“Are we going to be able to go somewhere now?” I asked him, hoping that by some miracle that part was going to come true, too.
Garen looked at me and stroked his scruffy chin in thought. His smile remained on his face.
This has to be a good sign, right? I didn’t think he’d still be smiling like that if the news wasn’t good. He also didn’t seem at all surprised that I’d asked. To be fair, I’d been asking about the next time I could venture outside for quite some time now, so it should’ve come as no surprise.
“I know of a place,” he said to me, echoing what he’d said the night before, when I thought he was falling asleep. “It’s not much, but we’d be safe and you’d be able to get out and stretch your legs a little.”
I smiled at him. “That’s all I ask.”
He continued to look at me pensively. “One of my guards should come with us. Tail us, in case some shit goes down. They won’t have to come in with us, though. I’m guessing that you prefer that I ask Brock…?”
Nodding my head as I listened to him, I thought it over. Even though Brock was the servant that I felt I had some rapport with, I wanted to give Ash a chance to prove himself to me like his cohort had. “Let’s give Ash a shot,” I said to Garen, smiling slightly. “Don’t want to be accused of favoritism.”
He quirked an eyebrow as he looked at me, smiling. “Okay. He might be glad to have this opportunity. He does prefer going places, which is why he’s always patrolling above us.”
“What should I wear to this place you’re taking me?” I asked. “Are we going right away?”
Garen laughed. “Did you finish your schoolwork, little girl?” he asked teasingly. “We can go soon, if you’re done with your work and you’re ready.”
I looked down at my outfit. “Should I change? I finished my homework. All I had to do was read anyway.” I stuck my tongue out at him. Please just let me go out for a while. Please take me out! I wasn’t sure if he could sense my desperation, but it was totally there. My eyes were pleading.
“I don’t think you need to change,” he said with another laugh. “It’s not a good idea to wear a skirt or anything. We’re going to fly there.”
“Oh boy!” I said, gulping a bit but grinning at him. “Sounds fun.”
I wasn’t sure if that would be the safest way for us to get somewhere, but it wasn’t really my place to say. And I also didn’t want him to change his mind. Flying was definitely the way to move somewhere fast. He wouldn’t tell me where we were going, but I was ready for a fun surprise as well.
We stepped out the front door of the mansion and he instructed me to get on his back right away, like he was going to take me for a piggyback ride. “Hold on tight!” he said. As soon as I tightened my hold on his neck, Garen took off at a run towards the lake. I bit my lip and willed myself not to scream as his body shifted and grew beneath me. Before we touched the water’s edge, we were up in the air. His black shape cast a frightening reflection on the water and, in a blink of an eye, we were too high to see the lake at all.
Chapter 4: The Blue Duck
I held fast to Garen’s long, scaly neck as he pumped his powerful black wings. It was too late to try and ask him again where we were going. He’d never be able to hear my little voice over the rushing wind and the beating of his wings. I just had to trust that he was taking me someplace safe and enjoyable. It wouldn’t be like him to not worry about safety even more than I did.
We flew for quite a while, so I knew that he wasn’t just taking me to some restaurant in Chicago. Getting out of the city is something that I need, I think. Not just because it’s probably safer. Chicago’s stuffier than it ever was before. I wondered if flying in daytime was a bad idea, though, because couldn’t we be seen? It must be why he’s flying over the clouds.
“Hang on tight,” Garen’s growling voice boomed at me. I looked out towards his face and I could see one of his huge, green eyes turn towards me, the pupil turning into a sharp slit. Even though I knew I was safest with him, I was still afraid of him. His power was awesome in the more literal sense of the word. Commanding of awe and respect.
I did as I was told and clung to his reptilian neck, feeling so small as I rode him. He veered downward without any further warning. I let out a little yelp and clamped my eyes shut, not really wishing to watch the drop. It was bad enough that I could feel it. I’m not sure I’ll ever get the hang of this, I thought.
