13
JESSICA
We drove home, but Ethan was so hungry he didn't think he could make it back to Dallas before passing out. So we stopped in Fort Worth, found a parking garage downtown, and hopped into the first restaurant we saw.
The Flying Saucer was an English style pub, dark wood and booths worn smooth with age. All over the walls were colorful dinner plates, which a sign at the door informed us were for patrons who drank more than 1,000 different beers.
We slipped into a booth in the middle of the long room.
"So how did you transform back?" I asked. "Was it out of your control? Because it would suck if that happened while we were a thousand feet above the ground."
Ethan looked around the crowded restaurant as if someone might hear. His embarrassment was adorable.
"I dunno. When I transformed into the gryphon, it was a desperate need. Like the animal was inside of me, banging on my chest to get out."
I was still so turned-on by him that I wanted to bang against his chest underneath the covers, but before I could make a joke about it he continued.
"But when we landed, it was like that beast was satisfied. I don't know how to explain it."
"Like a husky who'd finally been let loose at the dog park," I tried.
"Yes! Something like that. And once that part of me was sated, I could feel my control over it. Some invisible fist clenched over an object." He made a motion with his hands. "And then I just... let go. And I transformed back."
The waitress appeared and gave her spiel about the restaurant. We ordered drinks, and then Ethan said, "I'm ready to order food too. I'll take two orders of the ribeye steak."
"So a steak for you, and one for her..."
"No," Ethan said, looking embarrassed. "Two just for me."
The waitress arched an eyebrow. "How'd you like them cooked?"
"Raw."
"Like, medium-rare?"
"No," Ethan said, strangely insistent. "As raw as possible. I'm serious."
"I can ask my manager, but I know the best he can do is blue. That's seared on the outside for fifteen seconds, with a cool red center."
"That's fine," Ethan said, plainly disappointed. I ordered a burger and fries, which the waitress gave a nod of that's a normal order, then disappeared.
"Raw?" I asked.
Ethan looked around again. "See, that's the other thing. When I landed, and you hopped off my back... I was starving. Jessica, I was so hungry that if there were another cow nearby I don't think I could have stopped myself from tearing into it!"
"I guess that makes as much sense as anything else," I shrugged, sticking my hands in my pockets. I frowned, remembering what I'd done earlier. "The feather is gone."
"What feather?"
"The feather I plucked from your neck. I stuck it in my pocket, and it's gone."
"It probably fell out while we were flying."
"No," I insisted. "I zipped up my jacket pocket. It's gone gone, like the rest of you."
"Okay."
Annoyed at his lack of caring, I pulled out my notepad and added a new line. "Look. You may have accepted how insane all of this is, but I'm the kind of person who needs to take detailed notes. It helps me wrap my head around something unfamiliar." I glanced up at him. "And this is about as unfamiliar as a situation as I think I'll ever be in."
"Fair enough," he said.
"You could use some more documentation at work," I said, unable to stop myself from the jab. "Then someone could do your job while you're on vacation without breaking everything."
He put up his hands. "Alright. I surrender. You're right."
I nodded to myself, then pulled out the object that was in my pocket.
"A cave in Belize, huh?" I turned the gryphon totem over in my hand. Now that Ethan had transformed back into a human, the emerald didn't seem to glow as brilliantly as before. Like the light inside had been extinguished.
"Yep."
"I took a class on ancient civilizations in college. This doesn't look like anything I recognize." I held it up with my fingertips. "Maybe Aztec, based on the location, but even that doesn't look right."
But Ethan was shaking his head at me. "Don't ask me to explain it, because I can't, but it feels different. Like it's not from here."
"Not from where?"
"Here." His gesture encompassed far more than the bar. "The world. It feels older than humanity. It was here before us."
"Before us," I repeated, feeling the weight behind those words.
The waitress chose that moment to bring our food. She had a distinctly disgusted look on her face as she placed Ethan's steaks before him. He grabbed his knife and cut into one as if he were being timed, eying the completely raw center. He nodded in acceptance, and the waitress retreated from the display.
Ethan tore into the steak like a wild animal, putting down his silverware to grab the ribeye with both hands. I held my burger in front of my face while I watched him rip it apart with his teeth, chewing only one or two times before swallowing. Only when his first steak was finished did he sigh, pick up his silverware again, and eat his second one like a human.
"That can't be good for you," I said, biting into my own well-done burger. Ethan shrugged one shoulder and continued his meal.
Honestly, I was almost as hungry as he was, but didn't realize it until I had food in front of me. I wondered if it was his own hunger mirrored back on me, the way I could feel his emotions while flying. I decided not to think too hard about it.
We ate in silence, both of us content to stuff our faces.
"It didn't seem to hurt as much this time," I said when my burger was gone, nibbling on the remaining fries.
"I was surprised by that too. The first time was agony. This was more of a temporary discomfort." He stared off. "I think it will hurt less next time. It thinks so, I mean."
