Bonded to the Dragon: The Lick of Fire Collection: Dragon Lovers

by Lockharte, Kara

  Heart pounding, I tried to think of the inanest sassy thing that would get me killed. “So I’m wondering, dragon, what’s with all the white? Or are you planning on groomsman-ing at somebody’s wedding?”

  He said nothing, did nothing.

  “Say something, dammit! Just get this over with and kill me already!”

  His voice was smoother, more human than I expected. I’d once known a male phone-sex operator who had a voice like his. “I’m waiting for you to run again.”

  “Should I run?” I dropped my voice to a mocking tone. “Is that what makes you hot?”

  “I want you to realize how useless it is to run. No matter what, I will find you.” A smile curled his lips. He leaned forward into my personal space, and it was all I could do to not take a step back. “Go on. Try it.”

  There was an edge to his tone that made me shudder in a totally inappropriate way. This was also the problem with living, with being alive and having a body—far too often, the flesh had stupid reactions to things your mind knew better than to feel.

  “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

  He stalked around me. The dragon radiated heat so much it was like standing in front of a fire. Despite his clean white-suited appearance, he smelled, strangely…sweaty, in a surprisingly not unpleasant sort of way. Was it an illusion? Even knowing what he was, and how dangerous he was, my body wanted to get closer to the source of the heat, closer to his scent. Illogical, stupid flesh. He caught my gaze with those eyes, and I understood the meaning deer-in-headlights better than ever before.

  “You are one who died, reborn for vengeance.” He tilted his head as if finding something remarkable. “Curiously enough, you don’t want vengeance.”

  The way he was looking at me, it was as if he could see through my clothes. With my luck, Mr. Magic Dragon had X-ray vision too. “It’s none of your business.”

  “I don’t care why you’ve come to be what you are. But you will be useful to me.”

  Well, after lying to him and running away, those were the last words I’d expected him to say.

  “I have an enemy. An enemy who betrayed my trust, murdered my brother, and has now taken my sister.”

  In his eyes I could see a hint of pain, and fury gone cold.

  And it struck something inside me, an itch I needed to scratch. The strange magic within me welled up, potent and ready. I knew, like I knew my name, that I could help him. The dragon needed vengeance. He had been wronged, and my magic could correct that injustice with destruction.

  Destruction. Death. That was the answer to everything.

  The potential for such a delicious ending called to the magic within me, hot, enticing.

  And then, like a cold dose of water, I remembered my mother’s words. Whispers trickled, surrounding me, the sound rising until it swirled around me, overwhelming me. Forgiveness…the only way…forgive me…unjust…forgive…peace…

  I covered my ears and closed my eyes, knowing it wouldn’t work.

  But to my shock, it fucking worked.

  There was silence.

  I blinked and saw the dragon staring at me strangely.

  And my mother’s voice was clear.

  Forgiveness is the only way to find peace in an unjust world.

  I looked down at my hands. What the hell evil magic was this? Was I cursed to be haunted by my past?

  That was the one thing my mother strove against.

  Too bad it had taken my death to truly realize it.

  But just because I knew forgiveness to be the right path didn’t make it any easier.

  Fucking life and these messy complicated emotions.

  I knew I should lie, tell him what he wanted to hear, play the willing woman.

  But I was tired of that shit. I’d played that game my whole life, and where had that gotten me? Maybe honesty would get me what I wanted.

  “I understand,” I said quietly. “But I lied to you. What you want, I can’t give.”

  His eyes narrowed. I could feel the pressure in the air change as magic surged around us, threatening and smelling unmistakably of him.

  His magic curled around me, deceptively warm and soothing, like a soft fluffy blanket, but one completely flammable at the first spark of anger. “I know you lied. But you will give me what I want. You’ll give me everything.”

  * * *

  I was in the passenger seat of some big, black fancy car driving who-the-fuck-knew-whereby the dragon. It had no logo I recognized, and its doors folded up like a spaceship. Two big hands rested easily on the steering wheel, and the dragon’s body relaxed in the driver’s seat as if we were old friends, rather than two strangers who had just emerged from a bush.

  I crossed my arms and peered out of the window as we drove onto what looked to be a highway, wondering where the hell I was. We could be in Russia for all I knew. I hadn’t been off Titania’s lands since my resurrection. But that wasn’t what was making me cautious.

  “Do you have a name?” he asked casually, as if he hadn’t just been a monster chasing me through dark woods.

  I forced myself to keep looking out the window of the car. I chose my words and tone carefully. “Do you need one?”

  If I played this right, he would kill me quickly, and I’d be done and…oh.

  Oh.

  I felt his warm touch, stroking hot trails along my inner thigh. I looked downward but saw nothing there. Heat bloomed inside me. So unfamiliar, so unwanted, and yet so desperately needed.

  I looked at him and realized he was absentmindedly rubbing the ring on his finger as he drove.

  I brought my fist down on the armrest, hitting the door loudly in frustration. “Stop it.”

  He stopped and looked thoughtful. “You feel me when I touch the ring.” His statement was almost a question.

  “Yes,” I spat out.

  “Interesting.”

