Page 17 of Bound to the Dragon

I shifted partially, a feat not many shifters were capable of, but I wasn’t just anyone. Still covered in scales but on two legs, wings arched from my back. I towered over her, nearly twice as large as I’d be if I shifted completely to my human form. I crouched, my wing curling around her shoulders, my voice deep, though I tried to force it into a whisper. “There are edges. Can you feel them? Like a square box, no bigger than a coffin.”

She closed her eyes again, searching for the prison with her senses. I was impressed with how tenacious she was, and how far she’d come from the girl with the stick, ready to whack what she thought was a lunatic talking about fantastical, but very mythical, things. It was not easy to accept such reality-altering truths, but she had, and in only a short week.

As she worked on her task, I did mine. Flicking out my still dragonish tongue to draw in scents to analyze against the roof of my mouth. My eyes scanned beneath the trees. Was it a mistake to go directly to the prison? It would tell them exactly where it was, and maybe they had not discovered it yet. No, the scent of the female vampire had been all over the clearing; she’d visited it a few weeks ago. They knew.

“I think it’s all intact?” Rosy murmured. She shuffled closer, her feet nearly on top of my clawed paws so she wasn’t quite touching the earth any longer. “I don’t sense any cracks, but it feels like I’m almost touching something alive. Like I was stroking a centipede. It’s disgusting!” She shuddered, and I stroked her shoulder, lifting her a little closer still.

“I know, but that means you did it right. That’s exactly how your father always described the prison. Like touching a slimy bug. And coming from him that was saying something, he worked with dirt all day, he didn’t mind bugs.” She smothered a soft chuckle, her hand rising to pat against my scaly chest. She could not reach higher than my midriff, but she took that in stride. Didn’t even seem surprised at my strange hybrid appearance.

“Very true,” she said, nodding along. I checked her face quickly, trying to decipher how tapped she was after growing all that green at the farm. Did I need to figure out how to get her away from here and fight the oncoming tide of greedy power grabbers on my own? She had no circles beneath her eyes, and her complexion was clear. I still wanted to throw her over my shoulder and take her away some place safe.

“I think they’re almost here. What do we do?” she asked. Fuck, she was right. They were about to reach the clearing, and there was no time to stash my mate, so I could fight alone while she was protected. I pushed her behind me, bracing my legs and flexing my claws. My eyes scanned beneath the trees for them, and it didn’t take more than a second to pick out the shape of the weretiger and the two coyotes from before. A dozen more accompanied them.

“You protect the prison and restore it should any damage occur. I will kick their puny asses,” I said, and then I leaped forward to tackle the first to come out from between the trees. Digging my claws into his flesh, spouting flames from my partially shifted head.

I had to do my best to keep the fight as far away from Rosy and the Galamut, and I had to figure out as quickly as possible if they had the key with them or not. Without the key, the threat was small. With it, we might be in trouble just like twenty-six years ago. Then a different vampire had almost succeeded in opening the cage.

Whirling through the woods, I kept to my hybrid shape for better mobility beneath the trees. The weretiger was a tough one, clawing and biting; when shifted, he was agile and fast. I saw no sign of Elie, and that worried me. I was sure she was the one who’d have the key.

And the entire time I fought, my focus remained on the clearing and the lone figure of my mate standing at the center. She was so small and fragile, I could not let any of them get close to her. I realized then and there that my purpose in the world had shifted fundamentally. I cared about my task as a guardian, but I cared far more about keeping Rosy safe. My heart was hers, I loved her, and without her, I would not even care anymore of that Galamut got out.

I loved her. I needed her in my life as much as I needed air to breathe. So when the weretiger broke through the woods and charged the clearing, I was a full-sized dragon in a heartbeat, coming down, roaring between him and my mate. Flames spouting, tail lashing so that trees toppled.

I didn’t expect the vampire in charge to spring from the ground beneath me. A shard of pale green raised in her hand. It sank into my chest, cutting through my scales like they were butter. I didn’t feel pain, didn’t feel anything but coldness wash through me.

The key… but why had she stuck it in my chest? My vision blurred and my muscles went weak. My thoughts spun, my brain growing fuzzy. What was happening? It felt like a herculean effort to lift my head and spout flame directly into the air above me.

“Rosy, where are you?” I couldn’t see her, couldn’t feel her.

No.

This couldn’t be the end.

Chapter 21

Rosemary

Watching Chardum battle with a good dozen or so men and women moving at impossible speeds was like watching a superhero movie on fast-forward. I couldn’t keep up with how fast they darted around each other, and couldn’t figure out who was down and out and who just needed a second to heal. They were even moving so fast in the dark that I couldn’t figure out if I recognized any, and just how many there were.

My heart was in my throat, my fists clenched at my sides. I didn’t know what to do; I should be fighting there with him, but I had no clue how. Moving that boulder the other day had been a total accident, and standing on top of this bizarre prison, it felt like one wrong move from me could crack that thing like an egg.

So I did as Chardum had told me, monitoring that slippery, slimy bug shell like my life depended on it. I searched the woods frantically, watching my dragon rip through the enemy force like they were paper towels. Were we going to make it? Was it going to be fine? I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to picture any other outcome.

Bending my knees a little, I made myself a smaller target, exposed and open in the middle of the clearing as I was. If I moved much further, I’d stop being able to sense the stupid box in the ground; I had already tested just how far I could go, and it wasn’t enough to take me to cover. The idea had struck me that I couldcreatemy own protection with rocks or a tree right there, but I discarded that idea too. I wasn’t in control enough of my powers yet; it was too big a risk.

Then the unthinkable happened: a figure darted past Char and raced into the clearing. I was pretty sure it was the guy with the pin-striped suit from before, his features lit up by a billow of fire just above his head. Then Chardum was on top of him with a flash of bright golden light. A giant shape as he became a dragon that filled the clearing. His wings spread out, his tail writhing until trees toppled left and right.

The man was more tiger than man when Char slammed his paw down on top of him; he never got close to me. Then I felt like agony seared through me, like fire slashing through my chest. I frantically touched my skin but felt nothing, no wound, and yet I couldn’t breathe from the pain. I fell to my knees, frantically trying to figure out what was going on.

What I was feeling changed, morphing into something else as fire billowed above my head, heat raining down on me from above. Chardum had tossed back his giant head, fire streaming from his maw in a seemingly endless stream, and from his chest, a spike stuck that glowed a bright, lurid green.

No! He was injured! Where had that spike come from? It looked like a crystal, like something made of glass. It didn’t look like something that could pierce the scales of a dragon, but it had. The vampire woman, that Elie lady, was standing nearby, a smug grin on her face. She didn’t look so boardroom pretty now, her hair was tousled in its ponytail, her clothing all black leather.

She’d done that, she’d struck my dragon with thatthing. It called to me too, signing through the air with whispers of power as deep and green as the earth. Beneath my feet, the hard shell of the prison was responding, vibrating as cracks formed. Theevil inside it stirred, moving inside it like a tumble of rocks, clattering against the hard surface.

At that moment, I knew several things at once. One, that evil thing had the same powers I had, a thing that could control the earth and it was about to escape. Two, Chardum was dying and that hurt so badly that I knew it wasn’t a physical pain; I loved my dragon. And three, I couldn’t let any of those things happen.

His fire died out, his dragon head flinging forward as he started to collapse. I leaped, acting on instincts I didn’t even know I had. My hands outstretched as I barreled past the vampire, the earth rising beneath my feet to push me up to reach the shard. Chardum had mentioned a key, and though he had not described it, I knew that’s what it was.

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