Chapter 14
Bowen
Rudy had certainly gotten me down the flights of stairs the night before a lot quicker than it took me to climb them.
My legs weren’t used to doing so many stairs each day.
Even more now that I was going up to the roof.
To the roof to meet a dragon after leaving my werewolf boyfriend-lover-person behind.
I had to laugh to myself. When did this become my life?
Hopefully, that was what I was going to find out.
When I walked onto the roof, Aurelia was sitting on a stone wall, the highest point on the rooftop observation deck. Her golden wings were stretched wide, shimmering in the sun’s light. She was truly stunning.
I approached carefully, not wanting to interrupt her bask, but she greeted me in my mind while she kept her eyes closed, soaking in the sun.
“Thank you for joining me up here. There is so little sun on Malterra, I hate to miss it.”
“Yeah, of course.”
My hands tightened around the strap at my chest as I tried to think of what to say. “Shit, I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to start.”
“You want to know what you are.”
That about sums it up, I suppose. “Yes. What can you tell me?”
Aurelia stretched her neck, lifting her chin to the sky, letting the sun hit her throat and upper chest. “You come from a long bloodline, Bowen. It branched off in different paths through time, though, so few have revealed the talents you have.”
“Talking with animals, you mean?”
“Mmm. Yes, that is how it tends to make itself known.”
“Is there more to it?” Wasn’t that enough, though? It had already set me apart from every single person I’d met, but what more could it be?
“Mmm. Yes, it depends on the individual, but your gifts are strong. You are special, Bowen.” Aurelia closed her wings and rolled onto her back so her belly was exposed to the waning sunlight. “I knew your ancestor many, many years ago.”
My ancestor? I looked at the leather bracelet on my wrist and thought of when I received it. “You mean, my great-grandfather? He was like me, wasn’t he?”
“Perhaps. I did not know him, though. The one I knew was called Gwrhyr.”
“Gwrhyr? I’ve never heard the name. You’re sure he’s my ancestor.” I’d looked into my family history in the search for answers, and had traced our family name back a couple hundred years, but had never come across that name.
“Oh, yes. Your likeness is unmistakable. Though it has been fifteen hundred years since I last saw his face, I will not forget it.”
“Fifteen hundred years? Are you serious? How old are you?”
Aurelia glanced over at me before hopping down off the rock wall. She came to one of the lounge chairs and indicated her head toward it. “Have a seat, Bowen.”
I did as she suggested and sat in the chair. She jumped up to sit beside me, placing one foot on my lap, and looking up at my face. “Do not be afraid. You are here on this roof, and I am with you.”
“Afraid of what?”
I felt a throbbing sensation in my head, and my eyes closed tight. It was as if someone was pushing into my head. Pushing until my mind was no longer my own. A vision appeared in my mind. It was like a dream, but not.
Flying, I was flying over a forest, a thick grove of trees flashing beneath my feet. The sensation felt so real. I could feel the wind, could taste the moisture in the air, could see beyond my normal sight.
Turrets of an ancient castle peeked between the tops of the trees. Wings stretched wide, slowing my descent as I approached the roof of the castle. Within its walls, men in armor were scurrying about, preparing wagons and weaponry.
“Gwrhyr!” The name bellowed out of me as I perched atop the turret.
A man in shiny armor, crested with a knotted wolf design that matched the one on my bracelet, appeared and greeted me with a smile.
He pushed his helmet back, and the face before me could have been the same I saw in the mirror, only with a thicker jaw and without glasses.
Surreal didn’t even begin to touch the strangeness of seeing myself in another time.
“Hello, old girl, what say you?” His voice was familiar, but the dialect was almost too thick to understand.
Gaelic, perhaps. Welsh, maybe. I didn’t know, only that it sounded old.
The other strange thing about the way he spoke is that he didn’t.
His mouth never moved, but I’d heard it as clearly as I’d heard Aurelia in my own mind.
I was pulled out of the vision, leaving me dizzy and off-kilter, swaying in my seat. Blinking, my eyes adjusted to the overcast sky above me and the brightness of the present. Leaning back in the lounge chair, I put a hand to my head.
“What just happened?”
