by Jaime Samms
“Gramps?”
“Grandparents. It was their farm. Mom’s folks. Dad’s are all on the East Coast. He came here to work in one of the mines. Lasted a week, he said, when he met Mom and took a job on the farm. They got married a month later, had me, then eighteen months later, Daisychain, and never looked back.”
“It sounds nice.”
“It was. Dad was a genius. Between working on the farm and taking a few electrical engineering classes, he figured there was a way to turn any greenhouse into an automated plant nursery. Eventually between Mom’s green thumb and Dad’s computers, they built an entire company on the concept that the right automation, along with companion planting and multiculture planting and weather monitoring, could save water and turn any suburban yard into a high-yield, self-sustaining, environmentally positive space. They were pretty great.”
He blinked, and the auto slowed. “Shit. I can’t see.”
Swiftly Sunny swiped at his eyes and drew in a soggy breath.
“I’m sorry.” Emile patted Sunny’s hand where it gripped the wheel in a white-knuckled fist.
“No.” Sunny shot a hand out to grip Emile’s before it got very far. “You couldn’t know. It’s okay.” Sunny hung on, and for a little while, they remained quiet.
Chapter 21
THE RIDE back to the cabin was a quiet one. Emile watched out the side of the truck and Sunny sank into the silence, grateful not to have to explain anything else. He was exhausted not from running through the forest, but from the heart-stopping fright of thinking he’d lost his dog, from the confusing tilt of the world when Emile swept him up like he was a child who weighed nothing, treated his cuts, comforted his breakdown yet again, and showed himself in a different, more illuminating light.
Sunny wanted to think he was at a place of acceptance about his parents. It had been a year, after all. But a year was a blink of time compared to the whole rest of his life.
“You are still upset.” Emile squeezed Sunny’s fingers. They were holding hands across the wide centre console, and the touch grounded him, kept him centred and out of the haze of sadness. He squeezed back.
“Thinking about my dead parents upsets me,” he admitted, belatedly thinking that probably sounded snippier than he’d meant it to.
“I can’t say I understand,” Emile admitted.
“Your parents are still alive?”
Emile said nothing for a long time. “Those who created me… didn’t raise me. So even though the one who raised me… died… yes.” He was quiet again for a moment, and Sunny risked a glance. He was staring out the windshield, a thoughtful look on his face. “I miss that bond. It was a loss.”
“But it wasn’t your whole world.”
“It was the one connection where I was allowed to be who—and what—I truly am. No one else understood, and so I left. I don’t miss the others, and I don’t miss that bond less here than I missed it at home.” He shrugged. “But it is gone. I am not. I honour it by continuing to fight to be myself.” He frowned. “If that makes any sense.”
Sunny nodded. “I grow my plants to honour Mom. I left the company to Daisy to honour Dad. She was more like him—more liked by him—than I ever was. It works out.”
“Then we move forward with this new life. Yes?”
“We?”
Emile grinned, and Sunny would have sworn, before he had to look back to the road, that he’d glimpsed pointed teeth, and a wicked, brilliant gleam in Emile’s sapphire eyes.
“We,” Emile whispered, leaning close enough to blow the word in a hot breath against Sunny’s neck, raising a flush over his skin. “Whatever comes.”
He had to concentrate to keep the Rover in a straight line, but the promise was already made, and his cock had heard. He didn’t want to ask what Emile meant by “whatever comes.” One thing at a time.
FORTUNATELY THEY pulled into the yard only a moment later. Neither of them seemed to need to talk about what came next. Apparently running headlong through the forest got Emile going, and Sunny wasn’t about to complain. The chance to lose himself in all the ways Emile was touching him came as a welcome relief. His parents wouldn’t be any less dead and gone afterwards, but at least, as he lay sated in Emile’s arms, blankets tossed over their legs, the scents of sex and sunshine permeating the warm air of the loft, he didn’t feel quite so disconnected from the world.
Having Emile around was changing him. In his bones, he knew he wasn’t the same man who had run to the woods to be alone, away from everyone and everything that reminded him of his loss. He had a connection now.
