Chapter 18 #2
Her eyes widened. “Hang on, I’ll be right back.” She ran back inside Remi’s house and came back out with two heavy bath robes — identical except that one was visibly larger than the other. She held them up for him to see sheepishly.
“You got us matching bathrobes?” he asked.
“Hey, I’m stumbling around here doing my best as I try to figure this whole thing out. It felt right, okay?” she snapped.
He took the robes from her and draped them over his arm as he took her hand and led her down the steps of his porch, from under the carport and out into the pouring rain. “Works for me,” he said.
Cristie grinned as she heard his words, and followed him, almost vibrating she was so excited. She’d never seen his Dragon.
They walked through the rain, the wind whipping the cold, hard drops against their skin, but neither even flinched.
The thunder sounded all around them, and yet somehow it didn’t frighten either one of them.
They crossed the rise behind Lucas’ house, and only went a little further into the shelter of the tree line before Remi dropped her hand and turned to her, his clothes soaked and sticking to his skin, his wavy, dark hair hanging in soft, dripping curls around his face and brushing the tops of his shoulders, the eyes of his Dragon peering at her through his eyes.
Cristie’s breath caught at the sight of his bright orange eyes glowing through the rain at her.
“You good?” he asked, his voice a little more growly than before.
“Very good!” she answered. “So excited! A little scared,” she admitted.
“I will never allow you to be harmed in any circumstance,” he said as he laid the two bathrobes below the tree they stood beneath, then pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it to the ground at their feet.
“I know,” she said, taking her own shirt off and dropping it beside his.
Remi toed his shoes off, then pulled his socks off, before unzipping his soaked jeans and forcing them down his thighs and calves before dropping them on top of their pile of clothes. Last were his briefs, which were tossed to the side without a second thought.
He stretched his body, his arms over his head, and shook the water out of his hair futilely, as the rain continued to lash at them, though the tree they stood under did give a little bit of a break from its ferocity.
After stretching a bit, he turned to Cristie and found her completely nude, standing in the rain her eyes glued to his body.
“Fuck me,” he whispered, his gaze traveling down her body and up again.
When his eyes came to a stop on her face, she realized he was looking at her. “You’re gorgeous,” she breathed out, her gaze taking in all that he was head to toe.
He smiled at her, his expression giving away a bit of embarrassment at her compliment. “I only have one question.”
“What’s that?” she asked, taking a step toward him.
“How do you feel about flying?”
Her eyes lit up.
“You’ll have to shift back into your human form so you can hold on, but if you’re not afraid, after you run and I fly for a while, I’ll come back for you and we can fly together.”
“Yes, please!” she exclaimed.
“When you see me land and lower myself to the ground, shift into your human form and climb on.”
“Will the lightning hit us?”
He looked up at the sky, blinking against the rain. “It’s not lightning. But even if it was, it hasn’t hit me yet.”
“That’s good enough for me.” She stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder while she raised herself up on tiptoe to reach him. She pressed her lips to his, then stepped back, and shifted into her Panther. She stood there, whipping her tail back and forth, while waiting for him to shift.
“You are such a beautiful, wild creature! How did I never see you before?” he asked.
Cristie’s Panther rubbed her cheeks against his calves, then took out through the woods, looking over her shoulder to be sure he was following.
Remi followed for a few hundred feet until she led him to a clearing, half the size of a football field, with a stream running at its edge. There he threw his head back and roared as his body began to quiver and change shape.
Cristie’s Panther watched, unable to determine if the rain was distorting the appearance of his body as it changed making it hard to focus on, or if his body was actually distorting, making changes so fast on its own that she couldn’t focus on it.
Either way, only moments later, a Dragon roared his excitement at finally being freed to roam in his natural state.
Remi’s Dragon leaned down to better see Cristie, his front legs folded beneath him like a huge cat, with his ass and tail still lifted into the air.
He chuffed at her and she mimicked his position, playing with him as though he was another Panther.
Then his wings spread away from his back, he flapped them once and lifted from the ground, twice and he was higher still, then with the third flap he was already cruising along the tops of trees, leaving her behind as she ran as fast as she could beneath him, as they roared back and forth to one another.
Back on the rise Lucas, Roman, Laz, and Richie stood in the rain, watching the outline of the huge Dragon circling over the trees in the distance as he waited for the Panther running beneath him to catch up.
“That is fucking amazing,” Lazarus said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Anahla’s Dragon thinks it’s that big, but it’s not. It’s only horse sized. A big horse, but still, nothing like this,” Lucas said.
“The power in that male is almost inexplicable,” Richie said.
