Chapter 3—Mandrake

If it is possible for a True Shifter to be lucky in the company in which she loses hold on her form, then I was lucky that Mandrake stood before me in that place. He bellowed something and dragons came running bearing quilts and blankets while others built a bonfire and lit it with their hot breath. With the heat of the fire and the warmth of the bedding I slowly stopped the worst of my shivering. Moth burrowed under my armpit and we both dropped into sleep, but not before I heard Mandrake explaining to the young dragon.

“The lady isn’t a lycanthrope, and, no, obviously she isn’t a dragon. She is a True Shifter and as rare as the black diamonds in the Queen’s crown. The lady can be anything she needs to be, but the cost is enormous.”

Enormous indeed, I thought as sleep overtook me.

But I was still cold and even in my sleep I was racked by shivering fits. Moth tried to help me, but she was so depleted that her tiny body was like ice on my skin. I must have cried out because I felt the arrival of a source of heat. Something or someone crawled into our cocoon of blankets and pulled us against a hard warm chest. I drew warmth and comfort and slowly the tremors ceased so we could rest.

We awoke much later under a positive pile of blankets with Mandrake in his human form surrounding us with comfortable heat. In the firelight I could see the multi-faceted eyes of about a dozen dragons, while two of the most experienced deputies wrangled amiably about some point of law. I wriggled a bit and Mandrake loosened his grip. Moth stretched herself and flew off into the trees, leaving me to deal with our friendly dragon.

“Thank you for the warmth of your body.”

“You are entirely welcome madonna.”

I rolled over and looked into his eyes. He was smiling his least dragonish smile but there was a devilish twinkle behind it. I lifted an eyebrow. His grin grew wider, and I found myself considering a number of options I wasn’t about to explore with quite such a large audience. I said nothing, but I smiled the smile I know awakens a dimple at the corner of my mouth. He tried to look cool, but his body betrayed him, and I could feel that he was far from immune to my charms.

He broke the silent thread that connected us. “May I fly you home in the morning?”

I pretended to consider, as if that wasn’t precisely what I had in mind. Mandrake wasn’t naive enough to be fooled, though, and he laughed deep in his chest.

“Busted,” I said. “A ride would please me greatly. Thank you.”

A shaft of icy air indicated that Moth was back from her ablutions.

“We riding home with handsome?”

“Yes.”

“We going to?”

“What’s with the we?”

She cackled rudely and I was reminded, if I needed a reminder, that my bond sister is fae, and as oversexed as a queen dragon in heat even if she is unable to enjoy the act other than vicariously. It was tempting to string her along a bit, but she had been through the wringer just as much as I and I figured we both deserved a treat “You shall have fresh meat my pretty,” I promised before turning my attention back to Mandrake.

He bent his head, and I felt his breath against the pulse point beneath my ear. I put my hand against his bare chest and touched the scars of years as a battle dragon with the very tips of my fingers. Somehow this evidence of his courage and vulnerability made me feel a little bit ashamed and I found it in me to be honest with him.

“What do you know about True Shifters?”

I felt, rather than saw, his smile. “More than most. I was educated to be a priest, but I prefer the honesty of battle to the lies and half-truths of the liturgy.”

I found myself surprised by and interested in the complexity of his mind. “That’s something we might discuss at a later date, but for now I need to talk to you about my bond-sister.”

“The fae?”

“Yes. She and I are…” I wasn’t sure how to carry on but found I need not anyway.

“It’s okay. I know she will partake of anything we might choose to do when we are otherwise alone.”

“And does that worry you?”

“No. It puts me on my mettle. I wouldn’t want the pair of you find me wanting.”

I laughed and he bent his head again this time I felt the sting of his sharp teeth before he soothed the tiny pain with a lap of his tongue.

“Behave, sir dragon. I have no wish to entertain an audience.”

“Though you would have me entertain your bond-sister.”

Which was a fair comment, if unnerving.

“Touché.”

“I don’t seek to fence with you madonna. I have other ways to sheath my sword if you will have it so.”

“I think I very well might.”

Moth spoke in my head. ‘He is either very brave or very foolish.’

‘He’s a dragon Mothwing. There’s a distinct possibility he could be both.’

‘Oh. How exciting.’

I don’t know quite what I might have said to her had not Mandrake’s calloused hands moved on my skin with all the finesse of a fencer’s blade. Part of me wanted to push him away, but another part relished the idea that we could do this thing unnoticed with upwards of a dozen pairs of eyes on us. Moth sang inside my head and that pushed me over the edge of proper decorum into some darker place where I half relished the idea we might be observed.

