Releasing the Dragon Page 18

  “Oh, no,” he said in a steady voice. “You ruined my fun last time—you won’t ruin it again.”

  “Dru, watch out!” Annie screamed, finding her voice at last. “He’s got a gu—”

  Before she could finish the sentence, Christian raised his hand and the hoarse barking blast of the gun cut her off. She watched in agony as a bloody red flower suddenly blossomed on the left side of the big Kindred’s chest.

  “No,” she whispered as Dru looked down at the wound…and then sank to his knees. “Oh, no…no please!”

  “Well—I think that takes care of your boyfriend.” Christian turned back to her, tucking the gun into the waistband of his slacks. “Now…where were we?”

  But Annie’s gaze was still trained on Dru. Though the big Kindred had fallen to his knees and blood was running down his bare chest, he hadn’t actually fallen over. His head was sagging low, as though he was looking down at the ground and any moment she expected him to topple over—but somehow he didn’t.

  And then something strange began to happen to him.

  Lines of reddish-golden light began to appear—first in his hands and forearms—then spreading upwards to the rest of his body. Annie thought they looked like jagged bolts of gold-red lightning breaking out all over his skin. Or maybe like his veins had suddenly filled with molten lava. Then he lifted his head.

  His eyes, she thought wildly. His eyes are burning!

  Flames shot from the big Kindred’s eyes—actual flames, not just light, Annie saw in sick fascination. He threw back his head and opened his mouth as though to roar at the sky and a gout of flame shot upward from between his lips, roasting the damp green leaves above his head and turning the twigs and branches a withered black.

  Christian must have been watching the look on her face because he spun around, his jaw dropping with amazement.

  “Son of a bitch,” he whispered hoarsely. “How…what…?”

  A roar like nothing Annie had ever heard before broke from Dru’s throat, cutting off the question.

  And then the big Kindred began to change.

  His limbs lengthened and thickened, his neck became long, and his face pressed up and outward—his mouth becoming the massive jaws of a predator. He burst out of his clothes—his trousers and boots incinerating to ashes as he shifted forms. Fiery red scales flowed over his body, which was growing along with the rest of him—scales which showed the golden glow of flames between their edges. Giant wings burst from his back, vast and black as they stirred the hot wind that was, by now, so familiar. Finally, a long, lashing tail sprouted, whipping through the vines and underbrush angrily.

  “His Drake,” Annie breathed, her eyes wide with wonder and fear. “That’s it—his Drake!”

  “His what?” Christian shook his head and pulled out his gun again. “I don’t care what the fuck it is, I’m going to kill it,” he announced.

  “I don’t think—” Annie began and then Christian squeezed the trigger.

  The gun went off with a flat bang and the Drake roared. It turned its flaming golden eyes balefully on its attacker and opened its mouth wide, showing teeth like knives. Shimmering waves of heat came from its gullet, nearly invisible heralds of the flame to come.

  Christian was standing to one side of the tree but he wasn’t really very far from her. Annie was horribly afraid that she was going to be burned to a crisp along with her attacker. But she needn’t have worried.

  A gout of liquid flame shot out, as viscous as glue or slime, and coated Christian from head to foot. He screamed and flailed in agony, dropping the knife and shooting the gun uselessly into the sky. He fell on the ground and writhed like a worm—clearly in unimaginable pain. But though he rolled and writhed all over the plants and underbrush, none of them caught fire—and none put the fire out, either. It was as though the sticky, liquid flames had a mind of their own and were determined to devour Annie’s old flame whole.

  Oh my God—get it? Old flame? And now he’s literally in flames, whispered a crazy little voice in her head. Annie opened her lips and a horrible sound—half laugh/half sob—came out. Quickly she closed her mouth again, not wanting to give in to the hysteria that threatened.

  It’ll be over soon, she told herself. I have to be strong—have to survive. Over soon. Over soon.

  At last Christian lay still, only twitching from time to time as the sickening smell of roasting meat and burnt flesh rose, making Annie feel sick to her stomach.

