Dragon Blood

by Madelaine Montague

  Leaving the window as Luke disappeared over the first rise, she let herself out the patio doors, crossed the wide verandah and jogged down the steps. She saw Luke had reached the second hump as she reached the path and paused until he’d disappeared again. She didn’t think he would look back, but she didn’t want to take the chance that he might. When she saw him descending on the other side, she jogged up the trail at a fast walk, trying to reach the first hump and cross it where she hoped he wouldn’t be likely to see her even if he did glance back. She discovered that wasn’t the case when she reached the top of the first rise and started down it since it was lower than the second, but fortunately Luke didn’t look back.

  Breathless, she paused. Her damned jeans were cutting her in two and making it that much harder to catch her breath if it came to that! She unfastened the button at the waist and lowered the zipper about half way to give her belly a little more room. Breathing easier, she set out again. By the time she’d topped the second rise, Luke had disappeared completely.

  Wondering uneasily if he’d spotted her and was laying in wait for her somewhere ahead, she stopped again to catch her breath while she scanned the path above her for any sign of him.

  She finally saw a shadowy movement a good bit higher, nearing the peak. She waited to see if she could catch a glimmer of golden hair and finally decided when she didn’t that it was Luke.

  He was making time! He must be as surefooted as a mountain goat, she thought wryly.

  She could see well enough by the light from the stars to keep on the trail, but she’d stumbled more than once on the small rocks that littered the path that she couldn’t see.

  There was no third hump, she discovered. After she’d crossed the second, the path dipped slightly and then began to climb at an angle that had her winded and her calves burning in short order. Self disgust flickered through her. She didn’t suppose it would’ve been an easy climb any time for anybody that wasn’t used to it, but she’d been in peak physical condition before she’d gone into hiding! This was what came of doing nothing all day but paperwork!

  When she stopped to catch her breath again, she heard a sound like rushing water, faintly, in the distance. Frowning, she strained to identify it and finally decided it was water. Deciding it must be the source of the small stream she’d seen meandering through the pasture, she felt her interest pique. Maybe it was just ‘their’ spot after all, she wondered, imagining a quiet, rocky retreat with the waterfall as a backdrop? Maybe they only came up here for male bonding or something like that?

  That thought didn’t especially make her feel good. She knew her presence caused friction, but she couldn’t see that it was disruptive enough that they felt the need to ‘escape’ it to be themselves. It was almost enough to make her want to turn back. She considered it and finally decided that she’d come this far and she didn’t want to go back until she knew what was going on. At the very least, it seemed likely the sound of the waterfall would prevent them from hearing her approach and make it easier to leave again without their noticing if she discovered that was all it was that had drawn them. Feeling relieved at the reflection, she started out again.

  She’d reached the point where she was considering stopping to rest again when she heard another sound. This one was harder to identify, partly because it seemed so out of place and partly because the sound of rushing water was much louder.

  It sounded like someone was banging something metallic against rock, though.

  She didn’t think if that noise hadn’t thoroughly aroused her curiosity that she would’ve gone any further when she discovered the path ended at the waterfall, or rather seemed to dip behind it. She stopped, staring in fascination at the water gushing from the rocks high overhead.

  Her belly went weightless when she leaned forward enough to see the rocky gulley the water had carved below her.

  After studying the damp rock beneath her feet, she stared hard at the waterfall, trying to penetrate the shadows behind it. She knew Luke and the others must have walked behind it to get to the other side. There was no other way to cross, but it was so dark she couldn’t tell what it was like behind the fall. It looked like the entrance to a cave, but it might not be more than a shallow indentation and she certainly had no intention of trying it when she couldn’t tell how wide the ledge was.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t see what was going on on the other side. She could hear the metallic banging better, despite her proximity to the falls and thought they must be close, but the boulders on the other side prevented her from seeing past the rim of the gorge. While she was staring across, trying to get up the nerve to try to cross behind the falls, two of the men abruptly appeared within her vision.

  Her heart seemed to come to a screeching, painful halt in her chest. What in the hell were the maniacs doing, she wondered wildly when she saw finally that the metal clanging she’d been listening to was two of them pounding at each other with swords? Who did they think they were? The pirates of Penzannce?

  Fencing? On the top of a fucking hill high enough to kill them if they fell off even if it wasn’t high enough to officially be considered a mountain?

  She’d already sucked in a breath to scream at them to stop when the dark haired one—Luke, Eli, Aaron, or maybe Joshua—struck the fair haired one that was either Gabriel or John.

  She clapped a hand over her mouth in horror, straining to see if he had been hit or it just looked like he had from where she was standing.

  Both of the men lowered their blades. The blond looked down at himself and then at his opponent. The urge to burst into tears assailed her as the conviction settled in her that he was hurt. She would’ve thrown caution to the wind then and dashed behind the waterfall except something even more horrifying froze her to the spot.

  Gabriel or John changed. One moment she saw a man clutching his arm, the next … she saw something else entirely. The … thing, dropped the sword and let out a bellow of rage that jolted through her, turning her from stone to jelly as quickly as he’d transformed from man to beast. Unable to move or even breathe, she watched him surge toward his opponent and discovered that man wasn’t a man anymore either.

