by Kayla Wolf
Besides—if he was going to kidnap her, she thought with some amusement, he’d missed his opportunity. She’d been completely alone and completely absorbed in her book. Why, he’d snuck up on her without even trying to. If he’d wanted to grab her and steal her away, he probably wouldn’t have even needed to talk to her. And if his draconic form was as big and powerful as his human one, well, he wouldn’t have even needed to shift to human. He could’ve just swooped down and grabbed her in his claws, no trouble. There was a distinct possibility he wasn’t telling her the whole truth about his background, or how he’d gotten here, that was for sure. But shifters were like that. Notoriously secretive and evasive when it came to sharing information about themselves. Even the books she’d been reading were deliberately cryptic, and they were designed with the express purpose of communicating information!
No—Owen could be trusted, some part of her knew that. So she smiled up at him and led him into the cool passageway that led through the mountains to the palace.
“Wow,” he said in a low voice, which echoed against the stone. He’d stopped in the doorway to examine the smooth, rocky wall, his rough hands tracing the tiny markings on the stone.
“The dragons carved all these passageways out centuries ago,” she explained, running her fingertips across the smooth rock as well. “Their claws are sharp enough to cut rock, so that’s how they built this place. They wanted to keep it all secret from humans and other shifters, so everything’s under the surface, except for a few balconies that just look like natural rock formations.” It was Samuel who’d told her all this—he was something of an expert, having spent years of his life simply wandering the twisting and turning pathways.
”In dragon shape?” Owen asked, frowning as he looked up and down the passageway. She looked at him, not understanding, then realized what he was asking.
”Oh! Yeah, these ones aren’t huge, hey?” The narrower passageways, like this one, were large enough for two or three human-shaped people to walk side by side. But having seen the dragons in their winged forms, Angela knew there were whole sections of the caves only accessible to human-shaped dragons—they wouldn’t fit, otherwise. “I’m actually not sure how these got carved. They’re too long to have carved them from outside.” She frowned, looking harder at the wall. “Maybe they had sharp tools and carved them in their human forms?”
”They look like claw marks. Not that I know much about construction,” he added suddenly. “My family lived in a natural cave system by the coast. It was big enough for us as it was, no adjustments needed.”
”That’s really interesting,” Angela said thoughtfully. “I’ll ask Stephen. Or Samuel—he knows everything about these caves, I bet he knows how the narrow ones were carved. That’s such a good question!” She grinned up at Owen, feeling a bit daring as she gazed into those dark eyes of his. “It’s so good to talk to someone new! It makes you think of things you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.”
”Me too,” he smiled back. “I’ve been flying alone for a long time.”
There was a silence between them that made her heart beat faster—a kind of tension that she’d never felt before and didn’t quite understand. Confused, she sought refuge in retreating, moving up the corridor with a sense of urgency, as if they had somewhere to be. “Let’s go find Alexander. What time is it? He’s probably in a meeting or something.” Their King had been out of the palace for a few days, making diplomatic visits to nearby communities, and probably had lots of information to share with his advisors. Maybe that had been how Owen had heard about the palace in a bar, Angela thought, though it still seemed strange. Alexander was a cautious leader, despite his comparative progressiveness compared to his forebears—he wouldn’t exactly have broadcast their location. Ah, well, let Owen keep his secrets for now.
”This is an extensive system,” Owen pointed out a few minutes later as they continued through the passageways. “The builders weren’t worried about cave-ins?”
”They knew a lot about building, from what I can gather,” Angela explained. “There are about a thousand books in the library about structural integrity and seismic activity and all that stuff. That’s why the corridors are so windy,” she added as they rounded yet another twist in the rocky pathway. “They could’ve made them go straight from one place to another, but they made sure they put them in the best possible places to stop the mountain from being weakened. There are a couple of pathways with a few fallen rocks, but no serious cave-ins in the history of the place.”
”That’s impressive,” Owen said, sounding far away. “I’m not surprised the community’s so secluded. Why would you need to make contact with other shifters if you’ve got such a good home base and all the knowledge you need to maintain it?”
”I guess,” Angela said. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about that herself. “It’s kind of a universal shifter thing though, from what I can tell. My pack was super hostile to outsiders. If anyone left even for a day or two, they were basically disowned. Nobody was allowed in, nobody was allowed out. I don’t know why.”
”War.” His voice sounded different, somehow, on that syllable. “Shifters are living weapons. It makes sense that our societies have evolved to distrust and avoid each other.”
”But we could help each other. Contact doesn’t need to mean war.”
”But it does. It’s our nature.”
She blinked, a little taken aback. He was walking with his head down, clearly lost in thought—she got the idea that he wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying. She dropped into step beside him, not wanting to pry in case this sudden darkness had something to do with the deaths of his family, but incredibly curious. “But your people were peaceful, right?”
He looked up at her. “They were,” he said. “And look where that got them. Pacifism… it’s a noble principle, but it’s no way to survive.”
”But—”
”Hey, what’s the light source in here?” It was like a switch had been flipped—she’d never felt such a ringing end to a topic of conversation. Well, at least she knew that she couldn’t make him uncomfortable with her questions, she thought, feeling a little hurt. The minute she overstepped, he’d just change the subject fast and hard enough to give her whiplash.
