“We made mistakes,” Ingrid said. “I’m not denying that. But we learned from them and we changed.”
The old man started laughing again, a laugh that soon changed into a cough. “You learned, alright. I heard Bella suffered months of the most excruciating agony before she died.”
I expected Ingrid to silence him immediately, the way she always did when someone mentioned my mother’s name. But the poison in his words seemed to paralyze her.
“Sigurd could have ended her suffering at any time, and yet you refused to call on him. I wonder why? Was it due to your own stubbornness or hers?”
“She died a natural death. The way she wanted to.”
“And what did it cost her?” He started his coughing laugh again. “Was it worth it in the end, to die as a human?”
“For her, yes. It was.”
“Pathetic! Why die a human when you can die a dragon?”
Ingrid whipped around to face Jack Pendragon. “Control your father. You swore no one would ever mention that word in her presence.”
“I never figured you for the type who’s afraid to call a spade a spade.”
“Jess isn’t a spade.”
“No.” He smiled coldly. “She’s a dragon.”
“Shut up, Jack.”
“You can’t keep the truth from her forever.”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I can or cannot do.”
“It’s not like you can just wish her dragonblood away, you know.”
I listened to them arguing, looking from the one to the other, and I felt nothing. Why would I? The word “dragon” meant very little to me then. Dragons were fantasy creatures that guarded their treasures in secret, dark caves. They terrorized maidens, fought sword-wielding knights and fell in love with donkeys. They were celebrated by people dancing in costume on the Chinese New Year. They could be tamed by Viking boys named Hiccup. They were fire-spewing weapons used by the Targaryens.
They had nothing whatsoever to do with me.
I didn’t flinch, or frown, or back away. I wasn’t shocked or freaked out. Being a dragon didn’t sound like my destiny or my fate. It was just one of the many strange things about that night that I couldn’t even begin to make sense of.
“We’re leaving,” Ingrid said.
This time I didn’t argue. But Jack Pendragon took a step closer, blocking our way. “You’re not going anywhere. The kitten’s magic is broken; there’s doubt about it anymore. It’s a pity, but we now need to make the best of the situation.”
“Get out of my way.”
“Unfortunately, that won’t be possible. I cannot allow her to leave this house again.”
“We had a deal.”
“True. But when we made that deal, I was under the impression that she had great power of her own. If the only magic protecting her is yours, I cannot let her leave. She’s the last pure-blooded dragon left on earth, and she will not die on my watch.”
“I told you never to mention that word in her presence.”
He smirked at me. “Are you really that shocked to find out you’re a dragon? Does it break your soft, kittenish little heart to know that you’re not a real girl after all?”
His words were too ridiculous to upset me.
“I’m not a dragon,” I said calmly.
He laughed. “Oh well, if you say so. And I guess the next thing you’ll tell me is that the Black Clan aren’t Dragonkeepers, and that the Skykeepers never tried to exterminate all dragons from the face of the earth. And that you never used your dragonvoice on the Order’s judges and forced them to kneel before you. And that your dragonshine didn’t enslave dozens of people, including your precious young Gunnar. My, my, what a lot of interesting views you must hold.”
“What is he talking about?” I asked Ingrid.
“Ignore him,” she said.
But I couldn’t. It was all simply too strange. There was no reason why Jack Pendragon—of all people—would make up something so childishly absurd. I looked down at myself, half-expecting to see scales and a tail and a pair of leathery wings. But I looked just like an ordinary girl.
“Why does he keep saying I’m a dragon?” I asked Ingrid.
“Why does Jack Channing ever say anything?”
It was only when she avoided my eyes that I realized, with heart-stopping clarity, that she was evading my question.
“But… Is it true? Am I some kind of… dragon?”
“You are what you are, Jess.”
Sweet Jesus. Another evasion.
“Yes, but what does that mean? Who am I? What am I?”
She sighed. “You are your mother’s daughter.”
My chest contracted painfully as a horrible realization began to dawn.
“So… what? Was my mother one too? Were all the wards of the Black clan? Are the Black Clan really Dragonkeepers? Oh my God—do people fear our magic because we’re dragons?”
“It’s just a word people use, little one. Nothing more and nothing less.”
So it was true.
It felt like being punched in the gut. I couldn’t breathe.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because the use of that word is political—a label. A term of abuse. Some people call girls like you “dragons” because it makes them feel better about denying your humanity and treating you like animals.”
“We would never treat you like an animal in this house,” Jack Pendragon said. “Unlike the Black Clan, who would torture you into submission and call it ‘drilling you into your power.’ There are no Dragonkeepers here, kitten. In this house you will be free to be who you really are: a powerful queen, a sister and a mother.”
“He’s playing word games again,” Ingrid said. “A Queen is what they call a girl like you who loses herself so deeply in her power that she cannot find her way back to the normal world again. When that happens there are physical and mental changes.” She pointed to the Pendragon women who were still standing in a circle, vacant-eyed. “That’s one form a Queen may take. And make no mistake, that’s how you’ll end up if the Pendragons have their way.”
