by Haley Weir
“Did someone slip something in my drink at the club? Am I tripping?” She touched her own face to make sure she was the one really standing there. Of all reactions he expected, he never thought the woman would call her own existence into question. He was the one who had turned into a dragon, after all.
“No, this isn’t a joke. Club? Were you out dancing?” Ari assessed the woman’s clothing. She was wearing a pair of faded ripped jeans, a plain white t-shirt and a black button-down vest, and to top off the entire ensemble, a black fedora hat. She was perhaps the most unusual looking woman he had ever seen. Her tomboyish clothes were in sharp contrast to the softness of her feminine features.
“I was down at Moe’s,” she replied. “I just got off a gig and was headed home.”
“Who is Moe?” Why was he still standing here having a casual conversation with her like there was nothing amiss?
“He’s, ah...he owns a comedy club in Brooklyn. I had a stand up set at eleven. It was a bust, though.”
“Stand up?” Ari wondered what kind of performer she was. He was so secluded back home in the Hudson Valley that acclimating himself to the city and the strange things that went on here had been a process.
“Yeah. You...must not be from around here.” She rolled her eyes at him and stood up.
“Obviously.” His tone was a bit more dry than he would have liked. She was the one who was supposed to be traumatized here, which is why his eyes bugged out of his head when she started to laugh. He shook his head and found that it was one of the most lyrical sounds he had ever heard. She enchanted him, which was dangerous. He preferred solitude. His brothers liked to rile him up because he hadn’t been with anyone since Siesha was killed, but he did not have the heart to pursue women. But this woman had curves that Ari could appreciate. He noticed them more when she stood up, but what really captivated him was the way she threw her head back and laughed so deeply, like she thought the entire universe was funny. It was as if she was the only one in the world who was privy to the joke. Ari found that more attractive than anything else about her, and he couldn’t help but smile.
When she stopped laughing, she swiped at the tears in her eyes and continued to chuckle. “Oh, you’re killing me.”
“That was never my intention.” He looked her over carefully. She didn’t appear to be in any mortal peril, but humans often suffered afflictions that he had little understanding of.
“No, I mean sometimes when life gets crazy, a good laugh somehow makes it all better. You know?” She looked at him and for a moment he felt like she could see through to his soul.
“Sure. I think I know what you mean.”
“Uh huh. Right.” Ari smiled at her sarcasm. He had to hand it to her, she was taking the whole situation of being carried off by a dragon pretty well, all things considered.
“You have not told me where you wish to go,” he stated.
“Well that’s because you haven’t even told me your name,” she countered.
His eyebrows lifted, and he opened his mouth. “Arrlien, but Ari for short.”
She stuck out her hand, “Riley. And everyone calls me Ri for short, or Wry, W.R.Y. because…”
“Because of your wry sense of humor.” He held her purse with one hand and shook her hand with his other.
“You’re a clever one.”
“Thank you. Now...um, I think I we should address the elephant in the room. Rather, the elephant on the Statue of Liberty. I need to know where you want to go, and you need to decide if you are going to go into shock again when I shift into a dragon.”
“So, you don’t mean elephant in the room. You mean the dragon?” She put her hands on the crown of Lady Liberty and looked out over the bay.
“I suppose so.”
“Ok, so this isn’t some bizarre dream, then?”
“I’m afraid not.” He turned and looked with her. The lights from the city twinkled off the water, despite the stars and moon being hidden behind the cover of clouds. It had stopped raining, for now. New York was finicky that way. The skies could open up at any moment, and Ari found he was a bit uncomfortable standing in front of her naked. He didn’t have any issue with his physique, but he still felt like he belonged to Siesha. This felt...wrong of him.
“Right. Well, I suppose our first stop should be a hospital. I mean, that knife wound looks pretty bad.” She turned to him.
“Huh?” He completely forgot that he had been stabbed. Mostly because it was almost completely healed by now. “Oh, that won’t be necessary.”
“Are you sure? I saw that thing when you pulled it out of your side. It would have put the fangs in your mouth to shame.”
“Are you sure that’s not exaggerating just a little bit, maybe?” He glanced over at her. “You were the one being robbed with it, after all.”
Ari regretted saying it immediately. She tensed and bit her lip. With all of the things for her to freak out about, he thought the knowledge of dragons existing would be the worst of it. “I’m sorry. That was in poor taste. Do you want to go to the police?”
She shook her head. “Even if we did go, there is the issue of you being completely naked. This is New York, so it’s not the strangest thing anyone has seen, but they do kind of frown on that behavior. Then there is the issue of explaining how we got away. I think if we told them that you carried me off to the Statue of Liberty as a dragon, they are going to lock us both up and tell us to sober up until morning.”
“Fair points. Where would you like to go, then?”
“You sure are keen to get rid of me.” Her eyes shifted away from him.
“That’s not…I don’t mean…”
“It’s cool. I’m used to it every night at the clubs.”
“They don’t like your jokes?” He watched her face, hoping he hadn’t said anything that would upset her again.
