by Lori Dillon
The witch laughed at his plight. "Ah, poor Baelin. Why do you struggle so? The dragon is a part of you. You cannot fight yourself."
Baelin stilled, cold sweat chilling his skin, and he knew at once the truth in the Dark Witch's words. The beast was indeed a part of him. Not the flesh and blood dragon Kendale battled nearby, but the one inside. And if he couldn't slay the creature within, then he must destroy the vessel that shielded it before he lost control over what little humanity still remained of him.
With calm resolve, he raised his sword and looked into the eyes of the woman he loved.
"You are wrong, Isylte. I can."
Jill's face paled as she read the intent in his eyes.
"No, Baelin. Don't!"
The dragon twisted and reared, its large form reaching the arched ceiling of the great hall. In its single-minded pursuit of the dragonslayer, the beast had forgotten Baelin's presence. It was all he needed.
He looked one last time at Jill. "I love you."
He said the words calmly, softly, not certain if she even heard them. Then he pivoted and threw the blade with all his might, impaling the dragon through the starburst scales on its chest and deep into his human heart.
He heard mingled screams. The furious shriek of the witch. The anguished shout of Kendale. The pain-filled roar of the dragon as it stumbled and crashed to the ground. But Jill's mournful wale overrode them all, breaking his heart as surely as the sword's blade had cleaved it in two.
"No!"
But he couldn't see her. He dropped to his knees, unable to stand any longer as his world closed in. Blackness encroached all around him as pain from the phantom blade piercing his chest shot out, racing down his arms and legs, exploding in his head until there was nothing else.
"Jill." Her name came out in a whisper, and then the floor rushed up to meet him.
Suddenly, she was there at his side, turning him over. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks, her beautiful image blurring as his vision grew hazy.
"No, Baelin. No. Why did you do that? There had to be another way."
"There was not, my lady." He struggled, the effort to draw air into his charred lungs growing harder with each breath."I could not allow harm to come to you. Not by my hand. Ever."
"Oh, God." Her hand pressed against his chest, the heart within struggling to beat. She raised her hand, her palm covered with his blood. "Blood. There's so much blood."
He could feel the warm wetness seeping out, soaking through aketon, mail and surcoat. How was it that his blood did not burn her?
And then Kendale was there, on his other side.
"We have to stop the bleeding," Jill cried. "Give me something to stop the bleeding."
There was a tug at his waist as one of them pulled the tapestry free from his sword belt. Then pressure, as both of them pressed the weaving against a wound that was not there, to stop blood that would not cease to flow.
He heard the frantic thrashing of the dragon nearby, the pain-filled groan of the beast an agonizing sound echoing his own.
"Owen. The boy. Is he safe?"
"Aye. He is unharmed." Kendale glanced over to where the dragon lay. "The beast is breathing its last."
"As am I."
"No!" Jill cried. "Don't leave me, Baelin. Please don't leave me." She glared at the witch standing nearby. "You bitch! You did this to him. You put this curse on him. You forced him to do this. Do something! Save him!"
"I cannot," Isylte said, her voice soft and tinged with remorse, as if she already mourned his loss. "Death is beyond my power to overcome."
Baelin felt the cool tile of the floor beneath him as his wings withered and shriveled away.
"Stay with me, Baelin." Jill squeezed his hand, pressing it hard to her chest. "If I could give you my heart, I would. Take it, and it's yours."
The blood in his veins ceased to burn and the fire in his lungs cooled and died down, his breath easing out on a sigh.
"Oh, God, no. I can't lose you," she sobbed, her tears falling, warm drops on his cold skin. "I love you."
As I love you.
He tried to speak the words. He needed to. But he no longer had the strength. So he looked at her, willing her to see all the love he had for her in his eyes.
Then, slowly, the dragon heart within his chest beat once, twice.
And then no more.
CHAPTER 38
Jill opened her eyes to find her own startled image staring back at her. She had to blink several times before she realized where—and when—she was.
She stood on a sidewalk, facing the plate glass window of a storefront, staring at a reflection of herself, tearful and pale, in its mirrored surface.
She didn't understand. She spun around and looked at all the people passing by on the street. There was no mistaking it. She was back where she started. Back in Carytown, with its eclectic shops and cozy cafés.
Back in the twenty-first century.
How had this happened? How did she get back to her time? And if she was here, where was everybody else? Where was Roderick? Owen?
Where was Baelin?
She turned around and examined the store in front of her. "World of Mirth" was printed in colorful letters across the large display window. Life-sized stuffed animals and elaborately painted marionettes, magic kits and erector sets stood on display behind the glass. It was the toy store she'd been looking for before everything went crazy and her life had changed forever.
Or had it?
Had any time passed at all? Had everything been a wild figment of her imagination? A vivid hallucination experienced all within a few seconds of hitting her head on the window? But she'd never had a dream seem so real, or experienced such devastation, such loss, upon awakening.
Then she examined her reflection for the second time. Clutched in her hands was a piece of fabric. A piece of fabric she would know anywhere.
The tapestry.
