Chapter 35
Chapter
Thirty-Five
Rhaz went very still, and so did everyone else. For one suspended moment, no one in the yard breathed. The porch lights seemed brighter somehow as the night pressed close around the house. Even the crickets had gone silent, as if they wanted to listen to what happened next.
Phin stared at Rhaz while Jessica stared at Anon. Richard was staring at everyone in turn, his head moving from one person to the next.
Rhaz blinked a few times as Anon arched an eyebrow at him.
“Yes, of course.” Rhaz looked around the yard and back.
“Now would be the general idea,” Anon said.
Richard made a choking sound. “Wait, hold on, you mean shift as in...” He waved both hands at Rhaz.
Quill folded his arms in front of him and grinned. “No, Richard. He means Rhaz should shift his weight from one foot to the other. This is all very ceremonial.”
Richard shot him a look. “That’s not helpful at all.”
“It wasn’t intended to be,” Quill shot back.
Jessica grabbed Richard’s arm with both hands. “He means shift into the dragon, doesn’t he?”
Caelen eyed her with mild amusement. “Yes, he does.”
Richard paled. “Dragon? What dragon? You mean...”
“What other kind of dragon is there?” Jackson cut in.
“I don’t know,” Richard said, his voice rising. “A symbolic dragon. Maybe it’s a family crest or a tattoo.”
Quill’s grin widened. “What about a paper dragon?”
Richard pointed at him. “Yes, I would be much calmer if this involved paper—lots of paper.”
Phin barely heard them. She was looking at Rhaz. All this time, she thought he was a little different, but not this different. A dragon? No, this wasn’t happening.
Rhaz’s eyes found hers. There had been a hint of humor in his face, but it was gone now.
What remained was the part of him she had always sensed beneath his manners and strange way of acting.
Now she saw power in his eyes, along with an ancient, watchful patience that had no business standing in Betty and Aaron’s front yard, looking at her as if the answer she gave Anon earlier might break him.
“You don’t have to watch,” he said, his voice gentle.
Phin swallowed. Her throat had gone dry. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her hands.
“Oh, but I do,” she finally said.
Rhaz’s expression changed, but not much. Just enough that she knew he’d heard what she hadn’t said. She’d chosen to watch, just as she chose to love him.
Anon stepped back. Jackson took several steps back as well, in the direction of the porch steps, and moved Jessica and Richard with him.
“He’s going to need room for this,” Jackson said.
“How much room?” Richard squeaked.
Jackson glanced at Rhaz. “More than what we’re giving him.”
Richard started to back up, Jessica with him, but she kept her gaze locked on Rhaz. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, this is really happening. This is actually happening.”
Quill moved off to one side, calm as a cucumber, as if dragons shifted in front yards every evening. Caelen stood beside him, his face unreadable except for the faint lift at the corner of his mouth.
Rhaz didn’t look at any of them. His eyes were on Phin.
He stepped away from the house, going toward the other end of the yard.
Phin watched him go, and the air around them tightened.
The hair along her arms rose, and a shimmer of heat rolled over the grass.
Something deep and old stirred beneath her feet, like a pulse that had nothing to do with the earth and everything to do with him.
Rhaz bowed his head. A red-gold light flickered beneath his skin.
Phin was vaguely aware that Jessica gasped while Richard whispered something that sounded like a prayer, or a swear word, or maybe both.
The light brightened and ran along Rhaz’s shoulders, down his arms, and across his chest, like fire trapped beneath flesh.
A light wind burst through the yard, whipping Phin’s hair into her face.
Leaves tore free from the nearby trees and spun in circles around him.
He grew. There was no other word for it.
One heartbeat, he was a man. The next, he was more.
It only took seconds. His shoulders broadened and rose, his spine arched, and great wings unfurled from his back, their span blocking out the stars beyond the trees.
Claws struck the ground where hands had been, sinking into the earth with a sound that made Richard stumble backward into Jackson.
Scales rippled over him, crimson, deep red and gold-edged, each one catching the porch light like polished metal.
His neck lengthened, his face changed, reshaped, and became something terrible and magnificent.
Horns swept back from his head. Smoke curled from his nostrils.
Phin stumbled backward. The yard was suddenly far too small.
There, where Rhaz had stood, was an honest-to-gosh dragon.
Phin couldn’t breathe. He was enormous. Not monster-enormous, but still huge.
