Chapter Eight – Magnus

The thrill of flying filled his heart with joy. Magnus wished he could spread his arms wide and jump off Ruby’s back and fly alongside her. What an incredible sense of freedom to simply glide on an air current, and then with a tip of your wings change direction and fly to whatever destination you chose.

If he wasn’t holding Fara in place, he would let go of his hold on Ruby’s horny spike and raise his hands in the air and whoop.

Beneath his legs, which gripped tightly around the dragon’s body, he felt Ruby’s muscles bunch as she drew her wings upward, and then flex as they pressed the air down, enabling her to rise higher and fly faster. Magnus studied every aspect of the dragon’s flight, from the way she turned her sinewy neck to change direction, to the twitch of her tail that acted like a rudder. She fascinated him and he never wanted this journey to end.

Scratch that. He did want the journey to end but only because he hoped to find answers. Answers that would mean one day he too might fly through the air with his mate. For one thing, Magnus was sure of—this was not his first dragon flight.

That could mean he had ridden on another dragon’s back. But he doubted that was the truth. His body thrummed with excitement, his muscles resonated with the movement and rhythm of her wings. Purely primal, he instinctively anticipated Ruby’s next movement, no matter how subtle.

“You don’t have to hold on to me so tight.” Fara’s voice carried to him as the mountain terrain changed. They were leaving behind the green grass and trees. The colors around them became more muted, grays and browns, and then the first patches of snow appeared, clinging to the underneath of large overhangs where the sun’s rays never reached.

“I don’t want to lose you, Fara,” he yelled back, the wind taking his voice and whisking it away.

“I didn’t know you cared so much.” She cackled. Her dry voice was no match for the air streaming past them but his arm around her waist felt the rumble of her chest. She was enjoying this, despite her earlier trepidation.

They rose higher. The sun reflecting on the snow bounced back at them, making him squint. But even through the slits of his eyes, he could see the beauty and magnificence of their surroundings. The bitterly cold wind dragged at the warm coat Fara had loaned him and he wished he’d pulled the hood up around his head. His ears were freezing.

Then Ruby changed course, her wings angling to take them down toward the mountainside. They were going in to land. Like a buzzard circling a kill, she cruised around in a spiral, each turn taking them lower. Magnus leaned forward and looked down to the side as Fara pointed and called, “That’s it, that’s where I found you.”

He nodded, too wrapped up in his own thoughts to speak. This was the first thing he remembered. The cold. The bright sun on the snow. The sense of loss. He’d fought to put one foot in front of the other. Not because he was weak. But because, as much as something was pulling him forward, another something was holding him back. He could feel it now, like a heavy weight in his chest.

Lower, the dragon made a tighter circle, he could see the place she planned to set down. A narrow ledge, with a large drop on one side. If she timed it badly, they might all topple into a snowy abyss. But he trusted her, she knew what she was doing, although from the quickening of Fara’s breath it was doubtful Ruby’s other passenger experienced the same confidence.

“Close your eyes,” he suggested to Fara. There was no need to shout, the wind no longer robbed him of his voice. They were descending slowly, with Ruby making meticulously small adjustments to compensate for wind speed and downdraft.

“Are you joking? If we fall, I need to look for a place to grab hold of.” Her voice wobbled with nerves.

“We won’t fall.”

“I wish I had your confidence, this is a big old bird to set down on a narrow ledge.” Fara half-turned to speak to him. “It never looked as narrow from down there.”

He grinned. She was right, flying made you look at the world from a different perspective. “Ready. We might land with a jolt, but we’re fine.”

Fara nodded, and her breathing stopped for one long moment as Ruby extended her large taloned feet and set down on the packed frozen snow. Extending her claw-like feet, the dragon dug into the ground, gripping the mountainside.

“Okay, I’m ready to bail,” Fara said, but her hands were frozen around the horny spine. “I can’t move.”

Magnus didn’t ask if it was through cold or fear. Instead, he took his protective arm from around Fara’s waist and closed both his hands over her gloved hands. Rubbing them with his palms, he helped get the circulation going and then hooked his fingers under her fingertips and levered them off gently.

“Better?” he asked as she clapped her hands together and rolled her shoulders.

“A little. I’m as stiff as a corpse.”

