WickedBeast (25 page)

The voice from the castle was suddenly tired. “If by sick
you mean I’m about to fall on my, ah, rump, you’re correct. Mind giving me a
chair in here?”

The front door of the castle disappeared. In its place bars
blocked the entrance. Behind them a slender man was now sitting in a chair that
looked exactly like one in Kelly’s living room back in America.

“A crafty little witch you are, lassie.” He smiled. “It’s
clear I can’t hurt anybody.” He shrugged casually. “So somebody start explaining
what’s going on.”

“Cord say you good.” Minuet crossed her arms as she took
over the conversation. “I feels only frowns in you. The laughing all gone.”
Minuet paused as she studied the man. “You needs the laughing,” she finished
softly on a puzzled note.

“You read well but that doesn’t explain what you are, my
little prison keeper,” he responded to her.

“She is a dragon caller,” Cord supplied. “Something new.
Part of what has changed the mission. Feel her, feel the strength in me and
where it comes from. You’re a stubborn sea donkey, Harrison, but even you have
to admit this is not how they said it would be. Are you ready to listen?”

“Dragon caller? Never heard of such a thing.” His head
tilted as he regarded Minuet. “I may be weak but I’m fully aware that you have
a Wind Witch feeding you power. You’re no longer balanced enough to follow the
plan. I was simply trying to aid you.”

Minuet took another step closer to the castle and the male
inside stopped speaking. His eyes on her little form, he leaned forward. “What
is this? She is… She is power. Come closer, lass,” he invited softly.

“No,” Cord said firmly as he pulled Minuet back to his side.
“First you listen. Then we’ll see if she wishes to help you.”

Minuet looked up at Cord. “Him much sick.”

“I know, honey. But he is also a sneaky dragon who loves to
play tricks.”

“Him much sad. Need laughing or he gone and Shelley die,”
Minuet stated.

Cord raised a brow as he looked down at the child who read
them all so clearly. “Who is Shelley?”

A furrow appeared between Minuet’s eyebrows as she looked up
at Cord. “Shelley is him heart.” Minuet pointed at Harrison. “She afraid. Him
make her dying.”

Cord dropped to haunches, his hands clutching Minuet’s
hands. “Is Shelly in danger? Can you show me in my mind?”

Minuet shook her head and tears formed in her eyes. “I can
show him but no you. She afraid and I hurt her if you look her.”

“Wait. What the hell are you talking about? Don’t hurt her,”
Harrison snapped, coming out of his chair to grip the golden rails in front of
him.

Cord didn’t even glance at the man grasping his prison bars.
“Minuet, this is very important. We have to save Shelley. Where is she?”

A tear slid down Minuet’s cheek as she gripped Cord’s hands
as tightly as she could. “I don’t know. I don’t know all the places yet. She
hurt.”

“It’s okay, baby,” Cord tried to soothe her and his own
emotions as well.

Kelly knelt beside Minuet and turned her, gathering the
child into her arms. “It’s okay, honey. You’re doing your best.” Looking over
Minuet’s head at Cord, Kelly continued. “Whatever you have to do to make him
understand, do it. She’s too young for this, for this responsibility. If he
can’t grasp what’s going on, I’ll take care of him myself for putting her
through this.”

Cord stood in a fluid motion and strode to the castle.
Reaching through the bars he had a hand around Harrison’s neck. Moving so
quickly it was difficult to follow the action was completed in less than a
second.

“Here it is, and I’m only going to tell you once. Our
creators told us half the story. We were made to match the witch who shares our
element. When Minuet called the woman named Shelly your heart, she meant
Shelley is the Water Witch. She couldn’t have been more accurate. We’re
connected to our witch both by instinct and DNA. Use what little strength you
have left to feel what I am.”

Cord glared into Harrison’s eyes as the water dragon
consciously touched him with senses. Harrison’s whole body shook in reaction to
what it touched in Cord. But that involuntary reaction was Harrison’s only
indication of his understanding.

Cord remained holding him by the neck a few moments longer.
Harrison’s eyes went to Minuet and he ignored the large male holding him in
such a vulnerable position. “Miss Minuet, I apologize for not understanding. Please
forgive me,” he stated simply.

