Dragon's Thief

by Zoe Chant

  Dragon’s Thief

  Zoe Chant

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  A Note From Zoe Chant

  Also by Zoe Chant

  DRAGON'S THIEF

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to persons, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  First Edition.

  Copyright © 2020 by Zoe Chant

  Chapter 1

  Tara Walsh smiled and waved at the elderly couple making their way out of the restaurant, and then she allowed herself to scowl at the two-dollar tip they left her.

  That was a forty-dollar bill, and they got their dessert comped, she thought. I can't even tell if a two-dollar tip is a special screw you or whether they genuinely think it's a good tip.

  She swept the plates into the bin, bringing them back to the kitchen where Mrs. Cooper nodded at her in sympathy.

  “They're in here every few months, and they're always cheap as hell. It's not just you.”

  Tara smiled at her boss wryly.

  “I look that bitter, huh?

  “Nah, you look tired and hungry. Taken your break yet?”

  “No, not since rush started.”

  “Well, rush is done for sure now. Help yourself to some of the soup of the day and a roll, and sit down for a while.”

  Tara's belly rumbled at the idea of food. She gratefully hopped up on a stool in the kitchen with a large bowl of only vaguely-questionable clam chowder and an enormous kaiser roll balanced on her knee. The soup was too salty and the roll was hard enough that she had to dunk it in the soup before she could bite it, but it was food, it was hot, and better yet, it was free.

  Could have landed worse, she thought. Maybe I'll stick around for a bit.

  It was a tempting prospect. Four months ago, Tara had found the restaurant after her car broke down for good on the highway. It had been the only thing lit up at two in the morning. Mrs. Cooper had offered her soup, pie, and a job all in the space of half an hour, and Great Neck, Wyoming had done well by her, all things considered.

  Maybe this is finally far enough.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when Mrs. Cooper came back from taking out the trash, shaking her head.

  “Looks like the game's got everyone glued to the sports bar. It's probably going to be dead in here until morning. Why don't you get on home?”

  No sense paying me if all I do is sit and eat soup, I guess, Tara thought, but she nodded.

  “I'll see you at six tomorrow night, then.”

  “Take some soup with you, you're skinny enough as it is,”

  Tara laughed at that.

  “Now that is the biggest lie I've heard in a while,” she joked.

  No one with eyes would call Tara skinny. She was short and almost ridiculously curvy with a soft belly, a round face, and hips that would probably be great for child-bearing if she ever got past her distaste for anyone who called them that. Her mother had called her sturdy, and though she had been called plenty of unkinder things, she was largely content with her shape and her looks.

  She got a large tub of the chowder and tucked it into her bag before starting her walk home. It was two miles back to the probably-illegal apartment she rented above the hardware store, and there was a light mist in the air, giving the night an ethereal glow and rendering the town of Great Neck oddly picturesque.

  Reminds me of home, she found herself thinking as she walked. Huh. I haven't thought of home in a long time.

  She had met plenty of people on the road who all had different ideas of how hard home was to find, how they might not recognize it if they found it, how far away it was, but she had always known exactly where home was.

  Home was a small rented house in northern Wisconsin, the snow piling high around it, with a bedroom that was tiny but hers and the soft roar of a train in the distance.

  Home was gone, but she had a tub of chowder in her bag, and that was going to be good enough for tonight, goddamn it.

  Is that brave or sad? Can it be both?

  She was still musing on the matter when she realized that there was a black car trailing her, keeping pace with her for the last two blocks on the deserted street. Great Neck wasn't busy most nights, but the game had taken most people inside. There was no one around, and the hair on the back of her neck prickled.

  She started walking faster until she realized that there was another dark car parked a block in front of her, and as she watched, the driver's side door opened. It felt as if her skin was trying to crawl off of her body, and she knew that she was entering fight or flight mode.

  Flight, because fight is going to land me in the ER or worse.

  Her only advantage, Tara realized, was that she knew this town better than these assholes did. At least, she figured she did because people who drove cars like that didn't live in Great Neck.

  She took a deep breath, turned on her heel, and started sprinting for the last alleyway that she had passed, not looking back. She heard the slamming of two car doors and then she was running as hard as she could. She wasn't made for running, but she had been doing it long enough that she knew she was going to get away.

  Had to get away.

  Chapter 2

  Northern Wyoming looked much the way it had forty years ago, the last time Reese came through. He'd take some comfort in it if he was in a mood to be comforted. He wasn't, however, and instead he kept thinking about how the high bluffs could hide a man with a sniper rifle, how easily someone could set up an ambush in the deep ravines.

