A Dragon's Heart: (Dragons of Paragon - Book 1)

by Jan Dockter

  “Dad,” she said, slowly getting to her feet. So she had seen him in the park, after all! But he was just as young as she remembered him. The grey hair at his temples had not spread in nearly ten years and his face was no more wrinkled than the one smiling at Ashe in her photograph. She couldn’t believe her own eyes.

  David approached her cautiously, as if afraid she would run away. He stopped a few feet off and attempted a smile. It looked more like a grimace. “I’m so sorry for everything,” he said.

  “Where were you?” Ashe asked, her voice cracking. Wherever he had been, he must have been taking good care of himself. He had not aged a day in all that time. Ashe’s first instinct was to run. It had to be a trick of some sort, a terrible trap.

  “I have a lot of things to explain,” her father replied. “I know you probably hate me.”

  “Is it really you?”

  David took a small step closer. “Yeah, Ashe. It’s me.”

  Ashe hugged her arms to her chest, feeling a sudden sharp sense of longing. “I don’t hate you,” she found herself saying through tears. “I just want to know where you’ve been. Why did you leave us?”

  David wiped a tear from his own eye before replying, “I know you won’t believe everything I say, but I want you to listen to me. Whatever I tell you, I’m not lying.” He closed the gap between them as he talked and Ashe did not move away from him. Though she had thought she hated him all these years, now she only felt a deep loneliness and the childish desire to be hugged and comforted.

  “You don’t know this, but weeks before I left you I had a car accident on the way to work,” David started.

  “If you’re going to lie to me you don’t have to waste your breath,” Ashe muttered. Her dad had walked out on her. This had nothing to do with some accident.

  David winced. “Please, just listen. You can judge me all you want afterwards.”

  Ashe bit back her sharp words and allowed her father to continue. Ashe did not believe him for one second, as he told her an impossible story about vampires and coming back from the dead. The hatred she had harbored for him came rushing back. Did he really think he could soothe her with a bedtime story? She wasn’t thirteen anymore, she was a grown woman now. But her father wouldn’t know that, as he had missed her growing up.

  “I know you don’t believe me, but I have proof,” he said. He opened his arms as if to embrace her. Ashe shied away. What proof could he have of such blatant lies?

  “I don’t have a heartbeat,” he said. “Listen.”

  Ashe eyed him suspiciously, but the thirteen-year-old part of her secretly wanted that hug whether or not he was fooling her. She leaned into her father’s arms, letting her ear rest against the center of his chest. She couldn’t hear a heartbeat and moved a little to the side. Still no sound. His lungs, too, were motionless. It wasn’t possible. She pushed herself away from her father.

  “No,” was all she could say. She felt like she was breaking apart inside.

  “I know it’s a lot to process, Ashe,” her father said. There was nothing but compassion in his voice. “But it’s true. I’m a vampire. I left you and your mother so that you would be safe and I didn’t leave a note so you wouldn’t go searching for me.”

  Ashe broke out in sobs and crumpled to the ground. She couldn’t believe any of this was happening. Vampires weren’t real; they were stupid stories in Professor Sharp’s books. They were superstitions that the illiterate people of the Middle Ages believed in. Her father couldn’t be a vampire. He just couldn’t.

  David wrapped his arms around Ashe and let her cry until she was spent. Once her sobs died down, she could once again sense the eerie silence in her father’s chest. There was no denying her own senses. All of it was real, including the fatherly protectiveness of his embrace. Whatever he was doing back in her life, he wasn’t here to hurt her.

  He helped her to her feet just as the clouds above let out their first drops of rain. Ashe led him towards the shelter of the cathedral, but David hung back.

  “I can’t,” he said shamefully and Ashe realized her mistake. A vampire couldn’t go into a house of God.

  Instead they huddled together under the eaves of the student center. There were no other people outside, everyone having already sought shelter from the pouring rain. To anyone looking at them from the outside, they appeared as any other father and daughter catching up on college life and chatting about home. Only Ashe could notice the dark circles under her father’s eyes and the pale cast to his skin that had not been there before. She tried not to think of the dead silence of the man’s heart.

  “What have you been doing all this time?” Ashe asked. She was now able to look at him without crying.

  David put his hands into his coat pockets. “I, uh, sell you-know-what to folks like me so they don’t have to hurt anyone trying to get it.”

  “You mean blood,” Ashe said without flinching. She was testing out the new boundaries of her reality. She wanted to know just how much of the myths were true.

  “Yes,” David replied. “But I’m out. I promise. I’ll get a real job, something on the night shift. I’ve got you and your mother to think about now. I mean… I’m ready to come back if you’ll let me?”

  “You’re not dangerous?”

  “No, I promise. The first few years were rocky, but I’m used to it now. It’ll take a little adjusting but nothing us Linfields can’t weather.”

  “Mom’s going to lose it,” Ashe said, managing a smile despite the situation.

  “I’m sure she will,” her father smiled back. “I’m just glad to see you’ve grown to be such a fine young woman. I’m sorry I missed most of it.”

  Ashe shrugged away his compliment, feeling happy about it nevertheless.

