Page 23 of So I Dared a Dragon (The Mating Game #6)

twenty-three

. . .

Calista

“I don’t want to leave.” I sighed. “This place is so magical.”

I was lying in bed wearing nothing but my newly acquired scales, tangled sheets, and my hot dragon, who thought I was powerful enough to liberate an entire lost thunder.

But it wasn’t just what happened between Aarix and me that made this place special. The sun gently rose over the mountain peaks with pastel pinks, blues, and soft yellows. Pinecones were tipped with snow, and birds sang in the trees.

Aarix’s body vibrated as he pulled me closer to him. The muscles between my legs throbbed in response, and everything ached in the best possible way. My dragon had explored my new body all night long, giving it a fantastic welcome into this realm.

But this morning, he just pressed a kiss against my temple. “Now you know how I felt every time I watched you leave the caverns.”

Oh, my heart.

“But I always kept the faith that you would come back to me.” He chuckled softly. “I dreamed of this, but I thought it would always stay inside me. Not sure I’m ready to share this version of you with the world.”

“That’s profound.” I pushed hair away from his face. The only thing more beautiful than the scene beyond our windows was him. “How do I compare in real life?”

He blew out a breath. “There’s no way to compare reality to dreams. Having you here in my arms is much better than anything I could’ve imagined.”

I rolled back with a happy sigh. “You’re such a romantic.”

“I never stopped believing I would be able to reclaim my power with my mate by my side.” The skin around those green eyes crinkled as he smiled at me. “And it was worth the wait.”

“You could be one of those people online who gives new-age advice,” I said. “Now that you all have phones. People make millions talking about what the ancients believed.”

Aarix furrowed his brow. “How do they make money? Everyone should know these things.”

“Hi, have we met?” I laughed. “You’re wowing me with it. And I think it was in the best interest of some to make us forget our power.”

“Don’t believe for a second that your power is ordinary,” he growled.

“I don’t.” How could I make him understand this? “Take my pack, for example. They wanted me to be mundane. To put their wants and needs first. To forget about my own desires and what was in my heart, because they needed me to fight for them. When I fought for me, I lost every time.”

“You never lose when you fight for yourself, sunshine.”

“I should be filming you when you drop these truth bombs.” I gave him another kiss. “You’d go viral every single video.”

“How would I find these videos?”

“They’re everywhere.” I was excited any time I had a chance to show my dragon something new. “And I swear, these devices listen to us, so it will probably pop right up as soon as you open any of the apps.”

“Let’s see these online gurus.” In a fluid motion, he pushed the sheets away and rose from the bed to retrieve his phone from his overnight bag.

It was such a mundane thing for a spectacular creature to do, and I wondered if I was being selfish, dulling down his power for him to fit into my life. Then I reminded myself that he’d turned me into a freaking dragon. I wasn’t dulling anything. I would do absolutely everything to rise to this occasion. To not shy away from the inevitable challenges and shrink when it got hard—which it definitely would. Aarix had risked so much for me, and there was no way I could let him down.

He came back to bed and snuggled next to me. I loved how normal this was, the two of us propped against pillows, having a scroll sesh, when absolutely nothing else about us was ordinary.

When the screen lit up, it was full of notifications. All I could read was Luca’s name at the top of almost all of them before Aarix expertly swiped them away.

“Wait.” It took everything I had not to snatch the phone away from him. Patience didn’t come with my dragon superpower starter pack. “Go back. Those were from Luca. He might have found something important at the museum last night.”

“I’m not ready to deal with Luca yet, sunshine.” He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me closer. “We’re still on our date. The rest of the world can wait until you show me how to find these videos.”

Seriously, could this dragon get more perfect? My heart wouldn’t be able to take it if he did. He handed me the phone. And with every ounce of restraint I had, I refrained from showing him how to Google “The Museum for Shifter History” and “incidents” and instead found someone making millions teaching people how to tap into the ancient laws of the universe.

He stared at the screen in disbelief. “That’s it? That’s all they do?”

“They make it look easy, which is the hard part.” I swiped to the next one. Now that we’d watched one, the algorithm would feed us a steady diet of them.

“I don’t understand how they make money.” He frowned as the video replayed.

