I woke up- no, I wasn’t awake. I was in a circle of white floor surrounded by gray fog that often appeared in my dreams. 

As always, Mark was here too, dressed in nothing but shorts that revealed his pale blue chest. He looked less happy to see me than usual. 

“Lady Ortai-” He sat in front of me with a slight frown. “How would you like me to address you?”

The fragrant smell of roasting steak and gravy made it difficult to think. “Whatever’s fine.”

He paused. “Is this a test? Has all of this been a test? Why did you never tell me what you were? What do you want from me?”

It was hard not to lean closer and breathe in his scent. “Chill, it’s not a test. Like I said before, I’m not an Ortai. But if you want everyone to think you’re a cool Ortai knight, I won’t tell anyone I’m human. Well, not again, I mean.”

“If this is a test, please tell me, and I’ll treat you with respect deserving of your status. However, if this isn’t a test and you honestly think you’re human-“

“I do. ‘Cause I am.” I wanted to taste him, but that would’ve been rude while we were talking. 

He swallowed as I drifted closer. “In that case, do you still think this is a dream?”

“Yeah, but it’s a really weird dream. Like, I’m pretty sure you would hold a grudge if I bit you right now.” But I desperately wanted to do it. Why was I so dang hungry? 

His feathers stuck straight up. “Do you want to bite me?”

“So much. No idea why, but I’m so hungry, and you smell really good.”

“Your arka is dangerously low, so your instincts must be telling you to take mine. Do you always feel hungry when you take my arka?”

“Have I done it before?”

He nodded. “Every time we’ve touched in this dreamscape.”

“Does it hurt?” Why did I feel bad for stealing a made-up substance from a figment of my imagination? Admittedly, I was more hungry than guilty, but I still felt a little guilty. 

“It doesn’t hurt.” His tail curled at his side. “It’s rather pleasant, likely an effect meant to pacify your arka source.”

“Oh?” I leaned closer, taking hold of his arms. “So you like it?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Fighting the urge to jump on him, I scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His face fell. “The sensation is enjoyable, but it clouds my judgement and distracts me from the fact that you’ve never seen me as a real person.” 

Digging my nails into my thighs, I forced myself to pull back. The hunger in my chest roared, but it wasn’t any more real than he was. I wouldn’t actually starve without a mythical substance, and if I wanted this dream to remain pleasant, I shouldn’t upset the best part of it. 

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” I turned away from him. It helped a little with the smell—but not much. 

“Are you angry that I want to be considered a real person?” Indignation crept into his voice. 

“No, I’m just trying not to bite you. Go away.” 

“Liza-” His smell wafted over my shoulder. 

“I’m serious, this is really hard. You need to move over there.” I waved at the opposite side of the circle. 

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t give you arka.”

“Well, you sure don’t sound like you want to.” 

“I can’t say that I do, but it’s blatantly obvious that your Ortai instincts want you to take my arka. I doubt you would have such a strong reaction if it weren’t necessary for your health.”

“It’s not real, so it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to tick you off for no reason.”

He moved around in front of me, sitting so close that our knees touched. “If none of this is real, why do you care about angering me?”

“Because I don’t want to lose you.” It was sad that I cared so much about a figment of my imagination, but after the incident with James, I’d been too embarrassed to tell anyone except Mark. He’d made me feel like everything would be alright, at least while I was with him. 

Mark’s tail snaked around my waist, and he pulled me onto his lap. “I won’t be angry at you. Take what you need.”

He’d erased my last strand of self-control. I lunged without thinking. Tackled him. Sank my teeth into his shoulder. Warmth flooded my mouth and throat, taking the edge off my hunger. 

Breathing heavily, Mark stiffened beneath me. A low rumble started in his chest. His tail tightened around my waist, pressing me against him as he kissed my neck. Physical desire washed over me; it emanated from him. 

Something told me the ‘effect’ of taking his arka was an aphrodisiac-related one. As my hunger waned, I gained the strength to pull away. 

“I think I’ve gotten enough.”

His grip on me loosened only slightly. “Are you sure?”  

Were it not for the lingering feeling of desire, I might have thought he was indifferent about me leaving. “Do you want to make out?”

“Yes.” He was breathless. 

I kissed him on the lips.

