“I’m glad you took him. There are people out there who would have called animal control.”
Bones lopes up to her and drops the stick again. She picks it up with her gloved hand and tosses it up the trail. We start walking again.
“Believe me, I was tempted. He was so dirty I thought he was a Labrador, and he smelled like three-day-old fish guts. But I said, ‘Get out of there and come over here.’ And I’ll be damned if that dog didn’t obey like he understood every word. Came right to me and sat in front ofme. Once I got him cleaned up and on a better diet, he turned into the menace you see before you.”
Her smile fades. “I never had a dog. My twin sister Marion and I were left at an orphanage as babies. They never allowed pets, and once we moved out and into our own places, I was too busy surviving to have one.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“You’re a twin?”
Bones drops the stick for her, and she throws it again. “Not anymore. She died a little over a year ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. Her eyes shutter. Down the bond, I can feel this is a painful memory for her. I don’t push it.
We walk in silence, stopping to watch a doe grazing in a nearby clearing.
“So…,” she starts, seeming to struggle to form the right words. “Dragons have been at war with the Saint’s Order since the time of Saint George?”
I give a deep sigh. “Fifty years ago, a Zodiac Brother sacrificed himself. He traded himself for a peace accord.”
“Traded himself?”
“Allowed himself to be captured and kept prisoner. For humans, being near a dragon sparks their creativity and increases their health, prosperity and longevity. In exchange for him allowing himself to be captured, for the past fifty years, we’ve enjoyed relative peace. That’s why this thing with Lucy Vale is so serious. To be sure, dragonsareoccasionally slain by Order members, even under the accord, but never publicly like Lucy was. Never so egregiously.”
“Fifty years.” She studies me again. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight. I’m thirty-eight.” I chuckle. “The peace accord happened before I was born.”
“Oh.” She licks her lips, seemingly pleased to hear that. “I thought maybe you were like thousands of years old or something.”
“No. We can be, under certain circumstances, but I’m not.” I wonder if I should explain that the circumstances are an accepted mating bond, but she moves on before I have a chance.
“You mentioned that dragons other than Lucy have been killed since the accord. How is that possible if you’re not at war?”
“Because under the accord, if we trespass on each other’s private property, the rules ... change.” This is a sad conversation, not where I wanted this walk to go. “When my nephew Mason was in elementary school, my sister Carolyn confided in a fellow mom that she was a dragon. She’d known this woman for most of the year, and the woman had reported behaviors in her child that were consistent with being a hybrid. Dragon genes are present in many humans, and if two humans with dormant genes get together, they can have a child who manifests as a dragon. It’s not common, but it’s happened. Anyway, the boy showed many of the signs, or at least it seemed so based on the mother’s concerns, so Carolyn confided in her out of compassion for her son and to prepare the mother in case the boy eventually shifted. The mother seemed grateful. Weeks later, the mother invited Carolyn to her home to work on a project for the school. One thing dragons rarely do is go to a human’s home because the one way the Order canjustifiably capture or kill us is if we set foot on their property. But Carolyn trusted this woman, checked the register of Order properties we keep for the address, and decided to go. When the husband came home, she saw his Order ring. That’s when she knew it was a trap.”
“Oh my God! What happened to her?”
“She was captured, and the Order planned to auction her off. These billionaires buy dragons when they come available and imprison them in their office buildings or factories to inspire their workers. And because my sister was mated, she was even more valuable.”
She blows out her cheeks, then releases her breath. “I’m not following. Why would that be?”
I remind myself she knows nothing about my kind. “Mated dragons live exceptionally long lives. Without a mate, we age more quickly and eventually go up in flames around our hundredth birthday. Mating grants both mates prolonged life.” I take a deep breath, remembering that horrific time. “As long as my brother-in-law stayed alive, they’d have a dragon slave in their possession.”
“That’shorrible.”
I nod. “So my brother-in-law was a warrior, a Zodiac Brother like me. He traded himself for my sister. The Order agreed. They couldn’t pass up a chance at weakening the brotherhood. He chose the hunt rather than the auction.”
She swallows. “The hunt?”
“The terms of the accord require the Order give every captured dragon a choice—auction or hunt. Auction means the dragon is sold to the highest bidder forlifelong imprisonment. This is a boon for the winner who gets to exploit the dragons energy. But dragons can also choose the hunt. In that case, they set the dragon free in a magically contained area and hunt them to the death for sport. Normal human weapons can’t kill dragons, but Order rings are enchanted with magic that, in weapon form, can slice through dragon scales like a hot knife through butter. The magic can also be used to make cuffs and chains that bind us and drain our power. Roger died from an enchanted lance through the heart when Mason was just eight years old.”
“Oh my God!” She clutches her chest. “When Roman shot at us, those bolts were made with this same magic, weren’t they?”
I nod slowly.
“Jesus. You took a huge risk taking me the way you did. If one of those bolts had hit you...”
“He could have killed us both.”
