by Seth Eden
“Clothes? You do remember I’m a shifter. I have no need for clothes out here by myself.”
Samantha rubbed at her temples; Fate was apparently conspiring against her, forcing her to be stuck with a man who had an aversion for covering himself up.
“Do you… think I could borrow a bed sheet, then?”
Zen’s knife was poised high in the air once more, ready to take a swing. Her questions were definitely delaying his meal preparation.
“One second…” He tossed the knife onto the counter and headed into his bedroom. He stripped the sheets from his bed and stormed into the bathroom, dropping the pile of sheets onto the ground.
“No, not th-... what are you doing!!!”
Samantha tried her best to cover herself up, her arms thrown around her chest as she ducked down into the water. Didn’t this guy have manners of any kind?!
“You asked for bedsheets! ... what did you do to my bathroom!?!”
There was practically water everywhere. The bed sheets were already soaking up what had been spilled onto the floor, rendering them useless to sleep in tonight.
“Get out, get out!” she screamed as she scooped some water into her hands and threw it at him, anything to get him out.
Zen waiting for a few seconds outside the door, expecting there to be another exclamation of some sort. Something that would stop his task once more and forcing him to her beck and call to keep her satisfied. When he heard nothing from her, he finally returned to the kitchen to begin preparing the meal for the day.
Samantha flushed hot and cold as she tried to assemble the too-large bed sheet around herself. Her frustrations of not finishing still lingered. The ache of her loins was still pervasive, distracting her from her predicament. And yet, she wanted nothing more than to return to that steaming tub and finish. Damn the man... that Zen outside, she didn’t give a crap if he heard her or not.
And yet her belly demanded otherwise. It wanted a fill after she’d expended so much energy trying to find satisfaction. her chest was still heaving even now, every muscle in her body taut and ready for more. Her hands and fingers shook from exertion and she knew she was either going to have to wait until nightfall or find some other means to a release.
By the time she stepped out of the bathroom with the sheet wrapped around herself, the small place was filled with the aromatic scents of cooking meats. Several large slices of fruit were already sitting out on a tray, seemingly waiting for her consumption. Or was this another trick?
“Are...” The parched state of her throat choked back the word. She cleared it, wishing she’d gotten some water to drink. “Are you sharing?” She peeked around the doorway of the kitchen to find Zen’s muscular back, his arm going to work on something.
“That’s for you until this is ready,” he replied, gesturing over his back with the knife.
Samantha felt she should at least utter a thank you, that he didn’t have to do any of this. Then she reminded herself that he was only keeping her for his own benefit, to bait Ethan into coming here. The offer of a meal was just to keep her alive.
So she turned and devoured the laid-out fruit. It was sweet and juicy; the flesh stained her fingers pink and the seeds stubbornly clung to her teeth. Biting through them released a bitter aftertaste that she didn’t much like.
Zen stabbed the knife into the slices of meat and turned them over one by one. The green sprigs and large black seeds popped and curled in response, releasing their aromatics into the air and the juices it was cooking in.
“Hey. You,” he called out over his shoulder. His guest wasn’t the only one who could play that game.
Samantha struggled to devour the large bite she’d taken before answering.
“What?”
Not the answer he was looking for.
“How do you want your meat done?”
Did he honestly care, she thought, or was he just trying to make conversation?
“Medium... well, I suppose.”
“Do you have a name?”
She debated whether she should tell him. He’d said he had no reason to kill her and had made a promise to Dominic that he wouldn’t harm a hair on her head. But he’d also lied about knowing where Ethan was.
“... you can just call me Sam.”
Sam, huh? Zen was sure that was short for something, but if she wanted to keep the entire truth to herself, that was fine. At least they both knew each other’s names now.
“You know... you shouldn’t have gotten into my stuff. That salve you used on yourself? That’s meant for my personal moments alone. ... it looked like you used a lot of it.”
Samantha paused in her eating. Her cheeks burned as she swallowed another piece of fruit. So she hadn’t been imagining things. No wonder she’d...
“I guess that makes you some kind of pervert, then. If you didn’t want me using it, you should have told me where the soap was before you left,” she replied in a huff and took another bite. At this rate, there wasn’t going to be any fruit left before he was done with the cooking.
“I didn’t exactly plan to have a guest here, you know. And I didn’t expect said guest would go poking around in my stuff without asking permission.”
“I was supposed to sit here in my own filth, waiting for you to come back from... wherever it was you were?”
“If you had, you wouldn’t have gotten yourself in your current predicament, don’t you think?” Another flip of the meat and a few more minutes, and it would be ready to eat.
“Even now, even from here, I can still smell the yearning on you. You didn’t find the satisfaction you were looking for, and now you’re all pent up with no way of getting it all out.”
“You can... smell it on me...” Samantha didn’t like where this conversation was going, especially with how easily he was laying out the facts of her supposed very private moment.
“I can. All shifters can. Did Ethan not tell you about all of that?”