Next to him Emile moaned softly, snuffling in half sleep. He was so warm, and their sweat and come was drying between them. Sunny was content, but the sleepy lethargy that seemed to have overcome Emile didn’t clutch at his own limbs. He watched Emile doze for a few minutes before deciding he needed to move.
Not wanting to go far, he merely went down to the bathroom to sponge most of the afternoon’s activities away, and to make two cups of coffee. He dressed both with a generous dose of Irish cream and padded back up the steps. It would be nice to kiss Emile awake, share the coffee, and laze in bed for the afternoon. Being temporarily unemployed did have its perks.
For a heartbeat, as he topped the steps and viewed the bed from a few steps down, a slight motion made him think Emile had already woken. Then he thought Fernforest must have wheedled his way under the covers to snuggle in the crook of Emile’s knees.
Then he saw the snake slithering, body first, out from under the covers and off the side of the bed.
Sunny screamed, charging up the last few steps, spraying coffee over his fingers as he dashed to kick at the coiling mass of scales.
Emile cried out as if in pain, spinning up into a crouch on the bed to glare at Sunny, whipping his tail around, knocking books, a glass of water, and a lamp off the bedside table with a crash. A framed picture of Sunny’s parents bounced off the bed to the rug next to it, the muffled thump drowned out by the coffee cups hitting the floor in a splashing, shattering mess. Hot coffee splattered over Sunny’s feet, and he cursed, dancing back.
“The fuck!” Sunny shouted.
“What?” Emile danced in his crouch, spinning this way and that as Sunny pointed. “What is it?”
“The fuck is that?” Sunny said at the same time, and Emile stilled.
He became so still, in fact, Sunny thought he had stopped breathing.
“Sunny?” Emile slowly reached out a hand, arms bent, fingers outstretched but not close enough to touch. Which was good, because the back of his hand glowed with iridescent splotches that, after a heartbeat, resolved themselves into neatly laid-out scales. Pink scales. Pretty pink scales. Feathers bloomed up the backs of his arms and around his ankles.
“Scales!” Sunny rasped, pointing. He finally tore his gaze away from what he’d thought was a snake—but obviously couldn’t be because it was fuchsia—from Emile’s hand, to Emile’s ashen, terrified face.
Emile drew his hand back, covering the pink shimmering with his other, equally scaled hand. He settled on his haunches, partly supported by a thick, scaled tail, also in shades of pink and purple. “I—” He blinked. His eyes were huge, brilliantly blue, and haunted. A splash of what Sunny thought were more feathers poked from under Emile’s long hair and drifted in fluffy pink lines farther up the backs of his forearms. “Give me a moment.”
Frankly Sunny was too stunned to do anything but stand there in the pool of cooling coffee, breathe, and try not to gibber.
After a moment, the feathers rustled and floated to the bed. The pink iridescence to Emile’s skin remained, though it didn’t appear so scalelike anymore. The tail curled around him, hiding his feet, the end twitching like a nervous reflex. His eyes remained huge and frightened.
“I can explain,” Emile whispered. “If you let me.”
Chapter 22
“I-IF….” SUNNY gulped and tried again. “If I le—” He had to clear his throat. “If I let you?”
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“You could throw me out,” Emile pointed out as he curled his feet under himself and began to rake in the discarded feathers to pat into a rough circle around him. He used his hands and his tail, and Sunny couldn’t stop staring at the very exacting way that appendage moved, as nimble as Emile’s fingers. Once the feathers were gathered, Emile pulled the covers around his legs. He dragged pillows close, even hauled one into his lap with his tail, creating a nest for himself as Sunny watched.
“Can I?” Sunny asked, voice low, still shaking, but what the hell. He had a right to shake. If Emile could have scales and a tail—a tail—Sunny could shake for a little while. “Th-throw you out, I mean. If I wanted to?” He wasn’t sure a—something—with a tail had to agree to be thrown out of anywhere if he didn’t want to be.
“It ees your housse. You don’t have to let me sstay.”
