Chapter 9
It took a month of meetings and I had to appear in front of the Supernatural Council before they ruled to rescue all therianthropes held in captivity in the Shadow Dimension.
Nozzag explained that if they found any evidence therianthropes were being held against their will, knowing or otherwise outside of the TSPS as they started calling it, those too would be found and rescued.
It took another month for intelligence gathering and plans to be made.
The general of King Talos’s army was very scary and intimidating the first time I met him.
But not as scary as King Talos himself. If I had only seen a picture of him without knowing who or what he was, I’d say he was tiny even in the heels he wore all the time and, dare I say, cute.
But the aura he exuded was like nothing I’d ever felt.
I nearly shifted and fled when introduced to him.
I knew he was the strongest predator in the room and my instincts were screaming to run and hide.
King Bayne and King Kikoi were much easier to talk to and be around.
For the last month, Ryker and I had been living in the Terran Dimension.
Plans had to be made not only for the rescue but also for the rehabilitation of everyone.
Bayne, along with one of his sons, worked around the clock to find temporary homes for the refugees.
The family dynamics were confusing at first. King Talos was a vampyr, a born vampire.
However, their numbers were low, but they could turn or sire, as they called it, humans into creatures similar to them that they called vampires.
Sired vampires comprised the vast majority of the vampire population.
It was very fascinating to me and I loved learning about the different species.
The vampires I was familiar with were the old fictional ones which I could understand how bits and pieces of actual vampires became part of that fictional lore.
Kikoi was once a human until Talos sired him.
Any being sired by Talos, he called son and those sired by his sons, grandson.
Talos had no born brothers but he had brothers by blood sired by his father.
One, Odin, lived with the kings and was mated to a very intimidating unicorn—I had no idea unicorns even existed—and a polar bear therian.
Siku was so lovely. He also helped Bayne plan the rehabilitation of the refugees.
They worked with the therian council members to create a psychological assessment to determine the best placement for each being.
An action of this magnitude would have normally taken a year to organize.
To secure buildings and create special departments to handle each step of the full intake and processing alone was massive.
But once the council agreed to the mission, they went all in.
I was surprised by that kind of reaction and follow-through from people who didn’t have a stake in the outcome. I was, however, very grateful for it.
I couldn’t help them find my family. I had no idea where we were.
I knew nothing about my owner—former owner.
In many ways, I felt helpless. Soon, my entire family would look to me to help them navigate this new world.
I was both terrified and invigorated. It helped give me the motivation to learn about everything and keep going with my physiotherapy no matter how hard it was some days.
Most of the refugees would be spread across the territories on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Some would stay in King Talos’s territory, my family among them.
In fact, he gave us a whole section of his island.
Half the island was full of trees and even had a lake.
The lake wasn’t huge or anything but it was big enough for several therians to swim in.
A team of elven mages came to create homes for us by the lake out of living trees.
It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.
I had marveled at the Mythtalas trees, but these were not on that scale.
These were much smaller but no less wondrous.
A paved road led into the forest from the town outside the kings’ compound.
Through some sort of combination of magic and technology, energy from the sun was collected by all the roads and fed into the buildings, including our new treehouses.
The magnitude of their kindness left me speechless, unsure of how to adequately express my gratitude to our saviors.
But my job right now was to prep our new homes for when my family was rescued in a short week.
Spies were sent into each of the zoos to assess the situation and my family was found.
For now, they were still safe, and from what I heard so far, no one at TSPS suspected anything out of the ordinary was happening.
A few days after Ryker saved me, they discovered I was missing, but they either didn’t care or feared discovery because the only news about me was an alert sent throughout the TSPS network.
I was surprised no one noticed I went missing the same day Ryker was there, but I appreciated our good fortune, especially considering Ryker’s sacrifices.
Oh, Ryker, my lovely, wonderful mate. Despite our initial communication problems, his unwavering support was incredibly comforting.
Until I could learn the common language here and until my Elvish was better, I had to wear a translation device.
Although the language used with my family was not a common one, so the translator spell didn’t work as well as it did for known languages.
This forced me to use Elvish more which improved my Elvish from the practice.
Ryker also wore a translation device. He needed the spell as much as I did because he didn’t speak the common language here, nor did he understand the elves in Mythtalas.
I thought Elvish was Elvish, but apparently, the Shadow Elves and the Magnus Elves spoke completely different languages.
The elves that helped Ryker and me in the beginning spoke both, and that was how Ryker was able to navigate our new world.
