Nettle
Chris looked slightly annoyed when I thumped into a booth at Vinotheca beside him. I was only half an hour late!
I felt like shit after spending first half of my day with Lieutenant Wart who had no warts, but was a pain in the ass and made me feel I trained with soldiers who were going to kill me sooner than later.
The second half of the day I spent with depressed Garret. I tried to talk to him about Ember a couple of times, but he simply zoned out at a mention of her.
And I had a premonition, that she really needed us. And even Jade was sceptical, she believed that the war and participating in killing her own mother could have scarred Ember beyond repair.
I was sure there was something wrong and it was something else than, what everybody else said.
So when Chris asked to meet I groaned inwardly. I really liked him. I missed the easy comradeship of the time, when he was painting Felix portrait. But I pulled away. Partly because of lack of time but partly because I felt awful for being pulled into the middle of "the mob and the other mob" business again and I couldn't stand his concern if he noticed.
"Hi" I said trying to smile convincingly.
"How do you do?" I asked casually.
"Well, thank you. How are you doing?" He countered.
I paused. I didn't want to lie to him too much, I was tired and worried sick. And he was observant enough to notice.
"I've... I'm having a hard time... I cannot talk about it..." I said wishing I stayed home tonight.
But Chris didn't ask what it was about and I feared it was because he guessed, at least partially.
He just looked at me with beautiful dark eyes when we ordered. Then he told me about how Felix commission pretty much made him exceed his financial goal for life and how he was in the process of buying an apartment with a studio close to the St Main. I murmured something non-committal as his college was in the middle of no-dragons zone around the Order's HQ.
I was halfway through my steak, when he suddenly changed to a very serious and sad tone.
"Naomi. I am not going to pursue you. You are eighteen and I am probably old for you at my serious age of twenty six." He said piercing me with sorrowful gaze.
"But I really like you. And I owe you, for Felix commission. I can see you are in some sort of trouble and I am here for you. Should you ever feel like telling me what it's about. Don't answer." He said as I probably looked like I was about to bolt.
"I... I keep on having this dream about you. And I painted it. Wanna see?" He finished on a lighter note, though his eyes remained solemn.
"Is it at St Main?" I asked.
"No. I have noticed that you avoid the tour I have offered you repeatedly." He said smirking.
"It's at my old apartment."
I relaxed and even smiled. He was so kind and sweet to me. I wish...
"I'm almost moved out. But we have the lease for the rest of the month so I chose to keep on painting here while Maral unpacks us at the new place." Chris said switching the lights on in the empty flat, that suddenly seemed larger.
"Why does she move in with you?" I asked curiously.
"She comes from a very traditional family, who doesn't approve of her pursuit of art and her lifestyle. We have each other's backs since our first year. Destitute Persian princess and a descendant of African refugees in this fancy school full of very privileged students." Chris shrugged.
"Besides she's never home anyways."
I listened with one ear, as I have long ago determined, that whatever was between Chris and his roomie, was deep like an ocean and none of my business... I stopped at the doors to his old studio eying a canvas covered with paint stained cloth.
Chris stepped up beside it, removed the cloth and I almost gasped.
I was wearing a suit that was my real form, except in human shape. My spiky dragon skin covered my entire human body and only my face was visible under a spiky hood. My hands were raised. In one an object lay I've never seen alike of. It had a form of an egg and color closest to a black pearl. Except it seemed to also be opening into an eternal space and I could sense galaxies in it. I blinked and vertigo lessened. My other hand was... parting some sort of a barrier. It looked like a waterfall... If time flown in waterfalls. But the were clearly veins of two shades of purple. A lighter magenta and deeper intertwined in there and for some reason it was terrifying.
I seemed to be bracing myself to take a step through the barrier as I turned to look back at the viewer, beckoning them to follow. My face, was definitely mine. But also beautiful beyond measure. I exuded resolve, tenderness and sadness. My eyes shone with love and wisdom and I held the egg with such care...
I tore my gaze away from the dizzying painting to look the the painter humbly awaiting my opinion. I didn't know what to think? What was this vision? Was this the future? Was the egg mine? Why was it so small and dark?
"Is this how you see me?" I asked him trying to say something safe. And then I stepped forward before he could answer.
Pulled by bare longing suddenly radiating from him. I lifted my face to him and felt his hands gently cupping my cheeks as his lips touched mine.
He smelled exquisite of washing powder, aftershave, turpentine and himself. I sighed and he wrapped his arms around me crushing me to his chest.
And then I felt it. Butterflies in my stomach and contraction in my chest that would have been awful in any other situation but felt wonderful then and there, with him.
Chris broke the kiss but held me tightly and looked into my eyes.
I smiled at him and kissed him again, this time wrapping my arms around him touching his back. The way he's painted me... it made me feel so much gratitude and greed? Whatever it was I wanted more. I pulled his shirt from his pants to touch bare skin, but the touch of his silky smooth skin, only made me want more.
