Shifter's Baby(13)

The dragon moved and she stepped back as it lifted off in front of her. Like it had never been there, in seconds it disappeared into the night. Her eyes strained to see it, but she felt like it was watching her for a while after it took off. The road set her down and it made her wonder more. The beast was obviously intelligent. It had helped her and then put her where she needed to be. Tenia shivered with the idea of what would have happened if it hadn’t been there to save her.

She walked the side of the road until the sun started to rise in the sky. Tenia heard coyotes and other animals through the night, but she somehow knew that there was nothing for her to fear anymore. When she finally looked up from staring at her feet, she was in front of a small gas station. There had been a sign for it fifty miles away and Tenia knew that she had not walked that far since she was dropped off.

Tenia wanted to kiss the side of the building and even though she didn’t have a dollar to her name, she walked out with something to eat and drink. The kind older woman who was behind the register offered to call an ambulance for her, but she just asked for a few quarters for the pay phone instead. She got back out to the phone and she paused, unsure who she even wanted to call. There was no plan for losing everything and her vehicle. A call to her parents would cause concern, so she decided to give Meeka a call.

“Hey girl, how have you been?”

The question should have been more specific because what she got was a stream of words with very few breaths in between them. When she finally settled down about telling of the new man in her life and the cute little apartment she had in Miami, Tenia got a word or two in.

“Meeka, do you have any of your money left?”

“Well of course. Hell we had a bundle when we started on the trip.”

“I need some sent to me.”

“Okay, where are you at?”

“Aren’t you going to even ask why?”

“Not unless you want me to.” Tenia thought for a moment. How would she even explain it anyways?

“Let’s just say the R.V. got stolen and then there was a flash flood and I have only what I was wearing. Oh yeah and I am in New Mexico now.”

There was a pause at the end of the line. “I shouldn’t have left Tenia. Are you going home or?”

“I don’t want to call them, you know how mom is. She will have the police escort me to the airport.”

There was a giggle. Both knew that she would do just that. “Alright I got a bit and I will have Thomas give me some more to send you. Where are you exactly?”

Tenia gave her the name of the little dirt town and the convenience store that would take a wire. When she got off of the phone five minutes later, the weight was lifted off of her shoulders. It was not long before she had cash in hand and had called a car service to pick her up and rent her a car. There was the moment that she was going to go home, but something pushed her on. The fact that Meeka sent way more than she thought she would, Tenia made the decision to go on.

She found herself backtracking to where she had been when it had all gone wrong and her mind was changed forever on stories and fables she had heard in the past. Tenia had to find that dragon. It pulled her to it without even knowing it. Armed with a backpack of supplies and the weather forecast for the next few days, she started walking towards the now-familiar canyon that she had been to before. The walk didn’t seem so bad when she had almost a gallon of water strapped to her back.

She got to the rim around noon and like before, the sun felt like it was baking her. There was none of the fear that she had felt before when she looked down. Her eyes unknowingly looked for signs that she had even been there and that it all wasn’t just some hallucination from dehydration. As the day wore on, she decided to camp out right there on the ridgeline. Tenia waited for her savior, but it never came and by morning she was disappointed and reconsidering what she had experienced that night. It was all just too real to not be.





Chapter 5


Bradey had told his brother about the woman and what had happened the night before. Raild was not happy and his dark face glowered. “You know better than to show yourself to a human. One woman is not worth our kin’s life in jeopardy. What are we even doing here Bradey?!”

“She will not say anything Raild.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.” Bradey turned around and he still felt the woman’s arms around her, her soft lips on his cheek. He had been touched before, but never in his true form. The only people that ever saw him feared him and the man was sick of living behind his mask. There was a connection with her and though he knew it was wrong to want her, he had to convince his brother to go along with the plans. They had never broached the subject of mating, their tastes too different to ever decide. But he was the eldest brother and he had every inclination to bully him if needed. “Have you ever been touched as a dragon, with no fear?”