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“Brooke.” Aiden’s voice travels through the air like a blanket and it envelops me, covering my being in a way that feels smothering.
I wipe my tears from my eyes, sniffle, and say, “Oh, I feel stupid. I was taking the long way home and I just twisted my ankle.”
“You’re lying,” he says. His tone of voice is strange. I mean, there’s no emotion behind the accusation.
I turn my head and look at him. There is plenty of emotion in his eyes. It gives me hope. “You saw Amelie,” he says. I feel my entire body kind of deflate and I nod. “I knew it would happen at some point. I had hoped to explain things to you before then. It can’t be helped now, though.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “Charlotte told me.”
“What did she tell you?” he asks. He sounds suspicious but I’m in such a state that I can’t be certain of anything.
“The marriage. It’s loveless. It’s arranged. You… This is common for your circles. I guess like royalty or something.” Wow. I can hear bitterness in my voice. I almost want him to just tell me to grow up and deal with it. It’s a miracle that I don’t burst out crying again.
“There is more,” he says, “and you will not believe me if I tell you. May I show you?”
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?” I ask. “I trust you.” Actually, I’m not sure I trust him anymore.
“I am not just a man,” he says.
I sigh. “I know. I know. You’re a Vipera and you have all of these responsibilities and people who depend on you. You’re not just a man. You can’t do what you want but…”
My words disappear.
My thoughts disappear.
Hell, I almost feel like I disappear.
He’s gone. Aiden simply vanishes.
No. He changes. It happens in a fraction of a second but somehow I see it happen. I also feel it happens as shards of his clothing fly past me and some of them strike me. Aiden stood before me and told me he couldn’t tell me because I wouldn’t believe him. He was right about that. I would not have believed him and even now, I don’t know if I can believe my eyes.
Aiden is gone and where he stood is something out of a big budget fantasy movie. Where he stood is the kind of thing you see on roleplaying book covers or in expensive video game art. Where he stood, no man stands now. Instead, a thing of dreams and nightmare stands there. I guess I can admit I thought of Aiden as my knight in shining armor.
But what I see in front of me is a dragon.
The trees on either side of the dragon are bent or broken because the creature is far larger than the space where he transforms. For a brief moment, I think that this creature, which is absolutely magnificent even though it’s terrifying and deadly, has crushed the man I love beneath him. That brief moment disappears and I feel almost stupid for thinking it. “I know who you are,” I whisper.
He speaks and the voice is rich and deep.
But it is still Aiden’s voice. “I am Aiden of the House Vipera, crown prince to the Vipera throne.”
* * *
Aiden
I have heard some shifters lose a great deal of their conscious thought when transformed into their beasts. Wolves become far more primal and vicious. Wolves are killing machines that can cooperate to form even more effective killing machines. It makes sense a creature built for hunting prey has senses designed for just that. When I transform, my senses don’t overwhelm me the way I’ve heard wolves, cats, and bears are overwhelmed.
Don’t get me wrong, our senses are dramatically enhanced but they’re enhanced, I suppose, in much the same way that an eagle’s senses are enhanced. I can hear distinctly every conversation on the estate grounds and my brain can process each as though it were all I heard. This happens in the background of my mind, not removing my attention from any of the foreground. I still hear everything clearly. One of the maids is speaking with one of the cook’s sons. They’re trying to determine how to tell her father they want to get married.
I hear about a hundred conversations and I follow them all at once without having to think about them. I think that’s the key. My dragon instincts arrive along with my dragon senses but something about the dragon brain makes all of this stimulation manageable. We can process it all at once and so we’re not overwhelmed. For a leopard shifter, the sudden impact of sense and stimulation is instantly prioritized for the cat’s survival. Hunt. Flee predators. Survive. A dragon’s survival is essentially ensured. Perhaps that’s why sensory prioritization never became part of our physiology.
But the only sensory input that mattes to me now is the girl in front of me. She steps forward, which shocks the hell out of me. A human being’s typical response to a dragon is shellshocked fear. The bravest human faces this before anything else. We’re massive, of course, and clearly made to cause damage. In addition, our scientists believe they have isolated chemicals, similar to pheromones, that enhance the intimidation effect.
This girl is not intimidated at all.
She walks right up to me, and though she trembles slightly, she reaches forward and runs her hand along the ridged edge of my jaw. My head is as large as her entire body, so she touches only a fraction of my jaw but that makes her lack of fear even more profound. “Courtney wasn’t talking about you being European when she talked about arranged marriages or kept women. She was talking about this.”
I try to speak quietly as I say, “Yes. I imagine.”
