***
He opened the door and then paused, waiting before he went inside.
“Quinn, it’s me,” he called into the darkened house.”
Lights came on and she came out of hiding, the knife falling by the wayside.
“You know, you’re starting to worry me with that,” he said, nodding his head at the weapon.
“I’m here illegally,” she said with a shrug. “I’m going to protect myself as best I can.”
Asher decided against reminding her that no shifter worth their salt would be overly troubled by her. She was strong-willed and smart, more than any number of shifters he knew. But the basic, innate strength advantages meant she’d need a better weapon than a knife to stand a chance.
“How was your day?” she asked as he came inside, flopping across the couch, though her eyes remained on him.
Always on him. Like his were on her.
“Exhausting,” he said, slumping into one of the chairs around the television in his common area. “I should be fast asleep right now.”
She grinned. “And yet you came to see me? How kind of you!”
Asher grimaced. “Yes, I did.”
Quinn sat upright. “What?” There was no preamble, no further words. Just a simple acknowledgment that something was up, and she wanted to know.
“I’m taking you back,” he told her. “I have to. I can’t keep this up. I’m sorry,” he rushed to add, “but I’ll get your information, and we’ll find another way. Perhaps I can get them to give you permission from the inside, so you don’t have to enter illegally.”
The beautiful woman seemed to consider his words. “No.”
“No?” he asked in surprise.
“No,” she affirmed. “I don’t want to go.”
He saw something like surprise flash across her face. Had Quinn not realized that’s what she was going to say?
Part of Asher liked the fact that she might stay. That he would get to see her more, even if it wouldn’t be very often. His brief time spent with her so far had been…interesting. She made him feel so very alive when she was near. Even when she wasn’t, he found himself pushing harder in his training, because he knew that’s what she would expect of him.
How is it that a woman can have such an effect on me like this? Her talons have dug deep, and we barely know anything about each other. By all rights I should have tossed her out the day I found her. So why didn’t I?
Because you know this isn’t the end.
Asher wasn’t so sure. But maybe if he took her back after he graduated from Top Scale, he could look her up and visit her. Or have her come visit him legally. He would be allowed to request entry for a human into Cadia at that point, and no one would bat an eye at it.
But for now…
“I appreciate you wanting to stay,” he said firmly. “But if you were to be found here, things would go incredibly wrong. They could kill you.”
Quinn nodded. “I knew that coming in here, Asher. I’m well aware of how things are. That’s my choice to make though, not yours.”
He frowned. “Perhaps it is, Quinn. Perhaps it is. But what about what will happen to me? What about all the trouble I’ll get in for harboring you? I’ll lose my place in the Academy. I’ll lose this. I’ll quite possibly be put in prison for a long, long time. I’ve broken the rules here too, and if you get caught, it’s not just your ass on the line. So you’re putting me in a bad spot as well.”
Asher hadn’t wanted to throw that at her, but he needed her to see that though he did not want her to leave either, she had to. It wasn’t just for her, but for him as well.
Her expression fell as he hammered home the reality of what they were both facing. That she couldn’t be a tough act all by herself. She was dragging him deeper with her, and right then neither of them were prepared for it.
“What about my mother?” Quinn asked awkwardly.
“I will look for her,” he vowed solemnly. There is downtime when I’m at the Academy. Not enough to come all the way out here, but enough that I can make some calls, begin some inquiries into her disappearance, and hopefully turn up enough to continue the search.”
Quinn looked at him, her cheeks turning a little darker under her tan. He wondered what she had to be embarrassed about. Asher had thought it was a nice offer. He wasn’t obliged to do anything, but he had just offered her his help.
“Thank you,” she got out a moment later. “I would appreciate that, since it looks like I won’t be able to search for her myself.”
Asher nodded slowly. “It is the least I can do. Now, pack up your things, and we’ll be on our way, okay?”
Quinn nodded and set to cleaning up her few meager possessions under his watchful eye, stuffing them into the green rucksack she’d been carrying when he’d first found her. Shrugging that over her back, shoes on her feet, she gave him a look indicating she was ready.
Holding the door to the rear, he made his way to the middle of the stone circle in his backyard. Turning to face the house, he saw Quinn waiting patiently next to him.
“Ah,” he said awkwardly. “You’ll want to stay back by the house for this first bit,” he warned.
Quinn looked around in the darkness, trying to figure out why. When he didn’t explain, she shrugged in mild annoyance and retreated to the house.
“When it’s done, climb on and we’ll go swiftly,” he explained.
“I’m still confused,” came the reply.
“You won’t be,” he said as white fog swirled up from his feet, the air thick with moisture that froze as it cooled rapidly, encasing him in an icy cocoon that expanded as quickly as his body, shrouding him from view as he shifted from human to dragon.
With a slight pop his cocoon expanded outward and showered the nearby area with icicles, sending Quinn ducking out of the way. She stood up after a moment though, staring at him in shock.