”Uh. I’m not sure. Some kind of… weird moss that grows on the walls.” She’d read a book about it, but plants had never been her favorite subject, and she’d felt herself falling asleep. “Microscopic bioluminescent… something. I don’t think it grows anywhere else, I can never find any mention of it in human sources.”
”There are human books here?”
”Nah, just the Internet.”
”You have computers?” That had surprised him, she could tell. She grinned, her hurt feelings forgotten.
”We do. But Lisa will be mad if I tell you too much about them. She’s run out of people to brag to about her great triumph, I can’t take that away from her. You’ll meet her soon, she’s Alexander’s wife.”
”Fair enough.” He was smiling a little. “It’s pretty unusual for dragons to know anything about technology…”
”Oh, Alexander can’t use a computer to save his life. He and Samuel won’t stop calling phones ‘rectangles’, it’s killing us.”
”But this Lisa woman, she got computers installed? Did she have help from a human or something?”
”Oh, she is a human! Didn’t I mention?”
That caught his attention. Owen stopped in his tracks, looking at her incredulously. “Hang on. Let me get this straight. This is an ancient dragon settlement, secluded even by dragon standards. Your sister, a wolf, married a member of the royal family. Another member of the royal family married a bear. And you’re telling me the King’s wife is a human?”
”That’s weird, huh?” She searched his face. “Like I said—I’m from a tiny little pack. I don’t know how other shifters live.”
”Not like this, that’s for sure.” She couldn’t read his express
ion. There was a mixture of surprise, concern, disbelief… and something else, something that she only caught a glimpse of before he hid it away. Her curiosity about him only intensified. “Definitely not like this.”
”We’re nearly there,” she said, realizing how far they’d walked during their conversation. She knew that around the next bend in the pathway was the meeting room Alexander used to talk with his advisors. Owen tilted his head, looking at her.
“Right. Should I wait here? You can let him know you’ve brought home a stray dragon, warn him that I’m—“
”Huge and terrifying,” she said frankly—then covered her mouth at the expression that flickered across his face. “Oh my god. Sorry. That was really rude. You’re just—”
”Don’t worry,” he said, grinning a little ruefully. “I’m a big guy. I know.”
”It’s a compliment! You’re really strong! I mean, you saved me from falling in the river, you—”
”It’s okay, Angela,” he laughed, his smile lighting up his dark eyes. “Really.” She liked how her name sounded in his mouth. A lot.
”Okay. Well. You wait here. I’ll talk to Alexander.” She retreated, a little awkwardly, almost walking backwards into the rock wall. Once she was around the corner and out of his sight, she leaned against the wall for a moment, resisting the urge to facepalm. How had she put her foot so thoroughly in her own mouth? She’d never been this clumsy and awkward around anyone she’d ever met. Even Amara, who’d actively hated her the first time they’d met—if she’d managed to hold it together around that blue-eyed dragoness, why was she having such a hard time with this guy? He’d been nothing but friendly—why did she feel so useless and tongue-tied and nervous around him? It wasn’t what she’d felt around Amara, she thought, taking a moment to gather herself. Amara had made her nervous, that was true, and it had been a huge relief when she’d realized the dragon was beginning to like her—that they might even be friends one day. With Owen, the more they talked, the more anxious she got. But it was strange—it wasn’t the kind of anxiety that made her want to retreat from the conversation. Quite the opposite. Even now, some part of her was itching to go back to him, to talk to him more, to try and make up for accidentally insulting him…
She suppressed a groan. If she’d known it was this impossible to meet new people she’d never have wished for it. That being said… she desperately hoped Alexander would be happy to let Owen stay with them. She wasn’t sure if she could cope with Owen being sent away. Not when they still had so much to talk about.
Sure enough, Alexander was sitting in the meeting room, at the head of the table, his preferred position. Helena and Samuel were there with him, but from their body language Angela could tell they weren’t talking about anything particularly serious—Helena, in particular, was lounging back on the chair, a posture she’d never allow herself to take if there was a serious conversation going on. All three of them had looked up when Angela poked her nose into the room, and she smiled a little shyly. She’d lived with these three dragons for years now, but still, something about them was still kind of intimidating. They’d lived for so much longer than her… they knew so much more, they’d experienced so much more.
And she couldn’t imagine the strength of the sibling bond between them. When Helena had gone missing, Samuel and Alexander had been inconsolable—they’d worked themselves to the bone searching the entire valley for her, hardly eating or sleeping. Samuel had wrenched his wing and kept flying on it, so determined to find her that he’d almost done himself permanent injury.
”Angela,” Alexander said. Always so formal—he’d known her for years, and yet he always greeted her like she was a visiting foreign dignitary. She couldn’t take it personally, though. He spoke that way to everyone—even his own wife, sometimes, who never missed an opportunity to ridicule him for it. It was amazing, how similar to Samuel he looked, and yet how completely different. The same wild, dark, curly hair, the same bronze skin, the same keen golden eyes… and yet his bearing, his posture, the way he held himself and moved distinguished him completely from his brother. It hadn’t taken Angela long to be able to tell them apart, even when they were actively trying to deceive her. “What do you need?”
