Betrothed to the Dragon

by Kara Lockharte

  He said it, like it meant something. And knowing dragons, it probably did. I blinked. “Are we…permanently sealed?”

  “No. But you shouldn’t have been able to do that.” He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something. “There’s no time. Sophie, I’m sorry I brought you hear. You can’t go through with Daniel’s plan. You’d just be throwing your life away.”

  And then I realized what this was truly about.

  He was afraid—not for himself, but for me. “Aren’t you?” I asked slowly.

  His body was tense, as if he were on the edge of an explosion. “That’s different. I’ve been training for this.”

  Probably for his entire life. What had I been trained for?

  Running.

  And what had come of that?

  I thought of grandma’s perfectly manicured hands, covered with dirt as she planted baby jasmine saplings around the cabin.

  I thought of her holding me tightly in her arms, as I despaired of my lack of magic, my failure as a shen.

  I thought her message to me: Run little fox.

  I picked up my father’s sword, the melted pommel end throwing off the balance of the sword. “Ever since I was young, I knew that one day I would have to face this monster.”

  Hunter covered my sword hand with his. His voice was low. “You will die, Sophie.”

  This close, standing next to him and his ineffable dragon magic was like standing next to an unpredictable simmering volcano of magic.

  “I’m going to fight,” I said.

  But we didn’t have the luxury of time, nor the luxury to give voice to anything that would stop us, that would weaken our resolve.

  “And so will you.” I shouldn’t have said it because my voice broke, betraying my feelings.

  He squeezed my hand tightly. I watched him raise my hand to his lips and kiss my knuckles, as if he were a doomed knight from some fairy tale.

  And then he walked out of the room without saying a word.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding. I could still feel the heat of his mouth on my hand.

  Fuck, this was stupid. We were about to die, I was about to face a monster from my worst nightmares, and we couldn’t even fucking talk about what was right in front of us?

  I went after him.

  Daniel and Lucas were hunched over a screen in a heated discussion while Lana tapped away at something in concentration. They all stopped and looked at me, and I realized I still had my sword in hand.

  And it was glowing.

  “Where’s Hunter?”

  I lost my balance and fell against the bulkhead as the plane shuddered with a loud thud. Lights flickered, and there was a squealing sound of metal grinding against metal.

  And then an invisible force of gravity, nearly as tangible as magic, felt like it punched me in the chest.

  The cabin went dark.

  Lucas shouted, “I’ve got Lan—” and then another thud flung me to the ground.

  Silence.

  The lights came on.

  The Devourer.

  The plane was still shaking, but so was I. Every muscle in my body was tense, ready to run, but where could you run to in a plane in mid-flight?

  Hunter crouched next to me and helped me to my feet. How had he appeared so fast? “Are you all right?”

  My heartbeat was racing so fast I felt as if I were going to pass out. If the plane were about to crash, there was nothing to be done. “I’m fine.”

  Daniel shoved a tablet in front of Hunter. “Here. Get to the cockpit and fly the plane. I’m going outside.”

  What? “Did Daniel say he was going outside?”

  Hunter hooked my arm and started dragging me to the front of the plane.

  “Wait! Where’s Lucas and Lana?”

  “They’re fine.”

  “Wait, how is Daniel—”

  Hunter jumped into the pilot seat as a flash of golden dragon wings were suddenly lit in the darkness. Fire lit up the sky, and outside the window, I saw a black cloud of spiked things with far too many eyes and teeth.

  Cold fear choked my throat. The Devourer was here.

  “Sit down and hold on, Sophie,” said Hunter calmly, as if there was no flying immortal monster outside of the plane.

  “It’s not the Devourer,” Hunter said. “Just more minions.”

  Minions. Somehow that realization was enough to make me move. I quickly did as he said and buckled myself into the co-pilot seat.

  Long yellow teeth smashed against the window, close to my face. I screamed. The teeth gnawed at the glass. More teeth followed, more mouths, more eyes, more teeth. Behind them the sky light up with fire.

  My stomach dropped as the plane dove. I scrambled forward, holding on to one of the seats to keep my balance

  Crack.

  Spiderwebs appeared on the cockpit glass. Shit, shit, shit!

  A roar filled my ears, as the mouths scraped the glass.

  Crack.

  I couldn’t take my gaze away from growing webs.

  This couldn’t be how it ended, in a crash in the night with no fight, no chance.

  Crack.

  Hunter let go of the yoke and unbuckled his seatbelt. He turned to me and said something I couldn’t hear. He reached for me, trying to unbuckle my seatbelt.

  He was going to try to save me.

  Only, he would die trying, like everyone else who had ever been important in my life.

  “Go!” I tried yelling at him. “Get out of here!”

  He reached for me, and I batted away his arm. “Go!”

  He snarled, a loud dragon sound that cut through the roar of the plane. Animalistic, instinctive fear froze me at the sound. His hauled me out of the seat, his arms pulling me against his chest.

  “No—”

  His voice was brusque, rough against my ear. “Close your eyes and trust me.”

  I looked at him, at his golden eyes.

  “Please, trust me, Sophie.”

  I did as he asked.

  The glass exploded. Wind grabbed us, stealing my scream.

