by Shannon West
I stood quickly and indicated to Luca that he should do the same, which he did, flushing with embarrassment. The look in his eyes was hard to miss, and I was dreading the confrontation that I was going to face as soon as we got back upstairs. I was furious with my father for pushing the issue. I had planned to discuss our plans later on in the evening. Like when I had him splayed out beneath me, too tired and too fucked out to argue.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait to get back to the apartment for the coming storm. As we climbed the stairs, he said between clenched teeth, “Just when did you plan on telling me what you had planned for tomorrow? You know I’ve never shifted. I don’t even know if I can, and furthermore, I have no intention of trying.”
“Can we discuss this when we get back upstairs, please?”
“There’s nothing to discuss. I’m telling you it’s not happening.”
“Luca…” I said warningly.
“Dmitri…” he said right back in a mocking tone.
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”
“No, we won’t. I’m not doing it. If you don’t like that, tough shit. I’m going to bed.”
He stormed up the stairs and went to my apartment, slamming the door before I could come inside. When I opened the door, I saw that he had gone through the adjoining door and into his room, closing the door behind him. And as I suspected, the door between our adjoining rooms was locked too. I just knew he was waiting for me to bang on it, so I didn’t. Instead I pulled out my cell phone and called my cousin, Alexei, who lived in another wing and who had made it clear from the moment he moved in that he wouldn’t be subjected to my mother’s dinners. When he answered, I spoke in a low tone, because I wanted Luca to think I was deliberately lowering my voice. He was so nosy, I knew that would pique his interest.
“Alexei, how are you? I’ve just returned—thanks. I was wondering if you’d like to go flying with me tomorrow? I haven’t been in a while.” I waited for Alexei to answer and stepped a little closer to the door between our rooms. “Yes, my previous plans have fallen through. I’ll get the cook to pack us a lunch and we’ll take a bottle of wine. Yes, just the two of us. I’m looking forward to it. See you tomorrow.”
I hung up, knowing Luca had eavesdropped on that last bit, and I smiled to myself as I undressed for bed. If the mountain wouldn’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must come to the mountain. I looked forward to breakfast in the morning, when I’d put my plan into effect.
****
Luca
Oh, I heard him making plans with some asshole named Alexei for tomorrow. And if he thought that would make me jealous he had another think coming. I admit I might have lain awake for a long time, tossing and turning—because I was so angry with him and his highhanded ways. But once I went to sleep, I slept like a baby. The next morning, he still hadn’t knocked on my door, so I got up and went down to breakfast on my own. I didn’t need Dmitri to lead me around like a damned puppy.
And there he was at the table, laughing it up with some blond guy, who was, okay, gorgeous. But once you’ve seen one blond sex god, really, you’ve seen them all. I walked in and sat down across from Dmitri. He never even glanced up at me. The asshole. It was so obvious what he was doing that it was funny.
Sebastien was there too, sipping coffee. He asked me if I slept well, and I said I did. And that was the end of that conversation. I sat there for a moment, wondering if I was supposed to get my own food, and Sebastien nodded toward the buffet table against the wall.
“Do try some of the eggs benedict, Luca. They’re good this morning.”
I nodded, like I would know eggs benedict from a hole in the wall and got up to go get a plate. I found a few things that looked okay and helped myself to them, winding up with some fruit, some little roll thing shaped in a crescent and some red jelly. Lots of red jelly, which looked delicious. I added a few sweet roll things and sat back down. I saw Dmitri glance over at my plate.
“Surely you’re going to have something besides sweets.”
“Did you get what you wanted?”
“Yes,” he said, frowning at me.
“Then why are you bothering me?”
“Oh for God’s sake.” He jumped to his feet, jerked my plate away and went over to the buffet and loaded the plate down with ham and sausages and some kind of egg on a bun with a grilled tomato and another slice of ham under it and the whole thing covered with sauce. He slammed the plate down in front of me. “Now eat.”
I poked at the egg while Dmitri turned his back on me and started talking to his pretty blond again. The blond was looking over his shoulder at me and smiling. Not laughing at me, just smiling in an interested way, like he’d never met anyone like me before.
I just ignored them both and poked at the egg stuff. “I don’t want this. I don’t even know what it is. And who eats tomatoes for breakfast?”
“Just eat it, damn it,” Dmitri growled at me and a little puff of smoke came out his nose. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me by this time, so I folded my arms and sat back in my chair. “I don’t want it. And I don’t like ham, either.”
“It’s not ham, it’s bacon.”
“This stuff isn’t bacon. I like bacon—but this stuff is ham.”
“It’s bacon,” he said, rounding on me.
“No it isn’t,” I said, and pushed my plate away.
“Yes, it is!” he said and pulled it back. “Either eat that or leave the table.”
“Okay,” I said and stood up.
“Sit back down!” he roared at me.
“You just told me…”
“I know what I told you, but now I’m telling you! Sit down!”
I glanced over at Sebastien and he was watching us with a big grin. So was the blond. I don’t like to be a source of amusement to anybody, so I started to walk away. That’s when Dmitri grabbed me around the waist and pulled me down in his lap. He was furious. He grabbed a fork in his hand and started trying to force me to eat the eggs, so naturally I retaliated by grabbing the butter knife and trying to stab him with it.
