Dragon Captain

by Kendal Davis

  Then, as she leaned over the makeshift net bag that I was hauling over the edge of the boat, she fidgeted with eagerness. She was like a child at Summer Festival, jumping up and down with pleasure in her presents.

  Her blue eyes blazed at me with excitement. “What did you find down there?”

  Chapter 5: Kat

  Spending time with dragons took some getting used to. I had lived here on the island for years now, always aware of my own physical limitations and how they contrasted with the power of nature. Anybody who went out on the water here knew to be wary of weather and currents. I would no sooner take a tiny boat this far offshore than I would stumble over the edge of a cliff on a whim.

  Come to think of it, I had done both of those things today. That was what happened when I listened to a dragon man.

  It wasn’t that I was timid. Far from it. I had taken tourists out for a week, with only myself and Andres to care for their safety. Nobody had ever complained. But that was because I knew my limits.

  Cobalt didn’t seem to have any, either in his courage, or his resourcefulness when it came to helping me out of a bad situation. It was exhilarating to watch as he energetically moved from one triumph to another. Just as he had soared through the sky to pick me up on the day I’d met him, now he was again spreading his wings wide to take care of me.

  I talked a big game, always projecting a fun-loving personality, always making sure that nobody saw me worry about anything. But the truth was, I hadn’t been taken care of by anybody in a long time.

  It felt good.

  It scared me to think of relying on him, but it felt amazing.

  When Cobalt had lifted his bag of treasure over the edge of the rowboat, he pulled himself aboard. His broad shoulders tightened with the movement of raising himself up. I didn’t intend to stare, but it was hard to look away. He shook his head again, his light hair shining in the sunshine. His body was sleek and hard, his muscles firm and beaded with droplets of water from my world’s ocean. He was built. Anybody would be able to see that he was a man who worked in enforcement. What they couldn’t see, I supposed, was that he was so caring when it came to individual lives.

  I was torn between fixing my eyes on the treasure he’d brought up, or on the parts of his body that were usually covered by fabric. There was so much to see there. So much.

  “Let me show you,” he said, tugging the panels of net apart. “I’ve seen ships from that time before, but I knew right away that this would be a good one. How is it that your people don’t do a better job of lifting this sort of treasure out?”

  I was practically jumping in my seat with curiosity. “It’s harder for us than for you. We can’t swim like that, or stay down for so long. I know where we are right now, and it is really deep there.”

  “Of course,” he said. “When I saw the wreck, I knew it would be untouched for that reason.” He hefted a gold bar in his right hand with a grin, then passed it to me.

  It was so heavy that my hand dropped to my lap, the gold bar now resting there. The pressed gold was in a narrow, irregular form, with symbols stamped all along it. There were different seals marked into it, as well as what looked like Roman numerals. The metal had a luscious, glowing shimmer to it. It seemed impossible that it had been down in the silt of the ocean floor.

  Now that I saw what he had brought up from the wreck, and how large the ingot was, I was almost speechless. “How many of these do you have?”

  Cobalt unwrapped the pile to show me, allowing the gold to gleam alluringly in the sun. “I am sure this pile weighs more than you do. Yet it was much easier to carry than you were the last time you rode me.”

  I bristled, then laughed as I saw his teasing eyes. “Perhaps that is because the last time you carried me, we were being attacked by an army of dragons.”

  “Perhaps,” he allowed. “The bag of gold was much quieter, as well. It chatters less than you.”

  I reached over and slapped his leg. We were becoming giddy with our riches. “I never chatter,” I answered haughtily.

  “No, you don’t.” His mood had shifted again, so that he met my eyes with a seriousness I didn’t know he had in him. “Whatever you say, it is always worth listening to. Remember that, Kat.”

  I turned back to the gold to cover up my nervousness. “Do you have any idea how much this will fetch on the open market?” I knew it was a fortune, but I suddenly realized that I had no way to turn this haul into actual cash.

  “Oh, I know how,” he answered my unspoken thought casually. “I told you, I have done this many times. There is more value down there than any of you humans realize. And the laws of your land award the finder with the proceeds in almost every case.”

  “Wait a second. You keep saying you’ve been here before, and you’ve been out diving for sunken treasure before. Do you mean that you already have some kind of permanent life here in my world?”

  “Yes. It is a place that I enjoy.” He shrugged, as if unable to explain why such a thing would happen, merely commenting that it was true. “I have a home here, and a name by which people know me. I visit when I can.”

  “But you didn’t offer to just pay my debt. Most of the rich men that I meet here on the island would have tried to help me that way.”

  “That isn’t exactly help, though, is it?” Cobalt’s direct gaze made me feel that he was seeing inside my soul. “That would just be another way of putting you in debt.”

  My breath caught in my throat at his acuity. “So you took me out here?”

  “Kat, I know you love the ocean. It is your workplace. Think of this as a bonus the sea is giving you. Other sailors, in a time that would seem to you to be long ago, lived and worked for this treasure. When it was lost in the depths, perhaps it was meant to wait for you. It has been resting there until this very day, when you would come to get it and row back to the town as a rich woman.”