Cord slowly released Harrison and stepped back. “It’s okay,
honey. Harrison is sorry for being mean. He knows if he tries any tricks I will
be very mad at him. Could you come talk to him over here?”

Kelly stood, holding Minuet’s hand. Both of them approached
the castle door.

Harrison dropped to one knee. He didn’t say a word but held
his hand out through the bars, palm up, silently inviting Minuet to touch him.

Cord could read the water dragon but he doubted his judgment
was as good as Minuet’s. Whatever Minuet was feeling from the person she called
Shelly could be distracting her enough to give the dragon in front of her an
opening. If the bastard even hinted at a wrong move, Cord would be ready to use
deadly force. That was a last resort. They needed the water dragon and his
lady. Needed them desperately if there was going to be any hope of a future.

Minuet placed her palm in Harrison’s hand. Long fingers
closed over her tiny hand. Harrison paled even further. His body was racked
with involuntary shudders as Minuet touched him with power. Cord knew the
excruciating pain of having Minuet’s power flooded a starved body. It force-fed
nutrients into withered muscle and bone. Encountering Minuet before one had
touched his witch was painfully difficult.

Harrison’s teeth clenched, his lips drawing back in a
grimace as tears dripped down his cheeks, but he held on.

Minuet’s other hand reached through the bars to flatten on
Harrison’s forehead. The dragon groaned but leaned into her touch. His eyes
closed as he drew air swiftly through his teeth.

Kelly frowned and glanced at Cord. “What’s happening?”

“Minuet is forcing power into his system. He’s accepting it
as fast as he can, but she wants to make it go faster. She is trying to show
him what she knows of the Shelley woman. For him to be able to hear her at that
level he needs to recover a bit more. I don’t know if she will ever have the
power to make this less painful, but she doesn’t now. When it happened to me, I
thought I was dying,” Cord explained softly.

“Will he be able to hurt her?” Kelly wanted to know.

“Only if he wishes to die,” Cord said in a low growl. “But
when has anyone wanted to hurt Minuet after they’ve touched her?”

Kelly shook her head and ran a hand through Minuet’s hair.
“Does it hurt her?” she asked Cord. She wasn’t sure Minuet could hear her. Her
eyes were locked with Harrison’s and she seemed somehow distant.

“I don’t know. When it happened to me, she was so worried
about you I guess neither of us focused on that. Now she is sharing the pain of
the Water Witch and again I don’t think she can separate what is her pain and
someone else’s.

Harrison’s hand opened and Minuet pulled back.

The water dragon was no longer gaunt. The hollows in his
cheeks were gone as were the dark bruises under his eyes. Ash-blond hair flowed
back from his forehead in a smooth fall. His shoulders were wider than the door
he knelt behind. Power rippled around him as if someone had thrown a stone in a
lake.

He remained on his knee, looking at Minuet. “Thank you, Miss
Minuet. You know what I must do.”

The sparkling castle around Harrison disappeared but the
large man remained where he was, looking into Minuet’s eyes. Then he stood
slowly to face Cord. Cord was still larger but not by a whole lot.

Harrison nodded then he was gone.

Kelly looked around. “Where did he go?”

“He go save his heart,” Minuet stated confidently.

“That’s it? We came all this way for that?” Kelly wanted to
know.

“Yep, looks that way. Minuet, do you know where he’s going?”
Cord asked casually as he took the hand of each of his ladies and turned them
back toward the car.

“I don’t know. I show picture and he go,” Minuet said
proudly. “Him not sick anymore. But not laughing. Him need laughing.”

“When he finds her, he will find his laughter,” Cord told
her. “Did it hurt you to help Harrison?” he asked as they got back in the car.

“No, me and sister like help. We still go big deep water?”

Cord started the car and pull on the road heading in the
same direction they had been going. “Sister?” he asked. “Don’t you mean Mommy?”

“Mommy like help but sister just learn it.”

“Are you calling your new friend Shelly a sister?” Cord
asked, trying to understand.

“No. Sisters and brothers come from mommies, right?” Minuet
asked as she looked between them.

