Dragon Fire (18 page)

Pemba’s hands were warm and soft against hers. Even after playing with the ice. Her Firemark tingled with the contact, as it always did when Pemba touched it. Warmth rushed through her body. “Why do you wear a coat if you don’t need one?” she asked.

Pemba dropped her hand and stared across the fjord, like a panther observing his prey. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” He jumped off the porch and landed silently. His long black braid flicked behind him like a tail.

Anna watched him disappear into the woods. Why did she always blurt out something stupid every time he touched her?

* * *

Rakan shifted from the park behind Anna’s house to the Botanical Gardens. He jumped lightly onto the big rock in the middle of the clearing where the Old Dragon had long since removed the fake trail, much to Rakan’s frustration. But the rock had quickly become a favorite perch. It had a different vibration to it than other rocks on Earth. It felt like the Fragments, and it made him feel less alone.

But right now he was mostly interested in the vantage point he could get from it. He stood on the rock and looked across the fjord at the mountains behind the Arctic Cathedral. He had glimpsed a shimmering light from Anna’s porch that didn’t correspond to any of the habitations he had catalogued. And he hoped it might be the void-trails’ lair.

But there was nothing. Rakan growled at the emptiness, trying to visualize what he had seen from the corner of his eye as he played with the ice on Anna’s porch, wishing he could make an animated sculpture for her. But he couldn’t. She’d freak out. Rakan picked up a fistful of snow and squeezed it angrily into a clump of ice and then opened his hand. He could make it for her now. Even if she’d never see it. He molded the packed snow into a miniature air dragon and held up his hands.
For you, Anna.
It stretched its wings and flew down the hill towards the fjord.

“What are you doing?” asked Dvara, appearing suddenly.

Rakan jumped off the rock. “Nothing.”

“I can see that,” she answered. “How are you ever going to get Jing Mei to trust you if you don’t spend any time with her?” Dvara looked around the empty gardens and shivered. “Why do you keep coming back? This place gives me the creeps.”

“I like the rock.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” He picked up more snow. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Rakan glared at his sister, but didn’t say anything. The tension between them had increased over the past few days. His duplicity weighed on him, and he felt increasingly isolated.

“You know Rakan, neither one of us has a normal life.”

Rakan snorted. “I’ve never been a kai or shared a bond. I’ve never stood in anyone’s fire. At least you’ve had that.” Rakan threw the snowball into the fjord.

Dvara’s face flushed with anger. “I’d rather be alone than forced to be a kai to someone I don’t like.” Her voice sliced through the evening stillness. “My life has never been my own. And it still isn’t. There are only two things I have ever wanted: to revenge my father and to join T’eng Sten. And if I do one, I can’t do the other. Have you ever even thought about that?” Dvara morphed and shifted deep into the earth’s core, to a place where he’d have to be a fire dragon to follow her. And he wasn’t.

Rakan sank to the ground and leaned against the rock, wrapping his mind around it as if it were alive. He didn’t want to be alone anymore. He wanted to be part of a Cairn. And he wanted to be with Anna. And like Dvara, he couldn’t do both.

When the snow began to fall, Rakan let it cover him where he lay.

C
AN YOU COME OVER?” RAKAN ASKED
Anna when she answered her phone the next afternoon.

“Uh, hi Pemba,” Anna said. “I can ask.” She paused. “Are you okay?”

Rakan cringed at the name Pemba. He hated lying to her. “I guess so.” Dvara had come home around noon. And still wasn’t talking to him. “But Dawa isn’t feeling so great,” he said, forcing himself to use her human name.

“Okay. I can ask. Hold on.”

Anna picked up the phone again. “She says she’d rather you come here.”

Anna’s voice so clearly said she was rolling her eyes that Rakan laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are.” Rakan glanced at his sister who was curled up on the couch. “I’ll come. But if Dawa gets worse I’ll have to leave.”

“Aren’t your parents at home?”

