by Maia Starr
“Do it,” I said.
It was now or never. I took several steps out of the apartment, climbed up onto a car, and jumped off the roof of it as I enlarged. The green scales took over my body, and the wings tore the shirt right off my back.
“Where are you going?” Ryan asked, running after me, shifting into a dragon as well.
My face elongated as I flapped my wings, taking off into the stratosphere, feeling the wind against my face as I shot through a cloud.
And, in my claws, I held my phone, where I clicked on the link that brought me to the webpage tracking Xavier’s car.
He was about two miles north of the apartment.
I shot through the sky, following the dot on my screen.
Humans often ask me what it’s like to be in the dragon form. The truth is it’s almost like being someone else. My mind works differently as a dragon. I still have all the same knowledge inside my brain, but I’m more likely to act out of anger. It’s actually very dangerous and, though I’ve learned to keep the dragon at bay, once I unleash him, it can be difficult to calm myself back into human form.
Not that I wanted to at the moment. I was full of fury and vengeance, but through it all, my heart still beat for Amelia. I would never hurt her as a dragon. The dragon in me is very protective, though, and wouldn’t hesitate to do anything to keep her safe.
I covered the distance quickly and spotted the red sedan cruising up the freeway, then dove down, feeling my aerodynamic body cut through the air. I landed on the car and used my claws to tear the roof off.
Xavier saw me and screamed. He yanked the wheel to the left, slamming the car against the center divider of the road, flinging me to the other side.
Cars honked and piled up. One of them hit Xavier’s car, running headfirst into the side of his rear bumper, popping the trunk open.
I saw Amelia in there, visibly shaken, but mostly unharmed.
“Glenn?” she said.
I winked at her with my yellow eyes.
I climbed back over the divider and lunged at Xavier, secured in his car with the seatbelt and airbag, but in almost an instant, the hair grew out from his skin and his body changed shape into that of a large wolf, pushing against the seatbelt and snapping through it as he lunged at me, digging his jaw into my elongated neck.
I yanked him away from me and threw him at a passing van so hard it left an indentation in its side.
It would have been so easy for me to just breathe fire at him at that moment. His fur would ignite so easily and I’d never have to worry about him again. Unfortunately, I was surrounded by people who had already taken out their phones to film us, and their cars full of gasoline. Even in my heightened dragon state, I knew there was too much risk involved.
Besides, it would have been so much more satisfying to rip him apart.
I lunged at him, but he dove under the truck. In trying to tilt the truck over just enough to grab him, he moved under another one and made his way back down the highway, using the cars stuck in the bottleneck as cover.
I took off into the air to much oohing and ahhing from the crowd as I tried to pinpoint exactly where he’d gone.
We’re taught from a young age to keep the dragon in check and, as such, I couldn’t remember the last time I had done this. It felt so freeing to not be limited by the ground and human legs. I was a dragon: I wasn’t meant to be tied up in meetings all day, signing papers and making business decisions. I was meant to be flying through the air, exploring the city and diving down towards the bay, floating inches above the water.
Yes, I was a human, but if I didn’t let the dragon out every so often, I wasn’t allowing myself to be myself. And, though I was furious at Xavier and had just gotten over being terrified that the woman I love was dead, I found myself smiling. I felt the thrill of the hunt, adrenaline pumping through my veins, and, as strange as it may sound, I was having fun.
It helped that I saw Amelia was safe.
Quickly, Xavier passed the bottleneck and was veering in-between cars, running the wrong way on the freeway as they each swerved out of the way. Even if I couldn’t spot him, the path of the swerving cars made him an easy target.
I pulled my wings in and dove down, aiming right at him, then picked him up with my rear talons before taking off into the sky.
Dragons don’t have vocal cords the way that humans do and, though some shifters can speak in a rough growl, I never mastered it. Now would have been the time to tell Xavier that this was for threatening my wife and for putting her in danger and for undercutting the first few weeks of our marriage with terror that we could be attacked at any moment.
But, you know what? He knew that already so it would just be wasted breath.
He was trying to wiggle his way out of my grip, but I held him tight and he wasn’t going anywhere. As I climbed higher and higher, the air became thinner and it took more effort to get enough resistance under my wings and go higher.
The cars down below were just tiny dots. They looked like little toys.
I shifted back into human form, naked and keeping my arms around Xavier so I could whisper in his ear.
“Just remember: you brought this on yourself.”
We fell together, feeling the wind push against our faces. I couldn’t keep my eyes open so I let go of him and pushed off, doing a mid-air somersault, shifting back into a dragon in the process.
I watched him fall, but then, out of nowhere, another dragon caught him and brought him down to earth, right beside two police cars. The police officers came out of the car and put a collar and muzzle on Xavier, in addition to handcuffs, before throwing them in the back of a squad car specifically designed to be resistant to shifters.
The other dragon took off in the air and gestured at me to follow.
