by Jaime Samms
“Could have.” Sunny stared at him, eyes bright.
“I didn’t know you then.”
Sunny lunged at him, rolling Emile onto his back as he kissed him with a relentless need that almost distracted Emile from the problem.
“Sunny.” He stroked the sides of Sunny’s face, tried to kiss him back to calm. “Sunny, please.”
“We don’t have to talk about this any more right now,” Sunny insisted, fumbling with the string on Emile’s pants. He got the string loose, pushed the pants down, and flung back the covers so he had access to Emile’s rapidly responding cock.
Emile threw his head back as Sunny began his descent, kissing and nipping along his throat, chest, and stomach on his way to his goal. He touched every part of Emile he could reach, hands moving with feverish speed, fumbling, shaking slightly, in his haste to push Emile into the abyss with him.
It didn’t take a lot of persuading. Emile stroked fingers into Sunny’s hair, letting the wild curls wrap around his fingers, spreading his legs so Sunny could nestle between them and take Emile’s cock into his mouth. Sunny’s warm, wet finger at his entrance was a new sensation between them, but Emile welcomed the invasion, then welcomed Sunny, the magic between them swelling bigger than ever as his body opened to let Sunny inside.
This time, he had no doubt that Sunny noticed the splashing of light and the wild whip of power between them as they joined. The room flashed with the sparks as the magic ignited and spit energy into the air around them. It twined deep into Emile’s being, interlocking with his own, creating something new, stronger, fixing his dragon to the flow of magic that was Sunny, the land, everything in this place.
He could feel the oil-slick that was Hakko’s connection to him, the way Sunny’s bright magic slid away from that unhealthy energy only to meld more firmly with Emile’s. Sunny’s eyes shone brilliant and golden as he stared into Emile. His lips parted, Emile’s dragon name whispering out of the magic and off his tongue as he came.
“Emikku.” Sunny savoured the sound, repeating it like a mantra, winding his magic up in the name, in the form that came with it, in the deepest part of Emile that only magic and true connection could reach. He made Emikku into a spell that could never be undone, and that bound them together as surely as Emile—in any form—was bound to Hakko.
The magic that splashed up between them as Sunny came pushed Emile over the edge too. He cried out, gripping Sunny to him as his orgasm racked his body. Magic tightened around them, made them glow for a moment, then snaked like roots from where they lay down through the house, the ground beneath, out into the world, the forest, the trees and the creeks and the very air.
His dragon licked at the energy, tasting the new power, smelling the tang of flux and considering the magic as it flowed from Sunny into Emile and out to the world, then back again. There was a deep shudder that made Emile’s bones creak and the house around them tremble. A sharp sizzle ran down his body, intense where his shoulder was damaged, and he felt his scales ripple just under his skin.
“Green?” Sunny whispered, stroking fingers over his chest and throat. “I thought you were pink.”
Emile shivered and held Sunny close. “Pink would stand out here.”
“So you just changed them?”
“Eh.” Emile drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “More like the magic chose this.” He raised a hand over Sunny’s shoulder to where he could see the shimmer of green and gold under his skin. It was odd, in a beautiful way, to see his own scales in this new light. Even as he thought that, the scales shimmered, colour rippling through them until they were the familiar pink.
“Wow.” Sunny kissed the side of his jaw. “That’s so cool.”
“I’ve never known a dragon who could be two colours.”
“Have you ever met a dragon who crossed the Fold before?”
“No.”
“Well then.” Sunny rolled and snuggled into Emile’s side with a yawn. “Go you for being awesome.” He yawned again, and even as Emile thought about what the twining of their magic could mean, he felt Sunny’s weight sink into him. Heard his breathing even out and, in his heart, felt the quiet contentment of his sleep.
This was definitely going to complicate things.
EMILE WOKE with a start. Sunny slept on in the still-dark room. Outside, the very edge of the sun tipped the horizon, bringing on that peculiar time of day when darkness peeled back but light hadn’t yet arrived. The witching hour tingled in Emile’s bones.
