Bad Dragons: Special Edition Complete Series Page 17

As Lee looked around the arena, now filled with dragons who had room to fight and were actually doing so, he felt utterly lost as to how to proceed.

  All of the dragons were too busy fighting, sending fire in all directions, to notice that Seth was holding his head, crouching on his pedestal, almost completely engulfed in fire.

  Hoping not to draw attention, Lee made his way over to Seth, touching him on the shoulder and making him jump.

  When Seth looked up at him, his eyes were bright green, swirling with poison.

  “I don’t need you,” he said ominously. “I don’t need anyone.” But his face was blank, vacant of everything but pain. He slowly looked out at the arena where Byron was now facing off with Rainier, having been the accidental recipient of one of his projectiles.

  “Without me, you’ll die,” Lee said urgently, trying to draw Seth’s attention back to him.

  They couldn’t afford for the black dragon to lose it. Not with this many people around.

  “No!” Seth shouted, standing abruptly, eyes filled with fury. “I’ve been told that all my life! I don’t need you. I don’t need anything! If I’m going to die, then I should just die! But first, I should take all of these assholes with me.”

  Seth turned toward the dragons who were still fighting as shrieking crowds ran out of the bleachers to escape. At the top, the elders were arguing over what to do, and the oracle was watching intently, coming close to the railing to look down.

  Lee saw what was about to happen before it happened, saw Seth draw in a huge breath, saw blackness emanate around him. Lee could scent the toxicity of the poison, feel the way it sent fear and dread spiraling through him.

  Oh no.

  Lee took his dragon form as he lunged forward in front of Seth’s fire, trying to block as much of it as he could with his body.

  It burned terribly, but with Lee’s healing power, he was almost immortal. He listened to the sizzle of his flesh and prayed no one else was impacted.

  There was silence in the arena, and Lee felt, rather than heard, the other dragons stop fighting, as if even they realized something had just gone terribly wrong.

  Lee rose carefully, wincing as his burned and torn skin pulled together again.

  It was fine, he thought, looking down at himself. He glanced to the other dragons. No one too badly injured. It was fine. They would just…

  Then a shriek rose from the spectators, then another, until the arena was filled with a cacophony of sounds, some of anger, some of grief.

  Lee slowly turned to the box with the elders in it and froze at what he saw there.

  A black scorch mark. Someone holding a blackened body. The head elder.

  All around Lee, the dragons drew back in dismay, in shame, as the humans came forward to check on their leader.

  Lee glanced at Seth, who was curled up in a ball on the ground. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t hold it back anymore.”

  Lee wanted to comfort him, but as the other dragons slowly came back to human form, glancing around warily, he knew it was too late.

  The oracle was looking down at the arena, shaking her head sadly.

  When she walked forward and spoke, her voice could be heard everywhere, as if she were using a microphone, though she was speaking very softly.

  “You were supposed to protect humans. Not hurt them.” She gestured to the elder, still motionless and black. “I can save him, but I cannot save dragons who would let this happen. You are hereby exiled to the human world.”

  She waved her hands, and giant portals appeared on each side of the arena. Out of each portal, guards appeared, carrying weapons Lee knew the dragons couldn’t fight.

  “What do we do?” Byron asked, looking at the others. “Should we fight?”

  “No,” Van said. “It’s pointless. Besides, going to the human world is still better than working with shitheads like you.”

  “At least we’ll have modern conveniences,” Rainier said. “I tire of our primitive villages.”

  But Lee thought this was going more wrong than anyone was comprehending.

  “I killed someone,” Seth said. “I killed someone.” He was still holding his head. Lee wanted to go to him, but offering help had only gone wrong before.

  As the guards closed in, Lee could only feel frustration. He’d tried to help the stupid dragons in his group, and they’d still brought destruction on all of them.

  “One more thing,” the oracle said. “In the human world, you will be put on probation. You have three strikes, and then you will go somewhere worse than you could ever imagine. So be careful.”

  As Lee watched the stubborn, stupid dragons who could have teamed with him to save the world get rounded up and shackled, he shook his head.

  Deep down, a part of him had known they could never be heroes. That this wouldn’t turn out well for any of them, no matter how many chances they got.

  They were all just very bad dragons.

  24

  The Present

  Anna

  “How did you sleep?”

  I turn over in bed at the sound of a knock on the door following Rainier’s words.

  I don’t want to see him.

  “Go away,” I call out, rolling over and staring at the cuff on my wrist. The one he put there last night to keep me from running.

  Not like I have anywhere to go. The dragons who were protecting me are locked in his basement, and who knows if they are hurt? I have to find them and…

  “Let me in, please,” Rainier says quietly. “I won’t ask again.”

  “I can’t. I’m chained.”

  “Invite me, then,” he says mildly.

  I know he’s just going to come in anyway, but it irks me to invite him. He took my choice away by chaining me, and I still don’t know his intentions.

  Plus, it hurt my trust in him, considering I liked him when I first met him in the library. Why did things have to go badly now?

  “I’m coming in, and then I’ll explain,” he says, and I sigh as the door creaks open and I hear his footsteps enter the room.

