Jackson: House of Wilkshire ― Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance, page 5
“Nay, my lord. She only tolerates me to help her around the kitchen. If I were a dragon or annoying in anyway, I think I should find myself locked in the freezer and never found until I was a popsicle.”
Jackson laughed, then sobered up when a plate of food was set in front of him. It was visually beautiful, too pretty to want to cut into. Jackson had to admit that eating food like this could make him a very happy man.
The mashed potatoes were baked with slivers of parsley in them. They resembled small macaroons, cookies that he didn’t care for. The chicken beneath it was tender and smothered in fresh vegetables and gravy. Picking up his fork, he moaned at the first bite. Jackson was wrong. Eating like this could make him extremely happy, and a contented man.
Chapter 4
Nicole had been building up for this night for two weeks, a different dish for each of the people that had wanted to be her taste testers. Not that she didn’t have one of those already. Jackson had been at the table waiting on food every night since she’d met him. After the first night, he’d been bringing flowers, a huge bouquet of them, to the faeries that waited on him. For her, he kept his mouth shut.
There were going to be nine tonight, men that she’d only met briefly; Devon and his wife, Noah, and the witch. Aurora had been invited as well, but no one was sure if she was going to make it or not. It didn’t matter to Nicole. She had enough food to feed the people thrice over and still have left overs. One thing that she’d learned with Jackson sitting in the kitchen—dragons could put the food away.
The first course was soup. It was pureed pumpkin served with toasted pumpkin seeds and a hard crusty bread. She’d tasted it for the first time when she’d been in France. It had been served to her in a small mom and pop place, where they told her how sorry they were that it wasn’t much. To her it had been an awakening of her taste buds.
“They loved it, my lady.” Nicole nodded at her assistant, Bloom, as she helped put the salads together. “Shall I take out the dressings?”
“Yes, please. And be careful of the croutons, Bloom. They’re very warm yet.” The salads, a mixture of wild violets and greens, were carried out by the faeries. To her it was just the right amount of green with the violet and orange colors. When they were all made up, she told them to take them out.
The next course was going to be the main courses that she’d figured out she could make in large quantities, and not mess with the flavor nor the setting on the plate. She had decided that the never-ending plates was about the best idea anyone had ever come up with, and told Bloom that daily. As she dished up each of the ten different meals, she told the faeries what was on each plate so that they could tell the person they set it in front of.
“I’m very glad that you told us to put extra forks and spoons on the table, my lady. Even before the other meals arrived, they were passing around the plates like they knew to share.” Bloom had been a good source of information on a great many things. But the dinners going out, that had been the best good news she’d had in a while. “While they are sharing, my lady, can I ask if you ever get the dragon that was bothering you to stop? I shall tell Lord Devon if you didn’t.”
“He’s no longer a threat.” He was still around, and a painful reminder of the shit that she had to put up with all the time. Wiping down the plate that had grilled salmon and grilled vegetables on it, she spoke again. “I don’t need you telling his lordship anything, Bloom. If I can’t handle it, then I’ll call on him.”
“You won’t, but I thank you for telling me that.” Bloom was much too smart at times. She could read her like a book, and there had been times when Nicole thought that the little faerie could feel that she wasn’t well. “You should have a rest, my lady. It will be a little while before they are ready for dessert.”
“If I sit, then I’m done.” Which was only partly true. If she sat down, even for a moment, she’d be out cold. Her body was only running on about half her energy levels. Any more stress added to her day and she’d have to go to bed for a long time. “I’ll get it all sliced up. Do you have the flowers ready?”
“I will get them now. I have done as you asked and have been asking the staff to help me. It is advice I think you should take on for yourself.” Nicole told her she was fine. “No, my lady, you are not fine. But I will return with the flowers now.”
The individual cakes were small, about the size of a couple of slices. She had made them sharable too, but she didn’t think they were going to be enough. So in order to make sure that everyone got a piece, there were ten cakes of each of the ten different kinds. The coconut cake was decorated in flowers. The others, an assortment of both pies and cakes, were still warm from the warming oven.
As the trolley was pushed out into the dining area, Nicole started to clean up her mess. There wasn’t much, as the others had been cleaning up after her as she went. But once she was done for the night, she would always have something held back for the faeries to enjoy. Mostly it was fresh fruit, but tonight she’d been working on a couple of things just for them.
Nicole had been working on flavored cubes of sugar for them. She knew that you could buy them at the market, but after reading the ingredients, she knew that it wasn’t going to be good enough for them. The sugar was cane sugar and real fresh fruit. It was even good in hot tea, she’d discovered.
After getting everything ready for them to have, she went to her office and looked around. There was so much to do in here, she wondered if she’d ever catch up. Putting things aside—like inventory sheets, bills of lading, as well as receipts for things that she had to buy on her own—Nicole decided that she’d tackle them tomorrow. Right now, all she wanted was her bed after a long shower.
Coming out of her office, she was startled to see everyone in her kitchen. “What is it?” Bryce moved first, backing Nicole up until she was flush with the door.
“Don’t touch me.”
