by Amelia Jade
Champ whined at her, then darted back out the door, stopping at the top of the stairs. He bounced on his forelegs once, then ran down the stairs, stopping at the base. Sandy put on shoes, grabbed a powerful flashlight, and followed him outside, her head twisting left and right as she watched for any signs of ambush.
Her dog didn’t seem worried. His tail was wagging excitedly and he seemed to be leading her somewhere. She knew if he smelled any of Rusty’s men that he wouldn’t lead her to them. This must have to do with something else. And where was Palin in all this?
A few minutes later her brain suddenly came to life, lightbulb flicking on, even as fear settled in the pit of her stomach. The dog was outside. Palin was nowhere to be seen, and Champ wanted her to follow him somewhere. The most logical explanation was that he was leading her to Palin. His truck had still been parked out front, so he hadn’t taken off. What had happened to him? Why was he out here somewhere? And most importantly, why wasn’t he coming back himself?
Clutching the gun tightly, she followed her dog down the muddy path between fields. Eventually Champ stopped, looking straight ahead, his attention completely focused. Nervously she flicked the flashlight on, terrified of what she might find.
“Palin!” she cried as the beam of light outlined his prone form in the mud.
She dropped the gun and ran forward, falling to her knees at his side. “Oh my God, Palin, what happened?” His entire left side was a completely mangled ruin. Dead skin was peeled back, and blood had soaked his clothing through to his good side, combining with the mud to form a nasty-looking brown-red stain.
She didn’t know where to start, her hands shaking violently as they trembled, held above his side. Fearing what she might find, she put her fingers against his throat on his good side, checking for a pulse. He was still warm, and Sandy nearly collapsed into hysterics when she felt her fingers vibrate on his neck.
Palin was still alive.
“I need to get you to a hospital,” she gasped, getting to her feet. Her cell phone was back at the house.
But she couldn’t just leave him here. Torn by indecision she didn’t move. Finally her desire to be near him won out and she fell back into the mud, stroking the hair on his unburned side.
“Palin, you need to wake up,” she whispered into his ear. “Please.” While she rocked back and forth, her eyes surveyed the field near her. Plants were trampled everywhere, and she could see some wilting over that didn’t look normal.
Snatching up the flashlight, she cast it across the affected area. “What the hell happened here?” she gasped. Whole sections of crops were wilted or burned away, almost melted. Not by fire it seemed, but by something else. What could have done this? The devastation was mostly confined to an area right around where Palin was lying.
Frowning, she pointed the light at the ground. Her eyebrows went up as she saw tracks on the ground that made absolutely no sense. They belonged to nothing on earth she could think of, and they definitely were not tire tracks. They looked like…Her eyes darted back to Palin.
“Okay, mister, you have a lot of answering to do once you’re better,” she muttered.
At that moment Palin stirred. “Sandy?” he asked wearily. “That you?”
“You’re damn right it’s me.” She knelt next to him, stroking his head as he stirred, though he didn’t move, still looking straight up at the sky. “What the hell happened to you? We need to get you to a hospital.”
“No.” He swallowed, shook his head slightly, wincing in the process. “No hospital. I’ll be fine.”
“Fine?” she almost shrieked. “Your entire left side is burned away.”
He smiled. “You should have seen it an hour ago. I’ll be fine. I need food, and I guess a shower.” His voice was still weak, but he seemed to be recovering his energy even as she watched.
“Palin. I think you’re in shock,” she said calmly. “You’ve sustained a horrible injury. It’s going to take months before you’re okay. You need to—what the hell are you doing?”
“Getting up,” he said, putting action to word as he used his right arm to lift himself from the ground. “Oh, yeah, that still hurts some.”
She stared. “Are you a zombie? You’re a zombie. There’s no other way you’re getting up. You’re even walking like one. Lurching, that’s what they call it when zombies walk. You’re lurching, Palin. That’s not normal.” She paused. “But you can talk. Are you like, some sort of super-zombie?”
“Please don’t make me laugh,” he wheezed, holding his left side. “That really makes it hurt.”
“Zombies aren’t supposed to know how to laugh,” she mumbled to herself.
“Sandy!”
She jerked upright as he barked her name. “Yes?”
“I. Am. Not. A. Zombie. Sorry to tell you, but the zombie apocalypse is not happening. At all. I’m alive. Very much alive.”
“But the lurching…”
He rolled his eyes. “I did get hurt. It makes it a little tough to walk normally. But I’m already healing. Here, get the flashlight.”
She picked it up from where she’d dropped it in the mud and shined it at his wounded side, as directed.
“See, look. Pink skin already forming underneath. No more blood, nothing.”
He was right. It was very clearly healing already. “But how?”
“I gave you the answer,” he said. “You just chose not to believe me. Maybe now you will.”
She stared at the wound, then lifted her gaze to his face. “How does this prove you’re a dragon? I mean, maybe it’s all a trick. Maybe this is makeup that someone put on elaborately to make you look hurt.”
“Oh for…” Palin rolled his eyes and expelled air through his nose loudly. “Stay there.” He didn’t wait for her to agree before he walked—lurched, really, he was still lurching—away from her.