“I shared a memory with you.” Aurelia climbed onto my lap to watch my reaction. It was strange to see her looking up at me after feeling like I was a much greater size, and to have the knight tilting his head up at me… at her.
“That was you? But you were so big.”
She dipped her head. “We survive by adapting. Over centuries, I adapted by making myself smaller, to be harder to find in a growing civilization.”
“I don’t understand. Why did you show that to me? How? How did you do that?” She projected her memory into my head and made me feel as if it were my own. What. The. Fuck.
“Gwrhyr was a warrior under the command of King Arthur. He was the first of your kind, an interpreter of languages. His talents were recognized as valuable by the king.”
No fucking way. “King Arthur? Like… Excalibur and Camelot? That King Arthur?”
“The same.”
Holy shit! My fingers played with the cuff on my wrist, and I stared at the knot design in the shape of the wolf.
“You wear his crest.” Aurelia nudged her head against my hand.
“The wolf? What does it mean?”
“It’s a symbol of strength, intelligence, and loyalty. More specifically, given your bloodline, it represents a connection to nature and the spirit realm.”
I traced the familiar lines of the knot, seeing it with new eyes. A connection to nature and the spirit realm. What did that mean… spirit realm?
“Does that mean I can talk to ghosts?”
The twinkling of Aurelia’s laugh sounded in my head. “No, young one. Not with the dead, but there are spaces between what is seen and what is not. What is heard and what is not. You are able to open doors of communication. You began when you were young, yes?”
“Talking with animals? Yeah. As soon as I was old enough to understand human language, I knew the animals around me spoke, too. I tuned into them, learning their languages.”
“You are very perceptive, young Bowen. You saw the door and you opened it. It is the same now.”
“With you in my mind?” Aurelia dipped her head in confirmation. “But I didn’t open the door, you did.”
“Not so. I gave a little nudge because I knew where to look. You might not have noticed, but you let me in. Now that the door is open, you can use it anytime.”
This was so much to wrap my head around. The spirit realm. Doors in the mind. I thought back to the image of my ancestor and the way his mouth didn’t move. Holy shit! “Does that mean I can communicate without speaking out loud like Gwrhyr did?”
“It may take some practice, yes.”
I lay my head against the back of the lounge chair, trying to process it all.
Never in my life did I imagine my secret would be this fucking big.
What was I even supposed to do with it all?
Would I be able to communicate at a distance, or would I need to be in front of the creature?
Would I be able to speak with Rudy like this? Would I want to?
Aurelia climbed up my chest and nudged her head under my chin to get my attention. The look in her eyes told me to pay close attention to whatever she was about to say.
“You must take care not to share this with those you don’t trust.” Her words had an ominous tone.
I decided to try to walk through this supposedly open door and focused really hard on the single word I wanted to say. A weird, scratchy sensation itched at the back of my mind, but I could feel the word release. “Why?”
The dragon before me stretched her mouth into what had to be a smile. “You are a perceptive one, Bowen.”
I repeated the word, and it came a little easier, a little less itchy. “Why?”
“Anything given can also be taken. A memory shared can be a memory stolen.”
My brows pinched together. I had too many words to concentrate on sending them internally, so I spoke out loud. “I would never do that, take what wasn’t given.” The thought of it made my stomach sink. The invasion of it, the violation of it. That wasn’t who I was.
“I know. It is why this gift is given to those who are loyal and strong. But you must know, there are secrets as old as the earth. Secrets that are carried by ancient ones like myself and very few ways to access them.”
“I don’t understand. Why would you tell me this?”
Aurelia lifted her head to look me straight in the eyes. “You wanted to know who you are. This is it. You are Bowen Thomas, descendant of Gwrhyr, interpreter of languages, and keeper of secrets.”
“Fuck me. I kind of wish I could go back to just being the weirdo who talked to the ducks at the duck pond.” It may not have been a normal life, but it didn’t feel like I carried the weight of ancient beings on my shoulders.
“I don’t think you do. Would you give up knowing about this place? Would you give up your wolf?”
My head was shaking before I could even think.
Give up Rudy? No fucking way. I’d never met anyone like him, and I couldn’t imagine going back to a world he wasn’t in.
We might not have known each other for long, but it didn’t matter.
I loved the way he made me feel when he was both a man and a wolf.
Each side of him brought out a different side of me.