Now, I had wings. As useful as they had been today, they were another foreign addition, another unwelcome step on the way that led me further from who I was. These steps had been coming faster and faster now.
Then years ago, I would get a new scale a month. A little later, they came weekly, and lately, nightly.
It took years for my legs to turn to claws as the dragon bones grew, absorbing my skin. But things had been happening at an increasingly faster rate now. Just yesterday, I felt a slight twitch along my spine. And today, the wings sprouted from my back.
I felt them even now. The entire expanse of my back buzzed with magic under my skin, in a similar way it used to feel when I still had the tendril between my shoulder blades.
What was going to happen next?
Would I lose the rest of my skin as scales covered me whole?
Would both my eyes turn red?
Was I going to lose my left hand too? The only one that allowed me to feel every dip and curve of Elaine’s body in every tantalizing detail?
Or would it be the worst of all and I’d finally lose my mind? Like it’d already happened earlier tonight, the dragon would take over, and my very essence would be tossed out into the dark sandstorm of oblivion.
That’d be a future bleaker than death.
Eighteen
Elaine
Icouldn’t remember the last time I watched the sunset in peace. Not when I traveled to Ashgate in the cage, of course. Not in Teneris where the sky over thesaraiwas always closed with shutters until the sun disappeared.
The last time I watched the sunset without fear or worry must’ve happened back in my world, but I just couldn’t remember exactly when.
Timur stepped out onto our patio, shielding his face from the fading sunlight with one open wing.
“Tea?” He handed me the cup he held in his right hand.
The parts of him that no longer had skin lost their hypersensitivity to sunlight. I knew that slowly losing himself to the dragon’s poison devastated Timur. He viewed it as his greatest weakness. Yet in some ways, it had given him a few advantages over the rest of the shadow fae. He now tolerated sunlight better than most, and he could fly.
“Thank you.” I took the cup from him and leaned against the side wall of the patio, taking a sip of the dark, warm tea sweetened with honey.
Honey was cheap in Ashgate. It was considered to be the least desirable food, with little useful nutrition. A Joy Vessel Keeper in thesaraionce called it “the food of the poor” because it cost little and gave a quick boost of energy to those who couldn’t afford to eat anything else.
I loved the strong taste of the black tea sweetened with honey while I savored these evening hours of relative peace before the ever-bustling life of Ashgate was about to burst full force with the new night.
After spending most of our first night in the cave in bed, talking and making love, Timur and I had been busy catching up on our appointments the following week. All our existing clients had been asking for repeat visits, and according to Timur, our list of new requests kept growing beyond what I could possibly manage.
It was nice that we no longer had to worry where our next meal would come from. But there were only so many meals I could eat and only so many baths I could enjoy before exhaustion and irritation started spoiling my clients’ joy.
Thankfully, having Timur at my side made every evening feel special. The warm, effervescent flutter of happiness in my chest grew stronger when he was with me. He made me feel intoxicated without wine. The clients didn’t just pay for my joy, they consumed my love for him.
I stepped closer to the edge of the patio, catching the last rays of sun on my face.
The beach below was already shrouded in darkness. The golden light of the sunset only lit the top few levels of the Wall now. The fae moving between the caves created dark streaks ofshadows in the golden glow. Afraid to be spotted, I stepped back into the safety of Timur’s arms.
He hugged me from behind. The soft movement of his wings puffed the warm air into a breeze around us.
“It’s time,” he said with a light kiss on the side of my neck.
A shimmer of anticipation rushed me. We hadn’t had sex in our cave during the past week. Timur would touch and kiss me gently like he did now, but we’d been saving my orgasms for the clients, and I was looking forward to having his hands on me again tonight.
“Who are we seeing this evening?” I asked a little breathlessly already.
“Not a client.” Timur released me from his arms, then lowered himself into his chair, and folded his wings. “We’re going into the city tonight. Inside the Wall.”
