Don't Feed the Dragon: A Dragon Rider Urban Fantasy Novel (Setting Fires with Dragons Book 1)

by S. W. Clarke

  Ferris’s gaze changed. Softened on me. “You’re a human.”

  “Sure am.”

  “You understand modern human technology.”

  I nodded. “Sure do.”

  He sighed as we came to the corner of the lawn. With a snap of his fingers, the other ninjas began setting up their props for the show. Ferris gestured for me to kneel.

  When I did, he pointed at the watch on my wrist. “I’ll be honest: my understanding of human technology stopped at about the 19th century. That was where you peaked mechanically, and I couldn’t be bothered after that. So the truth is, I have no idea how to work that thing.”

  I lifted my wrist. “My smartwatch?”

  “Yes. But my understanding is that you can document life.” When my eyebrows pulled together, he said, “Record proceedings. You know—capture things with your little boxes.”

  Percy’s face nosed in. “He’s talking about taking a video.”

  “Oh, well sure. You want me to video the auction, I’m your gal. Hell, I’ll stream it live.” I paused. “But I do have another reason to be here tonight. A certain ex-vamp with my bootprint waiting to be written all over his face.”

  Ferris nodded, his features solemn even as they glittered. “Understood. We’ll help you however we can.”

  I shook Ferris’s tiny hand, and before the ninjas departed, one of them stopped in front of Percy and clapped his hands together. “My god, you look just like Yaroz.”

  “Who’s that?” Percy asked.

  “Why, your mother.”

  Percy’s whole body went rigid. “You know my mother?”

  Ferris appeared between the two of them, shoving the ninja toward the other side of the lawn. “We’ve got to keep our head in the game, Zanfiz.”

  Meanwhile, heat had kindled in my chest, burning its way up my neck and into my cheeks. GoneGodDamn big-mouthed gnome …

  I had hoped to tell Percy about his birth mother at the right time, in my own way. Now he would never rest until he found out more about this Yaroz.

  But there was nothing I could say now. The ninjas crossed over to the other corner of the lawn, where they’d be putting on their own show. We had to focus.

  When I stood and turned, Percy gazed up at me, the obvious question on his lips. I headed him off—

  “Well, Perce,” I said. “Ready to entertain the fancy folk?”

  He puffed smoke through both nostrils. “But Tara, that gnome said—”

  “We’ve got to focus, Perce. Remember our mission.”

  I could tell he didn’t like this; his tail thumped on the grass. But after a few seconds, he said, “Well, can I shoot fire into the audience?”

  “Nah, Perce.”

  “Just once. I won’t even burn anyone.”

  I pulled my tassels out of my bag. “Remember the rule about fire.”

  “It’s off-limits unless one of us is in serious danger,” he said with another petulant swing of the tail.

  I swung out a tassel, the pink cloth sailing into the night and drifting toward the perfect lawn. “That’s right, little egg.”

  And so Percy and I did what we did best as we waited for the auction to commence. I yanked both my whips from my belt, cracked them over the patio (which definitely turned some heads). “I’m Tara Drake,” I announced, “and this here’s my dragon, Percival.”

  A small crowd of guests migrated toward us as I began to pace around Percy, describing the hardness of his scales, the length of his canines, the heat of his fire. I warned them not to stand too close, because dragons weren’t keen on people they didn’t know.

  In fact, they had a tendency to be loose with their fire.

  When I asked for a volunteer to stand with an apple on their head, the three men took long sips of their champagne as their wives gave nervous laughs behind their gloved hands.

  No volunteers this time. Even kids were braver than this.

  So I set the apple on a chair and hopped onto Percy’s back. “Keep an eye on that fruit, ladies and gents—before you know it, it’ll be in more than one piece.”

  This was our bread-and-butter trick. He took off, and we flew in a small arc over the yard, turned back around toward our small tuxedoed-and-begowned audience. As we approached, my whip sailed through the air, slicing the apple in two, and we provided our first thrill of the night.