“No. I’ll be right there,” he said and hung up.

Rakan sat on the low table in front of Dvara. “I can stay if you want.”

Dvara didn’t answer.

“You shouldn’t have morphed last night. It would’ve been easy for someone to take your rök.” He had stayed all night by the rock, waiting for Dvara to come back.

Dvara snorted. “You’re so naïve. Go play. No one can take my rök.”

“I’m not the one being naïve.” Rakan pulled on his coat. “I hate these clothes.”

“You can always ask Anna to help you take them off—”

Rakan cut her off with a guttural growl.

“I really don’t understand the problem. How can dating her be wrong? Even Khotan has been with humans—”

“—I don’t want to talk about it.” He shifted into the park near Anna’s house. Talking about Anna – or his father – like that with Dvara wasn’t something he could do. He stalked over to Anna’s porch and jabbed her doorbell.

Anna opened the door a few moments later. “How’d you get here so fast?” She looked into the parking lot. “Did you drive? I didn’t know you had a car.”

“What? No,” he said, following her up. He felt the faint buzz of Ulf and Ingrid’s energy in the apartment.

“Do you want some coffee?” asked Anna as they walked through the kitchen and into the living room.

“No.”

Anna stopped abruptly and faced him. “First of all, you’re supposed to say yes. Saying no isn’t polite. And secondly, if you’re in such a bad mood why did you come over?”

“Because we planned it.” Her fierceness quickened his pulse. “And because I want to see you,” he added, unable to keep from closing the distance between them. He took her in his arms. Her spicy smell wrapped around him, stirring a desire he knew he couldn’t act on. He’d just hold her. Smell her. A little longer.

“Then act like it,” Anna said, twisting playfully out of his arms. She turned her back to him and his desire flared to new heights. “Mom and Ulf will be down again soon. Go sit. I’ll make coffee,” she said over her shoulder as she disappeared into the kitchen.

Rakan followed her. “I’d rather watch you make coffee.”

“Hello, Pemba,” Ingrid said, coming into the kitchen. “Dawa didn’t come with you?”

“Mom,” Anna said, before Rakan could answer. “They aren’t Siamese twins, you know.”

“Speaking of twins,” said Ulf, buttoning his shirt as he appeared behind Ingrid, “X-Saturnia is playing tonight. Have you heard them play?” Ulf asked Rakan. “No? Ah, then you should bring him, Anna. We’re going.”

Anna put four cups on a tray. “We’ll see.”

Ulf laughed. “Rather celebrate Valentine’s Day in the apartment alone, eh?”

Ingrid spun around. “I’m sure Pemba would love to see them play.” She smiled brightly at Rakan. “After all, you already know Erling Engelmann, don’t you?”

“Erling? June’s boyfriend?” asked Rakan.

Anna nodded. “Yes. With the twins and Lysa. They’re actually really good.”

Rakan looked at Anna, trying to get a better reading of what she wanted. She felt conflicted. “I’d like to go,” he said slowly. “If you want to.”

Anna responded by wrapping her arms around his waist. “As long as we’re together,” she whispered.

“Let’s have some coffee, shall we?” Ingrid picked up the tray and ushered them into the living room.

* * *

Ingrid had assigned them the task of making dinner so she and Ulf could shower. “Where did you learn to cook?” asked Anna, watching Pemba.

He looked up, surprised. “Everyone knows how to cook.”

Anna laughed. “No, they don’t.”

Pemba shrugged and turned back to deboning the chicken. “What’s Erling like?”

“Open. Friendly. But he didn’t use to be. He’s changed a lot since June came this summer. He never spoke to anyone except his brothers or Lysa last year.”

Pemba looked up. “He was here before June?”

“Well, yeah. She’s an exchange student for the year. She’s living with Liv’s family.”

“Who?”

“Haakon’s girlfriend,” Anna said. “You probably haven’t met him yet. They started University this year. But he’s almost always at handball practice these days. You’ve probably seen him. His sister, Kristin, is in your class.”

