by Sadie Sears
I couldn’t even guarantee what I looked like as I fought to contain my dragon, and I didn’t want to scare her before I explained. The pain my demon and dragon created inside me was growing hard to hide, and I swallowed down a groan as I tried to mute them both.
But even though my dragon was clawing back some control, my demon wasn’t entirely powerless, and I staggered as pain claimed me at the idea I planned to help Mae.
My dragon pushed again, and as my muscles twisted with greater force, my tenuous thread of control slipped. This shift was happening whether I wanted it to or not.
I began yanking my clothes off as I walked down the hallway, moving into a jog as I threw my clothing left and right before pushing the doors onto the balcony wide open and allowing the tang of saltwater to kiss my face.
A daytime shift was risky, but the clouds were dense and there was some lingering sea fog that hadn’t burnt off yet. Hopefully I’d be hidden.
But my dragon didn’t care for my rational thoughts and the logic of remaining unseen. He only wanted out. He wanted to display himself for Mae and to fly long enough that my demon would leave the two of us alone.
As I moved over the wide balcony, my body changed, growing to the large size of my dragon and bounding on four legs, my long neck held high as I spread my massive wings, ready for flight.
Peace suffused me the moment my demon was completely silent in my head and I gave myself over completely to my dragon, rediscovering a hint of the relationship I’d long thought dead. I swooped low over the waves, allowing the spray to tickle my soft underbelly before soaring into the clouds.
Just before I disappeared behind the swirling gray, I glanced back toward my house. I’d probably ruined any slim chance I had of claiming Mae for my own, though. But my dragon’s satisfaction rumbled loudly at the sight of her slight figure leaning toward us over the balcony, curiosity and astonishment in her clear gaze.
That was a better reaction than running from me in terror, anyway. I could build on that.
My dragon agreed, and I gave into the sensation of the flight I hadn’t even realized I needed.
7
Mae
I leaned as far as I dared over the stone balustrade of the balcony, watching until the creature flew out of sight.
Not creature. Dragon.
Hell, not even dragon. Draven.
Even after he disappeared among the clouds, I continued my watch, certain I caught glimpses of his shadow as he swooped and soared, playing on the air currents.
My rational side couldn’t understand why I wasn’t running away back through the woods from a huge dragon. After all, they were scary, right? They kept princesses locked up in towers, they breathed fire on gallant knights, and they guarded treasure.
But not this one. I paused. Well, except for the treasure.
Draven was majestic, graceful, beautiful. He was amazing, and my breath caught in my throat at the memory of his unfurling wings as he took off.
I glanced behind me. Nestled beside where the doors opened, there was a small stone bench, and I sat on the hard, pitted surface to watch the sky, waiting for another glimpse of the amazing bottle green dragon with the gold-tipped scales.
A small cold weight of uncertainty sat in my stomach, though, and it had nothing to do with the air temperature that made me draw my sweater tighter around myself.
Holy shit. Draven had just turned into a dragon. The more I thought about it, the more excitement buzzed through me. Maybe he really could help me. I bounced my knee, releasing my anxiety at the strange change in circumstances. How was I even supposed to talk to a man who was actually a dragon?
Worse, he was an attractive man who had transformed into a beautiful dragon, and I didn’t have a point of reference for that.
But, still. Help. He’d mentioned contacts he’d spoken to—perhaps there were more dragons, and dragons were supposed to be very wise after all, so reaching out to them for opinions made sense.
I kept my eyes on the clouds. Waiting. Watching. Draven was doing his part, exactly as he’d promised. He was helping me. But maybe I could help both of us. I had a couple of contacts with the police, and I trusted them… Although, I’d never trusted them with my life. Perhaps I could write an article. If I couldn’t go to the police, then I absolutely could still ensure justice was served. Trial by media usually worked like a charm.
I filed that idea away to discuss with Draven when he returned. Maybe together, we could fix this.