I pulled my top down from my breasts and pulled on his shirt.
Chris eyed me hungrily and pulled his shirt off over his head. This put a bit distance between us and we stopped there for a blink of an eye, his eyes shone as he slowly reached his hand and caressed the side of my breast, running his knuckles softly against it. I closed my eyes at the sensation on the skin and the growing desire blooming deeper in the very core of my body. I felt soft warm skin touching the front of my bare torso, his hand on my back as one hand kept caressing my breast and he kissed my bare neck from my jaw and down, kissing my shoulder, collarbone, breast. I could barely breathe when his lips continued down my stomach and hands slipped under my skirt and palmed my buttocks. I opened my eyes and looked down into his eyes burning with the same fire that was consuming me.
I watched his eyes darken as he stroked my thigh under my buttock and grazed my pussy through my panties. I gasped at the touch that made fire explode inside of me. Fire! I was burning from the inside and the flames were about to reach the surface of my human skin. I was about to explode, shift! Oh my god! I moaned loudly pushing him away. I run out of the apartment pulling my top up.
Out on the street I didn't stop. It was late evening and there were as always crowds in the streets I passed, but I didn't care. I ran a couple of blocks looking back every now and then to make sure Chris didn't follow me.
Then I ran all the way home.
"Hello!" I yelled from the entrance, without much hope though. Mist took over Garret duty after me and Kain was rarely home at all. I noticed, that I was crying and the sobs intensified in the confine of my own home. I closed the doors behind me and crumpled to the floor in a fit of helpless sobs, the reason of which I didn't fully understand. I felt fear and sadness and anger and so much pain.
"Nettle?" I heard and looked up to see Kain crouching beside me in the narrow hallway.
"What's up?" He asked looking worried.
I started rattling mixing everything together, my recent withdrawal from friendship with Chris, his dreams, the painting, the ill begotten make out session, my feelings.
"Okay I don't understand half of what you say less of what you mean. Come in. Let's get you some tea." He cajoled in one his best doting brother impressions.
I let him lead me to the kitchen and cried when he made me tea.
"This painting... I'd like to see it." He said after I recounted the events of the evening in more calm fashion.
I nodded sniffing. Yeah it seemed important too. More important than my pussy almost incinerating Chris.
"I can't, I can't ask him for that now." I said mortified.
Kain sucked on his tooth before saying.
"And you don't have to. I'll have Felix ask him." And pulled out his phone.
"Could you describe it?" Felix asked in a quiet voice. It was late afternoon next day as Kain insisted that Calista summons them right away.
He smelled of streams of time and was smudged if you can use the term. Whenever he has been, it was hard to get back from.
"It was me, my human and dragon form merged. My face was mine, but different... beautiful and otherworldly? I was parting streams of something, it wasn't how I see time or space, but there was no doubt about it. There was a creature woven into it in form of thin strands. There were two but one. I was holding an egg. Way too small to be a dragon egg, color of black pearl and infused with the two creatures and a third that seemed extremely familiar."
I relayed the best I could, what I saw with my human senses and dragon knowing.
Felix was silent for a while probably running my revelation past his millenia of experiences.
At last he said with playful sparkles in his brown eyes.
"I think I should see it for myself."
I grunted.
"And what about me and Chris?! What about what was going to happen?" I described the scene concentrating on the almost about to spit fire sensation that made me flee Chris apartament.
Felix expression got even more playful.
"I guess you really like him." And seeing my irritated glower, he mitigated "It's... a rider thing. Not very dangerous, to the rider at least. It has to do with our primal magic also known as dragonfire. See, there isn't always romantic kind of love between a dragon and a rider. Before Hollywood flattened the primal magic of the Earth to one dimensional expression of romance, I managed to learn it's true meaning. Love is what makes life possible, living creatures spent their lives locked in an endless kiss with their environment. Breathing, eating, drinking, seeing, hearing, feeling, is the way they're able to connect and know that one entity, that they're in reality a beloved part of."
I blinked not knowing how this lecture related to my predicament and Felix just smiled. They never chastised me for my impatience, they claimed there's no one right way to be a dragon and having time didn't mean I had to be slow.
"Being a dragon rider means that a human or intelligent animal makes a claim to the dragon. Opens up this magic to them. Allows them in, to partake in Earth's magic as a part of it. And sometimes, especially if the love is expressed in erotic way dragon's magic reciprocate the favour and claims the human for dragon race through a form of a baptism of dragonfire. It can happen in other setting as well, some dragons used to spew fire on their rider as a form of sealing the deal. The deal is, your fire won't hurt your rider. Well it might hurt while it lasts, but they'll be unscathed by it."
I noticed, that Kain listened intently, sprawled in Calista's armchair opposite Felix in his shorts and blue tee. I wondered where she was.
