dragons breath 02 - dancing with flames

• Table of Contents
  
• Title page
  
• Copyright Page
  
• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
  
• Chapter 26
  
• Chapter 27
  
• Chapter 28
  
• Chapter 29
  
• Chapter 30
  
• Chapter 31
  
• Chapter 32
  
• Chapter 33
  
• Chapter 34
  
• Chapter 35
  
• Chapter 36
  
• Chapter 37
  
• Chapter 38
  
• Dragon Terms Glossary
  
• Dragon Clan Names
  
• About Susan Illene
  
• Acknowledgments
  

Table of Contents

Title page

Copyright Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Dragon Terms Glossary

Dragon Clan Names

About Susan Illene

Acknowledgments

Dancing with

Flames

by Susan Illene

Dancing with Flames

Copyright © 2016 by Susan Illene

All right reserved.

This book, whole or in part, may not be copied, scanned, or reproduced by electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying or the implementation of any type of storage or retrieval system) without the express written permission of the author, except where permitted by law. Please do not participate or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials. Purchase only authorized editions.

www.susanillene.com

ISBN-10: 0986336122

ISBN-13: 978-0-9863361-2-6

Images obtained for the creation of this novel’s cover were licensed for use from Teresa Yeh photography and Jeff Brown Graphics. Design by Claudia McKinney at Phat Puppy Art.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events portrayed within its pages are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not meant to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, undead, or mostly dead is purely coincidental.

Dedication

To the marigolds that return every spring, long after those who planted them are gone.

Chapter 1

Bailey

Traveling down city streets in a post-apocalyptic world could come with all sorts of challenges—testing my driving skills being one of them. There were cracks and potholes in the roads that I couldn’t always avoid, causing my truck to bump along with jaw-rattling annoyance. Damaged vehicles, fallen trees, and downed power lines also made regular appearances that required careful maneuvering to get around.

Then there was the hazardous trash, debris, and broken glass littering the pavement that seemed to flourish now that there was no one in charge of picking up the refuse anymore. Even if you got past those obstacles, you still suffered from the smell. In some areas, the strong odor coming from the rotting food and human waste was so overpowering it could make you gag. I hadn’t realized how valuable government services were until they were gone—and unlikely to ever come back.

How had we reached this point in the span of four months? Another dimension had collided with ours, bringing numerous natural disasters and fire-breathing dragons with it. Oh, and let’s not forget magic, because why not? It had been used by sorcerers to banish dragons in the first place, after all.

Who would’ve guessed some of those mythical creatures we grew up hearing about might have actually been real? I’d never dreamed civilization could come crumbling down so fast, or that I would have such an important role to play in the new era that arose after it. Times were dark, but I suspected they were about to get even darker.

“Look out!” Conrad yelled from the passenger seat of my truck.

I slammed on the brakes as a frantic, middle-aged man with short, graying hair dashed onto the road fifty feet ahead and waved his arms. His blue-collared shirt was covered in sweat, his jeans worn and dirt-encrusted, and wild desperation filled his eyes—not a good combination. Conrad and I scanned the area, searching for any signs of an attack. It wouldn’t be the first time we’d been ambushed while driving through town.

“See anything?” I asked Conrad.

He frowned. “Nope, no one.”

Not necessarily a good sign—they could be hiding. Through my open window, nothing moved aside from a black cat sitting on a porch across the street. It stared at us with disdain, flicking its tail. This neighborhood appeared cleaner than most and only had light structural damage. Other than a few burned down homes and a crater in the middle of the street ahead, it was still habitable. A strong sign people lived nearby, though none other than the one guy had revealed themselves.

The beleaguered man came over to the side of my truck, gasping for breath. I grabbed my pistol from the console and pointed it at his chest. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Please,” the man said urgently, lifting his hands high. “I have to talk to you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you want?”

“My name is Keith Barbour, and I live a few blocks from here.” He nodded toward the east. “I’m looking for the dragon slayer. Are you her?”

My gaze hardened further. “Why do you ask?”

I had only taken down a handful of the beasts since my first kill a month ago. Sure, a few people were always lurking nearby to witness my battles, but I hadn’t realized how fast word would spread. Norman—a suburb of Oklahoma City—had lost over half its population in the last few months from people either dying or fleeing town. Those who remained stayed out of sight unless they wanted to be seen. The ones who did show their faces for long, well, they tended to have less than altruistic plans in mind. I had learned to trust no one outside my close circle of friends.

“I heard on the radio there’s a dragon slayer in town. Hank said it's a woman driving a black truck and wearing some kind of weird leather get-up." He cocked his head at me. "How many of those with that description you think are driving around here? Though, I did expect you to be...uh, bigger."

Damn Hank and his need to report everything.

The description was close enough, though our only surviving radio announcer had probably said more. I was part Cherokee Indian, part Malaysian, and part white. That combo gave me straight, black hair, brown eyes with a slight slant to them, and perpetually tan skin. No one could ever quite nail my features down, so most people just described me as mixed. I was used to getting comments on my petite size, though. Nobody thought I would have the strength to kill something five times bigger than me—sometimes the dragons were even larger than that—until they watched me do it. Little did they know super-human strength came with the job.

“Keep an eye out,” I ordered Conrad.

“Don’t worry.” He grinned, holding a shotgun he’d grabbed from the backseat. “Ain’t nothing getting’ by me.”

He was a guy I knew from college before the apocalypse, but we hadn’t become good friends until after all hell broke loose. The dark-skinned nineteen-year-old was a few years younger than me, but he’d come in handy more than once in dangerous situations. Nobody had my back more than he did, which was good since I slayed dragons as a profession now and ran into trouble rather often.

I lowered my pistol a fraction and addressed Keith. “So what do you want from me?”

Some of the tension in the man’s shoulders eased. “A dragon took my neighbor’s five-year-old son a few days ago. It’s been back every night since, showing up around sunset looking for more of our kids. We’ve been keeping them hidden in an underground storm shelter, but when the beast can’t get to them, it tears up our neighborhood instead. We’ve tried shooting at it—” he paused to shudder, “but it’s like trying to stop a tank with a pellet gun. The dragon just kills anyone who gets in its way.”

This was different than any other story I’d heard. Dragons attacked and burned humans on a regular basis with horrifying results, but they had a reason for that—even if it wasn’t a great one. They were angry about getting banished to another dimension for a thousand years. Over there, they had lived in a barren land with not much in the way of food sources. It had been a struggle to survive for all that time. When they returned four months ago, they came back with a terrifying vengeance—despite the fact it was sorcerers who had sent them away, not us. But humans got the blame as well since we stayed on Earth while they suffered in
Kederrawien
, the dragon dimension where they came from.

Regardless of the animalistic nature of the beasts, they were much smarter than people assumed. Most humans didn’t have a prayer of taking one down without major firepower, such as rockets, and the element of surprise. Acquiring either was almost impossible at this point. The military had stopped their air strikes months ago and Oklahoma—as well as much of the country from what I’d heard—now had to fend for itself.