Kisame stopped to take pictures. It was a deliberate choice to use the camera that would need to be uploaded instead of the one that would upload automatically every night. There was a part of her that was reluctant to share what she was seeing.
She came to several smaller dwellings that she wanted to explore but couldn’t. There was a leash on her drawing her feet to the center of town. No matter how she tried to turn she kept walking. This wasn’t right. Were there aliens here after all? Were they still alive and looking for a sacrifice? This is what she got for growing up with her father. She changed the grip on her walking stick getting ready for combat. The force let up, she was staring at a marvel in construction. It reached so far up that she couldn’t see where some points of the building… no, it was a palace, ended.
They gave kids books with this type of fairytale buildings in them. None had ever been constructed on their planet. They were not efficient. Now she stood in front of one. She could leave, her body was hers again, but there was no way she was not exploring.
Using her walking stick to help climb the stairs. They were wider and spaced further apart than she was used to. The people who lived here may have had long legs. When she got to the last step, she fell to her knees to explore the material it was made out of. She needed a piece to take back with her for study but didn’t want to chip the steps. Her fingers brushed away the accumulated dirt to find a smooth surface beneath. It sparkled with bits of crushed gemstone. The sun beamed down on it making it shine with an inner glow.
She sat down to enjoy the beauty she was surrounded with. A secret city who knew? She laughed with joy. She couldn’t wait to show everyone. She stood and took more pictures before walking into the doors that were easily three times taller than her.
Giants must have lived here. That thought gave her father’s theory a little credence, except why would aliens build a city with a palace on their planet? She shook her head acknowledging that she didn’t know more than she knew three days ago. The space she entered was wide open. Could it have been a foyer? What did she know about palaces? Using her stick, she walked until she came to the end of the space. She stopped to take a breath, the area went on for what felt like miles. Off to one side were two doors. She opened one. The door was tall and wide. Who would need something like this? She put her shoulder into it and then all her weight. It was heavier than she thought. If the doors to the palace had been closed, she didn’t think she could have opened them.
The door creaked open like it hadn’t moved in centuries. Inside was a beautiful room. It was filled with couches that must have been plush at one point and beautiful. The dust had accumulated making her sneeze. No wind had gone through the room so it was like it was a capsule in time. She started backing out before the picture on the wall caught her attention. The bottom corner of it was vibrant, the rest was covered in dust, ashes?
She took a rag from the bag she was carrying and dusted it off. In front of her was the faded picture of a man who could have been royalty. The way he held himself spoke to her. His eyes were the green of the earth with a silver band around them. He didn’t look like an alien, but he didn’t remind her of the men she knew.
She grabbed her water bottle to take a sip. She needed to be careful not having seen a source of water. There was something about that picture that was making her dry, yet hot at the same time. Her mouth felt like sand, but other areas felt like a river waiting to breach its banks.
She backed out the room. Maybe being an explorer was not what she was meant to be. After taking her time to explore the bottom floor, she stopped for lunch. Once again cold rations and water. She was almost feeling brave enough to start a fire to heat the hot packs she had brought along with her.
Soon it would be time to go back to her vehicle. She leaned back allowing her body to stretch on the floor. The sun was playing peekaboo out the corner of her eyes. There was a spot where there was darkness like something hid in the shadows. No matter how she looked she couldn’t find a staircase. Her teeth worried her bottom lip. Should she put this off till tomorrow? There was still time before the sun went down.
Knowing she shouldn’t take the chance she gathered her gear and went to explore the corner she hadn’t seen. It wasn’t a corner it was an old lift. She’d never seen one constructed like this. Maybe they didn’t use stairs. She pushed the button knowing it wouldn’t work. When the doors opened for her, she almost hit the floor. “Don’t do it Kisame,” she told herself even as she stepped into the lift. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she growled at herself even as she pushed a button on a whim.
The doors closed, and she went up, and up, then up some more before the doors opened.
Beautiful. This is what she was expecting to find in a palace. The room was large, perfect for entertaining. It was filled with couches and chairs and small tables that were strewn across the floor in a way that almost reminded her of a puzzle. There were spaces that were public but several that were private. If you had lots of friends, this could be the perfect party space.
The room was almost pristine as if it were caught in a bubble of time never to be tampered with.
What happened here? What happened to the man in the picture downstairs? Was she defiling someone’s grave for daring to walk here? She didn’t know, but she was sure that whatever happened here was the mystery she spent her life trying to solve.
“One clue, I just need one clue.” Her mind thought back to the picture downstairs. “I need a better clue than that.” There was no one to hear her, but she took comfort in the sound of her own voice. It was the tapestry that stood in the middle of the floor with nothing holding it up that commanded her attention. How was that possible?
Chapter Three
Kisame walked around the tapestry confirming that there was a front and a back. More importantly, it stood by itself in the middle the floor. What kind of science was this? She wasn’t going to utter the M word and there was no way the word alien was coming from her mouth so she was stuck with science. So good so far.
