by C. J. Hill
She laughed and pushed him away. “That’s easy for you to say. You know you won’t see me again until next summer.”
“It doesn’t have to be next summer.” Dirk took her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers. “I’m not Jesse. I want to see you. We can work out something.”
Dirk also knew what to say to make her want to stay. He was dangerous that way. He could use the whole counterpart thing to his advantage. He already had, kissing her like that.
“This is happening too fast,” she said. “Us as a couple—that’s something we need to think about.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “I assumed you were thinking about it while you were kissing me.”
She blushed. “Well, okay, I was. But now I’m thinking about it logically and I think we need to take this slowly. Things will already be awkward between Jesse and me when we go back to camp. I don’t want that to be you and me. I don’t think I could stand it.” She also couldn’t stand to be hurt again. Every time she thought about Jesse, it still slashed her insides. The way Dirk went through girls—if she handed her heart to him now, she should expect to have it handed back to her in bleeding shards by Christmas.
Dirk groaned, but didn’t argue the point. He scooted into the driver’s seat and started the car. His jaw was clenched tight, his motions stiff and deliberate.
She held up her hands apologetically. “I’ve never been good at that let’s-just-be-friends thing. I turn into the bitter ex-girlfriend. You don’t want that. You’ll end up sabotaging some mission in order to get rid of me.”
Dirk put the car into drive and turned back toward the gate. “You know, Tori, I don’t think I’m the one with commitment issues.”
CHAPTER 11
Instead of driving into his family’s six-car garage, Dirk parked his Porsche behind the dragon enclosure. The car was an upgrade from the BMW that Kihawahine had trashed—his father’s way of making a peace offering. Dirk walked past the security checkpoints and went inside to talk to his father. Dirk found him—right where he knew he would be—behind the soundproof glass looking into the nursery. That’s what his father called the rooms the fledglings were kept in: the nursery. The rooms were small compared with the stadium-size enclosure their mother lived in—only four stories high and a hundred and fifty feet across. Enough room for the baby dragons to roam and fly a bit, but not soar. They couldn’t go too far away.
“Like all children,” his father had said when the two of them put the fledglings in these rooms, “dragons need to be taught obedience before they’re given freedom.” His father had looked pointedly at Dirk while he said this.
Dirk’s father may have forgiven him for changing loyalties last summer, but he hadn’t forgotten about it, and he wouldn’t let Dirk forget about it, either.
Now his father stood in front of the partition that separated the dragons’ rooms, checking messages on his phone. Jupiter, the male dragon, and Vesta, the female, were both resting, wings tucked around their bodies so they seemed to be nothing more than boulders. Fledglings were always grayish brown, sometimes with fuzzy patches of green that looked like moss. The camouflage kept them safe until they became bigger than anything that might attack them. In a few months their adult colors would come in: red, green, blue, or black.
Dirk’s father heard him walk up and he looked over his shoulder. “Good. You’re home. Now I can do something besides keep the dragons quiet.” He gave Dirk an amused smile. “I trust you had fun on your date with Tori.”
“You shouldn’t have talked to her,” Dirk said. “She could have recognized your voice.”
“And if I had refused to talk to her—she wouldn’t have thought that was suspicious?”
“You could have at least tried to hide your accent.”
His father finished with his phone and slid it shut. “And then Bridget would have asked why I was talking oddly and drawn even more attention to my voice. The best way to hide something is to act as though you’re not hiding anything. Ordinary people don’t recognize a face if it’s in an unexpected place, let alone a voice.” He put his phone into his pocket with smug satisfaction. “Tori is as ordinary as everyone else.”
Dirk didn’t contradict his father. There was no point.
Inside the nursery, Jupiter opened his golden eyes, shook his head, and snapped his jaws. He was no longer connected to a dragon lord’s thoughts telling him to rest, and apparently he didn’t feel like resting anymore.
