Thea Harrison - Dragon Bound

She chuckled. “You sound so domestic.”

He smiled. “I have quite a comfortable house in an Other land connected to upstate New York where we’ve done a lot of experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t. It is designed to take maximum advantage of the sun, which heats water for an underfloor hypocaust system that keeps the house warm. Very Roman. As far as why certain technologies don’t work?” He shrugged as he ran his fingers through her hair. “There are a couple of theories bandied about, but the short answer is nobody knows for sure.”

She tilted her head back, reveling in the petting. “A single-action revolver isn’t a very complicated device, nor is a flintlock rifle, but I’ve heard that even simple guns are too dangerous to use.”

“You’re right. Simple guns are just the application of gunpowder, fire and lead, with a barrel. Interestingly the more primitive the gun is, the longer you could use it in an Other land. Automatic weapons seize or misfire as soon as they’re brought over. You might get a few more shots fired out of a simpler, more historic model. You might possibly get as many as a half-dozen rounds fired off, but the amount is never predictable and in the end the gun will always misfire.”

She frowned. “Good way to lose your eyesight or your hand.”

“Or your life,” he said. “One possible explanation is the Living Earth Theory. What if the world was a gigantic entity? When you use a living creature as a conceptual model, then the earth would have discrete parts, organs, limbs, veins, muscles, a skeletal structure and arteries and so on. What if the Other lands are more essential to this organism’s overall system than other places are, more like the artery than the outlying vein, or a vital organ as opposed to one you can survive without? What if the magic that is so strong over here and that dampens, even sabotages, certain technologies is Earth’s defense mechanism?”

“Kind of like white blood cells?” she said. “If you use that analogy, maybe you could shoot simpler guns a few more times because it would take the immune system longer to recognize them.”

“Exactly. The theory is more poetry than science, but I like it. There’s also a modified Living Earth Theory that knocks out the concept of a world entity. It focuses instead on individual pockets of Other land as collective ‘minds’ that are created from the magic-drenched land and regional wildlife, although these minds aren’t necessarily conscious as we currently understand consciousness. In this theory, the concept of magic acting as a defense mechanism and hampering technology is still the same.”

She smiled, intrigued and delighted by this new glimpse into him and his active, curious mind. “You’re quite the scientific thinker, aren’t you?” she said.

His eyebrows rose and he nodded. “I like to look for underlying patterns and meaning to the world. I do a lot of reading in scientific journals.”

She finished her meal and licked her fingers for any lingering sweetness. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and she felt him harden against her inner thigh. Her breathing hitched.

But he moved her from him, rose to his feet and offered her a hand to pull her upright. She was too sore to be disappointed. She told herself that a couple of different times as she scooped up the crumpled tunic and leggings and the blanket. She went to the stream to rinse away the evidence of their . . . whatever.

What was the word for what they had done? Lovemaking was too pretty. Sex seemed too simple and basic. Mating sounded like it could be too permanent. She bit her lip as anxiety threatened to knock her sideways.

It’s too much to think about. It’s too big. He really did demolish me. I don’t know who that hellcat slut was that tore up grass and screwed her brains out. I don’t know who I am anymore.

She shut down those thoughts before she careened too far out of control. She reasserted the dampening spell. She sighed with resignation as she turned her hands over and looked at them. Predawn was lightening the clearing to gray, and they were just normal dim, human-looking hands.

A real hot meal, a bed, a stable schedule. Going to bed in the evening. Getting up in the morning. The things you take for granted until you don’t have them anymore.

She dragged the tunic and leggings on and sat on the ground to pull on her tennis shoes. She bit back a grimace at their dingy state and added it to her list of grievances. A hundred thousand dollars down the toilet. Three IDs gone. No car. No socks. No underwear.

And what did she do? She went and had sex with the cause of all of her problems. Sure, it wasn’t the yawn-and-make-upa-grocery-list-until-he’s-finished kind of sex. It was a kind she had never even imagined was possible, a what-the-hell-is-my-name-again kind of sex, but sex was all they’d had. She was worse than a fool if she tried to make it into anything else—she was a Wyr-dingbat, and wasn’t that a god-awful sorry concept for a creature.

She yanked her shoelaces tied as she bitched to herself; then she glared at the object of her obsession.

He had rinsed at the stream too and pulled on his jeans and boots. He was on one knee by the dying fire. He laid his hand on the red coals and with one last pulse they went black. She sucked in a breath. So, okay, maybe he was a what-the-hell-is-my-name-again kind of guy.

His head came up and his body stiffened. He twisted to stare in the direction of a light breeze that blew through the nearby trees.

What is it? She drew in a deep breath, scenting the breeze. She caught a hint of stench.

He leaped upright. “Run.”

She jumped to her feet and grabbed the blanket and hairbrush with shaking hands. She started to stuff them into the bag.

No more Goblins. Please God. I’ll be good and eat all my peas.

“Forget all that. Drop it.” He lunged for his weapons. “Go.”

If there was one thing she could do well. She dropped everything, whirled and ran.

Everything inside went on red alert, all systems flashing. Adrenaline kicked her ass. Her vision sharpened, her sense of smell heightened and her hearing became more acute. She plotted out the best path ahead of her at the same time as she strained to hear any hint of pursuit.

There was nothing, no sound. There was just the wind waltzing through the trees, the sound of her own breathing gone ragged from fright and Dragos racing behind her. But she caught another whiff of Goblin stink. Her heart lurched.

Dragos said in a calm voice behind her, “Fast as you can, Pia.”

Right. She tucked her chin in, sought and found her stride, then kicked it out.

Dragos raced after her as the sky became brilliant with sunrise. Pia seemed to have gone weightless. Damn, she ran like a cheetah. Maybe faster. Hell of a thing to watch. She sailed over obstacles like fallen tree trunks and rocks, making the leaps look effortless, as if she simply chose to pick up her feet and fly. He found room in himself for one more surprise as he discovered he was falling behind.

Good girl. If she had endurance as well as speed, they might be okay.

Pia let her mind go blank and lived in the moment. Nothing existed beyond the deep rhythm of her breathing, the athletic flex of muscle and bone, the sound of Dragos running behind her. They had plunged deep into the forest so that the infinite bowl of the sky became obscured with heavy boughs of green, but the morning light brightened and the day grew warmer until her skin was coated in sweat.

The forest was silent around them, ancient tree trunks twisted with secrets and imprisoned by creeping vines. She realized that since the Goblins had brought them over the day before, she hadn’t heard another single creature nearby, not a rustle, peep or tweet. Maybe it was because she was in the presence of the most apex predator of them all. Or maybe it was because Goblins swarmed through the forest like a terminal disease. Or both.