We landed in a field together, far away from anyone else. The dragon shifted back into human form, and I saw it was Ryan.
I shifted back as well, and the two of us stood in the field, naked, talking to each other. In another world, it might have been strange, but we were both dragons and had nothing to hide.
“You rescued him,” I said.
“It was for the best,” he said. “Trust me on this. Remember, I’m protecting my investment, too, and if you got tried for murder, neither of us would get a nickel of it.”
“I don’t care about the money.”
“You could also be put away in a maximum-security prison. That wasn’t self-defense, Glenn, that was vengeance. We dragons need to keep our powers in check. People are already afraid of us and what we could do. You were on video, and that’s already going to be a public relations disaster.”
He was right. I didn’t like that he was right, but he was.
“I just wanted to make sure you understood that,” Ryan said. “I’m not saying what you tried to do wasn’t justified. I’m just saying that it wasn’t very smart.”
I nodded. If killing Xavier would keep me away from Amelia, then I guess he has to stay alive.
“The law is tough on shifters,” Ryan said. “Xavier is going to go away for life. You’re not going to need to worry about him.”
“Fine,” I said.
He smiled. “I’m glad we’re understood. Now go rescue your wife.”
I shifted back into dragon form and took off back to where Amelia was.
She had gotten out of the trunk and was waiting for me when I landed.
“Glenn?” she asked.
I nodded.
She came over and rubbed the skin on my neck, then kissed me on the mouth before looking me in the eyes. “My hero.”
It occurred to me that she had never seen me in dragon form. I know she signed up for the service to be with a dragon, but there was something uncomfortable about showing the dragon side of myself to others. It felt like being more naked than naked. It was a side of me that made me different, unusual, and while I knew it was nothing to be ashamed of, I still felt that it caused people to become uncomfortable.
But it was who I was and, with her kiss, I realized that Amelia didn’t just love me for the human form of myself, but she saw beauty in the dragon side as well. And she wasn’t the least bit afraid.
“May I?” she asked, leaning toward my back.
I nodded, and she jumped on.
I wanted to tell her to hold on, but she already knew. Her arms wrapped tightly around my neck. With a powerful push, I jumped into the sky, flapping my wings, and quickly brought her up to the clouds, letting her see the entire city in all of its glory.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said. “You’re so beautiful.”
I looked down. We were about five miles from the surface. Terminal velocity for humans is about fifty-five meters per second, or about thirty seconds per mile. That would give us about two and a half minutes before we hit.
A guy can accomplish a lot in two and a half minutes.
I shifted back into a human and held Amelia tight against my naked body.
“Trust me,” I said.
“I do,” she told me.
I kissed her hard. Don’t lose track of time, I told myself.
I tore off her underwear from under her skirt. She was already wet. I slipped myself inside of her and held her against me. She wrapped her legs around me, and I let her take control.
Chapter Eighteen
Amelia
If somebody had told me, at the beginning of this year, that I would go skydiving, I would probably have believed them. I had done it before and enjoyed it. But if they were to tell me I’d be doing it without a parachute, I’d tell them they were out of their mind. And if they told me that my husband would be fucking me at the time, I’d ask them if they could share whatever drugs they were on. No part of that seemed believable.
And yet, here I was, falling through the sky, miles over San Francisco, clinging to Glenn with his cock inside of me, having an experience I’d never dreamed of.
I trusted him with my life, but even if this was it and we ended up hitting the ground, well... what a way to go.
We turned in the air, held tightly together like a ball, falling through the clouds as I rode him so hard it made my muscles sore. Any position was possible, and I wanted to try them all, but there probably wasn’t time. Besides, there was always next time.
Instead, we stayed clung together, facing each other, entangled in each other’s arms and legs, as I took him inside me, pushing harder and harder against him just so I could take him just a little bit deeper.
I had seen his inner dragon, and it was just as beautiful as his human form. I’d lived so long being in fear of my partner’s shifted form that it was a completely new experience to feel protected by it. Whether human or dragon, I loved Glenn. I loved all of him.
He covered my neck in kisses, moving up my face as I just took everything in and focused on the feeling I had burning in my heart. As mad as I had been at him for the lies, all I wanted to do was forgive him because there was nobody else I’d rather be with. Not just for the sex, which was far and away the best I’d ever had, or for the riches, though the sense of security was nice, but for being with him, my gentle dragon.
There was no telling how fast we were going, but we were still pretty high up. There were no birds, but as we spun around, I noticed that the cars below me looked a little bigger than they had before. It was a reminder that all good things must come to an end, or as we learned in class…
“What comes up must go down.”
He laughed. “Later,” he said. “I promise.”
The street noises also became faint in the distance. We had been so alone and everything was so quiet just a moment or two ago, but now we were coming back down to the city, back down to reality.
“I need you to cum for me,” he said.
That was his way of saying that we were running out of time.
