Belonging to the Dragon: Lick of Fire (Dragon Lovers Book 2)

by Kara Lockharte

  We stopped at a red light. He slid his hand along my thigh. I shuddered in disgust.

  He smiled at my reaction, clearly taking my shudder for desire.

  And then I felt a sharp pain in my outer thigh.

  I looked down and saw a syringe with a clear liquid sticking out of my thigh.

  “What the hell is this?”

  The first genuine smile appeared in his face, complete with eye crinkles at the side. “You’ll see. Nighty-night.”

  “What—”

  I rolled my eyes in the back of my head and slumped into the seat, hoping that was what he expected.

  “You must be tired,” he said with a lightness in his voice that would have frightened me, if I hadn’t known what I was doing. “None of the others fell asleep so quickly.”

  The armor’s eagerness flashed bright inside me. Food was coming.

  He buckled me in, almost lovingly now. “I can’t wait to bring you home.”

  The car hugged a winding path, one that literally felt like it took forever. The pace quickened, lights brightened, and sounds hollowed as we went through a tunnel. Judging from where we’d left, it might have been the Hudson, though who knew—maybe he’d made good time and gotten to Midtown?

  Hard to tell because he kept playing this stupid saxophone elevator music on repeat.

  Of all the things for a serial killer to listen to, Kenny G was his choice of music?

  The saxophone set played itself at least twice before the car turned and slowed. Gradually, the noise of highway traffic faded.

  The sounds of gravel skittered underneath the car. As he opened his door, I got a whiff of salt. We were near the ocean. I remained deadweight as he hefted me over his shoulder, ignoring the shoes falling off my feet. He kicked the car door closed.

  I peeked one eye open and saw tall pine trees and a walkway of solar lamps. An old weather-worn garden gnome with a chipped nose stood on the front lawn.

  Whistling the same goddamn Kenny G song that had just been playing in the car, he opened the front door.

  And my blood ran hot at the scent.

  It was the scent of fresh blood, fresh meat, the odor of a butcher shop.

  It was also the scent of the Devourer, the very monster that had mind-controlled Lucas and I to fight to the death.

  The hunger inside me mingled with fear as he rolled me onto a couch, and then his footsteps moved away. I was torn between a desperate desire to run far away and to stay and finish the hunt.

  But this wasn’t about running, or hunting, I reminded myself.

  It was about finding Val.

  At first, I cracked my eyes open the smallest amount. A giant cube of a TV sat in a massive piece of oak furniture. Around it on glass shelves were wine glasses filled with translucent plastic-like bits in which obviously plastic flowers were anchored. An old embroidered banner hung off one of the shelves, which read “Bless this House,” but it was oddly burnt on one edge.

  A door opened, and his laugh echoed through the house.

  So what if the Devourer was here? Most likely, it was just a piece of it, and I could handle that.

  And if I didn’t—well, I had known the risk I was taking, right?

  Prey.

  Right. I had to focus on that. Hunger.

  Prey.

  And then the door closed behind him.

  I sprang to my feet. In the attached dining room with a plastic covering over a lace tablecloth, a series of computer screens hummed, their blue lights illuminating the place. I would have ignored them if my enhanced vision hadn’t recognized an email address I had seen before.

  I went over and scrolled through the email chain.

  And then I saw it. Val’s picture. But she looked beaten and drugged.

  I followed the email chain. More pictures of captured, beaten, and drugged women.

  The emails told me she had been here. But they had sent her to another facility.

  Where was the other facility?

  This was a far bigger operation than just a single serial killer.

  I logged onto one of the many cloud drives I had and set it up to download.

  Prey.

  Chains clinked. Someone whimpered.

  There was a scream cut short.

  Oh gods. There were others he had captured in this house.

  The nausea burned through my throat like acid.

  Scales emerged from my skin, sheathing my body underneath my clothes, giving me a strength that was beyond mortal.

  Prey.