  Sucking in a sharp breath when they slammed into each other like beasts from a really bad Asian horror flick, Marlee’s instinct for flight kicked in. Whirling, she began stumbling back down the path she’d followed up. Gravity, she discovered was as much foe as friend. She hadn’t been in any state of mind to coordinate her efforts to run with the obstacle course she had to negotiate. She skidded several times on loose pebbles even as the slant increased her downward momentum. Her heart jerked fearfully each time she skidded and then resumed the frantic pace fear had set. She struggled to slow her breakneck pace before she did break her neck, but she was so shaky and wobbly with fright that it was too little, too late. She stepped on a rock big enough to pitch her off balance as it rolled from under her foot and screamed instinctively when she felt herself falling.

  She landed on her ass hard enough to make her eyes water and skidded nearly two yards before she managed to halt her descent. Realizing she’d screamed, she jerked a look back as she scrambled to her feet, hoping it hadn’t been loud enough to alert them to her presence.

  The discovery that both beasts had whirled to look in her direction was enough to get her on her feet. “Oh god! Please don’t let them have seen me!” she babbled shakily as she scrambled down the path, searching a little frantically for a place to hide.

  When she finally managed to reach the first hump, she threw another glance behind her.

  She couldn’t see a sign of either one, but they’d both had wings. She glanced upward and searched the sky. She didn’t see anything, but it didn’t comfort her much. She couldn’t see well enough to be certain they weren’t above her. They could be swooping toward her that very moment and she wouldn’t know it until they caught her!

  The thoughts galvanized her to move faster. She fell again, and skidded to the bottom of th
e dip. Ignoring the pain in one knee and the stinging friction burns on her palms, elbows, and even on her knees and shins through her jeans, she leapt to her feet and ran up the last hump and down the again so fast that she nearly pitched forward and rolled down the last section of the path.

  She was so winded by that time she felt dizzy and nauseated. The sound of her own huffing breath and pounding heart deafened her. Instinct drove her. The thoughts flitting madly through her mind barely made any impression at all until several seemed to collide and connect at the same time.

  The guys had changed—two of the men she’d been living with for well over a month!

  The house wasn’t a refuge even though she realized that had been her objective. Holding her side, she jogged around the barn, wondering where the hell she could go. Even as she rounded it, however, someone jumped out. She slammed into the man so hard it almost sent both of them sprawling.

  He recovered first. Marlee was still trying to decide which of the guys had caught her when she felt something hard and cold dig into her cheek.

  “Gotcha!” Fletcher said triumphantly. “Now we’re going to take a little ride and you’re going to show me where that cave is the injuns took you to!”

  ———

  “Gods damn it!” Gabriel roared furiously. “She followed us! She saw us!”

  “She’s going to kill her fool self!” Joshua said hoarsely. “I’ll go after her!”

  “Like hell!” Gabriel snarled, flinging an arm out to block him as he surged forward.

  “We’ll all go after her!” Luke said grimly.

  “That’ll calm her down!” John snapped. “I’ll go. It was me and Aaron she saw.”

  Gabriel studied him assessingly for a moment and finally nodded. “You’re right. If all of us go chasing after her it’s only going to scare her more. Catch her and see if you can calm her down. We’ll wait here.”

  John nodded grimly, wondering how in the hell he was going to manage to calm her down, regardless of his assertion to the others that he would. Gabriel grabbed his arm as he headed toward the falls.

  “Gods, John! You think you’re going to calm her down looking like that!”

  John halted abruptly and looked down at himself. Discovering he was still in dragon form, he focused on the change and then looked around for his abandoned clothes. Discarding the idea of figuring out which were his and which belonged to one of the others, he simply grabbed a pair of jeans and shimmied into them, zipping them as he strode toward the waterfall and ducked behind it.

  His heart sank when he emerged and didn’t see any sign of her. Wondering if she’d had time to make back to the house while they’d argued about what to do and who would go, he scanned the trail and the drop for any sign that she’d fallen. He was relieved when he didn’t see her off the side of the trail, but he thought that meant she must have had time to make it back to the house.

  Unless she’d realized it was them and decided to head for the hills.

  She didn’t know where they’d hidden her car, though, and he didn’t think that she could find the keys to any of their vehicles and take off before he could catch up to her. He hoped to hell not anyway. He could still chase her down but a high speed chase would be far more dangerous that what she’d done already—running on the trail.

  Worry nagged at him until he began to run himself, ignoring the slash across his arm that hadn’t had time to close completely. It reopened. He would’ve dismissed it except that it dawned on him that it wasn’t likely to calm Marlee down if he showed up bloody all over.

  Stopping, he wiped the blood with his hand and pinched the wound together. The smell of his own blood stirred the beast within him. He lifted his arm and lathed the cut until it closed before he set out again. The sounds of a struggle reached him as he left the path and started toward the house at a jogging run. He whipped his head toward the sound. In the distance, he could see Marlee stumbling along beside a man he couldn’t identify and shock and worry gave way to rage. Changing directions, he began running.