But Mandrake was wily, and once he brought me to the point of beyond caring he was tenderness itself as he slid into my willing flesh. It is possible, I learned, to make gentleness as much of a torment as the slap of flesh on flesh—and when release came it was as quiet as a springtime breeze. It left me feeling soft and smooth and grateful. Moth curled herself between us and before sleep claimed me again I heard her wondering voice.

‘We never been made love to before…’

When I next awoke, my internal clock told me it was heading towards dawn. Mandrake was no longer beside me, and I was surprised to feel bereft. I was working that through in my mind when he appeared in my eye line carrying a bowl of something that steamed gently in the firelight.

“It’s only porridge, but the stores here yielded little else that wasn’t meat.”

I sat up, keeping the blankets around my nakedness. “Thank you. Porridge will be more than welcome.”

He set the bowl in my hands and sat quietly while I ate. When I was done, there was a little of the honey-sweetened grain left in the bowl, and Moth swooped.

‘I’m sorry, my dear, I had not thought you hungry.’

‘Not. Is honey, can smell the flowers.’

Mandrake put a hand on mine. “Is your bond-sister eating?”

“She is. But you shouldn’t be able to see her.”

“I can’t. But I have the impression of gleeful greed.”

“That’s her. But on the other side of the coin she is my strength and my anchor, so if she is naughty I must forgive her.” I didn’t think it was fair to discuss Moth anymore, so I turned the subject. “Have you eaten, sir dragon?”

“I have. My appetites are satisfied. For now.”

The last two words were said on a kind of a growl which had butterflies roiling in my stomach—and other places.

Even as I smiled at him, though, that stomach started to revolt, and I knew the porridge wasn’t about to stay put. He must have seen my distress, because he wrapped me in one of the quilts and ran for the trees. I was miserably sick, and he held my hair and gently rubbed my back until I was empty. When he was sure my bout of vomiting was over, he gently wiped my face with a scrap of rag he found in his pocket before carrying me back to the campfire.

Moth flew around us making worried little noises.

One of his dragons had assumed human form and was holding a bottle of water.

“Cool,” he said, “fresh.”

“Rinse and spit, amata,” Mandrake was kindly but practical, for which I was grateful.

I followed his suggestion and felt the better for it.

“What you sicking for, my dearling? You never sicks.” Moth’s concern was evident.

“I don’t know. It just came on me, but I’m all better now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am.” But I shivered. “I don’t like this place. It feels unhealthy.”

Mandrake was reassuring. “Once the sun is high we can leave. My dragons will put the facility to the flame and then we can go.”

I wondered if I had the strength to shift myself some clothes, but it seemed my dragon friend was ahead of me as he handed me a bundle.

“My Queen believes this to be your size.”

I grimaced. “She would know.”

He was sensitive enough not to ask and I thanked him with my eyes. I felt Moth settle on my shoulder.

‘Strange sort of a dragon this. Not underestimate.’

‘When have I ever?’

She elbowed me. ‘Could write list. But. Have care with this one.’

‘I will. Although I don’t think him ill-intentioned.’

‘Can see not. Is just too clever to be underestimated.’

Mandrake was watching me with intelligent curiosity.

“Yes,” I said, probably more harshly than I intended. “My sister and I are speaking of you. Does that feed your ego, sir dragon?”

His smile was complicated, and I could see pain behind his eyes. I put out a hand.

“I’m sorry, Mandrake, that was uncalled for. It is just…”

His smile became easier. “Just that you have had to develop a lifelong habit of secrecy in order to keep yourselves safe. I will do nothing to imperil you and your bond-sister.” I opened my mouth and he put two fingers gently across my lips. “I know that is easy to say, and I don’t expect you to believe me. All I ask for is the chance to be more than just a passing phase.”

Moth touched his fingers, and I knew he felt her small hand, but he didn’t flinch.

‘Could give him his chance,’ she said.

I nodded and Mandrake leaned in to kiss my mouth.

“Would it help if I hold up a blanket for you to dress behind?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

I wriggled into the tight leather riding suit and braided my hair before grinning at Mandrake.

“Your queen is not omniscient. This riding suit was mine. A lot of years ago. I had no idea she kept it. We didn’t part on the best of terms.”

