by Ruby Ryan
I managed to avoid gagging, but just barely. Choking on my own vomit was not the way I wanted to die.
She gave a satisfied nod and returned to her window.
Outside, the dragon had removed his shirt. His back rippled with muscles beneath his ink. Ethan was preparing to fight him too, which meant he wasn't surrendering.
I don't know why the dragon wasn't shifting into a form that could breathe fire and end things in seconds, but I wasn't going to question it. I had some time.
And the totem was right outside, pulling at me.
Somehow I'd kept a grip on my hair clip. I moved it as far as I could, which was only about two inches. But that motion was enough to rub the clip against the thin twine that bound my hands.
As Ethan and the dragon prepared to fight, I sawed the clip back and forth, hoping I had enough time to help.
22
ETHAN
I'm not joking when I say I'm not much of a fighter.
Kickboxing classes aside, I'd only been in one real fight in my life. And it wasn't even a real real fight. Clayton Marcus in sixth grade. A rumor of a rumor of a rumor that I called him gay or something, and he confronted me at my locker after fourth period. He got the first punch in, a debilitating blow to my gut that drew roars of approval from the gathered students, and then I was swinging wildly and blindly without hitting much of anything.
Beyond that, I guess punching Jessica's ex two nights ago counted as a fight too. But he'd been drunk. It hardly counted.
I was fit. I jogged on the Katy Trail in Dallas four times a week, and lifted weights the other three days: squats, deadlifts, bench press, all the big movements. That built muscle, and kept me generally strong, but didn't help me much here. I couldn't deadlift the dragon to death.
To death. A grim reminder of what was at stake here.
The dragon sneered as he approached. He didn't bother to raise his fists; he might have been strolling toward a parking meter for all the concern he showed, full of boredom and nonchalance. That made me angry, and I yearned to lash out at him, but that was probably what he wanted.
I test-jabbed at the air as he neared, coming two feet short. He didn't flinch.
"I must admit I'm disappointed it's so easy." He cocked his neck, creating a loud pop, then turned it the other way to stretch the other side. "The previous times we have done battle have always been close."
He suddenly darted forward with a quick jab of his own, but I jumped back from it.
"How many times have we done battle?" I asked, buying time.
"Too many to count. Every hundred years for two millennia?" He hopped back and forth on the balls of his feet. "The last time, your world was recovering from some great war. That Emerald Gryphon was a veteran. It was a pleasure to fight him. Honorable."
I stepped forward while pulling back my right arm, then slid forward to jab with my left. It caught him off guard, but he still dodged it with shocking spryness.
"So it was a different gryphon," I said.
"Always different. Yet always the same." He shrugged, which made his fire tattoos dance. "We dragons are always the same. And this world is different than the rest. Softer. I can see it in you, and in your mate, and in everyone else in this wretched place. This time, we will finally win. This time it will all end."
The only warning I had was the note of finality in the last word. The dragon came at me in earnest, fists flashing like lightning. I backed away as a jab glanced across my cheek, followed by a left cross that caught me in the upper arm. I kept my hands up like we were legitimate boxers, hoping to protect my face.
He paused just long enough for me to stop my retreat and regroup. I swung my own overhand shot at him, catching him on the side on the ear, and twisted my body to kick across and into his ribs. He stumbled backwards, which was good because my knuckles felt like they were on fire.
"Is that it, eh?" the dragon growled.
I feinted like I was going to come at him again, which made him flinch and jump back. I grinned.
"Well then." He stood up straight and took another step back. "Take your time. We've got plenty, of that I can assure you."
It was a grim reminder of why I was here. They had Jessica--they, because there was someone else inside the house. They could kill her at any moment. I was the one who needed to act, to get past the dragon and save her. The gryphon in my chest screeched to escape, to tear him apart with its talons, to save my mate, the word he'd used.
