Chapter Two
Shift, I willed myself, my eyes closed and my body as close to relaxed as I could get. Shift. Now. Nothing happened.
Please.
My inner dragon refused to cooperate. He hadn’t made an appearance in almost a century, so I didn’t know why I expected things to be different now.
Well, aside from the fact that I had swallowed my pride and reconnected with Sage…
but not even that had made a difference with my stubborn shifter side.
My inner omega was such a fucking diva.
Technically, we were one and the same, but I made one stupid decision a hundred odd years ago and he just stopped cooperating with my biped form.
I’m sorry, I mentally pleaded with him, drooping my shoulders in defeat.
There wasn’t an answer. There never was.
With one last mournful sigh, I cracked my eyes open and tilted my head back, staring blankly up into the night sky. Out here in the sticks, stars twinkled against a velvety dark backdrop, seemingly teasing me from their vantage point.
I missed the sky. The wind beneath my wings. The caress of air over my scales. Swooping and spinning and diving through a seemingly endless space, with fresh air in my lungs and rolling landscapes beneath me. Feeling wild and free.
Gods, I missed it all.
I hadn’t even cherished my last flight, not knowing it was the final one at the time. But I had many regrets from that time in my life. So many things I would change if I had only known…
Except that was the thing about hindsight, wasn’t it? I was a fool, and now I was paying the consequences for my own stubbornness.
Perhaps there wasn’t that much separation between my forms after all.
Sneaking out into the fields late at night wasn’t doing me any good, and apparently neither was spending time with Sage, either. I wasn’t oblivious to his increasing frustration with me and, truth be told, that did sting somewhat.
We were once thick as thieves; closer than two omegas had any real right to be.
Until I fucked it all up, at any rate.
But when he got to this godsforsaken town in the middle of Iowa, of all places, and sent for my help, I thought…
Well. I thought we could mend things, didn’t I? I thought that we could repair our friendship, and the rift inside my soul, and everything would just go back to normal.
Over three years later and I was beginning to suspect nothing would ever be the same again.
Which was absurd, really, wasn’t it? As a dragon, three years was hardly a blip in my lifetime, but with every agonizing minute that passed without my situation improving, I felt more and more hopeless.
Minutes, hours, days, years…what did any of it even matter anymore?
Sadly, that futility was feeding my emotional state and that then made me reckless with my words and my actions, which naturally irritated everyone around me, including Sage. And so the cycle continued.
It wasn’t an excuse, though. I knew that. I had never exactly been the sweetest, kindest omega in the pack. Now, though? I was beginning to even annoy myself.
It might be time to move on for good, I mused, blinking away moisture as the stars above continued to taunt me.
Frustration simmered in my veins. I had helped Sage and his brothers and their ragtag group of shifter friends during my time in Shifters Sanctuary.
I had traveled the world to find obscure texts and even a freaking unicorn shaman —a veritable needle in a haystack mission, I might add— and if that wasn’t enough to convince them that I genuinely cared, I didn’t know what would.
This is all a mess of my own making.
The thought hurt, but it was the truth.
Damn hindsight.
As I stared into the sky, a silvery speck caught my eye. It shone in the moonlight, but appeared different to the stars surrounding it. It wasn’t twinkling, but it did appear to be moving. Towards me, if I wasn’t mistaken.
Despite not being able to shift, I trusted my enhanced shifter eyesight, and as a flying creature myself, I recognized the sight of another entity in flight.
It was still little more than a moving speck in the distance, but my stomach twisted with anticipation.
This late at night —or early in the morning, depending on one’s perspective— it was odd to come across anything other than our town’s security patrolling the area.
Our large flying shifters were also all accounted for, with Sage and Eric in their homes and Brandt too pregnant to enjoy shifting at all.
I doubted it was Brandt’s unicorn mate, Micah, either. He was currently out of town and traveling by airplane, necessitated by the amount of luggage he required to take with him for his work as a freelance makeup artist. Unless it was an emergency, it wouldn’t be him.
Frowning, I wondered whether the unknown…thing…was going to fly over our town or land here. As I followed its approach, the flickering of its motion sharpened into focus; the beating of silvery wings now obvious to my narrowed gaze, though I still couldn’t determine the rest of the creature’s form.
I didn’t think it was a dragon. It seemed too small for that, and too narrow besides. A bird the size of a small vehicle seemed an absurd idea, but then so had the concept of unicorns before we had learned about their existence.
Hmm.
Squinting, I wondered if I was imagining the long legs seemingly striding through the air, propelled by glossy, near-chrome wings.
Another unicorn?
Was it the power of suggestion, considering I had only just thought of Micah and his endangered brethren, or was I actually watching a winged horse approach?
Should I alert someone?
It wasn’t as though I would be much defense against another shifter if they had nefarious intentions. Not with my inability to shift into my much more impressive form.
But…no. A single incoming creature wouldn’t pose too much of a threat, would it? Besides, calling in the cavalry now would lead to questions I wasn’t ready to answer. Questions about why I was out in the fields on my own, and about why I didn’t feel equipped to handle one measly newcomer.
I sat on my slightly elevated patch of grass and waited, my gaze not leaving the incoming being. The closer it neared, the more detail I took in.
It was definitely another unicorn.
Where Micah was gold, this one was silver, but seemingly just as impressive.
Its flank was so sleek in the moonlight that it looked almost like liquid chrome, its flowing mane such a light shade of gray that it was almost white.
It looked larger than Micah’s form, strong and powerful and determined in its approach, but not at all hurried.
