Elliot, page 9
part #3 of Anarock Shifters Series
He saw himself reacting to everything. He saw himself going to the opposite extreme from the mindless quest for approval that marked his early days on the Halcyon Coast. He also observed Aria retreating from him because of it, but he didn’t seem to be able to stop himself.
Thinking of her made him look over at her. She slept on a different bed. She always did. She never came near him anymore. Why should she? He proved himself a traitor time and time again. Why should she believe he was any different now?
He made up his mind to prove himself to her. Telling her he changed his mind meant nothing. Telling her he was in this with her amounted to so much gas blowing out of his ass. He had to prove it. He had to show her he meant business. That was the only way she would believe in him.
She wouldn’t forgive him anytime soon and he didn’t blame her. She wouldn’t come back to him. She wouldn’t touch him or let him touch her. He didn’t blame her for that, either, but he wished it could be otherwise.
He wanted her. He never stopped wanting her. He was just too stupid and full of his own bullshit to let himself feel it. He knew it now. She was the best he could ever hope for. He had her once. If he ever got so lucky as to get her again, he wouldn’t lose her a second time.
The best way to win her back was to help her get out of here. These Blood Kin dragons would never stop threatening her. She was right all along about that. He just didn’t know they felt the same way about him.
Now Malfie told him they did. None of the Blood Kin pulled their punches when it came to telling the truth. That meant Elliot had to get himself out of here, too. The question was how.
He forgot he was staring at her until her eyes opened. She drifted out of sleep and looked right at him. For a second, they regarded each other across the room. Her black eyes gleamed in the dull light from above, but her features gave nothing away. That girl could guard herself like no one else. Nothing could break through that armor.
She shifted on her bed, but she didn’t remove her gaze from his face. Her chest moved inside her jacket. Her delicate, globe-like breasts hid under her t-shirt. He knew her body. He knew how to please her and how to make her cry. He just didn’t know how to please her mind. He didn’t know how to make contact with her. He never tried until now.
He glanced down at her mouth. He would like to kiss her right now, but he couldn’t make the first move. He couldn’t invite her over to his bed. That would be too forward. As long as she held off, he would do the same until she made it glaringly clear she wanted him to initiate.
She surprised him out of his skin when she spoke. “Elliot?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to move down the Coast? We can if you want to.”
He stared across the room at her hypnotic face. She captivated him. “I guess there ain’t no reason not to. We’re gonna be here a while yet, I reckon.”
She nodded and rolled onto her back. She stared up at the sky the way he just did. She arched her back and he caught sight of the rounded mound of her chest. He craved her body. He wanted to taste her and hear her sigh in his ear the way she used to.
No, that wasn’t right. He didn’t want it the way it used to be. He wanted something new, something deeper, something he would never get. He wanted her to ache for him, to love him and respect him, and that would never happen because she didn’t respect him. He didn’t earn it and he probably never would.
She let out a long breath. Her ribs flexed and sank into place. She glided her legs one against the other. A rush of heat blasted between his legs thinking about touching her. He wanted to feel her thighs brushing between his legs and her sweet hair tickling his skin.
He turned away and shut his eyes. He couldn’t think about her like that. He would drive himself crazy if he did. He lost her. That was his problem, not hers. He owed her his help now as a friend and a sister of the New Breed. What happened after that belonged to another reality, another time stream.
She caught her breath and swung upright. She put her feet on the floor and her black hair waved over her shoulders. “If we’re gonna go, we better go.”
Elliot’s eyes widened. “Now?”
“Why not? It’s never night or day down here. Now’s as good a time as any.”
She stood up and crossed to one of the walls. She bent down and picked something off the floor. He didn’t see what it was until she put it to her mouth and bit off a piece. She chewed it and continued with whatever shew as doing.
“Aren’t you ever gonna hunt down here?” he asked. “Are you gonna protest their way of doing things forever?”
“Not forever. Just until they change their shit-ass attitude toward me. If they keep treating me like something from another planet, then there’s no point in me acting like I’m something else, is there?”
At that moment, he couldn’t keep silent any longer. He couldn’t keep this dull ache locked up in his heart anymore. He shot off the bed and sat up. He darted forward and grabbed her hand. He spun her around and pulled her toward him.
She gasped, but he paid no attention. He drew her between his knees, cupped her two cheeks, and kissed her. He tasted something musty and not very pleasant on her lips. She jerked back. “What the hell was that for?”
He expected a reaction, just not that one. He sank back and gazed up into her jet-black eyes. “I just want you to know I still feel that way about you. I don’t expect you to take me back. I know we’re way beyond that now. I just want you to know I’m still here. I still want to. I don’t want you going into this thinking I ain’t.”
The surprise evaporated off her face and she returned to her former impassive expression. She didn’t react to that kiss at all. She didn’t throw her arms around him and express her heartfelt joy and rapture to be back with him. Oh, no—not that he really expected that.
He slumped back looking up at her. “That’s all I wanted to say. We can go now.”
She retreated. A moment later, they set off for the cliff in silence, but at least he got it out. Now she knew where he stood. What she did with that information rested with her.
