“Holy fuck, Kas. This is your world. I'm on another planet.”
“Yes. And here,youare the alien.” He winked at me.
“I'm the alien!” I hooted. “That's fucking awesome.”
The soldiers stared at me. I stared at the ones with wings. And the big one with sparkling gray skin.
“Uh, is that gray guy a vampire?” I whispered to Kas.
“A vampire?” Kas frowned, then his expression cleared. “Ah. You mean a blood drinker. No, he is a Ricarri, one of the mountain people. We don't have blood drinkers here.”
“Oh, good.”
“The Eljaffna are not indigenous to Aravult.”
“The what now?”
“Eljaffna. Those are the blood-drinkers of this world.”
I swayed.Vampires. They have vampires.
“Easy now, Mate.” Kaspian steadied me. “You will adjust quickly. I'll help you.”
“Welcome to the Aravult Dread, King's Mate.” Another man said. “Please, accept my cloak. You are not dressed properly for our world.”
Right. I still had that stupid hospital gown on. I took the cloak and swung it on. “Thank you so much. This, uh, isn't appropriate for my world either.”
Then another man came up and welcomed me. And another. I shook hands and said nice things as Kaspian smiled and kept me upright.
At last, Kas said, “I need to get my mate to the castle. We are still bonding, and he needs time to adjust to our world.”
The big men around us snapped to attention.
“Sire, forgive us for delaying you!” Sir Vadron said. Then he turned and shouted, “Make way for the King and the King's Mate!”
During the introductions, a carriage had rolled into the meadow. A fucking royal carriage like the Queen of England rode in. The covered kind, not the open sort that she rides in to wave at people. Oh, wait, she's dead now. The King of England rides in it. I guess his wife is Queen, so the new Queen rides in it too. Oh, fuck, never mind. Who gives a fuck about the British Monarchy when I was married to a royal Dragon? It was his carriage, and it was nicer than anything on Earth. Even the wheels were adorned with gold frills. An emblem of a big white bird stared at me when the team of white horses pulled the thing around and stopped it before us.
“Come, Mate.” Kaspian escorted me to the carriage.
One of his guards hurried forward and opened the door for us. Kas helped me into a plush, blue interior, and then climbed in after me. The guard shut the door, and we were off.
Everything had happened so dramatically and so fast. I had gone from firefighter to the mate of a fire-breathing dragon. I wanted to ask Kaspian about our bond and what it meant exactly, but I was too fascinated by the city we rode through. I barely restrained myself from hanging my head out the open window and gaping at the people on the sidewalks.
I saw the angels and demons again. Okay, probably not angels or demons. The ones with feathered wings varied in their coloring—both in skin and feathers. There were black, white, speckled, gray, brown, and every other kind of feather you could think of. Other than the wings, they looked human, with skin ranging from dark to light. The other winged people had membranous wings like dragons. Those guys did not differ in coloring. All of them had dark skin, dark wings, and long faces. Although humanoid, they were distinctly not human. I might have been scared by them if not for the way they smiled and laughed, interacting with their fellow citizens as if it was perfectly natural for them to be there. Which, of course, it was. I was the unnatural one. The alien from another world.
Yup. And they stared back at me as if they knew it. It had to be the royal carriage that drew their attention, but sitting there, on a velvet cushion, the metal horse stuff jingling as the horses clomped down a cobblestone street, I felt every inch the alien. Unnatural. Unreal. Or maybe surreal. Yeah, that was the word. Real but not. More than real. In another reality. Realm. A lot of words with the root “real” in them.
Most of the folk on the street looked human, though their features were odd. Men lurked in the shadows, faces half hidden by the hoods of their cloaks, and men like that soldier, with gray skin that glittered in the sunlight. Those guys were big. As in tall and muscular. Some of them were even bigger than Kaspian's guards. In contrast to those giants, there were little people, no taller than two feet. But they didn't look like little people from Earth. These people were proportional, just short.
“Holy fuck!” I whispered and drew back from the window. “It's fucking Aquaman. No, it's . . . fuck, what's his name, fromHellboy. The water guy with the gills. Except that he's dressed like Captain Jack Sparrow.”
“What are you talking about, Mate?” Kaspian, all grins now that we were in his territory, leaned over my shoulder and peered back at the men we had passed. “Ah. Those are Neraky. They're sea-dwellers, but they can breathe air. Most of the Neraky you'll meet will be sailors. Merchants. But I believe those were pirates.” He grinned at my wide eyes. “We tolerate them as long as they don't cause too much trouble.”
“Pirates. Pirates with gills.”
“Oh, yes. And claws. And sharp teeth.” He snapped his teeth at me.
“Your guards. What race are they?”
