Rare Form: Descended of Dragons, Book 1 (15 page)

Just as he neared my lips, his hot breath sliding across my mouth, wild screaming erupted from the group we had just left—desperate, savage screams. Mere moments after those cries, we heard more from the direction of town and turned to see smoke rising from Caliph Square.

“What the hell?” Boone gasped.

After a few uncertain beats, I barked “Boone, Timbra, check the swimmers. Ewan and I’ll trace into the square.” Everyone gave a sharp nod, and we set off.

I
didn’t think
to hold on to Ewan while tracing, and we obviously
intended
two separate locations because I landed at the square alone. I scoured what little area I could see through the smoke, but quickly abandoned my efforts to find him once I comprehended the fiery chaos that was Caliph Square. Tents were aflame all around me, their taut fabric decimated in seconds, leaving only wooden stakes smoldering in the darkness. Trees and awnings had caught fire, too, sending more suffocating smoke throughout the square. I lifted my shirt over my nose, but breathing was impossible. I needed to get out of the area fast before I lost consciousness. I looked around in search of an escape, and saw that festival-goers were alight and shrieking in agony. I was catatonic with fear.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. My instincts took over in the absence of conscious thought. Chills skittered up my back in an eerie foreboding, and I ducked just in time to escape the grasp of calloused and knobby talons the size of pit bulls as they clasped madly for my shoulders.

“Dear god,” I breathed as three winged nightmares speared through the night. “Dragons.”

I stood enthralled with their powerful grace, watching as the force of their fiery breath engulfed rows of festival tents in flame. I stood dumbfounded until that same dragon circled me again, seizing a second opportunity to impale me with those dagger-like talons. Its massive leathery wings “whoofed” in flight with each forceful down thrust. The dragon stretched its scaled neck and roared in fury, sending a column of fire into the sky so hot that the color was a palest green, almost blindingly white to the eye.

When its demented emerald gaze met mine my heart stuttered, and I thought that one of my useless panic attacks was coming on. I soon realized, though, that something else deep within my soul was churning. I sensed that familiar thrumming in my chakra that Gresham had taught me to manipulate. I fanned the flame madly in the nanoseconds before the savage dragon dove at my head once more.

In a flash, my body detonated. There was no graceful leaping or symbiotic transformation. One second I was regular old human Stella Stonewall, and the next I exploded into a huffing, snarling giant red wolf.

I stood stunned for longer than was safe. A wolf! I was a wolf! I had finally found my other form, and it was glorious and powerful and right. I was so pleased with myself; I’d finally done it. I couldn’t wait to tell Gresham and the others.

It was odd to stand on four legs, and I was keenly aware of move-able ears and a tail. I was perfectly sentient, and thank god for that because I used my four powerful wolf legs to run like hell toward the river and to propel myself under the nearby bridge. Thick claws helped me crawl right up the stone bridge’s steep incline, into a cave-like space between solid ground and the thick abutment of the ancient structure.

The crevice-like space and the width of the bridge ensured that no fire could reach me. I plopped my haunches down, panting, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. And it was. I was at ease in the strange body. My hearing was keen, that was certain, as was my sense of smell. Smoke and the sickening scent of burning flesh were nearly overwhelming. I breathed through my mouth, continuing to pant, to avoid the horrific smells. I was frightened of the dragons and I was horrified and angry that they had likely killed Thayerians and were continuing to do so. What I needed was a plan. I felt guilty hiding out while people were being terrorized and charred just feet from me. But I had no defense against
dragons
. A wolf is scary and vicious, sure, but one snort from a fiery nostril would set my red fur aflame.

As I sat contemplating my next move, another wolf raced under the bridge’s overhang and came to a sliding, panting stop to join me in the dark, narrow hiding spot.

I knew that it was Ewan, just by his scent. I wanted to speak to him and had a frustrating little moment to think ‘
Well, here’s one downfall of the form—a communication barrier.
’ My head pounded a bit; whether from the smoke or the stress of the change, I wasn’t sure. But then Ewan’s wolf whined softly and leaned his head away from the chaos of the square. I grasped what he intended. I growled and shook my own head, refusing his encouragement to leave my safe haven and run into the night. At that precise moment, I heard the
whoosh
of a dragon’s gnarled plumage, and hot smoke engulfed our hideout and singed my sensitive nostrils.

