CHAPTER 14

Lily

I was in a locked room where I could see nothing out the window but trees and forest undergrowth.In my surroundings was nothing but a bed, a lamp, a table and chair, a chest of drawers — and my electric piano, which I'd left in the penthouse, with some sheet music resting on top of it.

The piano and music were there for a reason, I knew.They were meant to be symbolic of the "relationship" — it galled me to use that word for it — that I'd had in the luxurious cage from which I'd escaped.They were meant to remind me that when my well-off ex-lover took me in, he promised to support me and care for me and make it so that I never wanted for anything.And all that it would cost me would be to make my whole life about him and only him.I became almost his pet as much as his girlfriend; a pet that he could love or punish as he saw fit.And there were plenty of punishments, and they all hurt and terrified me just the same.That was the gilded-cage life that I'd signed on for because a struggling musician's life seemed too hard.And Mark taught me what a hard life really was.

How long would he keep me waiting, I wondered.

Then there were voices and footsteps outside, and I sat on the edge of the bed, my every muscle tense with fearful anticipation.My breath felt ragged and hot as I heard the clicking of an outer latch and saw the doorknob turn.I felt as if claws of dread were raking my whole body.

The door swung open and he stepped into the room.Inside, I screamed.

He was dressed only in slacks and an open-backed tank top — the kind of shirt that people call a "wifebeater."And there was never a more apt use of that name than when that kind of shirt was worn by Mark Reinhardt.

His tank top showed his upper chest and his arms, which were big and powerful even in this, his human shape.His smooth body showed off every muscle.His well-shaved face was rugged looking even without the kind of short beard and stubble growth that Jake and Alex had.He wasn't balding, but his hair receded just slightly.His eyes and the set of his lips had a smoldering look about them, hinting at the volatile emotions that churned inside him.He looked as if he made his living not cutting down trees, but pushing them over.

The sound of Mark's voice made me feel as if my bones were suddenly covered with frost."Hello, Lily," he said.

"Mark," I said back.

He asked, "Is that all you have to say to me?Really?Just ‘Mark'?"

It was an effort to speak with my heart pounding.I asked him, "What would you like me to say?"

"How about how much you missed me?You did miss me, didn't you?You did see what a mistake it was to leave me, to sneak out on me.That wasn't fair, Lily.I searched the whole place, looked high and low for you, had my people out looking for you.Without a word, you just left.Didn't you think I'd be afraid that something might happen to you?"He sounded almost like a father whose daughter had been out all night.

"I don't think anything really scares you, Mark," I said.

"You're wrong," he said plaintively, actually seeming to be stung by my words."I was out of my mind, worrying that you were out there somewhere, where I didn't know where you were, and I couldn't take care of you.Anything could have happened to you, Lily, and I wouldn't have known."A note of menace crept into his voice."I hated not knowing, Lily.Hated it."

His shifting emotions made me cold with fear."I was fine, Mark," I said.

"Yes, I know you were," he replied."You had someone else looking out for you, didn't you, someone else taking care of you.As a matter of fact, it was an old friend of mine.You probably told my old friend Alex Duvall about us.You did tell him, right?"

Hearing him say Alex's name made my heartbeat spike.I said, "That was the first thing we found out, that we had you in common.You never brought up that you were in a gang once."

"It's not a part of my life that I talk about much.It has bad memories."He frowned, and I sensed he was remembering the old days, his face etched with anger from long ago, his muscles twitching with contained fury."Flint Street, the Firewings:those should be good memories.It was your basic ‘humble beginning'.I used to think my friends were my fortune.I believed that, you know — until I learned better."

"I guess there are bad memories all around," I said.

He stepped closer, which made me want to jump through the wall behind me, and stared at me with cruelly glaring eyes.I remembered hundreds of blows from hard, scaly hands and a thrashing tail, and flinched with fear.To my surprise, though, he backed off and gestured to the piano.

"I brought you something that I thought would be a good memory," he said."You left your piano with me.I remembered how much you loved it.And how much I loved hearing you play.You could play something for me now, Lily.Play something, like you did before.Remember how we both enjoyed it when you played?"

Remembering that it was one of the few things we enjoyed, I said, "I don't feel much like music right now, Mark."

He made a bitter sort of half-smile at that."Is that so?Did you ‘feel like music' when you were with Alex Duvall and his friend Jake Hudson?Did you play for them the way you did for me?"