*** 

I watched Cadmus—a red lizard man who looked remarkably like Mark had last night—as he chopped meat on his kitchen counter. Apparently, he was supposed to babysit me for seven myriblinks, which was a measure of time that Mark hadn’t been able to satisfactorily explain before he had to leave for work.

“So, you’re married to Harker’s sister?” 

Cadmus didn’t look up. “Yep.” 

“Is, uh, Harker’s sister adopted?”

“Nope.” He swiped the meat cubes into a bucket. 

“So you’re married to a centaur?”

He blinked at me. “She’s a longstrider.”

“Right, that. How- how does a cen- longstrider and a lizard person-” I stopped myself, realizing I didn’t really want to know the details of their private lives. “Nevermind.” 

“I’m a scalewing.” Giving me an odd look, he handed me the bucket before heading outside. 

I followed close behind as he led me across an open space to a corral. It was one of many, and most of them were occupied by various drykons and their trainers. This one contained a little green drykon with four equal-sized legs and tiny bat wings. Its feathers were only along its neck, like a mane, and at the end of its horse-like tail. 

Cadmus ran through a training routine with the animal while I followed him around holding the bucket of meat cubes. The little drykon could come, sit, stay, and heel but not much else. As cute and magical as the creature was, it wasn’t really fun to watch someone else repetitively train an animal to do boring tricks. I wasn’t even allowed to pet it because that would ‘distract’ the creature from its training.  

Finally, we finished and moved onto the next corral, where another little drykon was waiting. It looked almost identical to the first one, and its training wasn’t any more interesting. 

Several drykons later, Cadmus set me to work shoveling dirty hay out of the stables. He left me with a stablehand whose name I immediately forgot. Said stablehand ignored me to flirt with another stablehand. I wasn’t about to let that opportunity go to waste. 

I snuck out the back of the stall I’d been cleaning, which opened to the outside. Cadmus wasn’t anywhere in sight. Fighting the urge to giggle excitedly, I hurried past the small training corrals. Behind them stood larger corrals with targets in them. Several scalewings rode on adult drykons, training them to shoot flames or green goo at the targets. They seemed not to notice me, so I passed them in search of an unoccupied drykon big enough for me to ride. 

In the last corral before open fields stood a white drykon without a rider. I speed-walked over to the beautiful creature. It was covered in snow white feathers everywhere except its head, flight feathers, and the end of its long tail—which were all crimson. As I moved closer, I realized it didn’t have forelegs, just two massive wings that supported some of its weight. It wore a tight muzzle, which none of the other drykons were wearing. That was probably a bad sign, but if the drykon attacked me, it might just wake me up for real. If not, Mark would patch me up. 

I started to open the gate and noticed a sign and a leather purse attached to it. 

This drykon has been condemned. If no one can break him by Praga 22nd, he’ll be sent to the chop house. If you think you can break him, sign your name and put a yellow CC in the bag. If you manage it, he’s yours. 

Ooh, that sounded like a fun challenge. Mark had given me a few crystal coins in case I needed to buy lunch. They had square holes through the middle, so I’d strung them on my shoelaces. I took off the only yellow one and dropped it in the bag. There was a fountain pen sticking out of the bag, so I signed my name under a dozen others. I hoped none of them had managed to break the drykon yet. It would be a bummer if I got beat up and couldn’t keep him.

Skipping from excitement, I entered the corral. Now, how to break a drykon? In the movies, cowboys would ride a bucking horse until it gave up, but this wasn’t a horse. And I was pretty sure that didn’t work very well in real life, anyway. Not that this was real life. And if it wasn’t real life, it probably followed the fantasy rules my subconscious thought up. 

I paced beside the drykon, thinking of every fantasy taming scene I’d seen or read. They all either included befriending the creature by treating it better than anyone else had, or impressing the creature by doing something crazy—like riding a wild dragon off a cliff or wrestling with the beast. This drykon wasn’t exactly a dragon, but it was similar enough. I didn’t think I could wrestle him into submission. Maybe I would’ve had a fighting chance using my polearm, but Mark had taken it into the dungeon. 

The drykon shifted his wing, revealing thick metal cuffs on his ankles. Similarly thick chains tied him to the fence. His restraints might give me an advantage in a wrestling match. Then again, maybe I didn’t have to wrestle. I could try the whole ‘treating him better than anyone else’ thing by letting him go. And jumping on his back, of course. 

