by Elle Casey
“Love knows no bounds, no enemies, no hurdles, no size differential.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but I really didn’t have any fuel for that. He was right. If he wanted to love me, who was I to say that he couldn’t? Love is love. I’d learned that as a fae.
“Okay, so you love me, which is seriously flattering, especially considering the fact that you haven’t even smelled my morning breath yet, but … um … not to be mean or anything, but I love someone else.”
“Love knows no bounds, no enemies…”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time. But the thing is … I’m kind of a one-man type of girl. And that position has already been filled by this fae named Spike, who you’d really like, not only because he’s nice, but he’s also a great musician. Do you like guitar?”
“I will eat Spike.”
I shook my head vehemently. “Nope, you can’t eat him. No enemies, remember? My love is your love.”
He huffed out some smoke, his great lumbering form not slowing. “I will not eat Spike if it would displease you.”
“It would more than displease me. It would make me stab you with my sword.”
“Love does not know violence.”
“See, that’s the thing…” I leaned down and patted his gently undulating head. “I like you, Othello, I really do. But I don’t love you. So if you make me do it, I will kill you.”
“We are mated. You will not kill me. You cannot.”
I shivered. “Please don’t say mated.” I shivered again. “That implies some sort of copulation, and I am not okay with that.”
“A mating of the minds is not the same as the physical type. It is deeper.”
Deeper? Aaaand the shit just keeps getting worse. “How about we change the subject, ‘kay? Let’s talk about … me getting out of here.”
“We are almost to our destination.”
“We are?” I grabbed both horns and leaned out far, catching a glimpse of light just ahead. “Wow. How long did I sleep?” It looked like full sun outside the cave, but I distinctly remembered arriving in the dead of night.
“Long enough.”
“Oh boy,” I said mostly to myself, “I don’t think I like the sound of that.” As we got closer and closer to the entrance to the cave, my panic rose higher. “Listen, Othello? I feel like I should warn you … I have friends outside who might not understand that you’re not going to hurt me. And I don’t want anything to happen to them.”
“If they do not try to harm us, they will not be harmed.”
“Yeah, see, that’s the thing … I can’t guarantee they won’t try to harm us. They might misunderstand this mating thing.” I swallowed with difficulty, forcing myself to move on and sound casual about the whole affair, even though inside I was feeling very vomity with the stress. “So even if they try to hurt you … us … I want you to give them a pass. Don’t hurt them. Don’t flame them or smoke them out or anything.”
“You are my mate. I will obey you.”
“Obey me?” Now we’re talking. For the first time in what felt like hours or days, I felt some hope. “You mean, you’ll do what I say?”
“Yes. Mates are loyal to one another. Loyalty includes being willing to sacrifice my will for yours.”
I frowned. “Then how come when I said I wanted to leave, you wouldn’t let me?”
“We are leaving. Just as you asked.”
“So that means we … uh … mated, while I slept?”
He didn’t say anything, and I was kind of glad for that. I wasn’t ready for any of the details.
Chapter Thirty-Five
THE SUN WAS BRIGHT, WHICH meant I’d slept at least six hours. What had my friends done while I was gone? Had they worried? Panicked? Celebrated? I knew I’d been paranoid and hateful earlier. It must have been the demon cut making me feel so negative about everything, like Tim said. That didn’t change the fact that I felt bad about it. I hoped I’d have a chance to apologize.
I looked down at my arm expecting to see the evidence of my stupidity glaring out at me, but the wound seemed better than before. It wasn’t oozing anymore, and the edges were closing together, the beginnings of a pink scar forming. Flexing my hand and elbow, I realized it was less painful too. An after-effect of dragon mind-screwing or something else? I didn’t know and would probably never find out, because as soon as this dragon let me out of his cave, I was gone. Gone-ski. Gone-o-Rama. Gonesville. Gone like the wind. Gone girl. Gone…
“Hey! Jayne!” Tim yelled from off to my right. “Over here!” He was hiding behind a boulder, just his head peeking over the top of it.
