by Romi Hart
“The loud explosion could’ve been lightning, I suppose,” my brother agreed. He scanned the debris that blocked us from gaining access to our home. “But I don’t see any black-scorched marks anywhere to prove lightning to be at fault here.”
“Neither do I, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t an act of nature.” Somewhere inside of me, I didn’t want to believe that after all of this time, anyone would want to deliberately hurt Mako and me. “Let’s just clean up this mess first. We can try to deal with the water situation later. The pond is still full, so we’ll have water for some time before we’re completely out.”
Mako nodding in agreement. “Perhaps Father will be so kind as to let us in on how he made this place for us. That way we could make our own water if this should ever happen again.”
His idea gave me one of my own. “Perhaps Father would teach us how to build realms. That way, I could build one for Linda and I. To have offspring with her and actually raise them seems like a thing I would like to do.”
Mako’s jaw dropped. “You would leave me here all alone, brother?”
I hadn’t meant to upset him. “Mako, it would most likely annoy you to have to deal with our offspring of young and rambunctious dragon-shifters. I foresee fires being started by cases of hiccups. Maybe fierce fights between siblings that would wreck things.” Laughing, I could see it all now. “Oh, how annoying they will be to everyone but Linda and I. For us, they will all be terribly adorable, and the lights of our lives.”
“So, you will make her one of us then?” he asked with a smirk.
Not many females wanted to become a dragon-shifter. Childbirth was painful, becoming a dragon-shifter was excruciating. A female would have to be incredibly in love with her dragon to agree to change for him. “If she wants.”
With a slow shake of his head, Mako didn’t seem to think Linda would do that for me. “I wouldn’t go off making your own realm just yet, brother. Most females don’t take well to internally combusting just to live forever with a male.”
“Well, Linda might.” I prayed she would. “Mako, I’ve never scented any female the way I’ve scented her. It’s as if she’s encompassed my entire being. I want her in ways I have never wanted any other woman. As you can plainly see, I want to raise our offspring together. Now, that’s different, you have to agree about that.”
With a shrug, he commented, “You have never cared to even see your offspring before. That is something new for you. But I think it’s too soon to know if you really want an eternity with this female. There is still so much ahead of us, Tieris. What if in a thousand years the females become even better than they are now? You’ll be stuck with this Linda person and not get to try out the new version of woman.”
I must’ve really found the one because I don’t care about that even a little.
“Let’s get to cleaning this mess up, Mako. I don’t wish to think about anything other than getting this place up and running again so I can bring my lady home.” Whatever was happening, I wanted her by my side.
8
Linda
Waking to the sun shining into my window, I yawned and stretched, feeling happy. It wasn’t like me to feel so happy first thing in the morning. Usually, I had to have at least one cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll before a smile would dare to cross my lips.
But this morning wasn’t like any other morning. This morning followed the night of things I hadn’t even dreamt about before. A tall, handsome, man – who just happened to be built like a brick house – had danced with me, dined with me, and kissed me into a state of ecstasy with no problem whatsoever.
How? I don’t know.
Also, why was a big question on my mind. My body though, well, it wasn’t asking a thing – except when he would be back to put his magic spell all over it again.
He’s not coming back, you know that.
A shudder ran through me as I had the negative thought. Then heat surged through my body as my lips tingled as if being reminded of his oh-so-hot kiss.
Maybe he will be back.
I wrapped my arms around my body, hugging myself as I pictured Tieris in my mind’s eye. For a moment, I thought that the picture I’d conjured of him inside my head was a bit too good. I recalled his kiss maybe being a bit better than it actually was. And his voice might’ve been in my memory a bit smoother and deeper than it had been in reality. Whatever my memories of him were, they were making me hot and extremely bothered.
I ran my hand between my legs, finding my inner thighs damp with desire. Curling my toes as I closed my eyes to see him once more behind my eyelids, I ran my fingers softly across my sex, pretending it was his fingers tracing my intimate lips, instead of mine.
“Linda,” his voice called out to me. “My sweet.”
Did he really call me his sweet?
In the light of the next day, it was hard for me to imagine that Tieris had been a real man who’d had a real interest in me. I was plump. Well – beyond plump. I was round and my average height didn’t help my body hold my weight well at all.
I ran my hand through my hair that had become rather unruly and on the frizzy side with my sleep. I hadn’t put on my usual silk scarf to keep my hair tame throughout the night like I most often did. Instead, I’d fallen asleep naked, thinking about the hot man who’d walked me home after the best date of my entire life.
Rolling over to lie on my side, I looked out the partially opened curtain, finding hundreds of birds flying around in the early morning sky. Pink clouds danced in a pale blue sky as the sun’s light began winking at me through the curtain.
The yellow hue reminded me of something I’d seen in Tieris’ blue eyes. At times the man’s piercing eyes seemed to have flames in them. I’d had plenty of wine, but I could’ve sworn that I saw yellow and orange flames dancing in his eyes after he’d kissed me at my front door.
If I never see him again, it will have been worth it.
