by Zoe Chant
As if they had been doing it their entire lives, she tilted back to lean against his chest, and he folded her into his arms.
“Tell me what it's like.”
“Flying?”
“Yes.”
It's not something I'll get to do after this trip, he thought with a pang, and the thought was so painful it almost drove him to his knees. A shudder went through his body, and he knew that Harper could feel it. She started to turn around, but his arms tightened around her, keeping her still.
“It's…it's incredible,” he said softly. “There's this moment where you are pushing against the earth, and you think that of course it will never let you go. Then, somehow, it does, and you are soaring up into the clouds, far away from the world. You think you can touch the blue of the sky and the rose-gold of the clouds. You think you will never come down, that you can fly forever.”
His words trailed off, and he realized that there was a raw edge to his voice, something that burned his throat and clamped an iron band around his chest.
Gently, Harper turned in his embrace, reaching up to brush her knuckles against his face. There was something so intensely tender about the gesture that Morgan could only stare at her, hurt and healing all at once, and he felt strangely helpless.
“Princess...” he whispered, and she smiled at him.
He started to pull back, but this time, she wouldn't let him go. He knew that he could break her grasp if he wanted to; there was no question at all that he was the stronger of the two of them. However, Morgan felt, not trapped, perhaps, but restrained, and his mouth went dry as she looked up at him.
“You don't have to tell me why or how,” Harper murmured, her voice soft. “Just tell me where it hurts.”
Morgan didn't think he was going to do it. It was a ridiculously personal question, intimate. He had barely admitted the pain to himself, let alone voiced it to another person. Instead of brushing her off or telling her it was none of her business, he swallowed hard.
He tapped his left hand against his right shoulder, let it drift up to his neck and then down to his side, finally hovering over his hip before letting it drop down again.
Morgan searched Harper's face for pity or disgust, and he found nothing like that at all. Instead there was only kindness, and something inside him crumbled.
Tentatively, almost nervously, he bent his head to drop his mouth to hers. It was a gentle kiss, sweet and soft and investigatory. They had kissed madly before, but this was different. It was another first kiss, another way for them to know each other, and Morgan felt almost lightheaded as he drank her down, as her mouth parted for him and she sighed at the pleasure of it.
There was heat to the kiss, but this time there was no urgency to it at all. Their mouths met, and it was sweet and melting, as if they had all the time in the world. Morgan could have stood in the dimness of the room and kissed her forever if she hadn't finally pulled away.
“Come here,” she said, leading him to the bed. “Will you take your shirt off for me?”
“Always,” he said, and she gave him a wry smile.
“Not for that,” she said, and curiously, he lay down on the bed as she indicated, on his belly, head pillowed on his good arm.
Morgan's eyes drifted closed as she raked her fingers through his dark hair, and then she came to straddle his hips, pressing her clothed weight against him. It felt good, beyond good, but there was something banked about the fire between them. He wanted her like a forest fire wanted the trees, but right now, he was curious to see what she would do next, this true mate of his.
She passed the flat of her bare hands down his back, from the base of his neck to his waist, and the pleasure of her touch took his breath away, made him draw a quiet breath of surprise. Inside him, his dragon murmured quietly at the sensation. It was pleased and fascinated, curious and happy.
From her perch atop his hips, Harper stroked her hands down his bare back over and over again, and Morgan slowed his breath to match hers. His eyes couldn't keep from drifting shut.
“Are you falling asleep?” Harper asked.
“No, never,” he said, and it was the truth. Like his dragon, he felt so good with her hands on his body, but at the same time, he wouldn't have given up knowing what she was going to do next for all the world.
“If you want to sleep, that's fine,” she murmured, and she leaned down to kiss him right between the shoulder blades. “It's all fine.”
He listened to her, letting his skin tingle under her touch, letting his mind fade to the soft roar of his blood in his ears. He barely noticed when her touch grew firmer and when it started to focus on his shoulder and his right side. Her fingers were firm against the muscles there, nothing as harsh as what a physical therapist might do, but firm enough that they dragged back against the flesh.
If she had not warmed him, it might have hurt, but instead there was only a warmth spreading out from her touch, something that sank deep in his body to touch him in a place that he wasn't sure he had ever been touched before.
“What are you doing?” he asked, and his voice came out wondering and a little buzzed with pleasure. “Your hand, is it...”
“My hands are fine. Big motions like this help me unwind from the little motions I've been doing all day. Does it hurt? Do you dislike it?”
“No, and no.”
“Good. I'm just…I just want to make you feel good.”
“Why?” The question came out of his mouth before he could stop it. Her hands paused on his back for just a moment, and then she went on touching him. He hoped she never stopped.
“Because…because you're my true mate?”
He laughed a little at her hesitant tone.
“You didn't even know what a true mate was a week ago.”
“Because you need it, and I wanted to give it to you.”
Morgan abruptly realized that he shouldn't have teased her. The truth scourged him, fell just short of being a humiliation, but he found that with Harper close and her touch as soft and kind as sunlight, he could bear it.
