by Milana Jacks
The spirit story from last night? A little farfetched even for a dragon. Mother Nature. Really? Me, a spirit? Nah. I was born Amy Trahan, a cyborg reject. I didn’t think Nentres had lied to me, but I thought that somewhere on his journey into the dragonhood, in addition to Christianity, he’d adopted a new set of beliefs. He’d explained his…shift into a dragon with spirits and Mother Nature. Which was fine by me. I didn’t question his beliefs, but I didn't have to believe every story told to me.
Besides, an older cyborg, presumably the twins’ mom, held up an invitation. I had invited them here for the ball, and they’d come early just as my stepmother had come with Marcy and me. Better be a nice hostess and show Nentres I didn’t intend to marry or commit, but he was welcome to both. I’d told him the truth last night when I’d said I loved our fling, thinking it wasn’t fair to get his hopes up.
I didn’t believe it took. He’d tucked me under him and told me to sleep on it. I didn’t need to sleep on it. I knew I wanted out of the mansion and away from him before I did something stupid, like fall in love with him, then die of heartbreak when he died. My dad had died of heartbreak, not so much from the alcohol-induced car crash. He’d never have started drinking if Mom was still around. It was a vicious cycle.
I raised my chin and straightened my shoulders then descended the steps. Nentres smiled, showing his dimples. A brutally handsome man. I imagined him on pre–Ice Age billboards in his underwear. Surely he stopped traffic.
I grinned wide while the girls giggled and blushed as Nentres led the family into the sitting room. They introduced themselves as the Hendrikses. I knew this family—they owned a plastic recycling business and did quite well. I introduced myself as Amy, last name left out of the equation.
Nentres sat on a couch and glanced my way. I sat on the chair next to the sofa which got me a death stare. I shrugged.
“Have a seat,” I told the parents, and they sat on the sofa facing the couch. The girls flanked Nentres while he glared at me.
I cleared my throat.
Nentres narrowed his eyes, then proclaimed it was hot in here. He hooked one arm behind his sweater and removed it, effectively showing his abs, shoulders, and all the other male hotness that made the girls swoon. I grabbed the decorative wooden pen on the stand next to… oh, a letter opener. I got that instead and fisted it. His eyes dropped to my fist, and he smirked. “This is Amy, my—”
“Event planner.”
His eyes widened. And there he sat, thinking I was a very important spirit, a mate to his dragon, a balance for his fire. Boy, we’d gone from hot to cold and back to inferno in five minutes, one of many reasons I had to get out of this mansion. Nentres would get all my inheritance, and he’d also get another event planner. I gritted my teeth to control my anger as the girls’ hungry gazes roamed all over Nentres. No doubt they wanted him. God, who wouldn’t?
The family made small talk with Nentres, and he gave them all his attention while I stared in a daze, wishing they would leave. The twins were identical and very pretty. As a woman faced with another woman, or a pair of beautiful women, I felt both competitive and admiring.
When the fake pleasantries and plastic factory talk ended, I asked, “Which one is the prospective bride?”
“Both of us,” the girl who had introduced herself as Sandra said.
I blinked. “Do you mean both of you would like to be considered for marriage to him?”
“Oh yes,” Sandy, her twin, said.
“Let me ask you something, Sandy,” I said. “Are you a virgin?”
Her Dad choked on the sweet tea Cindy had brought a while ago.
Sandy nodded. “We are saving ourselves for our husband.”
Nentres chuckled. “One husband, right?”
“We do everything together.”
“Oh my, those were some lovely invitations you sent out,” Nentres said and wagged his eyebrows at me. “Whatcha think of that?”
