Dragon Storm (12 page)

“Then the wings do not flap?” Darius asked from beside her, though he appeared to be asleep, slouched against the hull. “They looked rather stiff when we saw this vehicle from the outside. I’ll admit, I have my doubts about it being able to fly.”

“No, the wings don’t flap. The engines propel us at such high speed, lift is created under the metal wings that allows us to fly.” She wasn’t much better at explaining aeronautics, but the men didn’t seem to mind. “You’ll see. Once we get up to speed we’ll shoot upward, and you’ll be pushed back in your seats. You can watch out the window as they use the little flaps on the edges of the wings to change the shape of the wing and get airborne. It’s pretty cool.”

“If you say so.” Connor looked uncertain. “I’d prefer to fly myself, but I’m willing to give this method of flight a try. We looked over the skin of this vehicle and if it begins to fall, we can always tear it open and shift in the air.”

“Planes seldom fall out of the sky. Not unless something catastrophic happens, like losing cabin pressure. So don’t tear anything open, all right? The metal skin on this thing needs to stay intact so everyone can stay safe.”

“We have done nothing,” Darius protested. “We merely have reconnoitered the situation. It is useful to be prepared for all contingencies.”

“Well then, tell me this. Can dragons fly at heights over thirty thousand feet? That’s where we’ll be, and that’s why this cabin is pressurized. The air up there is too thin to breathe and freezing cold.”

“How big is a foot in your measurements?” Connor looked skeptical.

“About like this.” She held up her hands to give them an approximate size.

Connor looked to Darius, and both looked back to her hands, surprise on their faces. Darius was frowning, but neither twin answered her.

As the cabin filled up, the flight attendants started making their rounds, helping people get their gear stowed and find their seats. In addition to the cougar up front, two more of the stewards smelled like shifters to Josie. The Asian stewardess seemed to be some kind of raptor—probably an eagle, judging by her tawny hair and piercing eyes. The black-skinned male steward smelled distinctly of lion shifter.

It was odd to see a lion in such a subservient role. Lion shifters had a reputation much like that of their animal cousins. The king of the jungle was a fierce predator and cunning protector. Many lion shifters fulfilled the same kinds of roles, often in the military, and particularly in Special Forces.

Josie watched the man as best she could through the crowd of boarding humans. He caught her eye and winked with a bright grin. He was well aware of her interest and seemed comfortable with it, which was strange.

“Why is Duke smiling at you?” Darius actually sounded jealous.

“I can’t figure him out, and he caught me staring at him. A smile is better than a roar, I always say. Especially from a lion shifter.”

“Lion? Is that what he is? Big cat. Golden ruff around his neck?” Connor looked at the man with interest in his gaze. “We have heard of such creatures living in the deserts to the south, across the great sea, but I have never seen one.”

“Lions are known as the king of beasts for good reason. Lion shifters are rare, but mighty. It’s just strange to see one employed as a flight attendant.”

“He was introduced to us as an air marshal, though we are not familiar with the term,” Darius supplied.

The big man’s presence made sense to her after hearing that. “Air marshals protect passengers from those who would cause mischief on airplane flights. Terrorists, hijackers, criminals and crazy people have caused airplanes to crash in the past, killing many people. As a result, a lot of flights have undercover marshals hidden in plain sight—either as passengers or as crew—ready to stop any trouble before it begins.”

“A Guard, then.” Connor’s expression held new respect. “It is a worthy occupation if he is as mighty a warrior as you believe.”

The safety briefing began, all passengers having boarded. Connor jumped slightly when the marshal’s voice first sounded over the intercom. They could see him speaking into the phone attached to a nearby bulkhead, so it was clear who was speaking.

Josie pulled out the safety card from the back of the seat in front of her, and the twins followed suit. They looked at the pictures of possible disaster scenarios, and she could feel their agitation. After that, their attention was focused on the lion shifter and the safety demonstrations given by the other crewmembers.

Safety instruction finished, the plane began to pull away from the terminal. Darius had his nose pressed against the glass, watching everything that went on outside. Connor’s eyes were closed as if he were in some kind of trance.

