16. FOREST EXCURSION

Monday mornings always sucked. This one was no different, at least as much as waking up with two women you love wrapped in your arms in a comfortable bed in an apartment that was financed on your behalf until you no longer required it could suck. As comfortable as I was in the moment, I still had to get up to go to the gym, where Zoey would invariably kick my ass, followed by a quick return here to shower, and then Sam and I would navigate a lesson from Antonin. I wasn't sure what the evening held for me, but I wouldn't bet on it being lying in bed with my girlfriends. Hah, girlfriends.

Beth and Sam got up as I did, honoring their self-imposed commitment to exercise as long as I was. Cynthia was out already; a note left on the bar counter let us know that she would be out of town to handle something that came up as a part of her real job. Sam shrugged at us as she made herself a cup of coffee, having no more information than what was in the note. She told us that these unplanned, indefinite trips were rare, but this wasn't the first time she had woken up to a missing mother.

At the gym, Zoey did put me through my paces. Monday turned into a back day — heavy deadlifts into volume sets of weighted pullups, facepulls, and pendlay rows with nearly as much weight as I used to deadlift. Even as a dragon, back days were physically exhausting, and I was absolutely dogging it through the end of workout cardio cycling. The one upside was that Zoey was friendly and upbeat during the entire workout, and she fell into flashing me bedroom eyes when she thought I wasn't looking, a burning intensity I hadn't expected to be possible in her grey eyes. I only caught her the first time while watching myself in the mirror during a rep. I had to give Zoey credit — if her wolf was sending impulses anything like my dragon was capable of, that she hadn't dragged me to the showers for some team bonding was impressive.

It was fortuitous that at the end of the workout, she asked if I was available for a first date tonight. I agreed, with the condition that she help me find a place for Beth's. I asked her if something reminiscent of one of the museums in our hometown existed here, but for magic. The place I was thinking of was a grade-school to early teenager oriented educational but enjoyable science and technology museum — more "science communication for kids struggling with the material in classes" than a typical museum, with hands-on activities, demos, games, movies, and presentations. If something like that existed for the magical world, it would kill two birds with one stone, giving Beth and me a place to interact with each other with little stress or expectations and provide a different foundational experience than Antonin's lessons. Not to disparage the old elf, but his bedside manner left something to be desired, and Beth very clearly didn't respond well to his dry lectures. Luckily, Zoey told me she had something in mind and would have more information for me tomorrow morning. When she'd kick my ass again, with chest and pressing arm movements.

Back at the apartment, I found Sam and Beth, covered in sweat, spread out on the two couches. My two exhausted girlfriends joined me in a three-person rinse-off. Despite having no real struggle with it during her first time, Sam was surprisingly bashful about undressing in front of Beth and me for the shower. Her nudity was a source of great pleasure for Beth and me, but she remained insistent that something was wrong with her body. Once we finally got her out of her head and into the warm water, Sam's worries quickly flowed down the drain. Beth and I took turns washing her, swapping which one of us was genuinely cleaning our voluptuous bedmate and which one was simply enjoying her form.

She had much more hair than Beth did, thicker and fuller even besides the length, so I spent a long time working over her scalp, caressing her skull with the shampoo they had decided on and then drawing her conditioner through her fiery mane, while Beth washed Sam's face, neck, and shoulders. The shower was large, undeniably so, but with three of us, it was at its capacity, and Beth and I barely interacted, except where our hands brushed against each other while comforting Sam.

Getting dressed was a straightforward affair, although we heard the door open and shut and Evgenia announce that she was home for the day as she passed by in the hallway. I told Sam and Beth that I would be out with Zoey for the evening but that I wasn't sure if that included dinner or not. Beth suggested she would talk to Ev about making something in the vampire's wheelhouse, get groceries if needed while Sam and I learned with Antonin, and then put a portion aside when she made it tonight. Zoey had told me to wear clothes for a jog in the park, so that's what I did. Lighter athletic shorts, a tank top, and a hoodie just to wear to wherever we were going.

Conveniently, the relaxed fit worked just fine for sitting through a lecture. Antonin gave us a more in-depth look at enchanting by having Sam and me examine different enchanted objects, getting a feel for how the magic flowed through them and modified them. We didn't actually create anything ourselves, instead simply identifying and deconstructing the different established patterns used in the basics of real enchanting. It was enlightening to finally understand how the self-cleaning, self-repairing fabrics worked — and how my bed always seemed perfectly fresh, even the morning after I had been intimate with one of my mates.

No longer burdened with insecurity over her minuscule mana pool or stressing about proving her worth to me magically, Sam showed how astute she actually was. She took to the enchanting lessons like a duck to water, quickly picking up intricacies I could barely discern even after they had been pointed out. It made some sense that she was more skilled at detecting the very precise minutiae, as that scale was where all of her magical experience lay, but it was great to see her thriving in a task. Throughout the entire lesson, and lingering even as I kissed her goodbye, Sam gleamed with satisfaction, and I could feel how fulfilled she felt.

Watching Sam practically bounce down the sidewalk as she returned to the apartment, I texted Zoey that I was ready to go and where I was. When a sparklingly polished black Corvette coupe pulled up to the curb and flicked its hazards on, I was momentarily taken aback before recognizing Zoey in the driver's seat. I was surprised to notice that the car had federal plates on it. Zoey explained that, due to the permanently on-call nature of her previous position and the necessity for occasionally interfacing with mundane police while traveling in a personal vehicle, it was easier to have it licensed to the agency. Fewer questions were asked when someone appearing from an OGA (Other Government Agency, a catchall for an operative of an unclear federal agent Zoey explained when I questioned the unfamiliar term) showed up with obvious credentials than when someone in a flashy personal vehicle showed up. Especially when they showed up at an in-progress crime scene with inexplicable forensics data and claimed jurisdiction over the entire investigation.

