Betrothed to the Dragon (Lick of Fire)

by Kara Lockharte

  “So you intend to break the betrothal?” he asked.

  I folded my arms across my naked chest. According to Grandma, it was the only way I would be safe from the monster. “I don’t know.”

  He looked at me, his gaze so intense I had to take a step back. I was trying to think of what to say, but he spoke first. “You should have a say in who you choose to marry,” he said finally. He turned. “Wait here. There’s something I want to show you.”

  There was the click and hum of air conditioning once more, making the room seem colder without his presence. Whatever had been about to happen between us wasn’t going to happen now. Disappointment mixed with sexual frustration made me want to punch something.

  There was a vibrating noise, and I found my shirt on top of his phone. A message flashed itself with a disturbingly familiar image.

  I generally didn’t go around reading other people’s messages, ever.

  But this…

  I entered the PIN he had told me and read the message displayed.

  I felt myself grow cold at the information.

  “Sophie?” said Hunter’s questioning voice.

  He stopped when he saw the look on my face and me with his phone.

  I put on my calm war face, the one my grandmother had made me practice, even though my heart was racing.

  I held up the screen so he could see it. “‘Here is the information on your betrothed: Sophie May,’” I said, starting with the first message. “‘Daughter of Yi-Fan and Breaker-of-Storms. Grandmother, Lady Keiko Asakusa. PhD Candidate in Art History. Assistant Curator at the New York Metropolis Museum of Art.’”

  I swiped to the next one. “‘Required wedding date—’”

  His big hand was suddenly wrapped around my wrist. “It’s not what it looks like.”

  At that moment, if I’d had magic, I would have burned him to a crisp. I had been on the verge of having sex with him, and…

  And…

  I couldn’t think about it, I was so angry. If I had been a true shen, there would be things exploding around me and lights flickering. Instead, I was limited to what I could convey with my voice. “Let. Me. Go.”

  He released me.

  I backed away from him, sidling towards the door. “Why the pretense, my dear betrothed?” I put as much disgust into the word as I could.

  “Seeing you at the museum, yes, that was intentional. But running into you at the park, that was not.” He shook his head. “I thought you knew. I thought you were playing shen games.”

  That would be a shen thing to do. But I was never good at those sorts of things.

  “Shen games,” I repeated. The way he said it, implied that he wasn’t shen. Which didn’t make sense. On Earth, there were humans, and then there were shen. Shen who had human form but who also had access to deeper magics and other forms. I was the strange anomaly of being shen with no magic.

  “I am not shen,” he said. He held his hand out. A ball of flame appeared in his palm. It flickered in a way that no natural flame did. Smokeless, colorful, and mesmerizing.

  No shen could manifest such power in their human form.

  Dragon.

  My grandmother had betrothed me to a dragon.

  I took a step back. “This can’t be for real.”

  Sometime ago, around the time Rome fell, my father had tried to bar the dragons’ entrance to this world, when they’d arrived as refugees from a dying world. The same monster that had destroyed their world had followed them to Earth.

  And instead of hunting them, it had turned its attention to the shen.

  “You brought the Devourer to Earth,” I said slowly. “You are the reason the shen are nearly gone.”

  “I was born in New York,” he said. “My parents may have been immigrants, but I was born on Earth. We are alike, you and I.”

  I turned. “No,” I said vehemently. “Because I didn’t agree to any of this.” I began pacing. “Why the hell would Grandma do this?”

  “You are a child of Earth. And your bloodline goes back to the very formation of this planet,” said Hunter, so, so maddeningly calm.

  The potential of your blood is still there.

  “This is why the betrothal was arranged,” I said, bitterness emerging from my voice. “You’re here because you need my bloodline.”

  His eyes met mine. “Truthfully, when they told me I wasn’t too thrilled either. But I’ve changed my mind.”

  And then I realized something. Nobody, not even the shen, knew much about the dragons because they were literally aliens to this world. But there were still stories of what dragons did. Sex was often a way to create a permanent magical enslavement bond of sorts. My voice raised in incredulity. “Were you going to ‘seal’ me with sex?”

  His lack of denial was all I needed. “I thought you knew.”

  Impossible, infuriating heat began welling up within me. I grabbed my cold, sweat-soaked clothes off the floor and put on them on in record time. He hadn’t actually wanted me, but the magic in my blood.

  I had almost lost my freedom. He had been planning on enslaving me. My stomach turned at the thought. I backed away, holding my hand up. “We’re done here.”

  He came forward. “You can’t expect to just leave.”

  I grabbed my bag and headed for the door. “I am leaving. I’m still free to do that.”

  “You have no ride home.”

  “I’ll walk if I have to.” I tried to open the door, but it was locked. There was no knob, which meant it was probably a fingerprint or a phone controlled lock. I turned on him and found him closer than I had expected, but thankfully, not as close as he could have been. “Are you going to keep me here against my will?"

  There was a grim look on his face. “Your grandmother’s protection won’t last forever.”

  For some reason, it only made me even more pissed.

  I tried the door again. Still locked.

  I spun back to him, and he tapped at his phone.

