There. His dragon hovered, watching the tentacle’s dying spasms. I have done all that you have required of me. It is my turn now.
Damian knew in his gut exactly what his dragon intended. To find Andi. No…you cannot! This world doesn’t work like ours!
Then, as you say, fuck this world, his dragon growled and beat his wings again to take off into the night sky.
“Stella!” shouted the high-pitched voice of a child. “Stella!”
“Isaac! Don’t!” he heard Stella shout back. “Oh my God, no!”
Damian surged inside his dragon as the shrieking behind them continued, trying to take control again. Turn back! I command it!
He felt his dragon partition off his thoughts, shoving him into a cage of ice, where he wouldn’t have to listen to him. We are going to find Andi!
Don’t you think I want that, too? he shouted at the beast, bashing his fists against the cage’s bars. Search my heart! You know me! He threw himself against the confines the dragon had created in his mind. Give me my body back!
The beast didn’t answer him, and it didn’t become human again, but it did turn.
Stella, Zach, and Austin were all holding up a piece of wall that the death throes of the tentacle had knocked over so it wouldn’t smash a child trapped below.
“I just wanted to see the dragon, Stella,” the boy whispered, crying. He was trying to drag himself away, but his leg was pinned. Damian’s dragon could scent his blood.
He landed and moved forward on all fours, head snaking back and forth. Austin and Zach had at least seen his dragon before, but Stella had not; her eyes went wide with fear, and her panic tainted the air. Damian’s dragon snaked its forked tongue out to taste it as he crawled near, lowering himself so that his head could catch the upper part of the wall against his forehead and horns and push the entire thing up carefully.
“Not too fast! The kid’s ankle!” Zach warned the first to let go and trust the dragon, running underneath the wall for the boy, pulling him out. The dragon paused, breathing hot air over everyone nearby.
“You’re…a dra-dragon,” Stella stuttered, as Zach came to pull her out next. She hadn’t had the sense to run. Austin snorted and ran after them, and then Damian’s dragon pulled its head back and let the wall finish falling with a crack.
Damian braced on the inside of his beast, preparing for the fight of his life, as his dragon looked down his muzzle at the members of his team, but instead, it changed its mind and released him, folding in upon itself as quickly as it’d come. He dropped to the ground, fully human, naked, and unharmed.
Damian took a moment there, feeling the rough rocks beneath his hands and feet. He’d screwed up all his strength and will to fight and now…nothing. It’d been like pressing against a wall, only to have it disappear. He sagged with a pant, and looked up to find Jamison’s elaborate new weapon trained on him, blue-lights aglow, one hundred percent ready to fire.
“Good man,” Damian told him. He stood up as Jamison slowly lowered the weapon and a Siamese cat the size of a horse burst into their circle, with Mills riding on its back.
“Grim?” He blinked. “And…Mills?” He barely had time to register both of them before Mills slid off Grimalkin’s furry back to run to Jamison’s side. She was barefoot, in sweatpants and an Obituary death metal T-shirt, her long hair in a ponytail that fell to the ground behind her like a waterfall.
“Are you okay?” she asked Jamison. “We caught a ride in Max’s truck.”
“You know, I’m here too,” Austin said, from Jamison’s other side.
Mills leaned over. “You’re half-fur; Jamison’s not.”
“Me and my metal half are fine,” Jamison laughed. “Look at you! Riding in on a cat!”
She visibly calmed. “I am a witch, you know. And I figured if we were going to use the Forgetting Fire, I might as well be comfortable. Plus—and most importantly—Grimalkin agreed.”
An overly large Grimalkin padded forward and nuzzled Damian, rocking him back bodily. “I had to give up cheeseburgers for this,” he whined.
“I owe you. Again.” Damian reached up to knuckle Grim’s beach ball sized head. “Can I get some clothing?” Grimalkin closed his eyes and created them for him in a folded pile at his feet, shrank down, and wandered off.