They walked down through the air…or water or whatever it was. The curiosity of trying to figure this place out no longer held any appeal for him. Anything that didn’t advance their escape lost its meaning. Only she mattered.
On the valley floor, they began a long trek between many rooms and chambers exactly like the one they just left. Dragons of every color and size crowded them. They fished and hunted at will. They tended their young and some even mated in plain view of everyone.
Elliot caught Aria studying them with interest. She showed a lot more curiosity in their activities than Elliot did. She smiled at the hatchling broods swimming around their mothers’ enormous legs. They climbed and tumbled over their fathers and flapped their tiny wings through the water, half-swimming, half-flying.
Aria fascinated him much more than the dragons and not for her beauty or her body. She set a standard he could only hope to achieve someday. He could aspire to her courage and her steadfast integrity. He would never really know if he could climb that high, but he could admire her from below.
She halted and glanced around to face him. Her eyes shone and a delicate smile played on her lips. Her cheeks flushed. Did she look that way because of him?
She scanned the area. “I guess this is as good a place as any.”
He woke from his reverie. They stood in a lane between two huge banks of chambers all packed with dragons. No one could see any room there, but Elliot knew better. “All right.”
She walked a few feet away and one of those platform beds rose out of the ground in front of her. She sat down on it and looked around at nothing. There was nothing to see. The hollow emptiness of this world struck Elliot the way it did so many times before. What a barren, lifeless, featureless wasteland it was. Even the dragons seemed lifeless and half-alive.
She surveyed the neighborhood and pressed her hands between her knees. Elliot wanted more than anything to go to her, to be near her and to offer her some human compassion right now, but he couldn’t with all these dragons around.
Their roaring voices and conversations drifted through the walls. Any of them could look into their room and see exactly what he was doing. He preferred their old place. Fewer dragons came around there. The ones that did left him and Aria alone most of the time.
He couldn’t hope for that anonymity here. Was that the reason the Kin suggested the pair move down here—so they could keep an eye on their captives? He shook those thoughts out of his head. He couldn’t start imagining phantoms where they didn’t exist.
Then again, maybe they did exist. These Kin meant him and Aria no good. Why shouldn’t he watch over his shoulder for someone to undermine them?
In answer to those thoughts, Chimo came sweeping out of nowhere. He plunged through the wall without knocking—or asking or whatever passed for permission around here. None of the dragons noticed the total lack of privacy. Privacy didn’t exist in their world.
Chimo landed on all fours and strutted around the room inspecting everything that wasn’t there. “Ah! You made it at last. Come along, Elliot. We shall go fishing.”
“I’m gonna stick around here for a while,” Elliot told him. “I want to settle in with Aria before I go rushing off anywhere.”
“She may come with us if you prefer,” Chimo returned. “Come. I can see you are not occupied with anything of note at the moment. By the way, there will be a party tonight. You both must come. The Kin will wonder if something is wrong if you do not join our community. If you will not fish, at least promise me you will attend the party. You owe me that at least after all I have done to help you.”
The young dragon pumped his neck and pranced around the way he always did, but Elliot detected a subtle hint of a threat under this seemingly innocuous invitation. So the Kin would think something was wrong if Aria and Elliot didn’t start integrating into their society. The Kin didn’t want to go out of their way to make Aria feel welcome, so Aria and Elliot had to accommodate them instead. Elliot understood that much.
He sighed. “All right. We’ll come. Where is it?”
“Over there near the bottomless trench. You will have no trouble finding it.” Chimo thrust his neck northward to indicate the direction. “What will you eat tonight if you do not fish?”
“I’ll figure something out.” Elliot approached a wall and another bed appeared. “I’m not too worried about it to tell you the truth.”
“Why should you worry? There are fish enough down here. Even such an abysmal hunter as you should be able to feed yourself and your companion. I do not understand how you managed to survive up there for as long as you did.”
He dove into the water and whisked away. When Elliot sat down on his bed, he found Aria studying him. “You should go with him. He won’t keep stopping by to invite you forever. You should get out and mix with people.”
“What about you?” He reclined back and folded his elbows behind his head. “You can’t keep sulking like this. You’re the one who suggested we move down here. You better take advantage of being in the heart of everything. Try to get to know a few people.”
She nodded, but she wouldn’t look at him. “I guess.”
“You have to come to the party,” he told her. “You heard what he said. It’s expected.”
She shot him a crooked grin. “How do you suppose these things party? I don’t see them playing guitars and drumming on drum kits.”
He chuckled. “Maybe they sing.”
She burst out laughing. She hugged her ribs and toppled over on her bed giggling to herself. “I can’t wait to see that.”
Crazy energy infected Elliot seeing her laugh like that. Maybe things weren’t as black as they appeared. He lunged to his feet and jerked his thumb sideways. “Come out hunting with me. Forget these idiots. Come on—just you and me.”
She cracked a big smile showing all her white teeth. “All right. What the hell, right? I can’t possibly be worse at it than you.”
“Hey! Give a fella a break for trying.”
“Oh, you try,” she chided. “Chimo is right about that. Just you keep on trying, boy. Maybe one day you’ll get the hang of it.”
