Authors: Rain Oxford
Dylan stared at me. “Nice to meet you, Rojan. Such a
lovely image. I have to say, I don’t think werewolf is on the menu tonight.”
I restrained Rojan this time. “It will be if they
keep making Rojan angry. Honestly, I don’t want to be picking them from my
teeth, so I really hope they give up quickly. Rojan is much stronger and would
very much like to kill them all.”
“Except the woman,” Dylan smirked. We followed after
her.
I tried to look innocent, even as Rojan rumbled.
She
might be worthy to live.
I rolled my eyes. “Being part dragon may or may not
make it more difficult for me to find a companion, but that does not mean I am
willing to settle for a person who turns into an animal.”
Dylan’s eyes widened dramatically. “So racist!” He
was joking.
Companion, never. A pet, perhaps,
Rojan said.
I groaned and put my face in my hands. One of the
wolves behind us snapped in warning when we slowed down a little, and I snapped
right back. The wolf wasn’t expecting it and jumped away. Rojan liked that.
“You’re getting pretty comfortable letting Rojan have
the reigns,” Dylan said.
“I guess I’m used to him already.” I was starting to
realize Rojan was as much part of me as my hand. Except when his reaction would
be inappropriate, why would I prevent him from responding or even talking?
Rojan heard my thoughts and purred. He liked the
freedom.
We came to the end of the jungle and found ourselves
on a hill overlooking a village settled into a valley. About thirty small
cabins littered the village with several small gardens placed throughout. There
were no separate yards or territories, which I expected from the people with
such wild beasts.
“Wow,” Dylan said, peering at the sky with
fascination.
Billions of stars and spilled across the night sky,
but it was the moon that dominated. The moon was huge and had colored bands
across it like a planet… or like a beautiful stone. Rojan moaned. Something
about that moon made him feel longing.
As if that cleared anything up.
I felt the wolves behind me change to people, but I
didn’t bother looking. Rojan would warn me if I needed to pay attention. They started
talking and got louder when we ignored them to the point where they were
annoying.
“Do you think they realized yet that we don’t speak
their language?” Dylan asked.
“I doubt it. They seem a bit savage and uncivilized;
they are probably slow to learn as well. Here they are acting like they’re in
charge, when Rojan can burn them like steaks.”
“Steaks? Are you hungry? You keep referring to them
as food.”
“I am, actually. I just think they would taste pretty
bad. Rojan is willing to test that theory.”
“Hypothesis. It’s a hypothesis. A scientific,
unproven, educated guess is a hypothesis. A theory is a hypothesis proven time
and again without fail. Since you have never eaten a werewolf before, it can’t
be a theory,” Dylan corrected. He did that a lot.
The woman turned back when we wouldn’t continue
following them down the hill. She said something, her voice higher and warmer.
She was trying to encourage us to follow her, probably with words she thought
were very cleaver. Rojan chuckled like an adult watching a child do something
ridiculous.
“Mordon…” Dylan said.
I reacted in time to steady him. He clutched his head
and squeezed his eyes closed. “Are you still sick?” I asked. It was a difficult
concept for me that someone could be sick when I couldn’t smell sickness on
them, but I wasn’t a Guardian and didn’t know what it felt like.
“My energy is doing something and it’s making me
dizzy.”
I let my eyes shift for the hundredth time today and
saw his magic responding to something. It looked as if he was doing a normal
spell, but his god energy was working instead of the nominal energy. What it
was doing I had no idea.
He opened his eyes at the same time mine shifted back
and they flickered with the same green glow like when he held the pentagram. As
quickly as it had started, his eyes returned to normal. Just as the woman
started talking again, Dylan winced.
“Oh, no,” he moaned.
“What?”
“I know what my magic did. I mean, I only thought it
for a second; I didn’t even actually want it.” He sent the woman a glare, which
stopped her in her tracks. She was probably not often glared at in the middle
of sweet talking someone.
“Want what?”