“Hold on a second, Othello.” I tapped him on the head with my foot. Using the two horns to steady me, I leaned out toward the bottom of the mountain and yelled as loud as I could. “Friends! Fae and Ish! Listen up! Do not hurt or kill the dragon, okay? He’s with me! We’re just going to do a little flyover, and we’ll be right back!”
“Jayne!” It was Spike’s voice, coming from some trees not far below where I was.
Guilt assailed me. Did he know? Did he somehow sense that I’d cheated on him? Could I convince him I hadn’t meant to do whatever I’d done? I wanted to cry with the unfairness. I still wasn’t even sure what I’d done or not done, but it all felt wrong. It was like someone else had taken over my life and steered it in the wrong direction, which really sucked because I was totally capable of doing that all on my own; I didn’t need help.
“Jayne!” His voice was strong. Proud. Fearless. “Are you okay? Do you want me to come up there?”
I thought about it for a few seconds. Did I want him up there? Hell yes, I did. Did I want to risk his life by having him come up there just to make me feel better? Hell no, I didn’t. I searched my mind to determine if my motivations for keeping him back on the ground were entirely unselfish. I didn’t want to think that somewhere deep inside me, I wanted to be alone with this beast — with Othello, the seriously misguided dragon who thought I was his mate. He said love knows none of that garbage he listed, but jealousy was a pretty strong emotion. Would he sense how much I loved Spike and want to lash out? Maybe. If I were him, I would, and that made it not worth the risk.
“No! I’m okay! Be right back!”
“I’ll be your wingman,” Tim said, flying up high enough to be visible to the dragon. “Just tell him not to try and sizzle me.”
“Othello, my pixie friend wants to fly with us. Please do not harm him.”
“He put his dust on you. I should eat him.”
“No, he did that to save me from this demon sword cut on my arm. His heart was in the right place.”
“Pixie dust will not heal that wound.”
I looked down. “Seems to have done a pretty good job.”
“That was my fire that took the venom from your veins.” He huffed out some black smoke. “Hold on. We are leaving.”
I opened my mouth to respond, to ask where exactly we were going, but the quick takeoff stopped that from happening in a hurry. My stomach leaped up into my throat as we went from ground zero to five thousand feet of altitude in about three seconds.
“Holy elevator up,” I said, my voice coming out breathless with panic. I looked around me, freaking out and shaking all over. “Shouldn’t I have some ropes holding me down?”
“I will catch you if you fall,” Othello said, banking left.
“Ahhhhhhhhh !!! … Eeeeee !!! … Ayyyyeee !!! … Ohhhhh !!! …” At this rate, I was going to work my way through all the vowels and then pee my pants at the end. I stopped screaming and took several really quick breaths in and out to try and regulate my oxygen flow. I was dizzy, inhaling way too much carbon dioxide as I tried to keep a handle on my emotions. “I’m gonna fall, I’m gonna fall, I’m gonna fall.” One of my feet slipped on the condensation that was building on Othello’s head. “Aaack!” I grabbed onto one horn with both arms, hugging it like my life depended on it, which I was pretty sure it did.
“Relax. Feel the flow. You
cannot fall.”
I was crying, not even sure when I’d started the waterworks. I squeezed my eyes shut. “No. No flow. No flow. There is no flow. Only death. Splat. Me go boom.”
“Hey, roomie!” came a cheerful voice on my right. “What’s up?”
“Oh my god, Tim,” I whisper-whined, “I’m going to die.”
“You look pretty alive to me. What’s in the bag?”
“I’m only alive because we’re flying straight. The minute he turns, I’m going to slide off and die.”
“Uhhh, hmmm…” He laughed, but didn’t sound very humored. “You may want to crack those lids just a teensy bit.”
“Why?”
He didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t even sure he was still there, but I was too curious not to listen. I cracked one eyelid, but as soon as I realized what I was looking at, I closed it again and screamed even louder than before.
“Whaaaaaaaaa!!” We were flying upside down and my head was pointed at the Earth. I felt myself falling victim to gravity and lifted my feet up so I could wrap my entire body around that horn. My legs clamped on like I was taking Triple H down in the ring with the scissor hold of death. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.” I whispered and cried at the same time. “I’m too young to die, please don’t let me die, please don’t let me die…”
“You are safe.” The dragon flipped over faster than I would have imagined possible, and we were flying straight again, the planet once more beneath my feet where it belonged. I could feel the shift in the force of gravity that I’d missed when we turned the first time; it was too subtle to be possible, though. The laws of physics apparently didn’t apply to dragon flight.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I opened my eyes and slid down the horn. When my feet made contact with his head, I spread them apart, trying to get the best grip possible.
“We are bound. You cannot fall. Let go. Feel the flow between us.”
“Let go? Let go?! Like … me take my hands off your horns?! You’re insane. I’m not doing that.”
“Please.”
“No!” Dragons are crazy. If I ever made it to the ground in one piece, I was going to tell everyone who’d listen that these beasts are certifiably insane so no one would ever make the mistake that I had and climb up on a dragon’s head for a ride. A ride. Hah! Talk about false advertising! More like a flight of death!
He dipped his head and then brought it up really fast, making me lose my footing. A quick flap of his wings jerked my feet out from under me completely, and I fell backwards.
“Aahhhh yeeee!!” I sounded like an Asian lady about to deliver a hell of a karate chop, but unfortunately, I wasn’t all badass like that; I was a klutzy ass and I landed half on my butt and half on my back on top of the dragon’s neck.
I should have fallen to my death, but I didn’t. I should have been speared by one of his spine spikes, but I wasn’t. The ones near me folded down under the weight of my body, and there was something inside that damn dragon that was holding me onto it.
Is that the flow he was talking about? Damn. It is pretty … flowy. Now that I was paying attention, I could feel some sort of force binding me to him. It was like one of my elements, but not something I was controlling.
Spirit, something said inside my head.
Pushing with my hands behind me, I slowly sat up, the satchel that had remained strapped to me sliding over to rest between my legs in front of me.
“What. The. Hell.” The wind was sliding through my hair and cooling me off with the help of all the sweat that covered every inch of my body. “I’m not dead.”
“No. You are not dead,” Othello said.
“I’m feeling the flow.”
“As am I.”
A cloud of depression descended on my head. “Spike is going to be very jealous and very sad.”
“Who is Spike?”
“I told you already. He’s my man. My boyfriend. The one I love.”
“No. Who is Spike?”
“Is that a riddle?”
“No. It is a question.”
I had to think about it for a while. The wind whistled past my ears as I thought really strongly about the words. Who is Spike? To me or to the rest of the world? I realized that my previous answer had been more about who Spike was to someone looking at us from outside. A label. So I decided this time to answer the question from inside my heart.
“Spike is the other half of my whole self. The one who makes me want to be a better me. He’s the one being in the world who loves me exactly as I am and who will stand by me no matter how much I screw up and no matter how many bad choices I make. He denies who he is so he can be who I need him to be.” My heart both sang and cried at that definition of my man. It made me feel selfish and like I was taking advantage of his love. And it made me twice as determined to get down off this dragon’s back and be with him. I had a lot of love to share with that incubus and not enough time in one life to share it.
“He may come with us,” Othello said.
“Seriously?” Apparently, dragon love was also cool with threesomes. Sweet. I had a very strong feeling Spike wouldn’t mind. “Where are we going?”
“To the portal.”
I scrambled up to the horns on my hands and knees and looked down into Othello’s eyeball. “You mean it?” I was too afraid to hope. Too afraid to believe.
“Yes.”
