Tempt the Dragon

by A. C. Arthur

  “Lying to yourself is never helpful. I know, I did it for three hundred years.”

  There was truth to Theo’s words. He’d denied his heritage to the throne, but in all fairness that was done because his father was possessed by a dark spirit. At any rate, he could relate to what Theo was saying. What he still couldn’t grasp was the fact that Mel was lying in the hotel room bed, paralyzed from the neck down because of poison in Duncan’s nails that broke the skin of her neck.

  “She was doing just fine without being a Drakon. Hunting, collecting her fees, she was making a good living and had a life she was happy with. Then I show up again and start poking holes in it. Why? Because being a Drakon is so fuckin’ fantastic!” Because he’d raised his tone and it made him feel as if he were losing control, he pushed away from the wall where he’d been leaning and walked in the opposite direction of the room and Theo.

  “You wanna know the really messed up part about this?” He continued talking as if he’d known all along Theo would follow him and this conversation. “It’s that I’m the last one to be bragging about how good it is to be a Drakon. I walked away from it all, man. I never told you that, but I did.” He stopped and dragged his hands down his face. Turning around to look Theo in the eye, he let out a sigh. “I was one of the Drakon who went rogue under your father’s rule. I killed other Drakon who’d been following the orders to attack any and everyone they wanted.”

  Shaking his head, he quietly admitted to mistakenly killing children.

  “That’s when I knew I was too far gone to ever look my family in the eye again, or to serve on the Nobility. So I left and never looked back.”

  Theo didn’t respond.

  “Now, if I can do that, I’ve got no business telling anybody they should cling to their Drakon roots.”

  “You absolutely do,” Theo interjected. “Because it’s those actions that you took that are the epitome of what we are, what we should’ve been before my father was possessed. Our purpose is to protect. We were created bigger and stronger for a reason. You did what we were taught to do. As for the children, they were a mistake. That’s not who or what you are and you know it.”

  “No.” He couldn’t agree. “I could’ve handled things differently. I could’ve turned them over to the Nobility.”

  “And because my father wasn’t thinking like himself, those Drakon would’ve been set free and they would’ve no doubt continued to kill. Listen.” Theo held out a hand when he was about to speak again. “I get it. I ran away too and I’m telling you right here and now, you have nothing to feel guilty about. Not in killing those Drakon or in what happened to Mel. She made a choice and because of that choice we were able to capture Duncan before he could get away. She’ll be able to turn him over to the Collectors when we return and collect her fee.”

  “She can’t walk!” The words burst free, his chest burning with the truth.

  “Ravyn’s going to fix it. Duncan said Temptra did something to him when he was here on the sabbatical a few months ago. She made him drink something she said would enhance his powers. One of the Schenek who finally listened to Ravyn when she told them we were the good guys is working with her to find a potion to reverse the effects of the poison. She’s going to be alright.”

  “And I’m going to let her go.”

  “What?”

  “She wants to go and be with her mother, to help her through a medical crisis. The money from her fee will make it possible to do that. I’m not going to pressure her about coming back here, about the Selection process, none of it.” He’d thought about this as he rode in the back of a Jeep with her still body on his lap. Tears rolled from her eyes part of the way, until she finally closed them in sleep. For a moment his heart had jolted to a stop but then he saw the pulse in her neck and calmed as much as he could. She deserved to live the life she wanted, not the one he had once insisted was preordained for her.

  “You know that’s the coward’s way out,” Theo said evenly.

  He shrugged. “It worked once. I’m betting it’ll work again.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Miami

  April

  Today was the day. Rosilda was coming home from the rehabilitation center. Mel’s fee for turning Duncan over to the Collectors had covered the testing and transplant surgery Rosilda received at the hospital. It also paid for the rehabilitation center, while leaving some left over for Rosilda’s continued care and daily household expenses. Mel parked the car in the driveway of the house where she’d grown up. She got out and with her neighbor, Mr. Beaumont’s help, they walked Rosilda into the house.

  “I told both of you I don’t need all this fussing.” Rosilda talked and walked, keeping her hands steady on the walker she detested.

  “No need being sassy, Rose,” Mr. Beaumont crooned as Mel unlocked the door and they walked inside.

  She’d hired a housekeeper to come in and clean the house from top to bottom last week when the occupational therapist told her Rosilda would be coming home today. “We’re just going to get you inside and settled in and then I’ll start dinner.”

  “You don’t cook,” Rosilda quipped.

  She accepted that jibe and decided to let it slide like she did whenever Rosilda asked her about what happened in the Congo, specifically what happened with Aiken.

  “I promise whatever I cook won’t send you back to the hospital.” She couldn’t stand sleeping on another rock-hard couch while worry encompassed her every thought.

  “They don’t want her back in the hospital with her sour attitude,” Mr. Beaumont added as he closed the front door.

  “I don’t have a sour attitude, just don’t have patience with people flittin’ around me all the time when I can do for myself.” The look she tossed over to Mel meant she was also referring to her.