“No, people laugh alright. It’s just I haven’t come across the right person to hear them and take a chance on me. Everyone has an agent these days, but the problem is getting the agent to begin with. To reach the right audience and all of that. Everyone needs a little help every now and again.”
“Ah, I see. I think I understand.” And he did, to an extent. But the person he was born to help was dead.
“So, I club hop every night. I take a different gig and hope that one night, I’ll come across the right person,” she said.
Ari thought about this for a moment and wondered if he was possibly doing the same thing. He was hopping from place to place in search of…who? Siesha was gone. He wasn’t looking to replace her by any means. He had the strangest sense that this was one of those defining moments. He was supposed to look inside himself and find something deeply profound. He focused on her instead. .
“It sounds lonely,” he commented. She looked at him in surprise.
“Lonely? No, I meet tons of people, it’s great! I get to catch a glimpse into their lives, find out what makes them laugh. I think that’s the best way I know how to reach people, you know? You can tell a lot about a person by how they laugh.”
“Is that so?”
“Sure. People who laugh like they have stomach cramps tell me they are holding back and holding something in, like they feel like they don’t deserve to be fully happy. People who laugh because something makes them nervous are pretty easy to spot. Like, they want to be comfortable with the situation they are in, but they just aren’t. And then there are people who give you that genuine laugh. You know, the one that comes from their soul?”
Ari knew what she was talking about. He saw it in Siesha, and he saw it a lot more now in his mated brothers and Scryos. But Ari forgot what it felt like to laugh.
“I think I know what you mean.”
“That’s really sad.”
“How so?” He looked at her sideways again and immediately regretted saying anything at all. He couldn’t stand the sympathy that was plastered all over her face.
“Someone who was truly happy in life and with themselves wou
ldn’t just think they know what I mean. They would just really know it.”
Chapter 2
Riley genuinely felt sorry for the complete stranger standing buck naked a few feet from her at the top of the Statue of Liberty. Of all of the jokes that fate could have played on her, this was the most bizarre. But she had always been one to roll with the punches. He just looked so sad, and Ry didn’t think that a hug and a long chat would fix the sadness within him. Whatever his grief was, it ran deep. So much so that Ry was pretty sure he was permanently damaged goods. But she was not judging. She knew what it was like to be missing a piece of your soul, and it hurt like hell. People have ties to the world. Hers had been in the chords of life with her twin sister, Rosalind. Rosie was her anchor, always encouraging Ry to pursue her dreams of becoming a famous comedian, until she was killed in a hit and run accident around the corner from a theater on Broadway. Rosie loved the theater; her dream was to be an actress. But that dream was buried along with Rosie.
Ry closed her eyes against the painful memory, reminding herself that Rosie would have kicked Ry’s ass if she ever thought about giving up on her dreams because she was gone. It was why she kept slogging through the nights, trying to find gigs. It’s what Rosie would have wanted. Ry learned to use laughter as a balm for the pain of missing her other half. She would never feel right again without her sister, but she could at least try and make other people laugh. It was a reminder that there was still light and fun in this world. She could tell that the man, or dragon, standing next to her hadn’t laughed in a very long time. “Look, you should probably just bring me home. You can come in and we’ll get you patched up, if you don’t want to go to the hospital.”
“Very well. I am going to shift. What is your address so I can find a rooftop as close to it as possible?”
She told him her address down in The Village, and there were no words for the enormity of emotion that swelled in her when he shifted into a dragon again. Her heart skipped a few beats when she took in his massive black scales, tipped with silver. His eyes were aflame when she looked into the serpentine depths. His tail had nasty looking barbs on the end of it that she had no desire to get anywhere near, even though she was accustomed to trading barbs and jokes on a nightly basis. He opened his paw, palm up and she walked over to him, hearing her heart beat loudly in her ears. She wondered if he heard it too and if, like other animals, he could sense how nervous she was. He must have an idea about the effect he had on people, because he held perfectly still as she hoisted herself up.
She hugged her knees to her chest as he carefully closed his massive paw, cocooning her in. Ari jumped from the far side of Lady Liberty, to run less risk of a human spotting him. With the free fall, she could feel him gaining momentum. When he beat his wings, a draft of wind caught him and lifted him up so that he was soaring through the night sky. Ry lay crouched in his paws, listening to the wind howl past as he banked back toward the city. He explained when she told him the address that when people looked out the window as a dragon flew by, they would just swear they had seen a shadow and nothing more. He went on to say that the human mind had a penchant for coming up with plausible explanations when the improbable was encroaching into their reality. Ry just rolled her eyes at his text book explanation for it all. An hour ago, she would have said dragons were the stuff of fairy tales, or drug trips. But now, feeling him weave in and out of the streets of Manhattan like he was maneuvering his own personal air traffic, there was no denying this was real. But would she wake up tomorrow morning and laugh it off until the next time she turned her gaze up and could swear it was just a shadow passing by? Ry couldn’t wrap her mind around it, so she closed her eyes, feeling the bobbing and swaying of his cupped paws. It was almost like being on a gentle roller coaster ride.