“Kristin? The little one who sits with June and talks all the time?”

Anna smiled at the description. “That’s her. They live next door to each other. But Kristin doesn’t look anything like her brother. He’s huge – he looks like a bodybuilder even though he isn’t. There’s a picture of him over there.” Anna pointed to the wall of photos. “It was taken last summer, with my cousin Red. Haakon is the one with black hair.” Anna looked at the picture again. Red and Haakon looked alike with their massive build and close cropped hair except that Red had the same shade of ultra blond as she did.

Pemba looked at the picture of Anna holding hands with her cousin and Haakon as they jumped off a boulder into the ocean. For a moment Anna thought he was going to rip it off the wall.

“What?” she asked. “They’re nice guys. They’ve been friends forever.”

“Are Haakon and June close?”

“The four of them are pretty inseparable, actually.”

“Which four?” He turned back to the chicken with a decisive whack of the de-boning knife.

“Erling and June and Liv and Haakon.”

“Haakon will be there tonight?”

“Probably.” Anna watched him dissect the chicken in swift, precise strokes.

“Good. I’d like to meet him.”

“Why?” She didn’t really want to see Haakon. Or Liv. And she definitely didn’t want to see Torsten if he was with them.

“Because you just said he was a nice guy.” Pemba turned to examine Anna. “Why don’t you want me to meet him?”

“I didn’t say that.” Anna turned away. “We can go. I just… I don’t know who else will be there.” She didn’t want to imagine Torsten and Pemba meeting. It could only end in a fight.

Pemba came and stood in front of Anna, the knife gripped in his hand. “I’ll be there,” he said quietly. “You’ll be safe.”

Anna nodded, but didn’t meet his eyes.

* * *

“Well,” Ingrid said as they were cleaning up after dinner. “I have to admit your cooking surprised me, Pemba.”

“Thank you, Ingrid,” Rakan answered. He felt the compliment she hadn’t voiced.

Ingrid smiled and waved a finger at him. “Doesn’t mean I trust you.”

“Oh, Mom,” Anna said. “I’m seventeen, you know.”

“Precisely. That’s exactly how old I was when I got pregnant with you. Mistakes can happen when you’re that young.”

“Mom!”

“Don’t worry, Ingrid,” Rakan said. “We haven’t planned that yet.”

“Pemba!” Anna said.

“What?” Rakan watched Anna stomp out of the room. “What did I say wrong?”

“Sorry,” Ingrid said, trying not to laugh. “I thought she only did that to me. Oh, go ahead, run after her and tell her you’re sorry.”

Rakan handed Ingrid the dish towel and followed Anna into the darkened living room.

“Anna…”

She didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not quite sure what he was apologizing for.

Anna didn’t look at him. “It’s not you,” she said. “It’s my mom. She always makes it sound like I ruined her life. She thinks I’m a mistake.”

Rakan stood behind her and hesitantly put his hands on her shoulders. She didn’t push him away, so he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. She turned and cuddled into his neck. “She never wanted me. It was my father who insisted….”

“Anna,” Rakan said, gently running his hands over her face. “It’s okay. Why you were born doesn’t matter. You’re here. That’s what counts.”

“But she doesn’t love me.”

He held her face in his hands. “Do you really think that?”

“She didn’t want me.”

“But she does love you.”

Anna shrugged and pulled away.

“My parents have never been a couple,” he said. “They don’t even live together.”

“But I thought you said they have a research project here.”

“They do. They work together. But they don’t… love each other.”

“Do they love you?”

Rakan looked into Anna’s pale eyes that he could barely see in the dim light of the evening. But he could feel them searching his. “I don’t know. I guess so.” Rakan wasn’t even sure if dragons ever really loved each other. “We don’t talk about love. But I know that—” Rakan cut himself off, surprised that he had been about to say,
‘-if we were to fly into battle, I could trust them.’