by Riley Storm
The other person shook his head. “You need to grieve, Aaric. Strong people accept this need, and let themselves do so. Only idiots repress their feelings and hide them. Are you going to ignore everything Parre and Elanna ever taught you now, just because you don’t want this woman to know you’re capable of crying over the passing of our friends?”
Aaric’s eyes blazed with that golden light she’d seen on several occasions before, though this time, it was directed elsewhere, not at her or at those who threatened her.
“How dare you,” he snarled.
“I dare,” the other man said, “because you’re acting like a child. She will help you. She’s good for you, if you can take off your blindfold. Go, now. With her. Talk to her. Let her help you grieve. If you weren’t so busy being an asshole, you’d see she wants to help you. Isn’t that so?”
Olivia frowned. “Before he was an asshole, yes. I would have been there for him if he asked, if he needed me.”
Aaric bowed his head. “You’re right. Both of you. I’m letting my grief, my sadness, turn into anger that I’m directing at anyone nearby.” He looked up, pinning Olivia to the spot with a stare.
“You should not have followed me, especially after I asked you not to. That was rude of you, because you witnessed something not meant for you. That you were not invited to be a part of.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “But I should have told you that. Not yelled it at you. I should have explained. So, partly, that is my fault. I am sorry, Olivia.”
“I understand,” she said softly, her arms trembling as she realized the gravity of what she’d witnessed, even if she still didn’t understand how. “I’m sorry for intruding on something private. Something personal. You’re right, that was wrong of me. For that, I am sorry.”
“Happy now, Francis?” Aaric muttered.
“Not really. Go hug her and get out of here. There’s nothing more either of you can do. I have my duty to perform. I don’t particularly want the two of you bickering over me while I do it.”
“Just do it by more than lamplight,” Aaric ordered, a wry tone returning to his voice.
The other man, Francis, smiled. Olivia was thoroughly lost, the byplay meaning nothing to her, but she just waited.
“I’ll try,” Francis said. “Take care of him. He’s a bit rough around the edges, but there’s a heart of gold under there.”
“Tell anyone else and you’ll regret it,” Aaric muttered as he wandered over to Olivia. “Can you forgive me?”
“I want some answers,” she said, taking him by the arm and guiding him out of the room, back into the hallway. “If you give me the truth. Tell me what the hell is really going on, then probably. But no more lies, Aaric. No more mysteries. That’s my condition. Take it or leave it.”
She waited for his reply as they walked, barely able to force her lungs to breathe as he started to respond.
What was he going to say?
25
Aaric glanced over his shoulder, back the way they had come.
Back to the chamber where the remains of two people he’d cared for deeply were now being gathered up by Francis, in preparation of being scattered in the caverns below Drakon Keep, where the dragons slept.
All the dragons. Every one of them. Except for him. Except for Aaric.
The weight on his shoulders pressed down heavier, and he felt his frame creak under the added stress.
He wandered in silence, staring at nothing, only the actions of his subconscious preventing him from walking into a wall. What was he supposed to do now? There was nobody to guide him, nobody to help him understand his place in the world. He was alone.
“Aaric.” Beside him, Olivia shook his arm gently, trying to get his attention.
He should tell her to go. To leave the Keep and return to her life. Before she met him. It would be for the best, wouldn’t it? They were done. They had to be done. There was only one mission ahead of him.
“Talk to me, Aaric. I’m here.”
“What is there to talk about?” he mumbled, his voice wavering.
All this time he’d spent asleep, while the two elder dragons carried on with the duties of caring for their House. He could have been there. Could have stayed awake to help them.
No, you couldn’t. You know better. That’s not the way it works. Dragons are only called upon when the world needs us. When evil is rising and must be countered.
It was part of the magic that made dragon shifters different than their brethren. Somehow, in the process that had created shifters, they had been altered. Made into a creature out of fantasy, instead of reality. On top of that, they were imbued with a bit of magic.
Nothing like what the human mages could wield but tied more to their dragon side. As a fire dragon, Aaric had power over fire. He could create it. Dismiss it. It didn’t burn him, and in fact, it actually helped him heal, much like a mother’s embrace. He was fire, in many ways.
Earth dragons controlled the very fabric of the earth. Dirt, metals, rock, all rose to obey the commands of the mighty earth dragons. Water dragons held sway over the seas, lakes and rivers, the world’s water at their command. Wind dragons ruled the weather, able to summon great storms that would ravage the earth below. Ice dragons were most at home in the winter, where their powers were magnified. Blizzards and glaciers, ice ages and more were the results of the ice dragons.
Each one of them, in their own way, was tied to the earth itself, to its magic. Through that magic, they knew if they were needed in the world or if it was safe for them to return to their deep sleep where they would pass away the centuries until needed once more.
“You can tell me about them,” Olivia was saying, he realized. “About who they were, what they meant to you. Remember them by sharing their story.”
He snorted, gently extricating his arm from her grasp. How was he supposed to do that? What would he say? I just watched my mentors, my friends, the only two people like me in the entire world, crumble to dust. After five centuries of life, gone, just like that. Do you understand now?
