Page 15 of Smoke and Flame

“What?How?That’s not possible,” she shook her head.“The air wasn’t breathable until a few years back.

“For humans, that’s true.Our kind was not affected in that way.”

Humans?“Why do you keep referring to me as ‘human’ or ‘my kind?’”She slowly slid her gaze down and up his body.The man appeared to be the same as her and all those on the other side of the wall.

“We are not the same, Kai.”He leaned, closing more space between them, as he seemed to watch her.

Why, she didn’t know.

“In what way?Besides the fact that you can all supposedly train dragons.Maybe Daenerys Targaryen wasn’t simply a character in George R.R.Martin’sA Song of Ice and Fire.” She’d read the digital series in the archive cellar more than once.In the Dispatch, they were only allowed eight years of schooling before they were required to work, so it had become essential for her to continue her education through books.

Before her parent’s death, she’d spent her time off lost in old stories.No one wrote new books since the catastrophe, as if creativity got destroyed along with the Earth, at least in the Dispatch.They only learned writing, reading, math, and history in school.Leaders in the Consumer district had sent messages that it was more important for everyone to study history to prevent repeated mistakes.It was rumored that the Consumer children went to school longer and learned science and technology—the devices in the care plaza proved it.The Dispatch was a place for laborers.So, it was common for people to read books and find some relief in their imagination.

“I’m unfamiliar with that person.”He linked his hands together between his knees.“However, in my knowledge of humans, they often altered reality into fiction before the world changed to make it more palatable for the masses.Shifters and other preternatural believe in truth.”

“Shifters?Preter—what?”Her temples were beginning to thump with a budding headache as she tried to understand the insane pattern of this man’s words.

Aodh exhaled.“There is too much for me to get into now.But I will say that our kind has been here since the beginning.Something your human leaders have been aware of for centuries.We have lived and worked among you.Never hiding ourselves, but our traits and abilities we agreed to keep private.”

“Abilities?”Her mind was spinning, and she hesitated in her next question, a part of her screaming she wanted to know the answer.“What do you mean?”

Aodh didn’t move.His turquoise-opal gaze shadowed as if he was considering what to say.

Is he worried he’ll freak me out?If so, he could let that go because she was already getting spooked.The hairs on her arms were starting to rise like when someone was telling a ghost story, and you knew the climax was coming, and you’d scream.

“The things you have witnessed are some of our abilities.Magic doesn’t allow me to blow smoke or cast fire.”He slid his hand forward and stretched his arm toward her.“What do you see?”

She looked at his thick, corded arm, hovering over her thigh but not touching her.The colored lines of the design that ran from his wrist and up to his shoulders and beyond seemed to shift from one shade to another.Staring closely at the tones, she noticed they replicated the shades in his eyes.The color looked more like jewels instead of the painted ink of those she’d seen displayed on people in the Dispatch.She wanted to lift her hand and trace the lines starting with his arm and seeing where they led.His face was clear of them, but did he have themeverywhere else?

Now that she was allowed to study them up close, the pattern reminded her of scales on a reptile.However, she’d learned Aodh was touchy about those kinds of words.“Your tattoo changes colors.I’ve never seen that before.”

“Not ink.No tattooer placed them on my skin.They are there because of the beast within me.”

She could feel the tightening of her brow as it puckered between her eyes.Before she could question Aodh, he went on.

“Dragons are not fake.They are very much real and here.”His words rumbled; they were almost inarticulate.

She shot a glance over his girth to the massive space behind Aodh, then to the window.Edging back in the chair, she was apprehensive that one would appear at any moment.Kai gripped the arms of the chair and shifted back in her seat.“Are they coming?I don’t really need you to demonstrate it by calling one here.”

“We are not tamers.My beast is here.”He pounded his hand on his chest.“You are not ready to meet him yet.”

Yet?How about never?

“I don’t understand,” she whispered.She wished she could have conjured up more strength in her voice, but she felt too out of sorts.

“My people have two forms we live in.What you see now is a man.Iama dragon-shifter.”

I am a dragon-shifter.I am a dragon-shifter.Aodh’s declaration continued to repeat itself in her mind.At first, when she’d put the two words together earlier, she used it as a facetious moniker or perhaps their occupation.Her mind didn’t fathom the full implications.But now. This man.This smoke-churning, fire breather could turn into a dragon.

Often in the Dispatch, when someone stated something outlandish, the natural response was to say, ‘prove it.’But she choked down those words.She didn’t want Aodh to show her some gigantic beast before her eyes.

She didn’t think about running.When they walked, Aodh moved swiftly, and she doubted she could make it to the door before he grabbed her.She also had nothing to defend herself against an attack.And like the front door, the swords mounted on the wall were too far away to reach.Perhaps she could get out the big window and leap to her death.It’s better than being devoured.

Pushing further back into the chair, she pressed her knees to her chest and tightly wrapped her arms around them.“Are you going to eat me and my sister?Is that why you brought us here?”

His gaze went from turquoise-opal to black as his nostrils flared.A short puff of smoke came out of them.

“Aaah—” Kai slapped a hand over her mouth to try and stifle the scream ripping through her throat.

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