by Carly Fall
Eric dropped it at her feet, then shifted into his human form. Immediately, she noticed a difference in him. He walked toward her with greater confidence, and didn’t seem to be fazed by his nakedness. Before, he had gazed upon her as something better than he was, and he’d always tried to cover up. Apparently, there had been some shift in him when he’d discovered his dragon, something that gave him the power he’d been lacking before as a mere mortal man.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing demon blood across his face.
Placing his hands on either side of her, he trapped her against the wall as he kicked her gift to the side.
“The seams will close shortly,” she whispered as her body warmed at his closeness.
“Yes.”
“I thought you didn’t want to stay.”
“I didn’t think I belonged here,” he replied as he traced her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “I was weak compared to you and your people. I couldn’t even turn into a damn dragon.”
She shook her head, surprised he had felt that way. She’d never heard him describe himself as weak.
“I never thought that.”
“I know.”
With a smile, she glanced down at the demon. “Thank you for exacting my revenge for me.”
“It just happened. I saw him and it was like a switch flipped on inside of me. I was running on instinct.”
She met his gaze again, and she could see the longing for her in his eyes.
If he would just kiss her and take her in his arms, all could be right in their world once again. They could erase the past centuries where they’d been apart and pick up right where they’d left off.
“Do you believe the scroll?” he asked. “Do you really think I’m supposed to be one of the rulers of our people?”
Her whole body shuddered upon hearing him refer to those in this land as ‘their people.’ She grinned as she fought the urge to jump up and down and scream at the top of her lungs with joy.
“Yes, I do,” she said as she placed her hand on his cheek. “My knowledge of the scrolls is very little, but I can tell you what I have read.”
He nodded, urging her to continue.
“As far as I know, the creators have never been wrong, but I can only tell of two events that I know of. They predicted the drought a hundred years ago, and they knew of the flooding immediately following. I see no reason to doubt them now.”
A flash of doubt crossed his face, but it left as quickly as it came.
“I do believe what they wrote. I do believe you are the next Grand Dragon of the Sky, Eric.”
He sighed and lowered his head. “I feel so weird, Tirvu. It’s almost as if a part of me is dying, and another part is taking over. I never imagined bringing someone I care about a decapitated head and thinking it was a good idea. In my strangest dreams, I never could have foreseen that dragon shifters ever existed, or that I may be one of them, let alone fit to rule them.”
“You are fit, Eric. You have always been one of us. You’re just now discovering it.”
He nodded as the Grand Dragon of the Forest entered the room.
Tirvu turned to him and grinned. “We have him back,” she said, unable to hide the complete delight in her voice.
“Really?”
“Yes, my lord,” she replied as she reached out for Eric’s hand.
“Well, then, we should address our people,” the Grand Dragon said to Eric, placing his hand on his shoulder. “The Protectors of the Sky need to know that they have their rightful leader, and we must tell them of the prophecy.”
“Yes,” Tirvu said. “I’ll go ring the bell to signal them to gather.”
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Eric had never seen outside of the castle walls, and his breath caught as he stepped out on the balcony that held the Moonstone.
Before him lay a vast wasteland of charred forests and deep, black mud. It contradicted the beautiful lands behind the castle gates. For a brief moment, he became utterly dizzy as images of full, yellow forests played in his mind, and he realized that he must be looking at the destroyed lands of the war.
He tried to imagine fire-breathing dragons attacking ice-breathing dragons from the sky. The trees would burn, and as the ice melted, it would turn the lush soil to a muddy mess.
As he looked down on the people gathered before him, they stared up at him expectantly. Some had limbs missing; others were terribly scarred. The black people stood to his left, while the white people stood to his right. The grey Moonstone was cradled in its rightful place.
Tired and bedraggled, they looked up at him with empty or haunted eyes, like survivors of war.
His chest ached knowing that if he had been successful in retrieving the Moonstone all those centuries ago, the war could have been avoided.
The people of this realm had started a war based on nothing but a deep, unspoken distrust of each other. The scrolls said it would be up to the black and the white to bring peace and hope to the people, but he didn’t see how he and the Grand Dragon of the Forest standing up here preaching to them would allow them to heal, to merge to become one society.
He turned around and saw Tirvu smiling and nodding at him from the castle doors.
Then, it hit him.
He motioned her forward, and she shook her head, eyes wide with confusion.
Turning to the Grand Dragon of the Forest, he whispered, “I think Tirvu needs to be up here.”
The man arched his eyebrow and stared at him for a moment, but then it was as if a lightbulb had gone off over his head, just like in the cartoons.
“Of course. I understand.”
He also motioned Tirvu forward, and she stood between them, her brows furrowed in confusion.
Eric looked over the people again, then he spoke. “My name is Eorricris. The last time the seams of the universe closed, I failed all of you. I failed your parents, I failed your children, I failed our future. Creatures known as demons took our precious Moonstone, and I chased after them to return it.”
Murmurs went through the crowd, and he raised his hand for silence.
“You have been fighting each other for no reason. No one here was responsible for the Moonstone’s disappearance. Only me.”
He waited for that to sink in. The death and destruction that had rained down on their land for so long had been a useless war, one borne out of rumors and lies.
“I stand before you not only as the rightful heir to the throne of the Grand Dragon of the Sky, but also to ask you for your forgiveness for my inability to bring the Moonstone home all those centuries ago.”
The Grand Dragon of the Forest nodded, as if he forgave Eorricris, and he noticed a few heads nodding in unison in the crowd.
“As a people, we must heal,” he continued, a surge of energy coursing through him. This was the path of life he was supposed to be on. His whole body tingled with the excitement of the prospects of a new future, of what lay ahead.