  “By the way, you don’t have a boyfriend by any chance, do you?”

  “Really?” Ashe asked. She couldn’t believe that after nearly a decade of not seeing each other, that was his main concern. But the question reminded her of something else.

  She said, “I thought I saw you with someone I know the other day, in the park. He’s a student here. His name’s Peter.”

  Her father’s face went pale under the shadow of his hat. “Is he important to you?”

  “You know him?” Ashe asked, almost afraid of the answer.

  “I used to supply blood to his clan. But like I said, I’m done with that. No matter what it takes, I’m done working for the other vampires.”

  Ashe could feel reality slipping away again. “He can’t be,” she moaned. Ashe thought about his pale skin, the dark circles under his eyes, and the almost preternatural physical ability he possessed. He had been too quick saving her from the falling crane, though at the time she had thought nothing of it. His hands were cold, too. Ashe didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was staring her in the face.

  She felt a fresh stab of betrayal and the beginnings of anger starting to bubble up from the new wound.

  “Why didn't he tell me?” Ashe asked.

  “He probably didn’t want you to be hurt when you found out the truth about me, and about himself,” David replied. “If he cared about you, he would have done everything to protect you from the dark world we live in. It’s the same reason I left and why it took me all these years to finally come back.”

  Peter had been keeping an important secret from her all this time, lying to her face that he had been alone in the park that day, and that he didn’t know her father. She didn’t care if he thought he was trying to protect her. She had spilled her heart out to him and he had repaid her in deceit. If David hadn’t come to find Ashe on his own, she would probably have never reconciled with her father and could not have started the process of healing from her past. Ashe could never forgive Peter, or any of the other vampires. They had tricked her and tricked her father, taking him away from her when she was only a child and keeping him from her even when they knew he had a family here. They were monsters.

  Angry tears stung Ashe’s face
. “I—I need some time to process all of this,” Ashe said, turning away from her father.

  He put a comforting hand on her back but she took a step away, feeling an instinctive revulsion against his touch. Her father was one of them, and though Ashe loved him dearly, right now she couldn’t bear to be near him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just need to be alone right now.”

  David sighed. “I understand. I’m here whenever you need me. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Ashe stepped out from under the eaves of the student center, not caring about the cold rain pouring down on her and chilling her to the bone. If she caught a cold, so much the better, Ashe thought. It would be a good excuse to miss school for a few days and avoid having to see Peter. She didn’t know if she could even look him in the face again after what her father had told her.

  She thought about Peter’s friend Landon and wondered if he knew that Peter was a vampire. She doubted it. Landon seemed to be the only honest person Ashe knew, having told Ashe of Peter’s true feelings toward her. Ashe didn’t care anymore if Peter liked her or not, she was never going to speak to him again. He could live out the centuries alone and miserable for all she cared.

  It rained for three solid days and in that time Ashe had seen neither hide nor hair of Peter. In truth, she had been actively trying to avoid him, not only turning off her phone but also taking detours between classes to stay away from places she might have run into him. She no longer studied in the music building, or the student center, and kept away from the churchyard entirely. Instead, she had filled up her schedule with work shifts and used the slow hours at the bookstore to complete her readings and start researching for her term papers. Landon had come by a few times, just to say hello, and though Ashe had reservations about him being a friend of Peter’s, she nevertheless appreciated his company. Once he brought her coffee and his hand had been warm when she touched it. The warmth reassured Ashe that he was human.

  Her father, too, had been slowly integrating himself back into Ashe’s life. Ashe’s mother had been struck dumb by the sudden reappearance of her unaged husband and had nearly sent him out the door with a black eye the first night. Luckily Ashe had been there to help calm her down and explain everything. Ashe had felt more than a little satisfaction at being one step ahead of her mother on all of this vampire business. She had simply sat and listened like a dumb child while Ashe and her father tried to ease her into the idea that the world was not so mundane as she had believed. She was still trying to process all of it, but at least she was letting David sleep on the sofa for the time being. Small steps, Ashe thought.

  The rain was coming down in an intermittent drizzle, just enough to be annoying but not quite enough to warrant an umbrella. Ashe should have been researching for Professor Sharp’s paper, but tales of bloodsuckers were the last things Ashe wanted to think about right now. She skirted the dead construction area of the library, taking the long way around campus to get to the English department building. She wanted to see if her literature professor had posted the book assignments for the final paper yet. She was crossing her fingers for Jane Austen, but she would have settled for one of Oscar Wilde’s lighter comedies. She wanted something grounded in reality, but humorous enough to keep her mind from wandering into its darker corners.

  There was someone waiting at the front steps of the red brick English department building. He had on a long wool coat and a hood was pulled up over his head to keep the rain off. Ashe recognized his tall, thin frame and the way he brushed the lock of dark hair to the side as he jogged up to meet her. Ashe turned abruptly, no longer interested in visiting the English building. She hurried across campus towards the one place Peter couldn’t follow her.