Screwing up the little bit of courage that I had, I asked, "How did you know where I was, Mark?"

The corner of his mouth turned up in a bigger half-smile."Did Alex tell you about some of the things we used to do in the Firewings?Did he tell you about some of the scrapes and rumbles that we got into with the Blackhorns from Anchor Street?"He laughed a chilling little laugh."Believe it or not, some of the guys from the Blackhorns work for me now.Isn't that ironic?The Blackhorns were our rivals and now I have some of them working for me.They're some of my messengers.A couple of them were at the Drake Festival.Obviously, you didn't notice them because your attention was on other things."Now his smile dissolved into a more sinister, narrow-eyed look."But they spotted you and they told me you were there — and who it was you were there with.Alex Duvall and his friend, of all people.We did some checking around, found out what Alex was doing, where he was staying.And that was right where you were."

I looked off, filled with despair at how Mark found me out.That night was so happy, and now it had led to the thing I dreaded most.

"You played for them, didn't you, Alex and his friend Jake Hudson?" Mark asked."Like you played for me — you played for them.Am I right?"

His accusing tone made me continue not looking at him.I stayed silent, trembling, consumed inside with rising terror.

Mark's voice became a growl."Am I right?Answer me!"

He came close again and reached for me.I gasped and flinched as he took me roughly by the chin and turned my face back to him.

Louder, he demanded, "Tell me!Am I right?"

I pulled myself free of his grasp and crawled up onto the bed, feeling as utterly helpless as I did before I got away from him.My voice was filled with all the fear I was feeling."Mark, you should have just let me go.Why didn't you just let me go?"

He roared at me, "Let you go?Just like that?When you snuck out on me without a word, when my back was turned?Let you go?!"

"What would you have said if I told you I wanted to go?"

Though he lowered his voice, he sounded just as angry."You want to know what I would have said?I would have reminded you of how hard it was for you out there, how you wanted a career but couldn't get a break, how you were ready to give up.I took you away from all that, Lily.I cared for you, protected you, gave you everything you needed."

For the first time I sounded defiant."I needed to feel loved!"

Mark returned to shouting and shook his fists as if his reaction came from a bottomless pit of fury inside him."I loved you!I did, Lily!I loved you like no one ever did, like no one ever could!I took care of you!And were you grateful?Did you have any gratitude for me, after everything I did for you!"He actually sounded hurt, almost like a broken-hearted child, which made me sick to my stomach."You were my treasure, Lily.My precious treasure.Do you remember what I said to you in bed after the first time I made love to you?Remember what I told you about the stories that humans used to make up about dragons, how they were supposed to live in caves and guard gold and jewels and precious treasures?That's what I said you were to me, Lily:my precious treasure, to protect and to guard."His tone turned bitter."And what did you do, Lily?My precious treasure…ran away from me.Just ran away.How did you think that made me feel?"

"I didn't feel ‘treasured' or ‘protected', Mark," I said.

"After everything I did for you, Lily, you didn't feel treasured or protected?"Scales broke out on his face, his bare arms, and the exposed part of his chest.The horns began to protrude from his forehead."Is that how you felt with Alex Duvall and Jake Hudson?Did they make you feel the way I wanted to make you feel?"

My voice cracked."Don't do this, Mark."

"Why?Why should I ‘not do this'?What did Alex do, Lily?What did he do for you that I couldn't?"His voice became something like his deeper dragon voice."Did Alex make you feel in bed the way I made you feel?Do you know how I felt when they told me you were with him — one of my so-called friends who were meant to be loyal to me, meant to take up for me, and turned on me and abandoned me when I needed them the most?"

"What were they supposed to do?" I almost sobbed.

He roared at me and made me flinch again."Defend me!Protect me!Speak up for me, not against me!The Firewings were meant to be about loyalty, about watching each other's tail!And when I needed them — my friends, my brothers — they gave me up."Quieter, but just as angrily, just as stung, he said, "And then I learned that you were with Alex Duvall."He sounded as if he could breathe fire on me and roast me where I sat."And I knew what you must be letting Alex Duvall do.I knew he must be doing things to you that you should only let me do.Me and no one else."

I looked away from him, my tears starting to flow.