He gave me an odd look before shrugging his massy shoulders.

“She said something. But I don’t think I was supposed to tell you.”

I raised one eyebrow.

He grinned and capitulated. “The hardest learned lessons are, perhaps, the ones that help us most in life.”

I found myself laughing and Moth joined in.

‘Think you should tell, my love,’ she said.

I saw no harm in him knowing. “For the longest five years of my life I was tutor to a Dragon Princess with no desire to learn.”

“Oh,” he spoke mildly enough but I could hear the amusement underlying his voice, “I don’t think I envy anyone that task.”

“It wasn’t my favourite assignment, and it was made worse by all the male tutors she had run rings round before me.”

“I bet. But how did you…”

“Oh. Her lady mother laid a geas on her so she couldn’t make the change, and I’m neither male nor susceptible to female pulchritude, so she had to toe the line. But she hated me with every fibre of her being.”

“And yet she seems fond enough now.”

“She does?”

“Yes. Enough to threaten me with dire consequences if I allowed anything to befall you.”

Moth made a noise of derision in my head, so loud that Mandrake must have heard. He grinned.

“The Queen does have an exceedingly badly behaved daughter.”

‘Noooooooo…’ Moth shouted so loud that I thought I might become deaf. Nonetheless I kept my own voice decorously quiet.

“So I heard. But her majesty is going to have to find another fool.”

Mandrake’s eyes danced in unholy glee. “Unless she can find something to blackmail you with.”

“Not twice. Her dam used up all the counters in that game.”

He laughed and gave me a friendly hug.

“Another half hour or so and the sun will be high enough for me to fly you home. It will be good to stretch my wings.”

For a moment the air around him was disturbed as if his dragon sought to be free. He grimaced.

“My dragon fed last night, and he is full of impatience.”

Without thinking, I spoke directly to the beast that dwelt in his breast. “Have patience, beautiful one. Soon we will fly in the morning sunlight.”

The dragon curled himself about Mandrake’s heart and rested his snout on his own tail. I felt hard hands at my shoulders, but they weren’t holding me tightly or with any intention to cause hurt.

“How is it that you can speak to my dragon?”

Moth moaned. ‘Foolish beloved.’

And I realised what I had done. I had broken one of the most stringent rules of lycanthropy. It is forbidden to speak to another’s beast. Unless it should be that you are Life Mates. And even then it is the most intimate thing you can do. I hung my head.

“I’m sorry Mandrake. I don’t know what came over me. I think it was because we made love, and because I am touching you, and maybe even because I was sick. I really am truly, truly sorry. It won’t happen again.”

To my surprise he pulled me to his heart and held me as if I was the most precious thing in the world.

“It doesn’t seem to have done my beast any harm, and I certainly found the experience warming. I just wondered how.”

“Me too. It happened without my thinking.”

Moth spoke to both of us. “There is connection. Unusual but not unheard of. Don’t pick at.” Then privately to me. ‘I think means we get to keep him.’

Which made him sound like a pet dog and made me want to cry. I rounded on her in fury.

‘He is not some animal to be put on a leash and made to trot after us, begging for scraps of affection. And I will not have you speak of him so.’

Moth’s laugh in my head was soft and almost maternal. ‘Good. Then we are all on same road. To wherever.’

‘Wherever indeed.’

I almost swallowed my tongue when Mandrake’s deep tones joined the conversation.

‘It will be an adventure.’

Moth found her voice first. ‘How you get in?’

‘I have no idea. Do you want me to leave?’

‘Don’t think you can.’ Moth sounded pensive. ‘Bond expanded to include.’

I gathered my scattered thoughts then spoke aloud. “If you are willing.”

“I’m willing. I think my life has been leading me here.” His voice became profoundly formal. “My dragon is called Mandrake, as you know. In this form, I am Mylo, first egg of the Princess Coral.”

“I am Mothwing, daughter of Harebell.”

This was all happening too fast for me, and I felt as if my head would burst, but my tongue spoke anyway. “I am Perdita. I have no knowledge of my mother. The True Shifter whose flame I bear found me exposed on a barren hillside. He thought me no more than a day old.” I couldn’t say any more, and Moth soothed me before carrying on with the explanation.

“He never look for female who birthed my sister. Instead, took her to his place of safety and rearing her as his own.”

“How did he feed her?”

Moth laughed. “Didn’t Shift a pair of titties. Bought a goat.”

