by Loki Renard
“Ugh, you choked, didn’t you,” Traci sighed, disappointed. “Guys don’t like virgins, Mikkie. If you don’t have sex soon, you’ll be too old.”
“Too old for sex?”
“Nobody has sex after twenty-five,” Traci said confidently. “Women dry up then and men move on to younger women.”
Sometimes Mika wondered where Traci got her ideas about the world from. A lot of them didn’t sound quite right, but there was no arguing with Traci.
“Uh…”
“Seriously, you have to get married by twenty,” she said. “Because men divorce their wives by the time they’re thirty. It’s because they stop having sex. My dad’s never been married to anyone over thirty. You’re running out of time, Mikkie.”
“Maybe if I was going to marry your father,” Mika said. “But my parents have been married for a lot longer than that.”
“Your parents are weird, everybody knows that,” Traci said, dismissing her. “You have to be realistic. You have to have sex.”
Mika was beginning to get seriously annoyed with Traci, not to mention seriously questioning her advice. Traci had always seemed so ahead of the curve sexually, but following in Traci’s footsteps really wasn’t working out for Mika at all. She wondered if Traci really did like going out and sleeping with lots of different men, most of whom she’d never speak to again. Was that actually as fun as Traci said it was?
She sat on the bed, watching Traci get ready for another night out, wondering how she’d figured that Ibiza would be fun for a whole month. It had barely been fun for a few days. Now she felt homesick and guilty.
“Seriously,” Traci said, harping on. “The next guy you see, you should just fuck him.”
“Girls!” Tom burst into the room with a cellophane packet in his hand. “Are you ready for something special tonight?”
“Okay, not him,” Traci said. “The next, next guy. What’s going on, Tommy?”
“Mushrooms,” he said, shaking the baggie. “We’re going to boil them and get really, really high.”
“Oh…” Mika screwed up her nose. “I mean, I don’t really like getting high.”
“Of course you don’t,” Traci mocked her. “You don’t like getting high. You don’t like getting laid. What do you like, Mikkie?”
“It’s not that kind of high,” Tom said. “It’s not bad for you, like heroin or something. They’re natural, they’re just mushrooms. They make you feel like you’re dreaming while you’re awake. They’re magic.”
His dopey grin and the fact that he believed in magical fungi was enough to make Mika figure nothing much was going to come of the mushroom experiment.
Over the next hour or so, everyone gathered in their hotel room and they slow-boiled the mushrooms over a little camp stove one of the guys had managed to get his hands on. The smell that rose from the pot wasn’t appetizing, but the anticipation of waiting for the brew to be ready seemed to make everyone more or less ignore the fact that what they were creating looked a lot like ditch water.
At some point, a bunch of other people joined—people who Tom and the rest of the guys had met. The room got crowded and uncomfortable and…
“Here, Mikkie,” Traci said, handing her a small cup. “Drink up. It’s not as bad as it looks.”
Mika hesitated. Every commonsense instinct told her to tip the stuff into the nearest potted plant and go to bed, but she didn’t want to miss out on whatever magical experience was supposedly at the bottom of the cup. She pinched her nose and sucked it down as quickly as possible, grimacing as she felt little bits of grit.
At first the mushrooms mostly made Mika feel ill. The tea had tasted absolutely disgusting, like boiled dirt and mold. This wasn’t fun. The lights were too bright, the music was too loud, and everything was swimming before her eyes.
“I don’t feel well,” she grunted more to herself than anyone else. Traci was staring into the eyes of some guy she’d just met and telling him that they were soul mates. That wasn’t the effects of the mushrooms; that was just how Traci acted pretty much all the time.
For the next half hour or so, they all sat around and chatted. Cigarettes and joints were passed around, but Mika avoided both of them. The tea had made her feel queasy, but also… not entirely terrible. Slowly, the world was starting to flex and change around her. Solid things didn’t feel so solid anymore. Little things became interesting. The space between her fingers. The way one of the guy’s hairs curled over on themselves in little loops and whorls. How did they do that without getting lost? She laid back on the couch where she was sitting and looked at the ceiling. Suddenly it occurred to her that the ceiling she was staring at was, in fact, somebody else’s floor. There was a whole world on the other side of that ceiling.
“There’s another place,” she murmured to herself.
“Huh?” the person next to her questioned her. She didn’t know if it was someone she knew, or someone she didn’t. Either way, their question seemed presumptuous.
“I was a dinosaur once,” she confided to the group. “When I was small. I was a little dinosaur.”
“Coooool,” Traci and Tom and a chorus of echoes behind them mooed.
“I stopped being one when I got taller,” she said. “I outgrew the dinosaur height restriction. It’s very tightly enforced. Nobody taller than three feet is allowed to be a dinosaur anymore.”
“I am sexy,” Traci mused to herself while caressing the chair she was sitting in. “I mean, very, very sexy. I think I might have been brought to this planet just to be sexy.”
Nobody was really listening to her. Nobody was really listening to anybody else either. They were all locked in their little worlds, communicating superficially, but the words didn’t mean what they used to mean so even the simplest of points were both lost and incredibly profound.