Finally, he rolled to one side, and when she yelped at being displaced from his back, he caught her in his arms and bore her to the bed.
“How do you feel?” she asked, and in response, he kissed her.
Chapter Thirteen
∞∞∞
On the road the next day, Morgan was quiet, and Harper wondered if she had overstepped the night before. She could remember all too easily how tense he had been right before she touched him and how very wary he had been about her gentle probing. She could tell that he wasn't ready to tell her about everything yet, not really, and that was fine.
There was a drizzly spring rain covering everything in a fine mist, and as she stretched her fingers from the fine sewing she was doing, Harper looked up to see the foggy fields and forests go by.
“It looks like magic,” she said, and Morgan glanced at her.
“It can be. We dragons have stories about mists and how they can be the soft places that bind two realms together. They say that we came out of the mists in the long and long ago, lost from our homeland and seeking a new one.”
“You have stories of your own?”
“Of course we do. Very fine ones too.”
“And do you have stories about magic or have you shed it all for the science of your new world?”
Morgan hummed thoughtfully, tapping his long fingers on the steering wheel. To her quiet satisfaction, she thought that he looked a little easier today, his form settling in the seat without the tension that she remembered from the day before.
I like looking at him when he's relaxed, she thought, and warmth filled her.
“There might be some science to explain it someday, but none exists yet. I suppose the sunstones could be some truly advanced piece of technology, but it does not feel like it.”
“Sunstones?”
A kind of tension fell over Morgan, and he stared hard at the road in front of him. She saw his jaw tense and
then relax again as he took a deep breath.
“Is this not something I should know about?” she asked.
“There's nothing you should be afraid to ask me,” Morgan said, shaking his head. “And no, the sunstones are…well. Most of the dragon clans are just people with dragon's blood running through their veins. It gives them a very long life, a certain immunity to fire, a few other tricks here and there. It is when someone with dragon blood is given a sunstone that they can actually become a dragon, when the dragon that lives in them is given a form, given the fire it has always wanted.
Harper shivered a little.
“And…you have a sunstone? What is it like?”
“Well, to look at, a sparkling golden gem perhaps a little smaller than your fist. It glows with its own light, it's beautiful, but when you hold it, when you bring it inside you, you feel such heat.”
“It's inside you? Like...you swallowed it?”
“Er, a bit more as if it sunk into my chest. I have no idea what an X-ray would see, but fortunately, I've never had to have one, so…”
“That's fascinating. Can you pull it out if you need to?”
One moment, Morgan was at ease, answering her questions even if it was clear that he had never answered ones like them before. The next, he had stiffened, tapping the brakes and glaring at the road.
“Morgan?” she asked, softly.
“Yes,” he said, and there was something, not sharp, but broken in his voice. “I can take it out. I can have it taken out of me.”
She saw that he had actually gone pale over whatever it was she had said, and she swallowed hard.
“Hey,” Harper said, her voice soft. “Can we stop for a bit? I think there's an exit for a state park in just a mile.”
Her request brought some color back to his face. He looked relieved at her words, nodding, even managing a smile.
“Of course we can,” he said.
Harper wondered if she should like how much he wanted to please her. She had never had anyone so very attuned to her desires like this, had never had anyone who wanted to make sure she was so comfortable or so at ease.
I can use it to take care of both of us, she told herself, because it was becoming obvious that Morgan needed some care as well.
He pulled them through the gates of the state park, quiet due to the weekday and the early time of the year. When they parked in the empty little lot, Harper took Morgan's hand before they got out of the car, holding it in both of hers.
“Harper?”
“You know that with all of this true mate stuff, you should be able to tell me anything, right?” she asked softly. “I'll listen.”
Morgan gave her conflicted look, and she smiled, shrugged.
“Take your time. I'm yours all weekend, remember?”
For a moment, she thought that he would tell her what was going on his head, but then he only nodded.
They walked along the short, thankfully dry trail through the thick trees, coming to a small picnic area. Morgan set the picnic basket on the table again, and Harper helped him pull out their snacks.
“Do you know how strong you are?”
Harper looked up at Morgan quizzically. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't that.
“Hm?”
“You are,” he said, concentrating very hard on cutting the sausage up into thin and even slices. “You have done so much, and I think you have done so very much of it alone.”
“I don't mind being alone,” Harper said. “At least, I'm used to being alone. I'm good at it.”
“The strength of the dragon clans is that we're never alone, not really, not unless we really want to be. We're so few, and it wasn't so very long ago that we were hunted, for gold, for prestige, and for hatred. We are a tight-knit bunch, and we will all do what needs to be done to defend each other. To protect the ones we care about most, no matter what it means.”
Morgan took a deep breath, and his left hand drifted up to his right shoulder, massaging it absently before going to rest on his chest.
His sunstone, she thought. A strange feeling of dread opened up in the pit of her stomach.
