When I woke up, sunlight was streaming into the room. I was still on the couch, with Kane sleeping under my head and Avi on the floor in front of me. Even after all that sleep, I was still feeling rundown.
‘Zehra, what’s going on with me?’I asked. At this point, I was starting to panic that something was truly wrong.
‘I think you need to shift.There’s something I want to check before putting it into words,’she said. Her uncertainty and concern came through strongly, so I forced myself to sit up and stretch. It was almost like I was seeing and hearing through a bubble. Everything was clouded by my lack of energy, like something was zapping it away.
‘Am I cursed?’I thought back to her. The idea made sense. I mean, there were enough witches around to justify that leap in logic.
‘No, I don’t think so. I’d feel the magical intrusion if you were,’she promised. That helped settle some of the fear but not all.
“Hey, you. Feeling any better?” Avi’s tired voice asked from the ground. I shook my head and hated that the worry on his face got worse.
“Zehra thinks I need to shift,” I said in a gravelly voice that didn’t sound like my own.
“Levi won’t be back for a bit,” Kane said. “The stores were already closed, so they had to wait until today.”
“It’s still too early. It’ll be several more hours until they get here,” Avi agreed.
Sighing heavily, I shook my head. “I’ll stick close just in case, but I have to. This isn’t right.”
Neither one of them looked happy about it, but thankfully, they didn’t argue. They remained stoic as I gathered my things, and I knew from the scent of worry and panic in the air that they weren’t happy about it.
“I promise that I’ll be alright. Fatigue isn’t going to make me fall, and just like all shifters, I heal more in my beast form. Zehra is asking me to do this, and she wouldn’t do that unless it was truly necessary,” I said, begging them to understand.
“I don’t fucking like it,” Kane said bluntly. “We can’t help you if something happens. What if you lose energy mid-flight?”
“I’m not that bad right now,” I insisted. “It’s more like when you’re hungover. I don’t feel close to passing out. I’m just going to fly somewhere and lay low while I heal. It’d be a bit obvious if I camped out right here.”
Avi frowned. “We won’t stop you if this is what needs to happen. Just promise that you’ll come back to us if you feel off.”
“Of course,” I agreed. “And I’ll take my phone. I can shift with a bag.”
“Okay,” Kane sighed, standing up and starting to pace. He was acting calm enough, but his scent said he was livid. Needing to get out, I pulled on my boots, grabbed a bag and phone, and gave them each a kiss.
“I’ll be back.” With that, I walked outside before they tried to convince me to stay.
‘I need you to shift to know for sure, but it’s not a bad thing,’Zehra said, bolstering my resolve. As soon as I took a few lungfuls of icy air, I started to feel better. The skies were cloudy, ready for a winter storm. I hadn’t checked, but I had a feeling it would be a bad one, so it was definitely good that the others were coming back with supplies.
My shift was different this time, like I had to fight past a barrier to get to the shift itself. It was slow, the magic flowing over my body at a languid pace to the point I could feel Zehra’s confusion mixing with my own.
When it took hold, my senses sharpened and my energy doubled. It was exhilarating. Even as I gave control over to Zehra, I could feel the intensity of every shift of our muscles, every flap of our huge wings.
As we floated over the mountains, I felt something new. The other dragons in the area were on my radar. I could feel their energy back at the hotel, in the town, and in the sky. A group of dragons were approaching right now.
‘I feel amazing, Zehra,’I admitted, even more confused now. This wasn’t the first time I’d had to shift to heal, but this felt different. It never took hold so drastically.
‘My intuition was right,’she said softly. That had my heart racing inside our chest, her excitement and awe entwining with my uncertainty and confusion until I became dizzy. She steered us to a cave mouth we knew well, waiting for the dizziness to pass before she spoke again.‘You’re incubating eggs.’
My mind blanked out at the news. Dragons were nothing like other supernaturals in regards to how we were born. Once we mated during a heat, any pregnancy that took resulted in the formation of eggs. We carried them for a few months before birthing them, then we kept them warm and safe in our nest until they hatched. Our babies would be dragonlings for a month before finally shifting to human form. But I hadn’t been through a heat. How could this be possible?
‘How, Zehra?’I begged, needing some sort of explanation.
‘The night you all spent together,’she reminded me. I’d had a flash of heat, but it didn’t take hold. It wasn’t a real one, and even though we were mates, they hadn’t claimed me yet. What the fuck kind of crazy twist of fate was this?
Tears fell from my eyes, turning icy in the bitterly cold snow that was already starting to fall. If I were in human form, it would be so much worse, but Zehra was keeping us safe while I wrapped my head around everything.
Not once did I fear my mates’ reactions. They might be as shocked as I was, but they’d never shy away from this duty. We didn’t use protection, but I’d taken birth control shots. Heats could lessen their effectiveness… but I hadn’t been in heat with them yet.
‘Dragon babies, the first in so long,’I said, my feelings shifting to match Zehra’s. This was everything I wouldn’t let myself dream of before my mates crashed into my life and changed everything. Now it was a reality, one I was ecstatic to share.