The Dragon Lords

by C. J. Hill

  Her mother watched her. “You’ll never get the lumps out that way.”

  “Uh huh,” Tori said.

  Her mother sighed and went back to seasoning the stuffing.

  Aaron had stopped swearing and was panting, taking deep breaths. “Stay away from me,” he yelled at the dragon. “Stay back!”

  Khan roared, the kind that involved fire. Had Aaron managed to jump out of the way? She knew from experience that although fire wouldn’t burn him, the heat was still painful.

  “Back off!” Aaron called. He was trying to control the dragon. It wouldn’t work as long as Overdrake had hold of Khan’s mind.

  Fly, she thought. Your body knows how. He was probably overthinking it. Flying wasn’t like riding a bike that took coordination, balance, and practice. It was instinctual. You needed to go somewhere high, you leaped up, and you soared there.

  A thudding sound in the enclosure made her wince. She’d heard the sound before—a dragon’s tail smacking something—hopefully the ground and not Aaron.

  “If you can hear me,” Aaron said, “I’m saying right now, that my Ferrari had better have a sunroof.”

  Ferrari? Tori supposed Aaron wasn’t talking to her. Man, Overdrake was buying him a Ferrari?

  “I’ve done everything you asked,” Aaron continued, “and you haven’t let me talk to my mom, you haven’t let me go outside—you haven’t even told me where I am!”

  Hold on, maybe Aaron was letting Tori know he didn’t have any information yet.

  Another thud. “You know, Child Protective Services would have something to say about this!”

  A sound like a rock shattering echoed through the enclosure. “Despite what you think, I do remember the stuff you tell me. I know to enter a dragon’s mind, I’m supposed to follow my senses and let them pull me in. After I’m there, I split my focus so I can enter the dragon’s second level of consciousness and find the control center. See, I’ve been listening.”

  Aaron was talking to her, passing on Overdrake’s instructions. Tori already knew how to enter a dragon’s mind. And she’d figured out when she was with Dirk that to get to Khan’s control center, she needed to envision herself walking through his mind. What else had Overdrake taught Aaron? She shut her eyes, leaned forward, all her attention focused on the enclosure.

  “Once I’m in the control center, I’m supposed to envision the dragon’s will like it’s an actual object and clutch it in my hand. It’s not my fault I can’t do it. You’re always there controlling it first.”

  If another dragon lord wasn’t already there, could she envision the dragon’s will as an object and take control that way? Did it matter what object she envisioned? Did it have to be the same object every time?

  She couldn’t ask, and it didn’t sound like Overdrake had actually given Aaron a chance to practice it.

  The dragon roared again, and the sound of fire crackling filled her ears. She was familiar with that noise, could almost feel the heat creeping along her skin.

  Aaron let out a yell that made Tori flinch. Had the dragon done something—swiped him with his claws? Bitten him?

  And then the yell turned into a laugh. Aaron wasn’t screaming in pain; he was whooping happily. “Sweet!” he said, still laughing. “Check out this action. This ain’t no leap!” More laughter, joyful and unbridled. “I’m freaking Peter Pan.”

  Khan had gone quiet. All Tori heard was the sound of Aaron’s laughter zooming farther and then closer to the dragon. The door opened and then there was the sound of clapping.

  “You did it.” Overdrake’s pride was evident. “I knew you would.” He stopped clapping. “However, if I hadn’t commanded Khan to stay on the ground, he would have caught you within two wingbeats. You were supposed to fly to the hole to escape, not circle around the enclosure like it’s a skating rink.”

  “Sorry!” Aaron called back. “I couldn’t help myself. Flying is awesome. Look—double flip!”

  Tori expected Overdrake to be angry or at least give him a reprimand for making mistakes around dragons. Instead he laughed, a deep, affectionate laugh. The sort you expected from fathers.

  “You were born to fly,” Overdrake went on, pride ringing. “You’re my son, after all.”

  “How do I stop myself?”

  “One of three ways. You run into something, you run out of energy, or you will yourself to stop, just like you willed yourself to fly. I suggest the latter.”