I wrestled with my conscience. Should I tell him when I get there that I’m going to leave him behind? Tell him I was kind of using him? I wanted to answer my question with a big, fat no, but that didn’t seem right. And since he’d cured me of my nasty demon boo-boo, it only seemed fair.
“Othello, I have a confession.”
“No, you do not.”
“Uhh, yes I do.”
“I already know what is in your mind and in your heart.”
I swallowed hard. “Say what?”
“You intend to bring your friends to the portal and leave me behind in this realm. You are battling with your nature. Part of you wants to tell me. Part of you wants to hide your desires from me.”
“Ah, excuse me, but I’m not sure I’m okay with you crawling around in my brain like that.”
“Then you should shut the portal to the channel between us.”
“How am I supposed to do that when I didn’t even know there was a portal or a channel?”
“You will learn. For now, you know that I will not be left behind. You and I are mated. Where you go, I will follow.”
“But what about Ishmail?” I asked, feeling really shitty about stealing his dragon away.
“Ishmail will find his mate and we will be together as one family. This is how the dragon-human partnership works.”
“Oh.” I had to noodle through that a little. “So, you get your dragon mate, I get my human mate, Ish gets whatever mate he’s going to get, and then we all hang out together? Making babies and all that?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
I bit my lip, wondering if I should say aloud what I was thinking. It seemed kind of porno-ey, but there was no stopping my brain when it got on that track. “So who’s going to be having your babies?”
He didn’t answer, and I didn’t have time to quiz him on it more because Tim was suddenly there and he was showing off his aerodynamic skills. And clearly, I was expected to admire them, loudly and with flair, so rather than find out the details about the birds and the bees dragon-style, I focused on my roommate, my brilliant friend, pixieman extraordinaire, Tim. Damn, I was so happy I’d picked up that bell jar that day…
Chapter Thirty-Six
TIM WAS FLYING UPSIDE DOWN and backwards with his hands linked behind his head and his legs crossed at the ankles, and he was doing it all while going about fifty miles an hour.
“Damn, pixieman, you are busting it on that flying stuff right now.”
“I know, right? These dragon wing currents are something else. Watch this one.” He dipped into a backbend, for a few se
conds just hovering, and then suddenly with a slight tilt further back, he zoomed past me in a blur, suddenly at the back of the dragon. “Woo hoo! You see that?!” He stopped at the dragon’s tail, standing on the last spike with just one foot that was pointed so only his big toe was making contact. His arms were out at his sides, making him look like a totally fruity ballerina.
“Swan Lake ain’t got nothin’ on you!”
“I know, right? That’s what I was saying!”
Suddenly the dragon’s tail swooshed really hard right, sending Tim into a cartwheeling spin.
“Whoa-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhhh!” He disappeared into a puffy cloud, leaving a hole in it behind him.
I gripped the horn I’d been holding onto lightly, even though I really didn’t need to anymore, and my knuckles went instantly white with the pressure. “Tim!”
A weird sound came from a distance and got louder and louder until suddenly he was there again. “WoooooooOOOOOHHHH HOOOO!!!” He flew by me, lying on his side, arms outstretched Superman style. “Yeah, baby! Yeah!” He banked right and flew around the dragon’s back end, giving the end of its tale a wide berth. “Can’t touch this!” he yelled at Othello.
“Just ignore him,” I said in a low voice to the dragon.
“I am trying.”
I giggled. What a cool dragon, not killing my roommate even though any other dragon probably would have. I felt powerful and liked. Maybe even loved, which was weird, because like I said, Othello hadn’t even smelled my morning breath yet.
When Tim disappeared into another cloud at our side, I looked down. The landscape had changed. There were more trees here and even flowers. Huge hillsides were covered in their colors. At a cliff in front of us, a giant waterfall fell from hundreds of feet in the air, and Othello banked steeply upward, running parallel to it until we reached the summit. There, we could look out over a valley on the other side of this mountain filled with trees, meadows, and wildlife running in herds.