"It?"
"The gryphon part of me." He nodded at the totem on the table. "It's like another voice inside my head."
"The voice you heard before, you mean?"
"No." Ethan's face grew serious. "This voice is the gryphon part of me. Like another subconscious. That voice was something else. Someone dangerous."
"Did..." I struggled for the words. "Did you hear him this time, too?"
Ethan said, "No, thank God. But I could feel his presence, like he was breathing on the back of my neck." He turned around, gazing across the bar. "It's like he's still breathing on my neck, but I keep looking too late to spot him."
"Well, I can guarantee there's no dragon in this bar right now." I leaned into the aisle and nodded dramatically. "Yep. Zero dragons."
Ethan didn't smile at the joke, though.
"The other thing. My... ability."
"Yeah?"
"I don't think I can transform again right now. Don't do it, just in case, but I'm certain if you tried to press the emerald nothing would happen."
"I wondered about that. The gemstone is dimmer than before. Maybe it takes time."
"But last time, I recovered quickly. It was only half an hour after changing back, when we were lying in the grass."
I put my chin on my hand and leaned forward with a smile. "Maybe it was the super hot sex that did it. I'm so good that I can make men transform into wild animals."
"You joke," Ethan said with a half-grin, "but I think there might be something to that. The buzzing feeling, the gryphon within me, came back immediately after I... you know. With you."
"Uh huh."
"And we have some bond, Jessica. I know you feel it too." He took my hand, and even just the slight touch of him made me quiver. "You have some power over me with that totem. You can make me transform into it by pressing the gem." He stared deep into my eyes. "Maybe you can help me return to that form too."
It was stupid. Really stupid, so much so that I wanted to laugh in his face. Or make a joke about my magical cooch. A King Arthur joke materialized in my head, something about pulling his throbbing Excalibur from my tight stone.
But the jokes fell away in my head, because what he said felt right.
Shifting into a gryphon wasn't something he did alone. It was a joint action between the two of us, a beast and its trainer. I tried to think of another comparison and failed.
"Well, together we can figure it out," I said, squeezing his hand.
Ethan smiled for an instant... and then it disappeared as if wiped away by an eraser.
"What is it?"
Ethan's eyes widened, and I got the impression he was staring at something distant. "I don't know. This place feels... wrong."
"Wrong how?"
EMERALD.
The voice was a booming whisper, raspy like a smoker's throat. It seemed to come from within the totem, the same emotion-and-words bond I'd felt with Ethan while flying.
"What is that?"
"You hear it too?" Ethan blurted out. "That's... him. The dragon."
Dragon. The word held strange mysticism and danger, the weight of eons pouring through a whisper. I could feel its gaze as it spoke, piercing my mind like knives.
EMERALD. I HAVE FOUND YOU.
A pause.
BOTH OF YOU.
Ethan's eyes widened. "We aren't safe here."
"I feel it too." I looked around the restaurant; it was crowded in here, and I couldn't hear or see very far. But was leaving any safer?
And then I saw him.
Across the bar, in the doorway, stood a man in black dress pants and a pale green button-down shirt. His hair was black and grey like ash from a fireplace, and his eyes were green emeralds.
Instantly, as they locked onto me, I felt the same piercing gaze as I had from the voice.
"He's here!" I pointed.
The man took a moment to roll up one dress sleeve past the elbow, revealing arms thick with tattoos. His eyes never left mine as he began on the second sleeve.
Ethan twisted around the booth to look at him. He flinched at the sight, hiding back behind the seat. "We have to get out of here."
"Aren't we safer inside?" I said. "There's a crowd. Can he transform into a dragon the way you do a gryphon? Because he can't do that in here." I paused. "Can he?"
The Emerald Dragon strode forward on slow, steady legs, his eyes paralyzing me in place. He shoved past someone roughly, the man spilling his beer and yelling out, but the dragon had no ears for him. He reached a table blocking the aisle, and without breaking stride he grabbed one side, whipped it up into the air, and flipped it over against the bar. The crowd of patrons yelled out as plates and beer pints went crashing to the ground.
"Come on!" Ethan shouted, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me out of my trance. I had just enough time to snatch the totem from the table before he pulled me deeper into the restaurant.
The sound of chaos came from behind us as the green dragon sped up, first cries of alarm and then cries of pain. I looked back to see him knocking men aside with easy strength, arms and legs splaying in the air like ragdolls. Someone yelled for the police, but the dragon kept coming, a freight train of power on tracks that led directly to us.
"Out the back!" Ethan shouted, pulling me through a pair of swinging doors.
We were in the kitchen, a sudden glare of bright lights and steamy air. Cooks darted out of the way and yelled out as Ethan and I ran past them, deeper into the kitchen and alongside a long walk-in freezer and then toward a fire door at the back wall. We reached it just in time to hear the dragon enter the kitchen, plates crashing and shattering before him.
YOU CANNOT RUN, he said as we fled into the night.