Chapter Eight
Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall is not enough beer to get a dragon drunk.
“Five minutes!” Auntie railed. “I left you alone for five minutes, and not only did you lose the girl with the dragon tattoo, you found the horseman we’re looking for and misplaced him as well.”
“He’s not a horseman,” Babette mumbled. No. It was much worse.
Her aunt sobered. “Are you sure he was a dragon mage?”
“Know of any other dragons that have horns?”
“Perhaps he’s special?”
“He did magic! And he’s the biggest fucker I’ve ever seen.” It made her feel small. Insignificant. And curious. How did a dragon mage fit into the horsemen of the apocalypse theories?
Her aunt Yolanda paced. “I’m still trying to figure out how you didn’t realize what he was.”
“Because he doesn’t smell like one of us.” Babette paced the balcony to their safe house. She’d arrived before her aunt, who’d ranted about the humans who tried to detain her. She’d had to pretend she was a doctor in order to get past security.
By the time they realized she lied, Auntie had flown to safety and now berated her niece.
“What did he smell like then? Or does your nose not work?”
She wrinkled it. “His scent was weird. Like spicy. Kind of reminded me of cinnamon but not.”
Auntie latched on to that detail. “Could it be cardamom?”
“Maybe. What does cardamom even smell like?”
“Like the king’s brother. Remember how Samael’s scent changed when he came into his magic and horns?”
“Samael is wearing baby cologne compared to this dude. Not to mention, I didn’t even smell him until he spoke. It’s like he was invisible or something. A cloaking spell, obviously.”
“No, not obviously,” Yolanda snapped. “How is it that a dragon mage even exists? They’re supposed to be extinct.”
Banished, to be exact, for some major crimes against their kind. They’d been imprisoned in another realm, where they’d more or less died out.
“Maybe Azrael, like Luc, found his way over here from another universe. Doesn’t really matter how he got here.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t matter,” Yolanda muttered. “What’s important is the fact we have not one but four dragon mages returned. Who knows what kind of damage they’ll do.”
“You think they’re all dragon mages?”
“I think it’s safe to assume.”
“You know, I’m kind of disappointed,” Babette claimed. “I always expected wizards to wear pointed hats and toss fireballs. At the least have an epically long beard.”
“No self-respecting magic user would wear a beard. Much too flammable. If the horsemen are all dragon mages, then that would explain why in all those prophecies they’re the harbingers of destruction. If they’re anything like their banished brethren, we are in grave trouble. We need to find the one you lost and contain him before he can cause harm.”
“Good luck with that. I don’t think that guy is going anywhere he doesn’t want to.”
Few people impressed Babette, which was probably why her aunt sobered. “You said he disappeared into thin air?”
She nodded. “More or less. It’s like he entered a spot of pure shadow, and poof, he and the girl were gone.”
“If he can use magic to move about, then that will make our task more difficult. What does Elspeth say?”
“Uh.” Babette paused. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her since she told me to find the nerd with the tattoo.”
“Then call her. Maybe she’s had some kind of vision or—”
Babette’s phone rang. She eyed the display. “It’s Elsie.” She answered, listened, and nodded a few times. Arched a brow then hung up.
“Well?” barked her aunt. “What did she say?”
“Said to sit tight and wait.”
“Wait? For what?”
“Apparently, something about a side quest, necessary for the future, blah, blah. Basically, our target is going to be buried for the next day or so, so we’re supposed to relax, order some pizza, and watch the next season of You on Netflix.”
“I hate waiting,” Yolanda grumbled.
“But you love that psychopath Joe,” Babette cajoled.
The balcony door slid open, and a local dragon, barely an orange, with freckles across her nose, beckoned. “Come quick. You’ll wanna see this. Babette made the news.”
Not just Babette. Someone on the scene had managed, with a shaky video aimed upwards, to capture not only a small silver dragon launching from the medical facility but the massive shadowy one that might have been invisible if not for the visible human strapped to its chest.
No surprise, the trending headline overnight became, Dragons Stealing Women to Make Babies. #stoptheserpents
A phone rang. Actually all of them did. Forget waiting. the king ordered them home.
Chapter Nine
A t-shirt she’d have to buy: Dragon Rider
Dragons were real.
It wasn’t a hoax. And one of them had strapped her to this chest and taken off into the sky with her.
Daphne, understandably, lost her shit. She had reason. They flew with nothing holding her but invisible bands. What if the magic stopped working? Or his attention wavered?
“Oh my God.” She was going to die! She turned her head and did her best to not look or think about the ground that she’d end up landing on and exploding into hamburger meat.
Wait, was that how dragons tenderized their meat? Was his plan to eat her?
Why else kidnap her other than as a snack? Because she certainly wasn’t a princess for him to guard.
All the D&D games she’d played required the dragon to be slain. Meanwhile, she couldn’t help but recall the man the dragon could be.
No wonder he’d shown no real interest in her as a woman. She probably seemed too mundane. Too human.
So why did he come to her rescue? She didn’t understand and yet couldn’t help being giddy. She had met a dragon. The species had been an obsession of hers, even before the media reported they were real. She’d honestly not believed them. They got it right for once.
They no sooner took off than she heard gunfire. Did they not see her? How could they shoot him?
She could have sworn she heard a voice in her head. Close your eyes and sleep.
Next thing she knew, she woke, still in the grasp of a dragon. Via faint moonlight, she noticed they flew over flat fields and lumpy treetops, with the occasional swoop as the dragon skimmed over a hill.
She couldn’t have said how long the flight lasted, only that she’d finally begun to enjoy it when the dragon alighted atop a jutting hillock. The magic holding her released, and she found herself with her bare feet on the ground. She had no socks or shoes. No sweater over the orange monstrosity she wore. The grass proved dewy and chilly, but solid.
She’d not died.
She’d have to get the t-shirt. If she ever escaped her captor.
Rather than antagonize him, she stared at her toes and the ground. As if a dragon would be ignored. It blew a hot puff of air that smelled both fragrant and terrifying. All the stories she knew had dragons eating people with a preference for the virgin type. Despite having lost that cherry awhile ago, when the dragon stirred, panic set in, and her giddy inner nerd caved to her less adventurous side.