by J. K Harper
“Holy hell,” she whispered, her breath hitching a little.
“Real beauty, isn’t it,” Ares said, his voice a bit wistful as he drove up to the building.
“The architecture is gorgeous,” she said breathily, leaning forward to get a better look.
It was a flat-roofed three-story building, all tasteful marble columns and granite awnings, ghostly-gray finishing and plenty of windows. It looked like something out of a legitimate scary movie, with the obvious signs of disrepair and the forgotten nature of the location.
Yet, something about it struck Sabrina as odd. It was all a little … too perfect. Like someone had wanted it to look so picture-book creepy. She frowned slightly at the thought but was distracted by Ares’s laugh.
“I was talking about the mountain but sure thing. Snarling Dragon Mountain is one of the few areas around Shifter Grove that’s owned by someone we don’t know. I think this place is teeming with gold, but I can’t check, because the owners of the land have been adamant that it should remain untouched. We don’t even know who they are because the ownership is locked behind an endless row of corporations and business entities. No idea about the house, though. Never really looked into it.”
Ares pursed his lips slightly, stopping the car in front of the wide, sloping steps that led up to the main door.
“You know, I don’t think it’s quite right to leave someone alone in a place like this, but if you promise you’ve got your gear checked and you’re adamant about doing this, I’ll make a deal with you. Interested?”
“I’m listening,” Sabrina said, nodding.
“Okay. I’ll leave you alone here tonight, but I’ll have some of my boys bring up a car and some supplies tomorrow, so you can come down whenever you want. Just leave the truck with Austin if you can’t find me. I have a couple of mines around here and I’m always on the move. Trust me, the drive down is a lot less scary when the sun’s out,” he said with a wink.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Sabrina replied, swallowing dryly. “But that sounds great. I can’t thank you enough. Everyone’s so … nice here!”
“Takes some getting used to, doesn’t it,” Ares said with a lopsided grin.
“You could say that again.”
“Well, alright. I’ll leave you to your daring adventure. I hope you overcome whatever fears you’re combating,” Ares said, giving a long look at the manor. “Though I’m not entirely sure if I’d be as brave as you are.”
“It’s nothing,” Sabrina said, trying to sound way braver than she was. “It’s just a house. What could it do to me, right?”
* * *
“‘It’s just a house’ she said, ‘what could it do to me’,” Sabrina quoted herself, gritting her teeth at her own flailing sense of sanity as she sat in the great hall on the first floor of Snarling Dragon Manor, wrapped up in her sleeping bag and shivering from a combination of nerves and good old-fashioned cold.
She only had a small petroleum stove with her—it was nowhere near enough to keep warm. All she could do was make tea and coffee from the rations she’d brought with her and count the minutes. Her grand plan had included reading books to pass the time while she fell asleep in her well-insulated sleeping bag, but she’d given up on that idea after the first two pages.
For some reason, her past self had thought it to be a grand plan to only load her Kindle with horror books and dark romance, neither of which were particularly befitting for the occasion.
You are not a smart woman, Sabrina, she told herself with a sigh, fishing out her phone once more and checking the time.
It was getting close to midnight, and she knew it was only going to get chillier. Though by now, she was getting the very real feeling that half her cold was from the fear wracking her body instead of the temperature.
Shoving the phone back in the folds of her clothes, Sabrina resigned herself to the situation. There was no cell reception so she couldn’t call Kace and Jessie—gloating to them that she had actually managed to go through with it would have lightened her spirits at least a little. She hadn’t dared walk through the creepy house and had set up camp in the first room off the main hall, which, while somewhat dusty, was still impeccably kept.
When she’d driven up to the house, she’d spotted a few cracked windows, but they almost felt like more for show than the result of vandalism. She’d noticed some semi-fresh tire tracks when heading up the mountain, and going by what Ares had said, no one really came up here much. It was all a tiny bit peculiar.
She was about to make herself another cup of coffee and worry about how she was going to last until morning, when an odd creaking sound made her freeze in place. Her hazel eyes searched around nervously, though she knew that she was alone in the large, high-ceilinged room.
It was as if her heart skipped a few beats waiting for more sounds, and when another creaking, moaning noise stuttered through the building, Sabrina couldn’t help but squeal. She covered her mouth with her hand, the shadows the petroleum hearth cast around itself making everything seem stretched out, skinny and scary.
So not a smart woman.
Silence settled once more, with only the demanding sounds of rain thrumming against the walls and windows keeping her company. Slowly, Sabrina considered her options. She could stay there, afraid of every little noise, or she could get her flashlight, scour the house and make herself see that there was nothing to be afraid of.
But the latter option required her to actually go and explore the creepy house with a dozen eerie stories written about it. Another crackle rumbled through the corridors, and Sabrina brought the sleeping bag way up to her nose.
This is ridiculous. You’re ridiculous.
“I’m not afraid of you!” she called out, hearing her voice echo back at her.
She wasn’t entirely sure who she was saying that to, but it made her feel a little bit better.