Unable to reach us, the angry beast tore at the bridge with its powerful talons, threatening to pull my shelter apart piece by piece.

I nodded once to Ewan, and we sprinted from the other side of the covering along the riverbank and into nearby woods.

I ran as far and as fast as my four paws could take me, eventually scrambling up a steep incline and faltering due to my unfamiliarity with the lupine body. Ewan, who had been flanking me and pressing me to go faster, slowed to help me. As I found purchase in the loose layers of fallen leaves, Ewan remained behind me, presumably in case I slipped again. A high-pitched screech pierced the air just behind us. Sheer terror fueled my newfound speed, and I bolted through the heavy underbrush of the forest. I could feel the creature’s hot breath through the fur on my back as I ran with every ounce of strength left in my body.

When I reached the face of a small bluff, I spotted a shallow cave entrance and dashed inside. I waited for Ewan, but he never came. I waited and listened, but heard nothing. Whining quietly, I feared the worst. I lay down on the cool, damp floor of the small cave, my hind legs stretched out behind me and my snout resting on my front paws. I didn’t know if Ewan had escaped in time or not.

I cursed my new body. I was furious that my incompetence had put his life in danger. I was angry with Ewan for sacrificing himself by lagging behind to protect me. I was mad at myself because here I sat once again helpless and waiting for someone else to save me. Finally, I was incensed at Gresham because I had no idea how to return to my human form. In weeks of training, not once had we covered that precious bit of material.

Whoop…whoop…whoop.
Gnarled wings the size of Volkswagens blew rocks and dust around my tiny cave like a personal sandstorm.

Still rigid with anger, and so suddenly overwhelmed with a fear that ran bone-deep, the sacred place within my chest pulsed again.

No
, I thought frantically.
Not back to human now. I might as well bite into an apple and serve myself up to the prehistoric beast.

I was so
sick
of being helpless, of being ignorant about my body, my form, and my parentage. I was mad as hell, and I wasn’t going to take it anymore. I spotted a sharply-filed stick that a previous camper had left in the cave, and planned to use it for a weapon once I turned.

I had one final fleeting thought.
Dragons be damned; I’m gonna fight
, before my body exploded once more.

Something hurt. It was my head. And there was an immense pressure on my back. I was trapped, in what I didn’t know. I threw my arms out in an effort to free myself. Except…those weren’t arms. I craned my head to gain a better look at first one side of my body and then the other.
Whatthehell?
I was so confused. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. My mind refused to deal with my reality, and began to shut down. I was lightheaded. My vision became cloudy, and tiny white stars floated across my line of sight. I flailed my body to catch myself before I fell. When I did, I burst out of the cliff-side cave and defaced the entrance dislodging boulders and causing an avalanche of smaller rocks and dust until the cavity was unrecognizable. Still unstable and erratic I turned in a circle but listed clumsily to the right. My balance was way out of whack. As I turned, my large tail whipped saplings into projectile splinters.
Tail? I had a tail!
A scaly, powerful, beautifully fearsome tail. My body began to wrack with shudders, a physical response to the mental shock I was undergoing. I could feel the vibrations of my shudders in my arms. No, not arms. Wings.

I was in a dream. My mind had become so overwhelmed that it had given up. Nothing made sense, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t real. Conscious fear and doubt were suspended. I embraced the moment, carefully extended each wing, awed by the sheer power the two held. Rusty auburn in color, thick but pliable leathery skin was stretched taut between long bones that were previously my fingers. A strange little claw extended about midway along the top and I wiggled it.
My thumb. Still opposable!

Any further exploration of my bitchin’ new body was cut short as the dragon that had been tormenting me dove down once more and screeched in warning.

I was a dragon. I was a dragon! I was fierce and powerful…and still quite pissed. I gave a menacing screech in return. My attacker wasn’t expecting to encounter another dragon, and when realization dawned, it flexed massive wings in the opposite direction, retreating back into the night with one last bewildered look over its shoulder.

