Chapter Ten
The enormous pink sun warmed the morning air, and a gentle breeze ruffled the strange feathered tops of the silvery trees. Kodran’s parents and sister and Dot-R were all there to see them off.
Rosamund stood next to Kodran, but she could hardly look at him without blushing, remembering how bold she had been the night before.
Yes, it had been a dream, and she’d woken up in her own bed alone, but it had also been kind of real – she knew that Kodran remembered exactly what had happened as if they’d really been together.
But at the moment, his mind seemed to be on other things – bearing her away for a whole two days to…do what exactly? He hadn’t told her yet.
“Stand back,” Kodran advised her. “I get quite large when I shift.” He turned and jogged off until he was about fifty feet away from her.
At first nothing happened, except that the air around him seemed to shimmer, like a heat haze. He closed his eyes and threw back his head, flexing his muscles. Smoke curled from his nostrils. When he opened his eyes again, his pupils were reptilian slits. The scales at his temples spread over his face and washed down his arms. The bones in his face shifted oddly, pushing his mouth and nose out into a dragon’s muzzle, and spikes cascaded down his spine, shredding the black silk of his garments. Immense wings ripped from his back, beating the air, lifting him off his feet, and when he returned to the ground with an earth-shaking thump, it was in the form of an enormous red dragon.
He turned his diamond-shaped head on his long, serpentine neck and looked directly at Rosamund. Involuntarily, she took a step back. He was huge. Watching dragons flying from a distance was one thing – coming face to face with one on the ground was quite another. He was magnificent, yes, and beautiful, every scale a gleaming jewel, but he was also frightening. She could feel the heat radiating off his massive body.
But then he lowered his head so his muzzle was inches away from her face, slowly so as not to startle her. He huffed softly, a puff of warm air, and when she looked into the dragon’s eyes, she saw him there, looking back at her.
Kodran.
She couldn’t be afraid of him.
At his parents’ urging, she scrambled onto his back. She felt his powerful muscles bunch beneath her, and then his immense wings, their membranes like red silk, thrashed the air as they left the ground.
The climbed quickly into the sky, and the air became chilly, but Kodran’s reassuring bulk beneath her kept her warm. Beneath them, the town fell away like so many dolls’ houses, the castle at their center like something from a Disney movie.
They flew out over the alien forest, the wind from Kodran’s wings ruffling the silver fronds on the tops of the trees. Songbirds chirruped with alarm and scattered, and Rosamund spotted a squirrel-like creature with silky blue fur leaping from branch to branch before scrambling into a hole in a tree trunk. When they passed clearings in the silvery canopy, she caught glimpses of orange-red creepers twining themselves up the trees, heavy with warty-looking acid-green fruits.
About half an hour later, they landed in a big clearing. There was a cobblestone building there, looking a great deal like an Earth cottage. Apparently when his clan had landed on this planet a couple of months ago and built their first town, they’d also built this traditional Draell mating lodge, in anticipation of their clan leader finding a mate.
Kodran settled low to the ground, curling his tail against his flank to give Rosamund an easy way to clamber down from his scaly back. She found she was reluctant to lose his warmth, but she climbed down anyway, letting her fingers play over the glossy, gem-like surface of his scales.
As she stepped back from him, a shudder rippled over his enormous body. The membranes of his wings shivered, then folded like the world’s most complicated piece of origami and withdrew into his spine. His limbs shrank and reformed, and his scales were replaced with smooth, soft skin over taut muscle. Kodran the dragon was gone, replaced by Kodran the man.
Who was as naked as the day he was born.
* * * * *
Kodran stood there naked before the beautiful Rosamund. The door to the cabin was open, and they were alone. The things that he was going to show her…
A shrill cry came from the trees, answered by several more cries like it.
Dozens of little creatures that stood about as high as Rosamund’s knees dropped from tree branches and ran up to them. They wore loin-clothes woven from leaf-fronds, and nothing else. They were covered in long, silky white fur.
He felt a rush of frustration. He’d been waiting for this moment from the very first time he’d laid eyes on Rosamund, back on Agora.
“Leave us in peace, Feerbas!” he snapped at the little natives.
“Oh, no, Kodran, they’re adorable!” Rosamund said happily. She sank down onto the soft, mossy forest floor and let them swarm all over her. One of them played with a braid in her hair, then pointed to its own fur.
“You want me to braid your hair?” she said delightedly. She quickly braided its fur, her fingers flying.
Kodran groaned.
“I’m sure they all have places to go and berries to pick,” he said, walking over to her. “Don’t you, Feerbas?” He’d never been tempted to kick a small, furry animal before, but at the immediate moment, he could just barely restrain himself.
“Braeeeed heaaarrrr,” they clamored shrilly at Rosamund, ignoring him.
“Kodran, aren’t they the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? Don’t you just love them?” she cried.