I moved at him and swung my leg around in another kick, but this time he was ready for it. He caught my ankle with both hands and twisted, throwing me sideways with the motion. I staggered but he didn't come after me, so I went at him again, left-right-left jabs that he backed away from, then an uppercut swing that barely missed his chin. He swung his left arm impossibly fast, the open palm catching me across the cheek. I threw another haymaker in response but my vision was temporarily brightened, and my fist hissed through open air.
The dragon chuckled, but said nothing.
He toyed with me for the next minute, or five minutes, or three hours, it was tough to tell time while in that panicked state. I landed a few punches and kicks, but for each one that struck flesh ten more missed, or were deflected harmlessly. Soon sweat matted my hair to my scalp, and I panted like I'd ran around a track.
"Is that all you've got?" the dragon said, standing bored.
"You sound like a cheesy 80s movie."
"Whatever that means, I shall take it as a compliment."
He was fitter than I, obviously, and a better fighter by far. He was letting me wear myself down, both in body and spirit. Toying with me like a cat with a goddamn mouse. He wasn't even breathing hard. That filled me with anger, and then despair.
How could I beat him?
"While you've been fighting the air," he said, "I've been daydreaming about what we'll do with your mate when you're gone. Sadie's particularly interested, I can tell you. And when we're done with your mate, we'll give her to my brothers. Their appetites are quite unusual. The Ruby Dragon is especially difficult to please. I doubt Jessica could survive him."
Her name on his lips sent me into a frenzy. I charged at him with a wordless cry, spreading my arms to tackle him to the ground. But I was a split second too slow, and he sidestepped me easily, kicking the back of my knee as I passed.
My legs folded, and I crumpled to the ground.
Dust kicked up and made it difficult to see. I started to roll onto my back to prepare my defense but a foot caught me in the ribs before I could, a flash of pain running through my torso. GET UP, the gryphon in me screamed, but it was all I could do to curl in on myself from the pain.
"Emerald," the dragon drawled, a millennia of weight dripping from the word. I could feel him circling me the way an animal circled its prey. "It is a shame this was not more sporting. I can only hope your brothers give a proper fight to mine."
A boot sledgehammered me in the temple. I sprawled on the ground, temporarily blind and deaf.
"I suppose it had to end eventually," he said.
I blinked rapidly, trying to restore my vision. Something brushed my shoulder and I recoiled away, but it was just the dragon nudging me, laughing at my response.
"No bitch to hit me with a tire iron now, eh?" I could see his face now, looking around to make sure. "However. I am glad she gets to watch. It is a special thing to kill a gryphon in front of its mate."
A true kick hit me in the small of my back, and I cried out and rolled away from it.
"Now it ends."
As I groaned on the ground, all I felt was failure.
23
JESSICA
Ethan was getting the shit kicked out of him, and I had to watch helplessly.
Tears streamed down my face as the dragon landed blow after blow on the man I love. I recoiled with each one, feeling the faint pain through our bond. Ethan was hurting. Ethan was dying.
I sawed faster on my ropes with the hair clip, hand numb from th
e effort.
"It's true you know!" Sadie called from the other room. "What we're gunna do to you after. That is to say, whatever we want. Whatever he wants." I could feel her lust for the Emerald Dragon when she said the word he. "And then we'll give you to his brothers, if there's anything left."
I couldn't tell if she meant that sexually, or if they would literally eat me like jackals taking apart a corpse. I wasn't sure which sounded worse. I tried to say something threatening, but with the gag in my mouth it only came out as a groan.
Sadie returned her gaze to the window, and I did the same because it was impossible to look away. Ethan charged forward and missed by a mile, falling helplessly to the ground. The dragon rounded on him swiftly, kicking him hard in the ribs.
Get up, I tried to tell him. Get up!
But he was exhausted, and barely moved. I felt my heart sink.
It was over.
The dragon's laughter held more than just victory over Ethan. It was victory over the Emerald Gryphon, and whatever that symbolized. And it was victory over much more than that, the stakes higher than I could imagine, but I knew it in my bones and from the pulsing totem in Ethan's pocket.
