Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1)

by Rita Stradling

  I took a mental inventory of my injuries, I could not move my left arm, it was either dislocated or broken, and the fact that it did not hurt was both a relief and terrifying, but it was my left arm and I did not need it for my self-appointed mission. I just wished I had something to tie it to my body, but there was nothing to do that with. In addition to my injured arm, I had more cuts and bruises than I could count and some hard lumps where rocks were probably lodged in my skin. My ankle protested when I rolled it in a circle, it felt more banged up than broken, maybe not even sprained.

  A hundred yards and functional legs, it was doable.

  The dragon picked up a truck that I recognized as Hunter’s silver truck; it must have been parked on the road. The dragon flung it toward the house, but the truck hit the ward line and rebounded directly into the dragon’s chest, knocking the dragon back.

  I could not ask for a better opportunity. If I survived to see Hunter again, I was buying him a full roasted pig for getting his truck magically enhanced. I wiggled out from under the palms and used the last of my energy to race for the gateless entrance to the estate.

  The dragon threw the truck off itself with a screech and thwacked it with its tail. The truck went flying again, bounced off a lamppost bending it and came back hitting the dragon on its side. When the truck tumbled to the ground again the dragon wielded its tail to smash the truck with abandon.

  When I slowed to climb over the fallen gate I saw that though the dragon was only a dozen feet from me, just on the other side of the bridge that crossed the water ward, it did not even notice my approach. The dragon destroyed the truck with a single-minded ferocity. It struck me again that this creature had no humanity, it had gone berserk. If Wyvern was in there, he had no control.

  The moment I stepped off the bridge, I stopped near the dragon’s left rear flank. This close I could smell its reptilian skin and even with my charm bracelet on, I could feel the menace throbbing in waves off the dragon’s soul. Its size was overwhelming so close; all I could see was moving limbs made up of white scales.

  Using my teeth as my left hand was useless, I unclasped my charm bracelet.

  The impact of the palm branches falling on me was nothing to the palpable, almost solid cloud of rage that slammed into me. My vision narrowed to two pinpricks and all I could see was an all-consuming whiteness. I felt my limbs start to convulse, and just managed to use my thumb to flick open my grandfather’s ring before my knees slammed into the pavement. I reached my hand with the ring forward blindly and felt cold scales.

  The rage that had overwhelmed me to the point of nearly making me offer myself up as a tasty little human sacrifice to the dragon, sucked into my fingers and straight into the ring and then in slow increments my vision came back to me. The whiteness started to have form, shadows, movement, and then the definition of scales.

  Needing to paralyze the dragon and quickly, I sent out my power, diving through the first layers of its soul searching for its true soul, but it felt as though I kept diving endlessly, the layers were so immense.

  Not noticing me, a little human leech sucking out its overwhelming current of surface emotions, the dragon thwacked the destroyed carcass of Hunter’s truck with its spiked tail, making sure it was well and truly dead.

  I concentrated on the rage, trying to avoid pulling any of it into me yet this was impossible. It felt almost like solid smoke, hot and rough, burning through my body. The ring hungrily took all that I could funnel into it, but there was just so much.

  I’m sorry grandfather. I hoped the rage did not feel the same to him that it did for me, as if I was funneling hot coals into him. I hoped he could digest the quantity I was giving him.

  The dragon turned its head, looking straight at me and I realized, I was screaming. I might have been screaming for a while now. Its basketball sized eyes fixed on me.

  My hand still grabbed onto its leg while I knelt with my head lolling; I probably looked a lot like a human sacrifice.

  The leg I was touching shifted under my fingers and with a horrible dread, I realized I could not lock its body into place in time. I still had not dived deep enough to get to its true soul. Even when I found the true soul, it took a certain amount of soul, a soul divided, to be able to paralyze my target’s body.

  It swung its head down, its eyes focused on me. I wasn’t sure if its giant open jaw was about to snap me up and swallow me whole or if the dragon was just getting a better look at me.

