by Alana Khan
I eat until she stops watching me and plops heavily on the bed. Now out of her line of sight, I gather as much of the food as I can carry into my mouth and proceed to spit it out under the middle of her huge bed. There are large balls of dust here indicating even the king’s staff doesn’t clean under here very often. I wonder how long after I leave it will take for them to discover where the horrid smell is coming from.
“I’m going to call you Blinkers. Come here Blinkers. Come right now or I’ll punish you.”
I jump onto the bed, snuggle close, and breathe into her face. If I have to tolerate the taste, the least she can do is have to smell it.
“Yuck, you smell horrible. I’m going to wash you.”
Wash? She meant drown. Her treatment of me during my bath was rough and she managed to pour so much water down my throat I thought I was dying. Now I’m dressed in purple pajamas and smashed under her heavy covers.
Since I have to wait until she’s asleep before I go hunting, I allow myself a nap. I’ll wake in a bit and sneak into the living area to get the mask of the Forgotten Altheon Warrior that is on the top of Thantose’s list.
I wake up with Princess Veryl snuggled against me. No. Let me clarify. I wake up with the Princess’s arm slung around Slag’s waist.
Although I shifted while walking and eating and showering, I never practiced staying shifted while sleeping. I see that was an enormous tactical error. As Thantose would say, fuck!
If she wakes with me in this form, this will be a death sentence. The fact that we’ve tricked the king and sullied his daughter’s reputation is something we won’t be able to explain away.
I try to shift into dreambaby form, but can’t budge. I go down the list of everything I’ve ever shifted into, just to unstick myself, but I’m still huge and green.
Maybe if I can crawl out from under her arm and have a moment alone in the bathroom, I can control the panic that has me frozen and collect my thoughts enough to shift. I try to slide toward the foot of the bed, but the evil child holds me tighter even in her sleep. Turning away from her gets no results either.
I slow my breathing and think of the one thing in my life that is right and perfect and has never been anything but wonderful. My KJ.
I’ve always protected her, even when she thought I was abusing her. I wasn’t thinking straight back then, but I remember her face when I splattered my seed on her that first night in the mine. She was shocked and offended and afraid I would harm her, obviously unaware of the fact that I was only trying to protect her.
I helped her out of the mine, kept her safe from the giant worms on Rhoid, and flew her to safety from the hull of Daneur Khour’s vessel. She’s my KJ. My mate. My whole world.
Calming thoughts of her settle my spirit and allow my panic to subside. I shift into my dreambaby form, slide easily from Veryl’s greedy grip, and pad to the door. Two shifts later, I’ve opened the door, returned to dreambaby form, and am creeping to the living area.
Before the sun is even dreaming of peaking over the horizon, I’ve snuck three things from the top of Thantose’s clear and copious list into the kitchen and am back in bed with the evil overlord Veryl.
“What. Is. This?” her voice is husky and so mad the hair on my back stands on end.
I wake abruptly to Veryl’s normally sallow complexion looking bright crimson. At first, I worry that I’m in Slag form again, but thankfully I’m a dreambaby, although I’m certain she’d be the first to inform me I have more blue coloring than I should have.
“This!” she scolds as she shakes a purple rag in front of my nose. The purple rag used to be my pajamas. They must have been shredded when I unexpectedly shifted into Slag form in the middle of the night.
I look up at her, giving her my most pleading and adorable dreambaby look. It’s powerless against the force of her wrath.
“I hate you!” She slams her palm onto my thigh. “Hate you.” Another hit, this time with her fist. “All I’ve done for you and this is how you repay me?”
I wonder if she broke some bones. Dreambabies aren’t as sturdy as To’mahns.
“I’m telling my father. I want to return you. You’re a horrible pet.”
Horrible pet? How about horrible child?
Lifting me by the scruff of my neck as I cringe and whimper in pain, she carries me through the castle, screaming her father’s name.
“Papa!” She’s wailing now.
I wonder if she’s really so upset at the shredded clothing or if it’s the fact that she had to carry a plate of food through the hallways last night to feed her expensive new pet. That seemed to be too much for her to bear.
“I think he’s in the dining room.” One of the household staff says, from across the hallway. I imagine everyone in the household knows to stay as far from her as possible.
The pain in my neck is getting serious and I wonder if I’ll shift by accident just to change into a sturdier form. I use all my abilities not to shift.
“Papa. Look what this horrible creature did,” she says as she shakes the purple rag at him. “I hate Blinkers and I want you to send him back.”
“What did he do, honey?”
He rises from the table and grabs me. His touch is harsher than his daughter’s.
She shows him the offending evidence and demands he punish me.
“If I could make him better behaved, would you want to keep him?” the king asks, trying to placate her.