Defeat here would mean defeat everywhere.
And as my despair threatened to overwhelm me, my hair clip cut through.
I felt the immediate slack in the ropes, and I froze in my chair. Sadie hadn't noticed anything from the other room. Slowly, I moved my wrists up and down. The three coils of rope fell away, leaving me free.
Before I could think of a plan, I leaped from the chair and threw open the window. I stumbled through like a prisoner who'd caught sight of freedom, ripping the duct tape from my face--ouch!--and pulling the rag from my mouth.
"ETHAN!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "ETHAN, NOW!"
24
ETHAN
All I felt was failure, until I heard her voice.
"ETHAN! ETHAN, NOW!"
Jessica stood near the house, face red and hands waving. For a moment I wanted to tell her to run, to get away while she could. To leave me, because I was hopeless.
And then I remembered the pulsing in my pocket.
"Where's your tire iron?" the dragon said, rounding on her with a sneer. "It only works when you sucker punch me. Not when I have a warning."
I grabbed the totem from my pocket, rolled sideways, and hurled it across the clearing.
I watched the dragon's expression go from smug, to surprised, to furious. He hunched down like he was going to sprint after it, but then I felt something within me.
The soft vibration of the gryphon demanding to be let out rose like someone had cranked up the volume knob. And then the door to the cage was ripped open, setting it free as Jessica pressed the emerald.
I surrendered to the gryphon.
My torso expanded like I was taking a deep breath, except my lungs were endless and my chest continued to grow. My shirt tore as feathers grew like hair from my skin, vision going blurry and then sharp as eagle's eyes shifted into place, the whole world changing into high-def. I groaned with released pressure as my wings exploded from my back, muscles being stretched, unfolding as I stood on hind legs that were now a lion's.
The pain from my human body carried over, fractured ribs and the insistence that more pain was a heartbeat away. I launched myself into the air on strong legs, above the treetops with three steady beats of my wings, pulling higher and higher into the sky that was mine.
Now a safe distance away, I spread my wings and curved in the air, feeling the wind on my feathers. I screeched a battle cry as I prepared to dive on the dragon, to unsheathe my deadly talons and feel the skin and flesh of his face torn away.
But before I could, I felt his own transformation.
He stood in the clearing with my arms spread wide like Jesus, head tilted up to the heavens. His mouth was open and light poured from it, light as bright as his green eyes. Then his chest heaved, and his legs and arms bulged, invisible boulders materializing underneath his skin. His clothes exploded away from the force of the transformation, and his skin darkened rapidly as dragon scales popped into place, a shade of green so dark it was almost black. His neck extended grotesquely while his head lengthened, a long snout full of fangs and with ears equally sharp.
And then the wings.
They rose from his body gracefully, flicking down and outward. There was bone and flesh along the ridge of the wings, but the rest looked paper-thin with holes spaced unevenly along its length. They stretched out wide, the way I'd stretched mine, and took up almost the entirety of the clearing. Altogether he was two or three times my size, and four times as angry.
And on the back of his neck was a glistening rectangle, his own emerald collar to match mine.
He roared, something I heard and felt in the air, a dark and terrible vibration that portended my doom.
But the gryphon in me wasn't afraid. It yearned for this battle, to fight in our beastly forms rather than with fists.
This was what it wanted. This was the way it was supposed to be.
The dragon took flight slowly, a battleship of scales and fire rising to the air. I had a chance here while it was vulnerable, and I immediately pulled my wings in a dive.
The wind roared in my ears and pressed my feathers flat against my body as I surged toward my ancient foe. I could feel the anger wafting off him, the fury in his eyes as he watched me come. I aimed straight at his head but planned on turning at the last moment, shooting toward the emerald on his neck. That was a weak spot, I somehow knew. If I could destroy that emerald, I could destroy him.