I sighed and leaned back as I waited for him to return. Satisfaction eased warmth to all areas of my body as I chewed over my idea.
Waiting for a dragon to return to me felt oddly normal. I’d accepted it without question. Draven was a dragon, and I was fine with that. His scales were beautiful, smooth, and I wanted to touch them, to run my hand over them in the same way I wanted to touch the rest of him.
Weird that I was so calm about one unexpected—and mythical beast—when I’d run in fear from the monster the other night. But that creature had been nothing like Draven. His leathery skin was a dark green shade, edging to black and rough-looking. I grimaced as I thought back. I hadn’t tried to remember this much before, but I’d had my video evidence back then. Now I needed all of the details I could recall.
Some sort of slime had seeped around the cracks in his tough skin, and the claws he’d used to rip people apart had been more like twisted talons. He’d been built to maim and kill, and I shuddered as I remembered his teeth.
I closed my eyes, and the sounds and smells of the night came rushing back. Screams had ripped through the air, and a strange stench had drifted across the room, different than the sour, zesty odor of the dry ice. No… This had been different. I wracked my brains as I tried to place it. Eggs. Rotten ones. I sat up straighter and looked out into the night. Sulfur.
The monster had smelled like sulfur.
Draven smelled like… I drew a breath, holding it in my lungs like I could smell him now. He smelled like…home.
He swooped back into view, hugging the clouds, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed him if I hadn’t known what to look for.
Even as a child, I’d had dreams I could fly. Never on the back of a dragon, but that thought had definite appeal. Sitting on his broad back, nestled between his wings, up against those scales. The urge to touch them returned.
But not only his scales. I wanted to run my hand across Draven’s skin, watch his face, listen to the sounds he made as I pleasured him.
I swallowed my gasp at the errant thought and redirected my focus.
I stood up, my movement rapid. Where the hell had that thought come from? My face heated, and I moved back to the stone balustrade around the edge of the balcony, leaning across it into the breeze that flung sea spray at me, cooling my skin but not my thoughts.
When I looked up again, Draven was landing, and while he was big, he was graceful. He touched down on the cliff edge beneath me and before I could look away, the dragon was gone, replaced by a man.
A naked man.
A naked man with defined pecs and abs, broad shoulders, a trim waist and the cutest ass that I almost fell over the edge watching as he walked into an entrance below the balcony.
I needed to find him, talk to him. The thoughts barely flashed through my mind before I pushed myself away from the stone, my body already a million miles ahead of my mind in its desire to find Draven.
I had so many questions to ask him, but more than that. Part of me just wanted to be with him, which was crazy, but everything about my current situation was crazy. I walked down the hallway, past his bedroom, past mine, past doors I hadn’t even seen open yet, and then down the stairs.
I stopped at the bottom, trying to think about where the balcony was in relation to the doors down here. None of them seemed to face quite the right direction to give me a straight shot to the back of the house, and I hadn’t noticed any doors out into the backyard or cliff access while I’d been here.
I threw
open a door I’d never tried before. It was kind of a contender. It was facing back-ish. But it wasn’t right. It opened into an enclosed room holding a huge dining table and assorted antique furniture, which looked as though it had made it through most of world history starting with the Romans.
“What have you won behind door number two?” I murmured as I opened the kitchen door.
I’d been in here a lot—making plenty of coffee. It was an almost sterile expanse of brushed stainless steel and white tiles and countertops, and I stepped inside because, hey, if the worst happened, I could make a coffee. The large window at the back of the room framed the edge of the cliff perfectly and carried my gaze right to the horizon.
There wasn’t a door outside, though, so where had Draven gone? The kitchen didn’t even sit right at ground level, judging by my view, so perhaps there was some sort of storage level beneath me. Funny how I’d never thought about it before.
I spotted a door in the corner of the room that I’d always assumed was a laundry room and stepped toward it at the same moment that it opened, and Draven walked through. He ran his hand through his wind-tousled hair, the salt from the sea air gifting it a rough, choppy look. I nearly lifted my own hand to smooth it for him.
