Terraformed Skies

by Anna Lewis

  Ethan and Cam were already shifting mid-stride, the shock of seeing Garrett shift into a dragon in his rage stopping them for just a brief second. But seconds were precious, and Solace watched helplessly as the ground rushed away from her.

  Garrett’s talons were tight around her arms up near her shoulders, and her attempts to kick him were futile because she couldn’t bend enough to connect her feet with his body. She still held the short, broken twig in her hand. Not knowing what else to do, she slapped him with it several times as hard as she could, but he only roared in response, and it was more of a warning than a roar of pain.

  She looked over her shoulder, but the twins were still too far behind them to help her. And when they got close enough, what were they going to do? It wasn’t like they were going to rip her out of his grasp without killing her. They had no idea that Garrett was a dragon, and while they had probably come up with dozens of scenarios as they crept out of hiding to catch the dragon hunter, Solace would bet her life’s savings that they didn’t have a single plan B for what was happening right then.

  Angry, Solace slapped Garrett’s belly several times in quick succession. This time, she had his attention and he bent his neck mid-flight to look between his legs at her. His angry, dragon face was terrifying and the look he gave her said all she needed to know.

  She held still and he turned back to the sky in front of him. Solace was too scared to cry and the ground was too far away to risk Garrett dropping her. And she knew without a doubt that he would drop her if he got mad enough.

  ***

  The landscape rose abruptly, and in the distance, Solace saw the waterfall that she’d been looking for that led to the watering hole below. She’d veered far off course when she’d been hiking and it was a wonder that the twins had found her at all. They’d probably been after Garrett and trusting that she was miles away at the rendezvous point.

  Boy, had they been wrong. Now she was dangling from the claws of an enraged WereDragon, trying to figure out how to survive long enough for the twins to save her.

  She still held the stick in her hand, her knuckles sore from holding it so tightly for so long. She took one look at the useless weapon and was about to drop it when a thought occurred to her. Looking up, she took in the soft underbelly and mentally gauged the distance between her and the softness above her head.

  It would reach, but stabbing him wasn’t going to help her. She was still several stories above the ground; much farther than was survivable. The twins were still trailing behind, and counting on them to catch her wasn’t an option regardless. Solace preferred to depend on herself and they weren’t close enough to help her yet anyway.

  She scanned the terrain around her, and when her eyes landed on the answer she couldn’t believe that she was considering it.

  The waterfall loomed, but that wasn’t what had caught her eye. Beyond that was the large, emerald pool, which fed another waterfall that eventually led to a river. The second waterfall was rushing swiftly down the hill and Solace was sure that was a good sign. It looked like the emerald pool was filled to capacity, which meant that the water was as deep as it was ever going to be. Whether it was deep enough was left to be seen, but she was running out of options, and she didn’t know what Garrett had planned for her but she was sure it wasn’t good.

  “This is crazy,” she muttered under her breath as she carefully wrapped both hands around the broken chunk of tree limb and aimed for the soft flesh of his belly.

  She breathed deeply, mentally preparing herself as they crested the waterfall and Garrett dipped down over the pool slightly, catching a draft that propelled him faster.

  She acted then, knowing she had a small window to get this right and afraid she would lose her nerve if she thought about it too much. Thrusting upward, she plunged the broken stick into Garrett’s belly, then held it for a split second as his claws released her and she hung in the air for an eternal moment before gravity took hold.

  Garrett shrieked in pain and rage, reaching down with his shorter arms and trying to remove the stick from his belly. He couldn’t reach it, which enraged him further.

  He turned around, but Solace was already focusing on the water, pinching her nose and sucking in a deep breath just before her feet hit the water and the force of her fall propelled her downward.

  She felt like her lungs were going to explode when her momentum finally slowed and she was able to start kicking toward the surface. The sunlight barely penetrated the dark water, and Solace was just beginning to panic when she felt strong arms reach into the water to grab her and pull her up.

  She burst through the surface, swinging wildly as she took her first breath, afraid that it was Garrett who was pulling her out of the depths.

  “It’s me, it’s me,” a familiar voice said, and she instantly quit fighting.

  He pulled her into his arms and held her close, treading water with her in the middle of the deep pool, his heart pounding against his bare chest.

  “I thought we’d lost you,” he whispered, and she instantly knew that it was Ethan holding her.

  He was trembling, his hand shaking as he reached out to smooth back her hair.

  “I can’t believe you did that. That was so—”

  “Dangerous?” she offered, thinking that was exactly what Ethan would say in this situation.

  “No,” he said, smiling wide. “Brave. It was so brave. You could have drowned, or hit rocks, or—”

  She put her finger to his lips.

  “I survived,” she said. “No need to go over all the things that could have happened.”

  There was a horrific shriek and the crashing of bodies together in the distance. Solace looked up, shocked to see Garrett and Cam locked in battle in the air a short distance away.

  “Come on,” Ethan said, grabbing her hand and pulling her in the water.

