Her Hidden Dragon Mate: Sahara Pride

-Sam-      It's late and I couldn't sleep again. I know I should have told them I was leaving but truthfully I love the quiet that comes from a night drive with the windows open by myself and if they knew I don't know how cramped it would have gotten. I keep the old Toyota Tundra because it's sentimental and because it's excellent for hauling large carcasses, not because it's excellent for passengers.      My hair is starting to escape in pieces from this thick braid, whipping small curls around my nose, and I can't even be bothered by them because I have such a persistent itch under my skin. It's been too long since I've shifted and I can hear my own low growls in the back of my mind. I'm almost to the mountains now.      It's deer season and if I'm lucky I can bring a few beauties down with me when I'm done with my run. My beast is foreign enough to the area that while it causes confusion, it rarely arouses fear, and I have a huge advantage over the local werewolf pack. Sometimes at shifter summits I tease Joseph and Zola about it, but they know it's lighthearted and our back stock in the deep freeze is always open if they have hard times.       I've arrived. I park by the tree line and take time to shake my braid out, curls springing free over my shoulders, enjoying the moonrise as I undress. It's universal that whether our hair is long or short, it's always very well taken care of, and I'm very proud of the progress I made growing out my unfortunate undercut from a few years ago. Felicity still teases me over it and I don't think I'll ever hear the end of it. Taking a running jump, I shift in midair towards the cliff face a few hundred feet ahead.       It hasn't hurt in years. Short golden brown hair springs forth, bones snap and reshape, and my already long nails thicken and sharpen on my paws. Right before I hit the ground my tail whips my side to announce its presence. I'm not the most vain, but I do have pride in my pride. We're the biggest and most successful pack of werelions that's ever been established outside of Africa, and I've been honored to be their Queen.       I waste no time running the miles it takes to get the first energy out of my body. The smooth thumping in my paws hitting the ground makes my heart vibrate in a happiness I haven't gotten to feel in months until I realize that I am hungry and I smell them, calm scented deer, a mile or so ahead. I slow my pace and get low to the ground, trying to keep from growling. There's a whole herd of them, and if I'm really lucky, this could feed us for weeks. Humans don't realize shifters need massive amounts of calories to keep their animal forms available.      I'm getting closer and closer and I'm in luck, I'm downwind from them so they have no idea I'm even here. Just as I'm about to start running I hear a branch snap and before I know it, I'm chasing the whole herd down trying to find a straggler to take down. s**t, I hope it wasn't a summer bear. The last thing I need is a carnivore to compete with.       I leap, land my claws, and tear into the throat of the first deer. He goes down quickly and with almost no sound, and I am sure he is dying. Two, three, four- one after another, there will be a full deep freezer tomorrow. I didn’t realize how tired I would be. I jog over to a nearby stream to drink my fill and clean the blood from my muzzle when suddenly, the winds shift, and I smell the strangest thing.      Werelions aren’t like any other shifter. Wolves smell exciting and erotic things when they first find their mate, it’s programmed into them, and no one would ever find that strange with their culture. Lions, though, we’ve been programmed to be restless and we move around a lot. It’s rare to find a pride as big as mine. What we smell when we discover our mates is the smells that make us feel safest, the things that feel like home. When I first met Felicity, she smelled like clementines and peaches, like my father used to buy for me when we were travelling between markets, and I don’t think I’ve ever relaxed so quickly in my life. She told me I smelled like summers on the beach off the coast of France.      Now, though, what I smell is sunbaked stones and spices, the warm and spicy-sweet scent of the open air market I grew up near, and it immediately makes me want to cry of homesickness. My head shoots up and I know I can’t leave without figuring out where it comes from when I hear the grass shift behind me. I can’t believe what I see, and just that quickly, I knew my life as I knew it was over. ** -Tiago-      I came to the mountains because I thought no one would be here so late and now I’m terrified because I KNOW she scented me, she’s looking, and my kind is too rare for any explanation. The moon is shimmering across my bright gold scales while I try slowly to maneuver backwards but it’s too late. She’s turning around, and I see her eyes go round and large.      There isn’t a single thunder of dragons in America because we’re simply too rare. Our scales get stolen and our eggs crushed and sold, we’ve been declining for the last hundred years. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of my own kind, so when I see the werelioness take an unconscious step towards me, I panic, because there is no way of knowing her intent. I’m not the most large for a golden drake, I’m probably about 15 feet snout to tail, but my bones are hollow for flight and I’m worried about what will happen if she decides to leap and how I should react when the wind shifts again and my heart hammers in my chest.      She smells like honey cakes and sunshine and my mind immediately goes blank, everything I’ve taught myself about self-preservation goes out the window. Before I can think about reactions or repercussions we’re both moving towards each other, slowly but surely, and I’m admiring the obvious muscles underneath her skin. I’ve never touched a lion but her paws look velvety and there’s nothing I want more than to press one against my cheek. Folding my wings in, I gently lower my head so our noses touch.      