I wouldn’t really have stabbed him, of course. But in my experience, I’d had to take up for myself over people who were stronger than I was all my life. Threatening him with the knife just seemed natural to me. But that’s when his father and mother walked into the room. His mom screamed and his dad jumped over to grab my arm and tear the knife away from me—keep in mind this was only a blunt-ended butter knife—and almost broke my fingers in the process. Dmitri’s dad pulled back his arm to strike me, and Dmitri roared at him and covered me with his body so that he took the hit.
After that, things got a little crazy. The next thing I knew I was being carried upstairs over Dmitri’s shoulder, and his mom and dad were yelling after him to come back. Sebastien was trying to calm everybody down, but not doing too well. All in all, there was an awful lot of upset people.
Dmitri was furious with me and wound up throwing me down on the bed in my room and calling on the phone by the bed for someone to bring me a tray. He left a few minutes later, shooting me a disgusted look, and I spent the rest of the day in my room, exploring the books on the shelves and playing around on the internet. And wondering what Dmitri was doing with the gorgeous blond. I’d never cared about anyone enough to be jealous of them before, but I was now, and it was killing me.
Maybe two hours after Dmitri left, I noticed something flying past outside my floor to ceiling window, a flash of color that captured my attention. I got up and went over to the window to look out and saw an incredible sight. Two pure-blood Dragons were gliding past my window, not close, but their golden bodies were still in plain view. And not by accident, I was sure of that. I watched them soar up and disappear into the low-lying clouds that crouched over the mountain behind the mansion. They began playing in the clouds, some kind of crazy game of tag. Their huge bodies swooped in and out of the puffy white clouds with a swish of their tails and a flash of wing as they chased each other. Their golden scales
gleamed and sparkled in the sun. Their wings were very large, both in span and depth, and they swooped and dived and glided on the strong air currents over the mountain ridges like immense, strong, and beautiful birds.
Just watching them I felt an itch between my shoulder blades, and I wanted badly to be the one to follow Dmitri as he soared up into the clouds. I watched them flying for at least a half hour until they dove down out of sight behind the mountain and were lost to view. Then I twitched the curtains closed with a bad-tempered grunt and threw myself back down on the bed. I must have fallen asleep shortly after that because I was startled awake by the sound of a slamming door.
“How long have you been in this room?”
“What? You mean today? I’ve been here since you put me in here.”
Dmitri glared at me. “You’re not a prisoner, Luca. The door wasn’t locked. You could have gone for a walk, explored the grounds.”
I shrugged. “Too cold.”
He frowned. “You could have used the gym downstairs or visited the library.”
“I had plenty of books right here and I didn’t feel like using the gym—even if I wanted to, which I didn’t, and if I knew where it was, which I don’t.”
“You could have asked one of the servants. I know Viktor would have been glad to show you.”
I rolled my eyes and made a little scoffing noise in my throat. “Yeah, Viktor is such a fan.”
That made him frown at me. “You can be so damned irritating,” he snapped at me.
“Then take me home.”
“This is your home now, Luca, and you may as well get used to it.”
“Or what?”
He looked blank. “What do you mean, or what?”
“You said I’d better get used to it—a threat was implied in there somewhere.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake. Is fighting all you ever want to do?”
“It’s what I’ve had to do all my life.”
“And you never let anyone forget it either.”
We glared at each other for a few minutes and then Dmitri’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t want to fight with you, Luca.”
I made the scoffing sound again. “You could have fooled me. Isn’t that why you and your friend flew past my window?”
He looked startled. “I didn’t fly past…” he turned and looked toward the window where the curtains were still pulled to. “Your curtains are closed.”
“Now they are. Earlier they were wide open and I saw the two of you.” I sat up and scowled at him. “What’s between you, Dmitri? Just be honest and tell me. Is he your boyfriend?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Alexei is my cousin. He’s like a brother to me.”
I stared at him a little longer and then sighed. “You looked good with him. Better than you ever would with me.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” he snapped. “You know you’re beautiful. You’re just a stubborn, disagreeable ass.” He came closer to the bed and looked down at me. “I wanted to take you flying this morning. I still do.”
“I can’t fly, Dmitri. I can’t even shift into my Dragon form.”
“Wyvern. Wyverns are not Dragons, but a relative.”
“Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“You don’t know you can’t shift until you try,” he said, his voice softening.
“I’m scared of heights.”
He raised one eyebrow. “I didn’t mention flying. Is that what you want to do?”
“No. I just said I’m scared of heights. Okay, not so much the heights. It’s plunging to my death from the heights that bothers me.”
“You know I would never let any harm come to you, Luca.”
I looked up at him and saw the truth of that shining in his beautiful eyes. “Okay. I’ll try—but if it doesn’t work, then we table this discussion. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” he said, smiling at me. He held out a hand. “Let’s go up to the roof.”
“What? Right now?”
“Of course, now. It’s still early and the sun is still shining—not an everyday occurrence at this time of year. Let’s not waste it.”