  A universe of pain exploded me into tiny little pieces.

  11

  My stomach hurled out of my throat and flung itself out of my body.

  At least that’s what it felt like.

  Everything I had ever eaten or even thought of eating felt as if it were about to erupt from my stomach. I sank into the ground, cool, soft sand on my fingers, coughing and dry-heaving as my stomach screamed at me for what seemed like forever. Finally, it subsided, and I realized that I wasn’t in complete darkness.

  There was a moon out. And stars.

  The memory of the imminent plane failure crashed back into my mind.

  I looked around, and dark, feathery fronds of leaves from sheltering palm trees danced in the breeze. The rush of ocean waves resounded in my ears.

  What had just happened?

  “Hunter?”

  No answer.

  I stumbled toward the sound of the ocean and emerged onto a vast white beach, hauntingly gorgeous in the moonlight. It was the kind of scene lovers would be lucky to see on vacation as they walked along the beach, save for the wreckage of a burning plane nearby.

  “Hunter?” I called again. “Lucas? Daniel? Lana?”

  Only the waves answered.

  A gust of wind chilled me in my damp clothes. I could smell the storm that was coming.

  Hunter…I never had the chance to tell him…

  No. I refused to believe that something so mundane as a plane crash could take out a dragon.

  I yelled Hunter’s name again. The wind took my voice, but a strange ululating cry responded in the distance. More dread twisted inside me. Those flying teeth things were still out there.

  I stumbled under the palm trees, hoping that the fronds would provide some sort of cover, even as I searched for something to defend myself. At some point, I had lost my shoes, and I stepped on something hard and round, and found a broken beer bot
tle.

  I picked it up. At least I hadn’t stepped on the jagged edge. It was better than nothing.

  I kept moving, trying unsuccessfully to keep my fears from freezing me still. What if Hunter was gone? What if his entire band was gone? How could that possibly be? How could that possibly even be fair, that we hadn’t even had a chance to fight?

  I should have known. If life had been fair, then I would have the abilities to do what had to be done.

  I squinted at the waterline and saw a log, rolling in the surf as a wave pulled from the beach.

  A human-shaped log.

  I ran to it, my feet splashing in the cold mud.

  Hunter lay in the sand sprawled on his back, his eyes closed.

  He was still warm, and he was still breathing. Joy and welcome relief washed over me.

  “Hunter!” I said, shaking him.

  “Hey, Sophie,” he said his voice, rough and guttural, and yet his words were casual, as if I had just run into him in a park.

  I flung my arms around him. An electric warmth immediately flooded through me, pooling at the places where our skin touched. His body suddenly jolted.

  He leapt to his feet. “How did you do that?” he asked.

  “How did I do what?”

  “You…reignited me.” He turned to me, fire flickering around his flesh, water sizzling as it hit his skin, surrounding him with steam. Despite his disheveled sand-covered hair, the literally smoking wet clothes clinging to his muscles made him look like a mermaid’s fantasy.

  “You shouldn’t have been able to do that,” he said, his voice troubled.

  I looked at my hands, wondering what I had done. “Shen. We are unpredictable,” I said, paraphrasing his earlier words. “But what about you?” I sat back, drinking in the sight of him as much as I could bear without bursting into tears or flinging myself at him. “Did you just teleport me from the plane?”

  “Dragons used to be able to create wormholes through space and time. Can’t do that anymore, but the occasional teleport isn’t beyond me. Just exhausting.”

  Hunter’s arms were suddenly around me as something exploded from the plane.

  We both turned and looked at the burning wreckage.

  The Devourer had taken us out. We were fucked before we had even begun.

  “Wait, what about—”

  “Lucas would have gotten Lana out. As for Daniel—”

  A column of red fire erupted into the sky, far too bright to be anything natural.

  Hunter’s face was grim. “It has Daniel. That’s his fire.”

  I swallowed. Did that mean Daniel was dead?

  Hunter took a step forward and stopped. “The Devourer likes to keep those it takes alive for as long as it takes to dissect them, study them, and put them through tests.”

  “Tests?”

  “It studies magical beings to understand how their intrinsic magic works. And when the Devourer learns how that magic works, it takes that knowledge and makes it its own.”

  A being that could not only eat magic but incorporate the powers of those it ate into its arsenal.

  I suddenly felt cold, colder than I had ever been.

  But this was why Daniel thought I had a chance. Because they thought I could be something that it had never encountered.

  I stared at the smoking silhouette of the plane.

  Survival had never been part of Daniel’s plan.

  He turned away from the ocean toward the island. “Teleportation isn’t something I can do easily with another.”

  “Then turn into a dragon and fucking fly us over there. I know you’re going to go.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Hunter—”

  “No.”

  “You need me. You need my power.” I stepped forward and hazarded a guess. “You’ve depleted yourself and you need more.”

  I touched his fingers. They tightened as if he were fighting not to close them around mine. “No.”

  I swallowed, closed my eyes, and tried something my grandmother had taught me. I had had all the lessons, knew all the teachings, had all the practices and patterns tracked in my head, despite no magical abilities because Grandma had been so confident my power would eventually manifest. Years ago, I had abandoned any hope of magic and had thrown myself into being the best human I could be.

