We were all orphans, searching for a home. That was why I couldn’t leave. They needed me. And I couldn’t walk away.
Not until they, and Fate, let me go.
Vali held up the book. “I have something here—thought it might be useful.”
My smile was more authentic this time. I took the book from her and opened to the marked page.
It was Marcus. Or rather, the creature I’d seen emerging from his skin, I was sure of it. The same dark scales with their distinctive clear spikes in the center, on an animal that looked vicious as hell.
“Storm Drake references are hard to find,” Vali raised her eyebrows. “They were a species magically enhanced by the Torshins about two thousand years ago. Storm Drakes commanded the power of the weather, most often, lightning and thunder. They were supposed to be extinct, but Isobel must have found—”
“So that’s how Marcus took Brock down,” I said.
Vali nodded. “But this reference talks more about the biology. Storm Drakes were hermaphrodites.”
I struggled to interpret this as an important fact. “Hermafro what?”
“They were both male and female,” Vali explained.
I stared at her. “Wouldn’t that get a little—confusing?”
“Yes and no.” The Dragona stared back. “They could, apparently, shift back and forth as needed. I don’t know if they were ever both at the same time.”
“That’s—interesting, Vali.” I was struggling to sound enthusiastic. An interesting fact, but not particularly useful.
“Lucas told us you’re part Morph,” she said. “You’ve sprouted Storm Drake scales before.” When I still didn’t twig, she continued, “He can’t be afraid of mating you, if you can match his beast with one of your own.”
Floored was an understatement. I imagined Triss laughing in the back of my brain. Vali had just handed me the means to claim my Centaur.
* * *
The sunlight filtered through the leaves of the massive trees.
I had no idea where I was going, really. After Vali returned to the treehouse, I just started wandering.
She’d said that Marcus was out here, somewhere. I was determined to find him.
I’d just stopped to admire a brilliant-blue flying insect when I heard the singing.
The voice was deep, smooth, and it thrilled me to the core. It was accompanied by a beat that mimicked hooves upon hard ground.
I had no doubt who it was.
Marcus was singing in a language I didn’t know, but the rhythm of the words spoke to my heart. I followed him to a stream trickling through the trees.
Seated with his back to a wide trunk, Marcus had a section of half-rotten log braced between his knees, and was pounding on it with a broken branch to create the hoofbeats.
I froze amid the dense vegetation. He didn’t see me—he had his eyes closed as he sang.
His expression showed how immersed he was in the song. The words flowed from him like the water at his feet. Sweet, and yet sad. And my pulse matched the beat of it as the melody carried me away.
Beautiful.
He was wearing a tee shirt at least a size too small for him, and it hugged his every contour like sin itself. I longed to touch him, and I took an involuntary step forward.
A fallen twig cracked beneath my foot.
Marcus was on his feet in an instant, swinging toward me, and then freezing.
