“Ah, yes. Either he saw something in you right from the start, or he took a liking to a very attractive young lady.” He winked, causing me to blush, the little blood I still had left rushing to my cheeks.
“A bit of both, Spear,” laughed Ash.
“What happened out in the forest after we flew away? We were expecting the worst.” I nodded as discretely as I could to the Wolvren.
“We knew what had happened. Of course, we’d seen it before and so we were expecting it. The Wolvren, not so much. As soon as the fire erupted, we ran out into the forest, but it became clear that some of the Wolvren had gotten trapped. We took our clothes off, changed into our dragon form, and saved them. After that, they were willing to listen to us, once we’d changed back of course. We told them that Morganna would be okay. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure they believed us, but when Morganna appeared, they relaxed. We’ve been invited to stay here in their village as long as we need to and our dragon forms are no longer restricted by their magic.”
“No.”
We both looked at Ash.
“No?”
“Julianna needs to get home. Look at her.”
I sat up straight, trying to look stronger than I felt. I didn’t want to be the reason we all left.
“She is very pale,” agreed Spear.
“I am right here you know!”
“Exactly, and it’s because you are so pale that I think we should stay.”
“I can see that everyone is the best of friends now, but I don’t like it,” Ash began. “I like Morganna and I have no issue with the Wolvren, but I still want to get Julianna home.”
“Do I have a say in this?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Both Spear and Ash spoke at once.
“Fine,” Ash conceded. “I don’t want to be that guy who causes problems. If you all want to stay, then we’ll stay, but remember, Spear, we have a lot of work still to do. It’s not all about Julianna. Think of all those dragons freed. We don’t know what’s happening back in Dronias.”
Spear considered this. “You make a good point.”
“Morganna and some of the Wolvren are making broth for us,” I interjected. “It would be rude to leave before we eat after all they are doing for us. Besides, I have an idea.”
“Uh oh!”
“It’s not that bad!” I playfully elbowed Ash in the middle. “We need Morganna. I’m going to ask her to come with us.”
“Why?” asked both men at once.
I looked over at Morganna. She was stirring a huge pot of liquid over the fire. Some of the Wolvren were throwing leaves and other things in as she stirred. Even doing something as mundane as making soup, she commanded respect. There was a reason she was known as the best Slayer in the kingdom.
“Please don’t get me wrong when I say this—”
“Uh oh,” repeated Ash, a smile on his face.
“But I’m the only one on our side who knows how to use a sword. Yeah, you guys can breathe fire and bite a man in two, but sometimes, you have to be on the same level as the person you are fighting. Morganna might have been away from Dronias for many years, but she knows everyone there, and more importantly, she’ll know how to fight them. She probably knows the elders better than I do. I think we can all agree that I’ve been kept in the dark about a lot of things. Maybe Morganna didn’t know about the dragon souls being trapped in the swords, but she saw a side of my father I hadn’t until recently. I think we need her.”
Both men were silent for a while, contemplating my words. I could smell the broth now, and it was delicious. I closed my eyes, enjoying the smell, waiting for Ash or Spear to say something.
“You have a point,” replied Spear eventually. “Do you think we’ll be able to get her to come with us?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to try to persuade her.”
One of the Wolvren passed us a bowl each. We watched as everyone began to line up next to the large cauldron. Morganna ladled the broth into each person’s bowl.
“I’ll get ours.” Ash took my bowl from my hands and joined the line with Spear. Five minutes later, he was back with two bowlfuls of hot liquid which smelled like heaven on earth. As we had no spoons, we drank it straight from the bowl. The broth traveled down to my belly, warming me as it went.
When Morganna had finished ladling out the broth, she came to sit beside us. “I’m sorry it isn’t much, but as I’ve told you before, food can be scarce around here. This is made from leaves and roots we find in the forest.”
“Please don’t be sorry. It’s delicious. You are quite a chef!”
Morganna laughed at my words. “Dragon Slayer, master chef. My talents are never-ending.” She drank from her bowl before her expression turned serious again. “You are a Slayer, right? I’m correct in thinking you are over eighteen?”
“I turned eighteen a few months ago.” My eighteenth birthday. The day I met Ash and this whole thing started. It was the day my life changed in so many ways. It was a day I’d never forget.
“Hmmm.”
“What?”
“I was just wondering how many dragons you’d slain?”
I felt embarrassed. I’d not slain a single one. Even though I didn’t want to anymore, I still felt stupid and weak admitting to the fact. I was a born Slayer after all. “I met Ash on my eighteenth birthday. I was supposed to kill him.”
“And you fell in love with him instead?”
“No, well, not at first. At the last minute, I hesitated and fell off a precipice. I thought that was it, but he swooped down and caught me. At the time, I didn’t know that the dragons in the Triad Mountains were shifters. I thought he was a mother dragon. I even wondered if he was taking me home to feed me to his baby dragons.”
“You thought I was a girl?” Ash replied.
Spear laughed loudly. “I can kinda see it.”
