by Sophie Stern
The wolf doesn’t take it.
Instead, he leaps at the dragon man, but the dragon is much too quick. He, too, jumps into the air, and when he lands, he’s in his full dragon form.
The man is gone.
The monster has come.
*
When I was a little girl, my mother used to tell me fairytales. She’d tell me stories about knights in shining armor, princesses in far-away castles, and the dragons who threatened to destroy them all.
What she didn’t tell me was that sometimes, the dragons can be good.
She didn’t tell me that sometimes, the dragons are the heroes.
Today, my dragon is the hero.
He’s big: big and beautiful. I suppose I never thought a dragon could be pretty, but this one? Well, he’s got “pretty” down pat. He’s nearly as big as the cabin. I’m not sure if that’s large or small for a dragon, but he definitely towers over both me and the wolf. His scales are shiny and despite the dark hour of the night, I can see things reflected off them.
It’s the perfect camouflage.
Somehow, I can’t quite bring myself to breathe.
I don’t want to breathe and ruin this moment because right now, time feels like it’s standing still.
The wolf leaps at the dragon. He growls and jumps into the air, obviously aiming for the dragon’s heart. The dragon moves, though, and the wolf hits his arm. I see blood slowly seeping from the dragon and I realize the wolf hit him in a weak spot. Somehow, he managed to slice his arm.
A sound comes deep from the dragon’s throat. It’s a feral noise, a pained noise, and it’s one I don’t think I’ll ever forget. When I hear this sound, my heart stops beating, just for a minute, and I begin to cry.
I can’t lose him.
I’m not sure why this is the thought that fills my head.
I have no connection to this monster, no attachment to this creature, yet somehow, the idea of him dying fills my heart with sadness and my body with physical pain.
The idea of him dying hurts.
But I don’t have to worry.
The dragon pushes the wolf away with his arm and growls. A hint of flame comes from his mouth, but it doesn’t seem to scare the wolf. The dragon isn’t being very aggressive in this fight. He’s mostly playing defense, I realize, and I wonder why that is.
Maybe he doesn’t want to fight.
Maybe he wishes this would all just end.
When the wolf attacks again, the dragon hits him with his arm, and the wolf falls to the ground. He seems to have the wind knocked out of him because he lies on his back as the dragon moves over to him. Then the dragon closes his eyes for a moment. He takes a deep breath, and then he opens his eyes again. The dragon reaches out and he uses one very long, very sharp talon to slice the wolf’s throat.
Then he is no more.
The wolf is dead, but the dragon is injured.
There are no winners here.
Chapter Eight
Cameron
“You’re hurt,” she says, rushing over to me.”
“I’m fine,” I growl, but she ignores me and takes my arm in her hands. She looks at my skin and makes a weird little clicking sound. Disapproval. She disapproves of my injury. Well, it’s not up to her, now is it? She had a chance to avoid all of this, but she chose to run. She chose to make me chase her. It’s her fault I’m hurt. Really. It is.
It’s not the human’s fault, my dragon whispers to me, but I ignore that fucker.
“Stop touching me,” I pull my arm away, but she glares at me.
“You listen here,” she says. “You might be some big, bad shifter, but my mother was a nurse, and I know a bad injury when I see one. We need to get this cleaned up. Now.”
She stands and offers me her hand. What? Is she going to pull me to my feet? I’m much too big and heavy for that, but I humor her, offering my hand in return, and she tugs. I push myself up to help her, and then I allow the human to lead me into the wolf’s cabin. We both pointedly ignore his corpse, not wanting to even deal with that at the moment. I should burn it, most likely, or bury him, but I get the feeling we don’t have time for pleasantries.
The inside of the cabin is dirty and dusty. I don’t know how long the wolf lived here, but it’s obvious he didn’t take well to solitude.
“This place is disgusting,” the human says.
“Human, you simply don’t understand the ways of shifters,” I say.
“Peggy.”
“What?”
“My name is Peggy,” she says. “Please don’t call me human. Call me Peggy.”
“All right, Peggy,” I say. “You just don’t understand the ways of shifters.”
“I think you just don’t want to admit that I’m right,” she says, and I notice she doesn’t ask me my name. Maybe she knows I won’t give it to her.
I sit at the dusty table. The chair creaks beneath my weight and Peggy begins to move around the cabin. She takes off her backpack and sets it on the floor. Then she unzips it and two little kittens pop their heads out.
“Go on, then,” she tells them. “This is your one chance to play and stretch, so don’t waste it.”
The kittens nervously begin to climb out of the bag. One at a time, they come out and look around nervously. The kitten who notices me first begins to hiss and spit at me, and the other follows suit.
“They’re charming,” I say dryly.
“They’re strays,” she says. “Someone abandoned them.”
“So you just took them in?” What a strange human.
“What was I going to do?” She shoots me a dark look. “Let them die?”
