Page 24 of Rifted Hearts
Remi bit into one of the lettuce wraps, which had a southwestern-style filling of corn, black beans, and adobo sauce. “No, I’ve just been in a salad sort of mood since I got here.”
“I enjoy playing around with my grill and my kitchen.” Kaveh gestured to the multiple colorful but tiny plates around them. “Although I usually stick to simpler recipes and larger portions. How about I make you a home-cooked meal? I’m planning to speak to Garreth and Chrissie early tomorrow morning, and afterward we could take Amanita and Ranger and have a picnic lunch before heading into the monstertown together.”
Remi laughed. “We haven’t even gotten to the main course yet, and you’re already hitting on me for a second date. Maybe I don’t have much to teach you after all.”
Kaveh walkedover to Remi’s cabin the next morning feeling better than he had in months. Telling the truth—or at least most of it—to Garreth and Chrissie relieved a burden of guilt and anxiety that had become such a part of his daily life he’d forgotten what it was like to be in a good mood.
The couple had listened with rapt attention as he explained his drakone background, the Matchmaker, and the likelihood his future spouse was someone he knew. He withheld the details of the bloodthirsty history of the Azdaha, as well as his manifestation of summ, and instead laid out the basic facts of his background.
Xiang Jao had found him in the care of a human familyin Isfahan, Iran, when she and other matriarchs had traveled the post-Sundering world seeking others of their kind stranded on Earth. Kaveh had been taken in as a foster child, and the human family had little information about his past. The matriarch had been able to sense his true nature but not explain his entirely human appearance. It was typical for drakones to hold a humanoid form until adulthood, but no one would normally confuse a juvenile of Kaveh’s species with a human child.
Air drakones rarely attained their aerial forms before fifty Earth years of age. Rhys, the youngest of the clan except for Kaveh, had been a prodigy at forty when he soared into the clouds. Their aquatic cousins, like Ceto, might live a full century before transforming into their vast serpentine bodies and diving into the ocean depths. No one knew when or if Kaveh might be able to achieve an earth drakone alter form. Even the oldest matriarchs of air and sea knew little of Azdaha life and culture.
So here he was, he told them, a thirty-year old man they’d known for years who might someday transform into a dragon, and who was currently searching for a life partner selected by an alien process akin to magic.
Garreth thanked him for sharing this with them, and Chrissie added with a smile that they had suspected their favorite veterinarian had more in common with his Riftworld patients than he let on. They reached out together with intertwined hands to touch the gold bracelet, and to Kaveh’s immense relief the object had remained unchanged.
That left a good number of potential matches at both the ranch and in the monstertown, but he would worry about that later. Right now, he had a picnic lunch date with Remi to look forward to.
Last night had been a lot of fun. Remi was a charmingdinner companion, regaling him with entertaining stories about live-streams that had gone disastrously wrong. Kaveh had relaxed enough to tell a few funny anecdotes about his own work, and Remi even pulled their server into the conversation. The young woman was a graduate student in exobiology at a local university, and Kaveh promised to send her an article he was working on about mothcats and their ability to translocate.
He had walked Remi to the door of his cabin and thanked him for a wonderful evening. Only later, as he sorted out his options for a simple but tasty picnic menu for their next fake date, did he realize why Remi drew out that final conversation so long.
He had been waiting for a goodnight kiss.
Kaveh once again wished he was better at picking up on these types of signals. Maybe that had been Remi’s idea of a final exam after a night of teaching dating skills.
Maybe it had been more than that.
Kaveh walked up to the cabin, spotting Lyall sitting outside in a pool of shade. The terrier cocked his head as Kaveh lifted his hand to knock on the door.
“He’s not even close to ready, is he?” Kaveh could have sworn the dog tried to roll his eyes when he asked the question.
Remi eventually answered the door, his hair sleep mussed and wearing a tight-fitting T-shirt, boxer shorts, and not much else.
After trying and failing to convince Remi he could come back later, Kaveh gave in and entered the cabin with the terrier darting inside with him. He busied himself giving Lyall a package of beef jerky while Remi dressed and performed what he insisted was an abbreviated version of his late, late morning beauty routine.
“The threesome with Garreth and Chrissie is off.” Remi summed up and dismissed hours of Kaveh’s internal torment in eight words. “And they’re cool with you being a dragon. This deserves a celebration. I hope you packed champagne in the saddle bags.”
“I brought mint-cucumber water,” Kaveh said. “Given that it’s not even noon yet. But hopefully the dessert will make up for the lack of alcohol. Plus, you said you were in the mood for salad, and I brought that as well.”
“You remembered.” Remi beamed at Kaveh as he splashed on a bit of cologne. “I promise I’ll try anything else you made. Well, unless it’s fried or greasy. Not that I’m picky or anything.”
Lyall gave a short bark that sounded like a laugh.
Kaveh finally got Remi out of the cabin half an hour later. They headed out into the saguaros on Ranger and Amanita with Lyall trotting alongside them as Kaveh told him more about the picnic spot.
“It has a view of the old military base with some shade to make it more comfortable for the horses. We used to have our lunch ride end there—wine or beer with cheese and snacks, that sort of thing. But with the rift storms increasing in frequency, I convinced Garreth to keep those rides closer to the ranch.”
“What’s up with this base that has you worried about a rift storm?” Remi relaxed more in the saddle. He had made progress with his riding in only a few days. It helped that Amanita liked him, even giving Ranger a shove when the gelding tried to lean over and give the vid streamer a nip. “I thought the dragons were the boss of these here parts.”
Remi added a ludicrous accent to that last part, and Kaveh couldn’t help laughing, despite the topic under discussion. “My drakone clan and its matriarch Xiang Jaoare responsible for security in our riftland and in the interzone that includes the monstertown and the base. That doesn’t mean they govern the various clans who live here. Laws and customs are clan based in the Riftworld, although there are elders, like the guardians, who might be asked to mediate a dispute between clans.”
“What kind of mons live in there, then?” Remi pointed at the gray bulk of the abandoned military compound in the distance. “It has a creepy vibe.”
“You might be more sensitive to the psychic impact of the species there than a human would be.” Kaveh saw Remi stiffen at that phrasing. Did he feel uncomfortable talking about his background even with someone who shared Riftworld blood? Remi had told him he had no idea what clan his birth father had been from and, like Kaveh, had only ever held a purely human form. “Many of the species there avoid sunlight and appreciate the protection the buildings give them to raise their young. One clan, though, has been trapped inside the base by design since the military pulled out. Humans call them phantoms. They’re sapient invertebrates who view all other life forms as a potential food source. They inflicted mass casualties on the troops stationed there.”
“About that military pullout.” Remi sounded only mildly curious. “How did the military even build the base if it’s in a Riftworld interzone? Even basic human tech isn’t reliable in an interzone, much less military weapons and electronics.”
