Dragon Fire (42 page)

He felt the stars dancing in the early spring sky. His eyes drifted to the remnants of the Red Planet that was now nothing more than a ball of gas surrounded by rings of ice and fragments of what it had once been. He felt the earth tilt and his rök expand.

When he had let Kariaksuq go, his rök had proclaimed itself. But it wasn’t until now that he was able to hear it. His name. His dragon name.

Rakan’dzor Sa’aq, bearer of the line of Aq.

Not Lung, like his mother. Not Tan like his father.

But Aq like Paaliaq.

R
AKAN STOOD STIFFLY, HIS BODY COLDER
than the sands on the shore of lake Mapam Yumco. He wanted to go home. To the lair he had grown up in. He shut his eyes and shifted to the mineral hot spring just outside Khotan’s lair. He reached out and checked that his father was fine and then sank into the hot water, not yet ready to go in. The gentle gurgling of the spring soothed him, until he realized that he couldn’t feel Dvara.

Rakan climbed out of the spring and walked the short distance to the entrance of his father’s lair that couldn’t be seen by the human eye. Rakan placed a hand on the external rock and shifted through it. Khotan looked up from his workbench and smiled.

“Welcome home.”

Rakan nodded and turned away. “Is Dvara alright? I don’t feel her.”

Khotan lit a fire in the stone hearth. “It seemed better to send her back to Tromso than to keep her here.” Khotan paused. “T’eng Sten’s shields are stronger than mine.”

Rakan turned to his father. His face was set in shadow.

“Is she alone?” Rakan asked. She’d go wild.

“No. One of T’eng Sten’s old kais is with her.” Khotan stood, his back to the fire, and Rakan noticed for the first time that he was starting to lose some of his mass. “You did the right thing,” said Khotan after a long pause.

Rakan bowed his head. “Yes. I think so.” He sat in his favorite chair and watched the play of light on the stone lattice work that he had helped his father carve long ago. It seemed like another world. “But Yarlung won’t.”

“Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. It matters what you know in your own rök to be true.”

“Maybe.” But Yarlung would still make his life hell. Khotan’s face flickered in the firelight, showing the passage of time. Even though Khotan was no longer in his prime, Rakan could feel his inner strength. He seemed, if anything, stronger than before. Rakan watched the crackling flames, zooming in on the wood as it was being consumed. Just as Kariaksuq’s body had been consumed. Through her rök he had felt the Red Planet explode and hundreds of Draak die.

“You can’t change the past,” said Khotan, putting a hand on Rakan’s shoulder. “But you can choose your future.”

Rakan felt his father’s suffering and knew that the longer he stayed, the more his father would suffer: Yarlung was punishing Khotan for sheltering him. A wave of anger rose in Rakan and he stood. “There are a few things I must take care of.” He bowed to his father. “I must return to Yarlung’s.” And then he’d go find Anna.

“Yes,” said Khotan. “I think you are ready.”

* * *

Rakan shifted to Yarlung’s lair but it was closed to him. He reached out with his mind and found Yuli, who immediately shifted to the entrance. “You shouldn’t have come,” she said.

Rakan scanned her. She was dressed in her lime-green armor and had an extra set of throwing knives. “I see my mother’s wrath has been awakened.”

Yuli’s eyes lit up momentarily and she touched Rakan.
“Your rök is healing.”
The contact broke abruptly and Yuli doubled over in pain. “Yarlung will see you. Now.” Yuli groaned and Rakan caught her. They shifted together into Yarlung’s inner chamber.

“Don’t touch her,” commanded Yarlung. She flung Yuli against the wall with a flick of her hand.

“You have no right to make her suffer,” said Rakan.

“Silence.” Yarlung waved a hand to freeze Rakan, but he countered it with a shield. “How dare you…” she hissed. She walked up and slapped him. “I told you not to kill her.”

“I did the right thing,” Rakan said. He turned his face back to hers without raising his voice or retaliating.

Yarlung snorted and turned away. “Leave. I don’t want to see you anymore. You’re useless,” she hissed, her rök sizzling in anger.

