The Walls of Jericho

Implications

Drake’s POV

I watch Jericho walk down the street in the rain, heading back to her massive house on the hill. Hard, pelting drops smack the top of her umbrella, then run in obscuring rivulets down its arched hide. After what happened in the kitchen, she decided it was best if she left and refused to allow me to drive her home, even though it’s still pouring rain. 

I can’t say I blame her.

I also can’t understand how a man could possibly be with her and leave her alone all the time. Still, saying what I said to her, even if it was true, that was a mistake.

Touching her was a bigger mistake.

Showing her how I feel about her was the one thing I couldn’t do, and I did it. If I wanted to keep her coming around, I had to keep that to myself.

When she’s out of sight, I go back in the house, determined to find a way to correct my egregious error. I can still smell her here. Her scent’s in the air. It’s on my skin. And the taste of both her sweet mouths lingers on my tongue. It’s enough to drive a man mad.

Frustrated, I flop down on the sofa and stare at the huge canvas of Walker Bay over my entertainment center. It’s a beautiful place and I miss it. I miss the whales swimming close to the shore where they come to mate and calve. I miss the great white sharks and the myriad of other aquatic life that abounds since even the humans have the sense to protect the verdant ecosystem that guards the entrance to my home.

I wanted Jericho. Bad. Not just to kiss. Not just to draw those wild screams of pleasure out of her. I wanted all of her, and I know she wanted me too. But I shouldn’t have taken it so far already. It was too soon. She doesn't understand yet who she is. 

For that matter, neither do I really.

When I first saw her on the beach, cowering against the bluff, I was positive she had to be the mage. For as young as she is and with no one to train her, it seemed impossible.

Yet no one else in my fifteen hundred year lifetime of experience has ever diverted a storm except the mage. Or a dragon. But that clan died out long ago.

Which made it even more frustrating that as soon as I pulled her out of the weather, the feel of the magic vanished. But still, I'm drawn to her. Irrestibly. 

That’s when I noticed Jericho’s amber-colored eyes and began to wonder if what I’d stumbled upon inadvertently wasn't the mage at all. 

I think I've stumbled upon my mate.

**

“I hope you put on sunscreen, because I’m not shopping for a new wardrobe for you if you wind up with ugly tan lines.”

I recognize the light click-click of Rebecca’s heels on the entertainment deck, but leave my eyes closed and ignore her. I hope she takes the hint and goes away, but obviously the way this week’s kicked off, I can’t be that lucky.

First, there was that mess with Drake on Monday. I’m still trying to reconcile myself to the fact that I’m a horrible person, both for leading him on and for where it wound up and what that would do to Channing if he ever found out. Which I seriously hope he doesn’t.

Then, Mr. Adriani’s been particularly kooky ever since I got home after the Drake debacle, plus argumentative and even a little hostile.

Damien’s thinktank in Dublin had another tracker container failure, so Channing’s been in a foul mood and he’s not even home yet.

And now here’s Rebecca.

Fantastic.

I hear the creak and groan of the lounger beside me as she takes a seat. Inhaling deeply, I sigh. “Whatever this is, do we have to do it now? I’ve only been out here a few minutes. I’d like to relax a little.”

“Oh, sure,” she replies. “Take your time.”

I can tell by the sound of her voice that A) this conversation isn’t over, and B) I’m about to get a snarky reply. With another deep sigh I let out through pursed lips, I drag myself to a sitting position  and fix her with a bland gaze.

“Don’t be an i***t,” she says before I can speak.” Do you really think I’d have come to talk to you if it wasn’t something serious?”

“Well then, by all means, do carry on.”

Oblivious of my sarcasm, Rebecca sits forward on the edge of the lounger eagerly. “I found four separate texts that mention the oracle and the mage.” She pauses, actually beaming a smile, and I stare at her waiting to continue. With an indignant huff, she says, “Don’t you get it? We’ve been taught for centuries that they were the same person! I think it’s a misinterpretation of the ancient texts.”

God, I’m really not in the mood for this, but I put her up to it. I also demanded she share the knowledge immediately when she found it, so I’ve obligated myself to listen, even if I don’t care anymore because right now I’m busy throwing my own pity party. “Alright. What’s the distinction?”

“Each text describes them has having similar abilities. They both have the ability to see the past and future by various means—augury, visions in smoke or water, dreams or other means of divination. But only the oracle can divine the mate of a dragon. Every reference to the person determining the mates of dragons refers to them by the name ‘oracle’. There are separate references referring to the mage, but not in the context of matching dragon pairs.”