I was pleased with myself and raised an arm in victory, thinking
Yee-yah!
The result, much to the forest’s misfortune, was another felled sapling and a small canopy fire that luckily fizzled out soon enough.

O
nce the threat
of being dragon bait was gone, I was at a loss of what to do next. I didn’t know how to revert to my human body. I sure as hell didn’t know how to fly. I did try, but after several failed attempts to manipulate my new body, cognitive thought returned and I remembered that I could trace. It probably worked even in my animal form—wouldn’t hurt to try. There was only one place I knew to go for help: Gresham’s.

I picked up a scaly, clawed foot, tried not to dwell too long on that, and then crashed heavily into Gresham’s back yard. I decimated an ornamental tree and yards of plush sod. In mere seconds, Gresham charged through the French doors swinging a…
was that a claymore
?

I sat very still, ensuring that he knew I would not attack. He stopped just short of me, mouth agape and eyes wide before hoarsely croaking, “Stella?” He put down the oversized sword and paced around my big body, taking every inch of me in. He ran a hand along my shiny bronze scales.

“Beautiful. Just beautiful,” he breathed. “I knew it.”

I huffed through my nostrils in pleasure at his compliment.

Wait, what? This was news. Surely he didn’t mean that he knew my form was a dragon. And if so, I had news for him; I was a wolf, too. Which reminded me of the whole set of questions I had relating to
that
fact. How could I have two forms? How was it even possible, considering what I knew of animal forms, which was that they were a genetic heritage and two different species couldn’t produce offspring.

I must have begun to look agitated—I
was
agitated because I couldn’t communicate these questions to him.

Gresham stepped back slowly, murmuring “Easy now.” I made an effort to relax and he released a breath.

“I assume you’d like to return to your original form?” he asked, to which I blinked a coarse eyelid.

“All right then. I suppose we should have covered this material, but I never thought you would change without me.”

Another, longer blink.

“Compared to what you’ve done tonight this is the easy part. Just relax.”

I quirked an eyebrow at him. I mean,
really
. How many relaxed dragons had he
seen?

“Okay, maybe you’ll not achieve ‘relaxed’ tonight, but how about…concentrate.”

That I could do.

“Good girl. Now, focus on your chakra. Do you have it?”

Blink.

“Good. Picture yourself as human once more. Imagine looking into your chakra as if it were a mirror and seeing your long hair, smooth skin. Picture the sprinkling of freckles just across your nose. Imagine your arms ending in fingers and your long legs into narrow feet. Can you see it? Can you see even that freakishly tiny pinkie toe?”

I
could
see it. And then I was shrinking. I folded in on myself again and again. It wasn’t painful; just a constant pressure and the ultimate sense of weird. The entire process lasted maybe ten seconds, and once it was finished I lie on my side on the ground naked, breaths ragged and chest heaving.

Gresham shed his white button down shirt and threw it around me, scooping me up into his arms. He smoothed my wild hair again and again and murmured words of soothing encouragement until my breathing slowed. I looked up at him.

“I bet you have a lot of questions,” he said.

I sure did. I blinked my agreement, still unable to produce the effort to speak, and he gathered me tighter into his arms and carried me to the kitchen banquette before putting a kettle on the gas burner.

“I’ll be right back with something to cover you,” he said before bounding up the stairs.

I sat in the familiar corner of his kitchen, my mind gone numb with shock and confusion. I had so many questions that I didn’t know where to start. Even asking questions seemed too great an effort. I wanted to lie down, to close my eyes for just a moment. ‘Dealing’ was out of the question.

I heard a noise in the hallway and assumed it was Gresham. My head bowed as I struggled to stay awake.

“Well, that didn’t take long, did it?” Her strained voice was high pitched with emotion.

Dean Miles.
Shit
.

“I knew it. I saw you in his bed in my divination. No one knows better than me how smooth he is, but I never thought he would work this fast.”

I was aware of how the situation looked. My hair was disheveled and I had on nothing but Gresham’s unbuttoned white shirt. My knees were drawn up to my chest seeking comfort and I was probably showing a teeny bit of ass.

“Dean Miles, it’s not what you think…” I began tiredly, but was cut off by her sharp bark of laughter.