Of course, she didn’t. Olivia couldn’t understand. She wasn’t a dragon. Wasn’t mated to a dragon. She was just a human.
“Aaric.”
He spun to face her. “What?”
Olivia took a visibly angry breath, steadying herself. “I understand you’re hurting right now. But I didn’t do that to you. I didn’t hurt you,” she said quietly. “It’s not right of you to take it out on me.”
She was right, he knew. The anger in his tone had been inappropriate. “I’m sorry,” he grated. “It’s hard.”
“I know,” she said, coming close, grabbing his hand. “I’ve lost people in my life too. People very close to me. I may not know exactly what you’re going through, but I’ve been through similar. I can help you grieve. I can be there for you.” She paused, biting her lip, blue eyes filled with tenderness and care. “You just have to let me, Aaric. Let me in.”
He stiffened. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” she insisted. “You just don’t want to.”
Aaric turned away, unable to face her without an answer. How was he supposed to tell her without revealing everything? It was impossible. He needed to talk to someone else.
“I’m right here,” Olivia said, moving around until they were facing each other once more. “Right in front of you. Standing here, asking you to let me in, Aaric. Why won’t you let me? Why are you resisting this? Why are you resisting—” she stopped speaking abruptly but they both knew what she was going to add.
Why are you resisting me, Aaric? That’s what she had been about to ask.
“Because you don’t understand,” he growled, answering all of her questions at once, his anger bubbling up some more.
“Then make me!” Olivia shouted, her own emotions piercing her usually calm exterior. “I can’t understand if you don’t help me!”
“I need to find my mate,” he snarled. “Okay. The one woman I’ll be with for the rest of my life
. I have to find her, so I can bring the rest of my kind back. I can’t keep wasting my time!”
Olivia frowned and her eyes clouded over.
“See, I told you that you wouldn’t understand. But I tried.”
“I’m a waste of your time?” she asked quietly, her voice quivering.
For some reason, hearing Olivia say that pierced through his pain, his grief, striking him in the core. Aaric’s jaw dropped open as his arms came up. What was he doing? Going to hug her? To console her? Why did that matter?
“I am,” Olivia said, swallowing so hard it was visible, her jaw trembling. “That’s how you see me then. Just a waste of time? Something you don’t care about and can discard whenever you want?”
“That’s not true,” he protested, wondering where his sudden caring, sudden desire to prove she was anything but a waste of time was coming from. There was no time to think about it though, no time to process, because he had to focus on the present. On the here and now, lest he lose Olivia.
“You just said it was.”
“I…I’m just hurting,” he said, fumbling for words. “I don’t know how to tell you everything.”
And I shouldn’t tell you.
“Then can you show me? Just start small, and we’ll work from there, Aaric.” She blinked rapidly, swiping at tears as they started to fall.
Aaric’s chest thundered with pain at the sight, and he ached to move closer. To hold her tight, to tell her it would be okay. That they would work it out.
Why do you care? What is the matter with you? You’re a fire dragon! Get a hold of yourself, Aaric. You’re better than this.
“I don’t know if you could handle it,” he found himself saying. “It’s tough to believe.”
Olivia crossed her arms, a last pair of tears falling from each eye as she sniffled loudly. “Try me,” she challenged with more strength than he’d thought she had. “I just watched two people crumble to dust. I’m pretty ready for things I shouldn’t believe.”
Aaric snorted. “Twenty bucks says you are dead wrong.”
Her hand flashed out in a nanosecond. “Deal,” she said fiercely.
“You don’t even have it on you,” he said with a low laugh.
Olivia dipped a hand into one of the baggy pockets of her sweater and pulled out a small rectangular clutch. “Wrong. Now, are you ready to tell me what’s going on?”
He shouldn’t. Aaric knew it was improper and broke all the rules. Everything House Draconis had built rested on secrecy, on the world at large not knowing who they were. The only ones to be brought in were the mates of individual dragons, and only after they were judged as being able to keep the magnitude of this secret.
Right then, Aaric didn’t care. He didn’t give a shit about the rules, the regulations. I am the only dragon left alive. I make the rules. I’m the one in charge. No stuffy elders to tell me what to do, where to piss and when I can or can’t go flying. None of that. This is my time.
“No,” he said abruptly.
Olivia frowned. “What do you mean, no? I thought we just agreed…”
Aaric took her by the hand, gently, letting his fingers slide through hers, wondering why it felt so right. So natural.
Later. You can think about that later.
“I’m going to show you,” he rumbled, giving her hand a tug so that she followed along with him.
“Show me?”
“Yes,” he said, falling silent as they wandered through the veritable maze of hallways, each of them tall and wide.
Large enough to fit a dragon.
Eventually, they reached a grand set of arched wooden doors surrounded by beautiful crafted stained glass inlaid with metal crafting that looked ornate, but also helped provide structural defenses to the door.
“Wow,” Olivia said, looking up. The doors were easily thirty feet tall, each one half that wide. “What need is there for such big doors?”
Aaric just chuckled and pushed through a human-sized door off to the right. They exited onto a courtyard of interlocked stone perhaps five hundred feet wide and twice that deep, extending out toward the forest that lay at the back of Drakon Keep.
