Chapter 20
“You’re sure we can only stay a day?” Kate was not at all sure how she could possibly show Vilka that Earth represented a world worth living in within twenty-four hours. She couldn’t even show him all of New York in that time.
“That is ten days for Mika,” he reminded her. “She will miss you terribly.”
“She will barely notice I’m gone,” Kate laughed. “She loves your parents. Especially Vyktor.”
“He is so soft with her,” Vilka agreed. “I believe he would let her do anything she pleased. I do not know what happened to the man who raised me.”
“That is how it is,” Kate said. “Parents get the tough stuff, grandparents get the fun stuff. And think, when we live here, a week’s vacation taken from here will be more than two months there. She will have the longest vacations.”
“As long as nobody notices that our daughter appears to be growing at an astounding rate relative to her peers,” Vilka said.
“True,” Kate agreed. “It will be awkward if she ages a year over summer break for sure, but we can work around these things.”
“You continue to think anything is possible, don’t you,” Vilka said with a certain fondness.
“I know it is,” Kate replied. “Mika is evidence of that.”
“Alright, my love,” Vilka said. “Show me the wonders of this world of yours.”
They held hands and stepped through the portal.
* * *
“What is…” Vilka’s voice trailed off into silent, stunned incomprehension.
The first hour or so on Earth had been spent in Kate’s apartment.
That had been doable. His first cab ride had been an adventure, but he’d taken that in stride too.
Now, Kate was wondering if she had pushed him too far too fast.
Standing amidst bustling crowds rushing back and forth between brightly lit high-rise buildings, Kate watched a wide variety of expressions flashing over Vilka’s face.
She did not know that she had taken him to the right place to make an introduction to the human world, but Times Square was iconic and so much of what was different about the human world could be seen there.
Billboards flashed high above their heads, entertainers moved among the crowds wearing various cartoon suits, some dressed as dragons, which made Vilka snort.
Jutting out from one of the buildings, a large animatronic dragon hung out over the crowds.
Vilka made a beeline for it and laughed roundly at it.
“Mika’s dinosaur drawings are closer to the real thing,” he snorted. “That is what they think we are? Pot-bellied lizards with stumpy little wings?”
“That’s for kids,” she tried to explain. “I told you dragons are in right now.”
“Yes, but so small, so cheap…”
“Don’t get the urge to show them your dragon form,” she reminded him. “It won’t go down well.”
“I am not foolish, Kate,” he reminded her. “I know better than to be reckless.” He turned around, looking around the crowd with an expression of wonder. “There are so many humans.”
“Eight billion or so,” Kate nodded. “Total, on the planet, I mean.”
His expression became one of confused distaste. “Eight billion? That is far too many. Every crevice of this realm must have a human stuffed in it.”
“Not entirely, no. There are places where there are no humans for miles around. Relatively few of them now,” Kate admitted, “but they exist. And there are wild spaces left too.”
“Hmph,” Vilka said. “I see no evidence of that.”
“Because we’re in Times Square,” she replied. “This is one of the most populated places on Earth. There are people from all over the world here.”
Vilka stood out, even in that crowded square.
There was nothing obviously different about him, he was tall, but not outlandishly so, and he was broad, but again, there were other men with similar proportions.
What made him so different was how very raw he was.
There was something wild and unfiltered about him, even in his buttoned-down shirt and sweater and chinos.
She was not the only one to see it. It soon became apparent that women were looking at him, their gazes lingering and appreciative. Kate curled her fingers in his a little harder as they moved through the throngs of people. Vilka did not seem to notice them, until…
“Why is that woman dressed so scantily?”
He was directing his attention to one of the street walkers, a woman in very high heels and a very short skirt and a top that was more like a bandage around her breasts than any kind of covering.
“Dragons don’t wear any clothes at all,” she reminded him.
“Humans do,” Vilka replied. “Besides, what she is wearing is somehow more suggestive than her being outright naked would be. Why is she an exception?”
Kate sighed inwardly. This was not going to please him at all.
“She sells her body, to make money.”
Vilka looked at Kate, his brows hitting his hairline. “That is what women do here, is it? Sell themselves to men? This is where you want our daughter to grow up?”
“Well, not all of them,” Kate said. “Not many, even.”
