by Lucas, Naomi
Aida takes a slow step my way, her teeth bite down on her lip, and I am paralyzed. My nostrils flare. Her pheromones flood into me. I realize everyone else is watching her too.
We should have never left the caves! A rumbling grows in my throat.
My shaft grows painful, and I want to throw her over my shoulder and take her away at this very moment. Or remain here, in front of all, so they might witness my mastery. My mind clouds with lust.
I hear laughter. I do not care. Clenching my fists, I straighten, ready for my human to close the distance between us. But when she is only a few yards away, she is interrupted.
“Wait!”
Holding back a scowl, Delina runs up and forces Aida’s attention from me. Breathless, the younger sister raises something in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, offering the object.
Aida glances down at it, back to her sister. Forgiveness softens her striking face. My mate nods and lowers her head. Delina lifts the object and places it on Aida’s head.
The headdress, I note, realizing what it is.
Delina positions the piece and ties it into my mate’s hair. Their brows touch, and then Aida turns back to me. Delina slinks away.
I do not wait any longer—can not wait without going mad—and storm across the clearing and take her in my arms, slamming my mouth over hers.
Like shrugging—no, it’s better than shrugging—Kissing her is such a human mannerism. One I enjoy immensely. Something I will enjoy every day for the rest of my life. No one will ever again kiss her but me. I nip Aida’s plump lip, and she pulls back with a gasp.
The tribe breaks out in hollers and laughter, and without caring of whatever human ritual we are in, I pick my mate up, throw her over my shoulder, and steal her away.
My human.
My. Human.
Mine.
Epilogue: Aida’s Paradise
Three years later
* * *
“Should we go deeper?” I ask, gazing at the shadowy passage leading further into the jungle.
“Yes!” Gullis exclaims with a squeal, waving his little dull spear that Kaos, his father, crafted for him.
“I want to see!” Haime cries with him, holding onto my hair, leaning over my head where she’s perched.
My daughter. My beautiful daughter with blue eyes like her father, shadowy skin like mine, and sapphire scales now appearing across her skin. Her sense of adventure keeps me alert—terrifies me hourly. Her little tail swishes against my upper back.
Issa sighs behind me.
For the first time in years, neither she nor I am pregnant.
Thank the waters.
Zaeyr grunts and, with his double-edged spear, breaks the vines in our path.
Kaos strides from behind Issa, our children, and me to join Zaeyr at the front. Gullis imitates his father and strides next to him, only to fall behind and scurry back up. He takes after the jungle dragon, scales, green skin, and all. All but the wings on his father’s arms.
Issa has two sons, and I two daughters. Both of our young babies remain in Shell Rock, Issa and Kaos’s home, where they’re being taken care of by the villagers. I miss them. I’ve been away from my baby girl for a day, and I miss her deeply. She may be growing horns, and I’d hate to miss their breaching.
“Mommy,” Haime whines as she pulls my hair, and when I glance up, I realize the others are all ahead of us. Hurrying my steps, I catch up, ducking through the broken vines fast enough so Haime can’t grab them.
But when we break through the passage, they’ve already reached the rocks to my left. Kaos yells after Gullis, bringing a smile to my face.
We’re close. We must be close.
The canopy soon opens up and bright blue skies fill my view. In the distance, my ears prickle with the sounds of waves crashing against the shore.
“Mommy,” Haime says again, “we’re falling behind.” She squirms, fighting to get down from my shoulders, but I grab her up against my chest and laugh. When she giggles, I stick my tongue out at her.
“We’re taking our time, baby.”
She doesn’t care. Fights me again. But I lift her back onto my shoulders, and she settles when I move into the open light to begin ascending the rocks.
This is our first outing as a family, our first hunt, our first real adventure. And we chose to do this with Issa and Kaos and Gullis because it would be a first for them too. Our dragons work well together when they have the same goal.
And of all places, we decided to venture past Shell Rock, follow the coast north, up the peninsula, to where the Mermaid Coast—the Mermaid Gulf—meets the open ocean.
I’ve never seen the ocean. The real ocean. The vast blue that goes far beyond Venys, endlessly.
I catch Zaeyr looking down from above, watching our ascent with keen eyes. Standing like a god on his perch. Never a moment he’s not there. I shoo him away with my hands but he remains.
Peering up at him, half-scowling, I can’t believe it’s been three years. Three years.
The world has changed.
Since then, the red comet vanished, Delina and Leith had a daughter of their own, and the beginning of the next generation of our people has been born. My relationship with my sister was at first strained, but since our pregnancies and our young being playful cousins to each other, the past has become the past. It’s reminded us of our childhood, of all we’ve gone through together.
Delina has grown much, and anger is too hard to maintain. Although Zaeyr still growls at Leith and won’t let me near my brother-in-law, we remain friends.
I tickle Haime’s feet, and she squeals with laughter, bringing a rare smile to her father’s stoic and broody facade.
Since then, the mermaids forsook Sand’s Hunters for me mating him, for Sand’s Hunters giving Zaeyr a home. But I don’t think they went far.
