“Sarah nodded slowly, and Liv continued, ‘Riders rule number two is a rider can never order a dragon to do anything they have not first modeled.’
“Sarah laughed, relieved, but Liv went on, ‘And then there is a rule number three: a rider must listen to a dragon and consider the dragon’s perspective. It’s only in battle or when a decision has to be made that instant does the rider have the responsibility to make the decision. And to be truthful, Sarah, I have known hundreds, maybe thousands, of dragon rider partners, and most of the time the dragon gets exactly what it wants.’
“Sarah snorted… an of course kind of snort accompanied by a royal smirk. But Liv continued, ‘But Sarah, the most effective and greatest teams I have observed, the dragon usually loves to please the rider. It just seems to be the nature… if you will allow me… of the beast.’
“Sarah opened her eyes and as always another question crept in behind them. ‘Liv?’
“‘Yes, Sarah?’
“‘Do all dragons have to partner with a rider?’
“‘No, they do not. That’s why you are here now, Sarah, to determine if that is where your heart lies. Dragon kings need partners too.’”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Belle’s clothes had been laundered by the hospital staff. She wasn’t completely healed but could move and walk with only a little accompanying soreness. Her physical wounds were not her major concern; what bothered her most was a strange emptiness. The voices that had been her companions her entire life were quiet. She had tried to contact them, but they had not answered. She was also frustrated with Harry. He had kept to his word and not reported her injury, nor had he attempted to take her prisoner. He had just watched over her for the four days it had taken her wounds to close. They had talked, but basically, she had slept and he had studied. She wasn’t sure what he was so caught up in and he had made no attempt to share it with her, which only piqued her curiosity and made her wonder if it was something she should be looking into. In the end, she had probed him carefully and discovered she had only found out what he wanted her to and nothing more. But because of his lack of forthcoming on subjects of major importance to both their sides of the conflict, they had been forced to talk of small things, and she had discovered much to her own amusement that life was full of small things.
Now it was time to part. She had received no word from those who thought they handled her. Nor from any supernatural associates that she managed. It was a strange quiet and she wasn’t at all sure how to navigate it. She couldn’t stay in the hospital, but the longer she was absent from her efforts to ensure Hitler did not sabotage Germany, the more others would fill the gap and the more apt Mein Führer was to ensure catastrophe did occur.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a familiar knock on her hospital room door. She had grown to know his knocks. He had started knocking when it was obvious she was going to be awake longer than she slept. What a strange man, so honorable and gentlemanly, and not just with his exterior behavior but from the inside. She had never met a man like him; he seemed impervious to her charms. Yet he guarded her with the tenacity of a German shepherd and made no moves to take advantage of her situation. He was her enemy and in some other timeline the father of her daughter. Now, what was she supposed to do about that? She had no idea. And would not allow herself to fantasize. But she also found herself stalling. She could have left the hospital yesterday and been back in Berlin by now. But here she was.
“Come in, Harry, I’m decent.” The thought had occurred to her to lie and see how he handled a bit of indecency, but even as it rose, she cast it off. For some reason she wanted him to continue to honor her, and placing him in a position where he could lose that integrity was something she was unwilling to do.
Harry looked at her and sighed, thinking, I have no idea what to do now. I cannot lose Lizzy… I hate this. He was forgetting Belle could read him like a dog-eared book, even more so now that they had talked for four days. His thoughts shouted to her.
“Harry, I know what this is costing you…” She paused because she suddenly realized she had no idea what it was like to lose a child. Much less an adult child you had raised by yourself. Had the thought occurred to her a week before… well, it wouldn’t have; there had been no room in her dark heart for anything resembling compassion or sympathy. But now the voices who strangled the better part of her humanity and angelic natures were gone and she was left with the human dilemma of empathy, feeling what another felt. Given Belle’s gifting and unfamiliarity with it, her ability to feel Harry’s sense of loss overwhelmed her.
He saw it in her face. The person who had been left when the darkness lifted was an amazing individual. Harry understood why the King had told him she had redeeming qualities, and when he looked at her now, he saw them on radiant display.
“Oh, Harry…” Belle said as she moved closer to him, tears streaming down her face. Her fingertips gently stroked his cheek, now streaked with tears. He moved his head in toward her. Their foreheads touched.
Harry could smell the faint scent of the lavender lotion she used. He could feel her heartbeat and the warmth of her skin. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard, “Don’t do this… Harry, don’t do…” and then it was cut off like the voice had suddenly had its plug pulled.
Harry pulled his head back for a moment and looked into her eyes. Nothing was hidden; the windows to her soul were open, and for the only time in her life, that soul was pure. A sad smile slipped into its familiar place on his face. Her face tilted up to reach his. They both knew it was going to happen. A shy look crossed her face. She had never kissed a man she did not intend to manipulate. Finally, their lips touched and the world fell away. It was a small delicate kiss. A first cautious step. Warm and incredibly intimate because it was pure. Belle Rodum had never been pure before and never kissed a man when she was. The combination of authenticity and intimacy was intoxicating.