  I don’t look at him.

  Last night, a few of his servants brought in my bag and anything else I could need, including some weird clothing that doesn’t look at all human.

  They took my cuff off and left me to change but came back in shortly after to put it back on. There is enough length on the delicate chain for me to sleep comfortably, but I hate seeing it on my arm.

  I roll onto my back, and the chain jingles as my arm flops above my head and I stare at Rainier, who is walking in and pushing a table with something on it.

  I push myself up in bed and stare at him as he pulls two plush chairs up to the table.

  “Breakfast?” His tone is pleasant, and I notice a teapot and two cups plus some plates filled with little pastries.

  Just as I’m opening my mouth to tell him where he can shove his pastries, my stomach rumbles.

  He raises a dark-silver eyebrow at me, then smiles. His silver hair is down in a low braid, and it would look odd on anyone else. But with Rainier’s sharp features and harsh, intelligent eyes, it just softens him slightly.

  Not enough to let my guard down.

  “I’m sorry about the cuff,” he says, waving a hand at it. I gasp as it disappears.

  “How did you do that?”

  “I made it. I can take it away,” he says simply. “Tea?”

  I just stare at him blankly as he holds up the teapot, which is delicate white china with little silver swirls.

  “You kidnapped me and imprisoned my friends, and you expect me to drink tea with you?”

  He shrugs mildly. He’s wearing a soft white robe over a gray tee shirt and black lounge pants and looks utterly comfortable.

  I try not to think about the hard, cut muscles showing everywhere the clothing begins or ends. His neck. His forearms that extend out of his robe. His ankles.

  “I think both of the things you stated are reasons you might actually agr
ee to take tea with me, considering I have all of the control in the situation,” he says.

  I let out a grunt and slump into one of the chairs, realizing he is right. It’s surprisingly soft and I am hungry, so when he hands me a plate with a cup of steaming tea and a few fluffy muffins on it, I take it eagerly.

  If I’m going to be captured, I might as well eat.

  Looking around the room, I realize this is probably a better fate than what awaited me if I hadn’t found Griffin or if Griffin had decided to sell me.

  If we hadn’t found Seth, would he have insisted on letting me go?

  I shake my head and eat another muffin, knowing I’ll need my strength if I’m to go up against this big brute.

  “Few people would ever call me brutish,” Rainier says smoothly, pouring himself a cup of tea. “I’ll thank you to keep your thoughts less slanderous.”

  “I’ll thank you to stay out of my head,” I mutter, making him cock his head curiously at me.

  I shouldn’t have looked up, because there are those eyes. Dark gray with that silver ring sparkling around them. Eyes I don’t understand.

  “I’ll try to stay out of your head, but it’s hard when you’re as obsessed with information as I am,” Rainier says.

  “Griffin can stay out of my head. Why can’t you?”

  “Does Seth stay out of your head?” Rainier asks, leaning back in his chair, slowly splaying his long, pale fingers over the arms of it. “Griffin doesn’t want to own his own thoughts, let alone others’. But I bet Seth still reads your mind.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But at least he doesn’t talk about it.”

  “Fine then,” Rainier says. “Let’s talk about it, and I won’t have to read your mind.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “Why you’re so upset that I imprisoned two misbehaving dragons.”

  “They aren’t misbehaving,” I retort. “They’ve been protecting me.”

  “To what end?” Rainier’s handsome face is impassive, but I can see a calculating look in his eyes. “You shouldn’t be so innocent, dragon heart.”

  “Anna.” I correct him because I’m really tired of being called the other thing.

  “I mean, you probably are a dragon heart at this point,” Rainier says. “So it’s not amiss to call you that.”

  “Why would I be?”

  “You made it here, didn’t you?” His hands curl into the chair slightly. “How close are you with Seth and Griffin exactly?”

  I feel my cheeks heat and bite into a sandwich so I have an excuse not to answer him. “Not that close.” I’m not sure I should tell him anything that has gone on.

  Spending time with him again, it really seems like he’s not a bad person… but he still has my friends in the basement.

  “I’m not like them, you see,” Rainier says, crossing one leg gingerly over the other. “I’m here by choice, while they were sent here.”

  “Why are you here, then?”

  “There are things I can learn,” Rainier says. “I’m obsessed with learning.”

  “You should learn more about feelings,” I mutter because I feel like he is totally failing that subject.

  I wonder if he even has feelings.

  “I have feelings,” he says sharply.

  “Then how could you just betray Seth and Griffin like that? They’re your friends. They came to get help from you.”

  “For what?”

  “To ask about me,” I say. “To see if there is any way to help me back to my world. Or—”

  “Or to see if they could use you,” Rainier says. “You don’t know them like I do.”

  “And you don’t know them like I do,” I snap back.

  Rainier lets out a long sigh as he pushes his braid back over one shoulder. “Fine. I’ll let you see them. See that they aren’t being hurt or punished, all right? But you have to do something for me first.”

  “Fine,” I say irritably, shoving the rest of a muffin in my mouth. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

  “You have to beat me at chess.”

