Releasing the Dragon

by Evangeline Anderson

  I can still feel though, whispered an awful voice in her head. I’m going to feel everything when he goes after me with that long knife and nobody will even hear me screaming because the music in the gym is so loud! Oh God, please help me—please—

  “Take your fucking hands off my chosen mate.”

  The low, growling voice seemed to come from everywhere at once and suddenly Dru was there, right in front of them. When he saw what was happening and the long, curving silver blade in Christian’s hand, an angry snarl began to rise in his throat. And his eyes…

  His eyes are doing that same thing they always do in the dreams, Annie thought dazedly. She watched, unable to tear her gaze away, as the bottomless black depths split vertically, widening like the pupils of a cat and, a burning golden light like the fires of some internal furnace flooded out.

  The blinding light illuminated the dark corner Christian had dragged her into and she saw to her horror a whole set of knives and other sharp implements lying on the ground. They had been rolled up into a cloth bundle, like professional chefs use to store their best knives and now they were laid out on the grass with surgical precision, all ready for use. God, what had her old high school crush intended to do to her?

  “Get away from her—now!” Dru’s voice was terrible to hear—not just because of the rage that filled it but because of a kind of double echo that emanated when he spoke. It was almost as though a stronger, deeper voice was growling the words along with him. The sound seemed to make her brain throb in her skull.

  It’s the same voice I hear in the dreams, she realized. So angry and deep…

  The sound seemed to affect Christian even more than her. He dropped his hold on her and clapped his hands to his ears.

  “No,” he screamed. “No, don’t… don’t!”

  Dru made a noise that was almost a roar. Annie had been to the Big Cat Rescue once on a field trip and had heard a lion roar—the sound was a little like that but deeper and harsher and somehow more piercing too. It sounded almost like it had an eagle’s scream and a tiger’s throaty growl mixed into it too. The guide at the rescue had told them a lion’s roar could be heard for five miles or eight kilometers away—she could well believe that Dru’s voice could be heard twice as far as that—it seemed to make her eardrums bulge.

  Christian screamed again and dropped to his knees. He began scrabbling wildly at his knives, rolling them back up into a bundle as though he was trying to get away.

  Without his support, Annie felt herself falling too. Her legs were simply too rubbery to hold her up. But before she hit the ground, strong arms caught her and she was suddenly being lifted and held against Dru’s broad chest.

  “I told you that male was not to be trusted,” he growled in her ear and then everything went dark.

  Eight

  Dru wanted to kill the human male for trying to hurt his female. But at the sight of Annie in danger, his Drake rose so strongly inside him he knew if he didn’t get away quickly, it would come out and wreak havoc.

  So instead of giving the male the justice he deserved, he held Annie close and carried her quickly to his shuttle, now parked in the side of the lot. When he’d left before, he had actually driven a little way away, trying to get hold of himself. But a sudden urgent sense that Annie was in danger had brought him quickly back—only to find that he was almost too late to save her.

  Goddess, let her be all right. He didn’t hurt her, did he? Why did she faint?

  Dru examined her as well as he could but he was no trained medic, though he did know a few triage techniques. He could at least tell that she wasn’t bleeding anywhere and she was breathing evenly, but he couldn’t wake her up. At last he decided there was no other choice than to bring her to someone he trusted.

  Making certain she was fastened securely into the passenger side seat with the harness, he switched the shuttle from land to space mode and took off, rising into the sky. The moment he cleared the Earth’s atmosphere, he put in a call to the Mother Ship, which was in orbit around the Earth’s single moon and asked to speak to Commander Sylvan.

  He would know what to do for Annie—Dru hoped, anyway.

  Annie woke with a sour taste in her mouth and a throbbing headache. A concerned face was peering into her own—a girl with blonde hair and silvery-gray eyes.

  “Oh look—I think she’s coming around,” the girl said. Smiling at Annie she added, “How are you feeling, hon?”

