Page 44 of Draco's Fire

She tiptoed up to Tyson and whispered in his ear, "Don't jump."

Tyson's body still jerked, but it didn't cause enough noise to draw Dain’s attention away from his work.

"Stay still until I have you almost completely unbound. He has a gun on the counter next to him. If he notices, he's a good enough shot at this range to kill us both."

And so, she snuck around the table, carefully undoing the straps. It was taking considerable effort since she also had to concentrate on all the illusions she was maintaining. The ones that made it look like Tyson was still bound were easy since she wasn't fully taking off the straps.

An illusion closer to the truth was easier to manage. But the one of her still lying unconscious on the other table, strapped down, with a needle in her arm, was a strain. As for cloaking herself from sight, that was causing the most struggle.

Had she been still, that would be easier. But she was having to spin the illusion moving with her. Sweat started to prickle her brow. She was almost done with one last buckle to loosen.

Once she had it undone, she'd meant only to release the illusion of Tyson's straps holding him down. There was no way she could have spun another of him, laying still while they escaped. So, she'd simply abandon any pretext that Tyson was still on the table.

But instead, all of her illusions unraveled. She'd over-taxed herself. She was doing her best not to gasp for air after all the strain. She nodded her head towards the exit. If they were quiet, they could sneak out before Dain realized they'd escaped. But Tyson shook his head no.

Shayla hadn't been there to see the rage on Tyson's face when he came to save her. So, the look on his face as he stared daggers into Dain's back was new, and it frightened her. Then his skin turned white and scaled as he began to shift.

Her eyes went wide, thinking he was going full-sized dragon in this room. If he did, it would crush her, Dain, and might even seriously injure Tyson. He must have noticed her expression because he held a finger to his lips as they shifted into a slightly elongated snout.

His size was enough to start popping seams. It looked like he was trying to perform a partial transformation and do so very slowly. After the extreme effort it took to maintain her illusions, she could see that it wasn't easy for Tyson to do this.

The transformation into a dragon normally took only a second as their bodies grew to immense size, shattering the laws of physics and conservation of mass. Shayla wasn't sure if this partial transformation would normally be easier if Tyson wasn't trying to perform it so slowly. Still, she had to admit she was impressed.

Then it dawned on her.

He told her no matter what. She'd been ready to flee this place, but Tyson was doing what he promised. He was eliminating the threat, killing Dain, no matter what. She wasn't sure which would cause him more strain, the slow partial transformation, or engaging in the violence he'd been so adamant about avoiding.

But then one seam tore too loudly, and Dain turned around, the shock on his face evident as he saw his captors free and one of them taking on the terrible form of half-man, half-dragon. Caught in the act, Tyson no longer transformed slowly as his wings sprouted, forcing Shayla to duck or be knocked out of the way.

There stood Tyson, several feet taller and the muscles of his body outlined in gleaming white scales. His tail was long enough to drag slightly on the floor. His neck was only a little longer, and his face was stuck somewhere between flat human features and the long face of a dragon.

Dain reached for his gun. Then the question that had started boiling in Shayla's brain was answered.Can Tyson still breathe fire in this form?Dain's hand had closed around the hilt of his gun. He lifted the gun and started turning around to face them. Tyson planted his back foot and reared back. Then his chest puffed up before a gout of searing heat shot out of his mouth.

An expression of fear passed over Dain's face right before his whole body was surrounded in flames. He let out the briefest scream before Tyson's fire took the ability to make even that sound from him. The flaming form of Dain took a step towards them.

For a brief moment, Shayla was convinced that Dain might actually survive because of some experiment, but instead, his body slumped to the ground, flames rising off it. The machine was now burning, and smoke started to fill the room right before the fire suppression system went off, filling the room with a white cloud that extinguished the fire.

Twenty-Nine

Tyson

Tyson watched as the fire suppression cloud dissipated. Dain's blackened corpse lay on the floor, but it no longer smoldered. The machine he'd been sitting at had half-melted and was sparking with exposed wires, but nothing was burning any longer.

He shifted back to human form, his clothes in tatters. Shayla rushed into his arms, hugging him tight enough that even for her small frame, he thought he might have heard a rib crack.

"Are you alright?" he asked, returning her embrace, his hand resting on the back of her head before releasing her.

"I'm still feeling kind of shaky. I don't know if it's from the spell exhaustion or the iron. And I'm bleeding a little. Though I've only got one hole," she said, looking down at the blood dripping from the small wounds on the inside of his elbows. "What about you?" she asked.

"It's nothing to worry about. I'll heal. It's fine."

"You know that's not what I'm asking." Her eyes were searching his face for some sign of what burning a man to death had cost him.

"I don't know," he said.

And it was true. He didn't know. He felt a little numb at the moment and very tired as the adrenaline crash hit him. But his emotional numbness was less physical than his exhaustion. He didn't know what his feelings were going to be about this in the next five minutes, let alone hours and days from now.

Right now, it was just emptiness, a void, and he didn't know how deep it went. He'd killed a man, something he swore to never do again.

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