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I cautiously looked back and after a quick count saw how excellently we were penned in. “What are you doing?” I demanded of Marshall, but he only smiled at me, anticipation burning in his glittering red eyes.
The Scholar said, “I have more men in the city. You’ve been asleep for a very long time, and Song doesn’t belong to you any longer.” His voice was low and terrifying. “If you touch a hair of my heart, I will see you and your family hunted to extinction.”
Who knew he had a hairy heart? Wait, was that supposed to be me? How poetic, or romantic, or possessive. We were experimentally dating, and it’s not that I wasn’t completely blown away by the experience, but I wasn’t anyone’s heart, particularly a vampire, who liked hearts as a matter of increasing blood flow to their mouths.
The Marshall cocked his head and smiled. “But they aren’t here, and she is. If I take her, I can fly far from Song before you can stop me. Is she as sweet as she smells?” He inhaled the air dramatically before flashing his fangs in a brilliant smile at the other vampire. Seriously? Now he was posturing to impress his competition, forget the prey. Yes, forget the prey, but his children were watching me instead of the two vampires, waiting for the opportunity to snatch the helpless victim. I wasn’t feeling particularly helpless today, but I made a point of remaining unnoticed.
I stepped towards Marshall, gripping my guitar. “Are you always this annoying? You’d bring a vampire war to my city for what? I woke you and as my reward, I’d like you to take your children away and give them attention. All you do is summon them when you want to go to war, but they have feelings, aspirations, ambitions, but do you even know who they are anymore? Why are you fussing over some ungrateful human when you have the most fascinating and beautiful vampires I’ve ever seen to become reacquainted with? You couldn’t be threatened by the Scholar who isn’t even a whole vampire. This squabble is beneath you.” I gave him my most winsome and enticing smile. I hadn’t ever failed me, not once, until that night.
Marshall laughed in my face, but this time it sounded almost genuine. “Remarkable. Scholar, are you sure that you’ve got her and not the other way around? That was the perfect delivery of flattery, persuasion and allure. Child, now you’re almost interesting.” Having his direct attention wasn’t comfortable, but it didn’t last long.
Michael grabbed me, pulling me behind him, and his suit coat curled around me, stretching out like wings. “She is mine. Challenge that and die.”
Marshall cocked his head. “You can’t fly away into a flock of bats carrying the delectable musician librarian, can you? Against so many of my strongest, what can you do?”
I tried to push the coat down, but it kept coming up and getting in my face, keeping me firmly against the Scholar’s side and away from the enemy.
The Marshall moved suddenly, sliding down and grabbing my ankle, pulling me off balance and yanking me away from Michael for a brief terrifying moment of freefall. The next moment, my scholar caught me around the waist and then he turned into a dragon.
I stared at him, forgetting all about the vampires and the danger in a moment of awe and shock. He wasn’t a full dragon, because one of those would hardly fit in the street, but he had glistening scales like water, enormous wings, and ridges over his brows. His face was elongated, somewhere between human and beast, and his claws were long enough to thrust entirely through a body, which I saw when he stabbed Marshall with all five fingers then curled his claws and yanked, spraying me with a fine sheet of Marshall’s vampire blood and other miscellaneous parts that would definitely clog my shower.
Dragon. I was in the grasp of a dragon, and there was no creature in existence more dangerous, whimsical, possessive, and powerful. Welcome to the other half. Mr. Hyde, eat your heart out. No, the dragon would eat his heart out. What did dragons eat? I couldn’t remember, but he’d called me his heart. If he meant that in any way, I was in so much trouble. The cage I’d spent weeks in would be nothing compared to his cage, and the worst thing about it would be that I’d like it. No one could resist a dragon, one way or another.
He launched into the air, scooping me up in a bridal carry while he darted through the darkness of Song, faster than thought, breath, fear. No, the fear was alive and well as we almost flew straight into a building. He barely dodged around it and climbed higher. Where were we going? The ceiling was right above us, so I could see the cracks in it that I needed to do something about before it fell down. In the next breath, we came to the escalators that I’d fallen off so magnificently, and the next moment we were out into the sky of Sing, flying higher and higher and higher.
I clung to his neck and tried to keep my breath, but the terror and the height ripped it out of me. Heights weren’t my favorite. For far too long, we flew around the city, and no doubt the view was great, but I was freezing and terrified, and I’d been dating a dragon! How could I have missed that? Not that I’d ever met one before, and not that I’d made a study of dragons… Oh. That’s what he’d been talking about so long ago. He’d offered to tell me all about dragons. Too bad I didn’t take him up on it.
Finally, he landed on the Lydian’s roof, which was an elaborate garden strung with lights and a happily burning fire pit with an enormous dessert table next to the rich cushions, just waiting for a couple of happily oblivious idiots to fall into.
It took him a long time to put me down, maybe because my hands were frozen around his neck, maybe because he was holding me with those claws, stained in the vampire’s blood and whatever. It wouldn’t kill Marshall, but it would slow him down and make his children furious. Just what Song needed, a good old-fashioned vampire war.
By the time he lowered me to the ground, I was shaking, and furious, and terrified, and worst of all, betrayed. I’d kissed him when I didn’t know what he was. Why was I so stupid, and why had he treated me like that, showing me the beautiful, rare, magical world he had to offer me? It was a lure. I’d been a lure long enough to identify what it was perfectly well, and it was a very good one, set out nicely for the prey to walk in unsuspecting, and then she—me—would be ensnared before she knew what had caught her.
But I knew that he was a dragon, because Marshall had forced his hand. In retrospect it all seemed designed, plotted, because if he actually wanted to kidnap me, he’d do it when I wasn’t with the Scholar. What was Marshall’s game? How would this serve him?
When Michael released me, I barely didn’t fall over, but somehow stayed on my feet. He shook himself, and became once more the vampire in the blue silk coat, the one that came with wings.
“You should sit,” he said, his voice darker and more growly as he gestured towards the cushions. One thing was absolutely certain, if I went into those cushions, I wouldn’t come out again.
I licked my lips and forced a smile. “Actually, I think I should get back home. I had a beautiful time on our experimental date, but I need to get rest so that we can go out again some time. I wouldn’t want to indulge too freely in such rich experiences.”
I slowly walked towards the door on the end, acutely aware of the way he watched me out of those elemental eyes. A water dragon? That explained the waterfall, but not the plants. How did a dragon get with a vampire in the first place?
“Are you certain you wouldn’t like to ask me questions?” he asked, following me a respectful three feet away. Three feet was nothing for a creature like him. The worst thing was that I had no idea how to kill him. I knew how to kill almost everything, but an elemental dragon mixed with an undead creature would be, in all practicality, unkillable. I’d have to do research, but I didn’t have access to the resources I’d need. Even the Library of Antiquities didn’t have the required sacred texts.
“I have so many questions for you, but not tonight.”
“You’re very cold. I should warm you before you go.”
I laughed, and it was almost gurgling at the end, but I managed to keep it under control. If he knew I was panicking, he’d push to get closer, and then I’d end up in his cage. “You should, but I’m concerned that I wouldn’t be able to resist you. I was raised in a very strict religious order, and I still feel strongly about the place of marriage in society.”
He raised a brow. “I assure you, Miss Morell, that your virtue is safe with me.”
“Ha! You think that I’m worried about you? I almost came undone on our first elevator ride tonight. Good night, Mr. Stead. I’m leaving alone.”
I hurried away from him, hating that I’d had to say that, and hating even more that it was true. I hated vampires, but dragons? Impossible.
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