Sadly, he’d found some jeans and a T-shirt wherever he’d let himself back into the house, and I willed my heart to slow its rapid beat of anticipation. Down, girl. I didn’t usually act like this because I knew the limits of my own attractiveness. And they ended way before Draven.
I shrugged half-heartedly at my own thoughts. The world was what it was.
He opened his mouth like he might speak, but I got there first.
“Okay. That was unexpected.” I’d cover the dragon issue first and talk about an article based on the party in a moment.
His face paled. Perhaps this was something he didn’t actually want to talk about. Maybe I’d need to do a lot of questioning. I nearly rolled my sleeves up—I was comfortable with questioning people on all sorts of subjects, after all, and some normality suited me in such an odd situation.
When I thought about it rationally, I should have been terrified the moment Draven leapt over his balcony and became a dragon. I mean, hello! Dragon. Fire-breathing, riddle-proclaiming, treasure-guarding, cave-dwelling mythical beast. But my pulse remained surprisingly steady, and I had no desire to run away. Instead, a strange sense of calm settled inside me, and peace took control of my thoughts.
“I’ll start easy.” I tried to smile reassuringly as I leaned my elbows on the counter and looked up at him. “So, this might sound like a ridiculous question, but why didn’t you tell me you’re a dragon?” Out of habit, when he didn’t answer immediately, I walked to the cupboard where Draven kept his coffee mugs.
He barked out a laugh, and my mouth twisted into a smile almost against my will.
“Stop it. I told you it was a ridiculous question.” I pointed an accusatory finger at him. “I’m usually much more incisive. I’m working up to the penetrating questions.”
He chuckled a little, really the first degree of levity I’d seen from him, then sobered like someone had flipped a switch. “I didn’t want to scare you away.” He bit his lip and closed his eyes briefly.
“I see.” I kept it cool and professional. “And what sort of dragon are you?”
“A sexy one?” He blurted out his hopeful-sounding answer then panic crossed his face as his eyes widened again. “Um… I’m descended from Acadia dragons.”
“Cool. I can look those up. Any major differences I should know about?” I was almost enjoying this. Being back in charge of questions brought my life more under my control again.
He shifted his weight. “Uh…body size is a bit smaller these days, possibly. And we’re not bound to have all of their traits because, you know…” He started to gesture with his hands like he was searching for a word.
“Hybrids.” I interrupted and shrugged. “Yeah, I get it. Some of your human traits will dominate the dragon one, I guess.”
He shook his head emphatically. “No. It’s not that. I…”
“What is it?” My curiosity threaded through my tone. I’d obviously never had the chance to interview an actual dragon before, and although I probably shouldn’t do anything with this information, the opportunity of teasing it from him wasn’t something I wanted to give up.
He sighed. “There’s something I really should tell you. Something I should explain.”
I reached for the milk to add to my coffee, partly to take the heat off him if there was something else he wanted to tell me. I lived for these moments—like a big scoop. “Okay.” And I still managed to sound so casual about it.
“I’m not just part dragon. I’m also part demon.” His voice had grown quieter as he spoke.
I almost thought I hadn’t heard him correctly. “Demon?” I could see the dragon part, but what did demon mean to Draven? The same as it meant to me? “Some sort of spawn from hell? Like a hybrid hybrid?”
He nodded, his mouth set in a grim line, but his gaze was lit with a mixture of uncertainty and hope. But he didn’t clarify.
“Like from hell?” I asked the obvious question again anyway, seeing as he seemed unwilling to say more, and the need to understand burned through me.
He nodded again. “Yeah.”
“And what exactly does that mean in your day-to-day life?” I tried to look preoccupied with spooning coffee from the nearly empty jar as I waited for his reply, but I still held my breath.
