by T. A. White
His voice rose in a sharp tone.
Ilith blew at him and then nudged him out of the way. He slapped at her snout. She jerked back—that part of her face was sensitive.
He did it again. She shook her head and bared her teeth, making a grumbling sound in the back of her throat. He bopped her on the nose again and then pointed to the bed.
She reared onto her hind legs, cradling her nose protectively, her wings fanning out to help keep her balance. There were several shouts of dismay as the other creatures dove out of the way to avoid being knocked over.
The other dragon roared, the sound a trumpet of challenge.
I think you should listen to him, Tate thought at Ilith.
Ilith swatted the thought away. She was dragon and this dragon in human form was not her master.
She roared back, her wings mantling. She didn’t drop to four legs, afraid the dragon would try to go for her nose again. She started waddling to the door on her hind legs. It wasn’t easy. A dragon’s body was not built to walk upright. Her head brushed the ceiling.
Oh boy, Tate thought.
The dragon man watched her, his dark eyes shadowed.
Ilith felt a smug sense of satisfaction. She was mighty and didn’t have to listen to lesser beings.
How are you going to fit through the door, oh mighty dragon? Tate asked, her mental voice dry.
Ilith eyed the door in question. She’d fit. Right? No. Yes, she’d fit. If not, she’d just create a new one.
Her head fit through easily enough. It was her shoulders that got stuck. There was a chorus of raised voices behind her. They sounded like a flock of angry seagulls. About as helpful as them too.
Ilith shoved and pushed, the frame cracking around her. Her feet scrabbled against the wood floor, leaving deep grooves in the wood. With a final shove, the frame gave around her, tearing a dragon sized hole in the walls around it.
She grumbled as she plodded her way down the hall, frowning down at the white dust on her scales. She shook one foot then the other, not liking the way the dust looked against the splendor that was her scales.
She followed her nose, tracking that scent. Several people that smelled closer to predators reacted with shock when they saw the small dragon plodding her way through the halls, knocking things over. Causing paintings to fall. They usually fled in the opposite direction as if they thought Ilith might attack.
Foolish predator humans, Ilith thought. As if she would try to eat them. Humans didn’t taste nearly as good as a cow. Or a pig. Horses were best, though.
The smell she was following proved elusive, fading in and out. It was an old smell, the air currents dispersing it in many places.
Another smell inserted itself. Ilith’s mouth watered and her stomach grumbled. Still, that other scent tugged at her. There was a reason she needed to follow it.
She thought a minute, laying down where she stood and resting her head on her paws as she’d seen Night do a million times through Tate’s eyes. Now she finally had the chance to do the same. There was a reason he liked this pose. It was very comfortable.
Ilith got lost in the sensation of sitting and resting, utterly comfortable in this manner. The dragon man and Night and the others still shadowed her from several halls away, but they were far enough that she didn’t feel an urgent need to protect herself.
She pondered which scent she should follow. The mysterious one that her instincts said might be important, or the one that would guarantee food.
She lumbered to her feet. There was no reason not to check for the mysterious smell in the same direction as food.
Ilith trudged through several more rooms, scaring more of the predator humans. She paused at one that smelled particularly good, curious as to how the person smelled like a person but also like a bear. An angry, scared one.
She bent her head to get a better smell, and leapt back, startled at the long angry hiss that came from the other end of the room. She decided that it’d be best to leave the bear person alone for now.
She continued on her journey.
The smell of warm, bloody meat drew her until she broke through another door, grumbling at the small passageway. Didn’t these predator people know that small doors wouldn’t be able to handle her majestic self?
There was a scream that startled her. She roared back. A mass flurry of movement as people fled, leaving the juicy, tasty smelling meat behind.
Ilith pounced, her leap carrying her half way across the room to land partially on the blood covered chopping block. She gulped down the warm flesh and then licked the wood, trying to suck out the rest of the taste.
She paused in the act of licking the block to glare at the dragon man. She clutched the block to her chest. Hers. No one else’s. He sighed and then pointed to her left.
Ilith didn’t trust that he wasn’t trying to distract her so he could steal her prey. She looked carefully in the direction he indicated, keeping him in eyesight at all times.
Meat. Mounds of it.
She abandoned the block, her jump knocking it over. Her wings snapped out, carrying her through the air until she landed on a table. It collapsed under her weight. She barely noticed, too busy inhaling the food.
Her belly was a gnawing hole demanding to be filled.
She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until the warm flesh coursed down her throat. Once again, she licked at the wood trying to get all the stray bits off.
The dragon man stepped near and she let out a warning growl. She might be considering him as a mate, but that didn’t mean he could steal her feast. The animal people obviously understood how amazing she was and had slaughtered this cow as tribute to her. As such, she claimed rights and no potential mate was going to steal it from her.
His chuckle was warm against her scales as he skirted around her and walked to a door. He opened it and walked inside a small room. Ilith cocked her head, curious.
She slunk nearer, peering inside to see him take a knife and cut something off a huge haunch. He threw the chunk of meat outside.
Ilith ignored it, her entire attention on the leg. The dragon man slipped out while she was distracted.