I increased my rhythm, pulling his ass toward me with my legs as he pushed deeper inside of me, and I came, and I screamed, probably loud enough for the entire city to hear me. The orgasm reverberated through my body, and my whole body, sweaty and exhausted, went limp as he pulled out of me and held me close as he turned back into a dragon, swooping down in a U-shape as we flew over the water, so close that I could reach out and touch it.
He took me over the city again and dropped me on the terrace of his apartment, then perched himself on the railing as he formed back into a human and jumped down, completely naked, so he could give me one last kiss before we went back inside.
I was dizzy, and he helped me inside, laying me down on the bed, then getting me some water. And despite all of the excitement, or maybe because of it, I fell fast asleep.
I woke up with him spooning me and, for the first time in weeks, I felt safe.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I fucked your brains out as we free-falled from about three miles up.”
I laughed. “I remember that. I mean what happened with Xavier.”
He sighed. “If it was up to me, he’d be dead, but Ryan convinced me not to kill him. He’s currently in custody with the San Francisco police, being charged with breaking and entering, kidnapping, and three cases of assault. They’re going to try to get him on attempted murder, too, but that probably won’t stick. We’ll see.”
He held me close. “The important thing is that he’s not going to bother us anymore.”
He paused. There was clearly something else on his mind.
“I have some more to say to you, but I’m not sure it wouldn’t ruin the mood,” he said.
“Glenn, you just saved my life then gave me the best sex I’ve ever had and then told me that I didn’t need to worry about the only thing that’s been worrying me. You tell me whatever it is you need to tell me.”
He sighed. “I fell in love with you from the moment I first saw your picture. I fell in love with you because you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen and, like most things I want, I bought you. And, more than anything, that’s the thing I feel worst about. I treated you like a possession and got you pregnant without even talking to you about it first, and I would understand if, once this year is up, or even before it, you walked away and never spoke to me again.
“But even if that happens, I learned something really important, which is that all my money is just being wasted right now. It’s sitting in investments when it could be making people happy and, regardless of what you do, I’m taking my inheritance and investing as much as I can to put it towards making people’s lives better. I won’t bribe people so I get any kind of special treatment and, as annoying as it is, I’ll even wait in line if I have to.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I’m liking what I’m hearing.”
“I also don’t want to be in charge of the Carters. I’m fine with being a figurehead, but I don’t have the business savvy to make smart decisions, nor do I want to waste time in boring meetings. If I have enough money to live comfortably, I don’t want to waste my life working like my dad did when I could be spending it doing things that I actually want to be doing.”
I smiled. “That’s very good, Glenn. It sounds like you’ve learned a lot of very important lessons.”
“I think I have. But this is all leading up to the biggest one. Legally, we signed contracts that will render this marriage null and void after the year ends. And you’ll take your money and I’ll have had my wife for a year, and that’s what we agreed to.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Maybe I’m being greedy, but I don’t want that.”
“So, what do you propose?” I asked.
“Interesting choice of words,” he said. He pulled open the drawer on his nightstand and produced a small, velvet-covered box, then gave it to me.
“Mrs. Amelia Carter,” he said, “will you marry me for real?”
I opened the box, and it was the biggest, most beautiful, most perfect diamond I’d ever seen sitting on top of a ring.
I put it on my finger and put my hands on his face, kissing him.
&
nbsp; “Is that a maybe?” he asked.
“It’s an of course, I will, silly goose. I love you, Glenn, and I love being your wife.”
“I love you, too,” he said.
Chapter Nineteen
Glenn
I talked to Ryan about our options, and it seemed that the best thing we could do was file for an annulment with the state of California. There are very strict guidelines for what could qualify a marriage for annulment, one of which is fraud. Since the marriage was performed with the sole intention of producing an heir in order to earn my inheritance, that constituted fraud and he was able to make the argument to a judge.
Since the marriage was annulled, the Fiery Hearts contract no longer applied and could no longer invalidate our marriage, which left Amelia and I free to plan another wedding, a real one this time, with all of our friends and family.
“I’ve never been to a shifter wedding,” she said. “I don’t know what it’s like.”
“Well,” I said, “it’s just like any other wedding. I don’t see why it has to be any different.”
She considered that for a second but shook her head. “I don’t feel like I’m just marrying the human you. I’m marrying your dragon as well. And I want them both to be there.”
I laughed. “That’s ridiculous. No, I’ll just be in my human form. It’ll be fine.”
She was insistent. “Glenn,” she said. “I want to marry all of you. And I want everybody to see all of you. If we’re going to do this, I want to do this right, and I don’t want you to have to hide who you are.”
She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “I guess that means we’re going to need an outdoor venue.”
“I guess so.”
A dragon wedding introduces several difficulties that we had to work through. For one thing, I couldn’t say “I do,” so we agreed that a mild, pleasant growl would suffice. I practiced it so that it almost sounded like a loud purr.