Chapter 1 #3
She regards me for a moment, as if trying to glean everything she can from my expression. What she sees must indicate that I’m in earnest though because she nods.
‘Nowhere to go anyway.’ She turns away.
‘It’s time,’ I say to Orin in Human.
‘Time for w—’
I don’t hear the rest of what she says as I leap high into the air and spread my wings.
I hear her scream and I chuckle to myself as I look back to see Orin’s talons locked around her torso. She looks terrified as we rise and the land falls away, the trees and paths becoming masses of green with winding lines cutting through them.
She screams again and I hear Orin tell her to stop making that fucking noise.
I hope she stops soon, or my young student is liable to crush her in a fit of pique. I hope he doesn’t though. I don’t want to have to punish him and then go back and track down one of the females we set loose to replace this one. What a waste of time that would be.
The human stops screaming, thankfully, and when I next have the chance to look back at Orin, she’s hanging limp in his talons.
We fly north for several hours until we reach the first of the snowy peaks.
There’s still a ways to go, and we could do with a night’s rest after the past few days.
There’s a place close by where we sometimes stop when we come this way.
I make sure Orin is watching and I dive quickly, not wanting to be spotted if there are humans roaming. I land in a clearing and unclip the small pack that sits on my back under one of my wings as I hear Orin thump down close by.
I change, my black wings receding and my arms and legs morphing from giant and scaled to small and soft.
My hair grows on my head and around various areas of my body.
The tips of my ears round. I yawn as I stretch in my human form, grabbing some thick canvas trousers from my pack and a shirt.
My coat is lined with fur because in this body I do sometimes get cold, and I don’t like the feeling at all.
I glance back at the youngster and frown. He’s transformed and is getting dressed. The female lays at his feet in a pile of old snow. I stride forward.
‘Are you not tired?’
His now human brow furrows. ‘Course I am.’
‘Well, if the female that is dressed in naught more than a negligee dies of exposure, you’re the one who’s going to be flying back to find another,’ I snap. ‘So, get her out of the fucking snow.’
He scrambles to pick her up, hefting her over his shoulder easily but the clothes she’s wearing aren’t anywhere near long enough to prevent me seeing a tantalizing flash of her ass and what’s between her legs before I look away.
I stalk up the hill, surveying the landscape as I look for our destination. I know I saw it close by as I dove, but I’m not sure exactly where.
‘There,’ Orin points and I see a tendril of smoke curling up from the trees just over the next hill.
‘Come on.’ I trudge down and glance back. The idiot hasn’t even covered her.
‘Orin.’
‘Yes?’ he asks almost guilelessly.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. How can be this young still?
‘If you take the female into the inn with her cunt out for all to see, we’ll be fighting off woodsmen and hunters all night and won’t get to sleep a fucking wink.’
‘Oh!’ his ears pinken as he looks over and sees what I mean. He tries in vain to pull the dress down, but there just isn’t enough of it.
‘For fuck’s sake, just put her down.’
‘She’s still in her faint, Tor.’
He holds her limp body out for me to see.
I glance around and see another pile of un-melted snow under a tree nearby. Grabbing a chunk, I mash it up in my fist and rub it in her face.
I hear her gasp, and she lets out a squeal, her eyes opening. She looks adorably confused.
No not adorably, not adorably at all. She looks like the rest of her foolish kind.
‘Wakey, wakey,’ I snarl, and her eyes widen even further.
And she opens her mouth.
She’s going to scream, I realize with a jolt, and I quickly put my hand over her mouth to stifle it. We’re so close to the inn, the humans will hear, and I want to greet them on my terms, not theirs.
‘Shut up, foolish female,’ I hiss.
She garbles something I can’t make out and I lift my hand.
‘You’re the...dragons from before?’
‘Yes,’ I half snarl.
‘But you-you’re...’
‘In human form. Yes,’ I say impatiently.
I pluck her from Orin’s arms and set her on her feet. She pulls down the dress, blushing and I look away from the hard nipples that are protruding from her inappropriate clothing.
Stalking ahead, I only give a cursory glance behind me to make sure Orin hasn’t done anything else stupid, but he’s just helping the human up the steep hill. I wait for them at the top. The human’s teeth are chattering, and I roll my eyes.
The inn we’re making for can be seen in the dip below and the female’s eyes take it in warily.
‘What is that place?’ she asks over the sound of her teeth knocking together.
