Replacement

by Wojciech Cram

  chin held proudly, ebony black hair fell just past his shoulders, and his eyes were surprisingly dark and soulful. Emile noted carefully that his gaze seemed locked on Bethany as Zhi

  Niao cared for her. If ever there was a man that was the model for the brave, strong Native warrior, it was, Emile thought, the green dragon.

  The woman had the same proud hold of her head, and her face was heartshaped, not unlike Beth's. Her long, dark hair fell straight to the small of her back, and moved like a cape

  as she moved. Her lips were set into a tight line as she stared at Mac and Emile, but her eyes were much colder than the other dragon's.

  "Explain what happened to us."

  Emile's voice was patient and gentle. "You may want to sit down."

  They explained everything. The dragons listened patiently as the vampires told them how the witches put all the dragons asleep, save one, and she became the royal line of the

  shapeshifters. They explained how the witches and the vampires had come to power. They explained how North America had been conquered, how the Metis started, and how the

  reserves came to exist, the people the dragons had sworn to protect in turn for fealty living in halfcondemned housing. Lastly, they told the dragons of their plain, of their desire to

  reinstate the shifters into power, to once again make North America their "Haven".

  When they finished, the female dragon exploded. "Unacceptable! If we were put asleep, where were you then? Why did we sleep for so long? We are like deities, not some parent

  you may console and cry to when something does not go your way! You can not discard us and complain to us when it suits you!"

  "Calm down, Fala," the green dragon said sternly. He finally pulled his eyes away from Beth and fixed the other dragon with a stern stare. "They are talking about reinstating our

  worship. We would gorge ourselves on the flesh of their sacrifices and become strong again. I do not wish my people to suffer. They need me, and I will answer their calls gladly.

  Those who still turn their backs on me will pay for their insolence with their lives, and the blood of the unbelievers will sway the others."

  He nodded to Mac, acknowledging him as their leader. "You have discovered the way to awaken us. I would like to make an arrangement with you. Do not wake the others yet. We

  would only fight amongst ourselves. We will secure the area from the mountains to the ocean first. Fala and I will regain our strength. Then we will wake the others, and they will

  have to follow our decree."

  "We can make that promise," Mack swore, bowing his head back. The dragon smiled for a moment. He had a nice smile.

  "Now, Fala and I must feed."

  "I demand the abomination!" she hissed, pointing to Beth. "Her very existence is unnatural! I refuse to accept that she somehow fits into my bloodline." The woman stood gracefully

  and began advancing towards Beth.

  The green dragon leapt up and grabbed her arm. "You will do no such thing! First of all, the vampire named Mackenzie has already indicated we need her to wake our other kin.

  Secondly, she may have the blood of humans in her veins, she may even be more human than dragon, but she is still of our kin and of our people. We will give her the same

  protection we would give any other people in this room. Can you not smell? They bled her deeply to revive us. She has been hurt enough this morning. She will not be hurt again."

  Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Sleep had changed you. It has made you weakhearted. Times have not changed my laws, the laws of my kin. Would you suffer the offspring of a

  human and a cow to live? Abomination, I say!"

  "I will not allow her to be hurt for her heritage. Those were your laws, Fala, not mine. The people I protect would have seen her as blessed and given her a place of honor. She

  would have become a liaison between the world of her people and the world of mine."

  "Your ways are weak!" Fala spat, pulling her arm back.

  "We will accept her, Fala. Surely we dragons, Fala, are better than these humans who prey upon things different than they, or the witches who put us to sleep. Or has your heart,

  while you slept, become too human and too full of hate to see past what lies on the outside?"

  Fala whirled on him, snarling and glaring. The green dragon did not bat eye, and slowly, Fala straightened, wiping the snarl from her beautiful face. "Wolf," she commanded, looking

  at LouisEtienne. "You are a cavern dweller. You know the way out. Show me. I need to hunt."

  LouisEtienne did not look pleased in the slightest. Neither did Zhi Niao, if the frown on her face was to be judged. The two of them glanced at one another and then LouisEtienne

  bowed his head, leading the dragon through the darkness.

  When they were out of ear shot, the male dragon turned to Mackenzie and Emile. "I apologize for Fala. She and I, and our clans, have never seen eye to eye. I fear she may return

  for the girl. Unless you have any complaints, I should like to take her with me. If Fala does try anything, I will be better prepared to protect the girl."

  Mackenzie thought about it. He had to admit, however grudgingly, that the male dragon was in a better position to protect Beth. Even tired and hungry and newly awoken, he had

  the size to take on Fala. Mac knew that if he tried to fight the dragon, someone from his team wouldn't make it through the battle. But he was also cautious. He didn't know

  anything about this dragon. He didn't know if he'd try to take advantage of Bethany, and Beth wasn't in a position to defend herself.

  Against everything inside of him, he felt a swell of desire to protect his younger sister. He was glad that she had survived the process. The last thing he wanted was to cause her more harm.

  He took Emile's hand and squeezed it. The slight touch made everything go a little hazy and pink, and he could feel that she had the same thoughts he did. She acknowledged the

  dragon was a superior fighter, but worried about Beth's welfare. He released her hand when he nodded to the dragon.