“We are all very much alive.” He chuckled. “I will get down first. Once I am down on the ground, can you follow?” Magnus moved his leg behind him and slid down the dragon’s side, landing on her outstretched leg. She lowered her shoulder a little more, eliciting a sharp yelp from Fara. “Don’t worry, you are not going to fall.”

Fara looked down at him. “I can’t wait to put my feet down on terra firma. I might run home on four paws when we’re done. The ride was great, but the lack of control is unnerving.”

Magnus jumped down onto the hard-packed snow. “Come on down.” He held his arms up and beckoned to Fara. The old woman looked down dubiously, but then swung her leg stiffly over the dragon’s back and with her hands sliding down over the red scales, she slipped down onto the dragon’s leg. With barely a pause, she turned and took hold of Magnus’s outstretched hands and jumped heavily to the ground.

With a sigh, she stood back, surveying the bright red dragon. She was magnificent, perched on the ledge with the backdrop of white snow and gray rock behind her. A slash of color on the bleak but beautiful mountainside.

Then she was gone. The dragon shimmered out of existence for a split second, leaving Magnus’s heart wounded by the loss. Then the air crackled with static electicrty, and the hairs on his neck stood on end as Ruby materialized in front of him, equally beautiful in her human form.

“Enjoy the ride?” she asked brightly as she took in their surroundings with her human eyes. “It looks a lot different when you’re this small and vulnerable.”

“Tell me about it,” Fara replied. “Listen, now that you’re back to being human, I’m gonna shift. Mountains are not appealing to this old gal, but my wolf loves them.” She looked pinched and cold, despite the thick layers of clothing, and when she stepped forward, her legs were stiff.

“Go for it,” Ruby replied. “You might be able to pick up a scent.”

Fara nodded and shifted into her wolf. Immediately, she set off up the narrow trail that was no more than a slice of rock jutting out from the high cliff face. Head down, her silver-tipped fur rippled as the wind blew down from the higher peaks.

“I wanted to tell you how amazing you are,” Magnus blurted out as they watched the wolf roam ahead.

“Don’t let my dragon hear, she’s already full of herself.” Ruby blushed as she spoke, obviously happy with the compliment. “How are you? You look cold.”

“I’m okay. I wish I had your dragon blood.” He glanced at her sideways, and then looked back up the trail. “We should follow, in case she gets into trouble.”

“There’s no one else around,” Ruby replied. “But that might not stop Fara from getting into trouble.”

“What if there are more like me?” he asked. The thought hadn’t struck him until they flew up the valley and landed here. But for all they knew the mountain could be riddled with caves filled with dormant dragon shifters. Or maybe just dormant men. “What if someone hid an army here?”

Ruby gave a short, nervous laugh. “Well, that’s a scary thought.” She turned around, surveying the area. “I’ve flown all around this section scouting for dormant dragons. There was only one place I sensed anything.”

“Which was where?” Magnus asked.

“About five hundred feet that way.” She pointed in the direction the wolf had gone. “My guess is you woke up because you sensed me.”

“Because you are my mate and I am a dragon shifter.” He nodded, understanding her theory. “But why no memories and why can’t I shift?”

“That is why we are here.” She adjusted the straps on her pack.

“Why don’t we follow the wolf and find out?” Magnus was anxious to catch up with Fara.

“You don’t hear that every day.” Ruby grinned. “Lead on.”

He struck out along the trail, his boots sinking about an inch into the hardened crust, leaving an indent. When he looked closely at the ground before him, he saw tracks leading down the trail. His tracks. This was what Fara was following. He picked up his pace, and Ruby followed close behind. The further they got, the more eager he was to find out why he had been here. Because sure as eggs were eggs, he had not been walking this trail by accident. The higher they climbed, the narrower the ledge became, until his shoulder brushed against the rock face to his left.

“Not exactly the kind of place you take a nice relaxing hike, is it?” Ruby called from behind him.

“No, it is not.” He looked down at the drop to his left. “That is a long way down.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch you if you fall.” Her voice was light, showing no sign of fear. “Not much further to go.”

She was right, as he rounded the next outcrop, they finally caught up with Fara’s wolf, who was standing next to a small opening in the rock face. He stopped, a sense of foreboding filling him. Was it better to live his life anew, not hampered down by his past? Neither good nor bad, it was like a new life stretching out in front of him.