“Oh, don’t give me that shit. If you’re woman enough to fuck my man, surely you’re woman enough to own up to it.”

Well, that was just rude
. In fact, she had always been rude to me. As a teacher, a mentor, I should have been able to count on her for guidance. To trust her. But she treated me like an ignorant nuisance since the moment she laid eyes on me. And she’d insulted me so many times that I’d lost track. “Why,
Livia
, you’re forgetting one very important thing,” I said in feigned innocence. “He’s no longer your man.”

Her head snapped up, her nostrils flared, and she sprinted toward me. Despite my exhaustion, I welcomed her attack. I relished the thought of getting my hands around her bony neck. I smiled and braced my legs for a fight.

Gresham stepped down from the stairs as she neared me, blocking her path. He started at seeing her, but recovered and threw the robe he was carrying to the side. He’d become the focus of her fury.

“You bastard,” she grated. “After all this time together I find her here, like this, mere hours after we end it? You disgust me. I told you, did I not? I warned you I saw her in your bed. And here she is.” Her hands shook and her lip trembled. She was on the verge of completely losing it.

“Yes, you told me, Livia,” Gresham said evenly. “Do you need something?”

“Do I need something?” she repeated. “Do I
need
something? I came to apologize, to say maybe I had spoken in haste. But it’s glaringly obvious I was right.”

She turned to me with a snarl, “You’ll pay for this, little girl.”

“That’s enough, Livia,” Gresham said. “Stella’s done nothing wrong. Remember your position at Radix. There’s no need for retribution. You and I are through.”

“Remember my position? You mean that I’m her teacher? That you’re fucking my student? How could I forget something like that?”

She turned and left without another word, slamming the front door behind her.

The teapot whistled, drawing our gazes away from the door.

“Tea’s ready,” Gresham said dryly.

“
W
hy did
you let her believe we were sleeping together?” I asked Gresham as he poured steaming water over tea in first my, and then his own, cup.

“She saw what she wanted to see. There was no convincing her otherwise—not tonight. Tryng to make her see the truth would only have escalated the argument.”

“Do you want me to say something to her once she’s had a chance to cool down? Clear things up? I hate to come between you.”

“No. I’ll tell her in time. Truthfully, our relationship lasted longer than was good for anyone.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. On some level, I was glad he no longer wanted Dean Miles. I felt a shameful thrill knowing they had fizzled out; that he didn’t care if she thought we’d been intimate. I didn’t want Gresham to myself, but deep down I didn’t want the evil professor to have him, either.

“I really just wanted to get her out of the house as quickly as possible. She’s a sharp tongue, and I imagine a heated argument is the last thing you’d like to have right now?”

I shrugged.

“I am sorry she insulted you. And she’ll likely hold a grudge. I hadn’t thought that part through, I’m afraid, until it was too late.”

“Eh. I’ll survive. What, will my parents be disappointed if I get a C?”

Wait a minute. My parents,
I thought. “Gresham, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Hmmm?”

“You saw my dragon tonight, but what you didn’t see was….well…I turned into a wolf first.”

I relayed the night’s events to him, including Ewan’s disappearance.

“I’d just come back from the square when you arrived,” he said. “A lot of damage. Luckily, we were able to treat those who were burned. I’ve heard some speculation as to why the dragons attacked, and I tend to agree with it.”

“What have you heard?” I asked.

“It’s believed the attack on Caliph Square was carried out by the same man who sought to annihilate the Gnome and Fae races centuries ago.”

“The one from the play? The one who used dragons?”

Gresham nodded somberly. “The same. His name is Brandubh; he is an extremely powerful and dangerous wizard. He’s also raving mad.”

“What kind of name is Brandoo. Is that a last name?”

“Brandubh means ‘black raven.’ His actual name is Typhoen and, more than a powerful wizard, he is rumored to have been an ancient god, the ‘father of all monsters.’ No one really believes that, but Brandubh certainly never discouraged the rumor. Fear, respect, it’s all the same to him.”

“Where did you get all of this information?” I asked.

“I have my sources,” he said with a smirk.

“I thought the dragons were gone.”