  Peter called after her, but she didn't slow. Her face was set into a scowl and her eyes were trained ahead. She could hear Peter struggling to catch up with her, but she only walked faster. He was maybe ten feet behind her when she hurried up the steps to the cathedral. The bell was ringing the hour, its clanging drowning out Peter’s pleas for her to stop. Ashe didn’t know if the dampness on her face was from the rain or her own tears, but her hand was shaking as she wrenched open the heavy wooden door to the cathedral. She glanced behind herself just as the last peal rang out over the quad and saw Peter standing at the foot of the steps with a conflicted look on his face. He didn’t seem willing to let her go, and she wondered if he even knew she was aware of his betrayal.

  “Where are you going?” Peter asked.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Ashe shouted back. “Just leave me alone.”

  Peter looked confused, his brows furrowing into concern as he tried to make sense of her cold attitude.

  “If this is about the other day, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to leave you like that. I also never meant to hurt you.”

  He really sounded like he meant it. It only made Ashe angrier. “I know what you are,” Ashe spat through her tears. “I know you’re a vampire. My father came to me and told me all about you. He told me why he had to leave. Your kind took him away from me.”

  Peter looked as though he would be sick. He teetered where he stood as the meaning of Ashe’s words sank in. “I don’t know what you mean,” he replied, his words hollow and unconvincing.

  “Then come up here and we’ll talk,” Ashe said, knowing Peter couldn’t take a step closer. Her father had told her vampires couldn’t enter churches. She wanted Peter to admit what he was to her face.

  “Let’s go somewhere quiet and talk about this,” Peter pleaded. “We can go to the café, or the student center. Somewhere warm.”

  Ashe leaned against the door of the church, propping it open with the weight of her body. Peter moved to the side so that he was out of direct line of sight with the altar bearing the image of Jesus on the cross. Still, he winced as if in physical pain.

  Ashe crossed her arms in front of her chest. “If you can’t come inside the church to talk to me, then we have nothing to talk about.”

  Peter stood his ground. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Come up here and prove to me you’re not, then,” Ashe said, her voice cracking with desperation. She dared him to try and deny what they both knew to be the truth.

  “You know I can’t,” Peter said, his own voice shaky. “Please, Ashe. Let me explain myself. I wanted to protect you. I care about you.”

  Ashe took a step backwards into the church. “No you don’t. If you cared about me, you would have told me the truth. You would have told me about my father when I showed you his picture. Nearly ten years I wondered where he was, why he’d abandoned us, and that whole time in the café you knew where he was and you didn’t say anything. I hate you, and all of your kind. You’ve done nothing but hurt me and I never want to see you again.”

  The look on Peter’s face nearly made Ashe want to take back her words, but the hatred burning inside her told her he deserved it.

  “If that’s what you want, I’ll leave you alone,” Peter said, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I deserve your anger and I’m sorry for all of the lies. It was my fault for putting you in danger like that. My kind and yours are not meant to be together. You’ll never see me again, I promise. I’m gone.”

  He pulled his coat close and walked away from the church, his dark silhouette soon obscured by the rainy mist that had begun falling over the city. Ashe watched him go before retreating into the church. She thought she would feel better having confronted Peter about his betrayal, but she only felt hollow disappointment. There had still been a part of her, however small, that had believed Peter to be innocent. She had wanted him to follow her into the church and prove he wasn’t a vampire. She wanted to believe he was good.

  Ashe took a seat on one of the wooden pews in the back row. There were few other people in the church and the silence was welcome after the heated argument outside. Dim candles illuminated the altar and overhead lanterns cast their yellow light through the hall. Ashe leaned back to look up
at the vaulted ceiling, feeling lost in the cavernous space. She wondered how people all throughout history had felt when the wool was taken from their eyes and the truth of the supernatural world was revealed. Professor Sharp had no idea just how relevant his class was! He would probably be over the moon to discover the existence of vampires in the modern day. Ashe, however, only felt dread.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she quickly excused herself outside, not wanting to disturb the people trying to pray. Whoever had been trying to call gave up before Ashe could get to it and she didn’t recognize the number. Apparently they had tried to call twice, once while Ashe had been talking to Peter. She dialed the number back and waited, watching the rain drip steadily from the brown-leaved trees standing in the churchyard.

  A man picked up after a few rings. “Hey, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you. It’s Landon.”

  Ashe was surprised, but glad to hear his voice. “I’m not at the bookstore today. Did you need something?” she asked, thinking he was calling about a last-minute book he needed for finals.

  His voice came through the phone confidently, “No, I was wondering if you were free this afternoon.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Peter clutched the steering wheel hard, trying to ignore his shaking hands. He hated driving in the city, but Vanessa had insisted. She wanted to find David before the others did. She wanted first dibs on the blood. Everyone was feeling the effects of the hunger, some worse than others. Peter himself was barely hanging on to his sanity. He was almost glad Ashe didn’t want to see him. He didn’t think he could control himself if he were to go anywhere near her. Peter had the nagging worry that the church had been the only thing keeping him from attacking her earlier that afternoon. His thirst for blood had been that strong, but it had also weakened him enough that he had struggled to reach her in time. Maybe his curse had also been a hidden blessing. Who knows what he would have done to her, alone, and in the rain.