by Livia Quinn
Kat had left a text on my phone saying he’d runaway yet again and asked me to contact Conor to see if he might talk some sense into him. How did she know they’d even be able to communicate? I’d like to be on hand for that little dragon-canine chat.
I walked down the hallway past Jordie’s room. Flipping the light on in the bathroom, I put the toilet seat up and took care of business, then I stepped over to the sink to wash my hands. Something on the periphery of my vision caught my eye. I turned toward the mirror, jumped back and landed against the door. “What the—”
Chapter 34
Conor
Me and my dragon… howlin’ at the moon.
Nighttime under a clear sky, during a full moon was the ideal time to soar far above the landscape and patrol the territory under my protection. I rolled my head gently carving a path through the wind, my massive wings extended fully to take advantage of the currents. There was no noise on the wind tonight. All was quiet.
Gradually Destiny was returning to its pre-Para-moon pre-Chaos state, with most of the citizens unaware of anything but an inconvenient weather system that nearly cancelled their Mardi Gras parade. I smiled and the wind whistled through my teeth. Ach, the parade had been fun.
But had been lasting changes.
As I flew my nightly route over the city, I passed over Lang’s parents’ house where Jordie slept, and then over Harmony, which was quiet except for Freddie’s crew setting the street and Tempe’s backyard to rights. Finally I looked down on the sheriff’s house where the lights were still on, filtering up through the skylight in its roof.
There were new Paramortals who would need a guiding hand and others… I spotted the young dog running like a bear was on his tail, and smiled. An apt analogy. T’was Dylan. Montana said Kat had called asking us to be on the lookout for him, find him and bring him home. The pup and I needed to have a talk.
The young wolf looked up over his shoulder, and ran faster. As if he could outrun a dragon. His eyes filled with terror as the moon cast my shadow of darkness over him. I nipped him up with my gums and deposited him on my back. At first I felt his shaking body flattened to my neck, his claws burrowing under my scales searching for flesh underneath, to no avail, but as I eased into a glide, a wide slow path circling the countryside, I caught sight of him looking out over the edge at the view.
On the second pass he sat up, planted his paws flat on my neck and then he began to strut up and down my spine like he was in the aisle of a transatlantic jet, barking, quickly becoming comfortable with his ride. Guess he trusted me not to roll over. Hrrmph, it was tempting to send him flying through the sky.
I did nae hear his breath or feel his paws traipsing around for a bit. He’d stopped, the breeze barely making any noise as it coasted in lifting waves across my wings. Then I heard it.
Seeing Montana below I could only imagine what she was thinking. First, she was jealous that someone besides her got to ride in her place. But hopefully, when we crossed in front of the full lunar moon, so huge and white against the night sky, she could hear the contented howl of our friend Dylan, as he overcame his fear and answered the moon’s call with abandon.
Wind whistled through my teeth as I smiled and flew my charge through the night. We landed on the highest, most deserted levee I could find. The sign read Deer Park and Dylan romped down my back to my tail and jumped off.
He was such a nuisance, pouncing on my tail and chasing it back and forth. I growled and he quickly returned to sit at my side like a well-trained police dog. I bumped his head with my jaw and gestured to the sky. He got the point. Within seconds he threw his head back and bayed the moon.
I would sit with him as long as it took for him to accept the changes in himself, and in Destiny, for now at least. Who knew what the future had in store for Dylan, but I would be there to help him adjust to his new life.
Jack
“Go ahead. Scream.”
The face of a dragon stared back at me. What the hell? Now they were trying to communicate from another plane by appearing in mirrors. I moved toward the sink, squinting at him.
Could this be the dragon who’d helped Conor? He was different than Conor, silvery, his scales like shiny clear crystals. Pretty, almost. Maybe it was a female. So what did he or she want? The eyes were a light silver and the head had a sleeker shape than our black dragon friend.
I yawned. And snorted when he mimicked me. This fellow was some kind of comic. What did he want?
In the mirror the dragon’s silver skin fluttered and I felt a shiver on my own shoulders. I scratched my shoulder again. There was some kind of image forming on his chest—his human chest.
My eyes widened.
His widened.
The chest in the mirror was the same one I’d been looking at for the last several years, except, with rapt attention I watched as the crystalline scales began to spread down his shoulders across his chest, across the swirling image.
My mouth gaped open. When his mouth opened it revealed lots of graduated teeth and four exceptional canines. My hands went to my mouth in shock—and grabbed the wide snout of the dragon. It was…I was… No, no, no, no…No!
“Tempeeee.”
Chapter 35
Tempe
Zeus’ flying Paramortal pigs!
“Tempeeee.”
I lurched from the bed. Where was Jack? I ran down the hall toward the guest bathroom, but he wasn’t there. There was scraping and bumping coming from the other end of the house near the kitchen, like clumsy moving men in too small a space.
“Jack?” It was not a big house. “Jack!” He must have gone to the back porch. I took off in that direction, suddenly concerned over what I’d find.
Why wasn’t he answering me? On the other end of the hallway there were gouges in the green sheetrock. Concern turned to fear. Had he gotten into a fight with a burglar?
The back door was open, the screen door hanging on one hinge. I stopped on the threshold to the small back porch. Menori came alive inside me, not threatened I realized, but excited.
In the middle of the backyard—shootfire—taking up the entire green space that was Jack’s backyard was the most beautiful dragon I’d ever seen. He was not as big as Conor, maybe fifteen feet tall. Light from the full moon reflected on his luminescent scales, like Swarovski crystals, shooting brilliant spears of rainbow fire into the trees and across the fence into the neighbors’ backyards.
His skin rippled from head to tail and when I looked into his eyes, I gasped, recognizing him. I had to stifle a laugh. “Jack, what—” I couldn’t help it. I grinned.