  She swam behind him as fast as she could, the roars of anger and pain so loud that she felt the vibration deep in her chest. When a bolt of fire shot toward the water, she only had a split second to take in a breath before Ethan shoved her under the water and pulled her down.

  The surface of the water glowed orange for a few seconds, then went dark again as the fire snuffed itself out without fuel. Solace popped up to the surface, took a deep breath and prepared herself to go under again.

  The two dragons were locked together, spiraling along the surface of the water, an impossible tangle of tails and wings as they skipped across the water’s surface and slammed into the stone wall of the waterfall.

  Even from several yards away, Solace knew right away which dragon was Garrett. The stick she’d shoved into him was still protruding from his belly, and his limp body was sliding down the side of the sheer rock face and sinking toward the water.

  They were still heading in the same direction as before, but now they were swimming toward the two men rather than away from them. Cam was already shifting to human form, sitting on a boulder near the bottom of the waterfall, his eyes locked on Garrett.

  By the time they got to Garrett he was nearly human again, the stick coming from his abdomen, his chest heaving with the pain as he lay in a sandy area between some boulders against the sheer rock wall of the waterfall.

  “I’m dying,” he said in a near whisper.

  Cam nodded, his face showing no triumph.

  “You are,” Cam confirmed. “Why would you spend your life hunting your own kind?”

  Garrett smiled and laughed a little, then began choking and coughing. When he could finally breathe again, he shook his head.

  “Only a fool would waste his life protecting humans at the risk of his own life. I serve no one but myself.”

  He fell back and Solace watched in amazement as his breathing slowed and his body appeared to freeze on his last breath. A strong gust of wind swirled up from the water, and the frozen, ashy body of Garrett burst into a cloud of dust and was swept away by the breeze.

  The ground lay empty where he’d been, no sig
n left behind that there had ever been a man save for the stick which lay there so benignly now.

  Solace’s mouth dropped open and she looked up, but the dust that was once Garrett was already gone.

  “What just happened?” Solace asked, mouth still open wide in shock.

  Cam smiled.

  “Dragons living amongst humans is a centuries old secret. What did you think happened to us when we died?”

  She shrugged, then smiled, first at Cam, then at Ethan.

  “I can’t believe you beat him,” she said.

  “No,” Ethan corrected. “We beat him. We didn’t do it alone.”

  Cam slipped into the water and pulled Solace into his arms, holding her close before kissing her soundly on the lips. She leaned into him, opening her mouth to the heat of him, then smiling when he finally pulled away.

  “What was that for?” she asked.

  “For being the kind of woman who would stab a dragon in the belly to save her own life.”

  ***

  “I heard some of the things Garrett told you,” Ethan said, sitting beside Solace in water up to his chest near the shoreline across from the waterfall. “What he said wasn’t true. We aren’t hiding treasures or anything else. We’re protecting our next generation, and a long line of protectors.”

  “I know,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder and sighing when he put his arm around her. “There were a few moments where I thought that what he was saying could be possible, but the truth came out and I knew that he was manipulating me. I had to play it off and give you guys time to show up. It worked.”

  Cam was sitting on the other side of her, and turned so he could see her face as they talked. He laughed, shaking his head a looking at her.

  “You got lucky. We saw the chopper and the minute we saw something falling from it, we knew that it was Garrett and that he’d killed that park ranger who was trying to help him. We thought you were safe over here and we were both shocked to see you there with him in the clearing. You’re lucky to be alive. Others have stood up to him and not fared as well.”

  “You mean Stirling?”

  Cam nodded.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry for doubting you, even if it was only for a few moments.”

  “We understand,” Ethan offered, pulling her closer and wrapping his other arm around her. “You have nothing to go off of but our word. It makes sense that you would be suspicious and question everything. We don’t blame you at all. A week ago, you didn’t even know that dragons existed, and out of nowhere, we just dragged you along on this grand adventure and that was selfish on our part.”

  “Selfish?” Solaces asked, then noticed Cam scowling at his brother.

  Solace sat up and watched the two of them silently square off until Cam visibly backed down and Ethan turned to her.

  “Oh boy,” she said before he said a word. “I have a feeling I’m not going to like this.”

  Ethan took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, and Solace could tell he was trying to find the right words to say whatever was on his mind. When he didn’t say anything, Cam chimed in and his words sent her reeling.

  “We didn’t have to take you with us to keep you safe,” he said. “When Garrett hit the building with his truck, we jumped out the window seconds later. He saw us and he went after us. You were in no danger staying at the hotel.”

  “But I lied to him,” she insisted.

  “I wouldn’t have mattered,” Ethan said. “Sometimes dragons can enchant humans and get them to see and believe certain things. He wouldn’t blame you for lying because he would assume you were enchanted. In fact, that assumption is why he got into his truck and rammed the building instead of driving away. Your calm reaction must have convinced him that you were enchanted so he assumed we were in the hotel. Unless you physically got in his way he would have forgotten you the instant you were out of his sight.”

