The Fire Eater and Her Dragon: A Dragon Rider Urban Fantasy Novel (Setting Fires with Dragons Book 3)

by S. W. Clarke

  I resisted a few steps longer, but as I glanced over my shoulder at the two combatants, I realized Grunt wasn’t just trying to spoil my fun. He was trying to protect me from something gruesome.

  We left the arena and came back through the bar. This time my eyes had adjusted to such dim light, and I could make out some of the faces seated around us ...

  One of which caught my attention.

  Over at the bar itself, a rugged brick house of a man stopped my eyes. Leather jacket, faded jeans. A mane of thick, luscious brown hair.

  As ABBA would say: Mamma Mia.

  His brown eyes surveyed the place from above a bushy beard, and he hadn’t yet spotted us. He sat on the barstool in the way a man does when he isn’t used to sitting for long, his torso turned half away from the bartender, one leg stretched long in a pair of faded jeans. His elbow rested on the counter, the drink held lazily—but without the slightest hint of falling—in his hand.

  He looked like a human, but he didn’t feel like a human.

  That was when Grunt noticed him, too. He walked right over to the bar, leaving me in the dust. “Well I’ll be a horse’s ass. I thought they made you into a GoneGodDamn constellation. What the hell are you doing here?”

  I’d never heard Grunt talk like that. He didn’t sound precisely happy to see … whoever that was. Not unhappy, but not happy, either.

  At the bar, the man stood, his whole attention coming to bear on the ogre. He must have been over six feet tall, and his large hands folded across his chest as he stared Grunt down. “Seems that when the gods left and took their magic with them, all us half-breeds became human again.” He paused. “Well, not really human. I never was, was I?”

  Grunt folded his own arms. “You mean to say that you fell back down to earth with the same ugly mug you had back in the day?”

  And here everyone thought I was the one who was going to cause problems.

  Orion lowered his chin. “Have you looked up in the sky lately and seen my belt?”

  Grunt huffed. “Your belt wasn’t any more attractive than your face.”

  The amount of machismo flying around was enough to make me choke—or to get us kicked out by a pair of minotaur guards.

  I stepped between the two males, ready to offer them both drinks on me.

  But before I could speak, Grunt stepped around me and … hugged the guy. When he glanced around to me, he slapped the guy on the back. “I was in my village when this son of a bitch came riding through. It was because of me Orion earned his toe.”

  I just stared.

  Orion?

  The Orion?

  Grunt turned back. “So what are you doing here? Watching the fight? That’s not your flavor.”

  Orion nodded toward a woman currently talking to the bartender some ten feet down the counter. She leaned forward, twirling a finger at the display behind the counter. Dark-haired and capable-looking—my kind of woman. “I’m here on a date.”

  I turned to him. “Are you really Orion, the great hunter?” I narrowly avoided blurting, “My mother used to tell me stories of the Greek gods at night. I knew all of them by heart.”

  Orion inclined his head, a small smile emerging. “Ayuh. And your name?”

  “Tara,” I said, almost breathless. I was unexpectedly a bit starstruck, and I slid onto the stool next to him. “You were my hero when I was six. Can I buy you a drink? Don’t worry—I’m not going to step on the pretty gal’s toes.”

  He finished off his current drink, set the glass on the counter. “Well, why not.”

  I flagged down the second bartender, let Orion choose his drink. He ordered a Jack and Coke—so manly. I made a mental note to always order a Jack and Coke when I wanted to take names.

  “I’ll take one of the same,” I said to the bartender. I glanced over at Grunt. “You?”

  “Make it three,” the ogre said.

  I nodded at the bartender. “All on my tab.”

  Orion turned his eyes to me with interest. “Didn’t expect to see a human here.”

  I gave a single-shoulder shrug, tilting my head. “Didn’t expect to be here.”

  “Why are you here, then?”

  Maybe it was because Orion had been my childhood hero, or maybe it was because I sensed he had good intentions. Either way, I decided to be honest. “I came here for information about a woman who’s kidnapped my child.”