  “Willpower isn’t working. But hey, watch this spin.”

  Overdrake laughed again. “I’ll keep Khan calm while you practice. Take as long as you’d like. And then we’ll talk about your sunroof.”

  Tori minimized the sound so it wasn’t as loud. She had thought listening to Overdrake talk to her was bad. His voice always dripped with disdain if not outright hatred. But listening to this was somehow worse. Hearing Overdrake praise Aaron—hearing him so happy—it was chilling.

  Tori mashed the potatoes harder, smashing anything that hinted at lumpiness.

  Aaron…what else was happening to him? Her counterpart sense told her that he was exultant, not just because he was flying, but because he had Overdrake’s approval.

  Aaron shouldn’t want that. He should be repulsed by Overdrake’s fatherly pride and the suggestion that sports cars could buy his loyalty. But Aaron wasn’t. She could tell he wasn’t.

  Her stomach clenched with worry. What had she been thinking to send a twelve-year-old to Overdrake? Were twelve-year-olds’ brains even done developing?

  She wished she had a way to remind Aaron that before Overdrake was clapping and talking about sunroofs, he’d locked Aaron in the enclosure with a fire-breathing, fifty-ton carnivorous animal. Aaron seemed to have forgotten that fact.

  Aprilynne strolled over on her way to the oven. “Are you trying to mash the potatoes or beat them into submission?”

  Tori looked down at the pot. Bits of potatoes had splattered over the stovetop, polka-dotting the whole thing.

  Tori’s mom swept up to check the potatoes. “I’m sure those are…”

  “Pulverized,” Aprilynne supplied.

  “Done now,” her mother said. She picked up the pot and whisked it away before Tori could do more. “Why don’t you, um, set the tables?”

  A task she couldn’t mess up. Really, when had Tori become that child? The difficult one. The one that her parents needed to make allowances for?

  Chapter 7

  Dirk sat in the family room, ignoring the football game on the TV in front of him. Instead, he listened to the noises in the kitchen.

  Norma, the housekeeper his father had hired from the Philippines, was clanking plates into the dishwasher. Bridget sat at the kitchen table drawing pictures and chatting away to Norma, oblivious to the fact that the woman didn’t understand a quarter of what she said. With Bridget, that sort of thing didn’t matter. Cassie was in the kitchen as well, washing the china she didn’t trust anyone else to handle.

  After the first couple days, their father had moved Aaron to a room in the house and had been purposely lax about guarding him. Aaron had agreed to stay, and his freedom was a test to see if, given the chance, he would bolt. So far, he hadn’t.

  His father had taken Aaron to the enclosure over an hour ago. They’d gone to feed Khan the turkey carcass but obviously, his father had more planned. It took about ten seconds for a dragon to eat something that small. They weren’t big on chewing.

  Dirk tapped his thumb against the remote control, nervous for Aaron and irritated all over again that his father had abducted the kid.

  It wasn’t only the wrongness of the kidnapping that bothered Dirk. He’d had an unwanted sense of responsibility thrust on him. Now he had to worry about Aaron, had to act as an intermediary, and most problematic, he had to figure out whether he should help the kid escape.

  Back when he’d first seen Aaron, scared and trying to get away at the fair, Dirk had decided he couldn’t stand by and see his brother shanghaied. He could ask Tori t
o meet him somewhere and hand Aaron off to her. She would help Dirk if he asked her. And as an added benefit he would get to see Tori again. Although with a twelve-year-old around, the meeting wouldn’t end like the last had.

  But now Dirk didn’t know. Aaron didn’t appear all that eager to leave. After his first burst of outrage at being taken, his anger had fizzled into sporadic resentment, occasional homesickness, and a stubborn insistence that his cell phone be returned.

  Most of the time, he acted happy enough to be here. He was interested in the dragons, wanted to learn everything about them, and was almost equally curious about their father. Every time Aaron was with their dad, he peppered him with questions about his life, his likes, his dislikes, and his plans to take over.

