by Isa Hunt
“And then I'll get to meet this Li-wun woman, huh?”
“You will.”
“What's she like?” I asked. “Have you ever met her?”
“I have, once. She is like me; she was not born here in the United States, although like me she thinks of it as her second home.”
“You don't think of America as your home?” I asked, getting a little sidetracked by his remark.
“I do – but like I said, it's my second home. My idea of the home will always be my family's estate in France. But that home . . . it exists only in my mind now. It is a home I can never return to.”
There was an intense sadness in his eyes as he said this, and I put my hand over his, which was on the gear stick. I threaded my fingers through his and squeezed his hand softly.
“I'm sorry,” I said.
“It's okay, it's okay,” he said softly. “What's done is done. What matters to me is that we defeat Artemis and his warlords. They destroyed my family's estate, burned down our castle and drove us off the lands we had occupied for eight hundred years . . . And I will have my vengeance on them. I swear. And you, you will be the one to lead us in the fight against Artemis and his evil. We have been waiting for the red dragon queen to take her rightful place . . . We have been waiting for this for a long, long time.”
Great . . . more pressure, about more stuff I really knew nothing about. I seriously had been thrown right into the deep end here. I guess all I could do now was sink or swim.
Darkness was starting to fall, but I could see the lights of New York City now. They were bright, sprayed like a million pinpricks of light across the horizon ahead. I smiled in quiet wonder. I had always wanted to visit New York, and although these weren't exactly the kind of circumstances I'd imagined visiting under, I was nonetheless here.
“The Big Apple,” I murmured.
“The Big Apple? What's that?”
I chuckled as I glanced across and saw the quizzical expression on Benoit's face.
“Your English might be almost perfect, Benoit,” I said with a smile, “but I see that your knowledge of American culture could use a little polishing. The 'Big Apple' is a nickname for New York. You never heard it?”
He smiled.
“I didn't . . . Funny, thinking of how I used to live here. But I mostly kept to myself and didn't really talk to many people anyway. Well yes then, we are almost there, at this 'Big Apple.' Are you excited?”
“I am. I've always wanted to see this place.”
“You'll like it, I think. It was the first place I lived when I came to America. It is an amazing city. But, of course, we must not forget the main reason you are here.”
I sighed.
“No, of course not,” I said, rolling my eyes. “We can't forget that I'm supposed to be this 'mighty dragon queen,' not even for one second.”
Benoit squeezed my hand sympathetically.
“I'm sorry Kelly,” he said. “I know it must seem overwhelming. I know you must feel like you're in over your head. But you'll get used to it . . . And you'll be an amazing queen.”
“That's what everyone keeps telling me,” I said. “I'm not entirely sure that I believe it, though. Anyway, I'm not gonna sit here and complain. After all, I am heading to New York City for the first time in my life, and I intend to make the most of this trip. What's our first stop gonna be?”
“We're heading straight to Chinatown,” he said, “to meet Li-wun.”
“Chinatown huh? Well then . . . to Chinatown we go.”
Benoit looked as though he was about to say something else, but before he could speak, my phone rang. I took it out of my bag, my heart suddenly beating faster. Was Jason calling me again? Would I hear the voice of my long lost-brother once more?
I checked the number – it was one that I didn't recognize.
“Who's calling?” asked Benoit, a look of suspicion crossing his face.
“I'm about to find out,” I said as I answered the call.
And as soon as I did, a wave of intense emotion blasted through me.
“Hello sis,” said Jason. “Are you ready to help me?”
CHAPTER 5 – KELLY
“Jason!” I gasped. “Jason, oh my God, it's you, it's really you isn't it?”
“I need your help, sis. Please,” he said. “I'm in great danger.”
“And I'll do everything I can to help you J. You're the only family I have left in the world,” I said, my voice cracking. I was on the verge of tears now. “Please, just please tell me where you are.”