“So, where are we at?” Mills asked, looking around. “I’ve got everything here on the blackout, from satellites to toasters. Max is circling with the fire wagon now, clearing up broken glass and memories. What the fuck happened here, and who’s that?” she asked, pointing at the broken apartment complex and Stella, whom Zach had pulled aside to talk to, in turns. He was holding the boy that they’d saved, ruffling one hand through his hair.
“Interdimensional tentacle creature, and it’s complicated. Very complicated,” Jamison said. “Want to help me close the rift?”
“Yes!” she answered, and then looked up. “Christ, that’s big.”
“Yeah, and we don’t want anything else poking their tongue, arm, or sex organ through,” Austin said, pausing to glare back at his brother.
“Sounds good to me,” Mills said. “Give me a moment, will you?” Her hands were already up in her hair, undoing her ponytail to let her hair flow freely down. She reached up and plucked a few strands away from her scalp and pulled them out, putting one end of them in her mouth and quickly twisting the rest of them together between her palms into a rope. “This is going to be kind of old-fashioned, in the interest of speed,” she warned them, talking around the ends, before finishing her twisting. Then she pulled out a ceremonial knife she had hidden on her and slashed the palm of her hand with it roughly before slicking the rope she’d made of her own hair with her blood. “There,” she said, presenting it to Jamison.
“You good?” he asked her as he took it, his concern easy to read across his face.
“It’s a waning moon. Perfect for banishments,” she told him, which Damian knew as he finished pulling on his shirt was her way of dodging Jamison’s concerns without lying. Millicent’s magic had a cost, but for all his power, Grimalkin couldn’t do what she could. And neither could he. Damian wondered if it was because Mills was of this world if that’s why it listened to her when its edges were frayed.
“All right,” Jamison said, knowing not to press her now. He reached into a pocket and pulled out two small drones, tying the end of Mills’s rope to them. They flew aloft and zipped up to where the rift was, flying in an intricate pattern in front of it. The same colors that’d appeared before the rift had opened appeared again, only this time in reverse, like whatever had seeped out was being pulled back, and then, with a snap, the drones, the bloody rope of Mills’s hair, and the tear in the night sky were gone.
“Done,” Mills said, stumbling slightly.
Jamison caught her. “We need to get back,” he said.
“Go on ahead with her,” Damian said. “I’ll stay behind and wait for Max. We’ve got to make sure the Forgetting Fire works on that tentacle.” He’d seen the Fire clean up messes for them before, but the thing that’d come through this rift was something else.
A now cat-sized Grimalkin bounced out of the rubble. “Tentacle? What tentacle?” he asked, sitting on his haunches and licking a paw primly.
“The huge one,” Damian began, looking past him—only he couldn’t see where it was anymore. It’d been just there, all massive, slimy, and glistening in the moonlight, he was sure of it, but now….
“Really?” Grimalkin asked.
“Grim,” Damian began. “What did you do with it?”
Grim stretched his mouth wide open and licked his chops.
“Did you…eat it?” Damian pressed.
Grimalkin stood up and lifted his small white chin. “Don’t look at me like that, Damian. I missed out on cheeseburgers. I was hungry! And, as they say on this planet, ‘waste not, want not.’”
Max walked in out of the darkness with a closed lantern swinging on his back. “As usual, I miss the party.”
Damian laughed at his cat and told Max, “Come with me.”
Chapter 8
Damian walked Max over to where Stella and Zach were arguing. She was reaching for the boy he held, while Zach pulled back, then looked over and saw the two of them advancing. “Max!” he said, sounding relieved.
“You were the dragon!” the boy said, spotting Damian and squirming until he moved something he shouldn’t have and hurt himself with an, “Ouch!”
“We’ve gotta get this kid to forget, boss,” Zach told him. “And then take him to the hospital.”
“I disagree,” Stella said, as Damian reached for the boy, who practically leaped into his arms. “Not about the hospital, but…don’t make him forget.”