“You could make him be good?”
“Yes. In fact, the doctor is here now. Right on time.”
Doctor? Wait. I’m very attached to my balls. I’ve been thinking I want to make a baby with KJ. I scramble, trying to get out of the king’s hands, but he’s got a firm hold on me.
“I brought all the tools I need,” the man sitting across the table from the king says. “Glad to be of service to the perfect princess.”
In all my clambering to escape his hold, it’s a wonder that I notice anything other than a possible escape route, but I see my KJ out of the corner of my eye. She’s dressed in the crimson and gold colors of the house staff and delivers plates of food to the two males.
“Take those away,” the king orders. “We’ll eat later as soon as the procedure is over. We’ll make a good house pet out of this animal yet.”
The males stand, I make one last attempt to leap away from the king’s grip and am figuring out what to shift into.
“Oz,” KJ calls.
He’s been close by since I was hauled into the dining room and comes forward without a moment’s pause.
The king drops me when I become too big to hold and KJ jumps on my back before I’m too tall to jump onto.
I rear up, my head almost touching the wooden rafters, then return to four hooves and run through the arched doorway.
“Hurry Oz,” KJ says as she grabs my mane, presses her thighs to my flanks, and I race through the corridors.
“Left!” she calls when I don’t know which way to turn.
“Right!” she calls a moment later, then, “Stop!”
I’ve run so fast and taken the entire household staff by surprise, we’re now alone in the enormous living room.
“Thantose was dying for that sculpture. It’s called Sweet Dreams,” she says as she points to a reclining nude on a table. “It was too big for you to pilfer, but I can snag it now.”
I lean close to the table and somehow she grabs it, wraps it in the white apron she’s wearing over her dress that contains all our stolen trinkets in its deep pockets, and we make it to the front door.
I rise up at the wooden doorway, batter it with my hooves once, twice, three times, and the door pulls away at its hinges. Off we race in the direction of the ship.
KJ’s leaning over my neck, hanging onto the sculpture and my mane, and screaming into her comm at the same time.
By the time I see the Ataraxia, they’re lowering the ramp for us. The squeal of the engines powering up is the best sound I’ve ever heard.
Chapter Twelve
A’Zul
We spend an hour in the dining room where I regale everyone with tales of my time on Norrel. I’m regaling, that is, when I’m not shoveling food into my face. I’m starved. The only thing I’ve eaten in over a day is the foul-smelling concoction Veryl forced me to eat. A spike of satisfaction slices through me as I imagine the awful child’s distress when no one can detect where the disgusting smell in her room is coming from.
“Oh, this is the best caper yet,” Thantose says. He’s beaming with happiness as he strokes the bronze statue of a naked woman almost as if it were real flesh and blood.
“If I were you,” KJ says to his mate, Brin, “I might be jealous.”
“It’s just a new toy,” she says, smiling and secure. “He always comes back to the one he loves best.”
He quits fondling the statue, slings his arm around her waist, and kisses her cheek.
“I like the statue, I can’t lie, but I love you, Brin.”
“I got no sleep last night,” I confess, thinking that as soon as we’re in our cabin I want to take my beautiful mate to bed.
Her gray eyes sparkle at me, one eyebrow lifting as if I told a little joke. She can’t wait to join me.
A few minutes later, I’m clean and waiting on the bed for her as she leaves the shower. I strain to hear what she’s saying as she talks to herself. Did I hear her correctly?
“What are you saying, mate?” I’m so interested I leave my spot on the bed and pad into the bathroom.
“I’m just scolding myself.”
“You’re perfect. What could you possibly be scolding yourself for?” I’m interested, but I also want her to repeat what I think I just heard her say. A strange buzzing sensation flies through my body along with a feeling of anticipation that isn’t sexual. I can’t explain it.
“I was telling myself that was a little too much excitement and wondering if my heart can handle pulling another caper in the future.”
“Tell me, mate,” I coax, my lips nibbling the lobe of her ear, “please tell me exactly what you just said.”
“You want a direct quote?” Her hand splays across my chest and she nips my collarbone.
“Yes. Exact.”
“I said, ‘Riding Oz through the palace almost got you killed. Doing that again would be crazy, KJ’.”
I press her hand harder against my chest with one hand while my other hand tips her beautiful head so I can look into her eyes.
“Say it again,” I demand. I didn’t mean to be harsh, but by the look on her face, I was.
“I called myself crazy.”
“No. Your name.”
Her eyes shift to the right as if she’s replaying her words in her head.
“Kylie? I go by KJ, but it’s short for Kylie Jean. I always knew I was in big trouble for something I had done when my mother called me by my full name. Sometimes I scold myself as Kylie.”