She was taking me to a state park outside Philadelphia with a mythic reserve — a place for the more physically inclined shifters to break free and run for a while or the more nature-inclined spirits to set up a personal grove and get away from the city every weekend. She wanted to be around me as a wolf again, to see how our other halves reacted to being around each other in a less constrained setting. It was an hour away from downtown Philly, mostly by highway. Zoey drove faster than I thought I'd be comfortable with, yet somehow made me forget that I was in a luxury sportscar going faster than the speed limit on public highways. Even carrying on a conversation with me, she never seemed to react to any of the other drivers, consistently already predicting what their moves would be, taking preemptive actions to ensure the ride was smooth and always in her control. It was almost eerie, reminding me of feeling like I was in a vehicle section of a first-person shooter campaign mode, just along for the ride as the AI moved me along the rails as I was distracted by all the set-piece explosions before me.

The entranceway to the reserve reminded me of every other state park I had been to before, with a small faux-woodsy cabin and security gate at the entrance. I was caught off guard by the fee not being cash only, as Zoey paid for our parking and day pass by tapping her phone against a wireless device the attendant held out to her. Only the most touristy state parks I had been to even accepted cards in my experience, which this one didn't seem to be. The parking lot was a little shy of half full, unsurprising for a weekday afternoon, and we were unaccosted as Zoey parked and led me to one of the trailheads.

"We're going to walk this loop of the lake as humans, and then I want to go off to the less mundane section and run as a wolf, alright?"

"Works with me."

She turned and eyed me sharply with her grey eyes, her sneakers grinding on the asphalt surface, saying, "You're allowed to have your own opinions, you know? I expected your dragon to be more demanding and assertive. You're unlike all the warning fairy tales I listened to as a child."

I shrugged, smiling indulgently. "Oh no, I'm not like the evil tyrants. Might be because a week ago... No, two weeks ago now, I wasn't a dragon at all. Just your brother's friend."

"What's it like?" She asked sincerely as we walked past the trailhead map and out of the parking lot.

"Overwhelming. I don't think I'll have another answer for at least a year, when I can look back at this with hindsight and calibrate how I feel with perspective instead of ignorance. Right now, I'm just treading water and trying not to get too far into debts I don't understand and can't pay off.

"I have two girlfriends soulbound to me through means even the experts here seem unable to decipher, a vampire PA who doesn't act like a vampire and is terrified I'm going to punish her for things that aren't her fault, and a werewolf trainer who is mated to me by her were nature. Even though she's my best friend's sister and, therefore, the situation is naturally confusing, it's a level of complication the people around me seem to understand; if you ignore that she knows I have two other serious girlfriends and is still desperately interested, that is. I'm learning how to cast magic, shapeshift, fly, and people around me beg for my favor in every interaction. There's so much on my plate, and I'm woefully unprepared.

"On the other hand, I've discovered that I won't ever see my family again. I'm going to live forever, and all of these remarkable women I'm involved with and their children won't. I've been summarily made the head representative for several people in a city I hadn't set foot in before this month, and everyone outside that group seems to want to use me in some fashion to benefit themselves. I found out my two best friends had been keeping a terrible secret from me my entire childhood, admittedly not by their own choice, and that the first twenty years of my life were a clever ruse where I watched the marionettes in the puppet show dance without ever having a clue that there was a man behind the curtain. I feel like I've just woken up from a lifetime inside Plato's cave.

“Sam is hopelessly reliant on my attention at the expense of ignoring everything else in her life, obsessively craving my presence. Beth is terrified that she won't measure up to Sam and that she can't be a functional member of our relationship because she has no idea what healthy interactions look like outside of caricatures of them on TV, ignoring that no one else our age is any better. You're hesitant about committing yourself because every other part of my situation is so unbelievable that there was no way to take my truths at face value. Ev doesn't see herself as a person, only as a tool for me to use, and I have no idea about how to help her without making more of a mess — but everyone who has interacted with her before just passed the buck along when she was no longer useful to them, and that makes my heart hurt.

"And then, you add in that I feel like a schizophrenic, with this beast in my mind roaring about whatever bullshit he feels at the moment. Telling me about the best ways to manipulate the people around me and take control without giving me any context as to why I should be doing these things and with no apparent regard for the long-term consequences of burning every bridge on day one, simply because he thinks we're stronger than everyone around us.

“Frankly, it’s probably a good thing that so much is going on. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I’m getting fucking tired of having the same experience with everyone I meet. At every step of my introduction to this world, I have been tested and prodded until I met some arbitrary threshold. Treated like a criminal because of things other people have done. Cynthia did an entire interrogation of me, Aisling came out forcefully in our first meeting, Antonin needled Sam to test me, and you know what you did. I know I’m no longer in the human world with human laws and ethics, but innocent before guilty certainly makes sense from my position.

“It’s getting really tiresome to be treated like I’m a ticking time bomb when I haven’t even done anything wrong. And then, once I pass muster, I go from being a live grenade to a winning lottery ticket. Aisling isn’t providing teachers and resources because I’m an utterly ignorant newcomer to her community who needs assistance — she’s doing it to place me squarely in debt to her. Every time someone judges me for the sins of my ancestors, makes me jump through hoops before tolerating my existence, and then transitions directly into seeing how they can use me and what they can get out of me, I feel more and more justified in listening to the dragon’s instincts and exploiting them right back. Sam said she hated the entire magical society and was close to withdrawing from it completely, and I wholly understand why she would feel that way after just a week here.

"So, overwhelming, Zoey, is what it's like. Maybe when I'm no longer wearing cinder blocks for shoes, and I'm allowed to surface for air, I'll have another answer, but for now, the water is way above my head and the tide is still rising."

Zoey looked at me with a surprised, eyebrows raised expression of shock before de-escalating the conversation by jokingly saying, "Damn, James, tell me how you really feel."

Chagrined, I sheepishly responded, "Sorry. I didn't mean to dump that all on you, especially on what was supposed to be a first date, but it felt great to get out."

