The Dragon Delasangre (14 page)

“Relax,” Tindall says. “The Santos report you ordered is already here. All of Elizabeth's papers are being rushed. You should have both soon. And Peter, I doubt that my wife, my other two sons or I will be looking to engage in any risky behavior. I surely hope nothing else happens. . . .”

“I doubt anything will,” I say and hang up.

 

To my relief, a courier finally delivers a packet from Miami on the morning of our sixth day on the boat. I open it in the marina office, take out two manila envelopes—one labeled
ELIZABETH DELASANGRE
, the other marked
JORGE SANTOS
—feel the heft of each and grin. I know I have no need to check the contents of either. No matter how much Tindall balks or complains, he does what's necessary as quickly and completely as possible—especially when he's threatened.

Envelopes in hand, I rush back to the Grand Banks. I'm tempted to open the Santos file immediately but, instead, I store it in the chart drawer by the lower helm and go below to wake my bride. Once we're at sea, I think, there will be plenty of time to read up on the man.

Elizabeth groans when I gently stroke her awake. “Bother me later,” she says and burrows below her covers.

“Look.” I throw the manila envelope labeled
ELIZABETH DELASANGRE
on the bed next to her. “The courier finally came. We can leave.”

She sits up, opens the envelope. “How soon?” she asks, sitting cross-legged on the bed, naked, her small round breasts swaying slightly as she sorts through the official documents, examining the birth certificate, passport, Social Security card, Coral Gables High School diploma, Florida's driver's license and voter's registration card that all bear her name.

As usual I'm delighted with her appearance whether
she's in human form or dragon. I sit next to her, cup one breast in my hand, consider lying with her. But, I know, once underway, there will be more than enough time for that.

Elizabeth stares at me when I take my hand away, shocked, I think, that I could ever resist her. “Later,” I say, my mind on home, planning the steps necessary to getting underway, letting myself fully smile for the first time in days. “We're leaving now.”

Her pillow hits my back as I leave the cabin.

 

Ordinarily Elizabeth takes her time getting up, going about the business of washing and dressing in preparation for the day. But today I barely have time to reach the flybridge and start the motors before she joins me.

Wearing only a skimpy, bright blue bikini, her hair wildly in disarray, she smiles at me. “So let's get going,” she says.

But Elizabeth offers no help. She yawns, looks away when I attempt to tell her about the motors and instruments. “Just teach me how to drive the boat,” she says. “I don't care how it works.”

She only comes close to me when I turn my attention from her to the gauges and dials on the console in front of me. “Is it later yet?” she says, pressing against me.

I shake my head, trying to keep my mind off the soft warmth of her body, the sweet smell of her, while I make sure the engines warm up properly, the systems all work.

Taking the wheel, I tell Elizabeth to jump off the Grand Banks, instruct her on how to disconnect the shore power and uncleat the dock lines. She glares at me, waits until I say, “Please.”

Even then, she moves so slowly I'm tempted to do it myself. But I find I can't keep from admiring the catlike way she moves, grinning at her less-than-nautical efforts. When she finally finishes, I throw the boat in gear.

Elizabeth hops back on the boat as soon as it starts to
move. Obviously aware of my gaze, she moves slowly on the bow deck, coiling and stowing the lines where I say, bending and twisting more than necessary, moving in such a way that her breasts seem to be on the verge of escaping the bikini's flimsy cups—the sweat from her exertions glistening on her mocha flesh, spotting the bikini, making it cling all the more where the skin is wet.

I stare, thinking of how salty she must taste.

Elizabeth looks back, laughs, cries out, “Peter!” and points behind me, “Watch out for that pole!”

My face flushed, I throw the motors out of reverse, push the throttles forward just enough to stop our rearward movement, complete our turn without striking the channel marker.

“Captain,” she says, hands on her hips, “you really should keep your eyes on where we're going.”

“You're not making it easy for me, you know,” I say.