“No. Not necessarily.” Jack Pendragon sent so much bloodmagic my way I could taste it on my tongue. “When our women chose to step into their dragonshine permanently, they knew they would lose some human functionality, but they did it for the greater good. You, however, are a pure-blooded dragon. There’s nothing stopping you from full transformation.”
“We will stop her,” Zig’s father said.
“No,” Jack Pendragon told me, his voice thick and syrupy with bloodmagic. “They won’t touch you. I won’t let anybody harm you.”
“He’s lying,” Ingrid said. “There’s nothing the Pendragons can do to stop a Dragonslayer. Once the slayers decide that someone is a threat, only the Black Clan can stand against them.”
George Pendragon laughed his smoker’s laugh. “You’re all that’s left of the Black Clan, keeper. Would you take on three slayers for her sake?”
“Yes,” Ingrid said simply. Then she took my hand and started leading me towards the door.
“Not so fast.”
By this time, however, I had heard enough. More than enough.
The touch of Ingrid’s hand on mine was clearing the web of Jack Pendragon’s bloodmagic from my mind, and I saw the trap they’d set for me as clear as day.
“You can call me a dragon or you can call me a kitten—I don’t care,” I said. “I’m not staying here to become like one of those women. Forget it. I will never marry Jonathan and I will never have his children. My blood is my own. Leave me alone.”
Jack Pendragon didn’t look particularly offended. “Yes, I can see my son has failed to make the required connection. That boy has been nothing but a disappointment, I’m afraid.”
He turned to look at Jonathan. “You had exactly one job,” he told him, his face tight with disapproval. “Get the kitten to fall for you. And really, how difficult could it be with all the bloodmagic flowing through your veins?”
/> Jonathan was tracing the wood grain on the table with an idle finger again. He didn’t look up. His father shook his head in disgust. “What kind of imbecile wastes his time on a silly little human slut, and lets a pure-blooded dragon slip through his fingers?”
“Chloe might be human, but she’s not silly. And she’s not a slut.”
I remember how surprised I was that Jonathan stood up for Chloe in such an old-fashioned, almost gentlemanly way—I never knew he had it in him. It made me think a lot better of him. But there was no way in hell I was staying there to have his babies.
“I want to leave,” I said.
“Yes,” Jack Pendragon said. “I can understand your reluctance to marry that boy. But unfortunately you’re the last true dragon left on earth, and I will not risk your safety any longer.” He grasped my wrist in a creepy, too-quick movement. “Don’t worry, you won’t be forced to marry Jonathan. You won’t be forced to marry anyone.”
When I tried to pull away, his fingers around my wrist tightened like a steel clamp.
“But you will be having a child. And that child will be mine.”
Chapter 28
I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain.
From Meditations on Philosophy by Rene Descartes (1639)
Ingrid drew in her breath, a sound of sheer disbelief. “What did you say?”
“She will stay here and have my child. I am the Alpha and I’m only forty-seven years old. It is not unheard of.”
“Have you lost your mind completely?”
I was now standing between the two of them, literally tugged in two different directions. Ingrid held my one hand in hers, her face appalled. Jack Pendragon grasped my other wrist, his punishing grip betraying an intensity absent from his calmly spoken words.
“I am not too old to father a healthy child.”
“You make me sick.”
“Imagine a child with both her blood and mine!”
“We won’t allow it,” Zig’s father said. “Your sickness will not spread beyond the confines of this house.”
Jack Pendragon gave me a weirdly conspiratorial wink. “These dragonslayers, hey kitten? It seems the first requirement for the job isn’t so much an immunity to magic as the ability to take yourself too seriously.” He laughed then, as if he’d just made a hilarious joke.
“Are you actually attempting to flirt with my ward?” Ingrid raised her eyebrows all the way to her hairline. “For God’s sake, Jack, I don’t think I’ve ever respected you less than at this precise moment. And that’s saying something.”
He shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. “Your opinion doesn’t interest me in the least. But you are the kitten’s keeper, and I wouldn’t want to cause her any unnecessary distress. So I will give you two options. Listen closely. The first option is to let go of her hand and walk out the door. If you choose this option, you will live to see the morning while she stays here, safe, cherished, and free to fulfill her destiny.”
Ingrid didn’t say a word. Nor did she move. But she grew taller somehow, and darker. Stranger.
“The second option is to try and take her from this house. In which case she will also remain here—but you will die tonight.”
“You cannot kill me and you know it.”
“Perhaps not. But they can.” He nodded towards the men holding the women on chains. “Three dragonslayers against one Dragonkeeper. I’d take the odds on that any day.”
It was then that Zig’s grandfather spoke for the first time. His eyes were as silver as his grandson’s and his voice was surprisingly deep for someone so old and dried-up and sinewy. But he seemed less angry than Zig, somehow, and he spoke calmly, his voice full of quiet authority. “None of us would strike Black for his sake, Ingrid.”
She nodded somberly. “Thank you, Sigurd.”
“You will follow my command or suffer the consequences!”
The old man smiled at Ingrid. “You know little Jack: he always did love to order people around. We allow it when it serves our purposes. It does not now.”
