ve met you, I’m not so sure.”
Unexpected hope flared in him at her words, at the possibility of her connection, no matter how tenuous, to another shifter. “Where are they now?”
“I haven’t the foggiest. I wrote to them when they returned to London and I received a reply that mentioned they were traveling around Britain for a while. Of course, I wouldn’t rely on the inhabitants of Gull’s End to be truthful, or at least not superstitious.” She paused. “Although after meeting you, they may have been on to something regarding that writer’s friend being a mermaid.”
Disappointment replaced Xavier’s fleeting happiness. “There must be a way to find them.”
She shrugged. “That would involve you leaving Antarctica.”
She had him there. “I suppose so. If I ever left, I would seek out the wolves in Scotland, anyway. I have to know if they actually exist.”
“Assuming they don’t tear you limb from limb after hunting them down,” she pointed out.
“You truly are a barrel of sunshine, aren’t you?” The words escaped Xavier’s mouth before he could reconsider their potential impact. “I would be arriving peacefully,” he emphasized. “I also have my own means of defense should they get aggressive, and I’ll respect their decision if they tell me to leave their territory. I’m not a threat to them at all. Wolves are pack animals. Dragons aren’t, as far as I can tell.”
“There must be others like you,” Arabella insisted again.
“If there are, they want nothing to do with me,” he replied bitterly. The conversation had taken a turn he didn’t care for, and he regretted not leaving her be after he apologized for his earlier behavior. He rose to his feet. “I should let you get some rest. You’ve had quite a day.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, a defiant look that did something to his insides.
It was a sensation he hadn’t felt in years. The pull of a good debate, someone who wasn’t afraid to stand up to him. In his old life, those qualities in a woman never failed to capture his attention. What a shame that he felt those stirrings for someone whose stubbornness was rooted in stupid decisions.
“On the contrary,” Arabella said. Now it was her turn to stand up, and he noticed for the first time that she was nearly as tall as he was. “I would like to talk about this further.”
He closed his eyes, forcing himself not to snap at her. Breathed deeply, and thought he caught the faint scent of that alleged miracle elixir and her soap. God damn it all. That smells good. He opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on hers. “If we are to cohabitate in my mountain, we must respect one another’s boundaries. I don’t wish to continue this conversation. Would you want to discuss painful topics? Rejection, perhaps?”
Something in her expression shuttered, and he knew he’d struck something raw in her. Her jaw ticked. “Understood,” she said stiffly. “Leave me, then.” Arabella leaned against the wall and slid back down to the rough-hewn floor.
The entire room was marred with marks of his claws. Xavier still remembered the feeling of stone ripping away under them as he furiously ripped out a place to call his own all those years ago. He’d shocked himself at his own strength.
He was too dangerous to be around humans.
He nodded at Arabella, now sitting again with her knees drawn up to her chest. “Very well,” he replied, and left the room.