Dragon Storm by Bianca D'Arc Page B

had stayed with him until she was eighteen.
    She would have stayed longer, but he’d tried to force her to marry. There was nothing wrong with the guy. Her inner cat had been the one to object. He was not her mate. She didn’t want him.
    When her grandfather had tried to force the issue, she’d left. She had never looked back and in the years since, she hadn’t heard from her family. She’d been careful to hide her tracks so even if he wanted, her grandfather would have a tough time finding her.
    She lay listening to the rain as her thoughts wandered to what had been and could have been. If she hadn’t forged her own path, she probably never would have met Darius and Connor. They were her mates. The cat knew them immediately. This was her destiny—lying here between them.
    Buddhists believed you made your own fate. Josie believed she’d made her own decisions that had brought her to this destiny. A Western girl with Eastern ideas, she found her grandfather’s beliefs meshing more and more with her own as she grew older. She was only half Tibetan, but all snowcat and the cat dictated a lot of what she’d come to understand about the world and its people.
    Josie fell back asleep, cradled between her two mates, secure in the knowledge that she’d found her destiny with them. Where it would take her, only heaven knew.
     
    When she woke again, the twins were gone from her bed. A quick sniff told her they’d found the kitchen and were in the process of burning bacon, if she wasn’t mistaken. Josie found a robe and headed out to avert a fire. Any second now, the smoke detector would start blaring.
    When she hit the main room of the cabin, she was amazed to see one of the twins kneeling before her fireplace, the handle of her iron skillet in his hands. He was cooking the bacon in the skillet, over a fire.
    “You got something against stoves?” she asked, reaching for the skillet.
    “Whoa there.” He moved the hot pan away from her grasp. Good thing too. She realized her mistake a second later. The handle was hotter than she could safely handle. She would’ve burned herself badly if he hadn’t pulled away.
    “How can you hold that?”
    Darius grinned at her. “I’m half dragon, sweetheart. Even in my human form, some things carry over.”
    “Wow. That must be handy.” She looked around the small cabin. There was no sign of the other twin. “Where’s Connor?”
    “Outside, gathering wood to replace what I used. We didn’t want to deplete your supply.”
    “That’s sweet, but not necessary. Why didn’t you use the stove?”
    Darius looked confused. “I didn’t see a stove.”
    “Bring that skillet and follow me.” Josie stood from her crouching position next to him and headed for the small kitchen. She flipped the switch on the gas burner, and the flame ignited. Darius took a step back, his eyes wide. “You’ve never seen a gas stove before?”
    “No. We don’t have anything that looks like this where we come from. What fuel is used?”
    “Natural gas. Did you see that big metal tank outside the house? The gas man comes every few months and refills it for me. I also have a few solar panels on the roof to help capture the heat from the sun.”
    “Ingenious. Con, you’ve got to see this.”
    The other twin had reentered the cabin without Josie hearing him. One thing was certain, these dragons moved like the wind. Even her sharp snowcat senses couldn’t detect their movements.
    She spent a few minutes explaining how the stove worked. Then a few more, picking up where Darius had left off with the bacon. She grabbed a half dozen eggs from her small refrigerator and put slices of bread in the toaster. Each time she used a new appliance, she was obligated to explain its workings to the men. They were full of questions and made comments she found hard to understand.
    It didn’t sound like they were from another country. It sounded like they were from another planet.
    Or maybe another time. Medieval