"You sneaky little thing! I thought this whole damn exercise was to get help with your hand!" Valentine growled as she giggled.
Yelena pinned him down and ran her finger down the length of his nose. "Silly male. This whole damn exercise was to help you get over shifting and to let your dragon out. If I had made it about you, you would still be grumbling back in the city."
Valentine only stared at her. "I think everyone should stop worrying about whether I'm going to turn mad and into some dark sorcerer and start worrying about your clever schemes," he huffed finally.
Yelena fluttered her lashes. "But I'm only using my clever schemes on you, so they won't care."
"Pure evil," Valentine said, running his fingers up her spine. "But fair is fair. I showed you my dragon, and while we are out here, I want to see yours."
Yelena kissed him and sat up. "Okay, but once I show you, you are not allowed to freak out on me."
Valentine pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yelena, you just watched me turn into a bloody three-headed dragon, what could possibly be worse than that?"
Yelena only laughed. "Oh, so many things, my sorcerer."
25
Valentine pulled up his pants but left his shirt off. The sun was beating down on him, and if it was cold, he didn't notice because fire coursed through his veins. He should have been freaking out about his dragon having three heads, but Yelena wasn't worried, and her calm acceptance was keeping him stable.
Valentine touched the scars on his chest, a feeling too big building inside of him. He thought his dragon would take over, that there would be no more Valentine, just a creature that could wield too much power.
For the first time in a long time, Valentine felt like just maybe he wasn't going to lose his mind after all.
It had a lot to do with the belief of the female beside him. He had one memory from the shift, and that was the single focus on her. He didn't know what was happening to him. He had never been this relaxed and easy with anyone.
Yelena seemed to know things intuitively about him, like when he didn't want to be touched or when he was spiraling in his own mind.
She is the balance. That thought kept returning to him because he could feel the truth of it. He didn't feel unsteady when he was around her because she was on the other side of the scales, keeping him even.
Yelena got to her feet, completely comfortable in her naked skin. She held out a hand, and he took it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"I have come to this place since Taranis took me in. It's so peaceful and quiet. It's hard to be in the city and around the knights all the time, and while I love them, sometimes I just need everyone to shut the fuck up. Does that make sense?" Yelena said as they walked through the soft grass.
"Does it ever," Valentine replied. “It's like how my family is. They have always worried about me, and sometimes it is smothering. I can see why you like it out here. I dealt with it by making really good silencing wards."
Some strange magic pulsed through the ground, and he caught sight of a tall monolith of black stone on the edge of the forest.
"What is that? Can you feel that?" he asked, the thrill of new magic dancing through him.
Yelena laughed softly. "I can. It was why I was first drawn here. I have asked Taranis about it, but he says it was here long before him. He doesn't know who raised the stone, but it feels... Well, I'll let you see what you think."
Valentine loved that she wanted to show it to him, and that she didn't want her ideas about it affecting his impressions of it. He placed his hands on the stone and closed his eyes. There was a current running through it, a slight vibration that set his magic humming. It was ancient, and it almost felt alive.
Valentine rested his cheek against the stone, trying to get more contact with it. He had studied psychometry and was good at it. Not Auntie Ella’s level of good, but good enough.
"Huh, it refuses to be read. Did you try?" he asked Yelena.
"Many times. I don't mind that it's a mystery. Well, some days it drives me crazy, but mostly I just accept it," she said and placed her ear to the stone. "I like how grounded I feel when I let my energy sync with it. I need that some days."
"Me too," Valentine admitted. "I get so deep on a thought pattern or a project that I dissociate clean out of my body, and it always takes me a while to feel like I am back in it."
Yelena opened her eyes, and they were full of understanding. "That is exactly it. Valentine, you do understand that I'm not like the other fae dragons, don't you? That I am really a dragon that is masquerading as a fae? I'm...backwards? I had to learn to be this as you see me?"
"I do. Taranis told me how he found you, and what you went through, to the best of his knowledge. I won't pretend I understand how that would feel, but I know you are true dragon first, and everything else second," he replied, not quite knowing why she had brought it up.
Her fair brows drew together. "It doesn't bother you?"
"No," he answered without hesitation. "You acting like I was going to turn evil bothered me. You being disgustingly sweet and perfect bothered me. When I look back on it, I think I sensed that it was an act, and that's why it got to me. I've never cared about you being a wild dragon, playing human. Somedays I feel like I'm playing human too."
