Dragon Touched

“What?” he demanded at last.

“You are like no other man we have seen,” said one of the younger women. She looked like a softer echo of Rowena, same eyes, fewer hard lines.

“I don’t imagine you’ve seen many men in your life,” Al said.

“I have seen five,” she replied, chin lifting. “Our father. Our brother. An uncle. And his two sons.”

The others murmured agreement.

“Five men,” Al said slowly, doing the math in his head. “In what—fifteen, sixteen years?”

Rowena stepped in before the girl could bristle. “For country gentry, that is a significant number. Most households are reluctant to parade men about. And finding you here, unclaimed, in our woods…” She let the sentence trail off. The implication was clear.

Al sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “So what happened? What broke your world so badly there are so few men?”

The women stilled.

“Where I come from,” he went on, “population’s about even. Half men. Half women. Always has been.”

One of the girls gasped outright, hand flying to her mouth.

“That’s impossible,” another whispered.

Rowena studied him with new intensity. “No war could leave such balance.”

“It wasn’t war,” Al said. “Not one war. Not even a hundred. Men just… survive. Same as women. We don’t disappear.”

Silence settled, thick and uneasy.

“At birth,” the younger one said carefully, “we expect one boy for every fifteen, sometimes twenty girls. When a son is born, the house feasts. When a daughter is born…” She shrugged. “Life continues.”

Al felt something cold settle in his chest. “And you don’t think that’s wrong?”

Rowena didn’t answer right away. When she did, her voice was level. “We think it is how the world is.”

He looked at them then—really looked—and understood the weight behind their curiosity. To them, he wasn’t just strange.

He was proof that their world might be wounded.

Al shook his head. “Point me toward civilization and I’ll be out of your hair.”

The women stared at him as if he had suggested walking into the sea.

“What do you mean?” one of the younger sisters said. “We can’t allow you to go unescorted. That would be…”

“Uncivilized,” Rowena finished, her tone firm.

Al let out a short breath. “Look, I’ve already got three fiancées I didn’t ask for. I can take care of myself, and I don’t want to drag your family into my mess.”

That landed poorly.

The younger women bristled at once. One crossed her arms. “You speak as though escort is a burden.”

“It’s a responsibility,” another said. “And one we cannot abandon.”

Rowena studied him in silence, then said, “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“Then explain it,” Al replied.

“If you walk alone,” she said, “every house that learns of you will assume you are unclaimed. Unprotected. Fair taking. That does not end with harsh words.”

“And if you leave our lands without escort,” one sister added, quieter now, “it reflects on us. As though we failed to guard what was placed before us.”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Al frowned. “Placed by who?”

“The world,” Rowena said. “Or the Crown. Or the gods, depending on who you ask.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Where I come from, a man doesn’t need permission to walk down a road.”

Rowena’s gaze softened, just a fraction. “Here, a man who walks alone is either mad, already dead, or about to belong to someone else.”

That finally gave him pause. "I can take care of myself as the last ones who thought they could walk off with me found out."

“You think you’re being kind,” she continued. “Trying not to involve us. But abandoning you would be cruelty, not mercy.”

The younger sisters nodded, some with unease, some with something closer to resolve.

Rowena met his eyes. “Until you stand before law or hearth and are accounted for, you are our responsibility. Whether you like it or not.”

Al exhaled slowly. “Back home, that’s what we’d call being voluntold.”

Rowena almost smiled.

“Then consider yourself,” she said, “very politely claimed.”