Free Amethyst Bound by L. Shannon Page A

look for anything useful, even though I knew there was nothing here. Nothing but weather-battered walls, a cracked door and dirt floor. Now that I had Davis safe, I knew he’d want to sort out our problems and I wasn’t all that sure I was up to rehashing it all. Everything we had was on the line, and if I couldn’t trust him, it was as good as worthless.
    Amethyst whispered, “He did not leave.”
    “This time. What about next time?” She didn’t answer me. There was no answer to that question. I wanted to trust him, but how could I? He was male and every male I’d ever known had let me down or worse.
    “Toni? If you don’t have any supplies here, we’ll need to see about getting some at the nearest town.” He hesitated in the doorway. After a second a flashlight L. Shannon
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    clicked on and glided around the small room.
    Leaning against the wall, I’d rested my arms and head on my up-drawn legs. I was probably flashing him good with his shirt riding up. I thought he might come over to me, to touch me like a lover or offer some kind of comfort, but he only stood in the doorway looking around with an odd quizzical look on his face. The light danced back and forth once more. “Toni? Where are you?” I jerked. My blending had faded me away, hiding me, or rather letting me hide from something I really didn’t want to deal with. I forced myself back into sight. “I’m here.”
    His eyes rounded. “What…? How…?” He shook his head. “You were invisible.” I was about to explain but he dragged a small notepad out his pants pocket and started madly scribbling notes. All the while he mumbled around the flashlight that he held with his mouth, “Should’ve known. How else could they… Invisible! That’s why…
    Such an idiot. Why didn’t I think of that?” I considered letting him run on, but knowing how much the study of dragons meant to him would have made it just mean. “Davis, it’s me.” He didn’t even look up.
    “Davis, stop it. It’s me, not Amethyst. She didn’t go invisible.”
    “What?” Still his pencil raced over the pad.
    I stood and crossed over until I stood right in front of him. Catching his pencil, I snatched it from his hand. “I said, it wasn’t Amethyst. What you saw was me, not her.” He took the light from his mouth and switched it off.
    “Oh.”
    The disappointment in his face stung. The dragon thrilled and impressed him, but boring human me couldn’t 68
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    get more than “oh.”
    “You can go invisible? You could before you became a dragon?”
    I nodded, ready to let it drop before he did anything else to tick me off. I turned away.
    He caught my arm, preventing my retreat. “How? How is it possible? How do you control it? You are human, right?” He shook his head. “Of course you are. Aren’t you?”
    “Yeah, far as I know I’m human through and through.”
    “But you can become invisible.” He was the first one I’d ever told about blending, but now that he knew, I wanted him to know it all. “I call it blending. I don’t really go invisible, just blend in so people can’t easily see me. If there’d been more light, I’m sure I’d have been at least partially visible.”
    “Whatever you call it, you do it very well. Even though I saw you come in here, I would have sworn the room was empty.” His hand moved up and down my arm, sliding the shirt sleeve against my skin. “Why were you blending? Were you hiding from me?” Yeah, I sort of had been, but not on purpose and I wasn’t about to tell him that. “I can’t always control it very well. Sometimes stress makes me blend when I don’t mean to.” That was truth enough.
    “This has been a lot to deal with, hasn’t it?” He tugged just a little, pulling me close enough to wrap his arms around me. The embrace wasn’t tight or sexual. It was comforting, something I was definitely not used to. “I wish I could do more. You shouldn’t have to be the strong one all the