As Samantha sucked the juice from a stained finger, it slowly dawned on her that Ethan really hadn’t divulged much about what he was. Not really. She’d had to learn some of it from Jen just yesterday, and witnessed her first transformation when she’d flown her to her house. Ethan... had done none of that with her. As if he hadn’t wanted her to know for some reason. No... He must have been waiting for the right time. There had to be some better reason he hadn’t shared any of this with her.
To keep her thoughts off herself, she decided to turn the conversation back to him.
“How much... can you smell, exactly? Like... specifics?”
Zen removed the pan from the hot stone he’d heated with his fiery breath and gave the cooked meat one more toss.
“In specifics? In terms of... you? I could smell your activities before I stepped inside. In fact, I’m surprised the other creatures out there didn’t mistake you for something in heat.” He was a little thankful that the meal was dulling some of his senses or else the potency of her hormones would still be bowling him over.
“I can also tell that you remain unsatisfied. You didn’t quite... find what you were looking for. To be vague about it.”
Samantha ran her finger along the surface of the tray, collecting whatever juices remained of the fruit and pressed them to her tongue. So his senses were that keen? She wondered if she had those kinds of powers if she would be able to tell what he was thinking if she could “sniff” out his truth.
“Can you tell when someone is lying?”
Zen strolled into the main room and placed the hot pan on the table. In the other hand, he held two knives. The sight of them put Samantha a little on edge until he held out one for her to take, handle first.
When their hands touched, a spark seemed to run up her arm and down her back, inspiring that unsated drive to rekindle anew. Her hair stood on end with the contact, and she could feel her sex starting to swell once more. The lubrication she hadn’t wiped away was refreshed as well, and she was sure that if something wasn’t done about
it soon, it was going to burst.
The touch froze Zen in the moment as well. That spike in her hormones permeated the air, leaving him drunk on the scent of her. He felt light-headed, felt all the blood rushing to his nether region. She wasn’t his kind of woman but he could see those nipples of hers poking through the bedsheet, could see them getting harder and straining against the fabric with every passing second.
“Oh god,” she whispered and turned away quite suddenly.
The moment broken, he looked down to realize that he’d become erect and his member had been pointing right at her face. Zen sat quickly and dragged a cushion over his lap to spare her the sight of his erection. The pan full of cooked meat was quickly placed on the low table before them.
“I apologize. I didn’t mean for…”
Samantha would have fainted right then and there if she blushed any harder. She had to admit that she was a little impressed by what he was working with, having never seen such girth before. Part of her knew she should have been angrier about it too, but for the effects of that gel still coursing through her system.
“How… much longer…”
Zen hugged the cushion tighter against his person.
“Is that question really appropriate???!”
“I wasn’t finished! I was asking how much longer this stupid stuff I used is going to last! This is becoming unbearable!”
“Another two, three hours, maybe? I don’t know how much of that stuff you used.”
He should leave, he told himself. He should just get up and leave and take a long trip away from here to clear his head and get away from her. Then maybe he could come back and they could start fresh without all these pheromones filling the room. It would also give her the time she needed to… finish. That honestly didn’t seem like a better option, especially if he wanted to remain hidden from that Dominic guy.
He cleared his throat, recalling her earlier question instead.
“You, uh, asked if I can tell when people are lying. If I can smell it on them? It depends on the kind of liar. Pathological ones are so confident in their fallacies, there’s no hint of stress in the air. It’s not like I’m some kind of polygraph machine if that’s what you’re asking. Why are you so interested in my sense of smell anyway?” He stabbed his knife into a piece of meat and dragged it off with his teeth. It was juicy and flavourful, enough to hone his senses on to help distract his body from its current predicament.
“I... don’t know anything about shifters, really, if that wasn’t obvious by now. Ethan... probably would have taught me about all of this stuff eventually. Can’t you just sniff him out if your sense of smell is that good?” She sniffed the peace of meat before taking a small nibble. Not bad, maybe a little gamier than what she was used to. And eating meant she didn’t have to look at him anymore.
“If it was, I would have found him already and I wouldn’t have the need to keep you here, would I?” Zen shut his eyes and shook his head. He was supposed to be playing nice. “What I meant to say was that shifters can go invisible at will and that masks their scents from others. I would have to scour this entire planet before I could pick up on his trail again, and who knows where he would be by then.”
“You... can go invisible?” Samantha paused in her eating. How much could shifters really do?
“... he really didn’t tell you anything, did he? Once we’re finished here, I’ll give you a demonstration outside.” Zen gave her something of a smile; it was cold, a little standoffish but he was trying his best to look friendly.
“Are you sure that’s wise with people looking for you?”
“Oh, so you’re concerned for me now? I would think you’d want people to find me.”
As he slipped another piece into his mouth, Samantha huffed and finished her own. Her question had nothing to do with concern for his well-being. Rather, it questioned just how sound his plan was. If he was trying to stay off Dominic’s radar, an impromptu lesson in shifter powers wasn’t the best thing to be doing at the moment. But she wasn’t going to stop him if he wanted to be stupid.