“I wasn’t going to, Nicole. I came to tell you that we very much enjoyed the dinner. The rest of us wanted to tell you that as well.” She nodded. “If you’d like to know our favorites, I can tell you that anything we were eating at the time, that was it. And the cherry pie was outstanding. I can only brag about—”
“What’s this?” Connor picked up the large platter that she’d put the food on for the faeries. He had just put the strawberry cube of sugar in his mouth when Nicole told him to back off. “Holy shit. Can I have some hot tea to go with these? I’m sure that I could drink a pot of it all by myself.”
“They’re for the workers, you moron. Leave that stuff alone.” She jerked the platter from him. The moment that their fingers touched, Nicole screamed and dropped the plate.
“He hurt you. That dragon that bit you, he hurt you badly. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I am.” He knelt before her, picking up the shattered platter and putting the other things on a different plate. “I knew there was something about you the first time I saw you. You can tell pain from a dragon, can’t you? I would imagine that you know just how to kill us too. Using nothing more than what you have on hand.”
“He bit me.” Connor handed her the new plate, but was careful not to touch her. “You’re not like the others, are you? You’re not...I don’t know what it is about you, but you’re unlike the others.”
“Yes, I’m a twin. And by that, I’m a twin of the same egg. My sister and I, we share everything. Including pain and happiness.” Connor turned to look at Matthew. “Can you tell me what you feel when you touch him? Or any of the others.”
“I don’t want to.” He said that was fine, but stayed where he was. “If you’re finished with your meals, I’d very much like to be left alone. I have plenty of work to keep me busy, and I’m sure you have things to do too.”
“I can feel your pain too, Nicole. And what has been done to you.” She stared at Connor. “You’re not well even now, are you? The dragon from today, he hurt you badly.”
“Stop.”
Devon came toward her, but it was Jackson that came to her first. Nicole backed from him just before he touched her skin with his fingers. It was too much. On top of the pain she was in, the exhaustion that was with her at all times, Nicole didn’t even try to fight off the darkness. She let it swallow her up as if she were going to bed for the first time since she’d been bitten.
~*~
The room that she’d been living in was covered in her blood. The furniture that she’d been assured was nice when she’d been given the place was destroyed. The window, how the dragon had entered her home, had been broken inward, and there were glass shards all over the place, most of them covered in blood, both the dragon’s and Nicole’s. And there were several parts of dragon that had yet to dissolve into magic. He noticed too, in a vague way, that she’d not taken anything from the body to sell off for cash.
“You’ll have to do something, Jackson. If you don’t, I think she will die.” Jackson looked at Connor and told him to shut up. “I’m only trying to help. But she’s been bitten by a lot of dragons over the last few days. She’s killed them all, too.”
“How?” He needed something to occupy his mind. “Never mind. She cannot stay here. They’re going to enter again, and that will get someone other than her hurt. Where can I take her? Someplace that will be safe.”
“The cave.” Jackson looked at Noah’s parents. “Take her to the cave and she’ll be safe there. No one can enter that has any intentions of harming her. If you take her there, the faeries will follow and will keep you both fed and safe. Go, now, before they smell her weakness.”
He went to the back of the restaurant. Jackson became aware of several things at once. There was an herb garden back there that he was sure that Nicole had put in, and a drying shed to keep them in. Also, there were hundreds of faeries.
“I’m to take her to the cave. Who wishes to follow? But I also need someone to take care of the dead. There are several in her rooms above the place.” Several dozen volunteered to stay behind with the promise to follow. Laying her in the cool grass, Jackson became his dragon and picked her up carefully in his claws. Take care that no one follows you when you come to see us. I don’t want any of you hurt either. But she is my mate, and needs me a great deal now.
“Hurry. We will bring herbs and other plants to help with her sleep. She will be in much pain before she will be able to mend.” He asked Bloom if she knew how many times she’d been bitten. “Too many to count, my lord. So many have bitten her before she came to be with us. Too many for us to have been able to stop. We could not tell the king, either. She forbade us to do so.”
You may come to me. He took to the skies following Bloom as she led them to the big mountain. Jackson knew of the cave, of course, but not where the entrance was. All he knew was that there was a great opening in the mountain that kept the little town safe.
Entering the cave, he felt the magic tighten around him before he was allowed inside it. Jackson looked around for a place to put Nicole, but didn’t see anything soft enough for her. Bloom took care of that while he shifted back, and he put her on the four poster bed in the corner.
There was a fireplace, as well as rooms where he could cut himself off from the riches inside his new home. Covering her up as best he could, he asked Bloom if she would mind helping him.
“I have to undress her to see her wounds. But I’m fearful that she’ll wake and think I’m trying to do her great harm.” She assured him that she was in a deep sleep and wouldn’t wake up. “You did this for her?”
“I have been helping her with the pain too, my lord. When she told us she was fine, I made sure that she was.” She grinned at him. “I don’t think she understands the meaning of that word like I do. Being fine means that you are well. Lady Nicole is far from being fine at all, I think.”
“You’re right. The others are to bring me herbs that I can use to help her. If you would be so kind as to tell me what—” She was shaking her head. “Then how can I heal her if I don’t know the herbs that she needs?”
