Was she okay? Godiva walked down the shallow steps into the rose garden as she considered the question. The sense of betrayal that had shadowed her down the years despite her best efforts to ignore it or otherwise obliterate it had receded. Not vanished. It was more like the sun passing beyond the horizon, but you knew it was still there.
Rigo had obliged her by transforming, no shifting, repeatedly, to prove she hadn’t dreamed up a basilisk. As if her wildest dreams would ever have concocted such a story. It all added up, even to the missing letters . . . or did it?
“Godiva? Did the call drop?”
“Still here,” she said. “Trying to figure out my answer.”
“You don’t believe me.” He sounded resigned. A little hurt, even.
“It’s more like the jury is still out. About some things,” she said, thinking of those letters she’d never gotten. The ones she’d sent that went . . . where?
“That’s fair,” he answered, but she could feel the hurt still there.
No, she told herself. That was her merely projecting. He could be feeling, thinking, anything, and how would she know? A couple years of intermittent dating, followed by decades of utter silence . . . she couldn’t say she knew him even back then, and definitely not now. They were two utterly different people from who they’d been back then.
“What can I do?’ he asked.
She could tell herself it didn’t matter, but it did. It mattered a lot.
“Let me think about that.”
And he said, “Anything. Oh—Joey is calling me. I can hang up on him—”
“No. Go ahead. I just got done hearing all about Long Cang the Evil Red Dragon, and the Maguffin Stone that isn’t really there, and the zombies. That seems to be an ongoing problem, and they want your help. We can talk after Joey Hu gets done with you. I need time to think anyway.”
“Sure,” Rigo said.
Again she sensed hurt, but scolded herself into practicality. She had no idea what he was truly thinking. It was stupid to pretend she did.
“Better take that call,” she said, killed it at her end and chucked her phone back into her purse.
Then she turned around to discover Jen coming down the path toward her. Tall, handsome Nikos, who looked like a Greek god, emerged from the house, carrying a tray with fresh cups on it.
“There’s going to be a meeting as soon as Joey gets here,” Jen said. “I think Rigo is being invited, too. Want to sit in on it?”
“Lead on,” Godiva said.
Chapter 8
RIGO
After he’s left Godiva at her house, Rigo had fulfilled his promise to do a midnight fly-over patrol of the shoreline around the collapsed cave, in case there were more enchanted shamblers to be rescued. But he’d regretted that he couldn’t really see the ocean. So at first light—too early to call Godiva—he decided he might as well make another run. He stepped out onto his motel balcony to shift and tak
e flight.
His wings snapped out. He soared upward, breathing in the briny sea air. It was exhilarating, helping to dispel some of the fog of tiredness. The coast had its own beauty, and he looked down at the sweep of California’s curves, the subtly changing shades of sea and sky as the sun rose, but he couldn’t focus. His thought arrowed right back to Godiva.
With a little effort, he might be able to better sense her via the mate bond, now that she was talking to him again, but he was afraid she’d feel it and think he was trespassing. His instincts were at war. Heart wanted to be with her right now, but brain said to give her space, and wait until she reached for him. Even worse were all the questions he wanted to ask. They multiplied like fleas, maddening tiny itches on his psyche.
He made himself focus on the palisades slowly warming into gold in the emerging morning light. Everything was quiet. He squashed the wish that a distraction would happen, just to get his mind away from all those questions. He should concentrate on the very real difficulties here. Like Long Cang, who had no problem with using random, perfectly innocent bystanders to do his digging for him.
But there was so sign of Long Cang. No sense of any dragon except for Mikhail, back in Playa del Encanto.
Damn.
Rigo soared upward, flying almost all the way to Los Angeles before turning back in defeat. Then he dove down and skimmed at top speed just above the waves, frustrated that Long Cang and his minions had gone to ground, avoiding the well-deserved ass-kicking that would have made Rigo feel a little better.
When he got back to his motel, he let himself call Godiva. But it seemed she was doubting him all over again. Before he could try to figure out a way to fix it, his phone blinked: Joey Hu. As soon as he and Godiva hung up, it blinked again. It was Alejo.