by Finley Aaron
“Nothing. They all had different mothers.” Suddenly I have an inkling of what Felix may have been attempting to communicate with his face. “We don’t know anything about his mother. She could have been anyone…or anything. What do you think she was?”
“I have an idea.” Felix stares out into the open courtyard.
“What?” I’m hungry and exhausted and not at all in the mood for games.
“Just watch. I’m not even going to begin to try to explain this. Just watch.”
So I hold on to the doorframe because honestly I’m not sure how long I can stand unsupported. And I stare into the courtyard for what feels like a long time. “He’s biologically immortal,” I whisper to Felix.
“Do you know that for a fact?”
“I’m pretty much completely sure.” How could I prove it to my brother, though? Constantine is clearly way, way older than he looks. There’s his ability to speak and read Old Romanian, his familiarity with events of history no modern people know about…tons of stuff.
“He can teleport,” I add, kicking myself internally for not thinking of it sooner.
“So can dragons,” Felix whispers.
“Some dragons,” I remind him, since no one in our family seems to be able to do it.
“Shh,” Felix points to a shadow breaking across the courtyard.
I look up.
A deep-red, almost blood-red dragon coasts over the wall of the courtyard, with the gutted carcass of a deer dangling from his teeth. He sets down on the cobblestones near the well, blows a blast of fire to roast the deer, then pauses, inhales deeply, and freezes.
The red dragon looks our way.
Maybe I should duck completely out of sight, but I cannot move. I have never seen such a gorgeous dragon, all muscled and ancient looking, shimmering in the morning sunlight.
Breathtaking.
The dragon moves his head, scanning the side of the courtyard where we’re hiding. Then his eyes lock on mine.
Those are Constantine’s eyes.
The dragon has Constantine’s eyes.
Constantine has dragon eyes—eyes that can see better and further than human eyes, eyes that can communicate without words. Right now, they’re saying I see you. You’re not supposed to be here.
Then he disappears, evaporating instantly from sight.
“Where did he go?”
“Probably to put some clothes on,” Felix predicts. “You weren’t supposed to let him see you.”
“I didn’t. I was hiding, but he looked right at me.” I’m mostly stupefied, trying to come to grips with what I’ve seen. “He’s a dragon.”
“Sure looks like it to me.”
“Why would he lie to me about that?”
“I have some theories.” Felix frowns. “None of them good.”
“I’m starving.” I open the door and head for the deer carcass Constantine left behind.
“What are you doing?” Felix follows me into the open sunlight.
“If he’s not going to eat it, I’m not going to let it go to waste.” I hurry to the carcass, blow another blast of fire on it, then tear off a hindquarter and start eating. It’s still very, very rare, but I don’t care. I’m hangry and I need to eat before I lose my temper completely. “He told me he couldn’t be out in sunlight,” I fume between bites.
“I can’t.” Constantine’s voice comes from right behind me. “Not in human form, anyway.”
I turn to see him standing in the courtyard, wearing a dark, hooded cloak that completely shields his face from the sunlight. His eyes burn like smoldering coals from the shadows.
“You told me you were a vampire.” I brandish the leg of venison at him like a weapon. This may not be the most mature move I’ve made lately, but it feels right.
“I am.”
“You’re a freaking dragon! I saw you!”
“It’s complicated,” he says flatly.
“No, it’s really not. You’re a dragon. You lied to me. Why would you lie to me? Why? Because you don’t want me to like you? Because you don’t like me? Because you want me to just go away and leave you alone? You could have said that! I’m a big girl. I can handle the truth.” I might be sort of stomping toward him, swinging the deer leg at his face in a manner that does not entirely fit the “big girl” title I assigned myself, but right now, I don’t care.
“You lied to me because you don’t like me!” I’ve got him nearly backed against the courtyard wall now, and I’m ready to clobber him with the venison.
“I love you, Rilla. I love you.” He catches my hand as I’m about to swing.
“No you don’t. You lied to me, and you made me feel bad for not telling you I’m a dragon. Well, who’s a dragon now, huh?”
Since he’s holding the venison firmly in front of my face where I can’t brain him with it, I take a big bite because, as I may have mentioned before, I’m starving, and that’s not helping my ability to cope right now.
“Listen.” He’s still holding my wrist with one hand, but he slips his other arm around my waist and sort of props me up, because apparently I was starting to sag into a big pile of emotionally-spent dragon woman.
It happens.
“I was born a dragon,” Constantine explains. “My father and mother were both dragons. But…do you remember what I told you about the experiments the sultan’s magi performed on my brothers?”
“Yeah?” I tear off another bite of venison with my teeth while I listen.
“They performed experiments, not only on my brothers, but on dragons and other vampires over the course of many centuries. They recorded their results in a book, and my brothers learned what those results were. Remember that I said the blood of a vampire is a powerful thing? It can undo you?”
“I never really understood what you meant by that,” I confess.
“It undid me.” We’re in the shadows under the second floor balcony, out of the direct sunlight. Constantine’s hood has slid back somewhat and I can see his face more clearly now.
