To Match A Dragon’s Fire (Sulfur & Spice #1)

16

Kieran

Come On Baby, Light My Fire

She makes courting demands. My dragon preened.

Never had he been so enamored by a female, but here we were, dissecting the actions of the fiery human woman who’d blown into my life.

He’d spent the morning like some love-drunk, brooding dragon youth replaying every word she’d said and admiring them as jewels.

It’s not like that, I gently reminded my beast.

In all our stories, fated pairs would begin the mating process with females making their demands.

But it’d been so many years without mated pairs connecting that—like all things with time—the process was romanticized.

More likely, my beast was grasping for shapes and trying to make them fit where they had no right to go.

A human couldn’t be a dragon’s mate.

But Ember was something that I wasn’t quite able to figure out.

Mine, my dragon grumbled .

Yes, I know you’ve staked your claim. I dug through the archives stacked on my desk, trying to make sense where there was none to be had. No stories spoke of humans and dragons successfully completing the mating bond.

Scientifically, it was possible to procreate.

My cock strained against my jeans just thinking of that possibility and I was sure I had “Come fuck me eyes” as Ember so eloquently put it.

I laughed silently, thinking of the way she’d scolded me for not being able to contain the desire of my beast, as I flipped through another volume about all the historically famous dragon pairs who’d registered over the years.

It was possible that someone hadn’t documented a connection to a human mate.

In our earlier history, such a pairing would be frowned upon if not outright shunned. And there was a chance that the dragon wouldn’t have lived long enough to register anyway.

Dragons didn’t survive more than minutes after the last beat of their fated mate’s heart.

Human lives were so short…

Maybe that was the clue.

I grabbed the tome on registered deaths from the shelf in my study and turned back to my desk. Less dust coated the leather bindings on this book. I’d used it more often than any other over the past few years.

As I scrolled through our history, I scribbled down a list of random dragons here and there who’d died with shorter lifespans.

There weren’t many, but as I made notes, I found a pattern. Unmated. Males and females both. Sudden deaths, and none of them were in the presence of their flock.

I pushed away the registrar book and leaned back in my chair, crossing my hands behind my head.

It is possible.

It could be. Or I could be skewing the data to fit my own purposes. I was old enough to know better than that. But I couldn’t help the nagging feeling that I was missing something important.

It wasn’t like with the prophecy. I’d studied those runes until my eyes bled, and despite what others believed, there was nothing new to interpret.

This, though, was something different.

The thrill of discovery awakened a deep desire within me, one that died in the next breath.

What did it matter?

The end was still upon us.

That’s what makes it worthwhile.

I stopped thinking, trying to really listen to the wisdom of my beast.

Other dragons were moving their flocks to steadier ground, trying to live out their remaining years in peace. I’d chosen to hunker down here, knowing that half of my flock could no longer take to the skies. Their bodies were too aged for flight.

Trying to prolong the inevitable like the others were doing had seemed so human—woefully ignorant and idealistic.

But Ember had come into my world like a storm, shaking up the foundation of what I’d built here on her family’s land.

I hadn’t expected it.

She might not be a dragon or my mate, but she was something worth saving .

Even if her life would be short, I could do everything in my power to make it a good one.

Screw the books, the prophecy, our roles, and what had been taken from us.

There were worse ways to spend the last days of my life.

I couldn’t think of anything I’d like to do more than use the remaining time I had left to court a pretty and wild woman.

I pushed back from my desk, feeling a new sense of purpose.

It was time to trim the flowers in Catherine’s Garden anyway, and the human child was right.

I needed to get Ember a gift.

∞

Fire blazed from my open maw and swept through Christmas. The villagers—er—residents that didn’t heed my beast’s warning from the sky ran from the flames that scorched the town’s main street.

I left the feed lot, small library, and grocery store unburned, but I was still deciding if City Hall and the connected sheriff’s office would survive my wrath.

The concrete sidewalk crumbled under my talons as my hindlegs landed. I pushed atoms away, calling on magic and matter to shift my bones and structure into that of my human form, before my wings finished tucking into my sides. They were always the last to fade and the first to stretch out from me when I returned to my dragon’s body.

