by Romi Hart
There was still a chance to get her to see me for what I truly was. “There are other things that come from an earlier time. Try to think of something other than mainstream.”
Tapping her chin, she thought about it for all of a second. “A werewolf?”
“No!” This woman was supposed to be smart. “Do I have dog-breath? Do I continuously mount you like a barbaric canine?”
“No.” She frowned as she’d given another wrong answer. “Do I get another guess?”
“Yes.” I wanted her to give it more thought though. Once a person has an idea of what kind of creature they’re dealing with, it doesn’t come as such a shock to them. “Now, use your superior intellect before you spit out another run of the mill creature.”
Her lips quirked to one side. “You think that I have superior intellect?”
“I do. So get to using it.” As a dragon-shifter – probably the first shifter in the history of such creatures – I took great pride in being a step above the rest of the shifters. And many, many steps ahead of vampires and werewolves which had been so highly publicized for way too many years.
Linda sat there on the edge of the bed as she moved to make herself more comfortable and to give her body more blood flow to her brain. A brain I knew had to be a bit more educated than others. “Okay, so you heal rapidly.”
“Yes. And I am tall. Very tall.” I stood up to my full height, making sure not to slouch even a little. “What kind of creature is tall?”
With a smile, she seemed like she’d figured it out. “A giraffe is tall. And it also has a long neck. You and your brother have long necks too.”
“So, you think we’re some sort of a giraffe from Africa then?” I had to rub my temples as she hadn’t gotten it right again. This time, I looked at her and allowed a bit of dragon’s flame to show in my eyes. “Can giraffes do this?”
Her eyes went wide as she noticed the flames dancing in mine. “Ah-ha!”
Good, now she gets it. “So, what am I, my sweet?” Holding my arms out, I gestured to my extremely large bedchamber. “And I want you to take a look around. Let my normal surroundings help you determine what I am.”
Clapping her hands, she seemed excited about her answer. “Okay. I know what you are now. Long ago there were tales of serpents in the oceans.”
“No!” A sea monster? Really? It had become obvious that she had to have it spelled out for her. “I don’t live in a lighthouse on the edge of the sea. So, a sea monster is out.” Baring my teeth, I pointed at my normal-sized canines. “I don’t have vampire teeth.” Turning around, I wiggled my bare ass at her. “I don’t have a tail like a werewolf.”
Rolling her eyes, she crossed her arms in front of her as she looked miffed. “Tieris, we’ve already gone over those things. You’re asking me to reach into my brain to pull out something that is considered a fairytale creature and I have nothing inside my head about those things except what I’ve told you.” The sun started to come up and my room suddenly was bathed in pink hues. She looked around, having more light to see the place I had brought her too.
“Okay, so this is my bedchamber. I spend lots of time here.” There were things on the wall that should’ve helped her to see who and what I was. But I had to give her time to find all the clues.
“I know you’re not going to understand this, but I’m going to tell you anyway. I have a limited number of monsters in my vocabulary. And so far, you aren’t any of them. So are you something like a fairy?”
“Not in the least.” Walking to the window, I leaned against the wall to watch the sun rising. “But you are getting warmer.”
Getting off the bed, she pulled the sheet around her body to cover it as she came to stand next to me, leaning her head on my shoulder. “This is the view you’ve had for a very long time - green grass, tall trees, the waterfall and pond, all so lovely. A creature who likes comfort and beauty.” As the sun continued to rise, the light began to shed upon more of our realm. “And space – lots and lots of space is another thing you and your brother require.”
“And what do you think of what you see here?” I ran my arm around her shoulders, pulling her to my side. To watch the sunrise with her felt normal and right. Nothing had ever felt more right in my entire existence.
I watched as her eyes scanned the area the sun had lit up. “Tieris, this is more than I have ever imagined.” Looking up at me, she wore a smile. “This is paradise. And I want you to show me every inch of this village, or whatever it is.”
“This is our realm. Our father built it for us a long, long time ago.” I kissed the side of her head as she looked back out at the new day that had dawned. “You can walk all over this place and you will never leave. Our borders seem infinite only because they are.”
“I don’t understand it at all. And that has me thinking that I have read you all wrong this whole time. I’ve been thinking about you as a monster but now that I think about it and what you’ve said, I think I was way off.”
Not that far off.
“So, what do you think I am now?” I knew that sometime or another she had to come up with the right thing.
Cocking her head as she looked at me, she whispered, “You are an angel.”
“Well, I can sprout wings. But an angel, I am not.” But I loved that she thought that way about me. I wanted to know more about why she would think of me in that light. “So, tell me what is so angelic about me to have you guessing that?”
Placing her hand on my chest, she leaned her head back on my shoulder as she peered out the window. “You’re caring and kind. You’re perfect in every way. And you said that your father made this place for you and that it has infinite borders. Do you know what else has infinite borders and was built by someone most of us humans call our father?”
I had no clue. “Please tell me, my sweet.”
“The universe. And we call God our father. As far as I know, no human has seen God. Have you seen the father who built this place for you and Mako?” Her fingers trailed across my chest and I let out a sigh as I took her hand in mine, pulling it up to kiss each fingertip.
