Page 6

CHAPTER 6

CHARLIE

A s soon as the guy screamed, I knew he wouldn’t fall for Clawdia’s innocent cat trick. He was one of those arseholes that didn’t like cats. Then, when a bang shook the bedroom door and Clawdia’s cry of pain echoed around the cabin, I peered out and fury flooded my veins.

I don’t care if Clawdia thinks she can handle this. I’m not putting up with that.

I threw open the door and stormed into the room, and like a slow-motion movie villain, the bloke turned toward me just in time for my fist to smash into his face.

“Don’t fucking touch my cat, you bastard,” I growled as his eyes rolled back in his head and he went down like a sack of bricks.

I shook out my hand and winced. Punching people always looked cooler in movies.

Clawdia froze in place, staring at me with her wide violet eyes. “Why did you do that? I was handling it.”

Sure. I snorted. “No one lays a hand on you, and any guy who messes with animals earns a knuckle sandwich.” I scooped her up, kissed the top of her fluffy head, and added with a grin, “Stay a cat. I’ll fly us out of here, and Sleeping Beauty over there will forget we were here.”

Without waiting for her reply, I hurried outside and shifted into scales, claws, and Dralie before launching into the sky and heading back.

Dralie was unusually quiet as we flew. I wasn’t sure if he was just tired or what, but he’d talk if he wanted.

It didn’t take long. As the office building came into sight, he whispered, “Charlie, we must speak.”

“What are we doing right now?” I chuckled.

He didn’t think I was funny. “It must remain a secret. Clawdia can’t know.”

He has a secret he wants to keep from our mate? Color me surprised … and curious. “All right. Wait until she’s asleep, and then we’ll talk.”

He landed on the roof gracefully and allowed me to take over as Clawdia shifted, too. We paused, noting the scorch marks and the soot lining the rooftop but I grabbed Clawdia’s hand and tugged. “Come on, before my toes fall off.”

Shivering and naked, our bare feet slapping against the freezing slabs, we darted through the roof door and down the stairs, but as we entered the office, something felt off. The lights were out, and the desks had been stripped bare—no computers, no screens, not even a coffee mug. The place was emptier than my fridge on a bad week.

And it stunk of smoke. What happened here?

“Zaide? Baelen?” Clawdia called, her voice cutting through the silence.

I whipped around and glared at her. “Don’t. Say. Anything. Else!” I shouted through our bond, but she still had me blocked and didn’t hear me. I motioned for her to zip her lips and then tapped my head. The moment she opened our bond up again, I said, “If they’re gone, someone probably chased them, and if someone chased them, that someone could still be here, sniffing around.”

I wasn’t sure she heard me that time either. The bond felt … odd. Weaker? I couldn’t put my finger on the feeling, but when her eyes widened and she nodded, I sighed, glad she was going to follow instructions.

Naked and half frozen, I crept through the place, checking rooms with Clawdia trailing behind me. Nothing. Room after room was empty, and my shoulders finally relaxed when we found the last room—the one we’d planned to crash in—and it was blissfully free of bad guys.

“No one’s here,” I muttered, glancing at her. “Any ideas where they went? Can you contact them or something?”

Clawdia blinked like I’d just asked her to do brain surgery. “Oh … yeah.” She closed her eyes and went quiet. It must’ve worked, because a second later, she sighed and sagged into a chair.

“They’re alive,” she said. “And they’re at your house.”

Of course they were. “Great. Tell them they’d better shower before bed. Smoke is hell to get out of bed sheets, and I’m not scrubbing soot out of a duvet in the early hours.”

She relayed my message, and I heard Baelen’s reply in her mind. Though it sounded like it came through a bad phone line. “He’ll be disappointed,” he said, all smug-like. “Oh, and his mother’s staying at Winnie’s with the task team leaders. She saw his house and is worried he’s been a lonely hermit his whole life.”

“Oh, for—” I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Fantastic. Can’t wait for that conversation.”

Zaide’s voice broke in, gentler. “Are you coming here?”

I glanced at Clawdia, whose exhaustion mirrored my own. “Tell them not to wait up. We’ll deal with all of this in the morning.”

Clawdia passed on the message, and I sighed as she created a portal back to where it all started. My house.

The house was dark and silent when we arrived. We didn’t wake and greet the others. They’ll find us when we wake up. We need rest first. Without a word to each other, we headed straight into my office, pulled out the sofa bed, and began putting the sheets on as though we’d lived together our entire lives. In a way, we had.

