Windy City Dragon

by Genevieve Jack

  “Thank you for coming with me. Gabriel said if he eats one more hot dish he’s going to burst into flames,” Raven said.

  Tobias watched her shovel in another mouthful of pho. She’d covered the stuff in sriracha sauce, and he swore her ears would start smoking any minute, but he smiled and nodded. Dragon pregnancies made the blood hot. What she’d discovered made sense. By eating super spicy food, she was probably causing her body to release endorphins, counteracting the negative effects of her raging hormones. If it worked, who was he to argue?

  “It’s normal,” he said. “If you were a dragon, you’d spit fire. Let’s hope that’s not the case with you.”

  She stopped eating and gave him a hard look. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  Tobias couldn’t hold it in anymore. He laughed openly. “I’m joking. Dragons breathe fire, but it has nothing to do with being pregnant.”

  She smacked him upside the shoulder. “Damn it, Tobias. I was about to start researching antacid spells.”

  “Sorry.” He forced the corners of his mouth down. Truth be told, he loved teasing Raven. She was good-humored and easy to make laugh when she wasn’t pregnancy-raging. She reminded him of his sister, Rowan, in that way. Tobias needed more laughter in his life, especially now that Sabrina was gone. It had been two full days since she’d vamoosed from his office, and he hadn’t seen or heard from her since.

  “Can I ask you a serious question?” Raven set down her chopsticks.

  “Of course.”

  “How long is the usual gestation?”

  “A year. Six months inside and six months outside. I’m guessing that due to your human anatomy, it will be different.”

  “Different how?”

  “Mother Nature is funny. She adapts and evolves. I’m pretty sure a human-dragon hybrid will still have a year gestation, but I’m guessing your smaller size will shorten the number of months you carry the young internally. There’s no way to know for sure until it happens.”

  She scraped her thumbnail against her bottom lip. “More and more since Gabriel awakened this thing in me, this magic, I feel like every day is unpredictable. I used to be a planner. I did well in school, didn’t procrastinate, ever. Now, there’s no planning. I just roll with the punches.”

  “Does that upset you?”

  “It upsets my sister. Avery has been trying to plan a wedding for me that I sometimes think will never happen.”

  “It will happen, Raven. You’ll have your wedding, one way or another.”

  She gave him a genuine smile. “You’re not so bad, Tobias, you know that? No matter what Gabriel says.”

  He did a double take. Raven broke into raucous laughter.

  “Are you going to finish that?” she asked, pointing at his bowl.

  “No.” Tobias had eaten a late lunch and wasn’t actually hungry. He’d only come to give his brother a break. He sensed Gabriel needed time to process Raven’s pregnancy and gather his thoughts in a place where he didn’t have to worry about her reaction to them.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

  He paid the bill and ushered Raven out of the restaurant and toward his car. It had been warm that day for the month of March, in the low fifties. Now that the sun had set, he pulled his wool coat tighter around him. Still, all the snow had melted, and for once he didn’t mind walking the distance to the parking garage.

  Raven paused. “Do you smell that?”

  “No. What do you smell?”

  “Like something’s burning. And something else. Ozone.” She held the back of her hand to her nose.

  Tobias didn’t smell anything, but he heard what sounded like a glass bottle rolling across concrete. He looked down to find a small blue orb. “That’s strange. That looks like—”

  A flash of blue light knocked him off his feet. His wings bumped against the inside of his coat as his body instinctively tried to steady itself, but the garment wasn’t built for his kind and he fell to the sidewalk, Raven on top of him. Branches of white lightning exploded above them, drawing his breath from his lungs and sending hot energy coursing through his veins.

  “It’s… it’s… Paragon.” Raven rolled off him and crab-walked away from the light show above them, but she didn’t get far. Her muscles were as useless as his, wracked with spasms from the Paragonian grenade. The magic attacked the nervous system, made it impossible to do anything but breathe. He heard Raven sobbing. The baby. What was this doing to the baby?