  The moment we landed was when he arrived.

  ↔

  The attendees filed out onto the lawn after a spoon clicked against a glass. A soaring voice encouraged everyone outside, and by ones and twos and threes they all appeared, filtering toward the tall tables with their glasses and tiny appetizer plates in hand.

  Funny enough, not one of them noticed me and Percy. We were in the back corner, opposite to the stage. And that was fortuitous, because Peter the ex-vamp didn’t ever look in my direction.

  Instead, he stood with his hand on the arm of a woman in a dress that looked like a thousand pearls all pinned together into cloth, her slender limbs almost too delicate to be real.

  Swinging my tassel, staring at the back of his head, I imagined charging across the lawn. I imagined tackling him from behind. He’d knock over the tall table, and it would clatter to the lawn as he and I hit the ground in a flurry of limbs.

  I wanted him to feel his mortality. I wanted him to feel it in the way I had that night. In the way my parents and sister had—and never would again.

  I wondered if he ever thought about that night. Did he ever see their faces? My face? I’d been fourteen then, but he hadn’t recognized me on the street just five years later.

  That night was my whole life. For him, it was the night the gods left and he became killable again.

  “Tara,” Percy whispered as he flew in a circle around me, “what do you think Zanfiz meant about me looking just like Yaroz?”

  “I don’t know, Perce,” I snapped back. “Let’s talk about it later.”

  I hated being snappish with him. The guilt always came on straightaway, as it did now. But this really wasn’t the time.

  Of course, it was more than that.

  Percy had a mom out there. A dragon mom. That wasn’t a reality I found easy to consider. Not when it might mean a different future than the one I’d envisioned: me and him. The two of us together, always.

  “Do you think she’s nearby?” he asked when he made his next circuit. “My dragon mother, I mean. Can I talk to Ferris about it?”

  “Ferris is indisposed right now,” I ground out through a clenched jaw, cracking my whip with unusually mechanical vigor. “Concentrate, Perce.”

  “Welcome, everyone,” a voice called out from the stage, directing all attention to the silver and gold bangles and the tuxedoed man with a mike. “Welcome to the fourth annual Rare Species Charity Gala.”

  Rare Species Charity Gala?

  Oh, just spoon my eyes out with a spork. That would be less of an indignity.

  Over on the other side of the lawn, the ninjas had been doing flips and somersaults and swinging nunchucks. But when “Rare Species Charity Gala” resounded over the lawn, one of them slipped on the grass.

  Yeah, a ninja slipped. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

  The host gave him a glare before going on, talking about how the proceeds would be donated to some foundation to clear everyone’s conscience. All the while, he made bad jokes and garnered scattered applause and laughter.

  Finally, the event was ready to begin. He exited left, and behind me, one of the security told me and Percy to pause for the main event.

  Fine by me. I had a job to do.

  Percy came to a landing by my side, and I knelt by him. It was easy enough to mask pulling my phone out while crouching beside a dragon, and even easier when we weren’t the main event. I cooed into his ear and lifted my phone beside his face as the lighting shifted over the central walkway.

  “Folks, these creatures are the rarest of the rare,” the host’s disembodied voice said from somewhere in the darkness. �
��You have them on your lawns. Your kids dress up as them on Halloween. But have you ever met a gnomish child? They’re smaller, cuter, and very nearly extinct. Bidders, ready your hands, because this is a once-in-a-GoneGodDamn-lifetime auction.”

  My phone was trembling in my hand, and not because I was cold or nervous.

  I was mad. I was shaking mad.

  Ferris had told me the gnomelings would be here. But we hadn’t known it would be this. And as the first gnomeling began her way toward the stage—a little girl, her hair in pink curls—and I caught a glimpse of her overtop my phone, I felt myself painfully present in this moment.

  This one hadn’t even been given a name. She was simply called, “The first one.”

  She wore infant’s clothing—that’s how small the gnomeling was. The host went on to describe each of the gnomelings being five years old, born when the gods left. But they retained their childlike qualities for longer than human children, and they were perfect for parents who wanted to foster.