Something cracks open inside my heart. I know instantly what it is. The chains of sickness and confusion and hatred that bound my golden self inside my heart unfold and open in a burst of golden light that is warm and healing and fills my chest with peace.
The pain of toiling in the mines for a decade locked my true self inside, hidden deeper and deeper over the years, replaced by a body that could tolerate the heat and radiation and physical pain and a heart that was just as impervious.
The young male from To’mah got lost deep inside, hiding from the misery, and was replaced by Slag. After all those years, he was buried too deep to find his way out of the maze. He needed to hear the magic words of the high priest, spoken from Kai-Lee’s own lips before he could break the chains and come back. To me. For me. For all of us.
Kai-Lee. It was the word the high priest used to awaken my shifter abilities. She is my good luck, my charm, my talisman, my magic. When he said the name, did the priest know she’s a person? That I’d find her and fall in love with her? That she would bring me out of the darkness and into the light? The Gods surely knew.
“A’Zul?” Kai-Lee says, her eyes wide in wonder as my shape shimmers and the true A’Zul emerges from Slag’s green form.
To make certain I’m not dreaming, I glance into the mirror and see myself—my true self.
“You freed me, Kai-Lee,” I tell her, beaming in happiness.
“The Greek God of the Sun,” she says on a sigh.
I don’t know what that means, but she’s happy, which makes me happy.
KJ
Being this close to A’Zul in his true form reminds me of Daedalus and Icarus of ancient lore who flew too close to the sun. My heart stutters with overwhelm and my spirit fills with awe as I take in his beauty.
He’s tall and muscular, his body is the perfect shape of wide shoulders and slim hips. But his face. It’s perfection personified with his eyes the blue of the inside of a flame. His lips are tipped in happiness.
My mind tells me my beloved green A’Zul is inside that gorgeous body, but I feel shy. I don’t really know this Greek God.
He leans to kiss me, but pulls back when he feels me stiffen.
“You said you would like me in this form, Kai-Lee.” He tips his head to the side and I marvel again at how handsome he is.
“My head knows you’re my A’Zul, but my heart . . .”
He sweeps me into his arms, sits on the edge of the bed, and rocks me. It instantly soothes me, reminding me of his kindness that second night in the mine.
“I’m the same male who fought for you in the mines and pleasured you in the cave when your body demanded it. I flew you to safety from Daneur Khour, and carried you on my back out of King Gollub’s palace.”
I nod. “I know, it’s just . . . I’ll need some time.”
He doesn’t loosen his grip as he leans to the bedside table and extracts something from the drawer.
“Lean your head on my chest and close your eyes, my Kai-Lee,” his deep voice rumbles in my ear.
I chant to myself that this is the male I’ve fallen in love with, that the heart beating inside his golden chest belongs to my A’Zul.
And then I hear the flute. The beautiful strains of the flute that lilt and soar and come back for soft landings. The flute that plays for me now, just as it played to allay my fears in the mines and the cave. It’s played by the lips that have kissed my lips a thousand times. The same lips that recited the most romantic words I’ve ever heard when we made love near the falls that first day on Kallion when he asked me to be his mate.
These lips have told me they love me a hundred times, but more important, this male has shown it in a thousand ways.
It’s as natural as breathing to press my mouth to the pec my head is leaning against, and make my way up his golden skin to the thick cords of his neck, over his square jaw, and kiss his soft cheek.
“You’re a good male, A’Zul.”
He tosses the flute on the other side of the bed and takes my mouth in a kiss that speaks as eloquently as his loving words. His tongue slips into my welcoming mouth.
“I watched you, Kai-Lee. I peeked out from the beginning. I wanted to meet you, welcome you into our life, relieve Slag of the burden he’s carried for a decade. I just couldn’t fight my way out to greet you until you said the magic word and freed me. And here you are, in my arms.”
The blue of his eyes burns brighter as he lifts me off his lap and lays me onto the bed.
“Are you ready to welcome me, Kai-Lee? If not, I can wait.”
He’s not lying. It’s true. The open, loving, patient smile on his face expresses his love and his longing and his willingness to delay until I’m ready.
“I’m ready, my love. I guess I just needed to hear the magic music from your flute.”
He’s still naked, so he has no clothes to remove. I watch his now-gold
en erection bob as he lies next to me, both of us on our sides. He gently slides two fingers from the pulsebeat of my throat down between my breasts.
I split my attention between the pleasure of his touch and my errant thoughts. My gaze can’t leave his face as I drink him in. I commit every plane and angle of his face to memory, noticing where the shadows hide in the hollows of his cheeks, and where the light shines brightest.
If I never see him again, I want to be able to paint him from memory, from the shape of his lips to the tiny bronze freckles sprinkled on his cheeks.
