Aroused In Flames (Curse 0f The Dragon Book 1)

by Jadyn Chase

  The few times I dared, I happened to notice a few passersby stopping to watch the goings-on. This really was the ultimate humiliation. I thanked my lucky stars Allison wasn’t here to see this.

  The assailants continued spouting incomprehensible gibberish all the while as if to encourage me to do whatever it was they wanted me to do. Since I didn’t speak their native tongue, this did me no good whatever.

  I could stand it no longer. I sensed my mind slipping and I feared I would fall unconscious under the barrage of fists and feet. I couldn’t lift my head to spy a way out. The next time I cracked my eyelids apart, I spied one of the attackers’ scuffed brown boot. I couldn’t say for certain, but I believed it belonged to the one indicated as Jamie.

  On a whim and a prayer, I lashed out with my foot. I couldn’t spare any other limb from defending the battlements. Without fully looking what I was doing or where I was kicking, I swept my leg outward and hooked. I might as well have kept my eyes shut for all the focus I gave to my aim. Desperation drove me to heroic feats and it paid dividends.

  My foot hit something solid. A flying burst of exhilaration sizzled inside me. I was really engaged in a real-life street battle against hardened criminals. This would be a yarn to relate to my brothers when I found them again, what!

  I yanked my foot with all my might. Jamie (we’ll call him) toppled over and landed across me. The next time one of his accomplices belted a fist at me, they pounded the unlucky Jamie instead. Jamie let out a squeal before anyone realized what happened.

  The first chum—I never caught his moniker and never wish to—dove in to rescue his friend and, I can only imagine, once again expose me to the harassment of the confederacy. Jamie, on the other hand, got so enthusiastic with his endeavors to extricate himself from my clutches that he kicked his would-be savior in the kneecap.

  That brute buckled where he stood. By a blessed accident, he missed joining the morass of arms and legs all thrashing and whirling in orchestrated chaos. The other two swine then proceeded to wade into the mix. To their cost, they did so without any stratagem to speak for how to accomplish whatever their aim happened to be.

  Regardless, they shifted all their attention on helping their friends. In the mayhem that followed, I wriggled out to freedom. I chastened myself for even thinking of hanging about to scoff at their plight and instead bolted. I didn’t go to the hotel, though. I ran off toward the library.

  16

  Allison

  Thomas burst into the library with his hair in disarray. He charged from one aisle to the next. He stopped at each gap only long enough to glance down it before rushing onward. He did the same thing when he spotted me before checking himself and running back.

  He streaked between the stacks and flung himself at my table. He nearly upset my computer. “You won’t believe me, Allison. I hardly believe it myself, but it’s true. Do you hear? It’s all true!”

  I stared up at him in horror. “What is the matter with you? You’re bleeding!”

  “Never mind that! Just listen to me. It’s the most wonderful thing in the world.”

  I raised my hand to his forehead, but I dared not touch the awful scrape covering his temple. A gash dripped blood from his lip and bruises darkened his cheeks. “What happened to you? You look like you got in a fight.”

  “Isn’t it marvelous!” he blurted out. “You don’t know delighted I am! I don’t know how it happened, but it’s the most wonderful thing I could ever wish for.”

  I blinked in astonishment. “You’re delighted that you got in a fight?”

  “Yes!” he screamed. “Don’t you realize what this means?”

  I pursed my lips and stood up. “It means we’re going to have to get you back to the hotel and get you cleaned up. You can’t go to the airport looking like that.”

  He seized both my hands. “Forget all that, Allison! This is the greatest day of my life. I’m so pleased I could dance a jig right here.”

  I murmured under my breath. “Will you please keep your voice down? People are starting to stare.”

  He lunged in and kissed me. “You don’t know how happy this makes me. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  Sure enough, a sheen of moisture sprang to his eye and I paused. Whatever happened to him, it certainly meant a lot to him even if he looked terrible. I drew myself up. “Do you want to tell me what happened? What’s this all about?”

