by Juniper Hart
“What I’m going to show you,” he told her, “is just another form. I’m still me.”
She smiled at him encouragingly.
Kai stepped back until he was about ten feet away from her. They were hidden from the street by the tall concrete wall surrounding his home.
Millions of possibilities ran through Coral’s mind. What was he going to show her? Was it truly as unbelievable as to make him so nervous? What could possibly be more unbelievable than him being able to somehow control water?
“It’s still me,” he assured again.
With that, Kai started to shift. It was like watching something from a dream, some impossible and incredible. His limbs grew longer and his face shape changed. A tail emerged from nothingness and shimmered into existence. In the period of about five seconds, gone was the man. In his place, standing ten feet away from Coral, was a beast.
A dragon.
He was enormous! Coral took one step back out of shock. The creature was covered in shimmering scales as blue as the clearest part of the ocean. His eyes... She recognized them as Kai’s, as impossible as it seemed to be.
It’s still me, she remembered him saying.
“Kai?” Coral asked in disbelief.
The dragon opened his mouth. “Yes, Coral,” he replied, and his voice hadn’t changed one bit, it was still Kai’s. “It’s me.”
“You’re…you’re a dragon,” she gasped. “I don’t understand how this is even possible.”
Her heart pounded in her chest. The man from earlier was an entirely different species—one she thought only existed in books and fairytales. He had said that he was a legend. Now she understood.
She’d heard about people like him before, but only in mythology. She had never once believed they were true: men that could transform into other creatures and back. A shifter. A dragon shifter.
Kai lumbered towards her. His claws alone were the size of steak knives.
“I won’t hurt you,” he told her. Smoke emanated from his nostrils. She kept looking at his familiar eyes. “I just needed to show you my true form.”
She reached out to touch his scales, but stopped a moment before she did, not knowing if he would allow her to do so.
“Go ahead,” he told her. He leaned his head down so that Coral could reach it.
She touched his body, running her hand across his powerful neck, depressing the scales slightly as she went by. They reflected the moonlight beautifully. They were slightly cold to the touch, like a reptile’s, but with the hint of heat from inside.
Kai began to explain. “Humans are not the only creatures out here, Coral. Not even close.”
“Are there many of you?”
“There are many dragons,” he responded. “However, there are only three other dragons shifters like me. My brothers and I were each given a gift. I have control over water, and am called Keeper of the Sea. My brothers are in charge of fire, earth, and wind.”
“How old are you?”
“The same number as my gate code: 5062.”
The gravity of what he said hit Coral. “You never die,” she murmured.
“Not by age,” he told her.
The dragon vibrated. She backed away as he shifted back to his human form, standing shirtless in the yard.
7
The sound of truck engines shattered the moment. Kai glanced in their direction. “They’re back.”
Coral took another step towards him, putting more distance between her and the interior of his house. “How can you be sure it’s them?” she asked.
“I can smell them,” he answered. At the raised eyebrow she gave him, Kai continued, “I’m a dragon, remember?” He gestured to the house. “Get inside. I’ll catch them before they come through the door.”
“It’s my fault we’re in this mess,” Coral said, shaking her head. She didn’t just want to cower in fear while Kai fought her battles. “I’m not going to wait for you to solve my problems. I want to help!”
Kai frowned at her. “These are dangerous men. I don’t want to put you at risk.”
Coral crossed her arms over her chest. “I can handle myself,” she said.
He nodded with a look of respect. “Fine. Watch the front door. I’ll get you a gun. If anyone comes through, shoot them.”
They jogged back indoors. Kai found a handgun and handed it to her. It looked like an antique.
“What is this?”
Kai looked back at her. “It’s a gun.”
“Obviously,” said Coral, rolling her eyes. “But it looks so old…”
“It is old,” Kai replied. “I haven’t needed a gun my entire life. I bought it for fun years ago. It should still work. Point and shoot. I doubt any of them will come close, anyway.”
Outside, a voice called out, “Hey, asshole! Guess what? We’re back!”
Coral glanced out the window. At least fifteen fully-armed men stood outside the front door. They knew the gate code thanks to Earl and Josh, so more than ten trucks were in the driveway. Coral assumed more men were hiding behind and inside the trucks.
“Kai,” she murmured, feeling like she could barely speak. “Kai, there’s too many of them.”
Kai didn’t seem to hear her.
“Kai, they’ll kill you!”
He smirked and then looked at her. “Oh, I’d definitely like to see them try.”
The dragon shifter cupped her cheek with his strong hand and gave her one brief kiss before stepping outside to meet the armed men. Coral watched from the window as his form shuddered and shifted, transforming into a dragon before spitting a wild arc of flames across the sky.
The men outdoors let out loud screams at Kai’s appearance. Someone fired, popping gunshots into Kai. It sounded like metal hitting metal as the bullets hit the dragon’s scales. Coral could not tell if he was injured or not, and she started to panic. She couldn’t live with herself if he died over her actions.