“Today, we are no longer Protectors of the Sky or Protectors of the Forest. Although we look different, we are the same in here,” he said as he pressed his hand into his chest. “Here, we are all fierce warriors. We are lovers of our land and our skies. We want to be loved, we want our families safe. Our physical differences are not something that should divide us—they are something we should embrace.”
He turned to Tirvu and took her under his arm. The movement brought gasps from the crowd.
He stared at her a moment, and a grin crept across his face. Yes, he was exactly where he was supposed to be—in front of his people, taking the throne as leader with Tirvu by his side. Together, the two of them would change their world for the better.
He faced the crowd again as love swelled within him for those in front of him, as well as the amazing woman by his side.
“My name is Eorricris, and this is Tirvu. I love her, and she loves me. We are different, but our love has been unbreakable through the centuries, and it will continue to remain strong through
out the rest of our time together.”
Lifting her hand up in his, he glanced at the difference in the color of their skin—his dark, hers white.
“I encourage you to reach across the aisle to those you have been warring with, and take a hand. White hands should grasp black hands. Black hands should wrap their fingers around their white brothers and sisters. Once this is done, the Grand Dragon of the Forest will lead us in a healing prayer to the Moonstone.”
At first, no one moved. They glanced up at Tirvu and him, their hands still intertwined and high in the air.
After a few moments, they began to mingle, to clasp hands with each other.
It became a beautiful sea of black and white. As the Grand Dragon of the Forest began the prayer, they all recited the words together, as one. For a moment, their differences didn’t matter.
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Does true love transcend death?
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Epilogue
Three Years Later
Eorricris heard the pitter-patter of his son’s feet hitting the marble flooring before he saw him. At age three, the child was a rambunctious joy who kept both him and Tirvu on their toes. He had never been so tired in his life.
Covered from head to toe in mud, the little tyke ran around the corner, laughing hysterically as he looked over his shoulder.
“Paul! Come here right now!” he heard Tirvu yell, and he chuckled as he swept the boy up in his arms.
He’d wanted to remember the brief time in his life when he’d been a human, and had asked Tirvu if they could name the boy after his father. She’d readily agreed.
“Are you running from your mother again?” he asked, placing a kiss on the boy’s cheek.
“Yes, he is,” Tirvu replied as she entered the room. “It’s bath time.”
“I want to go fly, Daddy!”
Eorricris laughed again. He never should have taken the boy out for a flight at such a young age. When Tirvu had found out, she’d about skinned him alive. Since then, the boy had wanted to do nothing but soar above their beautiful lands on his father’s back.
“Maybe some other time,” he answered as Tirvu rolled her eyes.
He looked at his beautiful boy. Since a sky creature had never mated with a forest creature, they’d been unsure what their son would look like. He wasn’t as pale as Tirvu, nor was he even close to being as dark as Eorricris. Instead, he was a sort of gray color with Tirvu’s bright, glowing eyes. In fact, he was the exact same color as the Moonstone. They wouldn’t know if he would be able to fly until he hit puberty and began to hone his skill of shifting into a dragon.
“Come, child,” she said, taking him from Eorricris’ grasp. “He’s been taking mud baths in the forest again.”
“I see that.”
She grinned and leaned in to give him a quick kiss. “I’ll get him washed up, then I’ll go back out to the forest to find some berries for our meal.”
“Excellent. Mind your mother, Paul.”
As his small family left him alone once again, he grinned. He’d definitely found his happiness and his place where he belonged.
He walked out onto the overhang where the Moonstone sat. Where there had once been scorched earth now stood fertile ground with seedlings and the Protectors of the Forest working the land.
The people who had been warring each other for so long had taken some time to get used to their new ways of life. It hadn’t been a smooth process of the dragon shifters becoming one people, but it had happened. They worked together, prayed together, and a couple had even fallen in love with each other. A new generation was being born, one that would bring them all one step closer to becoming one people.
He shifted into his dragon form and spread his wings. Soaring over his lands and sky, he couldn’t imagine his life being more perfect.
The End
For more stories about the Event and Saint’s Grove, please visit CarlyFall.com
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Also by Carly Fall
Other books by Carly Fall
More in the Saint’s Grove Collection:
(Paranormal Romance)
When the residents of Saint’s Grove turn out to witness an once in a lifetimes astronomical event, little do they know that the seams of the universe will burst open, bringing paranormal beings from their worst nightmares, and best fantasies, to their sleepy town.
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The Forbidden Face Series
(Urban Fantasy)
Fans of Patricia Briggs and the television show, The Blacklist, will love this series featuring Avery, a half-Fae and Gabe, a were-shifter, as they solve cases in the paranormal world of Seattle, Washington
* * *
Operation Underworld
(Paranormal Romance)
When paranormal creatures step out of line, Operation Underworld must step in to intervene … because sometimes regular law enforcement just won’t do.
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The Supernatural Renegades Series
(Paranormal / Military Romance)
An explosion deep in the Guatemalan jungle leaves a platoon of marines with supernatural abilities
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The Six Saviors Series:
(Paranormal / Sci-Fi Romance)
Six Warriors. One Mission.
Can they eradicate the evil from their world that has landed on Earth?
* * *
Contemporary Romance
Looking for a read that doesn’t involve paranormal beings? Check out my contemporary romance section!
About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Carly Fall is a wife, mother, and slave to the dog, Nicky. She loves to laugh, thinks chocolate and wine should be considered their own food group, and wishes Christmas happened twice a year. Carly is the author of the award-winning and Amazon bestselling series, The Six Saviors. She is also the author of the Supernatural Renegades series, and other paranormal and contemporary romances.
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To find out more about her books, visit CarlyFall.com