Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…
Chapter Three – Mandrake (part two)
When I next awoke, my internal clock told me it was heading towards dawn. Mandrake was no longer beside me, and I was surprised to feel bereft. I was working that through in my mind when he appeared in my eyeline carrying a bowl of something that steamed gently in the firelight.
“It’s only porridge, but the stores here yielded little else that wasn’t meat.”
I sat up, keeping the blankets around my nakedness. “Thank you. Porridge will be more than welcome.”
He set the bowl in my hands and sat quietly while I ate. When I was done, there was a little of the honey-sweetened grain left in the bowl, and Moth swooped.
‘I’m sorry, my dear, I had not thought you hungry.’
‘Not. Is honey, can smell the flowers.’
Mandrake put a hand on mine. “Is your bond-sister eating?”
“She is. But you shouldn’t be able to see her.”
“I can’t. But I have the impression of gleeful greed.”
“That’s her. But on the other side of the coin she is my strength and my anchor, so if she is naughty I must forgive her.” I didn’t think it was fair to discuss Moth any more so I turned the subject. “Have you eaten, sir dragon?”
“I have. My appetites are satisfied. For now.”
The last two words were said on a kind of a growl which had butterflies roiling in my stomach – and other places.
Even as I smiled at him, though, that stomach started to revolt and I knew the porridge wasn’t about to stay put. He must have seen my distress, because he wrapped me in one of the quilts and ran for the trees. I was miserably sick, and he held my hair and gently rubbed my back until I was empty. When he was sure my bout of vomiting was over, he gently wiped my face with a scrap of rag he found in his pocket before carrying me back to the campfire.
Moth flew around us making worried little noises.
One of his dragons had assumed human form and was holding a bottle of water.
“Cool,” he said, “fresh.”
“Rinse and spit amata,” Mandrake was kindly but practical, for which I was grateful.
I followed his suggestion and felt the better for it.
“What you sicking for, my dearling? You never sicks.” Moth’s concern was evident.
“I don’t know. It just came on me, but I’m all better now.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am.” But I shivered. “I don’t like this place. It feels unhealthy.”
Mandrake was reassuring. “Once the sun is high we can leave. My dragons will put the facility to the flame and then we can go.”
I wondered if I had the strength to shift myself some clothes, but it seemed my dragon friend was ahead of me as he handed me a bundle.
“My Queen believes this to be your size.”
I grimaced. “She would know.”
He was sensitive enough not to ask and I thanked him with my eyes. I felt Moth settle on my shoulder.
‘Strange sort of a dragon this. Not underestimate.’
‘When have I ever?’
She elbowed me. ‘Could write list. But. Have care with this one.’
‘I will. Although I don’t think him ill-intentioned.’
‘Can see not. Is just too clever to be underestimated.I’
Mandrake was watching me with intelligent curiosity.
“Yes,” I said, probably more harshly than I intended. “My sister and I are speaking of you. Does that feed your ego, sir dragon?”
His smile was complicated and I could see pain behind his eyes. I put out a hand.
“I’m sorry, Mandrake, that was uncalled for. It is just…”
His smile became easier. “Just that you have had to develop a lifelong habit of secrecy in order to keep yourselves safe. I will do nothing to imperil you and your bond-sister.” I opened my mouth and he put two fingers gently across my lips. “I know that is easy to say, and I don’t expect you to believe me. All I ask for is the chance to be more than just a passing phase.”
Moth touched his fingers and I knew he felt her small hand, but he didn’t flinch.
‘Could give him his chance,’ she said.
I nodded and Mandrake leaned in to kiss my mouth.
“Would it help if I hold up a blanket for you to dress behind?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
I wriggled into the tight leather riding suit and braided my hair before grinning at Mandrake.
“Your queen is not omniscient. This riding suit was mine. A lot of years ago. I had no idea she kept it. We didn’t part on the best of terms.”
He gave me an odd look before shrugging his massy shoulders.
“She said something. But I don’t think I was supposed to tell you.”
I raised one eyebrow.
He grinned and capitulated. “The hardest learned lessons are, perhaps, the ones that help us most in life.”
I found myself laughing and Moth joined in.
‘Think you should tell, my love,’ she said.
I saw no harm in him knowing. “For the longest five years of my life I was tutor to a Dragon Princess with no desire to learn.”
“Oh,” he spoke mildly enough but I could hear the amusement underlying his voice, “I don’t think I envy anyone that task.”
“It wasn’t my favourite assignment, made worse by all the male tutors she had run rings round before me.”
“I bet. But how did you…”
“Oh. Her lady mother laid a geas on her so she couldn’t make the change, and I’m neither male nor susceptible to female pulchritude, so she had to toe the line. But she hated me with every fibre of her being.”
“And yet she seems fond enough now.”
“She does?”
“Yes. Enough to threaten me with dire consequences if I allowed anything to befall you.”
Moth made a noise of derision in my head, so loud that Mandrake must have heard. He grinned.
“The Queen does have an exceedingly badly behaved daughter.”
‘Noooooooo…’ Moth shouted so loud that I thought I might become deaf. Nonetheless I kept my own voice decorously quiet.
“So I heard. But her majesty is going to have to find another fool.”
Mandrake’s eyes danced in unholy glee. “Unless she can find something to blackmail you with.”
“Not twice. Her dam used up all the counters in that game.”
He laughed and gave me a friendly hug.
“Another half hour or so and the sun will be high enough for me to fly you home. It will be good to stretch my wings.”
For a moment the air around him was disturbed as if his dragon sought to be free. He grimaced.
“My dragon fed last night and he is full of impatience.”
Without thinking, I spoke directly to the beast that dwelt in his breast. “Have patience, beautiful one. Soon we will fly in the morning sunlight.”
The dragon curled himself about Mandrake’s heart and rested his snout on his own tail. I felt hard hands at my shoulders, but they weren’t holding me tightly or with any intention to cause hurt.
“How is it that you can speak to my dragon?”
Moth moaned. ‘Foolish beloved.’
And I realised what I had done. I had broken one of the most stringent rules of lycanthropy. It is forbidden to speak to another’s beast. Unless it should be that you are Life Mates. And even then it is the most intimate thing you can do. I hung my head.
“I’m sorry Mandrake. I don’t know what came over me. I think it was because we made love, and because I am touching you, and maybe even because I was sick. I really am truly truly sorry. It won’t happen again.”
To my surprise he pulled me to his heart and held me as if I was the most precious thing in the world.
“It doesn’t seem to have done my beast any harm, and I certainly found the experience warming. I just wondered how.”
“Me too. It happened without my thinking.”
Moth spoke to both of us. “There is connection. Unusual but not unheard of. Don’t pick at.” Then privately to me. ‘I think means we get to keep him.’
Which made him sound like a pet dog and made me want to cry. I rounded on her in fury.
‘He is not some animal to be put on a leash and made to trot after us, begging for scraps of affection. And I will not have you speak of him so.’
Moth’s laugh in my head was soft and almost maternal. ‘Good. Then we are all on same road. To wherever.’
‘Wherever indeed.’
I almost swallowed my tongue when Mandrake’s deep tones joined the conversation.
‘It will be an adventure.’
Moth found her voice first. ‘How you get in?’
‘I have no idea. Do you want me to leave.’
‘Don’t think you can.’ Moth sounded pensive. ‘Bond expanded to include.’
I gathered my scattered thoughts then spoke aloud. “If you are willing.”
“I’m willing. I think my life has been leading me here.” His voice became profoundly formal. “My dragon is called Mandrake, as you know. In this form I am Mylo first egg of the Princess Coral.”
“I am Mothwing, daughter of Harebell.”
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