Tree stands remind me of heavy-duty lawn chairs on the best of days. Ugly and flimsy came standard, and most setups left you exposed to the elements. The small platform attached underneath the seat as a footrest was hardly a deterrent. Not that most hunters had to worry about deer fighting back. At least its thick nylon straps provided some stability, and I would feel better with the trunk at my back. Since we were on private property, and Dad was getting to the age where putting it up and taking it down was a hassle, he mounted his in a permanent fashion and kept it covered with a tarp when not in use.
To reach his lookout, you had to use climbing sticks. The inch-square metal tubing ran like a spine from a foot off the ground all the way up to the seat. Every few feet a hand/foothold, about six inches of square tubing, branched off to make climbing easier. That was the general idea. It might have worked too if my palms hadn’t been so sweaty they kept slipping off the ends, or if my knees hadn’t been jelly, or if I hadn’t been forced to tuck my shotgun under my arm to make the climb in the first place.
Leaving my back exposed inundated my thoughts with nightmare scenarios of being attacked from behind, dragged into the woods while I kicked and screamed, until the super gator devoured me in a single gulp. No. Wait. Gators thrashed and twisted to tear their meals into bite-sized morsels.
Not helpful, brain. Not helpful.
I cleared the first section, paused to free the straps, then kicked the metal spine to the ground. I did the same with the second portion. Three more remained, but I didn’t want to screw myself if I ended up having to abandon this location and left them in place.
Dad was en route with backup, but I had no idea how long it would take for them to arrive and locate me. Until I saw lights or heard sirens, I was on my own.
I finished the climb, crawled into the chair and drew my first clear breath since I’d heard the bay window go. Fear had turned my arms as limp as overcooked noodles, and I rested the shotgun across my lap while I got my pulse under control. Tempted as I was to call Dad, there was no use tormenting either of us with false comfort. Plus, I didn’t want the noise to attract the super gator. The stink of my fear would make following my trail easy enough. No point in waving a glowing phone screen under its nose too.
When my heart stopped clogging my ears, the first thing I heard was nothing. The forest held its breath, even the crickets tucked in their forewings. One ballsy frog croaked but the sound choked off, and I imagined the guy sitting next to him smacking him upside the head like, Really? You want that thing to eat us next?
A steady rumble, the rustle of a low body brushing the earth, a twig snapped beneath a heavy foot.
I had been found.
I lifted the gun and strained to see past the gloom. I wished I hadn’t. The super gator was bigger than I remembered. More horse than pony. I hoped the angle was playing tricks on me. Eyes glittering in the moonlight, it entered the wooded copse and huffed a wheezing sound resembling laughter.
Sweat stung my eyes, and I wiped my face on my sleeve. That was the head injury talking. Bad enough a prehistoric relic had waded out of the swamp. I wasn’t believing it enjoyed a sense of humor too.
The thing panted whistling breaths, its body built for bursts of speed and not for endurance. Now that it had me treed, it took its time circling my hideout. A hissing rattle vibrated its throat, and it scratched at the bark before hefting itself upright and sinking its front claws deep.
“Shoo. Go away.” Panic lifted my voice an octave. “Go find yourself a nice, fat deer. They’re high in protein, and they taste so much better than people. Seriously. You should try one and then report back.”
Nothing I said or did made any difference, and I had too few bullets to fire them until presented with a possible kill shot.
Through sheer determination, the beast managed to climb a few feet before its weight hauled it back down to earth, leaving furrows raked into the trunk. I almost cheered until it bunched its muscles. Typical gators could jump up to five feet from a dead stop. This thing wasn’t normal. I was guessing it could manage twice that if not three times the height.
Brain, we really need to chat about this factoid obsession of yours.
Town wasn’t that far. Help could be here in fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. I’d hiked at least ten minutes to get to this point. A half hour. All I had to do was last thirty minutes, tops. I could do that. I gasped when the creature made its leap and snapped its jaws so close its fetid breath closed the distance. Each reset took it a minute, but it kept trying, gaining altitude with each lunge.
I was eyeing the limbs above me, debating their ability to support my weight when a grating rumble poured through the air, vibrating my bones. The thing aborted its next attempt and wriggled back a step. No, no, no. One was bad enough, big enough. There couldn’t be two out here. The growl causing the metal beneath me to hum projected from a throat a lot bigger than the one I’d been staring down a moment ago.
