Roommates

by Valerie Reyes

  “How did you do that?”

  “Magic.” I gave him a curious look for a moment before laying my head back down.

  “Do I ever get to learn magic?”

  “In time,” he whispered.

  Soon enough, this new place began to feel like home. It was always warm and cozy and there were always new things to explore and to be admired. Eventually, my anger with Simon dissipated and was replaced by an ever-growing love for him.

  As my stomach grew larger and larger, excitement was slowly overtaking me. What would the baby look like? Would it take after me or Simon? There were so many questions. Half the time I managed to nag Simon’s ear off. But he always listened to me with the utmost patience, ready to satisfy my desire for knowledge.

  And, we had our fun of course. Since I was pregnant, he could no longer penetrate me, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t have fun in so many other ways. Soon we were getting creative and I was having the time of my life in the arms of a dragon. Life seemed to be perfect. We were spending all our time together, slowly learning more and more about each other.

  And soon enough we would have our own cute little whelp. To say the least, I was excited.

  Chapter 8: Simon

  The time my new mate and I spent together flew by. The thought of finding a male mate had never even crossed my mind, but Matt couldn’t have made me happier. Embracing my inner dragon was no longer a problem.

  With Matt around, loneliness no longer had its ugly grasp on me, and flying around my nest didn’t present any danger. Having a mate brought my instincts under control, so I no longer had to worry about them. Life was almost perfect.

  Now all I needed to do was wait for the whelp. Every day its scent became stronger and the excitement about meeting my child grew. Today, Matt was lying down in bed resting. His stomach was quite large at this point, and we were expecting the baby to come any day now. I promised to take good care of him. Catering to his every whim and desire wasn’t a problem and in return, he repaid me with endless care and affection.

  One day, I was in the kitchen making some soup, which Matt always loved. I tasted it on the tip of my tongue as a scream came from the bedroom. I rushed in that direction, my eyes wide, searching for my mate. I found him leaning against the bedpost, groaning as he held on to his stomach.

  My reaction was quick, picking him up and laying him down on the bed. “It’s okay, just calm down and continue to breathe, okay?” My eyes met his, as he gave me a pained look. It wasn’t at all easy for humans to bear the children of dragons. Looking at my mate, I placed my hand on his stomach, utilizing my magic to soothe his body.

  He smiled in relief as the pain started to go away and he relaxed, closing his eyes. His eyelids slowly began to close as I ran my fingers through his hair, soothing him to sleep, kissing the top of his head

  A few hours later, Matt woke up. He groaned softly as he opened his eyes and looked around. He was confused. As he tried to sit up I kept him down.

  “Rest. You need it.” I gave him a look, a bright smile on my face. As he looked back, he reached down, feeling his now flat stomach. His eyes went wide.

  “The baby…what…” Shushing him with a small kiss, I walked over to a small crib and took out a tiny but healthy boy. He cooed happily at me as he pulled on my hair. I chuckled, prying his small hand out of my hair before carrying him over to Matt.

  The baby giggled with glee seeing his human father. Matt’s face lit up, seeing his son for the first time. He tried to get out of bed but was met by my chiding look. He lay back down, but looked excited as I approached, laying the baby in his arms.

  The little whelp reached up and touched his father’s face, giggling happily. Matt reached down, playing with his little hand as I looked on. Matt finally turned to me and whispered, “Come here.”

  I happily obeyed, sitting on the edge of the bed. He managed to pull me down until we were lying together with our new son. Our small boy looked at us for a moment before yawning, causing me to chuckle and put him back in the crib.

  I rocked him to sleep before making my way back to Matt. Lying down next to him, he cuddled up to me instantly. With a smile on my face, my arms wrapped around him.

  “You did great.” He offered me a smile before laying his head on my chest. I rubbed his arms and pulled him closer. He yawned and began falling asleep, causing me to smile and kiss him good night once more.

  That was three years ago. We now had a lively toddler on our hands. Lucas, our whelp, likes to cause trouble. With his new wings coming in, he is learning to fly and that means he has been breaking things left and right. Matt runs around the nest chasing him, but my human mate is quickly becoming no match for the growing dragon.

  “Get back here! That used to belong to King Tut!” Matt shouted last week as he ran after Lucas, trying to get him to land. The little troublemaker flew around the house, holding the jar, looking at it with curiosity. He didn’t care about the history, he just liked how shiny it was. Suddenly he placed it in his mouth and began chewing on it. Realizing it didn’t taste good, he dropped it to the ground. Matt made a dash for it, catching it before it could break.

  He seemed exasperated as he looked over at me. “A little help here would be nice.” I chuckled and relaxed, allowing my wings to emerge, stretching them out, before looking at Lucas. He saw me and flew away quickly, thinking he could get away from me. I chased him around the house, letting him escape my grasp for a few minutes before finally grabbing him. Bringing him back to the ground, I punished him with an onslaught of tickles. “What did I tell you about tormenting Daddy?” I asked him in a stern tone. His eyes fell as he looked away from me.

  “That I shouldn’t do it, Dad,” he said, looking guilty. He ran off into his bedroom, and I let him go with a chuckle. As he disappeared from view, Matt walked up to me, wiping the sweat off his brow.

