Badass Dragons: The Complete Set

by Rosette Bolter

  Rafe left the room.

  Cheryl looked from Cassandra to Reiko.

  “What do you think?” Cassandra asked Reiko.

  “I think we’re fucked if we don’t come through on this,” Reiko muttered. “This is serious shit now.”

  “I need that dragon’s blood,” Cassandra hissed. “I need to avenge Cado.”

  “So much on this relies on her,” Reiko said, indicating to Cheryl. “If she fucks up we’re dead.”

  Cassandra looked at Cheryl a moment. “You won’t fuck up, will you my dear?”

  Cheryl took a step back. “I don’t know how this is going to work.”

  Reiko put his hand through his hair and walked to the other side of the room.

  Cassandra watched Cheryl carefully. “We’ll tell you what to do.”

  There was a faint knock on the wall.

  Cheryl turned and was greeted with an amazing sight that pulled at the strings of her heart.

  “Sophie!” she cried.

  She ran to her sister and embraced her, squeezing tight.

  Sophie struggled slightly, uncomfortable.

  Cheryl felt a familiar body brush past her ankles. “Oh!” she cried. “You’ve found Hoot!”

  Cheryl scooped him up.

  “Hey,” Sophie said. “Give him back to me. He’s mine.”

  “What?” Cheryl scolded. “He is not.”

  “Yes, he is,” Sophie insisted lashing out at her.

  “ENOUGH!” Reiko shouted.

  Cheryl dropped Hoot on the ground. Reiko moved towards them.

  “Sorry,” Sophie murmured.

  “That’s okay,” Cheryl said.

  “No,” Sophie continued, “sorry, Reiko and Cassandra.”

  She walked over to them and hugged them both.

  Cheryl watched in disbelief. “Are you at least happy to see me?”

  Sophie glanced over her shoulder. “Should I be?”

  “I’m here to save you,” Cheryl declared.

  “Save me from what?”

  “Aren’t you being held here against your will?”

  Sophie shrugged. “I like it here. Rafe’s a cool guy.”

  Stressed out, Cheryl flopped down onto the sofa Rafe had been sitting on.

  This wasn’t Sophie. Not the Sophie she knew. The Sophie she’d grown up with. These freaks of nature still had her brainwashed.

  “We were just discussing how we’re going to get Synrith here, paralyzed and unconscious,” Reiko said. “With his dagger. Does anyone have any ideas?”

  Sophie sat down on the sofa opposite Cheryl. Hoot moved up off the ground and landed in her lap.

  The sisters stared at each other.

  “You can’t trust her,” Sophie said.

  “What’s that?” Cheryl piped up.

  “I said, we can’t trust you,” Sophie said. “She loves both the dragons. She’s on their side not ours.”

  Cassandra and Reiko looked at each other.

  “Well, that’s fucking great,” Reiko cursed. “What the hell are we supposed to do if she can’t even be trusted?”

  “I’m willing,” Cheryl insisted. “I want to sort this out. And maybe – just maybe – there’s another way that doesn’t involve anyone getting hurt. We should explore all possibilities.”

  “You see what I’m talking about?” Sophie said.

  Cassandra nodded. “She’s dangerous.”

  “Well, I’m all you’ve got,” Cheryl said breathlessly. “So you’ll just have to trust me and that’s it.”

  “No,” Cassandra whispered.

  “No,” Sophie echoed her.

  Reiko looked at them, confused for a moment.

  Then he smiled.

  A frightening smile.

  “No,” Reiko said.

  “No – what?” Cheryl blurted out.

  “There is a way we can be sure,” Cassandra said. “A way she’ll be on our side forever.”

  Reiko and her were moving closer to Cheryl. Slowly.

  “It’s the only way,” Sophie droned.

  Cheryl sat up to defend herself. “Wait a second. What are you doing?”

  Cassandra sat to her left.

  Reiko sat to her right.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Cheryl babbled, feeling faint. “You’re not saying –”

  A tear fell from her eye as she watched Sophie’s deadpan expression.