“I have to protect my family,” he said, but then before he could say anything else, a high gale swept up, whipping the tallest branches of the trees, sending a chill across Harper's bare skin.
The wind was immediately followed by a roar that seemed to shake the valley, and then Morgan was swearing. Harper scanned the sky for the dragon that had come looking for them at her shop, and then she sputtered as she was suddenly splashed with what felt like icy cold water.
“Morgan, what the hell!”
He was already tossing the thermos aside, and she caught a look of fury and terror as he turned away from her.
“Get down in that ditch!” he said, pointing. “Do not leave it until I come for you!”
Harper realized that he was trying to protect her in case dragon-fire set the entire place ablaze, and somehow, she knew that he wouldn't be able to defend himself if she wasn't under cover. She fought back every instinct she had that told her to follow him, to help how she could, and raced for the ditch that he had indicated instead.
It wasn't much of a ditch, more of a shallow depression in the ground that had an inch of filthy spring runoff at the bottom, but she dove for it like it was home base.
The things I do for love, she thought, panicked and high on adrenaline, and then it occurred to her, twisting up to see a black dragon rise up in the sky to meet its foe, that she had used the word love.
It's true, she thought, less surprised than she thought she would be. Maybe there was something to this true mate stuff after all.
Oh Morgan, if you come back safe, if you are unhurt, if you are sound, I will tell you this over and over and over again...
Chapter Fourteen
∞∞∞
Morgan was already towering up into his dragon form, but he couldn't take wing until he saw Harper roll into the ditch. It wasn't much, but it was the safest she could be at a time like this. He turned his fury to the sky where the same dragon that had attacked them a few days ago was coming in fast.
Before it had all gone to hell, Morgan was a good fighter. Full-out dragon battles hadn't really taken place in the last two hundred years or so, but there were plenty of scrapes and skirmishes. Dragons testing each others' strength and skills were not gentle, and so he hadn't been either. He had fought with a cool head and a measured temper. He had never gotten fire-drunk the way some did, had never chased or struck when a surrender was evident.
All of that flashed through his mind as he rose, and he felt a deep sickness rip through his heart because he knew he wasn't that man, wasn't that dragon anymore.
The other dragon roared, and he returned the challenge, flying straight at his opponent with a showy plume of flame. There was a chance, however slim, that that would be enough. The other dragon might have only wanted a show of strength, a ritualistic willingness to fight. Morgan showing that he was willing to meet lethal force with lethal force might have been enough.
The dragon shied away, making Morgan think that he might get out of it yet, but then he twisted back around, his long and sinuous body describing a tight circle in the air and raking at Morgan's flank with a swipe of sharp claws.
Goddamn you, what is your problem? Morgan thought, and inside him, his dragon rose up to his skin, ready to fight and to claw. It wasn't just for pride this time, or even for survival. This time, it was pure rage that some pissant from some damn backwater clan would dare to put his mate in danger, that he had had to tell Harper to go diving into a ditch to keep her safe.
Morgan roared with fury, slashing at the enemy with furious speed. The dragon was faster than he was, but only just, and Morgan whipped his body around to cut at the dragon with the downward fall of his tail.
That connected, Morgan's tail across the other dragon's ribs, and his opponent plummeted a good ten feet in the air before righting himself. Morg
an waited a half-second to see if his enemy would flee, and when he didn't, he dove in again.
He couldn't afford to be careful. He couldn't afford to let this play out. He could already feel the pain screaming through his right shoulder, and if anything, it seemed to spread faster this time. He had been carried upwards on pure adrenaline and fear, and now he could see that that had likely gotten him through the first fight as well. When that panic and fury leaked away, it pulled back to reveal a dragon crippled in a fight that had happened almost eighty years ago.
No. Don't think about that. Fight him. Fight him. If you can't, if Harper gets hurt, it will be your fault!
His dragon screamed at that, and Morgan opened his fanged mouth to hiss a direct spray of hot steam at his opponent. He was faltering, his wing stuttering over every fourth beat, but his aim was as true as it ever was. His steam caught the dragon on the side of the neck, and he wasn't sorry in the least for what might have been a fatal blow.
“Leave!” he bellowed, his voice rough and hoarse. “Leave, or I will kill you!”
There was no elegance to the threat, nothing to it but desperate fury, but somehow, it managed to get the point across. The attacking dragon wheeled around, flying straight north without a look back.
With a vicious satisfaction, Morgan saw the steam rising from the wound he had inflicted. There was a moment, a terrible moment, where the only thing that he wanted to do was to give chase. He wanted to make sure that that dragon wouldn't come upon them unawares again in the most final way possible.
His dragon bayed for vengeance, and Morgan might have given in if his right wing hadn't stuttered once last time, and then gave way entirely. It refused to obey the frantic commands of his mind or his body, and a moment after that, he found himself diving towards the earth.
No, no, n …
He spread his left wing, hoping to glide at least part of the way down, but the earth was rushing towards him far too quickly, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Harper break from cover, running towards him.