But I so wanted to see him again. Even if nothing about he and I being a couple made an ounce of sense, I still wanted it to be true. Sure, we’d turn heads for all the wrong reasons. Women would look at him as if he was crazy for being with me and so would men for that matter. No one would understand why the gorgeous man would want a woman like me – plain-faced and fat to boot.
Something in the middle of my back began to burn and I had to jump out of bed to see what the problem was. Maybe I’d been bitten by a spider or something, the heat was so bad.
Standing in front of the mirror that reflected my image from the waist up, I turned to one side, trying to see what was wrong. Only I couldn’t see a thing as the middle of my back felt as if someone held a round hot object to it.
Heading to the shower, I decided some cold water would do wonders for the burning and my wandering mind. Tieris wasn’t coming back. Whatever the magical event of the day before held, it had ended with the call he’d received.
Even as cold water washed over my body, the middle top area of my back still burned. Putting some shampoo into my palm, I washed my hair, letting the cold water continue to run over my heated skin.
Closing my eyes, I pretended Tieris’ hands moved over my body. His blue eyes gazed softly at me as he stared into my eyes. “Linda, you are such a rare beauty. My rare beauty.”
“Yours,” I whispered. Opening my eyes, I realized the burning had stopped. With a sigh, I washed the rest of my body, thinking only good thoughts about Tieris.
After a nice shower, I put on a slinky sundress that my auntie had bought me the spring before last. She’d always been after me to dress sexier. I felt sexy that morning. It had been the first time I had actually felt that way and felt that I looked happy and sexy.
Putting on a small amount of pink blush and pink lipstick, I ran a mascara wand just once over my naturally thick, dark lashes. Looking in the mirror, I saw a light in my eyes that I had never noticed before. Maybe because it hadn’t been there before. Tieris had lit me up inside and at least that was a thing he’d
left behind for me.
Walking in bare feet to the kitchen, I wanted to make a pot of coffee to start the day. Smelling bacon cooking, I moaned, “Smells, yummy, Flora.”
My roomie had a pan full of bacon on one burner and another pan full of scrambled eggs on the other. “Well, look at you, Linda. Wow. That date of yours must’ve gone better than you thought it would.”
“Way better. Magical even.” I turned around once, liking the way the knee-length dress billowed out with my movement.
When I turned back toe Flora, wide eyes met mine. “You did not!”
“What?” She’d confused me. “I did not what?”
“That.” She pointed at me. “You did not do that, Linda. That’s so not like you. It’s cool, don’t get me wrong. But it’s so not like you.”
“What’s not like me?” Then I looked down at my little dress. “Oh, this dress. Well, yeah, it’s not like me. Auntie Shawndra gave it to me a year ago and this is the first time I’ve worn it. Is it too much? Or should I say, too little?”
“No, it’s not the dress,” she said as she shook her head. “That dress looks great on you. It hugs your curves in the best of ways. It’s the tat on your back that I’m talking about.”
Cocking my head, I thought I’d heard her wrong. “The what?”
“Tat. The dragon head tattoo in the upper-middle of your back.” She took me by the shoulders then turned me around. Her finger ran in a circular motion, drawing the heat back to where it had been before the cold shower had stopped it. “This.”
“I have a what?” How drunk did I get?
“A tattoo, Linda. Surely you knew about this. I mean, it’s not enormous, but it’s not tiny either. You had to have been aware of getting this done last night.” Holding my shoulders, she turned me to face her. “How much did you have to drink last night?”
“I was completely coherent the whole night. And I did not ever get a tattoo. Are you sure you’re not seeing some type of a spider bite back there?” She had to be mistaken. “I’ve felt a burning sensation back there some this morning. I took a cold shower and it went away. But when you touched it, it began to warm up again. It’s a circle, huh?”
“A red, raised circle with a dragon’s head in the middle.” Narrowing her eyes, she seemed to be thinking about what sort of things could’ve happened to me. “You didn’t know that guy you went out with. And you told me that you took your own car. I saw you drive away. But when I went outside this morning to feed the feral cats in the alley behind the house, I didn’t see your car. Did you get into that man’s car and let him bring you home?”
“No.” I tried to look over my shoulder at the thing she saw, turning in a circle. “Crap, I can’t see a thing.”
Grabbing my arms to stop my spinning, she looked a little exasperated. “Hold on. If you didn’t get into that man’s car, how did you get home?”
“He walked me home.” I couldn’t help the smile the took over my expression. “And then, he kissed me at the door before he had to leave.”
A sudden flash filled my head. He put his hands up the back of my dress!
Flora was still playing detective. “And you came straight home from the restaurant?”
Nodding, I knew we had. “Yes. We walked straight over here from there. And we didn’t stop anywhere. The only thing he did was when we kissed, he put his hands up the back of my dress. I felt his hands moving on my back. But I didn’t feel him scratching me or digging into my flesh with anything.”
Running to the bathroom, I grabbed a handheld mirror as Flora came in behind me. Turning my back to the larger mirror that hung on the wall over the sink, I used the handheld mirror to see my back and there it was – a red circle with a dragon’s head in the middle of it.