“Right. I’m coming now!” Sabrina said, uncurling herself from her sleeping bag and grabbing her flashlight.
She turned it on and scoped around, revealing what she already knew—the room was empty, and it must have once been used as a ballroom or a great dining room. There were spots on the walls that must have once kept fine paintings and the hardwood floor was impeccable. Everything was like out of a fairytale, but for some reason, tucked away in a place no one could easily find in the Idaho mountains.
Peculiar.
Conquering your fears. That’s what this was all supposed to be about, right?
Sabrina steeled herself and ventured forth, going back into the main hall she had used to enter the building. She scaled the stairs to the higher floors and went through the rooms one by one, her hand shaking a little bit less at each doorknob. At no point was she faced with ghosts or ghouls or the undead coming to claim her soul and steal her spirit.
Instead, she found impeccably designed rooms, nooks and crannies that made her imagination run wild. By the time she was back on the first floor, the house didn’t seem scary at all, save for the sudden, low, grumbling noises that sometimes passed through it, making her stop in her tracks each time. Curiosity took the place of fear, and she wandered around with an eager mind now, making up stories in her head about who might have once lived there.
Kace and Jessie had stumbled on a description of the house by accident when scouring the web for haunted places in the US. There were at least five different, well-written accounts of ghastly deeds and terrible sightings that had taken place at Snarling Dragon Manor, but curiously enough, none of them had a name attached. Usually, people who loved hunting through haunted houses like this one would post their discoveries on forums, but it seemed like no one had ever come to Snarling Dragon Manor.
It was too hard to reach, too far … too scary, maybe.
It all meant that it had been deemed as the perfect location for Sabrina to get over her fears in good company, but of course, the company had never shown up. And here she was, sneaking through an abandoned mansion, looking for
ghosts and monsters.
Where is that damn noise coming from, she wondered with a frown, her footsteps tapping on the stone-paved floor of the entrance hall.
Instead of going back to the room she had settled in—though she was considering moving since she’d found a few better, smaller ones that might make it easier to keep warm—she went the other way. Soon enough, Sabrina found herself in what must have been a kitchen once, fit for at least four cooks, with giant stovetops and brass piping.
Once more, she heard that odd noise, a mix of thunder and an earthquake and something even more robust than that, seeming to come from behind a door leading out of the kitchen.
I bet it’s just a broken blind or something, getting smacked around by the storm, Sabrina told herself, trying to rationalize her way out of her irrational fears.
She stepped closer to the door and only hesitated for a moment before pulling it open, the roaring storm tossing trees around outside and slamming raindrops against the windows. She’d expected to find a storage room, a pantry, but instead she found herself staring down a torch-lit stone stairway, winding down into the guts of the manor.
Oh my God, I’m going to get eaten by a grue, Sabrina thought, eyes wide with disbelief and fear.
And no one could have been more surprised than Sabrina when she actually took a step inside and let the door fall shut behind her, sealing her off from the rest of the manor.
Donovan
Donovan Silvertip never felt better than when there was a storm raging outside, the winds howling and the rain beating mercilessly upon the solid, stoic stone walls of his house and home. Sleep never seemed quite as sweet as when weather was the most horrific. It didn’t take much to realize why this was, of course.
Who would come to steal a dragon’s hoard when the weather was so foul that one couldn’t even make it up the mountain the dragon lived on?
His sleep was unperturbed and deep, slow breaths moving his massive form in the slightest ways as he rested upon his hoard. The matte-black dragon with long horns sprouting from his head and neck, each one tipped with silver as was his name, and with leathery, scaled wings tinted with the faintest of silver, seemed almost dwarfed by the glitter and glitz he lorded over. It seemed to go on endlessly around him, the piles of gold, jewels and occasional chests.
And it was all his.
What could make a dragon happier than a horrible evening and the safety of his wealth? Donovan certainly could not imagine a single thing.
His mind’s eye was pregnant with visions of gold and silver, of dark nights and good books, when something in the back of his head seemed to jab at him like a hot iron. Suddenly, the blissful sleep of the great beast was broken, and he awoke with a start and a snarl, rousing in the blink of an eye.
Considering his impossible size, one would have imagined the large black dragon to be of a lumbering sort, slow and unwieldy. This was the furthest thing from the truth. He was up on his feet immediately, his golden, slitted eyes pointed in the direction of the noise that had irritated him, the eternal dragonfire already swirling in the pit of his stomach.
As he laid his eyes on what had dared interrupt his slumber, ready to destroy any enemy, he found himself dumbfounded.
What in the name of seven ancestors…
For a moment that seemed to last forever, Donovan Silvertip, in his dragon form, and Sabrina Corrolie, in the only form she had—that of a shockingly sexy journalist—stared at one another. In the closest motion possible for a dragon, Donovan’s mouth fell slightly agape. Instead of being quite the comical sight it could have been, it drove Sabrina to a bellowing scream.
It scratched at Donovan’s ears and made something stir in him so violently that it very nearly floored him. Without realizing it, he must have given her a sight of the fire pluming in the back of his throat. With one breath, he could have reduced her to nothing but a smoking crisp, a husk of a person instead of the intoxicating being that stood before him.
