by Einat Segal
I gaze up just as Landon explodes. The eagle-headed gryphon is too bright to look at, its light searing my brain, forcing me to lower my eyes. It roars, and I hear myself whimper. I look at it again just in time to see a wave of fire rolling off its body right toward me. I can do nothing but lift my arms. I open my mouth to scream, but the heat of the fire burns my throat.
And that was how Sophie Green died—stupidly.
Not.
I open one eye to see a red man-sized lizard standing on its hind legs over me, the fire stopping right in front of it as if held against an invisible wall. It’s facing the gryphon who is, at this moment, clutching the ceiling with its front claws. “You idiot!” shouts the lizard in Charlie’s voice. “You nearly killed Sophie.”
That’s right. He nearly killed me. He nearly killed me. It’s my fault. I’m supposed to be a smart girl. I don’t play with fire. I get my shaky legs beneath me and drag myself out of the room. “Landon, you ass,” I shout hoarsely behind me.
“I’m sorry! Sophie! I’m so sorry!” I hear Landon call desperately after me as I falter down the corridor. Away, away, as far away as I can get.
I can’t believe I’m this stupid.
My knees buckle. The ugly grey carpeting rushes up to meet me.
I don’t feel anything when I hit the floor.
* * *
I wake up alone in someone else’s bed. The first thing I do is check underneath the covers to see if I’m wearing anything.
I’ve got clothes on, but they aren’t my clothes. Looks like someone dressed me up in a white silk blouse and a grey pencil skirt. The clothes are tight and not the type I’d want to be sleeping in.
Well, this is awkward.
I sit up and look around myself. It’s a big fancy room with hardwood flooring and large paintings on the walls. Each painting features a fire-breathing dragon in different positions. The narcissism runs strong with Sutherland. By how neat and impersonal everything is, I don’t think this is actually where the dragon sleeps, but the decor screams at me that this room belongs to him. Even the brass bases of the bedside lamps are shaped like coiling dragons.
The flames rushing toward me flash through my mind, along with the monstrous gryphon hanging from the ceiling, brandishing its beak. The worst of it is that I’ve got no one but myself to blame. This is what I get for coming here. I see a pattern in myself, something I do when the going gets rough—I always escape to the next convenient thing.
I ran from Shawn’s sincerity to Landon’s bed. I ran from monsters to Shawn’s arms. I ran from my dad’s death to this place. I keep slipping away instead of standing firm and facing things that come.
I refuse to ponder what this says about me.
To live with myself, I have to love myself, and I doubt that my behavior is the kind I can fix. Maybe I’ve always been this way, only the stakes have never been this high before. This is me. Oh well, big deal.
I’m great.
I step barefoot over expensive Persian rugs, opening the door and walking into the next room. It’s a sitting room with exactly the same kind of generic dragon decor. Derek’s there, and he stands when he sees me. “Morning, sunshine.” He’s grinning. I can’t trust that grin of his.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Four after midnight.”
“Any particular reason I’m dressed like a lawyer?” I ask, stretching out my arms in case Derek didn’t see. My hair is still a little damp and smelling of lavender-scented shampoo. I don’t ask him who washed and dressed me. Some things are better not talked about.
“Mr. Sutherland likes it when women wear suits, and your clothes were too dirty.”
I shrug. It’s such a rich guy move to randomly dress a girl however he likes. Well, he does give off the impression of someone who sees other people as props. “Where’re my shoes and car keys?”
Derek points at a pair of grey high-heeled pumps placed side by side by the door to the bedroom. I give him a dark look.
He has the nerve to continue being impeccably hot. “They’re the shoes that go with your outfit. You have a matching blazer too, if you want it.”
“You know how hard running in heels is?”
“Why would you need to run? You’re in the lap of luxury now, Sophie Green.”
“I’m in a dragon’s lair,” I say, putting my hands on my hips. “And I’d like the option of running.”
“Running from a dragon on those puny little twigs you call legs? As if your shoes will make any difference.”