  “I swear I’m going to break this door down if you don’t let me out.” Fear, rather than anger, probably would have been a more reasonable emotion at this moment, because after all, he was an actual dragon with all the magic he possessed at his command and I had none. No tricks, no trinkets, nothing. But I was so angry at myself for believing in this delusion that reason seemed like a distant land I’d once known.

  The phone beeped, the lock clicked and the door opened.

  “I’ve called a car service for you,” he said.

  I marched into the elevator and jammed the door close button hard as I could.

  The doors closed much too slowly.

  “Take the car, number eighty-eight,” he said.

  The elevator closed behind me.

  4

  I was determined not to take his fancy car service.

  But as if on cue, the moment I stepped out, rain unleashed itself in a torrential downpour. Either I took the car service or I drowned on the streets of New York City.

  So I took his goddamned car service.

  The fucker.

  Images of his mouth on me flashed in my head.

  I couldn’t believe his gall. I couldn’t believe myself.

  I had actually let myself believe that something was possible between us.

  He had tried to permanently “seal” me.

  It was known that dragons could “seal” others into their magical service, creating an enslavement bond of sorts.

  Or so the shen had long believed.

  I rubbed my eyes, thinking, trying to remember what if anything I knew about dragon sealing bonds. Wait, what had grandma said? Something along the lines of “shen don’t know what they don’t know. And dragons keep their secrets.” I twisted a lock of my hair around my finger, my mind running through the few dragon stories I knew. A few years back, some dragon had thought it funny to pass off their epic stories as a children’s book, and at the time I wasn’t sure why Grandma had made me read it.

  There was some st
ory about a red balloon and a magic cat with a father saving his son through their seal, which suggested it was some sort of connection.

  But only if the story was actually true. And though fairy tales tended to have a core of truth, it was the details that were often inaccurate.

  Let me be clear about my intentions.

  I thought you were playing shen games.

  I balled up my fists. I wasn’t going to cry.

  The car service dropped me off, and I dashed into my building, keys at the ready, and slogged up the five flights of stairs to the top floor. Dim lights filled the hallway, flickering as they usually did. It wasn't a terrible neighborhood, nor was it a terrible building, but it was old.

  I was never so glad as when I undid the triple locks and shoved the door open to the darkened apartment.

  And greeted by an odd, almost burnt-metallic sort of odor.

  For a moment, I wondered if Chloe was experimenting with her potions again. That was the problem with having a witch as a roommate. Usually it was pretty awesome because it meant no roaches or rats would dare cross the boundaries she had set, but sometimes it meant our apartment smelled like a cross between bacon and old shoes.

  Then I remembered she was still in Seoul.

  I dropped my bags. “Hello?” I said, flipping on the light switch. I reached for my grandma’s large black umbrella in the stand by the door. She had left it behind on her last visit, saying something about stormy weather coming when you least expected it.

  “Is anyone here?”

  All seemed normal. A purple throw was slung over the grey couch we’d found on the street. It had taken us an entire day to haul it up here. In front of the couch was a wooden crate that served as a coffee table, the letters KXA stenciled on it in red. There was an empty mug with a tea bag, a few celebrity gossip magazines.

  And yet there was that smell.

  “Chloe,” I pretended to call to my roommate. “Are you here?” It was probably nothing, but I decided to keep pretending as I moved slowly into the apartment. “All the guys are waiting downstairs for our double date. You remember, John the cop and his hot brother, Mark the Navy Seal.”

  No answer.

  Her bedroom door was open. My bedroom door was closed.

  I never left my bedroom door closed. I didn’t like the idea of someone or something jumping out.

  I backed away. I was in an enclosed space. No phone. No magic.

  But there were things that chased you if you ran and could sometimes be frightened if you confronted them fast.

  I took a deep breath, braced myself with the umbrella, stomped over, and kicked open the bedroom door.

  Sophie.

  I froze. “Grandma?”

  In my bedroom, more bed, than actual room, my grandmother sat in a cross-legged position, levitating a foot off my bed. Her eyes were closed and soft glow emanated from her.

  “Grandma?”

  She opened her eyes, and for a moment, the glow was so blinding it was like staring into the sun.

  And I realized it wasn’t my grandmother, but a message she had left for me.

  “The Devourer is here. I’m going to take it on a run for as long as I can, my darling girl, but I can’t hold it off forever.”

  Hot tears came unbidden to my eyes. “No! Wait—”

  “Find your fiancé. I’ve sent the information you need to find him to your phone. Marry him, and his family will protect you.”

  "But—”

  “Don’t ‘but’ me, young lady. Save yourself, if not for yourself, then for our future.”

  My grandmother’s image faded.

  Grandma.

  I sank to my knees. There was a vast hole in my chest. Grandma had been preparing me for this moment ever since I could remember.

  Do not look for me.

  But it was like preparing for death, or for a truck to hit you: you couldn’t really know until it happened. And now not only had the truck hit, it was a tractor-trailer speeding over my broken heart.

  Do not think you can defeat a monster that has eaten the greatest of the shen.

  I looked at my stupid, magic-less hands.