But it hadn’t been easy. Easier than it could have been, sure, but not entirely easy.
My mate was very brave in staying with me and helping my family.
At first, he took time off work, and then when he ran out of time he was allowed to take, he quit.
I was sad that he had to leave behind all that he knew because of me.
He reassured me that he was fine, but guilt still plagued me.
Ryker’s patience, not just with me but with the whole upheaval of his life, was unreal to me. He was my mate, but mates weren’t automatic. He could reject me, but as time went by, I gained confidence that he wouldn’t and each day, a little more of my heart went with him.
Since we got to the Terran dimension, he’d been helping the mages employed by King Talos add extra layers to the barriers around the island. I hoped he’d have a job here when this was over. Ryker was not the idle type.
He was an angel when it came to helping me with my physical therapy—who knew walking and running on two legs was so difficult.
I needed to build muscle strength in my biped form and muscle memory.
I had to learn to eat properly and work my fingers to do simple things like buttoning my clothing or unbuttoning.
I thought clothing was overrated. I tried to get away with walking around naked in our suite at the POOF Headquarters all the time, but Ryker was adamant about me being clothed.
If it weren’t for the ability to smell his arousal, I would have thought he didn’t like how I looked naked.
At first, I was hurt by it, but after a while, I understood more about his motivations.
We slept together every night in the same bed, but he always wore clothing.
He tried making me wear sleep clothes or at least sleep shorts.
Those were the short pants he liked to wear but many nights, I awoke in my natural form.
I am told by other therians that both forms were natural, but I was born a hippo, not a human, so that form was my default form.
Ryker freaked out the first time it happened but quickly recovered. He didn’t mind cuddling me in either form. But I feared squishing him as a hippo—even if I was a little one. I was still much heavier than him.
He had cuddled me, held my hands, and given me tiny chaste usually quick kisses, but I craved more.
I didn’t know how to convince him to go beyond that.
I feared my heat coming and him rejecting me.
I spoke to Siku about this because he was the only therian around that I knew, and he was very easy to talk to.
He had two adorable children, Eskander and Yuka, who were born at the same time as Prince Kaiyu.
Literally at the same time in the same room.
I wanted that kind of friendship someday.
My family and I were close, but it wasn’t the same.
We were close by circumstance. We had to get along as much as possible since there was nowhere for anyone to go.
Siku said to give Ryker time because he was also learning new things and in a new place.
The urge to mate was becoming stronger, but I tried to be thoughtful and let Ryker take the lead on the progress of our relationship.
He was making the greater sacrifice and since mates weren’t an automatic biological urge for his species, I thought it was best that he decided when he was comfortable to take things further.
The more I learned about Ryker, and the more I saw how hard he worked with no expectation of anything in return, the more I fell in love with him.
Siku was helpful in providing me with reading material and videos to give me an idea about different sexual situations and acts.
He did preface the videos with not all sex was like that or had to be like that since the videos weren’t instructional but meant to arouse for either self-pleasure or sex with a partner.
I found the videos helpful for ideas about what I’d like to do with Ryker.
I needed the courage to talk to him about sex more directly.
I wasn’t sure he was getting my subtle hints like when I walked around the suite naked.
I even tried slowly bending over in front of him.
I knew he found it arousing but instead of touching me, he went into the bathroom and masturbated with the shower on.
Now that we were no longer in the suite but in our very own house all by ourselves, I hoped he would relax some more.
I knew he was nervous about next week when my family would join us, which was another reason why I wanted to have sex and claim him as my mate.
The claiming would solidify his place in the family and give him more of a chance to be trusted despite being an outsider.
I hoped him being a shadow elf would not make things harder.
From the various shows and movies that I watched over the last few weeks, I learned that the most serious conversations between mates have happened over a special meal.
That was my plan for tonight. I ordered a meal with the things I noticed he liked best. I was still leery about trying meat.
The idea of eating another animal didn’t sit right with me.
I thought maybe I would try some fish, but not tonight.
Discussing the future of our relationship was not the time to try new foods.
I called in an order to the kings’ kitchen which should arrive about the same time Ryker was due back from the mainland.
The island the kings lived on was enormous, but it was not far from the mainland, which was overwhelming in size.
Even though I knew the world stretched far beyond my confinement, experiencing it in person was surreal.
From the island’s eastern coast at night, the city lights of the mainland sparkled in the distance.
During the day, the view appeared boundless, with towering buildings reaching towards the horizon.
While it may not rival the beauty of Mythtalas, I found myself captivated by it and looked forward to sharing this experience with my family.