In recent months, the babies have brought the mermaids back to our shores. I’ve discovered the laughter of babies draws in mermaids. Much more so than singing.
Krakens and other enormous leviathans have also returned to the gulf. Perhaps the mermaids forgot the protection Zaeyr once gave their underwater lands…
Now he protects the coast, and the shores are safer than before.
The femdragon never came back.
Issa claims she saw a small dragonling fly through the skies, but I don’t know...
Makes me wonder…
Reaching the top, Haime whimpers to be on her father’s shoulders. Zaeyr scoops her from me and spins her around.
Stoic and broody. I laugh. He looks that way but he’s anything but. I curl my arm around his side and lean my head against him. “You didn’t have to wait.”
“I wanted to.”
I pat one of the three bone daggers hooked at my hip and then the net tied to my waist. “I know these lands and its predators better than you, dragon man,” I humph.
“But I have better hearing, smell, and eyesight, human.”
I humph again and move away.
But he catches me, pulling me into his chest, wrapping his large arms around my torso—shunting his hips against my back. My core clenches. He wants me. He always wants me. Smiling, I wiggle my backside.
Perfectly unaware of our silent communication, Haime’s little hands reach around her father’s horns to tangle back into my hair. “Where’s the ocean?” Completely unaware of her parent’s tension. My smile grows. Turning around, I tug on her leg.
“Can’t you hear it, little seashell?”
Her ear pricks—literally pricks up. Something else she inherited from her father. “I hear it!”
“It’s close,” I say. “The louder it gets, the closer we are.”
“Aida! Come see!” Issa yells from up ahead.
Please let us be there, I beg. Please.
Together, Zaeyr’s hand in mine, we make our way to Issa’s voice.
The last of the brush clears, the sky spans outward, and after scrambling over several more led
ges of rocks, the ocean comes into view.
Sapphire waters stretch out in all directions before me. Water so dark, so deep, a shiver for its greatness courses down my back.
Zaeyr’s home. I squeeze his hand tightly.
“Do you think there are others like us?” Gullis asks softly.
Issa licks her lips and glances my way.
“Yes, sand dollar, far north past Haime’s home, there are others like us.”
The rumor that started it all.
“I want all the world to be like us.”
“Me too!” Haime agrees. Her little tail catches in my hair.
Zaeyr hums. “You will have to find a dragon of your own, little one.”
“I will!”
“I’ll find one too,” Gullis announces.
The four of us adults share a concerned look.
“Not today,” Issa says, swallowing.
“Nope, not today. Or tomorrow,” I add.
“Or next week,” Issa continues.
“Maybe next year,” I laugh.
“Ugh.”
It’s something that’s been on my mind too. Are there others like us out there? Dragon and human, bonded? And if there are, how many? Where are they?
Zaeyr tugs me against him as a flock of eagles soar by. I lean into him again. It doesn’t matter.
We stay up on the ledge until the sun begins to set. We make camp and tell stories. The children play, wrestle, and fight. They eventually fall asleep, Haime’s tail curled around Gullis’s ankle.
I’ll never really know if there are others.
And that’s okay.
Venys is a big world, after all.
Zaeyr places his hand on my stomach, pulling my attention back to him. When our eyes meet, his flash, bold, bright, and blue. A dark, hungry look I know so well.
I don’t need to search for others, because this is mine, it’s everything I want. More than I could have ever hoped for.
My heart swells. I’m ready.
To Wake a Dragon
It’s been eight years since the red comet flew across our skies. Eight years since the blood moon. No dragon has been seen or heard from since.
Until now.
As one of the guardians of my tribe, I’m known as Milaye, a Protector of the Mermaid Coast. I’ve never had the honor of consideration as a future matriarch or a match for one of the rare males born near the Forbidden Jungle. I’ve kept my wishes hidden—despite my envy for my fellow tribemates who are happily mated.
I’ve lost hope for such a life long ago.
But one day, my ward flees into a long lost cave deep beneath the jungle brush. A cave, I soon realize, that holds a long-dead giant monster.
A dragon.
But he isn’t really dead after all…
1
Haime Finds a Cave
“Haime! Don’t climb so high!” I yell.
I watch as my little ward claws her way up a jungle tree. She is seven seasons now, and I can scarcely believe how much time has flown by. It’s been two years since she’s been mine to train. Someday she will be a great huntress, and I’ve been honored with the duty to lead her down that path.
“It’s all right, Auntie Milly. This tree is no match for me!” she shouts.
Indeed, it’s no match for her. Haime is part-dragon. Part-dragon because her father, Zaeyr, turned into a human male during the red comet and mated with my clan-sister, Aida. Haime is the oldest of their four children, the eldest to a sister and two brothers. Together they’ve become the ruling family of Sand’s Hunters—what with Zaeyr’s might and Aida’s gift to bear strong sons.
But only Haime has been given to me to train. Her sister, Edenth, just turned five seasons and already prefers healing and caretaking more than hunting and exploring. Edenth will apprentice with another.
