Page 22 of The Good Daughter

‘Some say it was that day that the peace which had existed between dragon and human in the elder days evaporated, and the two species learned to hate each other.

‘Only able to walk, Juno headed for the upper slopes, afraid of what vengeance the humans might take when they learned what she had done. Heavier with every passing day as her child grew, she dragged herself up the mountain to be with her people when she finally gave birth.

‘But to what?

‘The trauma through which Juno had suffered had scarred more than her mind. That trauma had flowed through her blood to mix with the blood of her child, so the unborn baby was nourished by those twin images of its dead parent and the burning humans.

‘Then came the birth. And there was uproar amongst the dragons of the mountain; disbelief and disgust, for the creature that had been born, was neither dragon nor human, but a hideous conglomeration of both.

‘Only Juno could bear to look upon the child, because to her it was the only thing she had left of Jove. And even she had reservations—she had planned to name the baby after its father, but now could not bring herself to do so. Instead, she called him Caine.

‘As it proved, in contrast to the condition in which he was born, Caine could change from dragon to human and back again. But that did little to improve his standing amongst the other dragons. He was not one of them, and he never would be.

‘Though it broke her heart to let him go, Juno knew that her child could never have a proper life with the other dragon kin, because they knew what he was. Even if he never changed form again, they would always know. He would never be trusted, he would never have friends or a mate, he would always be ‘The Shifter’ and nothing more. And so, by night, she carried the boy down the mountain where, after a tearful farewell, she left him at the farmstead of a human family.

‘From a distance (for dragons have keen eyesight), she watched as the humans found the boy, and assumed him to be a foundling. They took him in, they looked after him, they raised him as their own, and Juno was sad, but content.

‘But such secrets can only be kept for so long.

‘Juno—I should perhaps have said earlier—before she left the boy, had told Caine that he was, on no account, ever to reveal his true nature. He must remain in his human form for the rest of his life. Caine was sad about this, because he had grown up with dragons and that was how he thought of himself, and because he longed one day to fly. But he did as his mother instructed, and apart from an occasional tendency to sit for long hours staring wistfully at the mountains, no one would have thought him any different from any other human boy of his age.

‘Now, amongst the family with whom Caine had been placed, there was a daughter, a young girl with long blonde hair, whose name was Elsa. In the way of such things, Caine was taken with her and she with him, and her parents were gratified to see it, for they liked Caine and had no male heir and hoped the two might one day marry and inherit the farm.

‘But as she grew older, Elsa became steadily more and more beautiful, and attracted more and more attention from other young men in the area. It did not matter to Caine, who would have loved her no matter what. And the attentions of these other men did not matter to Elsa, who loved Caine to the exclusion of anyone else. But young men of that age do not take no for an answer.

‘One day when Elsa was out at work on the farm (I do not know what she was doing but let us imagine that she was feeding the cattle) a group of young men from around the region came to watch her at work.

‘She politely smiled at them—because she had been brought up that way—and got on with her work, and maybe did not notice that they had edged closer, until they had gotten very close indeed.

“Is there something you need?” Elsa asked—she still was not scared because hers was a life into which threat had never intruded.

“There’s something we want,” the leader of the young men said. “The time has come for you to choose one of us.”

“One of you?” Elsa frowned. “For what?”

“To love,” another young man explained.

Elsa smiled (clearly these young men were ill-informed). “I love Caine.”

“A girl like you should not be loved by just one man,” the leader spoke again. “That’s unfair.”

“It’s selfish.”

“Caine should learn to share.”

“To share what?” asked Elsa, anxiety only now creeping into her. She took a step back but found that the young men were encircling her.

“To share you,” the leader explained.

“How?” Elsa quavered.

“Let us show you.”

‘And the young men did.

‘Some say they were too rough with her, and that was how Elsa died. Some say she took her own life in horror at what had happened. Or perhaps the young men killed her to keep her quiet. Whatever the case, all versions of the story agree that she was dead when Caine arrived.

‘He saw the body of the girl he loved. He saw the men standing over her. And an anger he had never previously known tore through him.