  “Swimming makes you poetic, doesn’t it?” I said softly.

  In answer, he merely smiled at me. Without speaking again, he reached for the pile of clothing he’d left when he went into the water. He shrugged his bulky form into it with surprising grace, then settled down and took the oars. The afternoon would soon fade. Even though we could fly back to the island in a matter of minutes, I saw the sense in his plan. I would arrive back at the marina and everybody there would witness my return. The story would be hard to believe, but they would, because they were seeing it with their own eyes.

  We were silent for a long while. As we drew closer to the island, the gulls wheeled overhead, calling out to greet us. The briny scent of the waves lulled me into dreams of what it would be like to be financially independent. I had always worked so hard. Now, if I was lucky, I might have enough to pay off the boat and also have a little extra to add some comforts to the life that Andres and I led. A better apartment, maybe? He might like a small motorbike.

  I was drowsy now, not sure if Cobalt would hear my voice. It sounded to my own ears as if it was coming from far away. “You told me how much this weighs, but not how much you think it will be worth. Will you help me find out how to sell it? Will it be enough to pay off the lien on the boat?”

  Cobalt, too, sounded as if the dreamy quality of the afternoon had taken hold on him. Perhaps from the exercise of the dive, and the time spent rowing, he was more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. He answered in a drawl. “Yes. It will be worth many millions of your dollars, of course.”

  If I’d been a woman from another time, from the era that my gold hailed from, I would have fainted.

  As it was, I sat for ages with my mouth open, not answering. I had to process all this.

  In just a few days, I’d gone from being an owner of a sturdy small business, to being bankrupt and in tremendous debt for damage that my insurance definitely did not cover, to now being richer than I’d ever expected to be.

  This was some mental whiplash, for sure.

  Before we reached the marina, Cobalt primed me on our story. We’d expla
in away our lack of dive equipment. We might offer a few judicious gifts. No matter what, the plan was going to work.

  And it did. Perhaps because he was a dragon, he seemed to emanate confidence everywhere he went. People listened to him, they followed his instructions. He was still the Captain of his dragon Guard, and it showed.

  I was glad to have this natural leader on my side, rather than working against me.

  When we reached my apartment, I was flushed and whooping with laughter, jubilant at what we had just accomplished. There would be more paperwork and lawyers tomorrow, but for tonight, all we needed to do was find Andres and tell him that our lives had changed.

  Lives didn’t change course like this, not in my world.

  But, with the help of a bright blue dragon, maybe anything was possible.

  I paused, just inside the door. When I saw that Andres had gone out, I felt an impulse to step closer to Cobalt. Just for a moment, maybe I could find a way to relax with him. If I could surrender to anybody, it would be him, right? He was everything I’d ever hoped for in a man.

  Except for being, you know, human.

  Still, I lifted my face to his, edging close enough to his body that I could almost swear I felt heat coming from him. He was a dragon. Maybe he was hot all the time. I certainly felt hotter, the more I was around him.

  I reached out a hand to tentatively touch his arm. “Listen, I just wanted to say...thank you. For all of this. You didn’t have to help me with my problems, but you did. It means a lot to me.”

  “I would help you with anything you needed.”

  It was hard to understand his expression. Something about his face always looked so stoic, as if he was a dutiful officer, even when he was having fun. Seized by a sudden impulse, I lifted up on my toes and gently kissed him on the lips. I meant it to be a small way of thanking him. I didn’t expect the heat that rushed through me.

  Flames might have been licking at my throat, searing my heart, the way I felt my body respond to the kiss. The air left my lungs as I looked up at him, then, not knowing where else to look, down at my hands. I realized that I was still touching his arm, and I pulled my hand back as if his skin was burning me.

  That was embarrassing.

  I gulped, feeling more awkward by the second, but he remained impassive.

  I would have sworn that he kissed me back, but there was no sign that he was at all flustered, not like I was.

  Ok, then. Maybe he wasn’t that into me.

  Trying to gather my wits, I fumbled through another attempt at gratitude. “It’s been hard for me to think that I had fallen behind on a debt. That’s just not like me.” I was still looking down. “And I didn’t know what to do. Thank you again, really.” I felt brave enough to peek at his face one more time. Was he as shaken by our connection as I was?

  He smiled kindly at me, but his answer made my spirits sink into my shoes. “Kat, I told you, I am here with the duty of escorting you home. I am honor-bound to assist you with any difficulty you encounter until I discharge that task.”

  Wait, I was just a ‘task?’ A ‘duty?’

  I didn’t even try to answer that. Instead, I made my way across the tiny living room and sank heavily into the chair at my round kitchen table. The room looked just as it had when we went out this morning. Thank goodness that Andres was responsible enough to clean up after himself before he went out.

  The big brown envelope of papers was right where I had left it. I stared at it and sighed. I couldn’t put off opening it forever.

  There was nothing to be scared of now. I was having trouble getting it into my head, but I was rich! I didn’t have to worry about this debt, or about whatever late fee was going to be attached to it.

  It would be no problem for me now.