And she wasn't wearing the blouse and slacks she'd had on when she went shopping for Zoe's present. She was wearing a torn and tattered medieval gown. A gown with dried bloodstains marring the faded saffron wool.
Baelin's blood.
Jill closed her eyes to the sight of it, fighting back tears, but feeling them stream down her cheeks all the same.
She hadn't imagined it all. She had gone back in time. Baelin was real.
And he had given his life to save her.
She wanted to curl in on herself and give into the misery drowning her from the inside out.
Then raw determination gave her new-found strength. No, she would not let it end this way. She had to find the vintage clothing store. She had to find that crazy sales lady who'd given her the tapestry fragment and figure out how to get back to Baelin, to a time before he sacrificed everything for her so she could stop him from doing it again.
She ran up and down the sidewalk on both sides, searching for the shop with the moth-eaten clothes and creepy mannequin sitting at the front window drinking tea, but she couldn't find it anywhere.
Confused, she ended up back where she started, standing in front of the toy store.
But that couldn't be right. This was where the vintage clothing shop had been. She was sure of it. She looked around once more. Yes, there on each side was yarn store and the cosmetics boutique, just as she remembered. So where was the vintage clothing shop and that mysterious little saleslady?
She barged into the toy store and went straight up to a young woman with a short, choppy haircut and heavy black-rimmed eyes standing behind the counter.
"Can I help you?" the clerk asked, eying her blood-spattered gown.
"Didn't there used to be a vintage clothing store here?"
The girl shook her head, sunlight glinting off the silver stud in her nose. "I don't think so."
"No, I'm sure of it. Bygone Treasures or something like that. A tiny old lady with coke bottle glasses ran it." Jill tapped the glass counter with her index finger. "It was right here. I was in it just a month ago."<
br />
Goth girl arched her black brows, taking in Jill's medieval gown and disheveled hair, and gave her a great-I've-got-another-crazy-customer look. "Sorry, but this store has been here for twenty years. As far as I know, there's never been a vintage clothing store at this location. Ever."
No! That wasn't true.
Jill stumbled out of the store into the bright afternoon sun. She turned around on the sidewalk and looked at the toy-filled display window in disbelief. It didn't make sense. How could it not be here? It was as if the entire store had vanished off the face of the earth. Or that it had never existed at all.
She knew it had been real, just as she knew with all of her heart Baelin had been real, too.
But if she couldn't find the shop, she would not be able to find the saleslady and the strange little woman was her only hope of finding Baelin again, if he was still alive.
Jill found herself standing at a street corner, not completely certain how she got there. She didn't have the will to walk one more step. She didn't want to take one more breath. She leaned against the lamp post, needing its firm support before she collapsed in a puddle on the sidewalk among the torn flyers and discarded cigarette butts.
A flapping sound pricked her ears and a passing shadow crossed her face. Her heart leapt in her throat. Could it be a dragon knight—her dragon knight—soaring through the sky?
She looked up, hope giving her wild imagination wings. But that hope came crashing to the ground when she saw the real cause. A banner decorating the lamp post flapped in the warm afternoon breeze, the vivid red watermelon on a bright yellow background mocking her with its whimsical display.
But the watermelon banners were for the big Watermelon Festival held every year in mid-August. When she'd gone shopping, the Fourth of July banners were still up. Proof yet again that she had lost an entire month out of her life.
Jill shuffled over to an empty bench and sat down, clutching the tapestry to her chest, hugging it to her like a child seeking comfort from a stuffed animal. She held it for the longest time, afraid to look at it. Afraid of what she might find woven within its magical threads.
But she knew she had to look, because it was the only way she would know for sure.
With trembling fingers, she unrolled it on her lap and just as she knew she would find, the tapestry had changed. The knight in the tapestry now wore no helm and his face was clear to see. A face so dear to her heart, she sobbed at the sight of it.
Baelin.
The dragon was still in the tapestry too, only now it lay dead at Baelin's feet, the knight's sword piercing its heart.
Overwhelming joy drew the breath from her lungs. He was alive! Sweet Jesus, he was alive.
But one thing was missing. There was no sign of Jill in the tapestry anymore. A ragged edge ran from top to bottom, separating the knight from where the maiden's figure should be. Her throat grew tight, constricted by the pain of losing him all over again.
"No!" she cried. "It's not fair!"
She wanted to damn whatever unseen force had torn them apart as surely as it had rent the threads of the weaving.
Her tears fell on the tapestry, dampening the ancient threads. She felt a sense of loss so acute she wanted to scream from the agony of it all. She knew in her heart Baelin was alive and free from the curse that had held him for so long. The tapestry told her so.
But he was living eight hundred years in the past without her.
How could she have gone through everything she had only to lose him in the end? She would gladly go back and endure it all again if she could just hold him in her arms one more time.
Lost in her misery, she paid little attention to the blare of car horns and people shouting around her until the commotion became too loud to ignore. When she looked up through bleary eyes, she could barely make out a tall form coming down the middle of the street, causing a major traffic jam. When the moving object came into focus, Jill's heart soared.