She doesn’t place Daisy down, I notice. Instead, she keeps the baby in the carrier on her chest and she begins to walk around the room. She gathers a washcloth and some other random supplies. Then she comes over to the table and sits across from me.
“Give me your arm.”
“You could say please, you know.”
“I think we’re past the point of pleasantries. Don’t you?”
I offer her my arm.
She sets it on the table and looks at the injury. It’s not terrible and if I leave it alone, it should heal within a few days. The beautiful thing about being a shifter is that I tend to heal very quickly from normal injuries. Almost instantly, actually. If I’m hurt by another shifter, though, well, that’s another story. Those wounds take a little while. A couple of days, maybe even a week for the really bad ones.
I don’t tell her that, though. Instead, I allow Peggy to examine my wound and to start cleaning it. When the first bite of peroxide hits my skin, I don’t hiss. Despite the sting, I don’t want her to think I’m weak or childish. After all, I’m the one who got myself into this mess. I don’t need to make things worse by complaining about the pain.
She gets to work, quietly cleaning and bandaging the deep cut.
“You should get stitches,” she says. It’s almost a whisper, and when she looks up at me, she seems nervous. Is she afraid that she might be bossing me around? Does she think I’m going to be upset at her words?
“I don’t need stitches, little human.”
“Peggy.”
“I don’t need stitches, little Peggy.”
“No,” she shakes her head, and her dark hair bounces. “Just Peggy.”
“I don’t need stitches, Just Peggy.”
Her eyes narrow, but she looks away, turning back to my hand.
“It’s a deep wound,” she points out.
“I’m not exactly human, love.”
She looks up at me sharply, but I quickly clear my face of any emotion. I’m not sure why I used the endearment on the girl. I’ve certainly never been one to randomly nickname people, but the word just slipped out.
Because she’s our mate.
I silently urge my dragon to shut up. That horny bastard would already have her in bed if it was up to him.
And oh, she’d be so delicious in there. We could spread her legs and
just spend days making love to her over and over and over again.
“I know you aren’t human,” she finally says. “Does that mean you can heal yourself quickly?”
“A wound like this will take a few days,” I tell her. “Injuries sustained from fights with other shifters always tend to take a little longer to heal.”
“How long would an ordinary injury take to heal?”
“Well,” I say, leaning back in the chair. “That depends.”
“On?”
“On how deep it was, on whether I licked my wound after the injury occurred, and how quickly I shifted.”
“Oh.”
“Oh indeed.”
“Have you ever been in a fight like this before?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever…”
“Go ahead,” I urge her gently. “Finish that sentence.”
She takes a deep breath and then she looks right at me.
“Have you ever killed someone before?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so.”
“Does that bother you?”
She hesitates for a minute, but then she simply shakes her head. Peggy starts cleaning up the supplies and putting things back where she found them.
“You don’t have to do that,” I tell her. “He’s not coming back.”
“It just seems polite,” she shrugs. “A place for everything, and everything in its place. Right?”
“My mother used to say that.”
“Mine too.”
She looks at me for a long minute, and then Peggy continues moving around. She acts like she’s completely at home in this random cabin, like she doesn’t mind at all that there’s a shifter body lying just outside the walls.
Finally, she turns to me.
“It’s late.”
“Or early, depending on how you want to look at it.”
“Do you fly in the daylight?” She asks pointedly.
“Never.”
“Then we should sleep here,” she says looking around. “Until night falls again.”
Slowly, I push my chair away from the table and stand. I move to the window and pull back the curtains. Sure enough, the sun is coming up. I hadn’t even noticed the night had turned into morning, but Peggy had.
I turn back around and see her digging around in the cupboards.
“What are you looking for?”
“This.” She holds up a wad of towels and then she lays Daisy on the bed in the little cabin. She starts to undress my niece.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m out of diapers,” she says simply, as if that explains the whole thing. I watch as she carefully constructs a makeshift cloth diaper from the fabric and then she gives Daisy a bottle. She settles my niece in the bed, and then she turns back to me. For a minute, I think she’s going to say something to me. Anything.
For a minute, I crave her words.
I want her to look at me and think I’m worth talking to.
I want Peggy to think I’m important, valuable.
We’ve never cared about a woman’s opinion before, my dragon whispers, and I know that he’s right. Peggy’s different, though. She’s not like anyone I’ve ever known – man or woman. She’s kind and caring, compassionate. She’s very, very brave. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as brave as she is.
She doesn’t speak to me, though. Instead, she starts rummaging around again and produces a little cardboard box, which she fills with more blankets. Then she collects her two little kittens and plops them in the box.
“Stay,” she tells them, as if that’s all the instruction they need.
To my utter and complete astonishment, they stay.
“How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Get them to listen to you.”
“I think they’re just tired,” she says simply.
“No, it’s more than that. I’ve been watching you.”
“Oh?” She looks amused.
“You aren’t an ordinary human.”
“And you aren’t an ordinary dragon,” she tells me. “We should get some sleep. At dusk, we need to go to Fablestone.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask her.
