Dragon (25 page)

“But you know what else? Even if I don’t need you, even if I can still live without you, I want you to stay and be my husband. I want you to live because that would make me happy. And I think I could make you happy. We could share our happiness together and be the keepers of the fire and the protectors of our people.

“And Ram? If you want to make dragon babies, you’re going to need to turn human first, at least for a little while.”

So then my sobs turn into this tear-soaked blubbering, with warm memories, gratitude, and loving feelings bubbling up inside me, choking their way past the sadness and getting caught in a bittersweet tangle of uncertainty, desperate hope, and premature grief.

Even that’s not nearly as picturesque as it sounds because, as you probably know if you’ve ever cried your heart out for a long time, pretty soon all those tears start to flow down through your nose like a flushing toilet, swilling out all the snot and boogers and slimy nose gunk, which just sort of runs on down your face with the tears.

And in my case, runs down Ram’s face, too.

But as you might guess from the way Ram eats and belches and goes around splattered with blood all the time, he doesn’t seem to mind the slimy nose gunk.

In fact, I almost think he likes it, because it’s right about then that he turns into a human again, just in time for the healer to show up, riding to the rescue on my dad’s back along with a couple of assistants and their doctor’s bags and all that. And they try to shoo me away.

I don’t want to go, but before I can protest, my father analyzes my slimy nose gunk and tears that are still globbed and dripping from Ram’s face. “Oh, good—you cried on him.”

“That’s good?”

“Some say the tears of a dragon can grant wishes, even make miracles happen. Others say that’s just a myth.” He winks at me and leads me away so the healer can get to work.

I don’t think I can watch Ram suffer for a second longer, and I have blubbered out every tear in my head, so I let my dad give me a tour of the fortress. (That may seem cold and unfeeling of me, but I’m emotionally spent, a shell of my usual self, plus I’m pretty tired from being a dragon and fighting and all that. I just have to get away and breathe.)

It’s a wicked-cool fortress, with thick stone and tapestries and a state of the art kitchen with butcher’s-block countertops, and as my father explains, it’s all mine—mine and Ram’s, anyway, if he survives. The fire damaged a section of roof, but my dad seems confident we can fix it.

When we get back outside again the sun is setting, casting that sort of golden glow across everything and making Ram look not so deathly pale, and the healer gives her prognosis.

“If he can make it through the night, he should live. He wouldn’t wake up for us, but if he does, try to get him to drink water and eat something. That would be the best thing for him.”

They’ve got him all hooked up to an IV, which looks pretty high tech here in the mountain fortress, and they transferred him off the cold cobblestones onto a stretcher. Between the five of us (four holding each corner handle and one bringing the IV bag hoisted high on a stand), we manage to lift him gently off the ground and carry him inside, to a bedroom that’s bigger than my whole flat back in Prague, with lofted ceilings so high a person could easily change into a dragon without having to worry about having enough headroom or getting tangled in the chandelier. All the doorways are extra huge, too.

We settle Ram’s stretcher onto the middle of the bed, and he doesn’t twitch or even breathe very deeply.

So then while the healer and her assistants go back out onto the balcony to pack up their things, my dad gives me a hug and tells me everything is going to be okay, one way or another, which is not the most reassuring speech I’ve ever heard, but its more than my dad usually says.

Then he adds, “I’m sure the two of you want to be alone, and I need to get back to the village and make sure everyone is okay.”

I nod dumbly. Normally, yes, I’d love to be alone with my husband on our wedding night, but considering he’s unconscious, being alone together seems overrated. Still, I can’t argue with the fact that my dad needs to look after his people. And I’ll be okay.

It’s Ram I’m worried about.

My dad heads for the door in a hurry, then spins around and snaps his fingers. “I almost forgot. Ram said something about your wedding gift. It’s in the bathroom. You might want to take care of it.” He points to a door and then, while I’m looking at the door wondering what kind of wedding gift goes in the bathroom, my dad scurries away, calling out something over his shoulder about coming back in the morning to check on us.