“That’s a big patio,” she quipped. “Big doors. What is this place?”
“Is your cellphone on you?” he asked, ignoring her question.
“Yes. I was talking to Angela. Why?” Olivia pulled it out, looking puzzled.
“I’m going to need you to turn it off and leave it here on the ground,” he said, gesturing next to her.
“What, why?”
Aaric just waited. He was tired of explaining, of giving reasons. If she wanted to know the truth, she was going to know the truth. But for him to trust her, she was going to have to do the same. He wasn’t about to risk everything just because he was tired of being alone, of being the only one besides Francis and a few other stewards who knew his secret. Knew what he truly was.
“Fine,” Olivia said, powering it off and setting it down. “There. Now you can take me into the forest and kill me and nobody will know,” she said with a nervous twitter.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he said, doing his best to reassure her. “That I swear. You’ll understand why I needed that done in a second here.”
Taking her hand, he guided her out into the middle of the massive courtyard. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “What are you going to show me? Is the Batmobile out here somewhere?”
Aaric rolled his eyes. “Try not to pee yourself,” he rumbled, stepping back from her.
And back.
And back.
“What are you going to show me?” she called.
Aaric steeled himself, closing his eyes. He reached into his core and called to his dragon.
“This,” he rumbled, eyes snapping open as they began to glow gold, his body surging with power.
In front of him, Olivia gasped.
26
“That’s not possible.”
Olivia rubbed at her eyes in wonderment as she craned her head upward, trying to take in the spectacle before her.
Aaric was gone. Just gone. She’d watched as, over the span of a second or two, his body had transformed. His eyes had turned gold and then his entire body had exploded with size, his neck elongating while two huge humps on his back swelled and then burst into magnificent gold wings.
Scales of the same brilliant burnt gold plated his body, though in many places, streaks of fire-engine red slashed across his body and crisscrossed his scales, giving him a mottled pattern more beautiful than if he’d been pure gold, she thought.
“It’s not probable,” Aaric corrected, the massive jaws moving as somehow, the creature spoke perfect English.
“Well, fuck me, you can talk,” she said, sitting down abruptly as her legs failed to work. “The…the…oh well now I get it,” she said, shaking her head, smacking her palm against her forehead.
“What? You get what?” Aaric rumbled from where he stood.
At least, it sounded like Aaric. But how could that be?
“Dragons. Drakon. Right. Okay. I’m going to faint now,” she pronounced, lying back on the cool stones of the courtyard, staring up at the sky.
It was beginning to brighten, she realized. Dawn was almost here. They’d been up all night.
The ground shook slightly, and high above her the massive head of the red-gold dragon appeared, looking down at her with one golden eye.
“So that’s why your eyes glow every time you got mad, or when you, um…” she looked away in embarrassment. “I had sex with a dragon,” she said, saying the words out loud, forcing herself to say it.
“No, you had sex with me,” the dragon rumbled.
“You are a dragon,” she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her clutch.
“What are you doing?”
Olivia pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “Paying my end of the bet,” she said, dazed, still not quite understanding everythi
ng going on.
Am I in shock?
“I can’t, um. Where am I supposed to put that?” Aaric asked, looking down at his scaled underside. “This thing doesn’t come with a change holder, you know.”
Despite the absolute impossibility and ridiculousness of what she was seeing, Olivia laughed. “What about cupholders?”
“None,” he admitted. “But it’s got a hell of a cigarette lighter.”
“What do you mean?”
Olivia regretted asking the question almost immediately. Aaric turned to one side and belched flame. The heat was immense, washing over her and she was forced to shield her face from the fire streaming out of the dragon’s mouth.
“Okay!” she shouted over the thunderous roar of the flames. “I get it. You’re the world’s biggest zippo. Got it. You can stop now!”
The fire stopped, but the noise didn’t. Clapping her hands over her ears, Olivia looked around wildly until she realized it was still Aaric making the noise. Only this time, he was laughing.
“You’re taking this incredibly well,” the gold dragon rumbled. “You didn’t even faint.”
Sitting up, she shrugged. “I think I’m still having a hard time believing it. This could be some sort of magic trick.”
“I guarantee you, it’s not. I can take you for a ride, if you want? Here, hop on!”
One magnificent golden wing dipped down to land at her feet, providing a leathery membranous ramp up to the dragon’s back.
“Oh, hell no,” she said, shaking her head repeatedly. “Nope. Nuh-uh. Nice try.”
“It’s perfectly safe,” the dragon said, rolling one golden eye at her.
“Says you. You’re the one with wings!” She covered her face. “You have wings. What the hell. This is crazy. You can turn into a dragon. That’s not possible.”
“Yes, it is. There is lots that’s possible. You just don’t know about it, because we’ve hidden it from humanity, ensuring we remain as little more than legend, nothing else.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” she fired back lightly.
“You wanted the truth. I told you that you couldn’t handle the truth. But you insisted. Now you’ve got it. So, get your shit together,” the dragon commanded. “It’s real. I’m real. This happened. I am a dragon shifter.”
