by Eden Glenn
The men skidded to a stop looking from Wren to Izzy and back to Wren clearly concerned about what they’d walked into. Wren they ogled as if she had three heads while she tested the blade with another swing. Sure enough it lightened as she cut through the air with it. And it almost seemed to make a musical singing sound. She twirled and split the air again. Yes, what a wonderful, beautiful blade.
Izzy kept an eye on her, respect with a healthy dose of fear measured in. Wren didn’t understand most of what her visitor had said, so convinced it was a gag, she hadn’t paid close attention. Izzy had notes. They’d figure it out.
The sword warmed in her hands as she moved. “oh yeah.” If the blade had forced Izzy to transform, what might it do if turned on those two? She’d end all the mystery here and now and prove once and for all if the two were real dragon shifters and they’d pay for their disregard.
She advanced on them in her best impression of a pirate Queen ready to extract her due from the mutinous blackguards. “Prepare to reveal yourselves you fiendish denizens of another dimension!”
By now Izzy was standing on the counter shouting. “Wren’s not quite herself but I’d take the threat seriously.”
Caleb and Ethan immediately separated heading opposite ways around the oak table display of soaps and essential oils as if to flank her.
The blade didn’t seem to be having the same effect on them as it did Izzy. Damn, she wished the Goddess person had given a clue as to how to use the darn thing. It didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t dragon shifters, she wasn’t confident she was able to control how to activate the thing.
“Prepare to be trounced you ravishers of unsuspecting humans!” She spun again as they closed in on her. She’d teach them to leave her. Well technically she’d kicked them out, but just the same. Caleb feigned in with a lunge toward her.
She danced around in a spinning downward stroke at them. A move they obviously didn’t expect. Caleb jumped back twisting out of her reach, almost. She thumped him with the tip of the blade over his ribs on an arch as he turned, down over his loin. Her swing continued catching Ethan across his pelvis. He’d thrown his hands up pulling back from her in a leap.
Good thing the blade was just a dull prop. She spun “I’ll teach you to meddle in the affairs of a warrioress’ heart.” She turned to face the two, ready to advance on them again. The blade started to glow.
Here we go, now maybe the mojo is working. Ethan was crouched by Caleb on the hard wooden floor, supporting his brother. Caleb’s shirt was split hanging around his side and a wet redness that looked suspiciously like blood soaked into its fabric. She raised the sword to look at it closer.
A red glistening fluid ran down the steel, over the quillon shaft onto her hand. The edge was honed sharp as a razor. That was very odd. It had been dull, just a prop replica. The blade burned brighter.
She looked down at the glow and then up at Ethan and Caleb. Oh dear Goddess, what had she done? She blinked her eyes not sure what she was seeing. Somehow they were one person, with a split into two almost identical yet subtly different heads.
“She gave me a sword.” Stating the obvious seemed the stupidest and most monumental piece of information to reveal to her lovers after her attack on them. She looked back at the blood all over her hands watching in fascination as two additional symbols, a γ and a ζ fished around joining and rejoining her looped one δ in different combinations on the widest part of the blade.
Of course that instant her legs decided to betray her and turn to gelatin. She sank toward the inviting hardness of the floor.
Ethan and Caleb’s voices spoke to her from the end of a very long, dark tunnel. Caleb reassured her. “Hang on baby. Whatever you’ve been doing overloaded circuits in the cosmic power grid. We felt it all the way in Wyrmarach, pulled us right onto your door step. You’re bound to be drained.” Ethan pushed her down, making her sit. She had news gravity would do the job just fine without their assistance.
“Get her head down between her knees.” Caleb sounded worried.
Izzy sounded hysterical. “You’re getting your blood all over her.” Wren wanted to assure her that everything was fine and as it should be, though she had a moment to consider that things were quite far from fine and possibly nothing was as it should be.
Ethan’s deep bass voice murmured. “I don’t think it matters much at this point.”
“My sword? I cut you.”
“Everything’s fine, everything’s going to be fine.” As an indication of the real state of things, that couldn’t be further from the truth, from her perspective.
Her last conscious thought was I never pass out. The world closed in sending her crashing into blackness.
≽∞≼
She woke up on her couch feeling much like a southern debutante after a fainting spell, fragile and stupid. She listened for what might be happening to give her a clue as to how long she’d been out.
“I need to check on Wren.” Ethan’s voice intruded.
Izzy in full healer, take charge mode, blocked him. “Leave her alone and let her rest. She’s fully capable of coming out here when she wakes. You on the other hand are bleeding everywhere. So sit. Keep that towel on the wound until I’m finished with Caleb. If you really want to be helpful get me some more superglue. There’s a deep section here that could use another squirt.”
“Why on earth was the woman using super-glue on their cuts? She heard the stool scrape on the floor, reminding her she had six tubes of super glue under the counter that she was going to use to glue felt pads on the stool legs to cushion it against scratching her floor.
“Here’s a bunch of the stuff.” Ethan grumbled. Well at least he found the glue.
“Ow! That shit stings.” Caleb shouted.
