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

by S. W. Clarke

  “No,” I breathed.

  No wonder he was called a dragonslayer …

  “No fair—he’s impervious to fire,” Percy spat, almost indignant. I wanted to compliment him on his noun, but I didn’t have time.

  Grunt was rushing right at Percy.

  “Ten-foot radius,” I hissed at the dragon. “Back up, Perce!”

  I whipped Thelma out, and the thong wrapped around one of Grunt’s wrists.

  I yanked to throw him off-course, or at least to give Percy enough time to scramble away and take to the air. But me yanking was like trying to dislodge a boulder with a twig—it had precisely zero effect on Grunt’s trajectory.

  Percy had managed to turn in place and begin scrabbling down the sidewalk, his wings half-extended, when the ogre reached him. His long tail careened around and slapped Grunt, but that, too, had no effect.

  With a growl, Grunt swung the sign and clocked Percy right in the side. My heart shrank in my chest as the dragon was pitched up into the air, sailed over the street and landed atop a yellow cab’s roof on the far curb.

  Thank the GoneGods the cab was empty, because the whole roof collapsed under Percy’s weight.

  I stared for a disembodied second as my dragon lay motionless atop the car, his wings hanging down to the street. I couldn’t see his eyes, or how bad the wound was. All I knew was, if he didn’t start moving, my heart wouldn’t start again, either.

  His fore-talon twitched, and his head lifted. The moment it did, my heart galloped into a hard, erratic beat. He’s alive. Hurt, maybe, but alive.

  Which left a combination of spiking pain and sizzling anger inside me.

  I turned on Grunt. “Nobody touches my dragon but me.”

  Grunt straightened, his eyes finding mine. “Looks like you’re wrong on that count, little girl.”

  I unhooked Louise from my belt and gripped her in my left hand. My right hand rose, cracked Thelma on the sidewalk. “I may be little”—I took one step forward—“but I’ve got one thing you don’t.”

  I began alternating Thelma and Louise in figure eights at my side as I fell into a steady approach toward the ogre. Crack-crack, crack-crack, crack-crack.

  He remained motionless, staring me down, the sign still in his grasp. “And what’s that?”

  My lips quirked. “Numquam obliviscar,” I whispered. “Nunquam propitius eris.”

  Something passed across Grunt’s face. “Who are you?”

  Instead of answering, I fell into a run, snapped Thelma out at his arm.

  He jerked back, evading her shorter grasp.

  But Louise was a full two feet longer. Nobody ever expected Louise.

  I shot her out toward his other arm, and her seven-foot thong wrapped around his wrist.

  “You’ve already tried that one, girl.” He jerked his bound arm back, pulling the whip right out of my grasp. He swung with the sign as I came close, and I stopped hard, angled my body back to avoid the swing.

  He took a little time to come back around with the stop sign, and that was the problem with being an ogre: You were powerful, but you couldn’t outpace little girls who knew where to hit.

  I grabbed him by the waistband of his blue scrubs and thrust my knee right into his jewels.

  He roared, and even as he staggered back, his free hand shot out toward me and found a vise grip around my neck. But potentially having the bones in my neck crushed wasn’t the scariest part.

  I glanced down at Louise, still wrapped around his arm. Shit.

  I wriggled as he raised me into the air, fury etched across his face, and threw me as fast and hard as possible at the building behind us.

  There wasn’t time to react at all, to grab for anything; I was as helpless as a bug flicked off a human’s finger. In a second, my head would smack against the building and I’d be out—for good.

  My first thought was:

  This is going to hurt.

  And the thought that followed it:

  Please let Percy live.

  ↔

  I closed my eyes, preparing for the inevitable, but it didn’t come.

  Don’t get me wrong; I hit a surface. I hit it hard.

  But it wasn’t a building.

  The air went out of me as I slammed into my dragon’s wings, but they had enough give to prevent me from splattering all over Percy’s hard hide.

  I caught sight of the dragon’s yellow left eye just before his mouth opened and he shot flames at the ogre.

  Friggin’ five-year-old dragon, saving my life again.