  I followed the scented trail of the man to a door by the kitchen. I kicked it open and had to hold my hands over my eyes from the sudden blinding brightness of the basement.

  At the end of the steps, I could only see his sneakers, and a pool of blood.

  “You’re awake,” he said, like his favorite puppy had arrived. “Just in time.”

  My senses heightened, telling me that we were the only two living things in the house. My stomach felt hollow as I realized that there had been others I could have saved.

  Other Vals.

  And I hadn’t saved them.

  Prey.

  “Shut up!” I screamed.

  He rounded the stairs. I backed away as the scales that shielded my hands turned them into black-taloned claws.

  My flesh trembled, but not from fear. It was the armor’s excitement, the shuddering anticipation of a hunger on the verge of a feast.

  I had no idea what awaited me in the basement, so I backed up a few steps, still playing the victim. And the knowledge that confronting an enemy in a known space was far better than confronting them in an unknown space.

  He came at me fast, in a rush that telegraphed his training: strength and a moderate amount of skill. And had I not been what I was, I would have been screwed.

  But I was different now.

  I held my ground, the scales absorbing the kinetic energy of his charge and reflecting it back at him.

  The impact sent him flying, and he crashed into the armoire behind him. Glass shattered.

  I picked my way around the shards toward him, even though the scales that covered my feet in a black boot were more than enough protection.

  His trembling, his fear, his panic—it was all too delicious to not savor for as long as I could.

  The armor read what the tiny translucent bits in the wine glasses had been. Human nail cuttings.

  From his victims? Disgust roiled my stomach.

  “You’re done,” I said. “I’m the hunter now.”

  Blood streamed down his face, and he scrambled and ran out the door.

  I laughed in anticipation, in joy. Oh, this was going to be so much fun.

  I exited the house, and he tripped and fell. The thrill of a hunt and feeding coursed through me.

  He staggered to his feet and tried to run.

  A long glowing whip lashed out of my hand, wrapping around his ankle. I yanked, and he fell. I hauled him toward me, my wriggling fish, his 200-pound-plus weight no match for my strength-fueled armor.

  And soon he was at my feet, my foot pressed against his throat.

  “How many have you taken?”

  “Twelve,” he rasped.

  I made needles emerge from my feet, piercing his skin, tasting his blood. So delicious. “Where are the bodies?”

  He screamed, his voice a high-pitched, crying whine. “In the basement.”

  His blood was almost intoxicating. I felt the urge to slice him in half and fall into his chest cavity. “So original,” I said.

  “Please,” he said.

  I smiled and leaned down into his stinking face. “No.”

  Talons extended from my scaled fingers and I drove them into his chest, ripping out his heart.

  The horror on his face as my hand squeezed his heart was an image I would remember forever, as the life fled from his eyes and he was left nothing more than a hunk of meat.

  The armor drank the blood, wanting more, needing more, so I shoved my taloned hands d
eep into his chest to satiate the monster inside me. First the heart, which was so full and rich it gave me a pleasant buzz, like a good shot of Angel’s Envy whiskey. Then the trachea and esophagus, which left an aftertaste of dark chocolate in my mouth. The lungs, oh, the lungs; why did humans only have two lungs when they were so delicious? The armor drank, sucking the body dry.

  A twig cracked behind me. I spun, blades shooting from my forearms, ready for any incoming.

  “Lucas?” I choked out, all my satiation replaced by a nauseous horror. Oh gods, had he just seen what I had done?

  Lucas Randall, still in his Einstein T-shirt, watched me from behind the sights of a weapon that looked like a hyper alien-evolved version of a rifle.

  The weapon was pointed at me, humming in an ominous whine.

  “Devourer.” Lucas’s voice was rumbling thunder. “I know what you are! And I will end you tonight.”

  3

  He fired the weapon. Lucas actually fired at me?

  “No,” I yelled, holding out my hand. I caught the black spiky arrow thing, the tip an inch from my forehead. “Luca—”

  It exploded.