  I grabbed a handful of its cheek just below its eye. Beneath my fingers its facial skin was rough like sandpaper while at the same time feeling fleshy, like a lizard’s skin.

  While I had the ring take as much rage as it could possibly funnel I focused all the power in me and plunged toward the dragon’s true soul. Again, I could barely even sense the true soul deep within the flow of rage, but I dove for it knowing my life depended on getting to it. The moment I encountered the first tendrils of true soul, I yanked them into myself with all my remaining strength.

  Its face, which had been pushing toward me, froze.

  I pressed my fingers into the dragon’s cheek and streamed the tendrils into me until I could not hold anymore. My ring was still overworked from funneling its rage and I was overloaded with true soul. Probing further I saw that while this tendril of the dragon’s soul had filled me up, I had only gathered the equivalent of a sandbox from a desert. My power could paralyze its head for a little while, hopefully, but it could still rip me apart with its claws or tail.

  The dragon’s emotion funneling without break into the ring was pure, unfiltered rage.

  The dragon’s wing, a leathery sheet with strips of bone, smacked against me slamming me into its cheek and knocking the air out of me, but it did not break my hold. The dragon had smacked me lightly, more a swat than a blow.

  The rise and fall of its breathing evened, but the rage torrent continued, it was like funneling a river through a straw. I had to close my eyes or I would burst, split up my length, the true soul too much for my small power.

  Its cheek shuddered under my fingers, shifting back and forth. I was losing my control over the dragon, the tendril of soul I had pulled into me was not enough and I could not hold anymore. If the dragon disconnected from me while I had this much true soul in me, I don’t know what it would do, kill me perhaps.

  An idea occurred to me in the split second left before I was about to lose control of the dragon, a stupid desperate idea. I dove back to the dragon’s true-soul and though I could not sense my own soul, never having been able to, I pushed everything I was at the soul, pushing tendrils of myself into the dragon.

  For a second, I did not know if it was going to work, if it did anything at all. Then, the tendril of its true-soul that had just been filling me to overcapacity, sunk into me and then I could not feel it anymore. And with a sudden dread, I realized a piece of my soul had entered into the dragon’s true soul and all the soul I had gathered from its true soul had literally sunk into me.

  No.

  What had I just done?

  And the dragon wasn’t paralyzed; it pulled its head away from my fingers and looked at me. It blinked its large, bulbous eyes. Once. Twice.

  “Run!” I heard a voice scream from nearby me, “Dakota, run!” I blinked my eyes and tore my gaze away from the dragon, as stupid as that was. Even though the voice was female, I hoped it was my grandfather or uncles and not the person it sounded like.

  “No, Mele,” I said, my voice coming out croaky, barely a whisper, “No.”

  Mele jumped forward, dressed in a mini skirt and tank top, she waved what looked like a kitchen knife at the dragon. “You’re not going to eat her, you ass-head!” She slashed at its wing, and though the leathery flap looked thin, the knife did not even scratch it. Mele just swung the knife about, obviously having absolutely no knife-fighting experience.

  “Wait,” I said, not really knowing why, but she did not hear me anyway.

  The dragon batted her with its wi
ng and she slashed back, but the knife again just glanced off.

  The rage, which had depleted a little before, started rising in the dragon again. Its head rose, then came down and at me, the scaly skin of its cheek made contact with my stomach. With a sweep of its enormous head, the dragon knocked me off my feet and pushed me away from Mele. Though the push was surprisingly gentle, my probably-broken left shoulder screamed its protest and I gritted my teeth and could not stop the tears from overflowing.

  I looked up to see Mele stab down and finally make a cut on one of the wings. When the dragon reared back, she pulled the knife up and did a two handed overhead thrust directly into the dragon’s side. The knife went in. Blood squirted from the wound like a small geyser; spraying Mele in a gelatinous red stream directly in her face.

  Something glinted white above her, and I looked up to see that the dragon had lifted one of its hind legs and its claw was about to impale Mele.

  I had less than a second to react; I jumped up, ran then dove forward and I tackled Mele, covering her with my body.

