Bonded to the Dragon: The Lick of Fire Collection: Dragon Lovers Read online

  “Hey, I know you said not to come here, but I couldn’t find anyone else around,” I said, feeling awkward.

  Sophie lifted up her goggles and gave me a very strange sort of look, one that I didn’t know quite how to interpret. I realized she was looking at the rose in my hair. I touched it, found the petals still soft, and dropped my hand.

  “You don’t sleep.”

  Had she been spying on me? I wasn’t sure if I should be surprised, or annoyed. “Oh?”

  She wiped her face, smearing the black grease across it more. “I didn’t know that the program would send me updates about the training sessions that you’ve been…undertaking. You unlocked the upper levels rather quickly.”

  “Oh?” I said again, because I wasn’t quite sure what she was trying to say, nor how I should respond. I was still annoyed that she had been spying on me, even though I suppose I should have known.

  She bit her lip as if considering something. “You reached levels that I hadn’t even known existed.”

  I blinked, fumbling for something more brilliant to say.

  “Is that good?”

  The bottom half of the door opened.

  “Why don’t you come in. I have an idea of how you can help us out with something.”

  And there she was, already assuming that I was going to help as if we were friends. Though it was hard to say no to someone who had welcomed you to their home, treated you as a guest, and happened to be very pregnant.

  I walked into the upper catwalk of a spaceship.

  A very dirty, filthy spaceship with a layer of grime and ash coating the white walls with an industrial gray filth. At least, that’s what it looked like to me. The space was huge, looking like a warehouse that stretched for miles. Along the walls were three levels of multiple bays. Most had silver doors, but some had semitransparent windows, revealing weapons, armor, and other devices in various stages of development.

  I allowed Sophie a look of disbelief. She gave me a look as if I had forgotten something important. “The Devourer.”

  A chill went through my spine at the mention of the immortal alien monster that had killed and eaten my brain.

  Sophie’s footsteps on the metal walkway were slow and measured. “The Devourer killed most of my family. My mother, my father, when I was just a baby. And my grandmother recently.” Sophie turned to me. “The Devourer is going to keep hunting me, and my child, until we figure out a permanent solution.”

  There was a desperation and determination in her voice. A mother desperate to protect her child, her family, who would fight until the end.

  This child was so fortunate. I was pretty sure my own mother had never thought of me like that.

  “The Devourer has been hunting both shen and dragons since it arrived on Earth millennia ago. The only way to survive, is to build, adapt, plan. I’m going to kill it, within my lifetime, once and for all.”

  I shook my head. “How can you hope to fight something that old, ancient, and powerful?”

  Sophie gave me a measured look. “You did. Twice.”

  I held up my hand backing away. “I don’t know—you don’t even know what I am.”

  Sophie paused. “If you can gain control over yourself, or your magic, you may be what we need to stop the Devourer once and for all. It has hunted the shen until almost none of us are left. And dragons are even fewer than when they first came to Earth. Its goal is to eradicate every sentient being on this planet. If we don’t stop, it will be the end of everything.”

  I folded my arms to my chest. “You’re lecturing someone who had the Devourer living in her head. I know. But you can’t pin your hopes on me. I was just a drugged-up ho that died.”

  To my surprise, she reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “You are more than that, Val. You can be more than that.”

  She was wrong if she thought she knew me better than I knew myself. The living always thought they knew everything. “I’ll think about it,” I said, because it was a way to shut someone down even when you knew the answer.

  “Thank you,” Sophie replied, even though I didn’t know quite what she was thanking me for.

  Sophie stopped and looked downward. I followed her gaze and realized we were on a walkway above a sunken work area. Titania’s spear lay on a table, clamped down by thick metal braces as if it might get up and run away.

  Grant and Hunter were on opposite sides of the table, tapping at tablet screens. Both were shirtless and looked like they had both been working in a forge, with soot smeared all over their naked torsos.

  “It is ridiculous how good they look, when they’re filthy,” said Sophie, changing the subject.

  “You’re lucky,” I said.

  “I am,” she replied. “And I don’t deserve to be, but somehow I am.”

  Hunter looked up, winked at Sophie.

  Grant glanced at me and then turned his attention back to his tablet. Something stupid and irrational fell in my chest.

  No, it was as it should be.

  Hunter said something to Grant, set down his tablet, then jumped up three stories to the catwalk in a single leap. He nodded to me as he curled a big arm around his wife and kissed her on the forehead. “Hey, I thought you said you were going to go rest.”

  Something ached inside as I watched them.

  “You need a rest too, Hunter,” Sophie said, poking him in his chest. “You’ve been working most of the night.”

  “Together?” he asked.

  “Together,” she agreed. “Head down there, Val. Tell Grant what I said.”

  I tried to ask what it was she said, since I wasn’t sure Sophie had said anything, but the pair were already walking away, their hands deep in each other’s back pockets.

  I ignored the hollow feeling inside me as I made my way down. Grant kept his eyes lowered on his tablet as I came down the stairs.

  When I finally got to the bottom, he greeted me with a brief “Hey.”