Careful not to wake his lover, Emile slid out of bed. The soft susurration of scales against hardwood, as his tail slithered across the floor, offered the only sound in the room. There was no indication of what had awakened him, only an unsettled expectation nagging at the back of his mind and his magic poking at his dragon.
He had a sense that something approached their haven, but no idea what it could be. He hadn’t had any indication before now. Not when Glimmerleaf had appeared, and not when the tatzel rattled the bushes and drew them into the forest.
Something stronger tugged at his awareness, but he couldn’t figure out what, or where it was coming from.
He made his way to the main floor, found no sign of Fernforest, then snuck out the door, not bothering with his clothes. If there was danger, he was better off in his dragon form anyway. Once on the front lawn, he felt the tug more strongly, pulling from many different directions: towards the stream and the willow, and off down the drive as well.
Maybe it was just the oddness in the air at dawn poking at the magical beings they knew lived in the area. Dryads waking. Water sprites teasing at his awareness. Glimmerleaf poking in the underbrush.
When the distinct sound of a salamander braying in fear and distress echoed through the trees, though, he began to run. If Glimmerleaf was in trouble, it was up to Emile to soothe him before he made others aware of his existence. He’d just crossed the bridge and entered the cool shadow of the overhanging trees when an unfamiliar vehicle pulled into Sunny’s drive.
Emile stopped, torn between going back and finding Glimmerleaf. But then the salamander called again and there was no choice. Whoever this newcomer was, they could not know about the magical creature hidden in Sunny’s woods. Emile had to find and quiet him before he made his presence known.
Emile dropped to all six legs and scrambled along the path deeper into the forest. He kept his form light and agile, soft scales giving him manoeuvrability and silence his harder, heavier body would not. Sunny’s yard and the first rays of sunshine glowing down over the treetops were soon left behind.
By the time Emile found Glimmerleaf and the edge of the stream near the Fold, he was too far invested in his course to turn back, and too much occupied with the plight of the salamander lying in the mud near the edge of the stream, to notice his mistake.
Out of the shadows from under the weeping willow, a huge, almost night-black dragon emerged, a toothy grin on its face.
“Well. Hello, little jester. So nice to see you come when I call.”
“Hakko!” Emile skidded to a stop, glaring up at his Sire.
“Of course, Emikku.” Hakko reached a front arm forward, drawing one sharp claw along the ridge of Emile’s lower jaw. “Who did you expect?”
A breeze blew up, heavy and hot, scented with a cloying fog of maleness and desire that went straight to Emile’s head. He blinked, swayed, and leaned his jaw against Hakko’s clawed hand. “You, of course, Sire,” he whispered.
Chapter 27
“SUNNY!” THE sound of a car door slamming made Sunny jump and sit up straight in an empty bed. The sheets were cool and the house quiet.
“Sunny! You home?” Daisy called from the driveway, then closer as she approached the house and opened the front door. “Hello?”
“Yeah.” Sunny blinked in the morning light. “Be right down.” He didn’t really wonder why she was there. He’d put off going into the city to see her for so long, he wasn’t at all surprised she’d brought the meetin
g out to him.
Quickly, he found a pair of pants—happily, they were the ones he’d stripped off Emile last night, and they still held his forest-y scent. Below, the jingle of keys and the thunk of a bag hitting the floor told him Daisy was making herself at home.
“Holy crap. Sunny, what did you do to your coffee maker?”
He stumbled down the stairs to find her holding the coffee carafe in one hand and what looked like the water tank off the back of the machine in the other.
“Oh. Um.” He huffed out a breath. He probably should have shown Emile how to make coffee a long time ago, but he’d not gotten around to it, and then Emile had tried to make some coffee for him a few mornings ago, and. Well. Now he needed to buy a new one. “That. I need a new one.” He took the parts from her and dropped them into the sink. “Sorry. Did you need coffee? I might have instant. Or I have tea. Probably.”
“No.” She waved a hand at the bits of coffee maker, then waved him closer. “I need a hug from my big brother. Come here.”