  The drinks arrived, and Orion sat back on his seat. He ignored his Jack and Coke. “That’s a sobering thing.”

  Way to keep it light, Tara.

  “Yeah,” I picked up my drink. “Sorry.”

  He lifted his. “No—don’t be sorry for that. You’re a woman of feeling and heart, I can tell. Do you think you’ll find this kidnapper?”

  Before I knew it, I’d slipped back half of the alcohol in the glass. When I tipped my head forward, my throat burned. “Yes.”

  Orion touched his finger to the rim of his glass. “Do you know where she is?”

  “Not yet.”

  He leaned forward. “Then how do you know you’ll find her?”

  I threw back the rest of my drink, set the glass on the counter with a louder clink than I intended. I fixed Orion with blazing eyes. “Because I believe with all my heart that I will get my Percy back, or I’ll die trying.”

  Chapter 35

  Orion studied me for a time. Then he glanced over at Grunt. “Does she always talk like that?”

  Grunt looked unamused. “Always.”

  Orion chuckled. He reached into his jacket and retrieved something I couldn’t see in this light. As he held it out to me, he motioned for me to lift my palm. Then he set a thread into my hand. “I’ll tell you what, Tara. I like your conviction. You wrap this thread around whatever object you need to find its mark, and I promise you it will.”

  I stared down at the thread. “So if I wrap a bullet in this …?”

  “Hit them in the heart every time, honey.”

  I folded my fingers over the thread, glanced up. “That’s an awful powerful gift for a human like me.”

  Orion’s eyes danced. “That’s the edge of a creation crystal sticking out of your boot, isn’t it?”

  I backed my foot up under the barstool, suddenly self-conscious. “Uh …”

  He waved a hand. “I’ve got no interest in such things, except in how they affect the world. And I see a glow off you, Tara. Why is that?”

  My crush on Orion and my growing inebriation had the effect of making me painfully honest. “I was stabbed with this crystal, and now a shard of it swims around in me. It’s caused me more than a few problems.”

  In fact, the tremor and my lack of sensation had been magnified by the alcohol. I almost felt like I was swimming in the bar, watching the whole thing through a dream.

  Mariana. She was coming to the fore.

  I squeezed the thread tighter in my hand as Orion studied me, forcing myself to focus.

  “Hmm. That’s why.” He leaned forward. “I can see the power of the crystal manifesting itself in you. You are more powerful than you think—you already have the most powerful substance in the world inside you.”

  I wavered a bit on the stool before I tucked the thread into my jacket. “Don’t tell me I’m going to go all Captain Marvel and my hands will start glowing.”

  He tilted his head. “Captain who?”

  That’s right—I’d almost forgotten Orion was an Other. “She’s a tough broad with magical powers.”

  “I would like to meet this Captain Marvel, then.”

  My mind was still circling on what Orion had said a moment ago: you are more powerful than you think. It lined up with something Typhon had said.

  “Why does this crystal make me more powerful than I think?” I asked him.

  “When you talked about your child—this Percy. You told me you believed with all your heart you’d save him. That’s power.”

  Now it clicked.

  Typhon had told me the creation crystal would allow a human
to manifest their beliefs. And a bit of it was already floating around inside me. Not just the dagger in my boot, but the shard in my bloodstream.

  It had brought Mariana’s memories to the fore, but it also gave me—Tara—power.

  And this realization kicked off a new tremor inside me. Not just my hand, but in my head. Everything felt as though it was vibrating.

  I grabbed the barstool for stability.

  Orion reached out, set a hand on my knee. I felt it only faintly; even so, the fangirlish part of me almost shrieked. “Are you well?”

  My eyes met his, and he seemed to swim in my vision. Two sets of feelings contended in me: Tara idolized this man, her childhood hero; Mariana thought nothing of him, because she had never heard of the great hunter Orion.

  Tara wanted to stay here and talk to Orion longer; Mariana wanted to leave this place, to strategize with Grunt to find Lust.

