Chapter 9 – Charlie
CHAPTER 9
CHARLIE
T he muttering from the group behind us was like birds chirping. While I tried to listen, tried to hear the words being said, Dralie was half asleep and not concentrating on them, which meant I couldn’t hear shit.
“I do not want to listen to them. I am tired, and they are cruel.”
“They aren’t cruel,” I argued. “They didn’t know it was you. They thought you were Fafnir. Although Daithi can be a prick, he wouldn’t want to hurt me.”
“But he can hurt me?”
“No. Anyway, aren’t we the same thing now? We really need to sort this identity thing out, Dralie.”
He was justified in feeling hurt. The whole thing stung a little, so I couldn’t blame him for pouting. But Dralie grumbled and ignored me as he snuggled down into his homemade glass bed. He closed his eyes, leaving me in the darkness, and as I listened to a dragon heartbeat, I was lulled to sleep.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
I came awake to the sound of a familiar voice, but since Dralie’s eyes remained shut, and sleep hadn’t quite faded from my mind, I couldn’t tell who it was.
“It’s getting dark. If he turns in his sleep, he could freeze to death.”
Dralie snorted. “I wouldn’t let us freeze. Drakorians do not know the cold.”
“Good to know they care, though.”
“I care the most.”
“Dralie, I’m allowed other friends. So are you.”
“I do not wish for these beings to be my friends. They are cruel.”
“I think they’ll grow on you. And you can’t just ignore them. Open your eyes, and let me see who it is.”
“They want me gone. My power and wingspan threaten them.”
Having a dragon in my head was like dealing with a moody teenager. I thought I’d gotten past that stage of life. Maybe I shouldn’t have complained about Clawdia’s thoughts so much.
“How are you going to wake him?” a voice whispered.
“He’s already awake.”
“You’ve been rumbled, Dralie. You might as well see what they want.”
Dralie reluctantly peeked open one eye, allowing me a chance to see the two people.
Savida’s red hair waved in the wind as he stood slumped with his wings twitching while Baelen, dressed in—was that my T-shirt?—black, had his arms crossed and a mean frown telling me he meant business. The sun was setting behind the trees, and the lake breeze was noticeably colder, even from inside our glass pod.
“You are certain they mean us no harm?” Dralie asked.
“Now that they know it’s me … us … whatever … they won’t want to hurt us.”
Dralie huffed and then turned around to face our backs to them. Still upset, but taking my word they would not attack our open and unprotected back.
Baelen began, “I understand you are angry. It was wrong of them to attack you while you were defenseless. They are going to apologize, but it would assure them you are indeed Charlie if you were human again.”
Wait, they don’t think it’s me? They think I’m some unknown dragon? They need me to fucking prove it? What a bunch of cocks.
“They do resemble cocks. I have always thought so.” The dragon chuffed, which I took to be a laugh.
Always? But I didn’t want to delve into it. “So glad to amuse you.”
“We are sorry, Charlie. We thought you were Fafnir. We’d never want to hurt you,” Savida echoed, and the sadness in his voice played on my heartstrings. “You saved me from my cage, and I helped in your capture instead of returning the favor. I will never forgive myself.”
I melted a little, and apparently, so did Dralie, because he turned his head slightly so he could peek at the daemon behind us. Savida had his head bowed and was wringing his hands like he could get every drop of guilt out through his fingers.
“Never forgiving himself is harsh. It’s not like he did it himself. Or hurt us.”
I wished I could tell him that and make his sad little puppy eyes go away. I’d tell him when I eventually changed back to human. Whenever that would be. For now, Dralie was still feeling too threatened to let me take over, and I couldn’t blame him.
“This daemon is a good-hearted soul. He may live.”
“So generous of you.”
“The akari, he convinced the other beings to set us free?”
“You know who he is. You saw him in my memories.”
“He was caged, too. Perhaps he wanted revenge and asked the others to hold us.”
“You heard him as well as I did, so stop being stubborn. His being caged was necessary for him as well as us. He didn’t want to hurt us.”
“He is the mate of our mate?”
I coughed a little over the “mate,” but he wasn’t wrong. I’d been calling her my familiar, but the bond was shadow in origin and reserved for mates. And although I couldn’t imagine my life without her or Zaide now, I hadn’t started imagining a future and what that would look like.
