Naked Dragon

by Annette Blair

  “How about the person who lives there?”

  “Someone with Alzheimer’s who has a caretaker, Steve told me. They don’t communicate except through the management company. No one ever sets foot outside. Here is the name and address of the property management company. They hired Steve, and accept no blame for his fall, and the name of the alarm company. Will you look into them?”

  “You know I will. I’m not sure it’ll do any good, though. How’s McKenna?”

  “Worried about losing her home. Hoping she can welcome those guests to the Dragon’s Lair. Looking forward to doing a Kitchen Witch show this week. Enjoying Lizzie’s babies.”

  “Enjoying you?” Vivica winked.

  Bastian could not hide his pleasure. “She is rough on men, our Kenna, but I can take rough. I like that about her, that she will not break. Can you see, Vivica, how this will turn out for Kenna, her fight against Huntley, I mean?”

  “I see nothing. The man’s evil clouds everything. I know only that McKenna is strong and she has more power than she knows.”

  Bastian found himself pacing, his frustration boiling over. “I do not see why I am here if I cannot help.”

  “You might have helped by getting me this information. I’ll rush it through.”

  He stopped to look up at Vivica. “You will come to McKenna’s grand opening on October twenty-sixth?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  Neither of them said, “If the opening takes place.”

  Bastian hated that within the next few days, McKenna could lose her home, her hopes and dreams, and her heritage.

  Not to mention the ripple effect on all the people they both loved.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  McKenna woke before dawn, disoriented at first, until she found herself in the warm cocoon of Bastian’s arms. When he said her name in his sleep, she settled back into them.

  October twenty-fifth. She could keep her home until midnight tonight, though she prayed she’d done enough to keep it forever. If she could afford to hire a lawyer, she’d get him to ask for a stay of execution, or whatever you called it.

  Yes, she’d played it close, but she hadn’t known, until after her mother’s death, what kind of debt she inherited. That must be why Mom let her cancer take its course. Vivica had been right. Mom didn’t want to deepen the family debt.

  This opportunity to have the B and B and support herself, this was a gift from her mother.

  McKenna wiped her tears. What was wrong with her? She never cried.

  Hell, she’d hardly had time to mourn after her mother passed before she was hiring Bastian and they were off to the races, in so many ways.

  Last week, she’d signed a contract for the regular sale of fruit and produce to a local supermarket, and not a moment too soon. She could now add the advance to her mother’s insurance money, Bastian’s pay, her guests’ deposit, and the income from the Kitchen Witch show. With all of it, she came close, damned close, to having what she needed to pay both the mortgage and taxes.

  The reunion family wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow, and she couldn’t charge them for their entire stay until the end of it, after the foreclosure date. She hadn’t heard back from the bank yet about whether they’d consider the week’s income toward her mortgage and taxes. If the bank said yes, and she should know by noon, today, all she needed was an all-clear from the building inspector this afternoon.

  If only for the moment, life stood on the precipice of looking up.

  A roar of engines made her sit up, the chilling sound getting louder, closer, too close, aggressive, more threatening than the roar of a dragon. She sprinted toward the window. “That sonofabitch!”

  “What?” Bastian came awake in that wild-animal way he had, ready to strike, but she couldn’t laugh this time.

  “Huntley is out there bulldozing his way toward the shed.”

  “No,” Bastian shouted and nearly left the house naked.

  McKenna balled up a pair of jeans and threw them at his head.

  He pulled them on and ran back for one of his black T-shirts. “I could use some talons and maybe Cedrig’s teeth right now,” he snapped as he slipped his bare feet into his work boots and ran outside.

  Before she finished dressing, McKenna looked out the window and saw Bastian waving down Huntley, driving the rumbling bulldozer himself. Bastian was acting as if he could stop a psycho developer.

  No, not one developer. Two bulldozers and a backhoe pulled up behind Huntley. He’d brought reinforcements.

  McKenna stepped outside and used her cell phone to call the police. They were on their way, but would her house still be standing when they got here?

