Page 51 of Gift from the Wing

“You’re sure that’s fine? I don’t want to cause trouble for the Matriarch or her men,” he says, turning to me.

“If it were a problem, Momma Vito would’ve told you not to fly,” I say, turning from him to get ready to shift.

Deciding to shift into the size Tanith is, I tilt my head back and let the magic wash over me. It’s such a freeing feeling. When he gets in moods like this, I walk around with tight, itching skin until I set him loose.

Stretching out my wings and neck, I shake the rest of my body out as I get in a balanced stance and then look to see if Tanith is ready.

Keeper’s gaze instantly lands on mine, and I pause my movements. Just as he looked at me the first time I shifted in front of him, I catch him staring mesmerized again, and I don’t know what the hell to think about it. I mean, he has his own bonded dragon. It’s not like this is some spectacular new thing for him.

“Oh, but it is, young one,”Tanith says, and I cut my eyes to her.

“You ready?”

“After you.”She laughs.

Smart-ass dragon.

Since Keeper’s in a tizzy about flying over the people in the Central, I lead us in the direction of the mansion instead. There’s nothing but forest from here to there and it’s all our land, so there’s no one else to worry about. When he gets more comfortable with letting Tanith fly more places, I’ll take Willow and her to where the Central meets Terrian. The mountains and cliffs there are killer to fly between.

Letting my dragon take the helm since he’s the one who needed this little excursion, I fade into my mind, trying to put together the pieces of all the shit that’s been going on here lately. It’s all a clusterfuck to me, and I want to figure out the fastest and best way to end this shit so we can have a long, relaxing life.

Sooner rather than later.

“You and your young flight have had many changes in the small amount of time you’ve been together,”Tanith says, breaking me out of my thoughts.

“How do you do that?”I ask.

“Do what?”

“I know you can’t read my mind, or at least I never read anything that said dragons could read minds, but you always seem to know what I’m—even Willow—is thinking.”

“It is my ability to gather impressions. Your thoughts pulsate. Let’s call it a signal, and I can interpret its meaning.”

I startle at her words for a second.

Shit, we can do that too. Except we don’t gather impressions from other people. We get them from our dragons.

“What about that confused you, Draken?”

“Not confused me, per se, but Willow’s and my dragon pass impressions to us. It’s how we communicate with them. If communicating is what you want to call it.”

“Fascinating. I’ve been curious as to how you and her speak with your counterparts since you are one and the same.”

“Curious? You seem to already know it all.”

“No, not all. But I have generations’ worth of knowledge stored in my mind that does allow me a greater sense of understanding. But you and your beloved are the first of your kind. Just like your father and me. That is why he looks at you like something magnificent. It is because you are.”

Father…Not going there.

“In the books I’ve bothered to read on dragons, nowhere said that you feed on knowledge and that’s how you grow to be so intelligent,”I say rather than acknowledging anything else she said.

“It is common knowledge in Essemist Keep, but many from other realms dared not come near us. Fear of being eaten, which is such an offensive notion. Dragons do not eat people for the fun of it. So the tales told of our kind leave out very viable information. There’s also our communal knowledge that we do not broadcast with others outside of our kind.”

“Communal knowledge?”

“Yes. Yours and your beloved’s are already beginning to come forth. I just don’t know what all will be available to the two of you or where all it will come from.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

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