  Mele collapsed completely, convulsing and retching underneath me.

  I tensed, knowing that the claw was coming for my back.

  But it did not come.

  All I heard was Mele and my ragged breaths, and a loud huffing sound close by.

  Slowly, I looked up to the source of the sound.

  The dragon’s head was directly in front of mine. It had leaned in so close my hair blew back with its next exhale. Its breath smelled distinctly spicy like hot sweet peppers.

  I swallowed.

  It turned its head suddenly and in the next moment I saw a blur of black crash into the dragon’s side, a line of silver light slashed through the thick leather of its wing.

  Bobby popped into existence directly beside me.

  My uncles had arrived, finally.

  Bobby said, “Did someone call for a taxi?”

  Behind Bobby the dragon whirled, clawing at the black blur. The blur, also known as my uncle Glacier, launched himself off the dragon’s back, dove to roll on the pavement and jumped up hacking into the dragon’s back leg.

  Bobby reached for me.

  “Help me with Mele first!” I shouted.

  I used my good arm and managed to climb off her. She was still shaking on the ground. “We have to get her back to the water ward!”

  Bobby scooped Mele into his arms, carrying her to the edge of the bridge, then setting her down on her feet.

  Stepping up next to her, I used my good arm to stabilize her. She looked unsteady on her feet, actually, she looked like she was going to throw up any second now, but she remained standing.

  “Mele,” I said.

  She looked up at me, blinking furiously as if she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open.

  “Can you make it back into the house?”

  I would walk her in but I had dropped my dampener and I did not know where it was. This was as far as either Bobby or I could take her.

  Mele swallowed, and then whispered, “Yeah.” Turning around, Mele stepped toward the bridge and hit an invisible wall. With a violent motion, Mele bounced back from the ward, crumpling onto the ground, unconscious.

  “What the…? Is she human?” Bobby asked as we stared down at Mele’s unconscious body.

  “Yes,” I said, “It must be the dragon blood. The ward must have rejected the dragon blood that’s all over her.”

  “Sorry, Dakota. We have to go,” Bobby said. “We have to leave her.”

  “No freaking way! You have to take her first!” I demanded, knowing he could only teleport one person at a time.

  Bobby shook his head.

  I backed up and promised, “I’m not going until she’s safe!”

  Quick as a lightning strike, Mele and Bobby were gone.

  But he did not reappear. Usually it took him less than a second, but thirty seconds rolled on and no Bobby.

  Turning my attention to the fight between my uncle and the dragon, for the second time tonight, I considered drawing my gun, but again dismissed it. It was too likely I would shoot Glacier with him buzzing around like that.

  If this fight had started when both of the opponents were at full strength, Glacier wouldn’t have had a chance. The dragon was too strong and had too many deadly advantages. But it was obvious that the dragon did not have the kind of strength it started with. I was not sure if it was because I actually managed to drain its rage, if it was from Mele stabbing its side, or if it was wearing down after a long evening of bowling for high school co-eds, but the dragon’s reaction times were slowing. When it whirled, swatted at Glacier and missed, I could see it was losing steam.

  Glacier paused to swing his sword down chopping at Wyvern’s wing joint, when Wyvern’s tail hit home with one strong swat across Glacier’s stomach, sending him flying.

  “Glacier!” I screamed, running toward him, it was stupid, I knew, just making two victims, but screw my training. All I could see was Glacier not moving on the pavement, all I could think was: not again, not again, not again!

  “Dakota! Wait!” I heard Bobby’s voice from behind me.

  The dragon, which had been bearing down on Glacier with its mouth open wide showing rows of spear-like-teeth, turned to look at me.

  Glacier sprung from the ground into a leaping over-head thrust. It was a fake, he was faking…and I ruined it. The blow missed the dragon’s eyes, instead hitting its spiky bone crown and glancing off the bone. The dragon smacked Glacier back with the side of its face and leapt forward, right at me.