When Clawdia told us of her vision, the one of our children, I’d panicked. A happy future and a family were all I’d wanted as a child. But making wishes only caused disappointment when they never came true. Yet with one sentence, she’d handed me all my heart’s desires, and my first instinct was to run away, to distance myself from it, in case it was a trick.
When she said one of the boys had scales, I knew it was too good to be true. But I didn’t think about me turning into a dragon. I thought it would be the combination of our power that made him a dragon. Maybe if I’d taken that thought more seriously, I could have done something earlier.
Our bond was missing, yet the ache was still a raw pain in my chest, as if my heart had been cut out but I could still feel it beating somewhere separate from me.
Look at me turning into a tortured poet. Just call me Charlie Bennet Poe.
“Clawdia. Ask about her. I need to know if she’s okay. I’m assuming she is because he doesn’t look like someone mourning their soul mate, but then again, he’s a bit of a stoic bastard. Not enough hugs as a child, if you know what I mean,” I rambled.
But the dragon didn’t seem to mind. He replied blandly, “I do not. How do I ask about her?”
“You could let me take over so I can ask.”
Dralie scoffed. “And allow our fleshy body to be vulnerable to the elements. To the akari and daemon?”
“Fleshy body?” I screeched before trying to fix my tone and defensively explained, “ I know I’ve lost a bit of muscle, but I’d like to see how good you look after weeks traveling, eating shit, and being captured and stressed all the time. My body’s trying to help me shed weight so I can run from otherworlders and hunters as fast as humanly possible, okay?”
The pregnant pause was … worse. More silent. Probably because the voice in my head didn’t know how to respond to my outburst.
“I apologize. I didn’t realize I hurt your feelings. You are very strong for a human. And very fast.” I stuttered, but he interrupted, “Tell me what you want me to do to communicate with the akari.”
I sighed. “Draw a picture. Of a cat.”
He huffed. But thankfully, he picked up a giant paw—foot?—and used one claw like a pen to scratch into the sand a child’s painting version of a cat, complete with whiskers and a fluffy tail. For a dragon drawing, it was actually pretty good.
Dralie felt smug as he sat back and admired his work. Baelen and Savida tried to move around the image to get a better look, their feet kicking up sand. Dralie didn’t appreciate them getting closer to his masterpiece and growled at them. “They are going to ruin it.”
“All right, Toothless. Calm down,” I replied with an imaginary eye roll.
“I have teeth. Can you not tell from in there?” He sounded genuinely curious, and I had to stop myself from laughing at him. My references were lost on him.
“What is it?” Savida whispered to Baelen as though we wouldn’t be able to hear him.
“I think it’s an animal. See the tail? Ah, and those must be ears and eyes. A cat? Clawdia?” Baelen looked up at us. “You want to know about Clawdia? She’s coping. Your bond broke, but you’re both alive and well, so it can’t be beyond repair. As soon as you are back together, we can work on fixing it.”
The relief I felt at knowing she was alive could have knocked me over if I were human. Thankfully, I was a dragon, and nothing short of a tank was knocking us over right now. The power nap seemed to have done us the world of good.
“Ask him about Zaide? Just write this letter,” I told him and tried to picture it so he could see.
Baelen thankfully understood exactly what we were asking and again told us, “Zaide is captured. We are going to get him back.”
As we suspected. I hated the thought of him locked up again. I knew how bad it was when the witches had us, but I’d been there to offer a bit of distraction. I didn’t want to think about him being there alone, and I’m sure that’s how Clawdia and Baelen felt too.
Fuck, we need to get him back ASAP.
“Are you going to turn back, or are we to guess at your diagrams all night?” Baelen raised his eyebrow, but Dralie wasn’t intimidated.
“How do I communicate no?” Dralie asked.
I had to laugh. It was so surreal. “Shake your head.”
Dralie shook his head, which felt weird for both of us, like our neck shouldn’t move like that, but Baelen got the message and sighed dramatically.
“Why not? You don’t feel safe?” he asked.
Dralie scoffed. “Drakorians are never afraid.”
Baelen’s lip twitched at whatever expression our dragon features were displaying.
“I think he’s just trying to rile us up so we shift.”
“I dislike his manipulative tactics.”