  I glance up at him, careful to guard my thoughts about that particular activity. “If you can read my mind, what is the point of chess?”

  “I won’t,” he says. “Dragon’s promise.”

  I sigh, brushing crumbs off my hands. I want to see Seth and Griffin, and one game of chess isn’t so much to ask. “Where’s the board?”

  Rainier waves a hand, and the door opens behind him and a wooden box hovers through to land in his hand.

  A small table comes in after, and when it lands next to our breakfast table, Rainier puts the board down on it.

  Then he waves a hand, and my chair moves slightly to the side in front of the chess table.

  “I’m never going to get used to that,” I mutter. “Does Lee know I’m here?”

  “I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m close with Lee,” Rainier says. “He usually does his own thing. But he came to me that day and made an offer, and I took it.”

  “What was the offer?”

  “I’m not talking about that right now. Or about Lee. It’s immaterial to the subject at hand.”

  “Which is?”

  “Whether or not you can beat me at chess,” he says with a calm smile on those full, perfect lips.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be super smart?” I ask.

  He nods, setting up the pieces with his hands and not his powers. “It’s one of the gifts of the silver dragon.”

  “So how am I supposed to beat you?”

  “You aren’t,” he said. “But it’s a way to get you to spend time with me.”

  “So there isn’t any hope of me seeing Griffin or Seth?”

  He shakes his head. “Probably not, but it can’t hurt to try, right?”

  I lower my brows. He doesn’t know it, but I might just have a chance at beating him. I stare at the board for a long moment, at the beautifully carved wooden pieces. At Rainier’s face, intensely focused.

  This game means a lot to him for some reason.

  And I mean to play it and win.

  “You first,” he says, pushing the board toward me.

  I make my move. An aggressive one. I just want to see what he’ll do.

  His face is calm, and then he makes his move, blocking a few potential moves I could have made.

  I’m having fun now, and I move another piece, setting up a different option.

  He moves again, and I can see him going for a standard quick checkmate.

  When I block him, something sparks in those gray eyes.

  As we continue to play, taking each other’s pieces, blocking known strategies, I begin to feel a little bit excited. I could win.

  There’s something soothing about playing chess. It takes me back to another time when I was troubled and it gave me something to distract me.

  When my sister was first hurt in the wreck, I spent a lot of nights by her bedside, waiting for her to wake up. Mom and Dad both had to work, and I hated being home alone and thinking of Gayle in the hospital.

  I brought some board games at one point, and there was a really nice orderly who liked to play chess.

  He’d played competitive chess back in high school, and we had a lot of fun games together where I learned everything I could. It distracted me from the long nights, the beeping monitors, the feeling that my whole future was slipping away from me.

  Right up until the day I folded up the chess board and walked away because Gayle was never going to get better and the orderly had been assigned to another wing.

  Sadness falls over me at the memory, making it hard to remember the strategy I was using. I stare at the chessboard with eyes that are starting to blur with tears, remembering those days where things seemed too desperate.

  Then things just got tiring and sad. Which is why I ended up here. Why I need to keep going and press on so Lee will heal her.

  “I assume Lee will get in touch with you again when he’s ready,” Rainier says softly,
and his eyes are slightly wide when he looks over at me. I swipe at my tears, hoping he hasn’t been reading my thoughts.

  “Yeah, I bet,” I say. “I’m just confused about the whole situation. Why he hasn’t showed up again. He did for a few times.”

  “He’s odd,” Rainier says. “Even I don’t know when he’ll show up.”

  “But you still wanted me sent here.”

  “I figured once you met Seth and Griffin, you’d be eager to be with a dragon with more… class.”

  I laugh as I swipe at the last of my tears with my pajama sleeve. “Right. Class. Like kidnapping someone and forcing them to play a game to see their friends.”

  “Well, I never would have threatened to sell you,” he retorts, making a move I have no idea how to counter.

  I’m still trying to get the memory of that beeping monitor out of my head.

  “Your turn,” he says softly. His head tilts slightly, like he’s waiting expectantly for something, so I finally study the board again.

  I frown at what I see there, then look up at him questioningly.

  He just studies his nails, acting like nothing is off here.

  When I take my piece and move it into position, declaring checkmate, he doesn’t even respond.

  Instead, he stands with a sigh and packs up the board.

  I watch him, confused.

  When he’s about to leave through the door, he turns back to me, so tall he barely fits in the frame. “I didn’t mean to read your mind, but you seemed so sad. For what it’s worth, I am sorry about your sister.” His hand rests on the handle, caressing it. “When you’re changed and ready, I’ll take you down to see Seth and Griffin.”

  Without another word, he leaves, closing and locking the door behind him.

  25

  Anna

  After a shower, I change into some human clothing from my bag. A black, hooded pullover sweater and jeans plus black ankle boots. A white tank underneath that doesn’t show.

  I pull my hair into a high ponytail, squeeze my cheeks to look less dead inside, and let out a sigh as I stare in the mirror.

  Rainier let me win at chess. I know it. He didn’t admit it and I’m not sure he ever will since kindness seems like weakness to most of these dragons, but I don’t care.