How did she not smell this before?
Her eyes swirled, the color changing to a light gold. Her thoughts overjoyed at the sudden tribute. She leapt at the haunch. It was hers. Gloriously hers.
She barely noticed the door shutting behind her as she raced into the cold room.
It was only later, with the meat consumed and her belly bulging that she realized she couldn’t get out. She couldn’t even turn to face the door, wedged in as she was.
She vaguely considered struggling but decided that would be too much work.
With a sense of smugness, she lay down and slept, allowing Tate to rise to ascendency.
*
Tate shivered. Cold for the first time in a long time. She always slept with a blanket even in summer, not able to stand the cold. She’d been freezing for so long locked away in the abyss that she resented any stray breeze, preferring to sweat.
She opened her eyes, blinking at the frost lining the ceiling above her. This was not her bed. She rose to one elbow. She was naked.
Why was she naked? And locked in what looked like a freezer?
She shivered and huddled in on herself. Standing was an exercise in self-discipline. Her body was convinced that only by curling into a fetal position could she withstand this cold.
The events came back to her. The poisoning, the change, Ilith. And all that meat.
She looked around her. It looked like an animal had gone insane in here, stray bits of metal and packaging lying everywhere as if a hurricane had been locked inside.
“Hey! Let me out!” Tate banged on the metal door. They’d locked her in here.
It took several more minutes of banging before the sound of the fridge being unbarred reached her. She waited as the door swung open.
She was not expecting the frowning man on the other side to bar her from hoppi
ng out of the fridge. He was short but all muscle and dressed in all black.
“Who are you?” she asked her tone short.
“I’ll be the one asking the questions.”
Tate blinked once, then twice. What the fuck?
“How’s about you let me out of this freezing cold room so I can put some clothes on first?” Her tone made it clear that it wasn’t really a request. She was about to pull the dragon back out so she could eat this guy if he tried to make her wait another minute in a room below freezing wearing only her bare skin. Ilith might have been fine with the temperature, but Tate, as a human, was not.
The man’s eyes ran down her, as if noticing her pebbled skin for the first time. He didn’t seem too impressed.
“You’ll live.”
He tried to swing the door shut on her. Tate lunged forward, shoving with all her strength. The door flung forward, knocking the other man down. It was a shock. She hadn’t realized she’d shoved that hard.
Taking advantage of his cursing, she hopped over him and into the kitchen. There. Problem solved. At least the first one anyway.
“Get back here.” He struggled to his feet.
Tate didn’t listen, darting away when he tried to grab her. She didn’t know what was going on, but she knew she wasn’t going back into that enclosed space.
He lunged for her and she swung, her fist catching him on the side of the head. He shook his head, stunned. She leapt back.
“Get back in the freezer, abomination,” he spat.
She snorted. Did he really think name calling was likely to persuade her to listen to him?
“I’m warning you. If you don’t get back into that freezer, you’ll regret it.”
“I have a feeling I’d regret it if I did get back in, numb nuts.”
He snarled, leaping forward. She had no time to dodge as he wrapped her in a bear hug. She stumbled back with him clinging to her, knocking over several pots and pans.
She tried to knee him, but missed the groin, snarling when one of his hands grabbed her breast. She head-butted him, creating space when his grip loosened slightly, and then wrenched up with both arms, dislodging his grip. She planted one foot and then kicked him in the stomach, sending him crashing into the cabinets on the other side of the kitchen.
Tate gaped at how far he flew. That was unexpected. She didn’t even know she was capable of launching a man through the air like that. Especially one that outweighed her by a good fifty pounds.
“Seigal, what’s going on here?” Another man, this one also dressed in all black, walked into the room. He froze in place at the sight of a naked woman. His attention swung to the man using the cabinets as a crutch.
“She escaped and attacked me.”
“Bullshit. You attacked me first,” Tate snapped. “You tried to keep me in a freezer, naked, where I could suffer serious harm and die. Then you groped me trying to get me back into the freezer. You got what you deserved.”
“Not like you care that you’re on display,” Seigal sneered. “Running all over the place without the least effort to cover up like a proper lady.”
Tate gave him a look colder than the freezer she’d just escaped from. “If this lady you speak of would have allowed you to imprison her in a place to freeze to death, I’ll take your words as a complement. I’d much rather have all my fingers and toes and be lacking in modesty.”
“Enough. The cold won’t hurt you; the parasite attached to you will keep you from suffering any true harm,” the second man said with a distasteful look at Ilith slumbering on Tate’s shoulder.
Tate opened her mouth to argue when a roar, loud enough to rattle the pots and shake the room, reached them. It was a sound full of incandescent rage, building in volume and intensity.
Ryu stood at the door, his eyes a blaze of darkness as he took in the room. Both of the men in black crouched, drawing swords and holding them in readiness against the dragon in man form.
“You dare?” Ryu’s voice was full of wrath, the sound twisting and making it clear that the wrong answer would see a very real dragon separating their heads from their bodies. “You are not so untouchable that you can draw steel against me.”
