Protected by the Dragon

by Kayla Wolf

  “Well?”

  “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you. But promise me—promise you won’t tell Alexander? I’ll tell him soon, I promise, I just—need some time to think everything through. And probably some advice,” he added, shutting his eyes. “From a woman.”

  “Oh my God. Is it Amara? I saw you two talking last night—I thought there might be something there, I mean, Alexander was saying that she and you would make a good match—”

  Samuel almost laughed. Nothing could have been further from his mind than the icy dragoness. “No. Definitely not.”

  “Then who? There aren’t that many women around, you know,” Lisa said, sounding mildly aggrieved. “I wanted a dragon girl gang, and there are like… three of them who are happy to stay in human form long enough to make friends with me.”

  “Her name’s Jessica.”

  “Huh. I thought I’d met all the dragons. I don’t remember a Jessica.”

  Samuel took another deep breath. “She’s not a dragon. She’s a wolf.”

  Lisa’s eyes widened to the size of dinnerplates. “She’s a what? Samuel—” The slight woman peered down the abandoned corridor they were standing in, then grabbed his arm and yanked him into an empty chamber to their left, as though there was a chance they’d be overheard. “Are you serious? A wolf? Those people are dangerous.”

  She had every right to be concerned, Samuel knew. He felt a stab of guilt that he’d brought up those memories for her. When Lisa and Alexander had met, there’d been a huge amount of unpleasantness with a wolf pack in her city. Reading between the lines of the stiff, careful way Alexander had told the story, he’d landed in town and immediately gotten himself into a fight with a pack who’d smelled the dragon on him a mile off. Ancient enemies, after all, even in a human city where they were all on high alert to protect their true natures as shifters. Lisa had walked in on the fight, scared the wolves off with some kind of sophisticated human self-defense tool, and saved Alexander’s life. Samuel had made fun of his brother for not realizing then and there that Lisa was his destined soulmate, the woman he’d been sent by prophecy to find—but it had taken a great deal longer, and another few clashes with the wolf pack, before the two of them had figured out what their feelings for each other meant.

  “How did you even meet a wolf up here? I thought this place was top secret. Was she with her pack?”

  “No.” At least, he hoped she hadn’t been. She hadn’t actually said much about where she was from or whom she was with, on reflection. God, there was so much more he wanted to learn about her. “No, she was injured. There’s a chamber on the south side of the valley, a few miles at least away from the places we still use. They must’ve dug it too close to the surface or something because there’s a crevasse that opens up to the hill above it. You can see the moon through it, some nights. I go there to think. But the other night—I went there, and there was a woman lying there with a broken leg. I guess she fell.”

  “She was here? There was a wolf in the actual—Samuel, that’s so—”

  “I know! I know.” He raised his hands defensively. “I told you, I’m going to tell Alexander, I just—” He hesitated, not sure how to articulate what he wanted to say. But Lisa was scrutinizing his face, a look of realization dawning in her eyes, and he realized he didn’t have to.

  “You—you have feelings for her? This wolf?”

  “Jessica,” he corrected, feeling a flare of protective irritation at the way Lisa kept saying ‘wolf.’ She sounded like Alexander. “Her name is Jessica. And—I don’t know. I guess so. I brought her some food, helped her heal her leg.”

  “Samuel—”

  “We’re not at war! We haven’t been at war for hundreds of years, no matter what these hidebound old dragons think. She was alone, she was hurt, and she needed a hand. What was I meant to do, kill her in cold blood?”

  “You’re right. You’re right.” Lisa’s voice was soothing, but he still felt aggravated. She was echoing everything he’d ever been taught—all the dire warnings from dragon lore telling him wolves weren’t to be trusted, that they were malicious, scheming animals who wanted to destroy him and his kind. But he’d always felt uncomfortable with those parts of their history—always wondered whether it was really fair to call all wolves evil just because their species had been at war. What would wolves say about their battles? History was such a difficult and subjective idea, and they had absolutely no records of the ancient wars from the other side’s perspective. As a boy, he’d tentatively tried to raise that issue with his family, during a long lesson on dragon history. His mother had stared at him as though he’d grown a second head. The look of disappointment and disgust on her face had been enough to ensure he never raised the issue again, though his father had quietly steered him towards a few dusty texts in the library that were a little more sympathetic towards the wolves.

  But Lisa didn’t know all of that, he tried to tell himself, calming his anger. Lisa was new to all of this—a year ago she’d thought dragons were fairytales and wolves were just animals she’d seen in the zoo. And she was looking at him thoughtfully, clearly working through the issue in her own mind.

  “You know my people have had a lot of wars, right?” she said gently, now, and he nodded. Humankind moved so fast that their conflicts were difficult to keep track of, but he knew that they were fond of fighting one another. “We almost destroyed the whole world a few decades ago.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. Keep that one to yourself, hey? Alexander still thinks humans are charming, I don’t want to get into a nuclear war with him for another few years.”

  God, they still had so much to learn about each other. It was overwhelming. And he knew a fair bit about humans—at least compared to what he knew about wolves.