“Derek, I’m beginning to hate you,” I say. But whatever, I’m out of here. I slip my feet into the shoes. They’re extremely uncomfortable and pinch my heels. “My car keys?”
“You’re leaving?”
Ah. There it is—trouble. “I can’t?”
“You most definitely can. I just don’t think that’d be wise.”
I groan. “I’m done, okay? I’m done. It was my mistake coming here. I’m lucky to be alive. Just tell Sutherland that I tried my best to help Landon, but as it happens, my best doesn’t work. I’m going home now, and fuck all of you.”
“It didn’t work?” Derek asks, perplexed. “What didn’t work, Sophie Green?”
“Don’t fuck with me, hobgoblin.”
A smile stretches across his face, and his arms fall to his sides. He cocks his head at me politely. “Mr. Sutherland is satisfied with what you have done. As is the custom among immortals, a favor is returned for a favor made. Unfortunately, being a mere human, you are not equal to him, and therefore, you do not get to choose the favor returned. But rest assured, Sophie Green, that Mr. Sutherland is wise and will give you something that will be of immense value to you. It will be something you most certainly need.”
“Like my car keys?” I try.
Derek crosses the sitting room and reaches for a knob in the middle of the wall, yanking open a door that I swear wasn’t there a second ago. “Right this way,” he says, gesturing at the opening. All I see beyond the doorway is darkness. They’re playing the dark-room game with me again. Don’t they get it yet? I don’t fall for that one.
I smirk. “After you.”
“Ladies first,” Derek insists.
“Like I’d buy that.”
Derek grunts. “This is for your own good, Sophie Green.”
I cross my arms. “I’m waiting here until you give me my car k—”
You know how in cartoons when they whisk people away with a giant hooked cane? That’s what this is like, except the cane is invisible. My head flies back and the air leaves my lungs as I’m pulled into the dark opening by an invisible force that wraps around my midsection. The door closes with a bang behind me. Coughing for air, I spin around and look at a blank expanse of wall where the door should be.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
I turn away from the white wall and look around myself. The room I’m in is completely dark, but there’s a dim light coming from the next room where the door stands ajar. I look to my left at the window where New York’s lights are quietly twinkling under a greying dawn sky. I’m still in Sutherland’s tower but somewhere lower down.
I’m reeling with the sense of outrage at being forced to do things I didn't choose to do. But a part of me is curious to know what the dragon thinks I need. With my heartbeat drumming in my ears, I cross the dark, empty room toward the light, my shoes clicking over the wooden floor.
“Who’s there?” says a voice.
I groan inside my mind. This has got to be some joke. I stop moving and quietly seethe. Why did I think that these monsters would have any idea about humans? Even though, from what I gathered, they’re all born human in the beginning, they’re so far removed from the big, hot mess called humanity that they couldn’t find it with a GPS.
Something shifts in the other room. I hear the slow pad of feet on the floor. “I can smell you, Sophie,” he says.
Well, it’s not like there’s a way out of here. “Cool,” I say.
“He made yo
u come here?”
“Yup.”
“And you wouldn’t have come if you were given an option?” he asks ruefully.
“I guess now we’ll never know.”
I hear his breathing as he steps up to the other side of the door. He doesn’t come any closer. He stands there for a moment. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I reply honestly.
“Sophie,” he says from the other room.
I feel a tug behind my heart, the little rush at the back of my head and the weakening of my knees. I’m still affected when he says my name, despite everything that happened.
“You did it. You saved me.”
What am I supposed to feel when someone says something like that to me? I blink at the darkness, and I’m thankful that a wall separates us. “Honestly . . .”
“This sphinx magic is still giving me trouble, but what you did helped me tip the scale in my favor. I’m winning.”
“Good,” I say drily. Kicking off my shoes, I pad toward the window and sit on the floor underneath it with my back supported by the wall. I’m just going to wait here until Derek lets me out. They won’t keep me here forever.
“You opened the letter,” he says.
