Chapter 18
Avelunne stood at the edge of the warm ocean, the white sand oozing between her toes. She watched a natural pelican dive for a fish in the shallow waters, waiting out would-be avian thieves before lifting its head to swallow the catch in its throat pouch.
The narrow beach stretched a half mile on this side of Isla del Condor, bordered by a dense line of tall palm trees.
While clothing was entirely optional at a resort catering to ultra-wealthy magical guests, she had learned a painful lesson about equatorial sun exposure and wore a loose, gauzy dress to protect her arctic-pale human skin from sunburn.
Her dragon scales would be impervious, but resort rules strictly forbade shifting to her moonwing form anywhere telephoto lenses or satellite imagery could see her.
Cameras were everywhere, and the island’s considerable magic could not block them from that far away.
She didn’t mind being human for a while.
After leaving Kotoyeesinay, she and Tanner had spent a leisurely eight days flying five or six hours at night, hopping from city to city and across increasingly warmer waters until reaching Panama City, the jumping-off place for getting to the exclusive, shifter-owned Wild Winds Resort.
Tanner stood beside her, soaking in the sunset.
His naturally darker skin tone meant he was free to choose nudity, and much to her delight, he usually did.
His human form was a work of art with beautiful proportions and strength, accented by a few faded scars that proved he’d lived an interesting life.
Thanks to their still-new and strengthening mating bond, she felt the vivid colors of his contentment.
After a few days at the resort, he had admitted not realizing how much tension he’d been carrying for decades.
To her, the difference was subtle in his body — relaxed shoulders, an easy smile, a lighter step — but profound in his thoughts.
Beneath the warrior and the sheriff persona he’d built for himself, he was a deeply emotional man who needed time to allow himself to just feel.
Just like she needed time to slow down and savor the real life she had right now, rather than chasing after vivid but illusory futures.
Tanner nudged her with his shoulder. “I think I know where the ‘thrice-born’ loanword in the moonwing curse comes from.” He turned to look at her.
“It sounded familiar when you recited it in the original Dragonic. I think it’s a corrupted version of a word from thunderbird teaching tales that means a clutch of three eggs that all hatch and thrive.
It was rare and supposed to bring good luck.
” He paused for a moment. “Maybe it did. I came from the only thrice-born clutch in my family’s cohort, and my cousins came from the only other thrice-born clutch in our home territory. We’re still here.”
Since mating with Tanner, Avelunne had not given the curse another thought, but she was quickly discovering that her beloved mate could not resist puzzles. “Tell me more.”
“I believe we might truly have actually broken the curse, not just lucked into a loophole.” He waved a hand toward her.
“You’re the last moonwing that we know of, so you’re not only the ‘last-born’ but the ruler by right of last-one-standing.
Your lightning magic is ‘wield the light’ and ‘sky music’ could be my thunder.
Neither of us has ever had a telepathic connection with a lover before, so we both meet the ‘sings with one and no other’ criterion. ”
“Interesting.” She considered his words. “As it happens, I was the last of my clutch to hatch, so I could be called ‘last-born’ in my own right. Maybe the curse was intended to be part prophecy, too. It would be nice to think we did break the curse.”
“Yes, it would,” Tanner agreed, putting his arms around her from behind and pulling her into a loose embrace against his chest. “Of course, the only way to prove it’s broken would be to find another moonwing who finds and recognizes their mate.”
Avelunne smiled at his determination to solve the ancient mystery. “While it’s likely I’m not the only moonwing left in the world, it’s highly unlikely they’d be willing to meet me if I’m claiming to be the ruler mentioned in the curse. Much less willing to test your theory.”
Kissing her hair, Tanner sent telepathic words to her mind. “You will always be the moonwing queen to me.”
Her heart melted. “That’s all that matters.”
Once the sun set, they walked back to their cabana, following the wooden pathway through the dense jungle interior.
With only twenty other cabanas on the whole island, no guest had to interact with the others if they preferred solitude.
She had met some of them in the cozy restaurant, finding wry amusement when a few treated her and Tanner like country bumpkins.
She found even more amusement in their visible annoyance when she responded to every little dig as if it were a joke or a sincere compliment, and that Tanner seemingly could not be bothered to remember them from one day to the next.