  Huntley shouldn’t be able to claim the place until after midnight, at the soonest, and if she did default—which she damned well would not—she was supposed to have a time frame in which to move.

  With all her disappointed ancestors watching, McKenna had never felt more like a loser.

  Her cell phone rang. “McKenna,” Vivica said, “Huntley owns the property management company that hired Steve to shingle the roof from which he fell. Steve could never have made the connection, because Huntley’s ownership was buried in a maze of real and fake holding companies. It took two corporate lawyers all night to unravel the nightmare of paperwork.

  “And another thing,” Vivica said. “Neighbors saw a man on the roof with a hose the night before Steve’s accident. The gunk on the shingle is a slippery, old, commercial floor wax that’s no longer used because it’s so dangerous. If not for Bastian, the weather would eventually have erased the evidence. The police are now looking for Huntley in connection.”

  “Send them here. He’s trying to bulldoze my shed, maybe my house next.”

  “He must think he lost,” Vivica said, “and that if he tears everything down, you’ll give up and sell him the place.”

  “Viv, that would make him crazy.”

  “You just figured that out? I’m calling a friend at your bank to confirm. Keep your phone close.”

  McKenna made a beeline for Steve and Lizzie’s. “Get everybody out. Go out my front door to your van and drive straight to Works Like Magick. Don’t look back. Vivica will take care of you until it’s safe for you to come home.”

  Worried about her property, but more about Bastian’s safety, McKenna went back outside.

  Bastian stood in the path of the bulldozer towering over him, too damned close, his predatory gaze on the man in the driver’s seat.

  “No,” she shouted. “Bastian, move.” A dragon wouldn’t be afraid of a bulldozer, but a man should be.

  At the same time Huntley sped up, Bastian disappeared. Beneath the dozer’s wheels?

  McKenna screamed like a madwoman as she rushed Huntley. He’d tried to kill Steve; he wouldn’t care about killing Bastian.

  Somebody needed to stop him.

  FIFTY-SIX

  Bastian strategically body-rolled into the dirt eater’s giant plow tray, beneath Huntley’s eye level, hoping the developer would care about mowing him down, but the machine didn’t falter on its journey toward the shed.

  Huntley raised the plow tray, but that could work in Bastian’s favor, because he’d tower over the evil driver once he stood up in the tray and revealed himself. Since his arrival here on earth, he had not allowed himself to become so angry. Not since he fell from Kenna’s roof had his inner dragon clamored so forcefully to be set free.

  Bastian could feel his horns poking against his skin. Feel the itchy burn in his wing tracks, the lengthening of his claws. He couldn’t let the transformation happen, yet never had he needed a dragon’s strength more.

  His inner beast’s gnashing teeth almost meshed with his own, fire filled his nostrils, but Bastian kept himself in check to save his brothers, until he rode the earth eater’s tray high enough to see Kenna fighting with Huntley in the dirt eater’s cab, as if trying to drag the man from his seat, screaming his name.

  Bastian realized then that she was trying to save
him. Yes, he’d tried to give the impression that he’d fallen beneath the machine’s wheels, but for Huntley’s sake, not Kenna’s. Bastian tried to get her attention. He shouted, he roared, but she could not hear him over the growl of machinery and her own wild panic.

  Huntley knocked McKenna from the cab. Blood splattered everywhere. Her blood. She lost her footing and her body hit each jutting edge of the machine as she fell, until she landed, covered in blood and still as death in the dirt.

  Agony overtook him, physical and emotional. Fury filled him. Bloodlust. Bastian knew a death blow when it sheared his heart in half. As he reeled from the knowledge, more than the pain, the dragon in him rose and took over his being, and he welcomed it. Reveled in it.

  The need for vengeance overshadowed loss. Scales, spikes, and claws grew apace with his size and fury, and everything inside him sharpened, his strength, his skills, and his senses.

  Bastian gnashed his teeth, and he breathed fire.