The gun wobbled in my grip. I held on tight and tried again to find my calm, but my nerves were shot to hell.
What was that noise?
Then I didn’t have to wonder.
“Son of a bitch,” I breathed.
A second monster prowled forth, this one the cured ivory of aged bones. Moonlight caressed its faceted scales, glittered in its leonine mane and illuminated immense racks of branching antlers. The creature married the serpentine lines of a Chinese dragon with the sturdy arms and thickly muscled thighs of a European dragon. Its tail ringed the clearing, a whip of impossible length, and its graceful neck arched as it studied me through crimson eyes peering from a feline visage. I allowed myself a second or three, maybe five, to admire its regal beauty before terror set the muscles in my legs quivering.
Nope. Not happening. Not real. This was not real. Dragons weren’t real. This was a stress-induced hallucination brought on by my head injury. I must have jarred my brain again when I hurled myself out the kitchen window. Was that part even real? Had any of it happened? Or was I home in bed sweating out the nightmare to end all nightmares?
The dragon—and it was definitely male—positioned himself at the base of my tree, lowered his head and hissed through teeth as long as steak knives. The rattling noise it made had me leaning over the edge of my seat, peering down for a better look at the membranous folds it shook and puffed out to make itself bigger.
Wings.
It had wings.
Stick a fork in me, I was done. I was no princess, and this tree was no castle. The dragon wasn’t guarding me. He was about to hand the super gator its ass and then flitter up here to gobble me up like a children’s book gone horribly wrong. A frantic part of my brain shouted I should lift my phone and snap a picture to warn the others when they found my cell instead of my body, but I couldn’t lift a hand. I was paralyzed. All I could do was watch and make my peace.
The super gator, pissed at the interruption, lunged at the dragon. Its teeth slid right off the thick scales covering his body. In retaliation, the dragon whipped its tail around and cracked the gator on top of the head. The gator roared its fury and charged again. The dragon, seeming bored by the confrontation, let the gator inside its defenses, then raked a gleaming talon down its side, gutting it from shoulder to hip.
Blood perfumed the night, and the dragon inhaled with delicate sniffs. Dazed by the promise of fresh meat, it didn’t appear to notice the gator backpedaling into the shadows. The dragon lifted its front paw and licked its talons, cleaning itself the way a cat might. Only when he was spotless, the white of his scales flawless, did he turn his attention to me.
An inquisitive hum left its throat, and he waited as though expecting an answer.
“Hi, big guy.” I wet my lips. “I’m pretty sure you’re just the brain damage talking, but thanks for getting rid of that gator. Maybe you could not eat me, and we could both call it a night?”
The dragon twitched his tail, but I had no idea what he wanted. Except maybe a Luce kabob. A short growl later, he tightened his wings flush with his spine and sank his claws into the bark. Nimble as a jaguar, he climbed until his head hung at my eye level. Intelligence sparked in his gaze as he studied me, and white mist huffed from his wide nostrils. He angled his neck so as not to gore me with his impressive racks, then coiled his tail around the trunk, curling the spade-like tip around my ankle.
“I don’t understand.” Why speaking to him felt so natural, why I half-expected an answer, I had no idea. Brain damage. Had to be. Compared to dreaming him up in the first place, what was imagining he could talk too? “What do you want?”
Head the size of my torso, each tooth the length of my hand, he was no housecat for all that his mannerisms reminded me of one. A slivery tongue swiped across his muzzle, and the chill of his breath as his mouth opened made me shiver.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” I tightened my grip on the gun-stock. “Let’s hope you feel the same about me.”
The gun was a comfort object at this point, the equivalent of a blankie for me to cuddle while I told myself everything was going to be okay. Figuring why the hell not, I might as well enjoy myself in the seconds before I became dragon kibble, I reached up and smoothed my hand across his wide brow. The beast cringed away from me, as though it feared my touch more than the weapon braced across my thighs. I was still marveling at the velvety softness of his antlers when a siren squawked in the distance.
The cavalry had arrived.
“You need to go.” Shooing a dragon with a utensil drawer for a mouth seemed like a bad idea waiting to happen. “You hear that, boy?” I flashed back to the days of when I’d had a pet to talk to, though Yeller mostly ignored anything not gelatinous and sliming out of a can. “Those are my people, and they’re good people, but they’re worried about me. They’re going to think you’re the bad guy here.”