“Bossy much?” But he did shuffle forwards and accepted the embrace, holding her tight the instant her familiar smell wafted over him. “Hey.”
“Hey to you too.”
For a few minutes they stood like that, and Sunny found himself sniffling, wondering why he’d waited so long to see her.
“Don’t worry about it,” she whispered.
“I missed you.”
“Never mind.” She pulled away. “Show me around. Then I want to hear all about this new guy.”
“What new guy?” Although he did look around and noticed how very unlike him the house appeared, with the books and blankets nested on the couch and pairs of dirty dishes—two mugs, two bowls, two water glasses—on the counter left from yesterday. Daisy knew him well enough to know he was too much of a neatnik to not clean up after himself.
“Whatever, Sunshine.” She grinned at him and held him at arm’s length. “You look like you’ve been spending a fair amount of time outside, and working hard, even.” She squeezed a bicep. “Gardening?”
“Some, yeah. Just small stuff for now.” He glanced out the kitchen window at the front yard, but there was still no sign of Emile or his dog. Had he heard Daisy’s car and left the house so as not to be noticed?
“Well. Come show me, then.” She took his hand and pulled him out of the house. “This is all this year?” She fingered a basil leaf, then smelled her fingertips. “Nice.”
Sunny grinned and nodded. “Yup. Put up the boxes in the first few weeks I was here and planted soon as I could. It worked out. The plants are doing a lot better than I expected.”
“No shit. Sunny, this is, like, impossible.” She ran her fingers over the leaves of a tomato plant he’d started indoors and moved to the beds as soon as he’d had them ready. “They shouldn’t be this far along considering the amount of time you’ve had to grow them. You started so late.”
“What can I say? This place is magical.”
“It must be.” She smiled as she turned to him and took his hands. “And so are you. Like Mom.” She bussed his cheek. “She’d be so proud of all this.”
“Not worried that I basically ran away?”
Daisy shrugged. “She’d understand that if anyone would, I think.”
“Do you?” Sunny asked, suddenly, irrationally worried his sister wouldn’t be able to forgive him for leaving her with the company and all the work.
“I know you deal in your own way, yeah. So don’t worry. We’re good.”
Fernforest startled them out of the serious talk, dashing from around the side of the house to greet them with frantic yips. He danced around their feet, licking fingers, feet in constant motion.
Daisy laughed. “What is the matter with your dog?”
“I don’t know.” Sunny glanced around the clearing with a frown. “Where is he?” He looked to the dog, who jumped up to put both paws on his chest.
“Show me,” he demanded, refusing to let worry gnaw at his shattered calm.
Fernforest rocketed down the yard the instant his front feet hit the dirt.
“Ferny!” Sunny called after him, took a few jogging steps, then remembered Daisy. He turned. “Wait here, Daisychain.”
“Like hell.” She minced down the yard in her wedge-heeled slides. “Besides, you know what he’s like. He’ll run all the way to wherever he’s trying to take us and all the way back a thousand times while we try to keep up. Let him wear himself out, I say.”
Normally Sunny would agree with her, but the reminder of their parents, of the wreck his life had become in one instant, and not knowing where Emile had gone or why he’d gone had put him on edge. The rain-fresh, idyllic golden morning was too—idyllic. It felt off.
“You can show me the rest of the property,” Daisy said. “I’m sure your guy is just out enjoying a morning walk. We’ll find him.”
“Sure.” Sunny led the way down the path to the end of the drive, where the rose bush rustled.
“Sunshine, there is something in your rosebush,” Daisy muttered, picking her way amidst the lumps and divots in the turf. “It has a lot of flowers for this time of ye—oh shit!” She tripped back as the bush shuddered violently and the dryad rose. She backed right out of one of her heels as she scrabbled and took position behind Sunny.
“Sunny!” Her shriek near deafened him. “Sunny, what—Sunny!” She dug her fingers into his shoulders.