  “Oh God…oh God…oh God…” she heard herself chanting in a low, uneven voice over and over again. “Oh God, he’s dead…he’s really dead…”

  The Drake seemed to agree with her. It bent its long, snaky neck and nudged at the smoldering lump that had been her high school crush—and her would-be murderer—with its sharply pointed snout. Then it turned one huge, golden eye on Annie.

  “Oh please…” Annie whispered. She tugged uselessly at the tape that encircled her wrists and looped around the back of the tree trunk to hold her in place. “Oh please no…”

  The Drake opened its mouth again and Annie was certain she was about to be engulfed in a gout of liquid flame, just as Christian had been. But the massive beast pursed its lips in a strangely human gesture and blew only the tiniest blob of fire. It landed on the tape nearest her right wrist and ate through the sticky stuff immediately.

  At first Annie could hardly believe it but when she realized her wrist was free to move and she wasn’t being consumed in a ball of liquid fire, she pulled her hand away from the rough tree bark and held it out in front of her.

  “You freed me,” she whispered wonderingly to the huge beast.

  The Drake dipped its scaly head, as though nodding in agreement, and then raised again to look her in the eye.

  “So…you don’t want to…to burn me? To hurt me?”

  The huge head shook from side to side—a firm negative. Annie began to feel more comfortable with it.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much for saving me.” Not quite sure if she was doing the right thing, she held out a hand—her right one, since the left was still taped to the tree.

  The Drake seemed to understand what she wanted. It leaned closer and nudged it scaly head under her trembling palm.

  “Oh!” Annie whispered in surprise. She’d been tensed to draw back, expecting that touching the Drake’s armored hide might be like touching a hot stove or the door to a furnace. Instead, it was pleasantly warm and surprisingly soft—almost like touching feathers. As they came into contact, the tension and horror that had gathered like a hard knot in her stomach instantly began to melt.

  “You look so big and hard and scaly,” Annie told it, as she scratched lightly over the Drake’s eye ridges. “But you’re actually a big softie, aren’t you?”

  The golden eyes closed in pleasure and a humming, rumbling purr came from the enormous beast. It traveled up the long throat and vibrated her entire arm until she felt like she was petting a high-performance muscle car with its engine running.

  “You like that, don’t you?” Annie still couldn’t believe she was petting a dragon—because that was basically what the Drake was. She felt, as she had several times since meeting Dru, that she was inside one of her own virtual reality games, playing the part of a character on an adventure. But she had never written anything as wild as the things she had seen and done in the past few days.

  Truth is stranger than fiction, I guess, she thought wonderingly, scratching behind the Drake’s other eye-ridge and feeling its rumbling purr of approval. Clearly the big beast was really enjoying her touch.

  “You know, I was scared of you at first but you’re okay,” she told the Drake. “Do you like me too?”

  The Drake opened one golden eye and regarded her again.

  “Mine,” a deep, rumbling voice said inside her head.

  Annie was so surprised she jerked her hand away.

  “Oh my God—did you say that?” she blurted.

  The Drake nudged her hand, very gently, w
ith the top of its massive head and she realized it wanted her to pet it again.

  “Um…okay.” Carefully she stroked over the eye ridge closest to her. “Maybe I just imagined you were talking,” she muttered to herself.

  “No. Mine,” came the rumbling voice again.

  This time Annie wasn’t quite so shocked.

  “Are you saying I belong to you?” she asked, frowning at the big beast. “Are you…claiming me somehow?”

  “Yes.” The answer came back at once. “You are mine.” Then, after a minute it added, “I am yours.”

  “Is that right?” Annie raised and eyebrow. “I don’t know, buddy—Dru might have something to say about that.”

  The Drake snorted, somehow making the sound extremely contemptuous.

  “He is a fool. Will not see we belong together. Mine,” it said with utter certainty.

  “Well, I’d like to be yours,” Annie said carefully. “As long as Dru is part of the package. But my apartment building doesn’t let me keep pets over twenty-five pounds and I’d say you’re considerably more than that.”