Every part of Magnus told him he was a good person, and yet someone had put him to sleep. Dragon shifter or not, he had been sent into a deep sleep for a century or two.

Unless he was a totally deranged idiot who had decided to go for a walk in the mountains unprepared for the conditions.

“Are you okay?” Ruby asked from behind him. He could sense her presence, feel the heat from her body as she pressed close to him. And he could smell her. Magnus inhaled deeply, and his mouth watered. He hadn’t experienced this around another person. That had to mean something. It had to mean he was a shifter. And the answer was inside the rock, just a few feet away.

The wolf ducked her head and took a step closer to the opening, and then turned to look at Magnus, who took a step forward and then another. Time to conquer his past. Good or bad, he would embrace it and move on. No man was set in stone. If he had done bad things, he could spend the rest of his life doing good. Repent and redeem himself, with Ruby to guide him, that would be his plan.

“Want me to go first?” Ruby offered as she stood beside him, looking at the opening.

“No, I’ll go first.” He swung his head around to look at her. “But thanks for the offer.”

Ducking down, he assessed the opening. He wouldn’t fit in there with the pack on his back, so he loosened the straps and eased it off his shoulders, pushing it through the gap first. If it fell into a gaping abyss, at least he’d know not to follow it. If only he had a flaming torch.

Fara, now back in human form, nudged his shoulder. “Flashlight.” She held a small cylinder out to him.

“What is a flashlight?” he asked, looking at the metal object with suspicion.

Fara flipped a switch and the cylinder lit up, blinding him with its stream of light. “Shine it in there.”

He took it gingerly, unsure where the flame was contained, but happy to use its light to illuminate the darkness. The cylinder was cool to the touch, and he held it with his right hand, before placing his left hand in front of the beam of light. “No heat. Curious.”

“It runs on batteries, dumbass,” Fara told him bluntly as if he were the village idiot.

“Hold on, Fara, if Magnus has never seen a car before, he couldn’t have seen a flashlight either. And he certainly wouldn’t know how it was powered.” He appreciated Ruby defending him, even if he didn’t need it. There were worse things in the world than Fara’s words, and as he removed his hand from the flashlight and shone it into the opening, he hoped he was not about to meet one.

“Are you goin’ in?” Fara’s voice cut through the silence that surrounded them. The trail was sheltered from the wind by an overhang about a foot wide. On either side of the opening the mountain butted out into the valley, concealing the entrance. He looked inside the opening. It appeared a recent landslide had cleared a number of rocks that had covered the entrance.

If this was where he’d come from, it was only luck that had enabled him to get out.

Or fate, a voice whispered in his head.

“Are you sure this is where my footprints lead?” Magnus asked, looking past Fara to where the trail disappeared around a solid rock wall.

“Fairly sure, plus, I went a little further along this ledge. It ends in about a hundred feet.” She pointed above them. “A rock slide took out a section of it.”

“Perhaps the same rock slide that opened up this cave.” He peered inside. “I’m going in.”

He crawled on his hands and knees into the semi-darkness. The flashlight gave off a flickering light as he moved, illuminating the space around him. It was narrow, a tunnel rather than a cave, and as he crawled, he had a sense of recognition, as if he’d been here before.

Behind him, he heard scraping, and looked over his shoulder to see Ruby following; behind her, Fara stood waiting. He couldn’t see her face as she bent down and peered into the tunnel, but he could feel her apprehension on the air.

“What do you see?” Ruby asked as she crawled along close behind him.

“Not a lot. It looks as if this tunnel used to be wider. But the cave is blocked off.” He shuddered, not wanting to think about waking up underneath a hundred feet of rock and finding himself trapped.

A sudden need to get out of there hit him and he stopped. The walls closed in on him and fear of being buried alive gripped him and threatened to choke off the breath his body desperately needed.

“Relax.” Ruby placed her hand on his ankle, and then moved it further up his leg, soothing him. “I’m here, it’s okay.”

“I could have died in here.” His throat tightened, and his words came out in a strangled gasp.

“But you didn’t, and you won’t. If anything happens, Fara will get help. She’s waiting right outside.”

“That won’t help if the roof caves in on us.” The sense of being trapped hit him, and a wave of anguish washed over him.

“Let’s take it one step at a time.” She tapped his foot and urged him on.

He did her bidding. There was a part of him that couldn’t refuse. And part of him that would never want to.