She shrugged, "I won't say I enjoyed it, but it's nice to know there's a spine in you somewhere. So far, you've taken everything in stride and been very patient with my hangups, so I'm actually reassured, in a way, to see that things do get to you. It makes your regular calm seem more genuine."

"I think I got it all out of my system, and we can focus on us now. No more ranting about my problems."

Zoey reached out and ran her arm along mine, bedroom eyes very much in full effect as she said, "Your problems are going to be my problems, James. Letting me know about them is only fair."

We paused on the trail for a few seconds, her eyes affixed to mine and her torso leaning into me, before a twig cracked somewhere behind us on the path, another group of day hikers interrupting our almost moment.

I coughed as we began walking again, awkwardly asking, "So, do you come here regularly? What do you normally do when you're here?"

"Well, I usually don't stick around this area. There's a locker room for shifters and spirits to store clothing and car keys and such by the lake, designed to look like a lakehouse changing room, and then I shift and go running through the woods. I figured you'd want to talk as humans first and might be uncomfortable getting right into the buff with me."

"I'd like to think I'd have been fine with it — years of swim meets have desensitized me to both changing in strange locker rooms with people I've never seen before and to having myself just kinda out there — but I do appreciate having time to talk." Left unmentioned was that we had already seen each other.

"That's good. What do you want from me, James?"

I looked at Zoey in her black yoga shorts and neon green tank top, and she just smiled patiently at me. I laughed as I realized she was serious.

"Keeping it light after my rant earlier, hey?"

"Well, I told you. My wolf wants you and wants a litter, preferably last week. Not to make this super transactional, but we're basically in a marriage arranged by my nature, and I would like to know what it will cost to get what I want out of it."

I pursed my lips and thought for several minutes, watching the ripples in the water's surface from the handful of swimmers braving the chilly late summer lake. The trail we were on was easy, and it was simple enough to allow my legs to walk on autopilot as my mind thought about what I could ask of Zoey. I hadn't considered it in the way she framed it, so even though it wasn't an incorrect way of portraying our burgeoning relationship, I had no idea what to suggest as something I wanted.

"I don't know, really. I'd like you to apologize to Beth and Sam. Dinner with us? An overnight at our place? The only thing more significant than just a single box to check as a formality would be no drama between the three of you. But I don't know what actionable steps I can put forth to accomplish that. I think that after I do dates with the two of them, the four of us should have one. Do you have any ideas for what we could do together like that?"

"That's a great suggestion, but, all you want is for me to do things I was planning on doing already? Isn't there anything you want?"

I shrugged, "For you to pursue happiness and find yourself satisfied in our family?"

She shook her head, "Okay, so, rapid-fire questions to get something silly and instinctual out of your head. First thing that comes to mind. I want two children, you want?"

"You to consider naming our daughter after my sister?"

Zoey laughed incredulously, covering her face with her hands and saying, "God, every word of warning I had is just useless. Aren't dragons supposed to like exchanges? Aren't you looking for something of equivalent value from me?"

"I just don't see that you're asking me for anything I would be otherwise disinterested in doing. I'm going to give up a little bit of my time to raise a child with you, but I just found out I have infinite time. And, given current circumstances, she'll be raised with a mom, a dad, two step-moms, and a live-in grandmother getting her first grandchild. The sleepless nights won't even be entirely ours to bear. The dragon certainly likes transactions, but you're asking him to do something he wants already. It's the human who was unsure about jumping right to children. Still, most of my concerns have been at least lessened by the fact that it's not just two of us against the world where somehow I have to figure out how to make a car payment and a mortgage payment while you're on maternity leave and constantly exhausted from the physical burden of giving birth."

Zoey nodded and smugly asked, "So, now?" Her smile let me know that, as ready as her engine was to race to the finish, she wasn't serious or intending to pressure me; she just wanted some brevity.

I smiled back at her but said, "If you're ready to tell me all of it?"

Her eyes sharpened, and her joyous features fell flat in fear, "What do you mean?"

"Zoey, are you dying?"

A flash of white-hot anger blossomed on the blonde's face as she demanded, "Who told you?"

"No one that was keeping your secrets for you. Antonin's history lessons included information about weres lifespans and how to reckon them. You yourself suggested that you had been pulled from active duty and given a retirement-esque training and concierge position. It doesn't take a genius to put those together."

Her anger, blooming into a righteous rage at the idea that a supposed friend had betrayed her truths, was suddenly wrought without fuel, fading and dying on her face, replaced only by tormented acceptance that I knew.

"I wanted to tell you, but I didn't want to force your hand. I didn't want you to feel as though you had to say 'yes' because of the consequences of saying 'no.' I hoped you would agree outright soon, and then I could tell you."

"Zoey."

She met my gaze, and a visage of horror occupied the once beautiful face. She reeked of guilt and shame and regret and her hands trembled under my stern watch.

"I know I should have told you, James. I know. But I was overwhelmed with having finally found my mate, a boy from my childhood inexplicably my destined one now, and then he wasn't were, and then he was a dragon and maybe misleading me, and then he wasn't misleading me and Mal was right and I was such a fool, and then I opened my mouth to ask for something without giving the full context why."

"Zoey."

Her pained eyes found mine again after they had searched the landscape, desperate for an answer to a question I hadn't asked, and I noticed flecks of lavender tinting them for the first time.

"Come here."

She hesitantly stepped closer and then released a terrified whine when I wrapped her in my arms, hugging her lithe form tightly to my chest.

"I'm not upset. I understand how hard it is to share and how terrifying it would be to think it would influence my decisions. But, if we're going to make this work, like you said earlier, your burdens are my burdens."

It took a few moments of deep breaths for Zoey to relax into my arms, and as the group that had been behind us passed us by with several second glances, she whispered, "I'm still sorry, James. I know I keep fucking up with you. I'm just used to not having to deal with the consequences. Live hard and die young and all that, except it was decided for me at birth."

"You don't have to explain it, Zoey. I'm not upset about this."

