Page 3

Othoni

“He hasn’t answered me yet,”

Doctor Jacob Leem announce from the doorway. “He might be down for a nap with the baby. He does have a newborn after all.”

“We know that,”

Dern rolled his eyes. “I told you. Bring me my phone and I’ll call Astral. He’ll answer for me, and he’ll drag Teddy over here by his damn balls. He owes me that much! If not for me he wouldn’t have met the alien!”

“Calm down, Dern. I’m sure Astral will get back to us as soon as he has the time. He’s a first-time parent. His baby has to come first.”

“For the love of squirrel nuts,”

Dern swore. “Seriously, Jacob? You’re going to talk to me like I lost my mind too.”

“You are being rather insistent like a child,”

the doctor pointed out and I winced.

“When you get to a certain age you don’t have as much time to wait around on doctors to pull their giant egos out of their buttcracks. Bring me my phone,”

Dern insisted.

“Dern!”

Jacob scolded. “You have to accept that---”

“Perhaps, Doctor,”

I said, pushing myself to my feet.

“You should show some respect for your elders. Teddy isn’t an Appalachian Wolf and owes no respect to the elders of this pack. Not the sort you do as someone born here. Astral has a newborn pup, as you pointed out. We can excuse his obliviousness to the urgency. What is your excuse for speaking to your patient like that? If I understand your set up – someone – probably Dern’s estate is paying for his care. He and his estate are your employer, and this is no way to conduct business nor is it anyway to treat an elder of your pack who is in obvious distress. It is my experience those who caterwaul the loudest and insist upon their own ways in the face of the adversity others experience often have the least to offer to any situation. While Dern understands that you cannot dictate the lives of others and make them do his bidding, what no one within earshot of you understands right now is why you’d have such an attitude about it all. You took the healer’s oath and that means you shall remain understanding at all times even if your patient decides to enact his right to the grumpiness that old age entitles us all too eventually if we’re lucky. Now, if everyone will excuse me, I’ll go and locate Teddy and attempt to bring him back here. Mori, I take it you can defend Dern while I’m gone?”

“I think he’s doing fine all on his own,”

Mori said, settling deep in his chair.

I took my departure, squeezing past the doctor, without waiting for him to answer. Dern was being unreasonable about the situation. There was a million reasons Teddy might not want to see him again. That still didn’t stop Jacob from rubbing me the wrong way. He needed help to transition from this life to the next smoothly and Mori and I were here to ensure that he received that help, whatever it was. While no one said it aloud we all knew his door could pop up at any minute. I didn’t know Teddy Moonscale at all outside of what Mori mentioned here and there. Still, I didn’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t at least try to get Teddy there. For all we knew he’d want to apologize for shooting him. Not that any apology could take back bullets but it was a start. You can’t blame a sick dog for biting.

Electricity from the incoming storm played on my skin when I stepped outside. Gone was the clear blue sky. Grey clouds had crept in around its vibrant edges, dulling its light in patches. I almost turned on my heels to ask Rian if he saw this. I was right. I was always right about storms.

The baby-fine hair on the back of my neck stood up as I looked around. I knew Teddy was technically staying at our B&B and if he hadn’t hung around here to see what Dern wanted my best guess was that he went home. If he wasn’t there, I’d ask around to find out where the Starscale Dragon lived. There was only one of him and his mate’s family ran a moonshine and magic business. Surely, someone could help me find one of the dragons.

I shifted, borrowing my jaguar’s speed, as the clouds crept in, gobbling up the last of the blue sky. They hung like angry white pustules ready to explode. I shook my head to rid myself of the image. Why did it have to storm today? Why couldn’t it have waited until tomorrow or at least until I was denned down for the night?

“We can do it. We can do it,”

my inner beast purred to me.

It wasn’t the delighted purr he let out most often but the purr that told me he too would rather be anywhere this storm front wasn’t instead of chasing after angry dragons. Still, I left home to help people and that’s what I was doing. Thunder rolled over the land and my fur. I bit back a yowl and raced quicker until the B&B was in sight again. I hit headfirst into the ‘doggy’ door I hadn’t noticed before and managed to squeeze through as lightning lit up the world. This time the yowl crawled out of me hot and angry.

“May I help you?”

