by Aaron Crash
“Those aren’t the rules,” Skylar protested. “Cassius Pine is dead. Steven Drokharis is now the legal owner of this Aerie. In the eyes of the Dragonsouls—”
“I am not a Dragonsoul!” Rahaab roared. He breathed out ShadowFire. It was only because another of the females cast a shield spell that Skylar wasn’t roasted down to her bones. Dark flames licked around the rectangle of rose-colored energy protecting her until Rahaab breathed in again. “I am Rahaab. I am of the Alpheros. I care nothing for the rules of humans and half-breeds.”
He calmed himself. Why had he lost control? Was he afraid? Was that why he was lashing out in anger? Yes, he was. Despite his army and his traps and his magic, the Drokharis child and his wretched destiny were coming for him. Rahaab would control his fear. He wasn’t dead yet.
Skylar fell to her knees, breathing hard. Two of her sister-wives ran in front of her. Others flanked her. They were clearly a tight team.
“Don’t toy with us.” Skylar stood, regaining her confidence. She pushed her way through the two women protecting her. “If you’re going to kill us, do it. If you’re going to let us go, well, do that.”
“Why should I?” Rahaab asked. “Why would I let you go? You belong to Drokharis now. You are my enemy. If we don’t kill you now, we’d have to kill you later. I was taught to do unpleasant work first.”
“At this stage, we are not aligned with anyone.” Skylar swallowed hard and the scales on her throat moved. She breathed, mouth open, showing her rows of fangs. “You said it yourself. Neither Steven Drokharis nor any of his ambassadors have come forward. It’s only been a few hours since Cassius was killed, though. I’m sure he’ll show up. If you let us go, we will keep ourselves hidden until after the fight. When you kill the kid, you get us.”
Rahaab coughed out laughter. “You said ‘when’ and not ‘if.’ I find that humorous. And I don’t want you and your kind. I’ll find some other half-breed dragon creature to rule the two Primacies. Raising up some Ronin would be easy enough. Or there are the Dragonlords of surrounding Primacies, Clete Sariah of the Deseret Primacy, for example. I’ve not spoken with Clete for some time now, but he wouldn’t mind more territory, I’m sure. Scotty Ortiz of the Sonoran Desert Primacy might be an interesting choice. Lawrence Candler of the Farmlands is fat, and fat men like having more and more. Any one of them could be your new husband.”
A gold-and-black scaled Homo Draconis stepped forward. She looked sleek and deadly and her eyes blazed with power. Her chest was blackened and wounded raw from one of his wives’ ChromaticFury. This was Nikki Angel, a real warrior by her looks and defiance. “What if we don’t want a new husband? What if we want take over the Rocky Mountain Primacy ourselves?”
Rahaab shrugged. “You’d better find help or become far more powerful. No male in North America would let you alone until you were ruled. In the end, I don’t care. I think my best option is to kill you now.”
“I swear on my soul,” Skylar burst out. “We won’t come after you. We’ll wait. We won’t contact Drokharis. Please. You are not our enemy.”
Rahaab considered her words. He liked her fear and desperation. “Of course you are not my enemy. I have no peer. And yet, I would be a fool to trust you. I have you down on your knees before me. It’s time for you to die.”
Nikki Angel leapt forward, shifting into a dragon. She struck Rahaab with her claws and latched onto his neck with her fangs. And yet, she couldn’t pierce his hide. Nothing could. Not claw. Not sword, no matter how magical. No arrow. No spear. No bullet. Only one thing could destroy an Alpheros, and that was secret magic that he had kept safe for fifty thousand years.
Yet, her attack drew his forces to him, to protect him. Fools! His Dragonskins raced forward and fired arrows. His three wives jumped into action and flew over to rip the wings off Nikki Angel. But she didn’t relent. She shifted from biting to breathing fire, lightning, poisonous gas, cold, and ShadowFire onto Rahaab at point-blank range.
He laughed at her, at her insipid struggles. The other five widows had taken to the skies, their speed enhanced with SerpentGrace, their wings bolstered by DragonStrength. They escaped because of Nikki Angel’s sacrifice.
Wingless, filled with arrows, blasted with a variety of Exhalants, Nikki Angel fell to her knees in front of him. She’d been so damaged she returned to her monkey form. A raven-haired woman with shredded skin, she spat blood out of her mouth.
“Kill me,” she muttered.
Rahaab picked her up with his giant hands, a mere insect in his claws. He raised her broken body to his eyes. “Death comes to all. Even me. But the pain I will milk from you will be unique to you and me. You will die eventually, but afterwards, I will fill your form with such power and magic that your legacy will be a story dragons will tell each other for generations.”
Nikki Angel closed her eyes, unconscious. He carefully laid her little body down onto the pine needles. His three wives clustered in close. “Heal her enough to bring her out of her stupor. I will take care of the rest.”
