by K. N. Knight
“I feel bad you’re bearing all the responsibility for the plan when we all agreed to it,” I whispered when we were finally alone together.
“It’s okay,” he murmured into my hair. “It’s just how new ideas start. You come up with something, and people are slow to become invested in it. Eventually, you persuade them. After some initial success, it looks like it’s going to fail and everyone blames you. Then it finally succeeds, and everyone thinks you’re a genius.”
I laughed. “I like your confidence, Rael.”
He gave a long thoughtful purr. “What do we have these days apart from our ideas?” he said. “I couldn’t sit back and watch the world fall apart.” He kissed my shoulder. “But I’ll say one thing—since we found you, everything else has seemed less important. I started coming up with all these big ideas because we were all lonely. But now I feel complete in a way I haven’t before.”
I turned my body and tried to look at him through the darkness. “We have to keep going with the plan,” I said. “It’s what’s brought us together in the first place. It’s the whole reason for our bond.”
His teeth flashed in a grin. “You’re the whole reason,” he murmured, and he kissed my nose.
The next morning was cooler than the previous days, and I woke up restless and antsy. The others seemed equally moody, and we ate breakfast in silence, wrapped in blankets.
“Maybe this isn’t the place,” I blurted out. “Maybe we should continue a couple more hours and see if there’s a better spot.”
Zain took a deep breath. “I think we should stay here. I feel like we’re in the right place. I sensed it as soon as we arrived, and it’s only gotten stronger in the last couple of days.”
Rael narrowed his eyes. “Zain has shown signs of precognition before,” he said slowly. “Is that what you mean, Zain?”
Zain nodded. “I think so. I mean, my bear is restless and eager to be off because it hates being stuck in the same place for too long. But in my heart I feel we should stay, which tells me that’s how it is.”
“Then I vote for staying here,” Rael said. “Zain’s instincts have never been wrong before. Oran, what do you think?”
Oran raised his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “My lot’s been cast with you for a long time, Rael. So I’m happy to go along with what you think.”
Rael tilted his head at me.
I threw my hands up. “Okay. I’m outnumbered. We’ll stay here. But if nothing happens today, then we’ve got to talk about it again.”
The guys went into the pool again after breakfast, their bronzed bodies glistening in the sunlight, but I kept my clothes on and took a walk around the perimeter of the area instead. I was edgy in a way I couldn’t explain. Yes, I was restless, but it wasn’t just that.
I looked over at the three of them. Oran was swimming, his muscular back and tight buns showing on the surface of the water, while Zain and Rael were stretched out naked, two perfect specimens of manhood. I laughed hollowly. This would be any woman’s ultimate fantasy. Am I crazy not to just relax and enjoy it while I can? But something kept tugging at the edges of my mind. Zain called to me and tried to get me to join them, but I waved at him and kept walking, completing one circuit after another.
“Ranger! Are you okay? You’re making me dizzy with all that pacing,” Rael called as I passed close by him.
I came to a stop. “What if—what if something goes wrong?” I muttered. To my dismay, I was close to tears.
“Come and sit down,” Zain said, patting a rock that was close to all of them.
With a sigh, I went over to and sat down on it, cross-legged. “What if this big plan ends in disaster and ruins everything?”
“Ranger, listen to me,” Zain continued. “We’ll never let anything bad happen to you. Each of us would fight to the death before we’d let anyone or anything hurt you. You’ve got to understand that.”
“I’m sure we could fight one off. But what if there are lots of them?” My mind spiraled out of control as it tended to when I was anxious. What if someone was injured or killed? The thought of losing any one of them was like a punch in the guts. They were my mates. Mine. And then I started to breathe fast. I knew what the problem was, but I’d been trying not to admit it to myself: I was falling for the guys, all three of them. I had been since the beginning, and it scared the hell out of me. Accepting they were my mates, that we’d all look out for each other, and they’d all have sex with me was one thing. But realizing I had feelings for them was another. It made me vulnerable, and I didn’t like that one bit.