Zen was slightly amused at her state of annoyance but didn’t want to earn any more of it. So he smothered his smile behind more bites of his meal until the pan was empty. Satisfied, he slapped his full stomach and got to his feet. With his energy restored, he was prepared to give her a show.
At least he didn’t seem to be on her bad side anymore.
7
“Just get to the good stuff,” Samantha said with a roll of her eyes. She’d already seen how shifters changed between forms and already learned that they could speak telepathically with each other and non-shifters.
“It’s all good stuff, if you really think about it,” Zen huffed as he quickly made the change. As his silhouette became something new, Samantha couldn’t help but be struck by terror on seeing the brown dragon before her again. Those long scars across his eye and muzzle... She recoiled slightly into the doorway.
Thankfully, Zen ignored the scent of fear emanating from her. He should have expected as much from her and didn’t want to put her on the spot for it. If she was really uncomfortable, she would let him know or retreat inside.
“So, these are for flying.” He wiggled his wings against his side. That earned him another eye roll from Samantha.
“Now you’re just being obtuse on purpose.”
“It’s amusing you, isn’t it?”
She looked away and pressed a hand to her mouth. She was becoming too familiar with this man and that didn’t seem right. He’d kept her fed, sure, but that was the extent of the pleasantries he’d showed her. He still hadn’t earned any of her respect.
She tugged on the wrapped and knotted bedsheet she still wore around her person. She was going to have to get new clothes somehow or wash her old ones in the tub.
“And you’ve seen firsthand that we can breathe fire. There’s the invisibility thing.” Dragon-Zen straightened his posture until his head rose high above the foliage and with a simple blink, he winked out of view. It happened so suddenly that Samantha was sure it was just a trick of the light, some kind of illusion that was playing with her mind.
“Where... what the...?” She stumbled forward, her hands out in front of her until she collided with something quite solid. A hearty chuckle inside her mind brought a sour look to her face.
“I don’t exactly vanish into thin air. It’s just the way out scales work. They refract the light around us so that you’re seeing what’s behind us. See if I move around...” Zen took a few steps forward and wiggled his wings again. If she shifted her eyes away from him, she could see his silhouette in her peripheral vision.
“That’s... pretty awesome, actually. Kind of like our chameleons on Earth. Except not really. How old were you when you learned to do that?”
“... in human years or shifter years?”
“What’s the difference?”
Zen winked back into view and lowered himself to his stomach. He nudged a claw-tipped paw against his chin in contemplation.
“You humans live for, what, about eighty years? A shifter can live for a few thousand. So I mastered invisibility when I was about... a hundred and fifty or so. That would be like twelve in your years.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, I am not kidding you. ... did you honestly not know that we lived for that-...” Zen stopped himself, remembering that Ethan had told her nothing. He had to stop raising his questions like this.
“Our lifespans are about four thousand years, give or take. So that gives us a long time to figure out a lot of things. Like figuring out how to give ourselves these powers in the first place. You know about the immunity thing... oh, we also don’t need to breathe in space, so if we wanted to fly anywhere, we could. It would just take us a long time.”
“I... thought you guys didn’t have any ships of your own because you didn’t want to go anywhere.”
Zen chuckled a little at that. It was a keen observation.
“You’re partially right. We could fly to Earth... in fact, we used to, all those fairytales you have of dragons kidnapping princesses and all that... that was us. Well, not me specifically, that was still before my time. We don’t do that anymore because it just took too long. Hence hiring out the work to... others.” He gave her a rolling shrug and a rattle of his crests to demonstrate his disapproval of the entire matter.
“And you couldn’t just... build your own ships to get there more quickly?” Samantha paced around him, taking in the sight of his large form now that she had a moment to see what he really looked like from all angles.
“That’s a matter of pride. We have wings of our own, why build mechanical ones?”
“That’s... honestly stupid.”
“Don’t look at me, I agree with you.” He curled his tail around himself so that she could get a better look at it.
“So technologically-advanced and your people still let stupid things like that hold you back.” She shook her head; it seemed that kind of stupidity wasn’t unique to humans; several leaders of the years made dumb decisions for selfish reasons that cost everyone else but themselves. It was why Earth became what it was before she left: a singular city of 50,000, the entire planet’s population confined to an insular society dependent on the marvels of modern technology to keep them alive instead of living off the land. Meat was grown in labs, clothing was recycled and remade into new ones, and the water... well, she didn’t want to think about all the processes it went through just to make it potable again.
“Why don’t you tell me more about Earth?” He stretched his wings out and gave a great big yawn, revealing a savage row of teeth on each jaw.
“Before or after it was destroyed?”
Zen blinked twice and cocked his head to one side.
“Destroyed? What do you mean?”
“I mean destroyed. As in there’s nothing to go back to. Those wolf-aliens your people use to transport our kind here? It seems our astronauts pissed them off enough that they wiped out the rest of human civilization. Looks like no more future wives for your people. Not from my planet, at least.”