A sort of beautiful enormous. He had to be at least seventy feet long from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail.
Seventy feet of living fire and strength crouched in Betty and Aaron’s front yard, his wings half-folded so they wouldn’t crush the porch.
His claws dug into the grass, and his tail curled with deliberate care around the edge of the drive.
Phin couldn’t take her eyes off him. His scales weren’t simply red.
They were the color of embers at the heart of a fire, wine-dark in the shadows and molten at the edges where the porch light touched them.
Gold threaded along his throat and chest. His wings were vast, the membranes darker than his scales, like red silk stretched over bone and flame.
Yet his eyes were still Rhaz’s.
That was what undid her. Not the claws or the smoke from his nostrils or the magnificent wings. His eyes, which were gold in color, were watchful and afraid at the moment.
Phin took another step back.
Jessica’s fingers clamped around Richard’s arm as she looked her way. “Phin?”
Phin couldn’t move. The dragon lowered his head a fraction, enough that the ground seemed to move beneath the weight of him. He made no sound, which surprised her. He didn’t roar or breathe fire. He simply waited. That made him more terrifying in a way, and more heartbreaking.
Richard’s voice cracked through the silence. “Ph-Phin, your boyfriend’s a dragon.”
Jessica let go of a hysterical laugh. “I think she can see that, Richard.”
“No,” he said and pointed. “I mean he’s a dragon, not dragon-adjacent or dragon-themed. That’s an actual dragon.”
Quill choked on a laugh. “Humans.”
Anon shot him a look. “Not now, wizard. Let them have their moment.”
“Apologies,” Quill said, not sounding the least bit sorry.
Phin took one step forward.
Jessica gasped. “Phin, don’t!”
Rhaz went very still. Everyone did, as Phin took another step.
The grass was cool beneath her bare feet.
Her knees shook so badly she wasn’t sure they would hold her, but she kept walking.
The dragon watched her with those impossible gold eyes.
Smoke drifted from his nostrils, curled into the night air, and Phin belatedly remembered she was wearing nothing but her black one-piece bathing suit.
Phin stopped an arm’s length from one massive foreleg. A single claw was longer than her hand. For a dizzy moment, all she could think was that it could tear through a car. She lifted her hand anyway. Rhaz didn’t move.
Phin placed her palm against his scales, and warmth met her skin.
It wasn’t hot enough to burn or be dangerous.
It was just solid, living warmth. The scales were smoother than she thought they would be, hard and sleek beneath her fingers.
She spread her hand over one of them, and beneath it, she felt him breathe.
“Oh my,” she whispered.
The dragon’s head lowered until his massive snout came near enough for her to touch. Phin looked up at him. “Wow.”
Feeling brave, she rested both hands on him, rose on her toes, and pressed her forehead to the bridge of his nose. “Oh, wow,” she breathed.
Behind her, Jessica made a sound that was half sob and half laugh.
Rhaz exhaled, his hot breath washing over Phin. It was a mix of a smoky scent mixed with cedar, ash and something wild she had no name for.
A voice entered her mind. It was low, careful, and a little afraid. I feared you would run.
Phin jerked back, her eyes widening. “Did you just say something?”
The dragon’s eyes softened. Yes.
She stared at him. “How are you doing that?”
There was a pause. I do not know if your people have a word for it.
Phin blinked. “I’m talking to a dragon in my head.”
Another pause.
That is also a good description.
A surprised laugh escaped her. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she took a few steps back to look at him. The dragon’s eyes softened further.
Then she reached out again and stroked the side of his face or tried to. He was too large for the gesture to be anything but ridiculous. But Rhaz leaned into her touch as if it mattered. As if she mattered, and for one absurd moment, she wondered if she was dreaming.
A rumble moved through him. Phin froze.
Behind her, Richard yelped. “What was that? A growl?”
Jackson laughed. “No, I think that was a chuckle.”
Jessica pointed at the dragon with a trembling hand. “He can laugh?”
Quill gave her a bright smile. “Apparently so.”
“I don’t know how taxes work for this.” Richard dragged a hand down his face as everyone looked at him. Even the dragon. Richard blinked. “What? I am nervous. My brain went where it went, okay? I am an accountant.”
For one absurd second, no one said anything, before Jessica burst out laughing.
Caelen and Jackson smiled while Quill bent forward with both hands on his knees, laughing outright. Even Anon’s mouth twitched.