Thankfully, when it came time for him to land, he did so slowly and gently. He did a few circles as we approached the ground and when he landed it was like he was simply stepping off of something. That something just happened to be the stratosphere. I carefully climbed down his back like his spinal spikes and scales were a ladder. He shifted as soon as I was off of him, back into the handsome man with black hair, glowing eyes, and a smart business suit.
“You always make me look underdressed,” I said to him with a smirk, as if we were a normal couple going out to dinner together, and I hadn’t just flown in on his back.
He chuckled, running his fingers swiftly through his thick hair and giving it a nice, tousled look, instead of its usual carefully combed and gelled appearance. He also untied his green necktie and placed it into the pocket of his black dress pants. “This will make me slightly less recognizable, I think,” he said with a toothy smile. He offered his arm to me and I gladly took it, still feeling like I was going to a royal ball with a handsome prince while I looked like some kind of tourist. I’m even wearing yesterday’s pants…
Garen walked me through a field of tall grass and I had no idea where we were. I could smell water nearby and realized that a lake was close to us. “Did you just fly me around back at the park?”
He laughed. “No,” he said. “And waste all of our time?”
I looked up and realized that Ash was up there, a dark silhouette against the sky. Then I looked back at Garen. “Oh.”
“I always try to land in parks if I can help it,” he explained as we walked. “We’ll be there soon. The place isn’t usually open at this time, but I know the owner and he’ll let us in anyway. We’ll have the place all to ourselves.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said to him, but my voice betrayed my excitement. It didn’t matter to me if the place was empty or packed. I was going out somewhere. In fact, I was outside in this very moment! Grinning, I took a deep breath. The first signs of autumn hung in the air. “I love the smell of leaves,” I said absently.
Garen raised his eyebrows at me, looking at me like I just might be crazy. “Just leaves? Not even a particular kind?”
I shrugged. “Fall leaves, I guess. They have a certain scent. You really don’t know what I’m talking about?”
He shook his head at me, laughing a little underneath his breath. “I can’t say that I’ve paid attention to leaves. Maybe I’ve just had too much else on my mind.”
How sad, I thought with a slight frown. “I want to help you enjoy autumn, then,” I said. “It’s probably my favorite season. It’s certainly better than summer anyway. Summer is yucky.”
Something about being cooped up inside for so long had turned me rather childish. I would’ve been embarrassed, maybe, if I didn’t feel so goddamn happy just being alive in that moment. I slid my arm down and out of his, and then took his hand in mine instead, squeezing gently. “Thank you so much for doing this for me,” I said to him. “I’m truly grateful. I know I may sound like a dingbat, but it’s just because I’m so, so happy to be out here with you. Wherever we are.”
Garen laughed again. “Peoria,” he said. Then he pointed to a kind of squat building that we were apparently approaching. It sat on the bank of the lake that I’d smelled. “That’s where we’re going.”
We came up to the back entrance of the building. The employee entrance, by the looks of it. The name of the place remained to be seen. “This is starting to be a little suspicious,” I said, doing my best to keep smiling even though I was growing nervous. “Where have you br
ought me? Are we really going to be alone in here? It looks like an abandoned warehouse. But it smells like fish.”
Garen continued to look amused at me. We climbed up five wooden steps. The whole small building was made of wood and, from the looks of it, it had been built quite some time ago. He held the door open for me and I hesitantly walked inside. Darkness greeted me, but when Garen came in, he flipped a switch and light filled the place.
It seemed to be just some kind of average dive bar—pun intended, because it was right beside a body of water. “Wow,” I said. “When you told me that this place would be closed, you weren’t kidding. I thought at least your owner friend would be here.”
“He is,” Garen replied. “This is just the main floor of the restaurant. He’s got an office downstairs.” Sure enough, he led me down to where the boss supposedly was. There was indeed an office below the main dining room of the place. Garen softly knocked on the door with two of his knuckles. “Sam?” he asked. I wondered if he was concerned at all that someone else could be on duty at the moment. Did he book this date for tonight, or just in general?
