Dragon Moon (20 page)

“Chloe will go nowhere until after the feast. That hopefully should be the last time I ever have to endure your presence.” He turns, enters the house, Derek following him with the chest.

Samantha Blood smiles at me, but there's no warmth in her grin. “My husband is a stubborn man, as I suspect you are, Peter. He blames you for the death of one daughter and the theft of another. Can you blame him for his anger?”

“I can for his rudeness.”

She waves a hand in the air as if to dispel the conversation. “They're only words, Peter. You have my grandson beside you and my granddaughter growing in Chloe's womb. Of course, you're welcome here.”

Coming down the stairs, she kisses me on one cheek, bends over and kisses Henri on his forehead. “You look so much like your father,” Samantha says. “Too bad he didn't encourage you to look a little like your mother too.”

Philip hangs back until she too goes inside, then rushes to Henri and me. He offers his hand, says, “Sorry, mon. Sometimes my parents can be difficult to take.” He smiles a wide grin. “Don't think they've never turned their displeasure on me.”

The teen kneels, fusses over Henri. “Chloe told me to tell you, she can't wait until the feast's over.”

“Me too,” I say. “If it's up to me, we'll be on our way out of here tomorrow.”

“No fair,” Philip says. “That means I'll be stuck here alone with all of them.”

“You can come visit us.”

He half laughs, half snorts. “Like they'll ever let me.”

Inside the house I'm taken again, as I was on my last visit, how far back in time it seems. Torches and candles light the interior. All water for washing and drinking is carried in pitchers to the rooms by black slaves. Windows lack glass and screens and are closed with wooden shutters. I guess my father's house was like this in 1700.

I wonder what Charles Blood did with the gold I sent him for Elizabeth. Surely that was enough to pay for wiring and generators, plumbing and pumps. Not that I really care.

Pacing in my room, anxious for the day to be done, the time for the feast to arrive, I wish Chloe could just leave with me now. If only marriage were possible without involvement with a spouse's family. I hate that my son has to be exposed to these creatures, hope that Chloe can escape the bad part of their genes.

Though Philip too, impresses me as much as his sisters did. So much so that I have no objection to him taking my son and entertaining him for the rest of the day.

Henri returns to my room after dark, babbling about his adventures. Our conversation is interrupted by a knock on the door. I open it to find Samantha Blood.

“I've come to remind you about the antidote,” she says. “You do remember you need it, don't you?”

I nod, remembering all too well the warning at Elizabeth's feast. “You told us that the potion of Dragon's Tear wine and Death's Rose we drank altered our body chemistry forever. If either of us ever drank it again without drinking an antidote of alchemist's powder and Angel Wort, we'd die.”

“Quickly and painfully,” Samantha says. “The antidote is a vile drink. I just wanted to warn you, you'll have to take it after we change to our natural forms. Before you and Chloe share your wedding potion.”

“No problem.”

“The feast's first bell will ring in about fifteen minutes,” she says. “Please come upstairs to the great room when it does.”

As soon as she leaves, Henri says, “Papa? Do I have to go to the feast too?”

I turn to him. “Of course, you have to go.”

My son's lower lip trembles. “Do I have to drink a potion too?”

Laughing, I shake my head. “The feast is to celebrate my marriage to Chloe.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Nothing. You just have to stand next to me. We'll all undress and change into our natural forms.”

Henri giggles. “All of us?”

I ignore him. “And then Samantha will mix a potion. She'll say some words and Chloe and I will drink it. Then we'll all feed and Chloe and I will go off by ourselves for a little bit.”

“Who'll watch me?”

“Chloe said Philip offered to let you sleep in his room tonight. Is that okay?”

Henri nods.

After what feels far longer than fifteen minutes, a bell gongs, its sound reverberating down the halls. Doors open and close, footsteps sound on the staircase.

I take Henri's hand and lead him out of the room, the hallway lit by wavering candlelight, the dark shadows moving with each flicker. Henri moves closer to me, squeezes my hand.

A second bell rings and we walk up the massive wood staircase, passing the second-floor landing, arriving at the great room on the third floor just as the third gong sounds. Henri and I both blink at the lights of hundreds of candles burning in chandeliers, in wall sconces, in candelabras and candlesticks placed everywhere but the north side of the room. There, a hearth filled with a roaring fire runs almost the whole length of the wall.

Chloe stands in the center of the room. Just as her sister had, she wears a white cotton dress almost translucent in its thinness. It acts as an outline for her dark body accentuating her human curves. I breathe in deep at the sight of her and smile when I see Elizabeth's necklace around her throat — the gold clover leaf and the green emerald in its center, reflecting the lights all around her.

Ignoring Charles and Samantha Blood standing to either side of her, I approach Chloe, dig my hand in my pocket and bring out the earrings I'd bought to match her necklace. My bride smiles when she sees them, mouths the words, “Thank you.”

“Chloe, no talking,” Samantha says.

I start to put the earrings in Chloe's ears but Derek says, “Don't bother, old man. She's just going to have to take them off again in a second.”

Chloe nods agreement and Samantha Blood holds her hand out. I give her the earrings, which she places on the wood floor next to Chloe's bare feet.

“Derek,” Samantha says, tilting her head to the corner of the room where a half dozen Jamaicans stand patiently, no fear apparent on their faces. I know all too well the effects of the Dragon's Tear wine they've been forced to drink, how it can numb the mind and body, steal any human's will — or the will of a being like me if he's so foolish to drink such a thing in his human state.

Samantha Blood points to a long table on the other side of the room. A white porcelain bowl and a green ceramic pitcher sit on top of it, next to a pewter mug and a small leather bag. “Philip,” she says.

Philip rushes to the table, returns with the bowl and the pitcher, makes a second trip for the mug and the bag. He places all of them on the wood floor in front of Samantha.

