Page 18 of True Sacrifice
“You’re letting it hurt you.” Jasper’s large hand came to cover the back of mine as he slowly curled my fingers shut. I felt it burn my palm, but I couldn’t open my hand with my fingers forced shut. “The fire belongs to you. Tell it to stop.”
“STOP!” I screamed, balling my fist as tight as I could. The pain washed away in waves until nothing remained. I opened my hand and saw new pink skin in my palm. The flame extinguished.
“Next time, don’t be so afraid. It lives inside you; it is part of you. You should only burn things you wish to burn. Here, take this fireball.” He held out his hand and a small flame the size of an egg formed.
I held out my hand to accept it. Worse case it burned me, and, in a few minutes, I would heal up.
The flame seemed to walk towards me. I looked closer. It was a tiny baby dragon made entirely out of fire.
“Showoff,” I laughed, looking up at him with a smile.
He smiled back, softly. It made him look years younger, not that he looked anywhere past the age of twenty-eight, but something about him still betrayed all the eons he has spent alive. I could picture it. Demon born into great power. Grows up. Trains. Becomes a young demon and goes out to figure out what life is about, and then repeats, for who knows how long. Wouldn’t you tire of it at some point? Living forever?
I felt the smile slip from my face, so I looked down quickly. The dragon had just crawled into my palm, circled around, and laid down with its tail curled around it. It hadn’t quite figured the wings out yet, and they just kind of sprawled on top. It was the cutest fucking fire pet I had ever seen in my life.
“Can I keep it?” I looked back up at Jasper with hopeful eyes. I didn’t need his permission for a pet. Fuck that; but I needed to know if it was magically possible, since he made the thing out of fire.
Jasper smiled. “Yeah, hold on, let me put some personality into it. Do you prefer cats or dogs?”
“Dragons,” I replied simply.
Jasper found that amusing and shook his head as he unbuttoned his shirt.
“WOAH buddy, you don’t need to put like your sperm in it or something? To ya know, give it a piece of life, or what not.” Definitely a bit creeped out now about what he was going to be doing to my little dragon friend.
Jasper rolled his eyes. “You say the weirdest things.”
He continued to unbutton his shirt, revealing a body you just didn’t look away from. I’m pretty sure this man used an axe to cut down a tree, to build a ladder, to get inside my burning house and pull Granny out alive moments before the house collapsed. He didn’t stop by simply unbuttoning; he went and took it all the way off.
Now one part of my mind, a very tiny part said,you will not stand there and declare he must earn you and then fall into his bed the moment you see him with his shirt off.The other very loud, starving part of my mind, declared we were mates and delaying the inevitable wouldn’t help me. For now, I was going to appreciate my view.
He seemed to dig into the tattoo on his bicep. Instead of going into his flesh, it seemed like he dipped his fingers into a whirlpool of ink streaks as he twisted and turned his hand inside them like he was painting a masterpiece. His hand pulled out a thin wispy black string. It couldn’t have been over two inches long, but it floated in the tiny breeze as Jasper brought it over to the baby fire dragon nestled in my palm.
“It’s going to get bigger. Like a real pet. You’ll have to feed it and take care of it, and it will not live forever,” Jasper cautioned, holding the thread just above the dragon’s head.
“What is that?” That was the important question.
“It’s a soul fragment. Sometimes souls break, and when that happens, there are fragments floating all around. They are what make pets. Even in the human realm, your cuddly puppies and fluffy kittens all have soul fragments inside them. It is what gives it a personality, the personality of the fragment. This is one of those fragments. When I give it to him, he will be alive in every sense of the word.”
I nodded, inspecting the little dragon in my hand. This wasn’t something to take lightly. It would have part of a soul. “I don’t know how to take care of a baby dragon,” I whispered in horror.
“I can help you. I have raised and lost my fair share of pets over the years. Lucky for you, dragons are very easy to raise and mature quickly, then they become self-sufficient. He would be entirely loyal to you, and you alone, if you offer a drop of blood during the soul binding. Might bring you some ease knowing you have him around,” Jasper offered, and it brought a sigh of relief.
“Then yes please, I would love to keep the baby fire dragon.” I looked around for something sharp to stab myself with, to get the drop of blood Jasper needed. I would feel a hell of a lot better knowing without a doubt I had someone to look out for me, and a fire dragon was one badass way of doing it.
Jasper produced a knife from the pocket of his pants. I held a finger out and he sliced me quick.
“Ready?” he breathed, and I nodded.
He dropped the soul, and I tilted my finger, allowing a single drop to fall on the dragon’s head right after the string touched the flames and burned away. Smoke erupted, shielding the baby dragon from my view, so I panicked and blew the smoke away. The view cleared, and I saw instead of a fiery dragon, an egg laid in my hand.
“Where’s the dragon?”
“In the egg. It will need to be kept warm until it hatches. It will have an authentic life, birth to death.”
I looked down at the egg in my hand, bringing my second hand up so I could cradle it better. It was the size of a piece of fruit. I swear, I felt it pulse with heat in time with my heart.
“Ok, so what do we do now?” I asked. Guess training was getting cut short today.