I missed this face so much the past couple of weeks. But then he turned out to be a lying jerk. I tear another bite of venison.
“One of the reasons my brother preferred to impale his victims through the heart, was so they could not be brought back.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Vampire blood has the power to change victims into vampires. It is so powerful, it can bring them back from the brink of death—but at the cost of becoming a vampire.” For a long moment, Constantine looks into my eyes in silence. I’m not entirely sure what he’s telling me, but I get the strong impression it’s not good.
Felix has been standing patiently just behind me during this entire conversation. Now he clears his throat. “What are you saying?”
“When my brother returned to our kingdom after my father’s death, he had my coffin exhumed. He found me clinging to life, dormant, all but completely dead. Based on what he had learned in his captivity, he knew he had the power to bring me back to life. He had to act quickly, because there were many in the vicinity who still wanted to see me dead, and if they’d have found me otherwise, they would have taken advantage of my helplessness and finished the job. I still had open wounds from being attacked. All Vlad had to do was slit his finger and let his blood flow into me. It brought me back to life, but it also made me a vampire.”
“The undead,” I whisper, grappling with what he’s said.
It fits. I don’t like it, but it fits.
Felix doesn’t seem nearly as ready to accept the explanation. “But you still took on the form of a dragon just now.”
“And I can still breathe fire,” Constantine acknowledges. “According to Vlad, there were records of experiments and their results in the magi’s book. At some point previously, experiments had been conducted in scenarios similar to my case, and their results recorded. Although a dragon-turned-vampire might retain certain dragon features, it became essentially vampiric. Most notably, the offspring of a dragon-tur
ned-vampire and another vampire were simply vampires…indicating that the essential nature of a dragon-turned-vampire is that of a vampire.”
Felix speaks, which is good since I’m still absorbing all this information. “So the offspring of a dragon and a dragon-turned-vampire would be a demon?”
“Everything I know indicates that would be the case,” Constantine confirms.
I’m not going to lie. There was a moment in there, when I first saw Constantine in dragon form, when I felt a glimmer of hope. Like maybe…
Maybe…
Nope. Obviously not.
I tear off another bite of venison.
“You can still be friends, you know,” Felix insists. “You’re both immortal. You don’t have to live on separate continents.”
Constantine smiles a wry smile that’s similar to his smirk, yet at the same time, far sadder than his trademark expression. “I have known very few true dragons in my time. My father, of course, was a dragon, and he taught me most of what I know about my kind. He spoke of a thing which I had never experienced, which I wasn’t even sure was real. A male dragon will, in the presence of a certain female dragon, be overcome with a sense of attraction and affection so strong, it threatens to overwhelm rational thought.”
“The mate scent,” Felix identifies.
“In hundreds of years I had never smelled it. I doubted it was real. But one day, just a few years ago, the females of your family visited this castle. I had seen you here before many times, but you were much younger then. I hadn’t been around you in years. But when I looked at you that day, something filled my heart which I cannot explain.” Constantine looks into my eyes as he speaks. “That is why I followed you to Montana the first time, and why I kept my distance after that.”
“Is that why you spotted her in the doorway just now?” Felix asks.
Constantine nods. “I immediately sensed she was near. It took me quite by surprise. I can’t…” He lets go of my wrist and loosens his arm from my waist. “I can’t be this close to you. It only makes my feelings stronger, and more difficult to fight.”
“But if you’re my mate, and we can’t—how—what?” I stammer. “So I’m doomed to be single forever?”
“It’s a potential mate thing,” Felix corrects. “Look at Grandpa Elmir. He loved Grandma Faye, but she’s been dead for over forty years, and now he’s in love with Zhi. There could be another dragon mate out there for you.”
“Yes, there could.” Constantine’s eyes sparkle with hope. “Indeed, I may have found him.”
Chapter Twenty
“You found a dragon?” Felix voices the questions I’m too shocked to ask.
“Yes.”
“Where? How? How do you know he’s a dragon? And how do you know he’s a he?” Felix continues his barrage of questions.
“Actually, I met him long ago during the French Revolution—but I had not seen him in the last hundred years until just the other day. I originally met him through my nephew’s son.”
“Which nephew?” I picture the Dracula family tree I’ve studied in the course of my research.
“The demon.”
“You want to hook me up with a guy who’s friends with the son of a demon?”
“Have you met any demons?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then please, don’t rush to condemn them or their friends.”
“But you said he was tortured and…” I try to recall exactly what it was Constantine said. I can only remember I got the impression he was really bad. “You said he earned his reputation as a devil, whatever that means.”
“He was ambitious and powerful. He had wealthy, powerful friends, as did his son after him. Jean Lombard was one of them.”
“Jean Lombard,” I repeat the French-sounding name. “That’s the guy—the dragon?”
“Yes.”
“How well do you know him?” I’ll admit, I’m wary. It’s great news that we’ve found another male dragon on Earth, but having just suffered through the disappointment of thinking perhaps Constantine was actually a dragon, only to find he’s not, I’m not going to get my hopes up.
