"A friend of my mother's, apparently," I said, tapping the book then replacing everything in the bag.
I felt the spell kick into gear. It was a bit like someone flashing a laser light pointer at my forehead. You don't quite understand what you're feeling but you're aware of something being there all the same. It's almost like you can sense the vibration of the light. I mean, I don't think you can.
But I didn't think dragons were real, either.
I concentrated and felt way toward that inviting sensation. Suddenly, it was as if someone had drawn a line between her mind and mine. We linked up and I simply knew how to get to her place.
Eskal rubbed his cheek against me as the sun poured into the cave. I patted his head and got up, pulling my clothes on from last night. "Will the crows make us leave or do they take a little while to get going in the morning like normal animals do?"
"We have, perhaps, an hour before they come down to peck at us while one flees to tell the others that we have not yet left. It is an annoyance, but what can you do?" he shrugged.
He spent the next few minutes waking his flight mates. I tucked the whelp securely in my pocket, the baby fast asleep for the time being, and looked at the eggs. I only hoped that where I was taking us understood the eggs weren't for sale.
I was pretty sure this was the person who had sold my mother a dragon egg in the first place.
The dragons shapeshifted once again. I was becoming somewhat used to it, though I couldn't imagine a time where their shift wouldn't startle me a little bit. Everything cracked and rolled and popped so loud that I thought it couldn't be comfortable, but maybe it was just something that they got used to after all those years.
"Does all of that hurt?" I asked, piling the eggs onto Iyadre's back. I'd seen Eskal flinch when he turned his head. He didn't need me on top of him, too.
My new mate blinked at me, surprised. "The shapeshifting? Never. Whelps, sometimes, cry about it but we've done it for so many years that it's hardly thought of. Most of the wolves say it's strange at first. Maybe we're simply more magical than they are."
He said it in such a smug way. I rolled my eyes at him and smiled. He grinned at me and lowered his wing so I could climb on.
"Not me?" Eskal asked. He tried to hide his disappointment but it was so evident in his voice that I couldn't ignore it.
I nudged Iyadre over to him and ran a hand over his neck. "You're sore. I saw it when you looked away from me. From the fight last night?"
"I will have you know that I'm not so sore as to be unable to carry you, should you so desire it."
All I could do was stroke him and hope I wasn't offending some little-known dragon culture rule. Maybe the human was always supposed to ride the biggest, baddest alpha dragon of the flight, but I wasn't going to strain him. "We have a 5- or 6-hour flight. You don't need to worry about me."
He grumbled, nestled my hand, and leapt into the sky once again. Vadriq and Nariti followed him. Iyadre's head craned back to look at me. "Are you ready?"
"You know, that's the first time anyone's asked me that," I said, then patted his shoulder. "I think I'm getting the hang of this. Let's go."
And up we went. Iyadre was an easy dragon to ride compared to Vadriq and Eskal. Though the others were already long in the clouds, he took his time ascending so I could get used to the chill. The blanket around my shoulders did little to stop my lungs from regretting every breath I took, but we had no vehicle and we had no manner in which to get one.
Besides, there was something cool about flying that I couldn't get anywhere else. It was almost like using a glider to slowly descend down a mountain. How many books and stories had I heard about girls getting flying horses and riding them everywhere while they conquered evil and tried to look good doing it?
I didn't need some pretty pony to take me to the sky; I had dragons.
The flight was quiet. We stayed above the clouds until I felt as if I was going to freeze to death. The whelp in my pocket never noticed, though I made certain that he was kept close to my body heat as much as I could. We began the descent and I wrapped the blanket, and my arms, around the eggs to try to keep them from falling off.
It wasn't going to happen. Iyadre had the same alpha spikes along his back, keeping anything within them mostly safe.
The forest was incredibly silent when the flight touched down. Then she appeared.
I wasn't interested in women, but she made me pause to question that. She was the most perfect person I'd ever seen. The old Renaissance masters couldn't have created a more beautiful work of art. With full, dark lips, snapping blue eyes, and skin the color of a fall sunset, she approached us in a mauve dress that clung so tightly to her curves yet fell away at the elbows.
Everything about her spoke of sin and sex, of the mysterious dark side of the moon, and I bristled. If my dragons took one look at her I was going to-
But none of them were. I realized their eyes were trained on me, Iyadre giving me a concerned look. I must have tensed against his back and his concern drew that of the others.
"Olivia, sweet, come off of that dragon and have a word with me," the woman ordered.
She reached for me and I took her hand, sliding off of Iyadre's wing. She smiled at me, perfectly white teeth a little too pointed to be human.
I hadn't even seen the wings from up above. A double pair of dragonfly-like wings protruded from her back, falling like a cape over her back. She kept them loose, relaxed, and chuckled when I noticed. I yanked my hand away like I'd been burnt. "Oh fuck, you're a faerie."
"Did you think I would be something else? Perhaps another dragon for you to claim?" she asked, the smile still present on her face.
