by Shea Berkley
When he stopped in front of her, his beady eyes focused greedily on the slug. How long had it been since his last feeding? Blaze’s head tilted, eyes narrowed, and he spat a stream of fire at the slug’s tail. The spit and burn surprised Kera, and she dropped it. Blaze snatched the charred slug from midair and choked it down in one bite.
The dragon turned his glowing amber eyes to her, and she could see the hunger lingering there. All thoughts about sending him back to Teag vanished. Seeing how scrawny and helpless he was, she knew she couldn’t. Not yet, anyway.
She fished in the ground for more bugs, feeling slightly guilty using her powers to draw the unsuspecting creatures to their death, but bugs were nature’s snack food. More than an hour later, Blaze’s stomach had blossomed to twice its size, and he purred contentedly in her lap. The ground was littered with uneaten dead bugs. She had ruined the balance of life on this small patch of ground in her attempt to feed Blaze, and no amount of magic could correct the damage. It was best to leave and hope the remaining wildlife would scavenge the rest.
“It’s time to go.” Kera twirled her long hair around her fist before nudging the dragon onto her back. He hooked tiny claws onto her T-shirt and flattened his body close to hers. The heat from his belly soaked into her skin. With a sweep, she let go of her hair and the heavy mass swung over her shoulders and over Blaze, hiding him from view.
“No fire. No spitting or smoking, and no digging your claws into my skin.”
Unfazed by her demands, the dragon nudged her spine with the tip of his nose and cuddled closer.
“This is a temporary situation,” she told him as she made her way back to the ranch. Hiding a dragon in her room was far from a good idea, but it was the only one she had until she went back to Teag and found someone willing to care for him.
By the time she stood at the bottom of the porch steps, the outside lights were on and the house was quiet. She hadn’t meant to be gone so long. She could feel Dylan’s distress at her continued absence. He had yet to learn how to block his feelings from others, something she had done since she was a little girl…but never from him. Until today.
The risk of sharing her latest secret was too high. Though she wanted to go to him, she didn’t dare. Dylan would never agree to keep a dragon in the human realm. Even though Blaze was no bigger than a tree lizard, his tendency to breathe fire made him dangerous. To keep everyone safe, Dylan would take Blaze back to Teag. Kera couldn’t allow that to happen. Dylan must never set foot in Teag again.
Because of the raw, untamed power flowing through him, she had thought he could save them all. Instead, Teag had sunk its teeth into Dylan, nearly destroying him. She knew he felt responsible for those who had died, but if he ever went back, there was no telling what would happen. She’d nearly lost him once. She wouldn’t risk losing him again.
Surely she could take care of this one small problem by herself, but as she climbed the back stairs she had second thoughts. Pausing, she gazed back at the forest. It was so big, and Blaze so small. Keeping him contained in her room would be easiest, and they would be up and gone in the morning before anyone else stirred. He was calm and well fed at the moment, and it was just for one night. Nothing bad could happen in one night.
Finally convinced, she crossed the porch and eased the screen door open. A small squeak escaped. She froze, but the house stayed quiet. As she palmed the other knob, the door flew open to reveal Dylan, his bulk towering over her. His gaze landed heavily on hers. He was her protector, her best friend, her love, and she was keeping secrets from him. She was a horrible person.
His handsome face pulled tight. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”
“I know.” The emotion crowded his thoughts. “I can feel your upset.”
“I didn’t feel yours.”
Kera put her hands on his chest and pushed, all the while making sure to face him as she maneuvered into the kitchen. “That’s because I wasn’t upset.” At least not enough to let her guard down and let him know.
He followed her as she pivoted around and backed up toward the back stairs. “Then why did you run off like that? You missed dinner. You upset Grandma.”
A quick prick and pull climbed up Kera’s back to her left shoulder. She twitched against Blaze.
Dylan frowned. “Don’t you care?”
She slipped her hand along her neck as if to give it a scratch, but instead poked Blaze’s nose down. “No! I do. I am sorry. I thought I saw something. Out there.”