  Mel didn’t care. She’d lived with this attitude for longer than Mr. Beaumont had been living and thanks to a successful transplant and recovery, she was now more than likely going to live with it a while longer. “Well, you can rest assured, I’m only going to be waiting on you a little while longer. Once the home nurse starts her visits next week I’m going back to work.”

  “Oh really?” She wanted to ask more, Mel could tell, but Mr. Beaumont was a human and she didn’t dare speak of preternatural things in front of him.

  “You cooking enough for three?” he asked.

  Mel smiled. “I sure am.”

  Rosilda frowned.

  Three and a half hours, Italian cold cuts, plain chips, root beer soda, a frozen apple pie and half a dozen episodes of Golden Girls later, Mr. Beaumont left for the night. Rosilda made her way into the en suite bathroom in her bedroom and slammed the door. Mel dropped down in the recliner near the window and waited.

  A few minutes later Rosilda returned, giving a fake look of surprise. “Oh, you still here? I would’ve thought you’d run to your room like you used to do when you were younger and didn’t want to talk about whatever was in your head.”

  She had to admit Rosilda was moving better. Even as she put the walker in front of her a measured step before walking into it, the way the therapist had taught her, Mel could see that her legs were no longer wobbling when she did so. Her arms were steady as they guided the walker and she was standing straight up, contrary to the hunched over position she’d been in when she first went into the rehab hospital. Having one organ transplant was tough on a body, and a double transplant was almost debilitating. But Rosilda was a trooper and the shifter blood mixed in her DNA probably increased her chances of a complete healing. As it was, her mixed heritage had been what kept her alive for so long. The shifter part of her had healed her ailments over and over through the years, until it couldn’t heal completely this time, hence the need for surgery.

  “There’s nothing going through my mind, but I’m guessing there’s something going through yours. So I’m going to sit he
re and let you get it all out of your system.” Because if she didn’t, Rosilda would simply keep on dropping her not so subtle hints forevermore, and that was the very last thing Mel needed. She couldn’t get over him with Rosilda constantly bringing him up, so yes, it was better to get this over with once and for all.

  “Don’t act like you’re doing me a favor, missy.” Now she was talking to Mel as if she really were back in her childhood days. Whenever she’d stepped out of line and Rosilda had to chastise her, it was started by using the name “Missy,” as if Mel were acting more grown than she was.

  Mel went to the bed and took the walker away when Rosilda sat on the side. She’d pulled the blanket and sheets down while Rosilda was in the bathroom. Now, watching the woman who meant the world to her lay back against the pillows, she gingerly pulled the blanket and sheets up to cover her body. She resisted the urge to lean down and kiss Rosilda’s weathered cheek the way she’d done each night in the hospital, because the woman was currently scowling at her.

  Returning to the recliner, she sat and waited. It wouldn’t take too long.

  “You wanna know why your parents sent you here and then went home to die?”

  The question had Mel sitting forward to stare over at Rosilda with what she knew was a shocked expression. “What did you just say?”

  “All these years, you never asked me if I knew why they left you. You asked why you weren’t like everyone else and I gave you the best answers I had, but you never asked that one question. I figured you’d made your peace with it. But I should’ve known you hadn’t really made peace with it at all. You just pushed it aside and carried on, just like you’ve been doing these past eight weeks that I’ve been laid up,” Rosilda said.

  “First, let’s be clear, I’ve been here these last eight weeks because there’s no other place I’d rather be. You raised me when I had nobody. I wasn’t about to leave you alone.”

  “And for that I thank you. But that’s not the only reason you’re here.”

  Slapping her hands on her thighs she couldn’t help but say, “Well, now I think you’re skating along the lines of sounding ungrateful. I’m here because I love you, Rosilda. You’re the mother I never had.”

  “But that’s just it, missy. You did have a mother and she loved you. So did your daddy. They had to bring you here or you would’ve been killed too. They’d made enemies on the Far Realm, enemies they knew would come back to haunt them, and they weren’t willing to let you pay for their transgressions.”

  She took a deep breath, letting it out as slowly as she possibly could without fainting. So her parents had loved her and they had wanted her. That was all well and good. Now she could get back to her life.

  “You’re sitting over there right now telling yourself it doesn’t matter, when you know good and well it does. Every decision, every move you’ve made in your life has been led by the assumption that your parents didn’t want you. That somehow you weren’t good enough for them.”

  She interrupted Rosilda. “Apparently I wasn’t good enough to teach about being a Drakon.”

  “You were six when I got the message from a Drakon in a neighboring clan that you were in that foster home. But you were four when they died. At four years old you wouldn’t remember if they’d told you about dragons or snakes living in the belly of the earth.” Rosilda’s tone was getting snippy now. “Maybe I should’ve told you, but I wanted to keep you safe. I didn’t want any of the mess your parents had gotten into to ever find you. And when you grew up and started getting into the preternatural world, I considered telling you again so you’d be on the lookout. But you seemed to be doing so well and I had my job with the shifter tribes. We both did what we had to do with the life we were given. Now, I’m stuck like this, examining how much longer the human half of me is going to keep on truckin’ on this realm. And you, you’re backtracking and denying yourself happiness.”

