Andrea followed Sylvia through the main doors of the palace and out into the chilly air. They had finished touring the interior of the Grimmr home, and now the dragon-shifter was excited about showing her the gardens. Andrea was thankful, as the gardens seemed quiet at that late hour. The palace, however, was anything but. Dragon-shifters belonging to the clan were lounging around in the living room, or the library, and they had all greeted her and stared at her as Sylvia had guided her from one room to another.
“Lovely night, don’t you think?” Sylvia said. She had stopped in the middle of the alley to look at the starry night sky.
“It’s perfect,” Andrea agreed.
However, she found her surroundings more interesting than the sky. She hated everything about the palace, but she couldn’t say the same about the gardens. When it came to nature, there was nothing to hate. Even when the roses were perfectly arranged on both sides of the alley, and the hedges were modeled in shapes of dragons. Their gardener was clearly doing a top-notch job.
Sylvia started walking down the alley, and Andrea followed her.
“Is there any place I could use for reading or working?”
“Sure. I’ll take you there. There’s a pretty big gazebo on the east side of the palace.”
The brunette followed the silver-haired woman, and they walked in silence for a while. Inside the palace, Sylvia had been a chatterbox. She had told her about the history of Clan Grimmr, how they were the most ancient dragon-shifters in the world, at least according to terianthropologists, who were studying the culture and traditions of all shape-shifters, and how her father was, most likely, the only dragon in the history of the entire Faction that had never hibernated. Despite his old age and all the hardships he had had to overcome, Calder Grimmr had refused to seek solace in slumber. For that, Sylvia and Kaden admired him greatly, and even though they had never said it out loud, they wanted to follow his example.
Hibernation was good for a dragon-shifter, as it provided some respite from a life that was too long and came with too many challenges, but it usually hurt the clan if the hibernating dragon was a Fyrstur or an Annarr, and the clan depended on him or her. Calder had never wanted to put his clan in danger, so he had pushed through it, through all of it – the war, the loneliness, the peace between the factions, the responsibilities that came with his position as a Councilor, – and had sacrificed his own happiness for that of his dragons.
Now, walking beside Sylvia, Andrea was thinking about everything she had just found out about the man she was going to steal from. He sounded like more than a loving father and a good Fyrstur; he sounded like a true martyr. And that was when she realized she could never be with him, she could never allow him to mark her and turn her into a hybrid. They had nothing in common. He was willing to ignore his own needs for the needs of the people he loved, while she could only think about herself. She was selfish, yes, and she couldn’t fathom changing that about herself. Her selfishness was what had kept her alive and sane for this long.
“Can I tell you something?” asked Sylvia in a hushed voice. She didn’t want the dragon-shifters in the palace to hear them. She had waited to bring Andrea as deep into the gardens as she could, so she would be at least 80% sure neither Calder, nor Kaden could hear them.
“Yes.”
“I’m happy for you and dad. Seeing you together, at dinner… Watching how he looks at you and how you smile at him… You two were made for each other.”
Andrea kept silent. She wondered whether it would have been rude of her to ask Sylvia if they could go back. She didn’t like where this conversation was headed.
“I truly believe that.”
Sylvia stopped and turned to face Andrea. There was no hint of sarcasm or hidden meanings in her voice. Her golden eyes were filled with honesty and gratitude.
Andrea bit the inside of her cheek. She had to fight the guilt rising inside her chest. She had to. There was no other way. Yes, she liked Sylvia, but she had just met the girl. There was no reason for her to feel so guilty for having made other plans, plans that did not include staying with the Grimmr family and really becoming Sylvia’s stepmother.
“You see, dad suffered a lot after mom died.”
“You… you don’t have to tell me these things,” Andrea said. “I understand. It must be painful to talk about your mother, especially to me, so you mustn’t do it.”
“It’s okay. I want to.” Sylvia gave her a reassuring smile. “I think it will help you get a better picture of what kind of man and Alpha my dad is.”
Andrea nodded weakly. She hated what was happening, and she hated even more the fact that she couldn’t see a way out of it.
“Madeline. That was my mother’s name. She was human, just like you. Well, I don’t have to tell you that. I mean, it’s obvious.” Sylvia chuckled. “Dragon women cannot bear children, and when my father needed heirs, he had to take a human bride. He postponed it for as long as he could, but there came a time when his authority started being questioned by the other members of the clan. Didn’t he care enough about them and about Clan Grimmr’s future? What if something happened to him? Should they just accept his Annarr, Jared, as their new Fyrstur? Tradition said the Fyrstur had to offer his clan heirs. It was the only way to ensure the clan’s safety. But dad was opposed to the idea of forcefully taking a human bride. He wished for a mate more than anything, but in those times, shape-shifters were not out in the open. There were rumors about their existence, and sometimes they mingled with humans, but they mostly stayed hidden, living in fear of what the Human Faction might do should they found out shifters were real. Of course, recent history tells us that didn’t go as planned. So, when an Alpha shifter needed a bride, his only chance was to kidnap her, or seduce her and make her fall in love with him so deeply that she would never even dream of revealing his secret. As you can probably imagine, dad went for the second option.”
