Page 31 of Dragon in Denial
Someone chuckled. Darius, maybe? Why was it soloud?
“Well?” Darius’s face swam into Ketu’s line of vision, shifting and moving like he was underwater.
Was he? Were they both?
Ketu sucked in a deep breath. No water filled his lungs.
The overly bright, white room changed, shifting like a kaleidoscope. The colors became darker and darker, until everything was black. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again.
“Eulalie?”
She stood before him, shimmering much like Darius had been. Maybe they were the ones underwater and Ketu was on the other side of the glass that contained them.
Wait, his sister was underwater? She couldn’t breathe. She’d drown!
“Eulalie!” He clamored to his feet, reaching out as he staggered toward her, determined to rescue her.
You need to find a new line of work.
But he had. He was a carpenter in his new colony. Wasn’t he?
He didn’t rescue people. He wasn’t good at it. He’d failed Eulalie, and now he was failing Antoinette. And Henri. And his parents. And Gabe.
Who was Gabe?
Hell, he was failing everyone.
He managed to form words. “I can’t.”
“Darius, look at him. How could you?” A female voice drifted through the psychedelic haze, followed by a crack, like a slap of skin on skin, and a cry of pain.
Ketu tried to look around, but nothing made sense. Shapes floated around—maybe a dragon? A dragon in human form. Why?
Where was he?
Something wrapped around his arm and lifted him to his feet. “All right, Great Savior, time to go. Let’s see what your reputation is like after I send you wandering the streets, high as fuck.”
A sound, like a chuckle except ten times louder, accompanied those words.
Ketu moved, but his feet weren’t really carrying him. A burst of light dimmed all the moving colors and he winced, lifting his hands to protect his eyes like he was a vampire.
Shit, was he about to fry like one too?
“Go on,” someone said. “Go home.”
More amplified chuckling, and then a door slammed. Ketu winced. Damn, somebody needed to turn down the volume in his head.
And the brightness. The colors around him vibrated, like he was at a concert, standing in front of one of the speakers. Blood red, citrusy orange, lemon yellow…gods, he was starved.
Food.
Ketu shuffled forward until his foot found a ledge. And then he went over, tumbling down a set of steps until he was flat on his back on a thick blanket of—what was this stuff? It smelled good, like the outdoors. It was green, kind of prickly and abrasive, yet soft.
That made no sense.
Not that anything else going on did, either.
Laughter reached his ears, so loud his clenched teeth vibrated. Ketu tried to focus on where it was coming from. Three dragons, all wavering, again, like they were underwater. In human form.
How was it everyone could breathe underwater all of a sudden?
He struggled to his feet and staggered away from the sound. He bumped into something sturdy and huge and covered in course skin. No, bark. A tree? Where had that tree come from? Had it grown out of the ground that fast? Because it hadn’t been there a minute ago.
Had it?
Shaking his head, Ketu altered his path and began moving again. He needed to get home.
He needed Antoinette.