After another thirty seconds of me simply holding her, she shivered in my arms, taking a deep breath with her face pressed against my neck. I watched as a tide of goosebumps swept across her shoulders and upper back, spreading out to cover all of her exposed skin and beyond, invisibly pale fair hairs standing in unison. She sighed into my neck and said, "They told me I'd know when I had found my mate. And I knew on Tuesday, obviously. I remember laughing at basic when others found theirs, how young, lost, and spacey they'd act. But here, I get it. I don't really know if I was alive before."

"You obviously were."

She shook her head without lifting it from me, "I mean, sure, but it was like looking at life through a black and white audioless 240p display from across your living room and then being handed a 4k VR headset. You can watch a sitcom, play a game, or do a training sim on both of them, but after using the second one, the first one feels hollow, incomplete, and unfulfilling."

I sighed, with Zoey's change in demeanor and clear display of the inevitable, imminent defeat to her wolf's instincts making me feel obliged to share information. Information that wasn't concretely defined or even conclusive in any manner.

"I should tell you something."

I paused, giving Zoey a chance to interrupt as the tone in my voice suggested I had something grave to say. She didn't interrupt, simply clinging to me in the woods as other people walked the trail past us, lost in the world that existed between my arms.

"I don't think I'm just dragon. I had a crazy dream during the week where I interacted with something that felt sentient. It asked me to help it and I agreed in the dream. I talked with Antonin about this, and he had no ideas. After shifting by the pool, it was one of the things I spoke with Aisling about. She also wasn't sure what to make of it."

Zoey shrugged, indifferent to my words, content to remain where she was.

"You aren't bothered by it at all?"

"We already knew you were unique and odd, even for a dragon. Why weren't you a dragon at birth? Your parents aren't anything magic and you didn't give off a hint back then. Even with your suppression ring on now, you feel imposing. How'd you bond with Beth? I read the dossier on her enchantments and the incident report from outside the bar. No one knows what to make of it, and it's being hushed and forgotten. Why weren't you clearly my mate at school? Even though I was young, I should've felt something drawing me to you. I should've been clinging to you like a smitten schoolgirl, even worse than Sam did. Instead, nothing. You walked into the gym last week, and it was like suddenly half of you was revealed.

"That's a big part of why I thought you were toying with me. I felt nothing when I woke up that day. I should have gotten a sense you existed and were in the city, a little tug on my soul telling me you were out there waiting for me. But I got up and went to work; nothing was different. And then I walked into the lobby and — WHAM — all of it at once. What hid you from me until I was in the same room as you?

"But, no. I appreciate you telling me, especially when I haven't been as forthright, but it doesn't bother me. It's so vague as to be meaningless in terms of predictable consequences and actionable prevention steps. Aisling wouldn't let you walk around in the city if she felt it was a risk to the public and Antonin wouldn't hesitate to warn her if he felt something was off."

I understood what she meant. From a tactical point of view, as Zoey was trained to evaluate things, my warning was just noise. 'Something might be weird with me' wasn't a piece of data you could draw conclusions from. Still, I had one more word of caution for her.

"I think it contributes somewhat to what happened when I shifted with you and Mallory. Beth and Sam have a similar reaction when we're intimate."

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"James, that's got nothing to do with you being a dragon or a mysterious undefined half-dragon. That's supposed to happen if you do a good enough job."

"Sam was in the other room the first time. And it specifically happens as a reaction when I cum. When Sam went down on me, she and Beth came at the same time I did."

"That doesn't sound like something I needed forewarning of."

"After the first time with Sam, she gained some elements of the same bond that Beth has. Not the shielding enchantment but a similar experience to the wolf mate bond, I think. They can both feel my emotions somewhat, and for Beth and I, it's gotten precise enough to get more articulate and complex thoughts across, albeit not quite reliably yet. With Beth, that started immediately, but Sam only experienced the dedicated link between us after we had sex.

"I also, somehow, shared some of my mana pool with her. She went from practically none to conjuring illusionary fire crowns around my and Beth's heads while still in bed after sex, much more than she would ever have had the affinity or resources for before. Antonin thinks Beth's enchantments are growing with our intimacy, too."

Zoey pursed her lips and looked back at me, "What are you saying, James?"

"Our first time will probably add a second bond layer on top of what you already feel, and somehow, my not-dragon part empowers the people I'm intimate with. I don't know what either of those mean, but you should be aware. But actually, I want to try and prevent my unique connection from forming during our first time."

Zoey looked insulted, having drawn the only reasonable conclusion from my incomplete explanation. I hastily continued, "Not because of anything with you, and not because I'm trying to hold us back. I just want to know if I can. Not that I'm going to be looking for anything beyond you, Beth, and Sam, but it would be nice to know that I can prevent the connection if I want to."

Zoey furrowed her lips as she thought over what I was saying, "So why tell me?"

"I wanted you to know what to expect. The baggage I carry, even if I don't understand it. I wanted to warn you of what would be coming eventually and then that it wasn't happening immediately and why."

"So you do want that with me eventually?"

"Yes, Zoey, I do. I just don't want to ever be in the situation where I would be intimate with someone I didn't want a permanent bond with and not know if I could prevent it. I'm going to try to hold it back with you because we're already connected by your nature, and I'm comfortable with either outcome. If it works and I prevent it, I'll have the knowledge, and we can go again right away to combine ourselves as we should be, because I do want to include you. If it doesn't work, I'm doubly bound to you, but know I can't prevent it and will act accordingly in the future."

Zoey nodded, "Makes sense," she said, with her bristly exterior receding as she understood I wasn't distancing myself.

"So, changing room and ditching the human path?"

Zoey agreed, content to leave our confusing conversation where it was for the time being. We finished the loop around the lake and found ourselves back at the parking lot. Zoey guided me to the locker room I had overlooked entirely when we entered the park. In a minute, I found myself stripping down and storing my belongings in a perfectly mundane-looking metal locker. Several other lockers had locks on them, but no one else was inside the room with us. Which I was thankful for. It was awkward enough with just Zoey and I.