“If they can both see the past and the future, then why could one identify dragon mates and not the other? That doesn’t make sense, Rebecca.”

“I don’t have an answer to that because I don’t think anyone’s ever considered it.”

“Oh, I see. So you’re smarter than all the rest of the scholars that have come before you?”

Rebecca fixes me with a scathing stare. “What we assume we know about the past is often very different from the reality. Scholars are the specialists in a given branch of knowledge. Historians shape history, Jericho. But as they record it, they color it with their own perspectives instead of surmising what’s fact based on all the prevailing circumstances. Have some humility about that.”

Her attitude of superiority is getting on my nerves. I sit up and stare daggers right back at her. “It’s not about humility. It’s about those facts you keep flinging around so flippantly. You keep talking generalities. If the oracle and the mage are said to have the same abilities, then it’s reasonable to surmise they’re the same individual or at least capable of performing the same job.”

“Oh,” she sighed, closing her icy cold eyes. “There’ve been countless errors over the course of history. Translational errors. Deliberate misrepresentations for political reasons. Interpretational errors based on prevailing thinking at the time and not consideration and evaluation of the historical period. I think this is one of those.”

“Okay, great,” I reply snidely, tired of entertaining her. “Why?”

“Because all four texts state the oracle determines the mates of dragons, and all four text state that the mage has the ability to manipulate natural forces, like you,” she finally explains. “Each reference to the mage is in that capacity, not in the capacity of dragon mate selection. Ever.”

“I can’t—,” I shake my head, though not in denial, but in confusion, “— manipulate natural forces.”

Or can I? Hadn’t even Channing said no one can gauge the extent of my abilities? What does it mean that I can flow with electricity and data signals? What does it mean that I can visualize nerve impulses and internal body structures like an MRI? What does it mean that all my life I’ve dreamt my past as Mia in waking dreams and vague memories, and knew the dragon hadn’t taken the correct mate?

“You sure about that?” Rebecca challenges.

Well, frankly, no. No, I'm not.

“We have the biased tendency to think of ‘natural’ forces as acts of nature—earthquakes, storms, winds, that type of thing. But electromagnetic forces are also natural. Nuclear forces are natural. Gravity and friction are natural forces.”

Oh, God. She’s right. And nuclear forces? What the hell am I capable of if I can harness powers like the sun to do my bidding?

Rebecca has to be wrong. Or does she? Isn’t this assuming the same arrogant rationalizing she was just talking about? Still, I struggle to wrap my head around the concept.

“But—the dragons. They live thousands of years. How would they have it wrong?” I stare at the sunlight, shimmering in the fountain-created ripples in the pool.

In my periphery, I see her shrug. “The same reason we do. They’d already decimated their own population to the point of extinction and had to find mates among the werewolf population. When that happens, the knowledge and understanding of such a civilization are lost. Then when they were discovered in violation of their treaty, Avernus hunted them to the point where only this one is left.”

One.

One dragon left.

The last of his kind.

Desperate. Alone. Lonely. And every chance he’s had to find a mate, probably in the last five hundred years, it’s been taken from him.

Images shimmer in the water. My face—Mia’s face—in the mirror. Pale blue eyes made misty, almost milky with soft gray and staring back at me from the face of a still-young woman, yet older than I am now.

When I’d come west to Crossroads, the dragon had chased after, and Avernus had tracked him. I’d know I was being followed. With something like a dragon trailing you, the natural supposition is that you’re being hunted.

Yet, leaders are also followed.  

“Let’s say that you’re right. About all of it. A separate mage and oracle.” I look up at Rebecca. “Why would I lead him here? Why would I lead the dragon? Why would he follow?”

Her eyes narrow. “It just happened, didn’t it? You saw something—when you were gazing at the water.”

I nod, then reiterate my question. “Why would he follow?”

“If he thought you were the oracle, what else could he do?”

“But if the dragon’s wrong, if we're all wrong and I’m not the oracle, then who is?” Closing my eyes against a rising headache, I massage my forehead with my fingertips. “If we’re all here—the dragon, the last dragon-compatible bloodline, the mage and Avernus—doesn’t that imply that the oracle must be here too?”

“Which implies that your job is to connect all the pieces.”

Oh hell. This week just keeps getting better and better.