  Their father never answered questions about his attack plans, but over the last five days he’d talked more about himself and told more stories about growing up in St. Helena than Dirk had ever heard. His father was lapping up the hero worship.

  Aaron loved the fact that he’d inherited superpowers, was in awe of their father and was more than willing to be bribed. But Aaron was also keeping secrets. Dirk could sense that. Aaron was a bad liar—too nervous, too unused to lying to be casual about it.

  Some of the lies Dirk understood. Aaron had lied about where he’d lived to protect their mom. He’d lied about being an only child to protect whatever siblings he had. Dirk would have done the same thing.

  But at other times Aaron seemed to be hiding things Dirk couldn’t even guess at. His deception was there in his questions, some lurking agenda that Aaron was always trying to shuffle away from Dirk’s notice. And every time Aaron called their father “Dad” there was a little bit of a lie mixed in with the word.

  Which didn’t make sense because the one thing Dirk was sure about was that they shared a father.

  Dirk set down the remote. Maybe he should go to the enclosure and see what was taking his father and Aaron so long.

  Before he got up, his father’s voice boomed through the kitchen. “You’re looking at a boy who can fly—not twenty feet, not thirty feet—but miles.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful!” Cassie said. When she talked to Aaron, her voice was always too sugary. She apparently hadn’t made up her mind about whether having Aaron here was a good thing or not and was overcompensating.

  Bridget said, “Yay! When can you take me on a flying piggyback ride?”

  “Not for a while,” their father answered. “He needs to work on his landings before we saddle him up and make him haul around little girls.”

  “Can you take me then, Daddy?” Bridget asked.

  Hopefully their father would say yes because now that she’d gotten the idea of flying into her head, she wouldn’t be happy until someone took her. And Dirk was the only other someone who could fly.

  “In a few minutes,” their father said. “I’ve got to give Aaron something first.”

  Aaron and their father came into the family room. Their father sauntered over to the end table where his tablet was charging and handed it to Aaron with a flourish. “I’ve connected you to a site that you can use to call your mother and tell her about your new achievement.”

  Aaron brightened. “Awesome! Thanks!”

  Awesome? It was like the kid had already forgotten that talking to his mom didn’t used to be a privilege.

  “However,” their father went on, “I’ll take the tablet back after I’m done with Bridget, so don’t waste your time calling your friends. They wouldn’t believe you about flying anyway.”

  Aaron hesitated before putting in a phone number. His gaze went to Dirk. “If I make the call, will anyone be able to track it?”

  His father picked up Bridget with one arm, making her giggle and grab onto his neck. “No need to worry about that. My IP address is automatically rerouted.”

  Dirk answered the question Aaron was really asking. “No one will be able to tell where your mom is either.”

  Satisfied with the answer, Aaron tapped in her number and flung himself on the couch, half leaping, half flying. He crashed into it so hard the piece of furniture wobbled and nearly fell over.

  “No flying in the house,” their father called over his shoulder and left the room.

  “Sorry, Dad,” Aaron called back.

  Dad. Liar.

  Aaron turned his attention to the phone. “Hey Mom, it’s me. I’m fine—”

  Dirk hadn’t expected that he’d feel a pang of anger when he heard Aaron say the word ’mom’ but he did, sharp and strong. He wasn’t sure who the feeling was directed at—his father for not letting Dirk talk to his mother all these years and then allowing Aaron to do it after five days, at his mother for skipping out on his life and choosing to raise Aaron instead, or at Aaron for being the one that she chose.

  Dirk was caught between the desire to storm out of the room and the urge to stay and listen to half of his mother’s conversation. She was so close. Close enough that if Dirk turned off the TV he might be able to hear her voice.

  “I have no idea,” Aaron said. “I’ve only gone from the house to enclosure. The weather seems normal so I guess I’m not in the tropics or anything.”

  Dirk turned up the TV a couple of notches. He didn’t need to hear his mother’s voice. He’d gone long enough without it, without her. And he was perfectly fine. Perfectly. Fine.