  A hulking, figure stepped into view, face hidden in shadow behind the flashing lights. Helplessly immobile, Tobias watched as the man approached.

  Scoria.

  The Obsidian Guard loomed dark and merciless above him, the jeweled embroidery of his black-and-red uniform reflected in the dying light. The apparel didn’t blend in at all with human clothing, but then Scoria wouldn’t have used a Paragonian grenade if he was interested in blending in.

  The guardsman drew his dagger. “Hello Tobias. I have you at last.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Boss Miller was a longtime friend to the vampires of Chicago. He’d allowed his uptown bar to be used as a safe place for monitored feeding on human guests since he’d bought the place in 1985. In exchange for a small fee, he kept the humans calm and the vampires from killing anyone. There hadn’t been an incident in decades.

  Sabrina handed him the envelope she’d prepared. “So then I can expect you to continue acting as a friend to my coven after my coronation?”

  He tucked the envelope into his jacket. “Why spoil a good thing?” Miller’s voice was as gruff as a bear’s. The curtain of his beard parted to reveal a flash of white teeth.

  Sabrina was still shaking his hand when a commotion at the front of the bar reached her ears. When she asked what was going on, Boss Miller shook his head, unable to hear it. She led the way toward the front of the bar where a big picture window was packed with patrons.

  “What’s happening?” she demanded.

  A human woman turned toward her and said in a voice laced with more excitement than fear, “Some guy is mugging a couple. They’re on the sidewalk. I don’t think they can move. Maybe they broke something.”

  Sabrina moved into action, threading her way through the crowd to the front door. No one was getting mugged in front of Boss Miller’s place on her watch. Not today, Satan.

  Two sets of legs, one male and one female, lay sprawled on the concrete, pointed at a man who was big enough to be a Chicago Bears linebacker.

  “This isn’t the place for you,” she said in her deepest, most serious voice. “You don’t want to do that here.”

  The man turned and Sabrina’s fangs dropped. He had the mark Tobias had shown her, two dark crescent shapes in the space between his right eye and his temple. And his hand, which was holding a sinister-looking dagger, wore a ring with a cat’s-eye stone in a setting similar to Tobias’s. This was a dragon!

  She growled a warning. The man raised the dagger and shifted his weight toward the victims. Tobias and Raven! Why weren’t they moving? Sabrina saw their faces clearly now and the rage already coursing through her veins took on a new, sharper edge.

  Mine.

  In a flash, she was on the attacker. Her hand caught his wrist before he could sink the knife into Tobias’s chest. Clinging to him like a monkey, she tore into his throat and tried not to swallow the blood that rushed into her mouth. This was dragon blood. Pure ambrosia, but it would knock her on her ass if she had too much. She’d learned that from Tobias.

  The knife nipped her shoulder, and she growled and pushed and kicked and tore. Blood sprayed across the sidewalk. A whistle like a baseball bat singing through the air engaged her vampire instincts. She flung herself off the man in time to watch the heavy bottle Boss Miller had swung connect with the dragon’s temple. The glass shattered, shards raining to the pavement and mixing with the blood. It was enough. Apparently even dragons succumbed to head injuries. He toppled to the pavement.

  “M
ess with my girl again, fucker.” Boss Miller delivered a kick to the man’s ribs.

  Tobias sat up and rubbed the back of his head.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  His jaw clenched. “Sabrina… Yeah. Thanks for the help. I bet you were tempted to let nature take its course.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just that it might have been more convenient for you if you’d let him stab us.”

  She gripped his hand and helped him to his feet, her stare digging into his. “If you believe that, you don’t know me at all.”

  “It would help if you’d return my calls.”

  “Not now, Tobias. And definitely not here.” She shook her head.

  “Fine.”

  “What’s wrong with her? Why isn’t she moving?” Sabrina gestured toward Raven.

  “Paragonian grenade. The magic has a debilitating effect on the nerves. Looks like the paralysis lingers when the device is used on humans and witches.”

  “Fucker.” Sabrina growled at the dark man heaped at her feet.

  “I gotta clean this up, Sabrina,” Boss Miller said. “It’s bad for business.”