It was surreal having Clawdia here, human, as the woman I loved, not the cat. As we shoved pillows into cases, I couldn’t stop comparing the person she was when we left England to the woman I know now. They weren’t miles apart, of course, but she was more the sassy, mischievous cat I knew and loved.

We curled up in bed as the sun began rising into the sky, and Clawdia fell into a restless sleep. I watched her chest rise and fall, her eyelids flickering for a few moments before I addressed the dragon in my head.

“Go on. What have you been nagging me about?” I whispered.

Dralie sounded uncharacteristically nervous when he said, “That dragon. I recognized it.”

I paused, confused. “We’ve seen the dragon before. It chased us on the island. And we saw it on the cameras when it arrived at the hunter’s compound. You didn’t recognize it then? Or didn’t say anything?”

“I didn’t recognize it then. Only when it chased us and attempted to forge a connection. I could sense it was an abomination, but I didn’t realize just how much.”

The mystery thickens. “So, who is the dragon?”

I thought he would reveal it was some kind of hybrid or magic made creature. Never in my wild imagination could I have predicted his next words. “I believe … the dragon … was me.”

“What?” My whole body stiffened, and I tried to calm my breathing so I didn’t wake Clawdia.

What the fuck does he mean? Can dragons lose their minds? Does he need a shrink?

“I know it is strange…” he tried to explain, but I shook my head.

“You can’t be that dragon. You’re my dragon. You said you’ve been lying dormant inside me, waiting for the moment my power could break free.”

“I was dormant, true,” he hesitated, but continued softly, “but not always inside of you, I fear.”

Just the sadness in his voice made me pause. He really believes this. He truly thinks he was the dragon. What am I missing?

“You think you were him in a past life or something?”

“Of a kind. I didn’t know just how immediate that past was.”

“You’re not making any sense.” I could feel how distressed he was. Even Clawdia tossed around in her sleep, probably responding to our stress, and I stroked her head as I softened my voice. “Try to explain it as though I’m a complete numpty. Really dumb it down for me.”

“That dragon was without a drakorian inside its mind. I could sense it was an abomination. I knew it went against the laws of our nature, but I didn’t know until I touched its mind that it was empty. There was only a dragon’s body, not a drakorian or dragon inside.”

“So, it was a shell? A shell you think you came from…?”

He sighed. “You need the history to understand. Drakorians, as we are today, are two souls twisted together. A dragon and the descendants of those who agreed.”

“They made a pact to be together?”

“Correct. The pact to entwine our souls so both our kind could survive. The people of Drakor were dying from a famine. They turned to hunting dragons, a sacred beast, who ate all the game and then attacked the people. The deaths of both sides nearly decimated them both until a seer told them of another way. A pact to live in harmony together. It required their souls to be twisted together so they shared a body. They would begin as human because they wouldn’t drain as many resources, but once a male child turned pubescent, a dragon would emerge.”

I hummed thoughtfully and scratched my stomach. “Seems like a bad deal for the dragons.”

“No, the dragons were happy with this agreement. They not only ensured their survival, but could also find their mate faster since the females would only emerge once they met their bond. Previous to this, dragons, as solitary creatures, could spend centuries searching for their mate, and the population suffered because of this.”

“Somehow, I don’t think it was as easy as that.”

“Perhaps not, but that is the story I was told.”

I frowned. “When were you told that?”

“In my first life, I lay dormant, awaiting the moment to emerge into the world. Our father would tell stories occasionally of his homeland, Drakor, and while I wasn’t entirely conscious, I could hear and understand.”

“I’m enjoying the story, Dralie, but what’s this got to do with the dragon we killed, and why do you think you are that dragon?” I yawned, his voice and the tale lulling me to sleep.

“The dragon was a beast. Mindless. It wasn’t trying to contact us as other drakorians might have. I believe I slipped into its mind for a moment and … to my shame, Charlie, I allowed us to be steered into danger, and our mate had to protect us. I’m certain this was only possible because I used to be the dragon inside of that body before I came to you.”

Suddenly wide awake, my mind raced to keep up, but with no Scooby Doo clue what he was trying to tell me, I gave my best guess. “You think your old body was brought back to life and controlled? Something like that?”

“I wish it were, but the truth is far more complicated.” Before I could ask anything else, he continued in a hurry. “My last bond … I told you he shunned me. He never allowed me to stretch my wings. He didn’t speak to me. He cut me off and kept me locked in the furthest reaches of his mind, where it was always dark. Whenever he released me, which is rare, I struggled to understand what was happening. I received little information from my bond and just tried to survive.”