She was only jarred slightly when Ari was able to land on the roof of her apartment complex. She told him there was a rooftop access door. It was always left open for the tenants, despite the building superintendent complaining about it. Ari touched down and immediately shifted back into his human form. Ry felt herself begin to stumble backwards, but he caught her shoulders and steadied her.
Ry stared up at him open mouthed. She had the strongest urge to kiss him and she didn’t know why. He looked like he was going to kiss her too, but he blinked a few times and shook his head. Ry felt the sting of rejection and tried to step back, but he held her shoulders tightly. Ry noticed the way Ari swayed toward her before he did, and she couldn’t help but to lick her lips. His eyes were glassy, and he shook his head again in disbelief. Ry looked around the rooftop. It wasn’t the first time she had been rejected by men, but the last time was before Rosie died. Now, she never took the time to notice men for more than what they might mean to her career. If they did notice her, she wasn’t aware of it.
“So, umm, why don’t you come inside? We can get some bandages for you. I still think…” She gasped when she craned her neck around to look at the wound. It was almost completely healed. How was that possible? But then, she remembered. He wasn’t a human; his healing wasn’t normal. At least, not her version of normal. “It just looks like a scrape!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, I’m surprised it took this long to heal. But it was embedded in my skin for longer than I would have liked.” Ry’s fingers flexed as she reached out to touch it. She dropped her hand when she realized she was doing.
“Well, do you want to come down for something to eat, or…” she trailed off. It took her a minute to realize she was stalling. She had not had time to process the attack, and wanted to put off the impending freak out for as long as possible. She knew better than to go down into the subway that late at night, but she had been trying to save money.
“I should be getting home. I was supposed to check in with my brothers an hour ago and they will begin to wonder if I was attacked.”
“But you were attacked,” she argued. “Are you sure you don’t want to call them and let them know you are okay? Someone probably reported those two men by now.”
“Oh...those two,” Ari shrugged. Ry watched the way the muscles rippled in his shoulders and she was calmed by his strength. She found it comforting that he was a massive legendary beast who could have easily destroyed the two men who attacked her. “I meant the Serpentina,” he replied.
“The what?” There were more attackers? She knew there were shady people in the city, but if she chose to dwell on that fact, she would never leave her apartment. She knew the risks of her career; it required her to be out at night. She always carried a bag of pepper spray in her purse, but had gotten lazy as of late. She assumed that nothing would ever happen to her...until it did.
“The Serpentina are the females of our kind. They have turned vicious and attack us and our mates. My brothers will assume I was attacked by them.”
“Oh. And...your mate?” she asked hesitantly. She hadn’t even considered that he might be in a relationship. Perhaps that was why he had rejected her earlier.
“She was attacked a long time ago,” he said stiffly. Ry nodded and looked away. She should have known better. That was why he was so opposed to coming to her apartment.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pressured you to come…you should go check in with them and let her know you are okay. I’m sure she worries every time you are gone.” She turned away but not before she noticed the look of confusion on his face.
“What do you mean?” He grabbed her arm and she stopped. She had been making a hasty retreat towards the rooftop access door.
“Well you just said you have a mate. If it were me, I would worry every time you walked out the door. Especially if I were in her shoes and went through it all before.” she responded. She shook her arm loose and he seemed to collect himself.
“Ah. You misunderstand me. When the Serpentina attack, they prey on weaker beings. My mate was human...she didn’t survive.” Ry could see the pain on his face as he explained. So this was why he was so unhappy. She felt like a jerk for pushing him. S
he knew what it was like to lose someone special, even though it still felt impossible to talk about.
“Hey, I’m sorry.” She touched his arm and he flinched.
“It is done and in the past,” he breezed. “My brothers Drakkaine, Scryos, and Crylaine believe the Serpentina are almost now defeated. But I think they are just laying low, regrouping until they can double their efforts to attack us.”
“I’m having a hard time coping with one attack tonight,” she admitted. “I don’t want to think about there being more dragons who are flying around ready to rip me to shreds.” Relief flooded her system after telling him her fears. She hadn’t intended to let him know how scared she really was, but their common bond made it easier to open up to him.
Her words seemed to soften Ari, because he looked up at the sky and said, “you know what? I could use something to eat. It isn’t easy flying with a knife wound, and healing takes a lot out of you.”
Ry smiled at him and turned back towards the door. She was desperately trying not to look below his waist. He was naked again, and the first thing she was going to do was offer him a towel when they got inside. She was relieved he was sticking around.
“Here. I don’t have any clothes that will fit you, but you can wrap up in this beach towel.” She had immediately gone to the hall closet where she had hung a bag from when she had gone to Coney Island the other day before a gig. She had left the towel in the bag and it smelled like suntan lotion and the sea, and she hoped he didn’t mind. He didn’t say anything but carefully wrapped it around his waist and followed her to the kitchen. She thought she caught a glimmer of red in his eyes before they turned to walk down the hall, but it might have just been a trick of the light.
Ry dug into the fridge and retrieved some leftover beef stew from the night before. Rosie used to tease her about cooking things over a hot stove on a hot day, but she enjoyed comfort food so much that the heat never bothered her.
“What are you thinking about?” Ari’s voice was soft right behind her.