And then we’re alone.

I look at Ram. He’s still awfully pale, but he’s breathing, and his bandages haven’t bled through. That’s something, at least.

Since there’s not much I can do for him, I head over to the bathroom door and open it cautiously.

The bathroom is massive, all marble and travertine, the middle of the room dominated by a huge soaking tub that would probably fit a dragon or two, and a chandelier that looks almost like a waterfall. For a moment, all I can think is that Ram gave up this place for his flat in Prague, which I never went into but judging from the outside wasn’t even as nice as mine.

Then I hear a scratching noise followed by some whimpering, and I remember I’m supposed to be looking for my wedding gift.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I follow the sound to its source and discover a small caged enclosure on the other side of the tub, with newspapers on the floor and a dish of water, a dish of puppy chow, a blanket that’s been chewed on and a chew toy that hasn’t.

And a puppy. A sweet little dark-eared chunk who looks like a miniature version of Ozzie, only fuzzy. I scoop her up and she stops whimpering and buries her face against my chest, at which point I realize I’m still just wearing that torn piece of sheet and my tattered slip, not that it matters because nobody is around.

I carry the puppy back out to the bedroom, my heart swelling with appreciation at Ram’s thoughtfulness, tempered with the desperate hope that he’ll live long enough for me to thank him. For a while, the puppy and I just sit on the bed watching Ram breathe, and hoping he’ll live. I’m glad for the soft little furball because she makes me feel slightly less alone in the cavernous fortress.

Then after a bit I realize I’m starving and the puppy and I head to the kitchen and check the fridge, which is stocked with steaks. Since I’m still a little rough on the fire breathing, especially in human form, I use the stove (which is this seriously massive twelve-burner thing with a griddle and grill plate and regular gas burners) and I grill a couple of nice porterhouses, slap them on a platter, and carry it back to the bedroom with the puppy at my heels.

“Hey Ram, you hungry? I grilled us some steaks,” I call out as I enter the room, because even if he’s unconscious, it just seems rude to carry food in and eat it without offering him any.

But to my total surprise (seriously, I came very close to dropping the steaks) a weak voice answers.

“Starving. I feel like I’ve been gored by a bull.”

I rush over to his side, not even really sure it was Ram who spoke, because I’ve never heard his voice sound so weak before, and because, you know, he’s supposed to be unconscious.

His blue eyes are open, ringed with exhaustion that bends into a smile when he sees me.

I smile back dumbly for a few moments, because even though this doesn’t mean for sure he’ll make it through the night, it still seems like a good sign to me. “You know there’s not a bull in the world strong enough to gore you,” I remind him once I find my voice. “Those were Ion’s horns, I think.”

“That’s right. I remember. I think he was really trying to kill me.”

“He almost did.” I don’t mention that his efforts might still have their intended effect. “Do you think you can eat?”

“I’m starving. Thirsty, too.”

So I get him some water, and when he manages to swallow that without too much trouble, I cut him slender strips of steak and feed him slowly, which he insists is torture, but I don’t want to hurt him. That becomes a theme for the night.

Somewhere about halfway through the first steak, when Ram has a little bit of meat juice next to his mouth, and I realize I don’t have a napkin to wipe it away, I remember we haven’t kissed yet. So I set the steak aside and climb up onto the bed next to him, and kiss him, a sort of meaty, beautiful, delicious kiss so perfect I want to keep going, but I know Ram needs to breathe and recover and take things slowly.

When I pull away he starts to reach for me, but his arm is bound and I don’t want him straining any stitches, so just to be on the safe side I kiss him again. And again.

The steak is cold by the time we get back to finishing it, but neither of us care.

*

Epilogue

Ram made it through the night. And he was okay, even if I gave him a hard time about acting like a sixty-seven-year-old. And my dad came back the next morning to check on us, which was extra special because he brought me my backpack. It was nice to have something to wear besides shredded sheets.

