Dragon Unbound

Savian squawked something, his face turning beet red. He clutched at the hand that held him by the throat, his legs kicking helplessly.

  “Answer me!” Avval roared, and I swear the building shook.

  I braced myself, then jerked off the tape, muttering under my breath and rubbing my abused lips while glaring at my erstwhile captor. “That’s the second time today that you’ve done that, and I’m even less happy about it this time!”

  “Savian!” May came into the room with a handful of clothing, having evidently caught the last part of the action. “You taped Charity’s mouth shut? That’s heinous!”

  Savian made a gesture that would probably have been a shrug if he wasn’t, at that moment, being throttled to death.

  “I will not tolerate this,” Avval thundered.

  “You won’t have to if you keep choking him like that,” I said, tapping him gently on the hand that squeezed Savian’s throat. “You might want to let him have some air so that he’s still alive when I beat the ever-living tar out of him.”

  With a snarl, Avval released Savian, the latter falling to the ground with ragged, desperate gasps of air.

  Avval spun around and demanded of Ysolde, “Release me from my oath so that I might smite this mortal.”

  “What? Me?” Ysolde, who had managed to get Baltic onto his feet, looked startled. Drake was also up on his feet, although he was clutching the back of a chair to keep upright.

  “There will be no smiting on my behalf,” I said calmly, although I managed to accidentally step on Savian’s fingers.

  He moaned and tried to crawl away, but Avval yanked him to his feet. “You will not take Charity to your overlord.”

  Savian, cradling his hand, said hoarsely, “My what, now? And just who are you?”

  “Oh, do allow me to make the introductions. Savian, meet the First Dragon, the demigod who created the race of dragons. First Dragon, this is the man who picked me up on the way to the train station, slapped tape over my mouth so I couldn’t sing, tied my hands behind my back, and dragged me over half the countryside of Hungary looking for a portal that worked.” I glanced at my watch. It was almost dawn.

  Avval looked as if I’d punched him in the balls. “You were not kidnapped by the musicians?”

  “Not so much, no. I ... uh ... I thought it was best that I leave, and I didn’t want to make a big deal about it.”

  “You left without telling me,” Avval said, his eyes stricken. “Why did you not tell me so I could accompany you?”

  The lack of sleep made me want to laugh at the outrage in his voice, but I knew he didn’t see any humor in the situation. With a glance at the others, I took him by the arm and led him to the far corner. “I’m sorry I left without telling you.”

  “Why did you leave me?” There was pain in his eyes, now a bluish green.

  I put a hand on his chest. The sensation of his warm chest under my fingers stirred all sorts of desires within me. “I didn’t leave you so much as I escaped confinement. I woke up, and you weren’t there, and it suddenly struck me that I was at the mercy of all the dragons, and you have to admit that you guys aren’t particularly known for being merciful. I worried ...” I stopped, not wanting to admit the fright that had taken hold of me a few hours before and convinced me that I had to leave Avval.

  “About what did you worry?”

  I glanced at the others, but they were ignoring us to argue amongst themselves. It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I left because I didn’t want to fall in love with him, since we could have no future together. Instead, I grabbed at the first excuse I could think of. “I worried that the other dragons would want to use me for their own gain.”

  “They would not,” he said firmly, the pain easing from his eyes. “My kin hold what is theirs—that is true—but they do not resort to using another in order to gain those treasures.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said contritely, relieved by the lecturing tone that had filled his voice. “That was thoughtless of me. The next time I escape, I’ll take you with me, OK?”

  He thought for a moment. “Very well. But do not forget your promise.”

  We returned to the others, only to be stopped by Savian.

  “Wait a minute ... demigod?” Savian squeaked, and looked shocked. “Did she say you are the First Dragon? The First Dragon? The one my Maura says has been seen only a handful of times in the last six centuries?

  “Who’s Maura?” I asked, not having a dragon player scorecard.

  “My wife. She’s a red dragon, or she was before she went rogue. Would you like to see a picture of her?”

