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THOUGH FRUSTRATINGLY HURT, even a little stupidly devastated when Cray vanished into a cottage with two women, her pain swiftly shifted to anger. Uncharacteristic rage, in fact. Lucky for Marek, his mother and grandmother, no doubt knowing full well what Cray had done, showed up to escort her inside.
Neither said a word as she silently fumed, tempted to barge into Cray’s mind, and tell him what an utter ass he was. But no. She was done doing that. He didn’t deserve her well-intentioned opinions anymore. Let him do what he wanted. Needed to do according to him. Let him take care of his damn dangly bits may they never, ever, not for a millisecond divided by five hundred billion, be anywhere near her again.
Good. Riddance.
If he was any example of what to expect from dragons, she wanted no part of them.
Certainly no part of him.
As she climbed the stairs, she barely saw anything around her. Not the massive angry ocean tapestries with sweeping dragons flying on stormy horizons or the people eyeing her curiously. Instead, she flicked the wall absently as she went up, counting off all the parts of him that would rue the day he met her. From his all-knowing just-wait-till-she-wiped-it-off-his-face smirk to the cocky arch of his eyebrow.
By the time she made it upstairs, she had flicked the stairwell wall twenty-four times and straightened two small tapestries in passing. It was sort of amazing how many parts of him she could visualize torturing. How she would go about that was yet to be seen, but she would.
“In you go.” Jessie gave her a little nudge into a chamber. “Before you blow a gasket.”
“Right.” Erin handed her a cup of whisky, urged her to drink it, then insisted Madison blow said gasket as soon as the door was shut. “It’s not always easy dealing with MacLeod men, so have at it. Let it all out. We completely understand.”
“Yes, we do.” Jessie all but tipped the cup to her mouth. “My son was completely out of line, and I apologize.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “From what I hear, he got what he deserved in the end, though.”
Good. Whatever that meant. If they weren’t volunteering what happened, she wasn’t asking.
She looked back and forth between the fit and beautiful fifty-something and seventy-something formerly twenty-first century women, not sure what to make of them. It was hard to imagine either had lived in medieval Scotland long enough to have had children let alone grandchildren here.
“Go on, Madison,” Erin insisted. “Drink, then vent.”
She frowned, not sure if that was the right thing to do in their presence. “Yeah?”
“Absolutely.” Erin sipped from her own cup and winked. “We insist.”
After eyeing them for another moment, she finally nodded, chugged the cup down then did as asked.
She started venting.
Not, as one would imagine, about Cray but strangely enough, from the very beginning. All the way back to her childhood. Back to when her parents told her they weren’t her real parents. How she'd been adopted. Then further back still to how severely religious her upbringing had been. Not only because her parents loved God, which was fine, she did too, but because they were convinced she was the devil himself.
“Or herself, I should say.” She hiccupped, welcoming more whisky when Jessie poured it. “Cuz these things had the devil in them.”
She was amazed by how comfortable she was with them. How she suddenly wanted to pour her heart out. To share things she’d never shared with anyone. There was something about them, though, wasn’t there? Then again, if they were Brouns, that meant they were supposedly ‘witches,’ so maybe they were casting her beneath a spell.
“What things have the devil in them?” Erin asked.
She pointed at her eyes. “These.”
“Ah,” Erin murmured, understanding. “And did you ever see that devil when you looked in the mirror, Madison?”
“No.” She shook her head, then nodded. “Well, yes, but I did away with it immediately by reading verses from my bedside bible.”
“I see.” Jessie sat beside her at a table set with a variety of tasty looking morsels. “Let me ask you this, Madison. Did anything happen before you saw the devil in your eyes?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Jessie shrugged. “Like anger, maybe? Or high emotions of any sort?”
She tapped her fingers on the table, counting off the nine times she recalled seeing her inner devil then nodded. “Come to think of it, yes, my emotions were high every time.”
“And what about when you read from the bible?” Erin asked, sitting as well. “What did you feel then?”
“Calm,” she replied without giving it any thought. “At peace.”
