Dragon Soul
Page 75

“What an asshat,” I said softly to Rowan, my eyes on the knife. “What are we going to do?”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “With gods and demigods scattered all around, you expect me to take charge of the situation?”
“Yes,” I said firmly, taking his hand. “Because you truly are a champion, as well as a butt-kicking dragon. And you’re not the sort of man to let others fight your battle.”
“I wasn’t aware it was my battle.” One of his eyebrows rose as he spoke.
“Well, okay, it’s probably more my battle, but we’re a couple now, and that means we share things like that. Right?”
His mouth quirked. Dear god, how I loved his mouth. And his chest. And his legs. Oh, who was I fooling, I was wildly, insanely, madly in love with him. I couldn’t imagine life without the man, and that thought suddenly stopped scaring me, and made me feel like the happiest woman alive. “You are correct. Very well. If you insist I take action…”
He strode forward, handing his sword to Constantine as he passed by, no doubt to show Bael that he was no threat. I had no idea what he was going to do, because at that moment, someone grabbed my Lara Croft braid and brutally yanked me backward, knocking my bow and arrow from my hand.
“Argh!” I screamed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw two men climb over the rail. Evidently a few more demons had been held in reserve, and one of them now held an arrow to my throat, the tip of it piercing my flesh.
Rowan spun around and roared his anger. He leaped toward us, his body changing in midstep into that of a red-scaled dragon, his eyes all but spitting fury.
Bael slammed Mrs. P to the ground, pinning her to it with the knife, while he chanted something that sounded extremely bad, his hands waving over her chest in a strange pattern.
What I can only describe as a tear in the middle of nothing opened up, and a two small men emerged, both of them drawing symbols around us.
Pain wracked me as the two newcomers spoke. Rowan reached the man holding me just as Baltic and Gabriel shifted into dragon form, the two of them leaping on the chanting men.
For a moment I was terrified by the dragon bearing down on me, but then I saw his eyes and realized I could never be afraid of Rowan. Not my Rowan of the gentle heart, odd sense of humor, and passion that made me melt into a puddle of goo. Suddenly, the arrow was gone, and I was falling forward.
Rowan caught me with one scaled arm, while his tail lashed out and knocked the second demon across the deck, where he slammed into the bridge.
I turned to see the first demon bent over the railing… backward, in a position that told me the man’s back was broken.
Rowan said gruffly, “Don’t look, love,” before turning to help the others. He ran toward Bael, and just as Bael lifted the knife high, about to plunge it into Mrs. P’s heart, there was a flash of white, and one of Osiris’s guards was there, dragging Mrs. P to safety at the same moment that Rowan threw himself on the demon lord.
They went down in a tangle of arms and legs, some human and some scaly. The knife flashed, and blood spurted in a wide arc. Someone screamed, and it wasn’t until I had picked up the punchbowl and was bashing Bael on the head with it did I realize it was me.
Things calmed down a bit after that.
“Wow,” Bee told me when Constantine plucked me off of Bael. “I didn’t know you had that in you. You were positively scary. And you look so nice, too.”
“I am nice,” I said, panting, adrenaline making me want to go bash Bael in the head a few more times. I caught sight of a gash on Rowan’s chest and pulled away from Constantine, running to the love of my life. “Not again! You’re all bloody. Medic!”
Gabriel and Osiris had hold of Bael, whose hands were quickly tied behind his back. “So he can’t cast any more spells,” Osiris said to no one in particular.
Bael spat invectives and was roughly shoved down onto a chair for his troubles.
“It’s not bad,” Gabriel said, examining Rowan. Gabriel had switched back into human form, but Rowan was still a red dragon.
And he suddenly must have realized that, because when he looked down at his chest to assess the wound, his eyes widened and his arms flailed wildly. “What the hell? WHAT THE EVER-LIVING HELL?”
“It’s okay, pumpkin. You’re just a dragon, that’s all,” I said, feeling like an idiot, but doing my best to calm him down.
His eyes were huge with emotion, his nostrils flaring, little puffs of smoke and fire coming with every breath. “How do I make it stop? I don’t want to be like this!”
“Breathe, Rowan, breathe,” I said, stroking the non-hurty side of his chest. He was dangerously close to a panic attack, and I was clueless as to how to calm him down.
“Like everything else, it’s a matter of control,” Gabriel said. “Take charge of your fire—you’re scorching the deck—and harness it to focus your mind. Once you have achieved that control, you will be able to shift at will.”
“Breathe,” I repeated, stroking the long, curved dragon neck. I kept my eyes firmly on his, because that provided a connection that we both needed—him to keep from freaking out, and me to keep from realizing that the man I loved had a form that was frighteningly different from what I was used to. “Just keep breathing deep breaths, and make your fire do what you want.”
Slowly, second by painful second, his eyes calmed and his breathing slowed. The fire he was puffing disappeared, and his body began to shimmer and wobble in and out of focus. It took a couple of tries, but at last he was back to human form.
There was a smattering of polite applause, which I ignored, as I leaned my forehead against his. “You did it! You conquered your dragon self. I’m so proud of you, I could ride you like a rented mule.”
He laughed and pulled me to him for a very quick, very fiery kiss.
“Sorry,” he said into my mouth before releasing me. “I guess I don’t have as much control over my fire as you thought.”
“Well done, champion,” Osiris said, then gestured toward Maat again. “Now that the dragon shape crisis is over, I believe you have a few more people to process.”
“Hello,” Maat said, greeting us. “Would you like to start things off?”
I realized with a start she was looking at me. “Um… all right.” I tucked my bow into the quiver on my back, and couldn’t help but muse that my life hadn’t been as blameless as I’d hoped.