His wives agreed and pulled her away.
Rahaab returned to the mansion. He mashed it down until it was more bed than throne. He would sleep some more. Then he would continue to keep his eyes on Mouse, to mark her and the Drokharis child’s movements.
As for Steven? He would come. They would fight. If Rahaab won, he would kill the last true enemy he would ever have. If fate allowed.
And if Stefan’s son’s destiny was to rule Earth and the heavens?
Rahaab would die. The relief he felt surprised him. To be dead. To be gone. To be free from the flesh and thoughts of his long existence.
He would die. But then so would the blue-green gem, Earth. In time.
After watching what the violent primates had done to the planet, maybe that would be for the best.
Chapter Twenty-Three
AT THREE IN THE MORNING, in the Big Timber motel, Steven woke up and left his bed. Tessa had been clinging to him, and damn, she was hot. In more ways than one. When he’d gotten up, Tessa had moved over to snuggle up with Aria. Mouse, Sabina, and Liam were all asleep in their own rooms.
Steven moved to the window and saw someone out in the parking lot near their mustard-colored, rusted-out Suburban. It was Mouse, smoking. He wondered if she was okay, and he knew what he had to do.
First Tessa, and now Mouse. The parking lot was becoming like a therapist’s couch.
This time when he walked out to the parking lot in his shirt and pants, he put on socks and cheap high-tops. The air was a tad nippy. June be damned, this was Montana. The night smelled of the grass and cattle, and a slight breeze came sweeping across the plain. The mountains slept in the distance, waiting for the dawn.
Mouse watched him come, cigarette dangling from her lips. She’d bought a touristy Montana sweatshirt with mountains and elk and shit on the front. That was dorky, but even worse were the maroon sweatpants with JUICY on the butt. Pink fuzzy socks covered her feet.
The Slayer Blade was stuck in the ground next to the edge of the parking lot. The sword rested. No green fire.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Steven asked.
Mouse shot him a finger gun. “Give the man a prize. I’d volunteer, but then, you’ve spent the last few hours banging Aria and Tessa. They’re going to be walking funny for a week.”
“Jealous?” Steven was feeling reckless.
“Dragonsouls aren’t much for jealousy.” Mouse sighed. “The thing is, battle brings us together, and you have your Dragonsoul Prime voodoo to keep me close. I don’t feel brainwashed, but I probably am. I don’t care. I love you. The other girls tolerate me. It’s fine.”
“Tessa loves you,” Steven pointed out. “Aria does too. As for me, if you want, we could go back to your room because you’re looking good.”
Mouse lifted her arms and twirled. “Do you like my Dollar Store haute couture?” She turned and showed him her butt. “Juicy. That’s classy, right there. You can’t resist my juicy ass, can you?”
Steven chuckled. “I can’t. You know that.”
“Funny, I grew up wearing any clothes I wanted. I bought a new outfit every week. I looked awesome. I felt miserable. Now? I don’t care what I look like, and the clothes we’re finding in these tiny little towns are so frumpy, but I’ve never been happier. Well, I’m not happy, being hunted, fighting all the time, dueling with legends, but you know what I mean.”
Mouse fell quiet. She took a drag and breathed out the smoke. She wasn’t saying anything. Steven didn’t like her silence.
“So, what are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”
Mouse shrugged and touched the Slayer Blade. “I was just thinking about my sword. What if I can use it to kill Rahaab?”
“That’s a big if,” Steven said. “I think our only chance is to use abilities off the Mirror-Souled Dragon skill tree. Once we find Mathaal, he’ll tell us what we need to know.”
Mouse took the sword from the ground and swept it through the air. “Do you know why I brought this out to keep me company on my smoke break?”
“Tell me.”
“Because any Dragonsoul in the world can find me. I’m a fucking blinking light. It’s stupid. I should’ve gotten re-inked.”
“No,” Steven said. “You’re the invitation to come and try us. We have Sabina casting divination spells, and when she’s not, Liam is. If someone comes at us, we’ll know. And we’ll show them we’re not to be fucked with.”
“It’s only a matter of time before Rahaab attacks us himself, along with his Trinity of Death Wives or whatever.” Mouse frowned.
“Good,” Steven said. “Let him come. I’d rather we get the fight over with him sooner rather than later. But he’s being careful. I think he wants me to come for him. With Edgar Vale, with Rhaegen Mulk, they all tried to ambush us. And we ended them.”
“Tough talk.” Mouse pressed the hilt of the sword to her lips. “And we are tough. But Rahaab, he’s a different thing. He’s ancient. He’s the big granddaddy of all Dragonsouls. I can’t lose you guys ... I’m even growing partial to our Latina Cassandra. Sabina came on to me, and I told her that I didn’t bat for that team. She’s a horny one, but she’s being careful with her heart. That’s why she’s not jumping into bed with you. That’s smart of her.”