“I could tell you the whole story.”
“We have time,” Felix assures him.
Constantine looks thoughtful for a second. “Felix, why don’t you finish roasting the rest of that deer and bring it to the dining hall? We can sit and eat while I tell the story.” Constantine adjusts his hood to cover his face before heading across the courtyard to a large room dominated by a long table.
He grabs a pitcher from a hook near the fireplace. “Do you mind fetching water?”
“Not at all.”
I return from the well with the full pitcher in time to see Constantine using his cloak to wipe the dust from one end of the table.
Felix carries in the roasted meat a moment later and plunks it on the bare wood of the table. This may seem unhygienic, but we’re used to eating in the woods when we travel, on rocks or even on the ground, so gnawing at a carcass on a bare table is civilized by comparison.
Constantine sits at the head of the table. Felix and I sit opposite one another.
“Where do I start?” Constantine asks, gesturing for us to begin eating.
“You met Jean Lombard during the French Revolution?” I prompt.
“Yes. I suppose that’s as good a place as any. Historically, you know, one of the causes of the French Revolution was the disappearance of dragons.”
“My history books failed to mention that part,” Felix offers, his tone good-natured. We’re quite used to being written out of the histories, but it’s always exciting to learn that our ancestors were important, even if they’ve since been erased.
“History was written by the winners,” Constantine acknowledges. “Obviously, dragons were not a part of that. As you know, many of the attacks against dragons occurred during the Middle Ages. By the time of the Renaissance, those of us who remained were being systematically removed from power. Lies were spread about us, and even our own people turned against us.” His voice holds remorse, and he falls silent.
“Like the ones who buried you alive?” I ask softly.
“Precisely. Humans attacked and killed their dragons because they feared our power. But without dragons to rule, humans were left to rule themselves. This led to a great many abuses of power which, no doubt, your history books covered in detail.”
“And that led to the French Revolution,” Felix notes.
“Yes. You see, in spite of their claims to divine authority, the humans who ruled were essentially no better than any other humans. Unlike dragons, who had the power to protect their people, human kings were just as frail as any other humans, and often more flawed and corrupt than their peers. In frustration, those who were subjugated by these rulers began to band together to throw off their oppressors.
“It was an interesting time to be a dragon. We had fallen out of memory, or at least into myth. The upheaval and talk of personal rights led us to believe the few of us who remained might someday be able to come out of hiding. My nephew, Vladislaus Dracula, was pessimistic about our ability to make any real strides forward via political power, but he had high hopes that the biologically immortal could gain wealth and power through the new economic opportunities that were made possible during this time of upheaval. The Industrial Revolution was taking place during this same time, which opened up opportunities that had never existed before.”
“Vladislaus Dracula, the demon?” I clarify.
“Yes. The son of my brother, Vlad, and the Hungarian princess, who was a dragon. Vladislaus was a demon, but he always respected me—I think, perhaps, because he felt a unique connection to me—not really dragon, but not purely vampire, either. Vladislaus had a son with a woman who was a vampire of the first type. The rumor is that he had a human woman bitten so she’d become a vampire, specifically because he had not found a woman strong enough to survive bearing him a child—and not for lack of trying.”
; “The women didn’t survive, or the babies didn’t?” I clarify.
“Neither. Until this one woman, made vampire, bore him a son. She died in childbirth, as well, but his son lived.”
“So, his son was a vampire…of which type?” Felix asks.
“Three or so,” Constantine answers. “As I mentioned before, there are various subcategories, and this one was a special case. Vladislaus the demon named his son after himself, but to make that name sound more cosmopolitan, and to avoid confusion with his father and grandfather, they adjusted the spelling and pronunciation to Lazaro Drake.”
“Drake is a cognate of Dracul.” I recognize the last name, but the first name leaves me stumped. “I didn’t realize Lazaro was a form of Vladislaus.”
“They’re both versions of the name Lazarus,” Constantine explains.
“A name made famous by a guy who was raised from the dead?” Felix clarifies.
“Call it irony or something more.” Constantine smirks. “The most notorious of the undead was named after the legendary once-dead. But let us not lose track of the story. Lazaro was the longed-for and ultimately-spoiled son of a powerful, misunderstood demon.”
I freeze, a bite of venison halfway to my mouth. “How did that work out for him?”
“Not well. He had not lived through the struggles which the previous generations faced, so he did not develop a proper respect for the limitations to his power. He was very interested in learning the secrets to making gold. That is why he went out of his way to befriend dragons, which was how he came to be friends with Jean Lombard—and thus how I was introduced to Jean.”
“Jean Lombard, the dragon who you think I….” My voice breaks off. I can’t say it.
“I think he is a potential mate for you, yes, but there are many things I don’t know. I haven’t spoken with him in years. For all I know, he may have found a mate since then. I do know he is intelligent, generous, and wealthy. Most importantly, he is a dragon.”
“But you said you saw him?”
“Yes. I saw him yesterday.” Constantine pulls something from an interior pocket of his cape.
He holds out the object—a matchbook—for my scrutiny.