  I felt the smallest bit of relief. Because here I was, alone with him again with this crazy unnecessary awareness to his presence, and we were definitely not going to talk about what happened last night.

  That was good, I told myself. It was what I wanted.

  “What are you doing with Titania’s spear?”

  He walked over to the table and entered something on the panel of buttons attached to the metal table.

  “We are augmenting it.”

  I looked around the workspace, filled with an alarming mixture of what looked like surgical implements and tools. This would be the place to torture someone.

  I wondered if they had.

  Sometimes, it was the nicest people who turned out to be the worst monsters, and you didn’t know until it was too late. So often it was hate that did that, twisting you into something barely recognizable from what you were.

  And Grant…his quest for revenge defined who he was, leaving little room for anything else.

  Not that it was any of my business.

  He still wasn’t looking at me, and for some reason, I found it maddening.

  I started talking with a statement designed to get his attention. “Sophie thinks my magic somehow could be used against the Devourer.”

  He didn’t look up. “She does,” he replied, more of a statement than a question.

  He was refusing to look at me. I stepped closer to him. “Is that why you brought me here? Because I have the potential to be a weapon somehow?”

  He kept poking at his stupid tablet. I had the urge to yank it from him and throw it behind me to get his attention.

  Now I was right in front of him. “I gave you my ring in good faith, Grant.”

  Now he turned that blue-gold gaze on me. All of a sudden I was even more aware of the space between us, how huge and close he was.

  “Is that what you are concerned about? Dragons do not go back on their word. Show me you can control your powers and I will give you back your ring.”

  I rubbed the finger where I had once worn my ring. We
were both on the same page, and yet, it pissed me off for some reason. “What if I can show you right now?”

  His tone told me all I needed to know. “You think you’re ready?”

  To show Grant what I could do and keep him out of my head?

  “Yes.”

  9

  What looked like a forest of orange and lemon trees near the barn turned out to hide a vast dirt arena. There were a variety of strange tracks in the red brown dirt scattered with hay ranging from heavy machinery-like tracks to dragon footprints. There was the scent of smoke and ashes surrounding it.

  “This will be a larger version of the simulations you went through. Only—”

  Holes opened up in the dirt, revealing human figures made of clay in various sizes. “Your opponents out here will have actual physical form. If you are not careful, they will hurt you and may even kill you.”

  I walked to the center of the dirt pit. “You know who you’re talking to right?”

  He shrugged. “Standard disclaimer. Are you ready?”

  I nodded.

  The arena disappeared.

  The first one took me by surprise and sent me sprawling. I lashed out with my magic like instructed. The clay golem exploded into dust.

  And so it went.

  They kept coming, one after another. And I took them down until there were no more of them.

  I fingered the rose in my hair. Still alive.

  The ground began to tremble, the dust began to swirl. It came together in a tornado—no, a spinning column, darkening until it became a black thing, coagulating with blue sparks, into something with far too many eyes and mouths.

  The Devourer.

  It was here.

  I took a step back. No, it was just an illusion. It wasn’t real.

  A dark tentacle lashed out at me.

  I reach for my power.

  But it didn’t come. The stillness didn’t move.

  I couldn’t move.

  Cold slimy tentacles looped around me, dragging me toward a gaping mouth.

  Notrealnotrealnotreal —

  A tentacle fucked my open mouth, choking me with coldness, insanity.

  Just like before. It was going to take me.

  Time stopped.

  The stillness within me surged forth and obliterated me. I was floating, falling, nothing, weightless, no sound, no air, no anything. I had no form, no body, no sensation.

  Then massive jaws of pain clamped into me, breaking the spine of my existence.

  I screamed and saw a gray cloudy sky.

  My body felt like it had been burned from the inside out. I sat up.

  And saw the massive dark blast circle surrounding me.

  There was no grass, and all the trees I could see were merely dark black husks.

  A horrible awareness stabbed into my memory.

  “Grant?” I stumbled up, looking around.

  And saw him lying on the grass as if he were asleep.

  Dead rose petals fell from my hair.

  I stumbled toward Grant, walking, then running, my heart feeling as if it were on a cliff about to fall into a dark abyss.

  I got to him, saw his chest rising and falling.

  I sank to my knees. He was still alive.

  How had he survived?

  I reached out to touch him.

  And an invisible barrier sparked between me and Grant. It bit into my finger, like static electricity.

  Out of nowhere, Hunter landed, pointing a dark barrel of something long and vicious at me. His eyes were cold. He would kill me without a thought and be glad of it.

  “What the hell did you do?”

  I could tell him to end me. Hunter could produce dragonfire. All of this would be done.

  But the words wouldn’t come.

  “I—”

  Grant sat up coughing. “It’s all right. I’m all right. I told her to test out her powers.”

  “You idiot, that’s not— ” Hunter stopped, looked at me.

  And I knew they had been talking about me, had plans for me. Only those plans had stopped Hunter from killing me right there and then.

  “Do you know how long it took Sophie to grow those trees? I’m not telling her.” He poked the other end of the weapon at Grant. “You’re telling her.”

