Page 54 of To Match A Dragon's Fire

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 leathertraveling 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 thathe’dshot 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.

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