Harry drew back first. The kiss had been both salvation and torment. Hope and betrayal. He had been completely unprepared and yet knew as long as he lived this memory would be with him. Whether for good or evil, he was not sure. Their foreheads rested against one another. Belle felt Harry tremble and fully understood what the kiss had cost him. She had not meant to seduce him or tempt him. She would never, at least not in her current condition, risk him falling. She could kill him easier than she could cause him to violate his own heart. She had come close to that intangible line, but she had not crossed it… but also had absolutely no regrets.
“Thank you, Harry,” she managed to say.
“For what?” he answered, the conflicts of his heart causing his voice to tremor.
“For being you, Harry. Just for being you.”
“I don’t understand?”
“I know you don’t, and you know what, I am glad you don’t. You really do not know how different you are. You have captured me, Harry. And now you are just going to let me go. Knowing what it is costing you. I know I could not have done it.”
With that, she pulled back, then as an afterthought leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. It was a beginning, a terrifying, conflicted beginning, and a promise of more to come.
Harry stared at the hospital wall as Belle quickly left the room. He listened to her footsteps till he could no longer hear them.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Back at the library
“No! No, no!” Easton wailed.
“This ain’t right. Both of them are making terrible bad choices,” Ryan, Lizzy’s little cowboy, groaned.
“I agree with Ryan and Easton. Sarah and Harry are supposed to be together, and what they are doing now is not right!” Gracie added forcefully, like emphasis on her displeasure could help anything. Maggie nodded just as strongly. Not a child in the house liked what was going on.
“Okay, okay… I get that you guys are disappointed… but so are my dad and Sarah. This is not a situation they chose.”
“Ah… Miss Lizzy, I disagree. I know we a
re just kids… but we are dragon children, an’ unlike simple humans our sense of right and also wrong is pretty intense. And you are right, we cannot always determine the situations we are in, but we are always free to choose… what we do in those situations. I mean, sure, there is a terrible cost to making the right choice sometimes. But that does not mean we shouldn’t make it,” Easton said with a profundity that made Lizzy shiver.
“Out of the mouth of babes…” she whispered.
A heavy stillness settled over the children; every eye in the room was fixed on Lizzy. Finally, she shook herself free and said, “Guys, it’s time to go home. I don’t know what happens next… I am way more confused than you are.” Tears began to stream down her cheeks and her voice cracked. After a few deep breaths, she regained a small bit of her composure. “If some morning you discover you have a new teacher… and you know something is wrong but you can’t quite place it… If, when you come, I am gone and… have never been…” She spoke so quietly every ear strained. “Well, then you know my dad made the right decision.”
****
Lizzy walked into her house, and for the hundredth time wished she had a pet, or a parent, or hey, even and especially a Special Forces soldier named Thomas Ford to be waiting for her. An empty house even on a summer night with the East Texas sky showing off its brilliant sunset colors was still an empty house. She thought back on the afternoon. Her last remark to her kids had stirred up a hornets’ nest. They had wailed and fussed, and a couple of the older ones had gotten real scaly, real quick. A full-blown dragon shift in the library, even with small dragons, would not have been good. The disaster was finally and firmly avoided with the aid of compassionate “in the know” parents, who had gotten everybody picked up and carted off.
The last word that had escorted her trembling heart out of the library was from her little dragon quartet. They had stalled deliberately, and obviously, to be last to leave. A six-year-old can only go to the bathroom or forget something in the book stacks so many times. Finally, they all stood together as red-cheeked and flushed from sadness as green-tinted dragon children could be. Gracie was acting as their spokesperson. Their parents, knowing something was brewing but wise enough to give their little ones some room, were standing beside their kids giving support. Gracie looked up at Lizzy and then, with the crook of her index finger, beckoned Lizzy to bend down.
Together, the little crew huddled close to their teacher. “Miss Lizzy,” Gracie began and then started sobbing. Maggie took up the speech and got a few more words out before she couldn’t speak.
Finally, Easton looked at Ryan, who was barely keeping it together, and said, “Well dang, leave it to the man in the group…” Two girly hands slick with tears and snot flew out and landed in his ribs, but he kept on. “Miss Lizzy, what we want you to know is dragon people are part of the time streams. We can see up the river and down it sometimes”—and then Easton’s voice quivered— “and Miss Lizzy, there is no… way… no way!” he almost shouted before a sniffing Gracie looked at him and he quieted. “No… way… we will ever forget you…” And then with his lip trembling, he continued, “We love you, Miss Lizzy, we love you!”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Belle Rodum trembled as she forced herself to walk down the sterile hospital hall. Nothing she had ever done had hurt her as much as walking out of that hospital room and leaving Harry behind. She didn’t understand why her heart hurt. She had never had access to it enough to feel heartache. She was afraid of being overwhelmed by her feelings. The farther she got from the room and from Harry, the lighter the burden grew. Finally, as she walked out the hospital doors, she stopped at the last door out of the hospital. Her hand was on the door, but her heart was down the hall. Her shoulders sagged. The world moved in slow motion. She felt as though she was wading through chest-high water in a sluggish and unfamiliar dream.
