Debbie

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Debbie had intended to stay up all night waiting for Victor’s return. She knew nothing could harm him in his dragon form. But he’d told her that sometimes criminals fled into buildings before he could grab them in his dragon claws, and then he had to become human to pursue them. It worried her.

On the other hand, she didn’t want him to worry about her losing sleep over him. So she decided to compromise: she’d stay up, but turn off the lights and pretend to be asleep when he returned.

It was the first time she had ever tried to stay awake while lying in bed in a dark room. She managed it for an hour or so, and then she drifted off to sleep.

In her dream, she had become a dragon herself, with beautiful silver wings. She felt powerful and free as she soared among the clouds with Victor at her side. It was so wonderful to fly...

Danger!

She jolted awake at the shriek of some inner voice.

The room was dark, but by the moonlight shining through an open window, she saw two burly figures leaning over her.

Terrified, she opened her mouth to scream.

A rough hand slammed over her lips, cutting off her cry before she could do more than inhale.

The intruders yanked her out of bed. She fought as hard as she could, but they were far stronger than her. Within minutes, she had been gagged, then stuffed into a sack with only her head sticking out. It was such a tight fit that her arms were trapped at her sides. The men dragged her to the window, tied a rope around her chest, and lowered her down to the ground.

Where are the guards? Debbie wondered.

But as her kidnappers rapidly carried her away, she caught sight of the limp bodies of guards stashed behind ornamental shrubberies. They’d been drugged, or hit over the head. At least, she hoped that was all that had been done to them.

Victor will save me, she told herself. The last time I got scared, he knew and came running to help me.

She only hoped he hadn’t flown so far away that he’d be too late.

That frightening thought led her to another: what did the kidnappers want with her? Did they mean to hold her for ransom? Or were they taking her somewhere far enough to conveniently dispose of her body?

A black car waited for them outside of the palace grounds. They opened the trunk, threw her in, and sped away.

Debbie lay in the jolting darkness, trying to kick out in the forlorn hope of attracting some attention. Eventually she gave up on that and instead tried to work the gag loose. By catching it between her teeth and slowly tugging at it, she finally managed to get it loose. It still covered her mouth, but she could yell if she wanted to.

She once again opened her mouth to scream, then thought better of it. No one would be able to hear her from the trunk, except maybe her kidnappers. She’d wait till she got out, when she might have a chance at someone hearing her who could actually help.

Victor! Debbie called out in her thoughts. Help me!

But she didn’t just lie there passively while she begged for help. While she was shouting out his name in her mind, she was also rolling around in the trunk, trying to feel for any sharp edges she could use to cut her way out of the sack.

Her hip bumped into a rough edge of metal. Debbie supposed that was as good as it got. She began painfully sawing her hip against it, rubbing as hard as she could, her heart pounding with fear that the car would stop before she made any progress.

After what felt like an eternity, the sack tore. She writhed until she got the fingers of one hand through the hole, then yanked with all her strength, widening the rip. Soon she’d be free—

The car stopped. She instantly went limp. Her only chance now was that her kidnappers wouldn’t notice a tear in a black sack on a dark night.

She heard the car doors open and footsteps approach. The trunk was opened.

Debbie blinked in the sudden light. It was only silvery moonlight, but it felt bright. There was a briny smell in the air, and a rushing, crashing sound that she took a moment to recognize as waves. She must be at the seashore.

Victor had taken her there once. They’d relaxed on the beach and strolled along the pier, feeding each other salted nuts and cotton candy. She’d had such a wonderful time, she’d meant to suggest that they return.

I sure hadn’t thought I’d do it in the trunk of a car!

The two men yanked her out of the trunk. Now she could see that they’d parked in front of the pier, a wooden spar stretching far out into the ocean. It was lined with shops and carnivalesque attractions that had been fun and cheery in the daytime, but were eerie at night. The dragon-shaped rollercoaster seemed to glare at her ominously and bare its metal teeth.

She heard no voices. All the shops were closed. There was probably no one around for miles—no one to hear her if she screamed.

To her horror, the men began to drag her along the sea-weathered boards of the pier. They couldn’t mean to just stash and hide her there. In the morning, the place would be packed with people, and someone would be sure to find her.

The only reason to bring her to the pier would be to throw her off the end of it, so her body would sink into the ocean depths. No one would ever know what had happened to her, or even that she’d died. She’d be a missing person, forever.

It was now or never.

She jerked her head up. The gag fell down around her neck.

“HELP!” Debbie screamed at the top of her lungs. “HELP! MURDER! HEEEEELP!”

One of her kidnappers cursed and clapped his hand over her mouth. But this time, she was ready for it. She sank her teeth into his hand, biting as hard as she could.

With a yell of pain, he let go of her. The hold of the other kidnapper loosened.