Mandrake, whom I could not think of as Mylo, laughed too. But he also wrapped his warm arms tighter around me.

I dropped my head onto his bare chest and breathed in his spicy dragonish smell. After a minute or two I lifted my head.

“Do I have to call you Mylo?”

I felt him laugh. “Not if you prefer Mandrake.”

“I think it suits you better.”

He smiled down at me, but my stomach suddenly revolted again. I felt my cheeks pale and clamped my mouth tight shut. It seemed to me that I had nothing left to be sick on, but that didn’t matter. Mandrake saw my distress and lifted me in his strong arms. In the relative privacy of the trees I brought up yellow bile as my stomach heaved and cramped. When I had stopped trying to bring up my toenails he found another clean rag and wiped my mouth. Moth came to my shoulder.

“What can be the matter with you my dearest?” Her voice was strained, and she looked to Mandrake as if seeking reassurance. “Our beloved is never sick.”

“We will find out.” He reassured her while carrying me back to the warmth of the fire.

The same dragon as before offered water and I thanked him.

I rinsed my mouth and leaned gratefully on the dragonish strength that was Mandrake. I felt weak and shaky, and while I struggled to find some measure of composure I looked to the sky, which meant I was the first to see the gleam of dragon hide in the sunlight.

“Incoming dragon,” I said.

Mandrake looked up. “Queen’s Messenger.” Then almost to himself. “I wonder what that portends.”

The messenger spiralled down out of the sky. There was nothing snowy about the descent, all was efficiency and the husbanding of effort. As his feet hit the ground, he made the change, with the same economy. His human form was slight and brown-skinned, and he had one of those ageless faces that seem to defy both youth and cruel eld. He brought a package to Mandrake, and they clasped forearms in the manner of warriors. Then the messenger turned his attention to me. He bowed respectfully.

“I’m glad to find you still here, my lady. The message I bear most nearly concerns you.”

Mandrake broke the seal, read briefly, then swore profusely.

“Will you let me in on the secret of what it is that concerns me nearly?”

He held out the letter, but I felt too weary to bend my mind to reading the dragonish hieroglyphs. Being already more attuned to my moods than any male had ever been, Mandrake understood.

“I’ll read it to you. ‘Close questioning of the prisoners discovered the source of the drug used to incapacitate a roomful of lycanthropes. We have spoken at some length to the creator of the drug which is lycanthrope specific and dangerous to any creature not carrying the gene. The human bartender who was bribed to release the vapours into the air died for his greed as did a young female who was innocently doing her job as a waitress. The lady tutor may find herself unwell: sick to her stomach and weary. The vial herewith contains an antidote to the poison that remains in her system. It has been tested and found safe by the chemist who made it.’ Which explains why you are sick, amata. Will you essay the antidote?”

Moth shook her head. “Until I smelled it.”

Mandrake unstoppered the tiny bottle and Moth stuck first her nose then a finger in it. “Is well,” she said, “nothing but healing herbs.”

I took the vial from Mandrake and the smell was like a summer meadow. I drunk it down, and for a moment, I was afraid I was going to boot again, but it passed and I felt the medicine coating my stomach.

“Will you be better now?” Moth wanted to know.

“I hope so. My stomach seems soothed.”

Mandrake put his big warm hand against my belly, and I felt him pouring his warmth and vitality into me. On impulse I leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips.

“Thank you.”

He lifted a forefinger to my cheek and stroked the skin.

“Will you sit and wait while my dragons flame this place? Then we can go.”

I nodded, but then I gripped his finger. “Mandrake, are you coming home with us?”

“If you want me.”

“We do. But do you fully understand what it means? What you will have to do? What you will have to give up?”

He smiled and something warmed in the back of his eyes. “Of course I do. I think I have known from the minute I set my eyes on you in the palace many years since. It is only that today it crystallised. It’s the profoundest thing I have ever felt. And, honestly, part of me just wants to run.”

I touched his fascinating mouth with the very tip of one finger. “Me too, but I know that I will never be complete without you. Or, rather, we will never be complete.”

Moth, whose emotional intelligence is as cramped as that of all fae, looked from my face to his and I felt her not understanding.

“Neither can run. Bond has you. Nothing to be done. I never want to be bonded. But is my life now.”

I soothed her. “And you are my beloved.” She smiled and I felt her love.

“Dear heart,” she said in an awed voice, “how did we bond battle dragon?”

“I don’t know. But do I know the bond cuts both ways.”