  His fear for Marlee completely negated any possibility of reasoning or even yielding to his instincts and approaching quietly the moment he realized the man had a vehicle parked in the brush. “Get your hands off of her!” he bellowed, running faster.

  The man stopped, whipping around at the shout and dragging Marlee with him. He hesitated, clearly trying to decide whether he could get to his truck with Marlee before John could catch up to him.

  ———

  Marlee was too stunned by what she’d seen at the falls and too exhausted from her trek up and her run down to gather either her wits or her strength. She’d run right in to an ambush, she realized, but she couldn’t think of any way to get herself out of it with a gun barrel digging into her cheek. Every scenario that came to mind ended with her getting her head blown off.

  “Dragons,” she managed to gasp finally as her mind shifted from fear of the gun to the fear that had driven her into flight to start with.

  “I knew you were lying! You didn’t forget anything, did you? You just figured you’d wait till all the fuss died down and get the treasure yourself!”

  The comments threw Marlee into complete chaos all over again. By the time she emerged enough to glance around for any sign of the dragons, she discovered Fletcher had dragged her far enough from the house that she didn’t have a chance in hell of reaching it before he could catch her even if she did manage to get away from him.

  She’d probably get a bullet in the back if she tried.

  But a running target was harder to hit.

  Except she didn’t know if she could run at all. Her legs hardly felt like they belonged to her anymore. She wasn’t certain she could’ve even commanded them to walk if Fletcher hadn’t been dragging her, forcing her to put one foot in front of the other to keep from falling.

  The shout behind them set her heart to hammering again with recognition even before Fletcher wrenched her around to see who it was. Hope surged through her when she recognized John and then doubt and fear as it settled in her mind that he was one of them. She didn’t know what he was, but he wasn’t human!

  The sudden absence of pressure of the gun barrel jerked her attention from John to Fletcher. Her mind connected the dots within a split second. Marlee grabbed Fletcher’s hands to divert the shot even as the gun fired. “No! Don’t shoot!” she screamed into the deafening silence that filled her head in the wake of the gun blast right beside her ear, her gaze jerking toward John.

  She saw him jolt a halt as the bullet impacted with his chest and screamed again at the look of surprise that flickered across his face. She tried to claw her way free of Fletcher, surging toward John frantically as he staggered back a couple of steps and then dropped to his knees.

  “John! Oh my god! John!”

  Pain exploded in her head without warning. The thought struck her that Fletcher had shot her in the head even as her own knees turned to jelly and fell out from under her and darkness filled the gulf behind the flash of white pain. She stared at John hopelessly, helplessly as she felt herself falling. “Don’t die, John,” she murmured drunkenly. “Please!”

  He struggled to his feet. Even as the hope formed inside her that he wasn’t hurt as badly as she’d feared, the gun went off again and she saw him stagger back, saw blood form another blossom on his chest. She couldn’t get to him. She struggled anyway, trying feebly to break Fletcher’s grip on her. “Let me go to him!”

  Uttering a snarl of rage, Fletcher began dragging her.

  He was going to die and she’d never told him she loved him! “I’m sorry, John! I’m so sorry! I love you! Please don’t die!”

  Fletcher slammed her against the side of his truck and jerked the door open, shoving her toward the seat. She fell in, too disoriented and uncoordinated to respond to his demand to get in. He shoved her, grabbing her legs and stuffing her onto the seat, and then slammed the door.

  She struggled to right herself, to gather her wi
ts, but she seemed to be drifting in and out of a black void. The need to escape formed in her mind, the need to get to John and see if she could help him. She couldn’t even seem to figure out which way was up, however.

  Fletcher leapt into the truck, started the engine, and shot the truck forward before she’d figured it out. The force slammed her into the back of the seat and, in her search for some means of bracing herself, her hand brushed the door handle. She grasped it, managed to depress it. The door flew part of the way open, nearly yanking her out with it. Fletcher braked, throwing her forward. Grasping the hair on her head, he slammed her forehead into the dashboard. When that pain exploded inside of her head and darkness followed it that time, it took her all the way down.

  ———

  Gabriel had been pacing worriedly but the sudden sound that cracked like thunder across the sky halted him abruptly. Lifting his head, he scanned the sky, listening to the reverberation.

  But he knew what it was even before he heard the second shot.

  He whipped a look at the others.

  “Gods! She’s shooting at him,” Aaron said in disbelief.

  The five of them glanced at one another questioningly.

  “I guess that means she didn’t feel like being reasonable …,” Eli began and then broke off as he heard Marlee’s voice faintly in the distance.

  “What the fuck is he doing to her?” Joshua growled, turning away from the others abruptly and striding quickly toward the water fall.

  Feeling a sudden fear that they’d completely misinterpreted what they’d heard, Gabriel raced him toward the pass, trying to outrun him.

  Eli, Luke, and Aaron glanced at one another blankly and then followed. Seeing that Gabriel and Joshua had broken into a run as soon as they’d cleared the falls, they quickened their own pace.