  Both Reiko and Cassandra bit into Cheryl’s wrists.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Pain. Not just in her wrists, but all over her body.

  At first it was just the shock that hit her. Cassandra on her left, Reiko on her right – Cheryl’s eyes were focused solely her stone-faced sister Sophie directly opposite. The vampires either side of her – they were about to kill her. They were going to take her life. It wasn’t fair at all. Cheryl hadn’t gone against them or refused to do what they asked. It was only the threat that she might go against them. A threat, that Sophie had planted in their heads. Why? Why on earth, why?

  Didn’t Sophie realize, that she was only here to rescue her in the first place?

  Why the betrayal?

  Sophie’s eyes had no answers. It wasn’t as though she was deliberately acting cold for Cheryl. She wasn’t getting hers back after being wronged some time ago. Sophie was completely removed from the room and what was happening. If she didn’t blink on occasion, there might not have been any indication that she was alive at all…

  Cheryl’s consciousness would soon fade. But not before the most excruciating of agonies could be felt by her. Cassandra and Reiko – their fangs sliced into Cheryl’s skin like a couple of chainsaws with vacuums attached. It wasn’t clean. Whilst Cheryl’s blood was taken by a whirlpool into the pair’s throats, it spilled down her hands and onto the carpet around her. Beyond the shock of Sophie’s betrayal, there came the hot, nauseating presence of a migraine that seemed to radiate from her head to her wrists, and then throughout the rest of her body.

  After a few moments when the feeding didn’t cease, the knife to bone reality of what was occurring hit her nervous system a hundred fold. Her mouth opened as she began to slump over herself, but the pain was so great it prevented her from its own scream.

  Right before the room went to black, and she hit the carpet in a bleeding, spangled mess, Cheryl felt the presence of an electrical train inside of her. The train was the pain that had been building from her head, and it had just grown and grown and grown in size. She felt it, coming from the pit of her belly, as though it was reaching for the end of a tunnel. When it finally reached the end, it moved up through her chest, neck and skull, to seemingly shoot out of her…

  Leaving nothing but darkness and oblivion.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Rafe heard the sound of the struggle upstairs even though he was on the other side of the house and surrounded by his pack in the midst of a party. While many of the other wolves might have heard it too had they been listening, it was only Rafe who did, as he was already in tune with what was going on inside the room.

  Not that the vampires worried him. Oh no. Not these vampires. It was true that there were different types of vampire of a more enlightened state – true some had become masters of his or her brethren by the sheer scope of their otherworldly powers… But not these vampires. They were parasites.

  “Sir? Sir…?”

  Rafe had allowed the noise upstairs distract him from his present surroundings. He turned to find his hunchback dungeon keeper, Droge, calling to him from the other side of the room.

  Rafe’s wolves had taken the opportunity to make fun of Droge, pulling his cape over his head, kicking him up the backside and emptying their beer glasses onto him. Since Droge’s presence in this part of the house was most unwelcome, especially among guests, Rafe would have likely taken part in the charade, had it just been…

  Another ordinary night in the dungeon…

  “Stop that,” Rafe barked at his comrades.

  Even though
they appeared to have heard him, the fooling around continued, followed by incessant laughing, and the blind stumbling around of Droge.

  “Sir…? Please, help me, sir…”

  “ENOUGH!” Rafe shouted and smashed his glass against the wall.

  The music immediately ceased, and his wolves froze in their positions.

  Rafe stormed over to them and pulled the cape off Droge’s head. “What is it?”

  “You have to come to the dungeon at once, sir,” Droge said, trembling.

  “Why? What has –?”

  “It’s the dragon,” Droge spluttered.

  Rafe put his arm around Droge’s shoulder and then signaled to the band to continue their playing.

  They left the noisy room together and walked a few paces down the hall.

  “What about the dragon?” Rafe demanded, removing his arm from the hunchback. “Surely you haven’t allowed –”

  “I haven’t allowed anything,” Droge mumbled.