"Nothing to say, Lily?" Mark demanded."You're not going to tell me I'm right?You're not going to tell me that you went to bed with him?Went down on him?Let him fuck you?Because that's what you did, isn't it?You let my old so-called friend slip you his cock, night after night after night.You laid under Alex Duvall in bed and let him put his cock inside you where he didn't belong.And the other one — Jake.You let him do the same.You sucked his cock and let him fuck you — him and Alex both.I can't believe you stayed with both and only had one.They both fucked you, didn't they?"

Mark grabbed me by the shoulders.His hands were now scaly and partly clawed, and I had a flash of memory of what those hands did to me so many times.He was capable of effortlessly tearing me to pieces.I screamed.

Enraged, he bellowed, "Answer me!Answer me, goddamn it!You let Alex and his friend fuck you, didn't you!"

Angrier at my wordless sobs, he slapped me with the back of one hand, and the pain of it shot through my body.I crashed down onto the bed and began to cry hysterically.

Seething, Mark went on, "Two other dragons, humping my treasure.Putting their cocks inside you when you belong to me.And you…letting them."

I buried my face in the bedspread, muffling my desperate weeping.

"They're not going to get away with that," said Mark."Just like my old friends aren't going to get away with turning on me and abandoning me.I told them one day I'd come for them.That's today.I'm ready for them today."

My face was drenched with tears as I looked up fearfully from the bed."What…?What are you going to do?"

"It so happens I've been working on a secret project.I've diverted some of the resources of the company into an idea of mine.There's a new anabolic compound that some of my associates and I have been developing, off the company's records.We've been testing it, and we've been successful in selling it to very select customers.We're ready to take our business a little wider now.But first…I understand the Firewings are having themselves a reunion.I've decided to invite myself and my associates to it and catch up on old times.Watch this, Lily."

He let himself go into full dragon form, and before my horrified eyes, Mark Reinhardt transformed into something I'd never seen before — a bigger, more powerful, more fearsome male Drake, with spines on his arms and shoulders and sharp, blade-like scales running down his tail.I put a hand over my mouth to stifle another scream.

In this new, more terrible dragon shape, Mark's voice made me think of stones grinding together."This is the result of my experimental anabolic compound.After testing it out on other subjects and seeing how well it works, my associates and I sampled it for ourselves.See what we are now.We're the most powerful Drakes in the world, the most powerful who ever lived.We're going after the Firewings.And we're going to wipe out every last one of them.And your Jake Hudson too.Every.Last.One."

Utter terror took hold of me.I sat up on the bed, still crying, but pleading."Mark, please, no.Don't do this.Alex and Jake weren't trying to hurt you.They were only trying to help me.They didn't mean any harm.Please, Mark, don't go after them.Don't hurt them.Leave them alone."

In that horrible, grinding voice, he said, "You'd beg for their lives after you let them fuck you?After you went to bed with them night after night and gave them what was mine?"

Desperately, I said, "I'm sorry, Mark.Now that I'm with you again, I'll never see them any more.You can take me away someplace where they'll never find me.And I'll be yours again, just yours.Please, just don't hurt them."

His altered voice now rumbled with unending wrath."You care so much about Alex and his friend?They matter to you so much?Did I ever matter to you that much?Did you ever care that much about me, after the way I cared about you?What did I ever mean to you, Lily?Did I ever matter that much?Did it matter to you that it broke my heart when you ran away?Did it?Did it?!"

Through tears, I begged, "Mark, please…!"

"And you're crying now…for them?!"

He raised his dragon hand to me and another scream tore itself from me.He brought down his hand onto me and pummeled me onto the bed.The sounds of my screams mixed with his insane roaring as he slapped up and down my body and then brought forth his tail to whip me cruelly all over.I squirmed in agony and curled up the way I did when he beat me before, and the blows of his tail and claws rained all over me, filling me with unbearable pain.

His rage subsiding, Mark took a step back and watched me curled up in helpless torment, and listened to my terrified, agonized weeping.

"It's all right, Lily," he said."Soon you won't have to cry for Alex or for Jake Hudson anymore.Soon they'll be beyond your tears.And they'll never touch you or anyone else ever again."

I stayed curled up in pain, crying as if I would never do anything but cry again.I heard his footfalls crossing the room, the door closing and locking behind him.And I let out a long moan of total, all-consuming anguish.

He had actually told me it was "all right."With my entire body a knot of throbbing pain and my spirit twisted up in fear and grief, I couldn't imagine anything ever being "all right" — not now, not ever.

My voice crawled out of me."Alex…Jake…"And then my words dissolved into tears that I thought would never end.