by Amelia Jade
Ferro’s eyes had been downcast, but they came up now at the disbelief in her voice.
“I am aware of who he was,” he said stonily.
She backed away slightly at the sudden change in his attitude.
The silver-gray eyes saw that, and his expression crumpled, his entire body sagging. “I know who he was,” he said again, this time his voice a ghost of a whisper.
“Who was he?” she asked, sensing there was more to it than that.
“He was my son,” Ferro told her.
The anguish in his voice broke her heart, and at the same time she gasped, the realization dawning on her just who it was she was holding.
Chapter Six
Ferro
He cleared his throat, trying to do away with the lump that had become stuck there, while furiously blinking his eyes, trying to stop whatever it was that was making them water.
You are not fooling anyone. Whoever she is, she seems to make it easy for you to open up. Take advantage of that.
His head was pushing into her arms, and as she tugged on him slightly, Ferro felt his body sway closer toward her. The ease with which he was able to do so scared him. He didn’t know a thing about her besides her name.
Ana.
It was a beautiful name, one that simply rolled off his tongue. Ah-Nah. He loved it. Part of him wanted to say it over and over again. Her name complemented her beauty perfectly. And a beauty she was.
She was a few inches under six feet in height, tall for a woman. But that wasn’t what drew him to her. It was her hair. She kept it cut short, falling just to past her jawline. Most of it was platinum blonde, so bright it reflected the moon’s light like a mirror. There was a section that was different. Down her left side an inch-wide streak of hair blacker than the darkest night fell, surrounded on all sides by its polar opposite.
The unusual hair combination, which he could tell was one hundred percent natural, perfectly framed the face he had been staring at for the past while. Her bangs fell to either side, cut the same length as the rest of her hair. That gave him a perfect view of the vivid blue eyes that shone brightly at him, filled with worry and the desire to comfort, all wrapped up in a bundle of shock.
“He was your…son,” she breathed, her hair bouncing slightly, sending ripples of light through it in a mesmerizing pattern.
Ferro nodded.
She pulled him tight to her. He didn’t fight it, though it made him nervous to let his guard down so quickly with someone he had never met. Hugging her felt so natural, so easy, that it was hard not to just let go and let himself rest against her. She was thickly built, with a shifter’s muscle covered by ample amounts of curves that stirred a primal reaction from between his legs.
Not now, he told his brain. He needed to know more about her before he fell into such a trap. Besides, she still has a hole in her leg. It would be polite to let that heal before you try to sleep with her.
He kissed her cheek gently, feeling his composure return. Pulling back from her embrace, but not out of reach of her touch, he considered what he considered another oddity about her.
She had piercings.
Not many. There were two in each ear, both tasteful studs that added a flair of classic beauty to her. The third was in her nose. It was a small gold hoop on the right side. To his surprise, he loved it. Piercings were rare among shifters because they closed up immediately upon removal. Many found it too tedious to continue having their ears pierced, so they just didn’t bother.
Not Ana. She seemed to like them, and the fact that she had so many told him that it was an integral part of who she was. It wasn’t something he would ever do to himself, but on her, it looked completely normal.
She raised her hand to push back a lock of hair that had gotten loose. In doing so, he saw her wrist for the first time.
“You have a tattoo,” he stated dumbly.
Ana looked at him strangely. “Yes.” She turned her arm over, showing him the black mark.
“A butterfly?” he asked inquisitively, not sure what the significance was.
“Mm-hmm,” She looked at it for a moment, then back up at him. “I’ve always wanted to be able to fly.”
Ferro nodded. It was a common enough desire among those who couldn’t. He was aware of how blessed he was because of his ability to shift into a dragon and see the earth from above.
“How?” he asked.
She frowned. “What?”
Shaking his head, he held up his hands in apology. “Sorry, what I meant was, how do you manage to make it stay? With our healing, it should fade quickly.”
“Oh, that,” she said with a shrug. “It does fade. I have to go get it touched up once a month, sometimes less. By then it’s usually a faint outline. Apparently, despite our fast healing, it doesn’t do as much to remove the ink, since it’s not actually a wound. The skin closes over the puncture marks from the needle so quickly that it barely realizes it’s there.”
“Amazing.”
“Yeah, I get a lot of looks on it. But,” she said with a wink, “I thought I was supposed to be asking the questions here. You just sort of tossed a bomb in my lap with the revelation of who you are.”
Ferro chuckled. “So I did, I suppose. Please accept my apologies. I am so used to, well, being me, that I forget the impact it can have on others.
“I knew I had heard your name before,” she said. “But you’re just a myth. A legend really.”
He raised a hand to her face, cupping it gently. He pulled her to him, kissing her. It wasn’t a hard, desperate kiss like their first, but it was no less passionate.
“I prefer to believe I am real,” he said when he at last pulled away.