  Before I could tell him no, he whipped out his phone, and started flipping through a gallery of pictures. “There she is on the beach. This one is when we went to Disneyland. And here’s Savian Jr. Maura says he looks like me, but I think he has her eyes. Maura’s convinced he’s going to be a wyvern someday. And here he is sitting up. Isn’t that brilliant of him? Only seven months old and he’s already sitting. Takes a superior sort of baby to sit up that early, let me tell you. I’ve got a photo somewhere of him dressed up for Mardi Gras. ...”

  “I can’t believe you tied up Charity,” May said, shaking her head. “Bad form, Savian.”

  “The only reason he took the bonds off was because the portal lady said they might kill me if I portaled with them on, and he didn’t want to lose some bounty that was offered for me.”

  Drake made an odd choking cough, but studiously brushed off what remained of his shirt. May had gotten Gabriel into a pair of white cotton beachcomber pants, and a bright pink shirt dotted with lime green llamas.

  I looked nobly martyred. “Goddess knows what would have happened if he hadn’t heeded her warning.”

  “There’s something you should know about that bounty,” Ysolde said, giving her dragon a long look.

  “Another time, perhaps,” Gabriel said quickly, and the other two wyverns made noises of agreement, while Avval just made a low rumbling sound deep in his chest. “What we should be doing is making sure Charity is all right, and then planning what to do next.”

  “What you will do next is leave her alone.” Avval took my hand and gazed at them all with eyes that were now a rich brown color with touches of red and gold. “She is not a possession to be passed around, nor is she a danger to anyone.” The last was said quite pointedly to Savian.

  “I relinquish my claim,” Savian said wisely, giving the First Dragon a bow. “I know when I’m bested. Maura will be delighted when I tell her that I met you. I don’t suppose we could do a quick selfie?”

  The First Dragon stood as if made of stone while Savian leaned close and snapped a couple of pictures. Any other man would have edged out of the room quietly, but not my captor. He appeared to be oblivious to the waves of icy fury that rolled off Avval.

  “So then everything is solved?” Ysolde asked, looking somewhat disappointed. “We found Charity, and Savian isn’t taking her to Dr. Kostich, so everything is fine, right?”

  “Everything is far from fine,” I said, drooping a little from exhaustion.

  “You are tired,” Avval told me. “You must have rest. Also, my body now requires rest.” He shot a little glare at Ysolde, who tried very hard to look innocent. “We will rest together, and then we will discuss what is to be done with this one who confined and abducted you.”

  “My wife is a dragon,” Savian said, raising his hand. “My son could be a wyvern. You wouldn’t want to do anything to leave them without a husband and father, would you?”

  “There are ways to keep you alive and still make you suffer,” the First Dragon said softly. “Leave now before I show you those ways.”

  Savian blanched. “There’s ... uh ... there’s just one problem.”

  “What is that?” Avval did not look like he wanted to keep talking to Savian. “Why are you still here? I have dismissed you.”

  “It’s ...” He slid me an apologetic look. “It’s just that the Venediger keeps a pretty tight control on Paris
.”

  I leaned toward Ysolde. “What’s—”

  “The Venediger runs the Otherworld side of Paris.”

  “Ah. Thanks.”

  Savian was explaining the same thing to the First Dragon. “Well, she runs most of Europe, really. And one of the things she does is monitor the portals.”

  Avval was impatience personified, and gestured sharply. “You speak words that make no sense. Either say what you mean or leave.”

  Savian looked faintly ill now. “It’s Charity. There are alarms attached to the portal. When Charity came through it, the Venediger would have been notified that a siren was in town, and by law, she would have to report it to the Committee.”

  “Oh, great. So Dr. Kostich does know she’s here?” Ysolde leaned against Baltic. “Now we’re going to have to see him again, and he’ll call you fat, and I’ll have to practice magic at him, and you know that never ends well.”

  “We will discuss your role in this later,” Avval said grimly to Savian. The latter slipped away with murmured apologies.