  He stopped, but the feeling lingered, my muscles still tense. I stared out the window, determined not to look at him. What the hell had just happened? A sign passed by: 88 miles to Scranton. Scranton… Where the hell was that? That wasn’t New York. I had the nagging feeling that I should know, but too many brain cells were lost in my attempt to sedate myself in drugs. Ecstasy, Superfly, coke, heroin; there was no drug I hadn’t liked.

  But drugs, like food, sleep, and sex, held no more temptation for me after my resurrection.

  I could still feel the warm trail of his touch.

  No, fuck no I would not have these feelings—

  “Why did you seal mark my sister’s bear?”

  My god, he was scrambling my brain so much I thought he was talking about zoo animals. I turned to stare at him. He seemed even bigger, more ominous in the dark.

  His voice came again from the dark, deep and enigmatic. “You have my sister’s seal.”

  A vision of Rory handing me a flopping, wriggly wet baby seal flashed into my mind.

  I frowned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  He glanced at me strangely. “It’s a sort of mark. Invisible to everyone save for dragons. You bear it. Did you not know?”

  What? I looked at my hands, rolled up my sleeves, looked inside my shirt.

  An echo of a memory, a woman screaming in my mind.

  I closed my eyes and thought of darkness to block the coming vision. I thought of the peaceful endlessness of death, but I could still feel my body, the seams in my shirt, the itch on my skin, the hair against my neck. My fingernails dug into the palm of my hands. It hurt. Just like the rest of life. Life was nothing but mistakes and pain.

  And I was sitting next to someone with the power to end it all.

  I leaned on the door, shifting to face him. “You know what? I’m fucking tired of people doing shit to me without even asking.”

  “Wearing a dragon’s seal is considered an honor.”

  “It’s called fucking consent. I don’t want to be sealed. I don’t want anyone’s mark on me.”

  I look
ed over at him. He didn’t punch me in the face, burn me to ash with laser eye beams, or wiggle his fingers and make me explode.

  He simply ignored me.

  Where the fuck was the scary monster man-dragon that had broken through Titania’s defenses like wet toilet paper?

  I dared to poke him in his shoulder. It was like jabbing steel in a suit. “Tell me how to get this damn seal off.”

  “It’s a friendship seal. It asks those who can see it to treat the bearer with respect. Only she can remove it.”

  I turned back toward the window. We passed a deer with glowing eyes on the side of the road.

  “What did you see the night my sister was taken?”

  I took a deep breath even though I didn’t need it.

  I rubbed my head, waiting for the spike of pain in my skull that came when I thought of that night.

  None came. To my surprise, I was truly free of Titania’s influence.

  But at what cost? It was all part of her plan, I reminded myself.

  Whatever; I had to play this right. He was an obstacle I definitely couldn’t defeat with lies, let alone brute force or magic. My only advantage was that he wanted something from me.

  I rubbed my ring finger, exactly where I would wear my ring if I ever got the chance. “We were together in the library late at night. Your sister had been helping me to try and figure out what I was. But that night, she wanted me to come and talk to her about death. She wanted to know what death was like, and whether I had met other dead.”

  “Have you?”

  “I’m not sure. I remember watching the living. I don’t remember seeing other dead. She came to the conclusion that I hadn’t actually died; that I’d been stuck in a more intermediary ‘shadow’ state.”

  He glanced at me. “Did she use the word ‘shadow’?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  He ignored my question. “When did the angel of death show up?”

  I smelled smoke in the car. Not cigarette smoke, but something else, something burning.

  Were the ends of his sleeves darkening? No. They were…charring. And refixing themselves as they smoldered. Underneath, his tattoos moved on his skin. I stared in fascination at the charred edges, at the new threads regenerating as they burned, the designs swirling on his skin in a hypnotic dance.

  Magic dragon, magic suit.

  It was almost like life: creation, destruction in a never-ending cycle. Somehow, I had been placed wrongly outside of that circle.

  I needed to get my death back.

  “He said something I didn’t understand. She yelled at him in the same language.” I closed my eyes. Far from Titania, the fog hiding that memory was gone. “She threw a ball of fire at him.”

  He smiled. “Good.”

  “The room filled with smoke. I couldn’t see. I heard something shatter. And then…”

  “And then…” he repeated.

  “I woke up in Titania’s flower garden the next day.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yup.”

  “What did they tell you about where they found you?”

  Why would he expect that they would tell me anything? “Nothing, as usual.”

  “As usual?”

  “I’ve died before. Or at least I’ve tried to kill myself before. Every time, I lost consciousness and woke up the next morning in Titania’s flower garden.”

  Waitaminute. A sinking, horrible feeling gripped my stomach. If Aurora was his sister, then that meant she was a dragon too.

  “A death demon with a death wish. How ironic.”

  I slapped myself in the forehead. There I was being stupid again, thinking that Aurora had been helping me because she was kind. All the while, she had the power to free me. She’d kept her secret from me. She’d put the seal on me to tell other dragons I was going to be her tool.

  “You were resurrected by Titania. I did not know the shen wielded such power.”