“So did I” he replied, his tone clipped in ager, his posture rigid.

“Well, what does Brandubh want now? And why burn down the town?”

“I think it’s likely they were searching for you, Stella, and for the very thing you discovered tonight. I think they came in search of another dragon.”

“But how would Brandubh know I even exist, especially when I didn’t know myself?”

“Brandubh is a well-known clairvoyant. He probably saw the moment you entered Thayer. Dammit.” He rose and began pacing. I’ve put you in danger and for that I’m sorry.”

I could only shake my head. “How would they know to look for me at the festival?

“An educated guess. Everyone goes. Once you left the protective wards of Radix you were fair game.”

“Wait a minute, Gresham.” My ears rang as I began to put the many clues I’d gathered together. I had an awful suspicion. “If Brandubh knew to look for me due to a vision, how did
you
find me?”

G
resham grudgingly told
me the rest of the story, revealing details that I’d been seeking for weeks. He said the legend of the Steward Massacre was true; that the dragon Edina and her wolf lover were real.

When Brandubh discovered the two in hiding he sought to destroy them both. But the clever wolf acted as a decoy while a pregnant Edina escaped. In a vicious battle, Brandubh fatally injured the wolf. Someone found the dying wolf in the woods and tried to save him. In tortured delirium and once again in human form, he ranted over and over, “Run, Edina! Our babe. Save the babe.”

The man died that night in the stranger’s home and was later given a meager burial, his identity unknown.

The stranger, a Gnome, recognized the unusual name ‘Edina,’ and didn’t discount the man’s wild ramblings. The gnome confided in his longtime friend. He suspected the dead wolf and his beloved Edina were the very ones immortalized in the Steward Massacre story. If there was a child…well…that had best be discovered right away, although discreetly.

The gnome’s friend and confidante? Rowan Gresham.

Gresham searched more than twenty years, but never turned up a single lead. That is until I came of the age eligible to enter Radix. Livia Miles saw me in her scried divinations. At first it was only a competitor for Gresham’s affections that she saw—a faint vision of a redhead in Gresham’s life. But other visions soon revealed my name, and my skin morphing into shimmering scales. Livia recounted her visions to Gresham, though he’d never revealed his own knowledge to her.

Gresham searched Thayer futilely before a detail of Livia’s vision—a vintage Mustang—indicated my existence outside the confines of Thayer. Gresham pinpointed my location through an Internet search of my name, of all things. He found me, of course, the day he crashed his Land Rover into my beloved Beast.

It was my turn to pace the floor, the angered energy flowing through me too wildly to sit still. “So, all this time you’ve suspected that my form was a dragon, Gresham? All the confusion and disappointment I’ve suffered, and you
knew
?”

“No,” he shook his head and reached out to touch my arm. “I didn’t
know
. Did I suspect? Yes. But the only things Livia’s visions revealed were a redheaded Stella Stonewall and scales. Her visions come in fragments, and I’d pieced so many things together. You could have turned into a python, for all I knew. I had to be sure. And the natural course was to allow you to change form without bias.”

“Still, why wouldn’t you have told me your suspicions? I’m typically pretty reasonable, though I’m not feeling reasonable right now.” My teeth had been clenched so long that my jaws began to ache. “I’d think some warning before I turned into
a dragon
would be super helpful to a novice like me.”

He ran his hands behind his head and pulled at the hair at the back of his neck. “If I had told you that you were the offspring of a dragon responsible for the attempted genocide of three separate races of people and her wolf lover, would you have believed that?”

“Probably not. But the point is you kept information from me. Whether I believed it or not should’ve been my choice.” I stalked to the table. Took a sip of my tea to dispel the nervous energy.

Gresham’s breath came hard through his nose in frustration. “Besides, you’re not just a dragon. You’re also a wolf, which is beyond comprehension by modern standards. The repercussions of a discovery such as this could be momentous. Are you the only offspring of two such varying species? Can the results be recreated? Are there others like you out there? Or are you something even more unlikely?”

“Like what? What’s more unlikely than a wolf-dragon hybrid?”

“What? Well, I can think of one other scenario, but it’s less likely even than this one.”