Chapter Nine
Marcus
“I’m surprised you didn’t realize right away,” Baba said, chuckling as he guided me through the keep.
“There was too much going on to pick up on it all! My dragon said treasure, and I did what I do with treasure—make it mine. Hoard it.” I shook my head, and another presence backed up behind me, Father, guiding me with hands on my shoulders.
“So you didn’t look at his skin. You didn’t think to ask how old he was. You saw a throwback with odd coloring and didn’t even think to ask.” Father clicked his tongue and I flinched.
“The council should have reported him.”
“A bunch of dirt-poor hillbillies only see an omega. They don’t care.” Lyphus clenched his fist and sighed. “Remember Cirue’s story? Morris found him as a throwback amid a raven murder.”
I’d heard the story. Morris found him in the alpha’s basement.
He’d not even had a name, so they called him Cirue because of the plum reddish-purple hue to his hair.
Very different from the all-black hair of a raven’s flock.
He’d never shifted, never gone into heat—questions I should have thought to ask Whisper.
Questions I couldn’t make myself ask because I was so angry at what they’d used him for.
Anger that would have best been channeled into exploration, into giving him fire, to burn away everything about him that wasn’t a dragon.
“But really, those spots should have been a giveaway.” Lyphus laughed and smiled. “You’re fortunate he’s of age.”
“Wouldn’t have found him if he wasn’t.” I stumbled as Father guided me into a sublevel into one of the springs.
“Shift.” Father shoved at my back as I stumbled away from them and stared at the expanse of the baths. The darkness around us teemed with steam, a perfect place for shifting, shedding, soaking in water, and letting out flame that could do nothing.
“Again with the shedding! I don’t need to shed.” I stripped my shirt and worked on my pants as Baba snorted.
“Your mate will need to. Their current form is flawed. You must give them fire, Marcus.” Father rumbled as he undressed, his skin a mirror of his draconic form—sleek, dark scaled, powerful, and somehow graceful.
Golden eyes gleamed as he stretched free into his greater form and swung a whiplike tail around and slapped me across the back of my calves.
Shift! He growled in draconic speech, the base language that all dragons were born knowing.
With a huff, I shifted, stretching out my greater form, my scales as dark as Father’s, only the scales were rougher, and perhaps more silvery in moonlight.
A shadow of my great horns rose up against the wall and I cowered as Baba shifted, for as sweet and calm of a person as he was, his dragon was fearsome, face broad, thorned, and lined with razor-sharp scales.
His claws left sharp, jagged slices in stone with barely any effort.
Piercing eyes, golden like my father’s but in a sharper sort of way, more predatory.
Since they were much older than me, despite my maturity, they were larger, looming over me with grace and intimidation, a perfect balance that they countered in their human forms. Baba sniffed at me and nudged, making me stumble as I snarled back at him. I am shifted!
Good, Baba purred as he turned his head toward the door to the room and sniffed, waiting for something.
We didn’t have to wait long, as it seemed to be a gathering of our clan, Morris and Aster guiding Whisper in with Brae at their back.
Cirue wasn’t with them, but he’d been poorly of late, for a reason we all suspected.
Baba had said he hoped there’d be twins, but I knew the reason.
He couldn’t bear for his potions to fail. Couldn’t bear to lose another.
So, I lowered my head to my mate… My treasure, and I nuzzled into his bare chest, his freckled arms, the marks of a young dragon. I’d lost mine around twenty, silvery scales with lighter flecks and freckles like starlight that came off in a single shed.
The more often a dragon shed, the more their form grew, and a shed could take months, isolating themselves in their hoard to slough the scales and grow their form. I had no interest in growing larger, and I knew why—my mate would be small.
I pressed my nose into Whisper’s chest, sniffing once more as I took in the scent of him, not as feline as the feline scents he’d been unable to scrub from his body—shedding and burning through his first shift would do that.
A dragon, born from an egg, knew flame from their conception.
A dragon born of shifters was drawn to flame, but until they met another dragon and knew true flame, they’d remain a throwback.
