The Dragon's Lovers

The Dragon's Lovers
by Shannon M. Richmeyer

The original characters of Sohryuden are the sole creation of Yoshiki Tanaka and the rights belong to whoever they belong to. I thank him greatly for creating them and hope he doesn't come hunting any fingers for my unauthorized use of them. Enjoy.

Part Seven

The raucous sounds of feasting faded into murmurs as all eyes focused on the figure totally hidden by a crimson cloak that seemed to float to the open center of the hall. It drifted to its knees and offered a formal reverence to his eldest brother and his table against the north wall. Hakkei nodded his assent and the figure straightened and turned to him and bowed again. He nodded assent also. Several of the assembly had asked for his slave to dance for them once more. Gods! He hated calling them slaves, but it was the only way he could keep them with him.

She moved slowly at first, as sensuous and languid as the music. The cloak parted and fell behind her as she leaned back. A roll of her head shook off the hood and revealed her sun-colored corona of short curls. He smiled at the seven long, red-black flight feathers that were woven into a golden cord that hung from a comb in her hair, each one slightly lower than the next. They draped across her right shoulder and fluttered between her breasts. Her battle trophy. He wondered if Ophishu could fly yet.

The music quickened and so did she, undoing the clasp that held the cloak closed and dancing with it, the thin scarfs she wore under it accenting instead of hiding her form. She would let the heavy fabric swirl tight around her body, then send it up and out, offering tantalizing glimpses of her shape. Dust leaned against his knee, sitting at his feet as a good slave should. He reached over and put his hand on Dust's shoulder and knew his own breathing was as fast as his other lover's. She whirled in front of them, eyes closed and lost to the music, as wild and abandoned as a hawk dancing with the wind. She might be on display for the entire Clan but she was dancing for them alone.

Something intruded into his awareness...a sound...out of time with the music. He focused on it with a frown and blinked up at an unfamiliar ceiling...which suddenly became familiar. Tsuzuku sat up with a gasp as he realized he'd just had a 'dragon dream' as Amaru called them. Blood and Dust...they had been Tannis and Remy! That had to be the connection, why they dreamt about him. But they were his slaves? That couldn't have been true. He ran the dream back through his mind, almost managing to ignore the flair of arousal that Tannis/Blood's dance brought to him, and implanted it firmly into his memory.

The crunching sound continued to distract him. He glanced at the clock as he wobbled up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and followed that sound. 4:00. It was coming from the kitchen. He looked in to see Owaru sitting on the floor with their largest mixing bowl in his lap and an empty gallon jug of milk flanked by two empty cereal boxes on their sides in front of him.

Owaru mumbled around spoonfuls, "Sorry," and something that vaguely resembled, "didn't mean to wake you up but I'm hungry!"

Tannis took the Walkman headphones off and glanced at Remy reclined on the passenger seat, sound asleep even though his long frame didn't quite fit comfortably into the space allotted for it. She chewed at her lower lip with her teeth as she pulled her eyes back to the road, the lyrics and melodies for the latest batch of songs Remy had written for the band an underscore to her worry. She sighed softly, wishing she had her lover's easy understanding of music. She had to learn every song by rote, listening to Remy sing her part over and over. She couldn't read the scores no matter how hard Remy tried to teach her...they remained arcane symbols that her mind just couldn't grasp, no matter how hard she tried. It was frustrating to them both and she suggested to him on a regular basis that he find another singer, but he wouldn't have it. He wanted her voice, her range, the passion that she put into the songs once she figured out how they went...and so she struggled along.

Struggling along, that pulled another sigh, another sideways glance and a mental grumble. That Dragon of theirs! She would have been more than happy to do nothing but dream of Tsuzuku Ryudo for the rest of her life. Yet he had found them and now she was going to have to deal with it and the disruption he was going to bring into their lives. He had already started. Her plans of a late, lazy and love filled Saturday morning followed by a leisurely drive into New York had been put on hold by Tsuzuku's dramatic appearance.

She had to leave the show half set up to rush home, not at all assured by Michael's promises that he'd finish it up and it would be 'purrr-fecto!', only to discover that Remy had taken care of the problem. Her grumble took on a hard, bitter edge. If he was going to do it, why did he even bother to call? Then she chided herself, recognizing some of what was fueling her foul mood. Remy didn't have a choice, the dragon couldn't wait for her. And no matter how hard she wanted to deny it, a part of her was jealous and hurt at being left out of that first pairing, and hurt that the Dragon didn't remember them at all.

Then to top it all off, Tsuzuku had stressed Remy out enough that he'd had a seizure. She reached over and stroked her lover's cheek lightly, glad that the dark circles that had been under his eyes this morning had faded to light shadows. He had looked bad enough that she had planned to sneak out and leave him to sleep, but she had inadvertently roused him as she'd rummaged in the closet for the heels that went with the dress she was going to wear this evening.

Panic flared in her again. God, what were they going to do? Tsuzuku was being hunted by the Gyushu once more and she wasn't sure if Remy could take the stress of being on the run all the time. And now that the Dragon had found them, the Gyushu would soon know of their existence and they would never be safe again. Never. She had the sudden urge to just keep driving, to get them both as far away from that Dragon as she could.

Remy wouldn't have it, though. He was in love, as entranced by the Dragon now as he had been then. She worried her lower lip some more as she tried to come to terms with that. She had the uneasy thought that Blood had been just as unhappy with the Dragon's hold over Dust when they'd first met. She shook her head to dispel that and distracted herself. She'd just have to make sure that they survived. She started to make a mental list of things she'd need to take care of.