A low keening sound started, his teeth forming a grimace and his head moved in a figure eight that reminded me of a frustrated horse. I followed his gaze to the neighbors’ yards, which weren’t all that close but suddenly I understood what was going on.
My boyfriend, Sheriff Jack Lang, who’d never heard of a dragon before moving to Destiny, who’d made it his mission to protect the citizens of Destiny from our little secrets, had a gigantic problem. Did he roar in frustration at what had happened to him or follow his own strict code of protective silence?
I walked to him. His head lowered and a brilliant sparkling mane fell forward. “Aww, you’re beaut—so magnificent, Jack.” He shook his head vigorously and squeezed his eyes closed in frustration. His neck quivered like a newborn foal’s. He could probably relate.
I stroked his neck, feeling its latent power, the smooth surface of the crystalline scales. He let out a long shuddering sigh and I met his silver green eyes. They were larger than in his human face, but I could still see my Jack in them. For me, the worry was plain in his eyes. I raised my palm to his dragon cheek and said, “Go ahead, Jack. Scream. Do your worst. I’ll cover you.”
Menori ascended, rushing through every molecule like meteors blasting through the atmosphere. My Tempestaerie took over with a long roll of thunder that covered the sound of his roar, with jagged bolts of lightning that would not only keep th
e neighbors inside, but made my dragon lover shine like the most brilliant of supernovas.
Watching, stormbound as I was, I couldn’t help but notice the change in him. At first, the sound was pure rage and confusion, like a whine on steroids, but then it took on a life of its own. His own. It was like he’d listened to the power in that voice, realized it was coming from within him, and I saw when the realization struck him.
As much as he had missed flying after giving it up to get custody of Jordie, and as often as he’d envied Conor’s beauty in flight, that possibility was now his again. As he threw back his head and aimed a long dragon call into the night, I covered the sound with a few more bolts of lightning. Finally, the roaring stopped. Jack’s neighbors probably figured a tornado had moved through.
Jack’s beautiful dragon face looked across at me. I was eye level with him and the gusting wind still circled around me. He seemed to have relaxed and I could swear what I saw on his dragon mug was a smile.
We were like a mutual admiration society. Well, Zeus! I reached my hand out to his jaw. The wind spun faster when he nuzzled my hand.
He had a ways to go to become adjusted to this new facet of his life, but we had each other, and I could certainly relate to the change taking him by storm. Life was about to get interesting.
“It’s going to be okay, Jack. I promise.”
Zeus’ flying Paramortal pigs, I hoped I was right.
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Excerpt from Take These Broken Wings
Tempe
"Aiy-yy…"
The long cry intensified, as it grew closer. Then a bright silver streak whizzed by me, the reason for the sound suddenly apparent.
I watched my boyfriend, in silver dragon form, run toward the top of the levee at full speed—actually more like like a clumsy lope—and leap, sun sparkling like diamonds from his crystalline scales before he disappeared from sight. The sound cutoff abruptly followed by a huge splash. Zeus' missing molars!
I made it to the crown of the levee just in time to watch Jack plummet, wings flapping furiously—to no avail—into the river below. "Below" wasn't that far and "river" was too generous a word for the swampy backwater where he now sat, covered in duck weed and gumbo looking like a dejected dragon on a Saturday morning TV show. And tired. Poor baby.
His handsome dragon face looked up at me, beautiful silver green eyes revealing more than a little distress. I'd thought he could shift, but for some reason he didn’t. Instead he pushed up out of the muck, his enormous backside making a loud wet swhuuuck as the gumbo released its hold.
I stood out of the line of fire while he gave a mighty shake and great globs of slimy mud flew in all directions, leaving his scales sparkly and shiny once again. At least he was getting a grasp of some aspects of his change, or it was instinct. His powerful hind legs lifted from the swampy water and one step at a time he walked toward me, then hopped onto the bank. The ground quaked. I widened my stance to keep from falling over. From my position on the levee I was nearly eye level with him.
"No luck, huh?" I asked.
He opened his mouth to speak and remembered he wasn't able to, yet. Our dragon friend, Conor, thought speaking in his shifted form would come in time. Apparently, nothing was certain. Jack shook his crystal-bright head and rainbows bounced off the water.
"That sucks," I said, shading my eyes. He glared at me and I shrugged. "Sorry, no pun intended."
He turned away. A trudging dragon was a sorry sight. All of his frustration and uncertainty was apparent in the slump of his massive dragon shoulders, in the way his wings dropped to his sides, and in the ground-shaking thump of his feet. For a second I thought about having a t-shirt made for him with MY BUTT IS DRAGIN' emblazoned on the front. I'm really not that mean, just as frustrated as my man.
"Jack. Wait." I ran down the levee after him as he plodded, a fatalistic air to his stride. Boom…thud, boom…thud.
Jack's problem, the disappointment that was eating at him after the initial hope that had helped him come to terms with his dragonness, was that he couldn't fly. He simply could not believe that a former Navy jet pilot-turned-dragon would not be a flying dragon. And obviously, it wasn't for lack of trying.
I'll never forget the first time I saw him in his backyard under the moonlight looking alternately disconcerted and elated. He'd denied the elated part right off, because it simply wouldn't do to admit that as much as he wanted to fly again, admitting to the desire to fly as a dragon would just not do. First, he had to admit he was a dragon. Maybe I could find him a Dragons Anonymous meeting. Jack’s problem is denial. He’s old hands with the emotion.
I watched his steady progress toward the woods. He'd apparently given up for the day. The sun was rising and humans would be about. I wished he’d return to his job as sheriff of Destiny. That and his parental responsibilities would keep him grounded.
Oh, Zeus, another pun.
Grab the book here. . . Take These Broken Wings
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