“Oh, Si, I’m so sorry. It didn’t work.”
“Shhhh.” He petted her wet blond locks as they floated, her weight easily supported by his batting tail. “That’s okay.”
“No, Si, it’s not. I’ll never be able to come back!”
“Sweetie, I’m sure you’ll miss Sirena, but that’s okay. There are other places in the Keys. We can live anywhere.”
“You’d come live with me in Landworld?”
“Of course, Isa, you’re my life. I’ll go with you anywhere.”
She cried into his chest, her tears running rivers across his skin. “I love you so much.”
She convulsed in his arms and shouted in pain. Sidon checked her body, looking for injuries, but her shape stretched beneath his fingers. Pale golden scales erupted over her skin and her hands turned to claws.
Her body morphed and grew until, as a dragon, Isa took off through the water. Sidon shifted to his full dragon form to keep up with his racing mate, who was headed right for the Dendric vessel. She was magnificent—gold from her snout to her tail, with an almost silver underbelly, and that long hair trailing like fire behind her. However, the sweet woman he knew wasn’t used to reptile emotions. Caught in a haze of confusion and fury, he knew she would attack the ship on her own.
He was still far behind when he heard the first loud clang of tail against metal. His love was sixty feet long, female dragons being larger than males. She speared headlong into the boat, causing another reverberating boom to echo through the waters. Between her size and her rage, the boat tilted, close to capsizing with each of her strikes.
* * * *
Dr. Grathers’ voice creaked through the intercom, his shouts loud through the ship’s bridge. “Damn the Council and their agreements! I want you to fire on those reptiles!”
On every side of Karon, his crew and shipmates rushed around, trying to even out the tilting, to make sure water was bailed out wherever it had penetrated, and to fasten down rolling items. Mayhem ruled, but behind him he felt Gracie’s stare at his shoulder. She stood at the doorway to the bridge, watching his every action.
“Will do, sir.” He barked out to his crew, “Load up the harpoons. We’re going to have to take them out.”
Men scurried to follow his orders, and a few moments later a voice echoed through the intercom again. “It’s done sir. Shall I fire?”
Turning to Gracie, he answered the question. “No, I’ll do it myself.”
The succubus followed behind as he swerved through the narrow hallways to where the guns were stored and told the rest of the crew to leave. He set his sights on the dragons. One brown and green and the other gold and silver cut across his line of sight; thick shingles scratched the surface of the hull. The sound was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Nearby, water dripped along the riveted seams, the soldered metal jarring loose. A hard thwak alongside the ship knocked him back a few steps, but then he stepped up to the harpoon gun again, swerving it toward his target.
A quiet voice sounded from behind him. “Please, John?”
Muscles clenched, he redirected the gun, took aim at open water, and fired the harpoons into the sandy ocean floor. He leaned his sweating brow against the cool metal of the ship’s walls and spoke through the intercom to the bridge.
“They were too fast, Dr. Grathers, I missed. The hull has been damaged. We’re going to have to leave the area and head to harbor for repairs.” His thumb clicked down to disconnect the call, and a warm soft body pressed into his back. He kept his head down and breathed in her scent one last time as the succubus went on tiptoe to kiss his neck and his cheek. Not turning to meet her eyes, he said, “Now get the fuck off my ship.”
* * * *
The force of the ship’s engines threw Sidon and Isa back several feet. At first Isa gave chase. She bit into the enemy’s steely skin, too confused to know she couldn’t kill it. Sidon swam up behind the enraged dragoness and swiped his body across hers. Once the ship was well and far outside Key waters, his mate hung in the ocean, looking from side to side, about as freaked out as he’d ever seen one of his kind. Sidon roared into the water, jerked his head back towards the island. Her bark-like reply was more of a sad cry than a roar. He’d have to lure her slowly.
So he swam off a small distance, looking back until she followed, and he led her bit by bit back to the Key. Eventually she came close enough for him to nip her tail, to which she replied with an angry growl. Finally she followed into his cave and out onto the muddy sand floor. Her head swayed from side to side, trying to get balance on her stubby reptile legs.
He crouched low behind her, careful not to startle the female dragon. She huffed and curled up like a cat, propping her great golden head onto her rear in dismay. He went to her, slid along her side, and thrilled when his female roared again, this time with a hint of question. Her shimmering tail was curled upward and he took the invitation to roll onto her. His strong jaws clamped on her shoulder, and he felt the scaly parts at his hips elongate and extend beyond their normal covering. Just as the haze of lust started to cloud his mind, her body shook and morphed. She was human again and looked up at the dragon trying to mount her.
“What the heck are you doing, Si?”
Frightened of hurting her now that her shoulder lay between his teeth, he shifted. When the transformation was complete, he sat next to her on the sand, both of them naked. Feeling a bit embarrassed, he said, “Sorry sweetie, I’ve never done it as a dragon before. I guess I got a little excited.”
Chapter 10
Clawed
Isa laughed until tears rolled down her eyes and her sides hurt, and soon Sidon was chuckling, too. “So, it looks like I take after my dragon side more than I thought, huh?”
