Chapter 10

Chardum

Rosy was still on the porch when I finished my transformation, with her hands clenched around the balustrade and her eyes huge in her face. She was so tiny compared to my new shape, no bigger than my front claw, she’d fit whole inside my mouth. I lowered myself to my belly, and then I slowly moved my head until it was next to the porch and waited.

I tried to imagine what she was seeing, what it was like for a human to see a dragon for the first time in their life, when they believed such creatures did not exist. Size-wise, there was only one creature in the human world that rivaled mine, the blue whale, and most humans never saw one with their own eyes. It was hard to comprehend just how big a dragon could be.

My scales were bulletproof, huge overlapping slates of gold that shimmered in the morning sunlight. I had four paws, tipped with claws several feet long each, and a tail that was as long as the farmhouse itself. When I stretched out my wings, they were giant sails that cast shade over most of the yard.

I was no dragon royalty; the two horns rising from my head were straight and thick, suited for fighting. I was Chardum the Destroyer, the Slayer of Foes, and the Guardian of these lands and the secrets they kept. I had succeeded at this task for more than a thousand years, from the day that Zachary and I had taken over for the previous guardian. Even after being trapped in rubble for twenty-six years, I was satisfied that our enemies had not managed to breach our defenses.

My claws scraped through the yard’s packed soil, loosened by the endless night rains. My mate stood frozen in place on the porch, her eyes huge and softly starting to glow with a faint green light. She was scared, and in shock, but she hadn’t bolted. Her powers were stirring, coming to her defense.

I did not think she realized that the remains of a twisted, dying rose shrub had raised its branches in front of her, bristling thorns aimed my way. A paltry defense against a dragon, but a sign that she was Zachary’s daughter through and through. I lowered my head a little more, the tip of my nose brushing along those vines to press against the edge of the railing she was holding.

“Oh, damn it. I guess you’re not crazy after all. You’re just a freaking dragon,” she said shakily. I smothered a laugh, aware that with dragon-sized vocal cords, such a sound could be threatening. In this form, the form I’d lain trapped in for so long, it was much more natural to reach out with my mind and find to connection that stretched between us.

“ Yes, a dragon, a guardian. And you are Zachary’s daughter, a nymph, and you are meant to share my task.” She was meant to share much more with me than just this task, this quest to protect what was kept on these lands. Or rather, to protect to rest of the world from what we were keeping prisoner here.

Her eyes glowed a little brighter, an emerald green that told me she was fully gripped by her earth powers. She might have human blood, but I could sense that her powers ran deep. “You can speak? How is that possible?” she asked, her voice no longer sounding so shaky. She leaned a little closer and wrested one hand from the balustrade, tentatively raising it toward the tip of my nose.

Closing that final bit of distance, I let her fingers brush against the smaller scales there. Against my tough scales, her touch was just the barest hint of heat, but it was enough. I let my eyelids flutter shut, nudging a little more against her hand until she giggled and started stroking her fingers along my snout.

“ I can speak in your mind because we are bonded,” I explained to her. It didn’t matter what form I was in, I could always reach her like this. Only distance had kept me from communicating before. I snapped my wings closed, pressing them along my flanks and spine as I remembered how endlessly lonely my imprisonment beneath those rocks had been. I’d slumbered as much as I could, but I’d ached for the mate I could feel, or hurt with a sense of betrayal that Zachary had not returned to help me.

The glow was starting to fade from her eyes, a sign that she was no longer feeling the need to protect herself. “Bonded how? And if you are a dragon… How are you and my father connected? Did you really know him?”

Unwilling to relinquish the tentative touch of her hand on my scales, I settled my body against the earth in a more comfortable position and started to explain. She didn’t want to believe me at first when I said that Zachary and I had protected this place for a thousand years together. She didn’t think I spoke the truth when I said she was a wood nymph, a life-giver. Not until I drew her attention to that eager rose bush rising from death and dormancy against the porch to reach for her.

“And since Zachary is dead, this task is now mine? I guess that’s why the solicitor’s stipulations made it clear I needed to live here for a year if I wanted to inherit everything…” Her words were not exactly a surprise, but when she casually said that my best friend was dead, it ached. Until she came here, I had no real confirmation of what had happened to Zach.

A keening noise escaped my throat, and I swung my head away to raise it and gaze around the farm. For the first time, I truly noted the terrible shape it was in. Zachary was the clever businessman out of the two of us; I’d kept my distance from owning anything, from a paper trail humans could follow.

This farm had been his pride and joy, his green little paradise, and he’d helped the town prosper with his powers with just as much love and pride. There was no trace of that now; it was an empty dust bowl. The green of the woods on the cliffs beyond the farm was the only sign a nymph had ever lived here.

“I’m sorry. If you were friends that long, you must miss him terribly.” She’d left the porch and come around to my side, standing next to my paw and resting her hands against the much bigger scales.

I gazed at her earnest expression, the empathy I saw there, and I wanted only one thing. I wanted to hold my mate in my arms. The change shivered through me gently, easily this time. A flash of light, a wash of heat, and my body reshaped itself. Now that I had arms, I curled them around her slender body and tugged her against me, holding her close as I dropped my head against the luscious, soft curls piled on top of hers.