  Armored scales covered my head instantaneously, darkening my vision as I was flung backward. I felt as if I were a ragdoll, unable to control my flailing arms and legs as I hit something so hard it punched the breath out of my lungs.

  For a moment, I couldn’t feel my arms and legs. I opened my eyes as wide as I could, trying to see, but my vision was still too dark.

  And belatedly, I realized I was being bound.

  The armor retracted from my face. “Lucas—”

  Though I couldn’t see him, I could hear the anger-filled horror in his voice. “She’s dead and you’ve been wearing her skin, her body, this whole time.”

  I struggled with whatever he had bound me with, but it was definitely no ordinary human restraint, because with the strength of my armor, I would have been able to break free.

  “Lucas, no, it’s me.” My voice came out, so raspy and guttural, that I wouldn’t have believed it was me either.

  Something about him went still. The armor gave me extended senses, but ones I couldn’t really explain. It was like trying to figure out how one had vision: you could either see or you couldn’t.

  And now I had the distinct sensation that he was staring at me.

  I was yanked upward into a sitting position.

  The scaled armor felt like trickling water as it flowed away from my face. I squinted as my vision returned.

  I smelled something burning. Lucas crouched before me like a furious pagan god of fire. All he was missing were those lovely blond locks swirling dramatically in the flames.

  “Lucas,” I said, my voice still rough, like my throat had had sandpaper shoved into it. “I’m not being controlled by the Devourer.”

  Flames burst forth from him. I closed my eyes from the intense burst of heat, so hot it was like being shoved face first into a raging bonfire.

  “Lies. You will suffer for what you did to her.” Lucas looped something around my throat and begin to tighten it.

  Structural Integrity Failing.

  This was the first time the armor had decided to speak to me with more than one word?

  Whatever he had was somehow cutting through, melting the scales around my neck. In moments, it would break through the armor. I racked my mind for something that I would know, something the Devourer wouldn’t say. “Lucas, kill me and I swear you’ll never know the secret ingredient in my mother’s hot chocolate recipe.”

  Suddenly, he stopped, confusion clear on his face. It would be adorable, if he wasn’t trying to kill me.

  I coughed, trying to clear my throat. “I swear, it’s me.”

  Whatever it was, tightened around my neck again. “You’re accessing her memories.”

  I struggled with the bonds to no avail. What the hell had he bound me with? “No. No. Lucas, I swear, it’s me.” I racked my brain trying to think of stuff that only I would know, and of course, only the stupidest things came out.

  “It would be sad, right? Because it’s the only thing I know how to cook.”

  The noose around my neck tightened, and my vision began to darken. I had to keep talking, but all that came out of my mouth was babble. “You loved my mother’s cooking, but you know why she never taught me? She didn’t want me to do the same job she did. Because she wanted more for me. But I know she wrote down her recipes in a book somewhere. But I’ve looked, and I can’t find them.”

  There was a flicker of a strange emotion across his face.

  The noose loosened. My vision came back.

  “She gave them to me.”

  Wait, my mother had given them to him? That made no sense. Lucas wasn’t even family! “Why would she do that?”

  “Because I asked her for them.” His words were calm and casual, but I could see anger and confusion as he examined the scales covering my body.

  My mother always had had such an incomprehensible soft spot for the Randalls. Especially for Lucas. Who still looked as if he was trying to decide whether I was some poisonous snake on the verge of striking or not.

  “Come on,” I said, forcing a lighter tone. “They don’t look that bad. It kind of looks like a superhero suit.”

  Lucas’s expression didn’t change. “Is that what you think you are?”

  “You were wondering what I was doing on SparkMe,” I said slowly, trying to hold his gaze. “I’ve been trying to find my friend Val. With this armor, I can find killers and take care of them before anyone else gets hurt. I had to get this guy to bring me here so that I could get into his computer to find out where they’ve taken her.”