“Ranger? What is it?” The unaccustomed softness in Oran’s voice jolted me back to the present, and I realized he’d been calling my name for a while.
“I like you,” I blurted out. “I mean, I more than like you. I’m falling for you, all three of you.” And then I covered my face with both hands because I was so embarrassed.
Slowly, gently, my hands were tugged away from my face, and I opened my eyes to see all three of them had gathered in front of me and were looking at me intently.
“We’re falling for you too, Ranger,” Rael murmured. “For myself at least, it’s been happening almost since I first laid eyes on you and realized how special you were.”
“Me, too.” Zain nodded.
“And me. Even though I was giving you a lot of attitude at the beginning,” Oran said.
“Really?” I traced their reactions, looking from one to the other in a way that was becoming commonplace.
“Really,” they all confirmed. I stretched out my arms and pulled them into a group hug, then hugged them one at a time, somehow laughing and crying simultaneously.
This was why I’d been so anxious for the past few days; I knew it now. I was scared of loving them and them not loving me back. Of being left all alone with my feelings. I’d already had enough heartbreak for one lifetime.
But they said they loved me back. And now that I was honest with myself, I realized that I’d known it already from the things they’d said and done. From the caring, tender way they treated me.
All afternoon, they were gentler than usual, with none of the typical ribbing. I kissed them dreamily for hours, sandwiched between their muscular bodies, feeling so light in the water, while one after the other claimed my mouth or stroked my hair.
By the time the sun started to go down again, my anxiety had faded to nothing.
While the guys went off to get dressed and prepare our dinner, I took a bunch of clothes downstream to wash them. I crouched down at the water’s edge, scrubbing at them with a bar of olive oil soap. I was singing to myself, replaying the afternoon’s events in my mind, when a shadow passed in between me and my view of the setting sun. I lifted my head, shielding my eyes with my hand. Then I let out a scream, my legs gave way, and I tumbled onto my ass.
There was a dragon ten feet away from me. It was huge, maybe twelve feet from the tip of one leathery wing to another, and it had a fearsome reptilian face with lots of sharp teeth, four clawed feet, and a long scaly tail. It was black, or maybe reddish black, but it was hard to see in the light. My breath caught in my throat as I stared, frozen. This was what we had been looking for all this time. But now it was here, I was at the point of passing out with fear.
“Guys? I called, and my voice was no more than a squeak. The dragon opened its mouth wide, exposing a forked tongue and even more needle-sharp teeth, and I whimpered. As my heart hammered in my chest, I heard feet pounding from somewhere behind me.
“It’s okay,” Rael shouted. As I watched transfixed, a jet of fire burst from the dragon’s throat and hit the ground in front of me. I screamed. All the earth and vegetation between me and it were scorched. But it hadn’t touched me—yet. I looked into its eyes and imagined I saw something human there. Was it a shifter?
“Please don’t hurt me,” I said. It took a step toward me and then another. I heard the guys also taking a step closer to me, but with a roar, the dragon unleashed another jet of flame.
This time the flame shot up, over my head, and I spun around, horrified. It hadn’t touched them; they were fine. The dragon lowered its head until it was on my level, and then it took one more step. There was pain in its eyes, I saw with a shock. They were human eyes, and I knew right away it had suffered deeply.
Having no idea what I was doing, I reached out my right hand. When it paused a couple of feet away, nostrils flaring and tongue flickering between its teeth, I got to my feet and bridged the remaining distance, then laid my hand on its scaly nose between the two huge nostrils. My hand was trembling badly, but something that seemed to be outside of my control was driving me. Its nose felt warm. And I was suddenly calm, as if I’d just sunk into a comfy bed. The dragon held still, its body quivering with repressed energy, and a kind of raspy purr escaped its mouth. Growing in confidence, I leaned in further and stroked the broad flat place between its eyes, which reminded me a little of the horses’ foreheads.
