Dragon Joined

by Rebecca Royce

  When he felt he’d made a good enough dent in the system that it would trip them up for hours, he turned and left the structure. Shouts sounded as he approached the courtyard.

  Good. That meant the servants had done what he’d asked.

  He stepped out just in time to see Ruby slamming a wooden board into the face of one of the female dragon-joined humans.

  Dean winced. Maybe he should have been more specific when he’d told them to cause the humans pain. The woman staggered backward, her eyes widening. She blinked several times.

  “Can you hear me?” the former joined human asked.

  Ruby grinned. “Come with me. We’re getting out of here.”

  Ruby took the woman’s hand and ran for the exit. That was good. They’d all be getting out just as planned, assuming they didn’t screw up using the harnesses he’d spent most of the morning constructing out of the climbing equipment.

  It helped to be the son of a carpenter who had a knack for electronics. Dean knew how to make things work and how to reconstruct things for his own purposes.

  Princess stormed forward, fury flowing from her gaze, directed straight at him.

  “You.” She pointed at him. “Prepare to die.”

  “No.” He put his hands on his hips and didn’t budge. “You should be the one prepared to die. You see, I know where you sleep, you crazy bitch.”

  “If you kill me, and you’ll never get that close, she dies too. Are you prepared for that? I know what the two of you have been doing. Sex to keep me out of it. Ha. I’ll destroy her before I let that happen again.”

  Dean sucked in his breath. “You harm one hair on her head and I’ll make you really know pain before you know death. And I think you’re bluffing. Killing you will release her. You forget, I had one of you in my head for a moment, I know how weak a dragon’s consciousness really is.”

  “Try it. See what happens.”

  He shook his head and held out his hand. “You’re a sick bitch. I’d die before I let any of my people suffer or put them up as a challenge. You’d really let your dragons die just so I can see you’re correct? Why not offer yourself? Give me Amanda and I’ll leave you alive. Give me trouble and you’ll wish you hadn’t. Ask Xor if I make threats I don’t mean.”

  Amanda stumbled forward. He grabbed her before she could fall.

  “Dean?” She touched his face. “I’m so confused. What are you doing?”

  “Getting you out of here, gorgeous.”

  She looked left and right. “Do you really think she just let me go?”

  Before he could answer, Verve rushed forward holding a board in his hand. Had he participated in getting the human joined free? But instead of aiming for one of the joined, he rushed at Dean.

  Hell. The man meant to smack him. Pushing Amanda out of the way, he took the whack to his shoulder. Grunting as he tried to ignore the pain, he kicked Verve down.

  “What the hell are you doing? We’re getting out of here. Why take their side? You think was what Zane wanted?”

  He turned back to Amanda. Verve could do whatever he wanted. The man had more than one screw loose. Maybe he preferred to stay with the dragons.

  Amanda rushed to him, kissing him hard on the lips. “I love you. I just have to say it.”

  He grinned. “Me too. Now—”

  As if the dragon had orchestrated the whole thing to repeat history, Princess flew low, ripping Amanda from his arms with her claws. His love screamed, trying once again to extricate herself from the dragon.

  “Damn it.” He threw his hands into the air. “No!”

  Why hadn’t he knocked Amanda silly? Princess would have been too disoriented to kidnap her. Then she could have been harnessed like the others. His own negligence had just cost him everything.

  “Amanda.” He sank to his knees.

  Chapter Nine

  Princess dropped Amanda onto the ground, where she groaned, grabbing her stomach. The dragon hadn’t been gentle with her, throwing her around the sky. Her stomach had emptied itself about halfway through the trip, then she’d continued to retch over and over again. Her whole body ached.

  “I’ve been good to you,” Princess spat. Her dragon body waited next to her.

  “Are you kidding?” Amanda wasn’t the same girl she’d been at sixteen. She wouldn’t try to behave just to be treated a little better by a creature that didn’t have one bit of care for her. “You used my body to amuse yourself, to play at being human for years.”