“You, ah, certainly have a way of convincing a girl,” she said, blushing furiously as she fought to retain her composure.
He nodded deeply in agreement.
“So. You are Ferrovax. The mythical godlike progenitor of all the dragon shifters on this planet.”
He winced. “If you must say it like that. I really hate to stand for all that pomp and pageantry,” he said, trying to wave it off. “It is one reason why I so seldom surface from my preferred haunts.”
Ana fought back a giggle, if he was judging her right. “Your haunts?” she asked with a serious face.
“I run a bar,” he told her.
“What a fascinating job for someone who must be what, five thousand years old?” There was a hint of teasing in her voice, as well as some curiosity as to why he chose that particular profession to pass the time.
“I long since stopped tracking the exact years, but I believe I am closing in on my eighth complete millennium on this planet,” he admitted. “And yet, I find that my little bar always brings good people together. There have been some ups and some downs,” he said, recalling a recent fight between two crews of bear shifters that had resulted in the entire place being leveled and practically rebuilt. “But overall, it keeps me exposed to the world without having to stick my head into things.”
“Eight thousand years,” she breathed.
He could see that she was working herself up to another question.
“Ask,” he prodded her, not wanting Ana to feel uneasy around him. For some reason, he felt like being an open book around her. He often became reserved and uninterested in speech. But he never wanted that to be the case with her.
“In your time,” she said, working her jaw as she forced the words out, “what types of shifters have you come across?”
He told her. Bears were the most numerous, followed closely by wolves. There were a number of big jungle cats—tigers, leopards and jaguars mostly—along with other species such as gorillas, though they were far less numerous. Then there were the rarities. Bats, gryphons, and dragons.
“You’re not aware of any others?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, and we dragons keep fairly extensive records on that, actually. May I ask why? Are you looking for something in particular?”
Fer
ro had an inkling that it had to do with what type of shifter she was—something he still hadn’t been able to establish—but he wasn’t positive. Whatever she was, she was old and therefore powerful. Not more than him, but he recalled the way she had hit him. The last thing he had expected was the power behind her blow. She could have taken down the two Order members they had originally faced. Likely not both at the same time, though he wasn’t sure.
“I don’t know,” Ana replied.
“You are lying,” he said. It wasn’t an accusation, just a simple statement.
She paused for a split second, then nodded once. “Yes, I am.”
“May I know why?” He tried to keep his voice genuine. He felt he was about to learn something, and the quest for new knowledge was something that he would never tire of. After all, there was so little of true importance for him to learn these days. He didn’t consider himself a genius, but his long lifespan had allowed him to learn more things than most over the years. Though the sudden onset of all the new technology in the world was something remarkable that he hoped to get a better grasp upon.
Shaking his head, he listened to Ana’s reply.
There was silence. She wasn’t saying anything, but instead was looking at him. Her eyes moved very slightly as they peered into his, to see if he was worthy of what she was about to tell him.
She was evaluating him, he realized. What could be so serious?
“Come with me,” she told him.
He rose to his feet, helping her along the way. The hole in her leg was closing nicely, but she still leaned heavily on him at first.
“That way,” she said, pointing off the road and into the forest.
Away from prying eyes.
What was she taking him to see? Whatever it was, it was extremely important to her, something that he doubted she showed to all that many people.
The longer they walked, the more she used her leg, leaning less and less upon him. By the time she slowed to a halt, she was walking on her own, albeit with a limp. But her arm was still entwined within his, and she seemed reluctant to let him go.
As soon as she moved away, he felt himself instinctively reach for her, to bring her back to his side. He missed her presence already.
“This is what I wanted to show you,” she told him, spreading her arms wide.
He looked around, confused. “I…am missing something,” he admitted. “All I see is a small open area deep in the forest.”
Ana shook her head. “Not this,” she said with a wave of her hand at the surroundings. “This.”
In front of his eyes she began to change.
***
His jaw dropped.
Ana’s back legs began to elongate, raising her up, even as they expanded at the hip, forming much larger muscles. Very short white fur sprouted across her body, covering her skin in an instant. She had to be standing fifteen feet tall. Without warning she dropped forward.
He rushed to grab her, afraid she was going to land on her face, but her front legs raced to meet the ground as it rushed up at her. Her hands became hard black bone that landed firmly on the ground, without any bit of waver.
Muscle sprouted and joints reversed themselves as her transformation continued. Ferro couldn’t believe his eyes. Her body expanded, and her head jutted forward on a long neck, down the back of which long hair began to sprout.
Black hair.
As he continued to watch in awe, something began to sprout from her forehead. It was dazzling white, banishing back the darkness as it grew. He knew then why she had chosen to enter so deep into the forest. The shadows fled from its sight, a horn of the purest white he had ever seen.
The change complete, she shook slightly in front of him, her big eyes looking up with an expression that could only denote nervousness.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, stunned over what he was seeing. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” he said in quiet shock. “May I come closer?” he asked tentatively.