“The accent again,” Sunny said, because that was the elephant in the room.
“I am ssorry.” Emile closed his eyes, swallowed a few times, and squared his shoulders. “Some of the changes you can’t see on the outside,” he explained in a more normal cadence. “My voice box does—weird things midshift.”
“Right.” Midshift. Because shifting was real. The fuck!
Silence. Exactly how did one go about asking their boyfriend just what kind of—of—
“Huh.” Sunny blew out a breath. He met Emile’s gaze.
“Huh?” Emile lifted an eyebrow, which was, Sunny noticed, a brilliant lemon yellow, like the tips of his hair and some of the feathers still gracing his ankles.
“The oddest thing here”—Sunny shuddered and pointed to the side of his head—“isn’t even that I don’t know how to ask you what… well. You know.” He waved a hand. “The oddest thing is that I just thought of you as my boyfriend, and I’m not sure that’s entirely, well….” Normal.
I should be freaking out. Running for the car, grabbing my dog, and getting the hell out.
He watched the last five or six inches of Emile’s tail twitch and fiddle with the fringe on an afghan, mimicking the way he fiddled the edge of the pillowcase he held in his lap with his long, perfect fingers.
So then, I guess, just ask.
“What are you?”
“I’m a dragon.”
They spoke at the same instant, both staring at the other, breath held at the end, waiting.
SUNNY CONTEMPLATED.
There was something in his woods. Something impossibly fast that spewed smoke and ash in its wake and easily outran his dog.
The nightshade was growing so fast he could all but watch it crawl along the railing of his little bridge.
His rose bush had bloomed overnight and slightly out of season.
His trees seemed to move on their own and watch him from their side of the creek.
And the creek. He remembered the fanciful images he’d “imagined” in the water that first day. A dragon and a dog, gambolling.
He’d found a naked, lost man in his old shack, and suddenly everything about that discovery took on a whole new shape. A shape that sported a pink tail.
Sunny glanced at Fernforest, who had jumped up to flop against Emile’s side, heedless of the coil of scales he’d laid his chin on. “You.” He approached the bed and Ferny’s tail thumped a few light taps against the sheets. “You. Knew,” he accused the dog.
Ferny yipped and grinned at him.
Emile stopped his fiddling long enough to pet Fernforest around his ears. He got a few licks on the bottom of one foot for his trouble, and then turned his attention back to Sunny.
“You’re a traitor, Fernforest,” Sunny growled. He lifted a foot, grimaced, and frowned at the spilled coffee.
Fernforest jumped off the bed and started licking it up. The caffeine and the whiskey probably weren’t good for him, but Sunny had bigger issues at the moment that eclipsed a probably magical dog who could talk to his boy—
He mentally shook himself, but the label remained in place. A magical dog who can talk to my shifter boyfriend. “So many things wrong with that thought,” he muttered.
Emile remained quiet, watching him.
“Okay,” he said at last, relocated one pace to the side so Fernforest wasn’t licking his toes. “A dragon. I don’t… get it.”
Sunny gnawed on his lower lip until the sting alerted him to the habit. He brushed the back of his hand over his mouth. Emile had been patiently waiting for him to ask something, only he had no idea where to begin.
Okay. Emile is a dragon shifter. Explains some things. He glanced at the appendage flicking at the edge of the rug on Emile’s side of the bed, but looked away quickly. “How big are you?”
“What?” Emile blinked at him and his tail twitched more emphatically.
His tail is twitching. Like a goddamn cat. A scaly cat. What the ever-loving fuck?
“I’m….” Emile touched the top of his head. “This big. I don’t understand. You know how big I am.” He moved his hand, and it hovered for a heartbeat above his groin, but he must have thought better of the joke. Probably best. Sunny wasn’t at the joking stage quite yet.
“No, I mean as a dragon? How big a dragon are you? Like, ten feet? Twelve? Bigger, even? Can you even shift in the house?”
Emile narrowed his eyes. “Is that a trick question? I’m as big as I am.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then tipped his head. “Though when I have scales and more legs, I suppose… then I am bigger than this.” He indicated his body. “I never really thought about it.”
