There's Something About Dragons

by Selene Griffin

  “Alright.” He sighed, finally breaking eye contact as if he had been beaten. “It seems I’ve opened an unknown door. You may wish to take a seat.”

  “I will be fine,” she snapped back, perhaps a bit harsher than she might have liked.

  Her heart was pounding. What was he talking about? He just nodded… and then spilled some rather surprising beans.

  “My family, the Viscontis, have always prided themselves on having close connection, one way or the other, to the various other Dragon families across the world,” he started. “As such, my family came to be quite close with the DeLeon Dragons of Mexico.”

  That look was threatening to cement itself onto her face as she listened to him. Disbelief mingled with curious confusion. Her silence seemed to prompt him to keep talking.

  “My father was the one responsible for it,” he explained. “Their eldest son, your brother Rafael, and I are the same age and my father insisted we become friends. As we have gotten older, we’ve become little more than pen pals. I am sorry, Isidora. I did not know you were unaware.”

  “Wait, wait,” she said, shaking her head a bit as she held up her hand to stop him from talking. “How are these DeLeons my birth family? All you’ve said is you are friends with them.”

  “I was nine years old when you were born, Isidora,” he said, looking at her as if he felt sorry for her. “I remember my father telling me that it was a secret that you had been born. That your mother and father, Santiago and Gabriella, were sending you here to keep you safer as you grew up. It was the first time he had ever trusted me with something important.”

  Slowly, as he spoke, a look of pure shock had settled across her face. The things he was saying, while confusing, couldn’t have been fake. Who in their right mind would make up such a story when trying to win a woman’s hand in marriage? The only logical thing… was that he was telling her the truth. Besides all of that, the woman he named as her mother… Gabriella… it made her wonder about her own middle name. Gabrielle. Was there a connection there that made his words all the more true? Or was it simply a coincidence? She leaned towards the former. It was obvious, however, that he didn’t think she believed him. That much was evident by what he offered next.

  “It may be forward of me,” he said, almost tentatively. “But if you like, I could arrange a meeting for you.”

  His offer snapped her out of her rambling of thoughts. A meeting? The idea of it seemed ridiculous and she didn’t yet believe he was even telling the truth. Part of her mind began nagging at her that he was up to something. Why else would he drop such a bomb of information? Finally, she shook her head, bringing a hand up to her forehead.

  “No,” she said, rather flatly. “Thank you… but no.”

  He said nothing, just continued to look at her as if he pitied her. It enflamed the part of her that didn’t believe him and an internal battle waged within her. She had barely met this man and so knew better than to blindly trust him. But that didn’t mean she should totally ignore what he was saying to her.

  “I need to speak with my… family… about it first,” she added, dropping her hand as she glanced towards the estate.

  “I understand,” he offered with a slight nod. “Should you choose to take my offer, you may find me at the Visconti estate near Milan. I plan to return there later this evening.”

  He then fished into his trouser pockets and pulled out a card. In plain, black font an address and coordinates had been printed. She took it from him when he offered it, looking at it curiously before shifting her eyes back up to him.

  “The location of my family estate,” he answered her unspoken question. “You will be welcomed warmly.”

  “Thank you,” she said, a bit uncertain, but she took the card nevertheless. “I, um. I trust you will see yourself out? I need to speak with my Uncle, you understand.”

  “I do, and I will.” He gave her a charming little bow and then took his leave of her, heading back towards the main entrance of the Gardens below.

  Isidora stood there a moment, thinking about everything that Enzo had just told her and what it all could possibly mean. As her emotions swelled within her she became overwhelmed by it all. What if it was true? That would mean Sorinah wasn’t her mother… and if that was true…who was she? It would mean everything Isidora had ever known would have been a lie… and where would that leave her? She had to know the truth. Her mind was swirling.

  Almost the moment he was out of sight, she took off towards the nearest entrance to the upper floors of the estate. She wasted no time in heading directly for her uncle’s office, where she knew she would likely find him. Storming through the stony halls, she caught the attention of her mother, Sorinah, who then began to follow her out of concern. The intense look on Isidora’s face had her worried and considering she had just been on a date with Enzo Visconti… Sorinah’s concern was justified.

  “Uncle Geza!” Isidora shouted as she approached his office.

  Without giving him a chance to answer her let alone open the door, she pushed it open and nearly exploded into the room. Geza, as it seemed he always was, sat behind his desk. The look on his face told Isidora he had been waiting for her somehow.

  “We need to talk,” she said, almost seething but doing her best to keep it in check. “Why am I being told by Enzo Visconti that I was not born of this family?”

  Geza closed his eyes as she asked him and it sent her heart racing. What could that mean? She felt herself holding her breath as she waited for him to give her an answer.

  “Isidora…” He said. “You cannot trust a Visconti.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?!” She demanded of him, throwing her hands into the air.

  “It means that you need to calm down if you wish to talk to me.” Her uncle snapped back, his eyes open and locked on her now.

  “Calm down?” She asked with contempt. “I’ve just been told, by a suitor YOU approved of, that my entire life is essentially a lie. I come to you for the truth and you tell me to just calm down?”

