Palin
The ground jumped up at him twice in quick succession, nearly pitching him off to the side. He braced himself for an attack, but nothing came.
“Relax. We’re not here to attack you.”
Palin stood and turned. “Rowe.”
“Palin.”
Champ whined again and retreated to a safe distance. Palin watched the dog go, his fury growing at the sight of the poor animal, who couldn’t know what was going on.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he snarled at the massive jade-colored dragon. “You’re crushing the crops.”
A yellow cat-like orb eyed him uncaringly. Asshole.
A second dragon shook its wings in irritation before curling them back along its sides. Palin ignored the viridian-hued creature. Torran wasn’t his primary problem just then.
“I told you, it’s time to come home. The decision has been made. We will advise the Council.”
“You flew all this way out here and risked being discovered just to tell me what you said over the phone? I’m flattered.”
“Enough with the sarcasm. We are departing.”
“No. I’m staying, I told you this.”
Rowe’s eyes flicked in irritation, his tail thrashing from side to side. Torran huffed, an odd sound coming from the snouted beast. “I told you he wouldn’t come.”
“He will,” Rowe said forcefully.
“Who are you trying to convince of that? Me or yourself? I’m staying.”
“That is enough!” Rowe’s voice cracked like a whip. “You will stop gallivanting with this human and return home at once.”
Palin stiffened. “She is not a human, she is my mate!” he roared.
Champ whimpered and backed away some more.
“You are delusional, Palin. She is a human, and nothing more. You must know this on some level. If one is born to a dragon pairing, they become a dragon. It matters not whether the mother or father was the dragon half. That is the way it goes. She therefore is not your mate, and thus you shall leave her and return with us.”
Palin snarled, but didn’t say anything. Was he lying to himself? Had he known the truth all along?
He thought back to the awakened dragons. Kallore and the reds, Thorne and the blacks. Even Caine and the whites. All of them had found their mates in women who were not dragons. Were they right in saying that their mates were completely human? That there was no dragonblood within them?
How could that be though? A human and a dragon shifter, mated? It had never happened before…had it? Truthfully he didn’t know. He’d only ever seen dragons mated with other dragons.
Because your enclave has done nothing but remove itself from humanity as much as possible. It was only natural. But now humans need you. They need the help of dragons kind to win the war. You know that now.
It made sense that if fate was pushing them back together again, it would find ways to help bind the gap that had developed. A gap that the dragons had done their best to enhance, systematically destroying any and all mention of their kind outside of books of myth and legend. They had fostered the disbelief in humans over the centuries. Their work had been thorough, and the efforts had paid off in the end, though he doubted any of the elders believed it would work as well as it had.
Palin didn’t bother going down the other path. There was simply no point in examining whether or not Sandy was his mate. He knew it, he could feel it, and his dragon was in vehement agreement with him. Not once had his confidence in that wavered; if anything it had increased as time went on.
Which meant that his belief she had dragon DNA in her must be wrong. It bothered him to know that Sandy was a normal human. For his entire life he’d been raised to believe that they were lower class, below the dragons who were the true scions of the world. He knew that if he continued to think of the world as having that sort of hierarchy, he would eventually come to resent being mated to her.
No, if he was going to make this work, Palin was going to have to reevaluate his beliefs about humans. That…wasn’t going to be easy. Thankfully he had a good reason, and an even better teacher.
“Good. I can see comprehension in your eyes. You accept that she is human.”
“I do,” he said solemnly. “You are right, there are no half-blood dragons in the world. But you are wrong as well, Rowe.”
The dragon’s head reared back on its long neck. Rowe was unaccustomed to being called wrong. “Do go on,” he encouraged with a very humanlike snort.
“She is my mate. Human or not, of this there can be no doubt.”
“No, you are mistaken.”
Palin stood his ground, staring up at the giant green-scaled lizard, noting the horns running down its back, and the way its massive paws sank deep into the ground.
“That is enough from you,” Rowe pronounced. “Now come with us.” He spread his wings wide.
Palin clenched his fists in frustration and closed his eyes, letting his dragon flow through him, the power infusing his body, changing it. In the blink of an eye he shifted, now able to look at Rowe evenly.