Which is okay—because Haime is a handful. I adore her though, maybe even because of it. She’s like the daughter I have always wanted.
Since Aida gave her to me to train, Haime’s filled a void in my heart. And I know why Aida gave her to me. She knows I love Haime dearly and would do all in my power to protect her, to train her into the fierce huntress she is destined to be.
I will never have a baby of my own. There are no males left for me. And…
Frowning, pushing away the thoughts that threaten to distract me, I follow Haime’s shadow. She’s moving through the leaves and up toward a higher branch. She and I are within the northern jungle, where the cliffs and lagoons of the south turn to long patches of giant plants and sand dunes. The trees aren’t as thick here, but it’s because the soil is drier. The jungle is also not as dark, nor as vibrantly green.
It’s easier to track prey here.
The northern jungle eventually meets the middle plains of Venys, and the soil only gets drier from there. Other tribes rule those lands with their own laws, and unless necessary, we don’t venture there.
But still, the north is a good place to train the young huntresses and not only because it’s easier to track. Smaller creatures roam here, and I don’t have to worry about ambushes from gorillas or jungle cats. Besides the occasional dune worm, cockatrice, or crocodile, there is not much to worry about.
And the sky is visible at all times, unlike the southern terra of the jungle, where the trees are thick and vines web throughout the canopy. The sky is often hidden because of the foliage. Knowing where the sun lies helps with telling time, and knowing the time helps with managing younglings.
“Haime, come down this instant!” I shout. “We must head back.”
“I’m almost to the top,” she cries. “I’m strong, remember? I will not fall.”
Strong? Sure. But Haime’s a child, and even with her dragon blood, she does not have the power of an adult, not yet.
“Oh!” she gasps.
Nervously, I debate going after her. “Oh? What do you see?”
“You were right, Auntie Milly! There’s a storm coming in from the ocean.”
A boom of thunder sounds the air, clamoring as if provoked.
Great. I roll my eyes. “I told you I heard thunder. Now get down here so we can make it back to the tribe in time.”
Haime lands in front of me, startling me backward. She jumped from the top of the tree. My eyes widen in horror. The little imp grins upon seeing my expression—and I know it looks horrified, for I feel the horror all over.
I clutch her to me. “You could’ve hurt yourself,” I shout, peering up at the tree. So tall. “Oh, waters, little dragon, don’t ever do that again!”
Haime embraces me back. “I’m strong.”
“It doesn’t matter!” I pull back to cup her cheeks. “What would your parents think if I bring you back to the tribe with broken legs?” Simply imagining it sends a gruesome shiver down my spine.
“I would never do that to you, Auntie Milly.”
Pressing her closer to me, despite knowing she’s safe, my heart still pounds ferociously. “You’d better not. I couldn’t live with myself after. I could not live knowing I had failed you and your parents. You may not be of my blood, but you are still mine, Haime.”
Haime rests her little head on my chest and hums. It calms me. Her humming always calms me. Several minutes pass before I’m settled enough to let her go. Not even a pack of territorial apes could’ve forced me to release her sooner. She is the closest I will have to a child of my own.
But that is a pain I refuse to wallow in anymore. It’s been eight years since new males have joined my tribe, and both were mated to other, younger women: Aida and her sister, Delina. And since I was four years older than Aida, I would never be considered as a mate for a new male. But that wasn’t the case eight years ago… Dragon males bonded with the one who turns them human.
Only one human male came to us eight years ago—from Shell Rock. Leith. The elders paired him with Delina.
The other two were dragon males, and they do not abide by the law of the elders.
Zaeyr, was once a great
and ancient water dragon that ruled the waters of the Mermaid Gulf. The cursed red comet flew through the sky then, bringing out a mating heat in beasts across the land. Because of that heat, Zaeyr rose from the waters and bonded with Aida through an accident—and maybe fate—on the sands below the tribe.
When she touched him to protect our tribe, he lost his immortality and became human. Well, mostly human. Zaeyr still has scales, a tail, strange eyes, and claws. His children, like Haime, inherited many of his dragon features.
The other dragon male, Kaos, mated with a female from our neighbor tribe.
Their appearance renewed hope amongst the females of Sand’s Hunters, and with that hope, many left the safety of our tribe to hunt down a dragon of their own. Myself included.
I hold in my breath thinking of that time. Like my clan-sisters, I never found a dragon of my own, and as the red comet faded from the sky, hope faded too. And so my search for a male quickly turned into rescue missions, searching for sisters who did not return. Some are still missing to this day, and recalling that time leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
We gained and lost so much.
Haime’s humming returns, and I know she perceives my sadness. I force a smile to my lips. “Shall we make our way home?” I ask her. “I can’t imagine you’d like to make camp out here during a rainstorm? There will be no fire to sit by and warm your scales.”
She gives me a face. “No! Let’s go. I want Aunt Delina’s spicy fish.”
“Promise you won’t climb any more trees?”
“I promise,” she whines.
I hand back her spear, shortened for her height. “Good. I’ll let you lead, and I’ll take point at your back.” Excitement brightens Haime’s face when I tell her this.