  A glorious smile of unadulterated bliss spread across his face. He cast his eyes to Heaven. “After you left, I had breakfast and I went for a walk, all the time making absolutely sure not to get into trouble. You would have been proud of me, Allison. I went all the way out to the Cliffs and all the way back to the hotel without mishap.”

  I had to smile. “Good for you. What happened then?”

  His expression darkened, but only slightly. “Then a band of hardened villains jumped out of an alley and accosted me. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they were most insistent on it. When I didn’t respond, they attacked me.”

  I gasped out loud. He really did get into a fight. I would never have believed it. “We should call the Police. You should give them a description. Those men could do this to someone else and they should be punished for…..”

  “But don’t you see?” he shrieked again. “When it started, I thought for sure the dragon would come out again. I thought, ‘Why, this will be no fuss at all! I’ll simply frighten the ever-loving daylights out of these rascals and send them running for cover.’”

  “And did it?” I asked. “Did you send them running?”

  “That’s the most wonderful part, Allison!” I didn’t bother to tell him to lower his voice. He didn’t notice some other library users get up and leave, but not before giving us both dirty looks. “There was no dragon. No dragon came to frighten them or to save me. I lay there bleeding on the pavement.” He waved his hands in both directions and grinned like a Christmas pig. “No dragon!”

  My eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

  He burst out laughing and tears sprang to his eyes. “I’m cured, Allison! I’m…. Well, I won’t say normal, but I’m back! There is no dragon. I had to rally my courage and break away. I had to fight my way out like a real brigadier. No dragon! Ha! What do you think about that?”

  I took a deep breath. “I think, if it’s true, that it really is the most wonderful thing I’ve heard all week.”

  He dove in and planted another rash kiss on my mouth. He wouldn’t stop laughing. “It’s all over, Allison! No more dragon! No more waking up naked under someone’s hedge! No more awkward news stories, and best of all, no more unpleasant encounters with people who’ve seen something they shouldn’t have. I’m human again! I’m a man again.”

  My shoulders drooped and I cracked a smile in return. “Well, since you’re a man again, let’s get you back to the hotel and get out of here.”

  I picked up my computer and took his hand. I led him outside in a bubble of glowing rapture. He kept gazing at everything around him and heaving ecstatic sighs.

  I took him back to the hotel. He didn’t seem to notice anything around him until I sat him on the bed and touched a wet washcloth to the cut on his forehead.

  He whipped around snarling and spitting. “Aaargh! What are you trying to do—torture me?”

  I stood back and held out the cloth. “Do you want to do it? For someone who’s a man again, you’re acting like a big baby.”

  He scowled up at me and snatched the cloth out of my hand. “I never dealt well with pain.”

  “Spoken like a true brigadier.” I stormed across the room and started throwing stuff into my suitcase.

  He snarled to himself and cleaned up his face now that he couldn’t blame me for tormenting him. In a few minutes, he got up and took himself into the bathroom. He studied his face in the mirror. “Huh. I suppose it could be worse. At least I look properly rugged like this.”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “Just don’t make a habi
t of it, okay?”

  He tossed the washcloth into the sink. “Indeed, I shan’t. My jaw feels seven feet thick.”

  I walked up behind him and slipped my arms around his waist. “Come on. Change your clothes. We have a train to catch.”

  He stood still for a second and pressed my arms into his body. The more time passed, the more I accepted what he told me. The dragon was gone. He was a regular man like any other and he was mine.

  He rested his skull against my head and let out another long breath. “I’m so happy, Allison. I couldn’t be happier.”

  I kissed his shoulder. “Me, too.”

  That trip to the airport and all the way back to Wichita passed in idyllic tranquility. We waded through long lines and long waits and uncomfortable airline seats and even longer waits for buses to distant terminals. We endured all the tedium and irritation of any long flight, but nothing bothered me.