I ignored the pair of them and carried on telling my tale to Morganna. “He took me to a cliffside near his village. I nearly fell off again, this time in shock as he turned into a human in front of my eyes. He was completely naked after changing.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t jump off the cliff at that point,” joked Spear.
“Oh, haha,” replied Ash.
“From then on, I met the other dragons and discovered the truth about them. I knew I’d never be able to kill one.”
“So you’re saying that you’ve never slain a dragon? Not even one?” Morganna looked at me with amazement.
“Not even one,” I repeated her words back to her.
“Interesting.”
I’d thought it many things, but interesting wasn’t one of them. “Why do you say that?”
“I’ve been wondering why the sword didn’t work for me in the same way it did for you. At first, I’ll admit to being slightly jealous; after all, it is my sword and it has served me well for a long time. I couldn’t understand why it worked for you in a way it had never worked for me.”
“I doubt I’d be able to use it as well as you do. To slay, I mean.”
“No, but you had a power over it I could never hope to possess. At first, I wondered if you were somehow special, if you had a magic I didn’t know of, but Slayers are not magical beings. Any magic we do possess is bought from the Goblins and can only be used with magical artifacts. The magic you showed back there when you set those dragons free was the magic in the sword and not in you.”
“Well, that makes sense,” I replied. “I’m not magic. I don’t know why it worked for me and not for you. I don’t know what I did differently.”
“I think it’s because you are a Slayer that has never slain. Think about it. How many of those can there be? Everyone in Dronias over the age of eighteen has slain a dragon. Even those that don’t have the stomach for it and don’t pursue it. I think the Goblins who made the swords and imbued them with their magic put a get-out clause in there. A way to turn the magic around if the caster of the magic were ever to change
his or her mind. I doubt the elders knew about it. It’s the only reason I can think of for it working for you. You are the original innocent Slayer.”
“Why would they do that, though?” asked Spear. It was a question I wanted to know the answer to, too.
“I don’t know, but I’d sure like to find out!”
Chapter Nineteen
It was sure an interesting idea. Did the Goblins always put get-out clauses in their magical artifacts or was this a special case? Did someone put them up to it? The swords were made so many years ago, some of them going back a century, so if anyone had told them to add that certain piece of magic, they would surely be dead by now anyway.
“We went to the Goblins before coming here,” admitted Spear.
Morganna pulled herself forward, interested in what he had to say.
“They were very welcoming despite anything you might have heard, but they were guarded too. They were happy to feed us well, but they’d tell us nothing of the swords or the magic.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that about them. They like to keep their secrets to themselves. Still, I’m surprised they welcomed you. I’ve heard they don’t like strangers poking their noses in.”
“I have the feeling they invited us in as the quickest way to get rid of us. If they’d have shut all the doors and tried to hide, we’d have been curious and kept on looking, probably discovering something about them they wouldn’t want us to know. By inviting us in, they could keep a close eye on us.”
“I’ve never trusted the Goblins, even when I was given my very first sword, the one you see over there.” Morganna pointed to her sword, which was now blackened by fire. “I was wary. It’s funny. After my first kill, I became less nervous around it, and eventually, it became part of me. Before this morning, I couldn’t imagine life without it. Now, I’m not so sure.
“It will polish up again,” said Ash. “It could look as good as new.”
“It’s not just what it looks like. Something changed when Julianna set those dragons free. Call me superstitious, but it doesn’t feel the same.”
“It is the same sword though, and you are still the most famous dragon Slayer in the kingdom. No one can take that away from you,” I piped up. I hated to think I’d somehow upset my idol.
“Infamous, more like. After meeting you and hearing all you have to say, being the most famous dragon Slayer in the kingdom doesn’t sound particularly great.”
“If you are feeling bad, you shouldn’t. Just like the rest of us, you were duped. However, if you want to make it up to the dragons, I have an idea.”
“She has already made it up to the dragons,” said Alpha, overhearing our conversation and joining us by the campfire. “She has given you food and shelter. She has given you her most prized possession—her sword. I’m grateful that you saved many of us out there, but if it weren’t for you, the forest would not have burned in the first place. I will call us enemies no more, but we have done enough for your people. Morganna has done enough, and she owes you nothing.”
“I didn’t mean to offend.”
“Let the girl speak,” Morganna interjected. “Words cost nothing, after all. What is it you think I can do for you, Julianna?”
“Come home with us.”
“She is home,” snarled Alpha. “This is her home.”
“I know this is her home now. I meant Dronias, her original home. The people there think you are dead. Only my father and possibly a few other elders know the truth about you. The people there are fighting us because they don’t know or don’t believe the truth. Why would they? They have spent their whole lives listening to stories about how dangerous the dragons used to be. They believe that slaying them is the only way of keeping them at bay. It doesn’t matter that there hasn’t been a dragon attack in living history; they want to believe what their parents and grandparents have told them. They don’t believe me, but they’ll believe you.”
“Why would they believe me?”
“Because they were all told you were dead at the hand of a dragon. Even if they don’t like to think about things, they can’t deny that you are still alive if they see you. Your painting still hangs in the village. Everyone there knows what you look like, even the ones like me who were too young to know you the first time around. Once they see you, they’ll know that my father has lied in the past. If they know that, they will begin to question all the other things he has told them.”