  Bobby’s hands grabbed for and just missed me at the same moment that three spear like claws closed around my torso. The dragon yanked me out of Bobby’s reach and suddenly, my feet did not feel pavement anymore.

  I kicked my legs around, growing in my certainty that we were airborne, but I did not want to look down. I stopped wiggling, not wanting to even breathe in case the movement made the dragon drop me.

  The claw pulled me in an up and down movement and with growing dread, I realized we were not just airborne, the dragon was flying off with me. All I saw was the dragon’s damaged side, red blood drops dripping down opal scales, and a white wing joint thrusting a leathery wing upward towards the stars and downwards towards me, blocking out the night sky. I knew from watching the fight that at least one of its wings was seriously damaged. Damaged wings or not, the wind blowing across my body and face was growing faster, which likely meant we were speeding up.

  Its claw tightened against me, holding me with my arms pressed into my body. My left arm shot with pain, being clenched to me in this way felt like it was being wrenched off slowly. Though the bottom of its claw was hard like ivory spears the inside of the top part of its claw was fleshy like chicken skin.

  The contact with its soft, vulnerable skin poured the dragon’s emotions into me, I was not even trying; it was as if since I had opened a pathway to the dragon’s emotions, the flow of them was unavoidable. My previous drain must have had more of an effect than I had given it credit for the rage was almost completely gone. The emotions I was getting were something very different, but no less animalistic, pride was one of them and a strong protection instinct.

  Maybe, I thought, pride and protectiveness could have been the emotions behind the rage, driving the rage; now that the rage was gone these emotions were all that were left.

  Then another emotion overwhelmed everything else, the dragon was feeling an all-consuming possessiveness.

  Its claw tightened around me making my shoulder scream in pain.

  I passed out to the beat of leather wings in the wind and the gentle waves of the dragon riding the air currents. My last thought was that I really hoped I wasn’t Wyvern’s midnight snack.

  Chapter Ten

  “Stop, I’ll kill you! Ouch!” I heard my voice mumble before I even opened my eyes.

  There was a pressure on my chest, not quite crushing me, but making it impossible to roll over or away. And then someone poured liqui
d hot lava into my arm. My eyes snapped open as I screamed.

  A man was kneeling on my chest, his leg holding me down and my immediate desperate fight to get him off did nothing to unseat him.

  When the man gazed down at me disdainfully and I recognized him, I fought all the harder.

  Wyvern had complete control of my upper body and when I tried to swing up my legs planning to knock him off and flip him into a choke hold, he used his free knee to press my hips down into what felt like dirt, and took control of my lower body.

  Great, he had martial arts training. Sometimes life was ridiculously unfair.

  “Stop fighting me, Dakota,” Wyvern said calmly, not showing that my wiggling under him had any effect. “Your arm was dislocated; I popped the joint back in. I would let you up, but I think you would attack me if I do. I will get off you only if you agree not to attack me.”

  “I won’t attack you,” I said, I would say anything to get out of being defenseless under him.

  “Promise me,” he said.

  I usually avoided promising anything to a dracon, especially a half-dragon. If you promised to buy a dracon dinner they would expect you to serve them three course meals every day for the rest of your natural-life. Yet, at this point I might have been willing to promise my first born to Wyvern. “I promise on my honor that I won’t attack you while you stand up from squatting on me right now.”

  He grinned down at me and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to get more specific?” But he rocked back on his feet and stood, stepping away.

  Even with him off my chest, I still wasn’t sure I could move. But I would be damned, well, even more damned, before I would ask Wyvern to help me sit up. Using my good arm for leverage, I fought through the pain and pushed my body into a sitting position.

  It took me a moment to recognize where we were. Small red rock peaks surrounded us. Shadows stretched and shifted across most of the crater we were in as the sun rose. The only vegetation around was a scattering of shrubs on one higher peak behind us. We were nestled between what appeared to be big red sand dunes. Below and all around us was dirt, red volcanic dirt. If that had not clued me in, the chill would have. Only one place in Mabi ever came to be this freezing, the crater of Mabi’s dormant volcano.