“You do not know how?” Baelen asked, interrupting our internal conversation, and Dralie shook our head once more. “I can try to talk to you through meditation, but you’ve done this enough now to know how it works, I’m sure. You had to do something similar to bond Clawdia as your familiar. And you’ve been practicing your magic, which I’m told is about using your mind’s eye and visualizing too. Even Clawdia only needed to do it once, and now she can change at will.”
“I know what you’re trying to do, you fucker, but I’m not falling for it.”
“I thought you wanted to be human again. Why has that made you so cross?” Dralie asked.
“He’s trying to make us prove we are just as quick as Clawdia at figuring out how to shift forms, and I don’t like being manipulated into doing anything.”
“Nothing is happening. Do you think he is trying? Is he trapped?” Savida asked in that same shouted whisper, which made me want to push him over. “Don’t worry, Charlie. If you can’t do it, we will figure out another way to get you back to normal.”
“He is also being manipulative?”
“No. He’s being genuine, and that’s worse. Just ignore him.”
Dralie turned around again, his back to them, but Savida just continued asking, “Do you think it’s truly Charlie? I don’t imagine Charlie would enjoy being a dragon. He can’t reply with sarcastic responses. That would bother him. But this dragon doesn’t seem to be struggling.”
“Dralie, do this.” I held an image in my mind for him to grab on to and enjoyed Savida’s shock and Baelen’s amusement as a dragon held up a … Finger? A claw? I really need to work on my dragon anatomy . Dralie held up the middle one at them.
“That seems to be Charlie.” Baelen smirked. “Perhaps we should leave you to turn in peace. I’d understand if you don’t want us to see you naked.”
“What the fuck? Did you fucking hear him, Dralie? Like I’ve got anything to be fucking ashamed of. I’m going to tell Clawdia you’re not invited to the group parties!” I shouted to Baelen’s back as he walked with Savida back into the woods, where a glowing light flickered in the distance and smoke rose in small curls in the tree line.
They must have set up camp. And it was time I joined them.
Turning inward, I asked Dralie, “So? Are we going to talk about why you don’t want us to turn back to human?”
After an irritated flick of his tail, he sighed and said slowly, “My soul remembers the last drakorian soul I was partnered to. He didn’t let me stretch my wings, nor did he let me speak my mind. I was a ghost. I do not wish to live like that again.”
Poor Dralie. I wanted to pet him.
Instead, I said, “Okay, well, I wasn’t expecting emotional soul baggage, but I can see how something like that would make you scared to give back control. But I promise I’m not like this other guy. I think I’ll learn to enjoy flying, and I really like that we can breathe fire. And more than that, I think being a dragon might be better for us to deal with the dragon problem we currently have.”
“You will not ignore me?”
“No, Dralie. I promise. We are a team now. I may not have always had you in my head, but it feels right that you are now. And despite being a late bloomer, I think we can work together.”
I wasn’t lying to make him feel better, either. Other than the minor freakout when I realized I was flying, none of it felt wrong. I didn’t feel trapped in the head of a dragon, although I wished we could talk instead of resorting to charades, and actually, it was kind of nice not to be the one deciding for a while.
“If you swear on Flight that you will not lock me away in your mind, that I may fly, then I will allow us to change forms.”
“I swear.”
“Then let us be fleshy once more.”
I really hate when he calls me fleshy.
I was tugged out from whatever corner of Dralie’s dragon mind I’d been lingering, and my consciousness seemed to expand suddenly, my head and body feeling too big and heavy for me to hold. Then I started shrinking.
And it hurt.
It was as though all my bones snapped and crunched down. Our wings pushed into my back like they were ripping through my muscle to make holes there. And my tail. I felt every spike of that as it was sucked into my body like a re-coiled tape measure.
Torture.
But thankfully, it didn’t last long, and before I knew it, I was standing naked, pale, and freezing my bollocks off in a glass cave on the beach in the dark.
I had to take a moment, no matter how fucking cold it was, to pat my hair for horns, check my butt for a tail, and make sure everything was back to normal. It was.
But it was like folding a sleeping bag back into the cover. It never goes in smoothly. There’s always a bit hanging out, and I felt like a sleeping bag at that moment. I might have looked human again, but I was changed.
