I screamed, and buried my face in his feathers. His wings braced my thighs and prevented me from sliding back across his muscular, broad back. I grabbed his feathers as we ascended into the air, the storm gusts causing him to sway back and forth as he road the winds.
I cracked open one eye and instantly regretted it. Having nearly fallen to my death, getting another view of the city from this angle was too soon. Itek only had to shift onto his side and dump me and whee, falling again!
I wanted to be down on the ground again so bad. I clung to his feathers with all my might and did not look back down.
The flight seemed to last forever before I felt him descending, and then his wings swept out, powerful strokes against the back of my thighs, lifting and grinding me against his back. I gasped and squirmed, because this was not okay, I was on the back of a mythological shifter, and my body had suddenly decided it was a great time to get aroused...
Tingles started between my thighs, and my core heated and moistened, terror mingling with the way his wings shifted me like his hands guiding my body on his.
A few more powerful thrusts, and his claws clicked and scratched on stone. Then his wings folded against his sides.
Breathing hard and flushed and wet from more than just the incoming splatters of rain, I lifted my head out of his feathers. On a stone balcony. Trembling violently, I tried to shift my weight off his back so my privates weren't getting quite some frisky with his spine, and looked around. Right. A large stone balcony, a tower, and—
I could see the whole town from here. It seemed like a house built of stone, right into the stone of the mountainside, affording a view of a the bay, the city, and a massive shining building up a large, well-kept twisting cobblestone path. It looked like a castle, or a massive cathedral, with walls and gardens, and towers and windows and I didn't have the words to describe the structure further.
He shifted under me.
I squeaked and gasped, startled in a few different ways, and hastily threw my leg over him like he was a horse and tumbled onto the stones as my shaking legs refused to hold my weight.
He peered down at me.
I scooted backwards, then shuddered again as two massive dragons drove wind and rain into me as they alighted—far less gracefully—on the balcony. The stones somehow held their weight and didn't crack under their huge claws.
Itek was looking at me with those cat-eyes of his, and whatever he saw, I probably didn't want him to see.
Korr nudged me with his snout. I scrambled back farther.
The green dragon heaved a sigh that shook some petals off his hide. He walked past me and through massive archways I hadn't previously noticed. Korr nudged me again.
Okay. They wanted me to go inside. Righhht. I stumbled to my feet, my legs shaking so badly I could barely walk, and staggered inside out of the rain.
Once over the threshold I promptly dropped to my knees again, shaking from terror and quivering from what riding Itek had felt like. My nerves tingled and my core's emptiness assaulted me.
The green dragon retreated to a corner to observe and preen the feathery-moss between his claws. He laid on a giant bed of river rocks that crunched under his weight.
The room was too much to take in just then beyond the large mound of hay in another corner, and some furniture, and things that shone. Outside the storm hit in full force, howling across the city with rain sideways.
Korr shifted into human form and went to close the glass doors. Somehow they did not shatter under the driving rain. Thunder cracked overhead. I flinched.
Itek watched Korr, then turned his attention to me.
I tried to decide if they'd saved me or not. Korr's silk veil had gotten wet in the rain, and was now transluscent and plastered againist his body. I tried not to stare. That was someone's husband. Off limits. Oh, and a dragon. And dragons ate everything.
The green dragon chewed on one of his talons. chomp chomp chomp like a cat grooming its claws.
Korr's lips curled. "You're staring, little one."
"I've never met a dragon," I retorted.
"Have you never seen a male's genitals either?" he asked, raising white brows.
"Your genitals aren't my business. I've got enough to worry about," I said. They were Itek's business.
A chuckle from the green dragon. Itek flashed a grin at Korr, and made a strange noise somewhere between a cat and bird chirping.
I'd met plenty of wolf-shifters, and the handful of cat shifters, but I'd never met mythological shifters—and they were... different. But they said the wolf shifters were the youngest of the shifter races, and the closest to humans. Maybe it was true. Maybe the ancient shifter races were not at all like us, and in their day they had had their own mythological races to admire.