Derek ambles over to the Jamaicans, examines them, going from one to the other, feeling their arms and thighs, pinching their skin to check their fat content.

“Bloody well just bring one!” Charles finally growls. Derek grabs a male at random and leads him back to us, the Jamaican's face expressionless, his eyes glazed.

As soon as Derek's in place, Samantha Blood looks at me.
“Peter, do you want Chloe for your mate?”
she mindspeaks.

“Yes,”
I say.

She picks up the white porcelain bowl and sets it in front of Chloe. Then she takes the green ceramic pitcher and pours a clear liquid into the bowl, until it's half full.
“This is Dragon's Tear wine,”
she says and carries the pitcher back to the table.

When she returns, she picks up the leather bag, undoes its rawhide drawstring and pulls out what looks like a small, dried-out, purple rose.
“Do you know what this is, Peter?”

“The petals can kill,”
Samantha says. She crumbles one over the bowl, lets it mix with the Dragon's Tear wine.
“Are you willing to risk death to have Chloe as yours?”

Looking at Chloe, thinking of the consciousness we'll both soon share, I want to shout out my answer. But I know, to do so would violate custom.
“I am,”
I mindspeak.

Samantha reaches into the bag again. She sprinkles a rust-colored dust over the bowl.
“Alchemist's powder,”
she says.
“To fight the poison.”

It looks lighter colored to me than I remember, but I see little purpose in questioning the woman about it. After all, her daughter will be sipping the potion too.

“It's time,”
Samantha Blood says. She begins to undo Chloe's dress. Her husband fidgets with my mate's necklace, releasing the catch, removing the chain from Chloe's lovely neck.

Behind me Derek and Peter undress. I help Henri get out of his clothes, rip mine off as quickly as I can. My son looks from person to person, his eyes big, giggling at the women's nudity.

“Quiet!”
I say.

Chloe transforms herself first. I watch her as her features sharpen, desiring her more as her skin roughens and turns to scales, her wings unfold behind her. After five years of waiting, I think, she'll finally be with me. I want to roar my excitement, but I know all too well the disapproval such an exhibition would bring from my past and future in-laws.

As soon as Chloe finishes changing, the room fills with the grunts and groans of the rest of us as we shed our human bodies and return to our true and natural shapes. Henri is the last to finish shifting and to my pleasure, all the Bloods wait patiently while he struggles to properly fold his wings.

When he's done, Samantha Blood picks up the pewter mug. She holds it out to me.
“This is a mixture of Angel's Wort and alchemist's powder. It will neutralize the poison in your body and enable you to both drink the wedding potion again and share its effects with your new wife. Without it, you and Chloe would never know the experience or have the connection that you and Elizabeth did.”

Lifting the mug, I smell its contents, almost gag at the aroma, like rotten eggs mixed with acid. I pause, then drain it in only a few swallows, grimacing at its hot, bitter metallic taste.

Chloe's mother smiles at my expression.
“Trust me, the other potion would taste much worse without this antidote,”
she says.

If anything, the taste of Samantha Blood's antidote grows more bitter in my mouth, the hot metal flavor expanding, growing down my throat, heating my stomach.

Samantha looks at me, at Chloe and at her husband.
“Now we have to wait for the antidote to take effect.”

No one speaks. I stare at Chloe, the brightness of her emerald-green eyes and think how close we'll be in a short while. Henri waits and fidgets beside me, twitching his tail, unfolding and folding his wings.

The lights, the heat of the fire, the hot bitter taste that seems to have overtaken every molecule of my body — all conspire to weaken my legs. I sway in place, wonder if the antidote might be too powerful, if the wedding potion will balance its effect.

“Listen to me carefully,”
Charles Blood finally says.
“In a few minutes, you and Chloe will be offered the opportunity to drink from the bowl before you. What you drink won't kill you, but it will change both of you forever. It will bind you to each other in a way you never imagined. Peter, knowing you have to do this, do you still want Chloe?”

They're the same words he used to marry me to Elizabeth. I stare into his cold, green eyes and mindspeak,
“Yes.”
I turn, look at Samantha, wait for her to ask Chloe the same question.

“Chloe,”
she says.
“Knowing you have to do this, do you still want Peter?”

“Yes!”
Chloe says.

Samantha points to the white bowl.
“Please drink it at the same time. Make sure you finish all of it.”

Chloe and I look at each other, staring into each other's eyes as we drink. When we finish, I wait for her thoughts to open to me, as Elizabeth's did. Instead, a cloud seems to settle over my brain.

My bride's eyes glaze and she falls forward.

I catch her just as hot metal sears through my veins.
“WHAT?”
I think, her weight dragging me down to the floor, the pain blocking any further possibility of thought.

“PAPA!”
Henri cries. He rushes to me.

Charles Blood bats him out of the way.
“DAMN IT, DEREK, YOU BLOODY FOOL! TAKE HOLD OF HIM!”

Derek grabs Henri. My son wails, tries to break free, but the older dragon holds him in his grip.

Samantha grabs the leather bag, rummages inside it, produces two glass vials, one filled with a red liquid, the other with green. She bends over Chloe, pries open her jaws, and pours the red liquid into her daughter's mouth.
“There,”
she says.
“In few minutes you'll be fine.”

She turns to me, forces the green vial into my mouth. The liquid sears its way down my gullet. My arms and legs turn rigid. Tremors overtake me and I lie shaking on the wood floor, my body changing form from dragon to human, once, then twice, then again, leaving me in human form, twitching and jerking, every cell of my body in pain.

“Bloody stupid charade this,”
Charles Blood says.
“He never would have drunk from the mug without it,”
Samantha says.

Charles glares at her, says,
“Bullocks!”