  “You and me both,” I said, not paying attention to his musings. I thought…

  I clenched my fists and looked away, trying to hide the water falling from my eyes. Goddamn it, if I didn’t need to eat or sleep, why the hell could I still shed tears? What was the point of that?

  But I already knew the answer.

  Pain.

  I hadn’t been punished enough.

  I was tired of being a fucking pawn.

  “I’ll tell you something, dragon. I don’t know what my powers are. I don’t know how to help you. All of that back there? A bluff to get me the fuck away from that bitch.”

  “I know,” he said quietly.

  I stopped.

  His voice was dark, almost stormy. “I can smell when you lie.”

  I couldn’t show fear. I had to remember my endgame. I had to piss him off. If I did it right, maybe he would end me now. “Fuck you. Did I ask to be smelled? You’re invading my privacy.”

  Immediately, the air grew hot and harder to breathe. The edges of his sleeves started to char again, rising, falling, creation falling back against the forces of destruction, tattoos still moving. “You are trying to piss me off. Why?”

  “You want the truth? Because I don’t fucking want to live. I want my death back. I’m infected with life, and I can’t cure myself of it. I’ve tried. Shot, stabbed, hung, burned, gored, trampled, and at the end of it all, I’d wake up just as whole and alive as before. Your sister said dragonfire would help me get what I want.”

  “How?”

  “By killing me.”

  He said nothing.

  “Death will solve all my problems,” I repeated, to drive it home. I shouldn’t be revealing what I wanted so casually, but part of me wanted to shock him, wanted him to say something.

  Finally, he replied with a statement that was more of a question: “She said dragonfire would help you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aurora—she is of the blood, but she was born with a particular kind of disability.”

  “I saw the limp.”

  I looked out the window; the car was slowing. He was pulling over to the side of the road. The engine stopped. Everything went silent.

  “No. It’s not the limp. Aurora…” He paused as if speaking was difficult. “Aurora only has a human form.”

  “So?”

  “In the old world, they would segregate her kind from dragon society.”

  “Like she had an infectious disease or something?”

  “The disease of not being a true and proper dragon. She has fire, but her fire is not dragonfire.”

  I gave him a side-eye. What an asshole. Fucking racist. I should have known.

  He saw it. “No, dragonfire in dragon form is different from fire in our human form. Your language has no words to explain it. Think about fireworks. They burn with different colors depending on the chemicals added. Her fire in human form is missing a particular…component.”

  I rolled my eyes at his explanation, trying to ignore the familiar heavy weight in my chest. It wasn’t relief or anger. Just weariness, wariness, and a surety that I’d rather be dead than be forced to remember how crappy people were.

  I had to stop thinking about it, start working on this guy, get him talking. Information was power, and I needed more to figure out how to either push his buttons or get the hell away from him.

  “This angel guy that took your sister. You know him, don’t you?”

  His hands started glowing, and his sleeves started burning again.

  Well, that answered that.

  “There’s a history there.”

  “Yes,” he said, his angry tone warning me not to continue.

  Perfect. Time to press harder.

  “What happened?” I made sure to take a mean-girl tone. “Did this guy, like, betray you, steal your money, and beat up your brother too?”

  I heard the sound of grinding teeth. “Yes.”

  “Yes? That’s all you have to say?”

  “Except for the money. He killed my brother.”

  Oh.


  I tried to think of something to say, but finally he spoke. “The Angel of Death lives behind fortress walls that cannot be crossed except by the dead. You will fulfill that requirement.”

  “You want me to break into the fortress of a death angel. Sure. Easy. Were you even listening to what I was saying before? I don’t even know what I am.”

  “I know what you are. I will make this bargain with you. If you help me find my sister and bring her back safely, I will give you what you want.”

  I glared at him. “Give you what you want,” he’d said, as if he were a motherfucking king on high and I was just dirt beneath his fancy undoubtedly magic shoes. “Don’t pretend I have a choice.”

  “You do.”

  I let out a low laugh as derisive as I could make it. “I don’t think so. You wear the ring that binds me to you. The one that lets you find me.”

  “Is that what is holding you back? I’ve got news for you: I don’t need a magic fairy ring to find you.”

  The ring flew to me, even as I stared at him in disbelief. Nobody did stuff like that.

  Nobody.

  And then the ring was solid, in my hand, still hot from his flesh.

  Power flashed through me, my skin glowing.

  And at once I was free.

  3

  I was free?

  I stared at the silver ring in my palm.

  “You look surprised.”

  “I… You…” I glanced at him, then back at the ring. Words wouldn’t come.

  I closed my hand around it. Heat welled up from the ring.

  I put it on and watched it shrink to fit my finger.

  He had given me my freedom.

  I looked at the depression in the door where the handle was. There was no visible latch nor lock.

  “The lock is hidden under the handle,” he said. “Go on.” His voice was deceptively casual and controlled. “Try it.”

  I tried to say something, but there was something stuck in my throat, as if I had tried to eat something completely unfamiliar, that to my surprise didn’t taste terrible, but at the same time, I wasn’t so sure I liked.

  Finally, I got out a single word. “Why?”