Page 21 of Lady Dragon

KIREK

Through the haze of pain, Kirek couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

The Heartstone felt as if it had shattered in her chest with such force that part of it had shot out of her—and into the princess, catching her like an arrowhead.

Her own pain had been bad enough, but then Samansa had screamed, and the sound flooded Kirek with new agony.

She’d already wanted to protect Samansa, but this was different.

It was as if all her concern and vague impulses toward the princess from before had shifted, coming into focus with new, crystalline clarity, sharp enough to cut.

Kirek had never experienced a pair-bond before, but there was no mistaking it. She felt Samansa’s pain like her own.

Kirek had to help her.

But before Kirek could reach her to try to pry the chunk of stone out, Samansa began to change . Her soft arms and creamy skin were flushing from far more than blood—with a glaring red light. And they were stretching .

Crimson scales burst forth, shining upon huge limbs tipped in wicked claws, and spreading wings nearly filled the room with their span.

A colossal head rose up where it hadn’t been before, jaws snarling and filled with teeth as long as a human arm.

Much to Kirek’s utter disbelief, there was suddenly a massive red dragon within the tower room, writhing in what seemed like the throes of anguish.

Instead of stopping to stare, let alone continuing toward where the princess had once been, Kirek found herself running away .

It was all she could do to avoid getting crushed by the thrashing wings and tail.

Kirek dove behind a couch as the dragon rolled atop the dining table and shattered the massive wooden slab into mere splinters.

And yet, Kirek was only able to pause for a moment before the tail came crashing down through the back of the couch, splitting it like a sword would a melon, barely a handsbreadth from her face.

The dragon was panicking in the tight space. Kirek had to move. She had to transform herself and fly out of here to a safe distance where she could coax the other dragon out, or she would die.

Just as she made to leap for the giant double doors, an earsplitting yowl stopped her in her tracks.

Samansa’s blasted cat, Thoman, was screeching and hissing from under a side table that had nearly been crushed. It was amazing the beast wasn’t a casualty already.

Kirek looked at the gateway that would free her, and looked at the cat.

Samansa wouldn’t thank her if she left the cat to be killed, not even while trying to save the princess. Kirek cursed.

And then she was running, not for the doors but for the cat , ducking and weaving around broken furniture, flying debris, and giant raking claws. She dove and hit the wall in a slide, her shoulders slamming into stone near the half-collapsed side table. The cat hissed at her from underneath .

“You’ll thank me later,” Kirek snarled, more commanding than hopeful, and her hands shot out, seizing his fur.

Of course, the beast immediately sank his claws into her arms, scratching and biting and spitting, but Kirek paid him no mind as she tucked him under her arm and ran for the much smaller door that led to the stairs out of the tower.

Still, it was like holding on to a miniature, furry lightning storm.

It was a wonder she managed to contain him until she reached the door, wrenched it open, and tossed him out.

He landed on his feet, his tail spiked in all directions.

He immediately and incongruously started to lick his paw—which was the last thing Kirek saw before the dragon’s tail whipped across the wall overhead, forcing her to duck and nearly slamming the door closed on her arm.

She rolled away and sprinted for the much bigger gateway, dodging a massive wing that cut the air like a scythe to shatter one of the stained glass windows, and fetched up against the crank.

As soon as she began turning it, the tall double doors split and widened in moments, and Kirek gathered herself, preparing to transform.

… And nothing happened. She couldn’t change. She was left standing on two legs, staring at a many-hundred-foot drop, and feeling as vulnerable as a human might, if they were considering throwing themselves off a tower.

She turned back to the red dragon, which was screeching pitifully and trying to stand in the utter wreckage of the room, limbs buckling beneath her like an injured thing. If the dragon stayed here, she would break a wing or worse.

“Samansa!” Kirek shouted. At least, she thought it was Samansa, but she had no context under the skies for what was happening here.

How any of this was possible: pair-bonding with a human, the sudden appearance of the red dragon, and now Kirek’s inability to return to her true form.