Reluctantly, I got up off the bed and took the jacket Dmitri handed me from the closet. He also took down a coil of rope and I looked at him with one raised eyebrow. “You’ll see what this is for soon enough. Now put on that coat. You can take it off soon, but until you get warmed up, you might find it a bit chilly.”
Chilly, my ass. It was about twenty degrees Fahrenheit up on that roof after I followed Dmitri upstairs, and that’s pretty damn cold to a boy from the southern U.S. of A. He walked right over to the edge of the roof and looked down, motioning to me. I came over to stand beside him and looked down too, immediately getting dizzy. I backed away a few steps and sighed.
“This won’t work.”
He was unbuttoning his shirt and toeing off his shoes as he glanced at me. “Of course it will. You’ll have to get undressed, Luca. You can’t shift wearing clothes.”
“So you’re sayin’ you and old Alexei got naked together.”
“You didn’t want to.”
He had me there, so I shut up and quit stalling. I took off my jacket and shirt and pants and stood shivering in front of Dmitri, but he gestured toward my underwear too. He’d already gotten naked, his skin all golden tan and gorgeous in the sun and his muscles rippling everywhere. There was even a covered bin to put our clothes in. I guess they did this a lot.
I was skinny and white and pathetic looking compared to him, but I saw his eyes lighting up appreciatively as he looked at me. “Now,” he said, “Close your eyes and visualize your Wyvern. See him in your mind’s eye and invite him to come forward.”
Dutifully, I closed my eyes and tried to picture a Dragon, but all I could see was Dmitri in his golden form, gliding and swooping through the sky. And predictably, nothing happened.
I opened my eyes again. “I told you this wouldn’t work. Can I put my clothes back on?”
“Come on, Luca. Give it a real try. Close your eyes. Now think about wings sprouting from your back, just there where your shoulders are. Imagine lovely scales covering your body. Feel your body changing.”
I was concentrating pretty hard as he spoke, and I did feel my skin itching and tingling, especially in the area of my shoulders, but nothing happened. I tried for a good ten minutes and by that time I was freezing my ass off and that was pretty much all I could think about. I blew a long breath out of my nose and opened my eyes.
“This isn’t working. I’m going inside.”
I moved to snatch up my clothes, but Dmitri grabbed me and hoisted me up in his arms. “Maybe you need a little more incentive.”
He strode over to the edge of the roof and smiled down at me. I grabbed him around the neck and squealed. Okay, I’m not proud of it, but what kind of sound does a person make when they’re being held over the edge of a rooftop, four stories up?
With seemingly little effort, Dmitri peeled my hands off his neck and then he dropped me. Fucking dropped me over the edge! I saw the ground coming up to meet me and screamed in horror, flailing my arms, which were tingling. I wanted to close my eyes but I could only watch in complete terror as I plummeted to certain death. Then a flash of gold swooped in front of me and strong arms wrapped around me. I looked up to see a Golden, his eyes a brilliant emerald color and his nose flaring and puffing out little clouds of white smoke. He held me to his chest and touched down on the ground so gently I barely knew we’d landed. I was still up pretty high, because the Golden was probably a good twenty feet tall, at least, but he bent over and deposited me back on my feet, then straightened back up.
I was shaking so hard I almost fell back down, but managed to stay on my feet as the Dragon in front of me shimmered and disappeared, leaving Dmitri in its place. I couldn’t speak for a moment and then I screamed at him.
“How could you? Oh my God, Dmitri, you scared me to death! Why? Why did you do that to me?”
He tilted his head an
d smiled. “Because of those,” he said and I followed his gaze down to my arms. Or where my arms used to be. Now there were wings—huge, gorgeous blood red wings attached to my all too human body.
Chapter Eight
The look on Luca’s face was priceless. He flapped his wings and sheer panic came over his pretty face as he turned it up to me. “Help me, Dmitri? What’s happening?”
“Calm down, Luca, it’s nothing to be frightened of. You’re in partial shift. Your Wyvern took over when it looked like you were about to crash into the ground.”
“I was about to crash into the ground!”
I rolled my eyes. “You know I’d never let you get hurt.”
“Get me out of this!”
“It’s not a costume. Look behind you.”
He turned and a look of complete shock replaced the panic. “A fucking tail! I have a fucking tail!”
“You do. A cute one, too.”
He looked back at it dubiously, and I regarded it too, but with much more appreciation. It was about four feet long, with red and black scales and a barb at the end, shaped almost like an arrow. It was tipped with some hard substance, which probably meant the barb was made of keratin, the same substance as fingernails and claws, so it could be used as a weapon if Luca needed it. It was extended out of his lower back.
“You’ve got the hard part already done. Just concentrate and ask your Wyvern to come out all the way.”
He glanced back at me resentfully, but closed his eyes and seemed to be thinking about it really hard. He was trying so hard, I wasn’t surprised when his pretty face suddenly transformed into that of a Wyvern with long, black eyelashes and a little black nose. I laughed in delight at his little snout, and he stuck out his long, forked, red tongue at me.
“Just a little more,” I said, tweaking his pointed ears. “You can do this.”