“Oh,” she says, all innocence, toying with her bikini top, suddenly yanking it up, flashing me a quick glimpse of her firm mocha breasts, her dark brown nipples, then covering them. “I thought you weren't interested anymore.”

I begin to frown at her but, somehow, I end up smiling. “I never said I wasn't interested.”

“That's how you acted,” Elizabeth says. She turns her back on me, looks forward as we glide past the other boats still tied to their docks.

I know she's punishing me for my earlier neglect, but still I almost gasp when she shouts, “You'll never get anything like this!”

Shocked, hurt, I begin to reply, then realize she's reacting to the leering gaze of an older, potbellied man, sitting on the stern of a catamaran at the end of the dock, an unlit cigar clamped in his mouth. His elderly wife, sitting beside him—a woman whose entire body seems to sag inside her one-piece, black bathing suit—follows the movement of our
boat, shaking her head in disgust, not at her husband but at my wife.

Elizabeth pulls off her top, waves it at her, then as we pass, yanks her bottoms off too. The cigar falls from the man's mouth.

“Eat your heart out!” I yell, gunning my motors, creating a wake behind us that I know will still rock them long after we're out of sight.

On the deck Elizabeth spins and whoops, throws her bikini into the air. Then she faces forward and, spreading her arms and legs, lets the wind—created by our speed—caress her naked skin, and dry the sweat from her body. She stays that way, oblivious to the stares of any passing boaters, until we exit the harbor. When she finally turns and looks in my direction, I motion for her to come join me on the flybridge.

“You aren't mad, are you?” she calls out.

I look at her and shake my head. “How could I be?”

Elizabeth grins, rushes to the bridge. She hugs me, kisses me on the cheek and whispers, “I want you.”

“Not yet,” I say, working the wheel, guiding the boat through the worst of the ocean's swells near the shore.

She presses her naked body against my side, her skin cool from the wind—her nipples rock hard. I try to ignore her, tend to my piloting, but she rubs against me, kissing my neck, tugging at my clothes.

“Elizabeth!” I object.

She laughs, continues to tease me and I suck in a breath, and force myself to pay attention to the boat traffic around us, the movements of the waves. But the farther Jamaica falls behind us, the less able I am to concentrate, the more conscious I am of Elizabeth's presence beside me. Far before the ocean swallows the last remnant of the island's image, I give in, set the autopilot, tear off my clothes and turn all my attention to my bride.

“It's about time,” Elizabeth says, disengaging from me,
walking slowly to the bench seat at the rear of the flybridge. Perfectly aware that my eyes follow each movement of hers, she lies on the bench facing me. “Come, Peter,” she says. “You've already made me wait far too long.”

Staring in the daylight at her naked body, I whisper, “Now I guess you'll want me to make up for having you wait.”

“I wish you would, Peter. . . .”

 

Later neither of us bothers to dress. We lie holding each other, listening to the rumble of the engines, letting the sea wind wash over us, smelling the salt air, being lulled to sleep by the rolling rhythm of our passage.

Neither of us wakes until after dark. Without a word or a thought between us we change shape and take to the evening sky to hunt, to kill and to feed. Later we make love again on the rear deck of the flybridge and then give in to sleep, waking after dawn to find the sunlight burning down on us, searing our scales. We change to our human forms, go below deck to continue our slumbers and the next night we repeat the pattern, preying on the crews and living cargo of dilapidated smuggling boats, attacking the countrysides of poor islands, creating a host of new folk tales I'm sure will terrify many uneducated island children for years to come.

Time turns elastic. I lose track of the days, forget to check on our location. The books I bought go unread. Jorge Santos's file remains untouched in the drawer next to the lower wheel. Elizabeth and I sleep through the days. We hardly talk, share nothing of our thoughts and histories. Sometimes I worry, we only seem to care about the next hunt, the feeding that follows and the lovemaking after that.