“I blame you, Sammy. I thought that it was annoying
not knowing what they were saying. Apparently I can learn languages magically like
your kid… or maybe it’s just translating. When she spoke again, I knew what she
was saying. I heard her words in their foreign language, but I knew what the
words meant.”
“That ability should not be bad, especially for a
Guardian. Don’t be so quick to worry,” I encouraged.
He already feels he is a freak; this will not help
him right now. Your friend is about one new ability away from becoming
self-destructive.
I nearly brushed what Rojan was saying off until I
realized what he said.
What do you mean?
He feels his magic is growing too quickly and he
is becoming too dangerous. He wants to be more human and is thinking of how to
do it; therefore, he will avoid using his magic even as it builds up. This will
lead to a lack of control. If he accidently harms anyone because of it, his
regret would be catastrophic. He needs to continue using magic during this
delicate time in his development when his magic is most malleable. I can assure
you, he will continue to grow more powerful whether he uses his magic or not.
Why? Why is he getting more powerful?
You should pay more attention. His magic is
learning. Every obstacle he faces, every time he runs from the demon, every
fear he has makes him grow stronger. His magic is growing to accommodate. If he
only uses it to heal, his magic will only learn to heal. If he uses it to
attack, his magic will become volatile and difficult to control.
Why didn’t you tell us this before?
You should have realized this. I know this because
I am using the senses you have always had.
“You need to pay attention,” Dylan said.
“Rojan is paying attention for me. I don’t want to be
trapped in their village. I don’t like the aura I get from them, and I haven’t
even seen them with my dragon eyes. Their intentions are sneaky.”
“I know. We need to save this world and then get out
of here. I think I finally understand how to travel the worlds. We should be
able to leave at any time.”
“Then heal it and let us leave now.”
“I don’t know about using magic in front of these
strangers. Humans are afraid of magic, how do we know these people aren’t? I’m
a Guardian; I can’t just terrify a whole population of people like that.”
I growled in frustration, but I knew he wouldn’t
change his mind. While he had been talking, the people behind us were arguing. They
were pretty irritating, especially since none of them seemed to care at all
they were standing around in dusk, on a hill top, completely naked. Not one of
them wore a strip of anything. There were only two other women, neither of
which looked as pretty as the one who had challenged me.
Rojan and I were able to single out their leader by
who yelled the loudest and was the biggest. Rojan said he was the black wolf.
“They just realized we can’t speak their language,”
Dylan told me quietly. “They think we must be from a land far away, and they
are clueless as to what we are.” He looked at me. “I think this might be a
world of shifters. They are discussing what our beasts could be. You showed
them your claws and teeth, but they don’t know what you are. They can’t
identify us by smell, and it’s making them really edgy.”
“But they think we’re of this world. Don’t let on
that you learned their language.”
“Why not? That might help us pretend to be a native.”
“Because they might say something in front of us that
they wouldn’t if they knew you understood them. They might reveal their evil
plans,” I insisted.
Rojan agreed, but was hoping they would misbehave so
he could eat them. I just hoped Rojan wasn’t serious, because I didn’t want to
eat anyone.
“They’re talking about the dark. It’s going to be
dark soon and they are afraid of it. They’re arguing now about whether to leave
us to die or force us to go. I think we should follow them for now.”
I sighed. “Alright. Pet, you can follow us in front,”
I said to the woman. I hadn’t meant to say it so rudely. Rojan had decided that
she would be our pet and we had to train her to be a good one. She looked
startled that I was talking to her. “Go, pet!” I demanded. She jumped a little
before taking off down the hill.
We followed behind at a more leisurely pace until she
slowed down. Rojan was pleased that she was so easily trained. When the man who
had been the black wolf tried to pull in front of us, I growled. He growled
back and stepped in front of me. That was not going to pass with Rojan.
Dylan took Sammy with a sigh as I faced off against
the fool.
The man was faintly taller than me and a fair amount
more muscular, but it was his wolf, not his body that he fought with. His wolf
was challenging my dragon and Rojan would win hands down. My eyes, teeth, and
claws shifted as my fire rose to the surface.
