“Yeah,” Two-Bit screamed back, outraged.
Daryl fired again at the panel she thought he was hiding behind and heard him yelp in shock. Realizing she was between Tank and Two-Bit, Daryl backed toward Ronan, trying to watch both directions at once. Then Tank popped up from behind a pile of rubble and squeezed off a round. The bullet missed and shattered an already broken window on the far side of the warehouse.
Sprinting away from Ronan’s bulk to keep him out of the crossfire, Daryl fired two rapid shots at Tank as he popped up again. Her bullets sprayed cement chips in his face, and he dropped behind his protection with loud cursing.
“Wassa matta, Tank?” she called, taunting. “You as stupid as Two-Bit? Hey, Two-Bit? You really are as dumb as a box of rocks. Maybe dumber.”
She edged her way around Tank’s protection, keeping panels between herself and him, hoping to get behind him. Two-Bit’s voice rose in a shriek of rage, and she listened to his boots on the cement floor near Ronan.
“I’ll get ya, bitch,” he screamed. “I ain’t stupid.”
Suddenly, his voice rose in worry at the same time his boots stopped running. “Uh, Tank,” he called. “I think this thing is waking up.”
Listening to the gunshots and the yells, Ronan felt his strength seep back into his muscles and ligaments. He had woken gradually, still feeling nauseous, but little by little, his brain cleared. Within minutes, he felt as though his willpower would return, and he could put an end to this crap.
He knew Daryl kept Tank and Two-Bit busy to give him time to recover, suspecting that whatever they had injected him with wasn’t enough to keep him unconscious. Hearing Daryl’s taunt and Two-Bit’s fury, Ronan knew it was time to quit messing around.
Raising his head, he glared down at Two-Bit as the man halted to gape in worry. The chains that held him fast gave him little movement, but he had enough. Two-Bit stared into his eyes and said again “Uh, Tank, I think this thing is waking up.”
You bet your boots I am.
Drawing in a deep breath, Ronan exhaled a sheet of flame. Two-Bit screamed, entirely engulfed in dragon fire, and danced in place, jigging and jiving. In agony, he burned, the bullets in his gun exploding, shooting everywhere. Still alive, howling, Two-Bit’s flesh melted along with the metal gun, oozing onto the floor.
His lungs seared, he stopped his crazed shrieks and fell to the cement, writhing as he finally died. Ronan blasted the corpse again, charring it to nothing but ash, blackening the pale cement. Once the roar of his fire died away, Ronan listened to Flame’s helpless moans not far behind him. Tank stayed silent, perhaps in terror now that he had unleashed a demon.
Shifting to his human self, Ronan slipped easily from the chains that once held him and stepped clear as they slithered, clanking, to his feet. He eyed Flame and ambled toward him as he lay helpless on the floor, broken. Flame watched him come, his face pasty white, pain sweat dripping down his face to darken the cement.
“No, please,” Flame begged. “Don’t burn me. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
“Is that right?” Ronan looked at him, no mercy moving him to spare the man’s life. “You like fire, don’t you? I told you that if you mess with me, I’ll burn you.”
“No, please, no.”
Ronan shifted again, furling his wings over his back comfortably as he regarded the squirming man on the floor. So long, pal.
Hurling his fire at Flame, at one who had shown neither Ronan nor Daryl any mercy or compassion, Ronan kept a steady burst of his fire going. Flame died almost instantly, charred to nothing except a black spot. Yet, his flames not just ignited the man; they also set the panels and trash in the warehouse on fire.
Gunshots erupted from behind him, and Ronan spun around, ceasing his fiery exhale. Yet the flames spread, seeking anything tasty, feeding, growing. He felt it crisp his hide, and he half-leaped, half-flew across the warehouse toward the sound of the shots. Tank ran into the open, his head over his shoulder, clearly more worried about what was chasing him than the dragon in front.
Tank skidded to a halt as Ronan dropped to all fours, his wings wide. “No,” he screamed, lifting his gun to shoot Ronan before Ronan had a chance to burn him alive. “No.”
Ronan’s sheet of deadly fire engulfed Tank instantly. Unlike Two-Bit, who survived in agony for a few moments, Tank sucked the superheated air down into his lungs and burned from the inside out, dying almost instantly as his heart burst in his chest and his brains boiled. His skin blackened and fell away even as Ronan continued his burst, returning Tank to dust.
He stopped only when Daryl ran into his sight.
“Ronan!” she yelled. “We have to get out of here.”
Turning his head, he found the fires he’d set had grown and climbed, and now threatened to cut off their escape. While his hide could tolerate and repel some fire, he, too, could burn to death if he didn’t get out quickly. Reaching out his long talons, he seized Daryl around her small waist and lifted her.
Not used to truly flying with the added weight, even Daryl’s, Ronan could leap and soar. Beating his wings, he jumped upward and banked toward the front entrance, his wings beating strongly. He flew over the flames that licked at his belly and tail and cleared the worst of it. The fire hadn’t yet reached that area, but soon would.
Settling to the floor again, he set Daryl on her feet, then shifted.
“Ronan!”
