Dragon Hunter

Chapter 36: New Venue, Same Old Problems

Cooper came awake with a jerk, eyes fluttering in the dancing light filling the space he was in. And almost immediately closed them again as a wave of pain washed through him. Teeth grit, he rode it out as he carefully checked himself for broken bones.

Good. Nothing was shattered like the pain told him it was. Cooper let a ragged sigh of relief hiss through his lips. If he was truly busted up like the pain was trying to tell him, then he might as well throw in the towel right now, because there was no way he was surviving the next few minutes.

"Counting the bruises?" a male voice asked in slightly accented English.

Cooper let his eyes flutter back open. And found a handsome, suntanned elven face looking down at him. One, that seeing Cooper's eyes on him, immediately split into a welcoming smile.

"Don't blame you," the elf said with a nod. "You got hit pretty damn hard. And being mortal around here means you feel it."

"Mortal?" Cooper repeated thickly.

"Yup," the elf said with another nod. "We're fairly rare in the Eternal Forest. So those of us that are, get fairly excited when a new one shows up to bolster our numbers."

Cooper closed his eyes against the aching throb in his body.

"How many of you are there?" he asked hoarsely.

"In this encampment? Including you? Four," the elf replied.

"Is this our newest addition?" a second voice chose that moment to interject in flawless English.

"Aye," the elf confirmed.

"Hmm. Human. I didn't expect to ever see one of them here!" the second voice noted with naked curiosity and amazement in his voice, the observation sending a thrill through Cooper's battered body.

Human?? This guy knew what he was?? That was enough to make Cooper's eyes flutter back open as he pushed aside his pain to carefully sit up. And found himself looking at another elf a couple steps back from the first one, a lean, handsome fellow with the pale copper skin, bright blue eyes, and unmistakable carriage of a dokkersvelf.

"Wrong side of the mirror, aren't you, dokkersvelf?" he croaked, his question eliciting a quick smile on the second elf's face.

"Ha! You know of my people!" the dokkersvelf said with a laugh of delight before nodding. "Normally you'd be right, human. You and Theron here are both from the light side of the mirror. I am from the dark side. Laws of Reality declare we cannot share the same space."

"Let me guess. The Eternal Forest touches all realms so mortals of any realm can be banished here," Cooper said with a grimace as pain flared through him for a moment.

"I didn't believe you when you first told me. But you were right, Kennedy" a third voice said, its English lightly touched by an unknown accent. "Humans are quite clever!"

Cooper turned enough to his right to spot the third speaker. And found his eyes narrowing to see it was a dragon in were-form.

As tall as the dokkersvelfa, who the dragon named Kennedy, and with the general appearance of an elf, the were-form dragon had slate gray skin with dark gray and black-rimmed with silver scales on the shoulders, elbows and back of the hands, which weren't covered by his simple sleeveless tanned leather tunic. He also had scales along his jawline and a spiked crest in black and silver instead of hair, his eyes a golden yellow with the characteristic slit pupils of reptilian creatures.

And, as his eyes fell onto the drake, the creature's eyebrow lifted.

"Curious," the drake muttered, his expression suddenly thoughtful. "I'm seeing ... familiar energies imbuing your body."