bedeviled & beyond 04 - bedeviled & belittled (6 page)

Tempting. But I’m not using my powers, Astra.

Suit yourself then. I’ll just wait here while he rapes you.

Bitch.

Pansy ass.

Hag.

I was saved from having to come up with something worse than hag when the second guy decided to make his move. He’d been eyeing me all along but hadn’t been able to crank up the courage to approach me. My initial instincts about the guy being smarter than his friend were apparently accurate. Unfortunately, when I didn’t do anything to his friend, he decided maybe I was harmless after all.

Oops. His bad.

He took a step closer and reached for my arm. I let him take it and flashed him a smile that would have frightened anybody who knew me better. Then I reached for his chest and laid a hand over it. “I’ll give you one beat of your wildly racing heart to let go of my arm and call off your friend.”

He lowered those bushy brows at me. “What are you gonna do to me if I don’t?”

I fired just enough power into his scrawny chest to send him flying back to the stoop from whence he’d come. He crashed against the concrete steps with a groan and slid down into a messy pile at the bottom. “I’m gonna do that.” I responded.

Darma’s “friend” suddenly cried out and pulled away from her, his lip bleeding where she’d obviously bitten him. “Bitch!” He lifted a hand and slapped her, hard, sending her reeling backward. A thick, red haze filled my gaze. Before I knew what I was doing I was on him, slamming him to the ground. I clutched his throat with one hand and placed the other one on his forehead.

He gagged and gasped under the tightening fingers around his throat.

I pulled my power forward, letting it shimmer on my fingertips. My eyes narrowed in joy as I savored the surge of power warming and rolling its way through my body. My skin began to pulse as I held the energy inside and I licked my lips, enjoying the look of pure fear throbbing in my victim’s eyes.

The scent of urine filled the air.

“To Hades with you fool, for God hath tired of you.”

A cold, soft hand clamped around my wrist and warmth touched my back. Darma’s angry voice filled my ear, her breath tickling across my face. I was dimly aware of her presence, beyond the throbbing of power through my body. “Stop, Astra. Pull it back. He’s not worth the stain on your soul.”

I chewed my bottom lip, doubt sliding in to disrupt my power high. The energy started to thin and scatter. I shook my head and gathered it back up. “He needs to die.”

“No, Astra. He needs to live to remember how it feels to be helpless, a victim. Just like he’s made probably countless others feel. He’s a puny bully, Astra. That’s all.”

The power pulsed hard at my fingertips. I was a single breath away from releasing it. The level of power I’d accumulated in my fingers would vaporize the human quivering beneath my thighs.

It was overkill.

On some level my mind realized that.

On some level, buried deep beneath the raging energy, I knew I didn’t want to kill the human. I knew Darma was right.

Damn! I hated when Darma was right.

I shook my head. The guy beneath me cried out as a thin stream of power leeched from my fingertips, burning his skin and sending the smoky scent of cooked meat into the air.

“Stop it, Astra!” She pulled on me, trying to drag me away from the creep on the ground. But power-drenched as I was, she had no hope of pulling me away. She stood with an angry rush of breath and I could hear her stamping her foot in frustration.

A smile slid onto my face. My power dimmed.

“I’ll tell Myra what you’ve done, Astra. What do you think she’ll do?”

The power scattered and started to slide away. I didn’t try to recapture it. Standing up, I turned to face her.

Her pretty face was nearly purple with rage. Her hands were on her hips and she glared at me from under lowered, blonde brows.

“You’re gonna tell on me!” My voice held a certain shriekish quality that was decidedly unattractive.

She nodded.

“We’re not five years old, Darma.”

“No we certainly are not, Astra. Which is why I would expect you to show more restraint. He’s just a pathetic bully. You were prepared to vaporize him. Get some perspective, Astra.”

“You’re welcome, dammit!”

As if I’d reminded her of what he’d done, she reached up and touched her pale cheek, which had started to darken to an ugly purple. She shrugged and, then, glancing behind me, her pretty blue eyes widened.

“Bitch!”