  “Who…where…?” Annie blinked, wondering where she was. The last memory she had was of dancing with the huge Kindred from her dreams at the Halloween dance. No one else had invited her but he had asked her even though she was only a sophomore and he was a senior…

  Annie frowned. No, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t in high school anymore, thank God. So then, why had she been back in her old gym surrounded by all the people who had made her life a living hell for four awful years? Why—

  “Hello, Annie—are you well?”

  Suddenly the man from her dreams was hovering over her too. His eyes were solid black again, not split to show the fire within, and the look on his face was anxious.

  “D…Dru?” she managed at last. “How…?”

  “You fainted and wouldn’t wake up so I brought you up to the Mother Ship,” he told her. “I thought you needed more medical attention than I could provide.”

  “The…the Mother Ship?” Annie had always wanted to go see the Kindred Mother Ship. Being a game designer, she was sure the huge alien ship would provide her with hundreds of new ideas. But getting tickets for a tour was harder and harder because everyone wanted to go—the waiting list was something like five years long now.

  And now here I am and I didn’t even have to get a ticket, she thought woozily.

  “You’re going to be fine, hon,” the girl with blonde hair told her. “Your blood tests show you were drugged but it should be almost out of your system now.”

  “Drugged?”

  Suddenly Annie remembered everything…leaving Dru to go have a drink with Christian…the strangely salty daiquiri…Christian’s bizarre change of demeanor and the way he had dragged her into the dark corner full of knives…

  “Oh my God!” She sat bolt upright in bed, her head giving a throb of pain as she did so. “Christian—he must have put something in my daiquiri! And then he took me outside and he had a knife…a whole bunch of knives! He…he…

  She tried to go on but somehow she couldn’t. The crazy, flat look in Christian’s sky-blue eyes…the gleam of the knife blade…his words whispered in her ear…“Tonight, pretty Annie, I want to hear you scream.”

  Suddenly it was all too much.

  “Oh God, he was going to kill me! I really think he was going to kill me!”

  The tears surprised her, pouring out like a flash flood with no warning. Annie tried, but there was no way to stop them. She started to cover her face to hide the ugly terror she felt there but her hands still felt numb and rubbery, as though she had control of her larger motor functions but her fine motor control was still somewhat lacking.

  The look of concern on Dru’s face deepened and he put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Now, now, teeska, don’t cry. It’s all right—I would never let him harm you.”

  “S-sorry,” Annie managed to get out. “C-can’t…seem to st-stop.”

  “Come here, then. Let me share your grief.”

  Sitting on the side of the hospital bed beside her, the big Kindred gathered her into his arms. Before she knew it, Annie found herself enfolded in what felt like warm, flexible steel cables with her face was pressed to his broad chest.

  Reaching up with her useless hands, she put her arms around him as well as she was able—which wasn’t very well since he was so big—and wept her heart out.

  It occurred to her dimly that she hadn’t let herself go this way since those difficult therapy sessions she’d had in college, to try and get over the awful things she’d gone through in high school. Probably her tears w
eren’t just because Christian had turned out to be some kind of a psycho predator who had come after her with a knife. Some of them were from the old trauma resurfacing after seeing Michelle Prouty and the rest of her trio of tormentors again after so long.

  “You’ve gone through a lot, Annie,” the voice of her old therapist echoed in her memory. “School bullying can cause long-lasting depression even in adults. It’s going to take you some time to get over it completely and even then you might have a relapse now and then.”

  A relapse—right, Annie thought. It’s either that or a nervous breakdown.

  Regardless of the cause, her tears refused to stop until they wanted to—which meant Annie was sobbing against the big Kindred’s broad chest for a long time.

  Surprisingly, Dru never seemed to get tired of holding her. He just stroked her hair and murmured soft words into her ear. She couldn’t understand them since he was speaking in some deep guttural language she didn’t recognize but they were soothing all the same. The words sounded a little like German but they were probably just his own alien tongue from his home world, she thought.