“Daisy, stop!” Clapping one hand over his ear, Sunny held out the other to the shivering dryad. “Shh. Wait. Please. She wasn’t expecting you.” He patted Daisy’s hand in hopes of saving his skin before her nails pierced it. “She’s… excitable.”
Daisy slapped his arm. “I am not!” Her other grip didn’t abate, but she leaned against him to peer over his shoulder. “What is it?”
“A dryad. They belong to trees. Or—”
“I know what a dryad is, silly.” She slapped him again, and her pinching grip eased. “You… have a dryad?”
“No. It’s—he’s—not mine. He lives in my bush. Is my bush? I’m not really sure how it works.”
“I think he’s wanting to tell you something.” She pointed over his shoulder at the dryad.
When Sunny followed her finger, the dryad was staring intently at him, pink eyes aglitter in the slant of morning sunlight. “I’m looking for Emile,” Sunny told him. “Do you know where he went?”
Giving a leafy shudder, the dryad looked from Sunny to the bridge at the head of the path, then slowly back again.
“He went into the woods?”
That got him a tilt of the dryad’s head.
“There.” Sunny pointed, indicating the bridge. “He went over the bridge? Into the forest?”
The slow nod was excruciating.
“When?”
Another head tilt as the dryad considered the question, and Sunny realised a nonspeaking creature, intelligent or not, might not be able to answer him.
Finally the dryad raised an arm with all the hurry of molasses running in January and pointed directly at the sun. Equally as slowly, he lowered his arm until his finger indicated a spot just above the eastern horizon.
Sunny followed his progress, then squinted. “I don’t get it.”
“What time was sunrise?” Daisy asked.
“What?” The non sequitur made Sunny turn and blink at her.
She was thumbing through her phone and made an “a-ha!” sound when she found what she was looking for. “5:58 a.m.” She glanced behind her at the horizon, then up at the sun. “It’s, what?” Another glance at her phone. “6:16. So….” She considered. “I’d say your man wandered into the woods a few minutes ago, judging by where your dryad said the sun was when he left.”
“That’s what he said?” Sunny returned his attention to the dryad, the sky, back to the dryad. “Really?”
That earned him a laugh from Daisy and another light slap. “Think about it.”
“You’re taking this all very… calmly.”
&
nbsp; “It’s—he’s—right there, sweetie. I had my moment, but what else is there to do? Pretend I’m imagining this? Obviously not. That’s not practical.”
And Daisy, bless her, was nothing if not practical.
“Okay. So. You go on inside.” He picked up her shoe to hand it to her. “I’ll go find Emile. Maybe you can make some coffee or—”
She snorted as she lifted a foot and removed her other shoe, grabbed the one Sunny held out to her, then tossed them in the open window of her car. “Not likely. I’m coming with you.”
“Daisy.”
“Shush.”
“You should stay here.”
“And miss what? More dryads? What else? Water sprites? Elves? Dragons? No way!”
She was animated and glowing, and what the hell? Wasn’t his plan to introduce her to a dragon anyway? “Fine. I will take you to the end of the property, at least, and maybe we’ll run into him.”
“What is he doing? Why is he out in the forest? Does he just wander it at random?”
“He’s probably looking for Glimmerleaf.”
“Who? Did you get another dog?” The tease in her voice was unmistakable. “A stray? You’re such a softie.”
“Um. Not exactly.” He had to smile at the memory of Glimmerleaf curled around his legs. “Come on.” Taking her hand, he led her towards the bridge and the edge of the trees. He noted as he passed that the nightshade had reached the end of the bridge. Soon it would be crawling across his lawn. He ran a finger over one spade-shaped leaf. The plant already sported a wealth of purple-and-yellow flowers that would soon give way to the green globes of tiny berries.
“So pretty for something that’ll tie your guts into knots, isn’t it?” Daisy asked.
“At least it’s not the kind that will kill you,” he replied. “Come on.”
The forest shivered as they passed under the trees’ branches. Despite the sunshine breaking through the clouds, under the rustling leaves, it was cool and darker than expected.
“Weird,” Daisy muttered. “What’s the deal?”