I think I’ll drop the letter opener right on your crotch. “Oh my.” If any man could satisfy two women at the same time, it would be Nentres. These girls? An easy out for me. So why was I having issues? I wanted Nentres for myself and the thought of anyone touching his glorious body made me crazy. I was in real trouble with him. “I have an idea,” I said. If he thought I’d back off from inviting people to his ball, he had another think coming. “I think you girls would be a perfect fit for my…boss. But seeing as marriage is a lifelong commitment, I firmly believe you should get to know your future husband before making the final decision. So you are welcome to stay at the…mansion until the ball. He’s all yours!” I chugged my sweet tea. “What do you think, Mom?” I asked their mother.
The cyborg smiled, a stretch of lips on her right side. The left side seemed to be altered with some sort of facial attachment, perhaps to stretch her skin, make her appear younger.
Their father agreed, and I stood, extending both hands. “Come on, girls. I’ll show you to the most beautiful room in the whole house.”
They accepted my hands, and I practically dragged them out of the sitting room. In the foyer, just as we headed up the steps, flames exploded out of the round fireplace in the center. We screamed, and I let go of their hands so they could run back to their parents, because the fire slid out of the fireplace and trailed on the floor and over the stairs, effectively blocking my way.
“What are you doing?” Nentres barked and marched to stand in front of me.
“Me?” I poked his chest. “I’m just arranging the ball.”
“I told you what I think about the ball.” He pressed me against the stair rail. “You own me, and I’m helpless to even make you jealous. What do you want? What’s it gonna take for you to accept me, hm? What is it? Because whatever it is, I’ll fucking do it!”
The fire around us died down. It disappeared as if it had never burned.
He’d shouted so loudly, the entire mansion heard him, including the girls and their parents, who immediately strode out and into their car. I sighed in relief when I shouldn’t. I had no claim on him, and I didn’t want any. “I don’t want to marry. Ever. Nobody.”
Nentres tilted his head. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to end up depending on anyone. I’ve seen what that does to people. Dad depended on Mom for pure love and companionship and no other reason. He died. When Dad died, Stepmom scrambled to come up with a solution for me. She depended on him first, and then on me accepting the Cy implants, and now on Marcy. And you’re right about the habitat—the entire fucking thing is dependent on the Cy. What will they do if the Cy decided to up and leave us?” I locked eyes with Nentres. “I want the outlaw life. They’re out there, and they’re free.”
“Outlaw life? That’s crazy, Amy.”
“I don’t care.”
“Outlaw life is hard and demanding, and a dangerous place for a young woman.”
“Oh, okay. I can’t do it because I’m a girl.” I turned to walk up the stairs, but Nentres caught my elbow. “Wait a minute now.” He sat on the first step and patted it. “Come on, sit down.”
I shrugged and sat beside him. We watched the family’s transport lift off and disappear into the sky.
“Then there were two,” I said.
Nentres chuckled. “Crazy world.”
“Were you tempted?” I asked.
“I’ve said my feelings for you loud and clear.”
Living in the habitats made us into machines, even those of us who weren't actually cyborgs. One didn’t need to be a cyborg to become a robot; one simply had to repeat menial tasks daily without joy. Or any emotion, for that matter. I’d long forgotten how to show happiness, anger, or any other human emotion. But it didn’t mean I was heartless. I just had to look out for myself.
“I want to leave.” If I didn’t leave now, I never would. Nentres could become an addiction.
11
Nentres
Leave? I stared at my spirit in utter disbelief. “What the hell do you mean,
leave?”
“I have cousins in Pittsburgh.”
“That’s far and not in my territory. I can’t stay there. It’s not how it works.”
“I’m not asking you to leave with me.”
I leaned in. “You’ve lost your mind if you think I’m gonna let you go to Pennsylvania right before winter.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t get to”—she made air quotes—“let me. I’m not your captive, so you can’t ‘let’ me. I’m going there because I’m free to go there.”
“You are my spirit, Amy, and you are needed at this ball.”
“Says who?”
“Says Mother Nature.”
Her eyes widened, and, at first, she suppressed her laughter, but then she threw her head back and let it out.
I waited for the laughing spell to finish so we could talk this out as mature adults. “Are you done yet?”
