Palin
He rested in the barn, lounging comfortably on his homemade bed.
Several blankets were tossed across a pile of hay, and he reclined with his hands interlaced behind his head, staring up at the night sky that lay beyond the roof above him. It wasn’t nice out since it was raining once again, but the barn was in decently good repair, and so far nothing was leaking on him. He’d brought a few tarps just in case, but so far it appeared he wasn’t going to need them.
His stomach rippled and he belched as quietly as possible. Patting his belly, he smiled. For a long time he’d dreamt of having a woman that would stuff him as full as possible. After he’d finished his initial serving faster than intended, Sandy had stared at him until he went and got seconds.
They’d repeated the act two more times, both of them smiling broader each go-round. He’d not wanted to deprive her of leftovers, but as it turned out she’d already put the leftovers away before serving him. She’d seen how much he ate when he brought food compared to what she made, and this time around she’d set out to rectify that. Palin felt bad; he knew she couldn’t afford to feed him on her dime, but she seemed determined to try.
Not much longer now, my mate. Then you will have all the money you could ever need. We can work the farm for fun, and enjoy it. Then, when winter comes, you and I will go to the enclave where you will never want for anything ever again.
Undoing his belt, he let his stomach stretch itself open while he contemplated the roof once more. There was something peaceful about the barn which he hadn’t expected. Maybe it was because he was “roughing it,” something he hadn’t done since a few camping trips with his father when he was much younger.
Either way, his spirit felt at peace up in the loft.
His phone started buzzing in his pocket, the incessant zzz…zzz…zzz driving him crazy in the span of time it took to snatch it up and answer it.
“Hello?”
“Torran?”
“I’m surprised you still recognize my voice. We were beginning to think you’d forgotten about us.”
“Go fuck yourself. What do you want?”
“Where are you, Palin? We haven’t seen or heard from you in a week!”
“I’m busy.” He could hear Rowe speaking in the background, but the words were too quiet. “What’s he going on about?”
“Rowe says you’re with that human girl from the market, aren’t you?”
He paused. What human girl? Surely they couldn’t mean Sandy, could they? “Who are you talking about?”
“The one you’re smitten with. The one you bought all the nasty vegetables from that you made all the other dragons here eat. They’re still pissed at you for that one, by the way. Their mates are asking when you’re coming back with more.”
He chuckled. That one was going to take a while to be forgotten about.
“I’m with her, yes. But guys, she’s not human.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s my mate. I’m not sure what that says about her. She must have the soul of a dragon or something like that. Perhaps a blood relative of one somehow.”
Torran made a noise of disagreement so profound that Palin could picture him rolling his eyes. “Whatever you say, Palin. It’s not like there’s ever been a child born with dragon blood that hasn’t become a shifter or anything.”
“None that we know of,” he countered. “That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Who knows what things were like hundreds of years ago.”
“You’re delusional.”
Palin snarled angrily. How dare he call his judgment of Sandy into question? She was his mate. He knew it. His dragon definitely knew it. The only ones who didn’t were Torran and Rowe, but that’s because they weren’t there. They hadn’t seen the two of them together, couldn’t feel the bond growing daily.
“You need to come back, Palin. We have a job to do. Stop living among the humans. You shouldn’t be associating with them so closely anyway.”
The only human he wanted to associate closely with was Rusty. He was positive a friendship between the human’s face and his fist would work out great. Maybe they could hang out a couple of times. Close together.
He shook that fantasy away. Starting a fight with Sandy’s neighbor was not going to help him get into her good books. No matter how much he wanted to teach the asshole a lesson.
“I can’t. I’ll come back once I have my mate with me.”
“We have a mission to perform here, Palin. We were sent to do a job, not get laid.”
“Go fuck yourself, Torran. I’m staying here until I’m done.”
“Nobody even knows where ‘here’ is.”
“Good.” He stabbed his finger down on the End Call button.
Almost immediately the phone started ringing again, but he put it on silent and let it ring.
Screw them; Palin knew what he was doing. He was pulling his mate out from trouble. Humans like Rusty were the reason why his homeland had mostly retreated from the world at large, only dealing with humans as necessary for business purposes. Even then they often hired humans to do much of the work for them if they could.
How dare they compare his mate to a typical human? Couldn’t they see that there was something different about her? Something unique? It explained how the dragons awakened from the past could find their mates amongst the human population as well. Simply put, they weren’t human, they were more than that. It was what made them so strong and worthy of being mates. He wasn’t sure how it worked just yet, but he would find out.
It surprised Palin how angry he was with their attitude.
When he’d first left the enclave he’d wanted to come meet with the humans and show them how a real dragon fought. It was supposed to have been easy to show them that they were worried over nothing. Palin had been perfectly prepared to have his opinions of them reinforced.
Now here he was wrapped up in a mystery of humans with dragon blood. It made the waters far muddier than he had ever expected, and the callous attitude of his “friends” toward this revelation was really grinding against him. After all, what if a sizable portion of the population had dragon DNA within them? What would that mean? How would they tell who had dragon blood in them and who didn’t?
His phone lit up again, another incoming phone call. Flipping it over, he set it down on the crate at his “bedside,” more than content to ignore them for the time being. Once they learned to open their minds a bit more and not be so quick to judge, then maybe he’d talk to them. Maybe.
Turning his phone off had removed the last source of light from the barn, and he was now immersed completely in the darkness. Leaning back, he closed his eyes and listened to the raindrops drumming on the metal roof. It was a peaceful sound that had him reminiscing of nights sleeping out in the open in his dragon form, rain falling against his wing as he curled it over him to keep his head dry while he slept. Palin’s eyes began to droop, and he headed off to dreamland with Sandy on his mind.
That was when he heard the first sounds from outside.