She wrenched herself free. She fell hard to the ground, bruising her side on the pier’s wooden boards. Before the kidnappers could grab her, she rolled away from them, still screaming at the top of her lungs, and ripped at the hole in the sack.

It tore all the way up one side, releasing her. She scrambled out of it and fled, bolting back toward the beach, the breath burning in her lungs.

Rough hands grabbed her shoulders, almost yanking her off her feet. Debbie kicked backward and felt her foot connect with the kidnapper’s knee. He gave a grunt of pain, but held fast. Then the other man caught and held her too.

“Not so fast,” snarled the man she’d kicked. “You’re not going anywhere but underwater.” To the other man, he said, “Put the weights around her ankles.”

She kept struggling, but she was no match for their strength. One kidnapper held her tight while the other took a pair of weighted ankle cuffs from a bag.

“Why?” Debbie gasped. “Why are you doing this? Please—if I’m going to die—at least tell me why!”

“We got paid,” the man holding her replied. “Paid a lot.”

“But who paid you?”

The man with the weighted cuffs gave a callous shrug. “Don’t know. He wore a mask. Don’t care, either. Money is money.”

For some reason, that pissed her off much more than if they’d had some more personal reason to want her dead. There was something so despicable about being willing to kill another human being for nothing but money, without even knowing why.

Debbie’s fury burned so hot that it gave her strength. She kicked out so hard that the kidnapper lost his grip on her ankle, and her foot connected squarely with his nose. He screamed in pain, and let go of her to clutch at his face.

But the other kidnapper just held her tighter. She’d gotten a tiny bit of revenge. But there was no escaping this.

Though she knew it was hopeless, Debbie cried out to the man she loved—the man she’d love to her very last breath. “VICTOR!!!”

A burst of flame lit the night.

Debbie craned her head upward and saw a golden dragon in the sky, arrowing downward at incredible speed.

Her love had come for her.

The kidnappers took one look, and terror wrote itself across their faces. But rather than simply fleeing, one kicked in the door of the nearest shop. Then they both grabbed Debbie and ducked into it with her.

The pier shook as Victor landed on it. She could actually see his golden side through the open door. But as a dragon, he was too big to get inside the shop. Nor could he burn or knock it down—not with her inside it.

The kidnappers dragged her behind a counter. One flung her to the ground and sat on her. The other drew a gun.

“LOOK OU—” Debbie started to scream.

The man sitting on her slapped her viciously across the face, cutting her off.

Victor burst through the open door—not as a dragon, but as a man. He looked magnificent and deadly with his black hair blowing in the sea breeze and his sword gleaming in his hand.

A gunshot rang out.

Debbie screamed in horror as Victor staggered, pressing his free hand to his side.

Then he vaulted over the counter. His sword flashed with lethal speed. Before she could so much as blink, there was a clatter and two thuds as a gun and a pair of bodies hit the floor.

“Victor,” Debbie gasped. “You’re hurt!”

He shook his head impatiently. “I’m fine. How are you?”

“I’m fine.” She stared at the blood staining his shirt. “They shot you. You have to get to a hospital, quick!”

He managed a strained smile. “I’m fine, really. Dragons heal fast.”

Debbie fell into his arms, shaking with pent-up fear and relief. “Oh, Victor!”

He held and kissed her, warming her with his inner heat, telling her with his body that everything would be all right.

When she finally felt reassured, she glanced down at the kidnappers.

Victor followed her gaze. “Don’t worry about them. They’ll never hurt you or anyone, ever again.”

Debbie gulped. “Oh. Okay.”

“But who sent them? What happened?”

“Can I tell you outside?”

They walked to the beach, where she told him the entire story.

“You’re so brave and resourceful,” Victor said. “It’s what I love about you. One of the things.”

“You’re so brave and self-sacrificing,” Debbie replied. “Not so sure I’m in love with the self-sacrificing part. Come on, let’s get back to the palace. I don’t care how fast you heal, you should still see a doctor.”

“Honestly, I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding!” She put her hands on her hips. “Victor. Shift now.”

He transformed, and flew back to the palace with Debbie riding on his back. There he met with Aunt Agatha, who had been awakened when someone discovered the drugged guards and had already sent out search parties for him and Debbie. To Debbie’s relief, Aunt Agatha informed them that the guards were fine and sleeping it off in their barracks.

“Who dared send assassins into the palace?” Aunt Agatha thundered.

“We don’t know yet,” Victor explained. “They were hired by a masked man.”

“I will set my best people on finding out,” Aunt Agatha said. “And now, Victor, you must see our doctor!”

“It’s just a graze,” Victor protested. “I don’t need a doctor.”

“YES YOU DO,” said Debbie and Aunt Agatha, for once on the same page.