My knees buckled but I didn’t fall to the floor, thankfully. Flora put her arms around my waist, holding me up. “It’s okay, Linda. I will get to the bottom of this.”
“Why would Tieris do this to me?” I felt lightheaded. “How would he do this to me?”
Flora tugged me to go take a seat on my unmade bed. “Okay, I am going to need this man’s full name. Where is he staying? Where is he from? What does he do for a living? How old is he? Can you give me an accurate description of this man?”
“I don’t know.” I felt stupid. I didn’t know much about Tieris at all. For all the talking that we’d done, I didn’t know exactly where he was from. I had no idea what he did for a living and how old he was also wasn’t a thing that I knew. “I know what he looks like though.”
Grabbing a pencil and a small pad of paper off my desk, she seemed fairly happy about that. “It’s a start. So, tell me what color his hair is.”
“Golden blonde. And it’s long, flowing, gorgeous.” Why’d he mark me?
“What about the color of his eyes, Linda. Do you remember that about this man who did this to you?” she asked as she jotted down what I’d already told her.
“Piercing blue.” I recalled the other thing I’d seen in those eyes of his. “With orange and yellow flames at times. Especially after we kissed.”
“Flames?” She put the pencil and paper down on the bed beside me. “Linda, that’s not human. Not even a little. What else can you tell me about how this man’s appearance?”
“He’s tall, over six feet. He’s muscular – extremely muscular. Like he can pick me up with such ease that it didn’t look like it was an effort for him at all.” I thought that a bit odd. “I’m pretty heavy. I guess that’s weird, huh?”
Flora wasn’t one to point out my weight problem. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being curvy, but even someone with normal weight requires a bit of effort to pick up – even for a very strong man.”
“The red color is so bright that even my dark skin can’t mask it. What sort of dye did he use, do you think? And what if it’s toxic?” I got up, thinking I needed to go see a physician about the thing on my back. Just as I had the thought, an intense burning pain felt as if a ring of fire had lit up around the thing on my back. “Flora! What’s happening to it? It feels as if it’s on fire back there.”
Placing her hand over it, she shook her head. “It’s cool to the touch, Linda. But I think seeing a physician is a good idea.”
I shrieked as the burning increased, “No! Ow!” I thought that it was getting hotter merely because of us talking about going to the physician. “I won’t go. I won’t let anyone look at it.”
And just like that, the burning sensation went away. Flora saw the look of wonder and relief in my eyes. “Has it stopped?”
“Yeah.” Taking a deep breath, I felt worry bubbling up inside of me. “I can’t stop this train of thought, even though I’m afraid of what that thing on my back will do to me for thinking this way.”
Flora nodded as if she understood what I had in mind. “The mark of the beast.”
I nodded and was surprised when no burning occurred. “Flora, what if that’s exactly what this is?” What would I do if Tieris was something or someone evil? And what did he want with me?
“One of my uncles is a priest here in Rome. Maybe I should ask him to come for a visit.” She smiled. “Or better yet, maybe I should take you to the church to see him.”
The words no sooner left her mouth than the burn came back. “No! No, Flora. Leave your uncle and the church out of this. It doesn’t like it.”
“Don’t speak that way. Don’t give it power, Linda.” She ran to her bedroom, her feet hitting the tiled floor hard with each step she made. When she came back, she held a gold cross in her hand, then pressed it against my back, covering the tat. “Does this hurt?”
“Not even a little.” Although I felt no pain at all, I still felt that something wasn’t right with Tieris. “But if he comes back, I will have to be very careful. He had to have been the one to put this on me. It has to mean something bad. I just know it does.”
It has to mean that he has marked me for some reason – and I don’t think anyone ever has a good reason wh
y they leave a mark on a person.
9
Tieris
Standing back to admire the fully functioning, newly designed entrance to our castle, Mako and I wore huge smiles as we’d done it all without the aid of our father. He’d yet to return our calls and wasn’t home when we’d sought him out. Left on our own, we used what every other person in the world does to get things done when they have no idea how to do them, we’d Googled it.
“It’s better than the one, Father made for us,” Mako mused. “Don’t you agree, Tieris?”
“I do.” Using the same materials as before, we’d formed them into a different shape. Now our entrance was shaped like a diamond. I found it unique and flattering to our home. “I do hope Linda likes it. As a matter of fact, it’s been about a week since I left her. I really should be getting back to woo her.”
“That you should, brother.” Mako tapped his chin as his brow furrowed. “But before you do that, we have to figure out our water situation. Now that we’ve repaired our castle, we should track down the reason our water has stopped. Plus, the pond is getting lower with each passing day.”
“Right.” I hadn’t forgotten about the water problem, but I had somewhat forgotten about my intended mate – which was a little odd.
Before, when I’d scented a mate, I couldn’t focus on anything but the mating. With Linda, the more time that came between us, the less and less I’d thought about her. Blaming it on all the problems in our realm, I knew I had to make time for her, or I might well lose her to another suitor.
Turning to go to the pond, Mako gestured for me to come along with him. “I’ve been thinking about this issue and I do believe that if we begin digging in one of the dried-up springs, we will find our way to the water source which flows underneath the ground.”