He rushed her and tried to grab her. “I’ll show you trying.”
She shrieked and jumped. In the blink of an eye, she shifted and became her powerful bear self. She dove through the wall and paddled her four limbs. The current caught her fur, but she could swim a lot better than he imagined.
In a second, she shot out of reach. She streaked upward toward the glassy surface high above and plunged into a cluster of bass skimming by. They scattered at her approach. She jerked one way and snapped her jaws and came up empty.
She didn’t hesitate an instant. She whipped to her right and made another headlong sprint. She clapped her great jaws and slammed her fangs onto a large fish. It flailed once in her grasp. Without flinching, she let it go and dove for another one. She caught it by the tail and whipped her head back and forth shaking it to death. She cracked its spine and it dangled limp from her mouth.
She paddled in place for a minute scanning her surroundings. The fish flopped against the current. Her fur swam in swirls all around her. Her first kill drifted down toward the ground, but the water buoyed it so it fell slowly.
She twisted around and waved her legs to swim down. She let go of her second fish to grab the first one. Then she retrieved her kill and carried both fish back to the room. Elliot watched her in stunned shock. All this time, she was ten times the hunter he was. He should have expected she was hiding her skill. He dared not hope she did that to spare his feelings.
She held her catch aloft swimming back to where he stood. She burst into the room, dropped the fish at his feet, and shifted back to that beautiful girl he liked so much. Her features lit up in another brilliant grin. “That’s the way it’s done, boy.”
He started to say something when a spine-chilling roar made him whip around fast. At the same moment, a gargantuan dragon heaved out of nowhere. It lunged upward through the floor to loom over Elliot’s head.
Aria spun to face it as five more of those things materialized out of nowhere. They surrounded the room rumbling and roaring. Elliot braced himself for a fight, but they didn’t attack. They arched their necks and glared down, not at him but at Aria.
She cringed and her eyes darted around the ring. The monsters towered over her growling low. The floor vibrated under Elliot’s feet. What did he and Aria do to anger them? He couldn’t think of anything.
One of them slithered its head lower and snarled under its breath. “Do not do that again We will not suffer you to defile our country with your perversion. Take your kill and be gone.”
Aria stared up at them in stark terror, but she didn’t move or speak. Neither did Elliot. All this time, he assumed Chimo’s encouragement to him to hunt his own food applied to Aria, too. He never guessed her bear form could be so offensive to the Blood Kin.
He should have guessed. He should have picked up the subtle clues. Once again, he should have listened to her. He should have trusted her instincts.
She hunched low and made herself small and meek before them. She said the words he never could have. “I won’t. I won’t do it again. I apologize for offending you.”
The dragons seethed and snarled, but they eventually retreated. One after the other, they drew back and flew away.
9
Aria sat up on her bed. She spent the last hour staring at the ceiling—or whatever they called the upper water’s surface. This was the only real problem with life on the Halcyon Coast. There was never anything to do.
After she gathered her food for the day, that left her with nearly twenty-three hours to fill. The dragons hunted and fished on the fly. They spent the rest of their time interacting with their friends and families. They talked to each other, managed their young, and carried on all the business of their social lives.
Aria didn’t have that opportunity. Only Elliot would have anything to do with her and not even he hung around all the time. He certainly acted differently than he did before, but he had better things to do than sit around staring at the wall.
He wandered off with Chimo and his friends and left Aria alone. She didn’t mind and she didn’t resent him for making contacts among the Blood Kin. He said connections with the dragons would help the pair either form an alliance or escape and he was right.
Rather than spend the endless hours plotting and scheming, she found herself drawing a blank. She didn’t think about anything. She drifted into a hazy reverie without thought or memory. She turned off and shut down. She hardly blinked. The water erased all feeling until she felt nothing. Maybe that was for the best, too.
Now that she woke from her otherworldly trance, she noticed dragons swimming past her wall. They were all going the same direction and there seemed to be an awful lot of them. Their scales flashed in the current. Hatchlings tumbled and tripped at their mothers’ heels. Where were they going?
A brown-green dragon shot out of the crowd and pounced into the room. She took a step back to make room for it and it transformed into Elliot. His cheeks glowed and his eyes shone. “Come on! We’re going to the party. You have to come.”
She scanned the crowd. She was the only thing in this whole world that wasn’t a dragon. She didn’t belong in that assembly of dragons, but Elliot grabbed her hand. “Come on.”
He towed her out of the room and into the cavalcade of reptiles on the move north. Once she got among them, she lost her reticence. She marched at their sides and they didn’t turn on her spitting fire or attacking.
Elliot shifted again. He flew over her head among the others. If she ignored the fact that she was a person among hundreds of dragons, she might start to believe she was one of them.
When she played that mental trick on herself, she felt happy to be going with them. They really were magnificent creatures, these Blood Kin. They reveled in their dragoness. They embraced it and lived it to the fullest. They never tried to hide it. It was the totality of their identity. They weren’t trying to be human or to integrate into human society. They didn’t have to. They had their own world and they made their own rules.