Andrea cocked an eyebrow. At Alma Venus, she had learned about the dark history of humans and shifters that unfolded before shifters came out in the open and humans declared war on them. She had thought all shifters used to kidnap their human brides and force them into marriage, and she had never questioned the validity of that information.
“It wasn’t easy. I know, hilarious! With dad’s good looks and natural charm, what woman could have refused him? But human women have a native instinct. They can immediately tell if a man is bad news, and they usually act on that instinct if they’re smart enough. Apparently, their unique instinct was even more powerful around male shifters. They would avoid them like the plague, and not even the physical attraction they felt towards them could make them change their mind.”
“That’s strange,” said Andrea. “From what I’ve seen and experienced, we’re really bad at avoiding the wrong guys. In fact, we go straight for them. The good guys? The moment we meet them, we friendzone them.” She laughed a bitter laugh. Of course, she was thinking about her exes and all those good guys she had chosen to stay only friends with until they got tired of waiting and married other women. Smarter women.
“It’s different with shifters. Nowadays, not so much. Human women are born in a world where the existence of shape-shifters is something normal and natural. They learn about the War of the Factions in school, and see dragons flying in the sky almost every day. Bear-shifters have popular cooking shows on TV, and eagle-shifters open new art exhibitions and publish new poetry books every week. Their instinct…” she hesitated, then corrected herself. “Your instinct to sense the presence of a male shifter and asses the possible danger you might be in should you stick around has diminished so much that sometimes I doubt you still have it.”
“But shifters are not dangerous. Not more dangerous than humans.”
It was weird, but as much as she despised shifters and the luxurious lives they lived, Andrea did believe they posed no danger to anyone. In fact, so far, all the male dragon-shifters she had met had proved to be much gentler and more well-mannered than any human man she had had the displeasure to deal with. Well, except for Kaden. But Kaden was a whole different story she didn’t quite comprehend yet.
“I agree,” said Sylvia. “But, just try to imagine: in those times, shifters were a species humans didn’t know about. The few rumors circulating from one region to another told about these abominations that could walk the Earth as men and women, but could turn into animals at will. And they were strong. They could smash through walls with ease, heal so fast that they didn’t even have time to feel the pain of a wound, and their senses were better than the senses of wild animals. With those rumors in mind, you can imagine that human women immediately felt when something wasn’t quite right. Oh, and let’s not forget dragon-shifters have golden eyes. Golden! And there were no contact lenses back then.”
Sylvia laughed at her silly remark, and Andrea laughed with her. If the brunette were to be honest with herself, she had to admit the story was quite interesting. Much more interesting than the general history of Clan Grimmr.
“Anyway, I digress. The point is: dad chose to find himself a bride the old-fashioned way, by gaining her interest and making her fall in love with him. For real. No games, no hidden agendas. He wanted the real thing.”
“And he succeeded.”
“Oh, yes. But it took him years to find my mother! The clan had almost given up on him and his crazy plan.”
“How did they meet?”
For the first time since she had begun her story, Sylvia hesitated. Her golden eyes wandered over the gardens, the palace, and the starry sky. The wind was blowing sharply now, and it was much colder than it had been when she and Andrea had left the palace. She couldn’t feel the cold, as her skin always burned hot, but she was sure Andrea could feel it.
“Maybe we should start back to the palace?”
Andrea nodded. She wrapped her scarf tighter around herself and followed Sylvia.
“So?” She insisted. “How did Calder and Madeline meet?”
Sylvia bit her lower lip. She wasn’t sure this part of the story was hers to tell. It was better to keep the details to herself.
“My mother was very poor. When dad found her, she couldn’t get a proper job. Because of… well… some mistakes she had made in her past, no one wanted to hire her, even though she was a decent cook, and she could clean and do the laundry. She was living from one day to the next, and her methods for making some money were not exactly… ethical.”
Sylvia’s answer only managed to confuse Andrea. She didn’t have time to ask for clarifications, because the dragon girl rushed to finish the story.
“My father helped her. He took care of her, never judged her for what she had had to do to survive, and she was grateful to him. They fell in love.”
“Did he tell her the truth about who he was?”
“Yes, but not before he had gained her trust. When he told her he was a dragon-shifter, my mom actually laughed and said she had always known there was something special about him. He brought her to his palace and they lived… well, happily until she… passed away of old age.”
“Wow!”
For a while, they walked in silence. A thousand questions were going through Andrea’s mind. She settled on the most obvious one.