  “Not a pet!” The golden eyes flared for a moment. “Mate.”

  “My mate?” Annie frowned. “I don’t know…what exactly is involved in that, uh, process? Because I don’t know if you and I would be, you know, compatible.”

  She was aware of how surreal this conversation was—she was talking to a dragon who was somehow part of the man she loved—a dragon who had rescued her from being killed by her high school crush and who now wanted to claim her for its mate. It was like something out of a crazy science fiction fantasy novel. But somehow it just went on and on.

  “Dru will bond you,” the Drake said with certainty. “You will be his mate. My mate too. I will protect…care for you. Mine.”

  He kept coming back to that possessive, Annie thought. It sort of took her breath away to be claimed with such absolute certainty by such a huge beast.

  “All right,” she told the Drake. “Well, could you free my left hand too? And then, do you think you can let Dru come back? I really don’t think I can bring you back to my apartment—you won’t fit.”

  The Drake blew a tiny blob of fire to eat through the tape that held her left wrist to the trunk and Annie breathed a sigh of relief. She took a quick check inside the purple walnut she’d held clenched tight in her left fist all this time and was glad to see that Nutter Butter was still okay. Closing the lid again, she got to work getting the restraints off her wrists.

  She yelped in pain as she yanked the silver duct tape off, leaving raw, red patches. God, she was really a mess, between the slices down her arm, the scratches on her back and shoulders from the tree bark, and the effects of the tape! She looked like she’d been through some serious shit.

  Which, in all fairness, she had.

  “I’m going to take a while to heal up,” she told the Drake and was surprised when it didn’t answer her. Then it nudged her hand again and she realized it wanted to be petted some more. An idea came to her as she stroked it’s deceptively soft scales. “Hey, can you only talk to me when I’m touching you?”

  “Yes,” the deep, growling voice answered. Then it added, “Heal you.”

  “What? How?” Annie eyed it uneasily. “I’m not flame-proof,” she reminded the Drake. “I would burn up as easily as Christian there did.” She shuddered as she looked down at the smoking lump which had been her attacker. She supposed she ought to be having a nervous breakdown right now—freaking out about everything that had just happened to her. But somehow being near the Drake—touching him—made her feel calm.

  “Healing warmth,” the Drake told her. “Hold out your limb—I will show you.”

  Cautiously, Annie held out her right wrist. The Drake positioned its huge mouth over her extended arm and opened its gleaming jaws. Annie winced and had to force herself not to yank her hand away. But what came from the Drake’s mouth wasn’t flame this time but a simple, gentle warmth. It bathed her hurt wrist and she sighed in relief as she felt the pain dissipate.

  A warm scent enveloped her—the aroma of a campfire at twilight. It was the component of Dru’s own scent she felt most drawn to and now she realized it belonged to his Drake. The huge beast had been inside Dru all along, wanting her…waiting for her. The thought just about blew her mind and Annie felt a surge of affection go through her for the huge creature. He knew that she and Dru belonged together, even if Dru wouldn’t admit it himself.

  The Drake continued to breathe on her and she watched in wonder as the raw, red patches where the tape had been slowly healed until her wrist looked completely normal again. It did the same for the other wrist and for the long cuts Christian had made along her upper arms.

  At last, the Drake looked her over and nodded its huge head, as though in approval.

  “Healed,” it told Annie.

  “Yes, I am—you healed me. Thank you!” Impulsively, Annie threw her arms around the long neck and pressed her face to the soft red scales. “You’re wonderful!” she told the Drake. “I don’t understand why Dru didn’t want you to come out.”

  “Drugair is…shamed of me.” The big beast sounded so sad it almost brought tears to her eyes.

  “Well he has no need to be,” she said firmly. “I like you. You’re amazing, Drake.”

  The huge creature purred contentedly and wrapped one long forelimb carefully around Annie’s waist to draw her closer.

  “Mine,” it said again. “Always mine, Annie. Even if I never see you again.”

  “Never see me again? What are you talking about?” Annie asked. But then she realized the Drake was changing—shrinking down right in her arms. His big body got smaller and his tail disappeared and the golden eyes turned pure, pitch black.