  "She is our captive. We took her from her house and brought her here. She may try to run away. See that she doesn't, but also, don't hurt her."

  The dragon nodded. "Do not worry, Mackenzie. I will see to it that no harm shall come to her." Zhi Niao stood up as he bent to pick up Beth. The girl seemed younger than ever in

  his arms. The man holding her seemed to be in his late twenties, while the girl he held had just hit the cusp of puberty. He stared down at her, his face softening for a moment

  before returning to the expression of pride Zhi Niao actually found she respected him for wearing. He then turned, following the trail left behind by Fala and LouisEtienne.

  After he left it seemed as if the air in the room had improved. It was safe to breathe again. Everyone relaxed. Mackenzie smiled at Emile. "Well… that went better than I had

  expected."

  The first thing that Beth noticed as she emerged from unconsciousness was that she was no longer cold. Having spent the last three days wearing her gym clothes, and then being

  stripped naked, Beth was certain that she was going to die of hypothermia if the bleeding didn't kill her. After the first day or so she had become accustomed to the cold, but she

  was still aware that it was there, sinking into her through her skin. Although she certainly wasn't hot, and even calling it warm would have been far too kind, the chill in the air was

  no longer there. She had gone, it seemed, from being accustomed to acclimatized.

  When her eyes opened she shut them quickly again, finding the sunlight fighting to her from the foliage of the redwoods blinding. She opened her eyes much more slowly the

  second time, letting them adjust. She wasn't dead. She was out of that damnable cave. She was outside. Beth could feel that her hands and her ankles were bound and that she was

  still naked, but she didn't care. She was alive, and the fresh
air smelled wonderful.

  Autumn was just touching the forest. The leaves were still green, but spots of color were slowly sinking into them, working inwards from the tips of the leaves. She could hear little mammals scurrying in the underbrush, and occasionally a fat bumblebee buzzed overhead, working steadily to gather what little pollen was left for the approaching winter. Beth

  was laying on a jacket. She recognized it as her own. Sure enough, her ankles were bound, tied tightly together with a leather thong. Her wrists and hands, however, were free.

  The binding she had felt was from the white cloth that someone had wrapped around her wounds, helping them stay clean and heal properly.

  She had little time to relish her surroundings. Instantly, after realizing that she was alone, the instinct to survive kicked in. Mackenzie and his friends had tried to kill her and she

  wasn't going to stick around to give them another chance. She leaned over, her fingers trying to undo the knot in her leather bindings. The leather was tight and her fingers were

  unable to find a spot to pull. It would have to be cut off to free her legs. She didn't have the blade or the nails to be able to do it. Bethany was desperate to get them off. She would

  take her chances anywhere but with Mackenzie. Anywhere! She was beginning to think she would have to chew through them to get her ankles free.

  "I can do undo them for you, provided that you do not try to run away," a male voice said. It sounded amused at her attempts to untangle the leather strap wound around her feet.

  In a furious mood, Beth snarled. She couldn't see the man yet, but she could smell him. He smelled like a shifter, and there was a hint of fresh blood coming from him. "I do not

  think it would be a good show of honor between Mackenzie and myself if I lost his captive when I had promised to protect her."

  It didn't take a genius to figure out who he was. Beth understood why he smelled like a shifter but had that strange sense of otherness that made her head itch. It was a dragon.

  She wryly corrected herself, wondering if it was the green dragon. Something inside her hoped it was, and she felt lightheaded recalling the way her mind had felt fuzzy when she

  had seen the great golden eye before her. It was probably a result of blood loss. She wondered how much blood she had lost.

  "You're the dragon, aren't you?" She then corrected herself again. "One of them, anyway. My blood really did reawaken you."

  "It did, young one." The dragon slid forward, completely human.

  Bethany's face went red when she saw him. He was every bit as naked as she was. Bethany was embarrassed at seeing him nude, and knowing that she was nude too, but she

  didn't think it was as nervous as she should have been. He didn't seem to find anything strange with both of them being nude. His gaze was steady and level, and there was no sign

  of shame or embarrassment on his face. In fact, if anything it seemed as though he was proud with the state of his body.

  She guessed it was because of the fact that he was handsome and he knew it. He was handsome. His chest was smooth and welldefined, his arms strong and muscular. His

  obloquies were so wellmuscled that his waist tapered to his hips in such an almost lithe form Beth was jealous for her own straight and narrow body image. Long hair, just slightly

  shorter than her own, fell around his broad shoulders. His chin was straight and narrow, and with the alertness of his eyes, it reminded Beth a little of a hawk. Kotori and Zhi Niao

  had the same perceptive, predatory movements in their face, always aware of their surroundings, but this man almost made it look lazy.

  Confidence. That was what was so appealing about him. Confidence oozed out of every inch of him, from the way he proudly bore himself to the way he proudly spoke and the way

  he held his head high. If Beth knew that she could become a dragon the size of a house she bet that she'd be confident too, though.