Babies of most species were cute. Nature had overlooked this trend when creating dragons. Hatchlings had loose, baggy skin that accommodated their quick growth spurts. Their mouths were proportionally too large, had to be in order to rip off the amount of flesh they ate. Later they would be beautiful. Sleek as birds, graceful as snakes, with scales that glistened like sunlight on water. Now they looked like a cross between a shar-pei and an overgrown crocodile.
Jupiter’s eyes focused on Dirk. He opened his mouth, shrieking. Angry, not hungry. The remains of a cow still lay in the corner of the room.
The polycarbonate see-through wall was three inches thick, unbreakable for a dragon of this size. Dragons, however, were slow learners when it came to recognizing their limitations. Jupiter spread his wings, opened his mouth wide, and leapt. He slammed headfirst into the wall, righted himself with stumbling steps, then glared at Dirk and screeched again.
Jupiter probably would have kept at that for a while but he caught a scent from Vesta on the other side of the nursery. He turned in that direction and in an angry frenzy of flapping wings, threw himself at the wall that separated them. Which was why Dirk and his father had separated the dragons as soon as they’d hatched. A dragon lord had to work with dragons for months to overcome their immediate attack instinct, and even then, the beasts were unpredictable unless a dragon lord was connected to their minds and could guide their actions.
Dirk had reached into dragons’ minds enough times to understand how they thought. Dragons had one goal—to rule their territory, undisputed. Any perceived threat to that goal resulted in claws and fire.
It was no wonder, really, that his father loved them. His mind worked in roughly the same way.
Dirk’s father took hold of Jupiter’s mind and the dragon immediately calmed. He swished his tail, sat down, and folded his wings. His eyelids closed in a sleepy daze.
When Dirk connected with the dragons, he thought of the power as a hand, one that held the dragon’s head and firmly turned its thoughts in the direction it should go. His father’s connection was like a spear. It shot into the dragon’s brain and blocked all other input. His father was faster, more effective, more ruthless than Dirk was.
“So,” his father said, “what brought your girlfriend out of hiding? Did she miss you?” He used the term “girlfriend” sarcastically, and yet Dirk liked hearing it. Whether she admitted it to herself or not, Tori had missed him.
“I put on some romantic mood music for you,” his father went on. “I thought you would appreciate it.”
Dirk did actually, but didn’t say so. “Tori wanted to know if I’d seen anything that indicated the dragons had hatched. She’s worried about the screeches she keeps hearing.”
His father grunted. “I hope you didn’t come here to tell me we need to keep them quiet. The only way that will happen is if one of us is here nonstop. And I’m too busy for that.”
Dirk took a step closer to the enclosure. Vesta slept so soundly it didn’t look like she was even breathing. “I told Tori the dragon lord was messing with her mind. If real dragons were screeching, they would send out electromagnetic pulses that would fry the stereo system. The music hasn’t stopped, so the dragons aren’t real.”
Dirk’s father let out an appreciative “ahh,” the way he did when he admired his art collection or listened to a symphony blending together until it became a thing of perfection. “I’ve only been using the music to block out identifying sounds and here it’s worked to ensure your lie is believable.” He chuckled unde
r his breath. “Dr. B doesn’t know the EMP doesn’t work until the dragons’ vocal cords are bigger?”
“Apparently the medieval records left that out.”
“And his traitor father must not have known about it.”
Dr. B’s father had worked as the cattle boss on the Overdrakes’ plantation in St. Helena. That’s how Dr. B had gotten most of his information. After his family fled the island, Dr. B’s father told him everything he knew about dragons.
“To ignorance.” Dirk’s father held up his hand as though offering a toast. “And the never-ending supply of it this nation has. It works in our favor again.”
Dirk didn’t say anything. He couldn’t celebrate the fact that he had just lied to Tori. It was for the best, he knew. He had saved her from being freaked out every time she heard a screech. Eventually, though, she would know the truth. All the Slayers would. Dr. B—who trusted Dirk as much as he trusted his own daughter—he would know that Dirk had been a traitor all along, a bomb waiting to go off. The thought made Dirk feel like he’d swallowed acid.