“What?” he asked through his elongated snout.
“You’re a dragon,” she said after another moment, only the slightest hint of a tremor in her voice.
“Did I not mention that?” he asked, legitimately confused. “I swear I did.”
Quinn shook her head rapidly.
“Oh, my apologies,” he said, dropping his head closer to her level, his words slurred slightly by the non-human mouth forming them. “Well, I am.”
She snorted. “So I can see. Where do I climb on?”
Asher extended a taloned paw, and she walked forward, stepping carefully on the layer of frost. She climbed into his paw, allowing him to lift her up to his neck, where her legs slid around until the backs of them rested against his legs. It wasn’t going to be the most comfortable position for her, but with a grip on his scales, and squeezing her legs, she should be just fine.
“This is amazing,” Quinn said as he turned away, preparing for takeoff.
“Okay, hold on tight with your legs, and onto one of my scales. Dig your fingers around its edge,” he commanded. “This part is the roughest part.”
“What is—”
Quinn yelped as he jumped, flapping his wings in the process and beginning the less than vertical takeoff.
I really hope I can learn how to do this more gracefully, and soon. So embarrassing.
Thankfully Quinn didn’t say a word as he hopped and ran forward until he was able to leap into the sky and carry them upward with rapid beats of the membranes. It wasn’t much harder to do with her on his back, which was an interesting thing to note. This was the first time Asher had ever carried a human, and he had expected it to tire him out more than it seemed it was.
They winged westward, toward the mountains where he had found her. His plan was to set down near the hot springs and walk her out toward the border. His senses should be able to detect any of the Guardians before they got too close.
Hopefully.
It was all a big risk, but if she pretended to be lost, having been stranded and wandering around, the Guardian should hopefully point her in the right direction with nothing more than a scare.
As it happened, none of that mattered.
“Asher, I think I see something behind us,” Quinn said a bit nervously.
He craned his head around, and his eyes went wide.
A piercing screech split the sky as he passed over the hot springs, feeling the difference in air temperature in his wings.
“What was that?” Quinn asked.
Asher was already reacting, allowing the upward heat of the pools to act as a drag, pulling himself to the right.
The gryphon shot through the space he had just occupied, claws extended. It shrieked its anger and flapped mightily, struggling to regain ground as Asher’s brain snapped into combat mode. He pumped his own wings, the thermal air from the springs making his climb fast and effortless.
The gryphon was smaller though, and it rose even easier, angling for another dive on him.
“Hang on!” he shouted, hoping she heard him.
When the other shifter darted at him Asher charged head-on at it, ignoring the razor-sharp talons aiming for his head.
At the last second he dipped his head and brought his wings in closer. His body turned downward into a dive, avoiding the attack. His opponent, however, couldn’t react in time, and flew straight into the whip-motion path of Asher’s tail. The scale-covered appendage slammed against the gryphon’s head and the bird-like creature wailed its cry of pain, though it didn’t give up.
Brave of you, attacking me one on—
The second gryphon’s claws tore across his midsection as he leveled out, hitting him from nowhere.
Asher bellowed, the noise a mixture of pain and anger. He had known there was going to be at least a second one. Gryphons would never take on a dragon one on one. That was suicide. Two or more, however, suddenly made it a dangerous fight. Especially as he had Quinn on his back. The gryphons would never know she was a human, unless he landed. Dragons transporting other shifters was not unknown, and Asher knew he could pass it off as having been escorting a guardian out to the perimeter. That happened more frequently than anything.
But first he had to win this fight.
Aerial combat was not something one chose to engage in willingly. Even these gryphons must be extra pissed to come after him. All it would take is one mistake, or one good shot, and a combatant would tumble hundreds of feet to their death.
Asher gained height again, watching the two shifters as they eyed him warily. The tail to the face trick had to have hurt. Asher wasn’t sure where he’d come up with such an idea, but he was glad it worked. But his efforts of the past two days were starting to wear on him, and he could feel fatigue setting in already.
If only these buffoons didn’t have such an inbred hatred of us. I have no wish to fight them.
He knew that wasn’t his fault, however. The entire gryphon culture seemed to be centered around proving they were better than dragons. They didn’t seem to realize that such a singularly focused mindset effectively proved that they weren’t better. But that sort of logic wouldn’t work to stop the fight now. If the two of them brought him down, they would be endlessly lauded by their peers.
And he would both be dead and ridiculed.
Quinn would be dead too.
Asher’s vision suddenly snapped into an even sharper focus as that bomb exploded in his mind. There was no way he was letting these fools harm her.
Dragon lips peeled back into a tooth-filled visage that promised pain and death as he banked hard toward the gryphons. The smaller animals split to the sides, forcing him to pick one. Asher went after the trailer, the newcomer to the fight. His sudden change of stance, from defensive to offense, had caught them by surprise. The gryphon now dove frantically, the bigger, angrier, and faster-in-a-dive dragon on his tail.