“Mother Earth?”
“Nature.” I spread my arms out. “I am a dragon.”
Amy shook her head. “I can’t believe in this. Who is this Mother Nature, and where can I find her?”
“I don’t know.” True. I had no idea where she came from, how she existed but I didn’t need to be convinced of her existence, because I’d seen her. Not only had I seen her, I had shifted into a dragon and flown.
“Why am I needed at the ball?”
“Because the spirit must attend the ball.” I sounded ridiculous even to myself.
“Mother Nature said this to you?”
“Not to me. To my dragon brother Lance. Who is happily mated with his spirit and, Lord willing, filling her belly with babies as we speak.”
Amy swallowed, paled a bit.
Okay, I might’ve gone too far. “Forget the baby thing.”
“I’m leaving today.”
I ground my teeth and stood. “You are mine, and I know exactly where you’re going.”
“Where?”
“Nowhere.”
Amy stood and stayed on the step so she was just at my height. We faced off, her hands on her hips, mine fisted at my sides.
“You took all my inheritance, and you can keep it,” she said. “I said I’d work for a roof over my head, but you’ve tried to trip up my efforts to bring you a suitable bride for the past two days. You called a ball stupid, and I get the impression you don’t even want to hold it. So this Mother Nature is clearly in the wrong. Nobody wants the ball. Nobody wants the spirit to attend the ball. It’s all a made-up fantasy from which I should wake and get on with my life.”
Fuck. That was her inheritance in the suitcase? Better I took it than her stepmom. At least Amy’d have it here. “You get on upstairs. I’ll bring us breakfast and have you three times. As many times as I want.”
“I’m going upstairs, where I’ll pack and head out.” She spun around.
“Amy, don’t you walk away from me.”
“Watch me.”
I watched her perfect ass sway as those long legs climbed the steps three at a time. When Amy slammed the door, the windows shook.
Amy seemed not to care about many things that she should care about. She shrugged often, seeming indifferent, but all her bottled-up emotions came out today. When Amy brought out her fire, she brought it all out, ’cause I sure as hell hadn’t started the fire in the fireplace and nearly blown off the roof. Amy was my spirit. She couldn’t control the fire, but she sure could light up the flames. Amy would stay. “Jason?”
“Yup,” the silent wolf said from behind me.
I joined him at the front door. “We’re going on lockdown.” Both eyebrows shot up, and Jason opened his mouth to say something, but I interrupted. “Now.”
He still stood there, so I turned the lock behind him. “Guard this door.”
“From?”
I pinched my lips.
Mary came out of the kitchen and wiped her hand on an apron I remembered tugging as a boy. “What’s cooking out here?” she asked.
Before I could answer, Jason’s three wolves came and stood behind her.
Upstairs, the door slammed closed and cowgirl bootheels clicked on the marble floors.
Click, click, click.
Thump. Amy dragged her suitcase over the stairs. It thumped, then quieted as she reached the final step. She crossed the foyer and tried to get to the door I’d blocked with my body.
She looked up, green eyes bright. “Don’t make this difficult.”
“It doesn’t look difficult for you.”
“You don’t know a thing about me.”
“But I want to piss on you all the same.”
Amy sidestepped me and turned the knob. She turned it again and again. “You locked the door. Fine. I’m going through the back.” She spun around and faced the crowd gathered there to witness our domestic dispute. While Mary glared daggers at me and moved to the side so Amy could pass, Jason’s wolves spread out and made a living wall.
Amy spun around. “You’re really not gonna let me leave.”
“I can’t. Pittsburgh is far. You have no ride, you can’t walk there, and even if you make it there, I can’t live there because that’s Knight’s territory. I can only visit, come and go every once in a while, which doesn’t work for me, not when it comes to you.”
“So I’m your prisoner, then?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
Mary raised her hand. “I would. Wait till your momma hears about this.”
Lord have mercy! “You left me no choice,” I said to Amy.