“Hush. You’re lucky she didn’t cut you deeper or you’d need real stitches. I learned this from a plastic surgeon friend. As active as you two are, this will keep the laceration tight while it heals. Otherwise you’d be a scabby oozy mess for weeks.”
Ethan’s stool scraped again. Wren had a moment of unease eavesdropping on the three of them. She was just too horrified and embarrassed to go out there yet.
Ethan punched out the question. “So what the fuck happened here?” Yeah, she wondered that herself. Good time to stay put and listen.
“The Goddess walked through the door like any Wednesday shopper. I tried to write down everything she said. Look there at the paper and don’t get any blood on it.”
A scrabble of paper being pulled across the counter, before his rich voice continued.
“Goddess, sister, your hand writing is abysmal.”
“Get over it. I was in a hurry and more than a little shocked to see the Goddess of our race standing in Wren’s store.”
He read slowly. “My chosen daughter, your distress has called me to this existence. You have…” He paused “What the hell is this word? Something with a D.”
“Destiny, you moron.” She answered before ordering, “Caleb stop wiggling.”
“Your hand is tickling my side.”
Ethan read on. “You have a destiny that will unfold in the course of events. It is enough that you have been set aside as a sentinel to our people to open a new era and dispensation of time. Choose your inner circle well.”
“Yeah that’s when she looked at me and I lost track of what she was saying.”
Wren felt guilty listening. It was time to face what she’d done and rejoin the group. Because regardless of all the weirdness, she knew she’d finally found her family, if they’d have her after what she’d done, well almost done.
As it was she startled them. “She was talking about Izzy and that she could see I’d already started to choose well.”
Izzy commanded Caleb “Stay still,” then pointed a bloody gloved finger to Ethan. “Don’t you move either.”
“Keep reading. I want to hear it. I missed most of what she said in the distraction of thinking I was being punked.”
Eth
an looked back at the paper “I am Gelfin. You’ve made the acquaintance of mine own lineage sons, Caleb and Ethan.”
Caleb interrupted. “Gelfin is one of the names our Goddess uses. But what does she mean by lineage sons. How can we be in the family lines of the Goddess. That’s not possible. You must have written what she said wrong.”
“I wrote what she said. It’s right.” Izzy’s hand shook while she glued.
“Keep reading.” Wren wanted to hear the rest.
“Your journey will be long and fraught with hardship. Sacrifice will be required from all. Your powers will manifest in the course of your discovery.”
Wren moved in closer to the group. “That’s when she gave me the sword.”
She looked around, “Where is it?”
Caleb pointed to the end of the counter away from her. “It’s right there. I think maybe we’d better get a scabbard for you to put it in and maybe you don’t take it out until we know a little more about it.”
She walked around to look at it closer. The blade had only the original mark, δ which looked similar to a partial infinity symbol that had emerged when the Goddess handed it to her.
The other two she’d seen swirling around to join with hers were gone. She wasn’t sure what the significance of that was. Actually she was a bit lost as to the significance of anything happening in her recent life.
“I renew this vestige of authority and office as it once belonged to your ancestor and former guardian of the people.”
Wren asked, “Guardian of the people?”
Ethan paled, “I believe that is a reference to, The Dragon Guardian.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Dragon Guardian? What’s that?” Wren didn’t like the looks the three were giving her. At first she hoped it was just blood loss more than his reaction to the Goddess’ words. Then took it back horrified that she’d cut them with her sword.
Ethan looked from Caleb to Izzy, a sick expression on his face. “It’s hard to explain. The Guardian is a protector of our people and spiritual advisor, voice of the Goddess, so to speak. At one time he or she was maybe even more powerful than the Queen.
Then over 300 years ago the Guardian just disappeared. Some thought her dead but the prevailing concept is that she left unable to face the wickedness of the people any longer. Most agree, that one event signaled the decline of our society. The Queen had free reign without opposition.”
Wren tried to process what he was saying. She whispered, “Read the rest.”
He nodded. “Learn the heritage you’re born unto and wield your powers with wisdom and grace.”
Yeah, she’d kinda failed at that already.
“This blade is yours to use to focus the will of your authority. It will aid you in discovering the varied powers you are heir to. The foremost is the power over transition.” He looked up from the paper. “Where’s the rest?”
Izzy raised her chin and answered in a belligerent tone of voice. “That’s all she said. That’s all that happened. After that she split the veil and left.”
“You mean she opened a portal to step through?”
“No, I mean she split the veil like a curtain and stepped through.” Izzy crooked her finger at Ethan. “Your turn.”
He stood leaning back against the counter. Ethan pulled the bloody towel away from his crotch. His jeans were split across the zipper over his pelvis.
Izzy whistled. “That sucker cut right through the zipper metal. You’re jeans are toast. I hope you brought another pair of pants.”
She crouched down to examine the wound.
He clenched the counter. “I think I can come up with something.”
She stuck her gloved fingers in the wound.
Wren wasn’t sure where she’d found rubber gloves around the shop, maybe from in the medicine kit.
“Wow, she meant business with you dude.” Izzy laughed. “Do not get the woman mad. You won’t like her when she’s mad.”