I spun and grabbed the pipe the creep swung toward my head and wrenched it easily from his hand. Then, casting my sister a defiant look, I swung it hard at his midsection, enjoying the crunching sound as it connected with his ribs.

He went down hard, gasping for breath. His face was a curious green color.

I dropped the pipe and turned away, striding angrily down the street, toward Darma’s house.

“See, Astra, that’s what I mean, perspective. You didn’t hit him in the head with the pipe, you hit him in the stomach. Extreme pain versus death.” She patted me on the shoulder and grinned. “I think I’m finally wearing off on you.”

I stared straight ahead, my body vibrating with barely contained fury. As my sister preened and skipped along in smug satisfaction, I fantasized about smacking her around.

“I should have kept the damn pipe.” I murmured crankily.

CHAPTER FOUR

Welcome to Olympus Air

An adopted charge doth call our miss, and engage her in a quest,

The dragon queen has fled the coup, abandoning her nest.

I need you, mother halfling!

I jerked awake, glad to have been pulled from another lust-filled dream starring all the wrong people.

Glynus?

Hello, mother halfling.

What’s wrong?

Our world is under attack. Mother and Father have gone into battle. I’m scared. I haven’t heard from them in several slides of the sun across the sky.

I climbed out of bed and headed for the personal hygiene room to shower.
Are you coming to get me?

I’m nearly there.

See you in a few minutes then.

Thank you, mother halfling.

I climbed into the shower tube. “One hundred degrees, full power, half soap.” The water shot on and I slid under the pulsating jets, sighing happily. Hot, soapy water sluiced over my head and body, warming me and igniting my Settling. I wondered where Dialle was at that moment and considered trying to find him later, after I’d dealt with the Black Dragons’ problem.

I suddenly realized I’d been promoted—somewhere along the way—to being the savior for yet another world. Apparently I wasn’t busy enough saving humankind over and over again, now I had to deal with saving the dragons too.

By the time I’d pulled on a soft, form-fitting black sweater and slacks and tugged on some boots, Glynus was back in my mind.

Are you ready to go?

Almost.

I pulled a few clothes into a small bag, which I flung over my shoulder, and did a quick pass through my living space, making sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. It was possible I’d be gone a while.

Are you on the roof?

Yes.

I headed up to the roof and emerged into a light drizzle under an overcast sky.

Glynus was waiting as patiently as she was able, being a young dragon and still prone to fidgeting. I was always a little shocked when I saw her after not laying eyes on her for while. She’d grown considerably since the day I’d first acquired her.

She’d been a tiny baby then, capable only of uttering the word “bluerp” and belching smoke. Her inability to speak didn’t last long, however. It ended abruptly when she started parroting any swear words I uttered. Within days she sounded like a galaxy sailor on Earth leave.

Her fondness for the words “shit” and “frunk” didn’t win me any motherhood awards from my family and friends. Fortunately her ability to speak words out loud went away as she grew. Since then, she and I spoke only telepathically, as I did with her mother and father. That saved me some serious embarrassment whenever she came out with some weird Astra-ism that was totally inappropriate for her age and station in life.

It happened frequently.

Glynus was currently a gawky adolescent. Though at thirty feet tall and approximately fifty feet long, adolescent wasn’t the word that popped to mind when seeing her. Her wide chest was covered in opaline scales, which sparked with pastel cream, rust, and gray light as she moved, and her top line, which would be a deep, onyx black when she was full grown, was a beautiful charcoal gray.

But it was her eyes that were truly arresting. They were a deep violet, fringed with thick lashes as long as my pinky finger.

Glynus was a princess. Next in line for the throne. Her mother, the Queen had given her to me to rear among the human population in the hopes that her experiences with people would ensure the continuing prosperity of the black dragon race alongside humans.

However, for all her regal beauty, Glynus was still a kid at heart. When I emerged from the stairwell, she started hopping from foot to foot and spewing excitement fire from her nostrils.

I threw myself behind a huge, metal box and rolled, narrowly missing being toasted alive.

Oops! Sorry mother halfling.