The creature bobbed its head in the best approximation of a human nod that he figured it could. Slowly, with growing confidence, he moved to her side. Her flank, he corrected, reaching out to touch it.
She shivered beneath his touch, then shuffled sideways into him as he rested his head on her heaving side. “It is okay,” he assured her, spreading his hands across her side, feeling the power contained within.
“I see now why you wanted to know more,” he said. “I have never heard of any like you. Not even you.”
He stepped back to admire her from afar.
“A unicorn,” he breathed, still unable to believe what his eyes were telling him. He moved closer to her face, but she ducked away. “Please,” he told her, gently taking her head and moving it so she could see him.
“You have nothing to fear from me, I assure you.” He nuzzled her head with his. “You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.”
His hands moved up the side of her head. She tried to flinch away again, but he held her steady. “May I?” he asked, indicating the three-foot-long horn on her head.
After a moment’s hesitation, Ana lowered her head so he could see it. Gently he reached out, tentatively grazing it with one finger at first, before running them up and down the smooth bone-like protrusion. “Beautiful,” he repeated over and over again, even as she changed back to her human form.
The light dimmed in the small clearing as her horn retreated back into her head, and moments later, the beautiful woman was standing in front of him once again.
With tears streaming from her eyes.
“What? What is it?” he gasped, moving to take her into his arms. “What is wrong?”
She fell into his arms, allowing him to hold her tight. They shared a bond now, whether they knew it or not. He was the first of his kind, alone and without equal. She was, to anyone’s knowledge, the only one of her race.
So why was she crying?
“Did I do something wrong? Are you hurting?” he wasn’t sure how to fix it.
“No, nothing like that,” she said, easily planting a kiss on his lips. “It’s what you didn’t do, actually.”
His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to understand. “What did I not do that hurt you so?” he asked, confused and concerned.
Ana shook her head, her eyes meeting his as she smiled. “You didn’t hurt me, silly.” She hit his chest lightly. “That’s just it though. You didn’t hurt me.” Her head was shaking again.
“Everyone who’s ever seen me, they look at me like I’m a freak, or something to be experimented on.” Her voice never wavered, but he saw fresh tears spring to her eyes as memories came flooding to the surface.
“What? How?” he asked, unable to believe that. “You are beautiful beyond compare. How can anyone find you, with your light, to be anything but?”
Ana shuddered in his arms. “I don’t know. Perhaps they think I am the devil in disguise, trying to entice them?” She paused. “There have been a few who look at me without such feelings, but none who have done so like you.”
“Hush,” he said, pulling her to him tightly. He pressed his lips to her head while she let her emotions pour through her. Her shoulders shuddered for several minutes as she let the tears flow. They eased off shortly though, and she stepped back, trying to recover her composure.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“I think we should go back to the village, and find a bed to stay in for the night,” he said firmly.
It wasn’t what she had meant, and they both knew it, but for the time being, it seemed she was willing to accept his blindness to her real question. Ana had been referring to the obvious connection that they had. Right then and there, however, he didn’t think either of them were in the right state of mind to consider that.
Taking his arm again, she stayed close to his side as he guided them unerringly out of the woods and back to the town. He took a slightly roundabout route though, so as to avoid the battlefield from earlier. She didn�
��t need to see that.
“This should be interesting,” she murmured as buildings started to occupy the sides of the road next to them.
“What should?” he asked.
“You do recall that not too long ago, I was chased from town by a mob with torches and pitchforks, right?”
He paused mid-stride.
“Right. I had forgot,” he admitted. How the hell had he forgotten something like that?
“They might try to run me off again,” she warned.
He bared his teeth. “I would like to see them try.”
Very carefully, he did not mention that he was worried about more agents of the Order who might happen upon them. That was something she didn’t need to worry about just then. He would stay awake during the night, to ensure they were not caught unawares.
Anyone who tried to harm Ana would regret it.
Chapter Seven
Ana
Her instincts were screaming at her to turn and run, to make sure that she was anywhere but where she was. All she could sense was danger closing in on every side. It loomed large, ready to pounce upon her if she should ever let her guard down.
But it would never get close. Although he wore no armor, was not astride a horse, and didn’t hold aloft a magic sword to banish the darkness, there was no doubt in her mind that Ferro was her knight protector. Her warden against the dark, his heavy boots crushing any protests as they made their way across the stone square.
“How do you know where we’re going?” she asked. His steps were so sure, so confident, that it seemed like he’d been here before.
Ferro shrugged. “Making an educated guess, really. Center of town, big square. Go to the building with the hitching post in front of it. It is either a bar or a tavern really. Either or, we should be able to get a room.”
“A hitching post,” she echoed, shaking her head. “Of course. You don’t see many of those around here anymore.”