  “Why does he always listen to you?” he asked me with a pout on his face.

  “Because I’m Dad, the bad guy in this relationship.” He pouted even more. I chuckled again, pulling him into a hug.

  “Don’t give me that look. You know you love me.”

  Matt finally smiled, kissing my lips before saying, “Forever.”

  Drilled by the Sergeant

  Chapter 1: Naval Recruit Zack Schaffer

  The educational room in Great Lakes, Illinois, was packed. The Navy’s basic training was much more difficult than I had imagined it would be. I had spent the last year training my body for the SEAL program. I had thought that the Navy’s basic training would be a cakewalk. When it came to running around in the gym, or marching around the expansive Navy base, it was. I could run in my sleep. I could run for miles without getting tired. I could do one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, and twenty pull-ups without any difficulty. I had expected SEAL training to be hard, especially the Hell Week that I kept reading about in books written by those who had gone through the program and survived. I had not expected to find what I found when I entered the basic training program.

  It was the sleep deprivation that did it to me more than anything else. They brought me to the base on a dark bus in the middle of the night. That had been after a flight I had taken from Lincoln, Nebraska, to Chicago International Airport. I learned early on during that bus ride that the best thing I could do for myself was to keep quiet. There were a handful of people who didn’t know better and talked back to the Navy personnel. They didn’t like that much. I could tell by how they frowned and how their voices grew louder as they talked. I kept my eyes forward as much as I possibly could. I decided to say nothing unless I was spoken to. That didn’t happen until I was asked what size shoe I wore.

  I marched in the middle of the night to my barracks, which turned out to be a spacious room in a large building that the instructors referred to as a ship. Everyone in the Navy had their own terminology for everything. I did not understand it at first; I just tried to go along with it as best I could. I got an hour of sleep during the
first night. Then it was out to marching again. Even though my own building—ship—had its own mess hall, I marched with my company to the mess hall meant for the entire base. That was when the weariness set in. It never went away, for I never got a full night’s sleep during his first week of training. The instructors soon started assigning watch. Every now and then, a chief petty officer—a man with such a high rank that he might as well have been a god in comparison to my rank of E-1 recruit—would come by to challenge whoever was on watch. As often as not, the poor recruit responsible for watching the door would fail the challenge. Then everyone in the company woke up with the noise from the tongue-lashing that resulted.

  In consequence, when I got a chance to sit down in a chair, I was counting my blessings. I got to sit down on the floor and stand in line a lot. The life of a Navy recruit was a life of waiting. I tried to be as patient as I could. That was not easy. I sat and waited for a well-dressed muscular man to come to the front of the classroom. I leaned forward in my seat when I saw the insignia of the Navy SEAL who I recognized from so much research. The man had come to give us all an invitation to join the SEALs, if we wished to do so. I had been waiting for it all through basic training.

  I accepted the invitation. I ended up transferring out of basic and into its SEAL training program. I hadn’t known it then, but my experiences with sleep deprivation were only just beginning.

  Chapter 2: Petty Officer David Anderson

  As a petty officer first class with the rank of E-6, I could more or less call my own shots. I had put in seventeen years of Naval service until I was selected to be a trainer of new recruits hoping to make it into the Navy SEALS program. I had told myself that I would punch my ticket during my twentieth year and get out. I would get my GI Bill and my pension and go somewhere quiet and cold where no one wanted to live. I had my sights set on northern Scotland. It was awfully cold up there, but it was also very quiet. I didn’t mind the cold. I did mind too many people around me all at once. That drained my energy away faster than the most intense training session.

  The Captain of the Great Lakes base had seen fit to send thirty-seven men and two women into my care. I walked back and forth in front of them while they stood at attention on a dark, frigid night. To me, they all looked like greenhorns who ought to be sent back to their mothers. I made up my mind then and there to put them all over my knee to see who would break and who would not. Better to find out that they break under pressure during training conditions than in the field, when lives are on the line.

  I said, “Well, I have to commend you all on your bravery. I won’t commend you on your intelligence, because if you’re here, you don’t have much of that. Now, this program lasts for eight weeks, starting today. You have fifty-six days to prove yourselves to me, or else you will be out. Now, you will see behind me a little silver bell hanging in the air. Do you see it? If you know what that is, then go ahead and ring it now. That bell is your way out of the program. This place will be complete hell. It will be the worst thing that you have ever experienced, or will ever experience. This program will kick your ass, chew you up, spit you out, and stomp on you for good measure. It will test you down to the very core of who you are. If you think you can’t handle that, if you have any doubts about yourself, go ring that bell. You won’t get punished if you do. You can’t go to jail or get kicked out of the Navy. You’ll be put back with another division to continue your basic training. Does everyone understand?”

  A nervous man who looked like a high school linebacker stepped up, and rung the bell at once. I said to the man, “Son, what’s your name?”

  The man could not look me in the eye. He said, “My name is Diffendorfer, Petty Officer.”

  “Mr. Diffendorfer, report to the petty officer at the registration desk you passed on your way here. Tell him that you rang the bell. He’ll direct you from there.”