“You're getting closer,” he said. “Keep going. You're getting closer to me.”
“I . . . J, I don't understand,” I said. “Keep going where? How do I know I'm getting closer to you? Please, don't you even have a vague idea of where you are? Just give me a clue, a state, a country, anything, please!”
“Keep going . . . But please hurry, I don't have much time, I don't have much time . . . ”
There was a click on the line.
“J? Jason? Are you there? Hello, are you there?”
“What's going on? What's he's saying?” asked Benoit.
“He's . . . he's gone,” I murmured, feeling sadness and frustration churning inside me. “He's gone again.”
“And he didn't say anything? You don't know where he is?”
I shook my head, feeling like I wanted to cry.
“Nothing. Nothing at all, Benoit. He just kept saying that he needed help, that he didn't have much time . . . and that I was getting closer.”
“Closer to what?”
“I don't know. That's all he said.”
Benoit nodded slowly, thinking about all of this.
“Somehow, we will get to the bottom of this,” he said. “Don't worry Kelly, we will find your brother.”
“I hope so,” I murmured. “I really hope so.”
We drove on in silence for a while as I thought over and over again about my brother and what had happened to him. I realized after some time that I was going to drive myself crazy thinking about it. There wasn’t anything I could do right now, so I tried to think about something else. We had finally arrived in New York City, so I focused on the city around me, taking in the sights and sounds of it.
I had to really concentrate to stop myself from oohing and aahing too much as we drove through the streets. Coming from the small Florida town I'd called home for my whole life up to this point, I seriously felt like some sort of country bumpkin who had just stepped into a big city for the first time – which was, well, not too far from the truth.
Benoit seemed totally blasé about the whole thing, but I guess that was because he had lived here before, so everything that seemed vast and impressive to me was just regular background scenery for him.
I tried my hardest to play it cool, but I really couldn't stop myself from gawking, and while he was mainly keeping his eyes on the busy, congested city streets as he drove, I would catch him shooting glances across at me, smiling mischievously at my awe and wonder.
“These skyscrapers are just . . . gigantic!” I exclaimed as we drove by.
“They're pretty impressive, yeah,” commented Benoit, “but I still prefer the castles and palaces of Europe.”
“I'd like to see those someday too,” I said.
“And someday you will. I will show you the wonders of the old continent when the war is over, and Artemis is finally defeated.”
We turned down a street and found ourselves in Chinatown. All along the crowded streets were store signs in Chinese in bright, colorful neon, and down side streets were bustling open-air markets selling all sorts of strange, exotic foods and other items. A light rain began to fall, and people started popping their umbrellas open. The streets became slick, the wet asphalt gleaming with the bright colors of the reflections of the flashing neon signs. It almost felt like a scene from the movie Bladerunner.
“We'll park here,” said Benoit, “and walk the rest of the way.”
He pulled the rumbling M
ustang into a parking space and killed the motor. We got out. I saw Rex's motorcycle parked nearby already, and it looked like Paul's Ferrari was parked up at the other end of the street.
“Come, follow me,” said Benoit as he headed down a narrow side street that was packed with people.
I hurried after him, pushing through the jostling crowd, the members of which seemed to hail from every nation on earth. We pushed our way through the throng, heading through a market in which every conceivable item was for sale, from exotic fruits and vegetables to the latest hi-tech gadgets and bizarre fashion items from the other side of the world. People were jabbering away in all sorts of languages all around me, and the brightness of the neon lights soaked everything in their intense colors. It was all very exciting, but kinda overwhelming as well. This place was a serious sensory overload.
“This way,” Benoit called back to me, veering off to the left down a narrow alley.
I pushed through a pack of people, hurrying after Benoit. He stopped, as if waiting impatiently for me – but then looked right past me, and suddenly the look on his face changed. A look of alarm came across his handsome features, and he suddenly whipped out the pistol from inside his coat and aimed it straight at me.
“Duck!” he yelled.
