Page 29 of Her Dragons

No!Mark, please, no! I cried, gasping with utter fright, scrambling back to my feet and backing away from him,dreading what would come next if I couldn’t talk him down.My attempts to talk Mark down never worked.His hand came slashing through the air at me and the only mercy that followed was that the back of it battered against my face.I went flying back in pain, right onto my electric piano, sitting on its stand.The keyboard clattered to the floor and I went with it, my sheet music flying like scared butterflies.

With a pain on my cheek and a pain in my side where I hit the piano, I lay there, hearing Mark’s grunts of anger and his footfalls on the carpet.And when my spinning, blurry vision finally cleared, I found myself looking up into his snout and the fangs of his open mouth, and I screamed.His tail swung hard and fast through the air and came down on my hip.The pain was searing and cruel.Agonized, I curled up into a ball, and another blow of his tail slammed across my back, and another battered my shoulder.He kept lashing me again and again, making me fear the thunderous pain would never end — or wish that he’d finally kill me and stop pretending to love me.

Just as quickly as I flashed back to that moment, I snapped into the present once more and saw that clawed dragon hand reaching for me, and it was as if a forest fire of terror ignited inside me.Somewhere in my head I screamed, No, not again!Not again!

My only thought was to bolt and run — but where?I’d never make it to the door; the dark green Drake was in my path in that direction and would grab me as fast as I moved.Around the wall behind me was the hallway leading to the bedrooms.If I tried to make a break for there, I would probably not get three steps before the black Drake had me.If I could get to the bedroom and lock myself in, and then run to the master bath and lock myself in there, I might just have time to get Jake on my speed dial before these two broke through the doors andgot me.It was a desperate hope, but it was the only one I had — if I could just hold them off, take them by surprise somehow.

On a reflex, fueled by “flight or fight,” I lunged and grabbed the most convenient weapon I could find — the piano bench.I took it in both hands and held it up in front of me like some old lion tamer fending off a big cat in a circus.Gritting my teeth, I shoved it at the two Drakes, making them feint backward, emitting rumbling and hissing noises at me.I used the bench as a shield, shoving it at them every time they tried to approach, and began to take careful steps backward towards the end of the wall.They showed me their claws and twitched their tails menacingly, and I kept the bench up and took another step, then another…

And then, with a roar that sounded so much like Mark that I instinctively wanted to curl into a ball again, the black Drake lunged out with both hands and grabbed the bench while I clutched it in my hands.I screamed frantically, struggling with him for possession of the piece of furniture that was my only protection, but he was too strong for me.The dark dragon man wrenched the wooden shield from my fingers, hissing loudly, and flung it across the living room.It crashed against a chair and hit the floor with a thud.And now I was defenseless.

But another thought seized me.I whirled around to the bookshelves and grabbed the glass ball with the constellations on it, then whirled back and flung it with all my might.It hit my dark-scaled attacker on the horns of his head, and cracked and splintered and spun away onto the floor.The dark Drake reared back, more in surprise than in pain, while his friend stepped forward and around him.With heavy breaths that were partly sobs of terror, I grabbed other solid glass balls and tossed them hard at the two of them.They hit at the snouts and necks and chests of the Drakes, bouncing off, cracking, andflying away to the floor, barely holding off my foes but not hurting them.They were more irritated by my defiance than anything else.I seized the one tiny moment that I had and broke into a run, hoping I could still beat them to the door of the master bedroom.I was just in the threshold between the living room and hallway when the feeling of scaly, taloned fingers on my arms made me scream in panic.

The reptilian hands that had grabbed me now pulled me roughly back in the direction I’d come from.I flailed and thrashed my legs and screamed again, as loudly as I could, hoping someone on one of the lower floors might hear me.My one arm was just free enough that I could reach into my pants pocket and pull out my phone.If I could struggle just loose enough, I still might manage to hit my speed dial.

But it was a futile hope.The dark green Drake turned me around to face him and brought his angry snout into my face.Another scream froze in my throat.He released his grip with one hand, grabbed my phone, and tore it from my grasp.He threw the phone across the room.It hit the TV screen, cracked it, and fell to the floor.Now in a startling fury of my own, I hammered my fist against his snout.It was even more useless than throwing the glass trinkets at him.It only hurt my hand.

The black and grey Drake came up beside us, whipped out a gag, edged it across and into my mouth, and tied it around my face, cutting off any other sound I might make — but not cutting off my tears of terror and fury.I continued struggling in the grip of the one who’d grabbed me, but the strength of a scared, angry human woman was nothing against that of a big male Drake.Exhausted from fear and struggle, I started to grow limp as my captor lifted me up into his arms.My eyes began to flutter closed, and the last thing I saw was theblack and grey one putting something — a card? — on top of the piano.

With muffled weeps of despair, I surrendered.My attempts to resist were doomed from the start.I felt them carry me back across the living room, making for the glass terrace doors.My smothered voice called, “Jake…Alex…Jake…”

In a moment, I felt the whoosh of the air against me and heard the heavy beating of wings around me.They were carrying me away to my fate.

CHAPTER 12

Jake

Coming back to Uncle Robert’s apartment, Alex and I didn’t find the place the way we left it.

The state of the place made the back of my neck break out in scales.Everything told a story that was scary as hell:the piano bench lying across the room from where it should be, broken against a chair; the souvenir balls lying cracked on the floor; the big, ugly crack in the TV screen.And no sign of Lily.

Our first thought was to check every room; maybe she’d ducked somewhere to hide.No such luck.When we came back to the living room, that was when Alex noticed the note card on the piano.

A note card — something polite, elegant, almost dainty, sitting there in the violent mess that had been made.Alex picked it up and read it aloud.

“You guys took what’s mine.I took it back.Duvall, I’ll be seeing you real soon.”He looked up from the card at me, and scales and horns broke out on his face, and said what we both knew.

“The son of a bitch came and got her.”

My own horns broke out as I said, “Or sent someone to get her.”I looked around again at the signs of what had happened.I wondered fearfully, “How did he know?How in the name of hell did he know where she was?We were careful.We covered her tracks.When we took Lily out to Dewsbury, she was in that scarf and those glasses.What the hell…?”

“I don’t know,” said Alex, “but he knows she was with me — and he knows she was with you.And he’s got some plan to…”

The ringing of a phone cut Alex off.That was when we saw the phone on the floor next to the baseboard under where the TV was mounted.Lily’s burner phone.I ran and grabbed it.

“Lily?” I blurted into the phone, crazy with fear.

“No, it’s me — Elyse,” said the familiar voice on the other end.“Why would Lily be calling her own phone?”

Almost stammering, I told Elyse what we’d found.I pulled the phone away from my ear a bit so as not to get the full volume of the terrified scream that came next.

“What?WHAT?” Elyse shouted.“He came into your apartment and got her?Oh my God!Oh my God!Lily…”

“We’re not sure it was him,” I said.“It could have been someone that he sent.But from this note, the bastard’s got her and he’s planning to come after Alex and me.”

Elyse insisted, “Then you’ve got to get out of there before he comes back, or sends whoever back there!You can’t be there when he shows up again!And you have to call the police!”

As I rubbed my forehead, the horns and scales had receded, but the stark fear still clutched at me.“I know,” I said, barely able to breathe, let alone talk.“You’re right.We’ll do that as soon as I hang up.”

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