My eyes traveled back along that rolling tide, over the gathering dark, and saw the way Danielle’s eyes glowed white and milky, a sure sign that she was growing drunk off of her own magic. Just because her eyes didn’t flood black like every other supernatural I’d met when they lost control, didn’t mean that the situation wasn’t the same.
Her head turned, so slow I imagined that I could hear the muscles and ligaments in her neck creaking.
“Don’t forget, love.” She blinked first one eye and then the other, and the whispering in the shadows grew louder. “Don’t forget what we do to oath breakers in this house.”
My arms tightened around Sam’s neck, and I cringed against him as he put his free arm beneath my knees and pulled me tight against his chest. She didn’t stop us as we edged around her towards the stairs. She just watched, silently, her rage a salivating monster hiding behind every piece of furniture and lurking in every shadow. We made it down the stairs, out the door, and were sprinting down the drive before Sam let me get to my feet.
We didn’t stop until we reached the gate, and I stood there shaking, fingers digging into the bars, until the urge finally became too great and I turned to look back. She stood in the window of the music room. I could tell even from here that her eyes were still white and dead. From our vantage point it was hard not to imagine her as a ghost.
But I knew better.
I knew my mother.
She’d lost Rachel to Maleficent, but she wasn’t beaten. And sooner or later, she’d find me to collect on the promises I’d made.
Chapter Twelve
“I would parade you in the hall of the monarchs of the ocean if you could breathe water.”
S.M. Wheeler, Sea Change
We ran for a long time, too nervous about flying in broad daylight but too unsure of my mother’s motives to call a halt. We moved as if under pursuit, and in a way I guess we were. In fact, it wasn’t long before Sam and I realized that we wouldn’t be able to travel freely about anymore. My hands were tingling as if someone was washing them with sandpaper and I found it hard to concentrate.
The more exhausted I became the more I could feel the curse slipping out of my control. It was like trying to hang on to rabid Rottweiler with my bare hands. All snapping teeth and snarling, enraged, muscle. I went for as long as I could but we hadn’t even cleared Main Street before I grabbed my stomach, and with a sigh of relief, stopped fighting it.
Whether it was a curse, my Widow abilities, or a dangerous mixture of both, the magic flowing out of me felt stronger than it ever had before. Even Sam, who’d been walking in front of me, stopped in his tracks, threw back his head, and took a long deep breath as if reveling in it. At the sight, terror had me stumbling, but before I could decide whether to run away or stay, I heard them.
Footsteps, revving engines, the sound of slamming doors. They came in droves, overwhelming, and filling the street behind us like a flood. Stumbling over one another, and moving like a pack of wolves on the hunt. I looked between the men coming up from behind us and back to Sam. I was torn. If Sam was affected…
Shaking himself like a wet dog, he reached back and grabbed my hand. Pulling me in close, he pressed my face against his chest as he backed us up against the wall of an adjacent building. I felt his temperature spike abruptly, and nearly cried out at the influx of heat. The noise of the crowd got louder, until the sound of their footsteps rumbled like thunder, and I buried myself tighter against him. I was waiting.
Waiting to be ripped from his arms, waiting for the feeling of hands, the useless platitudes and unnecessary offers of assistance. Those would be bad enough. But what really made me cringe on the inside was the anticipation of all the Conric’s waiting for me. All the ones who wanted to play Hero only at the cost of my pain.
I waited, but nothing happened. The crowd came and went on their way, passing right by us as if we weren’t even there. Minutes later when the last straggler finally disappeared from sight, I looked up at Sam in disbelief. He shrugged.
“Basic camouflage. It doesn’t work for long, but if you stay still it gets the job done.”
“Handy.”
“I try.”
If we were moving fast before, we barely stopped for breath after the little incident on Main Street. We traveled until it got dark, unable to stay in one place for longer than a few minutes before the curse began to affect the men around us. We were airborne once it got dark enough, and I collapsed onto Sam’s broad back in exhausted relief.
Having magic bleeding out of me all day made me feel as if my insides had been ripped out. I was shaky not only from being on the move all day but also from allowing the curse to slip from my control. I didn’t even know how to reel it back in and despaired of ever being able to stop long enough to perform the spell at all.
Just when I’d resigned myself to the thought of spending the night astride a Dragon, Sam settled us down on the roof of a giant building. We’d made it back into the city without my realizing it and now I found myself standing on top of the Sundial in the heart of Atlanta. I suppose settling down on the roof of a revolving restaurant made sense from a military standpoint. We were far enough off the ground to exceed the curse’s current limits and we had an excellent vantage point of anyone or anything coming or going.
Not to mention, if we needed to take off quickly all Sam would need to do is shove me over the side and watch me fall a zillion miles before hitting the ground and shattering like an egg.
Note to self:
I disliked heights even more now than I did before meeting Sam the Dragon.
Conclusion:
No personal growth has been achieved.
Consequence:
No new skills unlocked.
“Are you all right?”
I was too busy trying to find my balance on the revolving goliath to glare at him properly but I’m sure he got the gist of it in the split second I took to whip my head in his direction and back. I heard a choked noise that sounded suspiciously like muffled laughter and swore.
