Page 57 of Prince of Storms
“Welcome to Mount Drakonus,” Tor said, spreading his arms wide and finally dropping my hand.
I soured slightly as the pulse of giddy energy faded, but my awe at the size of the place kept me distracted. Eventually, I turned to see that the portal wasmassive. Easily ten times the size of the one in the basement of Tor’s house. If not a hundred. White stones arched up to the top, glowing brilliantly from the blue-white display sizzling between them.
“This is big,” I said, swallowing, suddenly nervous at the idea of just how many millions of tons of rock were standing above me.
“It has to be,” Tor said. “My people need the space.”
“You do?” I looked at him. “Listen, you’re tall, but I mean …”
Tor grinned. “In this form. But in our other form, well, see for yourself.”
He spread his arms wide and, in front of my disbelieving eyes, began to change.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tor
“Holy. Shit.”
I stifled a toothy grin as Mia’s curses only grew more varied from there. A dragon’s grin, full of teeth half the size of her, was perhaps not something she needed to see right away. The reveal of my true nature was likely enough.
My wings spread wide, a brilliant sapphire blue like my eyes. They stretched, and I suppressed a groan at using muscles I hadn’t flexed in nearly a week. It feltgoodto finally be back, not just in my realm but in my true form.
The membranes eventually calmed, and I folded them down along my sides, where the wings were actually duller in color than my scales, which reflected the light of the Rift to reveal their near baby-blue coloring, marking me as a pure born noble, descended directly from the immortal God-King himself.
Reflexively, I glanced upward, my orange cat-like pupils staring at the ceiling. Far above that resided the God-King, at the very peak of Mount Drakonus. What he did up there, I had no idea.
“Tor?” a tiny voice squeaked, bringing my attention back to ground level.
“Hi.” The voice that emerged from my mouth was deeper and full of melodic undertones, making it somewhat sing-song, but it was definitely stillme. I could see that recognition in Mia’s eyes.
“You’re a … dragon,” she said, licking her lips, her eyes wide.
“I am,” I said softly, lowering my head to the ground and resting it on the floor, hoping that was as unassuming as it felt. I needed to put her at ease.
“Ha-ha, yeah, right!” Mia said, looking around. “Well played. Good trick. Where are the mirrors? How did you do this? That was incredible. Are there cameras making it look like you’re a dragon?”
“Yes,” I said, deciding to play along with her thoughts. “Just walk straight forward. Hands out. You’ll go through the projection and see it from the other side.”
Mia frowned, slowly approaching my dragon, her hands out in front of her. The closer she got, the slower her steps became.
“I can feel the breath of your nostrils,” she said as my neck curled around to watch her reach my left flank.
“I know.” I didn’t say anything more. There didn’t seem to be anything Icouldsay. I was winging the whole reveal-thing anyway. I had no idea how to go about it. Nobody did. We weren’t supposed to let humans know what we were. Yet there I was, forcing one of them to come to grips with it.
No, not “one of them.” She’s my mate! She’s more than any other human. She has the soul of a dragon in her.
I’d already seen bits and pieces of that, from how she reacted to certain stresses or problems. The electricity of a storm dragon fueled her soul, and I couldn’t wait to dive into understanding Mia completely and thoroughly.
Soft hands made contact with one of my scales, drawing me back to reality as Mia gasped. “This is so lifelike. I thought you said it was a projection.”
“How else was I supposed to get you to come closer, Mia?” I said gently. “I need you to see that this is real. That I am not faking it. I am a dragon.”
“A dragon,” she said. “You’re a dragon. You can transform into a dragon?”
“Technically, I can transform into a human,” I said. “We are dragons. You are in the dragon realm.”
“In the dragon realm,” she said distantly, feeling her way along my flank, to my tail, and up the other side, alternating between dragging her fingertips across scales and spikes on my tail to pressing her palms flat, feeling the coolness against her skin.
