by Zoe Chant
"What'd she do, anyway? She doesn't even know what dragons are!"
"Not my problem," Reive growled, stalking toward him. The tip of his tail, just visible in the long grass, twitched like a cat's.
"Oh really? What about honor? Is it honorable to kill an enemy who has no idea what you want from them, without even giving them a chance to explain or offer an alternative?"
"You know," Reive said, "killing her is a necessary and unpleasant duty, but I'm starting to rather look forward to killing you."
Good, Ben thought. Chase me, not her.
Inside his chest, his panther snarled. Let me at him!
The urge to shift was strong, but as a panther, he'd lose his human advantages: the gun, the opposable thumbs. Still, it wasn't like either of those was doing him any good at the moment. And he would have his panther's weapons, the sharp teeth and claws that his human body lacked.
"Enough stalling," Reive growled, and swung a paw at him. Ben dodged, but Reive clipped his arm, knocking him to the ground. The gun fell from his numb fingers.
Let me fight! His panther was nearly frantic. We're going to die—and our mate will too!
The panther was right. He couldn't win like this; he didn't even have a chance. Ben didn't bother taking his clothes off this time. With the dragon poised to spring, there was no time.
He felt his panther take over, his human clothes parting along the seams as the cat leaped out of him. A shrug of his shoulder sent his holster falling into the grass, and then the lean black panther sprang out of the way of the dragon's next scimitar-clawed swipe.
"Oh, you do have some fight in you, then. I wondered what kind of shifter you were." The dragon shrugged and turned back toward the cabin. "Not that it matters. You can't stop me."
Ben sank his teeth into the dragon's tail. Reive hissed and whipped his head around, but Ben was already gone into the grass. Still, the dragon was horribly fast. One clawed forepaw crashed to the ground inches from Ben's whiskered nose; the next blow caught him in a vicious slap and sent him tumbling end over end.
As Ben struggled to get to his feet, dazed and reeling, blinking blood out of his eyes, he saw the dragon lunge up the cabin's porch and knock the door off its hinges with a casual slap of a paw.
***
When the dragon crashed through the door, Tessa—dusty and scratched—was halfway under the couch, her fingers brushing against kitten fur.
Tessa screamed, letting the end of the couch crash back to the floor as she recoiled in shock. The kitten zipped out from under the other end of the couch and shot across the floor to cower beneath a chair.
"Trying to hide won't save you," the dragon growled.
"I'm trying to rescue my kittens, you beast," Tessa yelled, so terrified that she barely heard the words coming out of her mouth. "Where's Ben?"
"Don't worry about him. You're the one in trouble."
The dragon thrust his massive head through the door. Tessa screamed again, snatched up the squalling kitten carrier, and ran into the kitchen. The dragon's shoulders, too wide to fit, crunched against the doorframe as he tried to push his way through.
Looking around wildly for a weapon, Tessa spotted a large cast-iron frying pan hanging behind the stove. She grabbed it with her free hand and started beating him in the snout with wild swings.
"I have to say I admire your fighting spirit," the dragon remarked. He winced and turned his head to catch her makeshift cast-iron club on the armored side of his jaw rather than the sensitive snout-tip. "It gives me no pleasure to do what I must do."
"It gives me even less pleasure, believe me!" She punctuated her words by slamming the pan repeatedly into his face. "Where! Is! Ben! You! Monster!"
"Aargh! Stop that." The dragon wrestled one of his legs inside the cabin; the doorframe crunched and buckled. "It'd be easier and less painful for you if you'd cooper—"
Tessa whacked him in the teeth. With irritation that could be read even on his reptilian face, the dragon snapped his teeth shut on her makeshift weapon. Tessa engaged in a very brief tug-of-war that the dragon won, wrenching the pan out of her hands. He spat it out with a clang.
Tessa grabbed a canister of black pepper, opened it with her teeth, and flung it at his face.
"Troublesome little—atchoo!"