  But now I knew the sigil had been more than just protection; it had been some sort of “lock” as well.

  That sigil was gone.

  Imagine a fire within you. Take that fire within you, gather it, and shove it.

  He staggered forward with a jolt. “Sophie! You can’t just do that.”

  The glow from my hands ebbed away. Hunter had said magic wasn’t something that could be emptied out of a vessel, but one that could be shared.

  Funny, it didn’t quite feel that way to me. For a split second, everything went dark. I opened my eyes when I felt Hunter’s hands on my shoulders.

  “Who taught you to do that?”

  I blinked, trying to adjust my eyes. “My grandmother.”

  “Your grand—” He gave a harsh laugh. “She knew, didn’t she?”

  “Knew what?”

  “I’m going to that island, Sophie, to end that thing. And the chances of me coming back… You told me that all your life, you fought to have your freedom, to choose your own destiny. Is this what you are freely choosing? Death?”

  I clenched my fists.

  And promptly tripped over something half buried in the sand.

  I turned saw a familiar hilt with a partially melted pommel, stuck in the sand.

  Maybe it was still a magic sword, somehow. But how the hell would I know? And for that matter, just because Hunter knew dragon magic, didn’t mean he knew shen magic.

  I yanked the sword out of the sand. “This is the demon that took my grandmother, that ate my family, that has led to the near extinction of my people. If I die killing this thing, then at least my life will have meant something.”

  “Sophie—”

  “Don’t deny me this, Hunter. It’s not your place.”

  There was that flickering of fire in his eyes.

  I pressed forward because while I was talking, he would not. “Think about it. Once you are gone, so are my chances of survival. Leave me behind and I’ll follow you and get caught. Or make a plan with me and increase my chances of survival.”

  He pulled me close, his arms almost crushing me to him, tucking my head under his chin. I knew the rhythm of the steady thump of his heart. “I hate you, Sophie,” he said softly.

  I tightened my grip on him, wishing I never had to let him go. “I hate you too, Hunter.”

  Hunter and I made a plan.

  But what was it someone once said? That battle plans rarely survive the first engagement.

  It was all too true in this case.

  I had won my battle in persuading Hunter to split from me. He was to be the distraction. Hunter was able to retrieve some still-functional weapons from the wreckage. We found a small life raft from the plane and used it to paddle over to the island about 10 miles south of us where the Devourer had her base.

  Just before we separated, he gave me a hug. “This isn’t a goodbye,” he said, lying through his teeth. “We’ll finish the Devourer. And when we’re done—”

  I touched his cheek. “We’ll renegotiate that betrothal agreement.”

  The right side of his lips quirked up in a half-smile that I was memorizing. “You better have something good to bargain with.”

  I kissed him. And then we went our separate ways

  But I wasn’t nearly as insignificant and stealthy as I’d hoped.

  I had guns; I had my father’s sword. But when confronted by the black business-suited Devourer’s minions, I realized that they were all hired humans, not controlled by the monster’s magic.

  I had shen ancestors who would think as little of killing a human as swatting a fly.

  But I had never been a very good shen. I hesitated—and tha
t was my flaw.

  They caught, handcuffed, and gagged me, and then threw me in the back of a pickup truck. As the truck made its way up a bumpy road, I kept staring at the sky, fearful for a blast of fire, half afraid, half hoping that Hunter would drop out of the sky.

  But he didn’t come.

  I was glad, I told myself. Because it meant he had gotten my message: stick to the plan.

  And after all, the plan was to go to the Devourer’s hilltop mansion.

  Just not like this.

  The pickup truck stopped, and they pulled me out of the back. I had seen satellite images of the place, but of course, it was no match for the gorgeous, sprawling white-walled mansion that would be perfect in some expensive perfume ad.

  Another man in a dark suit stepped forward. He was almost completely indistinguishable from the others save for a hideous smile that showed teeth just a bit too long to be human. Another one of the Devourer’s creatures, a simulacrum or a transformed human I wasn’t sure. “Bring the woman to her. She’s waiting for her in the lab.”

  Cold fear skittered across my skin as they marched me through elegant rooms void of any furniture or décor. Gorgeous as it was, with crystal chandeliers and pink inlaid marble floors, the place was filled with echoes of emptiness.

  Yet it had a smell, a stench I recognized thanks to a summer job as a teenager in a fancy supermarket shop. It wasn’t the smell itself so much that horrified me as much as the knowledge that the smell didn’t disgust me more.

  It was the smell of raw, freshly exposed flesh and blood; the smell of a slaughterhouse.

  12

  They brought me to a vast set of ornately carved black doors with crystal knobs, then dropped my father’s sword in front of me. They took off the handcuffs, and shoved me through the doors. The lock clicked behind me.

  The room was so dark it took my eyes a moment to adjust, but even though I couldn’t see much, I could feel the emptiness of the huge space, as if I were the bottom of a great dark abyss. The reek surrounded me but was now mingled with something more astringent and chemical.

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I realized there were dim fluorescent lights ahead. How did this space even fit inside this the mansion I had seen outside?