And even still, we never knew what most throwbacks were—a creature long lost to time trying to reawaken? But we could at least tell a dragon apart.
As I nuzzled into Whisper’s chest, he stared at all of us without fear. A child with a broken voice, unable to breathe flame or speak. I headbutted him gently and nuzzled up, freezing as he kissed the tip of my snout.
“What we spoke about, boy. Are you ready to taste his fire?” Morris crossed his arms and huffed.
A flick of flame shot from his nose as he snarled and entered the chambers, shifting to billow out into his enormous draconic form, dark scales shimmering with multifaceted sheens of blue. Take his fire.
I wasn’t sure what to do at first, but my dragon did, huffing as I built up flame in my throat. It started gently, a caress of flame that whipped around Whisper, tousling his newly cut hair. He held his head high as he tilted his face to soak in my warmth.
The gentle flame wasn’t enough. My dragon billowed toward Whisper while two new dragons watched. Brae with red scales and Aster, pink as a summer sunrise.
It began as a kiss, Whisper tilting his head up, lips to the tip of my snout.
My dragon had no way to reciprocate, but Whisper had his instinct.
He breathed, inhaled my fire like air as it swelled in his core.
And between one breath and the next, he opened pink eyes that burned back at me with slitted pupils.
Stop. My dragon snorted in my mind as he ceased his fire and watched.
Whisper coughed, flame sputtering from his lips as he reached to his throat and coughed again.
Scales traversed his arms, white and pearlescent, and he sighed as his body stretched, the form of his flesh melding and twisting bit by bit until white scales, razor claws, and the smoothest crested head I’d ever seen rose. I am…
The words on his dragon’s mind echoed around us, telepathy rushing forth where words never had before. He stared at his claws, staggering back before his slender feet splashed in the shallow water. I can shift. I am not a bobcat.
The words his dragon made came in halting pauses, from a mind that had never accustomed itself to speaking.
He stared at his claws and touched himself, maneuvering his slender form, smaller than my own, or any others, aside from Nula, who scampered across the floor and leaped, fluttering little wings to latch onto Whisper’s head with a purr of delight. Friend!
Whisper froze, entire body trembling as Aster approached, nipping the little one by the scruff of his neck.
I have sharps. My claws. They are. Cannot touch Nula.
Dragon hides are remarkably resilient, but that is a good instinct to have, Brae said, laughing as Nula struggled in Aster’s maw.
What is? Whisper reached a slender arm to pat his chest, claws clacking clumsily.
Dragon, I couldn’t help but answer as I approached, nuzzling along his jaw. My mate. You are a dragon.
Whisper shook his head and coughed, fire spitting along the ground as embers and sparks cascaded across the floor like a firework, crackling away.
Bathe. Go to your hoard. Shed with your mate, Marcus. Show him what good touch is.
I would. I would show him so many kinds of good touches, and as I inhaled his scent, my dragon rumbled, purring as I rubbed my jaw along his, sniffing along his face and body as we turned with one another, yin and yang sniffing and nuzzling.
I must… Sorry. I cannot. Whisper shook his head, coughing sparks again as he slung his head against mine, maw opened wide. It was barely a thought in my mind, an instinct and pure delight as Whisper bit my neck, sinking new fangs into my flesh with huffing breaths and burning saliva. Mine.
Yours. My dragon returned the bite, sinking teeth into the nape of his neck to leave my brand of burning teeth. I snarled with pleasure, sensing nothing else on Whisper, for fire and magic had burned away all things.
Our dragons nuzzled and we lost our forms, the shift leaving us as we fell into one another’s arms. Hot flames circled us, coming from all sides as a coppery-chocolate-colored dragon with white patches slunk into the chamber with a miserable expression on his face. Still, he had joy for us to give.
Bathed in fire by my clan, our union sealed, and I held my mate so tight. “Mine.”
Whisper didn’t say it back, only nuzzled into my neck with a nod. In a small voice in the back of my mind, his dragon spoke to me for him. Yours. We are yours.