Kelly smiled down at her. “Yes they do, but a mommy has to
carry them in her tummy for a while. You know what being pregnant is. Remember
Aunt Penny was pregnant? Her tummy was big and you could feel the baby moving
sometimes.”

“I member,” Minuet agreed confidently. “Look.” She pointed
out the window excitedly as they topped a hill and a huge expanse of water came
into view. “Big water!”

Kelly looked over Minuet’s head at Cord. His eyes met hers
for a brief second. Both of them were silent as Minuet chattered about what she
saw outside.

Cord calmly found a place to park overlooking the loch. It
was a relatively warm summer day and there were several other groups of
tourists scattered though the area though it was by no means crowded. Minuet
ran ahead toward the water before Cord could make it around the car.

Taking Kelly’s hand, they followed Minuet’s path. Still
neither of them said a word except for Kelly calling after Minuet not to go in
the water. Minuet grabbed a stick and was playing in the sand at the water’s
edge. Cord and Kelly stopped walking a few feet away from her.

“Um,” Kelly started to speak hesitantly.

“It’s not possible,” Cord said quietly.

“Why not?” Kelly wanted to know with studied calm. “We’ve
never used protection.”

“There is no need. My kind do not have that ability. We are
not actually sentient beings. Mixing DNA in a dish does not result in something
God would allow to breed.”

“You are ascribing a whole lot of disapproving judgment to
God. Didn’t you say you are very different from the original dragon type? Made
to save humans? A job you willingly expected to do with no thanks, no
acknowledgement until you died? Sounds a lot like a plan God would approve of,
though I don’t think he’d make it as bleak as you do.”

Cord stood rigidly beside her, his senses continually
scanning the area and every person in it. Animal senses he could not turn off
and didn’t want to. He was not the creature she so desperately wanted to
believe. He’d known she needed the illusion of his being human, having human
emotions, human needs. Now she was trying to convince herself that God could
extend some of the regard He held humans in to an abomination.

Kelly went on, her tone softly casual as they watched Minuet
find smooth stones and start piling them up. “The people who made you firmly
believed that eventually there would be unusual humans in the world again.
Humans with abilities that make us almost alien to the original human model.
They did not see these differences as the work of a devil, but as God-directed
development in the species, natural evolution. Correct?”

Cord held her hand gently, but that was the only part of him
not rock hard with tension. He nodded curtly to her conclusion. She was
building a lovely case for an outcome that simply would never be, no matter how
one wrapped up the process.

God made humans and the normal animals. They had a logical
developmental path lovingly guarded by the laws of nature. There was order to
that world. Perhaps an afterlife or some thought of a next life. He’d never
paid much attention to human religion. He considered it none of his business
and possibly blasphemy for him to poke around God’s relationships with his
children.

Creatures created outside the laws of nature were fucking on
their own. Of that he had no question. He’d seen God in action. The flood was a
plan God had approved. The word for his creators was witch now. It had been
something else in the time before, closer to High Priestess, Daughter of God.

No, he was pretty sure God had been pissed at the humans
inventing dragons. He’d judged the entire population of humans in the process,
but it was the dragons who God had wanted destroyed completely, except for the
three of them.

Cord frowned.
Except for the three of them
. The
thought echoed in his brain. Math was one of God’s most elegant natural laws
and Cord often employed it when something didn’t make sense. If something could
be figured in an equation, it could be understood. Now the numbers were
screaming at him.

The number of humans saved from the flood in relation to the
total number of the global population. The number of animals saved in relation
to the total population of said animals. There was a correlation to the number
of dragons saved in relations to the number of the total population at the
time.

But the equation fell apart because the population of
dragons had not really decreased. They were still present, just in altered
states.

Kelly continued voicing her thoughts. “Why would you think
there could be no positive development for dragons as well?”

A muscled ticked in Cord’s jaw. “Because we are the
abominations that brought about the destruction of the world, Kelly. Not just
some of it, the entire world. Could you forgive the creature who destroyed your
child? Much less billions of your children? Forget it. Whatever you’d like to
believe, this is reality.”