Turning slightly until his good side was pointed at her, he lifted his working arm. “Stay there. Try not to faint.”
“Why would I—Oh.”
Before she could finish her question Palin had transformed. Into a dragon the size of a school bus, and the color of his eyes.
Sandy’s world spun as she fought for breath, trying to believe what her eyes were telling her. Somehow she had to pigeonhole what she’d just seen into her working knowledge of the world. Everyone knew dragons didn’t really exist. They were just myth. Legend really. Fairy tales. Nothing more.
The world spun, her lungs refusing to work.
“Sandy?”
She fell.
“SANDY!”
Water splashed up and over her as she landed in a particularly deep puddle left over from the rains. The cold shock brought her crashing back to reality. Although it had moved closer, there was still a huge emerald dragon standing close by. Its left side was all melted away, just like Palin’s had been.
“A dragon,” she muttered, getting to her feet and shaking off as much of the muck and water as she could. “He claims he’s a dragon, but it takes him this long to actually prove it. Man, I must have been really fucked up last night. Now I’m having hallucinations. I didn’t know good sex could do that to you.” She paused. “The sex better not have been in my imagination too. That’s just not fair.” She was talking to herself, muttering under her breath the whole time as she stalked over to the dragon.
She extended her index finger and none-too-gently poked the dragon’s leg. Her finger rebounded off the brilliant emerald scales that seemed to glow with their own light. Muttering some more, she stalked over to his side and rapped on the larger scales there with her fist. They held fast.
“This is some trick,” she said.
“No trick. I can do this whenever and wherever. Though for obvious reasons I prefer not to do it where others may see.”
Sandy jumped back. “Holy shit you can speak English.”
The dragon sighed, its massive flanks deflating. “Sandy, it’s me. Palin. Of course I can speak English.”
“Rig
ht.” She walked around to his mangled side. “So what’s with the damage? Is this like that movie with the robot cars, where the one shows up looking like a hunk of junk, until it scans the new version and becomes all fancy?”
The dragon’s predatory yellow eyes blinked slowly, its sets of triple eyelids closing and then opening over the oval pupils. “The what?”
“Never mind,” she said with a wave of her hand. “What happened?”
“I got in a fight.”
“I can see. You lost it too.”
He reared back. “I did not.”
“Right. Well, I don’t see anybody else lying around, unless you’re going to blame this on Champ.” She turned on the dog. “Are you a dragon? A doggy-dragon? Did you do this?” She hiked a thumb over her shoulder at Palin.
Champ just sat in the mud, panting happily as he looked back and forth between the two of them.
“No, Champ didn’t do that.”
The voice was different now. More human, less melodious and musical than it had been. She turned around to see Palin standing in place of the dragon. “That’s a cool party trick.”
“Not a trick. I’m a real dragon, and I got in a real fight with two other real dragons.”
She snorted. “Over what? Who has the prettiest scales?”
Palin smiled, a tight little thing that conveyed little humor. “Over you.”
“Excuse me?”
“The fight was over you, Sandy. Or more specifically, over me staying with you.”
Sandy worked her jaw for a moment, licking her lips and then spitting out mud-flavored saliva. Without speaking she walked back toward the house and then picked up her shotgun. “You need to start making sense, and you need to start making sense now.”
“Yeah, probably,” he admitted. “Any chance we can do so while headed back to the house? Despite my show of bravado here, I’m actually hurt pretty bad and am pretty weak.”
“Answer me one question first,” she said, trying to organize the chaos in her brain.
“Anything. I’m an open book to you.”
“Do you intend me any harm?”
She’d never seen genuine pain on his face before, but she did now. He seemed to crumple from the inside, stumbling several steps.
“Am I going to hurt you?” he sagged some more. “No. I mean you no harm at all, Sandy. I…I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any pain. That was never my intention.”
Pushing aside the thick knot of emotion in her throat, she forced herself to speak again. “You haven’t, but I needed to know.”
“You trust me, just like that?”
She smiled at him. “You’re a dragon, Palin. You haven’t lied to me yet.”
“And I never will,” he said, standing up straight, understanding now why she’d asked the question. It wasn’t because she suspected him of harm. No, Sandy knew now that he had told her nothing but the truth since day one. It meant she trusted him when he said he meant her no harm, and that knowledge seemed to reinflate Palin in seconds.
“Good. Now start talking.”
He grinned. “There’s something you should understand about dragon shifters, Sandy. Well, all shifters really, but in your case dragons are the ones that apply to you.”
“There are other types?”
“Yes. I’ll answer those questions later.”
“Okay.” She walked at his good side, ready to support him if he needed her assistance.
“We don’t use the term soulmate as a general descriptor. A shifter only has one mate in their life.”
“Like, ever?” she asked, sensing where the conversation was going. Somehow she realized she’d known all along that this is the way it would be. Sandy couldn’t explain it, but nothing was surprising her now that she’d seen his dragon.
“Ever. We find them, and we are bonded to them for the rest of our lives.”
“And I’m your mate.” She didn’t question it.
“Yes, Sandy, you are my one true mate.”
“Well that sounds rather profound. And permanent.”