  “I’m living my life.” She stood now because she was irritated, and she needed to pace. “I’m doing what I was born to do, just like you said. I’m helping people.”

  “While being too afraid to help yourself. But you know what, I’m not going to regret waiting to tell you all this, because you needed this journey. You needed to prove to yourself that you could stand on your own, and you did.”

  Throwing her hands up in the air and then dropping them down to her sides, she yelled, “What do you think I should be doing that would be better than taking care of you? Just say what you want to say, Rosilda.”

  The room went silent. She’d never raised her voice at Rosilda before and immediately felt like crap for doing so now.

  “You love him. He loves you. There’s no reason the two of you shouldn’t be together.” She made it sound so simple.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. He made a choice. When I woke up from the tonic Ravyn made to reverse the effects of the poison, I asked for him and was told he’d already left.” And she hadn’t argued with his choice because she’d decided she needed to return to Miami before they’d even set out on the mission. Aiken’s leaving first had saved her from being the one to walk away this time.

  But every day she wondered if he felt the physical and emotional pain she did.

  “Did you try to convince him that choice wasn’t the right one?”

  “No. I let him go. The same way he let me go before.”

  “That makes both of you idiots. Just because you’re Drakon don’t mean you’re gonna live forever and it doesn’t promise happiness in the years you live. The only thing that can give you that is following your heart. Letting go of everything else that stops you from being your best and the happiest you can be. In the end, that’s all that matters, Melody. The happy moments are all that matter.”

  * * *

  “What are you doing here? It’s almost two in the morning,” Mel said when she opened the front door.

  And still his beast was wide awake, his heart thumping wildly as his gaze settled on her for the first time in two months.

  “Sorry. I just finished up another assignment and I decided to come.” There really was no other explanation, but he knew he needed to say more. “Can I come in?”

  She was wearing a pair of barely there shorts and a tank top. Her feet were bare, sparkly pink painted toes seemingly smiling up at him and hair mussed the way he’d come used to seeing first thing in the morning. Stepping to the side she opened the door wider and he entered the house.

  From the outside it was a cute little bungalow on a street with many more that looked the same. It was a warm night in Miami, no breeze. She switched on a light as he stopped in the living room.

  “What are you doing here, Aiken?” She stood a few feet away from him, her arms folded over her chest.

  He wanted to reach out to her. To hug her, hold her close, the way he’d missed doing all those nights since he left the Congo. “I’ve been an idiot.” He stopped when it looked like a smile ghosted her lips. “Again.”

  She cleared her throat. “You came all the way to Miami to say that to me? You really could’ve called.”

  Deciding he deserved that slap, he dragged a hand down the back of his head and turned away from her, walking to where there was a patio door, covered by vertical blinds. Taking a second to replay all the words he’d rehearsed while sitting alone on the jet, he turned back and decided it was now or never.

  “I should’ve stayed. In the Congo eight weeks ago and in Miami eighty years ago. I should’ve fought for you, for us. And I didn’t. I don’t have an excuse; I just know that this time I plan to stand and fight.” There, he’d said it.

  She was shaking her head instead of speaking and he didn’t know what that meant. “Talk to me, Mel. Tell me what you’re thinking. If this isn’t enough I’ve already called a skywriter to write the words I was an idiot in the sky at noon tomorrow. If that’s not enough I’m prepared to grovel.�
� He sighed. “Reese suggested I start with that, but I was hoping we could come to some better terms.”

  When she still didn’t respond, he continued. “In the Congo, I left because I felt so guilty that you’d been hurt. After all the time I’d spent telling you that your purpose was to do exactly what you were doing, just to have you end up hurt because I couldn’t protect you, it cut me to the core. I felt like there was no way I deserved a woman like you.” He shook his head. “Every day of these past two months I’ve thought of how stupid I was, how selfish and inconsiderate I’d been to you, and again, I felt undeserving. But then I recalled a conversation I had with Shola and Ravyn about the beast selecting its perfect partner. That’s what you are, Mel, it’s what you’ve always been, my partner, my heart, my soul.”

  “Eighty years ago, I did what I wanted to do, Aiken. I made my choice and I had to live with it. Eight weeks ago, I did the same thing. I decided. Not you. Not Theo. Not anybody, but me.”

  He nodded. “I know you did and I respect you for doing what was right for you every time. And I know it’s taken me a long time to come to my senses. When we were in the Congo, I went back and forth with whether it would be better just to leave you alone once and for all.”

  “Why didn’t you do that?”

  “I couldn’t,” he said, his throat tight with emotion. “I couldn’t stay away again. Not for another eighty years, not for another eight days, not even eight hours. That’s why I’m here at two in the morning. I couldn’t stay away because I love you, Mel.”

  “Just like that,” she said and then shrugged. “You come in here and dump all this at my feet and I’m supposed to say, sure, okay, I missed you too, and things are back to the way they were just a couple months ago, just like that?”

  For a moment he’d stood frozen believing she was about to tell him to hit the road and mean that shit for eternity. But then she spoke the next words, “I missed you too.”

  He took a cautious step toward her. “I didn’t say I missed you.”