A sudden sound of wheels on tile could be heard, and a man in a wheeled desk chair rolled into view. He was maybe a little older than Garen, with sandy hair and a light brown mustache. He wore a blue and white ‘trucker’ style hat. He grinned at Garen. “Well,” he said, “look who finally came in. I thought you might’ve changed your mind out of nowhere. You know I don’t do this for just anyone, right?”
He and Garen exchanged some kind of special handshake involving hitting the backs of their hands against each other’s first and then tapping their bellies together. They looked completely ridiculous. I had to smile. I was less nervous now.
“Thank you so much for this,” Garen said to the other man, giving him a friendly smile that was normally reserved for me. I was amazed. I’d never seen him smile at Brock or Ash like this before.
I wonder who this guy is and how he knows Garen, I thought.
“Anytime, Garen,” the man said, with a smile a little less friendly than Garen’s was. His eyes flicked from him to me and he jutted his chin up slightly in my direction. “You going to introduce me to your friend?”
“Yes,” Garen replied. “Tatyana Smile, this is my friend Sam Fields. Sam, this is my girlfriend, Tatyana.”
Wow, I thought. He called me his girlfriend.
I found myself blushing and smiling like a silly schoolgirl, even though the situation didn’t quite call for that sort of thing. “Hi,” I said to Sam, waving slightly at him. “Nice to meet you. Thank you for letting us hang out at your restaurant even though it’s closed.”
Sam’s smile suddenly became more genuine. “Well, she’s certainly polite,” he said to Garen. “It’s nice to meet you, Tatyana. I’ve been hearing a lot of things about you lately. But none of it quite does you justice.”
In spite of myself, I blushed even darker, grinning so much that my cheeks might’ve fallen off if I wasn’t careful. I noticed his eyes drift away for a moment, resting on the purplish-blue, trident shaped mark on my lower forearm. His smile seemed to grow when he saw it there.
I suddenly felt nervous again. Why the sudden interest in my birthmark? Is he also a dragon? I wondered, feeling something harden in the pit of my stomach.
Sam looked back at Garen. “Shall we, then? I don’t expect you to serve yourselves.”
He led us up from the basement and back to the main dining room of the restaurant. There was a long bar at the opposite side of the space, but I didn’t exactly wish to sit at the bar when I had a choice of a table. I looked at Garen and let him lead the way since he knew what he was doing, or at least, seemed to. He followed Sam to a table in the middle of the floor, and then he pulled one of the blue wooden chairs out for me. I looked down at it and noticed that there were little white, floral cushions on the seats. That was a nice touch. I sat in the chair, anxious to get Garen alone again so we could talk. I didn’t like the vibe I’d gotten once Sam’s eyes were fully on me.
Garen sat at the table across from me and smiled. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong in his opinion, which was some small comfort. Maybe I was just being paranoid or overly sensitive.
“What would you like to drink?” Sam asked, looking from Garen to me and back again.
Garen didn’t even waste a moment. “We’ll each have a glass of your best red wine,” he said. “And the fish tacos, please.” He casually looked down at his watch.
I guess we can’t stay here too long, I thought, feeling quite sad because I was hoping to be able to savor this newfound freedom. But I guess Peoria isn’t exactly far from my normal stomping ground. There could be enemies around. Hopefully Ash is doing his job…
I absently looked up as I thought about the dragon guarding us. Garen noticed and cleared his throat a little. “Is that okay with you?”
I smiled at him, nodding. “Yes,” I replied. “Sorry, I was just thinking.” He must’ve thought I was rolling my eyes.
Sam went off to work on the food. I breathed a sigh of relief once he was gone. “Everything okay?” Garen asked me, a look of concern in his glowing eyes.
I leaned in slightly closer to him. I wasn’t sure where Sam had gone but I didn’t want him to be listening in on our conversation. “Did you see the way he was looking at me back there?” I asked in a low whisper. “At my birthmark?”