She made my heart ache with love for her. What I felt for her was complicated and it seemed to get deeper with each day we spent together. “We have seen our father. We used to live in his realm. What I told you about my parents was true. They did part ways when Mako and I were young. I can tell you that our mother was a sorceress.” I knew the human world knew about things like that as some of them thought of themselves in that way. But our mother wasn’t from Earth – she wasn’t human at all.
Stepping away from me, she moved back a bit as she looked me up and down. “Were you able to heal your hand so quickly because of the magical powers you got from your mother?”
“I don’t think so.” It had been a little hard to tell what we’d gotten from her and what we’d gotten from our father. “I think that has to do with the other part of me.” I thought I should give her more of a hint, so added, “The shifter part of me.”
“Shifter?” she asked as if she had never heard of that before. “You can shift? Is that what that means?”
“Yes, I can shift.” It seemed like it had taken an eternity to get her this far. But at least she was looking at things in a scientific way, rather than being afraid of what I was.
Walking away from me, she still seemed to be contemplating things. “You can shift. Hmm. So, you can travel through time, shifting back and forth between times.” She turned back to look at me over her shoulder. “And you can shift back and forth between dimensions?”
“I don’t know how someone as smart as you are can keep getting things so wrong. I can’t travel through time. But I can go back and forth between this dimension and the one that Earth is in. I can also go through some others. But that doesn’t make me a shifter. If that was the case, then you would be considered a shifter now too, because I brought you here with me. See, you traveled to another dimension with me.”
Narrowing her eyes at me, s
he wagged her finger in my direction. “And you will have to take me back sometime to my dimension as I am not giving up my family for you. And when we do go back, I would like to be awake so I can see how that looks. I bet it’s amazing.”
“At least you got that right.” I had to laugh at my little joke.
Linda was not amused though as she asked, “So if a shifter isn’t what I said, then what is it?”
“A shifter can switch – or shift – back and forth from one thing to another. Like it can be human and some sort of animal. A werewolf is a shifter who can go back and forth between being human and being a wolf. But some shifters aren’t human at all. There’s a cat and dog shifter. I’ve seen a monkey that can shift into a lion. And the one that’s really cool and has humans stumped completely is the thing you guys call a sasquatch or bigfoot. It’s an ape-like thing that can change into a tree.”
The way her face lit up told me that she wasn’t going to freak out in the least when she found out what I was. “I knew they were real! And I bet a million bucks that the abominable snowman is another shifter that’s a white ape-like creature who can shift into snow.”
She finally understood. “Yeah!” I ran over, picking her up and tossing her into the air, then catching her in my arms. “You’re so right. I’ve never understood how humans couldn’t figure that stuff out. I mean, they saw these large footprints going through the snow or mud, then there weren’t any. What did people think happened to the thing that had made the footprints? Of course, they shifted into something else. I too can leave a trail of human footprints, then suddenly they will be gone if I shift into the thing I can change into. So, any more guesses about what I am?”
As I held her in my arms, her face suddenly fell. “Tieris, what will our kids look like?”
I had to think about that for a moment. “Well, it would say they will look like a mixture of us. Adorable, to say the least.”
“No.” She huffed with exasperation. “I mean, will they look like your animal or a human?”
Never hearing from the other females who’d had my broods, I really had no idea. “I think we shall find that out together, my sweet.”
Pulling herself out of my arms, she shook her head. “Oh, Tieris, I don’t know about this. Having a baby who looks like an animal might be something that screws with my head forever. Maybe I couldn’t even find a way to bond with the poor little baby.”
“Not to worry. Any of our brood that you can’t manage to bond with, I will.” I wasn’t worried about a thing. If neither of us found feelings for any of our broods, then Mako surely would. He loved to dote on small things.
“You keep saying the word, brood. And that means more than one baby. So, how many babies do you want to have?” Her confusion still looked pretty on her face.
“Well, you will have more than one baby at a time. The more at one time, the more powerful and resilient you and I are. Others take notice of such things.” Looking her over, I had a good guess of how many she might be able to have at one time. “I think you could easily house a brood of six to eight.”
“Oh, hell no!” Shaking her head, she asked one more vital question, “And what is this animal that you turn into, Tieris. And I am praying that it’s adorable, cute, or at least not something vile like a snake or a lizard.”
Well, a dragon is a bit of both I guess. And now I kind of didn’t want to tell her what I was when I wasn’t human. “Oh, well, let me see how I could describe what I am.”
A loud cracking sound came from outside and we both rushed to look out the window. Trees moved as something pushed them out of the way. Linda gasped, “What’s doing that?”
“I’m about to find out. Get dressed then hide somewhere. Not in here though. Your scent is too strong here. Hide anywhere but here. I’ll find you when it’s safe.”
“But.”
I couldn’t let her argue. “Now, Linda!”
Jumping out of the window, I transformed into my dragon as I heard her shrieking, “No!”
Sorry, Linda, you’re mated to a dragon-shifter.
20
Linda
A dragon? I did not see that coming.
