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…
Mandrake landed about a man’s length from us. His second in command, a svelte green female, dropped to earth rather more showily. Both took human form. Mandrake removed a chain from about his neck, while she bowed her head. He carefully arranged the shining links around her throat so a bright medallion rode in the middle of her breast where it caught the morning sun.
“The wing is yours belle soeur.”
“Be happy, mon frère.”
She shimmered back into dragon shape, and led the wing away to the east. It warmed me to see that each dragon saluted their former wing-master before following their new leader away.
“What he done?” Moth sounded fretful. “Why do he feel sad? He has us now.”
“He feels sad because he has given up everything he has ever been in order to be with us.”
I felt her take on the enormity of that, and then there was a sudden rush of wings. She manifested in her visible form and flew to Mandrake. Throwing her tiny arms around his head she spoke aloud.
“Mustn’t be sad, beloved. Have us now.”
He smiled and touched her with a gentle finger.
“Indeed, and I am a very lucky dragon.”
Moth giggled. “Not flirt with Mothwing. Save that for beloved.”
I stood up, pleased to be no longer possessed of a stomach with a mind of its own, but still tired to my very bones.
“Mandrake. Will you take us home?”
“I will.”
His dragon form was as fine as the human body that had pleasured me, and for a moment I felt a little smug to think he was mine. But then I thought of what he had gladly forsaken for the sake of our bond and I forced myself to say what was in my heart.
“Mandrake. Beloved. I am afraid that this happened too quickly and you will come to regret us.”
He bathed me in his smile. “It is always thus for dragons. When we make the mating bond it happens to us like lightning setting a field of corn aflame. Fear not. I am content in my soul for the first time ever. Come. Let us fly together.”
Moth slipped inside my clothing and took station at my back with her bed looking over my shoulder, while I climbed wearily onto Mandrake’s neck where I found a resting place between the spiny ridges. He ran three steps or so and took off with a silky smoothness I have never managed to achieve in any winged form.
Moth laughed. “Beautiful take off, loved dragon.”
“Show off,” I muttered and felt Mandrake’s laughter reverberate through my bones.
“Rest, amata, let Mothwing guide us home.”
And I did just that, warmed by the love I felt from the two of them and physically warmed by Mandrake’s dragonish heat I let myself drift while he carried us through the sunlit sky. I wasn’t looking forward to the slog up the twisty mountain pass to home, an isolated stone-built cottage without electricity or phone signal, but as there was nowhere for a dragon to land I guessed it had to be done. I underestimated our beloved, however, as he overflew the cottage and I could feel his smile.
“Are you willing to take a chance on my skill?”
I was too tired to be anything but grateful for the opportunity not to arrive home on my knees and Moth gave a whistling cry of excitement.
Mandrake took us very high and as we plummeted towards the earth I was about convinced he would smash his wings on the stony walls that surround the garden. I truly thought we were all going to die. But then, when we were only a man height above the earth he made the change and landed on Moth’s camomile lawn in his human form with me and Moth on his back. I jumped down and punched him solidly in the biceps.
“You fool. You could have hurt yourself.”
His grin was entirely unrepentant. “It’s not an easy manoeuvre, but it’s something I have practiced many times. So you were perfectly safe.”
“It wasn’t my safety that was the concern. It was yours. I don’t think I could bear to lose you.”
Which must have touched a chord in him because he wrapped me in his arms and rocked me as if I were a frightened child.
“I know,” he said thickly, “the only thing that frightens me about the bond is the idea of losing it.”
Moth made a tisking sound with her tongue.
“Stop that. Nobody losing nobody. Inside with you. Beloved needs to sleep and loved dragon needs to help Mothwing in the kitchen.”
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