Page 83 of Midnight Enchantment

Raedan slipped his arm around Lily’s waist. “We are.”

“Have you seen something?” Mason asked.

“No. The demon told me.”

Lily shivered. “Is it the dragon?”

“Probably.” He glanced up the mountain, shouted “Hit the dirt!” as a great black dragon swooped out of the sky and arrowed toward them.

A roar shook the earth as a blast of red-hot fire ignited a stand of timber only yards away from where Lily cowered on the ground in the shelter of Raedan’s body.

Lying on her belly beside Mason, Ava uttered an incantation that extinguished the flames, leaving smoking, black trunks and branches behind.

“I think we found him,” Lily said in a shaky voice. “Can we go home now?”

Moments later, Lily sat in a chair in their rented house, a cup of hot chocolate cradled in her hands, a blanket draped over her shoulders. She couldn’t stop shivering. Never, in all her life, had she seen anything so scary, so ferocious. A great, horned dragon with shiny black scales, huge ebony-colored wings that cut through the air like a giant scythe, a whip-like tail, and foot-long talons. She might have thought it beautiful if the sight of it hadn’t scared her half to death.

Raedan sat beside her, his thoughts obviously turned inward. He hadn’t said a word since they left the mountain.

Ava and Mason huddled on the sofa, their heads together, making Lily wonder what they were plotting.

After what seemed like hours, Raedan stood and paced the floor. When he stopped, Ava and Mason looked up at him.

“I am going to the mountain tomorrow night,” he declared. “Alone.”

“Are you crazy?” Lily exclaimed. “He’ll incinerate you!”

Raedan shrugged. “Better me than you. Besides, I am not sure your magic will have any effect on the beast. I felt his power as he swept by. His rage. But it was turned toward the three of you. Not me.”

“I don’t understand,” Ava said. “You’re the most dangerous one of us all.”

“There is a link of some kind between the dragon and the blood-demon,” Raedan said. “I do not know what it is, only that it is there.”

“I won’t have it,” Lily said adamantly. “You can’t go alone. I forbid it.”

Stroking her cheek, he murmured, “Liliana, my love, you cannot stop me.”

There was nothing more to be done that night. Raedan waited until the household was asleep before he went in search of prey. He needed to feed and feed well if he intended to face the dragon on the morrow.

He stalked the quiet streets of Transylvania, preying on any mortal foolish enough to be out and about so late—mostly tourists seeking excitement of one kind or another.

Curiosity and a morbid sense of humor had him following a young couple.

“Are you game to visit Dracula’s castle tomorrow?” the young man asked his companion. “I bought a couple of tickets this morning. It might be fun.”

“Why not? It isn’t really the home of Dracula, you know,” the woman said flippantly. “I mean, there’s no such thing as vampires. Dracula is based on fiction, not fact.”

“How do you know?” the man asked. “Don’t you think the whole vampire thing would have died out years ago if there was no truth to it?”

His companion shrugged. “There are stories of Nessie and Big Foot, too, and no concrete evidence that either of them ever existed, either.”

Raedan grinned as the couple turned down a shadowy street. Dissolving into mist, he moved ahead of them and then stopped beside an alley. He materialized when they were abreast of him..

The couple came to an abrupt halt. The woman let out a shriek as she grabbed the man’s arm.

The man tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

“I hear you are going to Castle Dracula tomorrow,” Raedan said, glancing from one to the other.

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