  Grant glanced at me. I couldn’t tell what was behind that gaze.

  I took a step back. “I’m sorry…. I’m so sorry.”

  He stood up. “It takes practice to control your magic. Sometimes it may even take years.”

  Years.

  Was that what they had planned for me?

  I looked at the horizon, at the dead trees surrounding us. It was a mistake. It had all been a mistake.

  I was a fuckup. Always had been. And I always would be. I had been so stupid to lean into the illusion. I started to walk away, deeper into the trees.

  “Wait,” said Grant.

  “Let her go,” said Hunter. “She won’t be able to leave the grounds. There’s a circular spell in place.”

  Just like Titania’s. Despite all the smiles and food, I was ultimately still a prisoner.

  Fuck that all.

  * * *

  I wandered into the forest, the fields, the hills, seeking some way out, but no matter where I turned, or how far I trudged, I couldn’t get away from Sophie’s house.

  All of this was a mistake. The more power I revealed, the longer they would hold me. And all these warm fuzzy feelings I had been starting to feel? Designed to make me play into their plans.

  But what were relationships other than ways to get people to do what you wanted them to do?

  This was why I was done with life.

  And yet, in the beginning, Grant had given me my ring.

  It didn’t make sense. I walked and walked, until it got dark, until the lights in both houses went dark and the moon began to rise.

  It was fuller than it was before.

  I walked into the dark house.

  Grant’s voice emerged seemingly from nowhere. “Sophie sent over some more cuss noodles.” I tried to say I wasn’t hungry, but my stomach rumbled loudly. This stupid body betrayed me at every turn.

  “She didn’t need to do that,” I said. “I should go apologize to her.”

  “I can’t say she wasn’t upset. But she said she understood.”

  I felt bad about the trees, and didn’t need to talk about it anymore, especially with him. “Have you just been sitting here in the dark?”

  I heard the clink of a glass. “Dragons don’t need a lot of light to see.” Fingers snapped and candles on the counter blazed to life. He was eating some noodles at the counter.

  My stomach grumbled again. I wasn’t supposed to need food, I reminded myself.

  Still, I took a stool across from him and sat at the counter. “I’ve blocked you from a portion of your power. Something like that shouldn’t happen again.”

  A reminder of the mistake I had made. I’d have to figure out some other way of getting my ring back.

  “I made a promise, Val,” he said, laying out a plate and fork in presence of me. “I will keep it.”

  “Even if Sophie and Hunter want you to do otherwise?”

  He frowned, setting a wineglass next to my place setting. “Is that what you are worried about?”

  “They make weapons against an immortal monster. And I can tell that whatever I am intrigues Sophie.”

  He shook his head, pouring me some wine. “They’re not like that.” He looked at me. “I’m not like that. If you want to help them, that will be your choice.” His voice softened. “It will always be your choice.”

  I believed him, even as I knew I shouldn’t.

  I picked up my wineglass. “You seem to know all the right words to say with me. Why? Does your magic help you?”

  He seemed taken aback. “My magic doesn’t work that way.”

  I took a sip of the wine, mainly because I didn’t know what else to do. It tasted pretty good. “It must have been nice grow
ing up with those kinds of abilities. I hope you weren’t a bully.”

  “I was a late bloomer with my magic,” he said, picking up his own wineglass and swirling the contents around. “My magic didn’t manifest until I was almost eighteen.”

  I helped myself to some noodles. The aroma…there had to be some magic in this dish, but I just felt reckless. Probably the wine. And then I realized it was impossible for me to get drunk. “Is that unusual?”

  “Dragon magic is typically evident the moment a hatchling emerges.”

  I took a bite of noodles, trying not to shove the forkful in my mouth like a pig. So fucking good. I considered what he was saying. Emerged? Hatchlings? I wondered if dragons hatched or were born.

  “My parents were both well-known combat mages. They were considered to be magical prodigies. They died fighting the Devourer so that we could escape to Earth. It was assumed that I would follow in their footsteps.”

  “Only you had a no-magic problem.” But he clearly had it now.

  The fork in his hand began to glow and droop. “Yes.”

  “Grant, the fork.”

  He turned from me, dropped the fork into the sink where it hissed.

  He stood there, his back to me. “Humans have many stories of ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary feats in moments of crisis. The same is true for dragons.”

  Somehow, I knew what he was talking about. “The night your brother was killed.”

  “I didn’t accomplish anything that night.” He laughed, and it was a harsh, painful sound. “I got what I thought I wanted. But in the process, I lost what was important.”

  “You can’t blame yourself,” I said, even knowing that my words were useless. The few people who had known what I was had said similar things. And of course, I would agree and say yes, I know.

  But knowing what one should feel, and what one did feel were two different things.

  I understood that. Because I too, was the product of someone’s darkest moment. Only that moment wasn’t mine

  It was his.

  I wondered why he was telling me this.

  “You and I,” he said, “are not so much unlike. You have to keep trying, Val. Failure is how we learn.”