Tonight, they had asked the staff to bring a light meal to their suite.
It waited for them inside a plastic bin bespelled to maintain the optimum serving temperature.
While eating a satisfying meal of fresh-caught fish and a vibrant tropical fruit platter, Tanner read his emails.
She appreciated that he purposefully hid his phone from himself to avoid the temptation to check them more often.
She totally understood how the need to know things could become addictive.
If she knew how to use her own device better, she might have been tempted, too.
“My cousins say hello. They also say that the basilisk Timoki set free, and who killed the hellfrog before disappearing, wasn’t supposed to be in the demesne at all.
Tippizoars were apparently defying Surasa’s orders by keeping it.
Apparently, a prophecy that’s famous in oracle circles says a basilisk’s daughter will be Surasa’s doom. ”
Avelunne thought about it for a moment. “I remember Naima saying that Tippizoars hid the basilisk because Surasa would instantly kill it if she found it.” She stabbed the last piece of pineapple with her fork. “Maybe she knew about the prophecy and didn’t want to take any chances.”
Tanner gave her a quick verbal summary of an after-action report regarding the breeder demesne rescue operation.
The assault teams suffered no deaths and only a few serious injuries.
All told, the operation liberated nearly two hundred magical beings.
Sadly, hundreds more died with the demesne.
And unfortunately, they strongly suspected that the biomagically engineered super-soldiers had somehow been moved out before the raid.
In better news, other sanctuaries around the world were welcoming the refugees to take the load off Kotoyeesinay.
Tanner looked up from his phone. “I’m glad to see how readily most of the sanctuaries are cooperating. Fifty or sixty years ago, they might not have even answered the phone.”
“There is much I don’t know about the past, but from my perspective, worldwide communication has changed everything,” Avelunne said. “I think working together is better than working in isolation, even if we risk revealing the existence of magic to mundane humans at large.”
He snorted as he tapped to open another email. “This one’s from Shiloh, with a subject line of ‘Spilling the tea.’ I’ll read it to you.”
“A certain brain-glitched ex-councilor got caught contacting a hunter outfit that regularly supplied the breeding facility with fresh stock. He told them Kotoyeesinay needed to get rid of some ‘undesirables’ on the down low. He’s been permanently disinvited and added to the naughty lists.
I think the Shifter Tribunal even got him added to the human international terrorist lists.
Wanna guess who gave him up? Trolhorne. Apparently, he drew the line at selling shifters for fun and profit.
Tiziri, whose cub-dragonet baby is due any day now, thinks Wolcz wanted to be the All-Dragon King and would have put anyone who crossed him on the ‘undesirables’ list. Pendragor says we should assume Wolcz will be happy to sell information about the town’s defenses.
Matteo says your resort bill is taken care of. We’re all fine. Don’t come home.”
Avelunne laughed at the last few sentences. “Pendragor is smart. The High Court was a pit of vicious, vindictive, thin-skinned vipers who would sell their clutch mates to the charnel house if it meant gaining position. No wonder Wolcz wanted to resurrect it. He’d fit right in.”
After dinner, and placing the plates and utensils in the suite’s tiny dishwasher to keep the jungle insects from invading, they sat next to each other on the couch in the open living area. She was pleasantly, comfortably full.
“Where would you like to go next?” Tanner asked.
Avelunne knew he had been chafing a little at the inactivity. “Kotoyeesinay.”
Tanner turned to her, surprised. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” Avelunne said. “You need it for your peace of mind. I want to see my new friends and check on my old ones, and the children. I want to talk to people about main gigs and side hustles I could do. After that, I’d like to visit the Mediterranean.
I’m curious to see how it’s changed since the Ottoman Empire fell.
” She put her hand on his knee and slowly slid it up his thigh.
“But first, I want to finish your portrait.”
His eyes gleamed with predatory focus. “It’s been a while since I posed for you.
” He captured her hand and moved it to the hardening proof of his rising interest, then kissed her with head-spinning passion while cupping her breast and thumbing her tight, aching nipple. “Maybe you’d better show me how again.”
“Practice makes perfect,” Avelunne murmured, her senses drenched in their spiraling desire. He was perfect for her. They were perfect together. Here, and now, and always.
Thanks for reading Shifter's Thunder.