The Dragon King and I

by Adrianne Brooks

  The Dragon King and I

  By: Adrianne Brooks

  Copyright © 2013 RascalHearts.com

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  For questions and comments about this book, please contact us at Info@RascalHearts.com

  Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

  - G.K. Chesterton

  “Ancient lovers believed a kiss would literally unite their souls, because the spirit was said to be carried in one’s breath.”

  -Eve Glicksman

  Prologue

  You know those stories that have the Princess stuck in a tower? Or the ones where the Princess—I’m not sure if it’s the same one or not—is about to get eaten by a dragon, or sacrificed to gods, or dismembered by a witch, or any number of other horrible things?

  She’s the ‘Damsel’.

  Her job, basically, is to get into trouble and then wait (beautiful and Princess-like) for the Prince to come save her.

  And honestly, let’s face it; he always comes to save her. Why wouldn’t he? As a Princess, pretty much the only thing you could possibly screw up is your looks, since everything else (wealth, fame, a nice house with a yard, a puppy, and prestigious parents) is already taken care of for you. But since most of the stories in which these paragons of womanly virtue appear are fairytales and not reality TV shows, there’s very little chance of there ever being such a thing as an ‘ugly’ princess. Five year-olds are vain, shallow, creatures and so are the adults reading them such chauvinistic drivel, and not a single part of the aforementioned audience is sympathetic towards the unattractive.

  So just to make sure we understand our lessons for the day:

  Pretty= Princess

  Princess =Damsel

  Damsel= Distress

  Which means:

  Damsel + Distress/Princess =Knight in shining armor (+/-) a Prince.

  Everyone on the same page?

  Good.

  Welcome to my hell.

  Chapter One

  “I don’t do damsel in distress very well. It’s hard for me to play a victim.”

  - Scarlett Johansson

  “Do you need some help, Miss?”

  I glanced up, automatically irritated once the words ‘help’ and ‘miss’ reached my ears through the heavy pounding of the rain. Looking over the book in my hand I shook my head before ducking back behind the protective pages, my yellow umbrella twirling unhappily as I palmed the handle and tried to figure out how fast I could change my grip and swing it like a baseball bat into Mr. Helpful’s gut.

  “Are you sure, Miss? That seems like an awful lot for a tiny thing like you to carry around.”

  It was only a book bag. A see-through one at that. The suckers couldn’t hold much without snapping under the strain.

  “He’s right, Ma’am.”

  Oh, crap.

  “You could hurt yourself. So why don’t you go on and let the nice man carry your bag for you and I’ll…I’ll take your book.”

  “I’ll hold your umbrella!”

  A third one. Young. Long legs.

  Could possibly catch me should I decide to make an out and out run for it.

  So crowd control it was.

  I peeked over the edge of my book, narrowed my eyes on the Pack slowly forming before me, and darted a hopeful glance at the light. I blinked, I stared, I prayed, and I tapped my foot for good measure.

  A little green stickman appeared where once a glowing red hand had presided and with a little jolt of inward joy, I pushed myself through the crowd of men and hurried across the street. As I moved I slipped the book into the roomy recesses of my midnight blue overcoat and snapped my umbrella closed. I slid the now-compact cylinder into the same pocket and ducked my head, weaving back and forth through the mob that was Wednesday morning foot traffic. The more men I passed the more heads began to turn in my direction.

  Soon, it wasn’t just a few men following me, but an entire block’s worth of hopeful young knights. Fear, an emotion that was beginning to make a more frequent appearance as my curse grew stronger, began to niggle its way through my gut. Against my better judgment I found my steps increasing and my breath started to come in frightened little pants that made me feel weak and hunted. I hated this part of the day. It almost made me wish that I wasn’t too pigheaded to stay locked up in my apartment on a 24-hour basis.

  My weaving through the people around me became more frantic and less graceful and my shoulder struck a woman I passed with enough force to shake the umbrella in my pocket loose. I considered stopping for it, looked over my shoulder only to see a sea of glazed eyes, and decided that I didn’t really like it all that much, after all.

  Finally, I made it to empty sidewalk on the other side of the street. I was ready to abandon pride and sprint the rest of the way home, but that was when I heard it. The scream of tires on wet pavement had me turning around, curiosity naturally overcoming my sense of self-preservation.

  What I saw made my blood run cold. The light had turned green, but one of the men who’d been following me had darted back into the street to capture my dinky little umbrella. The one an ancient little man had once given me for free during my one and only trip into Chinatown. I wouldn’t have minded walking the rest of the way home in the rain, but he hadn’t known that. And what really made me sick was that I couldn’t be sure whether or not he’d gone for it out of the goodness of his heart, or if my curse had forced his hand.

  It really didn’t matter either way. He still died.

  It was over all too quickly, really. Three decades worth of life condensed down to the harsh squeal of a tires and an agonized cry. Then it was done and there was only cold rain and warm blood.