My heart hammered my ribs. The fae were tricky supernatural creatures, though I could faintly remember leaving them milk and honey, maybe a little bread, when I was a child. I shivered and wiped my palm on my clothing over and over again. "What is this going to cost me?"
"Naught."
"What?"
The fae shook her head, making her mane of henna-colored hair dance along with the belled sleeves. "I ran up a considerable debt with your mother. You are owed this and a great deal more. Safe passage, safe hiding, it is well within my power to give it. No cost necessary, so long as you are willing to accept the debts I owed her."
"Yes, absolutely," I said, immediately. "We need a place to hide. The human law is after us, trying to find a way in which to capture me again; and maybe them, too."
She flashed her smile again. "I am well aware of the trouble you are in. I apologize for my earlier tone. I had thought you were another human attempting to sell me insurance."
"You know, that's something we've never tried," Iyadre muttered behind me. "We would be excellent in insurance and I imagine the money take from it is exceptional."
Eskal grumbled. "Yet when you are forced to pay it out, the tragedy strikes and you are left with less than you had. Why would I be interested in a gamble, especially one in which I may lose multiple times?"
I flapped my hand at them to try to get them to stop. The fae laughed. "Dragons care little for anything other than adding to their treasures, Olivia." She cleared her throat and stood a bit straighter, taking on the air of someone trying to become a bit more professional. "I, Nerida Finn, ruler of the Blackstalk Fae, offer you residence in this forest for so long as you require it. You are welcome to share in the fruits of our labor as you must. One would assume you prefer the dragons to stay with you?"
"If that lies within the rules of your um. Queendom?" I said, hesitantly.
Apparently, Mom's address book was more dangerous than I'd thought. No one toyed with fae royalty. They'd rip your heart out in minutes; or so the stories said. One bad deal was enough to drive them off of a single person forever and, though she'd said that she was indebted to my mother, I somehow doubted that it was enough to keep her from trying to pull the rug out from under us.
But what choice did we have? Both the human and supernatur
al communities wanted us gone; one behind bars, the other simply not around anymore. There were other phone numbers in the book, but the rest had tiny red x marks next to them. And if Mom considered a fae queen safe and not the others, did I really want to reach out to them and take a chance?
Queen Nerida bowed her head at me and lifted her hands, clapping them twice. From the shadows of the forest came eyes, haunting and animalistic. I took a step back toward the dragons, even as Eskal rested his head against me, trying to be a comfort.
Bears, lumbering beasts with human eyes, plodded into the clearing. I assumed they were shifters immediately; how many different sorts were there? I'd only really been aware of werewolves and werecats, but now bears? A cub meandered to me and snuffled my blanket, then shoved its head in to see about my legs. I pulled back, gently turning away. You don't get mean about a bear that weighs more than you do.
"If you would be so kind as to guide them to site 17, Aberdeen?" Queen Nerida asked, though it didn't sound like much of a question.
A massive, greying bear gave her a curious look but nodded. He groaned at us, then turned and headed back into the woods. Trying to look like I was doing, I lifted my chin and followed the animals that science had disproved the existence of.
The cub rubbed its head against my pocket and I heard a sharp squeak from inside. I pulled the whelp out and it raced up my arm, landing on my shoulder, and chattering down at the cub like an angry bird.
"Shhh, I think it was trying to be friends," I said, rubbing the little monster's noggin with a finger.
It didn't help much, but the whelp eventually calmed down. The walk was peaceful enough, with a number of pixies shooting around over our heads and throughout the forest. How could we be so blind? Where was the evidence to support these creatures and how were they hiding it so well?
A thought struck me. "Eskal, are there members of the supernatural community that pay off places like the museum so you can all live like this?"
"Typically not. We are simply better at hiding such lives than humans realize. They do not want the world to have bits that they do not understand. In past times, they only believed in us because they were terrified of us. Now? With all due respect, Olivia, they believe what they may touch and see. They hunt not for a truth that is larger and more powerful than they are."
I opened my mouth to say something smart, then sighed. People did tend to follow the most easily realized form of thought. If it barked like a dog, walked like a dog, etc., it was obviously a dog.
But as I watched the bears come up to a vast, wide clearing that was marked 'Site 17', I thought we might need to start digging a little deeper.
Chapter 19
Olivia
The cub offered my bag to me as we settled in the mouth of a cave almost the size of the one we'd been forced to vacate. I smiled down at him? her? and took it. "Thank you."
Its eyes lit and off it lumbered, back to the large, greying animal that seemed to be in deep conversation with Eskal. Well, they certainly had their heads together. I assumed there was some sort of telepathy going on between the shifters, which seemed to be a good idea to me. How would animals like crows talk to shifters like these bears if they were transformed? Surely, they wouldn't have a common language other than what we spoke as humans?
I looked away from them and went back to unpacking. Though it wasn't as if we had any sort of racks to hang clothes on or any such a thing, at least we had a roof over our heads and the promise of safety through the fae queen, whom I hoped wouldn't dump us the moment that something more interesting showed up.