  The ex-vamp who’d participated in my family’s murder was on this lawn. I was dubious about the people here becoming foster parents. And when I say dubious, I knew there was less of a chance of that than of the gods actually returning.

  This was some dark, nefarious shit.

  I ran my hand over Percy’s head. I could feel his scales bristling; I hated that he had to witness this. “Don’t worry,” I whispered into his ear. “They’re gonna be saved.”

  The first gnomeling arrived on the stage, turned with wide, blinking eyes into a harsh light. She’d obviously been instructed to stand there a while, to walk in a circle and etch a smile onto her face.

  Meanwhile, the host began taking bids.

  The bidding began at ten thousand dollars. That was more than Percy and I had made in our first year performing.

  The bid swiftly rose, hands shooting up in the half-light. On the auction went for the gnomeling until the bidding slowed to a stop at $250,000.

  A quarter-million dollars paid for the ownership of an Other.

  The rest of the gnomelings were shuttled one by one down the walkway in the same way, each of them auctioned off for similar bids. One—a boy who’d been given a tiny sailor’s hat to wear—even crested $300,000.

  And I filmed it all, streaming it onto social media. The entire thing.

  When the auction was done, I sent the whole video to the New Orleans Police Department along with the address and pocketed my phone. Years of experience had taught me I had seven minutes until the cops arrived.

  I had seven minutes to kill an ex-vamp.

  Chapter 8

  The guests all filtered back into the building to fraternize with their fellow degenerates. Peter and his partner in the pearl dress walked right past us, never looking in our direction.

  All the better.

  When I glanced back at the spot on the lawn where the ninjas had been, it was empty. They’d already disappeared—presumably going after the gnomelings.

  “Perce,” I whispered, “I’m going inside. You stay out here and keep entertaining.”

  “I want to come,” he said. “I know you’re going in there to confront that guy.”

  I knelt in front of him. “You’ve got to keep performing out here, else we’ll set security off. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  Percy blinked once slowly, his glittery eyelids refracting the light. “Are you going to kill him?”

  I swallowed down a lump, staring back at the dragon. Truth was, the lust was in my veins. I’d already thought of it, of how I would do it. I could end his life tonight, but would I?

  I wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t know, Perce,” I whispered. “But I do know I can’t have you involved. Promise me you’ll stay out here.”

  He sighed, wings extending. His head jerked away from my hands. “Fine.”

  I stood as he took off, performing another solo loop-the-loop like he’d been doing all night. The movement was mechanical, performative. Lifeless.

  He didn’t meet my eyes again.

  I wanted to say more, but I didn’t have time. We’d talk later—after this was done.

  When I crossed the lawn toward the French doors, a security guard caught my eye. He was about to flag me down for leaving my spot. “Bathroom?” I said, pointing into the building.

  He waved me toward a side door—the employee entrance, I guessed. “Go in that way. Second door on your left.”

  In the bathroom, I yanked the slinky slip dress out of a pocket in my costume. The thing weighed as much as a wad of tissue, and covered my body about as well. Oh well; I’d only be in it a few minutes.

  When I came in front of the bathroom mirror, rubbing off my facepaint with one of the hand towels and throwing my hair atop my head with bobby pins, my eyes drifted.

  The slip dress revealed all my scars. Whip scars, half of them, from practicing as a girl. A few were from throwing knives (event blunt ones could cut you). The one on my wrist was from Percy’s fire.

  That had been a bad day.

  I wasn’t a pretty slip dress kind of gal; they weren’t made for scarred-up women like me. Not a lot in this world was made for the person I’d become—a traveling street performer with a dragon and a past full of blood and terror—but I could pass well enough when I needed to.

  And as I snuck out of the bathroom and down the hallway, passing through two doors to arrive in the main room, I knew nobody would notice all that in this attractive light. Dim lighting like this was for old people who couldn’t accept their wrinkles. It was for young people who didn’t like to be properly seen. It was for whiplashed people like me, who needed to infiltrate.