As the cold evening lake breeze penetrated my skin, a shiver wracked me, and I gritted my teeth. I suddenly had more empathy for Clawdia when she turned human again. But then again, she wasn’t naked and cold for long. I eyed the woodland, the campfire glow even brighter now that the sun had fully set, and grumbled as I cupped my cock and balls and began my walk toward the others.
Dralie laughed at my misery as I winced when I stepped on a sharp rock. “You wanted to be fleshy.”
“We couldn’t exactly fly over to them. Sigurd’s probably still jumpy,” I muttered.
“I would like to find our mate now and fix whatever pain we are in.”
“You can feel it now?”
“Yes.”
I wondered what it was about switching back to human that meant he could feel the broken bond but made a mental note to investigate later. I was a mystery to myself, but I was always good at finding answers.
“Sorry about that. I’m sure it’ll go once our bond is back.”
“You want the bond back?” Dralie asked in a quiet voice. “Something that causes us so much pain to lose? What if it is lost again?”
It was such a poignant and vulnerable question that I took a moment to answer properly.
“I would rather lose it again than live without it. I’ve had a taste of something most people can’t even dream of. The bond allows me to hear her thoughts, feel her feelings, and sense her in every fiber of my being, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel alone in my head. I suppose I have you in here now, but still … It's special. And the sex is fucking amazing.” I laughed.
“A small fluffy creature is not a suitable mate for a drakorian. How will we copulate in the sky?”
Fucking in the sky? It was probably a good thing I didn’t have to impress a female dragon with my sky sex skills, because I could barely keep from screaming as we plowed into the ground, let alone what I would do if I plowed into anything else.
“You saw her human form too, right? We don’t fuck the cat, and we can’t fuck in the sky the way you might like, but I’m sure we can work something out so you feel like she’s also yours. Clawdia’s going to love you.”
Dralie was silent for a long time. “I can see your memories of her. She is a unique creature with much affection for you. Unique things make a great prize for the center of our hoard. If she is yours, she is mine, and I will treasure her as our mate. I did not choose her, but I would like to. Fate has given us a great task—I can feel it—and our female has much power.”
“We have to share her with the others, too. Which means you can’t barbecue Baelen.”
“I would rather share her with the daemon. He wears his emotions plainly.” He huffed. “But I know she saw our young, which included the titan and the akari spawn. Our family will be very powerful and will protect and provide, as we are born to do.”
“You’re a soppy bastard. Now we just need to find out what happened to her and get our bond back.”
“I will help you regain your bond with your mate, Charlie.”
My teeth were chattering as I spotted a smirking Baelen holding a backpack and leaning against a tree just before the makeshift camp, and my glare and hobbling seemed to just amuse him more.
Dralie felt my anger and said, “I will singe him for you. Not a lot. But enough to remind him of our power.”
“We aren’t very powerful right now, Dralie. I’m naked and fucking freezing.”
“You’re a smug fucker,” I told Baelen in greeting.
“Not quite the reception I was expecting, especially since I’m giving you gifts.” With an brow raised, he pulled clothes, socks, and a pair of shoes out of the backpack and handed them to me.
“You were trying to get a rise out of me, you bastard. I could have eaten you. Clawdia wouldn’t have had to know.”
He laughed and didn’t bother to avert his eyes as I hurriedly pulled on my clothes. I’d have killed for a bath, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“She would know. We bonded. And did you intend to stay a dragon forever?”
I paused. “I’ve been flying around, worrying, and you’ve been fucking my girl?”
“Our girl.” He grinned that same smug grin, and while I was irritated, I wasn’t really angry. I was happy for her. I’m sure she was glad to have another bond, especially if she felt as shitty as I did about losing ours.
“I suppose I should congratulate you, but I don’t feel like it right now.”
He nodded sagely. “I’ve heard dragons are very possessive.”
“He also really wants to singe you. So maybe don’t piss us off any more than necessary.”
“Interesting.” He looked at me as if I were a bug under a microscope. I’m sure he wanted to know more about Dralie and our relationship, but I ignored the curiosity in his eyes and changed the subject to one of more importance.
“You know what’s interesting? That Sigurd, protector and legendary mortal enemy of Fafnir, didn’t fucking recognize that I wasn’t Fafnir.”