Twi

by Romi Hart

  15

  Twilight

  Muttering to myself all the way back to our fox den about how unfair life is and how making males susceptible to pheromones was inhumane, I found Mist sitting in his fox form at the foot of the tree.

  His foxy smile made me laugh. “You look terrifying when you smile, Mist.”

  “The storm is over so come on, transform and let’s frolic for a bit,” he prompted me.

  I needed to get my mind off Val anyway. So, I switched to fox-mode and off we went, into the forest, chasing smells, sounds, and sights that caught our fox-eyes.

  My eyes caught sight of something green, glowing in the distance. “Hey, Mist, look over there. Codut’s portal. You still want to go to his world?”

  “Nah.” He hopped up on his hind legs to play with a butterfly. “I mean, if you went, then I would. But I’m not going alone. But you’re in love and can’t leave your little female.”

  “Yeah, about that. I’m not in love. I was fooled by pheromones. As were you, dear cousin.” I went in the direction of the portal, anyway, hoping to see if Codut actually could get the Wendigo to go inside of it or not.

  “Fooled? Us?” He didn’t seem to believe me.

  “When I went to see Val, they were inside the van and I couldn’t smell either of them. And then Zoe got out to bitch me out about having sex with Val. And as she was letting me have it, I noticed that she smelled just like Val.”

  “You know, I wondered about that too. Once Zoe and I were alone and she wouldn’t give me the time of day, I thought about what I’d smelled when we scented them.” He clawed a tree trunk to leave his mark on it. “I thought it was odd that when Zoe and Val weren’t together that I still smelled exactly the same scent from Zoe alone.”

  “I didn’t notice that because Val was giving me more than just the time of the day.” My heart sped up as I had a brief memory of our time in the forest. “I think Zoe, being the hunter that she is, made up a concoction of pheromones to lure the Wendigo to her. I think she might’ve put it in the water the girls washed with this morning. I don’t think Val’s aware of what her friend did.”

  “Did you tell them what you thought?” Mist asked as he chased a small rabbit until it went into a hole. He dusted the outer area of it, giving it a good scare. “Silly rabbit. I wasn’t going to eat you anyway.”

  “I did tell them what I thought.” I kept going toward the portal until I was a decent distance away then took a seat to watch the show that I thought might occur soon with the storm being over.

  No more storm meant Codut had herded his prey to the area he wanted him in. I also wanted to see if he would close the portal once he went through it or if he would leave it open the way he’d told Mist he would.

  “Let me guess, Zoe wouldn’t own up to it.” He already knew the woman well enough to know her core character.

  “She would not. Zoe actually accused us of having an agenda to bed them. Which we did not have. Were it not for their tantalizing and penis rising scent, we wouldn’t have even bothered to greet them this morning.” My eyes caught some movement near the green glow. “Hey, Mist. I think he’s about to get the Wendigo to the portal up ahead.”

  Settling in next to me, he sat on his haunches the way I did. “Oh, so you think he’s going to go inside with ease, cousin?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t know what sort of mental powers dragon-shifters have. But my bet is on the dragon getting what he came after without much fuss,” Mist professed his admiration for Codut.

  “Why are you such a fan of that guy?” I couldn’t see how he didn’t see the evil in that man.

  “He’s regal. I know you think he’s evil. But I think that’s only because you’re not used to being around things with great power.” He scratched his neck with his paw.

  “And you are used to that?” I smirked at him. “You’re just not used to being around things with evil intentions.”

  “Look, there they come.” I crouched down to get low on the ground to be sure they wouldn’t see us. “Get down, Mist. We need to stay hidden. I don’t want Codut to come after us next.”

  “Why would he do that?” he asked as he lay next to me. “We’re not like the Wendigo without the ability to make our own decisions about things. We can tell the man if we will or won’t go to aid in his cause. Which is a great cause, Twi. And now that you’re not hung up on that human female, will you a least give it some thought.”

  “He told me quite clearly that I am not invited, Mist. Don’t you remember that?” I wouldn’t go even if I was invited anyway.

  “If you apologize to him, I bet he would invite you.” He jerked his head toward the tall man who snapped his fingers creating a loud clap of thunder that sent the creature bolting into the green ring. “Clever, huh?”

  “Yes, it was clever of him to use a loud sound to coax a nearly brainless creature into a circle of insecurity. Cowboys have been doing that to cattle for centuries. But isn’t the dragon-man clever?” I rolled my eyes. “I’m actually quite disappointed in him. I thought it would be more of a battle – a struggle of wills.” After Codut followed the Wendigo into the portal, I waited to see if he’d close it.

  Mist jumped up and spun in a circle. “See, he left it open for me. He really does want me to join in his quest.”

  “Of course, he does.” I didn’t see any reason for my cousin to be so overjoyed. “I’m sure death occurs amongst his soldiers so rapidly that anybody will do to replace them.”

  “Hey, look,” Mist whispered as he crouched down again. “It’s the girls.”

  Turning back to see what he was talking about I saw Zoe and Val standing in front of the portal. “Do not go in there, Valentine.”