I peeked over my protective barrier. “I guess I should have worn my flame retardant jumpsuit, huh?”

She giggled behind a massive paw with six-inch-long, curved claws.
You can come out now, mother halfling. I promise I won’t roast you.

I leapt over the box and ran, springing onto her wide back as I used to do when she was younger.

Glynus giggled and lifted her wings with excitement.
Hold on, mother halfling
. Her massive wings pounded the air, blowing my hair around my face and nearly driving me right off her back. Debris lifted out of the crevices and corners of the roof where it had been caught and flew in all directions. I had to duck as a large, dead bird swung toward my head.

I grabbed the base of her wings and held on, lowering myself as we lifted off in preparation for that first, powerful gust of air slamming into me.

The ride was a bit rocky until Glynus climbed to a height where she could level off and skim gracefully along the air currents. Then I released my hold on her wings and sat up, enjoying the bird’s eye view of the world below.

The nearest air car was miles beneath Glynus’s wings. They looked like bugs buzzing from place to place.

Okay, Glynus. Tell me what’s going on. I need to know what I’m stepping into.

She sighed in my mind.
The Mount has exploded into chaos. The Queen of the Reds is in an uproar because her oldest daughter was attacked and killed. She declared war against us in the belief that we were behind the attack. Of course we knew nothing about it until the skies started boiling with red dragons and blood began to be spilled on our beautiful meadow.

Does your mother have any ideas who might have been responsible for the attack?

Glynus turned and fixed a worried, violet eye on me.
She and my father cloistered themselves in the throne room and discussed it for hours. When they emerged they declared their intention of visiting the Red Queen. I couldn’t get them to tell me what they’d decided. All they would say was that it was better if I knew nothing.

So they went to see the Reds.

Glynus nodded. That was almost three passages of the sun ago. And I haven’t heard a word of how they fared. She snorted angrily, spewing impotent smoke through her wide nostrils.
If the Reds have harmed my parents they will know war as they’ve never known it before.

Beneath my thighs her muscles tightened and bunched in anger. Her wings slammed the air and our speed picked up noticeably.

I suddenly realized my little girl was growing up. And she had a temper. I was glad I was on her side. Patting her on the shoulder I said the only thing I could say. “We’ll find them, Glynus. And if they’ve been harmed I’ll fight at your side to avenge them.”

~SC~

Unlike the black dragons, who lived in a beautiful meadowland overseen by a giant, sparkling waterfall, the red dragons roosted in the stark, jagged rocks high on the opposite side of Mount Olympus. The approach to their Queendom was stunning and ruthlessly efficient, but decidedly intimidating.

Per royal protocol, Glynus approached the Queen’s caverns directly, without stealth, showing her lack of aggression by her visibility and guileless approach.

As a result, with every mile we came closer to the reds’ caverns, we picked up a couple more guards. Until, as the yawning face of the royal caverns opened up before us, we were a single black dot in a surrounding sea of red. From a distance we probably looked like a giant poppy.

Glynus flew toward the largest cavern, directly in the center of hundreds of smaller caves, and stopped, hovering in midair, as the largest pair of red dragons I’d ever seen converged on the entrance to the Queen’s caves and blocked our approach.

What followed was a harsh, guttural exchange in the dragons’ natural language, which I didn’t understand.

To me it just sounded like a series of barks, coughs, and roars.

I got the gist of it though. Basically the guards said, “Halt, who goes there?” and Glynus responded, “Get the hell out of my way or my mother halfling will kick your fat asses.”

When two enormous pairs of sparkling black eyes focused on me, filled with malevolence, I decided a quick foray into Glynus’ beady brain was in order.
What did you say to them, Glynus?

I simply reminded them that you were the legendary dragon fighter.

Glynus’ mother, the Queen had anointed me the dragon fighter. I never really figured out why. I’m thinking she needed an extra warrior at the time so she created one.
Frunkin' wonderful
, I responded. The two giant reds were eyeing me as if they’d like to be the ones to end the legend of the dragon fighter...by ending the dragon fighter.