  Thomas beamed at everything around him. He never let anything bother him and he continually touched and stroked and embraced me all the way back to Wichita. He stuck close by my side. He read the airline magazine from cover to cover five times and watched every movie on the flight from London to New York.

  When I parked my own car in my own driveway, he got out and faced the house. He inhaled a full breath, swelled out his chest, and blew it out in a quick expiration of air. “Home sweet home, Allison. I’m going to make this house my own. I’m going to dive right in and conquer this queer world of yours.”

  I grabbed my suitcase handle. “Great. You can start by learning to make yourself a cup of tea, and while you’re at it, I’d love one.”

  I wheeled my case up the path to the door. While I got out my keys to unlock it, I snuck a peek backward. Thomas stood rooted to the spot with his mouth sagging open. He stared at me like I’d just asked him to amputate a finger.

  I smirked to myself. He wanted to conquer this world so he better start by learning his way around the kitchen. I sure as hell wasn’t going to fetch him tea all day long. I had better things to do.

  17

  Thomas

  I picked up the hammer and hefted it in my hand. Its weight made me feel manly and invincible. With this, I could conquer the world. I pinched a nail between my other thumb and index finger and held it in position while I took aim. I’d seen workmen doing this back home. How hard could it be?

  I gave a few tentative swings eyeing my target. Then, with a mighty, primal grunt, I slammed the hammer down. It glanced off the nail and pulverized my thumb to a black and blue pulp.

  I shrieked in pain and dropped the hammer. The nail pinged across the room and embedded its deadly point in the opposite wall, right next to where Allison just so happened to appear at exactly the wrong moment.

  The hammer hit the protruding wood, pivoted sideways, and proceeded to plummet down, claw first, on top of my bare toe. I sprang away with another yelp of surprise and pain. I danced from one foot to the other alternately squealing and roaring while I flapped my hand in a ridiculous effort to shake the pain away.

  Allison gaped at me like a wild animal in a zoo. For a second, I saw myself through her eyes. I really did look like a monkey prancing and screeching in incoherent squawks. I subsided to what I can only hope was a more dignified posture and stuck my thumb in my mouth to soothe it.

  She gulped to get her voice working. “What the hell is going on in here?”

  “I was….” I waved toward my project. “I was trying to hammer that nail into this wood, but these tools are so….so aboriginal. I don’t understand how anybody manages to make anything with them at all. It’s impossible.”

  She stepped into the room. She rested one hand on her enormous distended belly and supported her back with the other. “Considering that people have been making things with them since the dawn of time, I would say it’s not exactly impossible. You’re just not used to it.” She looked down for the first time and frowned. “What exactly is that thing supposed to be?”

  “This?” I turned around to examine my magnum opus. “It’s a baby’s cot. What do you think? Is it too much?”

  “Too much?” Her eyebrows went up. “Are you seriously telling me you’ve been in here trying to make a baby’s cot when you don’t know the first thing about woodwork?”

  I pulled in my head with offended pride. “Isn’t that what fathers are supposed to do? Surely, it can’t be that hard. One of our groomsmen at the Castle make one for his first child. If an uneducated servant can do it, why shouldn’t I?”

  She bit back a smile. I knew that smile. It said she knew something I didn’t but kept it to herself to spare my feelings.

  She pointed at the thing. “Isn’t the bed part supposed to be level? This corner is noticeably higher that one. The baby’s feet will be above its head.”

  I shrugged and frowned down at my great masterpiece. “You could be right about that, but a little adjustment should correct it.” I burst into a grin. “No problem! I’ll have it done before the baby arrives.”

  “What about this?” She pointed at the decorative bars on the cot front grate. The piece was designed to slide down to give easy access to the child, but so far, I hadn’t yet been able to slide it down. I couldn’t figure out why.

  “These bars should be parallel,” she told me. “This part is wide enough that a small child could fit their head through it. Down here, the gap is small enough that they could slip down and get caught. The baby could strangle itself on its own cot.”