Daryl flung her arms around his shoulders and kissed him; her skin unnaturally warm from the heat of the burning building. “Later,” he said, taking her by the hand. “We’re getting out of here.”
Together, they bolted for the doorway and out into the smoke-filled air outside. Daryl coughed, shoving the gun she still held into her jeans. Sirens screamed in the distance, growing louder as they drew closer. Ronan half dragged her with him as he ran for the alley.
They found Tank’s car parked in the alley.
“We’re screwed if there are no keys in it,” he said, his throat raspy and thick from the smoke.
As Daryl ran around to the driver’s side and got in, Ronan seized the hidden cases of money. He opened the rear seat and flung them in just as Daryl cried, “Yes, they’re in the ignition.”
Ronan jumped in beside her as she started the sedan’s engine and shut the door as she put the car into gear. She drove fast down the alley, the tires flinging up gravel and dirt, and then they put the burning warehouse, the dead men, and the sirens far behind them.
Chapter Eighteen
“I’ll teach you to drive someday.”
Daryl glanced over at Ronan, who slouched in the passenger seat of the Ford sedan, reading a paperback. Since they had left New York to drive Tank’s well-maintained car across the country to Oregon, he had alleviated the boredom by reading.
He glanced up from the book to smile. “Someday. Where are we now?”
“We are crossing the great state of Ohio,” Daryl replied. “And we still have a long way to go.”
Ronan gazed out over the lush landscape, the open fields and farms. “This is beautiful country,” he mused. “Much nicer than my lands.”
“Will you ever go back?”
His green gaze returned to her. “My life is here now, with you.”
Pleased, Daryl nodded. “I’m glad. We’re starting out fresh, you and me. We’ll build a new life. Together.”
“Think it was fate that brought us together?”
“I do. How else can you explain you flying into the city right in time to save me? And then to fall in love, escape New York with our stolen money?”
Chuckling, Ronan shook his head. “I can’t explain it. But I am glad to have found and fallen in love with you.”
Daryl reached across and took his hand. “I love you.”
Saved By My Dragon Guardian
Book IV
By
Serena Meadows
Chapter One
As had become her habit over the last few months, Emily carefully checked the
traffic in her rearview and side mirrors. He tended to switch cars, but she thought she knew all three of them. “Unless he rented something I surely won’t know,” she grumbled. “And it’ll be dark soon.”
The stress and tension she’d come to accept as a permanent fixture in her life had given her an ulcer, and right now, her stomach burned with sour acid. She had become so used to watching for the man whose name she didn’t know, but who had invaded her life and sometimes threatened to hurt her, Emily couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t like this.
While stalking was certainly illegal all across America, including her little suburb outside of Chicago, the police seemed stymied as to what they could do to stop it.
“If we don’t know who he is, we can’t arrest him. We’ll keep a police presence in your neighborhood, beef up patrols.”
“That’s really gonna do me tons of good when he slits my throat,” she had snapped at the detective assigned to her case.
Emily drove along a boulevard teeming with strip malls and stores, restaurants and little corner grocery markets. It wasn’t a particularly good neighborhood, and it was older than her own. Street gangs tended to roam in packs around here—selling their dope, robbing people, often murdering one another.
When she observed a big dude in a black leather jacket and shaggy dark hair facing down four gang bangers, Emily slowed her Ford sedan down. The sun had set, but there was still plenty of light to see what was going on. Mind your own business, Emily. But that was four against one.
Her mouth went dry as she suspected the big guy was in trouble. I should just call the cops. She reached for her cell phone in her console, but she had no sooner picked it up when the knives came out.
Torn between morbid fascination and the knowledge that these bangers might turn their attentions on her, Emily slowed to a stop. She blocked traffic, but at this time of day, traffic was slow, and cars simply drove around her. From her peripheral vision, she became aware of pedestrians on the sidewalk also pausing to watch the confrontation.
One of the gangbangers lunged forward with his bared blade, and the dude in leather dodged it with lightning speed, almost too fast for Emily’s eyes to follow. He struck back with his elbow to the banger’s face, knocking him back. That was when the other three charged in.
For a moment, Emily felt certain the attacked would overcome his attackers. He fought with swift, fluid movements, striking faces, thrusting his knee into guts, driving his fingers into throats. But they had weapons and sheer aggression. While no expert on fighting, Emily didn’t think he’d survive for much longer.
God knew murder had been done before on the street in broad daylight.
The man received a few cuts from their blades, and Emily decided she wasn’t going to let him get killed right in front of her. Reaching across the console, she flipped open the glove compartment and pulled out the nine-millimeter Glock. Opening her car door, she stepped out and flipped off the safety. Aiming the gun over their heads, she fired a shot into the brick wall of the corner market.
Sirens screamed to announce the approach of the cops, coming fast. The bangers, startled by the gunshot, backed off the dude for a brief moment.
“Get in,” Emily yelled even as the gang turned their faces toward her.
The guy in the leather jacket didn’t hesitate. He bolted off the sidewalk, running in long strides, and flung himself into the passenger seat. Emily, the moment he started toward her, ducked back into the driver’s seat, set the Glock on her lap, and put the Ford in drive. Even before he closed the door, she floored the accelerator.