Before she could run out the door to check on him, he sprang into the air towards his attackers, spewing fire from his mouth.
The flames bathed one of the trucks, popping the wheels and melting the car. The intruders kept shooting at the dragon in the sky, but they hadn’t planned for this contingency. Kai landed in the middle of their ranks, using his wings to send up huge bursts of air strong enough to make the men stumble. Coral was abruptly reminded of a scene in a fairytale book she’d read once, where a large group of knights had tried to bring down a dragon. Looking at the ineffective nature of the bullets on Kai, she could not even imagine charging him with a sword.
Kai swung with his right paw and caught an SUV. He lobbed it like a horseshoe. It flipped across the pavement as the brutes tried to get out of the way.
The men scattered, abandoning their vehicles behind.
Kai roared after them. He threw back his head and breathed fire in a power display up into the air. It was hot enough for Coral to feel it inside the house. She couldn’t do much more than watch with an awed respect, completely mesmerized by the sight. It was…breathtaking.
Kai settled onto the ground and grinned broadly as he shifted into his human form. Again, it happened so quickly that Coral couldn’t register it fast enough.
He came back inside as if he had just finished watering flowers instead of chasing more than fifty men out of his home. “Told you I could handle them,” he told Coral, who stared at him in disbelief.
“What…” She licked her lips out of nervousness. “What if they come back again?”
“They won’t,” he answered. “I have an army of dragons under my rule. At my command, they will hunt them down and kill them. You won’t ever hear from them again.”
“You…” Coral couldn’t find the words that she was trying to say. She had spent the last few weeks wondering if she would live to see another day, if Earl and Josh would catch her, if they would decide they’d done enough waiting and just kill her. She couldn’t believe it was all over. She couldn’t believe she didn’t have to be afrai
d anymore. “Kai,” she said breathlessly. “Kai, thank you!”
“No thanks necessary,” he assured her. He gave her a sweet smile.
A few moments later, sirens broke the air. Police. They sounded like they were on their way. The whole thing, from when the armed men had shown up to when they had run away, had lasted a solid two minutes, at most.
“Police are coming,” Coral breathed.
Kai was right in front of her, placing her hands in his.
“Who cares?” he replied with a dashing smile.
“They’re going to care!” she replied. “They’ll ask about what happened. They’ll want to know if we had anything to do with it.”
“They might.” Kai winked at her. “This isn’t my first time explaining this sort of thing.”
With that, he took her inside and they waited for the police to show up. They did, in a matter of minutes. They seemed to know the place well, which made Coral wonder just how many times Kai had used his powers to protect himself from others. Kai took control of the situation and promptly answered all the questions that the police had for them, and he made everything look like they had been the victims. Which they had, in a way.
Coral was more than impressed. His wording was perfect, and the cops believed every word. They searched the place for any evidence against them, but eventually left, seeming satisfied with what they found.
Kai shut the door behind the last policeman that walked out of the house. “Well,” he said, “glad that’s over.”
“Thank you,” Coral said again.
He frowned confusedly at her. “For what?”
“For what? For saving my life. For not telling them about me being a thief. For…” Coral shrugged her shoulders. “You name it.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
She was a little taken aback by his remark. “Oh?”
“I did it for me,” Kai clarified. “I want to get to know you better, and I can’t do that very well with you in jail.”
Coral felt her heart go aflutter.
“Promise me one thing,” Kai said with a smile.
“Anything,” she said.
“Promise me that you’ll give me the opportunity to uncover who you really are, deep down inside?”
That was her breaking point. Tears fell down her cheeks.
“What’s wrong, Coral?” Kai asked lovingly while stroking her hair.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Coral tried to explain, her voice wobbly and wet from her tears. “I feel drawn to you, like I’ve known you my whole life. And in the mere hours that you have known me, you’ve done more for me than anyone else ever has—even those who were supposed to love me.”
The dragon shifter took a lingering look at her like she was a goddess before kissing her forehead, and then her lips.
“I knew you were desperate when you drugged me,” Kai told her. “I sensed your guilt, and I also sensed that your spirit was broken. But I know that your spirit is longing to break free. I want to be the person who cares for you, the person who will protect you. You deserve happiness, Coral.”
Coral swallowed to moisten her suddenly dry throat. No one had ever cared so much about her. No one had ever told her anything like what Kai was telling her now. “How can you feel that strongly for me? Why do I feel this strongly for you?”
Kai smiled at her. “Because we’re soulmates.”
The notion sounded ridiculous to her. She had never believed in soulmates. To Coral, it had always seemed like a concept from fairytales, something that couldn’t be carried to real life. But after tonight’s events, it didn’t feel so ridiculous anymore. It felt right. “You believe in soulmates?”
“Of course.” Kai said, as if he had waited his entire life for her to ask. “Since the beginning of my existence, we’ve been destined to meet. But, we have eternity to learn more about each other.” He caressed her hair. “I bet after everything you’ve been through, you’re starving. I’ll make you some dinner.”