Tate felt a modicum of respect for the second man as he straightened and slid the sword into the scabbard at his waist. Ryu was scary intimidating when he wanted to be and this was about the most intimidating Tate had ever seen him.
“What are you doing?” Seigal asked the second man.
“Put it away.”
“But-”
“I will not ask again.” The second man’s voice was full of warning as he gave the other man a look that said, ‘don’t test me.’
Seigal put his sword away with jerky movements that made it clear that he was only doing so under duress.
“My lord, you agreed to let us handle the interrogation,” the second man said to Ryu. He was clearly the one in charge and seemed to have a much cooler head than his friend.
Interrogation. Tate didn’t like the sound of that. Who exactly were they supposed to be interrogating? Her? She remembered the last one Ryu had left her to. She could still feel phantom tentacles from that truth device under her skin sometimes.
“I agreed to let you question her,” Ryu clarified, lowering his chin and glaring at him. His face made it clear he wouldn’t accept much more from this man.
Tate had to wonder who the two guys in black were and why they were trying to interrogate her.
“Why isn’t she wearing any clothes?”
Good question. Tate folded her arms and looked back at the other men.
Now that Ryu was here she fought against a wave of self-consciousness. She was intensely aware anytime he looked at her, though she didn’t show it.
“We would have provided clothes if she had just exhibited a little patience.”
Tate scoffed. “You left me locked in a freezer. Did it not occur to you to give me a blanket or something? I woke up covered in frost. Why the hell would I have stayed there?” That last statement had been a bit of an overstatement, but Tate didn’t care.
The two men didn’t answer, their faces stubborn. They knew their answer wouldn’t win them any favors with Ryu. Tate was glad for their discomfort. It didn’t match the danger they’d put her in or the disrespect, but it was something.
“Answer her.”
“We thought, given her violence from earlier, that it would be best to ensure she was in her right mind before engaging her,” the second man tried to explain.
“What violence?” Tate asked. She didn’t remember Ilith hurting anyone, but some of her memories were a little fuzzy, especially once Ilith found food. Things had descended into a red haze after that, and Tate couldn’t say with certainty what Ilith had done. “Did I hurt anyone?”
She didn’t know what she would do if the answer was yes. She was many things, but she didn’t know if she could bear hearing that she’d seriously hurt or killed someone while Ilith had control.
“No,” Ryu said.
“Only by the grace of the Saviors,” Seigal said. His gaze refused to lift to Ryu’s glare.
“You didn’t hurt anyone,” Ryu reiterated. “This is just a formality. We don’t know why you shifted or why you couldn’t complete the change. The Black Order was called as a precaution.” Ryu directed his next words at the two men. “Their presence here is a sign of respect. They have no real authority here.”
“Not for long,” the first man said. “It’s only a matter of time before the Lord Marshall appoints our order as the overseers of all Aurelia. Even of the Creator’s cast-offs.” He gave Tate and Ryu a derisive look, making it clear he meant them.
“Until such time, you will act only with the authority currently vested in your order,” Ryu said, ignoring the blatant disrespect.
He was much more controlled than Tate would have been. Her first reaction was to throw some of those words back in the man’s face, followed by a possible jab to the throat. But then, she was a violent p
erson.
“I can tell you what happened,” Tate said, following Ryu’s lead. If he could keep his head, so could she. “I was poisoned. Ilith panicked and initiated the change. We got stuck between forms.”
Ryu’s gaze snapped to hers.
“Ilith? Who is Ilith?” the second man in black asked.
“That’s enough.” Ryu strode forward taking off his shirt and draping it over Tate’s head. “There will be no further questions until she has some clothes and a doctor can be summoned to look at her.”
“You can’t do that,” the man Tate had thrown across the room said.
“Watch me,” Ryu snapped. “You were supposed to retrieve her from the freezer and take her to a room over an hour ago. You’ve overstepped your bounds by keeping her in the freezer and then attacking her when she rightfully tried to protect herself. Unless you want to make things worse than they already are, I suggest you think of ways to keep me happy.”
The smarter of the two watched with an assessing gaze as Ryu shielded Tate with his body. He seemed to be drawing his own conclusions, though Tate had no idea what those were.
“We’ll pick this up later,” he said.
Ryu looked like he was about to argue, but settled down, thinking better of it. He turned to Tate, his face softening.
“I’ve already summoned a doctor. Let’s get you someplace warm.”
“I hope there’ll be food wherever this warm place is. I’m starving.”
“That’s hard to believe,” the first man muttered.
Tate shot him a glare. She’d be happy to toss him across the room again if it would shut him up.
“We can arrange that. Come.”
Tate followed Ryu out of the room, the other two men glaring at her with hostile gazes.
Chapter Eleven
Tate was more than happy to see several sets of clothes that she could layer on for more warmth laid out on the bed, courtesy of Tala and Gabrielle. The clothes were slightly bigger than what she normally wore, but she was pleased with the end result.
It might have all been a little much given it was the middle of summer, but it helped chase away some of the chill she hadn’t been able to shake since waking up on a cold floor. Some of that may have been the nasty memories the cold had brought back.