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  “I’d have to be comfortable around water to enlist in the Navy.”

  “You’d think so, but a friend of mine dated an engineer from the base and he hated the water.” Not this guy, though if he enjoys waterskiing.

  She found Nate mysterious, the way he only gave teasing glimpses of himself. He didn’t brag and boast, a trait she found admirable.

  “Engineers don’t count. They’re all strange hermits,” he replied, never losing his smile. “You should come with me down to the shore sometime. For a day.”

  Impulse drove her to counter his vague offer with a better invitation. “How about a morning at the beach followed by an evening at the county fair?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Yes!

  “As luck would have it, I managed to get some time off this weekend to unwind and decompress. We can meet up, or I can swing by and get you if you want.”

  She eyed him again, trying to get a read on the man. What harm was there in letting him pick her up? She could always get a cab home if the need arose. Or make her own way if things went south.

  “Sure,” she agreed. “Will Sunday work? I have a couple of buyers coming in on Saturday, so I’ll be here. You could pick me up at the coffee shop. I’ll bring the caffeine.”

  “Only if you’ll catch a movie with me after your business is done with your buyers.”

  Her brows rose. Nate had plenty of confidence, a refreshing change from other men she’d dated in the past. But why? Did he have an ego to put her Uncle Teo to shame? Was he used to women saying yes? Or was he experiencing the same undeniable pull of attraction?

  “I feel I have to warn you then. I toss sour gummy candies into my popcorn.”

  Surprise flickered across his features, its source undeterminable. It could be anything from her acceptance of the date to what Ēostre called a “strange, abhorrent snacking habit.”

  “While gross, that won’t be the worst movie theater food choice I’ll have witnessed. My mom likes to sneak Taco Bell inside her purse,” he confided, dropping his voice to a whisper as if there were others nearby to overhear their confidential chat.

  “Yeah, okay, she wins.” Her nose wrinkled, and she turned her attention back to her sketch. Something reminiscent of waves, she thought. A flowing design in silver with touches of gold framing the stones.

  “So... no boyfriend?”

  “I'd hardly be agreeing to a movie date if there were.” Though some of her friends were known to date around. A few seconds of consideration brought clarity to his question. After a headshake, she smiled and added, “No. No boyfriend. You?”

  “Haven’t had the time in a while, but I do now.” The reassuring smile surfaced again.

  “Well then, looks like we’re both single, so a weekend spending time together doesn’t seem like a terrible idea. Swing by here Saturday afternoon when you’re free, and we can figure out what to go see.”

  “Sounds good.” He bent into an exaggerated bow, hat held in one hand. “Then I bid you adieu, fair lady, till we meet again,” he said on his way to the door.

  Astrid giggled. His dramatic exit had already burrowed a little notch into her heart. “Hey, Nate?” He paused with a hand on the knob. “Thanks again for getting my coffee today. I’m glad we ran into each other.”

  Fate had funny ways of bringing people into a person’s life, and everything in her body buzzed and hummed, urging her to stop him from leaving. It was a strange, alien sensation, and she was human enough to resist the wild call to leap over her counter and grab him. So she remained where she was, and swallowed back a thick lump in her throat.

  “Me too. Take it easy, Astrid.” He shut the door behind him and pulled his hat over his head before disappearing past her windows.

  The weekend couldn’t come fast enough.

  ***

  Nate’s father, a huge bear of a man, greeted him at the door to their meeting house. At six foot five, Daniel Kirkpatrick stood two inches taller than his son and broader in the shoulder from a lifetime of heavyweight lifting while in the Marines. They had few other similarities beyond the color of their green eyes and their freckles, which were more prominent in the younger Kirkpatrick than his biological father.

  Before Nate’s eyes could adjust to the dimmed lighting, Daniel shooed him toward the open central meeting chamber. “Come in. It’s about time you arrived. We’ve all been waiting for you.” The man glanced over his son’s attire. “You look nice in your dress whites.”

