The Seadragon's Daughter
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Teaser chapter
About the Author
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF ALAN F. TROOP
Dragon Moon
“This is, like the first volume, an entertaining, action-oriented story deepened by a dollop of thoughtful ambiguity.”
—Locus
“Troop has powerful command of his fanciful scenario. . . . The author also has a gift, sharper than ever, for suspense and action, and his dragon mythology is every bit as inventive, beguiling—and sexy—as anything Anne Rice has written about vampires.”
—South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“Surpasses its predecessor in imagination and humor, and leaves the reader wanting more [Dragon DelaSangre] tales.”
—Starlog
“Eminently satisfying . . . Troop maintains a riveting pace that manages to explore his characters rather deeply without ever impacting on the action and suspense. Ultimately, Dragon Moon is a work of fantasy about loss and love, the importance of family, honor and bravery, making this tale of modern dragons a thoroughly human story.”
—Rambles.com
“Alan F. Troop does for dragons what Alice Borchardt has done for werewolves.”
—Midwest Book Review
“I am amazed at the ingenuity of this story. . . . Filled with adventure, this contemporary fantasy skewers our vision of the world.”
—SF Site
“A rousing adventure tale worthy of its predecessor.”
—Booklist
“If you love dragon stories this is one that you don’t want to miss. Mr. Troop has written a story that you can’t put down until the last page.”
—Paranormal Romance
The Dragon DelaSangre
Named by Booklist as One of the Top Ten Horror Novels of Recent Years
“Comparisons with Interview with the Vampire are almost inevitable . . . however, DelaSangre ultimately carves out its own territory . . . unabashed fun, with just enough moral ambiguity to raise it above the level of a pure popcorn book. A promising debut.”
—Locus
“Any book that has us cheering for a human eating dragon is definitely well-written.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“As equally fascinating as the man who wrote it.”
—The Miami Herald
“A very thoughtful and rewarding read.”
—New Mobility Magazine
“The Dragon DelaSangre is the most original fantasy I’ve read in years, its strength coming in no small part from Alan Troop’s remarkable ability to deliver a sympathetic but distinctly non-human protagonist. Just when I thought there was nothing new in contemporary fantasy, along comes Alan Troop’s terrific The Dragon DelaSangre to prove me wrong! I loved this book!”
—Tanya Huff, author of Summon the Keeper
“Alan F. Troop has done for dragons what Anne Rice has done for vampires and Laurell K. Hamilton has done for werewolves. . . . An exciting fantasy. . . . Horror lovers will have a feast.”
—Midwest Book Review
“An exciting, inventive, unique novel with, in Peter, a surprisingly sympathetic protagonist.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“You won’t be able to put [it] down.”
—Aventura News
“Troop proves to be quite skillful at characterization . . . light and fast-paced . . . engrossing.”
—The Davis Enterprise
“Alan F. Troop tells an intense tale of more-than-human characters who can be quite human in their souls. Very intense.”
—The Weekly Press (Philadelphia)
“A powerful, passionate, gripping tale that brings dragons into the modern era. . . . Just when you think dragons are overdone and nothing new can be said about them, this book comes along to challenge that notion and put it in its place. Don’t ignore this one.”
—The Green Man Review
ROC
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
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First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, December 2004
Copyright © Alan F. Troop, 2004
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
eISBN : 978-1-101-49820-0
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For my mother, Bernice M. Troop,
the first woman in my life and a bright star in the<
br />
universe that now unfortunately burns no longer.
She will always be missed and she will always be
remembered with much love.
Acknowledgments
To Susan, my wife and my love, who has shown remarkable forbearance in sharing this writer’s life for the past sixteen years. To Rocky Marcus, a great friend, a good critic and the best creative writing teacher in North Florida. To fellow writer, Jim Hesketh, for your support and candid opinions. To Dave Kupferman for your computer expertise and to the Cuban contingent, Miriam Duque and Madeline Rosales for the Spanish help. To Jen Heddle, many thanks for believing in me and much luck in all you attempt. And to Levi Daniel Foster—welcome to the family.