“As you wish,” Rakan said, preparing to shift.

Yarlung spun around, grabbed his braid and yanked him to his knees. “You will honor the blood pact,” she said, spitting each word out. “And only then will you be my son again.”

The only spot of color in her eyes was the black of her pupils.

* * *

Rakan stifled his anger. Getting back to Tromso was more important than fighting his mother. He couldn’t change the blood pact, but he could protect Dvara and Anna. He shifted into the apartment and reached out to find Dvara. She was lying, comatose, in her bed. Amarualik was hovering by her side. Rakan threw open the bedroom door. “She needs help,” he said, striding into the room. Dvara’s vermillion had faded under Amarualik’s suffocating loam-green presence.

Amarualik straightened abruptly and then looked oddly at Rakan. “Rakan? I felt a Kairök.”

“What have you been doing?” hissed Rakan. He ignored her questioning look and put a hand on Dvara’s forehead.

Dvara’s eyes fluttered open. “Rakan?”

“You shouldn’t be sleeping like that,” Rakan said. Her rök was festering.

“It’s best if she rests,” said Amarualik. “Once Kairök can take her, she’ll heal.”

“I want to sleep until he comes,” mumbled Dvara.

“No,” Rakan said, shaking her. “Get up. Now.” He sniffed her and then grabbed Amarualik by the throat, pushing her against the wall. “What have you given her?”

“Nothing.” She quivered in Rakan’s hold. “She wanted to sleep, that’s all. Kairök said to help her.” Amarualik’s loam eyes reflected fear. But not betrayal. “So I help her sleep. That’s all.”

“She’ll die if she cuts herself off from the world,” hissed Rakan. “She needs to find the will to live. Don’t you understand that?”

“She was… helping…” mumbled Dvara.

“I did what she asked,” said Amarualik. “It’s what Kairök said to do.”

“Leave.” Rakan flung her to the ground. She was incapable of understanding.

“Kairök said—”

“This is our lair. I don’t care what T’eng Sten said. Leave.”

“But…”

Rakan hissed. His rök expanded and he prepared to banish her from their lair. But Amarualik scrambled to her feet. She shifted before he needed to.

“Ama…?” Dvara struggled to sit up. “But… why?”

“Because you need to live,” Rakan said. “Not let your rök shrivel up in a drugged-induced sleep.”

Dvara sank back down onto her pillow. “The time goes by faster.”

“You’re being selfish. T’eng Sten has more than enough problems right now.”

“If he loved me he’d be here.” Dvara turned her back to Rakan.

Rakan snatched the pillow from under her head. “Get up.”

“No,” she said, glaring at him. “I don’t want to.”

He threw the pillow at her. “Then don’t,” Rakan said. “It’s your choice. You can either wallow in pain until you die, or get up and live.” He turned and walked out of the room. “I want to live.”

* * *

Anna felt Pemba shift into the woods behind her apartment. She threw down the book she had been pretending to read and jumped off the couch. He was back. She ran down the stairs and reached out to touch him. He responded. She felt his mind-touch and it pulled her forward. “Pemba,” she said, flinging the door open and running out onto the porch. Pink light reflected off the lingering patches of snow as the early May sun sank to the edge of the horizon. He was in the woods, calling her to him. The ground oozed cold and moist under her bare feet but she didn’t care. He was back. She saw him, standing as still and majestic as if he was a nature god. She stopped. His black hair flowed down his back and his chest glistened in the last rays of the sun as if it had been oiled. His coral-colored eyes matched his Maii-a that flickered like a flame in the darkening woods. He was even more beautiful than before.

“Anna,” he said. His voice rumbled around her.

“You’re back.” Her voice trembled. She had missed him so much.

He walked over and touched her face gently. She leaned into his hand. She could feel his warmth and his emotions. An inarticulate moan escaped from her lips. “Oh, Pemba.”

“Rakan,” he said, brushing through her hair with his other hand. “My name is Rakan.”

Anna pulled back. “What?”

“Pemba isn’t my real name.”