“Hey now, it’s all right.” There was an unforgivable amount of merriment in his voice, but then again I shouldn’t have been surprised. We were in his element way up here. I wish I could be half as comfortable just by being in a certain place. It’s not that I didn’t have an element of my own. It’s just that I’d never found it.
It only recently occurred to me to wonder why that was.
“Hey, come here. You’re freezing.” It wasn’t until I heard him say the words that I realized he was right. I was shivering; a fine tremor that wracked my body every time the wind hit me. We were far enough up that it didn’t matter what time of year it was. Cold was cold.
Before I could wrap my arms around myself, Sam’s arms were there instead. He pulled me in close and settled us near the raised edge of the circular roof. I was stiff at first, but he was like a furnace. All too soon my muscles relaxed and I found myself snuggling in as close as I could get, my arms wrapping around his waist and my ear pressed against his collarbone. It was so comfortable that I was beginning to nod off when Sam decided to speak.
“What will you do?” he cleared his throat and I felt him shift as he looked down at the crown of my head. “After the spell, I mean.”
I shrugged and turned my face more completely into his chest. “I don’t know. I’ve lived with it for so long…I don’t really know anything else but the curse. It was my whole life.”
“When did it first start?”
So I told him about the instructor who fell. Describing it. The way he’d fallen and the sound his body had made when it struck the ground below, seemed to open up the floodgates. Before I could stop myself I was telling him everything. I was explaining to him about the kidnapping, about the boys in the locker room, and about every single ‘knight’ who’d come to me in tarnished armor. It wasn’t until I started to explain about Conric that I realized I was crying.
I was clutching his shirt in both fists on either side
of my face and rubbing my cheeks back and forth across the well worn material like an animal seeking comfort. Or affection. His lips landed on the top of my head and his hand, large and warm, pressed against the center of my back.
“Hush, little Siren. It’s all right now. Or at least it will be after tomorrow.”
After we finished the spell.
A part of me wanted to ask why we just didn’t do it right then and get it over yet but that part was small and easily silenced. Every step we took towards our goal was just another nail in Sam’s coffin. Summoning the genie right then…finishing the spell right then…
My arms tightened around him. I just wasn’t ready to let him go just yet.
‘Just a little while longer.’
It was a promise to myself.
But I knew it for the lie it was.
I didn’t just want him around for a little while. I wanted him for a forever. The tears, which had been slowing down, increased and I made a wounded sound into the wet spot I was leaving on his shirt. He pulled me up into his lap and I straddled his hips so that we were pressed as close as we could get to one another. It would have been sexual but I was crying too hard for either one of us to pay the positioning much attention.
“Before I got sick, I used to play a lot of sports.” He said, uncaring when I remained silent. “Where I’m from it rains almost constantly. Not light drizzles but full blown thunderstorms. To me that was the best time to go out. When the winds were high and the lightening was dancing on the tip of your tongue. When you could slide through mud to reach a goal and feel the thunder echoing in the earth like a heartbeat.” He paused and looked down at my upturned face, his thumb swiping away my tears and rubbing the salty residue on my bottom lip so that he could kiss it away.
“Will you miss it?” I asked, breathless as his mouth began to travel across my face, nibbling along the shell of my ear. I wasn’t just asking about the sports. I was asking about all of it. Everything.
Me.
He pulled away enough to press his nose against my own.
“Not as much as I’ll miss some things.” He murmured, and this time I was the one pushing forward. Pressing my lips against his, the evidence of my tears washed away beneath the swipe of his tongue and the sudden jolt of my heart as he gripped my wrists and jerked me closer. I could feel his erection pressing against the front of his jeans and I lamented what had previously seemed a sound request for him to get dressed after changing back into a human.
Now my fingers were fumbling with the buttons, trying to work them loose without letting him go. I didn’t want to let him go.
I couldn’t.
Not when I feared never having another chance to touch him.
I wanted to move quickly. To have him inside of me as soon as possible but he wouldn’t allow it. He trapped my hands at the small of my back and I lay back on the roof as he blew a concentrated stream of fire to burn away the stitching of our clothes. They dissolved around us, drifting on the air like gray butterflies. When his mouth met mine again, it was with the knowledge of what was about to happen between the two of us. There was no fear, no panic, no guilt that I was somehow coercing him into anything. I expected something. Some hesitation on my part maybe, but there was nothing.
It just felt right. The world felt hazy, endless, and bright. My hands were my thoughts given direction, my voice an instrument of music. When he settled back and guided me over his throbbing length, I didn’t even have to remind myself to relax enough to let him in. Not having had too many partners I was tight enough that he still had to work at it at first. That he still had to hold me there while his pips pumped, his cock sliding in and out of me in shallow bursts that had muscles deeper within hungering for similar attention.
When I was finally able to take in all of him it was like a deep slide. I could feel him there, the entire hard, pulsing length of him, stretching my inner flesh. The sensation was a delicious one and I would have stayed there, committing it to memory, but the sight of him beneath me, corded muscle tense with the effort of holding still, changed my mind.