  She felt completely surrounded by him. Not just by his arms and his scent—it was almost as though a huge pair of invisible wings had enfolded her too, though of course that didn’t make any sense. But somehow, she felt comforted by the strange sensation.

  At last her sobs trailed off into hitching breaths and she began to feel in control of herself again. Being close to him—being held by him—seemed to help and she spent a moment breathing in his wood-smoke-at-twilight scent before she finally sat back and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of the deep green hospital gown she was wearing.

  A smear of makeup came off on the gown and looking up, Annie realized she’d left a similar smear on the big Kindred’s uniform shirt. A damp patch and some pale tan smudges on the heavy, silky material showed where she’d cried against him and her makeup had come off.

  “Crap, I’m sorry,” she said, dabbing at his shirt with the other sleeve—at least her hands seemed to be working again. “I made a real mess here. I didn’t mean to cry all over you like that.”

  “You were upset, teeska, it is natural for you to weep,” he rumbled, stroking her hair. “And anyway, now that the paste has come off your face, I can see your Goddess kisses.”

  “My what?” Annie brought a hand to her cheek, wondering what he was talking about.

  “I think he’s talking about your freckles, hon.” The blonde girl who must be a nurse was still standing to one side. Annie realized she must have been there for the entirety of her breakdown and she felt embarrassed all over again.

  “Oh, um…I’m not usually that, uh, emotional,” she said. Then she wondered how much of her makeup was left and exactly how many freckles were showing. She had so many they made her feel like a freak and she already felt freakish enough from crying like a baby all over Dru.

  “From what Drugair here tells me, it sounds like you have good reason to get a little emotional,” the blonde girl said. “I’m Liv, by the way. I’ll be your nurse until you get out of the med center and go back to your new suite for your Claiming period.”

  “My…Claiming period?” Annie frowned. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, didn’t Drugair explain to you? When a Kindred warrior claims you and brings you up to the Mother Ship, you spend a month getting to know him and doing various…” Liv cleared her throat. “Various activities that help you get closer. And then at the end—”

  “There will be no Claiming period,” Dru interrupted, his deep voice harsh and abrupt. “As I explained to Annie earlier, I did not come to Earth to Claim her—only to meet her. And then she happened to be in danger and so I brought her here. I would not have transported her to the Mother Ship otherwise.”

  “No Claiming period?” Liv looked confused. “But then…weren’t the two of you Dream-Sharing? Dreaming of each other every night?” she added, for Annie’s benefit.

  “Yes, we were,” Annie admitted. “For about three months, I guess. But I never asked to be ‘Claimed’ by Dru, whatever that means,” she added quickly.

  “It means the two of you are meant to be together,” Liv said firmly. She turned to Dru. “If you two were Dream-Sharing for all that time, why aren’t you Claiming her?”

  He scowled. “She makes my Drake…uncomfortable.”

  “Your what?” Annie asked. “I’m sorry—you said something about a Drake and being a Drake Kindred before but I still don’t understand.”

  “Drake Kindred have another being living inside them—a creature of immense power. Only males who can be trusted to control their Drakes are allowed to leave their planet,” said new voice from the doorway. They all looked up and Annie saw a tall Kindred with blond hair and ice-blue eyes standing there.

  “Oh, hello Sylvan.” Liv nodded at him genially. “Our patient has come around and I think she’ll be fine.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” The Kindred called Sylvan came forward and nodded at Annie. “Hello, I’m Doctor Sylvan—I’ve been overseeing your case. I understand that someone drugged you back on Earth?”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s what he did,” Annie said cautiously.

  “But it seems to be mostly out of her system now,” Liv remarked.

  Sylvan nodded. “I’d just like to do a few tests…” Taking a tiny pen-light out of one pocket, he had her follow the light with her eyes and touch her nose several times. After a moment, he nodded. “I think you’ll be just fine. Whatever he gave you, I doubt there will be any lasting effects.”

