Page 21 of Red Dragon’s Heart

Chapter 11

Maddie felt like she was standing in the middle of a horror movie. She was with a huge red dragon—only she was somehow also part of the dragon, inside it and outside at the same time.

It was enraged, overcome with blood lust—and it was tearing through a village, destroying everything and everyone in its path.

Blood, death, carnage—it was all around her. Maddie squeezed her eyes shut, but she could still see it—through Zak’s eyes, she realized.

She could hear the screams through his ears, smell the blood through his nose. Worst of all, she could feel what he felt. Sorrow, despair, and a kind of sick triumph. I will destroy them all, and the world will bow down before me…

Maddie tried to calm her mind, call on her scientific detachment. It’s not real, she reminded herself. You’re not really here. Zak must have some kind of telepathic powers, strong enough to draw others into his mental landscape. Fascinating.

But all this was just in his mind. She didn’t have to be afraid; she was only a witness.

Unless… could the connection go the other way? Could she calm him down and bring him out of the dream?

It’s okay, she tried to say. It’s not real. You’re safe; no one’s attacking you. You don’t have to kill them.

Abruptly, the scene changed. She was still in his head; they were a young boy, huddled in a cold, bare building with two others about the same age. They were all wearing heavy collars, with chains attached. Like… slave collars?

She felt his hunger, his thirst, his despair. One of the other boys was bleeding, and Zak was comforting him. Then the scene changed and they were somewhere else—still in chains, hard-eyed men poking them with some kind of giant cattle prods, sending excruciating electric shocks through them as they fought and screamed.

I’ll kill you! Zak shouted. A voice, inside them and all around them, echoed, You will kill them all, and devour their bones. You will kill anyone who harms you, who stands against you!

Abruptly, he was out of the chains, in dragon form, tearing their captors apart. But then he turned on the other two boys, the voice urging him on. His claws slashed out…

No! Maddie tried to reach through the neural pathways he’d linked in their minds. You don’t have to hurt them. She tried to project an image of the monster lying on the cell floor, his jaws locked around her arm without hurting her.

You don’t have to hurt and kill.

The dragon paused, and turned to look at her. The desperate swirling in their joined minds gradually slowed, until it came to a single point of stillness. They trembled on the brink together… and then the wave turned on itself and crashed over her.

Maddie was swept into her own river of emotions and memories, fever and nightmares, until she was washed up inside the worst one of all…

The car hurtling through the guard rail, down the rocky slope, slamming into a boulder with an ear-splitting, terrifying sound of rending metal. Troy, only three years old, crying next to her as his car seat ripped away from its restraints and wedged between the front seat and the crumpled door, nearly crushing him.

Maddie calling out, Mommy! Daddy! and the eerie silence that followed. She tried to push between the front seats, shaking her parents to wake them up, but their skin was slick with red and their eyes were open, all she could see was those staring eyes and all the blood, on the floor and the seats and her hands, and nobody answered her, and Troy was just crying and crying…

Maddie was crying too, a nine-year-old girl in terror, and then there were arms around her and someone was holding her close, rubbing her back.

It’s okay, you’re okay, it’s not real, you’re okay.

Zak’s voice, Zak’s arms around her, the gold pendant on his neck glowing, his hard pecs warm under her cheek.

Maddie leaned against him, closing her eyes to try to shut out the memory, the one she’d tried for years to forget and never could.

She knew this was just a shared hallucination, but she felt her body shuddering, and she couldn’t get her breath. She clung to him because he was the only solid thing there was.

Dream Zak stroked her back, his touch becoming slower and more sensual. She felt his lips on her hair, light kisses, at first gentle and comforting, and then sending an incredible heat through her.

She raised her head, looking into those honey-gold eyes.

There was an explosion in her chest, like a ball of fire—hot and wild and filling her with a desire for something she couldn’t name or describe.

She only knew that if she could hold on to it, she’d be safe.

They stared at each other for a forever moment, and then they were falling, falling, into soft cushions under a shady pavilion next to a blue, blue lake.

Lying next to her, Zak stroked her hair back from her face, letting it trail through his fingers. He looked down into her eyes, and now his honey-gold gaze was warm and sweet. A smile lifted the corner of his mouth.