Suddenly it darted forward, and so quickly I didn’t know what was happening, it seized me between its two front paws. Then it lifted me right off my feet. Its wings flapped, and it carried me up, off the ground. I screamed and thrashed, digging my hands into its paws, desperate to get them off my body.
The guys lunged for me and tried to grab the dragon’s tail, but it was too quick for them, and in seconds I was fifteen feet into the air and already too high to try to escape. I could only watch my horrified mates panicking as it carried me off into the darkening sky.
Chapter 14
The dragon flew me higher and higher. I clung to its scaly, reddish-black arms in terror, convinced it would release me at any moment and I would fall to a horrible death. When we crested the nearest mountain peak, an even bigger one emerged behind it. That seemed to be where it was headed. It flew us directly at the sheer cliff face, and we came so close at such a high speed that I screamed. At the last moment, it abruptly changed direction and shot up, even higher into the sky. I suddenly felt as if I couldn’t draw enough breath into my lungs, and my vision became blurry.
A black chasm appeared in the rock face, which quickly opened into a cave. The dragon swooped in, and I wailed, having lost all control of the sounds spilling from my lips.
It flew into the cave at high speed before coming to an abrupt stop and setting me down on a flat, dusty floor. I staggered and collapsed in a heap. It took several steps back until it was standing between me and the exit, and it eyed me warily. With the sky turning hazy purple, it was difficult to make out its shape beyond a dark silhouette, but its eyes blazed amber through the dim light, and they were wild and unfocused.
Very slowly so I didn’t startle it, I got to my feet and straightened myself out. My limbs were shaking and my breathing was shallow, but at least I wasn’t so dizzy now. Wondering if this wasn’t the stupidest thing I’d done in my whole life, I walked toward it on uncertain steps and, for the second time, I reached out a trembling hand and touched its nose between its nostrils.
At the sound of an exhalation, a little puff of smoke escaped its nostrils. It was so light it was more like steam than smoke and it didn’t scare me. Its eyes were calmer, no longer rolling. It was the shifter madness. By now I’d seen it enough times to recognize it. But I wasn’t picking up any echoes of past pain from it. That was weird.
“What happened to you?” I whispered.
It dropped its head, breaking contact with my hand, and its scales began to glimmer. Red glowed beneath the black with an iridescent texture. And then they took on a lighter hue altogether. It was as if scales had been laid on top of human skin. It was shifting.
I swallowed hard. This was something momentous, and I felt completely unprepared for it. I watched, terrified to look, more terrified to avert my gaze, as the fearsome, sharp-toothed dragon head became recognizably human and the four powerful limbs transformed into muscular arms and legs. The whole thing only took a couple of seconds and, before I knew it, a gorgeous human man crouched in front of me. He had very intense amber eyes, short, spiky black hair, deeply tanned skin, and a sinewy muscular body. His cheekbones were pronounced, and he had a straight, strong nose and firm, masculine lips.
Suddenly, his eyes rolled again, and his whole body contorted. He was overwhelmed with pain. It racked him, tearing him apart from the inside. It was painful to watch and, surrendering myself to pure instinct, I lunged forward and took him in my arms. He howled, a primal animal sound of pure suffering, while his body jerked and thrashed, as if his echoes had taken possession of him. I saw them now. I saw a wife and two children. A suburban, human house. A happy, love-filled life.
And then the wildfires, devastating everything. Killing his whole family except for him. He’d been too far away from them, and by the time he knew the fires were coming, it was too late. The memory was as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. He hadn’t begun to deal with it. As I clung to him, I discovered my cheeks were wet with tears and my chest ached for him. I stroked his back, murmured words of comfort, and little by little, I sensed his pain was dimming, becoming manageable. He drew back a little and lifted his head. His eyes were wide with surprise. He could feel I’d done something.