Or these guys were just trying to act mysterious around me and torment me to amuse themselves.
Itek came over and extended his hand towards me. "You need a bath."
I hugged myself protectively. "I've been travelling and I can't fly."
"Did you enjoy it?" Korr inquired.
"She screamed the whole way," Itok said.
"That is not usually the reaction you are looking for when someone is astride you," Korr told Itek. More laughter from the green dragon.
"It was novel," the griffon said. He spared a look for the other dragon. "That is Ethat."
"Um... why am I here?" I asked.
"Why do you think you're here?" Korr inquired.
I swallowed a groan.
"Bath," Itok said firmly. Then he looked at Korr. "Draw the curtains and put on some clothing."
Korr gave him a wicked smile.
Itek guided me out of the lavish main room as Korr yanked the curtains closed. I got an eyefull of the ice dragon's chiseled back side as he moved the curtains, and his perfectly shaped buttocks and powerful thighs and broad, muscled back. Itok coughed, and I whipped my head back around.
"Sorry," I muttered. "I'm not trying to be rude."
He guided me through the most lavish bedroom I'd ever seen—I didn't even have words to describe what I saw beyond primitive words like 'bed' and 'blankets' and 'pillows' and 'painted walls' that sort of conveyed the raw basics—into another room lined with marble and illuminated by gas lanterns on the walls, like a grotto.
Itek glanced upwards. There were windows in the ceiling, but they were covered in loops of velvet, blocking out what little light there was from the storm passing overhead. Another crash of thunder shook the stones.
I'd heard of bathing rooms like this, and there was even the large tub off to the side. The deep recessed basin we stood in also had a drain in the center. Off to the side was a metal shelf under which a stone trough of hot stones sat, and on the shelf, multiple metal buckets. Itek used used thick pads to grab a bucket in each hand, and carried those to where in stood in the basin. Hot water steamed in them.
Then he brought me another tray, this one made of wood and inset with four large stone containers. He lifted the lid off all the containers to reveal mountains of shining soap flakes that unleashed a torrent of scents into the warm air. Then he replaced the lids, and finally produced two towels and a strange, rough yellow lump filled with wholes. It squished when I squeezed it.
"What's this?" I asked.
"A sponge," he said, voice exactly neutral and nothing at all in his cat-like eyes. "It is a creature from the sea. Good for scrubbing once dead and dried."
"It's dead?" I asked, distressed.
"You eat meat, do you not?"
"Sometimes?" I said evasively. "If I'm hungry enough."
"If you're hungry enough?" he asked with interest. "What does that mean?"
"I prefer not to," I said, still feeling shy and evasive. Beggars couldn't be choosers. I preferred not to eat meat.
He gave me a critical look. "I see you and hunger are well acquainted."
I flung the sponge at him.
It bounced harmlessly off his shoulder and rolled to the ground.
"I—" I said immediately. "I'm—"
He picked up the sponge and offered it to me again. "It has no brain. This is the entire body of the sponge. It is something between a plant and an animal."
Reluctantly, I took the sponge again. I wasn't silly. I wore leather, I ate meat, I ate fish, but I just preferred to not eat meat. It made me feel vaguely sick. Probably because the livestock had been contaminated with the infected grass. It was impossible to water pasture. A special calf or pig might be raised for a celebration and carefully fed the best possible food, but things like milk, cheese, eggs, meat... all the livestock ate off the infected land, became infected themselves, and yielded infected products.
I stared at the gold thorn around his muscled chest, aware of the burr under my clothes.
"But you do eat meat," he said. "You can eat meat."
"Yes, of course," I said. Dragons and griffons probably ate a lot of meat. I didn't want to make myself a bigger pain in the ass than necessarily. My preferences weren't about to get catered to. Although maybe I should make myself a pain in the ass if they were fattening me up to eat me.
This seemed to disappoint him, though it was hard for me to explain why. Griffons ate meat. They were hunters and predators, and dragons were the terrifying swine of the ancient myths.