After we stripped and stowed our belongings, Zoey led me down a flight of stairs and along a cement hallway. I felt like I was walking through a bomb shelter, the underground, unadorned cement purely functional. I could see a massive opening at the far end leading out into the woods beyond, something that I thought would have needed to be closed and secured. The realistic answer was that it almost certainly was, just with magic instead of the big door with a lock that I expected to see. While distracted by my thoughts, I didn’t realize Zoey had taken my hand until I went to lift it to scratch my nose. She smirked humorously, held firm, and we walked silently hand-in-hand to the woods.

Finally, the long stretch of tunnel opened up into the woods, the cement path abruptly coming to an end. I turned around to look behind me and could see that the tunnel had been cut into a natural hill so that you wouldn't see the entranceway unless you were perfectly aligned with it. After a moment, Zoey tugged my arm and pulled me deeper into the woods. Or rather, away from the tunnel, because it had opened up clearly far away from the civilized area of the park. It felt wild and untamed here, harkening back to an earlier time in the earth's development, an utterly incompatible world to the urban landscape I had spent the last week in.

Zoey was clearly well acquainted with the area, as she brought me through the trees to a sizable, flat-topped boulder, immediately sitting down on it where the sunlight had warmed its surface. She continued holding my hand, reaching with her other arm to grab the other, a relaxed smile on her face. She looked at me, relaxed and at peace, her blonde hair shuffling in the gentle breeze, mentally disarming me and confounding my preconceptions of our run in the woods.

Then she reached up, bopped me on the nose with one finger, and said, “Tag; you’re it.”

In a flash, she transformed into her wolf body. A powerful streak of white fur went leaping away from the boulder as my mind slowly clambered to understand what was happening. When Zoey reached a spot some twenty yards away, on the near side of a fallen tree she would break line of sight from me with, she paused. She turned, her grey eyes finding me and challenging me. She flicked her tail back and forth in a way I innately understood as playful, but her eyes had steel in them, not just from the color.

They told me she wasn’t going to just roll over for me. No matter what the wolf wanted, the human was in control. And Zoey only wanted a mate that could match her, that could best her, that could mirror the steps she took in the world. She was directly challenging me to prove that I was worth giving herself to. She had spent a long time growing accustomed to her lack of besouled kinship to another and was telling me she could wait in the hovel she had spent so long in until I proved I could provide for her, not in the traditional way I was used to, but the things that she needed in a partner.

The glance lasted but a moment before she hopped over the fallen tree in a single bound, clearing it without disturbing the moss that had begun growing. I started running after her as a man, but there was no chance of my human form catching the mighty wolf I was chasing. Before I reached the spot where she had paused, I transformed into a dragon. Now, behind the gleefully fleeing majestic snow-white wolf was a potent blood-red wyrm, recklessly crashing through the forest without regard for anyone else, hyperfocused on the prey eluding him.

Within a few moments of transforming, it was clear that I was still massively outmatched. I had advantages in maximum speed, reach, and magical sensitivity. Magical sensitivity meant I could very easily keep track of Zoey, but it wasn’t an advantage because I wasn’t nearly graceful enough to hide myself from her. Reach wasn’t an advantage when I never actually caught up enough to capitalize on it. And maximum speed, something you’d think would matter when chasing someone, was barely a factor, because Zoey continuously changed direction, dodging and weaving between trees to ensure I never actually reached my limit.

She was just quicker than me, significantly more agile, and way more accustomed to being in her alternate body than I was. My dragon skin made me feel like a lumbering oaf, a baby deer trying to walk on ice. My limbs didn’t move how I wanted them to, my gait was awkward and inefficient, and my tail smashed against trees and along the ground as I ran behind Zoey. I even considered trying to fly after her instead of running, but one look at the dense canopy of interlocking branches above me quickly dissuaded me from that idea. I was barely capable of running along the forest floor — flying would just be asking for an injury.

It took over twenty minutes of constant, dogged running, but I finally caught her. It really wasn’t a fair challenge because of our unique circumstances. She was, in effect, an aging werewolf. Her body no longer had the peak explosiveness she would have had in the past nor the complete recovery capacity she would have developed. She was also mostly bound by physics. Sure, she was a giant wolf, but she still had to breathe and perspire to cool down, and eventually, her body succumbed to the demands she was placing on it. Not that she kneeled over and puked like an out-of-shape human after running a mile, but she lost her sharpness, her explosivity, her immediacy.

On the other hand, I pretty clearly wasn’t. The magic running through my veins that healed injury clearly also dealt with exercise fatigue. Yes, I still felt tired and sore after a workout, but I hadn’t experienced any delayed onset soreness, and I hadn’t ever had the multiple-day long drag that particularly intense workouts would cause, leaving me sluggish and sloppy. I would work out hard, nap, eat dinner, hold Beth or Sam in my arms, and be fine that evening. Something was working to keep me in peak condition, even if Antonin and I hadn’t figured it out yet. On top of that, I wasn’t physically aging out of my peak, having to carefully manage myself just to continue being productive. I was forever in my prime.

All I had to do was not lose her; eventually, she would fatigue. So I kept her in my sights and incessantly wore her down. Her body couldn’t go at 100% forever, and while mine needed some recovery time as well, I felt as though I could go forever in the forest here. The very trees felt as though they were urging me on, helping me catch the snow-white fur of the temptress leading me in circles.

I caught her triumphantly, a deathly sharp red claw reaching around her shoulder as she tried to shift directions. She had done that several times over the last minute as I slowly closed the distance, buying herself another few seconds as I had to redirect my massive body. This time, I wrapped my hand firmly around her, my body crashing into hers, taking both of us tumbling along the forest floor. My scaled limbs wrapped around her body, pinning her against my chest as we eventually came to a stop, me laying on my back. Zoey pressed her paws against my body, pushing as fiercely as she could, wiggling and writhing in a final escape attempt.