  I stood there, droplets plastering my hair to my face and dropped my book bag on the ground. The wet snap of my coat in the wind was the only thing that really penetrated my mind. Everything else seemed far away. Too far away. I let my eyes travel over the mangled corpse in the road and noted in a detached sort of way that the only people swarming around the stranger’s body were female.

  Every male in the area was hovering around me. Their voices like the roar of some great beast as they hounded me with their questions and concerns. The driver of the car got out and I saw the way his gaze widened in horror at the body, before my scent hit him and he turned his attention immediately to me.

  This isn’t right. I thought as three men began to fight amongst themselves in an effort to pick up my discarded bag, This can’t be happening. This isn’t right. The words kept circling over and over in my head. I could feel my heart like a trapped bird fighting against the prison of my chest. I was fear trapped in brittle flesh.

  This can’t be happening. It isn’t right. It isn’t—

  That was the last thing I remembered. Anything after that was just darkness and a sea of helpful hands.

  * * * *

  “You have to at least try, Alexandria.”

  “I am trying.”

  Nurse Ratchet looked at me like I was a moron and shook her head in disgust.

  “Trying would imply that you were actually making an effort. You’ve been in this room for over a month now. You stopped going to class.”

  “I take my classes online.”

  “You stopped going to work.”

  “My mother’s rich.”

  “And you stopped cleaning up
after yourself.” I didn’t have a comeback for that one so I just shrugged. Despite the thinly veiled disgust in her voice she couldn’t seem to stop herself from picking at the ever growing pile of trash that was slowly taking over my apartment. I knew the mess irritated her, but she’d been a menace these last few days. This is why I felt no compunction about dropping my empty soda bottle onto the floor and watching the muscles in her jaw tighten.

  She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and her upper lip curled. “You’re a pig, you know that?”

  “I’ve had my suspicions.”

  Shaking her head once again, Rachel threw herself into her task with a vengeance. I couldn’t help but feel a surge of affection as I watched my oldest (and only) friend putter around like a Disney Princess on speed. She didn’t have an army of forest creatures to help her sweep the grime and grit away, but then again she didn’t need them. It was like magic, watching her work. All too soon the chaos that I’d spent weeks cultivating once again resembled a space fit for mixed company.

  Meanwhile, I amused myself by flipping through the channels on my television. I’m not sure why I bothered exactly. I knew what I’d find since channel surfing had sort of become a hobby of mine. I wasn’t searching for anything new. Just trying to drown out the sound of Rachel’s nagging.

  “You always do the same thing. When are you ever going to learn? You can’t lock yourself away every time—” the hesitation that followed was telling. My fingers paused over the channel button and I swallowed hard before speaking.

  “Every time I kill someone?”

  Instantly contrite, she set the broom aside and perched beside me on the arm of the couch.

  “Hun, that was an accident. You can’t blame yourself for every bad thing that happens.”

  My laughter was bitter, “I can when it’s my fault.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You didn’t push him in front of that car, Alex.”

  “I may as well have.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s really hard to make you feel better when you shoot down everything I say.”

  “What can I say? It’s a gift.”

  With a sound of annoyance she hit me in the shoulder and got back to her feet. Despite my fervent wishes to the contrary, she didn’t seem inclined to drop the subject.

  “Look, I promised your mom I’d get you off the couch and back to being a productive member of society.” Wrinkling my nose I buried my face in the throw pillow I’d been using as a cuddle partner and tried to think of humane ways in which to kill my best friend.

  “Why would you do that?” The words were muffled but I’m sure she was getting the gist of things. “Why would you promise my mother anything? She’s psychotic.”

  To my mother a promise was a promise and the phrase ‘liar liar pants on fire’ wasn’t just an analogy about the merits of telling the truth. It was a guideline to be closely adhered to.

  Just ask ex-husband number four.

  Oh, ho, ho. I forgot. He was dead. Just like the rest of them. It was a glaring defect in the judicial system that the woman hadn’t been incarcerated yet.

  With that in mind, by not getting off the couch and helping Rachel fulfill her promise I was basically sentencing her to some nasty repercussions. I was tempted to let her reap what she sowed, but when I finally glanced up from the purple fluffy goodness of my pillow I saw her looking at me in what could only be described as desperation.

  “We were worried about you.” Rachel replied, with just the right amount of reprisal in her tone. “She knew you wouldn’t listen to her and a promise was the only way to stop her from sending in masked men with tranquilizer guns and smoke bombs.”

  We both fell silent as memories of my eighth grade homecoming replayed across our minds in HD and stereo surround sound. With a shiver I allowed the flashbacks to fade and watched as Rachel did the same.