  “Yes!” He said, standing up as he placed his hands flat against the desk. “You are better than this, Isidora. We raised you to have a calm head. Now, sit down!”

  She seethed, wanting to rip into him for her frustration. She felt like she was being treated like a child and she hated it. She was twenty-five years old, far from a child, and she demanded to be treated that way. But she understood she was, perhaps, overreacting a bit. So, she did as she was told and she sat down. As she did, Sorinah slipped into the room quietly.

  “Tell me the truth, Uncle,” Isidora said, her tone flat and demanding.

  “Isidora…” Sorinah said softly from behind.

  Isidora turned to face the woman she knew as her mother and her heart broke. What if Enzo was telling the truth… that would mean Sorinah had lied all of these years. That she had pretended to be Isidora’s mother and had hidden the truth from her. It nearly brought her to tears just thinking about it. She said nothing to her mother and just… turned around to face her Uncle.

  “Tell me the truth,” she demanded from him again.

  “The truth is what we choose it to be, in the end, Isidora,” Geza said, sitting down as well.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” She scoffed.

  “It means that you are a Balaurescu,” he answered quickly and with a flat tone. “It means that your mother is Sorinah Balaurescu, that I am your Uncle and that you were born here to us. That is the truth that matters and that is the truth that shall be.”

  She said nothing to him. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her uncle was basically admitting, without actually saying so, that Enzo was right. That she had been born to one family while raised by another. She felt her heart shattering within her chest and it was all she could do not to scream. The intense emotion boiling within her threatened to bring out the beast within, her eyes flashing from their rich, dark brown to the silvery-blue of her Dragon sel
f.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she stood from her chair with enough force to knock it over. She glared at her uncle, her eyes flashing between colors, before she turned and stormed out of the room. Not even the barest of glance was offered to Sorinah as she left. She couldn’t bear to look at the woman who had lied about being her mother.

  Frustrated, angry and about to burst, Isidora made her way up to the highest parts of the estate, slipping through a narrow doorway to climb a set of ancient stairs towards the peak of the mountain. When she emerged to the outside air, the sky was tinted purple and orange with the sunset. She walked out towards the center of a large, flat plateau that had been carved by her ancestors ages ago. A landing space for their family while in Dragon form. With another deep breath, she let loose her control and gave into her rage and anger. Her eyes flashed that silvery-blue once more and this time remained as such. She began to change.

  Her bones snapped, shifted and reformed themselves as her skin stretched to accommodate. Her form grew, shredding her dress and leaving it to fall around her naked and changing form. Her neck grew long and sinuous as a tail of similar description sprouted from her tailbone. As her spine changed and bent she lunged forward to all fours with a soft grunt, her head bowing towards the ground as it began to stretch out into the snout of a Dragon. Her hands, once delicate and quite feminine, began to spread and swell larger, her fingers stretching into massive claws. As her shoulder blades moved to accommodate her changing spine, they sprouted out from her body and formed into massive, leathery wings.

  Suddenly, as if without warning, a blossom of scales exploded across her entire body to change her tender and sensitive skin into the near impenetrable armor of a Dragon. Moments after the scales appeared and grew out across her entire body, they began to change in color. The once rich, caramel color of her flesh seemed to almost freeze over, turning instead a stark and near crystalline-like white. She stretched, her wings opening wide as her slender head and neck rose up towards the sky. Those eyes opened once more, brilliant in their color and almost otherworldly now that they were surrounded by the ethereal white face of a Dragon.

  As the sun reached the horizon and the light leeched from the sky, she spread her wings and launched herself into the air. She would not remain here amongst the lies any longer. She would find the truth no matter what and she would choose what her life would be like from there. Her anger gave her strength as she pumped her wings and lifted herself higher and higher into the night sky. She would take the offer Enzo had given her and she would meet her birth family, whomever they might be. She would not be lied to anymore.

  Chapter Five

  The Visconti Estate, compared to that of the Balaurescus, was surprisingly easy to locate. A ridiculously sprawling structure of brick and wood, no more than two storeys but easily covering at least half an acre of the five that it sat on, that was nestled against the base of a small mountainous region known as Monte San Giorgio. From the air, even at night, the views were gorgeous, and she was quite jealous of it all. The rolling foothills all around, the calmly flowing inlets. It was all so calming. Their estate seemed so open and welcoming compared to where she had been raised, even as it melded with the land around it in an effort to remain slightly hidden amongst the hills.

  It had taken her a little over an hour to reach the Visconti estate from the Balaurescu home in Romania, a trip that would normally take a Dragon two. She had often been told that she was one of the swiftest Dragons known to history and she prided herself on it. One of her few pleasures in life had been flying on warm nights, attempting to break her own speed records. Aside from her emotions fueling her speed, that was neither here nor there, however, and her mind was nowhere near her personal hobbies as she came in for a slow and silent landing. Her large, leathery wings beat slowly against the air to slow herself down as she came down towards the estate.

  A large, walled-in courtyard provided her with a safe space to land and as her claws touched down and dug into the Earth, three figures emerged, backlit, from the house. Without hesitation, Isidora began to transform back to her human self and as the three figures came into view she realized it was Enzo accompanied by two young women.