After a weird moment, he shoved his finger into the sponge clutched in my hands. "I do not intend on bathing you. I hope you already know how to wash yourself?"
I blushed. "Yes."
He strode out of the room and closed the door behind him.
And somehow I'd ended up here with two dragons and a griffon. After meeting an unkindness of ravens, and a crazy old guy who liked to smell my hair to get off. All because Tynn had wanted to wash himself clean.
No, because my best friend had decided that the Chamber washed everything clean, including the love I'd had for Tynn, and she'd moved to take care of herself.
Time to wash myself clean.
* * * * *
Korr lounged on one of the large couches, wearing a robe carelessly sashed around the waste. Ethat continued to preen. Itek returned, still in his shift-attuned lion cloth.
"You might think in all these centuries," Itek said as he poured himself some wine from the selection on the sideboard, "that we'd have figured out how to make more substational shift-attire."
"The ravens have figured it out," Korr said. "We just don't care."
"You just like the world to see both of your forms."
"I do not see the difference. I wear nothing in dragon-form."
"Your cock and balls aren't on display in dragon form," Itek said.
"Yours are," Korr replied, amused. "Tell me the difference."
"Mine are shielded by a layer of glorious tailfeathers. You are a liar if you say you don't feel vulnerable without your scales and eschew attire."
"I prefer to wear my scales, no matter what that parasite-riddled bird says," Korr said.
"Well, you are going to have to humor that little-used human form of yours for a time." Itek sat down on the opposite couch and crossed one knee over the other.
"Is she scrubbing the dust off her?"
"She did not know what a sponge is."
Korr sighed. "Did you have to explain the nature of soap?"
"She is not stupid, she is just from the interior. They do not have sponges. Ethat, are you going to come talk to us, or just act mysterious?"
"That's the plan, isn't it? One of us always staying in shifter-form as a precaution?" Korr said.
Ethat snorted.
Itek drank his wine. "The ravens are overly interested in her. Damn birds."
"She may not be who we are looking for," Korr said. "A scrap of the old blood, perhaps, some distant descendent, but she's totally ignorant. Did she say anything to offer a clue?"
Itek sighed. "She said she can eat meat. She does not enjoy it, but she can."
Ethat crooned something, and Korr's expression cooled. The ice dragon said, "I suppose that will make feeding her less problematic."
"She is not stupid, at least," Itek said.
"But she may not be who we are looking for," he repeated. "She is too... human. And the meat."
"She is human," Itek said, although he sounded unconvinced. "She may have some traces of the blood, but she's human."
"No, she is not," Korr said. An affirmative snort from Ethat. "I am certain she is not human enough to be human."
"So she has some less-distant blood in her past, then. I swear, if this has been a twenty-year chase of wasting our time," Itek growled to himself and finished off his wine.
"Don't exaggerate. Sixteen years," Korr picked up the pendant around his neck and dangled it meaningfully between his fingers.
"I was rounding up," Itek said. "And this... goes back." he gestured off to the side and didn't say more. "We are arguing in circles."
Korr's expression clouded like winter skies. The rain continued to slam the windows and stones, a steady torrent of water, and the wind howling, and another crash of thunder rattled this level of the city. "We proceed with great caution. Especially with the ravens and wolves watching us."
Itek swirled what was left of his wine. "Did you notice she recognized our Trinkets?"
Korr raised a white brow. "Did she? Your eyesight is sharper than mine."
"She did. Pupil dilatation, a flush on her skin, a quickening in her breathing. Shock. She recognized both our Trinkets."
Korr reached up and touched the gold thorn around his neck. He pricked the sharp end with the pad of his index finger. Ethat raised his head off his nest of stones, and clenched and unclenched his talons, like a giant cat kneading.
Itek finished his wine with a flourish, and said nothing, the silence between the three of them thick with a conversation they had had a hundred times.
/******
PEEPS.
I THINK I FOUND THE PLOT.
********/