“Bull. People can choose. It’s about the only thing we have left. Our choices. And I choose to leave. Open the door.”
I couldn’t keep her here as a prisoner. I couldn’t follow her to Pittsburgh. “What do they got in Pennsylvania that we don’t got down South, hm?”
“I want to start over on my own.”
“And what’s wrong with starting over in New Orleans?”
“Nothing. I have cousins in Pittsburgh, and they’d help me out at the beginning.”
I should really thump my chest and point out I would do anything in my power to make her happy, and I couldn’t and wouldn’t let her get out of my sight. Then an ugly thought occupied my brain. Mother Nature had gifted Amy with a spirit, a mate for a dragon. When Lance had spoken with Mother, I understood any spirit could be a match for any of us. I just happened to be the first dragon to have come across Amy. Knight reigned over East United States. She could possibly trigger his element, and I’d lose my spirit. So, with these thoughts assaulting my brain, I came up with a solution. I didn’t like it but, for her, I’d do it. “I’ll help you out.”
She sighed. “You don’t understand.”
“You’d be surprised. Wait five minutes?”
“And?”
“And wait.”
Five minutes later, I returned with a backpack. I opened the door and waved a hand for her. “After you, my lady.”
Amy eyed me as if I’d grown horns on top of my human head. “What are you doing?”
“Coming with you.”
“You can’t go to Pittsburgh.”
“That’s right.”
“And I don’t have a ride.”
“Glad you figured that out.”
“Ha-ha. So then what?”
I got her suitcase and carried it down the steps. People had gathered already, the word of our shenanigans spreading fast. Every wolf watched as I stripped off my pants and slung them over Amy’s shoulder. “Keep this for me, sugar. Your ride is comin’.”
Amy
A man on a mission, Nentres strode down the steps and across the yard, stopped in the middle, and turned around. He spread out his arms and grinned wide, probably because he knew I was staring at him and because he loved attention, namely on his body, which was not too bulky, yet muscular and fit, every muscle honed to perfection. Between his blond hair and those cute dimples, I struggled not to stare and smile back at him. I tapped my foot and narrowed my eyes.
He exploded into white
light, and in his place stood the red dragon. My jaw nearly hit the floor. If I saw the dragon one hundred times every day of the week, I would still stand there and admire this creature every time.
He bent his long neck, and his massive head, nearly the size of an adjacent house, hit the ground at my feet, which basically meant I could stretch out my hand and touch his wet nose. I did that. I rubbed his nose, and my hand came away wet.
Then I rounded his head and stared, trying to figure out another place to pet. He wiggled his ear. I stood on my toes and scratched the bottom of it. The scales on his body lifted, then fell back down, a motion that could only be described as a shiver. A low rumble came from him. I listened. “You can purr?”
Abruptly, the purring ceased. I lifted the frill of his ear and leaned in to whisper into it. “I heard it. Do it again.” I scratched him with both hands and felt the vibrations of his purr under my palms. “This is so cool,” I said. When he lifted his tail and wagged it, I chuckled.
The dragon sat back and positioned his tail right next to me. He thumped the arrowed tip, trying to tell me something. I stared up at him, caught in the red blaze that was his eyes. “Yes?”
“Climb on!” someone shouted.
My ride to Pittsburgh. Boy, I was gone for this guy. I’d miss him.
I remembered the last time I’d ridden the dragon. The wind had seeped into my bones. “I’ll be right there,” I said, then zipped open my suitcase and pulled out an extra jacket, wrapped a scarf around my body, put gloves on my hands and a ski hat on my head that covered my mouth and ears. Bundled up like this, I stumbled as I climbed, but finally reached that place near his head where I found a dent right between his big horns. It looked warm and cozy, made me want to curl up in there. I didn’t know why I came near his head or how I even spotted this place, but it felt right. Cross-legged, I sat inside it.
The moment I did that, the dragon rose.
I gulped, trying not to freak out.