Chapter 21

21

Simon offered a silent prayer of thanks to his grandmother as he carried Lilis’ unconscious form outside to the fire pit behind the house. Pressuring and manipulating aside, her insistence that he devote time to learning Traditional Chinese Medicine had introduced him to one of his favorite hobbies. For years, he’d played around with the old recipes, experimenting with shortcuts to timing and preparation that could make his life easier. Spending time with the herbs and books had given him another way to connect with his lost parents.

And now it might help him save Lilis.

He knelt in the grass with Lilis in his arms near the supplies he’d brought out earlier and brushed her thick black hair away from her pale and broken face. One eye was so swollen Simon feared for her vision, and bruises splashed across her skin like angry purple polka dots, some so dark they were black.

He kissed a bare space at her temple. “When you wake up,” he whispered, “we’re going to have a long talk about communication and not taking stupid risks for me.”

Because she would wake up. There was no other scenario Simon was willing to accept.

A red streak caught his attention, and Simon glanced up just in time to see his new ally transform and stride bare-ass naked over to him. He dropped the root at Simon’s feet.

“You’d better know what you’re doing, human.”

Simon laid Lilis down gently in the grass and covered her with a blanket, pressing another kiss to her nose. Moving past the naked man, he went to work peeling and chopping the root, placing all the pieces into his pressure cooker.

“Simon.”

“What about it?”

“My name is Simon. Not human.”

The dragon snorted. “ Na ni bu suan shi yi ge zhong guo ren. ”

“Of course I fucking count as Chinese. I have a Chinese name and everything.” Jesus, was there no corner of his life where he met someone’s standards for Chinese? He may not understand much of the language, but he’d heard that phrase enough to know when he was being insulted. Again . Simon whacked the root with his cleaver, picturing the other dragon’s head in its place. “Wanna talk to me? Speak English.”

“What’s your Chinese name?”

Whack . Simon tossed another piece of the root into his hot pot. “Is it really gonna bother you to not know it?”

The dragon crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his chin up. “Of course.”

“Good.” The thinner bits of root came apart more easily, and Simon worked quickly. “And you can put your clothes back on now.”

“Or I could not put my clothes back on.” He placed a hand on Lilis’ forehead. “I’m Longwei. It means Dragon Great?—”

“Honestly? I don’t give a shit.” Simon scraped the rest of the root into the cooker and sealed it, cranking up the settings. “What I do care about is Lilis, so explain to me why I’m making dang shen . Despite what my grandmother says, it’s not a miracle cure.”

Longwei narrowed his eyes at Simon. “Of course it is. Dang shen cures everything . If it doesn’t work for you?—”

“It’s the fault of your body, not the root. I’ve probably heard that a few hundred times before.” Simon’s blood boiled like the concoction in his hotpot as he thought about what Longwei was risking. “ This is it? Your miracle cure?”

“Dragons are perfect. Our bodies never reject the power of dang shen , especially when delivered properly.” Longwei lifted the blanket away from Lilis.

“Hey! Dragon Ball Z, leave her the hell alone or?—”

Longwei slashed open the stitches Simon had given her and rolled her into the fire pit.

“ Get away from her! ” Simon lunged across half the distance separating them, trying to get to Lilis. “She’ll bleed to death!”

Longwei grabbed him from behind, immobilizing Simon in a bear hug made of steel. “Calm down, moron. Her wound is the most likely entrance point for the poison. So that’s where you need to put the dang shen. ”

The pressure cooker beeped, but Longwei still held him.

Simon struggled against Longwei’s hold, panic setting in as Lilis’ blood ran into the grass. “Let me go.”

“Are you going to be a good little human and behave?”

Rage-fueled adrenalin kicked in, and Simon stomped on Longwei’s foot and threw his head back into the dragon’s nose. “Fuck you.”

Longwei released him, and Simon retrieved the steaming root extract from the cooker, sparing the dragon only a glance as he carefully crushed flowers and mixed them with the extract, turmeric, and cinnamon.

Blood trickled from Longwei’s nose, and he wiped it away, glaring at Simon with murderous intent. “You’re going to regret that.”

“I’ll take my chances. Now what?”

Pain sliced down Simon’s arm, and he cried out as warmth trickled down to his fingertips. He turned to find Longwei half-transformed, his predatory golden eyes glimmering with an inner fire.

“Now. You regret it. ” His words came out growled and garbled from his partially transformed mouth.

Simon’s heart rate tripled, and Longwei grabbed him by the neck, slamming him into a tree.

“Instead of fighting me, you should have been focused on her .” He dragged Simon in front of him and pointed to Lilis, lying pale and small in the fire pit. His voice rose to a shout. “I am going to introduce you to the Ten Kings of Hell. After I let you watch her die. Say your goodbyes, human.”