“This is how they hook you—with their short form content, their podcasts, their lifestyle aesthetic posts. Then they give you a little freebie, in exchange for your email, of course, and eventually convince you to buy the product that will absolutely positively change your life.” I chuckled. “Ask me how I know. I might be a member of more than one manifestation academy. But no one managed to actually change anything until I met you.”

“Ah, now I understand what you meant by people benefitting from you not feeling special.”

That hadn’t been what I meant—I’d been talking about my pack. But Aarix always saw things on a different level, and I was really excited to join him there.

A knock at the door made me jump.

“Hello!” Bibi’s voice rang out through the cabin. “Your chariot awaits.”

I hoped it wasn’t a bad omen that she’d replaced Marissa and Bjorn on their babysitting shift.

Aarix blinked rapidly, just as startled as I was. “I can’t believe it’s already time to go.”

“Time gets away from you when you get sucked into the internet.” I put my head back on the pillow and groaned. I was so not ready to leave, but today was the absolute worst timing for a rot day. Even if I was showing an ancient dragon how to become a social media millionaire.

Rally , I said to myself.

“Be down in a minute,” I called out before planting a quick peck on Aarix’s cheek. “We need to get dressed.”

He nodded and rose from the bed in all his naked glory and pulled clothes out of his bag. I could watch him bring the extraordinary to the mundane all day long, but there was absolutely no way my fairy dragmother arrived without her camera crew, and I had no plans of giving them a walk of shame.

It would be a stride of pride and I would look fucking awesome doing it.

I took my bag into the bathroom. It was the first time I’d gotten a good look at the new me. A lot of the old me had survived the transformation. My skin was still pale where it wasn’t covered with scales. A few blotchy red patches had bloomed, probably from being in bed, but I wondered if they were the beginnings of more scales. I was still round in the hips, belly, and butt. My thigh dimples didn’t magically disappear. But I had an armor of golden scales that shone like flames in the mirror. They covered my arms, went between my cleavage onto my belly, and covered most of my back.

They were beautiful. Fuck that. I was beautiful.

The bra was a whole new kind of torture. My skin was still sore from the bloom of scales, like I had been sunburned, but it was a necessity since magic had not yet blessed me with perky boobs. Bibi had packed one of my favorite sweaters. It was super soft and oatmeal colored. In the front, the neckline came right to my collarbones, but it dipped down to just above my bra strap in the back. She’d paired it with faded jeans with rips covering the thighs, and chunky casual beige boots that felt like slippers.

Now to get these fuck knots out of my hair.

I’d do a total reset once I got to Bibi’s house, but for now, I started braiding. My heart pounded, warning me that the braid would reveal my new scales.

Before last night, I would’ve been all too willing to hide. But I wasn’t interested in keeping secrets anymore or playing small to make anyone else comfortable.

Smoothing the braid over the front of my shoulder, I headed downstairs. Aarix was already down there, charming Bibi and Hugo. They’d been inseparable ever since their reunion, and every time I saw them, he was touching her. Even now he had a protective hand positioned at the small of her spine.

Bibi didn’t need anyone to fight for her, but I loved that this wolf literally had her back.

“I assume it was a good night, since there are murder robe feathers everywhere.” Bibi laughed, but her face fell as I came closer.

All those badass things I’d just declared about hiding got put to the test immediately.

“You look so different,” she said, taking a few tentative steps away from Hugo toward me. She was just in one of her velour tracksuits this morning, and I didn’t need to see the back of it to know her name was in rhinestones on her bum. But she slowly walked around me, taking everything in, with her purple lips in an astonished O. “More than that, you feel different. Your energy has totally changed.”

Aarix beamed at me, so proud.

“Thanks for noticing,” I said playfully, like I’d simply bought a new eyeshadow palette. “So we need to talk. Maybe we could have a girls’ day today?”

Hugo let a low growl loose at my suggestion. He might have forgiven Bibi, but he had a way to go with me.

Which I had a whole new set of questions about.

Why did this wolf hate me so much, and why would he go to such lengths to keep me from Bibi?

Something told me it went much deeper than jealousy.

“You simply must tell me every single detail of your alone time with that hot dragon!” Bibi sipped her mocktail as she settled onto the couch.