Her tires squealed in a high-pitched wailing; smoke poured up behind the car. Hoping the street thugs couldn’t get a good look at her plate number, Emily roared down the street and made a fast-right turn. Only when she had driven six blocks did she slow down and finally look at her passenger.
Blood seeped from a cut high on his cheekbone, and he slid his right hand under his jacket where she thought he put pressure on another wound to halt the bleeding. Yet he gazed at her with a frank curiosity she thought seemed out of place for the circumstances.
“Do you need a hospital?” she asked.
His brilliant blue eyes continued to look at her as though he hadn’t understood her. Is he from some foreign country? His black hair tumbled over his brow and down to his collar in a thick wave. His strong features and full lips reminded her of a model on the cover of romance novels.
He certainly is cute.
“No,” he answered at last.
“But you’re hurt.” Emily eyed his hand under his coat. “Is it bad?”
“Bad enough. But no hospital.”
He had a strange and rich accent—exotic and pleasing. She couldn’t identify it at all, and wondered where he came from. Returning her attention to her driving, she felt his eyes still watching her. “Where do you live? Do you want me to take you home?”
“I can’t go home,” he said, finally taking his eyes from her and gazing out the windshield. “I just arrived in your city.”
Her curiosity at this odd response, and his accent, rose. “Where are you from?”
“Far north of here.”
“Canada?” That might explain the way he talked.
“No. Further north.”
Exasperated, Emily said, “The only place north of that is the Arctic Circle. Are you Santa Claus? Did you come from the North Pole?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Never mind.”
Thinking this guy was jacking with her, Emily ran her hand through her sandy brown hair. “Then where do you want me to take you? Do you have a hotel you’re staying at?”
“No, I just got here. I planned to find one when those men attacked me.”
“Were they trying to rob you?”
“I believe so,” he answered, his face still forward. “They told me to give them my money, and I refused.”
“That was gutsy,” she said dryly. “You could have been killed over it.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw him shrug, evidently unconcerned. “That would not have been easy for them, and I would have killed them as well.”
“Without a weapon?”
He didn’t answer. Driving on, Emily headed toward a nicer part of the city near the interstate where several hotels and restaurants were. “Where’s your luggage?” she asked.
“I don’t have any.”
How does one travel to a new country and not bring underwear and toothpaste? Shaking her head, believing this yo-yo really was jacking with her, and not playing with a full deck at the same time, Emily wanted nothing more to do with him. I’ll drop him off and he can go do his thing, whatever his thing is.
“You saved my life.”
Emily felt those intense blue eyes on her again, but she didn’t turn her head. “No big deal.”
“It is to me.”
“So? Now you’re gonna offer me the spiel of how I’m now responsible for you? Forget it.”
She glanced at him, seeing his lips thinned into a stubborn line. “I’ll drop you off at a hotel, and from there, you do what you want.”
“I must repay the debt I owe you.”
“Don’t bother. I have enough problems.”
“How can that be a problem?”
Irritated, almost wishing she had not stopped, Emily snapped, “It’s none of your business. Now say thank you and your debt is paid.”
“Thank you, and my debt is not paid.”
“Whatever.”
She said nothing more, and he stared out the window. Her stomach burned, and she absently rubbed her belly, needing one of the pills her doctor prescribed. Her knuckles scraped against the Glock, but she didn’t put the safety back on, nor move it to the console. Just in case this yo-yo got frisky.
At last, Emily pulled into the parking lot of a Super 8 Motel and put her Ford in park. It was now almost fully dark, and the lights over the parking lot cast an eerie glow over her vehicle. A mile or so
away, cars and semis hurtled up and down the interstate and an Illinois state trooper, lights flashing, sped past them. She looked at the guy, whose name she had little curiosity to know.
“You can stay at this place, but there are others you can choose from. Restaurants, liquor stores, all you need is within a few blocks.”
For a long moment, the dude simply watched her without moving. Half fearing she’d need to force him out by pointing the Glock at him, Emily stared back without flinching. Slow seconds ticked by, stretching the tension between them. At last, he opened the door and stepped out.
Before closing it, he bent and stared in at her for a moment.
“I owe you my life.”
Then he closed it.
Muttering under her breath, Emily drove out of the lot and headed for the interstate. In her left mirror, she saw him standing there, illuminated by a lamp over his head, watching her go. Breathing a deep sigh, she set the Glock on the console and drove home. She tried to put the strange guy out of her mind, but her thoughts kept returning to him, like a hummingbird dipping at the same flower.
He was cute, but he wasn’t all that personable.
Driving down her quiet street, as usual, Emily kept a sharp watch for him. And as usual, she saw no hint he was there. That meant nothing, however, for he was adept at hiding from her, from the police. If she saw him in a police line-up, she’d never, not even to save her life, be able to pick him out.
Opening her garage door with the electronic gizmo, Emily drove inside the brightly lit garage and parked. The door came back down and closed her inside. Only then did she get out of the sedan. She kept little in the garage along with her car, as there was nothing in it he could hide behind. The light in the garage would stay on for ten minutes before going out.
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