“Eternity?” Coral could barely hold back a scoff. “You do realize my lifespan is eighty-something years, maybe one-hundred if I am extremely lucky.”
“You have a lot to learn,” Kai said as he grabbed her hand and led her to his kitchen.
Coral smiled. “Okay, let’s say we have eternity to learn about each other. But, just in case we don’t, tell me something about yourself. I want to know something about you that makes you seem more human. Something that you enjoy doing, like a normal person.”
He snickered. “Okay, but if you ever tell anyone else, I will deny it and call you crazy. I still, to this day, have a soft spot for this. Take a guess at what it is?”
She shrugged helplessly. “I can honestly tell you that it would be impossible for me to guess.”
“Animated movies,” the immortal dragon shifter said. “They get me every time.”
Coral’s eyes widened, and she smiled at him. “Really?”
“Really.”
“But you seem so…calm and collected,” Coral said, remembering how he had turned into a dragon and chased away more than fifty armed men in around two minutes.
Kai chuckled. “I can’t explain it.”
She lost control of herself and finally laughed, but she didn’t do so to mock him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to laugh at you, but that’s both funny and amazing.”
“No, no,” he told her with a half-smile. “I told you that so you’d feel more comfortable with me. I’m just like you. Personality doesn’t change with time.”
The kitchen was large and built for a man who loved to entertain. The black granite counters stood out boldly against the cream-colored walls and stainless steel appliances. Four stools were placed on one end of the large island in the middle of the kitchen. Coral imagined herself eating breakfast at the island with Kai, or fixing dinner together while drinking wine. She quickly put that thought out of her head.
You just met him. It’s not like you’re moving in. This is seriously crazy, she thought to herself, trying to bring her mind back to reality.
He opened up the refrigerator and pulled out some mushrooms, lettuce, and tomatoes. Then he reached into the cupboard for balsamic vinegar, some spices, and hamburger buns.
“Mushrooms?” she asked.
“Portobello mushroom burgers,” Kai answered.
“You’re a vegetarian?”
“Yes.”
Coral frowned. “But you’re a dragon.”
Kai raised an eyebrow at her. “Your point?” he questioned. When she didn’t answer, he smiled and chuckled again. “Calm down. You’ll love it.”
He walked to the stove and put the mushrooms in a pan along with some olive oil and spices, then invited Coral to sit down at one of the stools while he cooked.
“I have some questions for you,” she said. “You defy logic and reality.”
“I don’t hear any question,” Kai said.
“Okay.” Coral looked down at her hands before looking back up at him. “How do you exist, and why don’t humans know about you?”
“They do know about me,” he replied. “They just don’t recognize me. Trust me. You know magic creatures when you see them, sometimes. You merely choose to ignore them because it defies human convention. You’d be amazed. Humans will do anything they can to ignore the possibility that dragons and other legends of folklore exist. Those that know about us are generally laughed at and ridiculed. Isn’t that true?”
Coral thought about it. She had personally watched shows on people that insisted dragons and other such fantastical creatures existed, but she’d thought it was funny. Not so much anymore.
“True,” she agreed, frowning. “And you said only four of you are immortal? You and your brothers?”
“Not exactly,” Kai told her. “Most dragons are immortal. My brothers and I are different because of our parents. Our father is the Dragon King and our mother is Gaia, like I mentioned. Upon our births, our mother gave each of us an el
ement to control. Other dragons don’t have those types of powers or responsibilities.”
Coral crossed her arms over her chest, but it felt more like she was hugging herself. “Must be lonely,” she said.
“Not really,” Kai said. “My family is close. We rely on each other. And now, you will be part of our family.”
Coral straightened her back. “Wait…what?”
“I told you, we’re soulmates. You feel it, too. We will be together for eternity, if you’ll have me.”
She couldn’t believe how casual this conversation had turned, how Kai could still be cooking as if he wasn’t talking about spending eternity with a woman he had met only a few hours ago.
“I’m not immortal, and I’m not a dragon,” Coral said, reminding him of the blatantly obvious facts. Even if she felt drawn to him, could she truly say that what she felt for him was enough to stay with him forever?
“Someday you will be immortal and be able to shift into dragon form,” Kai continued. “When we find our mates, their bodies transform when they become pregnant. The chemistry of your body has to change for you be able to carry a child.”
“Umm…I’m not ready for a baby.”
“There’s no rush. You asked, and I am answering your questions.”
“Is that true for all dragons?” Coral asked, still trying to wrap her head around the fact that Kai was apparently completely sure that she was his mate.
“No. Just for my brothers and me. Other dragons came into existence after us, but none of them have the power that we have.”
Nothing seemed to make sense. Nothing should have made any kind of sense, but the more she thought about it, the more it did. In her heart, Coral knew it was true. “So, even after everything that happened tonight, you still want to be with me?”