  My lungs were caught, my throat hurt, but I could do one thing to help.

  I reached around, found the button on my belt to electrify Louise, who was still snaked tight around the ogre’s arm. He had taken two steps toward us when his arm lit up, and his entire massive body went rigid.

  Then, with terrifying suddenness, the ogre yanked Louise off his arm and roared so loud my ears started ringing. “You think this toy can defeat me?”

  “Box of frogs,” I managed to croak. That had been enough voltage to bring an elephant to its knees. But apparently an ogre was tougher than an elephant.

  Percy wrapped his wing tighter around me, pulling me out of the way as the ogre lunged at us.

  But he didn’t reach us. Because from somewhere outside the veil of Percy’s wings, a sweet-as-honey voice said, “That is quite enough.”

  My lungs finally filled at the same moment, and I gasped for air as I scrabbled to get a view of what was going on. I pushed the edge of Percy’s wing down and found Seleema atop the ogre’s back, her legs wrapped around him and her slender arm tight around his neck, cutting off his airflow.

  Grunt was struggling to pull her off, but he couldn’t get a good grip on her, and within fifteen seconds, he slumped to his knees and hit the sidewalk face-first.

  He was out cold.

  On Grunt’s other side, I caught sight of Frank staring with probably the same expression of awe I wore on my face. He just stood there, hands at his sides, gazing at the houri.

  Seleema was an absolute ringer.

  She stood, not even taking a moment to press her hair from her face before she rushed to my side and dropped to one knee. “Tara, are you all right?”

  I blinked up at her, all the appropriate responses flitting through my brain and being summarily rejected. Finally, I settled on, “Took you goddamn long enough. I FaceTimed you ten minutes ago.”

  A smile touched her lips. “I come from the land of milk and honey. I do not understand this FaceTime.”

  I struggled to my feet. “It’s simple enough. I call you, we talk, you come save my behind.”

  She rose with me. “Did I not save your”—she looked at my butt—“behind? It still looks well. Intact, even.”

  “That’s not the point.” I bent down and struggled to lift Grunt’s hand so I could unwrap Louise from his arm. Seleema helped me by holding the hand up while I pulled the whip off him. “The point is, you gotta come fast.”

  She gestured toward Frank’s VW Beetle, and I noticed for the first time that a small crowd of onlookers had formed on the sidewalks. “We came as fast as the vehicle permitted.”

  Well, that was fair.

  Whenever I didn’t have a quick comeback, I busied my hands. So I replaced Louise at my hip. Thelma lay not far off, and I grabbed her, too.

  The three of us—Frank, Seleema and I—approached Grunt from different sides, all meeting eyes as a police siren sounded from somewhere not far off.

  We had maybe two minutes before the authorities got involved. And then I would have to explain myself—and Percy’s involvement, and go through the whole rigamarole I’d been through more than a few times with cops.

  They always let me off, of course. I ticked all the unassuming boxes: small southern gal, a little confused, just trying to get by in the wide world with her dragon and a donations box.

  Which left only my main issue: the police kept getting in the GoneGodDamn way.

  “Uh,”
Frank said, rubbing his hands together, “I think those sirens are for us.”

  I squinted at Frank. “They’re most definitely for us. Let me do the talking when they ride up.” I knelt beside the ogre, glanced up at Seleema. “I have questions if we want to find Annabelle, and I need him awake before things get official.”

  She nodded at once and knelt at his other side. “He will awaken in ten seconds.”

  My eyebrow rose. “You know that, huh?”

  Something glimmered in her eyes—a mischievousness I hadn’t seen before. This houri had more to her than I’d thought. “I know that.”

  As promised, Grunt let out a low groan on the ten-second mark. I squatted by his face, gave his cheek a bracing little slap. “Hey. Time for some Truth or Dare.”

  He blinked up at me with his one eye turned skyward. He was still flat on his chest, after all. “Truth or Dare?”

  “Well, it’s really just telling me what I want to know, but ‘Truth’ wouldn’t have the same ring, now would it?”