We moved together for what felt like forever. Not too fast, not too slow, but deep purposeful movements that left our entire bodies dancing in an effort to sustain the rhythm. Each thrust was another confirmation that yes, he was inside of me. Each one brushed against my womb, and each had me clenching my thighs around him just a little,
Bit,
Tighter.
As if I could pull him so deep inside of me that the difference between where he ended and I began was nothing but an unpleasant memory. My nails dragged themselves down his back, his teeth nipped at my bottom lip, and when he came he wrapped an arm around my waist and thrust into me as hard and as deep as he could go. He held me still, his eyes intent and blazing as they stared into mine. The intimacy of it, the feel of him filling my insides with his seed had my own orgasm ripping through me with all the subtleness of a forest fire. I cried out and my arms clutched at his shoulders, bringing him in so that we were fused, chest to chest, his face in my neck and my chin resting among the curling mess of his hair.
Bodies still moving, muscles still clenching and straining to milk out those last sweet moments of pleasure. I found myself glancing out across the Atlanta skyline in a daze, and even as I watched, the stars competing for dominance beside the dazzling fireflies of the city began to blur in my vision as more tears gathered and then fell.
* * * *
“I’m glad.” His voice was lazy with exhaustion but I could hear the smile on his face. I kissed his chest and rested my chin on folded hands.
“About?”
He didn’t look at me but I watched him as his eyes darkened. He was looking up into the night sky as if gazing into oblivion and I almost took the question back.
“Dying.” He answered finally. “I’m glad I’m going to die.” He met my eyes then and the expression on his face was fierce. “A Dragon’s heart is his treasure. Humans look at it and all they see is a jewel. But it’s much more than that. It protects my soul, and I’m glad Alex. I’m glad I decided to give it to you.” He smiled, and his thumb attacked a fresh battalion of tears. “None of that now, little Siren. It’ll do you more good than it will me. Now let me see…Ah. I knew it. There’s a freckle right about here—” his fingers stroked the spot and my back arched, “—that I haven’t met just yet.”
“Rude.” I gasped.
“Very. I think I’ll introduce myself.”
By the time morning rolled around Sam was more than well acquainted with every inch of me and I was too tired to put up much of an argument when he proposed breaking into the Sundial for breakfast.
“Are you crazy?” this was a token protest and my opponent knew it.
He paused mid-whistle and finished tying his shoes. “That’s neither here nor there.”
Note how he didn’t answer the question?
“All I’m saying,” he continued with his signature charm on full blast. “Is that it’d be a waste to miss a chance like this. We’re already here. Might as well enjoy it, right?” Behind the smile his eyes were sad and once again the knowledge that we didn’t have much time left drove itself home.
Throat working, I nodded.
* * * *
Unfortunately for Sam, the Sundial had a dress code that neither one of us were able to adhere to. So we went to McDonald’s instead, moving quickly to avoid the stir my presence caused among the pedestrians. With nothing else to do and no place safe to go, Sam took me flying over the city. It was cloudier than it had been the day before, which meant that as long as we stayed above the cloud cover we wouldn’t be spotted. It actually made the entire experience feel ten times safer. Easier when I didn’t have something to use as a scale. Like a skyscraper.
Eventually we stopped avoiding the inevitable. Tomorrow would be our last day before Sam’s henchman was supposed to show up. As much as I wanted to keep reality at bay, I knew as well as Sam that time was of the essence and we’d sto
len our piece of it the night before.
When I was a little girl I never dreamed of heroes. I didn’t dream of heroes, but I dreamt of freedom. I dreamt of a sky that never ended, and home that wasn’t a single place but rather a sense of belonging that followed you no matter where you went.
My mother thought it was the need for adventure that moved me, but it was more than that. In these dreams I found stability. I knew what peace was even if I had to make it up as I went along. Eventually I grew out of that as well. I didn’t search for peace anymore. I just prayed to be left alone. Which, when you think about the particulars, were two separate things.
With the curse still hanging over my head I wasn’t exactly free, but it was with a kind of quiet pleasure that I realized that I’d found it.
That sense of belonging.
Now, as I looked down at Sam’s hand entwined with my own, I tried not to think too hard about the fact that he would die soon. The clock was ticking even as I stood there, mind wandering aimlessly and I felt my throat work as tears threatened. I’d never been much of a crier. The sudden bent towards waterworks was annoying. It felt as if I’d never be able to stop.
“Ready?”
My head jerked up and I blinked rapidly, pushing the tears away so that I could nod.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Good enough.” He lifted our joined hands and held them over the mirror we knelt beside. For lack of anywhere else to go, Sam and I had made our way over to the Hungry Kitty. My apartment was still ground zero as far as I knew, and I didn’t feel safe enough going back there now that all those men knew where to find me. Since my mother’s house was also a bust, the only other place safe enough to stay was the strip club.
Since it was still the middle o the day the staff there was at its bare minimum. Wasn’t sure why it was even open at all until Sam explained that they were probably running a side business during the day. The way he said it assured me that I didn’t want to know the details. So instead I just said a mental thank you for the fact that they let us in without question or comment.
The Dragon King and I Page 18