“Yep, looks like.” Sidon lay back against the sand with his hands behind his head, peering at the roof of his cave. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her onto him.
She lifted her head to meet his eyes. “So I could come with you to the Council’s headquarters and kick someone’s butt for abandoning our island.”
His grin stretched from ear to ear. “So it’s ‘our’ island now, huh?”
She felt her smile widen, too. “Yes, Sidon, it is.”
He pulled her toward him and kissed her like she was his and would be forever. “I love you so much, Isa, no matter what you are.”
His proclamation melted her heart, but was out of character. She wanted her smart aleck back. “So what is it you said you’ve never done before?”
Those chocolate brown eyes narrowed as one corner of his mouth turned up. “Well, there’s a wide range of things I’ve never explored.”
She scooted away from him across the muddy sand, her excitement rising, not sure whether to head for the bedroom or back to the water. “Oh, I seriously doubt that, dragon.”
He gave her his most innocent look, which was not innocent at all. “Well, I’ve been doing some reading.”
Her pulse sped up. New reptile senses caught his musky, salty smell as he crawled toward her, steering her toward the water’s edge. “Oh, and what have you been reading about?’
“Well, it seems that male reptiles have two.”
She stopped dead in her tracks, her brows knitting together. “You’re kidding!”
His lip twitched , as he tried to keep a straight face. “It’s true.”
A nervous giggle escaped her lips, and she dashed for the water, delighted when he followed. “And how exactly does that work?”
The water lapped against her naked body, and she felt the first twinges of the shift. Sidon reached her, touching her face and running his thumb across her lips. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”
* * * *
Two weeks later.
“Mom!” Isa shouted after her mother as the older female slammed Sidon’s front door and started walking. She ran after her mother in bare feet, hopping gingerly over the gravel driveway.
“Mom, wait!”
Her mother paused, then turned slowly and stood stock still twenty yards away.
“How could you do this, Isa? Become one of them?” Ashala shook with anger. She stared daggers at her daughter.
“It’s not like I planned for this to happen, Mom! Heck, I’m not even totally sure how it did happen. All I know is that this change started before I even came back to the Key. It’s why those researchers wanted me.”
Ashala’s eye’s narrowed. “How do you know they wanted you?”
Isa looked at her feet, which shuffled nervously against the jagged little rocks. “Um…well they followed me, which is why I came to the Key in the first place. And then Sidon got some documents from them before they left, and it pretty much laid out that they hoped to capture me to watch and see what I turned into. Of course, they thought it would be either human or mere.” She let her voice trail off.
Her mother’s eyes trained on her, as if she was seeing Isa for the first time. “You never did want to be human, did you?” Ashala’s forehead creased, and a deep frown marred her pretty face.
“Well, I liked living in Landworld. I could see how I’d have liked being human too, I just…”
“You wanted to be mere more.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Ashala’s face took on shrewd expression. “And you wanted Sidon more?”
Isa blushed but nodded.
“Did you even try any human men?” As usual, Ashala stuck to her guns.
“Mom! It’s done now. I’m with Sidon. We’re going to live in the Key. I’m a dragon, and there’s really not any choice about it. Why can’t you let it go?”
Ashala’s eyebrows pulled upward and together in outrage. “Well as long as you’re happy, dear, I don’t mind what you do!”
Isa could have sworn she heard a little huff from her mother. Then Ashala walked forward. “And I’m glad you’re home, dear.” She pecked her daughter once on each cheek and turned to walk down the dirt path back to town. “Just let me know when you’re ready to plan the wedding.”
* * * *
Isa stomped into the house just as Sidon threw bacon on the skillet. He knew speaking with her mother would lead to a foul mood, and he looked forward to coaxing his mate back to good humor. “How’s Mom?”
Isa rolled up a dishcloth and slapped it at his ass. “She’ll freak out if you call her, that, you know.”
Her face was so serious and concerned Sidon couldn’t help laughing. “Yeah, that’s why I look forward to doing it.” His grin deepened as she let out a harsh curse.
“Do you live to terrorize me, my darling dragon?” Isa lifted on tiptoe to kiss him, and he popped a fork-f of pork into her mouth.
“Oh please, that woman’s more dragon than either of us. I think I saw her breathe a little fire when you told her.”
Isa dug into breakfast before Sidon got it on the plates. “Well, it’s gotta be a shock. The ‘me being a dragon’ part, not the ‘us being together’ part.
That
I’m pretty sure she always expected.”
“More like dreaded, my sweet.” He kissed her hair and pushed her toward a stool by the kitchen island. “Sit and eat like a civilized person, please.”
Her eyes rolled back with every bite, and once again Sidon mentally thanked the ex-lover who’d taught him how to cook. A part of him would always regret the years they’d spent apart, but he certainly would never have learned any culinary skills from Isa. Twenty years in Landworld and all she’d learned to cook was spaghetti.
He pulled himself away from the lovely sight of watching her eat to bring up another topic. “So, as far as parents go…”