 

Late one afternoon, before we've changed to our natural forms, before the sky has grown dark enough to allow us to hunt, Elizabeth comes to me, her eyes glistening from the
tears she's holding back. “I tried to talk to Chloe just now—we've been mindspeaking each day. . . . I couldn't reach her.”

I nod, check the GPS, then wrap my arms around her—surprised at how tender her tears make me feel, pleased to have her come to me for comfort. “We're near Cuba,” I say. “Too far for mindspeaking. Even we have limits. You'll have to write her from now on.”

“It won't be the same.” She pouts.

“No, it won't,” I say. Elizabeth pulls away and I wish I knew what to say to her to ease her sadness.

Later we change and hunt, make love and sleep. We do the same the day after that. The Grand Banks and the ocean that surround it have become our only universe. I wonder what will lie beyond it.

 

Lightning or thunder or Elizabeth's laughter—I'm not sure which—awakens me just before another dawn. I sit up, still in my natural state, the remnants of our kill—a young, attractive couple who maintained a small farm on the Cuban coast—lying nearby. Rain slashes across the deck, soaks me. The wind chills me as waves rush at us and the bow rises, then crashes down. The stern does the same, the props whining when they break free of the water, and I hear Elizabeth laugh again.

A lightning bolt streaks across the sky, its momentary brilliance freezing a snapshot of the frenzied sea leaping all around us and illuminating the wet, naked, human form of my bride at the wheel of the ship.

“Elizabeth?”
I mindspeak.

“When the storm woke me, I turned off the autopilot and took the helm.”
She adjusts the wheel a quarter turn to the left, to keep the bow facing the waves.
“I've never seen anything like this. Isn't it wonderful?”

The Grand Banks shudders, almost stops as a massive wave crashes over its bow.
“You can go below. Use the lower wheel, in the cabin,”
I say.

“Why would I want to?”

I shrug, throw the carcasses off the boat and revert to human form too. As soon as I do, I start to shiver. Elizabeth hardly notices when I approach and kiss her wet, cold cheek.
“I'm going below to get some foul-weather gear. Do you want me to bring you any?”

She shakes her head, laughs and whoops as we crash through another roller.

Below, inside the cabin, the pitching and rolling seem even more intense. I have to concentrate on maintaining my balance as I dry off and pull on a sweatshirt and jeans. I try to think how many days it's been since I was dressed, and give up the attempt after a few moments.

The lower wheel turns, the boat changes position and I picture Elizabeth, naked and laughing, at the wheel above. I grin and shake my head. I've never met anyone as free as my bride. I'm amazed how seductive her wildness has been. My memories of our voyage from Jamaica almost frighten me—that I could succumb to such a careless, untamed life.

I think of Elizabeth's question the night before.
“When you met me, you thought you were going to teach me more about how to live as a human, didn't you?”

“Yes,”
I said.

“Well, I think you didn't expect one thing.”
She chuckled.

“Which was?”

“That maybe, I'd teach you more about how to be a dragon instead.”

A massive jolt knocks me off my feet, throws me across the cabin. The boat wallows and turns. The lower wheel spins freely.
“Peter!”
Elizabeth mindspeaks. I sense at once she's no longer on the boat.
“Peter!”
she calls and I feel her drifting farther behind me each moment that passes.

I stand, rush for the wheel, reach it just as another breaker hits the Grand Banks on its beam, the boat half rolling on its side before it rights.
“Elizabeth, are you hurt?”
I ask as I tug on the wheel, steer the boat, bow first, into the waves.

“No . . . I don't think so,”
she says.
“I'm not sure how any of it happened. The waves are huge. One swept me off the flybridge. . . . Peter, I can't see the boat!”

Thankful that Jeremy had opted for the extra expense of dual controls, I reset the autopilot from the comfort and safety of the lower bridge and then let go of the wheel.

“Don't worry. We can always find the boat.”

“We?”

“After all the trouble I went through to find you, do you think I'd risk losing you now?”
I mindspeak, stripping off my warm clothes.
“I'm coming for you. Change to your natural state. You'll be stronger that way.”

