He tilted his head. “You could stay with Cara. You don’t have to go back out there.”
And be indebted to the Watcher? Not to mention proximity to the portals meant she might bump into two certain Dragons...
She shook her head.
Jacques sighed. “I think you are making a mistake.”
“It’s mine to make. That’s the entire point.”
The Satyr fell silent. Sparkle flew ahead until she reached the stone archway. Then she landed on Jacques’s shoulder.
“May I?” he asked, raising a hand to her arm.
She was shocked that he asked, but she nodded.
He closed his hand on her elbow and took them through the portal.
Cara’s garden seemed at once familiar, and not. Dani kept her gaze on Jacques’s furry back as she picked her way along the path. “Is she—”
“Cara’s still tending to the wounded in the caves,” he said.
Good. That was good. She could escape this reality and go back home with no one chasing after her.
Jacques escorted her to the garden portal that led to the road. “Are you sure,mademoiselle?” His dark eyes were filled with sorrow.
“Yes, Jacques. Thank you for your help.” Dani turned her back on him and walked back to her old life.
46
The bitter wind whistled along Winnipeg’s streets tonight.
It carried the scent of cat to Dani. The Sabres still checked up on her from time to time. After the first encounter—where she’d lambasted Cody, who dared to approach her—they kept their distance. The last thing she needed was anything drawing attention to her.
Six foot plus cat shifters tended to do that.
She pulled the trench coat closer around her. Beneath it was her only concession to being a Dragon—a jet-black bodysuit totally made from gleaming scales.
She’d been on the streets for two months. Every day was a challenge. The hole inside her refused to heal, and the anxiety attacks were now as much a part of her as her skin. But she’d held firm on her decision to be back on the streets.
She hadn’t shifted form in all that time. She told herself she was happier that way, although sometimes parts of the beast slipped free. It was keeping her safer, no doubt about it. With her transition to Dragon—or whatever she really was—her link to the moon had vanished. While the beast pushed at her to be free, it wasn’t any more painful than dealing with the abyss in her soul.
Dani hadn’t heard their voices in her head since she’d told them to go. She was free to do as she wished. At the moment, she wished to find a warm, dry bed at the shelter. Winter was coming, and the time for sleeping on the streets was ending along with the last leaves dropping from the trees.
She was cutting down a back alley when there was a flutter of wings above her head, and Sparkle dropped to hover in her face.
Dani frowned at the Phoenix, but she spoke to the shadows. “What the hell are you doing here?”
A slim shadow detached itself from a wall. He wore his classic trench coat. The one she’d walked away with was considerably more stained.
“Jacques.” Dani stared at the Satyr. She saw him every few weeks, at the same time and place, to receive the crystal supplement that she was now dependent upon. Dani had been dismayed to find out she required it at all. When he’d first appeared and offered it, she’d refused.
When he tried again two weeks later, she’d accepted. By then she shook so badly the shelter staff thought she was in withdrawal.
Apparently, Dragons did not survive without their fix.
But it wasn’t the appointed time and place. He’d just recently dropped her supply of the crystals. So something else was up.
She stared at him as a chaotic mix of emotions crashed around within her. She settled for an uneasy smile. “Not that I mind seeing you again so soon—but why am I seeing you again so soon?”
