Chapter 17
Malin
Iate like a dragon, devouring everything in sight. Our pasta dinner was fantastic. I brought out the red wine. Cassius had one glass despite my tempting him with two. Life was easier with two glasses of wine in the system, not one. But he refused.
Afterward, I left Cassius in the game room and went outside. I turned to make sure he wasn’t following me. He had been close behind me all day for which I couldn’t fault him. He was facing a major upheaval to his life.
The stars shone overhead. It was chilly out as I undressed, placing all my clothes on the patio. The pool with its lights on gleamed turquoise. I went out past it, beyond the smaller, lower trees, and spread my arms.
Malinekan took my skin.
Rising into the starry sky was its own drug.
My head spun. All worldly troubles took a step back.
Then came the rollercoaster as Malinekan swooped and whirled through the air, letting out his own pent-up spirit.
He kept his own feelings and frustrations away from me, mostly, but they were still there.
We were one, but also our own creatures.
I didn’t know everything about him like he did with me.
What must it be like to be a captive beast inside a person waiting for permission to express themselves?
The irony was, without a beast, the human was captive.
Like Cassius. But Malinekan’s captivity was nature, Cassius’s was manmade.
We flew low, then high until I felt a little patter of frozen rain upon my snout and armor. The dragon shook his head to clear the ice and water from his face and let out a roar.
Whenever Malinekan flew far enough to meet the ocean, my heart went into my throat.
He would stall, fly closer to the foamy waves rolling toward the beach, and turn abruptly.
My father had died out over the sea. Far away.
During an angry storm. Never to be recovered.
But Dad and I knew it when his death came.
Our bonds snapped. Our dragons knew it, too.
Dad held me in the long nights for a week after it happened as I cried myself to sleep. When my senses returned, that was when I remembered they’d been arguing. That was when the fire of my anger was lit and fueled with the thick dry wood of blame.
Father would not have gone out that night if they hadn’t argued. I convinced myself of that. Malinekan spoke to me in a crooning voice but my anger was louder and drowned him out. Soon, he stopped talking to me altogether.
Dad and I had never been close. He had spoken about Father taking me from my egg before I was fully out and keeping me close to him. Away from Dad.
That didn’t ring true. Babies taken early from eggs couldn’t fly.
My dragon flew just fine. Babies taken early from eggs had learning disabilities and lower immune systems. I never got sick.
I read my schoolbooks quicker than my tutor and teachers could keep up.
I got into trouble, yes, but that was because I was bored.
Why would Dad lie about that?
The bond between me and Dad remained, but it was like being asleep.
I felt nothing but a few twitches now and then.
Only in my dreams did I feel Dad’s arms around me and willingly allow it.
Past age ten, I never let him touch me. I recited my beliefs until they played like feedback on an endless loop.
He was responsible for taking Father from me.
He’d chased off the only father who truly loved me with all his heart.
When Malinekan returned to the yard, I saw a light on upstairs in Cassius’s room. The downstairs lights were also still on.
We landed gracefully by a stand of trees and within seconds cold air nipped at my naked skin making me shiver all over.
Thank you.
That message was odd. Malinekan rarely thanked me for a shift. Shifts were his right, not a privilege, and he could force them at any time.
“Felt good,” I murmured aloud.
I looked up. Was that a face at the black and red guest room window? Did Cassius watch my dragon land?
I walked to the patio and quickly dressed.
Inside the warm house, I began to shiver more. I went to the game room and started a fire. Footsteps fell behind me. I turned to see Cassius standing there.
“It’s cold tonight,” I said, fiddling with the logs in the hearth.
He nodded, then abruptly sat cross-legged about two feet away. “I saw your dragon.”
“Did you?”
“He’s pretty. And big.”
Ah, two compliments. He likes me.
My teeth pressed inside my mouth. “His name is Malinekan.”
“I can’t imagine having a beast like that. So colorful, so graceful.”
“You’re used to shifters.”
He shrugged. “Not inside myself.”
I wondered if he felt hollow, like a shell waiting to be occupied. “You’re still of the shifter world, angel.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m no angel.”
“All right, little wolf.”
“I’m not a wolf, either, remember?”
“Of course you are.”
He stared at me, mouth slightly open.
“You belonged to a pack,” I said. “You did all the pack things.”
“Yes. Before I was outcast and sold.”
“You’re a shifter who simply can’t shift.”
“Because I have no animal.”
I was not sure why I answered the way I did. It wasn’t because I was trying to be nice. That wasn’t me. “Maybe you do. Maybe he’s just too far away on another life’s journey for you to connect.”
He frowned and lowered his head but not before I saw the tears rapidly collect and fall to his cheeks.
“If I offended you, you’re not the first.” Why did I care?
Malinekan interrupted. Your alpha has stirred, am I right? That’s why.
I watched Cassius swipe at his face with his knuckles. “No one’s ever said anything like that to me before.”
That’s because they’re all dicks, I thought. To cover for the fact that I never used sentiment, I said, “But it’s just the truth, isn’t it?”
He looked up with reddened eyes. “It’s one theory. Not really talked about. Only online. Did you look it up?”
“No. I just had the thought.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be calling me little wolf anyway.”
But it fit him. “It isn’t my doing if the evidence is right in front of me.”
He leaned back, his shoulders jerking. “I mean if you want to, I can’t stop you.”
I wanted to laugh. I held back and said, “You don’t think you’re allowed to request what you want?”
His lips parted slightly as he shook his head. With the firelight splashing over him, he looked like something from the ancient lore of the sidhe. Not quite human, but fae. Was he? Were we making slaves of genetic throwbacks from our pre-ice age history? No, the sidhe were myths.
I flexed my neck muscles, trying to shake the thoughts. I wasn’t romantic. I wasn’t poetic. I had a set slave sitting in front of me, not a damned pixie sprite.
“Just to be clear, little wolf. You’re not my slave.”
He gulped. “But I am a dependent.”
“Yeah. So?”
He winced. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”
“Then don’t.”
He took a deep breath, then said, “I think I ate too much. It’s making my mind fuzzy.”
“There’s leftovers if you want some.”
He clutched his stomach. “How can you even think that after everything we ate?”
“Shifting burns a lot of calories, little wolf.”
As soon as the fire warmed my core, I got up and went into the kitchen.
To my surprise, Cassius followed.