“Yes, Peter,”
she says.

I arch an eyebrow when I realize she hasn't argued with me. Another wave rocks the Grand Banks and I wait for the boat to reach the bottom of the next trough before I rush out the door, slam it behind me and leap from the deck.

Wind tears at me, rain blinds me as I change shape in midair and attempt to fly toward my bride. But I can't overpower the storm. Rather than wear myself out in a futile attempt to conquer the wind, I choose to drop into the water.

“Peter!”

“I'm coming, Elizabeth. Can you sense where I am?”

“It's so far.”

I know both of us are too strong to be in much danger, but I'm not sure Elizabeth realizes it.
“Don't worry,”
I tell her.
“The water's warm. You'll be fine.”

“I'll feel better when you reach me.”

A wave swells in front of me. Diving beneath it, I sense what direction I have to take to reach my bride and concentrate on moving through the water with the least effort, using my tail and wings to propel me forward, one strong coordinated stroke at a time.

“I'm swimming toward you now,”
I say
“Swim toward me. You can do it. Go below the water. The waves are less difficult to fight that way. . . .”

“Yes, Peter.”

The distance between us slowly diminishes as we force
our way through the water. I swim until my lungs burn, surface long enough to take a few gasps of air, dive and repeat the pattern again and again until I lose any sense of how much time has passed, how many waves I've encountered. When I surface yet another time and yet another wave crashes over me, I sigh, tread water and look around. All I can see are gray skies and breaker after breaker. Diving again, I swim on, wondering how I'll ever reach my bride in such a turbulent sea.

Finally, it's Elizabeth who brings me to her.
“Peter, I can feel how near you are. Can you sense me too?”
she mindspeaks.

I stop, tread water, concentrate on detecting my bride's presence.
“Yes, I can!”
I mindspeak and race toward her as she speeds in my direction.

We meet on the surface, rising with a wave, the wind howling at us as we embrace. I wrap Elizabeth in my wings, both of us floating, nuzzling our cheeks against each other.

“Don't be mad at me, Peter,”
she says.

“Why would I?”

“I didn't pay enough attention. If this happened at home, Pa would be furious. He hates carelessness. He always punishes us, even Mum, when we make stupid mistakes.”

“I'm not your father,”
I say, pulling her closer, glad to have her safe.
“You've done nothing wrong. It was just a bad squall.”

 

We float in the water for hours, neither of us speaking, keeping each other afloat until the storm wears itself out. When the winds finally die down, we take to the air and search for our craft. Toward dusk, Elizabeth spots it, fifty miles from where we had floated, making its way north as if nothing had hindered its passage.

Exhausted, we land on the flybridge. Laughing with relief to have something solid beneath our feet, we change into
our human forms and rush below. Hunger and cold stop us from collapsing into sleep. Elizabeth gets towels while I check the GPS and read our location.

“Two more days and we'll be home,” I tell her as I defrost some steaks in the microwave. We towel each other dry, gorge on the food and afterward, lie in bed, pressed close, warming each other under the covers.

“Peter?” Elizabeth says.

Eyes shut, I nod, wait to hear what she wants to say.

“Do you love me?”

The question makes me open my eyes. I look at Elizabeth, see the concern on her face and resist the impulse to dismiss her question with kisses. Silly, I think, that a relationship as intense as ours has never had any spoken declaration of affection. “Of course I do,” I say. “It's just that what we have has been so much more than that. . . .”

“Chloe talks about falling in love all the time,” Elizabeth says. “She reads about it in all her books. She says it's a feeling that consumes every part of you. But Mum says that's nonsense, love is for humans. She says our people work differently.”

I take Elizabeth's hands in mine, stare into her face. “But I do love you. I'll always want to be with you.”

She sighs. “I always want to be with you too. You know that. Neither of us has a choice with that. But today, when you reached me in the water . . . I felt something more. It's like you touched a place inside me where no one's reached before . . . only . . .”