“You only need to lie with her, my lord. I don’t mean to claim her, but only to touch her, perhaps take care of the worst wounds with your mouth. She is beyond caring what is done to her now. I fear that she will not know what to do without the pain of it all.” He asked if he had to be naked with her. “It would help. As much skin to skin contact as she can get from her mate is all that she needs to heal. But be careful of her, sir. She might be strong to see, but she is like a broken flower, too far gone to be assured that everyone isn’t out to harm her.”
Stripping her down, he looked over each of her wounds, knowing what dragon had bitten her as well as what sort of poison he’d left behind when he had. Asking Bloom what they thought of her being human when they found the source of her scent, Bloom said that it hadn’t mattered.
“They only smelled the heat of her. Nothing more. By the time they found her, it was too late for them to change their mind. But she has killed them all, Lord Jackson. As if they were nothing more than flies on her wall.” Jackson said that he’d found that out too. “The others, the other faeries, are using the leftovers of the dead to make magic for her. She will need it in the coming days, I think.”
“If you don’t have what you need, tell me. I’m sure that with this many full grown dragons around, someone can find it.” She said that she would keep that in mind.
It took him several hours to inspect each wound—there were a great many of them. Some of them as wide as if his mouth had been the one that had bitten her, to smaller bites from the gray dragons that were no bigger than a large cat. All of them were slightly infected, but as a whole, they were deadly to the young human.
The ones that she had on her leg, the worst of them all, were bad. He did worry for a time that he couldn’t heal them. But when he leaned over her, kissing every inch of the wounds, they began to heal quickly. Jackson had no idea what to do about the claw marks that went from her neck to her buttocks.
“We shall fill them with herbs to draw out the poison. It has seeped into her blood and bones. I know not what to do about that.” He asked if there was a book that he could look these things up in. “Yes, lord. The grand witch is looking for spells as well. I know that if anyone can find it, it will be her.
Jackson was exhausted by the time the wounds at her back were packed with herbs and wine. He could barely hold his eyes open when he realized that the sun was coming up. Pulling Nicole into his arms, he nearly pushed her away when he realized that she was hotter than he was as his dragon. He needed to hold her to make her well.
Touching her this way he could see her nightmares. Feel her pain and terror as she was hurt. Each time, he wanted to go and find the dragon that had hurt what was his and destroy them. Then he would remember that she’d already taken care of them. She had saved herself—not for him, he knew, but Jackson decided that was what he was going to say if anyone asked.
~*~
Bryce looked over the several spell books that she’d been given when she’d killed Black. Today there was a need, and she was beyond worried about young Nicole. Bryce should have done something earlier, not when she was nearing her deathbed.
“I found something in your dad’s book of spells. I don’t know if it will work or not. It’s pretty far out there.” She looked at her grandmother and asked her what sort of spell it was. “You’re to take parts of all the dragons that are willing to give her a part of themselves and bathe her in it. I’m not sure what that is—magic, perhaps—but it says here in the notes that it differs with each of the recipients.”
“Differs how? Like she could be a worm or a tree? Dad had the strangest sense of writing things down when he was in a hurry. I found one of his notes that said that if the brew tasted bad, then it was working. That is not helpful.” They laughed. Dad, her father, had been the greatest warlock ever born, and he had left her too soon. “Does it tell me how I’m supposed to take these parts of them?”
“It does, but that too is a little vague. You are to go to the king of dragons if you can find him, and ask him for a part of himself. That will be a great gift to the bitten human.” Grandma looked at her. “He knew that this might happen someday. I know that your dad had the gift of sight in some things, but this— Do you suppose he knew about Nicole and Jackson?”
“I haven’t any reason not to believe that he did know that they’d need this. However, he could have been just a little more detailed about what we needed to do.”
She summoned the family of dragons to her. She and Devon were the only two beings in the world that could do that. After explaining what she needed from each of them, Lady Susanna knew what the answer was.
“We must each give her a scale. A belly scale will be the strongest. One that will be able to be brewed into a tea, then when cooled off, be poured over her entire body.” Bryce asked about the different things for different humans. “I’ve only ever seen this done once, long ago. They poured the tea over the young boy, and he did well for a long while. But in those times there were more ways to kill a human than there are now. The only thing that he got from it was the ability to jump higher than any other human. That, sadly, made him into something that they feared.”
“Stupid people.” Bryce agreed with Benshaw. “I will take care that the tea is brewed, my lady, and make sure that there is plenty enough for her to be covered in. Also, the faeries that are with her and Lord Jackson will be better served if she is laid in a deep tub. That way she can soak in it should she need to.”
“Excellent. Now all I have to do is figure out how to brew dragon’s scales.” It took them several hours to get it to the point where they thought it might work. Instead of just using one of Devon’s scales, they used several. More, they all thought, could not hurt. Then Bryce thought of something. “What about Jackson’s scale? Should someone go and get a few to add to it?”
“Yes, he is a great dragon. A red diamond, I believe. Very rare in any circle, I guess.” No one moved when Grandma spoke. She looked around. “What? Did I get it wrong?”