  “I get that your intentions were good.” I told her, trying hard to find patience and failing miserably. “But I can’t go back out there. I can’t….” squealing tires and the red, red, flash of blood tease me with the promise of yet another sleepless night. “I can’t go through something like that again. And it will happen again. Things are getting worse.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Are we really still on that? Come on, Alex. There’s no such thing as curses. And even if there were, who the hell would consider being the female equivalent of Justin Bieber a curse? If you’re whining about the world being your stage and every male on it your thirteen-year-old fan girl, then my sympathy level just dropped exponentially.”

  Now it was my turn to do some head shaking. “You’re a ridiculous human being.”

  “And you’re a martyr.” Finishing with her latest project (my dirty dishes) she once again wandered over to sit beside me. Snatching the remote away she turned off the television and sighing, I took the hint and turned so that we were facing one another.

  “You can’t make me leave.”

  “True,” she conceded, “but your mother can.”

  I winced.

  “In the spirit of avoiding her intervention,” she continued, “I brought you a little something.”

  Reaching into her back pocket she pulled forth a gold-embossed business card. On it, a woman in a robe with long dark hair held her hands up on either side of her head. Her face was a mask of concentration and what looked to be a third eye rested on her forehead. Above her was the name and number of a….

  I snorted.

  “A psychic medium? You got me a tacky business card from a psychic medium?”

  Offended now, Rachel snatched the card from me and held it to her chest as if to protect it from my censure.

  “Now, now. There’s no need to be nasty. Madam Clara happens to be very exclusive. Usually you’d have to book a month in advance just to get a reading with her.” And here, the smugness began to creep in, “Luckily for you, I have connections.”

  Which probably meant that she was sleeping with someone who had connections. I was mentally going through her current list of beaus to see if I could tell which one would be most likely to play secretary for a psychic when what she said finally clicked.

  “Wait. What do you mean ‘luckily for me’?

  “You’re supposed to see her Friday.”

  “I’m not sure I like the prize behind door number one.”

  “Don’t be a bitch. You think you’re cursed right? Who better to lift a curse than a psychic?”

  “A witch, maybe?”

  “Whatever. Talking to her won’t hurt anything. She may even be able to help. And as an added bonus it fulfills my promise to your mother by getting you out of the house for a while. You get some peace of mind. I don’t die. Badda Bing Badda Boom, we all live happily ever after.”

  “Badda Bing Badda Boom? Who still says that?”

  Finally losing patience with me, Rachel flicked the business card at my face. “Are you going to go or not?”

  That business card was such a small thing. Pretty, yeah, but small and deceptively simple. I looked at it for a long moment and something about that robed woman had me nodding my head in feigned nonchalance.

  “Sure. Why not? My life already sucks, so it’s not like I can sink much lower right?”

  For the first time since busting (uninvited) into my apartment at 8:00 am, Rachel Montgomery smiled at me. “Now there’s the glass-half-empty mentality I know and love.”

  I ducked my head, but couldn’t hide the answering grin that stole across my face.

  * * * *

  I’d done my fair share of research into my condition and had never been able to classify it as anything other than a curse. I was majoring in English with a minor in medieval studies so pretty much my entire life had been taken over by this…condition of mine. It started when I was three years old. I know, because one of my first memories was of ensnaring the young man who came to our estate to tutor me on important things like my al
phabet and the memorization of my name and address.

  I’d completely given up the overly complicated task he’d given me (which consisted of coloring within the lines if my mother’s account of events was to be believed) and had begun crying as children that young are prone to do. The man, Harold, had been beside himself. He’d gone out of his way to make me feel better, his antics becoming increasingly outrageous, not to mention, dangerous, because it seemed to distract me from my upset.

  The part that blazes in my mind, the event that I remember firsthand rather than through the numerous retellings of those who’d been adults at the time, is when he stood up on the railing of our fourth floor balcony, and began to perform upon it like an acrobat. This, more than the funny faces, and his slap-stick comedy inspired skits, had captured my complete and undivided attention. I hadn’t been old enough to be afraid for him. Not for his life anyway. I knew that he’d be in terrible trouble if his mommy ever caught him climbing on things that way, but these concerns were shoved right out of my head when he began to flip. End over end, his hands and feet moving like magic over the thin railing, his balance impeccable.

  I’d begun clapping, laughing, because I was just so…happy. Then he looked me in the eye and the normally brown orbs had been bleached out. It was as if his iris had exploded like some miniature bomb, so that he stared at me, but did not see me.

  In later years I came to recognize the signs. The mindless way he behaved, as if his only purpose was to please me, and everything else, including his own life was inconsequential. The white eyes usually occurred when the curse had taken over someone completely. It happened rarely, but in the instances when it did it was unforgettable.

  That day, when I realized that something was wrong with his eyes, I screamed. Even as I watched, the brown began to form again. A flower coming back to life. And with awareness came fear, and then my tutor’s once-impeccable balance deserted him, and he slipped.

  Then he fell.