His situation reminded me of Savida’s, being stuck in darkness waiting for freedom, and it gutted me to hear him so broken up as he recalled this.

“I didn’t know it was that bad, Dralie. I’m sorry he did that to you. He sounds like a right prick.”

“Do not apologize to me, Charlie. I emerged from the dark after the most immense pain. I thought it was death, which is why I believed I had been reborn with you, that I had lain dormant in your body, but I don’t believe that anymore. I opened my eyes, and I was in a new form, and you were in my head instead of … him. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have you as my bond now, but to my shame, I have been keeping a secret from you. One I now understand the full truth of.”

“So mysterious. I’m a priest in a confession box; tell me your sins,” I said to lighten the mood, but he made a whimper that alarmed me. I couldn’t stay in bed. The rollercoaster of emotions needed to be paced away. Quietly, I shuffled back and forth behind my desk. “That was a joke. Whatever you’ve kept from me, it’s fine. I don’t expect you to tell me everything. You’re your own… dragon.”

Dralie remained silent, and his sadness bled into me. I didn’t want him to be sad, but whatever his secret, it made him feel guilty. Better out than in.

To prompt him, I said, “So, you think your last bond died forcing you to find another soul to bond to with drakorian blood?”

“He did not die. If we die, we should die together. My previous body, the green dragon, shouldn’t exist without me. I believe he parted us. He has broken the original pact and untied our souls, but he kept my body and used it.”

I went cold and froze as I finally understood what he was saying.

“Dralie, your old bond, was it Fafnir?”

His silence spoke volumes.

“You were Fafnir’s dragon.”

“I was.” His voice was distant and muffled.

Anger burst out, and I whisper-shouted at him. “You pretended you didn’t even know who he was. You didn’t even react when we saw him and the dragon together on the cameras. You couldn’t tell he’d separated you both when you saw your old body?”

“I—I—I can only apologize, Charlie.” The tremble in his voice made me feel like a monster. “I believed him dead. No. I hoped him dead, and I hoped to have escaped, but I was mistaken. When we saw the dragon and Fafnir together on the cameras I thought as you did, that he had turned one of his family. I didn’t recognize the dragon form as my own because, on the occasions he freed me from the darkest corners of his mind, I didn’t spend it looking at glass and admiring myself. I just wanted to fly.”

My anger cooled as I realized he was a victim in this, even if he kept it a secret. The poor bastard didn’t even have a name before I gave him one. He was finally free of the cock who kept him caged. He just wanted to fly and prove his worth to me because he was scared I’d be the same as his last bond.

I couldn’t fault him for hoping Fafnir was dead. Plenty of people have done the same. Nor could I fault him for being hesitant to tell me anything when he discovered Fafnir was still alive and hunting us.

“Explain how can your old body be flying around without you. What happened to you and Fafnir to be separated? Did he do it on purpose? Did he think you would go to one of his witches?”

“He hated me. Hated being drakorian. He preferred his witch side.” It must have freaked him out when he found out I was a witch, too. “He didn’t want me and often spoke of getting rid of me. I don’t think he considered me a being, nor the consequences of his magic. I believe it is only by some miracle of fate that I could come to you. I’m not sure exactly how he did it. I only remember the pain.”

Considering he was in so much pain when he arrived in my body, which was also mid torture, I’m surprised he didn’t go full Hulk mode on everyone.

My mind was a complete mess, and I stayed silent as I worked through my thoughts.

Dralie whispered, “Are you angry with me?”

“I’m not angry.”

“I will accept the punishment you decide for keeping such important information from you, Charlie. I only ask that if you push me into the darkness of my soul, you don’t leave me there long. I—I—I would be … very scared.”

That was gutting, and I actually teared up a little.

I choked down the emotion and tried to assure him. “I wouldn’t do that to you because I’m not that fucker and won’t ever be. This situation is the most confusing and impossible, so I won’t punish you for trying to deal with it the best you can.”

“Thank you, Charlie.”

His thanks pissed me off. “You don’t have to thank me for that either. No one should treat you like that. It’s not even the bare minimum. And if your history lesson was right, then we were supposed to be partners. I don’t rule over you, and you don’t rule over me. We share the benefits of it all.”

“You are right, Charlie.” He bolstered himself and became the calm, wise dragon I knew again. “I’ve spent so many years in the darkness that I have forgotten myself, but I will work to be a dragon worthy of you and our mate.”