While the dragon coughed and sneezed, a terrified orange blur sped past Tessa's feet. She bent down, grabbed the kitten, and performed the hastiest kitten-stuffing maneuver of her life on the kitchen counter, jamming him on top of the others and holding them down while she zipped the carrier shut again.
If there was an Olympic gold medal for kitten-wrangling, she felt like she'd earned it.
The dragon blinked watering eyes at her and, with another heave of his shoulders, broke out more of the doorframe and got his other leg inside, scraping off a shower of copper scales. Now half of him was in the living room and he could easily reach her.
Tessa backed up into a corner of the kitchen. She was trapped, but she wasn't going down without a fight. She seized one canister after another, pelting him with sugar and salt, raisins and a shower of nuts.
"Really?" the dragon said. As Tessa ran out of projectiles, he opened his jaws.
One of the living room windows imploded as Ben's black panther came crashing through in a cascade of shattered glass and curtains.
He launched himself at the dragon's head, swiping a paw across its face. Reive roared as Ben's claws slashed across one of his eyes.
Ben hit the ground and shifted human in an instant. His face and shoulder were bloody; Tessa gasped in shock. "Out the window!" he ordered. "My car keys are with my clothes. Get—" He broke off and rolled out of the way as the dragon snapped at him.
"There's still one kitten in here, and I don't know where it is!"
"Forget it! Just go!"
Easier said than done, Tessa thought, eyeing the window. To get to it, she had to get past the dragon.
Seeing her predicament, Ben offered her an opening by backing up against the far wall of the living room, trapping himself but leaving her a clear path to the window. He shifted again, dropping on all fours to the floor, and sank his teeth into the dragon's leg.
Tessa screwed up her courage and dashed across the room. She dropped the kitten carrier out of the window, and wriggled out after it, falling into the long grass beside the cabin.
After the chaos inside, it seemed incredibly peaceful and serene out here, except for an occasional thump from behind the cabin wall. Tessa gulped down a couple breaths of the meadow-scented air, and then picked up the cat carrier and ran around to the front of the cabin.
It looked like there had been a heck of a fight here. The ground was churned up, the grass flattened, and one side of the porch roof had caved in. The dragon's coppery hindquarters—all of him that was visible, with the rest inside the cabin—shifted this way and that as he tried to attack Ben.
Tessa's first thought was that finding Ben's clothes out here was going to be like hunting for a needle in a haystack, but then she saw the glint of his gun, and found a pile of torn-up clothing next to it. So that's what happens when he shifts in his clothes. She retrieved his keys and, while she was at it, scooped up his gun and his phone, stuffing them hastily into a side pocket on the cat carrier. Then she ran to the car, threw the carrier in the back, and half-fell into the driver's seat.
The car started easily, and Tessa took a deep breath for what felt like the first time since Reive had shown up at their door. She was in a car with the engine running. She could get away.
Except ... Ben was still in the cabin.
She had Ben's gun, but she didn't know how to use it, and she was afraid to try. What if she missed the dragon and hit Ben instead?
Instead, she revved the engine and rammed Ben's car into the dragon's hindquarters.
It felt like hitting a brick wall. The dragon's back legs went out from under him, and there was a startled roar from inside the cabin. A moment later the dragon began to wr
ithe, trying to back out, and Tessa realized he was stuck in the doorway.
Ben's panther leaped out the shattered window. He landed awkwardly, stumbling; he was clearly hurt.
And he had a kitten in his mouth, carrying it by the scruff of the neck like a momma cat.
Shifting human again, he dropped the confused-looking kitten into his hand and tumbled into the car through the passenger-side door, cradling the kitten against his bare chest.
"Are you—" She started to ask if he was all right, but he was covered in blood and dirt; clearly he wasn't.
The dragon thrashed as he tried to get out of the cabin doorway.
"His motorcycle," Ben panted. He leaned into the backseat to put the kitten in the carrier with the others. "Ram his motorcycle. Push it into the creek behind the cabin."
"What? Why?"
"Just do it!"