  Princess waved her hand in the air. “This is my body now. I own all of you. The fact that I leave you alive is a tribute to how tolerant and good I actually am. You want to know pain, Amanda Sugar? How about the intolerable cruelty of not being able to exist at all? Where I’m going to shove you is so far down in your mind you’ll never have a free thought again.”

  Amanda darted backward. “Don’t do that. I’d rather you kill me.”

  “Not an option, little girl. You’re mine. Forever.”

  Blackness surrounded her. Gone was her ability to see through her own eyes, hear through her ears, or even know where she stood. Amanda saw nothing. Princess had shoved her into a brown room where everywhere she looked she could see only shades of dark.

  She sank to the ground. Dean had gotten out. He’d saved the other humans. Hopefully he’d burned the place to the ground.

  Tears swam from her eyes. She knew that when he left he’d go home to her brother and sister. That mattered. Living in her box would be unbearable without him but at least she knew that for one second, he’d loved her too. That was more than she’d expected to get.

  * * * * *

  Dean stared at the dragons in front of him. It had taken four days to get home. His people had taken turns alternatively whacking, hitting and knifing the joined humans to keep the dragons out of their bodies.

  All in all, they had rescued thirty humans. Twenty of them were not joined. The other ten were. They’d ridden the dragons back, which had held a certain perverse joy for him. After the years of abuse they’d all taken from the dragons, to harness them like giant horses made his people very happy.

  But there would be no happiness for Dean. Not until Amanda came home. How could he have failed her again?

  “Dean,” Jane called out to him, and he blinked, trying to recall what they’d just been speaking about. He needed Amanda. Without her, he didn’t see the point to any of this anymore.

  “What?”

  “I’m asking you what you want to do.” Jane stared at Robert over his head. The two must have some sort of silent communication going on about his distractibility. He didn’t give a shit. “We have to find out if we can separate these people from their dragons. No way can we continue to hurt them forever.”

  Dean sat back in his chair. His neck hurt, his jaw clenched and his back felt as if someone had kicked him hard. He still hadn’t gotten home to see the kids, which made his chest tight. Amanda would have wanted him to do that first. Only he had no idea what he’d tell them about their sister. They were bound to hear about it. New Straussworked like a gossip network on a slow day. His losing Amanda Sugar again would never be kept quiet. The kids needed to hear about it from him first.

  But he couldn’t do anything until he did something about the mess of harnessed dragons.

  “Princess said killing the dragons would kill the humans. No way will the dragons leave on their own.” Princess had taught him that much. Dragons didn’t know the meaning of giving up.

  Jane nodded her head. “And you told me you thought it was bullshit.”

  He had? He’d been so out of it the whole way home. Hell, he might have had a thousand conversations he couldn’t remember.

  Amanda is gone. I’ve failed her again. My love.

  “Dean.” Jane stomped her feet. “Pay attention for one damn moment.”

  “You know what?” He stood up. “If you don’t like how I do things, feel free to replace me. Want to lead, Jane? Want to know what the fuck that feels like
?”

  Robert held out his hands. “We’re all dependent on you, Dean. When we thought we’d lost you it was the single worst moment of my life, and God knows I’ve had some bad ones. We need you. So calm down. Everyone gets that you’ve been through something here, something Jane and I don’t really get because you won’t explain it to us.”

  “You want to talk? Pretend we’re women?” He took a couple of deep breaths. “I fell in love with Amanda Sugar. Okay? And now she’s gone and probably dead. Once again, her fate is my fucking fault.”

  Jane scratched her head. “Isn’t she, like, fifteen?”

  “She’s twenty-two. Almost twenty-three. And I know she’s too young for me. But I love her anyway.”

  Dean stood up. He knew what he had to do. Only he’d reached the point where he didn’t think his soul could take any more deaths laid on top of it. Zane had burned with the dragon lair. Dean had wanted to become ash in it as well. But Ruby had grabbed him and he’d come out of his near-comatose state on top of a dragon, flying downward.