Or, well, screamed before him.
Close enough.
She turned around, running back towards the high stone passageways that ran the length of the multiple chambers that housed the Silvertip family wealth. Donovan stood perfectly still for a moment longer, his reflexes failing him for the first time in his life. He was all puffed up, his wings half spread, the scales on his back pricking up in aggravation, and his pointed tail held high as if ready to strike.
Yet, all he wanted was to make sure that the divine little creature that ran from him was alright.
Wait! he projected out to her, sounding perhaps a might too forceful. Stop!
The way she screeched to a halt halfway through the second chamber was sign enough of that. The slithering, dark form of the epic beast moved forward, ducking under the passageways and moving to the smaller chamber that came before the one he had slept in. Despite his size, his movement was almost soundless, soft as a cat’s, except for the rumble and glimmer of the gold coins that fell as he shifted through his riches.
How did she get here without me hearing her, a ponderous thought rattled through him, but it was really the only time that his otherwise so ruthlessly rational self made an appearance.
The rest of him was thoroughly enthralled with the mouse that had wandered into his trap. A trap no one was ever supposed to have dared walk into.
Curiously, Donovan raised his head, the long neck arcing below the stone path, carved from the earth as was the rest of the chamber, to look at her.
“Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me, please don’t k–“ she stammered, her gorgeous hazel eyes wide with horror and her hands held up in front of her as if warding off some sort of ancient evil.
Well, that wasn’t too far from the truth.
One look at Donovan Silvertip was enough to send any sane being running for the proverbial hills. As luck would have it, this time, they were already in them. No reason to run any further.
I won’t kill you, he thought to her, using the rare skill of telepathy that all dragons possessed.
It would be a point of much contention with himself later, trying to figure out why he hadn’t just burned her up like he was supposed to with anyone who dared trespass on his property, or why he revealed his capabilities to her so easily.
His head was easily twice her size, and the slight silver glimmer at the tips of his horns seemed to catch the light of the dragonfire torches mounted on the walls particularly well at that angle. He caught her staring at different parts of his face almost as curiously as he was studying her, though she was shaking like a leaf.
“Promise?” she asked, still holding up her hands. “I’m not exactly sure what the M-O of dragon-human communications is. If Disney is to be trusted, you’re either going to lock me up in a tower or fry me to a crisp.”
I won’t do either, he promised, though Donovan was still disputing whether he was being truthful.
Locking her in a tower seemed far too fascinating of a possibility.
What are you thinking! Donovan chided himself, refocusing on the problem at hand.
For some reason, not only had someone managed to sneak into his mansion, they’d also found a way down to his lair and had gotten a look at his hoard. Really, the only reasonable way to solve this was to do just as she said—burn her into a fine pile of ash. No one would be the wiser. Twenty-first century or not, a dragon’s lair was still something sacred. Who could blame him?
Everyone. A woman like her, I bet she’d have friends and family searching for her immediately. Something would certainly lead them here.
Somehow, the mental image of a dragon versus the world standoff didn’t quite appeal to Donovan in the way it may have to some of his ancestors.
“Cross your heart and hope to … well, whatever it is that dragons do?” she asked, scowling a little.
It scrunched up her face in the cutest way and all of Donovan’s thoughts of untraceable murder were wiped from his mind once more. He practically cooed at her, which was
something no self-respecting dragon billionaire should have been doing.
We can still die, he offered, though it seemed to not really work as an icebreaker in this case.
Not that he could imagine many times in which it would.
What’s your name? he asked, finding himself enthralled with her lush features once more.
She was on the shorter side, maybe 5’4’’ at best, with lovely, long auburn curls that licked at her shoulders and those fascinating doe eyes he’d already noted before. Pale skin, made all the more evident because of the ghostly glow of the dragonfire, and plump, curvy features made her into a morsel he wouldn’t mind sampling.
Internally, it made Donovan both twist with fascination and simmer with worry. He’d long ago given up on the notion of finding someone who would interest him more than a good Poe novel, yet, here was a woman he could barely get his eyes off of.
You’ve simply been alone for too long and gotten soft, he reminded himself, steeling himself with some effort.
“Sabrina. And I’d really love it if you would get out of my head now,” she said, rubbing at her temples.
Apologies, Donovan offered with some surprise.
He hadn’t said sorry in a decade, if not more. The concept was damn near alien to him.
Sabrina, if you promise not to run, I will shift out of dragon form. Then, we can have a more civilized conversation. How does that sound?
“That sounds like it could work,” she said, nodding tentatively. “Let’s do that.”
Donovan noted the little twitch that ran through her form, one of anticipation or perhaps preparation. Though the predator in him told him to watch her closely, the man reminded him that he had made a deal, and he should bloody well honor it.
Good, he noted.
When he began his shift, it became immediately clear that it was the dragon who had been right. No sooner had the low, gray and silver shimmer of a dragon’s shift surrounded him than Sabrina took off running like a bat out of hell.