Garen raised his eyebrows at me and his eyes flitted briefly from my face to my forearm as well. He didn’t appear to be nearly as interested in the odd mark on my arm as Sam was, but that was because Garen knew me very well by now. He could’ve had every inch of me memorized. I wasn’t very tall. “Really?” he asked, not acting fazed by this information.
Maybe it’s just normal for everyone to be interested in my birthmark, I thought. But isn’t there a chance that it’s the bullseye on my body? Isn’t that what Brock told me once?
“He acted like he had even more interest in me as soon as he saw it,” I said, still keeping my voice low. “How do you know this guy? What’s his status as far as the Believing vs. Unbelieving thing goes?”
Garen was thoughtful. He lifted his gaze from my face and scanned the empty restaurant as if he was suddenly unsure about his decision to bring me here. “He’s owned The Blue Duck for as long as I’ve known him. Everyone in Illinois seems to like him. He’s a shifter, and as far as I’ve ever known, he’s been decidedly on the Believing side…”
That as far as I’ve ever known gave me pause, and it seemed to give him pause too as he sat there, knitting his brow and worrying his lower lip with one of his fangs. They were smaller now, of course, because he was smaller, but I still thought that it was going to leave a mark later.
“What should we do?” I asked him, figuring that we were on the same page now. We needed to get the fuck out of that restaurant. “You were right. I hate to admit it, but you were right. Nowhere’s safe for me, apparently.”
I tried not to be upset about this, but I was. It was hard not to be.
Just then, Ash rushed into the restaurant. He looked disheveled as if he’d only just shifted, still needed to get his bearings, but didn’t have time. He came right over to us and leaned down to speak to Garen, but I heard him because of our close proximity.
“Sir, you need to get out of here,” he said in a low tone. “It’s not safe here. Fields has been compromised.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but the look on both of their faces told me that it was bad, and that was all I needed to know. Garen stood up from his chair and told hold of me by the wrist. I knew that he wasn’t trying to hurt me, but still it hurt as his fingernails dug into my skin. We did our best to quietly run out of the restaurant, and then Garen and Ash shifted in the blink of an eye, taking flight before Sam had a chance to show his face in the doorway.
Right on cue, another dragon appeared in the sky behind us—thankfully a good fifty feet behind us. This dragon was smaller than Garen, as all dragons were, now that
he was the black, super dragon that I’d helped him to become. The Sam dragon was purple with gold accents, making him resemble a kiddie TV show star or perhaps a school mascot. It was hard for me to take him too seriously at first, until he blew out a long, smoking hot burst of flames in my general vicinity.
“Garen!” I shouted, scared and clinging tightly to his neck. “I know you’re doing your best, but can you please go a little faster? His fire is gaining on us!”
All of Sam was gaining on us, really. Garen pumped his humongous black wings faster and faster, gaining height even if he wasn’t gaining distance. It’s almost as if Sam knows exactly where we’re going… and then it dawned on me. If he and Garen were good buddies, didn’t it stand to reason that Sam knew where Garen lived? And if that was the case, he intended to follow us all the way back to the mansion in Washington Park.
It was too loud and chaotic at the moment for me to share this view with Garen, but I had a feeling that he knew what I was thinking anyway. There was a franticness in his large eyes when he swiveled his neck, giving me a good view, flapping his wings as he headed for home. There was nowhere else for us to go that was safe, short of trying again at another bar. “I’m so sorry,” I said to him, burying my face in his scales. “I never should have pressured you into something like this.”
I doubted that he could hear me, but it still needed to be said. I’d begged him for so long for a vacation of some kind, and he’d done his best to make me happy. But Garen had been right all along. No one was trustworthy in Illinois anymore. Everyone was out to get me. Even people who were supposed Believers. The way Sam had looked at me proved that. I didn’t think that he wanted me dead. He was on team Fuck Tatyana, and as far as I was concerned, that was nearly as bad as the people who wanted to kill me. It was never actually about me, it was all about the power which Garen now proved was real and for the taking.
His power was my doom, in a way.
Abducted By The Dragons: The Complete Series Page 12
