Dragon's Heart by LaVerne Thompson

took a drink of water then looked him up and down.
“Though, you don’t look a day over three hundred and fifty, if that,” she
finished flippantly.
    He
frowned. “Ah…actually…”
    “No.”
She held up one hand and placed the glass back on the table she held in the
other. “Don’t tell me.”
    This
time he smiled before he answered. “I’m quite a bit more than a thousand years
old.”
    She
shifted restlessly in the chair. “How much more?”
    “Maya,
I’m almost two thousand years old.”
    The
shocked expression on her face made him smile even more. “I know the world as
you know it no longer exists. But there is much to look forward to.”
    “I’m
sorry.” She shook her head. “This is a lot. Dragons and magic, legend and myth,
are real? So is reality a lie?”
    “Not
at all. There are just many versions of it.”
    Her
head dropped forward until it rested on her knees.
    “Are
you all right?” he asked.
    “Uh-huh”
came a muffled reply. She waved one hand in the air. “Just give me a second.”
    He
leaned forward and turned more toward her. “Breathe, Maya.”
    “Okay,
okay, ah, yeah.” She sat up and leaned her head against the back of the chair.
“I guess there’s no going back to that ignorant reality. So, where were we? Oh
yeah, you’re over two thousand years old. Oh, God! Uh, how old is Talon?”
    “He’s
barely past hatchling. He’s only a little over four hundred years old.”
    “Four…four,
huh! Okay.”
    “It
will be okay. I promise. Everything will be all right now.”
    “So,”
Maya took a deep breath, “go on. You were saying you left. And where’d you go
again?”
    “We
went back to the land we came from, Akgon.”
    “So
you’re not human? You’re not from Earth?”
    “Yes
and no.”
    “Jeez,
enough with the yes and no answers.”
    Draakar
smiled again at her reaction. She actually took all of this rather well. “We
are human. Part of us is human.”
    “That’s
impossible.”
    “Nothing
is impossible.”
    “Okay,
okay. Let’s let that one go for now. So you went back to where you guys came
from, Akgon. So why are you here now?”
    “The
magick on Akgon is weakening. Our life energies are linked to the magicks of
our world. When the magick, weakens we weaken to the point we eventually die.”
He did not add the conduit the magick flowed through was him, and his magick
had been slowly weakening without his truemate to nourish his life energy.
    Without
Sierran to help sustain his magic, the brethren would not have survived as long
as they had. Now strength and power coursed through his veins. Stronger even
than the first time he left Earth or left Akgon because he and his truemate
were finally in the same place, in the same time. What powers would they
unleash with a mating!
    “Wait
a minute,” Maya said, “I thought that was your ‘realm’ so why would you be weak
there? For that matter, why’d you leave it to begin with?”
    “I
did not. None of the brethren that returned with me had ever been on
Akgon.   We are Earth born, but
Talon and others were born on Akgon after we arrived.”
    “Well
were there other brethren already there?”
    “No
and it’s not clear why the original brethren left.”
    “I’m
confused. Akgon is your surname and the name of your realm.”
    “Surnames
are a recent human custom. Akgon is the birthplace of the brethren and thus the
surname we use today on Earth.”
    She
nodded. “Okay, so why are you here now?”
    “Because
the brethren are being threatened again. The answers to our survival are here.
I also believe Earth is in danger. I need your help, Maya.”
    She
shrugged. “I don’t know. What can I do? With all the magicks you seem to
possess, I don’t see how I can help you. Until yesterday, I didn’t know
creatures, beings…like you, existed. You were something to be found in a book.
No strike that.   I’ve never found
the likes of you in any book.”
    Draakar
smiled and his eyes got brighter.