She seems almost shocked at how warm I am, but that’s just the nature of what I am. Breathing fire isn’t a made up legend, it’s just a thing we can do that takes massive amounts of energy to create and maintain. I hear a low rumbling purr from deep in her chest and I’m not sure I’ve ever been more satisfied in my entire life. I think I was made for her and it’s a strange thought to have.     Our connection is suddenly interrupted by a loud branch snap and I whip my head around, hyper alert, to see a large brown bear coming towards us. It doesn’t smell shifter. It was probably attracted by the smell of blood she trailed to the stream or it could have just been thirsty but I don’t want to take any chances.      I start growl at it loudly and see its head snap up and tense before turning and running without any challenge. Satisfied, I turn back to find her but she’s run and I have no idea where to possibly look for her. I can’t stop the sudden anguish that starts in my chest and this need to thrash through the trees to figure out where she could have gone.     I wish I knew any other dragons at all to ask but I don’t, and I have no idea if this is what a mate bond feels like. It’s not safe for me to fly and it’s getting late. I have to shift and head home or I’ll never get back before daybreak. As I’m making my way back to my clothes I’m thinking hard. There’s no way I can’t just try and track her down, right?      Scared or not she must have felt it too, shouldn’t she? I raise up on my hind legs away from the moonlight and start my slow shift back into my human form. My scales shrink and darken back into deep tan skin and short black curls, my forearms are showing full veins again, my calves are hard and defined. Sighing, I stretch, picking up the few scales that shed off and shoving them into the passenger seat of my little beat up car. My legs are a little cramped because the seat gets jammed but I can’t really afford to replace it so it’ll have to do, it really wasn’t meant for anyone tall unfortunately. My sweats feel foreign on my skin while I drive home, unable to get those huge yellow eyes out of my head. ** -Sam-      I couldn’t help sprinting when I heard the bear rumbling closer, I headed straight back to the truck and flattened myself into the back. After I was sure it had passed, I slowly crept out to drag the deer back and load them up, my mind racing a million miles a minute. What the hell even just happened?      On the long, quiet drive back I tried to put what I’d just seen out of my head. I’ve never even heard of dragons being real, let alone bright gold and casually trotting through the woods. I don’t even know what its human form looks like and at this point I don’t even want to know.                 Yes you do, a tiny voice says in the back of my mind.      I most certainly do not.                 Yes, you do, your knuckles are white on the steering wheel and you keep imagining the taste of cardamom.      I truly don’t know why I try arguing with myself sometimes.      As I reach the pride manor I decide what I’m going to focus on instead is the bath I’m going to gift myself once I get into the house to soothe my sore muscles. I reverse the truck as close to the back kitchen door as I can and shuffle my tired body upstairs to the master bath. Stripping down to my skin I study myself in the full length mirror lining the whole opposite wall.      My skin is intact, deep golden tan and smooth from all the products Felicity buys for our bathroom. I’m making a mental note to leave the painkillers where she can reach them, she’s only 5’3 to my 5’7 and I always forget to leave things where she can reach. My waist length and extremely curly black hair still has some bits of leaves and a twig or two in it but shaking them loose is easy. I see a nasty but already fading bruise blooming on my left hip that must have happened when I scraped a tree running after I saw the bear. All in all I look very obviously healthy but even better, I’m finally rid of the itch under my skin.      She’s always telling me I don’t sleep enough and seeing how tired my eyes look now has me forced to agree with her, the bruised purple rings are highlighting how yellow-gold my eyes are in a strangely unflattering way. After my soak, I’m yawning, and trying to be as silent as possible when I see her on her side in our bed, long straight brown hair spread across my side. I don’t want to wake her but I don’t want to lay on it so I move it to the side when I hear her muffled voice say “I know you left. You didn’t wash the mountains out of your hair.”      Crap. “Uh, yeah. I couldn’t sleep so I went for a hunt,” I admit, laying down in our soft sheets. My heart catches in my throat every time I she sprawls an arm across my belly, surrounded by the smell of peaches. She opens one amused but irritated green eye and fixes it on my embarrassed face.      “You’re lucky I know how long it’s been since your last shift but if you don’t sleep in tomorrow I’ll put you out of your misery myself.”      “Are you threatening me, Miss Montignac?” I fake gasp and put a hand on my chest, and she laughs at me, clear and bright.      “If you didn’t have such a sweet ass, Miss Ghazi, I’d do it much more often.”      It’s my turn to roll my eyes now and I pull her towards me, laughing into a kiss that tastes like coming home. She puts her hands on either side of my face and I can feel her smiling and for now, for always, this has been more than enough for me to ever feel blessed with. Settling into a cuddle, I’m finally able to drift off peacefully listening to her heartbeat.