“Are you okay?” She touched his hand.

Connor nodded. “I am watching through my brother’s eyes. It requires concentration.”

“That’s amazing. You can really do that?”

“Yes. Though we do not do it often. In this case, Darius grabbed the window seat before I could get to it. We are very curious about how this metal tube will fly.” His eyes were closed, but he seemed able to converse with her normally. “There is a lot of equipment involved. We have nothing like this in our world.”

“Neither did we, until the past fifty years or so. Technology has really come into its own over the past century. Before that, we probably lived much like you do.” Glancing over Darius’s shoulder, she saw that they were lined up for takeoff near the end of the runway.

With a roar of jet engines, the plane in front of them started its roll down the runway. It leaped into the air moments later, shooting upward in a beautiful display. Then it was their turn.

Josie took Connor’s hand as she rested her head back against the seat. The plane’s engines whined as they went to full throttle and in a burst of speed, barreled down the runway. She squeezed Connor’s fingers as the wheels left the pavement, and they shot into the air. The noise level increased as the engines strained. A thunk told her the landing gear had retracted into the belly of the plane, and they were on their way.

As the plane began to level out from its takeoff climb, Connor’s eyes opened and he turned to her. A frown creased the space between his eyebrows.

“All in all, I prefer to fly on my own.”

“But the speed, Con.” Darius tore his gaze from the window to protest. “We can’t attain speed like this unless we’re in a dive, and only for short periods. And we’re so high.”

“Be we are not in control. The metal tube decides where we will go,” Connor argued.

“Actually, there are two men up in the cockpit who are flying the plane. They’re called pilots,” Josie put in.

“Like sea captains? We have pilots who navigate coastal waters, guiding larger ships through dangerous areas.” Connor seemed to grasp the idea easily enough and if Josie wasn’t mistaken, there were seafaring pilots on the coasts of many nations to this very day, doing the same duty Connor described. “So then, it is they who decide where we go. That’s better, I suppose, but I still prefer to choose my own path.”

“We are flying so high and moving so fast, it almost feels like standing still,” Darius observed. “No wind reaches us inside this metal tube. If it weren’t for the noise and small drops of water streaking against the glass porthole here, I might not know we were actually moving.”

“The water is from going through clouds on our way up,” Josie supplied. “It’s said if a pilot flies high enough, they can actually see the curvature of the Earth. I don’t think we’ll get that high, but we’ll be above the clouds and sometimes you can see the lights of other planes out the window at night.”

“They pass close enough that you can see them?” Connor asked.

“You can see the lights. As a rule, they keep a safe distance between planes. People on the ground keep track of every airplane in the sky and plan out courses for the pilots to follow so there’s no danger of collision or getting caught in dangerous turbulence. The pilots are in radio contact with the ground and can speak to other planes in the vicinity.”

“What is radio? Some kind of telepathy?” Darius asked.

“No. Few humans have any sort of psychic abilities. For that matter, few shifters do. A radio is a piece of electronic equipment that allows us to transmit messages from one place to another, within a certain range. It’s technology. Not magic or any kind of psychic ability. Telepathy is rare in my world.”

“Interesting.” Connor’s answer was casual as he watched the flight attendants deploy with their funny looking rectangular carts. “All dragons can speak mind to mind. Because of the way our mouths are shaped, it is impossible to speak aloud when in dragon form, so we use telepathy, but not everyone can hear us. Only knights and a very few women in each generation are gifted with the ability to communicate with dragons in their minds.”

“Can you hear us, mate?”
It was Darius’s voice, but his mouth hadn’t moved. She’d heard him in her mind.

“She can,”
Connor’s voice answered in her mind. He sounded both pleased and amused.
“It may take some time before you figure out how to speak back to us in this manner. We can help you learn.”

“Amazing…” Josie’s voice trailed off, letting the idea sink into her mind. They were implying she could talk back in the same telepathic manner. The idea was tantalizing—like everything else about her new mates. Their world must be so cool.

The twins let her guide them through the refreshments and meal, which she could only guess looked vastly different from what they were used to. They seemed intrigued by plastic and amazed at how easily she threw everything away. Paper napkins seemed to surprise them as well, and she began to wonder if their world wasn’t a bit barbaric.