1
My stomach growls as I circle over the Zapata Swamp. My flight has taken longer than I anticipated and been less productive. Ordinarily when I choose to hunt over Cuba, I have to range no further than the rural farm areas not too far inland of Varadero. But tonight I’ve spotted no prey—even with the aid of a full moon and a clear late-night sky.
If a sudden flash of light hadn’t drawn my attention, I never would have flown so deep into the island. Now I see only blackness beneath me. I glide in wide circles, peering into the dark, sniffing the air for any scent of man, my wings extended to their full thirty-two-foot span, my tail stretched out behind me.
Light slices through the dark again, a narrow beam far below me. I spiral down toward it, swallowing saliva, ignoring the ache of my empty stomach.
The man crouches by the edge of the water, a flashlight in one hand and a small trident-shaped spear—a frogging gig—in the other. As I pass over him he strikes with the gig and lifts a struggling bullfrog from the water. Its belly glistens bleached white in the flashlight’s glare for a moment before the light winks off.
I let out a low, satisfied growl. The man looks to be large and beefy and—most importantly—alone. Inhaling a deep breath of cool night air, I flap my wings and gain altitude before circling back.
Just as I reach attack position, the flashlight winks on again. I fold my wings and plummet, letting gravity rush me on, my eyes focused on the frog hunter, his gig in position to strike again. How fitting, I think, the hunter about to be taken by a superior hunter—one who doesn’t need to use a light to freeze his prey.
I flex my jaw in anticipation of the attack, hard enough so my fangs grind against each other and my jaw muscles ache from the effort. Near the ground I unfurl my wings, catch the air with them and level off, rocketing forward, the air buffeting my scaled skin, my mouth open, my claws ready.
I expect the man to look up, to discover just moments before his death what manner of beast will take his life. I wonder if he’ll scream, or try to run, or if he’ll hurl his gig at me in one last, futile gesture. I can almost taste the rich, thick flavor of his blood, the sweetness of his flesh.
Something nudges my right side. I take my eyes from the man, stare to the side and see nothing. A sigh follows and I whirl around to find only empty, dark sky. My attack momentarily forgotten, I become aware of deep, regular breaths and listen until I realize they come from me.
Consciousness comes slowly. First I sense the hard mattress beneath me, then my sleeping wife’s warmth at my right side. Chloe sighs again and shifts her body beside me. This time I recognize the movement and the sound for what they are and open my eyes.
Staring into the darkness, almost gasping to find myself in my human form, my heart still throbbing from the dream, I wait for another movement, for a break in her breathing, for any sign of wakefulness. But my young bride stays deep in her dreams.
I lie still and listen to the slow, steady rhythm of her breaths. How I envy her ability to sleep through the night. I stifle a sigh. Once sleep came easy for me too. Now even the slightest disturbance seems to wake me.
If my father, Don Henri DelaSangre, were alive he’d laugh at my restlessness. When I was growing up he often said to me, “Life can be harsh, Peter—even for beings as powerful as us. Expect nothing in your life to be constant but change.”
In my youth I doubted those words. But over the years, both murder and betrayal have taught me their truth. I frown into the dark. All the more reason I shouldn’t have allowed myself to become so accustomed these past few years to a life of happiness and ease.
I let out a breath, try to clear my mind of thought. Closing my eyes, I match my breathing with Chloe’s, will each muscle in my body to relax. However, instead of letting sleep overtake me, I become more and more awake and more and more aware of the warmth of her naked flesh pressed against mine.
Finally I turn my head and glance at the clock. It reads 4:48. I wonder whether to go back to sleep or to make love to her or to simply get up and go outside to wait for the dawn.