Anna rubbed her bare arms, feeling suddenly cold. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“When could I have told you?”

“Before I kissed you.”

Rakan came closer. “I was trying to get you away from me, remember?”

“You still could have said something.” She turned her head. He took her in his arms, but she squirmed away. “What else have you lied to me about?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

Anna spun around. “Really? What about your parents’ ‘research project’ to find June?”

Rakan’s face closed. “Who told you about that?”

“See? You don’t even deny it. You’ve lied to me about everything.”

“No.” He reached for her hands. She tried to pull them away, but he didn’t let go. “Feel me, Anna,” he said. “Reach inside as far as you can.” He pressed her hands against his chest. “All you’ll find is that I love you even though I shouldn’t. I’m a dragon and you’re a human. And I don’t care.”

Anna stopped struggling and slumped against him, breathing in his smell of incense.

His hold on her hands loosened and he wrapped her gently in his arms. “All I want is you, Anna. Nothing else.”

“Pemba – Rakan, darn you.” She pushed him away. “I can’t just change your name like that.” She had been calling him Pemba for the past four months.

“Then I don’t care what you call me.” He pulled her back in. “As long as I’m the one you’re calling.” He slipped his hands around her head and leaned forward. His lips burned against hers and his tongue found its way in with soft, insistent strokes.

Anna’s tongue responded of its own accord and she melted into him. Literally. She couldn’t tell where she ended and where he started. Their mixed desires pounded through her. She pulled back and broke the contact. “What happened?” She felt dizzy.

“Melding,” he said. He ran his lips down her jaw line. She arched her neck and pressed into him as his teeth rubbed her skin, awakening a warmth deep within that made her forget her freezing feet. He bit her neck. His teeth sank into her and she groaned in pleasure. Anna felt a wave of power roll up inside Rakan and she clung to him as it exploded into her, gasping as it receded. An insatiable urge filled her and she bit his neck without warning. He gripped her so tightly that she nearly cried out in pain, but she didn’t let go. Rakan dropped to his knees, pushing her legs apart so that she was straddling him. She arched back and held his head against her chest, squeezing him to her as hard as she could. Eventually she released him and leaned forward. Her fingers danced over his face and into his hair. Her mouth tasted of iron and she looked at his neck. “You’re bleeding.” Shame filled her. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said, nuzzling her. “It’s the only way you can mark me.”

“And me?” Her hand went to her neck. There was no blood. “You didn’t mark me?”

Rakan smiled. “Of course I did. But I’m a dragon. You’re not.”

She felt her neck again, it was smooth. “There’s nothing.”

“Yes, there is.” He looked at her neck and ran his fingers gently over it. “Look.” He put his hand on his neck and then withdrew it. Where she had bitten him was a small circle-like patch of slightly paler skin. A Firemark. Except it looked almost like a flower. A multi-petaled flower. She touched it. But all she felt was his smooth skin. She brushed her lips against his neck and felt an answering tingle. Her tongue explored the spot and it throbbed in response. She placed her mouth on it and knew it felt right. It was her mark. She bit him again. Rakan groaned and slipped his hands under her shirt. The feeling of his hands on her bare skin made her bite down even harder and he crushed her in his arms.

“You’re cold,” he said huskily, his hands firm on her hips.

“No, I’m fine.” She pressed into him. “You’re warm.”

“We should go inside.”

Anna groaned. “No. My mom will come home soon.”

Rakan stood up, and she clung to him like a koala bear. “You’ll freak her out,” she said. She could barely see his eyes in the darkening woods even though the sky was a dramatic green-blue laced with steel grey clouds. But she knew they were orange.

“Here.” Rakan set her down. “Better?” His eyes were brown and he was dressed in normal clothes.

“No.” Anna unzipped his coat and pulled up his tee-shirt. She needed to feel his skin again.

“Firecat,” he said. He picked her up and carried her across the parking lot.

“Look.” She pointed behind him. “Northern Lights. In May.” She wriggled out of his arms and turned him, holding his waist. “You never see them at this time of year.”