I saw a legendary Phoenix like the ones in the ancient American Native legends. I saw a moth-man, the red-eyed monster which had been spotted in West Virginia some years back. I saw a slenderman – the creepy guy from the internet. But I never saw a dragon.
A flying, fire-breathing reptilian, with brownish-red scaly skin and light tan highlights, and piercing blue eyes were all that remained of the man I had mated with and would most likely have a brood of. All I could do was watch the dragon that the man I loved had changed into. And as I saw him flying low over the trees to find the culprit who was pushing through them for some unknown reason, there came a second dragon to join him.
Mako.
Dark gray scales with shiny black highlights contrasted against the pale blue morning sky. Fluffy pink clouds in the background made a strange combination with the carnage going on below.
“I wonder if this happens often around here.” It was the castle of a couple of formidable dragons after all. I could imagine that other mythical creatures found reasons to test their limits more often than not.
The flames that shot out of Tieris’ mouth – a mouth with enormous pointy teeth – made chill bumps form all over my body. The dragon’s muscular physique astonished me as he darted like a hummingbird through the trees until he spotted whatever was on the forest floor. Then he used his powerful and sharply pointed talons, resembling an eagle as it shot toward the prey he sought.
When he used his leathery wings to fly back up, I saw something in his claws. It had one eye and seemed to be rather large.
A cyclops! What is this place?
Tieris had a lot he needed to tell me about why these things were set on destroying their property. It was the realm of the dragons. Dragons! Things that could fly and breathe fire among other things. Who messes with dragons on purpose?
The screeching sounds of the cyclops made me shiver. It seemed it was afraid now that Tieris was carrying up very high into the sky. Only then did I notice a huge body of water on the horizon that he seemed to be taking the monster to.
If the cyclops had the nerve to come desecrate the lands of dragons, he should’ve been prepared to meet their wrath. Seemed he wasn’t ready at all.
Mako swooped in and found another thing that wasn’t supposed to be there. This wasn’t the same thing his brother had found. This looked like a tiny dragon that he’d riled up. It buzzed Mako like a mosquito, darting in to take bites at him.
I held my hand to my chest as I grew worried about Tieris’ brother. But then he used his large wing to swat the pesky thing away. And it came right toward the castle at a high rate of speed, slamming on the rock wall, then sliding down to the green grass below. Its little forked tongue hung out of its mouth as it lay perfectly still.
Dead.
Gripping the sheet that was wrapped around me, I finally realized that I hadn’t dressed yet, nor hid away in a place other than the room that Tieris had assured me held my scent.
With the little evil dragon things, I’d decided to name dragonettes, flying around I thought I should do exactly as I’d been told to. Tieris was used to this sort of thing and I wasn’t. I certainly didn’t want to get caught with my pants down when things like these were around.
Grabbing my clothes, I put them on as I ran out of the room and down the corridor. I’d only left the room once before and that was under the care of Mako. Now, I was on my own and had no idea where I was heading.
At least the sun had come up and I could see a bit better, though not entirely. “If I’m going to live here, we have got to figure out how to get some light up in here.”
The corridor ended and I had to take a right or a left. So, I went left and promptly fell down a flight of stairs.
Son-of-a…
Tumbling head over heels, I ended up on my butt, in the dark, and feeling
bruised all over. I had to be thankful for my extra flesh as it cushioned the fall, so no limbs seemed to be broken.
Somehow, I managed to get up. But still, the pitch darkness made it hard to find the stairs again. I had to get on my hands and knees, reaching out to try to find a stair so I could go back up.
My hand hit something, but it wasn’t a stone step. It was a leathery feeling thing. I gripped it and found it shaped like a shoe. “So, he brought you home, did he?” I know that voice.
For some reason, my blood ran cold. The man Tieris and I had seen when we were on our date seemed to be hiding in the darkest recesses of his castle. “Did he bring you home too, Codut?” I hoped that was his name. It had been a week since I’d met the man. If he was a man. If he was here, in the dragons’ realm, he probably wasn’t completely human.
Only I am completely human here.
That seemed like a bad thing to be to me. At least right now it did. This guy being down here felt completely wrong. “You two must be getting along well since he brought you here.” That seemed wrong too.
“Um, yeah.” I started patting the floor, trying to find the stairs again so I could flee up them. “We’re getting along great. I’ve found out a lot more about him since he’s brought me to his home.”
I found his shoe again as he’d stepped in front of me somehow. “That is superb. Don’t you think that is superb, Linda?”
He was toying with me, the way a cat toys with a mouse. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to escape, so I had to use another tactic. Sitting back on my haunches, I steadied myself. “I have a feeling that you want me to do something for you, Codut. Just spit it out.”
“I want you to make my old friend so happy that he wants to spend every moment with you. But I want you to make demands on him that will have him not only leaving this place behind for good but stop procreating as well.”
I had to laugh. “That’s like the most important thing on his mind. He’s all about us starting our first brood as he calls it. And frankly, I’m starting to think it might be an interesting experience. And we haven’t been careful in the least. I might be packing some baby dragons inside of me as we speak.”