Centuries of practice made this transition seamless and without pain. The human-sized leather traveling bag that dangled from my front claw had fallen to the ground by my bare feet.

I took my time dressing into a pair of jeans as the flames and heat licked the bushes around City Hall.

The air smelled of sulfur and magma—distinct traces of dragon fire. Despite Earth forsaking us, we still owed our power to Her.

The walkway was warm under my feet and glass heated to near shattering as I pulled open the door. Anything that came close to the building would melt until I blew out the flames or let it all burn to the ground. I’d decide what to do once I got my questions answered.

Something about Ember’s situation wasn’t sitting right with me.

I believed she was still paying taxes on the property. And while I wouldn’t trust the human government not to mess up the legality of the situation, they tended to keep matters involving supernatural creatures under wraps.

If word was leaked on this little fire situation I’d started, it’d be ruled as arson from some local kids or a wildfire gotten out of control.

Goddess knew the MacAlisters had enough run-ins with the government in Southern California lately.

Thinking of them brought my thoughts full circle, back to Malachy. It’d been a few days since I’d felt any tremors and I wondered if he’d made progress somehow.

Now that I thought of it, things had been quiet since the day Ember arrived.

As if thinking that called Her attention, Earth shook under my feet. Not a large quake, just enough to remind the world of Her power.

She was always one for dramatics.

Sighing, I pulled open the doors.

“Are you sure you want to try that?” I asked the deputy with shaking hands as he raised a rifle in the office across the hallway from the reception desk.

“Who are you?” he barked out.

“A nightmare.” Smoke billowed from my nostrils as the black tendrils of shadows gathered around my body. The dispersed parts of my being were always close, ready to come to me and take solid form at any time.

In answer to my perfectly rational explanation, a gun shot rang out loud in the enclosed space.

I moved to the side, avoiding the spray, and grabbed the barrel of the human weapon before he lowered the sights.

I tossed it away.

In the next second, I had him dangling in the air by his throat. “I’d suggest you don’t do that again.”

The deputy tried to nod as I held him by his airway. I carried him, stepping over the broken glass that he’d shot out in the hall.

I hadn’t destroyed anything… yet.

Not like them.

I’d been watching this town for the past few months as the infrastructure had begun to collapse. Spike strips on the road were the least of what they’d done.

Small towns like this could govern themselves without being checked, especially when the larger government had bigger worries on their hands .

When martial law was enacted, this town used it as an excuse to rob travelers on the road and force some of the less established families outside county lines so they could seize their land.

Maybe Earth was right.

It was time for a cleansing.

That wasn’t my call to make, but it didn’t mean I had to do nothing. I’d been planning to have a talk with their leader anyway. Ember’s arrival expedited things.

“Be a good lad and go fetch the sheriff for me.” I dropped the deputy near the back door of the building where the flames wouldn’t burn him alive before he could finish my requested task.

Thankfully, he was a smart one.

I hated it when humans tried to rebel and act bigger than they were.

He took off running with the radio pressed against his lips, calling for the town’s sheriff.

The door to the records office was unlocked and I sniffed the air, sensing it was empty of anyone who might try to get in my way.

I hummed a little tune as I walked to the filing cabinets. My solar-powered battery bank was in the travel bag in case I needed to turn on the computer to search through the system, but towns this size sometimes had paper trails and I had a feeling I might find what I was looking for in here.

Being a registrar myself, I was appalled at their organization system. The filing cabinet was out of order and nothing made sense.

If I were a book of receipts, where would I find you?

The humans are coming.

Ah. Right there. I pulled the ledger out of the bottom drawer in the clerk’s desk.

Hillary Roberts’ signature was on the deposit slips for every check coming in over the past…

I stopped flipping pages when I saw Ember’s name, red tinting my vision as smoke and shadows curled around me.

The back door to the building burst open. Booted footsteps came pounding down the hall.

“Drop what you’re holding and put your hands up!” the stout human shouted.

Sheriff Roberts stood in front of his office door, directly across the hall from the clerk’s office, breathing heavy and stinking of day-old sweat as he huddled behind a team of men dressed in bulletproof vests. Their human guns pointed at me.

I smirked. “No. I don’t think that I will.”

And that’s when I decided that the town didn’t need a City Hall building anymore.