First, the muzzle. It had a few buckles that were easy enough to get off. The drykon watched me with keen amber eyes as I moved to his ankles. Luckily, the manacles weren’t locked, just latched. I undid both of them before the animal seemed aware of what I was doing. 

I jumped on his side, clutching handfuls of feathers. Throwing up his wings, he knocked me onto his back and twisted his head to snap at me. I flung my arms around his neck. He side-stepped and froze. Looking down, he lifted one foot, then the other. It seemed to dawn on him that he was no longer chained. He leapt onto the top rung of the fence and screeched loud enough to make my ears ring. Every scalewing was staring at us—including Cadmus, who was standing about a hundred feet away. He started running and shouting, but I couldn’t hear him over the drykon’s screeching. 

My mount leapt into the air, sweeping massive wings downward. The ranch fell away beneath us. Wind roared in my ears, competing to be heard above my racing heart and the drykon’s screeches. We rose so quickly that an invisible force pressed me against his back. 

Hundreds of feet in the air, he stopped flapping and settled into a serene glide. I pulled myself forward to wrap my legs around his neck and look over the edge of his wing. The ranch sped past far below—small circles and squares of corrals occupied by tiny drykons and even tinier scalewings. It was like being in a plane, only I felt the wind rushing past and the powerful muscles of the beast beneath me. 

“This is frigging awesome. I have a drykon!” 

Apparently remembering the small creature on his back, the drykon shook wildly. I clung to him like a giant tick. He snarled and tipped his head down. I might’ve slipped forward off his neck if not for the fact that he also closed his wings and sent us plummeting toward the ground. 

Screaming, holding on for dear life, I buried my face in his neck feathers. Our acceleration forced me back against his shoulders. We stopped falling. We spun over and over until the centrifugal force threatened to fling me off. We ascended again, but I didn’t dare lift my head to see. Good thing, because we dove seconds later. 

The drykon’s flight was a roller coaster interspersed with violent spinning that made me want to puke. I gritted my teeth in a grimace to subdue the nausea. 

“Let go!” someone shouted close by.

I pried my face off the drykon’s neck just enough to see a sandy-colored drykon with no feathers flying below me. Cadmus was riding it. 

He gestured wildly. “Let go, I’ll catch you!”

I considered it for a moment, but desperate, animalistic fear flashed through my mind. I couldn’t go with him. Every fiber of my body screamed to fly away. Why? It didn’t make sense to be afraid of Cadmus. He hadn’t done anything except tell me to do some chores. Sure, jumping down to him was risky, but so was all of this. Then why was I-

No, it wasn’t me. It was my mount. His—no, her—mind brushed against mine, conveying the instinctive fear of capture. Capture meant being grounded, and grounded drykons died. She couldn’t go back to the ranch.

“Liza-” The wind stole Cadmus’s words as my drykon accelerated. 

I clung to her, face pressed against her neck, and reached out for her mind. There was no reason to be afraid. If she listened to me, if she became mine, I would never chain her to the ground. Sure, I would want to ride her sometimes, but I wasn’t that heavy, right?

The drykon was confused. She’d never felt the mind of a non-drykon. She reached out tentatively, sending images and feelings that I instinctively translated into words. [You say nice things about no chains. You’re a small snack, not heavy.] She paused as confusion clouded her thoughts. Carrying me was a simple enough request, but to submit to a non-drykon, to become its property? Drykons didn’t own anything. They ate what they caught, they mated with those who would have them, and they raised hatchlings. That was it. That was life for a drykon. 

The only thing that might be considered a drykon’s possession was the prey they caught. [You want me to be prey?]

[No, of course not.] I sent soothing feelings along with the words, hoping she understood my meaning. [I would never eat you. You would be my friend—er, my companion, my protector. All you would have to do is carry me places and catch me food if I need it.]

[Ah, you are a hatchling. You need a mother.]

I paused. That wasn’t really true, but it was good enough for now. [Sure, I’m a hatchling in need of a mother. Could you pretty please take me back to the ranch before the sandy drykon attacks you?]

She tilted one wing down and turned on a dime. I saw through her eyes as Cadmus’s sandy drykon spit balls of fire at us. Fear told my drykon to turn and run into the wilderness, but I guided her mind toward the ranch instead. We raced over open grassland, easily out-pacing Cadmus’s mount as he turned to pursue us.