  This better be worth it, he thought as he drove, but despite the restlessness that was as much a part of him as his black hair or his copper eyes, there was hope as well. There was a part of him, his dragon, his mother would have said, that told him the treasure he was looking for, the only one that mattered, was close.

  It was a tingle between his shoulder blades, an itch in his fingers, a kind of anticipation that made him think of dry wood the moment before it burst into a bloom of fire. It was how he felt right before he found the Landsdowne horde in the north of England and how he felt before he had unearthed a vein of opal the width of his thigh in western Australia.

  It was how he felt when the assholes he had been trailing pulled off the highway at the town of Great Neck, because there was no way anyone would be stopping in this town unless they had some serious business there.

  He had been following them for almost four days, and at first, Reese thought it was going to be another bust. Of course it was going to be. They had been all been busts for years now. But then, pulling off the freeway after men that he would have just as soon pushed into the deep blue sea, he had gotten that feeling, and everything got a lot more interesting. He caught a glimpse of the woman they were stalking as she passed under one of the last flickering street lights. She was short, her hands stuffed deep in her long jacket, and her hair gleamed bronze under the harsh light. He had an impression of eyes a little large for her face, a mouth that made him pause, and then she was walking on.

  He'd looped around in front of her, and just as he had eyes on her again, the assholes in the black Lincoln spooked her, and she ran.

  Jesus, faster th
an I thought she would be, he had time to think, and then he was out of the car and after her as well.

  He saw the second of the two men he had been trailing spin around the corner into an alley, and he bared his teeth. If they caught her before he did, things could get very bad indeed.

  Hell, anyone who lays a hand had better be prepared to lose it...

  Reese crossed the ground fast, and he swore when he entered the alley because it was a damned maze. The town was built around a single main street, but there seemed to be a warren of alleys behind it, a second rank of shabby apartment buildings and somewhat sketchy storefronts all bundled together.

  Reese forced himself to pause, because his eyes, no matter how good they were, weren't going to help him now; his ears would have to do.

  He listened, and then to his surprise, he heard a clang.

  Sounds like trouble. Sounds like my girl, he thought, and he didn't have time to wonder why there was a strange tug at his heart at the same time.

  He headed towards the clanging sound, moving as fast as he dared. He could see somewhat better in the dark than a human could, but if he was too hasty, he would miss a turn, and then it might all be over.

  "Fucking bitch!"

  Ah, he hadn't missed anything at all, and absently, in the back of his mind, he thought that someone was going to pay for that bitch.

  The girl of the hour was crowded next to a dumpster, using it to keep the men off of her left side while she guarded the right with what looked like a piece of solid steel rebar.

  One of the men was staggering back with a hand to his head and an outraged expression on his face.

  Ha, didn't expect her to fight back, did you? Reese thought with a dark amusement, and then the girl glanced at him—

  And everything changed.

  In that moment, a dragon hunter could have happened by, figured out what he was, and taken his head for a prize of war. He never would have noticed because it felt as if his heart was trying to fly out of his chest. The fire inside him roared in recognition.

  The first thing he thought was getawaygetawaymineminemineallminegetawayminemymatemine

  The second thing he thought was, Well, this just got more complicated.

  "Look, we just want to talk," said the goon who hadn't been dumb enough to get in range of the girl's improvised weapon.

  "Yeah, this is not how you talk to people!" the girl growled, her voice deeper than Reese would have thought it might be. It sent a chill down his spine even as his brain finally kicked back into gear, and he stepped forward.

  "Why don't you talk to me instead?" he said.. "I would love to talk to you."

  The men turned to look at him, and he smiled grimly at their fear. They looked a lot more nervous now that the odds were evening up a little. No, he wasn't going to lose any sleep over this at all.

  "You better move on if you know what's good for you," growled the asshole with the bleeding face.

  The other, obviously the smarter one, was edging to the side, suddenly looking for exits. It was a shame it wasn't going to help him.

  Two things happened at once. The girl took advantage of the men's distraction to try to bash the one she had hurt before, and the other man reached for something at his side.

  Reese didn't care to find out what it was, and he drew back slightly, filling his lungs with oxygen.

  His people had their own legends, some quite similar to the ones that the humans told about them, some very different, but the only one that mattered claimed they were formed out of a perfect union of air and fire. It was a beautiful thought, but the most important part was that it allowed him to rain hell down on people threatening his mate.

  Fire lived in him from the moment he was born, only to be extinguished the moment he died, and now when he gave it its sister, air, it flowed out of him and into the world with a roar of pure joy.

  The fire lit up the alley for a count of three, making one goon swear and the other drop, and then Reese felt something brush against him.

  He reached out blindly and caught his target, his real target, by the wrist as she tried to run past him.