Finally, she picked up her walking stick checking the sharp point against her thumb. The tapestry was done in a riot of colors, but the green tinged with silver called to her. She wanted to touch and caress it. Taking her stick, she stuck the sharp end into the first square of green she saw. The handle drooped towards the ground but the stick didn’t fall out.
She went around the back of the tapestry to find that the end hadn’t come out on the other side. That didn’t make any sense. She walked back around to confirm the stick was shoved all the way in. The end was several inches long. Why wasn’t it poking through the tapestry?
Shaking her head, she got closer to the beautiful design holding her attention. It called to her as if it had a life of its own. She laughed needing to hear the sound as well as her own voice. After checking the back, a second time and deciding her eyes were not failing, she stepped up to the tapestry. The squares reminded her of scales. The greenish silver pattern was in an oddly spherical shape. She noticed the other colors but no two colors were mixed. Whoever designed this had an eye for patterns.
She knew better than to touch something like this. Her father’s word about a mysterious disease rang through her head even as her hand hovered over one of the silver-green squares that she was drawn to. She laid her hand on one, the feeling of coolness tingled through her fingers. Scales, these had to be honest to goodness scales. Who made a tapestry with them? What kind of scales were they?
She could feel the thickness, but they were also smooth. She imagined the ocean caressing them every day for years to be this smooth. A sense of giddiness went through her as she began to caress the green scales. She never noticed that she never touched a different color. She could spend the rest of her life researching with joy what kind of animal belonged to these scales. Wait until she brought it back. Her father would be forced to acknowledge her. Dreams of prestige and her fathers love gathered in her head while she continued to caress the scales. She missed t
he heat and the first pulse as if the tapestry was coming alive.
“What the hell,” she murmured as the heat continued to grow under her hands. The tapestry moved as if it was breathing. She stumbled a few feet backward just barely remaining standing when the tapestry came to life. A form she had never seen before burst through it.
It tossed her backward this time she ended up on her behind. Out came a dragon. She shook her head not a dragon, they didn’t exist. The correct term for this dragon was a wyvern, not that dragons existed. His scales were green with hints of silver at the tips. They shimmered in the fast receding light of day. It coiled its body before coming at her.
Kisame crabbed walked back using her feet and hands trying desperately to put space between them. It caught up with her hovering over her while she stopped. Fear tried to clog her lungs making the air she had rattle around for space to exhale. The large body lowered caressing her from knee to breast.
“Omg, it wants to sleep with me.” Her words came out in a rush as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. She was about to become the incubator for little dragon children that would tear her apart and eat her after being born.
There was male laughter in the room. She wanted to turn her head to find it, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the wyvern in front of her.
“You are funny mate.”
“Who said that? Did you say that?” She coughed her words. Her lungs were burning from lack of oxygen and her body was so stiff from fear she was about to break into pieces.
The wyvern caressed her again.
“You want to mate with me.” They were the only words she could mutter. If she had said you want to fuck me until you rip to me shreds, she might have broken down and shown how weak she was.
“I do. You’re my mate.” She was staring into his eyes they were the green of the earth with a silver line around them.
He blinked as he went from dragon to man. “I will make love to you using my human body unless you have your dragon body.”
She blinked and let her mouth hang open. This… well, she didn’t know what to say about this.
“Sleep mate, I will be back soon.” He reached down to rub the side of her face then the top of her chest never touching her breast. She felt her eyes grow heavy but still managed to watch as the handsome man became a dragon. He left. How she wasn’t sure, all she knew was he hadn’t used the elevators. “There be dragons,” was all she could say before sleep took her.
*~*~*~*
Rilan burst through the clouds allowing himself freedom for the first time in what felt like forever. He dived back down going into a spiral as the earth came up to meet him. With laughter, he corrected his course so that he was flying over the city… his city.
He let out a roar of fire followed by a spout of water. Then he called to his people. A call that should be answered by thousands if not millions of voices. No one answered him back. Shock almost knocked him out the sky. Where were his people? What happened to his city? How was everything in such disrepair? Were he and his mate the last humans alive?
How had his mate found him? More importantly, why couldn’t he remember yesterday or even ten minutes before meeting his mate? Meeting a mate was all-encompassing he knew that, but none of the legends said it made you forget everything that ever happened in your life. He would have had to forget a lot to not know what happened to his people.
Sadness rocked him. A spiral of darkness came for him wanting to devour him. There was no way he would believe he was the only one. His people didn’t answer but he could feel them deep within his soul. They were still with him. He watched as darkness fell upon his land before going back to the palace. He had a mate to talk to.
Once he was settled beside her, he reached out and remove the sleeping spell he placed upon her. She woke slowly her beautiful purple eyes luminescent in the darkness. She was extra thick with curves gracing her body the way a dragon female should be in her human form.
“Hi,” he greeted her when her attention landed on him.