‘Food. Rest.’ I can’t help my eyes as they travel up and down her once more before I start walking.
‘Warmth. But stay close. These harsh places aren’t for lone females.
’ I halt my steps, and she bangs into my back with a grunt.
‘And if you decide to ask them for help, know that they will not give it freely, nor will you come out unscathed.’
She looks down and nods, clearly understanding what will become of her if she tries to make a deal with the lawless types who frequent these places.
We make our way down to the base of the hill and along a winding trail with hoof tracks that lead straight to the inn’s adjacent barn.
‘Hand on your weapon,’ I remind Orin, and he nods.
I side-eye the female. ‘Stay out of the way if there’s a problem, or you’re like to get skewered...or burned to a crisp.’
She nods and shudders in fear, or maybe it’s just the cold. Her lips do look a little blue.
Orin opens the door, and I follow him through, pushing the female in front of me and keeping my eyes moving.
The inside is dark, but our vision doesn’t take long to adjust, so it’s barely a second or two before I know that there are five men drinking, two by the fire, and three more playing on a dilapidated pool or snooker table that was clearly liberated from a ruin well after the human world went to shit.
‘What can I do you gentlemen for?’ a barman I haven’t seen here before asks. ‘Oh! You have a woman!’
All eyes are on us, but I don’t look.
‘MY woman,’ I say. ‘But if any man here would like her to be YOUR woman, you’re welcome to try and take her from me.’
No one moves. I can see them assessing, watching her, taking in her lack of clothes. But after a few moments, those covetous eyes begin to slide away again.
‘Need a bed for the night.’
‘Just one?’ The short, balding man behind the bar asks with a smirk.
I chuckle. ‘The boy can sleep on the floor.’
The barman grins, showing his crooked yellowed teeth. ‘Price is metal. Copper, silver, gold. Hell, I’ll even take lead if you got it.’
I take out a handful of iron pellets. They rattle as I put them in the metal bowl on the bar.
The innkeeper nods. ‘Another one of those’ll do it, or,’ he glances at the female, ‘if you’re willing to sell her for an hour...’
I hold his gaze as I take out another handful and add it to the bowl. He shrugs, but I see his eyes flit to her one last time.
‘Rooms are upstairs. First two are taken. You want dinner? Got elk stew. There’s a button by the door. Cost more though.’
I snort and put another half handful of pellets in the bowl.
The innkeeper regards me for a moment more. ‘There’s a bath service. Water’ll be cold, but the girl there will warm you up after.’ He guffaws at his own joke.
‘Let me guess. It’ll cost more,’ I grate out.
He gives a single nod, and I part with another quarter handful of pellets. ‘That’s all I got so that better be enough.’
The man nods. ‘Yeah, I reckon that’s enough for some bacon and eggs in the morn too.’
I grunt my assent, and I urge the female in front of me after Orin.
The third room has a bed and a bathroom. They’ve seen better days, but they’re clean enough.
‘Start the bath,’ I tell Orin. ‘I can’t stand this stench any longer.’
He nods and disappears into the next room while I look around the room, making sure there’s no one waiting to jump out and slit our throats as soon as we fall asleep. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The female wanders around, looking at things like she’s never seen an inn before.
Maybe she hasn’t. They don’t travel like they used to these days.
Once in a while we see a small plane or a helicopter, but we usually make sure it crashes.
The sky is ours again now. The humans aren’t getting them back.
‘Water’s not working,’ Orin says from the other room, and I sigh. I forget this one wasn’t around when bathrooms were a thing everywhere.
Youngsters.
I go in and help him, showing him how to turn the water on at the wall and how to heat it with his fire gently so it doesn’t crack the porcelain tub.
I hear a noise outside the window and sigh.
‘Looks like your human is escaping,’ Orin mutters, continuing with his water warming task.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ I mutter, half tempted to let the female meet with one of the men downstairs who is no doubt waiting to take his chance at claiming her for his own.
But Drey wanted the human, and so the human he will get.
I leave the room, taking the stairs down quickly and I hear a yowl followed by a female scream outside.
I leave the inn just in time to see a pair of pale legs being dragged into the barn and I draw my knife. Have to do this the human way or there won’t be a warm place to sleep for the idiot female tonight.
I’m quick as I move into the barn on silent feet and come up behind the human who’s trying to take what’s mine...Drey’s.