  Avval turned to Baltic. “You have a domicile in this city?”

  “No, but Drake does.”

  Drake, looking put-upon, murmured something about it being his honor to welcome the First Dragon—and everyone else—to his Paris house.

  “We will go there, and rest,” Avval announced, and gently pushed me toward the entrance.

  “You know, by rights I should take off and not look back,” I commented, waiting at the outer room while the other dragons gathered up their various items. “Just run away and not look back.”

  “Run away?” Avval looked suddenly interested. “You mean a chase?”

  “No, I mean I’d run away from you. From all of you. That’s basically what I did earlier tonight. Oy.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I guess that was last night.”

  “We will discuss that situation in more detail at a later time,” he replied with a long, completely unreadable look. “My stomach indicates it wants feeding again. I do not know how dragonkin get anything done with these constant demands by your body. My face itches, and I believe I will need to use the privy again soon. My bladder is almost as demanding as my belly.”

  “I’m sure Drake has food at his Paris house, and probably a dozen bathrooms. And yes, we can talk about what I did another time—I simply brought it up to say that I’m aware I should be running away from you, but that I’m not.”

  “I would be happy to chase you if you like,” he said politely.

  “Chase me? Chase me where?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “If I told you where to run, then it would not be a true chase.”

  I wondered if I was more tired than I knew, or if Avval had suddenly decided he lived in Wonderland, and was going to talk in riddles. “I don’t think I understand what you’re talking about. Why do you want to chase me?”

  “A chase?” Baltic and Ysolde entered the outer room, Drake on their heels. “You’re having a chase? Ysolde!”

  “Oooh, I haven’t had a chase in forever.”

  “We’re doing a chase?” May asked, and stopped abruptly in the doorway. She turned to yell into the room, “Gabriel, they’re going to have a chase! Hurry up!”

  “What in the name of all that is sleep-deprived is this hullabaloo about a chase?” I asked anyone who cared to answer.

  May giggled. Ysolde smiled brightly. Drake swore under his breath.

  “Dragons chase,” Avval said simply. “It is pleasurable.”

  “How so?”

  “Trust us, it’s pleasurable,” Ysolde said, with May nodding fervently in the background.

  I looked through the glass windows out at the city. Paris had not yet woken up, the air still indigo, but with light fingers along the eastern sky. Absently, I slipped off my shoes and fingered the long strip of duct tape that Savian had used on my hands. Evidently, I’d shoved the tape into my pocket after he’d removed it.

  What on earth was I doing? my inner siren asked. Why was I even there, allowing myself to be tempted by Avval’s nearness, and thinking thoughts in which I had no right to indulge? The man is a demigod, I reminded myself. A being so far above me I couldn’t even conceive of what his life was like.

  I did know one thing—I liked him. A lot. And I wasn’t going to be responsible for making him miserable by damning him to a mortal life.

  “Well,” I said, pushing open the door into the predawn Paris. “It’s been a long day. Maybe another time we can ... oh!”

  I’d turned back while speaking, and now gasped and stared over the shoulders of all the dragons. They all turned to look back at what had so startled me. I shoved the door closed and, using the duct tape, wrapped it around the two vertical handles on the glass doors.

  Avval was the first one to realize what I’d done. The expression on his face—surprise mingled with a hot flare of passion—remained with me as I bolted down the street, did a one-footed hopping seriocomic spin around the corner, and ran like mad into predawn Paris. Distantly, I could hear a roar, but didn’t stop to examine why I acted as I did. I had made the right choice in Hungary when I slipped out of the house while Avval was eating, and I’d made it again now.

  My life was not one I could share with anyone, even if he was willing to give up everything he loved for me. Not with what amounted to the whole of the Otherworld wanting to either imprison me or use me.

  As I ran around another corner, a black car that had been traveling toward me suddenly slammed on its brakes. I glanced over my shoulder to see two men emerging from the car, both racing toward me. A third man, tall and imposing, emerged, and shouted orders to not let me get away.