The child clung to him for safety, and Damian found his arms cradling him like they knew what they were doing, pressing the boy to his own chest despite the fact he’d never held a child before. “Why not?” he asked her, thinking back to what’d happened when he’d recently shown someone else mercy. Andi. Considering everything that’d happened since, had that really been the right call?
“Because,” Stella said, inhaling like whatever she was going to say would cost her. “You are the one piece of magic that this kid will ever know is true. How can you take that from him and leave him someplace like this?” She cast her arms open and looked around. “This place is hard and rough, and there is no kindness here. Ask me how I know.”
“What’s the point of giving a kid a dream if no one’s going to believe him? If it’ll just lead to him getting called crazy and beat up?” Zach asked, looking meaningfully at Max and jerking his chin at the lantern.
“Did anyone think to ask the boy?” Damian asked them.
Stella and Zach looked to one another quickly, and Damian realized they hadn’t. He pried the child off his chest and held him carefully in midair. “What’s your name?”
“Isaac,” he said solemnly. His skin was brown, and he had a close-cut crown of fuzzy black hair.
“And why’re you up this late, Isaac?”
“I heard the explosion! And my mother wasn’t home yet, so I came outside. I saw Stella yelling, and I thought she needed help, so I ran after her,” the boy explained, and Stella hiccoughed with emotion.
“She’s a night stocker at the Walmart,” Stella explained defensively. “Don’t judge…she’s not a bad mom.”
“And then…I saw…everything!” the boy dramatically went on. “It was just like in a movie!”
Damian could see where the boy’s ankle had been twisted—possibly broken bones. They needed to get it checked out, maybe set. “What if I told you it wasn’t a movie? And that it was real?”
The boy blinked, smearing a hand across his face. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. There’s a dragon inside me.”
“Is there one inside me?”
“I don’t know. Let me listen,” Damian said, pressing his ear against the boy’s chest. He could hear the fluttering of his heartbeat, like the wings of a butterfly, fast and then slow. “No. You’re all boy.”
The boy groaned with disappointment, and Damian smiled.
“Here’s the thing, Isaac. I can erase your memories, but I don’t want to. Not all the way. Because Stella here says you want to remember dragons, and maybe I want to be remembered too.” He thought of Andi, imagining he could see her reflected in the boy’s brown eyes. “Just a little. But like Zach says, memories aren’t always safe. I don’t want anyone making fun of you at school. Because most people think dragons aren’t real.”
“They’re wrong!”
“They are,” Damian agreed, nodding. “But let’s just keep that between us. What if I have you think this whole night was just a dream? That way, you get to keep all of your memories, but you won’t have to get into fights about it. You can even tell people about the dream you had, and they’ll be nice.”
Isaac’s small brow furrowed. “But what if they’re not?”
“Don’t worry. They will be. I’ll be keeping an eye on you from here on out. If people aren’t good to you, they’ll answer to me.” Damian carefully handed Isaac back over to Stella, who took him and carefully held him against her hip. Then Damian reached out to Max and opened a latch on his lantern, tipping a portion of the burning embers inside out into his palm. “Stella, Zach,” Damian warned before turning back. Zach had his eyes screwed closed, and his hand was over Stella’s eyes. She tried to shake him off, but he whispered at her.
“Don’t look. Unless you do want to forget us too.”
She squinted at Damian, daring him to try and make her, and her lips drew into a line, but then she closed her eyes on her own just as tightly as Zach had.
Damian looked down at the boy who was watching him in awe. “It was nice to meet you, Isaac. But now you need to sleep and dream of dragons,” he said and blew the sparks in his hand out at Isaac’s face. The boy watched them dance, delightedly, until they blew through him, and he passed out into slumber.
“There. It’s done,” Damian said, dusting his hand against his leg. Stella’s eyes snapped open, and she held the sleeping child in her arms tighter.
“Let go of me,” she said, shrugging Zach’s attention away. “I’m taking him to the hospital,” she announced, challenging anyone present to stop her.
“We’re taking him to the hospital,” Zach corrected her. “I’ll go get our ride.”