“I am staying,” he ground out, spreading his wings wide in defiance.
“You dare to disobey a direct order?”
Palin snorted. “You’re three years older than me and four older than Torran. Quit acting like you’re some sort of superior being, Rowe, and go away. This is my home now, and I’ll leave when I’m good and ready.”
“Traitor,” the other dragon hissed, and lunged forward, teeth flashing as he opened his mouth, attempting to take a chunk from Palin’s neck.
The shift from angry words to attack took him by surprise, but his trained instincts kicked in and he responded swiftly. Ducking his head, he came at Rowe from underneath, teeth worrying at the softer flesh there, puncturing scales and staining the ones below it with the dark flow of blood colored black in the midnight air.
Champ yelped and took off for the house, but Palin could spare him no mind. He had his hands full—figuratively speaking now—with a pair of irritated emerald dragons.
“Rowe!” Torran bellowed and tried to move around to help his fellow dragon out. The mud was thick from the rains however, and his monstrous dragon form was sucked deep into the soft earth, each footstep forcing him to yank his clawed foot out from the mud with a squelch.
Palin, keeping to the less muddy path, turned and launched his tail at Rowe’s head while simultaneously breathing a cloud of toxic gas in Torran’s direction. Although they were all the same breed of dragon, the gas spewed by every dragon was just a little different, so that no one but them were immune to it. Torran quickly backed away from the cloud, forced to move even farther out into the fields to get around it.
The momentary distraction was enough for Rowe, however, and the big green monster slammed into Palin’s side, rolling him over and lunging at his belly with wicked sharp teeth. Palin yelped and lashed out with his foreleg, catching Rowe in the neck. Scales rained down on the muddy path. Rowe pulled back, bellowing in pain.
Palin swung his spike-studded tail at the shifter’s side, puncturing through the scales and causing pain, but doing no real damage. It did give him enough time to get to his feet, but all that meant was he received the full brunt of Torran’s attack. He shielded himself as best he could with his wing, attempting to diffuse the gas into the atmosphere. The mighty membrane vibrated as pain shot up its length, the membrane falling away under the noxious gas, holes appearing up and down its length.
He charged forward at Rowe, hoping that if he got in close it would make Torran think twice about using his breath weapon once again. The two struck again and again, opening great gaping wounds with their legs, while Palin blasted a particularly thick cloud of gas right into Rowe’s face.
The bigger dragon backed up and Palin smiled triumphantly as he saw the wound he’d inflicted on the slightly-older shifter. It was a bad one.
Agony sent him tumbling to the ground as a huge cloud of corrosive gas erupted against his flank, searing his body with blazing spikes of pain. Palin fell and rolled over in the mud, trying to cover the wound and staunch the gaseous fumes. Fuck, it hurt. He tried to breathe but even that was too much.
“Leave him,” Rowe said, his voice also thick with pain and slurred from the temporary disfigurement on his face. He would heal, but it would be painful until he did. “If he wishes to abandon his kind for humans, so be it. He’s the only one who will suffer.”
Palin tried to conjure up a witty comeback, but the pain was too great, and he just slumped to the ground as the pair of dragons spread their wings and launched themselves back into the sky. As they flew away, he knew so too did any chance of ever returning to the enclave.
He’d given that up for the opportunity to win his mate over. Even that wasn’t a sure thing anymore. After all, if she were human, then she couldn’t sense the bond between them like a dragon could. She may decide she didn’t want him.
There was every possibility that Palin had just consigned himself to a life of loneliness.
Groaning in pain he tried to rise, but his limbs shook violently and gave out, splashing him back down into the mud. With the last of his energy he forced himself back into his human form. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, not until he recovered. The left side of his body was a mangled ruin courtesy of Torran, and he needed to sleep. It would likely be sunup before he woke, and the last thing he needed was someone stumbling across a massive green dragon passed out in a field. Not ideal.
His mind drifted to Sandy, and she filled his mind as the darkness rose up to swallow him. The final image in his mind was of her pink hair swaying from side to side as she shook her head at him, unable to fully conceal a smile. He didn’t know what memory it was, but he knew it was one he would treasure for the rest of his life.
Content, he succumbed to the pain at last, unconsciousness finally claiming him.