  He reached forwardly slowly, muscles tense, ready to take me down if this was a trick and touched the black scales on my forearm. They were fireproof, bladeproof, immune to nearly every human weapon I had tested against it.

  I shouldn’t have been able to feel his touch.

  Yet I could.

  Dragon. Not Prey?

  Should I be worried that the armor was speaking to me with actual words in my head? No time for that.

  NOT PREY NOT PREY NOT PREY, I thought as fast as I could.

  “I remember you wearing this when we were imprisoned by the Devourer, when you were trying to kill me. Do Chloe or Sophie know about this?”

  “No. I’ve passed all of Chloe’s tests. She said I was free of the Devourer’s magic.”

  “This isn’t the Devourer’s magic,” he said. “It’s dragon-made.”

  “I know. It told me.”

  “It speaks to you?”

  “Yes.” I gestured at the body behind us on the ground. “And it needs to eat as well.”

  His voice was cold. “You are not the Lana I knew.”

  Oh, he wanted to play like that, huh? I could hit him just as low.

  I narrowed my eyes. “That’s what I told you at my mother’s funeral.”

  I kept glaring at him. That’s right, you look away in shame, you liar.

  In a moment of delusional weakness, we had slept together the night of my mother’s funeral. I had been looking for comfort and was stupidly swayed by his declarations of never-forgotten, long-lost love, despite the all evidence to the contrary.

  What was more galling was that looking at him, I realized I was still the stupid teenage girl who had fallen for him, who would forgive him, especially after the hottest, most amazing sexual experience of my life. And I definitely had to keep this secret from him.

  He began hesitantly, “I regret—”

  I didn’t want to hear any more. “What’s done is done. Forget it. Look, I knew that one day I’d have to come find you or Chloe or someone to get this thing out of me. But I need to find my friend. She disappeared a month ago.”

  “You worked for the FBI. Shouldn’t you know better than this?”

  “I do. Law-enforcement resources are limited, especially when it comes to people who have no citizenship.”

  “You have no i
dea what it is you are wearing, do you?

  Seriously? The armor thing had been living inside me for the last few months. “You gonna try and mansplain it to me?”

  “It’s dragon tech that’s possibly older than Ancient Rome. You don’t know what it’s capable of.” He hauled me upward, still bound, and then slung me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing. “You’re coming with me.”

  I had to get that computer inside the house. “Lucas! You can’t—”

  It all seemed to happen in slow motion. The flash of light, the debris, the following boom as the house exploded behind him.

  We went flying.

  I scrambled to my feet and froze.

  A blob of flesh, hair, teeth, eyes, and organs rolled and oozed from the flaming wreckage of the house.

  Fear, intense and dark, injected itself into my senses as all the nightmares I had fought so hard to repress came back.

  The monstrous blob surged upward, until it was at least three stories tall.

  Blue fire exploded around me.

  And the blob stopped and began to burn.

  A giant golden dragon the size of a cement truck was in front of me.

  Lucas.

  I had seen him before in his dragon form, but staring at him now, I realized I had seen him in his more adorable adolescent form.

  This dragon was wild magic incarnate. Huge sail-like wings were rimmed with white, and his scales were iridescent from his flame.

  Waves of heat came off his scales, raising the temperature around me as if I were standing too close to a campfire. The heat unleashed fire at the oozing thing that was slowly shaping itself into a golem of teeth. Parts of the disgusting thing shuddered and burned, but not enough of it.

  I screamed, in horror, in anger, in fear. My hands turned into burning blades of electricity. But I was still bound.

  “Let me go!” I screamed. “Let me fight!”

  The dragon’s eyes flickered with fire. The bonds fell.

  Before I could think, the armor charged me forward, controlling my movements. I was a whirlwind of cutting, slicing black blades, but at the same time, I was a voyeur in a body that once was mine, because I was no trained warrior.

  Yet my body moved as if it was.

  The monster golem backed away.