  “Thought you didn’t care about her and her fake scent anymore.” He snickered as he kept watching what the girls were doing.

  “I don’t want to see anything bad happen to anyone.” My body jerked, wanting to run to Val to make her stop playing around with things she didn’t understand. “What if she goes in there and can’t figure out how to get back?”

  “Who cares?” he snapped. “It’s not like you’re ever going to see her again anyway, right?”

  “Well, yeah.” My heart banged so hard in my chest that I was afraid it would burst right out of it. “She’s just a human, Mist. Their brains aren’t wired to accept the things we can.”

  “They won’t go through it. Watch. You’ll see. They’ll chicken out.”

  “These women chase monsters.” I had serious doubts about Valentine not going in. “We’ve never been through a portal. Even we don’t know what will happen to them if they go through it.”

  “We know that things that go into one can come back out of one. So, they’ll be fine.” He didn’t care even a little about the ladies we’d met.

  Sure, they’d used some trickery, but it wasn’t meant for us in the first place. And I highly doubted that Val even knew about what Zoe had done anyway.

  And yet I have judged her pretty harshly.

  We’d had sex with lots of females who were giving off true sexual pheromones in the past, some humans and some shifters. “Even with the fake scent, do you think anyone could’ve come up with something that would not only arouse males but make them think they had fallen in love too?”

  “I don’t know.” Mist looked at me for a moment before looking back at the scene unfolding ahead of us. “Val put her hand into it. I didn’t think she’d even do that. Females can be perplexing.”

  “You didn’t feel as if you were falling in love with Zoe when you scented her, did you?”

  “I just really, really wanted to have sex with her was all.” He took a whiff of the air and shook his head. “It’s still pretty strong. I’m just glad we know it’s fake now. It makes my head tell my cock that it’s not real at all.”

  I had the same thing going on within myself. I could smell Val, but I knew it wasn’t real. But my heart kept acting like what we had was very real and meant something.
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  In all the times that a scent had led me to have sex, I’d never had an experience like the one I had with Val. The fake scent might’ve set things off, but where we went from there was all us. I knew that now. Or I hoped that’s what it was. “We can’t let them go in there.” But when I looked up, I saw that Zoe stood alone outside the ring.

  “Too late, cousin.”

  “She’ll come right back out.” I stood perfectly still, every nerve in my body tingled with energy.

  Zoe went in too and my heart stopped beating as Mist said, “That might be the last time anyone on Earth sees them.”

  “Don’t say that, Mist.” I sprinted toward the ring that still hung a foot off the ground. Sniffing around, I smelled them everywhere.

  Mist trotted up then laid out on the ground. “How long ‘till you think they’ll try to come back?”

  “Maybe they’re trying right now and can’t figure out how to do it.” Pacing in front of the thing I knew next to nothing about, my mind raced with ideas about what I should do. “I’m going to go in after her. I can’t let anything bad happen to her.”

  “Just wait a minute. What happens if you go in and can’t come back out?” He had a point.

  “I wish I knew someone who’d been in one of these things so we could ask them how it really works.” I wanted to stick my head in and look around, but I had no idea if the rest of me would get sucked in too or not. “I hate this. I really do. I have to have real feelings for her. She’s not here. Her scent is rapidly waning and yet I am worried sick about her.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s not your business where she’s going. She went in there on her own. No one made her go, Twi. You gotta let her do what she wants.”

  “What about what I want?” Do I want Valentine? Am I ready for such a commitment?

  “Does it matter what you want?” He morphed into his human form. “Better change before they come back.”

  I changed into my human form, still pacing. “Of course, it matters what I want. Why would you ask that?”

  “Women get to decide if you get them or not. From what you’ve said, it sounds like they think we are sexual predators and want nothing to do with either of us. But you’re especially on their shit list since you got the good stuff with Valentine.”

  “I think I can make her see that she’s wrong about my intentions. And I think that if I could get her alone then I could talk to her reasonably. Zoe made that impossible. Without Zoe around, I knew Val and I can talk.”

  Mist took a seat on the ground, picking at the pine needles to pass the time. “I wonder if you can breathe inside the portal. What if they got in there and their human lungs won’t let them take in air the same way they can on Earth? Like, what if it’s like being on another planet inside there?”

  “What if there’s no gravity?” I asked. “What if there is no air at all? What if they’re floating around in there with no air to breathe? Maybe that’s why humans don’t have access to portals.”

  “We also don’t have access to portals, Twi. Whatever is happening to them could happen to us. Maybe that’s why we weren’t given the power to open these things.” He cocked his head as he looked at the green circle. “But Codut did tell me that if I changed my mind that I could get to him through this thing right here.” His eyes came to mine. “I think it has to be safe for us. At least for us. Maybe not the human females who intruded into the thing.”

  “They weren’t invited.” My blood ran cold in my veins as the hair on the back of my neck stood up. “What if Codut grabbed them when they went through his portal, uninvited?”

  With a shrug and not a care in the world, he said, “Yeah, I can see that happening.”

  “Mist! We have to save them!”

  “How?” He held up his hands to stop me from saying anything. “But more importantly, why?”

