Eos was also a dragon. But he did not consider his human form a shell. It was part of him, just like his wolf and his dragon.
In truth, it was very confusing.
And it did not help that there were no others like him on Earth.
Even his sisters were not quite the same. Blue Father’s cousin, the current dragon king was aware of his existence. But his father had given him severe warning about what would happen if Damianos or any other dragons were to discover the existence of Golden Twin Sisters. They would stop at nothing to claim them.
They were only children. Small and too young to mate, even by the standards of dragons who were considered adults after the age of five.
But that wouldn’t matter in this case. They were the only female dragons left in the known universe and dragons did not live by the same set of morals as wolves.
“Decades are but a blink to drakkon,” Blue Father had warned him. “If any drakkon were to become aware of their existence, he would have no problem kidnapping them and keeping them imprisoned until they came of age. Then he would most likely keep one twin to mount and the other to sell to the highest bidder.”
It terrified Eos to imagine such a future for his golden sisters. This was just one of the reasons he took on his dragon form to circle their island home every morn. Performing what the present time actors on TV, costumed in soldiers uniforms referred to as a perimeter sweep.
And this was why his flame went cold with dread when he saw the boat in the distance.
Eos found his sisters and father gathered in the kitchen when he landed outside their island home. They appeared to be making breakfast together for Wolf Mother’s birthday. Guilt sizzled inside his flame. Not only because he had forgotten about this most significant date, but also because he would have to interrupt his father’s and sisters’ happy preparations.
“Eos! Eos!” His twin sisters came running when they saw him and threw their arms around either side of his waist.
They wouldn’t turn two for several more moon cycles, but they already resembled five-year-old human children. They were both much more intelligent and much larger than he’d been at their same age. His mother often kissed them each soundly, then complained about how she wouldn’t even have kids for the five years she was promised if they didn’t stop growing so fast.
This was yet another thing that separated him from both his mother’s and his father’s species. He aged much more rapidly than the wolves and humans, but not nearly as rapidly as his sisters. At the age of five, he still appeared to be more of human/wolf teenager than a full-grown male.
“You have arrived at a good moment,” Blue Father called out to Eos from the stove. “We were jussst about to go up to Great Wolf Mother’ssss room with her breakfasssst!”
He spoke quite jovially…only to lower the tray when he saw the color of his son’s flame. “What is it?” he asked, switching to their dragon language.
“There’s a boat coming this way with three males,” Eos answered.
Blue Father immediately deposited the tray on the counter and untied the apron he was wearing. It had the declaration “Dis Shit Gon’ Be GOOD!” written across its front. The apron had been a gift from Twin Sister of Great Wolf Mother—or Aunt Ola as she always insisted on being called. She’d given it to them the one and only time she was allowed to visit them.
“Daddy! Daddy! What’s wrong?” the twins asked in a perfect replication of his mother’s language, without any hissed esses. Unlike Eos and their father, they had perfect control over their forked tongues.
Instead of answering them, Blue Father exited the house at a full run and jumped into the air, much as Eos had done earlier that morn. And the next thing they saw through the open patio was his unshelled dark blue dragon flying into the horizon.
“It will be all right,” Eos assured his sisters. Though he was not sure of that at all.
They must be protected. That was all he was certain of as he followed in his father’s webbed footsteps. For that reason, he left his scared and confused sisters behind and released his own dragon as he took off after Blue Father into the sky.
The men in the boat were wolves. One of which, Eos recognized right away as the male who told him to “Call me, Knud, man. I don’t need any of that title shit” when they were formally introduced after his sisters’ birth. He was a cousin of his mother’s, a healer who was married to the daughter of the man who had provided them with secret shelter upon this island.