by Martha Woods
Again, I screamed, so loud and so violently that it strained my vocal cords.
There was a flash of something in the distance, out the opposite window– the third black dragon, I thought, being hurled toward the earth, smashing into the guard rail, slipping down the embankment...
Whether that was actually the case, I couldn't immediately tell for sure. And before I had the chance to worry about it all that much, I suddenly had my own impending death to occupy my full and undivided attention.
All at once I was jolting forward, then flung back, released from the dragon's tail, my vehicle being hurled through the air at tremendous speeds.
The car did somersaults through the air, soaring from one side of the road to the other, arcing down toward the opposite of the road to the embankment, and at last plunging down, down down...
This was it. This was the end.
It was all over for me.
There was no surviving this.
I prayed, until the very last moment, for something to prove to me otherwise.
But then the car was in the trees. It was slamming into the branches. Limbs were crashing through my windows, snapping off my rearview mirror, crushing my vehicle around me.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!, the horrible sounds unlike anything I could have imagined.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God!” I wept, papers soaring around me like a hurricane, flecks of broken glass cutting into me as they soared past me in all directions, the anticipation worse than anything, waiting, waiting, waiting for the force that would be the end of me, that would tear me from this life once and for all...
But at the last second my plunge was stopped.
My nerves seemed to leap entirely from my body, like a kind of whiplash, as my southward plunge was abruptly halted, and my body was sent soaring back up in the opposite direction.
My body was vibrating. My nerves were frayed, and I was still trying to convince myself I wasn't dead.
Only after several seconds did I dare to look up at my rescuer.
It was the gold dragon, the one whose eyes I'd met up in the sky, the one the trio of black dragons had tried, and so far failed, to eliminate.
It was rescuing me!
I sat there, breathless, amazed to still be alive, amazed that any of this was happening, and trying my damnedest to make eye contact with the beast who'd saved me, staring and staring, unable, in the beast's focused state, to get him to look my way.
It was just as well, though, as the creature needed as much of its wits about it as it could get at that particular moment.
No sooner had it gotten me back up over the embankment, than the dragon who'd attacked me lunged at us once more, the last of the three black dragons still left standing, its thirst for blood evidently unaffected by the growing probability of its death.
It opened its mouth and with a loud roar, expelled billows of emerald fire at the two of us, striking the side of the vehicle, the flames pouring through the busted open windows, the heat singeing my flesh. And before I knew it I'd been knocked free of my savior's grip, the vehicle spiraling through the air once again, the possibility that I was somehow still alive seeming more and more ridiculous with each new brush with death I faced.
The gold dragon grabbed the car in its jaws, partly crushing the frame in its teeth as it did so, but preventing me from the deadly collision with the ground I would have faced had my landing not been buffered by it. The creature had just enough time to toss me away before the black dragon surged at it, sending me soaring dangerously, though still at a relatively safer distance, and leaving me braced for impact as I fell.
The car slammed into the ground, bouncing hard on its wheels, my body jerking up against the seatbelt, and my internal organs feeling on the verge of rearranging themselves from the force of impact.
Finally, though, the car settled into place, creaking dangerously around me, as though the whole damn thing might fall apart at any moment, and it was only me holding my breath that kept what remained of the thing in one piece.
I sat there. Wide-eyed, astonished.
Simply amazed. Certain there had been some mistake.
Certain, despite what the evidence suggested, that I could not be alive.
I looked down at my steering wheel, and scowled at it.
“Why the hell do I even have an airbag?” I said aloud, and almost started laughing, lost in the bizarre, traumatized state that I was in.
I was quickly pulled back to reality, however.
There was another violent burst of light.
I craned around in my seat, my body aching terribly from the effort, and I watched as the two dragons blew pillars of flame at one another, gold and emerald lighting up the night, the heat causing the scenery to ripple and distort, the sight of it seeming as surreal to me as anything that had happened up until now.
“Come on, go, go, go!” I muttered to myself, praying for the gold dragon to come out victorious, but increasingly worried that he might not do so.
The flames grew and grew, and it became hard to tell which side was which, as the two dragons circled and stalked through the sweltering air. But then, very gradually, I made out the sight of the gold dragon, casting forth its amber flame, drawing closer and closer to the black dragon now facing it, its own emerald flame diminishing from the effort of sustaining it.
In what seemed to be a last ditch effort at overpowering its foe, the black dragon jerked its body suddenly upward, racing toward the stars, only for the the gold dragon to follow after, not falling for it for even a second.
The two dragons rose higher and higher, up above me, then ahead of me, forcing me to turn back around. They became so distant, and the light so bright, that once again I struggled to make out exactly who was who.
But then there was a desperate, horrible flash of movement.
One of the dragons cried out, and then fell.
Oh, God! It was the gold dragon, I was sure of it!
Not only had I been desperate for it to win, that meant that only the black dragon remained, which meant that there was nothing left at all to keep it from murdering me...