After a moment, she relented, relaxing, sinking into my embrace. I enjoyed a minute of feeling her panting, brushing her soft fur against my scaled body before she started shifting back into her human shape. I followed her, and shortly, we were two naked humans, our limbs tangled together as we lay on the forest floor, both breathing rapidly.

Zoey’s hueless eyes stared into mine unwaveringly. The smile on her face fueled my heart because, for the first time since I had met her, it was unwavering, unadulterated, a pure expression of her in this moment.

“James,” she whispered, refusing to interrupt the serenity of the scene around us, “This is going to be our first one, okay? I don’t want to remember the pain of seeing you not understand what was going on at the gym, and I don’t want to remember the shame of my behavior at the club.”

It took me a moment, but I understood what she meant when she pressed her lips to mine. This was how she wanted to remember our first kiss. Frankly, it was much better than the confusing, uncontrolled crash that was our actual first. I wouldn’t begrudge her sharing this moment, surrounded by nature, her wolf and my dragon having played together and established their hierarchy, as our first embrace. Zoey wrapped her legs around my hips and rested her arms on the forest floor beside my head. She continued into a deeply romantic kiss, her lips parting in invitation to mine.

Kissing Zoey was a novel experience for me. She was nothing like Sam, who needed encouragement and reassurance to even take the first steps after years of forcing herself to resist. Instead, she wasn’t dissimilar to Beth in their intensity and enthusiasm. Yet, where Beth pushed herself to the forefront in order to not be forgotten, not be left behind, not be set aside, Zoey remained just a touch reserved. She was confident enough in herself to not need to display everything. Zoey didn’t need to offer herself to me that way, terrified of rejection.

I bemusedly wondered if being with Zoey was what being with an older woman would be like. Yes, she was technically younger than me and a couple months younger than Beth if I remembered her birthday correctly. Yet, she had such a presence when she wasn’t reacting to the chaos my sudden appearance wrought. I didn’t know exactly what she had been through since I had last seen her, but it was clear that she was no ordinary 18-year-old. In fact, in terms of life experience and maturity, she was more deserving of being called an adult than I was.

After several minutes of swapping saliva, Zoey slowly withdrew, using her long arms to push herself into a sitting position further down my legs, putting her at a safe distance from my now throbbing member. She looked at it, unconsciously licking her lips, and then her eyes looked back to mine.

“You don’t want to go further now, do you?” She asked genuinely.

For a moment, I was sorely tempted by the goddess I was alone with. It didn’t help that the dragon spurred me on, hungry to claim our spoils as the victor. He relented, begrudgingly, to my desire to wait, but I nearly didn't.

“No. Sorry, I don’t want that to come across as a rejection of you, but—”

She smirked, a playfully haughty expression coupled with lidded eyes confirming her desires. “I can feel that you’re not rejecting me for any shallow reasons,” Zoey whispered breathily, her hand running along my abdomen, brushing against my exposed manhood in a way that provided deniability, should I question it.

“You have to know that you’re beautiful.”

“It’s nice to hear that my mate thinks so.”

“If a runway modeling fashion show ever needed to display their new Amazon warrior line, you’d be their first call, and the star of the photoshoot, too. Anyway, as I was saying, I’m a little desperate for some stability right now in my life. I know you have some time sensitivity on your mind, and I’m amenable to moving faster than I would otherwise want, but I absolutely have to see you apologize to Beth and Sam and for them to accept you before I feel comfortable being more intimate with you.”

She smiled, “I understand. I’m pleased, actually. A ‘first’ kiss was what I wanted to achieve today, but I thought it would happen when I dropped you off.”

“We can have our ‘second’ then instead.” I gently teased.

Her ashy eyebrows raised, “Oh? You don’t see me as Kyle's little sister anymore? You’re ready for another kiss so soon?”

“At least for the moment, while you’re here with me like this, I see you as a woman I want to get closer to. One that I’m already cosmically intertwined with. One who, from just the glimpses of the real her that I’ve seen, I’m impressed with and inspired by. One who I think I’m going to need support and guidance from very soon.” I paused momentarily, hoping to separate the nuance from the positives of my answer. “But, I also think that when I wake up tomorrow without you there, I might find myself stewing with some concerns. Thinking that I’m abusing the trust Kyle placed in me to care for you years ago. And while I know that’s not our situation today, I can’t shake the feeling, especially when I wake up in someone else's arms. It just feels like I’m not doing right by you.”

She stood up and held her arms out to me, helping me back to my feet. She began walking through the forest, her hand lingering in mine. After a minute, she spoke, “I understand, and I don’t understand. I understand the feeling of not doing right, even from things largely outside your control. I don’t understand how you’re a dragon. You are so unlike every warning in the training manuals I’ve been required to read that it makes you seem even more nefarious than them. It comes across like an act, a trap, if all you’ve ever heard was how terrible dragons are.”

She paused for a moment, and I thought about her words. Her initial distrust and fear of me made more sense framed in the context of all of her training. She had been conditioned to see me as a monster because she was one of the final watchers on the wall, guarding the sanctity of the realm against my schemes. Given the scarcity of dragons and lack of any residing here, we had become a boogeyman to remain vigilant against, and Zoey had been trained to see shadows cast by them.

The two of us walked back towards the park area, Zoey’s hand in mine. Unlike earlier, when I hadn’t noticed its presence, it now felt like it belonged. I felt comforted that it was there, sustained and encouraged by the strength I found in it. I found the support there almost energizing, only visible now against the backdrop of the serenity and the peace of the momentary lapse in the chaotic tumble I was embroiled in.

What I didn’t find comforting was the absolute lack of doubt that I had a third party rolling around in my mind. When I drew forth the dragon’s essence and shifted here intuitively, I was still in complete control. It was nothing like my experience in that alley with Beth, watching my body move on its own to the commands of another.