“Napkins don’t want to be napkins. They want to be trees!” Tom declared suddenly. “We need to go and plant the napkins so they can grow into big tall trees!”
Galvanized by his leadership, most of the room emptied, clutching handfuls of napkins and a few hand towels that got caught up in the mix.
Mika stayed behind, mentally trapped in her examination of the carpet, which had a rug over it. Did the carpet under the rug feel bad about itself? Why did some carpet get to see the light, while other bits of carpet were forever in the shade of the rug? And was it better to be preserved beneath the rug? Or to be exposed to the shoes and feet of passersby?
Thinking such revolutionary thoughts, Mika made her way back to her room. She was in a very strange state, not inebriated in the way she would have been if she were drunk, though her ability to walk and talk was somewhat compromised. Instead of simply having her mind wiped by alcohol, her perception of everything had changed. She was suddenly aware of everything, the way it sounded when her shoes touched the carpeting, the little scuffs on the wall here and there, carefully cleaned, but not quite entirely erased. She spent several minutes looking at the door of her room, noting how perfectly shiny the numbers on the door were.
When she forgot what she had been doing in the first place, Mika made her way through the door and into the darkened interior of her suite. It was a nice room, expansive and with a view of the beach. She could see the little lights of the clubs and cars moving back and forth in a dance that seemed suddenly to her like the pulse of a living thing. The island was alive. She could feel it.
“Mika…”
A deep, resonant voice murmured her name somewhere in the vast distance of the darkness behind her. She had half-forgotten where she was. With the lights off, she could have been anywhere. When she turned toward the voice, Mika saw a large glowing rectangle in the very center of her room. A light was emitting from it, a very strange bright light that reminded her of the sunniest day she had ever experienced. It was bathing the room in its glow, shedding a patch of elongated light across the carpet. Her bare feet padded across it and felt the warmth it was emitting—just like sunlight.
S
he looked over her shoulder and saw that the world outside her windows was still bathed in darkness, but this doorway before her was acting in direct opposition. How could it be day when it was still night?
“Hello?”
She called out as she walked toward the light. It was difficult to see what was beyond what seemed to be a doorway. The light coming from it made her squint even when she cupped a hand over her eyes.
“Hello there!”
The voice did not come again, but a large masculine hand extended itself to her from within the light. Ordinarily if a hand had appeared through a glowing door absent of any walls, Mika would have exercised considerably more caution. However, in her current state she merely giggled to herself.
“Well, how do you do,” she murmured without any hint of fear as she reached out, took the hand, and allowed herself to be drawn through into a world of warmth and light and…
“Oh, my god!” she gasped as she passed through into a glittering, gleaming, bejeweled chamber of glamor and light. It was a large and lofty space, with ceilings many times her own height. From the very first it imparted a grandeur that made her feel humble.
When she lowered her eyes from the grand ceilings and ornately carved white stone walls, she discovered that she was not alone. She was, in fact, surrounded by people, the strangest, tallest, most beautiful people she had ever seen in her life. It was like being backstage at a fashion show, except instead of racks of clothes and harried hairdressers and designers and makeup artists rushing back and forth, people were standing calmly, wearing flowing robes in a range of rich fabrics, embossed, emblazoned, thoroughly stoned with what looked to her addled eyes like diamonds.
“Mika, daughter of Vilka, son of Vyktor,” the man who belonged to the hand that still held hers intoned in a rich, deep voice. “Welcome.”
“Vilka! You know my dad? Shhhhhhhhh!” She put her finger to her lips. “Don’t tell him I’m here. He would not like it.”
A ripple of gentle humor went through the room. Mika beamed in response. They liked her. She could feel it, a certain kindness that made her feel enveloped in emotional warmth. She turned around and around, looking at the room and the people and the room and the people and the…
“Oooh! I feel dizzy!” She fell into a pair of strong arms and looked into the most beautiful pair of arctic eyes. She saw eons in their gaze, a hundred wars and a hundred victories. She saw passion and she saw pain. She felt her body respond viscerally, her pulse leaping as secret places clenched with recognition of the sheer masculine power behind that gaze.
Chapter Five
Casimer, King of the Dragon Realm, looked at the giggling, semi-sensate young woman in his arms and wondered if he had made a mistake in rescuing young Mika Ferrier.
This was not how people usually came into his presence. Bowing, scraping, prostrating themselves on the floor—that was the more typical behavior. Of course, he had not expected typical behavior from this young woman. However, he had expected something a little more refined than… this.
“You. Are. Pretty,” she declared, sticking her finger upright in the general direction of his nose. He pulled his head back to avoid having his nostril explored and eased the young woman onto her feet. She stood steadily, albeit with a goofy grin on her beautiful features that did not seem native to her temperament.
“You are intoxicated,” he informed her. “Try to gather your wits about you. It is important.”
“You are fabulous,” she said. “Look at your hair, it’s like a mane. You’re a lion, rawr!” She formed her fingers into a claw and slashed aimlessly in the air.
“This is not going to work, Lazarus,” King Casimer murmured to his trusted aide. “She is quite without any sense of reality. This is turning into a debacle.”