  The tray of the earth eater broke under his new weight and jammed the wheels, stopping the machine in its tracks.

  Beside it, McKenna did not move.

  Bastian rose to his full dragon height, dwarfing the machine and its driver, raised his wings to an alarming span, and he roared.

  Huntley screamed.

  Killian had been biding her time, waiting for the worst moment to strike, and now she showed herself.

  Lit by an arc of her own lightning, she smiled, and the funnel cloud shrouding her fell away. She sent a handful of lightning bolts his way, all five, but he lifted his hands against them, and turned them back toward the evil sorceress herself. What could be more powerful or more deadly? When the throwback struck, Killian vanished in a black mist, her howl chilling. This did not mean that she was gone forever. It meant only that he’d won the moment. Perhaps not even the battle. Definitely not his brothers’ battles, in the event he hadn’t already destroyed their opportunity to come to earth.

  For Kenna, he’d turned back into a dragon, so enraged, he hardly acknowledged forfeiting his life and his quest.

  For him, thinking him injured beneath the machine’s wheels, his love had attacked her worst enemy.

  Now McKenna, his heart, lay in bloody, broken pieces.

  She had been dealt the final blow, and he was no longer a man.

  With nothing to lose, Bastian bent his long neck and showed his teeth and his fire to Huntley. The greedmonger’s fear fed Bastian’s bloodlust as the man cowered in the far corner of the machine’s cab, sweat dripping from his slimy skin.

  At the sight of him charging, Huntley’s men turned their earth eaters around and left the property. A retreat that came too late.

  But it didn’t matter anymore. Bastian’s fire melted the bulldozer’s controls and shattered the windshield.

  With smoke still pouring from his nostrils, he snatched Huntley up between his teeth, dragged him from the cab, shook him until his bones rattled, and tossed him like so much trash.

  Bastian then bent over McKenna, so still in the dirt. He lifted her limp hand, and held it to his face, almost glad that she could not see how he had failed her.

  She opened her eyes and met his gaze. “The most beautiful dragon ever,” she whispered, stroking his scales. “I’ll love you, Bastian. Forever. Even in death. Fly away. Save yourself.”

  Her eyes closed as her hand went limp against him.

  The mournful cry he sent into the universe shattered the silence and echoed over the valley. Birds took to the air. Animals ran. Bastian placed his dragon hands on McKenna’s every bloody gash—so many—but she did not awaken. “Heal!” he shouted with another echoing roar, but nothing happened.

  “Where is my healing magick?” he shouted to the universe.

  He should have more magick as a dragon. Not less.

  “Bastian.” Andra’s voice came on the wind. “You cannot heal the dead.”

  Life abandoned him as surely as it had left Kenna. His dragon heart clutched and shattered, the physical pain of losing her breaking him.

  But his pain did not matter. The deep gash on Kenna’s head would never close.

  Bastian threw back his head and roared his grief, scorching the trees around him, and as their blackened leaves fell, nature wept with him.

  He expanded his wings and tucked them around her, holding her for the last time, his shameless tears salting her wounds. “My fault. Mine. Forgive me, my Kenna,” he begged, though she could not hear.

  If he had not taunted Huntley, Kenna would not have tried to save him.

  His anguish knew no bounds. He rested his face against his sweet, dead love, in that place where their babies should have grown, and he wept for them, too.

  Cars with lights, he saw coming down the street through the trees. An ambulance. No, three.

  Afraid to take his attention from McKenna, Bastian stood behind the barn to watch, hoping the paramedics would fix her and leave her, that he would see her get up and walk into the house.

  But they took her away.

  Kenna. Gone. Lost to him.

  She had died, taking his heart, his life, with her.

  The second ambulance took Huntley, but Bastian didn’t care. He stayed behind the barn, watched Lizzie drive up to the house. Steve talked to the police. Vivica, driving in behind them, hugged Lizzie, and they wept against each other before taking the children and babies inside.

  He had failed Andra and his brothers, but most especially, he had failed Kenna.