“Oh, come on,” his father said, turning away from the nursery wall. “Tori is pretty, but not nearly as pretty as power.” His father walked past the desk where the vets recorded their data and went to the cupboards filled with medical equipment. Well, mostly medical equipment. One held liquor and glasses. “The White House has one hundred thirty-two rooms, thirty-five bathrooms, a swimming pool, a movie theater, and its own bowling alley. I don’t even bowl, but I’m going to use it, anyway.”
His father took out a bottle of red wine and poured himself a drink. “Take extra care that the dragons don’t damage anything in the building when we attack. You can destroy the president, but not the rose garden.”
Cassie, Dirk’s stepmom, had banished most of the alcohol from the house. She couldn’t drink it now that she was pregnant. She was almost three months along—had gotten pregnant after the Slayers’ attempted break-in last summer. She said she hoped it was a boy this time. Dirk didn’t have to ask why. The threat was implicit. When his father attacked a city, he needed another dragon lord to help him control the dragons. If Dirk didn’t cooperate, before long he’d be expendable.
His father poured a small amount of wine into a glass. Alcohol didn’t affect a dragon lord’s abilities like it did a Slayer’s, but his father hardly ever drank much. He didn’t want to dull his mind or cloud his reasoning. He liked to have a tight control of everything, including himself. He swished the dark liquid around to release its scent. “There’s no shortage of pretty girls,” his father said, refusing to let the subject of Tori go.
“You promised you wouldn’t hurt her,” Dirk reminded him. Dirk had already had more than one talk with his father on that subject.
His father kept swishing his glass. “Your mother was stunning. Absolutely gorgeous. But when she couldn’t appreciate my vision for the future, I had to let her go. It hurt. I don’t mind admitting it. It was a year before I could even entertain the idea of trusting someone enough to start another relationship.” He took a slow drink. “And now I have Cassie. A beautiful woman who’s my partner in every way. Eventually, when you’re old enough, that’s what you’ll need. A partner, not a rival.”
Dirk didn’t like hearing about his mother. Not this way—with his father using her as an object lesson of failure. It made him wonder what she had to say on the subject of her ex-husband and son. Was she telling some other child about Dirk as if he were an experiment that didn’t turn out right?
Dirk’s father took another sip of wine. “I’m going to take this country from the ashes of its own impotent uselessness, and I’ll make it great again.” He gestured with his glass, emphasizing his point. “What the people need is a decisive leader, one that demands respect. I’ll be that leader, and”—he favored Dirk with a meaningful nod—“I’ll train you to take the reins the same way I taught you to ride dragons.”
This was probably not the best analogy his father could have used. The first time Dirk rode Kihawahine solo, he slipped from the saddle during a backward dive. In his confusion, he broke his mind link with the dragon. She nearly ate him before he could get control of her again. Still Dirk nodded back at his father. His father wanted to fix the country’s problems: the corruption, the gridlock, the staggering debts Congress had amassed that would bankrupt the people. The country’s real problems came from 535 self-invested people in Congress, trying to lead the nation. What it needed was someone who could get things done.
Dirk’s response must not have been enthusiastic enough. His father walked over to him, an unsaid tsking hanging on his words. “You worry too much. This revolution will be mild compared to others.” He made a motion with his hand like a broom sweeping away little puffs of concern. “I won’t have to destroy many cities before the people agree to my terms. The burning buildings, the dragons wiping out a few military combatants, my men marching through the streets—that’s all for show. Once the fighting is over, the people will realize they’re better off.”
Dirk’s father leaned in to him, sniffed, then pulled back. “You smell like perfume. Must have been an interesting talk you had with Tori.”
Dirk rolled his eyes like it didn’t matter. “Interesting enough.”
His father finished his drink and put his cup on the desk. His gaze on Dirk was crisp now, penetrating. “I know you couldn’t help becoming friends with the Slayers at camp. It’s only natural that you don’t want to hurt them. That’s why I’m doing things the way I am. You have to cooperate this time, though. You can’t switch sides when your friends are in danger. If they don’t lose their memories now, they’ll lose their lives later.”
