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“Nicole, it’s all over now. You’re safe now.”
“But I’m not,” she shakes her head. “Don’t you see? None of us is safe, but especially not me. If they find me, Lee...” She starts crying, and then she takes off running. I go to move after her, but Marta grabs my arm.
“We can take it from here,” she says. “If you two need to go be alone, do it. Take care of her, Lee. She’s...she’s fragile.”
“Thank you,” I tell Marta. I’m glad I can always count on my team for help. I’m glad I can always trust them to be right by my side when things get rough. Then I take off running out the door.
It’s time to catch myself a human.
Chapter Nine
Nicole
I run as fast as I can into the woods. I know he’s behind me, somewhere, but I don’t care. I just need to get as far away as I can. I need to run until I can’t run anymore, and then maybe, just maybe, I’ll figure something out.
But before I even reach the cover of the trees, I feel him. I look up in time to see Lee, in dragon form, reaching his talons down and grabbing me by the shirt.
“What are you doing?” I screech, but he lifts me effortlessly and takes off flying. At first, I scream and yell, but then I remember just how futile that is. No one in the clan really likes me, anyway. They could care less if someone grabs me and hauls me off to the ends of the Earth.
They don’t give a shit.
Or do they?
A little voice at the edge of my mind asks me whether any of these things I’m thinking are true. They didn’t have to take me in, but they did. They could have killed me. They could have tossed me into the woods. Instead, they gave me a job. They gave me a home. They gave me safety.
Am I letting my emotions get the best of me?
Because when I was talking with Marta and Jeremy and Lee, none of them seemed to judge me. Even when I revealed that I did something terrible, that I got involved with someone who was married, albeit without my knowledge, they didn’t condemn me.
They didn’t judge me.
They didn’t tell me how terrible I am.
They just accepted it.
They accepted me.
Maybe I’ve been too caught up in my own sadness to realize the good around me.
Maybe I’ve been too caught up in my own life to realize that I completely messed things up with Lee.
I should have said yes to him.
I try not to cry as he flies me...somewhere...but I do. I have a big, long, ugly cry and I try not to think about the fact that I’m literally hanging from a dragon’s claws. He’s carrying me somewhere like he’s caught me, like I’m some sort of meat, and he doesn’t seem to mind the fact that I’m sobbing my little heart out.
My life is not what I wanted it to be.
I did not end up where I wanted to go.
None of this is what I wanted to happen.
Yet here I am.
This is what I am.
This is who I am.
And the reality is that I do live with the dragons now. I live with them. They are my life. They are my peers: my companions. I will probably never return to the “normal” human world. I think those days are past, and it’s time for me to accept my reality: I live with the dragons.