  I swept past all the rich and depraved, clicking across the marble in my heels. Peter wasn’t hard to find; he stood with his pearly partner and four others in one corner of the cavernous room, beneath a chandelier so marvelous it looked like a three-tiered, upside-down wedding cake made of crystals.

  And getting Peter’s attention? That would be the easiest part of all.

  Just as I came under the chandelier, I stopped hard.

  There, peeking out of a Louis Vuitton handbag hanging off his wife’s arm, was one of the gnomelings. The little boy’s head crested the bag like a chihuahua, which I supposed was her intent, because she pressed his little tuft of red hair aside as the other guests around her cooed and touched his cheek.

  Ferris and the other ninjas had disappeared in pursuit of the gnomelings who’d been crated. I doubted they knew this one had been personally slotted into Mrs. Louis Vuitton’s red bag like a pet.

  She’d bought the gnome, and then she’d put it on display. How easy it was to own another sentient creature. How much easier it was than that to treat that sentient creature like a prize.

  And now I had a dilemma.

  To save the gnomeling, or to go after Peter.

  If I went after his wife’s bag, the gig would be up. I’d have to snatch the gnomeling and run, and I would lose my chance at Peter.

  If I went after Peter, Ferris and the ninjas might never see the last gnomeling again. This was a singular chance to rescue him.

  And if I stood much longer deliberating, I’d draw attention. And attention from the other guests was the one thing I didn’t need right now.

  Not long after my family was murdered, I’d been sitting in a little diner in Texas, watching a television show as I ate a sandwich. I was homeless, begging. I hadn’t yet found the next circus that would be my home, where I would discover Percy.

  And on this television was an old movie set in the time of the Roman empire. In it, the hero said a phrase I’d never forgotten: Numquam obliviscar. Numquam propitius eris.

  It was Latin. But the subtitles had translated it to this: Never forget. Never forgive.

  And then the hero had taken revenge on the killer who’d taken his wife.

  There I was, fourteen and repeating Latin over and over in a diner while I ran a finger over my plate to catch the crumbs. And even after
I’d left, I repeated it that night. And the next night. And the next.

  I didn’t just memorize the phrase. I sealed it away inside me.

  My eyes flicked to Peter, who laughed at what was probably a bad joke.

  Numquam obliviscar. Numquam propitius eris.

  The choice was obvious. It wasn’t even really a choice.

  I would never forget, and I would never, ever forgive.

  ↔

  I came up beside the ex-vamp, set a hand on his shoulder. “Peter?”

  He glanced at me, eyes widening on the alluring blonde (me). He didn’t for a moment recognize the dragon rider from the street the other day. Of course, I wore an entirely different expression.

  Before he could speak, I fluttered my eyes. “I wasn’t sure I had the right person, but the boss told me you would be the handsome one in black.” I half-winked. “He’s on the phone for you.”

  Now his face shifted from attraction to business. “Who are you?”

  I lifted my champagne. “Delilah, Grunt’s New Orleans associate.”

  Peter eyed me. The name clearly didn’t register, but I’d already focused his attention on what would give him anxiety: the boss. Waiting. For him. “You said he’s on the phone?”

  “This way.” I led him with a backward glance over my shoulder. The kind of glance a woman-loving man of any age doesn’t resist.

  He said a word to his wife, and followed.

  I led Peter down the hallway and into the bathroom I’d changed in. I pressed the door open with my arm, allowing him in first.

  And then, once he’d entered the doorway, he stopped. Of course he stopped.

  My foot rose, heel extended, and I kicked him through the door. My slip dress ripped halfway up my thigh in the process, and I could practically feel my body sigh.

  Finally, some leg room.

  He yelled, stumbled forward, but I was already inside the room with him. I closed the door behind me, threw the lock. Leaned up against it.

  When he turned, he still didn’t see me properly. Confusion mixed with anger, but he only saw Delilah. A small woman. An associate. An underling.