Breathing Fire

“Dom.” My voice was hoarse from disuse. I worried that the faint sound hadn’t reached his ears, but suddenly, he turned. He stood at the sight of me, and it was only as he stared at me with shock and fury that I remembered clothes. Or rather, my lack of clothes. I was nude, of course. Dragons have no thought for clothing.

“Everyone out!” he roared, his voice going from human to beast in an instant. They obeyed. All except for Siobhan. She sat where she was, as though she were immune to his order. He turned to her slowly, growling in his throat. “Did you hear me?” Menace inundated every word.

She swallowed hard. “There’s nothing you can’t say to her in front of me, Dom.” Brave woman.

“OUT! You don’t want me to remove you myself!” She was gone in a blurred flash, door slamming hard behind her. She cursed colorfully on the other side of it as she stormed away.

I drank in the sight of him. He was enraged, but I felt no fear. Perhaps it was my other form’s hold still on me, or maybe I had just never been afraid of his rage.

He studied me closely, visibly shaking. His voice was calmer than I would have expected when he spoke. “I didn’t think you were coming back.” Abruptly he turned and sat. I sat to his right. He had his head in his hands, rubbing his temples wearily. His hair had grown since I left. He obviously hadn’t cut it. It hung nearly to his shoulders now. Druids grew things back quickly; hair, nails, limbs. He looked wonderful. I drank in the sight of him, starved to the point of pain.

“Me neither.” My voice was getting stronger. “I thought I was flying north to perish, to tell you the truth.”

“But you didn’t perish.”

“No.” I surprised myself by laughing.

He looked up, startled and angry. “Something funny?” he asked coldly.

I shook my head, but a little smile still lingered on my lips. “No, it just feels good to know that I’m not going comatose or crazy for the foreseeable future.”

“So what have you been up to for the last seven months?”

“I thought it was closer to six,” I mused out loud, though I was sure he had tracked it more closely than I had.

“Trust me, it was seven. You know, we raided that place they were holding you in. I even let the slayer and the mimic in on the action. We got there just one hour after you had escaped. We were so close to rescuing you. But you never were one to wait around long enough to be rescued.”

My eyes widened in surprise This was all news to me, of course. “Did you see the other captives? Where they okay? Was Lynn in there somewhere?” I still felt bad about that, about leaving them, even though I’d had no control over it at the time..

“No signs of Lynn. The slayer believes a different group of dragons took her. But we found the other captives, and they are fine. The dragons left in too big of a hurry to take them. They were both orphans, so they’re in druid custody now. They are acclimating as well as can be expected, considering all that they’ve been through.”

I shut my eyes, laying my head back against the large, comfortable headrest of my chair. The elaborate chairs at the banquet table were closer to thrones.

It was a relief to hear that those girls were okay, and hardly a surprise that they hadn’t found Lynn in that place.

It felt like at least one huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I hadn’t realized what a burden of guilt I had been carrying for that. My desertion of those girls hadn’t been deliberate on my part, but that was little reassurance when I knew first-hand what the monsters who held them were capable of.

“The dragons were in such a hurry, in fact, that we captured one of them mid-flight.”

My eyes snapped open, and I leaned forward to look at him more closely. I had been trying to avoid looking into his eyes up to that point. Those mercurial, mis-matched eyes had such power over me. “Who was it? What did you do with him?”

He smiled at me enigmatically. “At last, I have the answers and you are the one asking the questions. Perhaps we can bargain, then. Let us trade information. I ask you again. What have you been up to for the last seven months? We’ve been looking for you. I’m sure that’s not surprising to you. I feel like I’ve spent most of my life chasing your trail. So I must admit to some curiosity as to your whereabouts these past seven months.”

I licked my lips nervously. Where to start… “That’s why I’m here actually. I have a favor to ask you. I have something very important that I need you to protect for me.”

He raised a brow at me. “Let me guess. You’ll ask me for a favor, I’ll agree, and then you’ll leave in a rush, giving me no information, as usual. Whatever you were up to, it didn’t change you much.” Bitterness dripped from every word.

“Actually, I plan to tell you everything. I’m just trying to figure out where to start.” I could tell I’d surprised him, but he was still wary. “I went north because of something that happened years ago, back when we were together.”

He removed his jacket suddenly, throwing it at me. “Put on some clothes, for god’s sake. Why the f**k are you naked?”

“Sorry, that wasn’t intentional. I forgot about clothes. I’ve been my other form almost since I left. My mind doesn’t work the same when I’m changed.” Still, I let his jacket fall to the floor.

Suddenly, his nostrils flared, as if picking up a scent. Before I could blink, he had me on my back, on the table, his weight pushing me down. “You provoke me, as always.”