“There you have it then,” Erin said softly, her gaze kind, so understanding that Madison knew she told the absolute truth. A truth that suddenly made perfect sense. “The so-called devil you saw in your eyes was only your dragon surfacing, trying to be there for you when you were upset. It settled when you read something that gave you comfort. Which, in turn, gave it comfort.”
For the first time in her life beyond numbers, science, and the cold hard truth, someone said something that truly translated. Everything clicked into place in a way she would have never thought possible. It was as if they'd pulled back a curtain and allowed her to see. She’d never know if it was because of what had just been said or because of the women themselves, but she suddenly felt different.
More accepting of something she had long thought was her imagination.
Long thought impossible.
Could it be the whisky at work? No, definitely not. This was real.
She was real.
“I am a dragon, aren’t I?” she whispered, looking from Jessie to Erin and back. “A real live...dragon?”
“Very much so, sweetheart.” Erin rested her hand over Madison’s. “Just like Jessie and me. All three of us are.” She shook her head. “So, you’re not alone.”
Truly? Because she had felt so very alone most of her life.
“What do you think of that?” Jessie’s eyes were as kind and strong as Erin’s when they met Madison’s. “What do you think of being such a magnificent creature?”
She had no idea. What did a dragon truly look like? She glanced back and forth between them. They were so dainty and beautiful yet quite clearly exceptionally strong. She was none of those things.
“I guess I don’t know,” she finally managed. “If you two are examples of how female dragons look, then I can’t imagine how I could be one. I clearly don’t compare.”
Erin squeezed her shoulder gently. “Well, aren’t you sweet.”
“And far more beautiful than you know,” Jessie added, eyeing her with a look fairly similar to the one Marek had. As though she saw something Madison didn’t. “While my sons and I clearly find you utterly captivating as is, let’s get you dressed appropriately and see if we can’t show you what they see.”
“That’s fine, I suppose.” If not impossible. “But what about the rest of me?”
Darn it, had she just said that?
Erin perked her brows. “The rest of you?”
“Well, yeah, what’s on the inside.” If the cat was out of the bag, she might as well go with it. “My obsession with numbers, dry personality, and OCD for starters.”
“Oh my,” Erin said softly, compassion in her eyes. “You really aren’t very easy on yourself, are you?”
“I’m honest with myself.”
“You’re also shrouded from yourself.” Jessie urged her to stand. “Critical when you shouldn’t be.” She shook her head as she walked around Madison, evidently taking visual measurements. “What you think are flaws are anything but. They’re part of you and your dragon.” Her eyes met Madison’s. “A very, very repressed dragon who might be trying to get through to you any way she can.”
“I don’t get it.” She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean everything about you is part of not being completely whole yet,” she said gently. “As you embrace your dragon and allow her to flourish, everything will become clear. From your Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to what you consider a dry personality. Which, by the way, based on what I saw of you with Cray today, is anything but.”
“I really am so sorry about that,” she said, wishing she could undo it all.
“Don’t be.” Jessie chuckled. “It’s about time somebody gave it back to him a little. That it was the woman meant for him makes it all that much better.” Her eyes leveled with Madison’s, her demeanor suddenly very serious. “Because you are meant for my youngest son, Madison. You have been since long before you were born.”
Only then, staring into Jessie’s eyes, did she understand just how powerful Cray’s mother really was. How powerful both she and Erin were. Yet they weren’t overbearing mother hens or dragons in this case, but welcoming in a way she could never have imagined. In a way she could have only hoped for when it came to in-laws.
No, not in-laws.
What was she thinking?
That would mean she believed what Jessie had just said.
“I’m not sure how I could be meant for Cray,” she began only to trail off when her conservative pantsuit vanished only to be replaced with a simple, stream-lined but amazingly flattering gray-blue dress. While still reserved enough to appease her nature, it plumped her cleavage up just enough to draw the eye. Never in a million years would she normally wear something like this, but she could admit it felt rather...good. Great, honestly. Feminine. Attractive.