Not for the first time Asher wished he could command his breath weapon powerfully enough to use it. The gryphon would be done for if that were the case, as he had the perfect angle to unleash a blast of Frostfire to send it tumbling from the sky.
“The other one is behind us!” Quinn shouted from her perch at the base of his neck.
“Hold tighter!” he shouted back, and tucked his wings in a little bit more as he gained on the lead gryphon.
On the ascent, the gryphons were lighter and smaller. They would beat him every time. But in a dive like the one his quarry was just now trying to pull out of, Asher would win.
The gryphon tried to pull up and away as the ground came closer, but it was too late. Asher pounced, using the smaller animal as a springboard. His talons dug deep into the muscles on either side of its back that controlled the wings, and as he grabbed hold he snapped his wings out wide and pushed off the gryphon.
With a powerful push from his wings he flung himself forward, hoping that the sudden change of motion would throw his pursuer off.
Something latched onto his tail, and Asher yelped as he was thrown into a spin. Looking behind him, he saw the second gryphon’s beak closed tightly around his tail.
“Let go you idiot!” he roared as they spun downward. “Let go or we both die!”
The gryphon simply held on tighter.
Below, Asher watched as the first gryphon crashed heavily in among the trees. It was likely badly wounded, perhaps even dead after such a crash. He would likely survive, and the idiot holding onto his tail probably would as well. But with the spin they had, there was no way Quinn would be able to hold on once they hit the trees.
Asher needed to do something, and do it quickly.
“How secure are you back there?” he asked, using his neck to get his head close to Quinn as they fell from the sky.
“Depends on what you have in mind,” she shouted back, eyes wide and knuckles white from where her hands were holding onto him for dear life.
“Nothing I want to do. But we might go upside down for a moment.”
If anything her eyes grew wider. But to her credit, he saw her adjust her feet, and her hands. Then she nodded. “Okay. Just try not to jolt me when we do.”
Asher nodded. He couldn’t promise that, but he would try.
There wasn’t much time left now as the ground grew closer. With a quick surge of hope, he drew his wings in close to him and stopped fighting both the spin and the fall.
The trio dropped like a stone, their rate of descent rapidly increasing. All of a sudden, they were the ones pulling the gryphon down, and it was trying to stop them. The motion pulled his tail upward slightly, and threatened to spill them upside down, despite his best efforts. But it meant he could stop the spin, and did so relatively easily without the gryphon dragging him around.
Now the painful part.
With a wince of apology to himself, Asher flung his wings out as wide as they would go, pulling out of the dive.
The gryphon went flying past them, and Asher trumpeted in pain as the beak slid down his tail, pulling scale after scale off as it went, until the two parts clacked together as it ran out of tail. The half-lion, half-eagle creature slammed into the forest below as Asher glided above it, no more than ten, fifteen feet from the tips of the trees.
He set down in a nearby clearing to examine his tail.
“Asher are you okay?” Quinn asked as she slid from his neck to go inspect the damage herself.
“Umm, I will be?” he said through the pain, the words sounding extra sibilant as he tried to push it away. The scales would regrow, and he would stop bleeding shortly. But for a few days, it was going to be rather tender.
“Oh shit,” he said aloud as something else clued in.
“What?” Quinn asked, looking up as if she was scared she’d done something wrong.
“We need to go,” he told her. “Now.”
“Why? You’re hurt. You should rest.”
“Border guards will have heard all this,” he said. “Nothing we can do now except get you back to my house as fast as we can.”
The human looked up at him from where she was crouched by his tail, examining the wound. “So we did all this for nothing?”
Despite himself, Asher grinned. “Well, you did get to experience aerial combat on a dragon’s back. That’s something not many other humans can say.”
She smiled. “Point taken. Are you going to be okay to fly back?” she asked, pointing at his tail.
He nodded. “It hurts like blazes, but that’s about it. It won’t actually hinder me.” He looked up, scanning the sky. “But seriously, we need to go. Now. We can try another day, perhaps.”
Quinn got up, casting one last look at his tail. Asher tried not to shiver as she walked toward his neck, dragging one hand along his scales. He liked the way she touched him. It was…genuine? Was that the word he was looking for? Asher wasn’t sure, but he did know he wasn’t completely distraught that she was sticking around.
Perhaps he would get enough time to just hang out with her one of these days. To sit back, and get to know the real Quinn…
He frowned.
“Quinn?” he asked as she climbed back onto his neck.
“Yes?” she asked, her fingers finding their hold.
“What is your last name?” he asked.
“Bryant. Why?”
He tilted his head, the dragon equivalent of a shrug. “Just curious, really.”
She laughed, a melodic sound that soothed his soul with its gentleness. “You’re an interesting one, Asher, the white dragon.”
You have no idea.