  Recruit Diffendorfer walked away with his head hung low. I asked the group of thirty-eight recruits if anyone among them wished to quit. None of them spoke up. I thought that was a shame. They could have spared themselves a lot of trouble if only they weren’t so stubborn.

  Chapter 3: Recruit Schaffer

  I learned early on that the most important thing I could do during the obstacle course that we ran every morning at five o’clock was to keep my butt down. That’s not as easy as it sounds. Part of the obstacle course is a long trench with barbed wire all along it. Anyone who lets their butt get up too high gets their uniform caught on a barb. Then they have to go through the rest of the day with a torn-up uniform. Those who tear up multiple uniforms don’t get replacements. None of us are given the liberty to visit the commissary for anything. We wake up early. We go to bed late. In between, we punish our bodies to the absolute limit.

  Even with all the preparation I did, I found that I still had not sufficiently readied myself for what was to come. SEAL training is far more about mental toughness than physical toughness. It’s about having the ability to shut down the mind in order to focus on what needs to be done. I don’t know of any training regimen in the world that can prepare a person for that. You either have the ability to do it or you don’t.

  Because I had worked out four or five hours every day before coming to Great Lakes, I lasted longer than most of the recruits in the program. People rang the bell every day. The bell rang every hour during the third day of training. By the end of our first week, there were twenty of us left. I began to think that I could really do it. I would make it through. I had survived the worst part of the training, and though I was sore and tired and hungry, I could still do it.

  I had thought so right up until the moment when I discovered that the second week of training was even more physically demanding than the first. We still weren’t allowed to sleep a full eight hours every night. I was lucky if I got six. My body had become sore all over. The morning drills became ever more wearisome. I forced myself through it by thinking of how much time I had to my next meal. Meals were blessed times when I actually got to sit down and rest. I didn’t care that we ate MREs as often as not, or that I drank the local city water from my canteen. I just had to survive long enough to make it through the first stage of the training program. I had every reason to believe that I could. I never doubted myself for an instant.

  Until, that was, my left leg became especially sore and stiff. I didn’t know what had happened. I tried stretching it out—even more than I already had been—yet it still did not feel any better. I thought of what might happen if I injured myself. I had been expecting pull muscles, perhaps even a broken rib or two. I had not thought things through to the point where I considered what it might be like to risk further injury for the sake of continuing the training. I could run through a pulled muscle, perhaps. But what if I tore that muscle? Could I run through that? Would it be safe to do so?

  I could not help what happened next. A Navy SEAL is supposed to be a tough person, made completely of stone. I had to admit to myself that, in spite of all my preparation, I might not have been meant to be a SEAL. A man can run all the way across an entire continent, but at the end of that run, he still has to meet himself. What I saw when I met myself was not altogether inspiring.

  The tears started of their own accord. I could not stop them, much as I wanted to. I pushed the heels of my hands into my eyes while I stood in place and sobbed. It didn’t take long before our drill instructor—a hardass of a man who I knew as Anderson—to notice. That was it, I thought. I had not been able to make it. I had prepared for a full year, and still I couldn’t make it. The tears only came faster then.

  Chapter 4: Officer Anderson

  Recruits cry all the time. It’s nothing special, especially not in SEAL training. They’re tired, or they’re hungry, or they want to go home. They’re surrounded by strangers who are just as beat up and depressed as themselves. They miss the creature comforts of home. Mostly, they just want to find a comfortable bed and sleep for a good long while. I know, because I went through it
myself.

  Now, the class that I was training just then was my third SEAL class. I’m with the same group from start to finish for the whole year of training that they go through. I took the assignment because I thought it would fast-track me into OCS. So far, that hadn’t happened. The Navy, in its strange wisdom, is perfectly comfortable letting an overqualified and under-ranked person like me train and supervise new SEAL recruits. Either they would promote me or they would replace me with someone of a higher rank. I wasn’t sure which would happen first. In the meantime, I got to punish recruits and watch them cry. Sometimes, the crying was actually fun to watch.

  There was something about the recruit named Schaffer that seemed different to me. He had a chiseled body that was the result of strenuous physical conditioning. His arms, his chest, his neck, his legs, his stomach, his back—everything was well-defined. He put his hands over his face while he cried. That made him—I don’t how to describe it other than to just say it—attractive.

  Now, it’s a strange thing to admit. A drill instructor should never be attracted to a recruit. But I was. I never thought that I would be. I had seen young men come and go from Great Lakes. Some of them had earned my respect; others had earned my ire. None of them had ever evoked anything in me that resembled attraction before. I wasn’t sure how to handle it. I felt my pants expanding just below the belt. I took a moment to collect myself before I walked over to him.

  I said, “Recruit Schaffer, what is your malfunction?”

  Schaffer said, “I—I don’t know, Petty Officer. I—”

  I raised my voice. “‘I don’t know’ is not an acceptable answer, Recruit! Not if you want to be a SEAL! Now, you will tell me what has got you so worked up that you’re blubbering like a child and making yourself look like a piece of ass, or I swear you won’t like what comes next.”