The Dragon King and I (25 page)

I’d known he was going to die. That was the part that really got to me. I’d known it. So how the hell could it still hurt so much?

“That’s enough of that, little Widow.”

That word.

I guess I was one of them now. A Black Widow. A killer of men.

Zaran gripped me by the chin, turning me so viciously that I had to let go of Sam just to keep from hurting him.

I’m worried about hurting a corpse?

My mind reeled but, Zaran’s grip on my jaw forced me back into the here and now. The pressure against my lower jaw grew steadily stronger until my mouth parted. Then he was leaning over me, much the Sam way he’d leaned over Sam. I felt him breathing into my open mouth and I shuddered violently. His breath wasn’t warm, but as cold as ice and the weight of it sunk into my body, into my bones, and skin, and blood, until I was only death trapped inside human flesh.

The final breath of an honest man.

Zaran closed the intervening distance between us, his face alight with triumph and madness. His lips were moist, his kisses rough, and when he finally forced his tongue into my mouth my teeth snapped down on instinct. I bit until I tasted blood in my mouth, pulled and snarling as if I were a dog with a piece of particularly stubborn bone to chew. I bit until I felt soft flesh separate, and then it was over.

I had the Genie’s tongue, and he pulled away, grinning from ear to ear. Watching in obvious pleasure as I swallowed that down as well, gagging on the feel of it sliding down my throat. My body flushed hot. Dragon hot, and when I gasped it was on a tide of steam. My vision was awash in a haze of red and the taste of iron flooded my mouth like an aphrodisiac.

I felt disjointed. Disconnected. Not all there. I fell into and out of myself for indeterminate amounts of time, and when I finally came to I found myself swaying while the mad Genie danced around me. His movements were tribal and they spoke to something deep within me. Something dark. I was hungry. Starving. I needed more. I needed it all.

Power.

My eyes fell on the bloody gemstone heart still clutched in Zaran’s fist, and a growl worked its way up from the back of my throat.  It looked different from the last time I’d seen it. Last time it had seemed a thing of beauty. Now I only saw it as something shrouded in that thing I craved most. I lunged for it but Zaran grabbed me by the hair and jerked my head back to a painful angle. I hissed up at him, fingers still clawing for the heart he held just out of my reach.

“Thank your friend, little Widow.” In the back of my mind I noted that his tongue had already grown back in he seemed in fine spirits despite the blood staining his chin and chest. “When she stumbled upon me in your mother’s home,” he continued, “she wished for your freedom. An end to your curse. It’s taken me longer than I’d like to carry out the task but…” he shrugged. “C’est la vie.”

He shoved the heart against my mouth and the world was awash in the taste of fire and sweetest ambrosia. It was better than the taste of any goblin fruit. Better than the feel of Sam’s mouth on mine. Better than love, better than friendship, better than anything. I lapped it up with my tongue but couldn’t bite down. Not like I wished, because Zaran still held my jaw open.

When he spoke next he did so as if addressing the world at large rather than anyone in particular. “With this, your wish is granted Rachel Constance Dupree and my debt paid in full. I hope the outcome is worth the price you paid.” He looked back down at me but I couldn’t really see him. It was hard to see anything past the need. “Know this little Widow; no matter your path you’ve made your share of enemies and promises. And those at least, don’t just go away.”

He released me and mindless, I began tearing into the heart in my hand with a concentrated ferocity. I shoved as much of it into my mouth as I could my teeth cracking on the stone surface, my tongue tearing against the razors edge of the pulsating jewel. The agony was its own brand of sweetness, because I could feel it weakening, thinning, until finally I sunk past the garnet barrier to reach the power trapped in the middle.

It took my breath away.

Sam. Every thought, every memory, every joy and fear. It was his laugh, his freckles, his eyes. I felt every defeat he’d ever had and every victory. I was his racing pulse when he kissed a girl for the first time and the wild joy that sang through him when he’d first learned to fly as a hatchling. His honesty, his fairness, his humor, temper, and pride. On some level I’d noticed how open he was. How willing to accept and experience. I’d known, but now I
knew
it like I knew my own name or the scent of my favorite shampoo. I swallowed down the feel of his skin, the taste of his spirit, and hungered for more. Ravenous with every inch of the yawning loneliness his presence inside of me filled.

I wasn’t just eating his heart.

I was eating his soul, and it stole the light, consumed the stars, and pulled me under into an ocean of black that left me floundering, the dressing room more of a distant dream than a reality. I gloried in it, my eyes closing to savor the sense of chaos that seemed to define the world and my place in it. I belonged. Right here, surrounded by Dragon fire and the wordless music that was his magic. This was where I belonged.

When I next opened my eyes I was no longer in the dressing room.

Instead I stood on a stage and standing before me looking more alive than I’d ever seen her, was Seraphim 1.0 complete with torso and working arms and legs. She still wore the white dress she’d been buried in but it lacked the dirt and stains that I’d remembered. There was no paleness to her face, no signs of exhaustion or tale-tell hints of death. She even had on shoes this time, a lace up pair of cream-colored kid boots that somehow brought out the dancing lights that made up her wings. Before her eyes had been dull with death but now I saw that they were a brilliant Siberian husky blue that sparkled in time with the wings at her back.