A knight, dressed in full chain mail, strode down the middle of Cary Street, brandishing his sword at the veering cars attempting to swerve around him.
Baelin.
She stood and clutched the tapestry to her chest.
"Hey, nut case. Get out of the damn street!" someone shouted behind her.
Baelin turned his head her way and their eyes locked. She was afraid to move, afraid if she so much as blinked he would disappear again before her eyes.
But he didn't. He sheathed his sword and charged toward her, one car nearly hitting him before he vaulted over its hood, the links of his mail carving deep scratches in the shiny red paint.
Before she could draw breath, he snatched her up and crushed her in his arms. When she finally pulled back, her fingers caressed his handsome face as tears streamed down her cheeks.
"You're here. I can't believe you're here."
"Aye, wherever here 'tis." He touched his forehead to hers and drew in a shaky breath. "When you faded away before my eyes, I knew I was dying. I never thought to see you again. Then I awoke to find myself surrounded by these strange metal beasts and angry people shouting at me."
Jill chuckled. "Welcome to my world."
Then she sobered, taking in every angle of his face, every inch of his tall, strong form. "Your dragon wings are gone."
"Aye. The curse is broken. I am a man whole now." He wiped away her tears before crushing her to him again, and commencing a kiss that was probably against the law to display in public in at least twenty states.
"A-hem."
At the soft clearing of a throat next to her, Jill reluctantly broke the kiss. She looked down and gasped, surprised to find the strange munchkin lady from the vintage clothing store standing next to them, grinning with a self-satisfied smile.
"I hope you enjoyed your trip, Jill." She grinned wider, deepening the wrinkles creasing her weathered face, and turned her attention to Baelin. "And Sir Baelin, it's so good to see you looking more yourself these days."
Jill and Baelin exchanged confused glances.
Clo held out her hand. "I'll need that tapestry back now, if you don't mind."
Jill gripped the tapestry tighter. Strange, it'd been such a burden to carry for the past four weeks, but now it seemed so much a part of her she was reluctant to let it go.
As if reading her mind, the tiny woman shook her head. "Don't worry, you won't be needing it anymore."
She eased the tapestry from Jill's hand and held it up, the weaving now almost as large as the munchkin lady herself.
Jill's breath caught. Since the last time she'd looked at it, only moments before Baelin had appeared on the street, it had changed. Now the maid was back in the weaving, standing next to her knight.
"I don't understand. We never passed the final test. How can the curse be broken?"
"Oh, but you did, my dear. By giving his life for the woman he loves, Baelin ended the witch's power over him. And when you offered your heart for his, well… Suffice it to say, there's more than one way to slay a dragon. In the end you both displayed bravery, honor, sacrifice, and unconditional love—virtues no curse could ever withstand."
Clo heaved a heavy sigh, a smile of pride on her cherubic face.
"The tapestry is finished, this part of the story now complete." She started rolling up the weaving with more ease than it should take for someone who looked so small and frail. "Now, a new tapestry has begun for you both. Mind you, there will still be plenty of tests and challenges to pass, as there are for each and every one of us who draw breath in this world. But like all who have come before you and all who will come after, you must face them as they present themselves, on your own. You won't need to see them woven in threads to guide you through the rest of your lives."
"But what about Roderick and Owen? What happened to them?" Jill asked.
"Oh, they're where they should be." She tucked the tapestry under her arm and gave it a little pat. "Besides, they have tapestries of their own to weave and there is yet plenty of thread left to tell the
ir stories."
The strange old woman smiled once more before she turned and walked away, leaving the knight and his lady standing on the crowded sidewalk to stare after her.
"I'm not sure I understand what just happened."
"Nor I, my lady."
She turned to Baelin, searching his eyes. "But one thing I do know is that you died in my arms."
"But I did not." He brushed her hair away from her face with gentle fingers and tucked it behind her ears. "For the first time in over two centuries, I am truly alive."
"But how? You killed the other dragon. You stabbed it through your human heart."
"I do not know. Mayhap my heart was never in the dragon's breast at all, but captured within the magical threads of the tapestry all along." He shook his head. "We will probably never know."
He gazed into her eyes and she saw herself reflected in their warm chocolate depths. The dragon's fire that once danced within them was gone, replaced by the warmth and love of the man with her now.
"All I do know is that I have my own heart back."
Baelin placed her hand on his chest, where she felt his human heart beating within, strong and sure.
"And now I give it to you."
Coming Soon
Roderick's story
Book Two of the Bestiary Series
Out of the Ashes
2013 EPIC Award Winner for
Best Paranormal Romance
Theirs was a love destined to be — torn apart by the wrath of Vesuvius
Pompeii, AD 79
David and Sera are soul mates meant to be together, if only their bumbling guardian angels could do their job right...
First united in Pompeii as a privileged merchant's daughter and a slave gladiator, their young love is cut short when Vesuvius unexpectedly erupts. After several botched attempts, their angels get one final chance to bring the couple together and personally escort them back to war-torn Italy, nearly two thousand years later.