His smile widened. “Good to know,” he said, and closed the distance between us. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he slipped his around my waist, pressing us close. As his lips met mine, I closed my eyes, breathing him in, savoring the moment as long as I could. With all the changes to Talon and the upheaval within the organization and St. George, I hadn’t seen Garret in over a week, and I’d missed him more than I’d thought possible. It had killed me a few short minutes ago, glimpsing him over the table, knowing I couldn’t go over and hug him or even talk to him like I wanted to. No, I was the CEO of Talon now, and I had to behave accordingly, even among my closest friends.
Pulling back, Garret regarded me with solemn eyes, his pupils contracted until they were thin black lines against the gray. My heart sped up, and Garret must’ve sensed it, for his brow furrowed, and he gently stroked my cheek. “What’s wrong?” he murmured.
I shook myself. “Nothing,” I replied, seeing my reflection in those silvery irises. “It’s just…hard to believe that we’re here. That we’re alive, and together, at the end of everything.” He bent forward and kissed me again, long and lingering, and I sank into his touch.
Several minutes passed, and the windows along the wall were in danger of fogging up, before I forced myself to pull away.
“Garret, wait. There’s something I have to show you. I didn’t call you in here just for…this.” He cocked his head, looking puzzled, and I felt color creep up my face. “Not that I’m complaining, at all, and what the CEO does in her own office is not anyone’s business but her own, but… I’m going to stop talking now, because the CEO of Talon does not stutter like a vapid teenager.” I frowned at the grinning soldier. “And you will tell no one what transpired here, especially the Archivist.”
Garret chuckled and released me. “Of course not, Madam President,” he said, looking far too innocent as he stepped back. “The CEO of Talon and the commander of St. George are nothing but professional. In public.”
Firmly telling myself not to blush, I walked around my desk, pulled open a drawer and withdrew a large manila envelope.
“These are the results of the tests you wanted,” I told him, sliding the envelope across the desk. “I had our scientists run a thorough examination of your blood, and you were right.” I paused, swallowing hard, as Garret picked up the envelope and pulled out the papers inside. “There is a large percentage of dragon DNA in your blood,” I told him, “and traces of it throughout your body. From the tissue samples they took, the scientists were able to conclude that your cells regenerate at an amazing speed, almost identical to a dragon’s healing capabilities. They’ve never seen anything like it before. A couple of them wanted to know your identity so they could ‘detain’ you for further study. I told them absolutely not, your identity would not be revealed, and I would eat them if they asked me again.”
Garret smiled at this, still studying the documents. “But you’re in no danger of this killing you, Garret,” I continued. “Quite the opposite, in fact. The scientists noted that the dragon DNA continuously regenerates and heals the human tissue, to the point where it actually seems to prevent normal human aging.”
Garret blinked and looked up, a frown crossing his face. “What does that mean?”
“They’re not sure exactly,” I admitted. “It’s all theory at this point. But they’ve posited that you could have a longer lifespan than an average human. Much…longer.”
Garret’s voice was quietly awed. “As long as a dragon’s?”
“Maybe.” I took a breath, trying to control both the fear and wonder that had been hovering inside ever since I’d heard the news. “Like I said, they’re not really certain. They would have to run more tests, but it will likely be years before they have any sort of real answer. But I did want you to know that there is the possibility of you living…for a very long time, Garret. Maybe as long as a dragon.”
Garret didn’t answer right away. He stared back down at the papers with an unreadable look on his face. “I hope this doesn’t come as too much of a shock,” I said at last, wondering what was going through his head. “And I hope this won’t threaten the truce between Talon and St. George. The Order might get suspicious if they notice that the commander never seems to age.”
He gave his head a little shake and tossed the envelope back on the desk. “I’m sure the Order will have a few questions,” he stated softly before giving me a faint smile. “In a decade or two.”
I cocked my head at his nonchalance. “You’re not worried about this?”
“About spending a few centuries with you? I think I’m okay with that.” The faint smile turned into a full-blown grin that lit up the room. “Though Riley might have something to say about it.”
My heart swelled like a balloon, even as a lump caught in my throat. Turning, I walked to the enormous windows lining my office wall, and gazed out at the sky. Far below, the city glittered with a million blinking lights, but I looked toward the distant horizon and the final sliver of sunlight sinking into the dark.
“Everything is changing,” I murmured, feeling Garret slip his arms around me from behind. “There’s so much to do, and we’ll both be so busy. I have to lead Talon, and you’re the commander of St. George. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”
“I don’t, either.” Garret bent close, resting his head on my shoulder, as we both gazed out over the city. “But I spent the last year thinking that I was going to die. Now that the war is finally over and we’re both still alive, I don’t want to waste a single moment of the time we’ve been granted. Especially now.” His arms tightened around my waist, his breath warm on my cheek. “I love you, Ember,” he whispered. “No matter what happens, I’ll be here. And who knows? Maybe it will be longer than we thought. Maybe it’ll be forever.”
“Forever,” I mused, as the last sliver of sunlight finally vanished into the dark. “Forever sounds good. Let’s go for forever.”
AUTHOR NOTE
When I was in high school, I wrote a fantasy about a cold, hardened dragonslayer who met and fell in love with the dragon he was hunting. The setting was different; it was a typical medieval world with castles and knights and swords, but those two characters—Ember the dragon and Garret the dragonslayer—stayed with me for years and years. I’m thrilled that I finally got to tell their story.
Dragons have been my favorite mythological creature since before I can remember. When I was a teen, all I read was fantasy, and most of my books had a dragon on the cover. In fact, if there was a dragon anywhere on the book, it was pretty much guaranteed that I was going to pick it up and look at it. When I started writing Talon, I wanted to do something different. Dragons have always been a staple of medieval worlds, either as villains for the brave knight to slay, or wise and powerful creatures that the hero implored for help. And while I loved reading those stories, I always wondered what would happen if dragons lived in modern times. Dragons are long lived, powerful and supremely intelligent; if they existed today, they wouldn’t be sitting in caves guarding treasure, they would be the CEOs of billion-dollar companies. And if dragons evolved with the times, surely the knights that hunted them would adapt, as well. They would no longer use swords and lances, not when they could be hunting dragons with machine guns, sniper rifles and modern weapons of destruction. And a story about modern knights fighting dragons in this day and age just seemed really cool.
But, at its core, Talon is a story about “othering,” and how we perceive those who are different than us. Those who look different, talk different, see the world differently—we don’t understand them, and so they must be “bad.” When, if we just sat down and had a real conversation, we might discover that we’re much more alike than we thought. Ember and Garret both challenge the beliefs they were raised with, finding friendship, acceptance and love with someone their society believed was “evil.” If we could do the same, if we could all take that first step toward acceptance and understanding, we might make the world a kinder place. Think of all the things we could learn, if we saw the world through another’s eyes.
That’s not to say we’d discover dragons have been living among us all this time…
But you never know.