My bride’s body twitches. She grasps and ungrasps her hands, a low growl breaking from her lips. Another growl follows and a third before she sighs and begins again to draw in one deep breath and then another. A hunting dream. I smile. It’s only fair that they overtake her too. After all, they roil my sleep any time too many days pass between hunts.
I sigh. This time too many months have passed.
Chloe’s movements have pushed down her covers and exposed her right breast. I stare at her dark skin, the darker circle of her nipple and consider cupping my hand over it. Sleep, after all, seems to be no longer a possibility for me this night.
However, I know if I wake Chloe, I’ll also miss an opportunity to go outside, to spend a few precious moments alone. I shake my head. To think that once I feared loneliness more than anything.
But more than three years have passed since Chloe became my bride and joined my son, Henri, and me on our small island, Caya DelaSangre. Over two years have gone by since our daughter, Elizabeth, came into the world, biting and clawing and mewling her resistance. Our three-story, coral stone house—once a large, empty building that I wandered through alone and lonely—now seems at times almost too full.
As usual, Chloe’s draped one of her naked legs across mine and one of her arms over my chest. I lift her leg, sidle out from under both limbs and ease out of bed. After throwing on a pair of briefs and a pair of cutoff jeans, I open the bedroom’s large oak exterior door and step out onto the veranda.
With dawn still almost an hour away, the dark still rules. I breathe deep, smell the salt-tinged freshness of the cool early-morning air, smile and close the door behind me.
Dew has already soaked the veranda’s oak deck, leaving it cold and treacherously slick for my bare feet. To avoid slipping, I walk slowly as I make my way to the ocean side of the veranda, finally stopping by a rectangular cutout in the waist-high coral parapet that encircles the veranda—one of the many cannon ports Father placed long ago for our defense.
The cannons have long since been stored away, along with Father’s other ancient armament, in four arms rooms, each located on a different side of the house. Leaning against the rough, ancient stone, I stare past the dark shadows of the grass and sea oat-topped dunes, over the pale contrast of the beach’s flat white sand, to the black surface of the ocean. Only thin white ribbons of foam show in the dark as the waves break and roll to shore. A gentle breeze blows over them, carrying with it the soft, wet thuds of the breakers surging against the beach.
A mile off shore, the Fowey Rocks lighthouse blinks through the gloom. I smile at its bright warning light and turn my face into the wind, letting it push against me. It reminds me of flying and I sigh.
The matching growls of twin diesel motors break the quiet of the early morning—their sounds loud enough to signal their closeness. Staring past the waves, I search until I spot the moving lights and the dark shape of a patrol boat cruising just a few hundred feet past the surf line. I curl my lip at it.
I understand the special circumstances that have brought them so close. They have every legal right to patrol here. Still, I am a DelaSangre. Like my father before me, I consider the waters near my island to be my propert
y—every bit as much as the sand and stone of the island itself. I think of calling the office later to get my man, Arturo Gomez, or his associate, Ian Tindall, to arrange that no patrol dares to come so close again. But then I shake my head. “Only the wise,” Father always said, “understand the limits of their powers.”
After the sun breaks free of the ocean and rises over the horizon, I come back inside, undress and slide into bed. I’ve barely warmed myself against Chloe before the alarm buzzes to life. She reaches for it with a bare brown arm, slaps it quiet, turns on her bedside lamp, yawns and nestles against me.
“I dreamed again,” she says.
I hug her and say, “Of hunting?”
Chloe shrugs. “What else?”
“I couldn’t sleep before,” I say. “I went outside. Those damn idiots had a patrol boat out at that hour—just yards from our island. They need to look someplace else. No one here has done any of the things that have driven them all so crazy. . . .”
“And no one has accused us of anything,” Chloe laughs. “They’re patrolling everywhere.”
“You can laugh all you want to. Yesterday when I was dropping Henri off at school, some guy snapped a picture of us. By the time I tied up the boat and got off he was gone. I asked the school about it. No one had any idea who it was.”