Page 5 of Redeeming the Dragon

Mama’s choked cry told me she’d done the same. For my part, I made no outcry. I was too stunned. Instead, pressing my lips together, I swallowed hard. Anything to force my body to react. Anything to keep my blood from freezing in my veins. Anything to keep my heart pumping and my breath flowing.

“Av—Avigale,” Father gasped. It was the first sound he’d made since the door had burst and he’d been flung into the room, rolling to a stop in front of the stove.

“Avigale, must warn you…”

From the corner of my vision, I saw Mama’s hand go to my father’s chest as she braced herself by touching him.

“I see it, Monreth.”

I saw it too.

Backlit by a flash of green-gold lightning, I saw a monstrous serpentine head. Slitted, golden eyes gleamed out of the darkness. The head filled the doorway, its short horns and small, tufted beard giving the creature an almost demonic appearance. Shiny scales glittered with raindrops. Elongated nostrils flared with each breath.

A dragon.

“Father,” I breathed. Without thinking, I rose to my knees, either to snatch up a weapon and attack, run for the back door, or charge the beast.

“Lorna, stop!” my mother hissed, calling me back to my senses.

“He—he won’t hurt her,” Father choked. Pain made talking difficult, yet he wheezed, “This creature saved my life.”

“How did—how did a dragon save your life, Father?” stammered Neena. Cautiously, as though fearful her movements would attract the beast’s attention, she crept to us, kneeling on the floor beside Mama.

“Yes,” Marisa echoed from her seat in the rocking chair. “How do we know it didn’t save you so that you might lead it here, where it would have five of us to devour instead of one?”

“Marisa!” Mama rebuked sternly. “That is enough. There will be no talk of devouring.”

“A dragon is an animal. How can it plan such a thing anyway?” I murmured, my gaze still latched onto the beast.

The burning pangs in my bones had altered into something else entirely. A quiet, peculiar buzzing. Pungent, as if all the blood in my body had rushed to my head. I could neither explain nor clarify it. All I knew, as I stared at the dragon, a beast from folklore and myth brought to life, one I’d never dreamt of seeing on my quiet island, was that it seemed to be staring back at me.

Not into my house. Not at my family members. Atme. Its slitted eyes were sentient. Despite my affirmation of the opposite, I could have sworn this was no mere animal with an animal’s capability and intellect.

Father confirmed it.

“Help me, Avigale,” he implored. And with Mama placing an arm behind his back, and Neena tugging on his hands, he worked himself into an upright position. Carefully, he swiveled around on his rump to face the dragon that gazed into our cottage.

“Avigale, girls,” he said quietly. “This creature saved my life, but it was not without cost.”

“Cost? What cost? What do you mean, Monreth? How could a dragon demand payment? What can we give it? Our horse, the cows, a goat? Is it hungry? How did it communicate with you?” Mama sputtered, aghast.

“Nay,” Father answered. “He doesn’t want our animals. He wishes something far more valuable.”

As he said this, the beast shifted its giant head gently from side to side, its eyes leaving mine to peer around the room. The hypnotic spell of its gaze broken, I awoke as if from a trance. I jumped back, blinking furiously, as the serpent rolled its neck, peering from one family member to the next. He—somehow, I knew it was male—was studying us. With each motion, his wet scales sparkled in the low light from the stove and lanterns as well as the hazy flashes of orange and green lightning, growing ever distant as the storm rolled back out to sea.

“He wants something we cannot give, yet I fear we must,” Father replied. To my surprise, his voice sounded choked from emotion. Possibly tears.

Tears? Father never cries.

I swung about to look at him, removing my attention from the serpent, only to hear him say,

“He wants one of our daughters.”

Chapter 3

“He wants—he wants what?”

Mother’s reaction was a mixture of ferocity, fear, and disgust. She rose to her feet, balling her fists at her sides, looking as if she was prepared to take on our otherworldly visitor in defense of her girls. I could easily envision her flying at the dragon, attacking him with her fists or any weapon she could find, giving her life without a second thought if it meant defending her children.

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