Panic ripped through me at the sight of the firearm aimed at me, but somehow I maintained enough presence of mind to obey Benoit's command, and in a split second I dropped onto my hands and knees on the wet ground.
As I did, he fired a shot. The booming crack of the gunshot echoed through the alley, and as it did, pandemonium erupted in the street behind us. All of a sudden people were screaming and shouting, and there was a riot of pushing, shoving bodies, with everyone trying to push past each other in their rush to escape.
I heard a dull thump right behind me, and I turned around, my heart now pounding violently in my chest with fear and panic. I saw a man lying dead, just a few inches behind me. Benoit's bullet had caught him square in his chest.
“Benoit!” I screamed. “What the hell are you doing? Why did you do that?”
“Look in his hand!”
I saw a syringe filled with a blue liquid in the man's hand.
“What the . . . ” I murmured, utterly confused now.
“An assassin!” he said. “Come on, we have to go!”
Police sirens were now wailing in the distance, and it sounded as if they were headed our way.
“Come on! We have to move!” he roared. “Go, go!”
I glanced once more at the dead man's hand holding the syringe, with its long, gleaming needle, and then scrambled to my feet and bolted after Benoit, who was already running. He veered off to the right, down another narrow alley, and I sprinted after him.
“Up here!” he said, skidding to a halt and pointing to a fire escape.
I ran up to him. He grabbed me under my arms and lifted me up so that I could grab onto the railing of the lowest level of the fire escape. I pulled myself up onto it, and then Benoit jumped up and lifted himself up onto it as well.
“Come on, up here,” he said, running up the steel steps, his feet clanging on the metal.
I hurried up behind him, feeling fear, panic and dread pumping through me.
“What the . . . what the hell is going on?” I gasped as I ran. “Who was that guy? Why did he have a syringe and a needle? What was that blue stuff in it?”
“In here,” said Benoit, ignoring my questions as he reached a door.
He banged on the door, and it was opened from the inside by two tough-looking Chinese men who were both holding an assault rifle. They seemed to recognize Benoit and stepped aside to let him in. The men looked at me – and immediately got onto their knees, bowing low, kowtowing as they touched their foreheads to the floor.
“Dragon Queen,” one of them murmured.
“I, uh . . . just stand up, seriously!” I snapped, caught up in my feelings of fear and panic.
The men scrambled to their feet and let me in, but would not make eye contact with me. One of them shut and locked the door behind me. We were in an apartment building. It was old and kinda shabby, and the hallways were dimly lit, with peeling paint and cracked floors.
“This is where this dragon empress from China lives?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Sometimes the best place to hide valuable items is in plain sight,” said Benoit. “Come, down here.”
“Benoit, listen to me. What the hell happened back there in the alley?” I asked. “Who was that guy? What was that blue stuff he was gonna inject me with?”
“He was an assassin, no doubt sent by Artemis. The blue liquid is a powerful psychotropic agent that would have paralyzed you but left you fully conscious. The assassin would have probably dragged you into a waiting getaway vehicle and taken you to a holding area to wait for Artemis himself, who, as you know by now, wants your blood . . . And your life.”
“Jeez, when the hell is someone gonna explain this whole blood thing to me? I thought this guy was a dragon, not a freakin' vampire!”
A door opened in front of us, just as Benoit had been about to knock on it. Standing in the doorway was a tiny, ancient Chinese woman who looked as if she was well over a hundred years old. I don't know how, but as soon as I saw her, I felt a powerful, intense bond of kinship, despite our entirely different nationalities and age groups. There was just something in those small, dark eyes with their heavily-wrinkled lids that I recognized immediately.
“He is a dragon indeed, despite his obsession with blood,” she said, her soft voice heavily-accented, the volume of it barely clearing a whisper. “But don't worry, I will explain everything to you. I am Li-wun Chen, the last dragon empress of China.”