  And barely a moment after the change began, she was looking up at Dru.

  Twenty-Three

  “Annie! Thank the Goddess, you are all right!”

  Dru crushed her to him, lifting her off the ground in his relief and eagerness to hold her. He didn’t care that all his clothing had been burned away and he was nude—and Annie didn’t seem to mind either. She hugged him back tightly and whispered his name.

  “Oh, Dru…”

  “I’m sorry…so sorry,” he said over and over again, burying his face in her soft cloud of red hair. “Oh Goddess, what a fool I have been!”

  Annie kissed his cheek and then pulled back to look at him.

  “But how are you all right?” she asked. “Christian shot you in the chest—I saw him! Right before your Drake came out.”

  Dru shook his head dismissively.

  “No—he only hit one of my hearts. I have two you know—one for me, and one for the Drake. The injured one will repair itself quickly.”

  “Oh, well…as long as you’ve got hearts to spare…” Annie laughed, a soft, relieved sound that it did both of his hearts good to hear. Then she grew serious. “Your Drake really kind of saved the day, you know. He burned Christian to a crisp.” She nodded at the charred and smoldering lump on the ground beside them and shuddered.

  Dru grew serious as well.

  “I know. And I will have to answer for his crimes—and for my own indiscretion in letting him come out in the first place. I was wounded and lost control, but that is really no excuse.”

  “Why do you need an excuse? Why is it an indiscretion to let him come out?” Annie demanded. “He saved me, Dru! And he likes me. Not only that—I like him. You should let him come out more often.”

  Dru shook his head, horrified at the thought.

  “Certainly not! I come from a long line of males who only let their Drake out once in their lives—during their manhood ceremony. After that, a Drake is supposed to be locked away forever. Otherwise they may come out and cause horrible damage and death—as mine did,” he added grimly, looking at the charred remains on the ground again.

  “Your Drake killed Christian because he was going to kill me!” Annie exclaimed, frowning. “And he was very careful not t
o hurt me or cause any other damage. He was a perfect gentleman. I don’t think you give him enough credit—you should let him out to stretch his wings more often!”

  Dru looked at her, scarcely believing what he was hearing. In his experience, females who were exposed to a male’s Drake were frightened nearly to death. On his home world, he had heard of impending joinings that were broken because a male allowed his Drake to come out around the female he intended to join with. In the upper echelons of his society, it simply wasn’t done. Allowing one’s Drake to come out more than the once during the manhood ceremony when it was necessary was considered low class, vulgar, and dangerous.

  But here Annie was, saying she liked his Drake and wanted it to come out more!

  “You don’t know what you are saying,” he protested. “Drakes are dangerous beasts—creatures that are all hunger and lust. They are not to be trusted.”

  “Well, I trust yours.” Annie crossed her arms over her breasts. “And I think you should too.”

  “You don’t understand,” Dru told her. “For letting my Drake out, I must now go before the Kindred High Council and admit what I have done. I will have to beg forgiveness and hope they do not strip me of my position and send me back to my home world in disgrace. And if my parents ever learned that I had let it out…” He shook his head, thinking of the dishonor his indiscretion would bring on his family name. The endless shame and recrimination…

  “If you’re going before the High Council then I want to go too.” Annie jutted her chin out stubbornly. “I want to tell them what I saw and how well behaved your Drake really is. And I don’t care what anyone else says—he’s a beautiful, amazing person with feelings and it’s wrong for you to keep him cooped up inside all the time and never let him out! It’s like…” She frowned. “I don’t know. Like if you bought a lion for a pet and kept it in a tiny cage its entire life. It’s cruel, Dru!”

  He looked at her in amazement. Somehow he had never thought of things in this way. It was true that though he was a large male, his Drake was much larger. Keeping all that energy and power bottled up inside him all the time sometimes made him feel like he was going crazy. He could often feel his other half yearning to get out and be free and the time and effort it took to keep the beast penned up inside him was sometimes exhausting.