But, somehow, she knew this creature was the princess.

She felt it, through the bond—that cursed pair-bond that had no right to snap into place between them.

Perhaps she was cursed.

She didn’t have long to ponder that before giant, golden eyes latched on to her.

“Come, this way!” Kirek cried, waving at the cavernous opening and the night sky beyond. “You need to fly out of here, or else you’ll hurt yourself!”

The dragon seemed to hear her—or at least came barreling her way, wings already beginning to flap. One caught Kirek across the chest as the dragon hurled herself out into the night—sweeping Kirek out with her.

And then they were both falling.

Oh skies, oh skies, oh skies. Kirek’s frantic thoughts whirled uselessly by as the wind tore at her, but her limbs were moving as if on their own, her powerful hands seizing the edge of the dragon’s wing and latching on to it.

With the added weight, the wing couldn’t flap properly…

and both of them, dragon and dragon girl, kept plummeting toward the cobbles far below.

“Just… hold on!” Kirek cried, even though it was she who needed to hold on.

She began dragging herself higher up the wing, tears streaming from her eyes.

By the time she reached the dragon’s back and clambered on, her thighs clamping down and her grip finding a hold along the spiked neck, the tops of lower towers were whizzing by them like spears.

And then the dragon flapped her red wings, and that nearly tore Kirek off the back of her. Skies above, no wonder humans didn’t ride dragons. It wasn’t just that it was beneath a dragon’s dignity; no human would have ever been able to hold on long enough to stay seated.

Fortunately Kirek wasn’t human, despite appearances, though she had no idea why she couldn’t turn back into her true form.

She clung on for dear life as massive sweeps of the red dragon’s wings took them soaring high over the castle walls, above the twinkling spread of the city below, and then out into the dark, stretching hills of the forest beyond.

They landed amidst the shadowy trees sometime later, the towering trunks providing enough cover for even a creature the size of the red dragon.

As strong as Kirek was, her muscles screamed as she slid from the dragon’s back, heedless of the sharp-edged scales that sanded her palms raw. She fell onto the cushion of pine needles—collapsed in a heap, more like.

For a moment, all she could do was lie on her side and breathe. Her burning limbs throbbed in unceasing waves and her chest was on fire.

Something huge nudged her shoulder, and she rolled over to find it was the dragon’s snout. Dragon though Kirek was, she wasn’t used to seeing one from this angle and nearly wanted to shy away.

“Samansa?” she croaked. Her throat felt as dry as a desert.

The dragon keened, low, and a breath of hot air blasted Kirek’s face.

“Be careful you don’t torch me,” Kirek groaned, and then hauled herself to her feet .

The first thing she did—after staring at the red dragon in utter disbelief—was part the flaps of her ripped leather armor to look at her chest. Her skin was angry red, swollen, and bleeding, and the purple stone, well…

It was still there, nestled in her torn flesh, but it was somehow a much darker shade, bordering on a deep, midnight blue, and it was indeed fractured in half.

She thought she knew where the other half might have gone. She turned to the red dragon again. Huge, golden eyes stared back at her, as if in equal disbelief.

“Can you understand me?” Kirek asked.

The dragon chuffed again, blowing Kirek’s hair around her face. Kirek irritably swiped it away.

“Why can’t I hear you?” she demanded. “The Heartstone let me understand dragon-speech in this form.”

Maybe it was too broken to do so now. The red dragon only blinked at her.

“Well, try ,” Kirek snapped. “Say something to me. Just—use your thoughts?”

It was then Kirek realized the dragon probably didn’t know how to use dragon-speech, especially if she’d only so recently been a human. Kirek hardly knew how to explain it to her; it came so naturally.