  Run, little fox. All you can do is run.

  And it was worse so much worse than I had ever thought it would be.

  Heat, anger, uselessness filled me. I hated what I was, hated that I could not be what my grandmother needed me to be. My mother, my father, and now my grandmother had sacrificed their lives so I could live. And for what?

  All for a magical null.

  And now I had to go beg for magical protection from a man, a dragon, who had tried to enslave me without my knowledge.

  I thought you were playing shen games.

  Had he really thought I had known? Even now, I could feel the lingering of the heated trails he had left on my skin.

  You should have a say in who you choose to marry.

  He had stopped when I told him I was betrothed.

  I thought you knew.

  Grandma, I mouthed, voiceless, my throat utterly closed with grief. She was gone. And I was next.

  A chill went through me. The monster had destroyed the dragons, had chased them here. How did she expect that Hunter could protect me when it had carved swathes through armies of dragons? Why would the dragons be able to protect me when they hadn’t even been able to save themselves?

  Or maybe we were all destined to die and this was just an effort to stave off the inescapable end.

  Unless Grandma knew something I didn’t.

  I laughed, tears streaming from my eyes. To say Grandma had her secrets was like saying a fox had fur.

  If I went to Hunter now, would he be honorable and fulfill the bargain that had been made?

  I clenched my fists. First, I had to get to him. Details later.

  I left a note for Chloe, who was more than capable of taking care of herself. The monster wanted shen blood, and Chloe’s human magic was easily disguisable. I packed a bag with basic clothes, a toothbrush, and enough emergency cash and cards to keep me on the run, as well as Grandma’s umbrella. I headed to the local bodega, bought a phone—the cheap, disposable kind—and realized that I didn’t even have Hunter’s number. I didn’t even know his last name. Using the phone, I logged into the cloud to find whatever details Grandma had on Hunter only to find that I had been hacked.

  The rain had stopped, leaving a humid haze in the air. Deep puddles lay with that shimmering iridescence of motor oil and other city chemicals permeating the streets. I darted around them, heading toward the subway. At least I knew where Hunter lived. I was determined not to marry him, but perhaps I could make some other kind of deal. Dragons were known for their insistence on bargains, on fair, equal exchanges.

  “Hey, chicky-chicky,” said a white guy leaning against the wall. He looked like the human version of a bulldog, with crooked nose, a spiked collar, and a shaved head.

  I avoided eye contact with him as I hurried by.

  Suddenly, he hooked my arm and dragged me back.

  "I was talking to you, girly-yo. You should pay attention when a man is talking to you.”

  I slipped out of his grasp easily and faced him. Hands up, elbows in, squared shoulders, and balanced feet ready for quick movement. “You don’t want to be doing this.”

  He laughed. “Is the little brown girly-yo gonna do some karate moves on me?” He put up his arms in a mocking stance. “Come on, Papa is gonna teach you a lesson you ain’t never gonna forget.”

  I looked around the empty streets. Where the hell were bystanders or cops when you needed them? For crying out loud, that was the whole point of living in one of the most densely populated places in the world.

  I stood firm, the tip of my umbrella on the ground like a cane. “You’re going to have to come to me.”

  He laughed and came at me.

  I exhaled, then ducked low and launched myself at his torso. I kicked forward between his legs.

  He went down.

  I pressed the t
ip of my umbrella against his jugular.

  His eyes widened, then rolled in the back of his head, fear, confusion, and angry shame in his face. If he had a gun, I’d be totally screwed.

  Time to make sure he wasn’t going to come after me. “Stay the fuck away from me.” I smacked him across the face with the umbrella and kicked him in the balls for good measure.

  He screamed as I stepped around his prone figure and ran for the subway.

  The Upper West Side was usually bustling at night, but something about the sudden cold and rain kept people from the streets.

  I headed toward the block where Hunter’s building was located. I had been trying to figure out what I would say to my supposed betrothed, what I could offer him in negotiations. If what he’d said was true, that he too had grown up here on Earth, there was no reason to think that he wasn’t railing against his potential loss of freedom.

  Though not natives, dragons were some of the most magically powerful beings on Earth. It was rumored that they could make portals to other dimensions, and teleport at will; two abilities long lost to the shen. In addition, they had brought technology far more advanced than anything that had existed on Earth.

  So it made no sense that someone that magically powerful would agree to be betrothed to me, a shen with no magic of her own.

  Unless Hunter didn’t know.

  The lump in my chest hardened.

  I wouldn’t put it past my grandmother, the old fox. The agreement had been made when I was still an infant, well before the age of manifestation.

  If he knew what I truly was, would he still help me? Did my grandmother expect me to marry him under the false pretense that I had my powers? Wouldn’t that have just led to one pissed-off dragon?

  The question was moot because I wasn’t going to go through with this betrothal. But I still needed Hunter’s protection.

  What could I offer him that he would want?

  Something yanked me backward. I flailed, trying not to fall. I looked up and saw the girly-o guy who had tried to stop me before. I took a step back. There was no way a human could have followed me. He glared at me, and I realized that there was an almost imperceptible green tinge to him. “I’m not done with you.”