“He’s gorgeous,” Emma agreed. She looked at me. “Kaitlyn, I think he wants you to go to him.”
For the Drake had curved his long neck down very gracefully so that his enormous, dinner-plate-sized eye was on the same level as my head. The eye didn’t have a slitted pupil like a cat’s—it didn’t have any pupil at all, that I could see. It was simply a pure, brilliant gold and the Drake was regarding me with it intently.
“I think Emmers is right, Katydid,” Avery remarked softly. “But it’s up to you if you want to or not. We’ll stand with you either way.”
“Th-thank you,” I somehow managed to get out. “I think…think you’re right, Avery. I think he wants me to…to go to him.” I took a deep breath. “And I think I should.”
It took almost more courage than I thought I had to drop my friends’ hands and step forward to go to the huge beast, but somehow I knew I had to. When Ari had asked me to meet his Drake, he hadn’t meant I should just stand in the moonlight gawking at him. No, in order to actually make the Drake’s acquaintance, I would have to get up close and personal with him—a lot more up close and personal than I actually wanted to.
You have no idea, until you try it yourself, how hard it is to walk towards an animal that is very clearly dangerous—a predator that you know could eat you in a few bloody bites. Walking towards that danger instead of running away goes against an instinct that has been hardwired into humans since the cavemen days. Simply put, you don’t go towards a grizzly bear—you run from it. Forcing yourself to do otherwise is incredibly difficult.
Imagine walking towards a lion or a tiger with no bars or fences between you and the massive cat. Now imagine that the lion or tiger you’re headed for is as big as a building and could eat you literally in one bite. If you can picture that, you might have some idea of how I felt as I approached the Drake.
He still had his head lowered and I saw that the head itself was longer than my entire body was tall. He had his enormous head all the way down, so that his chin was resting on the ground, and I could see that he had a pair of curving white horns which swooped straight back from his forehead in a graceful arc over his long neck. He had ears like a horse and they were pricked forward, as though waiting to hear anything I might say to him. Should I talk? What should I say?
“Hello,” I murmured, feeling foolish.
The Drake didn’t make any reply, he just kept looking at me. His skin was made of many tiny interlocking scales, the size of my thumbnail. They were royal purple with an iridescent tinge of emerald green—they glimmered like jewels in the moonlight
Really, he was a beautiful creature, I thought. If only he wasn’t so big. Still, I walked closer and the Drake held perfectly still, not moving or saying a word—if he could even speak in this form, which I wasn’t sure about. He just stayed completely immobile, as though waiting for me to make the first move—whatever that ought to be. I had no idea.
I watched his flaring nostrils—again like a horse’s—but there wasn’t so much as a puff of smoke, let alone any fire or a jet of flame coming from them. It seemed that Ari’s Drake was on his best behavior and it occurred to me that he was trying very hard not to scare me, which was probably difficult when I was about the same size to him that a very small kitten would be to me.
What could he possibly want with me?
Earlier I’d had the nightmarish thought that he wanted to eat me, but now I rejected the idea because it just wasn’t practical. I wouldn’t even make a mouthful for him—he probably wouldn’t even taste me. What would be the point of doing something as socially unacceptable as eating me—which would doubtless get Ari into endless trouble—when the payoff would be slim to none in the flavor department?
So again the question remained, why did the Drake want me?
He looked at me steadily with those golden eyes and it occurred to me, as though someone had whispered the thought in my ear, that he wanted me to touch him. And also, that he wanted to touch me—to hold me the same way Ari did when he cradled me against his chest—but the Drake was holding himself back. Doubtless because he knew that if he reached for me with his big, taloned claw I would run away screaming, unable to overcome my instinct to get away from predators and danger anymore.
“Should I touch you?” I asked him, feeling foolish again. “Do…do you want me to?”
In answer, the Drake gave a very soft snort. The sound was very like something a horse makes when it’s feeling friendly and inquisitive, although it was a great deal deeper, of course. It put me at ease because it reminded me of the summer camp my Mom used to take me to before The Fire. It was an equestrian riding camp and I had actually become a pretty good rider in the several years that I went there.
I came right up to the Drake’s long muzzle, looking him in the eye as I went. I felt mesmerized by the swirling golden depths—pulled towards him by some force I didn’t understand. Slowly, as though moving underwater or in slow motion, I put out a hand and stroked his nose, exactly as I might have done with a horse—a really huge horse—to get to know him.
The moment I touched his skin, everything changed.
At the skin-to-skin contact, I could suddenly hear him. Not like a voice in my mind, though. It was more