  “I’ll send two of my people to help.” She texted a couple of vampires she knew would be in the area, then looked at Tobias. “Do you need help getting Raven back to your place?”

  “No, but any way you can help me get Scoria to the car before you ghost again?” The words left Tobias’s mouth like he regretted every one, as if it burned his tongue to ask her for help. But Sabrina could see he had no choice. He couldn’t carry both of them, and leaving the bloodied man on the sidewalk wasn’t acceptable.

  “His name is Scoria?” She frowned. “You know this guy?”

  Tobias gave her a curt nod.

  “I’ll meet you at your house.”

  Sabrina exchanged a knowing look with Boss Miller, who’d already set the two vamps she’d called to work with mops and buckets. She reached down and grabbed Scoria by the shoulders.

  Tobias began to protest. “No, Sabrina, I—”

  But she was gone. She’d dematerialized before he could finish, landing in the center of Tobias’s living room with the dragon in tow. Damn, he was heavy. As soon as she formed again, she flipped him facedown on the carpet and gathered his hands behind his back. Scoria was still unconscious, but he wouldn’t be for long. He was twice her size, but even a dragon’s wrist could snap under the right amount of pressure. She placed a knee in the center of the guardsman’s spine and adjusted her grip.

  An orange calico cat ran into the room and hissed at her, the hair on its back rising toward the ceiling. Sabrina hissed back.

  Gabriel rushed in after it, his presence like a dark menace. Damn, Tobias’s brother was intimidating as hell. His gaze floated from her to Scoria as his lips peeled back from his teeth on a growl that she wasn’t sure was meant for her or the dragon.

  “He tried to kill Raven and your brother.”

  “Raven? Where is she?” Gabriel paced toward the door, drawing his phone from his pocket. His fingers flew across the keyboard.

  “Relax. She’s with Tobias. They’re on their way here.”

  A ding sounded. No doubt Raven responding to the frantic text. The tightness in Gabriel’s shoulders eased somewhat.

  “I need rope or wire, something to bind him,” she said. “If he wakes, I’m not sure I can hold him. He’s not going to stay under for long.”

  “He’s a member of the Obsidian Guard from Paragon. The best of our warriors. I’m surprised you knocked him out at all.” Gabriel ran a hand through his hair.

  “I tore half his throat out. Unfortunately, it’s already healed. This guy is tough.”

  “The toughest.” Gabriel moved to her side to get a better look. The cloying scent of burnt cinnamon and old books struck her. Repulsive. The guy seriously needed a shower.

  She sneezed and rubbed her nose. “Did you fall in something?”

  “Hmm?”

  “The smell.” She turned her head to the side. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you stink.”

  He gave her a withering look. “I’ll find you something to use on him.”

  “What was that look for? I’m just being honest. It’s not my fault you smell,” she called after him.

  She heard him rummaging in the kitchen drawers. Her fangs ached. She concentrated on retracting them, but it wasn’t working. She was hungry. The effort it had taken to subdue Scoria and transport him here had drained her energy, and she’d had to spit out his dragon blood. Her stomach cramped.

  Gabriel returned with a fistful of zip ties. “I presume these will do.”

  “Perfect.” Sabrina hoisted the guardsman into a heavy wooden chair that reminded her of something that belonged in a basilica. Last time she was here she’d only seen Tobias’s bedroom. The man had interesting taste. Eclectic. The orange cat leaped from behind her, hissed, and swiped at the guardsman, then ran off like a holy terror.

  “That thing’s a menace,” she said.

  He chuckled. “Try telling that to Raven.”

  Holding the man in place with her elbow, Sabrina made short work of binding his wrists and ankles to the sturdy chair frame as her father had taught her. Too tight and it would cut off circulation. Too loose and desperate prisoners would break their own thumbs to get free. She admired her handiwork. The guy wasn’t getting out of this without help.

  Once he was secured, she moved to the nearest window and closed the drapes.

  “What are you doing?” Gabriel asked.