Palin chuckled. “Stop, please. I can’t laugh. That actually really hurts.”
“So why were you fighting over me? Are there other dragons that want me too? I mean, I guess I’m hot stuff in dragonland, am I?”
“Actually no. They wanted me to leave you and return with them. They said that as a human, there was no way you could be my mate, and that I was being delusional.” He shrugged with one shoulder. “I told them I wasn’t going. I was staying.”
Sandy looked over at him. Something in his voice… “Why do I feel that’s not quite the same as someone saying they’re staying on vacation for an extra day?”
Palin looked down, refusing to meet her gaze. “It’s…I’ve…” He sighed. “It’s not.”
“Tell me you didn’t get yourself kicked out because of me?”
The big dragon shifter—it still felt weird to think of him like that. Sandy was going to need some more time to truly come to understand that aspect—licked his lips. Then he licked them again. “I vowed to always tell you the truth, Sandy. So I cannot in good faith say that.”
“Can you ever go home?”
“I…I don’t know,” he admitted.
“You fought off two other dragons and left your homeland for me?”
His head snapped around, eyes blazing with emerald flame. “You are my mate,” he snarled fiercely, then calmed. “I would do anything for you, Sandy. Anything. I love you.”
She couldn’t work her voice for a while. He loved her? She hadn’t expected him to say that! Sandy knew she wasn’t ready to reciprocate on something that deep. She needed more time. So, she did what she did best. She stalled and changed the subject. “Like fight two other dragons and forsake your homeland.”
“If I had to,” he agreed. “Though please don’t ask me to do so on the regular. It could get rather trying, despite how amazing and skilled I am.”
She smiled at him. He blushed—though it was hard to tell in the night—and looked away. Biting her lip, she regarded the man who had given up so much for her, and revealed to her a truth that if she weren’t completely trustworthy, could land him in a lot of trouble. But he trusted her. And now she trusted him. Sticking out her hand she snared his, sliding her fingers into his grip.
Together they walked back to her farm house. Although she might not love him, she sure as hell wasn’t letting him go either. They would work things out together.
“You don’t have to tell me you love me, by the way,” he added as they ascended the stairs slowly.
“I wasn’t going to.” She hesitated. “I care for you, Palin. More than I think I was ready to accept. But it’s going to take time for me to learn how to love again. I told myself for so long that I would never trust another human, never like another human. I moved out here because animals are more trustworthy, so I figured. I…I’m not sure I remember how to love.”
He smiled, stopping outside her newly repaired front door. “I understand. I’ll give you some time to think about it without me around.” He gestured for her to head inside.
“Absolutely not. You’re hurt, and I can hear your stomach rumbling. You get that cute ass of yours inside so I can feed you, mister. It’s the least I can do.”
Palin looked about ready to protest, but a stern glare sent him scurrying for the door.
“That’s what I thought,” she muttered and followed him inside. “Oh, and if you heal as fast as you say you do, you’re cleaning up Champ once you’re healthy. It’s your fault he’s more mud than dog.”
Outside Champ whined.
Behind him the first rays of sunlight lit the horizon, signaling the dawn of a new day. A day full of promise and hope, something that had been lacking for far too long in her life. Like the start of a fresh chapter in a book, the words were unwritten.
Sandy followed her dragon-man into the kitchen and prepared to cook up a storm.
It was time she filled those pages with words.
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Chapter Twenty-Three
Sandy
The sounds of tools came from the barn.
Sandy rocked back and forth on her swing, book in hand, glass of water in the other. Champ lay at her feet, snoring the gorgeous afternoon away. Flipping the page, she settled back into the seat, losing herself in the pages once more. It was a perfect Sunday morning as far as she was concerned, and she intended to treat it as such.
It had been nearly a week since she’d discovered Palin in the mud and had her world rocked by his revelations. Since then she’d mostly come to terms with the fact, though she’d had to get him to shift several more times to prove it. He’d taken her for a quick flight as well. That was how Sandy came to find out she was terrified of heights.
Now he was busy working on the frame to accommodate her brand-new window. The old one had been a big thing, nearly eight feet across, composed of multiple panes. Although he’d wanted to replace it piece for piece, she’d convinced him to put something newer in. Something energy efficient. She’d find the money for it somehow. For today though she was going to enjoy the sunshine, warm breeze, and complete lack of anything to do.
Palin had told her this was payback for helping him. He’d worked longer and harder the past week than she had any right to ask of anyone, and the result was a day free from chores for her. Sure, there were things she could do, but nothing that absolutely needed doing. What a blessing.
Champ lifted his head, staring down the driveway. Sandy followed his gaze and groaned. Are you kidding me? Can’t I just have one day to live in peace? Up the drive came Rusty’s blue truck.
“Why me?” she complained to her dog, who moved to sit protectively on the edge of the stairs, staying between her and Rusty as he brought his truck to a halt.
Sandy heaved herself to her feet with a sigh, and reached inside the door and picked up the shotgun, its familiar heavy weight comfortable in her hands. She’d never had occasion to use it, but she practiced every week. Just in case.
“I’m not selling,” she snarled the instant he was out of his truck. “So get back in your truck and get the fuck off my property.”
