Light Dragons 02 - The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

Right now.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t kill us,” I told her, startled nonetheless by the sight of the weapon. “How did you get that through customs?”
    “I didn’t. My chieftain had it delivered to me.”
    “Your chieftain? I thought you were the chieftain of your tribe.”
    “You thought wrong.”
    “Why is this woman holding a gun on us?” Baltic demanded to know. “Who is she?”
    “Maura Lo, this is my mate, Baltic. Baltic, this is Dr. Kostich’s granddaughter, the one I promised to help so that he would lift the interdict from me.”
    “ Enchanté ,” Constantine said politely.
    “I told you to leave the ouroboros dragons alone,” Baltic said, bending a stern eye on me.
    “Yes, and you know how much I love it when you order me around.”
    Constantine snorted.
    “Come along, no more chitchat,” Maura said, waving the gun. “I don’t want to have to shoot anyone, but I will if I have to.”
    “Do you honestly think we’re going to let you hustle us out of here? Do we look that—”
    Baltic didn’t wait for me to finish speaking. He simply jumped Maura, knocking her to the ground and snatching the gun from her hand.
    “You are so going to regret that,” she snarled as she leaped to her feet, brushing dirt and leaves from her hair.
    “Yeah? You and what army?” I said, letting my inner child have the pleasure of a few words of taunting.
    As the last syllable left my lips, a swarm of three men charged down the path, all brandishing large and lethal-looking firearms.
    Maura smiled.
    “Dammit, I hate it when my rhetorical questions go bad.”
    “If you would be so good as to accompany us back to the hotel, we can see about your ransoms,” Maura said, gesturing toward the three guys, whom I mentally dubbed Larry, Curly, and Moe. “We hadn’t anticipated taking both of you, but the more the merrier where a ransom is concerned, right?”
    “I’m so going to be filing a complaint about you to the Akashic League,” I told Maura.
    She rolled her eyes, and started to speak, but Moe shoved her out of the way and without further ado shot Baltic in the chest.
    “Interesting. I wonder if I could gather enough strength to hold a gun,” Constantine’s disembodied voice said with much speculation. “I wouldn’t mind taking a few shots at you myself.”
    I stared at the small black hole on the side of Baltic’s chest as it began to seep blood, then turned to glare at Moe. “Oh, that was brilliant. Now you’ve pissed him off.”
    Baltic, who had likewise been examining the bullet hole, roared with anger, shifted into dragon form, and leaped onto Moe.
    The three dragons all shifted as well. Moe was a red dragon, while the other two were blue. Maura, who had stared in stunned disbelief when Moe shot Baltic, quickly hurried forward, yapping about the dragons not following the plan.
    I yanked hard on Baltic’s dragon fire and set the ground under them ablaze.
    “We are following orders,” the dragon I dubbed Curly snarled at her, slamming her aside with his tail. “Just not yours.”
    “I will protect you, my beloved one,” Constantine’s voice declared right next to my ear.
    “You’re a damned ghost,” Baltic snarled as his fire lit up a circle around us.
    “Yes, and you’ve been shot.”
    “Even so, I’m more of a dragon than you ever were.” Baltic head-butted Moe, his claws slashing out at the same time, slicing deep into Moe’s chest. The other dragon screamed and shifted back into human form, scrabbling in the dirt for his gun.
    “And you’re a backstabbing, lying degenerate,” Constantine yelled, a slightly visible image of him forming.
    Dragon fire is a particularly ferocious sort of fire, and to my horror, I saw that the damp trees and moss didn’t slow it down in the least. The circle quickly spread outward, consuming several centuries-old trees as fingers of fire crept toward the forest edge.
    “That’s better than being a two-timing traitorous bastard,” Baltic yelled back, ducking as I leaped over his head and kicked the gun out of Moe’s reach. “She’s my mate! I’ll protect her. Ysolde, come over here and be protected.”
    “Resorting to name-calling isn’t helping, boys,” I shouted, stomping hard on Moe’s hand when he tried to grab my ankle. At the same time, I began to gather up arcane magic from the surrounding living things. “Besides, it’s probably not a good idea to call the First Dragon’s son by derogatory