It seemed like a ridiculous waste of time. The dragon didn't need the motorcycle to pursue them; it had wings! But Tessa trusted Ben. She gunned the motor and the car thumped into the motorcycle. The wheels started to spin. Tessa accelerated, and the motorcycle was pushed backward, tearing a swath through the meadow grass.
"Push it where?"
"Creek! Behind the cabin!"
She gunned the engine and the car sped up. Ben suddenly shouted, "Stop!" and Tessa slammed on the brakes. The motorcycle tumbled over a small embankment and there was a tremendous splash.
"Now go, go! Get out of here!"
Tessa didn't need the urging. She whipped the car around, accelerated past the still-trapped (but rapidly escaping) dragon, and jolted onto Ben's overgrown driveway.
"Why did you have me do that?" she asked as the car bounded over ruts, branches whipping across the windshield. She had to cling to the steering wheel with both hands. Losing control at this speed would probably mean slamming into a tree and killing them both. In the backseat, the distressed kittens wailed.
"It's part of his hoard," Ben said.
"What?"
"Dragons prize their hoards above all else." Ben twisted around, trying to see out of the car's rear window. "Damage a dragon's belongings and you might as well hurt them directly. If it's a choice between chasing us or getting the motorcycle out of the creek before it's too damaged to salvage, he'll go for the motorcycle first."
Tessa was not at all convinced, but they didn't seem to have an angry dragon chasing them yet, so she would just have to believe him. She fishtailed out onto the main road. "Which way?"
"There's really only one way." Ben pointed. "Toward town. The other way, the road just goes up into the mountains and dead-ends. We'd be trapped."
"I feel trapped anyway!" She pushed down the accelerator, picking up speed, all too aware of how easy they would be to spot from the air. "We're sitting ducks out here."
"I know. We have to get to the main highway. Once we get there, he'll have to guess our direction randomly. And there'll be more witnesses in other vehicles."
"Why does that matter?"
"Dragons don't want to be discovered," Ben said. "He'll be less likely to chase us if he might be seen."
Right now, they were alone on the rural road; they hadn't passed a single other car. At least she didn't have to worry about dodging other traffic. Navigating the curves at this speed was bad enough.
"How long do you think he'll wait before—" She shut up as a shadow fell over the car. "Oh shit."
"My sentiments exactly," Ben said grimly. He rolled down his window a crack to look out.
"Damn, damn, damn," Tessa whimpered. She pressed down the accelerator, pushing the car up past 60 despite the sharply winding road. "What's he doing?"
"I think he's having trouble keeping up. Don't slow down."
She glimpsed the dragon in the rearview mirror, a flash of his broad-winged shape against the blue sky as they whipped around a turn. Then Ben's head blocked her view as he craned into the backseat.
"Ben, sit still! I can't see!"
"New problem," Ben said. "Your kittens are getting out."
"Are you kidding me!"
Tessa risked a glance over her shoulder to see that the frantic kittens had torn open a gap in the soft-sided carrier. Two of them were already loose in the backseat, tumbling over each other as they crawled around, exploring. Another one was in the process of squeezing its way out of the hole.
"Get your gun!" she said. "It's back there with the carrier. They might, I don't know, accidentally shoot us or something."
"The kittens have my gun," Ben muttered. "This is the worst day ever." He struggled up to his knees in the seat, gasping in pain. Tessa tried not to let herself be distracted by his bare hip and pale flank as he leaned into the backseat.
She had more than enough distractions already. One of the orange kittens squirmed quickly through the gap between the seats and plunked into her lap. There were mewls and the sound of claws on upholstery all over the backseat. Every last one of the little jerks was loose back there now, from the sound of things.
I am suing whoever made that carrier! Tessa thought desperately. Kittenproof, my ass!
Wind whipped suddenly into the car, ruffling her hair. "Did you roll down your window again?" Tessa cried, trying to keep her eyes on the road as the kitten in her lap batted at the steering wheel. She caught another glimpse of the dragon flashing overhead; he was making up time since she'd slowed down because of the kittens. "Roll it back up! They'll fall out!"