The dragon grew in my vision until he was all I could see, a dark green floor spreading in all directions. He opened his jaw wide, fangs like swords dripping with saliva. Two more heartbeats and I would be there, turning away from his jaws. Time seemed to slow down as I prepared to make my move.
But the jaws weren't opening to try to snap onto me. A furnace glowed deep within his throat, brightening until it was orange and yellow. I realized what was happening, and my human mind took over.
No! I thought, making a hard left.
The burst of fire puffed into the air, devouring all oxygen. It gushed into the space I had just been and where I'd intended to fly, yellow and then orange and then black with smoke. Heat buffeted my body as I flew away, even from such a distance.
The dragon climbed into the air, pulling its body through the smoke.
COME, EMERALD, the dragon thought at me. COME, AND LET US BATTLE.
I made a wide arc as I came back around, climbing to match the dragon's own altitude. He was slow, but I was fast. Speed would be my armor in this battle.
COME, he boomed again.
I did.
25
JESSICA
Watching the dragon shift was an experience unlike any other.
Ethan transformed into the gryphon gracefully. Well, gracefully when you got over how bat-shit-crazy it was. His body expanded, the feathers sprouted into existence, and his face seamlessly changed into an eagle's. It looked natural.
The dragon's shapeshifting was grotesque by comparison. The beast forced its way out of his human body, tearing muscles and with the sickening sound of shattered bone. It looked infinitely more painful, as evidenced by the dragon's scream, which began with human lungs but ended with the bellows of the immense beast.
It filled me with legitimate terror, the kind that made me want to run and hide.
How the hell could Ethan defeat that?
I yelped as it belched fire into the air, narrowly missing my mate. The smoke was so black it blotted out a section of the sky, tainting our view.
"Come here you bitch."
I whirled in time to see Sadie swinging a baseball bat at my head. I fell away from the swing and hit the ground hard, somehow managing to turn that into a roll that put me back on my feet. I sprinted away from her, around the side of the house toward the cars, while she cursed and followed.
The dragon's truck wa
s locked; I had enough time to test the handle when Sadie's bat came crashing down into the side mirror, sending glass flying in all directions.
"Can't we talk about this--WOAH," I yelped as another swing hissed through the air in front of me.
"Fuck you bitch." The dark-haired woman had a crazy look in her eyes. "My dragon is going to tear your gryphon into a thousand tiny feathers for our pillows."
Yeah, there was no negotiating with this one.
I fake-jumped toward Sadie, which made her flinch for the half-second I needed. I turned and ran around the back of the house, not sure what else to do.
Above, the dark stain of the dragon soared slowly through the air. Ethan's smaller shape darted around it, shooting in close before retreating away from gouts of fire. I said a quick prayer for Ethan and returned my focus to my troubles.
There was a back door to the house, or I could run into the thick woods. The house might have a weapon or something I could defend myself with, so I went that way, and found it unlocked.
I closed the door behind me and twisted the deadbolt. Sadie slammed into it, rocking the entire thing on its hinges and sending dust cascading from the ceiling. I was in a dim kitchen, with rusted pots stacked haphazardly on one counter and the smell of something foul nearby. I needed something, anything, but the thought of touching those disgusting pans made me pause.
Glass shattered and peppered the back of my head; I spun to see Sadie breaking the window with her bat. She kicked in the remaining shards of glass with her foot.
I ran down the hallway, which led back into the den where I'd been tied up. I went straight for the chair by the window, gripping it by the backrest and holding it out like a lion-tamer.
Sadie slid to a stop in the doorway. Her eyes were wide and she glanced at the chest in the corner, and relief fell over her. I wondered what was inside, but then Sadie came at me with the bat in both hands, screaming like a goddamn banshee. I shoved the chair in front of me, wood cracking as the bat broke one leg in half, and before Sadie could swing again I bulled forward with it as a shield. She shrieked as the wood slammed into her chest and neck, knocking her back against the wall, but the momentum made me lose my grip and the chair went with her to the ground.
