The Wyvern's Defender Dire Wolf

by Alice Summerfield

  Lying on the ground, the two men looked much smaller than they had when they had been looming over her.

  Crouching next to nearest man’s twitching body, Helena said coldly, “In the future, I suggest you stay out of the affairs of dragons. Most of the others aren’t as nice as me.”

  And she would know. She’d grown up in a dragon’s den, after all.

  Rising, Helena gathered her things again and continued on her way.

  It was only as she offered her ticket to the bus driver that Helena realized that her hands were shaking.

  Get it together, Helena ordered herself sternly. You didn’t hurt them that badly. You didn’t stop their hearts. They were still breathing. They didn’t even wet themselves! And given the chance, they would have hurt you quite a lot.

  Still, it was disconcerting. It had been a long time since she had last lashed out like that, without even thinking about it. It was true: being on the run hardened a person. She was only an hour and a half into her flight, but already, Helena was having trouble recognizing herself.

  Worse, she thought that she might like the new Helena better.

  As Helena watched, the bus driver loaded her trunk into the bus’ belly then led Helena back onto the bus. Left to her own devices, Helena chose a seat near the middle of the bus.

  She fetched her Uncle Terrance’s gift from her overnight case, before wedging the case into the space beneath her seat. Her purse was tucked between her side and the wall of the bus. Then, with her book in her lap, Helena waited to leave.

  The bus only sat in its birth for maybe another ten minutes or so, but to Helena, those were the longest ten minutes of her life.

  When the bus finally lurched into motion, Helena’s heart soared.

  Her escape plan was going off without a hitch!

  Those private eyes didn’t count. They definitely hadn’t been part of her plans.

  Relieved, Helena snuggled down in her seat, preparing for a good, long read.

  It was going to be a very long bus ride, after all.

  Chapter 03 – Helena

  Helena had always wanted to go on a road trip. Movies had always made them seem so homey. At the end of the movie, everyone had always ended up closer, emotionally speaking, than they had been before they set out to have zany adventures while burning rubber down the open highway.

  Now, she was on one!

  And it was every bit as great as she had imagined!

  Sure, she was alone, so there was no one to bond with as she traversed all those long, boring miles, but she also got to nap in her seat and eat fast food! And no, she hadn’t been able to put her seat back while she was resting, and yes, the bus’ bathroom had been a horror, but overall, it had been such an exciting adventure!

  The absolute trickiest part about traveling south had been all the bridges that her bus had had to cross along the way.

  Helena had always hated bridges.

  They were just so high, and there was just so far to fall from them. They had always made her dizzy and sick to her stomach, something that had always made her grandparents scoff.

  “What kind of dragon is afraid of heights?” her grandmother had always scoffed.

  Expect it wasn’t the height, exactly. Helena had never had any problems with glass elevators or airplanes or ski lifts. It was just bridges.

  Her Uncle Sullivan had always said that was probably because her parents had died on a bridge.

  A few years after Helena’s mother had run away with her musician, she’d had her baby – Helena – with him. A few years after that, her little family had been in a terrible car wreck. They had died, but somehow, Helena, who had been in the car with her parents, had lived with only a few scratches to show for the experience.

  That, at least, was the story that all of her Tarleton relatives had told her at one point or another.

  Uncle Terrence might have lied to her if he had thought it the right thing to do, and her grandparents if it had served their purposes. But Helena’s Uncle Sullivan had cared too much to lie about something like that, and her Aunt Barbara too little to bother lying about anything at all, ever, to anyone.

  For herself, Helena herself didn’t remember the accident, and she remembered precious little of what had come before it either. Nevertheless, she thought that the story was probably true and that Uncle Sully was probably right: the car wreck had left her with a certain underlying fear of bridges.

  They all just looked so treacherous! Especially the ones that were only being held up by strings.

  The absolute best part of driving south, though, was the fact that she had gotten to shed her outer layers as she went along. It was just too warm to pretend to be cold.

  Helena didn’t particularly feel the cold – not until it was really, really cold, anyway – but she still tried to remember to dress in the appropriate number of layers whenever possible. It seemed to make the people around her feel more comfortable. If the cold was a thing that struck at you, then it apparently made you cold to look at someone inappropriately dressed for the cold. Privately, Helena had always thought that to be one of the very nicest things about people.

  And as the bus slowly but steadily trundled her south, sometimes Helena even dreamed about the singer. It had been years since she had last heard his song, in her dreams or otherwise.

  All in all, it was a pretty great trip. And at the end of it, Helena was certain that she had made the right decision. She had certainly never been happier, not since she had been brought to live with her grandparents.

  It’s true, thought Helena later, now sitting in the backseat of a cab. She had hired it at the bus terminal, and they were now looking for a very specific address. Road trips are life affirming!

  The address that her uncle had given her turned out to be near the city of Orlando, more specifically in an apartment complex maybe twenty or thirty minutes outside of the city. At her direction, the cab driver cruised through the complex a couple of extra times, allowing Helena to note in passing that the entire apartment complex was laid out rather like a flower.