  He had doomed everyone he loved to die.

  Now he must wait for death to claim him, too.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  McKenna woke calling Bastian’s name in a hospital room with Vivica sitting beside her bed. “Where’s Bastian?”

  Vivica’s eyes filled. “He seems to have disappeared. Huntley is in the psych ward telling people he was attacked by a dragon, but the workers who were with him are denying the report.”

  “But Bastian is a dragon.”

  Vivica squeezed her hand. “I know.”

  “A proud and beautiful dragon.”

  “I wish I’d seen him in all his beastly glory.”

  “He fought for me and tried to heal me.” A beast with tears in his eyes. A paradox. A mystery from the beginning. “I hope he was able to fly somewhere safe.” McKenna’s heart clenched with a physical spasm. So intense, so filled with grief, tears would not come.

  She shook her head and refused to give in to memories. As time went by, she would take them out for comfort. But not now. Not yet.

  For now, she would mourn. Alone. Lonely. Without Bastian.

  Dead. Both of them. Her, too.

  “But you,” Vivica said, falsely enthusiastic. “The doctors are calling you their miracle patient. You should have died, given the head trauma you suffered. You shouldn’t have healed so fast. The paramedics said they could practically see you healing before their eyes.”

  Dragon magick, McKenna thought. He’d turned back into a dragon to save her. Why couldn’t he save himself? “When can I go home? Oh, no. I didn’t settle with the bank or get the house inspected. Huntley won, after all.”

  “He didn’t. With the money you were able to give them, the bank accepted the down payment from your B and B guests and the anticipated income from this past week. Your long-term business plan helped, too, as did your website, especially the reservation inquiries, which Steve was smart to program in.”

  “Vivica, you talked to somebody at the bank ahead of time to make it happen, didn’t you?”

  “I simply pointed out some facts.”

  “Then what was Huntley doing at my place at dawn?”

  “When he showed with the bulldozer, he knew you were square with the bank. That man wasn’t used to losing, and your property might have been his biggest loss to date. He’d gone off the deep end, pure and simple.”

  The Dragon’s Lair lived, McKenna thought. Only the dragon had died. “I have everything I’ve ever dreamed of,” she whispered, “and the only thi
ng I want is Bastian.” She turned to look out the window. “How long have I been here?”

  “Eight days.”

  Panic filled McKenna. “No! My guests!”

  Vivica pushed her back against her pillows. “The Dragon’s Lair is in good hands,” Vivica said. “Lizzie and Steve gave your building inspector the tour and accepted his stamp of approval. The following day, they welcomed your guests, cared for them, and after they left, Lizzie took their money to your bank. Oh, and they hosted your Halloween Grand Opening. Melody and her husband, Logan—the original producer of The Kitchen Witch—came. Logan now makes independent films, so he brought a video camera to give you some extra publicity. Melody’s shown snippets like commercials a couple of times on her show.”

  “Lizzie’s a good friend. Melody, too, maybe.”

  “The way Steve and Lizzie tell it, you’re the great friend.”

  “Lizzie and I have always been like sisters.”

  “Did you know that Melody Seabright owns a nonprofit charitable foundation with several smaller foundations as holdings?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “One is called the Keep Me Foundation. It’s for mothers who want to keep their babies but don’t have the income. They supply cribs and such. The foundation gave Lizzie three cribs—well, three of everything for the triplets.”

  That nearly made her cry. “Lizzie and Steve needed a break.”

  “Lizzie said to tell you she’d be here if she wasn’t a walking milk bottle, and that’s a quote.”

  McKenna liked this distant cousin of hers. They’d become closer in the past few months. She’d always be grateful that Vivica sent Bastian to her. “I fell in love with him, you know.”

  “I know, sweetie.”

  “I never told Bastian the man, not in words.”

  “He knew. He was perceptive, our Bastian.”

  McKenna remembered wonderful times with him when all she could think about was the B and B. She’d never given him her whole self, her whole heart, not knowingly, not even when they were making love.