“Great good that did me.” I wanted to run away from what was happening in my life. I didn’t necessarily want to be with Landon again.
Silence. I can almost hear him thinking.
“Do you hate me, Sophie?”
Why’d he have to ask that question? “I’ve been trying to . . .” I muse aloud. It should be easy to hate him after everything. I hate magic. I hate monsters. I hate everything here.
“But you can’t?” he asks.
“No, I can’t,” I reply coldly.
He chuckles. “It’s because you love me.”
I snort. “Dream on, beak-brain.” I shake my head, dismissing the thought. “I barely know you, and I don’t trust you. I’m not the kind of girl who falls in love.”
“That’s just your head talking, Sophie,” he tells me. “But in your heart, it’s danger that makes your soul sing brightly and your blood burn. You love me.”
Landon has never talked this way to me before. He was always smooth, and yes, hot. But still sweet on the verge of being dorky. Now he’s raw. His words hit a nerve. At the low murmur of his voice, shivers run down my back and goosebumps rise over my skin. There’s something dark in here with us, dark, mysterious, and terrible.
And I feel alive.
“I’m going to stick with dull and normal,” I say, despite the excitement coursing down my legs. I haven’t felt like this in weeks.
“You’ll never be normal, Sophie, never. You’re too beautiful for normal, too much of a wonder. You can learn the steps of their stupid dance; you can even sing their silly song.” Landon’s voice takes up a different quality. It doesn’t sound like he’s in the other room anymore, but I don’t know where he is; it’s like he's everywhere. “You’ll be your own oppressor, your greatest denier, and your ultimate destroyer.”
And he appears crouched before me. His eyes are glowing, gold irises emitting a soft light that captures my gaze and makes it impossible to look away. He cups my face with both his hands. “I love you, Sophie,” he whispers, and bends his lips to mine.
He kisses me, and I’m completely helpless. All the thoughts I want to be thinking rush out of my mind. I haven’t had sex in so long, and he’s not wearing a shirt. The shape of his arms, the smell of his skin, his muscles, his flesh. It’s too much for me to handle. I know I’m being seduced and running away from things that I should be facing. I know he isn’t giving me any time or space to think. He’s forcing my body to take control. He’s not asking for permission; he’s just turning on my desires, making me burn.
My arousal, his arousal, it gets the better of me. He rips away the buttons of my blouse, sliding the straps of a fish-net bra that isn’t even mine off my shoulders so he can bend his head to my breasts. He hitches up my skirt. He makes it all real. I shiver, and a moan rises through me.
Oh, this is bad. This is good. This is all there is.
That dragon was the fucking wingman.
13
I Hate to Ask
I still hate the world, even though technically, by saving Landon, I may have just saved it.
All this love, though. To be loved. Some girls are born for it, but what’s wrong with me? Why doesn’t the word “love” excite me?
Is he right, though? Do I love him? I don’t know, don’t care. I just go with it. Pretty dumb, huh? I’m sleeping with a monster. It’s not my place to nitpick. Or maybe the monster is me. I’m the bad one.
I can’t stop myself from thinking about Shawn while Landon’s inside me. It’s just one moment. Just one thought. I don’t hold it against myself.
I’m not quite wired like other people are, but I like myself all the same.
“So, what’s your plan?” I ask. My mom is spending Saturday with her sister. Aunt Jenny and I can’t get along very well. We’re like fire and water. I called to tell Mom not to expect me. Landon and I have some catching up to do, anyway. We don’t get out of bed for hours.
“My plan?”
“You know, to save magic or whatever. Sutherland said you had a plan.”
“Oh. Well.” He turns over onto his stomach, raising his upper body on his elbows, and looks thoughtfully at his pillow. “It’s kind of complicated.”
“Hey, you know, I’m pretty smart for a human. You should try me.”
He looks me over and chuckles. “Okay. I’ll give it a shot. Did you hear about the Black Death?”
“I heard a whole lot about the Black Death.”