Keeping his eyes on me, he laid a hand on the back of my head and crushed his mouth against mine. His kiss was shocking, raw and animalistic. The points of his teeth grazed my lips, while his tongue probed hungrily into my mouth. It was as if I was a life force that he needed for survival. A heat, different from anything I’d felt before, ran into my mouth, through my body, like a gulp of good whiskey. But it didn’t stop at my stomach. It went all the way to the apex of my thighs, and I began to glow with it. He stroked my hair, eyes lit with wonder. “Fire,” he mouthed.
I smiled at him. “Ether,” I said. “I’m the fifth element.”
He stroked my neck, the top of my chest, my wrists, any bare skin. And then his hands went to the buttons of my shirt.
I let him. I had no idea what I was doing, but I held still as he unfastened it and pulled it off, followed by my bra. My breasts felt warm, as if bathed in the glow of a distant hearth. He reached for the zipper on my jeans, then paused and looked at me questioningly. I nodded and got to my feet to allow him to pull them down, quickly followed by my panties.
“Fire,” he said again, as he grazed my pubic hair with unexpectedly light fingertips. When he reached my clit, my hips jolted. I was already aroused and could feel my wetness at the tops of my thighs.
With a sound of appreciation, he swept me up into his arms, gathered something up, and the next thing I knew, I was lying on my back six feet or so from the entrance of the cave on an animal skin rug.
The dragon crouched above me. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Ranger. And yours?”
“Draven.”
It was a good, dragony name, I thought.
He gazed at me with softness in his eyes, as if he was examining a rare treasure, taking in my body from head to toe. And then he arched over me and entered me in a single thrust.
I cried out as he filled me. He took me deeply, purely, with long, smooth strokes that drove me effortlessly toward a long, rolling orgasm. At the point of climax, I saw flames burning behind my closed eyelids.
When I opened my eyes again, he was watching my face, his expression intense, tender and fierce at the same time. He only came when I was floppy and spent, holding me tightly in his arms, snarling and puffing smoke.
He lay still for a while, then he stood up abruptly and walked to the back of the cave. He picked up something made of rough material that looked like sacking and wrapped it around his waist. Then he rummaged around in a bunch of miscellaneous junk, pulled out a T-shirt and tugged it over his head. And then, as if he’d come up with a new idea, he started rummaging again, pulled out a pair of khaki shorts, and pulled them on before discarding the piece of sacking. Then he sat down on some kind of shelf at the back of the cave. I pulled my own clothes back on and approached him cautiously. It was almost fully dark now, and I c
ouldn’t see anything clearly apart from his blazing amber eyes.
“It’s pretty dark back here,” I commented with a nervous laugh.
“Sorry,” he muttered. He got up and went over to a hollow at the side of the cave, halfway between the entrance and the rear, where some chunks of wood were piled up. He crouched over them and huffed, and an orange flame shot out of his mouth. I gasped and bounded over to him, watching with rapt attention as the chunks of wood started to glow, then quickly kindled into flames. There was a strong, clutching sensation in my chest, and I burst into tears, sobbing loudly.
The dragon-man stared at me, aghast. “What is it?”
“It’s fire,” I murmured, wiping my face with the back of my arm. “That’s what it is.”
His brow furrowed. “Of course it is.”
I knelt in front of the flames, eager to feel their warmth on as much of my body as possible. “Do you know how long it’s been since I last saw a real fire?”
“You haven’t seen fire for five years?” His eyes glittered with realization, swiftly followed by pity.
“No.” I shrugged. “I mean, I used to be able to shift into a dragon sometimes before I took my true form, but my flame was weak, and it always burned out quickly. I could never use it as a light or cooking source.
He puffed his chest out. “You can have as much fire as you want here,” he said. “All day and night.”
I fell silent, mesmerized by the jumping, dancing flames licking the wood, which slowly turned to ash. I’d been starting to think I’d never see it again. And I’d longed for it so much—we all had—that it seemed impossible I could be looking at it now. Draven was silent, too, and I felt a kind of peace between us. The only sound was the crackling and popping of the wood.
