If they weren’t aware, that wasn’t the way to tell them. If they did know, why didn’t they tellme? Teach me about myself, what I am, what I’m capable of doing. Teach me what to do, and more importantly, whatnotto do.No, dear, no setting the schoolyard bully on fire. We can’t let the other children know you’re a dragon.
I sighed and sought to get my work done. Only by sheer will did I finish the article and e-mail it off to the client. That left two more to start, a short story to complete, and a copy-editing job with a deadline of tomorrow. I pulled up the editing task and worked on it throughout the afternoon. Cup after cup of coffee kept the lines from blurring, my exhaustion fighting me to stay on top, always challenging me for dominance.
Five o’clock. Brody promised to drive straight home, collect me, then we’d take the truck back to the farm, or wherever it was my unnamed kidnapper took me. I had few qualms about returning. I may not have conquered my weariness, but I sure as shit conquered my fear.
He stood on the sidewalk by the truck, waiting for me as I parked the Ford. Brody kissed me as though it was the most natural thing in the world, and I accepted it as the same. “You look tired,” he commented as we entered my house.
“I’m all done in,” I admitted.
“We can wait on the lessons,” he said, concerned. “Let’s just run the truck back, wipe our prints, then come home.”
I caressed his broad chest, looking into his face. His wound had nearly healed, and I suspected his remaining scar wouldn’t detract from his hotness a single bit. “No,” I replied. “I need this. I do.”
“Okay.”
He grinned as he gestured for me to join him in the pickup. “We’ll be flying back.”
I gulped. “Oh. I see.”
“It’s easier for you to tell me where to go than for me to follow you.”
“Right. Maybe.”
I turned us around only twice as I navigated and Brody drove. The first stars emerged in the dark sky when I guided him down the long dirt lane from the highway. In the truck’s headlights, the devastation I’d caused the house was even more clear than I remembered. We busily wiped our evidence from the truck and left the key in the ignition.
“Where is he?” Brody asked.
In silence, I led him to the body. Critters had already been at him. His eyes had vanished, as had his lips and, I think, his tongue. Flies, even in the darkness, buzzed over his dried blood, laying their eggs. Their offspring would devour him in due course. Along with the coyotes, coons, rats.
“Austin hasn’t found him then,” Brody murmured.
“Or did, and just left him,” I said. “He can’t go to the cops and say my serial killer friend was killed by the victim I sent him to rape and murder.”
“Good point.”
Brody walked away from the old farm and the corpse, heading toward the trees. I followed, scared and thrilled,terrified and worried that I couldn’t shift into my dragon again. Or if I did, I’d kill myself by trying to fly. Or burn Brody to death.
He took my hand. “I’ll shift first. Don’t be scared. I’ll never hurt you.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay.”
After taking several steps away, Brodychanged.I stumbled back in terror as he towered over me, his golden eyes lit from within. His massive wings blocked all the starlight even as he grinned, his reptilian lips sweeping back from long, backward curving teeth.
“See?” he rumbled, his voice Brody’s, yet deeper. “I’m a dragon.”
He stunned me with his beauty. Throwing off my fear, I walked around his pillar like legs, his massive tail, his scales that seemed to draw in what light there was and make him glow. He arched his long sinuous neck to follow me, the rank of spikes from the crown of his head to his shoulders bending as easily as his neck.
“Breathe fire,” I ordered, my voice a squeak.
Turning his head, Brody exhaled a single line of flame. Even with his head turned, and its slender length, its immense heat struck me, making me sweat.
“Good God,” I panted. “How hot can your – our – fire get?”
“Hot enough to turn steel into a glowing pool in seconds,” he replied. “Okay, focus your thoughts on your inner dragon. She’s there, within you. Focus at first, then with time and practice, shifting will become second nature.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Try it, baby.”