  “Sorry. Traffic was hell.” The rare compliment from the old man unnerved him, but he flashed an uncertain smile and allowed his father to herd him into the open space where their monthly meetings took place.

  An enormous table dominated the center of the lodge’s primary room, large enough to sit twenty-five men in a circle. Every man in the order had an assigned seat, his name engraved in the stone. Nate strode past five empty seats to the right of his father before finding the place of Sir Galahad.

  For Nate, it was only a name attached to a life he could no longer recall. Sometimes, he had vague recollections of sitting beside King Arthur, but the fragments of fading memory dissipated like smoke.

  If Arthur currently inhabited a body, he’d occupy the chair to Nate’s right—if their king wasn’t missing. According to the knights with all of their memories, Merlin’s Cycle had excluded him from reincarnation for over a century. No one knew why.

  “Welcome back, brother.” The man across the table flashed a polite, brittle smile. In this life, Sir Bedivere used the name of David Mitchell. He was swarthy-skinned and dark-haired with intense blue eyes.

  “Thanks.”

  The chorus of polite and friendly greetings continued among the small gathering of knights, their ages ranging from a youthful seventeen to a distinguished seventy-two. Of the twenty-five, nineteen lived a current life. Seven were present in person, three were children too young to participate, and the rest joined via video conference.

  According to his father, there hadn’t been so many of them among the living at one time in centuries. Nineteen different men had been born in different parts of the world and drawn together again through the magnetic, magical force binding them. Their ethnicities ran the gamut of fair to deep espresso. They didn’t have the luxury of choosing their bodies.

  Daniel, who sat behind a nameplate inscribed “Sir Kay,” tapped a button on the laptop in front of him. The curved, plasma television dominating one of the walls powered on. “Let’s begin the meeting then, shall we?”

  Astrid’s picture appeared on the screen. Nate had taken the photo himself a week ago, capturing the young woman outside her shop on a breezy afternoon. Her golden hair blew back in the wind, and her dress billowed around her legs. She’d looked beautiful.

  The intruding thought made him squirm in his seat, but no one seemed to notice anything amiss.

  “Did you make contact?” Bedivere asked.

  “I did. I walked the target to her job and convinced her to spend time with me over the weekend.”

  A few heads nodded in acknowledgment.

  “What you’re doing is a brave thing, son. I’m proud of you for enduring this,” Kay said.

  Nate’s brows raised. “That’s funny because I don’t remember anyone giving me an option.”

  His father’s smile faded. “We discussed this and our reasons for selecting you, Nathaniel.” Expressions of approval and pride became solemn and taciturn, neutral during the conflict between father and son. It was a common occurrence between the old and the young, the knights of Nate’s generation too fresh to recall their many past lives and lacking the wisdom of the years.

  “Right. She’s into green eyes and uniforms.” According to their files, her last relationships had been with a firefighter, a police officer, and a Marine. “Why not Lancelot?”

  The knight to his left jerked upright in his seat. “I’m married, bro. You don’t want to know the shitshow we’d all have to put up with if I took this mission. I lea
rned my lesson about adultery centuries ago.”

  “You’re lucky Arthur’s forgiven you,” Nate muttered. Or rather, he had before his disappearance over a century ago.

  The knight formerly known as Lancelot grinned back at him and winked. “Hey, she’s dead and gone. We’re still here with a job to do.”

  Kay nodded in agreement and then leaned forward, spreading his hands in a gesture of defeat. “You two are the only knights of appropriate age and appearance guaranteed to attract the creature. I’m a little too old to be playing the part of the handsome bachelor, or I’d do it myself.”

  “We don’t even know if she’s one of them yet. For all we know, she’s some poor human child adopted into a crap situation,” Nate said. “They’re not like other shapeshifters. We have no proof dragons and humans can interbreed with our kind.”

  Bedivere crossed his arm over his chest. “Do your job and we will.”

  Their desire to know Astrid’s human status would change the way the Knights of Merlin operated forever. Not only would they have to deal with dragons, but also their half-human progeny, who by all appearances seemed normal. How many women could a single male dragon impregnate? How could they identify and eliminate them as well?