”Sorry to interrupt—” She stammered a little, not quite sure how to broach the subject. Hi guys, I found a dragon in the forest, can we keep him?
”You’re not interrupting anything, darling, Alexander’s just telling us boring stories about electricity bills.” Helena winked at her. The golden-eyed dragoness had an incredibly powerful talent for putting people at ease—Angela felt herself relaxing in the warmth of the woman’s charisma.
”Electricity bills are important,” Alexander said irritably. “We haven’t dealt with human money for hundreds of years. Suddenly I have to know about Bank Accounts.”
”What’s up, Angela?” Samuel interrupted him. He still looked worn out from their run, Angela noticed with a grin.
“Um. So. I was sitting by the river reading a book, and I—found a person. Well, he found me. His name’s Owen.”
Alexander sighed. “Another hiker?” They’d had a few run-ins with lost humans over the years—usually hikers who’d wandered off the path. It was always difficult to guide them home without getting them too curious about the valley they’d found.
”Dragon.”
Helena’s eyes went as round as dinner plates. But it was Samuel who spoke first, his voice low and flat and with a frightening tone to it that Angela didn’t hear very often.
”White eyes?”
”No! No, he’s not one of those. I’m not stupid,” she added, a little resentfully. “He’s from California. He lost his family. His eyes are black,” she added because all three of the dragons were looking at her as though she’d announced that there was an entire herd of rampaging wildebeests in the corridor. “He seems very nice. Can I bring him in to meet you, or are you going to bite him?”
”He’s here?” Helena rose to her feet, looking excited.
”I haven’t heard of any dragons with black eyes,” Samuel was saying to Alexander in a low voice.
“Nor have I. He wouldn’t be from around here—”
”Maybe you could ask him about it?” Angela suggested, trying and failing to keep the irritation out of her voice. Helena giggled.
”Bring him in, sweetheart.”
She skittered off down the hallway, her heart pounding. This was more excitement than she was used to experiencing in a whole week, let alone a single afternoon. Owen was waiting patiently where he’d left her, leaning against the wall, but he straightened up when she rounded the corner.
“What’s the verdict?”
”Come meet everyone,” she said brightly. He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief—as though he’d been expecting different news, almost. Had he really thought they were going to turn him away without even meeting him? She led him up the corridor, looking forward to introducing him to the dragon side of her adopted family… even if a part of her was a little reluctant to share him. Once she introduced him to the dragons, everyone would know about him—would be able to make friends with him, get to know him, hear all of his stories. For some reason, that made her feel jealous.
The three dragons had arranged themselves in formation, Alexander standing with Samuel and Helena behind him, facing the door. Angela resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Dragons could be so theatrical. They could’ve just stayed where they were, but no, they had to make it a whole event.
”King Alexander,” she said, gesturing at the man, who was looking ten times as stiff and imposing as he usually did—which was saying something. “Samuel, his brother, Helena, his sister. This is Owen, who I met outside.” She gestured, feeling a bit awkward. She was probably breaking about a hundred laws of etiquette, ancient stupid traditions that dragons were obsessed with. Amara would have been amazing at this, she thought resentfully.
The dragons were sizing each other up, and she stepped back a few steps, le
tting them get on with it.
”King Alexander,” Owen said, sketching a bow that caught Angela by surprise. He didn’t seem the courtly type—but he clearly knew more than she did about draconic tradition. “It’s a privilege to be in your home.”
”You’re most welcome, Owen,” Alexander said gravely. Angela could hear him deliberately lowering the pitch of his voice, and she resisted the urge to giggle as Helena caught her eye. “Where have you come from?”
”My family lived on the west coast, until recently. Their community was destroyed by a rival clan. I was the sole survivor. I’ve been living as a nomad for some time now, but I heard from some local shifters that this was a community that welcomed a number of shifters from different backgrounds. I thought I might seek your guidance in finding a home.”
“We are sorry for your loss,” Alexander said quietly. Helena’s face had stilled, and she was focusing on Owen intently, a look of sympathy in those golden eyes. “None of us are strangers to loss, unfortunately. So many of our interactions as shifters are bathed in blood. We hope to change that, someday.”
“A noble ambition.” Owen bowed his head again. Angela looked at Alexander, apprehensive—would he let this strange dragon stay with them? Or would he send him away, before Angela could even get to know him? She felt her heart pounding dizzily with apprehension. Why was this so important to her? Why did she want so desperately for this complete stranger to stay in her life?
”You are of course welcome to stay with us while you search,” Alexander said, and Angela breathed a sigh of relief—then caught Helena looking at her with an expression of sharp curiosity. When Angela looked back at her, the dragoness turned her attention back to their guest. “We have plenty of space. Angela can help you find a room,” he added, nodding at her—she jumped, startled.
”Of course! There’s a bunch of spare rooms near mine,” Angela said. Helena was looking at her again, her eyes gleaming. What did that mean?
”Thank you, Alexander. I hope I can repay your hospitality somehow,” Owen said formally, bowing again.