He reluctantly went to see the palace doctor. To Debbie’s amazement, when he stripped off his bloody shirt, she saw that the bullet wound was already closed over. The doctor had nothing to do but wipe off the blood and advise Victor to get plenty of rest.

“I told you,” Victor said to Debbie. “Dragons heal fast.” To the doctor, he said, “Now please take care of my mate. She was slapped and thrown around—she must be bruised.”

“It’s nothing,” Debbie said, embarrassed.

Victor grinned. “Look who’s talking now.”

The doctor checked her, applied witch hazel to her bruises, and finally told her that she too should get plenty of rest.

Debbie and Victor looked at each other, knowing rest was not what they were about to get.

“Yes,” said Victor. “We shall both go to bed now.”

And with that, he put his hand on her elbow and escorted her back to their bedroom.

Once the doors closed behind them, they clung to each other as if they would never let go. Victor had almost given his life to save her. What would she have done if she’d lost him?

She felt a deep need within her to bind them together, to create something permanent that would live on even after they were gone.

“I want to have your baby,” she said.

“Are you sure?” Victor asked. “I don’t want to rush you. And then there’s Aunt Agatha...”

The tenderness in his voice almost made her choke up. “I’m more sure than I’ve been sure of anything in my entire life. You’re not rushing me at all. As for Aunt Agatha, if she’s got a problem with it, she can go pound sand.”

He smiled. “I feel certain that Aunt Agatha will come around once she starts picturing darling dragon grandbabies. And if she doesn’t, there is an entire beach full of sand for her to pound.”

Debbie giggled at the image. Then she grew serious as she beckoned to her husband. “Get me pregnant, Victor. Now.”

Usually when they made love, it was a long and deliciously stretched-out process, with Victor teasing orgasm after orgasm from her with his fingers and tongue. Often he would bind her in golden chains or slowly bedeck her in gold or carry her to a private part of the garden and shake petals down upon her naked body.

This was different. Even before she’d spoken her desire, she’d felt a fierce urgency seize them both, born not only of the primal urge to procreate but of the even more powerful need to assert their life in the face of near-death.

Victor, normally so careful with her possessions, grabbed her silk nightgown by the shoulders and ripped it off her body with a single jerk of his powerful hands, leaving her thoroughly exposed. She wasn’t strong enough to do the same to his clothes, but she helped him yank them off, once hearing fabric rip.

In just a few hot, desperate seconds they both stood naked. Victor pushed her up against the wall, panting, and bent his mouth to hers. She nipped at his lips, thrusting herself against him, then jerked away.

“The bed,” she gasped. “Or the floor. We can’t do it standing. I’m too short.”

“No, you’re not.” He put one hand under her hips and one steadying on her shoulder, and lifted her to just the right height.

She’d barely even had time to marvel at his strength when he penetrated her with a sudden thrust. Debbie gasped, but with surprise rather than pain. He was so big! She could never seem to get used to it. And she could never get used to how much she loved the feeling of him inside of her.

“You feel so good,” he murmured, as if reading her mind. “So wet and hot and tight.”

“You feel good, too,” she said.

His skin was hot as ever, his breath rapid in her ear. His scent rose up, spicy and masculine. She breathed it in like she could never get enough of it. Debbie had never felt closer to Victor than in this moment. She tangled her fingers in his silky hair, lavishing kisses all over his face.

She wanted the moment to go on and on, but she’d been on the brink of orgasm ever since he’d first entered her. The friction of their bodies sent electric currents of pleasure through her, pushing her closer and closer to the edge. Victor too was on the edge, thrusting harder and faster.

With a growl, he stiffened as his hot seed jetted into her. And in the shattering explosion of her own climax, she knew that they had created life.

Victor didn’t sag, but held her up easily, even through the languid relaxation of the aftermath.

Of course he can, she thought. He’s always holding on to me. And he’ll never let me go.

He carried her to the bed and lay down beside her. Debbie curled into his comforting heat. “Am I really pregnant now?”

“Yes.” He laid his palm on her belly, caressing it in slow, sensual circles. “In nine months, we will welcome our baby into the world.”

She touched her own belly, marveling. It felt incredible that she was already carrying a new life within her. But she didn’t doubt him. That inner voice which always spoke the truth, the voice of her deepest heart and soul, sounded within her:

You are a mother now.

“You’re going to be the world’s greatest dad,” she said.

“That works out nicely,” replied Victor. “Because you will be the world’s greatest mom.”

“Our baby,” Debbie said with a sigh of happiness. “Maybe since I never really had parents, it’s always been hard for me to imagine becoming one myself. Even though I wanted to, so much. But now I think I can put my past where it belongs: in the past.”

“Your past is the past.” Victor kissed her. “But your future is with me.”