"It wasn't me," Ben said, with a grunt of pain; he was draped over his seat now, half of him in the backseat. "They're trying to climb the doors; I think one of them got a foot on the window controls."
Tessa took another startled glance over her shoulder. To her horror, she saw that the driver-side back window was halfway down, with one of the kittens actually trying to climb up to reach it. "Are you telling me the kittens rolled down the window?!"
"Yes." Ben stretched across the backseat, trying to reach the window controls. "Where did you say you put my gun?"
"It's in a pocket of the—"
"Watch the turn!"
Tessa hastily looked forward, yelped in dismay, and slammed on the brakes, cranking the steering wheel through a tight turn an instant before they went off the road into the woods. There was a series of thumps from the backseat as various items, including kittens, tumbled into the rear footwell. The kitten on Tessa's lap tumbled across her knees and fell on her feet.
Her feet ... which were currently driving the car.
"No!" she said, trying to keep her right foot on the gas while using her left foot to fend off the kitten. "No, get out of there! Bad kitten! Ben! Help!"
"Kinda busy right now!"
"Me too!" Tessa wailed.
The car was on a straight stretch, so she risked bending down and groping under her feet until she got a hand on the kitten and was able to fling it (gently as possible) out of the footwell in the general direction of the passenger seat. Ben grabbed for it, missed, and made a startled noise as the kitten scrabbled up his bare back and jumped onto the dashboard.
"Get off there!" Tessa freed a hand from the steering wheel to swipe at the kitten, trying to get it out of her field of vision.
The kitten's foot slipped down onto the radio controls. Suddenly AC/DC blared deafeningly into the car.
I definitely feel like I'm on a highway to hell, Tessa thought grimly. She got a hand on the kitten, plucked it off the dashboard, and tossed it over Ben's head into the backseat.
Ben shouted something.
"What?" Tessa yelled over the blaring electric guitars. She slapped wildly at the radio, trying to turn it off. It didn't help that she was driving an unfamiliar car and had no idea where the controls for anything were.
"I said I can't see the dragon anymore!"
"Is that good?"
She got her answer an instant later when she whipped around another turn and something huge blocked the road in front of her. Tessa shrieked and stomped on the brake pedal. The car fishtailed wildly, kittens a
nd other loose items went tumbling across the backseat, and Ben's naked body squashed her against the window. Somehow she managed to keep hold of the steering wheel and stopped them about ten feet from the dragon standing in the middle of the road, head up and wings raised, one eye half-closed with bloody claw marks around it. If dragons could look annoyed, this one definitely did.
"I think he's pissed about the motorcycle," Tessa murmured. "Um, not that this isn't nice, but—"
"Yeah. Sorry." Ben struggled off her, back into his own seat. As he did so, a kitten plopped into her lap. She caught it reflexively and tossed it to Ben, who tossed it hot-potato-style into the backseat and then bent down to reach into the footwell in front of his seat.
"What are you doing?" Tessa hissed. The dragon hadn't made a move in their direction yet. She had a feeling Reive was still figuring out what to do. Or possibly just deciding between the many different possible ways to kill them.
"Gun," Ben said. He sat up with it, grimacing in pain. Holding the gun in his bare lap, he popped out the magazine and then slapped it back in.
"How many bullets do you have?"
"Three."
Tessa couldn't tear her eyes away from the enormous predator in the road. "That doesn't seem like enough to me."
Ben let out a short, choked laugh. "Yeah, this caliber isn't too effective on something that size either, so it might not matter how many we have."
"You mean he's bulletproof?"
"Not entirely, but it'd have to be a one-in-a-million shot."
"Maybe I can drive around him," Tessa suggested.
Ben shook his head. "All he has to do is stomp on the car and he'd crush it flat, and us along with it." He took a deep breath. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'll get out and distract him—"
"I hate this plan already. No splitting up."
"If I can give you a chance to escape—"
"No!" Tessa said. "Look, it's me he's after, right? If anyone should distract him so the other can get away, it ought to be me."
Ben gave her a horrified look. "I'm not going to run off and leave you."