“You already are,” I replied easily. Mystery solved, and the dragon calmed. I eased myself into my leather desk chair and relaxed. “And the good news is that we know Fafnir has lost the benefit of you. He’s just a witch now. He’s still dangerous because he practices dark magic, but he can’t fly, he can’t breathe fire, and he is missing part of his soul. Who knows what that will have done to him? He’s just handed the other team the tool to win.”

“You think I am the tool to win against him?” He sounded surprised.

“Dralie, this fucker pushed you away so much you didn’t get to fly and then broke his pact and caused you so much pain you thought you’d died. Even if you don’t want revenge, I do. And what he didn’t appreciate about you, we’ll use against him.”

I picked up my word-of-the-day calendar and, using the light from the sunrise peeking through the window, started tearing off all the days I hadn’t been here for.

“Your support means the entire realm to me, Charlie. I want to help you bring him to justice. I want to destroy him for causing so much pain.”

“We’ll do it.” We’ve got no other choice. Just then, Clawdia grumbled in her sleep, rolling over onto my side of the bed. “What do I tell Clawdia? Do you want her to know?”

“Do you think she will be angry?”

I pursed my lips. “She has a past with Fafnir. He was the reason she took her life and was reborn as a familiar. I don’t think she’ll be angry. She knows you are a good egg but may not understand where you were and why you couldn’t help.”

His shame and regret made my stomach hurt. “If I knew she was mine, if I had fought him for control or peaked out from the darkness, I could have been there and saved her.”

“Don’t put that on yourself. I don’t think she would blame you, but our dynamic is hard to explain.” I wanted to be honest with him in case she didn’t react as I expected.

“I don’t want to upset her by reminding her of her past, and I don’t want to risk her reproach.”

“Maybe we should just keep it to ourselves for now. We’ll figure out a way to explain how we know about Fafnir’s dragon.”

I felt his agreement as I turned my computer on and placed my calendar back on the desk. I’d torn eighteen days off. Eighteen days since we left for Sweden. It was laughable how much had changed in such a short time.

“I have to ask, though. Do you remember attacking us in the warehouse?”

“Attacking you?” Dralie repeated.

“It wasn’t long after Fafnir had been brought back to life. You’d been flying around.”

“I remember surging from the ground and then seeing something of interest, but so many people attacked me that I had to fight back. I flew for a long time until he took over and pushed me away again. The next time I awoke…”

He went quiet, and I regretted asking as he made that pained whimper again.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” I said quickly and waved my hand. “Don’t think about it.”

But it was too late. He cried, “I attacked you. He told me you were trying to kill us and I ? —”

I cut him off. Having a hysterical dragon crying in your mind at six in the morning was not a vibe. “He wasn’t wrong. We were trying to kill him, so don’t apologize for saving yourself. You’ve been through a lot, and it’s probably really confusing for you to sort through.”

I made a mental note to get his soul checked. After being risen from the dead twice and then being pushed into me, surely it will have an effect. Is there a soul doctor?

Or maybe the fact Fafnir pushed him away means he was saved from the poison of the dark magic? I don’t know.

Dralie asked quietly, “You truly don’t hold me responsible?”

I logged into my emails out of habit, but one immediately caught my eye.

Adam.

It read: “I’ve found the bastard who hacked me and got him back. If you want the details, call me.”

I smiled. “I don’t blame you at all. Tomorrow’s another day, Dralie, and once we’ve got all our cards on the table, everything is going to be fine.”

Banging woke me up. With bleary eyes, I checked the clock on the wall to see it was midday. I’d had a good few hours’ sleep, and if whoever was banging would fucking stop, I could go back to sleep.

I stretched, my arms crossing the side of the bed where my familiar should have been, and woke up properly. The sheets were warm, so she hadn’t been gone long.

Is she the one making all the noise? She’s been acting weird lately, so I wouldn’t put it past her.

As I threw some joggers on, I remembered the flashes of guilt that crept into her expression when she thought I wasn’t looking.

I knew she was keeping secrets from me. She seemed to have forgotten about my special talent of finding things out. But I didn’t address it with her or look into it.

I was glad she was hiding something, because now it meant that she wouldn’t be looking too closely at my face and seeing my secrets. I gave into the distraction she offered because I trusted that she’d confess eventually.

I opened the office door to be met with angry purple eyes narrowed at me. Clawdia had her back to the front door, which shook with the relentless knocking of someone outside.

I groaned and said, “There’s only one person who could make you want to kill me with your eyes.”