  As Bethany sized up her latest captor, the dragon was starring at her curiously, even if the curiosity didn't show on his face. He had long ago learned that displaying emotions so

  openly was hazardous to ones health. Other dragons took it as a sign of weakness. As far as dragons went, he was still young. He was, in fact, the fourth youngest dragon in his

  immediate family, but even that meant that he was still several decades old, and a hardened warrior. He had chosen to pass amongst the humans as a hunter, and the form had a

  reason behind it. It had not been taken for nothing. He was their patron, and their guide on the hunt.

  This girl was not a hunter. She was young, and yet she had been put through so much, though perhaps nothing more than the women of the human families surrounding him would

  have been through at her age.

  He studied her body. He could see the frame of her shoulders lined cautiously with developing muscles. She was a hard worker, yet her body still carried hints of baby fat around

  her waist. Her breasts were small and illformed. There was no hair on her save on her head, accounting for the way he remembered her body shivering with cold and covered with

  bumps when he had carried her.

  "They say that they captured you in battle. It is strange to think of someone like you fighting."

  "They took me out of my house by throwing me down the stairs and making me pass out," she spat.

  The dragon shrugged. "Ambushes are battle. Sometimes the best warrior is not the one who is most prominent in battle, but the stealthiest or the one who comes up with the best

  plan." He walked towards her and he could smell the elevation in her fear. It had a bitter taste to it he didn't like. The man raised an eyebrow, walking slower. "You need not fear me. Had I wanted you dead, I would have eaten you. I have promised to protect you to keep Fala from harming you."

  "Who the hell is Fala?"

  "A red dragon also awoken by your blood." He sat down crosslegged beside her on the grass. His eyes were kept locked on her face. "She wishes your demise, calling you an

  abomination."

  Much to his surprise, Bethany tilted back her head and laughed loudly. He had expecting spite and anger at his comment, but not this helpless acceptance and forced humor. "It's

  not the first time I've heard that, dragon. If you're seriously going to protect me from everybody who wants to kill me because I'm halfhuman, you're going to have to take on a lot

  of people."

  The male was silent for a moment, and then he shrugged. "I promised to protect you."

  "But not from Mac. Just from people who want to kill me for my heritage. Not from Mac, who wants to sacrifice me because of it."

  His eyes widened almost perceptively. It had been foolish of him to say that. Yes, he had promised Mackenzie to protect her, but he had meant from anybody who wanted to hurt

  her and thereby prevent them from waking up the other dragons. He simply had phrased it wrong. How quick this girl was to catch on to it and draw connections from the creatures

  of hatred like Fala, to Mackenzie, who saw her death as martyrdom. He decided to change the topic.

  "He has told me that you are my enemy."

  Beth rolled her eyes. She shifted, curling her knees up to her chest and keeping her side to the dragon, still modest with her nudity. "Mackenzie wants a world where shifters and

  Native Americans rule, forcing the white people and the vampires to know what it's like on the bottom for once. I think that it's a fun dream, but that a dream is all it ever will be.

  He's talking about starting a war. Innocent people will die. And how can we cover up this war? You don't know what the world is like out there, dragon. The world is a current of

  information. We can know what happens half way around the world in a matter of seconds. I fear the humans would find out about us in a way that will make us a danger to them,

  and we would. By forcing people into ghettos and rearranging the government and jurisdiction of this entire country,
we would be a threat.

  "I want equality. I think humans do have a right to know about the Night World. But we should be equals, regardless of caste or race. That is what my organization believes. And,

  what's more, we were going to do it without waking up the dragons. You may have honor, but some of the other dragons were merciless, keeping humans locked up like cattle. We're taught that they are mad and power hungry and, above all, dangerous. I think that we can rearrange the order of this world without your help, and maybe then, one by one

  we can wake you up and reintroduce you to the world around you."

  "You wanted me to remain asleep?"

  Beth was angered at the hint of hurt in his voice. How dare he be angry at her? "Yes, I did! Wouldn't you? Mac told me I was going to die! He cut off my clothes, he… he held me

  down and slit my wrists, and left me there to bleed myself to d… death!" There were tears running down her face. She turned away from the dragon, ashamed by her tears. Her

  slim shoulders shook. "I didn't want you to sleep forever. It's unfair. I just didn't want to die to do it…"

  "You are a shifter. Losing blood would not have killed you. You are one of our descendants and stronger than that."

  "Barely!" she snapped. "I'm barely eligible to call one of your descendants. I can't be called a shapeshifter if I can't change my shape, and I can't. I have a bit of healing power, and

  I have somewhat better senses and a bit of strength and speed, but that's it. It is entirely possible that I can bleed to death."

  She became quiet, watching a bird in the branches of the tree above them flitter about from twig to twig. The bird, Beth thought, looked lonely. "What would you do with me,

  dragon? If I were born like this in your age, what would have been done with me?"

  He grinned wickedly. It was strange that it seemed to suit his face. He had dealt with death for longer than Beth had been alive, and he had developed a twisted sense of humor for

  dealing with it. "Fodder."

  He richly laughed at her expression. "I apologize. That joke was meant to be funny, but obviously you take the stories you have heard quite seriously. I assure you that they have