  Solace was listening to them, but she was struggling to connect the dots. There was something bigger that they weren’t telling her. She could feel it.

  “Did you enchant me?” she asked.

  “We couldn’t even if we wanted to,” Ethan said.

  “Why?”

  “When you came up to our hotel room, I was already trying to convince Ethan that you were the one, and he said it didn’t matter; that now wasn’t the time to bring you into the fold. But when the opportunity to grab you and run presented itself, I took it. I shouldn’t have put you in harm’s way like that. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t get what you’re trying to say. ‘The one’ what?”

  “The last descendant,” Ethan said. “You’re the last descendent of a long line of Tributes. We knew that before your dream, but we didn’t think you knew. We’ve been searching for you for a long time, which is the only reason that we ever left the stronghold. There are powerful people who wanted to stop us, and those people were paying Garrett to hunt us.”

  “But why? And who are they?”

  “We don’t know,” Ethan said. “But they’re behind a lot of the problems we encounter, and they’re the reason we’re so careful with our young. We used to raise them in peace without worry, but now they’re always in danger.”

  “Did they know that Garrett was a dragon?”

  “Doubtful,” Ethan said. “None of us knew he was a dragon. I was shocked when he went after you and shifted. I wasn’t expecting that at all.”

  “Neither was I,” Solace said wryly. “I thought I was going to die.”

  “We did, too,” Cam admitted.

  They sat in silence for a moment while Solace went over everything that had happened in her head. Things were falling into place, but it was a lot to absorb and she had so many questions.

  “How did they even know about me? I didn’t know about me.”

  “Just because they knew a Tribute existed somewhere in this region doesn’t mean they had specific knowledge of who and where you were. But we knew you existed. We have been searching for you, and it would figure the night we finally find you is when Garrett catches up with us.”

  “So, you checked into the hotel to do what exactly?”

  “To talk to you,” Ethan said. “When you knocked on the door we were arguing about whether we should just take you and show you our stronghold in the mountains, or if we should try to talk to you and make you believe what we are and who you are.”

  She shook her head.

  “I wouldn’t have believed you,” she said.

  “We know,” they said in unison.

  She couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I guess the way it happened was the way it was meant to happen,” she said. “And it sure was one hell of an adventure.”

  “The adventure isn’t over yet,” Cam said. “We just have to wait until dark before we leave. Our things are by the helicopter and we can’t really walk out of here naked.”

  ***

  The late afternoon sun was warm against her skin, her clothes laid out and drying on boulders that lined the shore of the swimming hole.

  She sat between the twins, enjoying the scenery around them, but her mind was elsewhere. It had taken a bit of coaxing to convince her to take her clothes off so they weren’t weighing her down as they waited out the last few hours of daylight in the secluded swimming hole, but now that she was naked and so close to them, she wasn’t sure getting naked with the twins was such a good idea. She’d been fighting her attraction to them since they’d first met, and now she was there, naked and floating in the shallow edge of the pool as if they hadn’t just won an epic battle for their very lives.

  She turned, thinking that she’d better put some distance between herself and the handsome twins when Ethan stopped her.

  “Don’t leave,” Ethan said, his hand reaching out and touching her arm.

  Her skin tingled beneath his touch, and without her clothes to provide a buffer, the sensation was even more overwhelming. His eyes implored her, an
d she melted a little beneath his tender touch.

  “I have to be honest,” she said. “I don’t know if I can control my feelings with the two of you this close. I know we just met, but—”

  “Then don’t,” Cam said, swimming forward and standing beside Ethan. “Don’t fight it.”

  She was shocked, but looking from one twin to the other, she saw the truth in their eyes. Solace wasn’t the only one that had been struggling to keep her lust at bay.

  “I didn’t think—”

  “What? That Ethan and I were attracted to you, too? Solace, don’t be crazy. You’re beautiful, and strong, and brave. You’re everything we’ve ever wanted in a woman.”

  They each held one of her hands, and together, they pulled her forward and deeper into the water. She let her body float to them, the weightless feeling in line with the dreamy feeling of this moment. All this time she’d been fighting her need for them, and she didn’t have to.

  She reached Ethan first, and his arms went around her, pulling her tight against his naked body. The water was cool around them but pleasant, and she slid up against him, intertwining their legs to hold their bodies together in the gently flowing current.

  She put her arms around his neck and kissed him boldly. Now that she knew that they wanted her as much as she wanted them, she felt freed from her inhibitions.

  Ethan kissed her back, gently at first, then pushing her mouth open with his and kissing her deeply. She was so lost in the heat of his mouth that she almost didn’t notice when Cam slid in behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist.

  Cam pulled at her hips, tilting her back so her ass pressed against his flat stomach. His erection slid between her legs and teased her opening, her upper body tipping forward. Ethan’s hands slid up and cupped her breasts. He balanced her so that she was pinned between them, her back arched against Cam, her full breasts in Ethan’s hands as he started kneading and stroking her nipples.