  Rafe grabbed his servant by the collar and pulled him up to his face. “What’s happened?”

  “He’s gone,” Droge said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Two of Rafe’s wolves walked into the ground floor bathroom, the chains around their jeans and jackets jangling as they made their way to the mirrored sink. On either side of the room were four slightly ajar doors, each concealing their own toilet. Believing they were alone in the bathroom, they began to discuss sensitive matters.

  “So you heard they’re keeping that dragon alive?” one remarked.

  “Alive? The one we captured this morning?” said the other.

  “Of course, dummy. It’s still down in the dungeon somewhere. Rafe’s trying to make a deal with some vampires.”

  “What deal?”

  “I don’t know – but apparently that dragon is what we’re giving in exchange.”

  “I don’t believe this. Why doesn’t he ever discuss –?”

  At that point, Jet decided to make his move, and jumped out from one of the toilets swinging the iron bar he’d ripped from his cell. The nearest wolf was struck in the head and dropped to the ground immediately. The second one managed to dodge Jet’s successive swipe, and land one himself.

  “Ouch,” Jet replied sarcastically, as the wolf withdrew his fist, now covered with his own blood.

  He looked up at him, wincing, and then the bar came down square in his face.

  Jet set it aside and dragged the two wolves into the nearest toilet and closed the door. He undressed one and got changed into his pants, jacket and shoes. Then he stepped out and looked down the other end of the hallway.

  He saw Rafe and the dungeon keeper walk past, presumably on their way to the dungeon.

  With Cheryl’s screams still in his ears, Jet went in the other direction towards the stairs.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Wake her. That’s it. Hold her eyelids back. We need to get a move on…”

  VOOM

  Cheryl’s back arched up from the ground and her hands sprayed out, trying to find something to grip onto. She was forced back down from both sides by two different people, although … the person on the left was much stronger than the person on the right.

  “Keep her still,” Reiko said leering over her.

  Cheryl’s eyes were open now. She was conscious. Alert.

  In such ways she couldn’t begin to describe…

  “How are you feeling?” Reiko asked.

  Cheryl squirmed away from his gaze and looked to her left and right. Cassandra and Sophie.

  Her mind started to recall what had previously transpired.

  “It feels good, doesn’t it?” Reiko said, crouching. “It’s going to keep feeling good as the gift moves to take full effect.”

  Cobwebs. Bats. Crows. Castles.

  A rush of images was being poured through Cheryl’s mind.

  “You drugged me,” she mumbled.

  Cassandra gave a shriek of laughter while Reiko chuckled to himself.

  “They didn’t drug you, silly,” Sophie said tonelessly. She picked up Cheryl’s wrist and showed it to her. There was a deep scar in the centre that was pulsating fervently. The skin surrounding the scar was a deathly shade of white.

  Cheryl leaned over and saw her left wrist was the same.

  “You drank my blood…?” she whispered. “Am I going to die?”

  Reiko stood up from the floor. He motioned to Cassandra and Sophie to stand with him.

  Cheryl sat up, confused.

  “Well?” she repeated. “Am I going to die?”

  “You already are dead,” Reiko replied.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jet leaned up against the closed door behind where Cheryl was being held by her captors. He sensed there weren’t any wolves about this area at the moment, and judging by the voices within he recognized they were vampire kin. Not wanting to cause them immediate alarm as that would ruin his element of surprise, he quietly knocked against the door and waited.

  The voices within soon became muffled, and a series of quiet footsteps made their way to the door. It opened slowly, and a girl’s head peered out.

  Jet recognized her at once. It was Cheryl’s sister, Sophie.

  “Hey,” she murmured upon seeing him.

  Jet quickly seized upon her and burst open the door.

  Cheryl was sitting in the middle of the room in a daze, while the vampires Reiko and Cassandra stood over her.

  “YOU,” Cassandra growled in a murderous voice. Her skin began to shift into a hardened, reptile like texture, while her partner hissed angrily as Jet entered.