“What you are saying makes a lot of sense, but you are forgetting one thing.”
“What?”
“There was a reason I left in the first place.”
“I know. You were having an affair with one of the elders. It was a long time ago. Surely the past can stay in the past.”
“If I go back, the past won’t be in the past though, will it? Rocco will tell Xander’s wife the truth.”
“It happened years ago. You’ve all moved on. I think my father has bigger fish to fry than breaking up a marriage over a brief affair that happened so many years ago. If you are worried about seeing Xander again—”
“No, that’s not it. I haven’t thought about Xander in years. I’ve been happy here. I just don’t want to cause problems.”
“There already are problems. There is a war going on over some ridiculous, century-old feud. The dragons are innocent, and the Slayers are blindly following tradition. Neither side needs to die. The Slayers are good people. You must remember that. Surely it’s not been so long that you’ve forgotten what we are all like?”
“I never said I didn’t think you were good people. I had many people I loved in that village and I’m not just talking about Xander, but I’m still not convinced it’s a good idea to go back there.”
“The people love you, Morganna. Just like me, many of them still think of you as their hero. You are practically worshipped there.”
Morganna sighed. “It’s easier to worship a dead person than like a living one.”
“We need you. It’s not just the dragons that need you, but the Slayers, too. I can’t bear it if anyone else I love gets killed.”
“I don’t want anyone killed as much as you, but I think you overestimate the reception I’ll get.”
“I don’t think I do. I think that you might be surprised.”
Morganna smiled a sad smile. “It’s not something I can decide right now on a whim. It’s not just me I have to think about, but my people too.” She nodded her head to the Wolvren. “I will think about it overnight and let you know in the morning. For now, we all need to sleep. You especially, Julianna. I can see how wiped out you are. You need rest before taking such a long journey. Tonight, you and your fellow dragons can sleep in my hut. It is not much, and there is only one bed, so the rest of you will have to sleep on the floor, I’m afraid. I’ll sleep with Alpha.”
“Thank you, Morganna, but we couldn’t possibly inconvenience you in such a way.”
“I’m sure Alpha will not argue with me sleeping with him.” She smiled. “My hut is the first one there. I’ll see you in the morning.” She pointed to a small hut. I doubted it would fit us all, but it was better than nothing. Morganna took Alpha’s hand and the pair of them retired to the next hut along. One by one, the Wolvren retreated to their homes, leaving just the dragons and me beside the waning fire.
“Come on, let’s go,” said Ash, taking my hand. “I’m sure no one will be upset if you take the bed after everything you’ve been through.”
The others all nodded.
“I want to stay here with you. I’m comfortable. Spear, would you like the bed?”
“I can’t take the bed from you. Ash is right. You should have it.”
“It’s a warm night. I’m comfortable. I’ll get a blanket and lay on it. I think I’d feel better out here in the fresh air.” The truth of the matter was, I wanted Ash to myself. I didn’t want us both squashed up in a small hut with the other dragons. Having a bed wasn’t worth it. Besides, I was comfortable. There was something relaxing about wat
ching the stars peeping through the canopy of trees.
Spear and the others trooped off to Morganna’s cabin while Ash found us some blankets and something to use as pillows. When he lay next to me, with only the sound of the dying fire crackling to keep us company, I knew I’d made the right decision. He lay next to me so I could lay my head on his shoulder, but I took the opportunity to kiss him. I’d kissed him before, but now we were perfectly alone in the most romantic setting anyone could wish for. Not that I’d have cared about the setting. I’d have kissed Ash anywhere.
He kissed me back gently, almost as if afraid I would break at his touch. Yes, I was exhausted. Freeing the dragons had really taken it out of me, but the touch of his lips on mine rejuvenated me, made me feel alive.
It’s strange how the phrase “making out” doesn’t sound very exciting at all, but actually doing it with someone you love is a whole different thing. It transports you to places you never knew existed and makes you feel things that you’ve never felt before. I kissed him hungrily on the lips, then ventured down his neck, planting kisses until he groaned, telling me I was on the right track. As he was wearing a sweater, I couldn’t go any further, so I guided my hands up, below the sweater, feeling the hardness of his muscles beneath the warm fabric. I’d never seen him look so beautiful, with his eyes closed in the light of the fire, enjoying my touch on his body. I kissed him again and this time with more force, letting my tongue part his lips. His body reacted to my touch and he pushed himself closer to me. It was new and exciting, and yet I felt so comfortable in his arms, as if we had done this a thousand times. Kissing him felt like home. So raw and so natural at the same time. It was as if my senses were awakened for the first time. I could have spent the whole night kissing him, but as the fire finally went out and we were plunged into darkness, I realized just how exhausted I still was.
He stroked the side of my face and gazed into my eyes. I could barely see him, even with the help of the little starlight that was shining through, and yet it was enough to see that he looked at me with love in his eyes. I rested my head on his shoulder and let him hold me tightly as I fell asleep in his arms.
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