Felix wore deep blue blazer over blue silk shirt unbuttoned at the neck and chinos in another shade of blue with a pattern of red and green threads. He was barefoot this time but still exuded effortless elegance. The watch on his wrist, the thin golden chain visible by the collar of his shirt.
He looked like true gentleman, used to luxury throughout generations... He could also be a mafia boss from one of those super stupid mafia romances Autumn was binging lately.
If they had wise, knowing eyes...
"What does dragon magic do to a human rider?" Kain asked.
"Not much. We can extend their lifetime slightly and cure most human diseases in them, but apart of that it mostly inocculates them against magic, dragon and other."
Mention of other non-human magic again...
"What other magic is there?" I asked.
"Too much to tell you about in one year. Once you're older and no longer in a constant hurry, come and I'll teach you all I've learned so far. But there's plenty, dragon's are not the only creatures able to cross into this world from infinite number of other worlds and each have it's unique magic." Felix said lightly, as if it was nothing to worry about.
"Cheer up. Remember, this world has ways to keep such contamination in check." He winked.
"But, we need to see Chris picture." He changed the subject.
"Do you think Chris has otherworldly magic in him?" I asked a question that bothered me ever since we've met him.
"No. I don't think so. I watched him closely, and I think he possess human gift of seeing what is without the filter of what's possible. Human magic can many things, most humans have no idea about. No, most human seeres, mystics, psychics and healers wield only human magic." Felix explained and went back to the case.
"And as such he is worth watching and I am curious about his visions of you. I have an idea, that will let me view the painting and you to make amends for panicking." He winked.
"A bal?" Garret asked incredulously. I went to the mansion after conferring with Felix and Kain. Mist needed to go to work after she shadowed Garret whole weekend.
Now I sat in Garret's library with Tristan, Mist, Mace and Madison.
"Yes all the dragons and riders are invited. It's in his country house with a proper ballroom." I said not adding, that it will be an opportunity for dragonels to get samples of their cream into hands of some really rich women.
"We are invited to come day before and have an intimate dinner with the hosts." I added.
"I don't feel like going to a bal." Garret said.
But I saw Madison eyes light up at the idea, and I saw Tristan noticing.
"I'm not a rider." He added and I resisted rolling my eyes.
"Tristan will go and pay respect in my place. Anyone else is free to go as well."
Madison squealed and Mist smiled knowingly.
A bal! Shopping! Even I felt excited. I wondered if Felix would succeed inviting Chris. And how I would proceed on in any case.
I really liked Chris, but the idea of dragging him into my world seemed... immoral and selfish. He wasn't a soldier of St George, he wasn't a part of this war. And frankly, he deserved better. He deserved freedom, peace and to enjoy his money and talent. I didn't understand his painting, but I had a feeling, that it meant, that I was headed towards another storm. Besides wasn't I training to be able to cross to other worlds?
With these heavy thoughts I went out and climbed a van to attend another training with our soldiers as I started to think about them in order to facilitate better cooperation.
"For fuck's sake Alexander, have you never seen how a dragon is slain!" Lieutenant Ward bellowed, after the team of Tristan, Mace, me and five other soldiers beat his and Riley's and Mist's team in a maneuver, that was to locate and retrieve a suitcase with a close range sender in a sprawling mostly empty complex of storage buildings that the Order owned outside of Manchester.
Alexander could have shot Mace carrying the suitcase sitting on my back, but then he'd be "incinerated" by me and shot down by Tristan. Instead he sought cover behind Riley's wing and we managed to run for the rendezvous under the cover of Tristan's "gunfire".
Now Alexander, who was a huge guy, patiently looked ahead as Ward yelled him in his face.
Suddenly Mace stepped forward.
"Stop it! We decided, that we're changing the strategy, no more self-sacrifice, as we are short on men and have dragons." He adressed Ward.
"Shut the fuck up dragon you're not in charge here!" Ward spat without thinking, turning to face a black man, who was taller and more muscular than him and whose face bore pale scars around the black eyepatch.
"I am! And I am telling you that I will not tolerate you confusing the men, that we are leading together! Good job Alexander, you did, what you were told." Mace bellowed but kept the gaze of his only eye on red faced Ward in front if him.
"What?! How dare you dragon?!" Man hissed.
"How dare you!? I know about you! People told me, that Lieutenant Ward enjoys, when young boys faint and cry. But I wonder, what's the point, if you cannot kiss away their tears and lift their lifeless beautiful bodies in your arms? How you must suffer. No wonder you want them to suffer even more." Mace said it loudly enough for everyone to hear and Tristan, Alexander and the other soldiers made effort to look away, even shifted Riley looked uncomfortable. Madison stared, but I don't think Lieutenant Ward noticed, he just stood there, red in the face and shaking and I swear there were tears in his eyes before he turned away from Mace and motioned his men to follow him, to where we stored our paintball guns.
All scrambled to heed him.