  I made a face. “Is it really necessary that you demolish my work when I’ve barely begun? Give me a chance to finish it before you tell me everything that’s wrong with it. Can’t you see I’m trying to be a father here?”

  That patronizing smile ruptured to a full, glorious smile. “I can see that and I can see that you’re succeeding in being a wonderful father. Don’t worry about it. We can buy a cot. Then you don’t have to worry about injuring yourself getting it done in time.”

  Now that she gave me permission to, I let myself notice everything wrong with the job. It truly was the most wretched attempt at carpentry since the invention of the hammer. I didn’t want to look at it and I certainly didn’t want to smash my appendages to smithereens trying to finish it.

  She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re already a father. You don’t have to prove it to me or anybody else.”

  I stole a peek at her and smiled. “Thank you, Allison. You are truly a marvel among women.”

  “Huh!” she snorted. “Hardly!”

  She waddled across the room and lowered her aching body into the rocking chair by the window. She relaxed back and closed her eyes.

  “Are you all right, Allison, dear? You look particularly exhausted today.”

  “I am particularly exhausted today. She grumbled without opening her eyes. “I am, as you say in your country, knackered.”

  Now it was my turn to bite back a grin. “You’re sounding like a true Englishwoman, Allison.”

  “Great,” she muttered. “That’s exactly what I don’t want to sound like in the middle of the USA. I won’t be sorry when the next three weeks are over and I can start feeling like a real person again.”

  I started to reply when her phone went off. It pinged the way it always did. She took it out and squinted at the screen. I turned away to cast another disparaging glare toward what was, I freely admit, not a cot at all. It was a pile of cobbled sticks. It was a loosely connected collection of firewood. That was what it really was.

  Allison gasped behind me. I spun around to see her face ashen and pinched. I rushed to her. “What’s wrong? Is the baby coming?”

  She didn’t look at me. She stared at her phone in blank shock. “Look, Thomas!” she whispered. “Look!”

  She rotated the thing around and I read the headline. Shelton Family Reunion. Alexander Lincoln Shelton of Kent extends a heartfelt invitation to all Shelton Family members to join in celebrating their 180-year anniversary. Festivities to be held in the Great Armou
r Hall, Dover Castle, 8 PM, 14 May 2020.

  I couldn’t blink. I could only stare. “Allison, do you think this is….?”

  “How many other Alexander Lincoln Sheltons do you think there are in Kent? Besides, look at the other details. One-hundred-and-eighty-year anniversary? That puts it squarely at 1840 and the Great Armour Hall proves it. He’s sending out a call to the rest of the family. He’s trying to get all of you back together in one place.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Are you sure?”

  She heaved herself out of her chair. “We have to go. We have to fly over there and see them. Even if no one else shows up, you have to tell him at least one of his brothers is alive.” She shoved past me.

  “Wait, Allison!” I cried. “We can’t go! You’re…. you’re eight and a half months pregnant, for Heaven’s sake. It’s not safe for you to fly.”

  She chopped her hand through the air. “We’re going to that family reunion if I have to give birth on the God damned plane! We can’t let this chance pass us by.”

  “But Allison….!”

  She whirled around on the threshold and her eyes flashed at me. “We’re going and that’s final. I’m close enough to term that the baby will be fine. If anything goes wrong, they have hospitals in England, too. We’ll be fine so stop arguing. This is the chance of a lifetime and it’s everything we’ve been waiting for. Now come on.”

  She stormed out of the room. For someone who was particularly exhausted a few minutes ago, she could move surprisingly fast when properly motivated. She burned through the house in a whirlwind of activity. She blazed into the bedroom and started ripping clothes out of the drawers.

  In less than an hour, she packed both our cases with everything imaginable, booked the flights, and even dragged the cases out to the car. She parked them by the boot—the trunk, as they say in America—but I charged out there just in time to stop her trying to lift them inside.