“Is that Kera?” Grandpa called from the den.
“Yes,” Kera replied, keeping her eyes on Dylan, terrified he’d see Blaze. “I’m sorry to have worried anyone.”
“I wasn’t worried. I told him you’d be back, but he’s so lovesick, not seeing you for five minutes makes him jittery.”
Dylan glanced toward the den. “Grandpa…”
Kera took the opportunity to poke Blaze in the nose again. What was wrong with him? He’d crawled so high, his nose rested on her shoulder. No amount of poking would push him down. Kera quickly gathered a handful of her long hair and pulled it forward, hiding Blaze’s face from Dylan’s view. As she slipped her hands down her hair in a nervous gesture, she took another step back.
Dylan turned back to her and stepped closer. “What’d you see?”
“Nothing really.” She faked a big yawn, though she couldn’t be more tired, and blinked up at him. “Can we talk in the morning? I’ve been chasing shadows all night. I need to go to bed.”
He grabbed one of her wrists and splayed her fingers toward the light. “Your hands are dirty. So are your knees. If something is out there, tell me.”
And have him go back to Teag? He barely survived the encounter last time.
“Nothing is out there.” Not now. “I fell,” she said and pulled her hand away.
“You’re not telling me something. You’ve never kept secrets from me before.”
“I’m not keeping one now.” The lie slipped out easily. She backed up farther and bumped into the door. Blaze let out a small huff and Kera coughed at the whiff of sulfur that rose. She pressed her hand to her head, ready to beg him to let her leave.
Dylan reared back. “What’s that smell?” His face contorted oddly. “Did you just fart?”
“Pardon?” she squeaked.
“Umm, you know,” he made a few odd gestures with his hands. At her blank look he said, “Pass gas.”
“Are you asking if I have flatulence?” This couldn’t be happening. She would never—not in front of anyone.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“I-I-I—” She wanted to squish Blaze for embarrassing her. “I have to go.”
Seeing her embarrassment, he made to take her hand again, but she managed to stay free. He smiled. “It’s okay. You’re not the first girl to do that in front of me.”
Her cheeks grew hot. She opened her mouth. A strange sound, like a tiny burp, erupted. She snapped her mouth closed, swallowed, and then said in a rush, “I’m not feeling well.”
That wasn’t a lie. She felt horrible on more than one level. “I really have to go.” She twisted away, still managing to keep her back pointed away from him, and hurried up the stairs.
When she got to her room, she closed and locked the door and sagged onto the bed. Pulling her hair out of the way, she yanked the dragon off her back and turned on him. “What is wrong with you?”
The little dragon shook, his scales clattering as he did. He winged off the bed, falling to the floor with a soft thud, and trotted straight to the door, where he raked his talons up and down, gouging the wood.
She hopped off the bed and snatched him away. “Stop that. I am not letting you out.”
Blaze snorted and turned his amber eyes on her. His eyes glowed pathetic…in a reptilian way. He missed Faldon and so did she, even though the old sage had turned his loyalties to Navar and tried to kill Dylan’s grandmother and Leo. Kera still remembered the kind teacher, mentor, and friend he had b
een before he had fallen into Navar’s trap.
There was no telling what was going on in Teag. Now that Navar was dead, she had to believe her father and those like him had been able to reason with the firsts. She hadn’t wanted to leave, but her father had insisted, and now the guilt, the not knowing, was eating her alive. If her friends and those with mixed blood were suffering…
She wouldn’t allow herself to think about it. She’d made the right decision by obeying her father and following Dylan. Not that it wasn’t exactly what she had wanted to do all along, but thinking about Signe tinged her decision with doubt. She’d promised her friend she would stay.
Kera held Blaze tighter and fell back onto the bed. “Because of you, I lied to Dylan.”
It was a depressing thought, and no amount of justification made her feel better. She blinked back a sudden rush of emotion and sniffed, filling her nose with a mix of earthy odors. She should change her clothes. Wash the dirt away. But she was so tired. Blaze snuggled onto her chest, and she ran her finger from the protruding knobs atop his head to the spiny tip of his tail. “Was no one willing to befriend you?”