“You will choose the Black Clan over my family?” Jack Pendragon asked, outraged.
“Those who follow the Old Words know the true value of a Dragonkeeper, even if the rest have long forgotten.”
Ingrid took another step towards the door, but Jack Pendragon would not let me go. “You’re not leaving,” he said.
George Pendragon gave a wheezing cough. “Let her go, Jack. There’s no need for this kind of stand-off.”
“Stay out of this, father.”
“You can always seduce the girl later. She seems to have no resistance whatsoever to bloodmagic.”
“Her keeper will never let me come anywhere near her again.”
“And whose fault is that?” The look of contempt the old man sent his son made it clear to me that this family has been deeply dysfunctional for generations.
“You were the one who taught me to take what I want.”
“I also taught you strategy. At least, I tried.”
“The time for strategy is over.”
“Rubbish. You should have left it to Jonathan. Your son knows the juvenile far better than you realize. He would’ve won her over in time, and he’d have done it the right way.”
“Jonathan’s too soft. A dragon needs an Alpha.”
“You just love that title, don’t you?” The old man laughed his smoker’s laugh again. “Don’t you know it’s impossible to dominate a dragon who doesn’t choose her chains willingly?”
“She’ll obey in the end. They all do.”
“No, they don’t.” He started coughing again. “And anyway, you blew it now. Her keeper won’t let her within a mile of any of us again.”
“I didn’t blow anything.” His fingers tightened around my wrist. “She’s still here.”
“You’re a fool if you think that’s enough. I fought side-by-side with Ingrid Waymond in my day, and I fought against her. Believe me, you are no match for her.”
“She’s old.”
“She’s the last Dragonkeeper.”
“I’ll use the women if I must.”
“Don't you dare!”
“I’ll dare anything to keep the juvenile.”
Ingrid, who’d been listening to them with a peculiar, distant look on her face, took a threatening step closer to Jack Pendragon. “Understand this. You will keep her here over my dead body.”
He didn’t even blink. “I know.”
When he finally let go of my wrist, it was red and painful, a disturbing reminder of the wounds I’d seen under the Pendragon women’s chains.
Ingrid and I immediately made for the door and nobody tried to stop us. But when we tried the handle, we found it locked.
“Every exit to this house is locked and secured by two fully armed guards. You will not leave here without my permission.” Jack Pendragon now stood among the women, who were forming a loose circle around him.
“This is a bad business,” Zig’s grandfather told Jack Channing in his deep voice. “They won’t like it. And we won’t step in if it goes wrong. We’re not murderers, in spite of what you might believe, and I won’t kill a witless thing when it’s provoked beyond all reason.”
“I am the Alpha. They will obey me.”
“Forcing them to obey an order they cannot abide is the quickest way to make them turn.”
“I can keep them under control.”
“It’s not worth the risk,” George Pendragon told his son.
“It’s worth every risk.”
Jonathan looked up for the first time. “Please dad. Amber is new to her chains. What if she –”
“She won’t. Now shut up, I need to concentrate.”
He closed his eyes again, and t
his time so did the six women. A tense silence fell over the room.
“What is he doing?” I asked Ingrid, my voice a nervous whisper.
“He’s ordering them to attack me.”
“Will they do it?”
“I don’t think they have much of a choice anymore.”
She sounded resigned rather than scared, but I knew she was calling upon her magic because she grew more powerful before my eyes. It’s difficult to explain: it wasn’t as if her old, fragile body suddenly morphed into the muscled physique of a superhero, but rather that her lack of physical strength became irrelevant as her inner power surged outwards. She was not what she seemed, and with every passing second this became more and more obvious.
I remember not entirely understanding why she would choose that moment to reveal her powers so openly. To me, the Pendragon women didn’t seem like much of a threat at all. What could those delicate blonde beauties, with the chains around their necks and the vacant expressions on their faces, do to someone like Ingrid? It all seemed absurd, then. All the talk of “dragons” and “Dragonkeepers” and “dragonslayers” hadn’t sunk in yet, which meant I was totally unprepared for what happened next.
There was a tense silence. A peculiar smell in the air.
And then the entire room grew dark, and cold, and terrible.
Suddenly, we were in the presence of evil.
Someone moaned in fear. It might even have been me. As the light faded away completely, there was a low, hissing sound followed by a high-pitched screech that made every hair on my body stand on end.
I peered into the darkness, trying to see what was happening. But I could make out very little. This was no natural darkness, no mere absence of light. This darkness was less an absence than a presence, a heavy and suffocating new reality that drenched us in the thick dirty syrup of its gloom.
Despite the murk, I could sense pain and distress and dread. The fear in the room was thicker than the air we breathed.
And then, out of the darkness, an even darker shadow.
I whimpered as a strangely malformed shape, low and hunched over, scuttled closer in a horrible spider-like sideways crawl.
Coming straight at us.
Attacking.
The moment was too surreal to make any sense of. It was as if I had stepped off the edge of the normal world to fall into an eerie pit of horrors, a hellish place where nightmares were real and monsters lived.
Fireborn (The Dark Dragon Chronicles Book 2) Page 29