The drive home is just as fun as the drive out. The girls’ day turned into a late night, but even though it’ll be midnight when we arrive back in Pittsburgh, I don’t want to stay in Lake Erie for the night. One, I don’t want to spend the money or use up more of Vinca’s. Two, I don’t want to risk regretting my life’s choices. I decided a long time ago that this would be my life, and I’m not going to give up now, not when I almost have enough saved up for the spell I need.
I can't thank her enough, but Vinca just waves my words away. She asks me to drop her off at the bar, and I do before heading to my storage. I collect the eye and return home. I trust Vinca's intel, and my house is safe and sound, without any signs of intruders. With the pack moving on, there's no reason for me to stay away. Honestly, I don't blame them for leaving. Their alpha had been a coward. Maybe he truly wanted to pay me. The others might not have wanted to do that and thought it meant he was even more unworthy of leading them after I bested him. Considering I did kidnap their alpha and wound and possibly kill others, I would move too if I were the new alpha.
As soon as I lock up the place, hide away the tear and the eye, and climb into bed, I’m asleep. No dreams that night, and when I wake, I make myself some cinnamon sugar toast for breakfast. I eat and brainstorm. Dragon’s stomach. It’ll be the hardest one to get by far, and there’s no doubting how dangerous it’ll be. Dragons can’t regenerate body parts like cyclopes can. The dragon will have to be dead for me to have his or her stomach.
Dragons tend to live near mountains. Thankfully, Pennsylvania has some, and it’s about a two and half-hour drive from here to the Appalachian Mountains. I think there’s even a book about Pittsburgh called The Paris of Appalachia.
My state is a beautiful one, filled with trees, mountains, hills, and countrysides. It would be nice to drive across it for a Philly cheesesteak one of these days.
Just like there are wolves and werewolves, there are dragons and dragon shifters. Dragons, as in the animals, are slowly dying out. I would love to find a dragon that's dying, put him or her out of her misery, and claim the stomach that way, but I know better than to hope for that.
I park near the base of the mountains. There are other hikers, of course, but I’ve always been a stay off the beaten path kind of girl.
The mountains are covered in trees, which is perfect for me to stay hidden from other hikers but not so perfect as for finding the faults or caves the dragons might be hiding in.
All day long, I search but find no signs of any dragons. Discouraged, I return to my car and make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yep. I’m going to live out of my car until I get the dragon’s stomach. I have a cooler prepared for the stomach, but I suppose the ice will only last so long. The witch never did specify what kind of stomach she needed. If it’s not the most preserved, that’s on her. I’m sure she could’ve given me a potion to handle that.
The next two days are also fruitless, but that night, I think I hear something. Instantly, before I’m even consciously aware of what I’m doing, I’m holding two daggers.
I peek out the windows of my car but see nothing. Quietly, I open the door and climb out. There’s nothing and no one around, but I creep toward the mountain anyhow. The moon provides enough illumination that I can see where I’m going even though she’s hardly full.
A twig snaps beneath my boots. I mutter a curse and hold still.
My twig snapping sounded like a bomb went off in the near-silence, quieting the nocturnal insects’ symphony. The rush of a branch dropping is far louder, but I grin.
A dragon’s awake and is making his or her presence known.
Which means…
“I walked into a trap,” I mumble.
I whirl around to find myself face-to-face with a dragon’s head. I slash with my dagger and race to the right, ducking and then dropping to the ground and rolling down the mountainside. A burst of heat sears above my body.
“Do you want to burn down your home?” I grumble.
Somehow, the dragon inhales strongly enough that the fire is sucked back into his mouth. Whoa. I can’t help being impressed. I’ve never seen anything like that before.
A streak of darkness comes toward me. I keep on rolling, and the dragon’s wing crashes down onto the ground where I had just been.
“You missed,” I cry as I stop rolling and crouch.
The dragon goes to backhand me, or should I say backwing? This time, I stand and slash with my dagger. It catches on the tough scales, but more than that, I'm holding the wing back. Now, he can't attack with it, and he definitely can't fly.
But then he backwings me with his other wing.
I slam down hard to the ground, right on my knees. My palms ache from falling onto my daggers, but at least I don’t hit my head this time.
A flash of white descends. His open mouth. His sharp teeth. He wants to swallow me whole.
I want the stomach. I don’t want to be in the stomach.
The stench of meat and blood tells me the dragon’s eaten recently. I hold my ground as the head comes closer and closer…
I jump and slash, dragging my dagger against the dragon’s gums. The dragon goes to pull back, but I grab his tongue and give him a dagger piercing.
The dragon lets out a wail, drawing back. I've brought along four daggers on this venture, and I take out another one. Using the twin blades as leverage, I scale up the dragons' torso. Each jab gets the blade in a little deeper. The dragon tries to use his wings to brush me off, but my death grip holds me in place. When he tries harder, he actually causes one of the daggers to tear a large gash into him. Blood gushes from the wound, coating my hand, and my fingers slip off the dagger. I have to grab the second one with both hands. All of my weight on the hilt has the blade carving through the scales.
Infuriated, the dragon lets out a roar that has me glancing upward. All I see is yellow and orange. I drop to the ground and race underneath the dragon’s legs. The blast of fire doesn’t hit me. I’m safe here.
Only the dragon moves and lets out another blast.
The fire, though, is weak. The dragon is wounded, bleeding, dying.
Rain gushes from the sky. In seconds, I’m drenched. The dragon tries to take to the skies but can’t. He lumbers a bit and falls back to the ground with a terrible thud. His groan even sounds more like a whimper.
I can’t say what possesses me to run up to his side. He barely lifts his head to look at me, his eyes only half-cracked open.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, tears mixing with the rain pouring down my face. “I’m so sorry. Maybe… Maybe I shouldn’t have. I could’ve just brought her back the two and been done with it. I… I…”
What is wrong with me? I’m becoming a sap, far too soft. It’s a dog eat dog world, and the humans are at the bottom of the food chain. All I have to do is think about that vampire I killed for the genie. There’s a very good reason why the dragons are dying out. They’re destructive creatures even toward paranormals. Vampires, werewolves, and others have hunted dragons to keep them in check.
Still, I don’t want the dragon to die alone even though I’m the one to kill him. He’s hardly moving now, barely breathing, but he opens his eyes again.
“Go ahead and char me,” I whisper.
Through my tears, I like to think I see him smile before he breathes his last.