As the wolf before me took his clothes in his mouth, turned and padded out of the room, my heart still hammered against my ribs, but the terror had subsided into a dull throb of wariness. Nathan's transformation hadn't been as jarring as witnessing the dragon, Ashton, in all his terrifying glory. The idea that I was surrounded by magic, by creatures from fairy tales, was taking root in my mind.
Moments later, Nathan re-entered, now back in human form, wearing jeans and a simple tee as if he hadn't just been a four-legged animal.
"Better?" he asked with a tentative smile.
"Better." I managed a weak smile of my own. "Why did you have to take your clothes and get naked before? Ashton didn't strip before his shift."
"Dragons must've made some sort of deal with an extremely powerful witch a very long time ago," he said. "Because wolves have to shift naked. Magic makes his clothes, I don't know, go into some kind of limbo, I guess. They shift with him and return when he's back in his skin."
"Oh," I said, feeling very, very small.
He sat down across from me, his expression sober. "Dragons are powerful, ancient. They're not the monsters you think."
"Then what are they?" I whispered.
"Protectors, usually. Guardians of something precious or dangerous. It's in their nature."
"Like what? Treasure?" I half-joked, trying to lighten the mood.
"Sometimes." He chuckled. "There's more to it than gold and jewels. They're people. Just like you, just like me. They have problems and loves and hatreds.Some are good and some are bad, most are somewhere in between, just like everybody you've always known."
I nodded, absorbing every detail. This was my new reality, and I needed to understand it.
"Thanks, Nathan. I should... I need to go home. To find Ashton." I stood up, feeling steadier on my feet than I had since running from the woods.
"Anytime, Erin. Just knock if you need to talk."
"Will do."
The walk back home was short, but my thoughts raced miles ahead. What would I say to Ashton? Could I even look at him without seeing the dragon?
Opening the door to my house, the aroma of tea greeted me, and there was Ashton, human again, standing in the kitchen. He looked up, his eyes meeting mine, filled with an emotion I couldn't place.
"Erin," he said calmly. "Please, sit down. We need to talk."
I nodded, taking a seat at the kitchen table while he poured two cups of tea.
"About earlier," he said, sliding a cup toward me, "I should've better warned you about what you were going to see."
"Warned me?" I clasped my hands tightly around thewarmth of the mug. "There's no way to prepare someone for that."
"True," he said. "Still, I'm sorry. I should've spent longer talking about when you saw me at the cabin."
"Tell me about dragons. Tell me everything."
He laughed. "I hardly know where to start. We sleep. Every century we’re forced to sleep for a decade. That’s where I was when you first arrived. Your scent woke me. It’s a curse. Created so long ago that nobody remembers how long now, a dragon and a very powerful witch were fated mates. The dragon was a real dick, and he rejected the witch. She cursed the dragon, which killed him, and she was so angry and so upset and so heartbroken, as a rejected fated mate would be, that she ended up cursing all male dragons accidentally to sleep."
I shook my head. "That's insane."
"I know. It was a permanent sleep, but they weren't dead. Then she killed herself."
My heart broke for the poor woman. "Why does a rejection from a fated mate hurt that much? Did she even love him?"
"No, well, actually, I don't know, but a broken fated mate bond is usually deadly. Mates are so intertwined with one another they generally can't live without each other."
I stared at him in shock. "That's terrible. Does the mate get any choice?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "Yes, of course. Before the mating bond is completed, either can walk away. If they are both dragons, it's going to hurt them both terribly, but not kill them. If they've already completed the bonding ceremony, that's a different story. The witch and the dragon had already bonded. Her death sealed the curse, and no witch has been able to break it since."