And the dragon never spoke to me. We had entire conversations but conveyed information even more directly than with words, fully fleshed out concepts transmitted instantly, meaning transferred without the potential pitfalls of misinterpretation. That first night and the next day with Cynthia, I had talked to something, not just communicated with something. The only time the dragon remembered using words specifically was when Antonin explicitly asked for them from him.

The only positive I could take from that revelation, which I came to while Zoey and I were getting dressed again, was that it wasn’t abusing its potential control over me. If it had the ability to manipulate my body against my will, even if it was intermittent and inconvenient, I could be in deep trouble. But, something nefarious with that amount of control wouldn’t be likely to allow me to come to this conclusion, to question its presence in my mind. That it had only used its abilities when I needed it to, and then again when I asked it to, inclined me towards giving it the benefit of the doubt. It certainly seemed towards being indifferent, if not benevolent, and if the dream was anything to go on, it needed me.

The drive back was peaceful, to the extent that racing along the highway in a sports car could be peaceful. Zoey and I talked about my relationship with Beth and Sam, what it was like to live with Cynthia while Sam was in my bed, and how Ev had gotten tangled up in my web without my doing. Whenever I tried to retarget a question to Zoey, she gave me an answer but largely evaded, giving me nothing concrete about her recent history. After the third verbal sidestep, I stopped trying and continued awkwardly explaining my life to her, having the more normal first date experience of discussing myself.

Somehow, she got me to open up about my concerns about manipulating Beth and Sam into things they didn’t want. I explained the special bond, and the confusing portion of Beth’s non-magical background and the sudden appearance of powerful shielding enchantments that no one seemed to understand. Given that these were parallel concerns to the ones Zoey herself had faced just days prior, she listened intently. While I was sure I hadn’t done anything intentionally, that didn’t excuse me from all consequences. As we pulled back into the apartment complex, she said something that gave me a lot to think about.

“James,” Zoey started, “I’m not trying to scare you or suggest that anything’s amiss that you don’t already know about or cast suspicions on the girls, alright? But have you considered that this bond of yours might be affecting you, too?”

“What do you mean?”

“You think it might be changing Beth and Sam’s behavior, desires, and reaction to you. Have you considered whether it might be doing the same to you?”

I sat back in my seat and contemplated what Zoey was suggesting. When combined with my earlier conclusion, it was certainly worth thinking about. She pulled into a parking space and then turned to me, placing a hand on my thigh to continue speaking.

“I don’t want to diminish what you have with them; what you feel for them. I thought it might help you more deeply accept them if your eyes were opened to the possibility, actually.”

I nodded, “Yeah, I could see that. To answer the question, I don’t think it’s changing me. Perhaps accelerating my affection for them? I’m not sure. I’ve wanted to be with Sam since before I understood what those words actually meant, and Beth simply stepped into my arms and demanded my attention. I think that, even without all of the insanity of magic, I could have come to love either of them before. The bond feels more like it’s put the relationship on steroids, rapidly accelerating the development of my feelings for them. Being able to know what they feel, to understand intimately how they react to everything, really expands both the breadth and depth of my relationship with them — but it didn’t make those feelings, I think, just gave me much greater access to them. It just compressed a year of dating into a week, essentially.”

Zoey smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as we exited the car. “Good,” she said, “I’m glad you came to a similar conclusion. The were-mate bond does literally make those feelings. Teenage hormones turned up to eleven, all pulling directly to a specific person. Yours didn’t sound like that at all. You described times when you had been annoyed by Beth and Sam. If this bond was altering your perceptions, I would’ve expected those little irritants to be smoothed over and forgotten about.”

“Are you concerned about being forced into a relationship with those factors? Or, the fact that it isn’t just the two of us?”

She shook her head, “Not particularly. It could just be my mate link to you blurring those concerns, but, no. I was bothered that you weren’t a were and therefore didn’t feel the same overwhelming need for me that I have for you, but it’s reassuring to know that you will feel something similar in time. Beth’s a bit of a wildcard, but from what I know about Sam, she wouldn’t let anyone except herself be taken advantage of if she could help it. Not to mention that, from what I knew of you, I don’t have many concerns. I was freaked out when I thought the you I knew was all a lie, but now, I feel quite comfortable. Just waiting for you to catch up, really.”

With that, Zoey sighed. Now standing hesitantly just in front of the apartment door, she gracefully slipped in front of me, her second hand coming to hold mine. “So, unless you want to invite me now for a creampie and a cup of coffee, maybe skip the coffee, I suppose I’ll just collect my goodnight kiss and wish you a good evening.”

Without giving me a chance to acknowledge the absurd quip, she pressed her lithe frame against my torso and brought her lips to mine. She was just as confident and self-assured as she had been previously, but now she was playful, leaving just a little bit of her substantial intensity in reserve. Not that it was any less pleasant for me — kissing someone nearly my own height was a change in dynamic, a leveling of an imbalance I hadn’t been aware of before in a way that reinforced Zoey’s solidity.

When I broke the kiss after a minute, she remained close to me, and I could see the pull I had on her soul from the fire in her hueless eyes and the smell of the ravenous desire she radiated. She was practically clinging to my torso, and though it was unmistakable that a part of her wanted more, her humanity returned within seconds, and she steeled herself, resolutely extricating herself from my grasp.

“I should go, before…” She trailed off, but both of us knew what she was intimating.

“Zoey,” I said, pausing her retreat, “Today has been eye-opening for me, in more ways than one. I really enjoyed spending time with you, and I was hoping that you’d be interested in seeing me like this again.”

Zoey’s eyes lit up, and her hand snapped to her face as she snorted in laughter. She chortled hard enough that she placed her other hand against the wall to steady herself. Thirty seconds later, when she had calmed somewhat, she said, “James, that’s quite possibly the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Thank you; I really needed a laugh, but was there any question? Really?”

