Page 41 of Wild Fire

Zahran led Sobek, Falkor, Warrick, and her through their people who wished them well and headed for the yurt. Dani knew she should be frightened, but she wasn’t. Warrick had assured her she would be fine and that he, Sobek, and Falkor would stand vigil to safeguard her keeping. With such a devoted brotherhood looking after her, what was there to fear?

She stretched out on their bed, and Zahran handed her a goblet from which she drank deeply. Warrick stood at the end of the bed and gazed down at her. “When next you open your eyes, know that I will be with you, and you will be drakaina.”

As Zahran chanted ancient words of wisdom, Warrick began to breathe a white flame that warmed and tickled her but didn’t hurt. She wasn’t sure what was in the goblet that Zahran had given her but whatever it was created a feeling of calm euphoria, and she felt no fear. Warrick would never hurt her and once she awakened, she would be able to fly with him—not as a rider but as his mate.

She had no awareness of the passage of time, but could see her life passing before her, not as a harbinger of her death, but showing her how meeting Warrick and becoming drakaina had always been inevitable. Dani had forgotten all the books she’d read about dragons either of legend or of fiction. How many times had she lain on her back and seen clouds take their shapes, wishing she could soar alongside them?

How many times had she searched the stars and found Draco, the dragon constellation? It had been the first constellation she had been able to identify. Warrick had said they would make a trip to Seattle to get her things. One of the things she wanted to bring was her vintage telescope—it was bulky and all the adjustments had to be made by hand, but it gave her an incredibly vivid sight into the sky.

She could see Warrick as a young dragon… could feel the heavy weight of responsibility that he’d grown up with knowing he would leave his family to join the brotherhood. She could feel his calming presence and the love he had borne for her for so long, not knowing if he would ever find her. He’d almost given up hope—she would use that to her advantage.

Dani remembered all her hard work to become a detective, often risking her life to stand out. More than one supervisor had commented that it was as if she didn’t care about her own life, although she never endangered the life of another officer. All of it had been training for what was to come.

She saw the battle with the beasts of molten rock and fire known as the Cherufe… saw the dragons defeat them once in the dim dark past and once again, far more recently. She watched as the Phantom Fire had acted as back-up to the warrior queens who had led the first offensive, one of whom was Falkor’s sister. I’ll bet she has a tale to tell.

The cocoon in which she was entombed was warm and safe, and she could see where someone might be tempted to remain locked away with pleasant dreams and memories, but little by little she realized that if she stayed here, she would never again be one with her beloved—Warrick—her eternal flame.

Acknowledgement of that in the depths of her soul was the impetus to make her begin to make her way back to the light and to the land of the living. The cocoon began to fade away with the same sizzling, tickling sensation with which it had crept up her body.

“Are you with us, my love?” Warrick crooned as he stroked her hair.

“I am,” she managed to croak. “Water?”

He held a chalice up to her lips. The water was cool, soothing, and had something in it that was refreshing.

“Sobek has gone to get Zahran,” he said, helping her to sit up.

“I feel fine. Is it done?”

Can you hear me? he asked, but not in voice anyone other than her could hear. She nodded. Try reaching out to me.

Is this the link? she asked.

It is. While we could sense each other before you were drakaina, now we can speak to one another as if we were talking out loud.

“That’s kind of rude when others are in the room, isn’t it?” she asked.

“It is, but it can also be used to convey our thoughts to each other which are no one else’s business, although it’s easy to tell with Kessily as she blushes.”

“Yes, and she often thumps your mate when he points that out,” said Falkor. “Welcome back, Danica. Your mate may be trying to convince you he was cool as a cucumber, but he wasn’t. I have fought beside him for more than two thousand years and have never known him to be frightened. I do not think he would have survived had you not done so well.”

“For what it’s worth, it just felt like a nice, long rest. In fact, I’m not sure when I’ve been this well-rested.”

“And I will ask that your mate refrain from his overly amorous desires for at least a few days,” said Zahran.

“We might refrain from ‘overly amorous,’ but I got news for you, amorous is going to happen,” said Dani.

Zahran looked at Warrick. “Who am I to argue with a newly-transitioned drakaina?”

“Then we shall leave you to it,” said Falkor as he herded the other two dragons through the door.

“How do you feel?” asked Warrick, returning to climb into their bed next to her.

“You know I expected some big calamitous feeling with my body singing ‘I am dragon; hear me roar!’ but I just feel like me. I feel like the me who’s in love with you but nothing different at all. It’s kind of anti-climactic.”

“What do you say we try shifting and go for a short flight around Dragonwyk.”

“Don’t I need like a learner’s permit or something?”

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