Mandrake appeared to understand us because he rubbed a big hand over my head.

“Don’t try to pick it apart, amata. We are who we are. And now who we are is a bonded three.”

Shimmering into dragon form he whistled his orders, and the wing took flight, formed an obviously prearranged pattern, and drew in a collective breath.

The flaming when it came was as controlled, precise and effective as Mandrake himself. One moment there was a whole slew of ugly concrete buildings and about a mile of chain link fence. The next minute there was nothing but very hot ash. Moth was impressed.

“In all my born days I never seen…”

“You have seen dragons flame before.”

“One or two. And only angry. This not like that. It like housekeeping with blowtorch.”

I laughed at the analogy. But when I thought about it, I decided it was pretty accurate.

Mandrake landed about a man’s length from us. His second in command, a svelte green female, dropped to earth rather more showily. Both took human form. Mandrake removed a chain from about his neck, while she bowed her head. He carefully arranged the shining links around her throat so a bright medallion rode in the middle of her breast, where it caught the morning sun.

“The wing is yours, belle soeur.”

“Be happy, mon frère.”

She shimmered back into dragon shape and led the wing away to the east. It warmed me to see that each dragon saluted their former wing-master before following their new leader away.

“What he done?” Moth sounded fretful. “Why do he feel sad? He has us now.”

“He feels sad because he has given up everything he has ever been in order to be with us.”

I felt her take on the enormity of that, and then there was a sudden rush of wings. She manifested in her visible form and flew to Mandrake. Throwing her tiny arms around his head she spoke aloud.

“Mustn’t be sad, beloved. Have us now.”

He smiled and touched her with a gentle finger.

“Indeed, and I am a very lucky dragon.”

Moth giggled. “Not flirt with Mothwing. Save that for beloved.”

I stood up, pleased to be no longer possessed of a stomach with a mind of its own but still tired to my very bones.

“Mandrake. Will you take us home?”

“I will.”

His dragon form was as fine as the human body that had pleasured me, and for a moment I felt a little smug to think he was mine. But then, I thought of what he had gladly forsaken for the sake of our bond, and I forced myself to say what was in my heart.

“Mandrake. Beloved. I am afraid that this happened too quickly, and you will come to regret us.”

He bathed me in his smile. “It is always thus for dragons. When we make the mating bond it happens to us like lightning setting a field of corn aflame. Fear not. I am content in my soul for the first time ever. Come. Let us fly together.”

Moth slipped inside my clothing and took station at my back with her face looking over my shoulder, while I climbed wearily onto Mandrake’s neck where I found a resting place between the spiny ridges. He ran three steps or so and took off with a silky smoothness I have never managed to achieve in any winged form.

Moth laughed. “Beautiful take off, loved dragon.”

“Show off,” I muttered and felt Mandrake’s laughter reverberate through my bones.

“Rest, amata, let Mothwing guide us home.”

And I did just that, warmed by the love I felt from the two of them and physically warmed by Mandrake’s dragonish heat I let myself drift while he carried us through the sunlit sky. I wasn’t looking forward to the slog up the twisty mountain pass to home, an isolated stone-built cottage without electricity or phone signal, but as there was nowhere for a dragon to land I guessed it had to be done. I underestimated our beloved, however, as he overflew the cottage, and I could feel his smile.

“Are you willing to take a chance on my skill?”

I was too tired to be anything but grateful for the opportunity not to arrive home on my knees and Moth gave a whistling cry of excitement.

Mandrake took us very high and as we plummeted towards the earth I was about convinced he would smash his wings on the stony walls that surround the garden. I truly thought we were all going to die. But then, when we were only a man height above the earth he made the change and landed on Moth’s camomile lawn in his human form with me and Moth on his back. I jumped down and punched him solidly in the biceps.

“You fool. You could have hurt yourself.”

His grin was entirely unrepentant. “It’s not an easy manoeuvre, but it’s something I have practiced many times. So you were perfectly safe.”

“It wasn’t my safety that was the concern. It was yours. I don’t think I could bear to lose you.”

Which must have touched a chord in him because he wrapped me in his arms and rocked me as if I were a frightened child.

“I know,” he said thickly, “the only thing that frightens me about the bond is the idea of losing it.”

Moth made a tsking sound with her tongue.

“Stop that. Nobody losing nobody. Inside with you. Beloved needs to sleep and loved dragon needs to help Mothwing in the kitchen.”