  “Because I’m pretty sure that I am in love with Valentine.” That should’ve been enough for my cousin to decide to help me.

  Shaking his head, he wasn’t nearly as sure as I was, it seemed. “What if Codut gets mad at me for letting you come with me? And what if he says we can’t take the girls? And what if I end up getting on his bad side and he won’t let any of us leave?”

  He had a point. “At least we’ll all be together over there.”

  “Incarcerated, and probably incinerated too, in the land of a dragon. No. Thank. You.”

  How could I ask him to take that chance? Zoe was the spawn of evil. Of course, he didn’t want to be locked up anywhere with her. And neither did I.

  “How long should we wait before I go in to save her?” I would go in to get Val. “I don’t know if I’ll bring Zoe out, the world is a better place with her gone after all.”

  With a laugh, he said, “I’d give it an hour.”

  “Humans can die without oxygen within an hour, Mist. I can’t wait that long.”

  “Humans can die in a few minutes without oxygen, Twi. If there’s no air that she can breathe, she’s already dead.”

  My knees went weak and I ended up sitting on the ground as the thought took my wind in an instant. “Don’t even joke about that.”

  “That wasn’t a joke. It could very well be the case.”

  I couldn’t believe he would think that way. But it wasn’t a lie. He wasn’t saying it to bother or hurt me. He was right. I had to get myself ready to find Val in any number of bad states. Dead. Captured. The bride of a dragon-shifter. God only knew what had become of her on the other side of that damn portal to the dragon’s realm.

  My body and mind were on the same mission as I got up and faced the glowing green ring or uncertainty that the woman - I was pretty damn sure I loved - had boldly gone through. “Mist, I’m going in. You with me, cousin?”

  “I guess I can’t let you go in alone.” He stood and came to stand beside me. “I’ll go in first. I was the only one who was invited to Codut’s realm anyway. If nothing else, maybe I can explain human curiosity and the devotion of a shifter in what he believes is love.”

  “Whatever it takes, Mist. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “I feel like we should say something profound before we step into the unknown. You know, like the way Buzz Lightyear says, to infinity and beyond!” Mist stroked his chin with one hand as he contemplated what he’d say.

  “How about this? Get the hell in there before I kick your ass.” I balled up my fist and shook it at him.

  “Well, then I will go with my gut on this,” he said with a grin. “The-the-the that’s all, folks.” And then he leaned into the glow and disappeared.

  Holy fuck, I’m really doing this shit!

  16

  Valentine

  “Isn’t it odd that we can breathe this air?” I asked Zoe. “I think we’re on another planet.”

  We stopped walking as Zoe looked up at the sky. “There is one sun that seems to look like ours. She scanned all directions around us. But I don’t see a tree, a blade of grass, nor any body of water around us. I honestly don’t know if we’re on another planet or in another dimension of our own planet.”

  “Maybe you’re right about the dimension thing.” Nodding in agreement, I liked the fact that we had an idea of where we were. “It will be important to try to explain this place the best way we can.”

  “Not that anyone will believe us, but sure.” She started walking again. “I’m not so sure we should even say anything to anyone anyway. What if people think we’re crazy?”

  “They think that way about us now. What would be so different.” We had to get help. We couldn’t possibly leave the captives to that tall dragon-man.

  “This is a bit bigger, Val. We don’t ask anyone to help us with what we do. We’ll be asking people with authority for their help.” She stopped in front of the portal, gesturing to it. “And we don’t know how long this will stay open or if it can even take us back to where we came from.

  Looking at the green glowing light inside the circle, I wondered about that. “What if when
we walk out many years have passed? What if my brother and sister are really old when we go back out?”

  “They might even be dead,” she said in a whisper. “We may not walk into a forest at all. It may take us to another part of the world. Who really knows?”

  Staring at the hole, I mused, “Why was it so much easier to come through it than it is to go back out of it?”

  “I think it’s because we had no idea what we were coming into but now we have many ideas about what we could go into now. Our world can be a dangerous place. And if time has passed in some rapid way, there is simply no telling what we’ll walk into. Who knows, we might even be captured as soon as we come out the other side?”

  My entire body shuddered. “What if someone found this thing and alerted the authorities? What if there are people waiting for us to return and they have plastic suits they’ll shove us into and zip us up, then take us to quarantine and then do experiments on us?”

  She merely shrugged. “Yeah. That could totally happen.”

  I took a seat, not wanting to hurry things now. “We need to think about this, Zoe. If we stay here and don’t go back, we can help those creatures escape and they probably do know a thing or two about portals. They can help us understand what we’re going to walk into when we do go back.”

  “That is an interesting idea. But you have to realize that we have no weapons. We’re just a couple of young women with no way to help anyone. Not even ourselves.” She sat down too. “But I am with you on giving ourselves a few minutes to adjust our minds to what we might encounter upon leaving this green glowing phenomenon.”

  I had to think about all the possibilities of both leaving and staying. “See, I think I might walk right back into the world we walked out of. And I know there are my brother and sister to think about in that world at that time. The thing is that I know they will be alright with or without me. We have our home that’s paid for and all of us have our own income. So, they’ll live fine without me if they have to.”