Never before had the king’s court seen such a scene. Mika was turning around and around, gasping and clasping her hands together at the sights and sounds around her. Casimer was forced to hook his fingers in the back of her scant skirt in order to stop her from wandering into the crowd of nobles who had gathered to welcome her back to the dragon realm.
He had intended for the occasion to be a formal one, but the young lady’s unexpected antics had made it imperative that she be taken immediately. He and his trusted bodyguard had watched every part of her evening’s activities via a small viewing portal. That included her abortive attempt at sexual intercourse, and then the drinking of the tea that had led to an outburst of madness among the drinkers.
“So this is what is happening to those of our blood who live in the round realm. They are falling into ruin,” Lazarus murmured.
“She does not seem ruined to me,” the king said, his eyes sweeping over the young woman. She was an exceptional beauty. Before laying eyes upon her, he had never suspected that the human seed could produce such fine results. “She seems perfect.”
“You’re beautiful,” Mika cooed, having caught part of their conversation. She seemed just as taken with him as he was with her. Unfortunately, her motor skills were not quite up to par and her attempt to presumably put her hand on his chest turned into a flailing slap contacting with nothing but her own thigh. “You’re a beautiful, beautiful boy.”
The king’s attendants held their smirks admirably, fortunately for them. If it were not for the fact that this addled human had no idea who she was speaking to, behaving in such a fashion would earn her extreme punishment. It was a high crime to disrespect the king. Her father had done so many years ago and he had spent his days in exile as a result.
“It has been a very long time since I was a boy,” he said in his deep, gravelly tones.
“I’m not a girl either,” she said. “I’m a woman. I’m eighteen years old.”
“An entire eighteen years old,” he mused. “In our years, you would be a hundred and eighty, I believe. And even then you would be a fraction of my age.”
He watched as she slouched back, her eyes closing for a moment. He was forced to reach out and steady her before she fell on her curvy bottom. “Fractions, I never liked fractions,” she mumbled. “I didn’t come all this way to do math. I’m here to have fun.”
“Here to have fun,” he repeated, his brow raising slowly. His attendants were losing the battle against mirth. Their prisoner had no idea what was happening to her, and as a result, was not at all concerned at being in the presence of the king of all their kind.
Her eyes opened again, making contact with him. “You are so pretty!”
As some of the younger attendants stuffed bits of their clothes in their mouths to prevent their laughter from being heard, Casimer came to the conclusion that this was not going to be the audience he had imagined it would be. He had intended on welcoming her with full honors, bringing her into the dragon fold with a ceremony she would never forget. Instead, it was becoming extremely obvious that everybody besides Mika would remember this event.
Cutting his losses, Casimer scooped his squirming captive up and tossed her over his shoulder. The act brought a squeal of delight from her crimson painted lips.
“Pretty and strong!”
“Quiet,” he ordered in vain. Her giggling was continuous all the way to the bedchamber he had set aside for her. It was adjacent to his own royal bedroom, a choice he had made out of desire to keep a close eye upon her.
Once safely inside the chamber, he knelt and let her slide from his shoulder onto the bed. She flopped backwards, her smile broad.
“I like this room,” she said. “I like you. This feels like life is supposed to feel. We’re not supposed to be planting napkins.”
Casimer shook his head and began to unfasten her shoes. This was a job for handmaids, but he did it himself, carefully unbuckling the flimsy metal clasp that held the leather to her foot and sliding first one, then the other shoe from her dainty feet. Every part of her was perfectly formed; even her toes had an adorable quality.
“Are you going to take all my clothes off?”
He glanced up to see her
blue and gold eyes looking down at him with anticipation.
“I am putting you to bed,” he said. “You need sleep.”
“Putting me to bed,” she giggled. “I’ve been naughty, haven’t I. You don’t know how naughty I’ve been…”
“I have some idea,” Casimer replied, holding back a smile. It would be interesting to see if she remained so utterly unrepentant once the effects of the fungus wore off.
“Here!”
A short skirt caught him about the face. Mika burst into laughter at his shock and dived beneath the blankets, making a satisfied sound.
“I’m in a cloud,” she informed him. “I’m going to sleep in a lovely beautiful cloud, with a lovely beautiful man.”
She closed her eyes and her head fell back against the pillow. For the first time since her arrival, she was quiet.
Casimer remained for some time, gazing down into the sweet sleeping face of a young woman who was already proving to be much more than he had bargained for.
Chapter Six
Mika woke in an unfamiliar bed on incredibly soft sheets. The room she found herself in was one of the most grand she had ever been in, which was quite something to say. It was full of precious metals inlaid into every spare surface, diamond and gold and ruby and sapphire and… it looked like the interior of her father’s best customer’s fever dream.
It should have been gaudy, but it somehow retained a certain elegance. This was definitely not her room. It was almost certainly not the same hotel. She checked and double checked the bed to ensure that she hadn’t accidentally slept with a random prince of some kind, but the sheets were prince-less. She let out a little sigh of relief.
“Oh, god,” she groaned, putting her head in her hands. She felt awful. She felt as though she had been taken apart a hundred times and put back together without any kind of care. Every part of her ached, her mouth tasted like dirt, and her head was pounding. There was grit and grot all the way through her body.