I had to hand it to her—she could whip up girls’ day in on a literal moment’s notice. Not only had we changed into brand new athleisure wear that gave off serious retro jazzercise vibes, we both had our hair piled on top of our heads to make way for the thick, luxurious mud masks. It was so soothing to my sore skin, I wished I could have bathed in it. On the coffee table in front of us was the most elaborate charcuterie board I’d ever seen. It was a work of art and almost too pretty to eat.

After being ravished by a dragon all night long, I was starving.

As I slathered fancy cheese on an artisanal cracker and topped it with locally made jam, I recounted every detail. At least, the ones I could remember. How scales erupted from my skin, and fire had blossomed from my very core.

“I’ve shifted many times, but I’m familiar with my animal. To have something completely unexpected come out of me, I don’t know what I’d do.” Bibi popped a grape in her mouth. “How does it feel different than being a wolf?”

“It feels like someone finally turned the world on. Like my life just started.” It was time to flip the script. If this feeling were true, real, it meant that someone had intended to keep me in a box, away from my true potential. Which meant we needed to have an uncomfortable conversation. “Speaking of wolves, we need to talk about our pack.”

She furrowed a brow. “Colorado Ranch?”

I shook my head. Not in my wildest dreams would I ever claim to be part of this new pack. They’d been gracious and kind to me, but also cautious.

“No. Montana.” I expected her to brace herself. “Specifically, how did they talk about me when I wasn’t around?”

She took a moment.

“I’m not sure what they said to you when I wasn’t there, so I can only share what I remember,” she finally said.

“That makes sense. My life with the pack already feels like it had happened to another wolf, and that was before I transformed into”—the scales on my arms would forever catch me by surprise—“whatever I am now.”

“A badass.” Of course Bibi could make it that simple. “They wanted me to protect you, but I always thought it was because you were important to them. You were so involved in the pack, always in the middle of everything. I never thought of it as anything else, to be honest. Montana was very good at making enemies, so I never questioned that they would want me to protect one of our own.”

“Aarix thinks they knew what I was all along, but why would they agree to protect a dragon?” Which also made me wonder—was Bibi something more than what she’d been told? There was a reason we’d been so drawn to one another.

“Money. Our pack loves nothing more.” Bibi sighed. “But last night’s searches came up empty. Luca and Magnus found no evidence that dragons had ever lived near Sunset Springs.”

“Really?” I wished we were drinking something stronger than mocktails. “Because I did in the very first display that we looked at. Aarix confirmed it. I had planned to share it with you, before the second exhibit was totally wiped from existence.”

“Are you sure? Because we had a big conversation with Laura, Wendy, and the rest of the curators. The dragons were discouraged when the left. My heart went out to them.”

“Aarix had a bunch of notifications from Luca on his phone this morning. Not that I had a chance to read them, but they definitely didn’t seem like he’d come up empty-handed.”

“That’s very interesting.” Bibi sounded skeptical, and I wasn’t sure if it was Luca or me she doubted.

You’re telling the truth , a brand-new voice inside me said, loud and clear. Why would the dragon be dishonest?

My scales stood at attention, like a wolf’s hackles.

“I gave Lars a call on the way to your cabin,” Bibi continued. “It was an intriguing conversation. While he seems sure there were dragons in this mountain range, he can’t recall any details about them. And that’s not like Lars. His memory and attention to detail are normally unparalleled.”

“Whatever is wiping this history away also got to the big guy. That’s terrifying.” But we were getting off track, so it was possible that entity was playing with my thoughts too. “It still doesn’t explain what a fairly insignificant wolf pack from Montana would have to do with powerful ancient creatures in Colorado.” Our pack didn’t have much reverence for history, and we certainly missed the memo on love thy neighbor . “Why did they try to push us together when we definitely weren’t mates, and I might not even be a wolf?”

“It’s an excellent question,” Bibi said with a sigh. “When I left, I felt so selfish for wanting something else. But no matter what they told me, I was a wolf in the wrong body, forced to fight, and no one cared that I was full of love.”

“Did you ever stop to think why?” I asked. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t—not about that. My questions were very different before now.”

She shrugged. “I took it all at face value. I only knew that version of the world until I created my own. That was the way it was, and I never thought I could change our pack.”

Oh, interesting. “But that’s literally what you do. It’s your passion. You’re a fairy dragmother—you give people total life makeovers—why would you not even consider doing that for your own blood?”

She startled like I’d slapped her. “I think you’re onto something.”