  And I knew that my body—my soul—had finally reached its tipping point. Mariana had grown to encompass me. She wanted to save her daughter, and she had all the willpower in the world to do so.

  If I didn’t stop her here, she would overtake this body.

  Tara would become Mariana.

  I stood. “I have to step away to the ladies’ room.”

  Grunt set his glass on the bar. “Tara?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied, dragging my eyes over the dim room to find the sign for the bathrooms. A pink neon symbol hung over a doorway, beckoning women in. Before Grunt or Orion could say anything else, I left them there at the bar.

  I wasn’t sure if I walked with grace or stumbled my way into the bathroom. One of the encantados from upstairs had made her way down here, and now stood in front of the backlit mirror primping her thick hair.

  Her eyes drifted toward me as I staggered in. She didn’t say anything until I crossed to the sink next to her and slapped my good hand down on the granite surface for balance.

  I might have bumped into her, too. With two consciousnesses contending for dominance, I wasn’t at my most graceful.

  She stepped away with a noise of surprise. “Excuse me.”

  I met her eyes in the mirror. “Sorry. I’m a little drunk,” was the best explanation I could muster.

  A flash of sympathy crossed her face. “Is there anything …”

  I shook my head. “I just need a minute.”

  So she left me alone in the bathroom. When the door closed behind her, I locked it. I didn’t know if this would take a minute or an hour, since the mind was a formless, timeless place. And this battle would occur there, in the battlefield of my head.

  When I next found my face in the mirror, I slid off my jacket with my good hand, tossed it so gracelessly onto the countertop that my phone came sliding out of its pocket onto the counter.

  “All right,” I said to myself in the mirror. “You want to rumble for this body? I’m ready.”

  At first, nothing happened. It was just me staring at me.

  But then my face changed in the mirror. The hard, determined expression shifted to one of understated calculation. My brows lifted a little, the eyes opening. My lips didn’t purse so hard.

  And so she stared back at me in the mirror, the other woman.

  Mariana.

  She reached out to the light switch on the wall, her fingers settling over it. “We should talk elsewhere.”

  She flicked the switch, and all went dark.

  ↔

  Blackness. Pure, endless blackness.

  My hand shot out to bring the lights back on, but the switch wasn’t where it had been.

  Instead, I reached into empty air. Cold air.

  “Mariana?” I said … and my voice echoed.

  Torchlight came to life around me, whooshing to life one by one. Soon dozens of torches illuminated the four walls of a cavernous stone chamber.

  I stood in the center of a rectangular sparring ring, a fine bed of small stones beneath my feet. To my left, a rack of bladed weapons gleamed in the firelight. To my right, a wall adorned with bows long and short, and other ranged weapons I didn’t have a name for.

  And twenty feet in front of me stood Mariana.

  She wore a supple leather chestpiece, perfectly fitted leather pants and knee-high boots. Her blonde hair had been wound into a braid, which lay across her shoulder in an uncomfortably familiar way.

  She held a rapier in her right hand, its tip touching the gravel.

  So our time had finally come. I should have known it would always happen like this—duking it out inside my head. A knock-down, drag-out fight to the end.

  At my sides, I sensed Thelma and Louise. They were all I needed.

  I was ready.

  “I do not wish for this,” Mariana began.

  “Bullshit,” I cut in. “I can feel what you feel. And I know what you believe, so let’s not lie to one another.”

  Across from me, Mariana remained unaffected by my outburst. Her face stayed calmer than mine ever could have. “As you wish. I believe I have a right to exist. I have the right to save my daughter. And in doing so, I’ll be protecting the world from Lust.”

  Finally we’d stopped beating around that GoneGodDamn bush.

  This was why I’d resisted her so hard.

  This was why I’d barely let her out.

  She believed with all her heart that it was her right to live in this body. And she had a reason she’d never stop fighting for: Ariadne.