  “Thank you,” Annie said gratefully. She was glad to hear she would be okay but she wanted to know more about the Drake Kindred and what exactly Dru had inside him. She wondered if she could ask Dru himself or if it would be rude to try and get more information out of Doctor Sylvan. But before she could say anything, Sylvan was already speaking to Dru himself.

  “Drugair, now that you know your female is well, we need to discuss your mission to Gr’lx Prime in the Maw Cluster. As you have decided to Claim a bride, I must find another agent to do what must be done.”

  “I have not decided any such thing,” Dru protested quickly. “Though I find Annie beautiful and perfect…” He stroked Annie’s cheek with a gesture that seemed to her to be almost regret. “I do not intend to Claim her.”

  “Because I make your Drake uncomfortable, whatever that means?” Annie demanded. She couldn’t help feeling miffed. Not that she wanted to be “Claimed” by the big Kindred, she told herself. But damn it, at least he could give her a chance before he rejected her out of hand!

  “Yes,” Dru said shortly. “It would be a great shame to my family and a danger to any who threatened you if I were to lose control of it.”

  “I see,” Sylvan said quietly. “But don’t you think your Drake might become easier to control if you did Claim your bride? I have heard some Drake Kindred say that.”

  “Easy or hard, it makes no difference,” Dru said. “You know the nature of my career, Commander Sylvan—you know the types of missions I take. It would be unfair to Annie for me to Claim her and bring her into my dangerous and difficult life.”

  “What career? What missions?” Annie demanded. “And please stop talking about me like I can’t hear you. I’m right here.”

  “My apologies.” Doctor Sylvan gave her a short bow. “Drugair is a member of the Kindred Elite Espionage Corps and he is correct in saying that the missions he takes are often dangerous and difficult.”

  “What—so you’re like a spy?” Annie asked, looking up at the big Kindred. “I’ve been dreaming of the Kindred version of James Bond or Jason Bourne?”

  “I do not know these names,” Dru said shortly. “But I do go undercover in order to get information or track the enemies of the Kindred.”

  “Which is one reason I need you on Gr’lx Prime,” Doctor Sylvan remarked. “You already have an established persona there, correct?”

  Dru nodded. “I am known as a wealthy m
erchant to many who frequent the Shadow and Pleasure districts. Why? Is there some information you need that can only be gotten there?”

  “Unfortunately yes—Zar’ren is on the move and we have information that he’s going to the Shadow Palace.” The blond Kindred’s voice was grim. “You know why we need to track his movements. I thought you would be best able to do it because of your established cover.”

  “I’ll go at once—tomorrow morning,” Dru said, nodding. “However to enter the Maw Cluster—and especially Gr’lx Prime—I’ll need a female to act as my x’aan-chow. I will not be able to enter the Shadow Palace without one.”

  “What? You’re going to some strange planet with some strange woman?” Annie demanded. She was surprised at the sharp zing of jealousy the idea sent through her. “But I thought you were dreaming of me,” she said to Dru. “Why don’t you bring me with you if you need a female? Aren’t we kind of, uh, connected now?”

  Part of her knew it was crazy to offer to go on an alien spy mission with him. But another part—her creative side—was aching to go. Think of all the great new ideas she would get for games scripts! And she’d always wanted to travel, even back in high school. She’d been to Canada once but that was nothing compared to an interstellar adventure with the big Drake Kindred.

  Dru frowned as though he’d just remembered she was listening. He and Doctor Sylvan—whom Dru had also called “Commander” and who clearly did more than just doctoring aboard the Mother Ship—had gotten lost in their conversation about Dru’s latest spy mission. They probably wouldn’t have spoken so freely if they’d remembered there were other listeners.

  “I have been Dream-Sharing with you, Annie,” he said shortly. “But that does not mean I intend to bring you into the Maw Cluster. It is dangerous and females are not respected there—especially not in the Shadow Palace where the male I am tracking will most likely be.”

  “And I’m afraid I can’t authorize an untrained human female to go on a dangerous undercover mission,” Doctor Sylvan said apologetically. “The Council would never approve it.”