Page 31 of Dragon Tempted

He nodded and gathered things. “What would you do without me?”

“I shudder to even think about it,” Sienna answered to his retreating back.

Ryan shut the door behind him and Tessa smiled. “I know what you could do with him.”

“Tessa!” Megan admonished.

“What! Ryan is smart, funny, keeps up with Sienna, and let’s not forget, he’s flippin’ handsome.”

Sienna grinned. “He is all those things, and he’s not afraid to disagree with me.”

“Have you two ever…?” Tessa’s eyebrows bobbed up and down.

“Tessa!”

“Megs, read your dusty books if you don’t want to hear about this.”

Megan sat back. “I didn’t say that, exactly. But if Sienna doesn’t want to talk about it, don’t force her.”

“No. It’s okay.” Sienna took a step closer. “I grew up with Ryan, and he was and still is my best friend. When we were twelve, we decided to be each other’s first kiss.”

“And?” Tessa pushed.

“And it was like what I imagined kissing my brother would be like. No spark for either of us. Which is a good thing since we probably would have broken each other’s hearts and wouldn’t be friends any longer.” Sienna turned to Megan. “Enough about my prepubescent love life. Have you found anything yet in John’s journals?”

“Not anything specific. I need to set the timeline and then dig through things. And I wouldn’t necessarily categorize these as journals.”

“What do you mean?”

Megan rested her hands on the books. “These are written like someone from the outside looking in. Notations like you would find in history books even though this was happening to John himself. It’s very clinical.”

Sienna wasn’t surprised. How did someone handle living forever? It had to be painful, so it made sense not to get close to anyone.

Tessa flopped down in the guest chair in front of the desk. “Well, he wasn’t acting clinical earlier. He was his grumpy self until you got in his face. I won’t lie. That was ah-may-zing.”

“I was desperate. I’m glad he agreed to letting us see his notes. But I wasn’t expecting you to drop everything, Megan. You don’t have to try to read through all of it in one day.”

“I know. It’s going to take me a while. But I’m worried that we need to find the solution sooner. Eric is with Bella right now so that I can work on this. She’s very taken with John. It’s like she…” Megan’s sentence petered out.

“Like she already knows him,” Sienna said.

“Yes.” Megan frowned. “Do you think her oracle powers are kicking in?”

Tessa reached across the desk and grabbed Megan’s hand. “It’s going to be all right. We won’t let anything happen to her or Lily.”

Megan sighed. “Her running to John and telling him not to go was spooky.”

“And I get a chill every time Lily shows me a drawing,” Tessa said. “But our girls are special. We just need to accept and love them.”

And they needed to pay attention. Sienna would never attempt to push the girls to use their powers, but there had to be a reason why they were able to see the future. And taking heed of things in the meantime was just common sense. Bella was attached to John, whether that was due to her being an oracle or an imaginative toddler, they still needed to take heed.

John was a puzzle that she wanted—no, needed—to solve. But not for her. For her clan. She knew he was the key to freeing their dragons once again.

Chapter 12

John was alone, but not. True, he had his own space and wasn’t staying in the clan house. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel the clan around him. His dragon senses—what little he had left—were very aware that they were living near a clan of dragons. It had been a long time since he spent time around this many. Hell, it had been years since he’d been around any dragons at all until Eric came with Megan to see him at his old cabin.

Then Tessa barged her way into his life. And now that they had discovered she was a witch and she was able to interpret the scroll, she insisted that he was her teacher when it came to all things witch-y. Yes, he was half witch, but after his grandmother threw him out as a child and he was raised by his dragon grandfather, John was definitely not the expert in spells. Even though he had been the catalyst for the worst spell ever cast. The irony was not lost on him.