“Ahh, well done, Jessie,” Erin praised. She stood and looked over Madison as well. “This is the perfect cut for her figure.”
“Any cut would be perfect,” Jessie said absently, her attention now focused on Madison’s hair.
More pointedly, her clip.
“Oh, no.” She shook her head, already knowing where Jessie was going with this. “Not the clip. I need the clip.”
“And you’ll still have the clip.” Jessie flicked her wrist. “But try it there. See if you can handle it.”
She touched her hair gingerly, sort of surprised by how less tense she already felt with it holding her hair back loosely rather than so tightly.
“Then, there are those.” Jessie considered her glasses. “When did you start wearing them?” She cocked her head. “Was it around the time the ‘devil’ first appeared in your eyes?”
She thought about it, amazed. “Yeah, actually. How did you know?”
“Just a feeling.” Jessie touched either side of her glasses and met Madison’s eyes. “May I remove them?”
“Sure, but I won’t be able to see a thing.”
“Maybe,” Jessie whispered, removing them slowly.
“No, not maybe but definitely,” she began only to trail off again once the glasses were removed.
Everything was still crystal clear.
She swallowed hard, terrified at first until Erin laid a gentle hand on her arm and calmed her.
“It’s okay,” Erin assured. “You’ve just accepted your dragon enough to see clearly again.” She tilted her head in question. “You can see just fine, can’t you?” Erin stared at her eyes with as much awe as Jessie before she whispered, “I got it before, but now I really get it.”
“Get what?”
“Why my sons, especially Cray, have trouble looking away from your eyes.” Jessie flicked her wrist, manifesting a full-length mirror. “Why any man, let alone dragon, has trouble looking away from you, period.”
She had to blink a few times to make sure the woman in the mirror was really her. It couldn’t be. But it was. From head to toe, she looked...beautiful. Like someone else entirely.
“But you’re not someone else entirely,” Jessie said softly, smiling at her in the mirror. “This has always been you, Madison. You just couldn’t see it.”
“Trust me, neither could anyone else in my time,” she murmured, shocked that her body wasn’t as bony and awkwardly shaped as she thought but lithe and sculptured. Her hair, where usually not relevant or exceptional, became the opposite when relaxed around her face rather than pulled back tautly.
“I suspect most didn’t see you clearly because of your dragon.” Erin smiled at her in the mirror, as well. “As a rule, human men instinctively steer clear of dragons, and you, so very repressed, did little to change that.”
“Oh,” she whispered, touching her cheek, amazed this face was hers. These lips. Not grotesquely large like she last remembered but wide and full like the magazine models she so envied. And her eyes. They startled her the most. It was hard to believe she was in there. That she looked back at herself through them.
“When’s the last time you looked at yourself in a mirror, Madison?” Jessie asked. “Really, truly looked at yourself?”
“Not for a long time.” There had been no point. She knew what was there and wasn’t vain by nature, so she didn’t pay much attention. She kept touching her face, trying to get used to the image in the mirror being her own. “There was no need. I was never going to change, so why bother?” She shrugged. “Besides, there are far more important things to worry about than looks.”
“Now that I agree with,” Erin replied. “Yet, there’s no harm in embracing your natural beauty a little.” She rested her hand on Madison’s shoulder and closed her eyes as if seeking something out. Better yet, sensing something. “Especially when not just Scottish, but many nationalities contribute to your beauty.” She fingered a tendril of hair that had come loose. “This, your hair, comes from an oriental bloodline.”
“Oriental?” she whispered, having never bothered with a DNA test.
“Yes, you have several ethnicities in you.” She rested her other hand on Madison’s shoulder. “But none as strong as your Scottish.” Her eyes changed a little, as though she saw something other than Madison. “And your Irish.” Pain flashed in her eyes when they met Madison’s. “Most definitely, your Irish.”
A blink later, she was no longer standing with Erin and Jessie but someplace else.
A Stonehenge not steeped in fog but blazing with fire.
So very much fire.
Not only that, she realized moments later, the hard truth.