  For the first time in my adult life, money would not be an issue at all. I would just write a check, and that weasel of a little debt collector would never, ever appear on my doorstep again.

  Apparently unaware that he’d hurt my feelings, Cobalt stepped up next to me. He leaned forward, resting his hand on the table, watching patiently as I opened the envelope.

  I flipped through the pages. My eyes traveled to the highlighted section of the contract, right at the back. There were some articles about late payment and penalties to be assessed. They were buried at the end of pages and pages of complex legal terms. That must have been the plan all along.

  Sure, I was kicking myself now for not having read the whole contract when I signed it, but I’d been so young then. I’d been scared and overwhelmed, and I would have done anything to find a way to take over my parents’ business and provide for my brother.

  Now that I looked at, from the vantage point of being older and wiser, I couldn’t believe that I’d signed something without knowing what it said.

  The yellow-highlighted sentence was the creepiest thing I’d ever seen. It was if it was mocking my poor decision, pointing out to me that our worst mistakes really do come back to haunt us.

  The papers fell from my hands.

  The money hadn’t even mattered. Everything we’d done today had been for nothing.

  I was in so much trouble.

  My dragon bodyguard read the clause aloud, his words slowing as he took in the ramifications of what he was reading. “If you cannot produce the boat when required...if you fall behind on a payment, even one...you are contractually bound in...Wait, that can’t be right.”

  “No, it is. I read it all the way through. I didn’t even look at it all those years ago, but I’m reading it now. Now that it is too late. That’s what it says.”

  I held my head in my hands, stunned by the awfulness of it all. I’d thought it might be possible to find security, wealth, even somebody special, albeit from another dimension, but now I realized I’d never been so alone in my life.

  “It says I’m now contractually bound to marry the man who holds the lien on the boat.”

  Chapter 6: Cobalt

  Our new home, the bustling city of Miami, was different from my world, yet there were surprising similarities as well. One only had to know where to look.

  In my youth, back on the dragon land of Elter, I had listened every night, transfixed, to fairy tales that detailed the deeds of villains. One of the common themes of our stories was the peril of arranged marriages and the terror of being forced into an unwanted alliance. For dragon shifters, it was a dreadful burden to mate with somebody who was incompatible. We could read the thoughts of our mate, so such a situation would mean consigning oneself to a lifetime of emotional pain.

  And for an immortal dragon shifter, a lifetime was forever.

  I wasn’t sure if Kat understood yet that I was an immortal being. She ran hot and cold, either allowing herself to come tantalizingly close to me, or blocking intimacy between us to protect her pride. There was no sweet spot in between those two extremes. I trod carefully at all times, trying to find my way to her heart without scaring her off.

  It had been even harder these last weeks, since she had uprooted her life to leave Roatán . Without any other choices available to her, she had fled from the beautiful island that had been her home for years.

  The day that she had found out what the contract really meant for her, she had fought to hide her terror from me. I could read it in her mind, but she did everything she could to pretend to be calm. She thought she could deal with any situation by putting up a strong front. That was how she had gotten through her adult life so far, and she wasn’t going to stop now.

  Not if it meant being vulnerable to anybody.

  The result of that was that the three of us now occupied a luxury high-rise condo in Miami. There was space enough for all of us to pursue separate lives, which was apparently how Kat liked it.

  She thought we were safe here from her creditor. She thought we’d left her problems on Roatán . In her mind, moving back to the city where she had lived as a child was a fresh start, where nobody would find her.

  Only I knew that sh
e was wrong.

  Kat bustled past me now, as I lay back on the couch in her living room in the midday sun. She looked disaffected with my presence here. Again.

  “Why don’t you go out and do something, Cobalt?” Her complaint came out sharper than she meant, but I only knew that because I could feel her emotions so clearly in my mind. If I hadn’t been able to do that, I might have been cut by her grouchy tone.

  “I was out all night, flying over the ocean. You know that.”

  “You need to stop doing that. There’s no point in continuing to obsess about this stupid marriage contract. You know we’ve solved that problem by moving here.” She swept her arm out in front of her, indicating the beauty of the room. Every surface was impeccable; every furnishing was perfect in design and arrangement. It was the sort of place where one could move in at short notice, with quite a lot of money.

  It had been just what we needed.

  “I’m not obsessing about anything,” I observed mildly. “I am merely making sure that I can assure your safety.”

  “For goodness’ sake. I’m an adult. I’m used to taking care of myself.” She took the book out of my hands and slammed it down on the low table in front of me. That was unnecessary. I already knew how the novel ended, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t really reading it.

  “Kat, we’ve talked this into the ground already. We don’t need to go over it again.” I stood from the couch, stretching my arms so that I towered over her slight form. “I need to make sure you are safe.”

  “We paid off the boat! We left a bank check for so much money at that attorney’s office that you’d think they would be so busy spending it that they could never find the time to come after me.” She had stepped back from me when I rose, as if she was afraid to touch me.

  “I am glad we were able to do that. I know it meant a great deal to you that you were able to discharge your debt.” I held back from touching her, although I longed to reach for her hand in sympathy.