Finally, she beat back the temptation to run back into the hospital. The decision released a deep breath she didn’t realize she was holding. She had to find out who had tried to kill her. As she allowed the feeling of anger at her betrayal by whoever sent the assassins to wash over her, some of her familiar darkness returned. It was like greeting an old friend. She hesitated one final heartbeat; for a moment the thought of the kiss returned. She pushed it away but didn’t notice that when she had thought of the kiss, the darkness trembled.
Belle’s mind was made up, so she set her miserable heart on discovering who had sent assassins for her. There was only one place she could go: the office of Hermann Wilhelm Göring, the second-highest-ranking Nazi in Germany, her boss. Belle realized as she sat in the cab headed to the railway station and back to Berlin that her meeting with Göring might end tragically for her, but she was set on her course and nothing was going to stop her.
Göring was a supernatural, but not a very powerful one, at least not magically. Magically he had bought his way into a measure of dark ability, the ability to persuade or to coerce. She knew a strong-willed person could resist his magic. Politically, however, which was a far more dangerous power, he was unsurpassed. Even Hitler walked lightly around him. If Göring had not been responsible for the attempt on her life, then he would find out who had been. If he had been responsible, then her visit would reveal that as well. It would also possibly end with her immediate execution. Either way, she would know. Living in the unknown as she did now, especially since the loss of the dark companions, was not an option. Belle was certain that Göring would be alerted as soon as she was back in Berlin. If she waited for him to send for her, or send someone after her, it would mean he was in control. If, on the other hand, she chose to walk into his den, she would proclaim she did not fear the lion… or she would be eaten.
****
Two days later… Berlin, Germany
Belle was right; Göring did know she was back in Berlin and waiting in the hall outside his office.
He also knew, thanks to the spirits and the human channelers, mediums with sensitivity to dark creatures who listened to them for him, that she had been stripped of her escorts. The demons who had been assigned to her had run straight to Göring’s channelers, whimpering and screaming.
The dark forces that had been cast down and forced to flee from Belle had been shaken. Only a major source of the Light could have accomplished that. Göring’s sources had reported days ago that Belle had been asked to a meeting… dinner in Paris, and she had accepted. She had not asked for permission, nor had she reported on any previous interactions with this person. The Nazi leader had finally pieced together enough information to form a disturbing picture. She had been beaten severely by a force strong enough to dominate her. His spies had heard mention of a name; the man who had tamed Belle Rodum was called Harry Ferguson, and he was one of Churchill’s hunters.
Göring slipped back into his leather-bound desk chair and lit a cigarette. As the smoke filled the room, he allowed himself to move into his own darkness. A darkness he had purchased by sacrificially murdering its original owner. As he moved into the dark chambers of his imagination, he heard a raspy, crackling voice… one he was very familiar with. In the darkness, Göring saw orange-tinted flame framing a creature, bat-like, standing erect. The creature was moving its hands to stir the red flames beneath a dark cauldron. With its wings, the wrinkled, emaciated figure swept the flames, causing sparks to fill the air. It didn’t seem to notice that Göring was watching.
“A trap, you must set a trap… use her for bait…” the creature moaned.
“Why?” Göring asked, perplexed.
“He liked her… heh-hee, likes her still he does… wants to mate with her he does… she is the cheese for this rat.”
Göring blinked. It amazed him how a bearer of the Light could be attracted to Belle Rodum… but he quickly broke through his surprise. Opportunity presented itself. Göring began to chuckle, then was interrupted. The demon coughed, grabbed at its throat, and bumped the cauldron. “Noooo…!” it screamed. Göring’s eyes widened and a co
ld surge of fear broke over him.
The creature continued to scream, “Go away… you’re not welcome! You can’t be here!”
At first, Göring thought the demon was screaming at him. Suddenly the screaming stopped and a thicker darkness draped itself over the squirming demon. Göring watched, unable to take his eyes off the withering beast. Then he heard the beast speak again. Stammering, stumbling over each word…
“You must… bring the doctor to this feast, bring Herta… yes, Herta Oberheuser.”
Göring smiled at the demon’s words. Then he felt himself being pushed back into the light of his own office. He did not understand what he had witnessed. It appeared that the demon had been attacked by an uninvited rival. Göring knew he had witnessed a struggle but the outcome aided his plans. He scratched his chin as he thought back on the dark beast’s words, Dr. Herta Oberheuser. He knew Dr. Oberheuser; she was Himmler’s physician’s assistant.
She was a loyal party member and would do anything… to anybody to get what she wanted… Göring’s smile widened.
After a few more minutes scheming, Göring had a plan. He would gather creatures both mortal and supernatural that could capture this bearer of Light and use Belle Rodum as the lure. Without her powers, she would not be aware of his plans. Who knows, she might even support them, but it didn’t matter. She was of no use to him now… except for bait… she would make good bait. He was about to push the intercom button that alerted his secretary when he paused.
He had another issue to deal with before he met with her. The team he had sent to assassinate Belle Rodum had failed. She would want to know who had sent that team and why. He pondered his options for a moment and then thought, Mein Führer has taught us the greatest lies are veiled in truth. So yes, I will admit that I sent the team. Because she had not informed me of her relationship to this Harry Ferguson and I thought she was a traitor. So, of course, I sent the team.
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