He hesitated again, and I glanced at him. “It’s important in my job, I guess.”
I narrowed my eyes a little, my mind throwing a slew of thoughts at me, the way it always did when an interview turned juicy. I could almost smell the story here as I forced myself to put the brakes on. Draven wasn’t my story. The party was. I couldn’t expose Draven to the world—the knowledge of that obligation to maintain my silence should have been at odds with every one of my journalistic instincts, but it wasn’t. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to follow my thoughts deeper down this rabbit-hole.
“I didn’t realize you had a job.” He hadn’t been out to an office since I’d been staying.
“Sure.” He nodded, but still didn’t seem at ease.
“What do you do?” It was the obvious question again.
But he shrugged again. “I’m freelance. I…find things for people, I guess.”
“You guess?”
He nodded slowly and looked away, his shifting stance giving away his unease. “Some of what I find and do in my line of work falls into a morally gray area.”
I caught my breath then rolled my shoulders. I’d heard worse from people, and I didn’t want him to see any of my shock or wariness.
Demons. Well, that was more unexpected than the dragon. As I inhaled the aroma of the coffee, a sudden bitter note caught in the back of my throat, reminding me of the surprising odor at the party, and I changed my line of questioning.
“Demons like fire and brimstone and…sulfur?” I asked.
He nodded, but the movement was barely there, almost like he could see the dots I’d just joined in my head. “Yes, like that.” His voice was quiet, and he took the smallest of steps back.
I pushed his coffee toward him. “Like the guy at the party?” I kept my voice casual, but he caught his breath anyway.
“Yes. Wait. No.” He stepped closer again and slid onto a barstool, his shoulders slumped, his posture defeated. “I mean, yes, we’re the same species. But we’re not alike.” He winced before shaking his head and gritting his teeth. “In some demon-dragons, the demon is fully in control. Those dragons are irredeemable.” He shook his head sadly. “The dragon part of Saul is essentially dead as far as I know.”
Saul. So, the name he’d put on the invitation was his real one. I filed that information away to pursue later. “But your dragon is still alive.” I’d seen it. And it looked vital and healthy and intriguing.
“Yes, and at the moment, he’s fighting to claim his mate.�
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“His mate?” My throat dried and my voice came out as a whisper.
I’d phrased it as a question, but I didn’t need an answer. The moment Draven spoke the word mate, something clicked into place inside me.
He leveled a look full of meaning at me. “Dragons are honorable, respectful, and loyal. And I have an overpowering impulse to protect my mate against anything and everything that could harm her.” He took my hand and lowered his voice further. “I would lay down my life to protect you, Mae.”
As he spoke, he grimaced, and he lifted his other hand to his forehead as his face drained of color.
“Are you okay?” Concern took hold of me.
His hand spasmed over mine briefly, the twitching of his muscles giving away a pain response. “Yeah. It’s just…my demon has the power to hurt me if I don’t do what it wants or it thinks I’m in danger of being too…good, I guess. If I love too much.” He grimaced again then sighed. “Knowing who you are and my dragon fighting to be with you hurts me. I wish I could explain everything to you, but the truth is I don’t know enough about it myself.” He laughed drily as he focused his attention out of the window. “I didn’t have anyone to teach me.” His tone wasn’t self-pitying. Just factual.
I frowned, unsure what to say. There were so many avenues of questioning to explore. Learn what? Who was supposed to teach him? Why didn’t they?
He glanced at me and answered a question I hadn’t voiced, hadn’t even thought of. “It’s okay. There’s nothing you can do.” His smile was strained.
“I wish I could. Is there anything that can make this easier for you?” None of the avenues needed exploring right now. I reined in my journalist side. She had no place in this conversation.
He chuckled again but darker this time. “No. The only way to make all of this easier is for me to surrender my soul or whatever my demon wants.”
It was the kind of statement that should have been accompanied by a comedic sinister laugh, but Draven didn’t even crack a smile, and I shivered.