  “Anyway, we’ve been at war, with basically every country on Earth at this point it feels like. But—once we make peace, we—well, we make peace. One of my best friends growing up was from a Russian family—we were at war with them for decades. My dad’s best friend grew up in Germany, we were at war with them before that. War is—terrible. But you’re right. Wars end. People are still people, no matter their history. Where is the wolf—where’s Jessica,” Lisa corrected herself, “now? Can I meet her?”

  “That’s the thing,” Samuel admitted, feeling a heavy weight settle onto his chest again. What Lisa had said was encouraging, sure—but how could he make connections with a wolf if she ran away from him the first chance she got? “She left, this morning.”

  “I thought you said her leg was broken.”

  “It healed.” Lisa looked at him blankly, and he remembered. “Oh, right. Humans take weeks to heal broken bones. Shifters can do it overnight.”

  “Unbelievable,” Lisa muttered. “Where are my superpowers, I ask you.”

  “Your superpower is change. Adaptability.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a uniquely human trait, actually,” Lisa said thoughtfully. They’d settled on some rocks as they talked, and she leaned forward now, her hands resting on her crossed legs. “You seem pretty open to change, for a dragon.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve always been weird,” Samuel admitted, smiling a little despite himself.

  “Maybe that’s why you fell for a wolf. It’s kind of romantic, actually. Do you guys have any Shakespeare in your library?”

  The name stirred a distant memory. “A human writer?”

  “Yeah, I guess you could call him that.” Lisa was grinning that particular grin she had when she found something about dragons funny that she wouldn’t be able to explain. “He wrote a play called Romeo and Juliet. Ever read it?”

  “I’m more interested in history than fiction,” Samuel admitted.

  “You should check it out.” She smiled a little. “Downer ending, though. We’ll work on changing that. Anyway, this Jessica—you were saying she left? How are you going to find her?”

  “I don’t know,” Samuel admitted. “I don’t ev
en know if I can find her. All she left was this.”

  And he unfolded his hand and showed her the piece of paper. To his surprise, she snatched it up with a look of excitement, flipping it over immediately, barely seeming to look at Jessica’s final message. Her eyes were on the strange chain of numbers.

  “Samuel, this is great!”

  “What, the code? I figured it was on the paper already. It doesn’t mean anything, I tried to decipher it, and there’s no pattern or—”

  “Dragons,” Lisa said with acute exasperation. “This is why we need to get electricity into this dusty old place. This is a phone number!”

  He had heard of phones. Lisa had explained them at some point. But what was a phone number?

  “You type this into a phone, and it contacts someone else,” she was saying rapidly. “You idiot. She left you her phone number. She likes you!”

  Samuel blinked. “How do you know?”

  Lisa was on her feet, almost exploding with excitement. “This was my entire job! Listen, it’s a human thing, I don’t expect you to understand, but—leaving someone your phone number is like, move one in the playbook. She likes you. She wants you to call her! She left you a way of calling her!”

  “Calling her. But I don’t have a phone.”

  “I do, you idiot! Come on!” And she was gone, careening out of the cave faster than Samuel had ever seen her move. He hurried after her, surprise and hope beginning to swell in his chest. A phone number? So Jessica hadn’t just left him. She’d left him a way of getting in contact with her. An unpleasant thought struck him—had she expected him to contact her straight away? What if she was waiting somewhere, looking at her phone, waiting for it to—do whatever it did to indicate that someone had entered the code? And here he was, moping about like an idiot. He felt a fierce burst of gratitude for Lisa’s presence, and for his brother going to the human world to find her. If Lisa wasn’t here, he’d still be moping around with a piece of paper, with no hope of ever seeing Jessica again.

  He caught up to Lisa at the quarters that she’d taken over as an office—they were a short distance from the bedchambers she shared with Alexander, but Samuel still looked surreptitiously around. He didn’t much fancy running into his brother at the moment, not when they were about to conduct some potentially treasonous activities in the interests of getting in touch with a wolf. A good wolf, he thought crossly, a kind and beautiful and fascinating and strong wolf with sharp eyes and a quick wit and the most wonderful voice—

  “Here,” Lisa was saying as she pulled him into the office and shut the door behind them. There was an ornate wooden desk and on it a range of Lisa’s arcane tools. She called them technology, but as far as Samuel was concerned, they were magic. She handed him a small, flat rectangle with a smooth glass surface, and he stared down at it. There appeared to be numbers embossed into the surface—Lisa tapped the screen impatiently, and he jumped as the numbers shifted and changed.

  “That’s amazing,” he breathed, staring down at it. She made an impatient sound.

  “We can have a technology appreciation session later. So—you have no idea how to make a phone call?”

  “No.”

  “You’re going to type that number in—just press the buttons—that’s right. Then press that green button.”

  His hands felt incredibly clumsy on the small device. “Humans do this regularly?”

  “Too much,” Lisa said, smiling that fond human smile to herself. “It actually stops us communicating with each other sometimes.”

  “A communication device?”