CHAPTER 6 – KELLY
“Come in my child, come in,” said Li-wun to me.
A feeling of complete reverence flowed through me, enveloping me like a warm mist. It was as if this woman, this stranger who I had known for all of thirty seconds, felt like a long-lost grandmother to me. I just wanted to hug her, to cry on her shoulder, to ask her if everything really was going to be alright.
Of course, I didn't do any of these things. Unsure of what the protocol was in this sort of situation – one dragon queen meeting another – I simply half-bowed kinda awkwardly, and then shuffled into the apartment behind Li-wun, with Benoit coming in last and closing the door behind us.
Now, while the apartment building looked really shabby and run-down, the inside of this apartment was like a palace. It was filled with priceless furniture, ornaments, porcelain, scrolls, carvings and other antiques from China. My jaw dropped as I looked around me; it was as if I had stepped into a museum, or, even better, a time machine that had transported me back to Beijing's Forbidden City, circa 1750.
“This place is . . . amazing . . . ” I murmured as I stared all around me.
“Relics,” said Li-wun softly. “Relics of a lost time and place. And these are just a few items myself and my bodyguards were able to rescue before the enemy closed in. They burned down my palace, and destroyed everything in it.”
“I'll leave you two to talk,” said Benoit, bowing low before the dragon empress.
“Your friends are in the library, wolf chieftain,” she said to him. “I will send for you when I am done speaking with her.”
He bowed again, and walked down the hallway, disappearing into a side door.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked me, smiling in a grandmotherly way.
“Well, no offense, but I'm not a big fan of tea,” I said. “So thanks, but I'll pass.”
“Please, have some,” she insisted. “It is special Chinese herbal tea. You must try it.”
I figured I didn't want to start this off on the wrong foot by offending the last Chinese dragon empress.
“Alright, yeah, I'll have some, thank you,” I said.
She clapped her hands, and two servants – middle-aged Chinese men – dressed in traditional Chinese robes, came rushing out from the shadows in whi
ch they must have been waiting. In the subtle, dim lighting of the place, I hadn't even noticed them. She barked out a court order in Chinese, and they both bowed and hurried off to do her bidding.
“Come, sit,” she said, pointing to a low, ornately-carved table with some cushions around it.
I took a seat on one of the cushions, feeling a little self-conscious, and wondering if I was doing things correctly. If I wasn't, Li-wun didn't say anything about it. She simply took a seat at the head of the table and smiled.
“It is good to finally meet you,” she said. “I have been waiting for this moment for many years. In recent years, as my health has declined, I had begun to worry that I would not live long enough to meet you, that I would pass from this world before we found you. Your late mother did a good job of covering her tracks and disappearing. It took us a very long time to find you. But I am thankful that we did eventually track you down – and that we got to you before the usurper Artemis found you.”
She spat out Artemis's name as if it were a piece of foul, rotten meat.
“I'm glad you found me before that too,” I said. “Artemis's men came very close to catch me . . . It was only because of . . . ”
I suddenly found myself lost for words; what word could I use to describe Rex, Benoit and Paul? My alphas? My bodyguards? My boyfriends?
“Your sacred mates,” said Li-wun, completing the sentence for me. “Yes. They saved you just in the nick of time. And I see that they have activated your dragon form.”
I blushed, thinking about just how the process of that “activation” had worked. It had been . . . hot . . . Extremely hot. I'd never thought about having group sex before I'd met Rex, Benoit and Paul, but now that I'd had three gorgeous hunks all pleasuring me simultaneously, I knew just how amazingly intense such an encounter could be. And just thinking about it was already starting to get things all hot and wet down below. I felt a warm blush coloring my cheeks as I thought about this.
“Uh, the um, activation part, with my 'sacred mates,' is that um, just a one-time thing that, you know, won't ever happen again?” I blurted out. I wasn't sure why this was the first question coming out of my mouth in front of this old lady and instantly regretted asking it.