Vilka’s expression remained stony. Kate’s heart sank. Nothing seemed to please him the entire day. He had an almost perpetual scowl on his face as he encountered each new experience.
“This place is crowded, decadent, and dirty,” he said. “Look how the debris clutters the streets and these car machines, poor substitutes for wings. They are noisy and they smell…”
“Let’s get something to eat,” she suggested finally. “I like this Chinese place.”
They got some food and sat in the little hole in the wall shop to eat it.
Vilka didn’t seem comfortable with the chopsticks or the fork, but followed her mode of eating as well as he could.
She looked at him, sitting there stiffly on a chair that was too small for him and felt an odd sadness.
He was so out of place. Was it even fair to ask him to try to live here?
As they were eating, a police car sped by, lights and sirens blaring. It pulled to a halt down the block and officers exited the vehicle.
“Who are those men?”
“Police,” Kate explained. “Guards of a sort.”
“Who do they report to?”
“I guess the mayor.”
“So the mayor is the king?”
“We don’t have kings anymore. Not real ones anyway. The people vote for leaders. We have a president, but only for eight years maximum.”
“So your realm must be in constant unrest,” he observed.
“Well… I guess,” Kate admitted.
“No king,” he mused to himself. “Interesting. And this works?”
“Well, it’s what led to all of this,” she said, gesturing at the city.
“Everything is faster here,” he said. “It is more different than I could have imagined.”
“It used to be like the dragon realm,” Kate said. “I mean, hundreds of years ago there were still kings and fortresses, but things have advanced since then.”
“An advanced civilization built on the backs of mayflies,” he said, shaking his head. “This world is an exercise in contradictions. It never stops moving. It never stops to think. It goes on and on, one thing happening after the other, people rushing here and there…”
“Oh, my god,” Kate said, dropping her chopsticks into the box. “You like it.”
“I certainly do not.”
“Yes, you do,” she laughed. “This is just like when you used to lecture me for being willful and careless and all the rest of it. You love this place and you can’t admit it to yourself.”
“It is interesting,” Vilka admitted. “There are so many things here I do not understand. I admit, I am curious.”
“You defeated Avastias,” Kate reminded him. “You can handle anything this world has to throw at us.”
“My father thought as much…”
“Your parents tried living on an island with a running portal months after the biggest military strike in history,” she said.
“We can live here, hidden in plain sight. I can continue my research at the university, we will never have to want for money thanks to your ability to manipulate precious metals.”
“And what happens when we wish to travel between the realms?”
“My portals aren’t big and noisy,” she said. “Mine are discreet. They’re not going to be detected. We can use the funds from the jewel working to buy a place—nothing too extravagant… we can have a life here, Vilka. And Mika can grow up as the dinosaur she really is.”
* * *
Vilka smirked at his mate. She was right. The city was intoxicating, the sheer mass of humanity, each going about their various businesses in a great sprawling, interlinked mass. This was what he had been missing. And this was what Mika would miss too if he denied her the chance to be human.
“It’s probably not always going to be perfectly safe here,” Kate admitted, fidgeting nervously. “It will definitely be messy. Humans aren’t creatures of order. We’re little sparks of chaos who come together to make great things. But that’s part of you and it’s part of Mika and…”
“Kate,” he said suddenly, standing and offering his hand to her. “We are going back to the room. Now.”
He watched her face fall and saw her lips twitch as she fought with herself not to argue more.
Kate was not submissive, never had been, but she was doing her best to try to convince him of what she wanted and she was smart enough to know that getting mouthy and starting one of their infamous battles of wills wouldn’t help matters.
He took Kate back to her apartment, away from the noise of the city, or at least, some of it.
There he drew her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly.
She was tense at first, but relaxed under the massaging of his tongue and the slow rubbing of his hands over her body.
He loved her curves, more ample now than they had ever been.
Motherhood had softened her and he adored the changes.
Slowly he began undressing his mate, removing the cloth that dared stand between him and her body with more patience than he truly felt.
“You need a reminder,” he growled gently. “It has been too long since we were together as we should be.”
“What do you mean?”
The soft tone of her voice and the shy little glance of her gaze told him she knew exactly what he meant.
* * *