Bewitching The Dragon. Jane Kindred

and instinct kicked in. Change the perception of a thing and you might change the thing itself.

      Ione flung out her hand toward the creature with a sort of battle cry, pushing against air with a move she’d learned in krav maga. The monster flipped backward, cracking the doorframe as it tore through it, a look of surprise in its fiery eyes as it righted itself and skidded along the landing. Ione was almost as surprised as it seemed to be. She’d imagined the force of air throwing it backward, but she hadn’t really expected it to work. It crouched on the landing, tail switching and taking out a row of the railing behind it. Before she could lose her nerve and allow logic to surface, she made the gesture and shouted again, this time with words.

      “In the name of God and the Goddess, get out!”

      The creature tumbled backward over the railing, batlike wings at awkward angles as if it had forgotten how to use them, and landed on its back on her living room floor with enough force to shake the building. She prepared for an attack, this time going for the gun, and ran out onto the landing with the weapon in both hands, aimed at the thing’s skull. She’d taken shooting lessons to be sure she’d know how to use it if the time ever came, but she’d never actually had to fire at anything but a shooting-range target.

      Ione squeezed the trigger, realizing too late she’d also squeezed her eyes shut. The bullet struck the window behind the thing’s head.

      Instead of lunging for her, the creature got to its feet and turned to barrel into the wide pane of plate glass that extended across the far wall. The thick glass shattered and the beast clambered through it only to let out a roar of surprise as it struck an invisible barrier inside the walled garden. Rafe’s wards.

      “Oh, crap.” She hadn’t expected to need anything to get out; they were fashioned to keep unwanted magic from getting in. If they’d been her own, she could have unlocked them, but these were Rafe’s arcane Aztec symbols.

      Ione stepped onto the landing, the gun still aimed at the creature in her backyard. If the place was warded so well that this thing couldn’t get out...how the hell had it gotten in? The golden eyes blinked at her like huge tiger’s-eye gemstones.

      “No...effing...way.”

      Steam huffed gently from its nostrils as it contemplated her from where it sprawled in the blanket of shattered glass. Ione was still holding a gun on it, threatening a creature she’d effectively cornered. And she was standing naked on her landing. She lowered the gun. The creature didn’t move. Ione stepped into the bedroom to grab her robe from the door. There were Dev’s pants and boots in a heap at the foot of the bed. She stepped back out, wrapping the robe around her. The creature hadn’t moved except to sit back on its haunches like a dog waiting for its master.

      Ione descended the spiral staircase that led to the second floor from the front entryway, gun still clutched in her hand, and slowly approached the broken window. The creature breathed out a soft plume of smoke and lowered itself to the ground, settling its bumpy muzzle against its front feet.

      With her finger poised on the trigger, Ione studied the glittering eyes from her closer vantage point. “What the hell, Dev?”

      The creature let out a sigh, its ridged back gently rising and falling.

      She took a step closer. “If that’s really you...why can’t you change back?” Eustace Scrubb had woken up similarly transformed in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader after falling asleep in a dragon’s lair coveting its hoard. What had Dev coveted? Ione? Well, Kylie, anyway. She glanced up at her reflection in what remained of the window. Crap. Ione. When had she lost the glamour? Not that it mattered now. The Covent assayer sent to end her career had screwed her brains out and turned into a dragon. Because, seriously, this was a dragon she was looking at.

      “Did I do this to you? My Lilith blood?” The dragon didn’t seem to have the answer to that.

      Someone was going to walk by and see this thing from the side path. “Come in here. It’s all right. I won’t shoot you.” She set the gun aside and opened her palms to show they were empty in case the dragon couldn’t understand human speech.

      The creature raised its head, tilting it.

      “Come on.” She pointed inside the house.

      The dragon rose a bit clumsily and she saw why as it started forward. Blood dripped from its left foreleg. She hadn’t entirely missed it, after all.

      Ione backed out of the way as the dragon limped through the gap in the wall and hovered just inside. Whether or not it had Dev’s consciousness in there, it definitely wasn’t trying to hurt her.

      Watching her, it settled onto the floor, favoring the leg she’d struck, and curled its tail around its body, again resembling an obedient dog. Except this “dog” was taking up half her living room—and would take up all of it if it stood and stretched its wings.

      She took a tentative step toward it. “Can I look at your leg?” When it didn’t move to stop her, she came closer and crouched beside it to try to determine how badly she’d injured it. She’d heard the bullet hit the window, so it must have gone clean through. Ione could only see one wound. Perhaps she’d just clipped it. Even so, the dragon was losing a fair amount of blood.

      “Stay here.” Ione went for the first-aid kit in the downstairs bathroom opposite the laundry where Dev had—Christ.

      With the little kit in hand, she realized what she had wasn’t exactly made for dragon proportions. Or dragon flesh. She brought a towel with her to clean the wound and ended up tying it in place around the upper foreleg. The gauze and bandages were useless. The dragon put up with it patiently.

      “Sorry.” She glanced up at the glowing gold eyes. “It’s a good thing I’m not a better shot.”

      The dragon made a soft rumble in its throat that might have been a growl or a murmur of agreement. Ione’s stomach answered with a growl of its own. She hadn’t eaten anything since a cup of cottage cheese and a pear before going to the club. Dev probably hadn’t eaten dinner, either. Which meant the dragon was probably hungry. What did dragons eat? It was sort of like a dinosaur, which was a sort of lizard, right? What did lizards eat? Smaller lizards? Ione was on a vegetarian kick, so the only animal proteins in the house were eggs and cheese. Maybe lizards were herbivores.

      She compromised and scrambled some eggs with spinach, mushrooms and peppers and crumbled some sharp cheddar and seitan sausage substitute into it. After dishing it up—the largest portion in a big serving bowl—she grabbed the rest of the bag of spinach and tossed it into a separate bowl with some cucumbers and tomatoes, just to give the dragon some options.

      “I wasn’t sure if you were hungry,” she said coming back from the kitchen with the food. “I’m always starving after s—” She swallowed the word, heat rushing to her face. The dragon probably had no idea what she was saying, but it didn’t seem right to discuss having been intimate with someone who was no longer in human form. “I don’t know if you’re a grazer or a hunter. I’m guessing hunter, but this is all new to me...so, here—take your pick.” She set the bowls in front of the dragon, but it merely gave them a disinterested sniff.

      “Suit yourself.” Ione sat to eat on the one chair that hadn’t been knocked over in the chaos.

      By the time she’d finished eating, the towel she’d tied around the dragon’s wound was soaked through. Ione got another from the laundry room and this time wrapped it around a smaller towel folded into a square and pressed against the wound. She could swear as she finished that the dragon was purring.

      She tucked her robe around herself as she stood, realizing she’d probably been flashing it. Not that Dev hadn’t seen it all, but this wasn’t exactly Dev. Ione pinched the bridge of her nose and realized how tired she was. The events of the night had worn her out—some more pleasantly than others. Maybe she’d be able to come up with some way of dealing with the dragon in the morning if she just got some sleep.

      Damp wind was still blowing through the gaping hole that had been her living room wall. Ione pulled