  Ever since she’d dropped out of the spotlight six years ago to attend an ivy league, private college, Astrid Drakenstone—now Astrid Ellis—had gone to exquisite lengths to guard her new identity, down to dyeing her hair a dull shade of dishwater blonde while in at the university.

  No respectable journalist had any interest in uncovering hidden supernatural creatures. Unearthing secret identities often met with deadly consequences, as well as jail and immense fines for the snitch.

  Five years ago, President Maximilian Emberthorn had signed into law the Paranormal Beings Right to Privacy Act, guarding all of his hidden friends from unwanted exposure. All attempts to overturn it had failed.

  Their statuses as magical beings were as confidential as their medical data.

  “Look, I’ll do it, but I’m telling you, she’s normal. Another ‘all-American girl next door’ type.” With a glowing personality.

  While Astrid was beautiful, she wasn’t unnaturally flawless. Her eyes were blue, not some terrifying, smoldering shade of green, gold, or liquid silver. Their president’s amber eyes practically gleamed red in the right lighting. But Astrid resembled her human mother. Her human mother who either paid frequent visits to her plastic surgeon or brewed her coffee with water from the fountain of youth.

  “I don’t care what you have to do or how far you have to go. Find out with 100 percent accuracy whether or not she was born from a dragon’s seed,” Kay said.

  “And if she is a dragon’s child? What then?” Nate asked, chilled. Goose bumps raised over the backs of his arms. He had yet to engage a dragon in battle in his new life. Until hanging Astrid in her shop, he’d never been alone with one either.

  “We do what we do best. Slay her and any others sired by the wyrms.”

  Chapter 2

  Days later, when Friday arrived, Astrid was humming with excitement for her date. It wasn’t until she checked her messages that she was reminded of her mother’s cryptic text in the coffee shop.

  Saving herself the long drive west of Los Angeles, she called Aunt Mahasti instead and was swept away on streams of magic into an instantaneous teleportation to the estate.

  A fog scented with jasmine and heady, Middle Eastern oils reinvigorated her senses. They were the same fragrances Mahasti preferred to wear on her skin. Astrid breathed it in and sighed.

  Home sweet home. No matter how much she loved her apartment in San Diego, returning to the manor always renewed old memories of growing up in their eclectic household.

  “Oh, it took you long enough to come visit!” cried a cheerful voice to her rear.

  Astrid spun to see her mother approaching from the direction of the stairs. “Mom, what’s the big deal about this surprise? Didn’t you guys already give me a birthday party?”

  Chloe hugged her. “I know we already gave you a party, but there’s something we forgot to do.”

  Her dad cleared his throat as he emerged from the den.

  “Something I neglected to do,” her mother admitted.

  Although Chloe was in her fifties, she remained forever frozen at the age of Astrid’s birth. Dragon’s blood had proven to be the catalyst to unlocking supernatural potential in her, and carrying Astrid had imbued her with long life. Possibly immortal life.

  “Where’s Brandt?” she asked, looking around for her brother. He almost always greeted her first.

  Saul, her father, hugged her with one arm and chuckled. “He’s with Max. They’ll be over for dinner. But there’s another special guest here to see you.”

  Astrid perked up. “Who?”

  The voice of her beloved uncle reached her seconds later. “Has living in the city dulled your nose, little one?” The door to her father’s den framed the flawless water dragon.

  “Uncle Watatsumi!” With unconcealed delight, she darted across the room and gave the Asian dragon a hug, wrinkling his ornate kimono in the process. He chuckled and enfolded her in his arms, used to her exuberant greetings. “It’s so good to see you again!”

  “You saw me only weeks ago, child.”

  “Several weeks too many,” she pointed out.

  She never tired of visiting him across the ocean.

  “Okay, what’s this all about? You all look so serious.”