  He blinked again. “What truth?”

  “The truth about where you took Annabelle.”

  “Annabelle?”

  Man, that armbar had really frazzled his circuitry. “The deaf gal from The Singing Angel.”

  That worked; I saw it in his eyes. But then his instincts took over, and he spat, “I don’t know what you’re—“

  I raised a finger. The sirens were getting louder, and I didn’t have much time. “Ah-ah-ah, no lies. You won’t like me when I’m annoyed.” At that moment, a shadow appeared over me, and I heard a low growl. Percy’s face was positioned right behind me; I could see his blue hide in Grunt’s pupil.

  I gestured over my shoulder. “And you may be impervious to fire, but he’s got other ways of expressing his displeasure. He’s been known to remove essential body parts.”

  For the first time, the ogre’s face flickered with something like fear. Apprehension, maybe—but that was enough. “I did my job. I left the descendant in the hospital.”

  “The descendant?” I echoed.

  His lips started moving, but his reply was drowned by the police sirens. And then the cops did what they do best: muck everything up.

  Chapter 8

  “Don’t tell them about Annabelle,” I whispered to Seleema while we still had a moment of privacy. “Whatever you do, don’t tell them.”

  I didn’t explain why; I just hoped she’d do as I asked.

  And as the police closed in, I discovered something else about Seleema: she wasn’t just a goody two shoes. She was a woman who lived by her ethics. And in this case, that meant protecting me. Because she believed protecting me was the best hope she had of finding Annabelle.

  That was why she had wrapped her arms around me by the time the two cop cars, sirens flashing, pulled up to the curb.

  That was why she declared, “I am Seleema Nourra, Bint Al-Uzza, Arousa-Franklin, first of the houris, warrior, steward of Jannah and I have seen her soul!” as the police came out of their cars with guns already drawn and pointed at us. They were yelling all the typical things that American police will yell at a suspect in the middle of New York. And while the whole lethal-weapon-pointed-at-me thing should have increased my heart rate, it didn’t.

  My whole life had been constructed on thrill, and it took a lot more than a gun to get my adrenaline going.

  Mostly, I was worried for Percy.

  I stepped in front of him, Seleema stepping with me like she was attached to me. My palms went halfway up, and I opened with the line I gave when things were at their worst, “Gentlemen, I surrender myself to your justice. As does my dragon, Percival.”

  Percy knew his cue. He dropped to all fours on the pavement, laid his pretty head down like a pet dog. His wings folded to his sides, and he looked about as innocuous as he would ever get.

  In under a minute, the guns were holstered. A pair of handcuffs were around my wrists, and Seleema’s and Frank’s, too. Bystanders were giving accounts of what they’d seen, and pointing at me and Percy.

  These weren’t great circumstances. After all, I’d ambushed an ogre from atop a dragon in the middle of the day. Seleema had tackled him to the ground. And he’d been in scrubs, which gave him the appearance of a potentially noble soul.

  Grunt was tended to by a medic while Seleema and I provided our identification and our accounts of what had happened. And even as I provided my best cover story, I kept hearing Seleema exclaim, “By the GoneGods, this woman’s soul is good. She was pursuing this ogre because he has done evil.”

  At first I thought maybe a houri’s word carried weight with the NYPD, because they eventually removed the handcuffs from the three of us and applied an extra-large pair to the ogre.

  But the truth was actually much simpler: I overheard two of the cops muttering their awe over the laundry list of crimes on Grunt’s record. Apparently he couldn’t keep his misdeeds under cover, which made me think he was one of Valdis’s fall men. Grunt did the dirtiest work.

  One of the cops approached me. “I’ve checked your record, Ms. Drake. It’s clean as a whistle, except for one thing I still find curious.”

  I rubbed my wrists for effect, though they weren’t bothering me. “What’s that?”

  “You’ve had a lot of run-ins with the police all over the country, but not a single arrest or detention—just a long list of incidents you happened to be involved in.”

  I raised an eyebrow, met eyes with him. “A long list of incidents?”