But there was still the problem of the eggs. I placed them as carefully as I could, but the black one tried to roll no matter how I stood it up. Were they rounder than they had been, or was I just hoping they were? I'd hatched chicks once and the shape of the egg changed throughout the incubation process. Just before their little beaks had popped out to greet the world, they eggs had been nearly spherical.
Maybe the ritual would work this time.
"Do you want help with anything?" Nariti asked, massive head lowering to peer at me.
I smiled up at him and gave him a good scratch just beneath his chin. "When the bears leave, we need to talk about some unfinished business. And what is Eskal doing?"
"Telepathy," Nariti confirmed. "Much easier than speaking with mouths that aren't made for it. Problematic for the humans in our lives. I don't believe you are capable of it, but I would be willing to try it if you wished it."
That idea turned over in my head for a moment or two before I nodded. I thumped my head against his snout. Nariti chuckled and had to nearly put his nose in the dirt before I could touch his forehead to mine.
A burst of thought struck me, like a snowball to the back of the head. There were grey skies, old tanks, and terror everywhere. The whelps were unable to fly, too young for their wings to get under them. The flight had to fight rather than their preferred method of escape, but there were too many of them, too many humans creeping and crawling over everything.
I yanked back and shook my head rapidly to try to clear the movie-like vision. "What was that about?"
"It was the day we became the Nightflight. Hidden in darkness, only three alphas and a beta left," he said. "Humanity caused it. Do you know how difficult it has been for me to watch you work your way into our ranks? Olivia, I didn't trust you. I advised against hiring you on. But Eskal knew what he was doing."
Nariti moved closer to me and carefully nuzzled my shoulder, not wanting to knock me over. I stroked his neck, trying to nuzzle back. "You trust me now?"
"Yes," came the simple answer.
One word can speak volumes about a man or a relationship. I wrapped my arms around him, as far as they would go, and just held that enormous, blue dragon for a few minutes.
Had the museum ever really trusted me? Had Mom? I knew I hadn't trusted them, not entirely. The dragons had done nothing wrong by me, and I wondered if they were the only ones I could say that about.
"What was that about unfinished business?" Eskal asked, huge snout bumping me from behind.
Always the jealous drake, I looked back at him and hugged Nariti harder, just to make a point. "You heard me. Where are the bears?"
"Aberdeen and his denmates are headed home. They live three sites over. It appears this to be a refuge of some sort, as if there is a comfort in this fae's realm for others who have no place to go. Again, you save us from walking through the darkness of uncertainty."
I kissed him right between the nostrils. "It seems like that's what I do."
He lifted his head and snorted at Nariti, who dropped to his human form in a breath. Eskal copied him and the pair sandwiched me between them. Nariti untied the blanket and let it fall to the ground. I was clothed beneath it, but the dragons certainly weren't.
Eskal ran claw-tipped fingers down my sides and over my hips. "And the unfinished business, then?"
"You don't get me unless all of you get me," I told him, trying to keep the grin from my face.
He huffed, mockingly irritated, and blew a sharp whistle from between his teeth. Iyadre and Vadriq had been tucking in the whelp, the little guy exhausted from yelling at the bear cub. Their heads snapped up like they'd just heard a call to muster. I crooked a finger at them and, already in their human bodies, over they came.
In an instant I was drowning in dragons. Eskal was careful not to tear my clothes, but I could sense the excitement building in the flight as they surrounded me. They had hunted so long and when they'd found me, they hadn't realized they could have me. I hadn't realized it, either, but as the breeze caressed my naked form, I slid a leg up Eskal's side and fell prey to them.
There was nothing slow or gentle about it. We were eager for one another, having been cut off the last time. I pulled Iyadre into a kiss even as Eskal entered me, my toes curling against his side. And though the sensation of that spiraled cock was incredible, I had three others to worry about up above me.
Wel
l, it was nice to be kept busy. Vadriq pulled my head up and I took him into my mouth without a moment's pause, leaving Nariti and Iyadre to squabble over who got which hand. I let them burn off a little energy doing that while I swirled my tongue around each ridge of Vadriq's, then popped the pointed head from my lips only to draw him in once again. Already, his thighs quivered and I had to admit it was incredibly rewarding to watch my dragons go to pieces so quickly.
They were such feared creatures, even in their suits and ties, and I could bring them to their knees with a flick of my tongue or a stroke of my hand. And I loved it. Had I always craved such power, or was this a new discovery? I'd always liked to be in charge, but this was a whole other level.
Nariti's claw-tipped fingers pinched one of my nipples, getting a sharp gasp from me. Eskal's hands tightened on my hips as I felt him throb and stiffen with me, then go back to his frantic pumping once more. He shifted his thrusts this way and that until he hit my sweet spot. I moaned around Vadriq and realization sprang to life in Eskal's face.
On Wings: A Reverse Harem Dragon Shifter Romance (Her Secret Menagerie Book 2) Page 17
