Thea Harrison - Dragon Bound

How did this get so messed up? She wrung her hands. He not so much walked outside as flowed, that great magnificent body of his turning into a weapon.

A sound sliced the air. Dragos spun backward, his legs buckling. It all happened too fast. She caught up a heartbeat later. She stared at Dragos, who had collapsed on the walk. A dozen tall Elves stepped out of various hiding places, from behind her Honda, the nondescript Ford idling at the curb and nearby shrubbery. They held weapons trained on the sprawled figure. Six-foot longbows.

She launched toward Dragos, who was lying on his back. Darkness appeared on one white-clad shoulder. It began to spread. She fell to her knees beside him.

“You shot him!” she shouted. She stared at the stern-eyed Elves encircling them. “Do you know who he is?”

One of them stepped forward. He was a silver-haired male, beautiful in the way that all Elves are, with a gracious light that somehow made all other creatures leaden by comparison. Despite his slender build, he not only looked powerful, he carried more Power than anybody else in the clearing except for Dragos.

“We know who he is,” said the Elf. He stared down at Dragos, his beautiful face cold. “Wyrm.”

She turned back to Dragos. Even though he lay wounded, he looked utterly without fear, his raptor’s stare turning from the Elves to focus on her. She tore open his shirt to stare at the bleeding hole over his left breast. Her uneven breathing sounded loud in her ears.

“I don’t get it. None of you are carrying guns. Where’s the arrow?” she asked. She tore off her hoodie and pressed it to the wound.

“Elven magic,” Dragos responded through gritted teeth.

“No simple arrow could mark him,” said the Elf. “But this one has already melted into his body. It will continue to release poison into his bloodstream for a number of days.”

“What did you do!” she shouted. Her face contorted. She clenched her fists and started to her feet. Dragos grabbed her wrist.

“Pia,” he said when she fought against his hold. “It would take a lot more than this to kill me.”

“We have disabled him,” the Elf told her.

“You don’t understand,” she told Dragos. “I called them. It’s my fault.” She tried to pry his fingers open. It was like trying to pry open a steel shackle. She looked up at the Elf.

He had shifted his attention to Dragos. “You entered our lands without permission. Treaties have been broken. There will be consequences. For now, the poison will keep you from changing into the Great Beast. Since we have clipped your wings, we will give you twelve hours to get beyond our borders. If you are not gone by then, there will be more than twelve of us who will come for you.”

“I broke his law,” Pia said. “He was just coming after me.”

“His law is not our law,” said the Elf. “And he broke ours. Wyrm, release your hold on the female.”

“She is mine.” Dragos bared his teeth, gold eyes flaring to lava. His growl shivered through the ground at her knees, and long fingers clenched on her wrist. He tensed and began to rise.

The other Elves sighted down their longbows at him. “You will release her now or forfeit the twelve hours’ grace,” their leader said.

Pia flung her free hand out at the Elves, fingers spread and palm out. “Stop!” She leaned over Dragos. Bending close to that feral face was one of the braver things she had done in her life. Some instinct she could not have verbalized had her gentling her voice. “Dragos,” she murmured. Calm and quiet, like she would speak to a wounded animal. “Can you look at me, please? You know how normal people say ‘please.’ Pay attention to me, not them.”

That lava gaze turned to her, burning and alien. He may not be able to change, but he was immersed in the dragon.

“Thank you,” she breathed. She dropped her free arm and stroked at his black hair. Dragos tracked the movement and then looked at her face. “I know you’re very angry, but I promise you, this is not worth fighting over,” she whispered. She tugged just a little at the inky ends. Inspiration struck. “And you promised me you wouldn’t put me in harm’s way. Just a few minutes ago. Remember?”

His dangerous face clenched. “You’re mine,” he told her.

For a blistering instant, she had no idea what to say to that. Then hey, another lightbulb moment came along and she was on a roll. “Letting go of my wrist doesn’t change a thing,” she murmured. She mimicked what he had done to her earlier and stroked a finger down the side of his face, then laid her hand against his cheek. “Please.”

His fingers loosened and he let her pull away.

She got to her unsteady feet, somehow managed to stay upright and turned to face the Elven leader, who gave her a slight bow. He stared at her. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Interior alarm bells started to ring, but all the lightbulbs had left her high and dry. She shook her head and said, “We’ve never met.”

“I’m sure I’ve seen you before. You look—” The Elf’s sea-colored gaze widened. “You look exactly like—”

Dragos curled a hand around her ankle.

“Yeah, I look like Greta Garbo,” she interrupted in a loud voice. A pulse of dread dampened her skin. Shut up, Elf. “I get that a lot.”

“My lady, I am so honored to meet you,” the Elven leader breathed. He bowed low to her, his previous generic respect turned to reverence. When he straightened, his face was alight with joy. “You have no idea how we hoped and prayed that something of your mother still remained in this world.”

All the other Elves stared at them, their faces alight with curiosity. She scowled at the Elven leader. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” she told him.

He seemed to start and come to himself. His joy became muted but she could still feel it beating in him. He smiled at her and said, “Of course, forgive me. I am mistaken.”

Then his telepathic voice sounded in her head like deep bell chimes in the wind. My name is Ferion. I knew a woman once who looked much like you. Meeting her was one of the greatest gifts of my life.

I am honored that you would share that with me, she said . But it is dangerous for me that we talk of this, and I am not that woman. In fact, I am very much less than that woman.

Not to my eyes, he said. Please allow us to offer you sanctuary. I know our Lord and Lady would greet you with joy every bit as deep as my own. We would treasure your presence among us.

She hesitated and for a moment, oh, she was tempted. The thought of such a welcome wrung at her lonely heart. But Ferion’s reverence brought her up short. She didn’t think she could bear to live with such regard. Not when she was so much less than what he thought she was, nothing very special at all, just a glow-in-the-dark night-light and a stupid parlor trick and a big mouth that got her into too much trouble. Living with the Elves, where she would feel like a fraud while she aged and died and they remained forever the same, would just be a different kind of loneliness.

The jealous hand on her ankle tightened. She looked down at Dragos, who was watching her with a narrowed gaze.

I thank you for the offer of sanctuary. Perhaps one day I may take you up on it, she said to Ferion. While she couldn’t accept, she couldn’t bear to say no, either, to what might be the only home ever offered to her. In the meantime, I have a debt to pay.

Ferion said aloud, “Lady, I beg of you, come away with us. Do not stay with the Beast.”

She squatted by Dragos and dared to peek under the hoodie covering his wound. It had stopped bleeding. She mopped the blood streaks from his shoulder as gently as she could, wiped her hands on the material and folded the bloodied part into the rest of the hoodie.