Memoirs of a Dragon Hunter Page 27
He gave a little laugh and pulled me ever so gently into his arms. I leaned against him, breathing in the scent of him, drinking in the wonderful warmth of his body pressed against mine, and glorying in the knowledge that he loved me. Me, the most neurotic person in the world! I was still a bit overwhelmed by the idea, but it was one that filled me with the most exquisite joy.
“My love, a dragon hunter is a unique being.”
“I know. You said there are only a handful of us.”
“And there’s one less, now that the esprit Anzo used burned the demon out of me.”
“That’s good, isn’t it? Less demon, I mean?”
“It would be in most circumstances,” he said slowly.
“So what’s the problem?” I licked his chin, and froze for a second, shocked at what I’d done. But the animal in my brain decided that Ian tasted nice, and even though he’d collapsed to the floor when the little girls freed him from Anzo in a huge blast of light that left spots in front of my eyes for a good ten minutes, he didn’t taste in the least bit like he’d picked up any dirt or germs. He tasted…nice. Golden and warm. Sexy.
“The problem is that all that’s left in me is dragon. Well, a form of dragon. I think a new sort of dragon, one that has been tempered by my demon half. And a dragon cannot be a hunter. I did not relish my demon side, but it served its purpose, and the dragon in me was always strong enough to win out over it in the end. If I could set back time and keep Anzo from stripping it from me, I would, but other than you having a handy time machine, such thoughts are useless. I am no longer a dragon hunter. I am now…well, I am a dragon, nothing more.”
“How do you know you aren’t a dragon hunter?” I asked, a horrible vision rising in front of my eyes of a future where Ian was not at my side, fighting to save the innocent. “Maybe you are, and the demon bit was just there as kind of a useless appendage.”
He shook his head. “The duality is what defines dragon hunters. The demon part has to be in there, just as the dragon does. The dragon part may always be uppermost, but light without some shade of darkness is less effective.”
“I’m not demony,” I pointed out. “I don’t struggle with it like you say you do.”
“But you are evidently the new breed of dragon hunter that Adam Larson envisioned, one where the demon element is wholly subservient to the dragon, there to give us power over other demons without attempting to gain control.”
I blinked a couple of times, processing this. “So…because Adam was experimenting on Helen, and her demon must have been changed to demon lite, you think I have that, too?”
“It’s the only thing that explains why you do not have to battle your dual nature.” He looked at me with approval. “If this is what dragon hunters will be in the future, there is hope for them. Adam Larson will rest easy knowing that.”
“So, why can’t you be a dragon badass instead of a dragon hunter?”
“I told you, my love—dragons, even badass ones, can’t destroy demons. Only hunters can.”
“So much death,” I mused, sad at the thought of Helen and Adam being made pawns at the hands of such evil beings. “I don’t know that I can do this by myself.”
“Glamour’s gone!” Sasha announced from the entrance to the basement crypt, forestalling Ian’s answer to my lament. “The street’s back to normal. And there’s a mage upstairs who says you owe her a metric shit-ton of money.”
“Sasha!” I said, scandalized and amused at the same time. “Language! You’re the head of heaven! You can’t be saying things like ‘shit-ton’!”
She pulled a face and then twirled on her heel and ran up the stairs, making the amount of noise that only a teenager could produce, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll go upstairs and tell the mage to calm her tits while you and Ian make out. Oh, and the esprits want to know if you want a new sword, because otherwise, they want to go to Australia and see the quokkas before they find new dragon hunters to serve.”
“You know,” I said, looking at Ian’s former sword that sat now shiny and gorgeous on the table in front of us, “it seems a shame to let that sword go to waste.”
“You can have it if you want. Assuming the esprit agrees to the change.”
I made a face at him. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Besides, I like Deathsong. Sparkle says the esprit is happy with me, and the irony of using a demon’s sword to kill other demons is just too sweet to let go. So you can have your old sword back.”
He hugged me to his side and kissed my forehead. “I love the fact that you want me to be a dragon hunter again almost as much as I love you, but nothing can change what has happened. I can’t be what I once was. I will aid you and support you, and do all of the many and varied sexual things to you that occupy my list, but I can’t be what I was. The sword doesn’t belong to me anymore.”
“Just look at it,” I said, picking it up and balancing it on the palm of my hand. “It misses you, Ian. It wants you to hold it. It wants to be your righteous right hand of Sasha. Speaking of which—why was she pretending to be a dragon hunter?”
“She wasn’t pretending; it was part of her training. She just took over the position of Sovereign and is learning the jobs of all the beings in the Court. She more or less foisted herself on me with the promise that she would be needed at some point, and I would unleash an evil on the mortal world if I didn’t allow her to be an apprentice. And she was right. She was needed.”
“To save Helen by killing her, you mean?” I asked, amazed once again at the depths of Ian’s devotion to protecting the people.
“Yes.”
I set the thought of my sister’s actions aside. I was still coming to terms with what Sasha had done, and Helen’s own sacrifice. “Back to the sword. Just give it a little cuddle.”
He looked at me as if I was suddenly made of mashed potatoes. “Touching it won’t change anything, love. It will give me no strength, no special abilities. Most élan vital don’t wish to be touched by anyone who isn’t connected to it.”
“Ow!” I said, deliberately sliding my thumb along the sharp edge of it. The sword trembled a little in my hand. I liked to think the esprit in it was laughing. “Damn, I cut myself.”
“Let me see,” Ian said, and reached for my hand.
The sword jumped, and he cursed, jerking back his hand. Across his palm, a line of red welled. “What the—”
I leaned in to him, my lips teasing him as I pressed my thumb onto his palm. “You’re going to marry me, right? Because otherwise, it’s going to make ‘with this blood, I thee make my dragon hunter’ sound lame.”
He shouted a laugh up to the sky, picked me up and spun me around, and kissed the ever-living life out of me.
“We’re going to have such a lovely future together,” I said a few minutes later, kneeling next to where he was crouched over, barfing as my blood changed him to the new and improved version of dragon hunter. “It’s going to be utterly splendid.”
And it was!
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About the Author
For as long as she can remember, KATIE MACALISTER has loved reading, and grew up with her nose buried in a book. It wasn’t until many years later that she thought about writing her own books, but once she had a taste of the fun to be had building worlds, tormenting characters, and falling madly in love with all her heroes, she was hooked.
With more than fifty books under her belt, Katie’s novels have been translated into numerous languages, been recorded as audiobooks, received several awards, and are regulars on the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. A self-proclaimed gamer girl, she lives in the Pacific Northwest with her dogs and frequently can be found hanging around online.
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PRAISE FOR KATIE MACALISTER
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“Along with the action, MacAlister packs oodles of humor and offbeat situations into her stories.”
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—Fresh Fiction, Top Pick