The dragon snorted a puff of acrid smoke as if insulted by the idea. He flopped into the space between her arm and her body and tucked his head beneath her arm. He was better than a warming pan on a cold winter night, and all too soon, Kera dozed off.
Sometime during the night, the bed creaked. It wasn’t a normal creak; it warned of someone heavy sitting down. At the sound, Kera was instantly awake. She lay on her bed, fully dressed, having passed out without changing. Even her shoes were still on. A heavy lump shifted by her feet and the bed creaked again. No one, not even Dylan, would have come into her room without knocking first. With eyes still closed and her breathing steady, she inched her hand toward her dagger.
Her fingers slipped around the hilt and eased it into her palm. The body heat from whoever was on her bed grew. It took all her willpower to stay calm.
She took a deep breath, gathered her courage, and bolted upright, throwing the covers away and holding the dagger in front of her, ready to defend herself from whoever was in her room. A deep rumble of alarm sounded. The boards supporting the mattress suddenly gave way and the mattress bumped to the floor. Kera rolled backward and landed against the headboard, her body weight the only thing keeping it from crashing forward.
Wide-eyed, she stared at the end of her bed. The sheets she’d tossed off covered a shifting bulk. It shook like a dog discharging water from its fur, and the sheets fell away revealing Blaze, crouched at the foot of her now-destroyed bed. During the night, he’d grown three times his size.
“You’re…huge.”
Stating the obvious didn’t make her feel less panicked. Someone had to have heard the bed collapse. Kera scrambled over to Blaze and ordered him off. The stubborn dragon only blinked his amber-eyed stare.
“I’m serious. Off.” She pushed.
He snapped at her hand.
She smacked his nose.
He glared and his chest started to expand.
“Do not dare spit fire at me,” she said, pointing her finger at him. “If you do, I’ll never speak to you again.”
The dragon’s chest slowly deflated and he gingerly moved off the mattress, bumping into the dresser as he struggled to find room to move. Kera ignored him and concentrated on the bed. Drawing on her new powers, she waved her hand and the bed shuffled back together, as good as new.
A knock sounded on the door, and Dylan’s grandmother’s voice called out softly, “Kera? Is everything all right? We heard a loud noise.”
A deep rumble rolled out of Blaze. Kera launched across the room and put her hand on his muzzle to quiet him. “I’m terribly sorry. I fell.”
She grew up lying to everyone around her on a daily basis, so why was she so surprised when the lie slipped out so easily? “Off the bed. I was dreaming. I’m fine now. Just a little bump. Really.” She winced, frustrated at her babbling.
From the other side of the door, she heard Dylan’s muffled voice and then his Grandma whisper, “I don’t know.”
“Someone’s in there with her.”
How could he possibly know that? That he sounded so positive caused a rush of guilt to flush her cheeks.
Dylan’s knock was quick and loud. “Kera? Let me in.”
“I’m fine, Dylan. I promise.”
“Then open the door.”
“I’m not presentable.” Which was true. If she opened the door dressed like she was, he’d know something was up.
The knob rattled. She could feel his frustration climb. Dylan wasn’t used to being denied.
“Dylan, she says she’s fine,” his grandma said.
Kera let out a sigh. As long as his grandmother was there, he’d stay out.
“She’s not fine. I can feel her stress.”
He wasn’t wrong there. Hiding Blaze would take a miracle.
He knocked harder. “Open the door. Now, Kera.”
“Thinking you will barge in is causing me stress. I’m fine.” Kera took a deep breath, enclosing her feelings the way she had learned to do when she was a child.
“You want me to believe you? Open the door.”
“Let me get my robe.” She quickly kicked off her shoes, yanked her legs free of her pants, and shrugged out of her shirt. She scurried past Blaze to the closet, where she found her robe. As she slipped it on, she nudged Blaze toward the window. “Listen to me,” she whispered urgently to the dragon as she threw the window open. “Outside. Now.”