  “This place is a fishbowl. Anyone can see in with these open. Trust me, you don’t want that. We’ll have the Chicago PD at our door in a heartbeat. There’s too much blood on his clothes, and I’m willing to guess once we start questioning him, there’s going to be more.”

  Scoria’s head rolled on his shoulders. They had a few minutes before things got interesting.

  Sabrina addressed Gabriel again. “Seriously, what’s with the smell?”

  The man’s eyes shifted to the side. “My scent never bothered you before?”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t smell before. I’m telling you, you stepped in something.”

  Gabriel nodded. Was he blushing? “I think this is something you need to talk to Tobias about.”

  “Who is this Scoria guy, and why is he in our territory?” Sabrina was growing more concerned by the minute with the way the dragons were multiplying in Chicago.

  Gabriel focused on her with such intensity she had to take a step back. “Where is my brother?”

  “I told you, he’s on his way here. He had to drive Raven. I can only dematerialize with one person. It was pretty important I get this guy off the sidewalk.”

  His eyes widened. “He attacked you in public?”

  “Not me. Them.” Sabrina sighed. “He had Tobias and Raven on the ground and was ready to stab them out of existence when I took him down with the help of a friend of the coven.”

  “By the Mountain,” Gabriel cursed, holding his head. “Humans could have been hurt. They definitely could have seen.”

  “That didn’t seem to be a concern to this guy. We’ll wipe the memories of anyone who might have seen anything. Don’t worry about that.” Sabrina planted her hands on her hips. “Are there more dragons coming to Chicago? What do you know about this?”

  “Relax, vampire. We are not invading your territory. This is a member of the Obsidian Guard from our home realm of Paragon. He was sent to kill us over a… private matter.”

  She hissed. “Gabriel, that private matter was made public today. Blood was spilled in front of hungry vampires. If anyone aside from me tasted that blood, you better believe we’ll have a problem. Your blood definitely does not taste human, and shifters are not allowed in vampire territory.”

  An angry growl tore through the room. “Put your fangs away. You don’t want to fight me, Sabrina. I’m not as nice as I let on.” He was crouched, his dark eyes burning. Nothing about him looked nic
e. Nothing about him looked anything but deadly.

  She covered her mouth with her hand. “I can’t. It took energy to get him here, and I haven’t fed. They won’t retract until I feed.”

  “You need blood.”

  “Human blood. Dragon blood is intoxicating to my kind.”

  Gabriel scowled.

  “Normally I can feed off energy too, but….” She shook her head. It would be far too awkward to feed on Gabriel.

  Gabriel spread his hands and narrowed his eyes. “Sorry, only dragon blood here, and I’d prefer to keep it in my veins. If you’d like to go, though, I can handle this from here.”

  “No way. I’m not going anywhere. I need to know what’s going on and if I need to get the coven involved.”

  A groan came from the direction of the chair. The guardsman roused, head bobbing and fingers twitching.

  Gabriel growled. “He’s coming to.”

  As the dragon blinked awake, Sabrina sagged, her stomach clenching again from hunger. This was not how the night was supposed to go. This was a disaster. Vampires had seen Scoria, and he did not look human. This, all of this, might be too much to hide and too much to forget. Not to mention the protective instinct that had flooded her when she’d seen Tobias on the ground. That was not something she could cast aside.

  There was a thud from the direction of the kitchen and then the sound of the door slamming. Tobias staggered in with Raven at his side. The witch was walking but pale. Dark circles had formed under her eyes. Gabriel rushed to her and caught her in his arms.

  “You’re just in time,” Sabrina said around her still-extended fangs. “Our friend is waking up. I’m sure you’ll have questions for him and answers for me about why he is in my coven’s territory.”

  Tobias glanced between her and Scoria, taking in his bindings. “You did this?”

  “Of course I did. He tried to kill you.”

  “Thanks.”

  His roasted-almond scent met her nose and she inhaled deeply. Maybe it was because she was hungry, but he smelled exceptionally delicious. Her entire torso warmed with the delectable bouquet.