She licked her lips before replying. “Hi.”
He watched as she tried to curl up inside of herself. Didn’t she know her mate would never hurt her? How could this marvelous occasion be tied with the death of his city? His planet.
“My name is Rilan.”
“Rilan?”
“My name is Rilancoguat Amanti Beshiskin. I prefer to be called Rilan.” She laughed, and he laughed with her.
“My name is Kisame. Yes, it’s just like the city and no I don’t know what my mom was thinking other than she was in the mood for a kiss.”
He had no reference for a town with that name, but he wasn’t surprised. The damage done to his city didn’t happen in a day or a year. There were hundreds of years of corrosion to the brick and the steel.
“Kisame is a beautiful name for a beautiful dragon.”
“Um about that, thanks but I’m not a dragon.”
He took a look at her purple eyes and how they shined in the darkness and knew she was lying, but why.
“Why do you deny a basic principle about who you are?”
“I’m not.” She sat up, lying down was putting her at a disadvantage. “Are you hungry? I brought some cold rations with me. I didn’t want to be out at dark without something to eat. Your eyes shine in the dark,” she told him as she moved over to the pouch, she brought with her.
This is what she signed up for. There would be no sign of running now that she was meeting… what? Was he an alien? Where all the things she’d been taught true?
“So do yours.”
She shook her head. “Mine don’t glow.” That she knew about herself. There was nothing special about her.
He walked over to her and took her hand bringing it up in front of her face. “Are you sure?” He stepped back so his eyes wouldn’t be on her.
Her arm was lit up with a glow. “This is impossible?”
“How could you be in the dark and not notice that?”
“I… it is never completely dark where I come from. My father always insisted I keep on night lights even when I got my own place. The first I was ever in the total dark was a few nights ago I thought… forget what I thought, I was wrong.” She pulled out some packages of food. Then stopped to scan Rilan from head to toe before pulling out additional packages for him.
“Would you be willing to tell me where you’re from while we eat?”
He tore the first package open and then stopped to look at her. “What do you mean where I am from?”
The room was completely dark now. There was nothing but a few shadows that came from the glow of their eyes.
“You know what planet you came from and how you got to my planet.”
“I think story time is what you need. First, we call this planet earth. I don’t know if there are any other inhabited planets in the galaxy. Our scientist fought over that very fact all the time. As for how we got here, it depends on who you talk to. There is the big bang theory, but others believe in evolution. Still, some believe in a more religious beginning. However you believe, we are here.”
She chewed on one of her cold packs and licked her fingers before opening another. “Are you saying that you are from this planet?”
“Just like you. This planet is full of… was full of mankind, dragon shifters. We lived here for years growing in numbers and community. There were natural predators but not in the areas where we congregated.”
“I don’t want to disagree with you. Okay yes, I do. I’m not a shifter and I’m old enough to know if I could.”
“You don’t know any of your history?”
She stiffened her shoulders. “Several hundred years ago there was a war. My father and our history state that aliens came and set up in The Interior. A place that was hostile to life on our planet. After years of war, we finally defeated them, sending them back to where ever they came from. In the process, they destroyed every source of our history. No one knows or remembers what came before them. There is
the war and now.”
Rilan sat across from her with his mouth open. It probably wasn’t the best look on him, but he’d never come across a case of brainwashing as severe as this.
He ate the last of the food that his mate provided for him. “I was in that war, I don’t know what happened, but I intend to find out. Here’s a brief history lesson. In the beginning, there was mankind who were dragon shifters and life was as it should be. One day long before I was born there was a child who was born without the ability to shift. This was unheard of. Then it happened again. As time passed this started to happen with our females too. Soon roughly twenty-five percent of the population couldn’t take their dragon forms. They were still dragons but confined to the ground.
“Eventually they wanted to explore other parts of the planet. We couldn’t stop them because we didn’t want to. It was always thought they would come back. They decided instead to settle in other places to make cities that welcomed those who couldn’t shift. Eventually, they didn’t want anything to do with us. If a shifter was born to them, they would bring it to us and asked the same if a child was born who couldn’t shift.”
Rilan settled down on the floor. He would be more comfortable in his dragon form but didn’t want to spook his mate.
“Maybe war was inevitable. They couldn’t fly and were sure that one day we would want the land they called their own. They were sure we would come after the women who chose to stay with them. That’s your war. It wasn’t with aliens. It was brother fighting against brother, parents fighting against children. It was a family divided, a people divided.”
Kisame closed her eyes. She scooted close enough to let the warmth from Rilan’s higher body temperature make her feel safe.
Chapter Four
Kisame woke up at first light. She rolled over so she could crawl to her bag. One of the things she was doing was ignoring her bladder. Her flight or fight response was telling her to get the hell away. Rilan rewrote history last night. She needed to run fast and far.
The Dragon's Mate (Ancient Dragons Book 1) Page 2