“He’s so graceful in the air,” Roman said.
Running footsteps could be heard behind them, and all four turned ready to intercept some unwanted human intruder.
But instead they found Riley running toward them.
“I came to see his Dragon!” Riley said, grinning through the rain at the first members of his Pride.
He came to a stop at the top of the rise and watched as he could just barely make out the outline of the huge black Dragon flying just over the trees in the distance.
“It’s fucking unbelievable,” Lazarus said, looking out over the trees and into the storm.
“You guys not running with him?” Riley asked.
Roman shook his head. “Cristie’s out there with him. We thought we’d give them some privacy.”
Riley looked over at his friends. “I think I’ll stay here, too,” he said, shaking his head back and forth insistently now that he knew Cristie was running with Remi.
But none of them walked away, transfixed by the sight of Remi as he flew higher when the rain was harder, roared with the thunder to disguise the sound of his Dragon’s voice, and dipped lower from time to time to wait for Cristie.
It took about fifteen minutes before Remi flew even lower and landed somewhere in the distance.
Once he landed, he lay on the ground as flat as he could make himself.
When Cristie ran up from the copse of trees she’d been climbing in, it gave him an idea. Instead of expecting her to climb up his body while they were both wet, during a torrential downpour, he sidled up to a tree and lay still beside it, turning his massive head toward her expectantly.
It only took her a second to realize what he was doing. She quickly approached the tree and scrambled up its trunk and into its limbs before she chose a spot and made a jump for his back. Once she was balanced on his back she shifted back to her human self and sat astride his neck.
“You’re sure about this?” she asked.
He tilted his head back just slightly, and the folds on the back of his neck rolled against her legs, pressing against her.
“Oh, that works!” she said. “Just don’t look down!”
He extended his wings, flapped them only once and lifted them off the ground.
Cristie squealed in excitement.
He flapped his wings again, careful to keep his neck in the same position, and flapped again, until they were soaring just over the tops of the trees.
She kept her hands on his skin, doing the best she could to try to steady herself, but she soon figured out it wasn’t necessary.
He was keeping his body as steady as he could, and as long as his neck stayed in the position it was, she was tucked safely against him.
Cristie squealed again with delight, then threw her head back and laughed as she lifted her hands above her head while the wind blew past, lifting her hair and making it trail behind her despite the fact that it was dripping wet and getting more wet with each second.
“Is Cristie flying with him?!” Richie asked.
“I think so! Her voice is coming from as high up as he is!” Roman exclaimed.
Standing on the rise, the five friends laughed when they heard the sound of her laughter and realized what was happening.
Riley was thankful for the rain soaking him to the skin, so no one could see the tears of gratitude that had started to pool in his eyes.
His heart was full listening to his daughter find happiness with her mate.
“I don’t think she’ll be mad at you anymore,” Lucas said.
“No, I think it’s all going to work out now,” Riley said.
“You think he’d take me for a spin,” Lucas asked.
“I’m pretty sure he’s only interested in taking Cristie flying,” Lazarus said.
“Let’s go inside and give them some alone time,” Riley said.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” Richie said, as they all started back for their homes.
Across the highway, back at his own house, Riley cast one last look toward his land past the rise where his daughter and her mate played in a torrential downpour. He looked up into the darkened, storm ridden sky. “Thank you for this storm,” he whispered.
His front door opened behind him, and Maia reached out and took hold of him, pulling him in out of the rain. “What are you doing out there?!” she demanded.
“Watching Remi and Cristie flying on the other side,” he said with a goofy grin.
“You’re kidding!” she said, trying to get around him to go see for herself.
“Let’s give them this time. Next time we’ll all go with them.”
“Why in a storm?” she asked, casting a glance in the direction of the rise.
“It hides his Dragon from any witnesses that might happen to be near. He roars when it thunders to hide his Dragon’s call.”
“The perfect camouflage,” Maia said.
“Exactly. And we think Cristie is on his back. She’s squealing and laughing as he rises and dips on the wind.”
“That’s got to be so exhilarating! Can you see them?” she asked.
“Only a flash here and there. If we were human, and didn’t know what to look for, they’d just look like a weird rain drenched kind of optical illusion. When it’s raining this hard, it’s hard for even us to see them unless we’re right out there near them.”
“Which is why you’re soaked.”
“Yep.”
“Why didn’t you come get me?”
“You’d fallen asleep already. And I didn’t know Cristie was with him until I got over there. Then I decided that I’d keep my distance and give them their time.”
“I love that they’re together.”
“Me, too. I even got choked up.”