What did they wipe their hands on? What did they eat with? Cloth and metal or carved wood, most likely, like they had in olden times on Earth. But she was a thoroughly modern girl, used to the modern North American culture. She’d spent time in Tibet and liked it, though life was a little rougher there—lived closer to the land without all the trappings of Western high-tech life.

If they made it to their destination, the twins would do better there. Of course, their Western features would make them stand out. They had dark hair and striking green eyes, two sides of the same coin and that coin was gorgeous. Yeah, they would stand out wherever they went.

Chapter Six

Once the meals had been served and the plane settled down for the night’s sleep period, the lion shifter and his raptor friend took seats near them. The back section of the plane was relatively empty and they could talk quietly and not be heard by the humans. Shifter hearing was much better than any human’s.

“I am Ndukwe,” the man introduced himself to her. “I did not have much time to speak with you before, but please pardon our curiosity.” He looked from them to the female flight attendant and back, as if hesitating. “We hear you are snowcat.” The inflection of the statement made it a question.

Josie nodded. “I am.” She didn’t see the need to go into detail about her mixed parentage. “And you are leo.”

“Yes, cousin. Yuki is a golden eagle. And are your men truly…dragons?” The man’s dark eyes held wonder as he gazed at the twins.

“I see word has already spread.” Josie tried to suppress a chuckle.

“This kind of secret will be hard to keep, cousin.” Josie liked the way the lion shifter claimed kinship with her snowcat. Both were among the most powerful cats in the world, and it was good to have the respect of equal footing. She knew the leo would give few others that honor. “So it is true?”

Connor offered his hand to the leo. “We are black dragons from the land of Draconia.”

Ndukwe shook hands with Connor, then Darius, leaning across her to do the job right. She didn’t mind. It was good to see the leo treat them as equals—even superiors—as well. She was able to observe them and realized they were used to such respect. They expected it. But they weren’t obnoxious about it.

“Where is your land?” Yuki asked in a melodious voice.

“Nowhere we can explain,” Darius said. “We were blown into a magical storm and the next thing we knew, we woke up in Josie’s forest. It is similar, but not the same as the forests of our homeland. Or any land to which we have traveled.”

“We believe powerful magic brought us here. And indeed, our journey was envisioned by someone we know to be a gifted seer. We didn’t believe her when she warned us this was coming, but we certainly do now.” A wry twist of Connor’s lips was echoed by Darius’s quiet guffaw.

“When you shift, you are black?” Ndukwe grinned, obviously pleased by the thought.

“All of our family is. Black dragons are the only ones who can shift form from human to dragon. All other dragons are just dragons,” Connor said matter-of-factly.

“There are other kinds of dragons in your land?” Yuki seemed enthralled by the idea.

“Many.” Connor seemed pleased to tell them about his world. Josie wondered if he’d ever see his home again, and if so, what that would mean to their relationship. Would she go with them? The thought boggled her mind. “There are dragons in every color of the rainbow and many combinations in between. Then there are wild Ice Dragons whose scales shine like mirrors, reflecting all colors back at you in a sparkly display. Our new sister-in-law adopted a baby Ice Dragon named Tor, and he is absolutely breathtaking after a roll in the sand to polish his scales.”

“And though we’ve never seen it, there are tales of Snow Dragons even farther north. They are thought to be wild. We don’t know much about them. They are supposed to be sparkly white, their scales like glistening snow.”

They spent an hour or more talking with the flight attendants. Ndukwe, it turned out, was from Nigeria and Yuki was Japanese. Both were clearly in awe of the dragons in their midst and happy to help smuggle them on and off the plane.

When the flight ended, they were met by two shifter escorts at the terminal. The escorts had some sort of official capacity and were able to get them onto a smaller plane without any of the usual hassle imposed by the Chinese government. The two shifters—one was a tiger and one a wolf—asked for her to give them the traditional snowcat blessing, and she did so only feeling partially like a fraud. To them, she was snowcat. Nothing else mattered. Not her heritage or her Western looks.