It was the first truly pretty thing I’d seen since being introduced into all of this and I have to admit…it made me suspicious. I got slowly to my feet and took my eyes off of the Fairy only long enough to give my surroundings a quick inspection.

This was the same stage Seraphim had shown me earlier with Conric, except this time the seats in the auditorium were bursting with people. Both Seraphim and I stood in the center of the stage, surrounded on all sides by other players. Directly in front of us was a man with a dragon’s horned mask. To the left was the actress who’d played the role of Rachel and adjacent to her was my own Doppelganger. I turned enough to see who stood behind me only to whip back around, my pulse in my throat.

The actor behind me was new, but it was easy to recognize who or what, she represented. Dressed in an ink black ball gown, the woman’s mask was simply a multitude of obsidian eyes that covered her face from forehead to chin.

I looked down at Seraphim 1.0, and tried to control the urge to vomit.

“Where am I? What is all of this?”

Seraphim smiled and for the first time there was nothing terrifying about the attention she turned on me.

“Your spell. This is what you’ve been working towards.”

I raised an eyebrow and gave the player’s surrounding us a significant glance. “Really? Because it looks more like a trick than a treat.”

Seraphim laughed her little girl voice echoing like a bell in the otherwise silent room.

“This is no trick Alexandria Marie Greyson. You wanted a second chance.” Her arm swept out to encompass the silent, masked, watchers. “Well, here it is. All you have to do is choose.”

“Choose?” I murmured my head cocking to one side, only to flinch inwardly when my doppelganger aped the movement to a T. I looked for some sign of life, or conscience thought, but there was none. Her face was just as dead and blank as her companions. She may as well have been wearing a mask.

I shuddered and turned away.

“There is no right or wrong answer.” Seraphim confided, stepping forward to brush my hand with her own. Just that simple thing, that simple sign of comfort and normalcy after everything else that had happened, cleared my head. This time, when I examined each of the players I did so without flinching. I didn’t just look at the elaborately done, all too realistic, masks but also at the men and women who wore them. If this place had taught me anything, it was that sometimes there was something much worse hidden beneath the pomp and glitter.

No matter who I looked at, who I circled on the stage or whose mask I reached out to touch, my eye was always drawn to one in particular. It called to me. A siren’s song. A promise that rode the air and spoke of better things to come.

I almost went to it on more than one occasion but the others always pulled me back. They begged me to look just one more time.

To think just a little harder.

One more touch.

A kiss perhaps?

They reminded me of the Goblin merchants with their constant wheedling and all too soon their voices began to grate and tear on my nerves. Only one thing remained sweet. Only one thing stayed pure.

Just one.

My Doppelganger was dead on the inside. She simply imitated everything I did. There was a hunger to her. A yawning emptiness that sent a cold chill down my back. I moved away from her quickly.

The actress playing Rachel was…normal. There was nothing particularly strange or frightening about her and I found myself wandering away for the simple fact that she bored me.

Then there was the Dragon. His mask looked real enough but when I looked into his eyes and they were dark, and brown, and unfamiliar. It was
a
dragon, but not
my
Dragon.

But there was still one…

I looked at Seraphim for confirmation and she hesitated briefly before shrugging, her cherubic face growing tight with worry. The expression would have given the old me pause, but I was done second guessing my own decisions or my right to make them. No matter the consequences, I would leave this place knowing I’d made the right choice. Stepping away from the Player wearing the Dragon’s mask, I wandered over to the Widow, my hand outstretched. Her arm lifted, our fingers brushed, and beneath me the stage crumbled into dust.

* * * *

“Maxamillian Zaran.” I’d never noticed the power it could give you, having someone’s name at your disposal. I was still on my knees in the dressing room and blood smeared the bottom half of my face and soaked my neck and chest.

I could feel it.

I could taste it.

I could hear it.

My mouth watered, but I squinted down at my hands and shoved the sensation away. I noticed in an abstract sort of way that while the Dragon burns had disappeared from my palms, they were still very much marred by Dragon blood. The heart was gone so I could only assume that I’d finished it off. I mulled over that for a moment and then lifted my head, letting my hair slide across my shoulders so that I could peek up at Zaran from beneath my lashes. He took a step back, but it was too late for that. His eyes locked with mine and his face slackened.

“Yes?”

I placed a hand on his thigh, enjoying the way the muscles bunched beneath the material at the contact. “I believe you still owe me a wish.”

“Of course.” The contract and pen reappeared but I shook my head in reprimand and he frowned.

“No. I won’t be signing any of your contracts, Trickster.”

He shook his head, obviously confused even as he sent the tools of his trade back into nonexistence. “Apologies, little Widow, but no contract. No wish.”

I raised an eyebrow at that and my fingers traveled a little higher along his pants. “Can your magic bring back the dead?”

He hesitated, before shaking his head. “No.”

“Then this is a wish you can grant without the use of your magic. I don’t want your gifts, only your cooperation.” I grinned up at him and let the part of me that was like my mother, the part that was a Widow, rise up and take control. It spoke to me. Voices whispering in my head. A chorus of knowledge both dark and bloody and beneath my skin I could feel my veins thickening, hardening, and moving. They absorbed the rest of the magic from the Dragon’s blood still coating my skin and clothes and while the power was waning, it was more than potent enough to get the job done.