“Doing what?”
“Why do you need to get there so desperately?”
She doesn’t say anything for a minute. Instead, she begins to rub her wrist anxiously as she looks around. She has long sleeves on, so I can’t see her wrist, but suddenly, I desperately want to.
“Peggy?”
“Hmm?” She says, absentmindedly.
“Why do you want to get to Fablestone?”
She looks up at me sharply.
“I just need to, okay? What’s with all of the questions?”
I move across the room then, ignoring the fact that I’m naked and she’s not. I ignore the fact that she’s human and I’m not. I ignore the fact that I need her, that I want her, that I desire her. I ignore all of that, and I crowd her space.
“Tell me,” I ask. It’s not mean. It’s not a command. It’s a request.
From a man to a woman.
“I made a promise,” she says finally, and I reach for her wrist. Peggy is quiet as I push her sleeve back and find the mark on her wrist. Of course. She swore an oath. To do what, though? What exactly was her promise? And why would she make it?
A dragon’s oath is binding and cannot be broken, which is why so few people ever swear them. Most of the time, people plan to double-cross the shifters, so making promises and taking oaths are out of the question.
Not Peggy, though.
She didn’t shy away from honesty and loyalty, and I need to know why.
“You swore a dragon’s oath, Peggy.”
“I may have,” she admits.
“Why?”
“Someone needed me,” she says.
Who?
Ellie?
Did Peggy find my sister?
Was she okay?
Did someone else have the baby and find a way to ensure she got home safely?
What?
I need answers, and I need them from her.
I take a deep breath, and I do one thing I promised I would never do with a human.
I beg her.
“Please,” I say. “Please tell me, Peggy.”
Chapter Nine
Peggy
One.
Two.
Three.
In and out I breathe, focusing on making it through this moment and into the next.
He knows.
He knows about the oath.
I don’t know how or why, but the dragon seems to know that I’ve sworn an oath and that it means something. Apparently, it means something to him, too, because he’s looking at me like I hold some magical secret and right now, I want nothing more than to be honest with him.
I want to tell him everything.
I want to pour out my heart to this man who knows nothing about me.
I want everything.
There’s a small worn couch against one wall. I motion for the dragon to go with me to it, and he does. He doesn’t protest or argue or ask questions. He just follows me quietly and we sit side-by-side on the squeaky, squishy sofa. His naked body is so close to me that I could easily touch any part of him.
I won’t.
It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to.
Suddenly, it strikes me that there must be clothes in here somewhere. Somewhere in this cabin, that wolf shifter must have had clothes. Right? It’s a little late for that, though. I think we both understand that we’re past the point of modesty.
“I’m a janitor,” I whisper.
“You clean buildings.”
“Schools. Well, one school in particular.”
“Did something happen while you were cleaning?” He takes my hand in his, and he holds it. Somehow, this motion makes me feel calm and relaxed. I take a deep breath, and I nod.
“I went outside and I felt someone watch
ing me. It was weird. I thought that maybe I was going crazy, but I couldn’t shake the feeling.”
His eyes narrow and he lets out a tiny little growl. He’s not mad at me. I instinctively know that, but he seems to be angry that I was scared or afraid.
“I stood for a long time and then I decided to just be brave. I felt stupid being scared of the dark. It’s such a silly thing, you know. It wasn’t a long walk to the car, so I started moving. I kept looking around, trying to make sure I was aware of my surroundings.”
I’m trying to prove to him that I wasn’t being stupid.
Naïve.
Dumb.
Somehow, the idea of this man thinking I’m weak or stupid bothers me. I don’t know him at all. I’ve only just met him, but I want him to like me. I want him to think that my opinion matters and that I’m not the type of person who would get into trouble just for fun.
“What happened next, Peggy?”
“The woman came.”
He stills, and I wonder if it’s a dragon he knows. Is someone missing from his clan? Does he know? Does this dragon know who Cameron is and how I can find him? Surely he must know. He has to know. He must.
And he can help me.
“She was hurt,” I whisper. “And bleeding. She had the baby. She made me promise to take the baby to Fablestone. She told me to find Cameron and tell him that Lucky is coming.”
The dragon stiffens.
“Tell me the woman’s name.”
“Ellie.”
With that, the dragon leaps from the couch and instantly shifts, morphing into his true form. The side of the cabin is torn to shreds and the roof begins to collapse. I dive across the room to get Daisy and the kittens. Somehow, I gather them all as the dragon begins to scream.
It’s a sound I’ve never heard before and a sound I never want to hear again.
It’s the sound of complete pain, of total suffering.
The sound of loss.
He knows her.
The dragon jumps, leaping into the air. His wings flap and he begins to soar higher and higher. He doesn’t leave. He doesn’t fly away. He just goes up, up, up, and then, when he’s so high I almost can’t see him, he shoots flames as far as the eye can see. The fire bursts from his body, and then he begins to come back down.