But then, only once the fallen dragon had slammed into the ground, causing the earth to shake, did I realize the truth– it was the black dragon!
The gold dragon, meanwhile, was circling slowly down, almost gliding on the air, in no particular hurry, or as though to make sure there were no immediate threats on the horizon before it finally touched down.
At last its feet touched the ground, and it sat there, perched over its fallen enemy.
And then something strange happened.
Something even stranger than anything that had taken place up until now.
The beast rose onto its two hind legs, standing upright.
Its body shrank, and shrank, and shrank.
Its wings folded inward.
Its long gold tail disappeared between a pair of firm, bare human buttocks.
And all at once, the dragon that had saved my life wasn't a dragon anymore. But a man.
And an exceptionally good looking man, I couldn't help but muse, as I studied the twisting muscles of his back, lit up by my flickering headlights.
But how?
How in God's name was this possible?
Had any of this actually happened, and if it did, what the hell did it mean?
The man stood there for several long moments over the fallen black dragon, determined, it seemed, to ensure that he was defeated.
But as he did so, something caught my attention from the corner of my eye.
It was the first dragon. The one who'd fallen, whose tail had gotten lodged in my trunk, and whom I'd assumed dead up until now. Its tail was rising up from the pavement, as though with a mind of its own, rising up and up and up, its jagged end aiming straight for the head of the man standing before it.
I shrieked.
Without thinking, I jammed on my accelerator, launching the car forward in a desperate attempt to stop t
he man from being killed. I slammed into the black dragon, finishing him off, I was pretty sure. But then my car kept going, having built up too much momentum to stop myself, and the man turned around to face me just as my dented hood slammed into him.
He bounced off the car and onto the road where he lay, visibly unconscious, possibly even worse than that.
“Oh God!” I shrieked, despising the irony, that what those awful monsters had failed to do, I might have just done in an attempt to save the man's life.
I leapt out of the vehicle and raced over toward him, dreading what I would find.
His eyes were closed. His body was bloody, but it was unclear how much of that was my doing, and how much the dragons that had done their damnedest to tear him to pieces.
I crouched down beside him, holding my breath, in the desperate hope that by doing so, it might somehow be enough to transfer some of my life energy to him.
And it must have worked...
There was a pulse there. A sign of life. And I must have practically yelped with joy.
There were tears in my eyes as I stared down at the man, at his rugged face, his unkempt brown hair and stubbled chin, not to mention the rock hard planes of his body.
There was no explaining it, or even understanding it. But I felt a strange, deep connection to this man, this complete stranger. Something, I thought, that went far beyond gratitude for his saving my life.
I thought for a moment, not quite sure what to do from here. But then that question was answered for me, as I heard the sound of sirens, erupting in the distance.
I blinked, and for the first time in minutes, returned my attention to the forest beside the road.
It was on fire.
Gold and emerald flames, eating up the trees, burning it all down– a sight so horrifying it was almost beautiful.
Then it clicked.
They'd seen the smoke. They were coming here.
When they got here, they would see this strange fire spreading. They would see these three dragons, and then they would see this naked, injured man, and–
And call it a hunch, but I had a funny feeling that this naked, injured man would very much prefer that he not be found...
I thought for a moment, trying to weigh a million possibilities in a matter of seconds– the potential consequences of what I was about to do. But then I turned back to the man, and all it took was a single look at him, to give me all the reassurance I needed in the world.
He had saved my life, and now my allegiance was with him.
Carefully I laced my arms beneath the crook of his own, sliding him along through the wreckage, and easing him, very gently, into the backseat of my car. I sighed with exhaustion once he was in, but had no time to recover myself.
Instead I hopped back into the driver's seat, prayed my car still worked, and was pleasantly astonished when it did.
And with that, I took off down the road, puttering along into the night, terrified I might pass an emergency vehicle on the way, or that my car might break down, or that the gas tank might explode before I made it back to my apartment.
Even once I did make it there, I had no idea what I would do from there, what possible course this bizarre story might continue to take.
But one thing was for sure, no matter what happened– my life, as I knew it, had just been upended forever.
And funny enough, I wasn't nearly as sleepy as I had been just a few short minutes ago...
Alza
“Mmm... Andra?” I asked to absolutely no one, stirring from sleep.
I sat up slowly, painfully. I felt like I'd been put through the wringer, and the details of my infirmary remained fuzzy in my mind at best.
I saw flashes of green fire. Dark Ones. The road. The trees. The flying car.
Her chestnut colored eyes...
But when I tried to see things very clearly the whole picture became clouded. A sharp stab of pain like a lightning bolt cut through the center of my head, cleaving my skull in two, and I was forced to start the whole process of remembering all over again.
It had been night... I remembered that much.
And now it was day.
A bright, clear morning, sunlight streaming in through the windows.
But whose windows?
This place I was in– it was nowhere that I had ever been before. I looked around at the flowery sheets, the brightly papered walls, and the shelves of books in the corner.
It looked like a human domicile of some kind.