  Jet’s hands were holding Sophie’s neck from behind, and he paraded her further towards them. “Attack me, and I’ll snap her neck like a twig.”

  “Jet,” Cheryl murmured. “Jet, please don’t do –”

  “Shut up,” Jet scolded her. “Sophie has chosen her side. She will live … or might I say, die with the consequences.”

  “You murdered Cado,” Cassandra declared. “I shall have vengeance.”

  As she said this, Reiko blocked her path to Jet. Whilst almost as angry as she was, he seemed more in control of his actions.

  “And I will kill you should you dare so tempt me,” Jet said. “You think you’ll stand a chance against me?”

  “How did you get out?” Cassandra shouted.

  “It was Cheryl. I knew I had to save her.”

  “She can’t be saved.”

  Reiko turned to his lover again and silenced her.

  Jet’s face became wrought with frustration. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Reiko turned slightly. He was sneering, a small smile etched on his lips.

  “You want Cheryl?” Reiko challenged. “Here – have her.”

  He pulled Cheryl to her feet, and pushed her in Jet’s direction.

  Jet dropped his hold of Sophie, and let Cheryl fall into his arms.

  He embraced her – chest to chest, neck to neck, face to face. She was cold.

  So cold it frightened him.

  “What magic is this?” Jet whispered.

  Suddenly there was a series of thunderous footsteps coming from the hallway outside.

  As Jet’s attention was distracted, Sophie got up from her place on the ground and grabbed hold of Cheryl’s arm.

  “Come on,” she said. “You belong with us.”

  Jet tugged Cheryl away from her as she began to go free, and then he placed her back up against his entire body.

  With Rafe’s wolves only metres away, Jet began to shift into his dragon, and in doing so ripped through the walls.

  CHAPTER SIX

  There was nothing to fear anymore. Not for the magnificent dragon who held Cheryl in his arms.

  The roof above them crumbled and caved as they ascended through it at glorious speed. Down amongst the rubble, red and blue eyes could be seen staring up at them – the vampires and wolves standing together in a powerless state. Jet’s dragon released a deafening roar towards them,
and blew a tremendous fireball into the room, sending them all running and screaming.

  Cheryl was in shock. She was glad to be rid of the vampires and in Jet’s keeping, but what if the room’s collapse had killed Sophie? What if the smoldering fireball had caused her to ignite?

  For Cheryl, none of this was about sides. The bad guys, the good guys, who hated who – she didn’t want to be involved! Of course, by now, it was far too late. Even once she was on Jet’s back and sailing through the cool recesses of the starlit sky, her mind couldn’t shake the nightmarish visions that had begun since her awakening.

  Drugged, blood drained, and cursed – whatever the problem was, now all she could see was images of skeletal like figures moving through a dark and endless maze. Inside the maze she saw Jet and he was captured once more. Around him, robed shadows stood, beating him with spiked instruments, each blow drawing blood. Cheryl saw that blood and inside it, she was in another dream. One where there was a river of blood and she was in the middle of it.

  Groan…

  This was horrible. But she could almost not turn it off.

  What would Jet think if he saw her now? But then … perhaps this was her only road to redemption…

  Eventually, the frightening images did fade. In that moment, Cheryl became more aware of her surroundings, and the sensations of her body. While Jet’s exterior was rough and prickly against her skin, it was not as uncomfortable as it had once been. She wondered why and touched her leg to realize her skin had changed in density. It was coarse, like the bottom of a foot. She shuddered, feeling a little afraid. Then her eyes moved below and through the clouds.

  Grasslands stretched for miles. No houses. No factories. No farms. It was silent, peaceful, and serene. There was a large dark structure in the centre of where they were headed. Cheryl could only make out the general shape of it. Behind it, there were mountains so high, she could barely see above them even at this height.

  Jet’s wings stopped flapping and he began to descend further, gliding towards the dark structure. Only once they had hit the ground did Cheryl see it for what it truly was – an old, medieval type castle.