Dylan jiggled the doorknob. “Come on, Kera. Stop messing around. You’ve been acting strange lately. What’s going on?”
“Please, one moment longer,” she yelled over her shoulder.
“Out,” she hissed to the dragon as she loaded his front feet onto the windowsill.
The window was wide, but Blaze’s shoulders caught on the edges. No matter how hard she pushed, Blaze wouldn’t fit. Blaze gurgled unpleasantly in his throat just as Dylan banged on the door again.
She held out her glowing hand and the opening widened. Blaze slipped free, clambering up the side of the house and onto the roof, surprisingly light on his feet for a dragon.
“Kera! I’m not kidding.” He pounded so hard, it sounded like his fist would punch through the door.
Kera readjusted the window and shoved it closed. Fanning her hot face, she rushed to the door. After taking a deep breath, she unlocked it and threw it open, her hands settling on her hips and anger in her voice. “Why are you so insistent on seeing me? I told you I was well.”
Grandma peered around them for a quick peek. “Gracious, Dylan. You had me thinking…well, I don’t know what.” She laid her hand on Kera’s arm and squeezed lightly. “’Night, sweetie.” She passed a stern look over Dylan. “Say your good-nights and get back to bed.”
“Good night,” Kera sweetly said after the woman’s retreating form.
Dylan moved closer. “Don’t play with me. I felt your fear.” He glared behind her, his suspicions growing by the second. “You’ve been hiding something from me and I want to know what it is.”
“I’m not hiding anything.” His demands were starting to do more than irritate her. “Look for yourself.”
He grabbed her hand and pushed up the robe’s sleeve. “No bruises?”
She yanked her arm away. “Stop it!”
“I have the right to know what’s going on.”
“Not over me you don’t.”
“Especially over you. Do you think I can’t tell something’s different?”
“I told you I was. So are you. It’s the magic you stole from Navar. It’s—”
“Stop blaming me.” He didn’t yell; the words rumbled from deep within his chest, which scared her all the more. His jaw hardened, and his body rippled with tension. “Whatever is happening, it’s not my fault and I’m sick of you thinking it is.”
“I never said it was,” she said.
His lips pulled back, exposin
g a harsh line of teeth as he gritted out, “You didn’t have to.”
Beneath his T-shirt, the outline of his silver brand started to glow. His fists curled at his sides, and wisps of smoke seeped through his fingers.
Kera’s gaze locked on his fists and she backed away. “What are you doing?”
His breathing had gone ragged. He closed his eyes. “Be still. Just be still.”
She immediately stopped moving. He was losing control and all she could do was watch.
He had every reason to be angry. She was lying to him, and it made her sick to her stomach. Guilt softened her voice to a whisper. “I’m sorry, Dylan. Whatever is happening, I’m sorry.”
A full minute passed. Seeing him struggle to gain control hurt her as much as it did him. This wasn’t Dylan. Hearing his labored breathing and feeling the heat of his anger sweep the room finally convinced her. Navar’s dark nature had infected them, and it was only a matter of time before she lost control, too.
She felt a touch to her arm. Looking up, she saw Dylan, now calm. Shame clouded his eyes and softened his lips. “I promised you I wouldn’t lose control, but I almost did. I don’t know what’s happening,” he admitted. “I could’ve burned the house down.”
“Never.” She wrapped her arms around him, fitting her body to his. Dylan, her Dylan, was back. She hugged him close, pressing her cheek to his chest. “Please believe me. All I want is for us to be happy.”
He sighed, the last of his tension melting away, and kissed the top of her head. “I could’ve sworn you were in trouble.” Confusion seeped into his words. “The feeling woke me from a sound sleep.”
She rubbed her cheek against his chest. “Don’t—”
Something long and scaly whipped past the window. Dylan stiffened. “What was that?”
The movement was fast. Still, Kera knew a dragon tail when she saw one. Rising on her tiptoes, she took his face in her hands and pressed her lips to his. When she felt him yield, felt his arms tighten, she placed soft kisses across his cheek to his ear. “I’m sorry I frightened you. It was only a bad dream.”