“Most of the dragons were wiped out during the war. Dragons are the source. They make magic out of . . . oblivion. It’s almost like trees and photosynthesis. Usually, if we die, we reincarnate, but to defeat the Black Death and his Ivory Gryphon, we used a substantial amount of magic to destroy the memory of their true names, and then, as a result—”
“Hold on, how does the reincarnation thing work? Sutherland said something about power through memory . . .”
Landon nods his head. “Yes, all our lives are linked through memory. What ties it all together is our true name. My true name is Orien, and it wasn’t until I remembered my name that I came to my full power. It takes time. There’s a lot to recall. If I die and no one of those remaining alive in the world can remember my true name, I won’t reincarnate, and everything that I am will be lost forever.”
I turn onto my stomach as well, mimicking Landon. “You made everyone forget the Black Death’s name so he wouldn’t reincarnate?”
“Yes, but the price we paid was incredibly high.” He continues to stare at his pillow, but he’s wearing a far-off expression. It’s the same expression that Sutherland wore when he talked about the war. I wonder what having a memory that goes so far is like. I can barely remember last week when my dad was still alive. “In the un-naming of the Black Death, there wasn’t enough magic to sustain the memory of the other dragons that had died in the final battle, and they were all lost. We wiped the dragons out, you understand? We wanted to win, but in the end, we destroyed ourselves. Now all the magic in the world is created by five small dragons, and it isn’t enough to sustain the reincarnation. We’re all fading, and most of us are living our last lives now.”
“And what’s your plan?” All this talk about wars and destruction is elevating my mood. I’m positively perky.
He gives me a funny look. “I plan to awaken magic again. There are still pockets of it, but they’re hidden and hibernating. I created a lens that only gryphons can use that will help me find them and unleash them. I wouldn’t need to find many at first, just enough to tip the scale.”
“Sounds smart.” Yeah, I know, he’s over-simplifying it for me. “Why haven’t you done it yet? What’re you waiting for?”
He moves his head from one side to the other. “I found a few of these “pockets,” but reaching them is another t
hing entirely. We haven’t completely figured that one out yet, and my enemies keep getting in my way. There’s another faction of immortals—wyverns, sphinxes, and some others—who can’t seem to grasp that destroying me means destroying everything.”
I blink. Oh, crap. He’s lying to me. There’s a lie somewhere in there. I don’t know how I know. I just have a strange feeling crawling over my skin. “Your lens, that’s what that white wyvern was looking for?”
“Shaldorn? He was looking for something?”
I nod. “He was furious that I didn’t have it. But if I had it, would I know?”
“You don’t have it, and he won’t find it. I hid it somewhere no one could expect.”
“Where?” I ask.
Landon smiles cryptically at me. “I’m the only one who knows, and it’s better to keep it that way.”
I’m uneasy. There’s another question I need to ask, but I don’t want to ask it. I’m scared he will lie to me, but I’m also worried that he’ll tell me the truth.
He doesn’t let me mull this over. He turns onto his back and pulls me on top of him. “Break time is over,” he says, grinning.
He’s ready for it again? I love it when he wants me. But it isn’t fair; he’s a supernatural creature. I’m already sore. “Little mortal here may need a longer break. And maybe a small nap too.”
“But I want you now. I can’t wait,” he purrs. Ah, my darling.
“That’s a problem.”
His arms tighten around me. A tingle that’s almost electric goes through my whole body. “Not anymore,” he says, satisfied.
Right, right, magic to solve all problems—what more could a girl ask for?
* * *
On Sunday, my family and I go up to look at my dad’s unmarked grave. The grave only gets a headstone after thirty days. It’s another Jewish custom. It’s unreal to revisit my grief after I managed to distract myself of it so well yesterday. My eyes are dry, but so is my throat.
And so is my heart.
I wish it all had meaning, for the grief and the confusion to fit somewhere in the scheme of things. I wish someone—maybe Landon—could break the shell that’s around my heart. Maybe with time, piece by piece, he can chip away at my oblivion and create magic out of me.