Austin made a disgusted sound and walked in from the shadows where he’d been lurking. “Well, I can hardly kill you when you’re carrying a human child for a shield, Starry Sky,” he said, tossing his hands up in frustration.
“Let no Wind Racer say I backed down from a fight,” Stella said, moving to set the boy down.
“Enough!” Damian growled, his voice echoing between them. “You still need to answer some questions,” he told Stella. “And there’s more than enough to clean up to keep you occupied,” he told Austin.
“Only half-a-block worth of destruction or so left,” Max added with a grunt. “I don’t know why the Fire’s not working on all this rubble though. Wasn’t it magically destroyed?” He frowned.
“No,” Stella said. “Although if I’d known what was going to happen, I would’ve waited and saved my money on C-4.”
“Can’t keep the cops away forever then,” Max said.
“True. Just wait till we’re gone,” Damian said, as Zach drove the tour bus up over the curb to come to get them personally.
“Get in,” he said, through his open window. Damian made sure that Stella and Isaac were loaded in first before joining them, and Grimalkin darted in right before the door closed.
“You’re coming too?” Zach asked Damian, sounding slightly disappointed.
“You’re not the only one with a date at the hospital,” Damian said.
* * *
Damian listened to Stella call Isaac’s mom and explain enough of what’d happened to pass muster—on the phone, she was a facile liar, something Damian both currently appreciated and filed away to remember in the future.
And thinking of phone calls, why on Earth had Andi tried to call him? What spectacularly bad timing she’d had. He reached for his pocket only to find it empty. He cursed. Stella, who’d just finished her own call, covered Isaac’s ear with a protective hand and frowned at him.
“What?” Zach asked, looking back in the rearview.
“My phone was in my pre-dragon clothing.”
“Fire’ll get it,” Zach said with a shrug.
“That doesn’t do me any good right now,” Damian complained. What if Andi had called him because she was in danger?
What if she was calling him this instant?
Grim crawled out from underneath the driver seat where he’d been snoozing and yelped once…then made a coughing sound, like something large and furry was trapped in the back of his throat.
“Grim, not now,” Damian warned as the cat went on—hacking and harfing—until its mout
h stretched a little wider than seemed possible, and Damian’s phone popped out on the car’s black floor mat, gleaming wetly. Grim then crawled back again.
Damian picked his phone up and blotted it off on his jeans. Somehow his battery was full again, and there were no missed calls or messages from Andi. “Thanks.”
“My stomach hurts,” his cat informed him from underneath the seat. “You owe me so much cheese.”
“As always,” he told it, then turned to Stella. “All right, who paid you, and why?”
Her whole body tensed, clearly prepared to fight him, and then she remembered she was holding a child. “I don’t know.”
“Now is not the time to lie,” Damian informed her.
“I mean it.” Her shoulders tensed as she frowned. “The Hunters—there’s a long story with my pack there, I don’t want to get into it—but my brother and I and some others were covering their escape. But then, the Hunters found us.” Stella shook her head, remembering, her brow tight and her teeth clenched. “We’d kill two of them, they’d kill three of us. There were so many of them all the time, and nowhere was safe….”
Damian watched her past flicker in her eyes as she processed traumas he could only imagine.
“When they killed my brother…that broke me. So, I went to the Lynx and sold my skills off to the highest bidder. I needed money and ammo for retribution. And C-4 doesn’t grow on trees.”
Damian made a rumbling sound. To most of the world, the Lynx was just a nightclub for humans, but that was only to hide its much more dangerous and illegal underbelly in the basement where shifters and other Realms-adjacent creatures played. It was run by Rax, a lesser dragon, who’d been living on Earth for centuries.
“Who bought you?”
“That's just it. I don't know. Rax put me in a room with a mirror. I talked terms with someone I couldn’t see on the other side, and they pushed a knife through the mirror at me. Told me to take it and somehow stick it into Damian Blackwood. Only….” she said, looking between him and Zach, “apparently I picked this fool pretending to be the older one.”
Dragon Destined: Billionaire Dragon Shifter Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds) Page 9