  As her transformation finished, the two younger women aided her in providing a silken robe and plush, cozy slippers for her to slip into. Dragons had fewer hang-ups regarding nudity, considering the toll their transformations took on their clothing, but the robe and slippers were appreciated nevertheless and she slipped them on with smiles and a soft thank you to the women. Once she was situated and her robe tied, Enzo offered her a cup of what smelled like soothing lavender tea. He must have known she would arrive tense and upset. He hadn’t lied when he had told her she would be welcomed warmly. She felt like a VIP guest.

  “Welcome to the Visconti Estate, Isidora,” he said with a smile as he handed her the drink. “I’m happy you chose to come.”

  She smiled, not wanting to give him the idea that she had come for him instead of the truth he offered, but still wanting to be nice. He was offering to help her with something rather huge, after all. Taking a sip of the tea, she remained silent for a moment, simply walking beside Enzo as he escorted her towards the open door of the estate. By the time she took a second sip, she had already begun to feel a haze settle around her head. Two more steps and she lost herself. The world began to fade at the edges and she lost her hold on the cup of tea. As it shattered on the ground she turned her eyes towards Enzo, confused and looking to him for help. Instead, she was met with a wry and somewhat sinister smile from him, the scar on his cheek puckering from it. It was the last thing she saw before she slipped into the darkness.

  *

  She felt so tired. Why did she feel so tired? She lay there for a while, her eyes closed and her body not moving an inch. Her body felt like it hadn’t slept in ages and even the thought of moving exhausted her. Slowly, she seemed to float back towards the surface of her consciousness and managed to open her eyes. What she saw above her confused her. Traditional Fasade ceilings?

  Fighting her body, she slowly managed to sit up and found that she had been laying on a plush and extremely comfortable bed, still in her silken robe, in what appeared to be a rather lavish suite of rooms. More confused than she had already been, she sat there and scrutinized the room. Her limbs felt heavy, as if they were weighed down, and moving them took far too much effort for her at first. As the weight in her limbs slowly began to fade away and her movement was restored, she noticed that the weight around her neck seemed to remain. As if a pair of hands refused to stop their gentle attempt at choking her. She reached up, intent on rubbing what she thought were sore muscles. What she found instead, horrified and confused her all the more.

  Metal. A band of metal. Her heart began to pound as she reached up with both hands to begin feeling the entire thing over. It seemed to be made of two pieces, connected with a single pin-less hinge at the back of her neck and locked at the front with its own locking mechanism. She could feel a keyhole, but aside from those two points the metal was smooth and unbroken. It felt heavy and strange and the sense of panic it unleashed inside of her washed out whatever remnants of Enzo’s tea lingered inside of her. She leapt from the bed, her eyes wide as she began to search for some sort of clue as to what was going on and how to get herself the hell out of it.

  The sound of a door opening caught her attention and she whipped around to see Enzo waltzing in. The cocky smile plastered across his face brought back flashes of memory. That same smile was the last thing she remembered seeing before falling unconscious from whatever had been in that tea. The sight of it now brought it all back to her.

  “What have you done?!” She demanded, moving towards him with as much determination as her limbs could manage, a hand still at the band around her neck while the other clutched the front of her robe. “Why?!”

  He laughed. He actually laughed at her anger as he came swaggering further into the room. It only served to
fuel the fire of seething rage burning inside of her, a fire that was quickly burning away at whatever had been in that tea of his. Her eyes flashed silvery-blue, but she knew her body was in no shape to transform.

  “Ah, ah.” He tutted her in warning, that sinister smirk still in place. “I wouldn’t bother trying to shift. Unless, of course, you have a death wish.”

  She stopped dead, his words giving her serious pause. What the hell could he have meant by that? Her hand fell from her neck, the both of them flexing into fists at her sides as she glared at him.

  “What the hell does that mean?” She practically growled.

  “Before you’ve even made it halfway through the change, that band around your neck will kill you,” he said flatly, almost callously. “So, I would recommend not shifting to your Dragon form at the moment.”

  “Lies.” She snapped, again her eyes flashing at him with the anger that boiled within.

  “Oh no, my dear. There are no lies here,” he said, that smile still stuck on his face. “That collar is made of iron forged in Dragon fire. A truly unbreakable metal that can only be destroyed by smelting it in Dragon fire once more. My family has been perfecting the process for generations. I have seen it first hand, trust me.”

  She stood staring at him in awe. There were so many questions swirling around in her head, but she couldn’t manage to get any of them to come out. Why was he doing this? Had he been lying to her about her birth family, the DeLeons? Was he lying about the collar around her neck? Was he telling the truth about everything and had other plans she didn’t know about? It was all so much. Too much.

  For a moment, she was paralyzed with indecision. What should she do? She knew she had to get away from him, away from Italy and back home somehow, but she couldn’t do that until she got rid of the collar around her neck. In order to do that, she had to find whatever key unlocked it… and that key was probably with Enzo. Doing the best she could to steel her nerves and swallow her anger, she stepped closer towards him and tried to wash the anger from her face. She had to play this card right or it would backfire.