  I pointed at her. “And I believe I have the right to save my son. You know how I feel about that dragon.”

  Her free hand swept out in a peaceful gesture. “I will release him from her power, too. I can promise you that.”

  “You can’t promise that. Not unless you would die for him. Would you die for him, Mariana?”

  She stared back at me. And in that second’s pause, I had my answer. It didn’t matter what she would say next. “Yes. I know how you feel about him.”

  “You told me you wouldn’t lie,” I grated out.

  “I’ll treat him like my child.”

  “But he won’t be your child. Not like Ariadne.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And you meant to say you would value Ariadne the way you do Percy?”

  Touche.

  We both had the benefit of knowing the person whom we loved with years of closeness, of intimacy—and the challenge of being only faintly acquainted with the other’s love.

  I felt Mariana’s love for Ariadne almost as well as she did. Almost. But a thin gauze overlaid the passion in her heart; it prevented me from feeling it as fully as she did.

  The same was true of my love for Percy. She could very nearly feel it, but she wasn’t me. She hadn’t spent years and years with him, and what wasn’t directly felt could never equal true, deep feeling.

  So we were at an impasse.

  I didn’t fully trust her to rescue Percy, and she didn’t fully trust me to rescue Ariadne.

  The problem was, she was older than me. She had experience and wisdom and discipline. Most of all, she was being propelled along by the creation crystal.

  She had the power. She’d always had the power.

  But I had the GoneGodDamn heart.

  I took hold of Thelma and Louise, allowing them to unfurl to the ground. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

  She didn’t move. “I’m waiting for you.”

  I widened my stance, pressing my right foot back until I stood cockeyed to her. I tossed Thelma back, bringing Louise forward. “A rapier won’t do well against whips.”

  A flicker of amusement crossed her face. In that moment, I sensed a hubris that I understood came from physical prowess. During our fight with the angel, she’d dodged his swings. She had better reflexes than me.

  Of course; she was Valdis’s wife. He would have trained her well.

  “We shall see.”

  She raised the rapier, its edge glinting, and stepped into position. And that was Mariana: the fine instrument, where I was the brute force.

  W
e stood there a beat, staring at one another. I wouldn’t lose; I couldn’t. Not until I’d saved Percy.

  And so I ran at her.

  Except I didn’t move as fast as I thought I should. Instead of a sprint, I ran as though through molasses. It was exactly how I moved in my dreams, slow and ineffectual.

  My arms raised slowly—too slowly, as though I moved in half-time. Still, a rapier didn’t compare to whips. If I could just get one of them inside her guard …

  She didn’t move, even as I came close and closer. She waited until I was close enough that I began to think I could just throw myself full-force into her, whips be damned.

  But I hadn’t even gotten Thelma up over my head before she stepped aside, light and quick as a feather. The rapier sang through the air, she skipped forward, and with a jump and a spin, my jacket ripped down the back before I felt the growing sting of a wound.

  She’d sliced me a good one, because she had the power.

  I cried out, stumbling to a stop before the stone steps. When I turned, she stood in the same ready position, rapier at attention. “Now that’s not fair.”

  She lowered her chin. “Fairness does not apply when my daughter’s life is at stake.”

  So she was doing this. Her will had brought us to this place, and her power over me gave her inhuman quickness.

  The pain in my back grew to a feverish intensity, and I knew that though we were fighting inside my body, every wound counted toward a real victory or loss. And she’d scored the first hit.

  This was as unfair a fight as an adult versus a child. As David versus Goliath. And yet … he had defeated Goliath.

  I squared off to her, scanning the room around us, taking in its dimensions, seeking out advantages. We were in my body, after all. This was still my mind she was inhabiting, even if she was rapidly taking it over.

  I just had to get used to fighting at half-speed. And I had one thing going for me: I knew her body inside and out.

  “Your turn,” I said, regripping my whips at my sides.

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 24

  She came at me without hesitation. One moment she stood at the center of the ring, and the next she ran at me in double-time, rapier singing as it swung.