  “It’s not like I’m locked up or anything,” Aaron said. “Everything’s cool. I’m learning about dragons, and today I figured out how to fly. You should have seen me. I’d send you video, but I’m not allowed to take pictures of the dragons or myself flying.”

  A pause.

  Aaron lowered his voice. “There aren’t any other houses around. And besides, if I did something like that he wouldn’t trust me anymore. I want him to teach me dragon lord stuff. I’m fine, really.”

  Bianca must have instructed Aaron to leave the house and find help so he could go back to her. How sweet. How motherly. She was telling Aaron to leave but she’d made sure Dirk stayed.

  Dirk turned off the TV and headed out to the front porch for some fresh air. His mother could tell Aaron how much she missed him in private.

  Once outside, Dirk leaned against the porch railing and looked out over the mile of property they’d lived on since last month. The place was filled with all sorts of fresh air but he still felt like he was suffocating. The house didn’t feel like home. He hadn’t even unpacked all his boxes yet.

  He tried to see the property the way Aaron saw it—the tangle of trees that surrounded the yard, an entire forest that ran up the surrounding hills. The carpet of discarded leaves browning on the ground around them. No sign of civilization.

  Aaron wouldn’t be able to escape without help. Fifteen-foot fences surrounded the property, the doors and windows were alarmed, and the yard was riddled with motion sensors. The nearest neighbors were miles away.

  If Aaron knew and planned to circumvent those things—which would be easy enough with the power of flight and a good excuse to go outside—he still wouldn’t make it far. While he’d been unconscious on the airplane, their father had injected a tracking chip into his left hip. As long as it was in place, their father would always be able to find Aaron.

  Minutes went by. Dirk saw no sign of his dad flying nearby with Bridget. The two must be on the other side of the property. Dirk had gone outside without a jacket and the cold November air was pushing through his shirt like it wasn’t there. He tucked his fingers under his arms to keep them warm and leaned against a porch column. He didn’t want to go back inside yet.

  The door swung open and Aaron stepped out, tablet in his hand. “Mom wants to talk to you.” He held out the tablet.

  For a moment Dirk stared at it, anger fighting with a decade-old longing to hear her voice. “She wants to talk to me?” he repeated, buying himself time to decide whether or not to speak to her.

  What would she say? Did she want to apologize? Maybe she just wanted to ask him to help Aaron escape.
>
  “Yeah.” Aaron kept holding out the tablet.

  Dirk took it. He would at least give her the chance to explain why he hadn’t been good enough, why she’d chosen a baby she’d never even seen over him.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Dirk, is that you?”

  He’d thought he would recognize her voice. He’d heard it enough times on the videos from his early years. But her voice sounded lower, breathier.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  She didn’t say anything else, and he wondered if he’d lost the call. Then he heard her crying.

  Crying.

  It should have moved him. And maybe it did. But it also frustrated him. You were supposed to comfort crying people and he wasn’t ready to do that yet. She hadn’t given him any sort of explanation.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that you sound so grown up.”

  He recognized her voice then, the lilt of it. “Well, it’s been twelve years.”

  “I know. And I’ve thought of you every single day.”

  Thinking of him was probably easier than being there for him. “Have you?” he asked.

  “Of course. And every birthday I wondered where you were and what you were doing.”

  Well, that made two of them. She wasn’t apologizing and she wasn’t explaining. Man, that meant she was just going to ask him to help Aaron.

  “I want to know everything about you,” she said. “Tell me about your life.”

  A memory flashed through his mind from the night she left. He hadn’t understood what her absence meant back then, only that his dad was furious about it. His father had picked up his Mom’s china cabinet and flung it into the dining room wall. The cabinet shattered, then lay in a heap of splintered wood and bits of dishes.

  Dirk had known broken glass was dangerous, but he saw an undamaged teacup resting in the wreckage. He’d wanted to save it. After his father stormed out of the room, Dirk waded through the shards. A jagged piece of wood scraped across his ankle and when he put out a hand to steady himself, he sliced his fingertip. But he didn’t cry out because he knew if he made a sound, his father would return and take the cup from him.