Still, the great red dragon hunkered down and stared at her, even more piercingly than before. Her eyes were beautiful, swirling molten gold, so lovely that Kirek could have gotten lost in them until—

Pain. Fear. Confusion. Horror—

Kirek reflexively covered her ears against the silent flood of emotion. “Stop, all right, I can hear you! It’s too much and— ”

Unfocused. The dragon truly didn’t know how to speak. Samansa didn’t—a human in a dragon’s scales. At least the Heartstone still seemed to be functional, translating what it could.

Kirek began pacing furiously over the forest floor, trying not to tug at her hair, while the red dragon watched her like a hawk would a mouse. She wanted to rant and yell, but didn’t want to worry Samansa any more than she probably already was.

What under the skies had happened? How was this the slightest bit possible? Dragons didn’t pair-bond to humans, and humans didn’t pair-bond at all . And it wasn’t as if Samansa were brooding, however driven to protect her Kirek felt.

Well, perhaps she wants an heir, if only out of a sense of duty , she thought with a wildness that was as close as she’d ever come to hysteria.

Maybe Kirek only needed more practice on the hysteria front, and she would arrive there yet.

She had a feeling this situation might just drive her to madness.

How well this lesson in learning human behaviors is succeeding!

She felt like screaming.

“All right,” she breathed. “All right, we can figure this out.” Kirek was telling herself as much as she was Samansa. “We obviously did something wrong. Perhaps several somethings.” Like kissing , she didn’t add.

She was seized by the sudden urge to laugh, of all things.

Perhaps she was already mad.

Or perhaps her human emotions were overtaking her. No, no , she could not let that happen under any circumstances. She was already far too human-seeming as it was. She just needed to stay calm…

Her feet planted as if on their own accord, and she turned, shouting at the dragon, “I was supposed to kill you, not pair-bond with you!”

Those great golden eyes blinked once.

Kirek did laugh then, though it came out more of a sob. “It was on my mother’s order. And then this happened. And now I don’t know what to do! Nothing like this has ever happened before. There’s no one I can ask about this. No one who would understand.”

The red dragon tossed her wide head at the trees—back toward the castle.

“Are you mad?” Kirek nearly shouted. “Your brother wants you gone so he can take the throne! I suspected, but then he confirmed it to my face . And if I go back there now with a dragon who I say is, in fact, the princess, no one will believe me, your brother will think you dead, they’ll throw me in a dungeon, he’ll move to take the throne, and they’ll probably attack you . ”

The dragon moaned, a pitiful sound deep in her chest that nearly brought tears to Kirek’s eyes. Cursed bond , to connect them like this. Kirek dropped her head at the same time as the dragon, and suddenly they were leaning together—the dragon girl’s forehead touching the dragon’s.

“You should just eat me,” Kirek mumbled, a sound just as pitiful as the dragon’s. “That’s all I deserve.”

She wanted to cry, like she never had before. And that’s when she realized—the dragon had become the girl, and the girl had become the dragon. Samansa was the real lady dragon .

They truly were cursed.

The red dragon—Samansa—nudged her, as if trying to knock her out of her miserable self-pitying state. Or maybe she was trying to get a better angle from which to bite her. Kirek would welcome it.

Instead, Samansa shifted to wrap her long neck around Kirek, crouching down on her belly, as low to the ground as she could get. As close to embracing Kirek as she could get, sheltering her with her own armored body.

Kirek felt tears stinging her eyes. Which was insufferable.

“Don’t,” she choked. “You’re making me feel worse.”

The dragon only groaned, long and deep enough to rumble her body and kick off heat from the fire within. Heat that felt surprisingly good. Kirek couldn’t help leaning back into it… and then slid down onto the pine-carpeted forest floor to hold her face in her hands.

“We can’t go anywhere,” Kirek murmured at the ground, feeling the dragon’s deep, warm breaths all around her. There’s no going back , she thought despairingly, and then added aloud, “We should just stay here for now, until we can come up with a plan.”

And so there the two of them huddled, until Kirek, at least, fell into an exhausted sleep, her head leaning on her arms, her back pressed up against the red dragon as if it were the only shelter she could find in a storm.