Chapter 39 Blaise #2
I grunted each time my back hit the dirt as the air was knocked out of me.
Once I was able to tuck my wings in, I rolled a little easier and with a bit more control.
Just inches from the shores of the lake, I finally came to a stop on my back.
My eyes were shut, as I momentarily forgot to open them.
But when I did, I noticed the orange sky and the red hair.
“Blaise!” Katarina cried out. “Oh my god! Are you okay?”
Yeah, I was fine. Just really fucking embarrassed. I squeezed my eyes shut again and shook my head.
“You’re not?” she asked, tucking the strands of flyaway hairs behind her ears.
I huffed, trying to tell her that I was fine.
But since she obviously couldn’t understand me, I sucked in a breath and heaved myself over onto my side.
My body was heavy in this form. And long.
And it was going to take some time for me to figure out how to control my movements fully.
When I finally pushed to all fours, I looked down at Katrina and tried to smile.
My dragon face wouldn’t allow it, so I lowered my head and nudged her side.
She fell over.
Dammit, I had a lot of learning to do.
Giggling, Katarina stood and brushed herself off. “Looks like someone doesn’t know his own strength.” She reached up toward me, and I held still as she ran her fingers across my nose. “Oh, you’re so warm.”
I snorted a laugh.
“Blaise,” she said after a few moments passed. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Closing my eyes, I pressed my chin into the ground and bent my legs and wings until I was lying on the grass. Katarina could touch me for all eternity, and I would be content.
As if understanding, she started to walk around me, brushing her fingers across my body as she passed. “I don’t know what I expected a dragon to look like in real life, but you are magnificent.”
Was I?
“Your scales are black yet not. Iridescent, almost like a black pearl,” she mused as she touched my wing.
“And you’re bigger than five draft horses.
” Grabbing the claws at the tips of my hands, she tapped the hardened talons.
“I would not want to be on the other end of these things,” she laughed.
Making her way back around to my face, she lowered her head and looked directly into my eyes.
“Wow,” she breathed. “I wish I had my phone so I could take a picture of you.”
I nudged my chin toward her and she wrapped her tiny arms across my head. “I love you, Blaise,” she whispered against my skin.
She loved me?
Someone loved me?
My heart clenched with all the emotions racing through my blood.
Elation from finally completing my first shift.
Satisfaction from knowing how great it feels to tap into this magic.
And absolute adoration for the woman standing in front of me with tears in her eyes and a loving smile plastered on her face.
I wanted to kiss her so badly right now.
I wanted to hold her.
I wanted to claim her as mine again.
Wait! How do I shift back to my human form?
Letting out a groan, I pushed back up to my hind legs, spread my arms, and stretched. The dragon came forward only after having sex with Katarina. I certainly couldn’t go that route while I was the dragon. So how did I return to my regular body?
“Blaise?” Katarina asked as she looked up at me. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head and wiggled my wings.
“You want to fly again?”
Yes, I did. But first, I needed to figure out how to get my human arms back so I could wrap them around my woman. I shook my head.
“No?” she guessed correctly.
I pointed my chin toward the castle.
“You want me to go inside?” The heartbreak in her voice pierced through my heart, so I quickly reached out with my right arm, or wing, and tapped her side. She almost fell again. But then I had an idea when I saw the dirt mark my feet had made earlier.
Using my longest talon, I drew a stick figure on the ground. Katarina looked down at it and laughed. “Pictionary?” she asked. “You want to play a game?”
I rolled my eyes and groaned, shaking my head. I then drew a very rough “V” in the dirt and made an arrow from my horrible bird drawing to the stick figure.
“Blaise, I don’t understand. What does a bird and a human have to do with—oh! I get it! You want to shift back?”
My love for her grew more than I thought possible at this moment.
Looking up at me in confusion, she asked, “Can’t you just do it?”
I shrugged the best I could.
“You don’t know how?”
I bobbed my chin.
“Maybe we can call Dorian?” she asked after a moment.
Dorian? Why hadn’t I thought about that? Yes, Dorian was a shifter. He’d always been a shifter. He may know how to help me.
I cleared the dirt drawing in front of me and wrote PHONE in its place, fully aware that I probably should have just written down the shifting thing first.
“Okay. I’ll get it,” Katarina said while trying to hold her hair away from her face. The wind was really starting to pick up as the sun began to sink behind the lake. “We need to call Dorian, and you have a phone… where exactly?”
KITCHEN I scribbled on the ground.
“Got it. I’m going to go find your phone, in your kitchen, in your castle.” She’d said that last part with a smirk and I knew I’d have some explaining to do about this estate. But I didn’t mind at all. I would tell her anything she wanted to know.
Katarina bent forward and kissed my hand, or whatever body piece my hand had turned into. “Be right back.”
I watched as she ran into the castle and disappeared behind the old oak doors I’d managed to rebuild.
I loved this place. I loved Katarina. And while we surely needed to find our way back to New Orleans, I wished that one day soon, I could bring her back here and spend time in this little private world of mine.