“Only what?” I ask.

“I'm just not sure if that's love or not.” Elizabeth shrugs. “I don't know what it's supposed to feel like. And I don't want you to be upset that I'm confused. . . .”

I want her to say she loves me but, even wishing that, I'm not positive I know much more about true love than she. I know our people can love. When Mother died, I watched my
father suffer. He wailed and roared and lashed out at everything around him—so much so that I hid from him for days. I wonder if I could care that deeply about anyone. Would Elizabeth's death drive me to such total despair? I'm only sure of our connection to each other, the invisible bond between us so strong that it's almost palpable. For now, that's more than enough for me. “I'm not upset. I know what we have,” I say.

“Good.” She squeezes my hands in hers. “I'd hate it if you didn't understand.”

Later she takes my hand, guides it to the warmth between her legs. “Do you think maybe, you could make love to me tonight, like we were humans, madly in love?”

I grin at her. “I think I can do that.”

 

Elizabeth surprises me with her willingness to forgo any further hunting. She no longer complains when I defrost steaks for us. The closer we get to Miami, the more compliant she becomes. She agrees to don clothing, promises to stay close to me, not to change or fly off until I tell her it's safe.

“This is your country,” she says. “Until I get used to it, I'll trust that you know best.”

She delights me by finally starting to tell me about her life, growing up in Morgan Hole. “Mum made it as good as she could,” she says. “Pa mostly ignored Chloe and me. He paid most of his attention to Derek and then to Philip, after he was born. Derek thought he was too old to have much to do with any of us. It was Mum who took us swimming, horseback riding, flew with us as soon as we could take to the air. She taught us everything—how to make Dragon's Tear wine, how to mix potions. She showed us how to read and write, had us help her in the garden, took us hunting with her. Most especially, as soon as we could understand, Mum taught us to avoid angering Pa.

“We were all afraid of him. Even when we were little he'd occasionally strike us hard enough to draw blood. Most of the time though, he'd take whoever displeased him, lock them in one of the cells under the house and leave them there for a day or two without food or water.”

I shake my head, say, “That must have been terrible.”

“No,” Elizabeth says. “It wasn't so bad. We could always mindspeak to each other. When any of us were punished, the others would sneak down with food and drink. We'd giggle and make a picnic of it. And I wasn't in trouble very often anyway—not after Chloe got older.”

“Chloe?” I ask, thinking of her cute younger sister, the smile the little teenager always had on her face, wondering how much of a discipline problem she could be.

“She likes human things too much,” Elizabeth says. “Chloe's always reading or painting. She prefers to stay in her human form, goes out of her way to talk to the servants. Pa hates it all, but no matter how much he punishes her, she keeps on doing what she wants.”

“Why do you think she likes human things so much?” I ask.

“You're a funny one to ask that question,” Elizabeth says. “Why do you?”

“You know I was raised with it,” I say. But when Elizabeth continues to look at me, as if she's waiting for more of an explanation, I shrug and continue. “After my mother died, Father told me her family had been accidentally killed in a cannon barrage, in France, during World War One, when she was a baby. An orphanage took her in and raised her. She didn't even know what she was until she came to term. Father found her then and took her for his bride.

“He said, of his three wives, she was his favorite. Father loved how different she was. He tolerated her passion for human art and literature, but argued when she insisted I learn human ways too, that I go to school with them. He
worried she would make me too gentle. She said, knowing human things and human behavior would make me more powerful. In the end, Father acquiesced. But I suspect his agreement had more to do with his love for Mother than his respect for her arguments. I think it's a mark of his devotion that, after she died, he continued to send me to school.”

“That makes sense.” Elizabeth nods. “For Chloe, it was one of the servants. Mum was sick for a few months after she gave birth to my sister. She allowed this one servant, Lila, to take care of Chloe. The two of them grew very close. Even though Mum frowns at it, Chloe still makes sure to spend some time with Lila every day.”