I shook my head, “No, but I don’t like that. I don’t think it’s healthy for me to think that you can’t say no, even if you won't. I don’t want to be in that kind of relationship, and I believe you deserve to be courted, not just taken and added to the list because of factors outside your control.”

“Maybe I want to just be taken.”

“We can worry about your preferences when I no longer feel like I’m abusing your circumstances. Like, say, on Friday? The four of us could go out somewhere quiet, and then you could come back here, maybe spend the night. If that sounds good to you?”

“Yeah?” Zoey asked, as if not quite believing the words I had said.

“I mean, if you need more—”

“James,” she cut me off sternly.

“I know. I know you’re ready now. But I want to see all of you together and your apology to them for last Friday. And I owe it to them to have real first dates, too. Just like you, they don’t deserve to be treated like victims of happenstance tied to me simply because of their proximity; if I’m being given all of these resources and powers, it’s only right that I share the benefits. They deserve that much, even if I can’t offer monogamy.”

Zoey shook her head and muttered, “Like no dragon I’ve ever heard of. Yes, I’d like to see you again — Friday evening sounds great. I work until four and will need a little time after that to get ready.”

“How about we pencil in meeting somewhere at six for dinner?”

“Looking forward to it,” she said with a smile.

I waved as she walked away and then turned to enter the apartment. Inside, I found Beth in the kitchen, reheating whatever she had made earlier in the evening, while Sam was sitting at the table waiting for me with a resplendent gaze.

“Hey,” Beth yelled over without looking, “I heard you thinking about coming home, and then I could feel you outside. Sam’s jealous.”

“Of me spending time with Zoey?”

Beth giggled as she brought over a plate with two stuffed peppers, the cheese bubbling and oozing out from being reheated. “No, of me being able to sense you like that. She might need a reminder that she’s only a couple days behind me.”

“Actually, speaking of that, I wanted to take both of you out this week. Make a play at having a normal relationship without the magic insanity.”

Beth smiled, clearly having some indication of my thoughts before I had verbalized them, but Sam seemed surprised.

“James, you know you don’t have to do that. I don’t need any grand gestures or anything like that.”

“Going on an actual date with your girlfriend isn’t really a ‘grand gesture,’ Sam. It’s borderline bare minimum, to be honest.”

Sam started to say something else, but Beth placed a hand on her arm and said, “Sammie, James wants to take you out. Let him love you, okay?” Sam swallowed her comment, nodding and accepting my announcement.

“Alright. One each, tomorrow and Wednesday? I have something in mind for both of you, but if there’s anything specific you want to do—”

“I’d be happy to do anything at your side,” Sam said.

Beth smirked, but shrugged, “Can’t say I’ve really been on an actual proper date. As long as you keep mine casual, I’m down to try anything.”

I nodded, “I figured that, moving forward, we’d get more than our fill of formal events, so I was planning on keeping them all casual. Which means it won't be a grand gesture by design, Sam, just a little thing to enjoy being us.”

“All?” Beth asked, picking up on my word selection.

“All. I had a nice afternoon with Zoey today, and I’m sure I’ll have wonderful times with both of you, but afterward, I’d like to do one as the four of us. And then have Zoey come back here. I invited her to dinner on Friday and said that would be a possibility.”

Sam nodded, but Beth asked, “What’s she like? When she’s not interrogating you because she’s terrified of an evil shadow James.”

Sam answered before I could finish concocting a response. “I would say that was actually a relatively accurate display of who she is. Equal parts intense and stoic, not afraid to get dirty for the right cause, and will chase what she wants until she gets it, no matter the cost.”

I nodded my agreement with Sam’s assessment. “She seemed hyperactive as a kid, but I imagine that was just her wolf. I can’t imagine sitting in a classroom with a feral animal inside you, baying to be set loose.”

Beth murmured thoughtfully, but the conversation petered out. I ate my dinner, an interesting variation on stuffed peppers that used a bean spread, rice, and cheese as a filling in lieu of the more traditional meat, and complemented Beth for making it work. We had a few quiet minutes at the table, but as we got ready for bed, and I was with Sam alone in the bathroom as Beth cleaned up the final dishes from dinner, I had a question for her.

“Hey, Sam? Why’d you, uh, snowball Beth yesterday?”

In the most typical Sam non-answer ever, she said simply, “It was the right thing to do.”

“Okay, let me ask something more specific. I was under the impression that you were largely humoring Beth with intimacy before you did that — that while you weren’t exactly repulsed by being in bed with another woman, you were really just there for me, and that she was there as well was incidental. You appreciated her support as a partner but didn’t find her inherently arousing. Was I reading the room right, or am I totally out in left field?”

Sam thought for a moment and then nodded, so I continued, “But being indifferent to her is a bit contradictory with snowballing her like that. I’m a little confused as to what made you do that.”

“She coached me through the entire experience, helping me be good for you. Sharing the reward would be fair even if you were merely normal. You’re not. Antonin suggested it was making us more powerful magically — it certainly did for me — so to deprive Beth of that after what she’s done to me would be a terrible injustice.”

“We don’t know if it’s helping her or not, though.”

“To rob her of her equal share simply because we aren’t yet sure that it’s helping her isn’t right. It’s hers, whether it does or not, unless you’ve got a compelling reason not to give it to her. The only one I can think of is to try and see if it helps Zoey's impending mortality, and if it does, to give her all of it. Because of you, I have more magic than I ever dreamed of; I'd happily give my portion to either of them.”

I raised my hands as a peace offering. “I was just curious, Sam. It didn’t seem like you, but with the explanation, it absolutely does.”

With that, the two of us went to bed. Beth joined us a few minutes later. In a change of pace that seemed connected to Beth’s comment on Sam’s momentary pang of jealousy, Sam slept on my chest, her soft body sinking into mine. Beth snuggled against us, facing away, cuddling around the arm I looped across her body. I had survived Monday — gym, magic lesson, revelations with Zoey — and come out the other side more than intact. The rest of the week was looking up, and the dragon and I were out to seize it.