“Why didn’t he turn her? Surely, if she was in love with him, she wouldn’t have refused the chance to spend almost an eternity with him and their two children.”
Sylvia smiled sadly.
“That’s the thing about my father: he is too fair and noble for his own good. Our tradition says it’s wrong to turn humans into dragon-shifters. Even when the humans agree. It’s against the laws of nature. We believe the force that created us all had reasons to make some of us mortal, and others powerful and… well, what you would call supernatural. It is the order of things, and we, dragon-shifter, have no business in tampering with it.”
“Hmm… so, it’s like you believe it would create chaos.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I don’t think the other four shifter factions have anything even remotely similar to this belief of yours.”
“They don’t. The Dragon Faction is the most ancient of all five shifter factions. We’ve seen too much, and we understand it is wrong to interfere with things we do not fully understand. And the differences between humans and shifters is one of those things. So, yes, my mother did want to be turned into a dragon-shifter. She begged my father every single day. He always refused her. Calmly, gently, with endless kindness – he refused her. Kaden and I remember that time clearly.”
“And you never tried to convince your father to turn her? I mean, you knew your mom was human, you could probably see she was aging. You knew she would die.”
“Yes, we knew. Neither she, nor dad kept that a secret from us. But we were dragon-shifters, born and raised in our Faction’s traditions. We knew what mom wanted was simply not possible.”
“I-I don’t know what to say,” Andrea murmured.
“It’s okay, I don’t expect you to understand. We, the Grimmrs, don’t expect you to understand. The only reason why I’m telling you this story is so you know what dad went through when mom died. What we all went through then. The loss was… beyond words.” A tear fell down her cheek, and Sylvia quickly wiped it with the back of her hand. She sniffed gently and took a moment to regain her control. “Dad never wanted to take another bride after mom died. He swore he would never put himself and us through such an ordeal for a second time. That is why you are so important now. That is why your presence here is such a novelty to Clan Grimmr. Do you know what you brought with you today?”
“N-no.”
Sylvia stopped and turned to look into Andrea’s eyes.
“Hope. You brought hope.”
Andrea took a sharp intake of breath and held it in until her lungs burned and she had to exhale.
“Thanks to you, now we are all free to hope that our Fyrstur will find happiness again. Dad deserves it. He deserves to find a mate and live happily ever after. You are that mate, Andrea. It was so obvious at dinner. Even Kaden feels it, deep in his heart. He’s so stubborn because he’s afraid dad might get hurt. My brother is older than me. He was the first child, so he had a stronger connection with mom. Her loss hit him harder than it hit me.”
Andrea cleared her throat.
“What changed, Sylvia?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“What changed that made Calder break his promise towards himself and you, and take a mail-order bride. Why am I here?”
“Oh, isn’t it obvious? I thought it was obvious.”
Andrea shook her head.
“The discovery of the antidotes for the five types of shifter venom. Now, humans can be turned into hybrids, which means they will never be able to shift, but they will gain all the powers and the long lifespan of the Shifter Faction they choose to belong to. The solution the Council of the Six Factions has found is legal and ethical. My father agrees with it. He was one of the first supporters of the research Harington Pharmaceuticals was conducting even before anyone dared to think there might be something like a cure to shifter venom. The antidote for dragon venom gave him a second chance, and he decided to take it.”
Andrea nodded thoughtfully. Of course. It made sense. In fact, she had known the answer even before she had asked Sylvia the question. She shivered, and it wasn’t because of the cold. It was because of the deep, unforgiving guilt that was turning the inside of her chest into its permanent shelter.
“You’re freezing!” Sylvia rubbed Andrea’s arms, then took her hand and dragged her towards the palace. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t feel the damn cold, but you can.”
Sylvia was walking so fast that Andrea almost had to run to keep up with her.
“It’s okay,” the brunette said. “I’m getting warmer.”
Sylvia realized her quick pace was exaggerated, and she slowed down.
“Watch out,” Andrea gasped. She pulled at Sylvia’s hand to make her stop.
“Huh? What?”
Andrea pointed towards something above Sylvia’s head. The dragon girl followed her gaze, then started laughing.
“Oh, that? Silly you, it’s just a spider’s web.”
“There’s a butterfly caught in it.”
“Well, spiders have to eat too, right?”
Andrea let go of Sylvia’s hand and grabbed a stick from the ground.
“Not butterflies.”
Sylvia cocked an eyebrow. She watched Andrea as she used the stick to destroy the spider’s web and free the butterfly.
“You do realize you saved the butterfly, but you ruined the spider’s home, don’t you? The poor insect has to rebuild its web, then starve until it manages to catch another prey.”
Andrea watched the colorful butterfly make its way to the bright lights of the palace. She shrugged.
“You’re right, I’m right. It’s all about perspective.”