  The cop nodded. “Yes. All involve you tangling in one shape or form with a suspect who, it turns out, has a criminal record.”

  I proceeded to rub my other wrist. “And what do you find curious about that?”

  The cop’s lips almost turned up. “Aside from the obvious?”

  I mirrored his expression. “You don’t strike me as a man who deals in the obvious.”

  He stepped closer, lowered his voice. “What I find curious is that a nineteen-year-old former carnie would make herself into a small-time vigilante.”

  “Oh.” I set one hand to my chest. “Is that the impression you got? Bless your heart.” I reached behind me, set a hand on Percy’s head to give him little scratches as the lapse in our conversation stretched on. “Why, I’m just a street performer.”

  One rule I’d learned in dealing with the cops: never give them more than you have to. Don’t justify, argue, demand or explain. Just present them the southern belle on a platter.

  Sweet. Soft. Unassuming.

  I glanced back at the cop. “Would you like to meet Percy?”

  That one always worked like a charm.

  Ten minutes later, four cops were standing around Percy, taking selfies and petting him. At about two years old, Percy had learned to purr. And when I say purr, I don’t mean like a house cat. I mean like a lion. That was the enormity of the sound coming from his chest.

  And boy, nobody could resist a dragon purring. Not even NYPD.

  Seleema and Frank stood on the rapidly clearing sidewalk, watching the proceedings. When the cops finally departed, I picked up Percy’s leash and nodded them over.

  Frank looked like he’d been to war. Seleema, on the other hand, looked energized. Her cheeks were tinged with pink as she and Frank came to my side.

  “Well done,” I said, shaking debris off the leash. “That whole ‘first of the houris’ business was gold.”

  “Business?” Seleema blinked. “It is no business. I am the first of the houris, warrior, steward—”

  Frank set his hand over hers. “She knows, my love. She was just complimenting you.”

  “Ah. I thank you.” Seleema gave a curt nod, then took hold of my wrist. “You must tell me everything,” she whispered.

  I lifted my face, found steel in her eyes. When a woman had steel in her eyes, you didn’t deny her. “I will.”

  “When?”

  “One hour. I’ll meet you at your apartment in an hour.”

  Frank had climbed into the Bee
tle. “You’re welcome to ride with us,” he called out through the passenger-side window.

  “I haven’t ridden in a car since I was a year old,” Percy said mournfully from my side.

  I patted his neck. “You’re not missing much. Trust me.” I waved Seleema toward the car. “I’ll meet you at your place in an hour. I have to walk Percy back.”

  “You mean walk with me,” Percy corrected. “Not walk me. I’m not a dog.”

  I shot him a grin. “You are most certainly not a dog. You’re my twelve-year-old child, and do you know what parents do with their pre-adolescent kids?”

  “Walk them on leashes?”

  I laughed, unhooking the leash. “Touché. Just don’t go flying off, because Mama can’t afford another fine.”

  Seleema had remained standing on the sidewalk during this exchange; she didn’t move as Percy and I turned around the way we’d come. “Will you be safe?”

  I knew what she was asking: did I want her to escort us back? I chuckled, glanced over my shoulder. “Safer than you’ll be driving a Beetle through the streets of NYC.”

  I winked at her. And with that, my dragon and I started off back through the streets of Brooklyn.

  I appreciated Seleema’s concern, but the truth was, I needed time to think about something Grunt had said.

  He’d called Annabelle “the descendant.”

  The descendant.

  Something about that phrase tickled a chord inside me. It brought back a memory I couldn’t quite touch.

  Whatever that memory was, it sent a cold dread through me.

  ↔

  An hour later, I knocked on Seleema and Frank’s door. She opened it at once, and extended a glass of orange juice to me before I could even step inside.

  I took it without thinking. “What’s this?”

  “It is juice from the orange. Nutritious. Delicious. And my favorite beverage for moments of vulnerability.”

  “Then I’m going to need a lot of it.” I raised the glass, downed a long, pulpy sip. “Pretty good. You squeeze this yourself?”

  “Yes.” Seleema turned, led me into the living room. “Where is Percival?”