  Not afraid of my fire at all, crowed the dragon living inside of him, and he shook his head.

  There were more important things to worry about just then, and he tightened his grip on her.

  "Come on," he said. "Let's go."

  For a moment, he thought she was going to fight him. She gave him a wary look, and he was grateful that he had dropped the rebar. Mythic beast or not, nothing liked getting a steel rod to the face.

  Instead, she hesitated, nodded, and they ran.

  Chapter 3

  Tara felt lightheaded, as if every inch of her skin was tingling, as if she she had gazed up into a sky full of stars and somehow the experience had made her drunk and incredibly clearheaded all at once.

  One moment, she had been warding off a set of weird-as-hell muggers, and the next, she had been rescued by a—

  She didn't know what.

  All she did know was that the moment she had laid eyes on him, she felt as if the world briefly fell away, and that everything, absolutely everything was going to be all right. It was such a weird and weirdly powerful feeling that she shoved it to the back of her mind as hard as she could. She didn't get as far as she had by thinking that everything was going to be all right, and just as she regained her senses, the man opened his mouth, and burned the hell out of the men who were menacing her.

  The night had gone so abysmally wrong that Tara didn't even feel that strange about taking the strange man's hand, climbing in his car, and getting the hell out of Dodge. He had set the two men who were chasing her on fire, and that was a definite win. However, as he pulled onto the freeway, driving like a bat out of hell, she began to have second thoughts.

  Actually, Tara had to admit, her second thoughts were all about how good-looking her rescuer was. The moment she saw him in the marginally better light of the car, her heart skipped a beat, and she had to swallow against a suddenly dry throat.

  No, that's not quite right is it? whispered a soft voice at the back of her mind. It was before you even saw him properly. It was back in the alley, and you thought he looked just perfect...

  Tara pushed that thought away, because she would not be held accountable for what she thought while she was being mugged.

  He was a big man whose features only managed to escape harshness by a whisker. His hair was black and thick, as if it had been a while since he had gotten to a barber, and when he glanced at her before tearing out onto the road, his eyes were an unusual shade of copper, bright as a new penny. The odd color should have made her think of designer contact lenses but she didn't.

  So now she was in a car with a stranger who breathed fire, the needle on the odometer looked like he was going to break ninety if his foot got even a little heavier, and she had dropped her handy rebar on the street like a fool.

  Okay. First things first, figure out who the hell he is and what's going on.

  “So ... fire breathing.”

  He glanced at her.

  “Not going to guess that it's a carnival trick or that I'm carrying flamethrowers?”

  “No. Because I trust what I see, and that was more than a mouthful of vodka or a butane torch could produce. Hotter too, given the yelling. Which, by the way, I'm not sorry about at all, so um, thank you for that. But what the hell are you, and who the hell are you?”

  That wasn't, perhaps, the best way to broach the topic, but dammit, she was tired, and her only plans tonight had been to go home and eat some hopefully-unspilled soup, not get involved in whatever horror show this was turning in to.

  He hesitated, and Tara shook her head.

  “If you're going to lie, I don't want to hear it.”

  That drew a reluctant laugh from the man in the driver's seat.

  “All right. No lies. I'm a dragon.”

  He paused, obviously giving her time to protest, but Tara thought for a moment, and then nodded.
>
  “Okay.”

  “Just ... okay?”

  “Want me to flip out for twenty minutes about how that can't be? You just breathed fire to defeat your enemies. You're either a special effects artist with a real grudge against the world or a dragon. So let's go with dragon. Tell me more about that.”

  That won a short laugh from him, and when he laughed, it sent a shiver down Tara's spine. She liked the sound, and it eased some of the harsh lines on his face, making him looking younger, almost sweet.

  “All right. I'm Reese Marrak, I'm a dragon from a long line of them, and I've been hunting the people who tried to jump you for weeks now.”

  “Yeah, tell me about that, too. Why did those two goons try to jump me? What the hell was that all about?”

  Reese shook his head, his mouth a grim line.

  “Well, where there be dragons, there will also be dragon-hunters. I can't guess which sect they're from. All I know is that they're bad news, for my kind and any humans involved with us.”

  “Are they feds?”

  “Not at all, though they'll pretend to be if they need to. There have always been dragon-hunters, and some of them formed modern-day cults. Those guys're probably from the Order of the Wain, and they've been a pain in the ass since— ”

  “Cultists. I got jumped by freaking cultists, like with the chanting and the hoods...”

  “In so many words, yes. Are you having more trouble with the cultists than you are with the fire-breathing thing?”

  “Maybe a little. Do you ... have a tail that you're sitting on or something?'

  “Ah, no. I only have a tail when I actually shift to my other form.”