  The main road into the complex led directly to the apartment complex’s main office, behind which seemed to be a couple of swimming pools and a couple of club houses. Arranged in a semi-circle around the main office and shared amenities were the actual apartment buildings, grouped in pairs or the occasional trio. None of them stood more than four or five stories tall.

  When she had finished eyeing the amenities, the cab driver let her out in front of the specific building that she had needed. For all his help, Helena tipped him generously.

  Alone, Helena stretched out her limbs, chasing away the soreness that had settled in them during all her hours of travel. Stretching herself out was easily the best part of her morning so far.

  Then she smoothed her clothes, grabbed her assorted bags, and headed for the nearest elevator. The apartment that she wanted was on the fourth floor.

  Strolling down the hall, Helena swiftly discovered that there was nothing to distinguish the apartment of her maybe-savior from all the ones around it, not even a welcome mat. Helena found that obscurely disappointing, but it was probably for the best. She was trying to lay low, after all.

  Knocking at the door, Helena patiently waited for an answer.

  Nothing.

  She tried again, ringing the doorbell this time, but again no one answered. Ringing and knocking didn’t produce anyone either.

  No one was home.

  I should have called ahead, thought Helena, dismayed, and then remembered that no one had given her a number to call ahead to.

  This probably wasn’t her fault.

  But it didn’t change the fact that her host or hosts weren’t home to meet her. Normally, that wouldn’t have bothered her – she was an uninvited guest after all – but under her current circumstances, it was something of a problem. She couldn’t just wait around outside. People were looking for her.

  Some people took a dim view of those who broke in
to and entered other people’s apartments. Those people had probably never been nearly snatched off the sidewalk in broad daylight while trying to find a bus. There was absolutely no way that Helena was going to sit in the hallway in plain view of everyone while she waited for whoever she was supposed to meet here. But to get inside, she was going to have to get past the door’s locks.

  Luckily, Helena knew a little bit about that.

  Learning how to sneak past the mansion’s security system was practically a Tarleton rite of passage to adulthood or so her Uncle Sullivan had said. As he had been slightly sloshed at the time, Helena still wasn’t certain whether or not he’d been serious.

  Nevertheless, she knew for a fact that she wasn’t the only Tarleton to carry lock picks as a matter of course. Uncle Terrence had given Helena her first set of picks for her fifteenth birthday, along with a stern lecture about the right times, ways, and places in which to use them. And then, he’d shown her how to use them. Helena’s family carried lock picks the way that other people carried keys or pocket-sized CPR masks.

  Helena’s grandparents were probably the only Tarletons that didn’t even own a lock picking kit. Of course, their security codes had always worked, regardless of the hour of the day or night, and their keys had worked in all of the mansion’s locks. They hadn’t really needed a set of lock picks to navigate the family mansion.

  It had been awhile since Helena had last picked a lock – not since she had gone home for Christmas, as a matter of fact – but she found that she wasn’t much out of practice. Still, the rush of accomplishment that she felt when she twisted the door’s knob and the door swung open in front of her was one that couldn’t be beat.

  If this is what it feels like to be a thief, thought Helena, then I can understand why they turned to a life of crime.

  Perhaps Robin Hood had been on to something, after all.

  Helena wasted a few moments stowing her picks in her purse, shrugging it over her shoulder, and gathering up her various suitcases, but it couldn’t have been avoided. In less than a minute, Helena and all of her things were safely inside of the apartment with the door locked behind her; safety first and all of that.

  To one side of the door there was a white panel, an inexorable countdown happening on its little screen. Helena looked over just in time to see it mark three seconds… two…

  Helena flung a hand out, her fingertips sparking. With the ease of practice, she zapped the system, shorting it out just as the barest edge of an alarm rang out. There was a soft pop, barely audible under the alarm’s racket, and the faintest whiff of melting plastic, and then blessed silence.

  Relieved, Helena huffed out a breath.

  That was close, thought Helena, smiling as she reached out to flick on a light.

  Nothing.

  She flicked the switch off and then on again.

  Still nothing.

  Feeling guilty, Helena flicked the switch down one last time.

  She hadn’t meant to short out the apartment. She’d just meant to sort of… massage… the electrical system a bit, and shut the security system up before it had a chance to squeal on her.

  It was how she and all the others had always gotten in and out of the mansion after curfew. Grandfather and Grandmother had always been very strict about curfew.

  Different electrical system, decided Helena. I’ll have to remember to be gentler in the future.

  Assuming that there was a future for her here; pushing aside that thought, Helena arranged her things to one side of the door. Until she was certain of her welcome there, she didn’t intend to get comfortable.

  With the power out and all the blinds shut, the apartment was completely dark. It wasn’t a problem for her – Helena had uncommonly good night vision, better than any of her dragon relatives in fact – but it might be annoying to the apartment holder.

  Above all else, Helena did not want to annoy her unknowing host. She had traveled thousands of miles for his or her help. Whoever lived in this apartment, Helena needed to start off on a good foot with them.