With my eyes in dragon form, I could clearly see his
aura. He was not the most immoral person I have met, but he was driven by the
desire for power. In fact, he had done some horrible things to get where he was
today. He was a beast all the way through and would not hesitate to kill, but
he was a leader willing to fight for the lives of his pack members. If he would
back down, Rojan would let him live.
I could feel the wolf in him display his dominance,
and I could feel the moment the beast realized that he was up against a
stronger opponent. The man was clearly confused, even as he stepped away and
lowered his eyes. Neither he nor his wolf knew what Rojan was, but they knew
that we were stronger.
I took Sammy back and Dylan laughed as we continued
down the hill. “You and Rojan make a pretty funny team. It’s probably not every
day that the werewolf alpha meets someone bigger than him.”
“What is a werewolf?” I asked.
“A wolf shifter. They look more like wolves in beast
form than the draxuni do, but these guys are much, much bigger than wolves. I
don’t think wolves are the only type of beasts people shift into, though. They
kept discussing what our beasts were. More likely, they are a wolf pack and
people all over the world shift into different animals.
I growled when one of the less dominant males got too
close. He was more curious than anything, but Rojan didn’t want anyone that
close to our backs. Sammy hung over my arm to get a better look at them, then
twisted around to try and reach into the baby bag, but I caught his searching
hands just before he got the baby wipes.
“Look at that; you’re teaching him to be violent,”
Dylan said.
“Me? He knew how to throw things when we met him.”
“I can’t believe that was less than two weeks ago,”
he said. He was right; it felt like we had been on this mission for months,
when it had actually only been days.
We reached the village a few minutes before dark. The
shifters behind us broke up and went into their separate cabins, whereas the
auburn-headed woman led us to a cabin and indicated we should enter.
“You first, pet,” I said. I hadn’t meant for my voice
to be so growly, but she darted inside.
Dylan shook his head. “I hope you make a better
boyfriend than pet-owner, or you’re going to die alone.”
“She made Rojan angry when she challenged him, and he
hasn’t forgiven her yet. He wants to train her. I wonder what he would do if
you challenged him,” I said.
Dylan shrugged. “We probably won’t find out. I’m not
out to challenge anyone.” He went inside and I followed. The only response
Rojan felt was the irritation that Dylan went in first, not because that was a dominant
move, but because Dylan needed to be protected from my pet and should not be
alone with her.
Dylan was peaceful down to his soul, and coupled with
his Guardian-driven need to help people, he was liable to walk into a dangerous
situation at every turn. He needed to be protected. As powerful as he was, as
horrible as his childhood was, and as dangerous as a Guardian’s life was,
Dylan’s first instinct wasn’t self-preservation. He would risk his life to
protect everyone else, because that was his nature, so I would make it my job
to protect him.
The cabin was pretty basic. There was a bed to the
far side with a window above it. On the left wall was a kitchenette, complete
with a small wood-burning stove and a counter. A wooden table sat in the middle
of the room. Rugs littered the floor. The woman stood back, watching me for
approval. There was not much to approve of, but it was warm and the colors were
not repulsive.
“Mama, hungry,” Sammy said. I looked at him. He put
on a brave face, even as his tiny stomach growled.
“We’ll find something soon,” I said. “We should go to
Earth next,” I told Dylan. He nodded. Really, I wanted him to hurry up and heal
Earth because I knew he was feeling worse and worse. Whatever was happening to
his book to make those names disappear, it was impacting Dylan’s health.
The woman ran out of the room. Rojan bristled at her
acting without permission, but didn’t feel she was worth going after.
“Your pet just escaped,” Dylan supplied helpfully. I
shrugged, just as the woman ran back inside. She carried a small wicker basket
and set it on the table, then backed up. “Interesting,” Dylan said.
“What?” I asked, sniffing the basket from across the
room. I could smell bread, vegetables, and cooked meat.