Sunny’s eyes got wide. “More legs?”
“Six. Yes. And a tail.” He flicked said tail, and Sunny shivered as the tip caressed his bare calf. That was… oh. The tail moved up, curving over his knee and sliding along his thigh. “You really know nothing about us, do you?” Emile asked.
“That’s distracting,” Sunny pointed out, jerking his leg like he might if Ferny were licking him. “And hello. No. Dragons aren’t—um, weren’t—real when I went down to get coffee ten minutes ago. Sort of flying blind here. Stop that!”
Emile’s tail had wiggled under the cuff of his boxers.
Emile just grinned at him. Sunny would find the only living dragon shifter with a dirty sense of humour. And a prehensile tail. “For fuck sakes!”
“Okay, okay. Sorry.” Emile put his tail away and sat back. “Ask me anything.”
“Can you breathe fire?” That might be cool. And was super relevant, but what the fuck.
Emile chuckled. “That’s a myth.”
“Oh.” Disappointing, but not the end of the world. He still had the fireplace. “So dragons can’t breathe fire?”
“Well.” Emile hesitated. “Some can, I suppose. Sort of, although it wouldn’t be breathing, exactly. I expect it’s very difficult and probably as dangerous for the dragon as whoever he’s breathing fire at. Mixing magic with physiology to that degree is always somewhat… problematic.”
Now Sunny chuckled. “Whoever he’s breathing it at? What? Girl dragons don’t breathe fire?”
Emile stared at him, horrified. “Why would an Egg-bearer do anything that endangered their potential offspring? That makes no sense whatsoever.”
“Oh. I—” Touchy subject, then. Why, I wonder? “Egg-bearer? Do they have names? Or just the designation?” He couldn’t imagine Daisy allowing any guy, or, well, any anyone to dictate what she could or couldn’t do with her body.
Emile pushed up straighter and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why would they not have names?” He cocked his head. “They’re dragons, not property.”
“You just called them Egg-bearers. Like that’s all they are.”
“Egg-bearers is as close as I can think of in English to describe how they think of themselves.” He smirked. “Would you prefer ‘vessels of all life, keepers of the Enclave, curators of our history and nurtures of the future’?”
Sunny thought about that. “Well. Yes, actually.”
“Kind of a mouthful, don’t you think?”
&nbs
p; “But slightly more dignified than Egg-bearers.”
“Being chosen to carry the eggs for your House or Enclave is among the greatest of honours for my kind. So to us, being called an Egg-bearer isn’t such a tragedy. It means you will be pampered and cared for—worshipped, even—by the Sires whose offspring you will be blessed to raise, and by the House or Enclave they will eventually join. It is truly something many of us aspire to. A ‘designation’ any one of my kind would be proud of.” Emile swallowed hard. “Most of the time.”
“And there’s the story.” Sunny settled onto the bed. “Explain.”
WELL. FOUR small words too far, Emile. How deeply his society was imprinted after all his attempts to buck the conventions. He shot a look at Sunny, who watched him expectantly.
“You came here for a reason,” Sunny said quietly, taking his hand like he sensed the deep waters. “People don’t leave their entire lives, all they know, their whole family and anyone who might love them, behind for no reason. What was yours?”
“You said ‘girls don’t breathe fire,’” Emile began.
“And you corrected me.”
“You know there are some species, even in your world, where a gender switch for the good of the species is a fairly normal occurrence.”
“Some amphibians, I think. And?”
“Even in your own species—”
“Gender isn’t a fixed variable. I get it.”
“Far from fixed, Sunny. For my people, gender, well, it isn’t.”
“Um.” Sunny glanced pointedly down at Emile’s crotch. “Do we need a graphic demonstration, Mr Dragon?”
Despite the clump of cold goo congealed inside, Emile chuckled. “Not if you want to get to the end of the lesson any time soon. And just because dragons have the ability to change our outward appearance with a thought, that doesn’t always have any effect on how we think of ourselves.”