  “Yeah, I know. Humans are a weird bunch. But you’re going to press that button, then hold the top part to your ear so you can hear her. Okay? You’ll hear her voice say ‘hello’ when she picks up the phone. I’m assuming werewolves make phone calls the same way as we do, anyway,” she added, mostly to herself it seemed. “Are you ready?”

  Samuel took a deep breath, his heart pounding. “I’m ready.”

  Chapter 7 – Jessica

  “Samuel.” She didn’t know what to say. Of course, she’d left her number for him with the understanding that he might call. But now he had …. what next? Did she apologize again for leaving? Did she ask how he was doing? What was the point of this? What had her plan been? What was her plan now, for that matter? The panic was beginning to creep in around the edges of her mind, making her heart pound sickly in her chest.

  “Are you okay? How’s the leg?”

  “It’s fine.” She blinked, looking down at the leg she’d broken. She’d almost forgotten about that particular event. “I’ve been shifted, so…”

  “Good idea.” God, his voice was so nice. So bright, so full of happiness. Despite their distance, despite the profound awkwardness of the situation, she could feel her mind settling a little at the gentle way he was speaking to her. It had been the same when she was stuck in the cave—even through the pain of her broken leg, the panic of not knowing where she was or if she would manage to escape with her life, Samuel had been able to calm her down and keep her focused. Suspicion flared in her chest. Was that a dragon trick? Some kind of psychological mind game, a way of making prey docile before they struck? But none of that felt right at all—it was just her old suspicious instincts flaring up again.

  “You’re not angry?” she asked, impulsively. “That I left?”

  The phone crackled as he laughed—even distorted by the phone speakers, it was a heartwarming sound, and she could feel a smile beginning to stir on her face at the sound of it. “Angry?” he asked, and she could picture the incredulous smile on his face. “Of course I’m not angry. I’m just glad you’re safe.”

  “I—I had to go.”

  “I understand. Family stuff is—important. I know about that, with my brother.”

  “You have a brother?”

  “Yeah.” She could hear him hesitate, and she sat up a little on the riverside rock she was perched on, as though better posture would help her hear him better. “He’s our king, actually.”

  “Your brother is the dragon king.” Despite her affection for Samuel, she felt real anger stir in her chest. It was almost an instinct. The monarchs of the dragon kingdom were the most hated figureheads of all. It was the Queen who had driven the wolves of Fallhurst into hiding, everyone knew that. But Samuel had said King, hadn’t he? “I thought—you guys had a queen,” she said, guarded, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.

  “We did.” Why did he sound so sad? “My mother. We lost her a few years ago.”

  Jessica was reeling. The funny, gentle man she’d met—the man she’d dropped her defenses around, the man she’d felt such a profound attraction for, the man who even now was making her heart beat faster and her chest flutter like it was full of fireflies—he was the son of the monarch who had killed so many of her people, who had driven her pack into exile, who had made her life the secretive, closed-in nightmare that it was?

  “So you’re a prince.”

  His laugh was a little uncomfortable. “Sort of, I guess.” There was a silence, and this time it felt awkward. She could hear Samuel searching for something to say, but she couldn’t help him. She was too full of conflicting feelings about what he’d told her, about who he was. Her enemy. Her dire enemy. Should she have taken more advantage of where she’d been? She’d had him at such a weak position… she could have done something. Struck a blow for her pack, gotten revenge for what had been done to them all those years ago. To take down a dragon prince… she’d be celebrated as a fierce warrior in the village for days. They’d definitely forgive her for wandering off if she’d brought that kind of news home with her.

  But could she really have gone through with assassinating the man she’d felt so strongly attracted to? Of course not. She was weak like her father had always told her. Weakness was a serious character flaw for Jack—but he always reassured her that it wasn’t her fault and that if she worked hard enough, she would eventually overcome it. She could be a strong wolf i
f she just tried hard enough. And she needed to be a strong wolf now.

  “So—what are you doing? Where do you think you’ll go next?” Samuel was asking her, and she felt a flare of protectiveness. Why did he want to know where she was going? Was he planning on tracking her down?

  “Just around,” she said shortly. “I’ll do some hunting, then move on.”

  “Great. It’s a beautiful area.”

  “I know.”

  “I could come down and meet you sometime. Maybe we could hunt together?”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” she said briskly. “And it’s probably not a good idea for a dragon prince to be seen with a wolf, don’t you think?”

  “Nobody will see us—”

  “I have to go,” she said shortly, feeling the abrupt and unexpected burning of tears in her eyes. “Goodbye, Samuel.”

  “Jessica—”

  She hit ‘end call’ before she could hesitate. Strong wolf. And for good measure, she turned the phone off. Important to conserve battery. A strong wolf would conserve battery. Who knew how long it would be before she found a power outlet where she could charge her phone again? It had been silly to talk to the dragon for so long. It had been convenient, to have him bring her food and help her recover from her injury—that was all. Perhaps she could even convince herself that having sex with him had been a distraction tactic, a way of manipulating him into trusting her so she could make her escape. But there was no point thinking about him anymore. There was no kind of relationship they could have, no life they could lead together. His brother was the King of dragons. His mother was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of her people, her family, her pack. She may have been in exile, but she still had some loyalty there.