Page 46 of The Dragon's Perfect Omega
"Out?"
I nodded at the window. "I want to see more of your island. The tour guide they gave us is really bad."
"And you think I could do better?"
"I know you could." I smiled at Lowen. "I want to see your favorite spot." After the way he'd made me play guide for him in San Francisco, it was only fair if he returned the favor now. Besides, I really wanted to know what kind of spot Lowen would choose to show me. What sort of place he liked to hang out when he wasn't busy practicing his drums or playing shows.
"All right." Lowen stood. "At least this time, I don't have to wear a wig."
The memory of that blond wig made me burst out laughing. "I wouldn't mind if you wore it."
Lowen stared at me. "You can't tell me you like it."
"What if I do? Maybe I think it's sexy," I teased. "Maybe I should ask you to wear it for me again. Would you do that?"
For a second or two, my big strong dragon only looked at me, lost for words. "There's not a lot of things I wouldn't do for you, Zim, but that... absolutely not."
His absolute rejection of the wig only made me laugh. "Okay, I'm not going to insist."
Lowen released a breath. "Thank the Gods. For a moment there, I thought you'd gone crazy." He put his mug and his plate aside and got up to open a door next to the window, which led out to a large balcony. He turned around to me, an expectant look on his face. "Are you coming?"
"We're leaving from the balcony?"
He gave me a grin and a half-shrug. "Why not? We'll be flying anyway. If you want to. You're not scared of flying with me, are you?"
"No," I said, truthfully, the memory of our late-night flight still clear on my mind. It had been wonderful. "With you, I'm not scared at all."
His grin grew wide, and then a soft glow enveloped his body, marking the shift.
Lowen was absolutely breathtaking in his dragon form. I could have stood there for an hour just staring at him without getting tired of the sight. He was big and beautiful and his gold scales seemed to reflect the color of the rising sun.
"Hop on," he said, spreading his wings.
I didn't have to be told twice.
23
Zim
Lowen tookme to the volcano. Not to the foot of it, where we'd celebrated the solstice the night before, but the top of it. From up here, we could look out over the whole island. Breathing in the scent of the pine tree woods below us, I could see why he liked it here.
"I come here all the time," he said almost as soon as he'd shifted back into his human form. "It's kind of funny considering this is a holy place."
"It is?" I asked, digging one of my shoes into the ashen ground I stood on. "Makes sense, I guess, that dragons would worship a volcano."
"We don't worship... okay, yeah, we do. But it's more than a volcano. The spirits of our Gods reside in there." He pointed in the direction of the crater, which I didn't approach because I didn't want to fall in.
"Do you believe that?" I asked. I didn't mean to be rude, but I couldn't tellwhathe believed. He didn't seem enamored with his mother's faith, but at the same time, he believed in fated mates and he had these magical powers that had to be coming fromsomewhere.
"I'm not sure," he said. "My mother was always so obsessed with all this that I preferred not to think about it too much. I figure it doesn't really matter if the Gods live in there or not. I just like to sit here and watch the woods down below. And the ocean in the distance." For some reason, his expression fell. "If it wasn’t for the laws, I could just keep flying forever."
"I'm sorry." I hadn't made the laws, and yet I felt responsible. It was because of people like my family that dragons weren't allowed to come and go anywhere as they pleased. Because we were scared. "You know how my family owns a pharma company, right?"
"Yeah?" Lowen's forehead crinkled. He had no idea where I was going with this, but I had a confession to make.
"You know how sometimes dragons have to take drugs when they cross borders? To make it impossible for them to shift? We... make those." Those weren't the only drugs we made, but I remembered my father bragging about these in particular. He claimed we were keeping the world safe. The memory filled me with nothing but disgust now. We were only harming people like Lowen. Good people, who wanted to travel and see the world the same way we did.
Biting my lower lip, I stared at the ash-colored ground beneath me. For the first time in my life, I thought maybe it really wasn't so bad if Ididn'tfollow in my father's footsteps.