“The hell?” I muttered, and stood up unsteadily from the bed.
I took a deep breath, the pain easing away slightly as I stood, but my steps jerky as I made my way carefully toward the door.
I stopped halfway to where I was going– the door was ajar, and when I was halfway toward it a woman walked past. A woman familiar, but who I was almost certain I had never seen before. She had dark, beautiful skin, slightly glistening as though she'd just bathed, and was clad in shorts and a bra, moving swiftly down the hall as though on her way to find some other clothes.
Her eyes happened to tilt toward the open door as I stood there, and both of us started as our eyes met.
“Oh! You're awake!” she exclaimed.
I suddenly became very self conscious of my nudity– specifically, the hardness that had formed in my sleep. It wasn't that unusual for dragonshifters to see one another in the flesh, but this woman very clearly was not a dragon shifter– and even if she had been, I nevertheless felt a strange urge to present myself to her in a way that was as respectable as possible.
“Yeah, I– I'm a little confused,” I said, deciding not to try and cover myself with the door, fearing it would make matters more obvious, and simply praying that she didn't happen to let her eyes drift down and notice my arousal.
They did precisely that, however. Darting down, only for a moment, almost a reflex. Then, catching sight of my erection, she cast them off to the side, clearly embarrassed, and said, sounding as though she was trying to maintain a level of dignity about the situation, “Yeah, I can see how you would be. Um... I stopped at the store last night and picked up some clothes for you, if you want to put them on. I don't know if they're the right size, but... Well, I'm going to finish getting dressed, and then I'll explain what happened. Alright?”
“Yeah. Alright,” I said.
She smiled shyly at me, and I smiled back. Then she hurried off down the hall, and I closed the door, and found the pile of clothes she'd bought me, stacked on a chair in the corner of the room.
By the time she came back and we were both fully clothed, her in a cute red tanktop and cargo shorts, and me in a t-shirt and jeans, I had already pieced together a lot of what had happened the night before. I sat with my arms crossed, eyeing this strange woman appraisingly, and she hovered shyly in the doorway, clearly not sure what to make of me, or how exactly to address me.
“You save my life, didn't you?” I asked her.
She laughed nervously. “You saved my life,” she corrected me. “I mean... I tried to save yours in return, but... Well, I sort of also ran you over, so I'm not sure if that really counts.”
I laughed.
“No, I remember now. That Dark One nearly crushed me with his tail, and you slammed into him with your car. Which, yeah, it knocked me out, but... Well, I would've been in a lot worse shape with those spikes lodged in my brain, don't you think?”
She laughed, a little bit less nervously now.
“Well, if you want to put a positive spin on it... Then yeah, sure. I guess so.”
I smiled at her, then thought. “And then– then you brought me here. Why?”
“Oh– no, I– I'm sorry... I mean, if you didn't want me to, I–“
She seemed flustered at the question, and I shook my head. “No no, that's not why I asked. What I mean is... You saw what I was, didn't you? You know what I am...”
“Oh... Yeah,” she said, a little bit breathlessly, nodding her head. “But I mean... That's why I broug
ht you here. I mean... I just– I figured, once the police got there, they would find you. And then they would figure out what you were, too. And, I don't know... I still don't understand a lot of this, but I figured that the police finding out about you, and what you were, probably wasn't something you wanted all that much... Was I right about that?”
I was impressed. I nodded, giving her a grin that was almost flirty– aware of doing so, but not entirely sure whether I had intended it or not.
“You were,” I said. “And I am very grateful. But I mean... Weren't you scared? Like at all?”
“Hell yes I was scared,” she said, and we both smiled at her bluntness. “I mean, I don't mean any offense by it, it's just... Well, for me, this isn't the sort of thing that happens every day.”
“But you're not scared of me?” I asked, this time really saying it flirtatiously, and she smiled broadly at me now, clearly glad to take the bate.
“Should I be?” she asked winkingly.
“I'm Alza,” I answered, instead of yes or no.
She thought for a moment, as though considering the wisdom of responding. “Melina,” she said. “It's nice to meet you...”
“Melina... That's a pretty name,” I said, meaning it wholeheartedly. “It's nice to meet you too.” I reached for her hand, and she took it with visible trepidation. Our palms met, and I felt a surge of electricity, running from her body to mine and back again.
She seemed to relax just a little bit more.
“There,” I said. “Now we know each other's names, so we can't be afraid of one another.”
“You'd be afraid of me?” she asked, as though caught off guard by the turning of the tables.
I thought about this for a moment. “Well... Maybe not you, personally. But... Well, let's just say, saving my life is not the first thing I would have expected from you, or any human for that matter. Dragons and human beings, we– we have a somewhat fraught relationship...”
“From what I saw last night, dragons and dragons seem to have a pretty fraught relationship as well. And honestly, judging by what I saw of those other three, I wasn't really expecting you to come flying to my rescue, either. But don't get me wrong, I'm very glad that you did.”