“No! Lilis!” Simon struggled against the dragon’s superior strength that was pinning him in place.

“One more time, human, for the people in the back. Call. Her. Name.”

“ Lilis! ”

The wood of the fire pit cracked and rolled as Lilis’ body slowly shifted into her dragon form, and Simon was overrun by panic. “Let me go! She’s dying! Lilis!”

“She’s not dying yet.” Longwei’s voice was still contorted. “When I put you down, go pour the dang shen into her wound. All of it.”

“It’s still boil?—”

“She’s a dragon, you idiot. The temperature won’t matter.”

He released Simon and stepped back, transforming fully into a long, crimson dragon. Simon ran to Lilis and slowly poured the steaming mixture into the deep wound in her side, then leaped back as a stream of fire shot past him, igniting the wood underneath Lilis.

The stream continued unbroken for almost a minute. When it cut off, air groaned past him as Longwei inhaled deeply, then exhaled more fire.

In and out, like an enormous mythical bellows, he pushed the fire ever hotter until Lilis’ obsidian black scales glowed blood-red orange.

Finally, he flopped down in the grass next to Simon and transformed back into his human self.

Simon considered it an act worthy of sainthood that he didn’t dismember Longwei with the cleaver. His arm still dropped blood onto the grass next to them.

“Are you gonna take care of that, or do I have to suffer through smelling your nasty blood?”

“Deal with it. You’re the one who filleted me like a fish.”

“She needed to think you were in danger.”

“You piece of—wait, what?”

Longwei grunted and pointed at Lilis. “If she was fighting, she got her injuries in her dragon form. Which means parts of her were injured that couldn’t be reached in her human form. But she’s unconscious, so I had to stimulate her dragon to come to the surface.”

Simon grimaced at Longwei’s use of the word stimulate . “So you attacked me?”

Longwei shrugged. “I put you in danger. Her dragon responded.”

“You could’ve warned me first.”

“If I did, your heart wouldn’t have nearly exploded. You wouldn’t have called for her with the same fear. Your body needed to react like it was under a real threat.”

“I was under a real threat. You cut me open.”

“Her dragon needed to smell your blood.”

Simon opened his mouth, then closed it again and wrapped a towel around his injured arm. Lilis didn’t need to worry about him, and if she could smell his blood, he’d agitate her more.

“Thank you,” he managed.

“Don’t thank me yet. She could still disintegrate on that bed of coals over there. You should’ve let me take her.”

Simon watched the majestic dragon sizzle on the fire. His dragon. “I could never do that.” A simple truth, one that took no thought to say out loud.

The sun shone across their little party from just over the line of trees, and Simon again thought of his neighbors. Sleep late today, he silently implored.

“Just so we’re clear, Simon Human.” Longwei stretched and examined his hands. He still hadn’t put on clothes, and Simon was beginning to suspect he’d done that just to annoy him. “Even if your remedy saves her, she’s still fucked.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. You’re human . She’s a dragon. If you want her to be truly happy, you’ll step aside.”

Simon snorted. “What, for you?”

“I am an original Chinese dragon. She should be with me.”

Simon laughed. “If you’re so ‘original’ and ‘Chinese’”—he used air quotes around the words—“then why didn’t you know the Chinese remedy to help her? Get over yourself. I’m not stepping aside for anyone, least of all you.”

Longwei’s face grew so red, Simon assumed he was about to transform. But he simply sat there and fumed silently, like a toddler holding his breath to get his way.

On second thought, maybe that’s why he was so red. Simon certainly hoped so.

Longwei glanced to where Lilis still cooked, then back to Simon. “You wanna do this on your own? Fine. This ends one of two ways. Either she wakes up, heals, and you eventually die on her anyway. Or she melts as she dies, probably taking you with her. It’s not if one of you dies. It’s which one of you dies first.” He rose and finally put on pants, before storming off toward the road.

“I’m not worried.”

Longwei paused at Simon’s words but didn’t turn around.

Simon’s conviction increased with every breath he took. “If I die tonight, I will find her. I’ve done it before. And I will do it again.”

As Longwei huffed off to live out his tantrum fantasies, doubt crept into Simon. He’d found Lilis in every life, but how long had she been alone in between? Would they always be like this? Passion burning fiercely and brightly before expiring like fireworks?

Longwei had been right about one thing: Lilis deserved better than that. And for the first time, Simon could envision himself as enough. More than enough. He’d poured his knowledge of medicine and his feelings for her into her wound, with the dang shen .

He would figure out a way to end the cycle and break her out of the story of an eternal dragon’s devotion, repaid over and over again with a lover’s death.