Owaru eyed his 'extracurricular homework assignment' with a sigh as he headed in the direction the librarian had pointed. Amaru had already disappeared into the stacks to his left hunting for the oceanography section. Hajime didn't think that the public school system here was challenging enough for his youngest brothers and had decided to supplement their studies, sending them to the main branch of the public library on Saturdays. It also was a way to keep them occupied and out of trouble while their oldest brothers and Matsuri were at work.

1. List and memorize all the bones of the human body, starting from the head down (and I want all the connective tissues also, Owaru).

2. List and memorize all of the organs in the human body and their function.

3. List and memorize all the muscles in the human body and their function.

He read over the short list once more and groaned to himself. He recognized his Eldest Brother's silent reprimand for his fight yesterday in the content. He turned into the fifth 'reserved stack' which held the medical texts and scowled as he couldn't find either of the two books Tsuzuku had recommended. Figured. He chose two that looked promising and headed for the tables in the study space as he paged quickly through the first one to see what it had to offer. He glanced up just before he cleared the last bookcase, looking for an empty desk, and froze. Jesse was sitting sideways to him in the middle chair of the second desk taking notes from an open book to her left. He looked down at his right arm, the bullet hole now nothing but an ugly bruise peeking out from under his T-shirt sleeve and backed up fast until he could duck into the isle between the bookcases.

Aw, hell! Well, he had two choices. He could round up Amaru and go to the other side of the library and another study area, which he really didn't want to do...it was inconvenient if either of them had to come back for another book and...he peeked around the edge of the bookcase and watched Jesse push her hair back behind her ear...and he just didn't want too! He shrugged off his backpack and put the books on a vacant spot on a shelf so he could un-knot the sleeves of the heavy flannel shirt he had tied around his waist. It had been warm when they'd left the house and Amaru had grouched about having to lug along a sweater but Owaru knew that it would be cold by the time they left the library in the late afternoon. That was one of the handy things he had discovered about his powers. He just 'knew' when the weather was going to change.

Amaru passed him as he was cuffing the sleeves and back-pedaled to stare at him curiously. Owaru beckoned him in.

"What are you doing? It's got to be at least eighty degrees in here!"

"Jesse's here," he informed him as he pushed the sleeves up over his elbows.

"She is? Cool! Where?"

"In the study area. Amaru-kun, wait!" he hissed and just missed grabbing his little brother as Amaru bounced around the corner.

Gods! Sometimes little brothers are such a pain in the butt! He wondered if he'd caused Tsuzuku this much trouble when his second brother had been saddled with chaperoning him everywhere.

He snatched up the books and slung his pack back over his shoulder and was just about to march out when a sudden wave of anxiety hit him and made him pause. It was somewhat nebulous and full of stupid wonderings, all concerning Jesse and if he looked O.K. and jeez, he should have worn his other jeans, these looked terrible and...he shook his head as he took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts aside, squared his shoulders and walked out.

Amaru was already sitting in the chair to her right and chatting in subdued tones as he set his things out on the desk. Jesse looked up and smiled as he approached the table. Thankfully his manners (a thing that both his elder brothers told him constantly that he lacked) kicked in as his brain went suddenly numb. He bowed and got out, "Ohayo," and thought seriously about whacking himself upside of the head to get his brain going again. But that would look too stupid and he was sure he was doing a good enough job at that right now. Fortunately she didn't seem to notice, or was too polite to let it show as she bid him good morning back. There was a second of silence which hung between them as Amaru mouthed 'well, say something!' from behind her shoulder.

"um...would you mind if I sat here?" he gestured at the vacant seat to her left.

"No. How's your arm?" she asked, giving him something to talk about as he put his pack and books on the desk.

"Better. How about your head? And your ankle?" he queried back as he sat.

"Better." She eyed his books, "You're interested in anatomy?"

"No. My eldest brother feels a need to supplement my homework. He's on a biology kick at the moment."

"Yeah. Phytoplanckton. How boring..." Amaru muttered from her other side as he opened a book.

Owaru glanced at the books arrayed around her. There was a heavy duty medical dictionary, the two anatomy books he'd been hunting for and he wasn't sure what the book she'd been reading from was about but the few words he scanned were technical and sounded medical.

"You studying to be a doctor?" he asked it half-teasingly and was rather taken aback when her face turned very serious.

"Yes. I'm going to be an OB."

He wondered at the haunted look that came into her eyes as he hunted for the definition of OB.

"OB?" he blinked at her and felt very stupid.

"Obstetrician."

"Oh...that's...babies, right?"

She nodded and glanced down at his assignment while he pulled his notebook out of his pack. She slid the big Grey's Anatomy toward him as he sat.

"This is the best one, bones are listed on page twenty-seven."

"Thanks."

"De nada..." she smiled and shrugged, then focused back on her book.

Owaru turned to the suggested page and set to work. At least he tried to. His attention wouldn't stay on the book in front of him though, and he found his eyes wandering sideways quite often to steal a glance of Jesse's profile. She was a pretty as he had remembered. He grumbled at himself silently as he jerked his eyes back to his notes as she reached up for the dictionary. He decided he should have gone for another study area. At this rate, he wasn't going to even get through 'bones' before lunch.