  His people had been excited to see him. They’d embraced him and let him know in no uncertain terms that they’d missed the heck out of him. He supposed it was better to be loved than hated. They were all family to him. But his love hadn’t come home with him, where he could have bathed her in as much safety as he could provide for the rest of her life. If she’d let him.

  He shook his head. No good could come of imagining what would never be. Princess had threatened to destroy her. Would she actually do that?

  His stomach turned.

  Dean stared up at his people. They didn’t know what to do with him like this. For years, he’d kept himself apart in order to lead them, lived by himself until he’d taken the kids in and kept his sexual escapades discreet and casual. This was why he’d done it. Falling apart destroyed everything. New Strauss has to survive.

  “We have to kill them—the dragons.” His head throbbed. Maybe he’d sleep for a couple of hours and it would go away but probably not.

  Dougal finally spoke. “Should we ask the joined humans first?” He’d leaned against the door and hadn’t uttered a word during this whole mess of a conversation. Or maybe he’d said something and Dean hadn’t focused on it.

  “You’re testing me.” He stared straight at Dougal when he made the statement.

  “I am. I want to see what you’ll do. I know what the Dean Andrews I’ve always respected would say. But I’m not sure exactly who came home from that place. I’m not sure I know you, boss. So answer me. Should we ask them first? If they want to be separated. Maybe some of them would prefer a life with their dragons to the potential of death without them.”

  “First of all,” he had to bite his cheek so hard that he drew blood to keep himself from taking off Dougal’s head, “fuck you for the test. You don’t get to test me, you little shit. I’ll tell you what I told Jane. If you want this job, take it. Otherwise, take your high-and-mighty opinions that you can have from a distance and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine. Get it?”

  Dougal raised his eyebrows, then nodded.

  “Good. Now that we understand each other, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” He looked around the room, taking one last glance out the window at the harnessed dragons. They were subdued as long as he kept them in pain. That couldn’t possibly last.

  “Kill them.” His voice sounded hoarse.

  “All of them?” Robert always knew the right question to ask. That was why he got to be second in command, and his proximity to the leadership had probably been why he had been the one not to question Dean. Who the fuck would want his job if they really knew what it entailed?

  “Every last one. Kill the fuckers. I don’t care how. You can decide.”

  “Right.” Robert nodded.

  “And are you going to tell the joined first?” Dougal asked, this time using a more respectful tone.

  “No.” Dean walked toward the exit. “Why let them worry when I’m doing it whether they like it or not?”

  And that was why he really was a bastard. Maybe even why the universe never wanted him to have Amanda. Truth was, he didn’t rank much higher than the dragons when it came down to it. He led with blunt force and damn anyone who got in his fucking way.

  * * * * *

  Dean wasn’t sure he’d ever get the sounds of the dragons screaming out of his mind. He’d tried to be quick and painless, not brutal or cruel, which was more than he could say for the flying monsters. Still, beheading the monsters one by one had given him a pounding headache.

  In the end there had been a lot of blood splattered on the ground near his feet and fifty percent of the humans who had been dragon joined were dead. That left five living humans finally free of their dragon masters. They were elated.

  Two of the women had fallen at his feet, offering him all sorts of things in the way of thank you. He’d politely thanked them. It might be years, if ever, before some woman other than Amanda got his libido charged up. Maybe it would be better to remain celibate permanently. That way he couldn’t be responsible for getting any future lovers killed or taken away to endure hell at the hands of a psychopathic lizard.

  “What do we do to make that number higher? Save more people?” Jane asked him.

  He stared at her. “I have no idea. What do I look like? Some kind of biologist? The anatomy of this is meaningless to me. If you get joined to a dragon, it’s fifty-fifty whether or not you’ll make it out alive.”

  “You’re so cold-sounding.” Jane sighed. “This isn’t you.”