  “Bloody, bloody hell,” I swore, and jetted down the street, dashing across the traffic without a mind to the honks and yells from the drivers who were out this early, and ran straight for a patch of green that I had glimpsed through the buildings.

  Sounds of commotion followed while I flung myself around corners, ducked under awnings, and avoided both pedestrians and cars alike, my eyes fixed to the garden that was ahead. The black wrought iron fence around it meant I had to skid to a halt and look frantically up and down the street to find an entrance, wasting precious seconds. Behind me, voices shouted, car brakes squealed, more horns honked, and above it all, my heart pounded in my ears. I spotted an entrance about a block away, and raced for it, mindless of the pain of small pebbles grinding into my bare soles. I had just reached the entrance when I was suddenly thrown forward a good dozen feet, a white-blue flash of light dazzling me for a few seconds. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I found myself facedown on the ground, spitting out blades of grass.

  Chapter Eight

  Here’s a pro tip for people who might be the subject of an arcane magic explosion: don’t expect to be able to recover immediately from the effects of it. It took me a couple of minutes before my mind (and eyes—arcane magic is bright!) cleared, and I had my wits about me again. By that time, my hands were bound behind my back, and two large men in dark suits were hauling me to my feet. The third man, the one in authority, was striding toward us with an extremely annoyed expression. I shook my head and sagged against my captors, waiting for the third man to get closer. He started throwing around orders as soon as he could be heard.

  “Gérard, gag the siren. Emile, have you bound her hands? She evidently had no difficulty escaping the thief taker, although that is not surprising since the man is an idiot who—”

  I lifted my head the second his foot touched the grass, and sang.

  The man froze. The two men holding on to my arms dropped them and went still. I sang a popular song about relationships turned bad, and behind it, I put a massive push to put the three men into a catatonic state. The third man resisted a bit, but went under after a few extra pushes sent in his direction.

  Behind him, Avval suddenly appeared, his lovely hair a bit mussed, his eyes glowing bright gold.

  “Charity! Why are you singing?”

  I gestur
ed toward the man in front of me, and turned so he could cut my bonds.

  He snapped them off with his bare hands (making my inner siren squeal with delight), and spun me around, his hands hard on my arms. “Do you know what the chase does to a dragon?”

  I stopped singing, keeping an eye on the three men. “May and Ysolde said it was fun. I gather you get some sort of jollies over being a predator hunting prey?”

  “It stirs the primal being in us. It makes the sophisticated dragon of today hark back to the early days when we struggled to rise above our baser natures, when it was a matter of fighting merely to survive. The need to possess was vital to our being, for without our power we would have been consumed by those who strove to eliminate us.” His eyes were so bright, they almost hurt to look at, and for the first time, I felt—I truly felt—his dragon nature. This wasn’t just a respected elder: this was a man who created a race of beings from nothing, forming and shaping them against forces that must have been overwhelming.

  “You really are the first dragon,” I said, touching his jaw, filled with admiration and awe and no little pride that I had known such a being.

  “That is a long time in the past. As my children point out, there is life to be lived now.” He lifted my hand to his mouth, his lips caressing my fingers in a way that made all my internal organs melt into puddles of happy goo.

  Emotion swamped me then. Hope gave way to desire, and finally to something strange and wonderful, a painful aching that left me wanting to beg, “With me. Live your life with me!”

  The words trembled on my lips just as I leaned in to kiss him.

  “—couldn’t find his arse with both hands. Why my granddaughter Maura married him is beyond my understanding.” The man who gave orders suddenly came back to life, glancing around him in surprise. His eyes landed on first me, then Avval, sight of the latter causing him to take a step backward. “The dragon ancestor. Don’t tell me Tully Sullivan has died again and you’ve come to resurrect her?”

  Avval frowned at him. “I do not know who you are, or of whom you speak, but I suspect you are responsible for binding Charity’s wrists. I do not take kindly to abuse of her.”