  “I have something that belongs to you, Astrid,” her mother began. She pulled a familiar, rectangular case from beneath the couch then opened it to reveal the beautiful weapon within. Nestled against a bed of red velvet laid the most dangerous sword to dragonkind next to Excalibur.

  Ascalon.

  “Mom’s sword?”

  “No, sweetie. Your sword. I’ve been holding it all of this time for you. It was never meant to be mine.”

  All of her life, she’d been given explicit instructions to steer clear of her mother’s sword, and never touch it. She knew the story behind the blade, that it was once used to battle a female dragon named Brigid, but nothing else. The fabled dragonslaying weapon hearkened back to the ancient days when dragons razed the countryside and devoured defenseless villagers.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It is a sword meant for a half-dragon, Astrid,” Watatsumi said. “In the old legends, Saint George slew many dangerous wyrms with this blade, dragons who would have done him and others great harm.”

  “I don’t want a dragon-killing sword,” Astrid said, petrified of it. “Why would you give it to me?” She’d never killed any creature she didn’t intend to eat, and she couldn’t imagine taking the life of one of their kind. She considered herself a dragon and a human. She’d been raised to live in both worlds and couldn’t choose.

  “And I hope you never have to use it, baby, but the truth of the matter is, it belongs to you.” Chloe gave her a reassuring smile.

  Her uncle stepped forward and took the weapon from Chloe. Its ornate sheath was beautiful. In fact, she’d drawn the weapon before in her personal artwork, but still, she had never touched it, never ran her finger over its polished blade or felt the cool metal under her skin. Something about her mother and father’s earnest plea to never touch it had carried with Astrid through her entire life.

  Her hands raised for it, almost of their will despite her trepidation. Her heart hammered, pulse too rapid to count the individual beats.

  “I dreamed of this day many years ago before you were born, Astrid,” Watatsumi said. As he removed the blade from the scabbard and laid it over her spread palms, power radiated through the steel and rushed across her fingers. The metal gleamed, and an otherworldly glow encompassed its length.

  Chloe gasped. “It’s never done that.”

  “Then it’s true,” Saul said. “It was meant for Astrid.”

  She curled her hand around the hilt, the grip so comfortable and natural it was as if it had
been made for her.

  “There’s one more thing I must tell you,” Watatsumi said.

  “What?”

  “There is a great change on the horizon for all of dragonkind. Our futures hang in the balance of uncertainty, and I see two paths before you.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, cradling the blade on one palm. The power surged again, warm and alive. It comforted her.

  “Many of our kind were adamantly against you gaining possession of this weapon. They fear it spells doom for all dragons. That you will bring destruction upon us, and… it could very well come to pass.”

  “What? No! I would never—”

  “However, down your other path lies our salvation.”

  She tried to swallow back the thick lump in her throat, but her mouth was bone dry. “Tell me how to pick the right path.”

  Saul reached over and gave her cold hand a squeeze. “That isn’t how it works, sweetheart.”

  Watatsumi nodded. “I can speak nothing more on the matter, for fear it will change what is destined. Some things must happen, Astrid, or there can be no change for good or for ill. Remember my words when the time comes.”

  Chloe ducked away and returned with another package. She unwrapped it to reveal a dark leather sword belt printed with the silhouette of horses and kittens. “Here. This is for you,” she said.

  “Mom, I can’t exactly wear a sword around.”

  “Nonsense,” Saul said before his mate could respond. “People wear guns to Walmart now.”

  Both Astrid and her mother shot Saul a look; then Chloe continued with what she had planned to say. “I know, but in case you ever need to, you’ll have it.”

  Astrid stared at it. Her parents were insane. “It’s really pretty. Colorful.” All it needed were some bedazzled tiaras, and it would be fit for every girl’s princess costume collection.

  “I thought the kittens were a nice touch,” Watatsumi said.

  Saul beamed with pride. “I thought so as well.”

  Allowing her no chance to protest, Chloe girded their gift around Astrid’s hips. The sword hung from her right side, an ominous weight and reminder of the terrifying destiny awaiting her. They’d always implied something great lay ahead of her in the future.