Shiny silver wings beat a steady rhythm, petering out into a glide when it was almost directly overhead.
The magnificent creature circled almost lazily as it drifted down for a landing. Feeling equal parts enraptured by its beauty and irrationally jealous of its ability to fly, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. It landed with grace, trotting to a stop a hundred yards away from where I sat.
Pushing to my feet, I caught his scent on the breeze and my lips curled upwards in recognition.
“Sergio,” I greeted, already walking towards him. He dropped a satchel to the ground and shifted into his human form, bending to rifle through the bag’s contents while I made my way to him.
“It’s a surprise to see you out here so late, Dexter,” he said, his voice as calming and mellow as I remembered it. With gray hair and twinkling blue eyes, the shaman in front of me was my personal definition of a silver fox.
“It’s a surprise to see you back here at all.”
I made no secret of the way I eyed him as he pulled clothes from his bag, enjoying his build and handsome features far too much to offer him any modicum of privacy.
He was much older than I was, anyway, and therefore likely used to being naked around other shifters.
Most of us were, given that we had to undress in order to change forms, and shifting to run with one’s pack was an ingrained experience.
Sergio shrugged and stepped into a pair of form-fitting jeans, bypassing underwear entirely. He arched a thick, salt and pepper eyebrow at me as he tucked his flaccid, though impressive, cock away and did up his fly and the button at his waist.
“You are as incorrigible as ever, I see,” he observed mildly.
“I have to get my kicks in somehow. This place is dreadfully boring. Especially since you left.”
Reaching for a plain white t-shirt, he pulled it over his sexily mussed hair and settled it over his shoulders.
It hugged him in all the right places. I was distracted by the sight for a moment, until he snorted.
“I left because there was no need for me here once you could replicate the spellcasting. Surely you don’t find The Magic boring. ”
I did, actually, but I wasn’t silly enough to tell him so. Not when his entire life centered around The Magic. Capital letters and all.
Instead, I shrugged and lifted his bag for him, nearly staggering under the surprising weight. I caught the amused twitch of his lips and rolled my eyes. “I see you’ve brought your library with you.”
“I did locate some texts which I thought Eric and Brandt might find interesting, yes.”
By unspoken agreement, we began to stride through the field in the direction of the town proper. I adjusted the bag on my shoulder. “Is that what brings you back, then? More research…stuff?”
Craning my head to face him, I caught the wistful expression on his face before he masked it with his usual stoicism.
This shaman was such a mystery to me, even after the months Sage and I had spent tracking him down and then convincing him to visit Shifters Sanctuary.
Springing a surprise biological son on him hadn’t even ruffled his winged feathers, though Sage, Brandt, Eric, and Beckett, our pack Alpha, had all read me the riot act on the way I had introduced Micah and Sergio to one another.
I didn’t care. It had been worth it. At any rate, it had shown Sergio to be calm, reasonable, rational, and well-intentioned, which I thought was important. If we had given him warning, he might have been able to mask his reaction, and we might never have known if we could truly trust him.
I did everyone here a favor, damn it.
“Actually,” he sighed, bringing me back to the present, “The Magic insisted I return. As its humble servant, I obeyed.”
“Hmm,” I mused, “Brandt is about ready to burst with the twins. Could that be what The Magic is invested in?”
He and Micah were having boys this time, so everyone was cautiously optimistic that the pack might be about to welcome the first dragons born in hundreds of years.
Of course, nobody was saying it out loud, especially when Brandt and Micah were staunchly maintaining that they would love their children regardless of gender or species.
The fact that they already had three unicorn daughters, though, made me suspicious of that sentiment.
I knew that Brandt wanted to save the dragon species just as badly as we all did.
Well, I said ‘we’, but I wasn’t as broody as Brandt and Sage were. Babies had never really been my thing. So, I wanted to save dragonkind in theory, but I would leave the childbearing to other omegas. Like Brandt and Sage.
Of course, thinking of Sage being with another man —with an alpha— made me want to growl and gnash my teeth, not that I had the right to feel that way.
And in addition to that, I had to open my big mouth earlier today (yesterday?) and finagle us an invitation to the next Unlocking event, essentially tempting fate. Literally. I didn’t actually want to attend, but I really just spoke up because I was seeking attention. Like a child.
Yes, I was aware that I was four hundred-odd years old, but I did say that this situation with Sage was eating at me, didn’t I?
And now we had to attend an Unlocking party for ‘research purposes’, and it would be just my luck that Sage would find an alpha and live happily ever after without me, and—
“I’m not sure,” Sergio’s voice cut into my spiraling thoughts, relieving me from the unpleasant introspection.
“Hmm?”
He turned his face towards mine, once again arching a questioning eyebrow. Was he aware of how attractive the expression was on his face?
“You asked if The Magic is interested in Brandt and Micah’s soon-to-be children,” he reminded me gently, his gaze scanning mine in such a way that I felt uncomfortable and exposed.
Just when I was about to squirm, he looked forward again.
“I said I wasn’t sure about that. I just felt a need to return, and I have been following The Magic for too long to ignore its guidance. ”
Where was The Magic when I was making some particularly poor life choices? I thought bitterly before shaking the thought away.
“Well, it is a nice surprise to have you back,” I told him, once again aware of his searching gaze lighting on me. “The others will be excited to discuss their latest findings with you, too. Especially if you’ve come bearing more books for their nerdy little hearts to pore over.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched his lips quirk, but he didn’t take the bait. Instead, as we continued the unhurried walk back into town, I once again wondered what it might take to ruffle this man.
Perhaps it’s time to shift my focus from Sage after all.