My knowledge of the Azeri language returned quickly, which was helpful because the villagers all wanted to meet me and talk to me and tell me how much I’ve revived their hope for the future, which is super awesome but also completely humbling.

Eudora hasn’t bothered us, and neither has Ion. My dad’s spies are keeping an eye on them for us, and report they’re both hiding out in their respective castles in Siberia, keeping to themselves and not causing any real trouble, though they’re likely plotting revenge, or something. If I had my guess I’d say Eudora is probably frantically trying to develop a serum to change her back into a dragon. My dad says now that Eudora’s a human, she’ll probably start aging like one, so she’ll have to work fast on that serum if she’s going to get it done in time to do her any good.

The puppy grew and soon looked just like Azi, and we started calling her Azi, mostly because she reminded us so much of her grandmother. By the time she was fully grown my first egg hatched, and she became little Ram’s best friend and guard dog.

Ram was a little disappointed we didn’t have a girl, girl dragons being most severely underrepresented in the world, but I assured him we’d balance the genders eventually, and sure enough, our next three (yes, three!) eggs hatched into girls.

Followed by another boy.

See, I’m taking seriously this thing about being keepers of the flame and protectors of our people, and I want to make sure we don’t go extinct, not if I can help it.

I believe the world needs more dragons.

I know it’s a big switch from what I’ve said before, but I’ve learned a lot of things about dragons. Maybe we are relics, and not a civilized as some folks. We’re certainly scary, especially when we haven’t had our coffee yet, or if we think something is threatening someone we love.

But we also keep our people safe (at least when we’re not attracting danger by our mere existence) and watch over them and provide for them. Our mad dragon skills come in handy quite a bit, like when somebody needs to get somewhere fast, we can fly them on our backs. Or if there’s demolition work to be done, our tails are good at that. Our vision is handy for seeing things far away. We’re good at fishing, too—we can catch enough fish for the whole village in one night, if we find a good fishing spot. And then we can roast those fish in seconds with the flames from our mouths.

I’m all the time learning new things about myself, and discovering things I can do just because I’m a dragon. And you know what? I’m not just okay with who I am—fire-breath, scales and all.

I love being a dragon.

THE END

A note from the author:

I hope you enjoyed Dragon. There are five more books in the Dragon Eye series. The next is Hydra, and it takes place more than twenty years after the events of this book. Ram and Ilsa are important characters in Hydra, but the story is told by their middle daughter, Wren.

I’ve included an exclusive peek of the first five chapters of Hydra at the end of this e-book.

But first, I’d like to share with you a bit about the dragon world.

As Ram explained to Ilsa, the dragon world is comprised of dragons and the people who love and support them. Ram and Ilsa are supported, not just by the Jitrnickas and the villagers in Azerbaijan, but by readers.

By you.

You, Reader, make these stories possible. Without readers to enjoy the stories and share them with their friends, the dragons and all their adventures will fade from memory. Seriously. I’m not even exaggerating.

The good news is, being a part of the dragon world is a lot easier than fighting yagi. All you have to do is read the stories. If you want to go a step further and be my hero, you can share the books with your friends, too. There are a number of ways to do this.

1)      Tell your friends about the books. Offer to loan them a copy, or just let them know where they can find one.

2)     Read the books that follow this one. You can visit my web site at
www.finleyaaron.com
for a list of upcoming titles, a glimpse of the covers, and a peek at what each story is about.

3)     Tweet, pin, share on Facebook, or whatever social media you prefer. People can’t read the books until they know they exist.

4)     Review the books. Why is that important? People look to reviews to help them decide if a book is for them. You don’t need to give a detailed report of the story (and please, no spoilers). Just share whether you liked it, and what aspects of the story (setting, characters, style, etc.) were most interesting to you. Reviews are also important because certain promotions are only available to books that have over a certain number of reviews (which varies). What this means is that I, as an author, can’t promote my books through some venues until readers have vouched for the book. In plain English: I need you.