“I know.” It would be better if his friends couldn’t fight, better if their Slayer thoughts and experiences faded away like smoke from a fire that had been put out. They would be safer that way. “But leave Tori out of it. Don’t drug her.” Any dose of drugs that was strong enough to cause unconsciousness always carried the risk of permanent brain damage or death for Slayers. That’s how Dr. B’s younger brother was killed. When Dirk’s grandfather found out the kid was a Slayer, he drugged him and ended up killing him.
“We have to drug Tori.” Dirk’s father looked upward and his voice took on a weary tone as though he was already tired of arguing this fact. “She’s the most dangerous Slayer to us.”
“She’s not a Slayer,” Dirk said. “You know as well as I do that she’s a dragon lord. You practically told her she could fly before she knew it herself. Drugging her won’t do any good.”
Dirk and his father had disagreed about the subject before. Tori flew, heard what the nearest dragon to her heard, and didn’t burn. Last summer she’d been hit with a fireball that seared though her jacket and shirt but only left a red mark on her shoulder. Dragon lord qualities.
The evidence that she wasn’t a dragon lord, however, was equally strong. Girls were almost never dragon lords. The only female dragon lords ever recorded were so far back in history that they might have only been fiction—might have been the creation of disgruntled dragon lord sisters who wanted a heroine who could do what they couldn’t.
Tori seemed to have Slayer instincts. She wasn’t drawn to dragons, she feared them. And equally as telling, her powers faded when the rest of the Slayers did. Dragon lord powers lasted longer. Dirk could be away from the dragons for hours and still fly.
Dirk’s father held up a hand as though conceding a point. “All right—Tori might be some sort of Slayer and dragon lord hybrid. I talked it over with a few of the scientist ilk and they think girls might actually inherit dragon lord powers but are—for whatever reason—unable to access them. Those powers are like an underground river. There, but unreachable.
“Because Tori is also a Slayer, her brain made new pathways, developed new abilities and those pathways cut right into the underground river of dragon lord powers. That’s why her powers fade at the same time the Slayers powers do. So”—Overdrake clapped his hands together as
though he were at the start of a new project—“if we destroy the Slayer pathways in her brain, her dragon lord powers will probably disappear at the same time. Problem solved.”
The theory made sense. It explained everything. Even the long-ago female dragon lords. They could have been dragon lord–Slayer hybrids, too. And yet Dirk still didn’t like the idea of drugging Tori. Dragon lords didn’t react to drugs like Slayers did, which meant his father might have to give her larger and larger doses as he tried to blot out her memories.
“She’s not a threat to us,” Dirk said. “She’s only had one summer of training and doesn’t know anything about controlling dragons’ minds. She doesn’t even know she can do it. And even if she could do it, she couldn’t take control of our dragons during a fight.”
Once a dragon lord was inside a dragon’s mind, it was somewhere between difficult and nearly impossible for another dragon lord to enter the same dragon’s mind and give it instructions. By the time Jupiter and Vesta were full grown, they would be so used to taking instructions from Dirk and his father that they would do it without resistance. Entering their minds would be like walking down a familiar road, something that didn’t take much concentration. Tori wouldn’t have that advantage.
“That doesn’t mean,” Dirk’s father said stiffly, “that Tori can’t break in here some other time and steal a dragon, or worse—turn it on us. Do you really think she won’t figure out that you’re my son after the rest of the Slayers are neutralized?”
“She won’t if you do the job right.”
“And then what?” His father raised a hand in frustration. “I hate to put a damper on your romance but I think she’ll realize something is wrong when she shows up to fight the dragons and sees you riding one of them.”
“She’s my counterpart,” Dirk said. “I can change her mind about the rest. I can make her understand about the revolution.”
His father rubbed his forehead and groaned. “Why do you insist on making this harder than it is?”