The dragon’s English must have been rusty. Instead of hightailing it out of there, he flexed his claws as though kneading the tree behind me.
Out of ideas to save him, I lifted the gun and aimed it between his eyes. “Please, just go.”
A huff of breath blasted my face as he sniffed the barrel and jerked back, eyes wide in alarm.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” I wasn’t sure that I could, even to save myself. “I don’t think you’re real, but I can’t live with you being harmed even in a dream.”
A rasp of rough hide against fabric sounded as he unwrapped his tail from my ankle and then from around the tree. He didn’t climb down the way he had come but flared his wings and leapt to the earth. A forlorn expression lit his eyes as he stared up at me one last time.
I was holding his gaze when the first shot hit its mark, and red blossomed on his chest.
“No,” I screamed. “Don’t shoot. He didn’t hurt me.”
The dragon staggered, scraping at its torn flesh with a clawed hand, and tears filled my eyes. Through them I spied the glint of rose gold bands encircling its wrists, reminding me of a bracer strapped to a homing pigeon’s leg, and wondered if this beast had a master who had tamed him, who would miss him if he failed to fly home.
Another bullet ripped through the dragon, and I leapt to my feet. Quickly, I emptied the chamber on the shotgun, then tossed it to the ground. I figured the risk of it going off on impact and hurting someone ranked higher than the super gator coming back for seconds. That done, I shimmied down to the end of the third section of the climbing sticks and let myself hang until I shut up the panicked voice in my head. I let go, hit the ground hard and rolled with my momentum. My ankle twisted, and I cried out from the pain.
The dragon, who appeared more confused by its wounds than afraid, snapped its head toward me. With a stunted roar, he flicked his tail at the officer and sent him flying before advancing on me. Tucking me against the warm scales shielding his chest, the beast climbed up the tree, past the canopy. Cinching his shorter forearms around my middle, he leapt from his perch. His pearlescent wings snapped out, saving us from freefall, and he pumped them until his speed caused my eyes to water.
I clung to him until my fingers went numb with cold and fear. The rush of altitude made my head spin, and I gulped down my rising panic. An inquisitive rumble all but asked if I was all right. I opened my mouth, tasting bile and Thai in the back of my throat, and my answer came out in great, wet heaves.
I really, really hoped no one was down there. Thai just wasn’t the same the second time around.
A tickle of dread in my already tender middle was all the warning I received that a landing was imminent. The dragon flattened me against him and tucked his wings tighter against his sides. He dove, and I crushed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to see. But I couldn’t not look, so I stared up at the sky full of stars that appeared close enough to touch. Seconds later, he snapped open his wings, and we jerked hard as they caught wind and slowed our descent. Made clumsy by his burden, he grumbled a steady hum of irritation as he overcorrected his flight path. The sound of his claws scrabbling on wood made me giddy, and I stumbled out of his grasp, drunk on relief.
I’m alive. Don’t know for how long. But it counts!
“Let’s never do that again.” My butt hit the decking before I realized my knees had buckled. As it turned out, my spine had also liquefied during the flight. I flowed backward until my head thumped on the wood, and I lay spread eagle, one knee half-cocked to the side. “Never again.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” a familiar voice drawled. “It looked kind of fun to me.”
Santiago leaned over me, sizing me up as though I were the real threat and not the freaking dragon who shoved him stumbling back with a pointed jab from his tail.
“Yeah, I get it.” Santiago wobbled on his feet. “She’s yours.” His eyes narrowed. “What the—?”
The dragon’s front legs wobbled, and then he collapsed. He lay half on top of me, and my bones creaked beneath his weight. The angle of my right knee was all wrong. Not broken. Torn. Impact had thrust it sideways to escape the pressure and ruptured the muscle.
“He was shot,” I panted. “His chest.”
“Damn it. Why didn’t you say so?” Santiago stuck two fingers in his mouth and loosed a shrill whistle. “Bring the pliers.” He looked back at the dragon. “And a knife.”
Miller appeared with a toolbox in one hand and a machete in the other. “Luce.” His eyes rounded, and he swung his head toward Santiago. “What did he do?”
Thom landed with a thud inches from my cheek. “He brought her home.”
I might have asked what the holy hell all this meant, but Thom lifted my wrist and sank his teeth into the bone. I thrashed until he pinned down my shoulder. The bite hurt, God it hurt, but I didn’t scream. Not until fire raced through my veins and left me nothing but ash.