  Helena wished that she had ever learned anything about electrical work – anything aside from how to break in and out of Grandfather’s house and, apparently, short out less robust systems, that is. Then, she could at least pretend to be helpful.

  Hoping to glean some insight into whose home she had invaded, Helena went to explore her host’s darkened apartment. It was the most personal – and most personalized – space that Helena had set foot inside of in a long time.

  To the left of the apartment’s door was the kitchen, tidy with cupboards that were practically bare, and to the right of the front door was the dining room, not that there was any dining room table in it. Instead, pride of place had been given to a poker table, around which was clustered a variety of cheap folding chairs. There was a sideboard along one side of the room, on which were arranged a bewildering variety of liquors, many of which Helena had never heard of before just then.

  Next to the dining room was the living room, which was dominated by a battered, overstuffed leather couch. Hung on the wall across from it was an enormous flat screen television. There was an equally scarred coffee table arranged in front of the couch and, incongruously, the biggest, most well reinforced cat scratching post that Helena had ever seen shoved into one corner of the room.

  To be worthy of such a scratching post, the apartment’s owner would need to have a mountain lion as a pet.

  Or be one, supposed Helena. It wasn’t impossible.

  The bathroom, which lay across the hall from the living room, was very nice. It was all sleek white tiles with a shower to kill for; just looking at it made Helena want to bathe. Only the threat of scales – as well as lingering fears of overstepping her bounds or, worse, discovering that her unknowing host was anything like her Aunt Barbara’s husband – kept her out of that shower stall.

  A little further down the hall, but still across from the bathroom, was a large closet into which had been tucked a washer and dryer set.

  And at the end of the hall that bisected the apartment stood the master bedroom. Entering it, Helena discovered that the bedroom, which was by far the biggest single room in the entire apartment, was dominated by a king size bed, its bedding neatly made. The attached walk-in closet was filled with men’s clothing.

  This unknown man’s apartment was nicer than any apartment or bedroom that Helena had resided in since her parents’ death, and that included the one that she had in her grandfather’s mansion. It wasn’t the opulence of the furnishings – they were rattier than anything that Helena had sat on outside of a coffee shop – but rather the fact that the small apartment actually looked lived in and enjoyed.

  No one had ever accused Helena’s spaces of either of those things. If they had, her maid probably would have been fired.

  If she hasn’t been already, thought Helena, feeling a twinge of regret. Not at leaving – she definitely didn’t want to end up like her aunt or either of her two uncles – but at leaving Pia to face Grandfather’s wrath all on her own.

  It was Pia’s job to keep track of her comings and goings and report back to Grandfather, after all. What use was a spy that lost track of her charge?

  And when those unfortunate private eyes finally reported back that Helena hadn’t just wandered away like the flighty, empty-headed thing that her grandfather saw her as – that she’d dared to run away from him and all of his plans for her future as his pawn – Grandfather would be wrathful.

  Perhaps I should have taken Pia with me? Helena wondered, and then discarded the thought as silly.

  For one thing, Pia wasn’t her friend. She hadn’t even pretended to be particularly loyal to Helena or her interests. Pia would have betrayed her at the first opportunity.

  For another, none of Helena’s friends or acquaintances in graduate school had had their own maids. They hadn’t even had Merry Maids. They simply hadn’t been able afforded it. She probably couldn’t afford a maid any more either. Probab
ly, that is.

  Maybe I could – No, definitely not, Helena thought sternly, reminding herself of her classmates again. I definitely can’t afford a maid any more – not even a shared one.

  Helena possessed quite a large trust fund – a gift from her late mother – but she had never been quite certain who served as the trustee for it. As far as she knew, her grandfather administered all of the family’s assets.

  He couldn’t take Helena’s money away from her, but if she wanted an emergency disbursement for, oh, say, starting a new life somewhere far away from him, then she probably would have had to apply to her grandfather for it. Even before leaving the family, Helena had never quite dared to apply for extra money, not for any reason at all, ever. She definitely didn’t dare to now.

  But even if he wasn’t her trustee, and even if her quarterly disbursement showed up in her account like always, then the people who worked at her bank would probably squeal on her to her grandfather. He had a lot of friends in financial circles. And he could be very persuasive, particularly if someone had any outstanding debts or loved someone with severe health issues.

  For the foreseeable future, touching any of her intangible assets would be like sending an engraved invitation to her grandfather, detailing where she was, when she had needed the money, and for what amount. Then he or one of his paid gorillas would come to collect her. Above all else, Helena wanted to avoid that.

  Not that I need the money, Helena was quick to reassure herself.

  She could make it on what she had: her degree, the things in her suitcases, and a little over five thousand dollars in cash, nearly every cent of which had been a gift from her aunt.

  Still, it was hard to admit that she couldn’t afford anything, even if it was only to herself. She hadn’t even had to say it out loud yet!

  Just thinking of it – of the day when she would be forced to admit to someone that she just couldn’t afford something – made Helena shudder. She had never had to do that before. It would be so embarrassing!