“I…I…really don’t know what happened. I’m so sorry. The blade was dull. I swear it was. I was so angry and hurt. I was just going to thump you a little. Then, I don’t know what came over me. And the blade seemed to sharpen from swinging it around.” She knew she was blushing cause her face heated up like sunburned skin.
Ethan reached out and lifted her chin. “It’s okay. Maybe we should work on you learning to use it in a more controlled environment.”
She nodded furiously. It scared her a little bit at this point. Ethan pushed a tendril of hair back off her forehead.
Another complication, “I got your blood all over my hands.”
Ethan winced whether from the problem of her accidently completing the blood exchange step of the bonding or from Izzy’s probing in his wound.
“Sorry, deep place there.” Izzy apologized.
Wren still didn’t have the proof she wanted to verify their story but all of a sudden it just didn’t seem that important anymore. She realized how insane the events of her morning would sound if she tried to explain it to someone. Yet they were taking it in stride without question. Of course that might have something to do with her attacking them with a sword. No matter, she knew what she needed to do.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Where did you go?”
Caleb took over answering while Ethan gritted his teeth because of Izzy’s healing influences.
“We went back to our home dimension. We were trying to get answers. We know there is a prophecy written somewhere about this whole thing. We just have to find it.”
Somehow Wren knew something more hovered between them. She caught glimpses of a dark woman. “The woman?”
Ethan gasped.
“Sorry.” Izzy moved over. “Just a little more.”
Caleb grimaced with his brother over more than the less than gentle doctoring Izzy was handing out. “Our mother.” His tone dripped with sarcasm. “--has given us an ultimatum.”
“Oh?” This time it was Izzy who asked the question.
When Caleb hesitated Ethan growled, “Tell them.”
“She’s picked out two obedient wives for us who are most assuredly loyal to her reign.”
Wren could barely breathe. “And?”
A huge grin split Caleb’s face. “Felt damn good.”
Tears pooled behind Wren’s eyes and a bolder sized lump settled in her chest. Just when she’d found someone, with all their pig headed bossiness, that she loved fighting with as much as fighting for. After nearly skewering them, of course they’d probably run for home for two proper wives. Why had they bothered to come back at all. Izzy capped the tube of glue, finished with her unorthodox treatment.
“We basically said if she liked them so much, she should go fuck them.”
Wren wasn’t sure she’d heard Caleb right.
Ethan grabbed her hand pulling her to his chest. Caleb stepped in by her inhaling the scent of her hair the way he did that made her tingle all over.
The steel of Ethan’s arm around her said clearer than words they never wanted to let her go. “We’ve found our woman and nothing is going to change that.”
≽∞≼
That afternoon Wren turned the shop over to Izzy and spent the day snuggled in the bed making Caleb and Ethan rest after their injuries.
They’d swapped life stories. She told them about Gram and they’d shared some about their growing up. It wasn’t an easy task for the two. Wren kept asking and pulling out information. She figured they were much better at solving problems than making connections.
Yet, each gem they shared helped her deepen the growing feelings she’d developed for them. She’d even accepted that she was interested in visiting their home dimension, Wrymarach. So exotic and foreign it would be a grand adventure.
She shared their sadness over their mentor’s failing health. They would probably not see him again in this life. He’d been a father to the two men as teens and young adults teaching them much of their place in the world, as inversely Gram had Wren.
>
Their interlocking stories with emotions so poignant Wren considered she’d known their souls forever and hadn’t realized she’d been searching for them. They were the missing pieces of her life.
Late in the night they’d snacked on cold pizza and she finally drifted to sleep with the two gently stroking her body. The three of them slept through till late morning.
The day was relaxed if not a little studious searching for any clues to help them understand the events they were embroiled in. They did an exhaustive internet search for information. Who knew there was a private password protected virtual world for all things Drakin living Earthside?
The site hadn’t revealed much they didn’t know, other than the suspicion that the Knights of Druiere’ held a library of writings and books from Wyrmarach. That led to the guys talking more about their history and culture.
“The name Wyrmarach comes from the two factions of people. The Wyrm are those born as dragons who shift to human.” Ethan explained.
Caleb continued. “Yes, and the Arach are those humans who shift to dragon. Hence the name WyrmArach.”
“Eventually the capital A was eased and now it’s Wyrmarach.”
“So The Wyrm shifters control the place?” Wren asked.
Ethan took another sip of tea as they sat at Wren’s kitchen table discussing information. “No, on the contrary, the human shifters control the government. The Wyrm control the Telihedran, the soldiers. There is an elite group, of that who are Soldar or Solidarian as a group.”
Caleb reached out to curl his finger around a lock of her hair and push it over her shoulder. “Why would you think the Wrym were the controlling faction?”
“Their name comes first. I would think the controlling power would have their name first so, ArachWrym makes better sense to me.”
Caleb shook his head. “Well, that’s not how it is.”
Much of the day went like that as Wren tried to make sense of the information the guys shared.
Her grandmother had managed to carve out space behind the shop for a small greenhouse behind a privacy fence enclosed garden. Wren had added to it with benches and a yard glider as well as an iron and glass picnic table under a canvas gazebo.