  “Maybe I’m traumatized.” He grinned and she stepped back. “Or maybe I need to go to sleep. Let’s go with the latter for now.”

  “Go home and rest.”

  “That’s where I’m going.” He moved past her. What he had to do, somehow, was to get the images he’d created of bringing Amanda home with him out of his mind. He’d lived here before and been perfectly happy in his life.

  So why did it feel so empty now?

  He finally reached his small home. The smell of burned toast greeted his nose and he grinned. Steven must have tried to cook again. The boy had the desire, just not the talent. Lily, on the other hand, could create remarkable meals but couldn’t be trusted not to burn the place down when she lit the match. They were not supposed to cook without him around.

  But he’d been gone for days. The women had banded together to watch them. That didn’t, however, mean that when the cat was away the mouse didn’t play.

  Or in this case, cook.

  He opened the door and the kids rushed at him. Twelve years old, they were getting tall. Lily jumped into his arms and he caught her. Steven didn’t try to do that anymore but he really wanted to be rubbed on the head and sometimes still hugged. This time his adopted son squeezed him hard.

  “I heard you almost died.”

  “Who told you that?” He set Lily down, keeping an arm around her shoulders.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “People.”

  Steven could pretend to be brave but Dean saw right through his façade. “I didn’t almost die. I never came close to that. I promise.” He sought and got Steven’s eye contact. “The dragons took me. But it’s okay. They didn’t hurt me.”

  Lily took his hand in hers, rubbing her finger over the bandage. “They hurt you a little.”

  He shook his head. “I did that to myself.”

  Steven bit down on his lip. “Why would you do that?”

  “That is a very long story.” He stood back up. “Have you guys eaten?”

  “Yes,” they answered in unison.

  To him, they both looked like their biological father. Blonde and blue-eyed, they had the same cheekbone structure that he’d had. Lily’s eyes were catlike in their intensity and a light blue, whereas Steven had a rounder gaze with darker blue irises. Lily’s hair flowed down her back. She refused to cut it. Steven preferred to keep his shaved to his head.

  They had been his lifeline for a while. He just ha
dn’t realized it.

  Amanda looked quite different. Darker, like her mom had been. They didn’t look as if they were related. Yet the kids’ love for her told of the time and care she’d given them when she should have been too young to do so. They’d been so small when they’d come to him and still they could remember her.

  Loving Amanda would be something they’d share from now on. Even if he couldn’t explain it to them like that.

  “Look. Something did happen while I was gone. Something I need to talk to you about.”

  Steven sat down next to him. The little boy never missed a trick. “Just tell us.”

  Lily shoved her brother. “Don’t be rude.”

  “Thanks, Lily.” He grinned. His mood had lightened since he’d arrived back home to the kids. Some of the pressure on his shoulders seemed to have disappeared.

  “No problem, Dean.” She grinned so wide that he could see she’d lost a tooth in the back.

  “You aren’t going to have any teeth left soon. How will you eat?”

  “Get to the point,” Steven shouted. “Please.”

  The added politeness tempered the rude outburst a bit. Still, Dean had come to understand that anxiety fueled Steven’s bad moods. He didn’t act obnoxiously unless something had scared him scared to the bone. Not that Dean usually tolerated it.

  That moment seemed made for exceptions.

  “Look, there was someone else there with me. When I was with the dragons. And I wasn’t able to save her.” He cleared his throat to keep from crying. If he wept, the kids would never recover from the shock. “It was someone you know.”

  “Someone we know?” Sebastian looked at Lily. “Like who? All the people here who the dragons take get eaten. That’s what dragons do.”

  “Not exactly.” Dean shook his head. “They took me and I’m not dead.”

  “Which is so weird,” Lily answered quickly. “Who was there with you?”

  “Amanda.” He waited a beat. “Your sister.”

  Silence fell on the room. Lily looked down at the floor. He knew she wouldn’t cry. Whenever things got rough, Lily went to a quiet place she didn’t let anyone follow her into. Steven finally jumped to his feet.