A perky man with a beaky nose said from behind the front desk. He smelled like birds, and it took me a moment to realize he was indeed some sort of bird shifter. He wore a name tag too. This one was wooden with the letters of his name, “Erak,”

burnt into it. The name suited the dark-haired man. Erak sounded very much like the sound some bird lost in the forest would make.

I tried to shift back but was met with a wall of fur, teeth, and claws. My jaguar wasn’t giving up his control. I stroked his fur from the inside, but he didn’t budge.

“You’re a jaguar,”

Erak said, rounding the desk. “You must be Othoni. We took your stuff up to your room. Most guests don’t drop off luggage and then skedaddle, but we took care of it anyway. Guests are encouraged to enjoy themselves in any form they please but if you are Othoni please nod. I’d hate to think I couldn’t tell the difference between a shifter and a wild cat, but stranger things have happened.”

I blinked at him and then nodded. Of course, Erak was a bird. He talked waaaay too much to be any other sort of shifter.

“This way to your room,” he said.

I opened my mouth to inform him despite the cat-eating storm brewing outside that I couldn’t remain here long.

I had to find Teddy and get him back to Dern.

Doors often showed up during storms and I didn’t travel all this way to let the old wolf down.

Except the bird didn’t speak cat.

So, I followed him to the room I booked and walked inside.

Once he was gone and out of the way, I slunk back out into the hallway.

Thunder roared above the house, and I pressed myself to the floor. I wished more than ever that I was home with my pard where I could hide under older, fatter cats.

Nonsense.

It was all nonsense.

I was the future leader of the pard.

I could walk down the hall and sniff out a dragon during a storm.

Shit! This all sounded more and more like the start to those horror films that Mori loved more and more with each press of my paws against the soft B&B carpet.

I ignored the pretty white wallpaper plastered with a pink rose pattern as I padded down the hall sniffing Teddy out.

I hadn’t smelled him before, but I’d smelled other dragons.

Besides, how many lizards were staying here? I breathed with my mouth open in between thunderclaps.

Lightning sizzled through the sky, making my fur stand on edge even if I couldn’t see it.

Hundreds of people had walked up and down this hall.

Some scents were fresher than others while some lingered in the back as if they passed by once for fun.

Then I found HIM.

There HE was.

He? The dragon! My dragon! Everything inside me exploded as another thunderclap sank its teeth into my nervous system.

Shit in a tree!

Shit in a tree!

Shit in a tree!

His scent was the strongest in front of this door.

This is where he’d come back to.

Thank the old ones that all the doors had ‘doggy’ doors big enough for me to slip through.

I slid into my mate’s room and blinked.

If the sky wasn’t threatening to bring about the end of days, I might’ve snooped around.

I would’ve felt bad about it, but he’d have forgiven me eventually, right? That’s what true-mates did. Mori was never going to believe this!

“Xenos is never going to believe this!”

my jaguar yowled into my thoughts as the thunder smacked against the sky again.

“We’re not bothering him and Barry while they’re on vacation!”

I shouted back at him to remind me not to poke them over the pack link. “Don’t poke anyone!”

Lightning lit up the room and together as one we scurried into Teddy’s bed and dove under his blankets.

There were piles and piles of pillows and blankets as if he slept with a family of eight by his side every night.

I buried myself under them all and rolled in his scent. Perhaps storms overlooked dragons. They were part lightning after all, right?

Shit in a tree!

Shit in a tree!

They were metal too! Shit in a tree!

“Not that sort of metal. They’re insulated against lightning,”

my jaguar said but I wasn’t sure where he’d heard that before because I for one had never thought to ask if living dragons were conductors of electricity. In the end, I chose to believe him because it made sense. You didn’t read about dragon shifters being struck down every time a storm passed overhead.

Buried under my true-mate’s bedding, I did my best to ignore the storm. The B&B wouldn’t flood. It wouldn’t be struck by lightning and burn us all up alive.

It wouldn’t swirl around like some angry giant until it disturbed the air enough to whip up a twister to toss right at me!

Shit in a big tree!

I let out a long, slow breath and squeezed my eyes shut.

If I pretended to sleep the time would pass quicker.

Eventually time passed unknown because one can only pretend to sleep so long before actually drifting off even if the sky is threatening to make good on its ancient promise to destroy the world.