Steven knew Mouse was dancing around what she really wanted to talk about. “Mouse, what’s going on. Really?”
“Nothing. I just couldn’t sleep.”
Steven went forward and took the Slayer Blade out of her hands. When she looked away, he tilted her face up to him. “You’re lying to me. Right to my face. Look me in the eye and say nothing is bothering you.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Everything is bothering me. I’m terrified. I’m pissed off. I thought I’d feel better after hacking up Cassius Pine, but I don’t. I want this over. But before that happens, I’m going to wind up alone. Sabina saw it. Mulk left me alone a lot. I always felt so fucking weak and lonely.”
She fell into his arms, and Steven held her. He expected her to sob, but she didn’t. She pressed her face against his chest and kept sighing, over and over.
“Come on, Mouse. Let’s go back to bed.”
“I’m not in the mood for sex,” she said. “Can you just hold me while I fall asleep?”
“I can,” he whispered.
Back in the hotel, in Mouse’s room, they stripped and curled up together on one of the double beds. In the darkness, Steven realized what Mouse was planning.
“Don’t go after Rahaab alone,” he said. “We don’t know if the Slayer Blade will do anything to him. Promise me you’ll wait for us to attack him together.”
But she didn’t. She was sleeping, or at least pretended to be.
Steven sighed. He hated that the women of his Escort were afraid. For the millionth time, he swore to himself that he would make things better for his wives. He would change the Dragonsoul culture forever. Their real enemy was fear. And how do you kill fear? You stop being afraid.
At five, he was done trying to sleep. He slipped out of bed and got out the third volume. Mouse turned over on her side and kept on breathing evenly. At the desk, Steven opened his father’s third grimoire and went to the pages encrypted with Mathaal’s thoughts. What he saw made him smile. He would let Mouse sleep a bit longer, but he was going to wake up everyone else.
Sabina had beaten him to it. She was packed, had Liam up and packing, and had even roused Tessa and Aria. Steven found the barista in front of the little coffee maker in her room. She ripped open the package with the little sachet of coffee in the plastic tray. She tapped the tray. “See this? It’s a coffin for dead coffee. This is where coffee goes to die. It’s not real coffee. It’s undead coffee. We’re talking coffee zombies here.”
“You are being way too loud,” Aria grumbled from the bed.
“Up and at ’em,” Steven said. “I have a lead on where Mathaal is.”
That threw Aria into action.
Tessa, sleepy-eyed, hair mussed, didn’t move from where the machine burbled and hissed. “That’s good news, Steven, but it’s not helping me with my post-apocalyptic coffee situation.”
The cheap caffeine finally got them all moving, and they packed themselves into the Suburban. It smelled like cigarettes, lots of cigarettes, years of smoke and mold, and there was animal hair snarled into the carpet.
Mouse made a face.
“Yes, it smells,” Liam said. “And it gets about two point five miles per gallon. From all accounts, it also burns oil. On the plus side, it has about half a million miles under its hood.”
“How is that good news?” Steven asked.
“If it’s run for five hundred thousand miles, it should run well enough for a few hundred more.”
Steven wasn’t too sure of that. He drove. Tessa rode shotgun, smiling brightly as they took off with smoke pluming out behind them.
In the back seat, Mouse grumbled, dark glasses on her face. Sabina sat quietly next to her. In the very back of the Suburban, Aria gazed out the window while Liam slept.
They raced down I-90 toward the rising sun.
“Okay,” Steven said. “Basically, the journal said that the woman had gone into the Nye Trading Post. Only one Nye in Montana and it’s in the Beartooth Mountains near the Stillwater River.”
“The road trip continues!” Tessa pulled out her phone. She connected it to an old cassette tape converter that acted as a line into the stereo. “Okay, give me your ultimate road trip songs. I have data, and I have Spotify, and I’m not afraid to use them. Hit me and I’ll play that funky music, white boy.”
“The sounds of silence,” Mouse said.
“Simon and Garfunkel, good choice,” Tessa replied. “But wouldn’t ‘America’ be better?”
Mouse dipped her sunglasses. “First of all, I mean actual silence. Secondly, the Disturbed cover is so much better. Thirdly, if anyone mentions anything classic rock I will be physically ill.”
“Bruce Springsteen. ‘Born to Run,’” Sabina put in. “No, wait, ‘Racing in the Street.’”
“You’re sitting next to me, Hellen Keller,” Mouse shot back. “You get the puke first.”
“Shield spell.” Sabina patted her leg. “And I’m only a third Hellen Keller. I can hear and talk, so that’s not right.”
“A third of Hellen Keller?” Mouse wondered. “Maybe. But you are a hundred percent Salma Hayek playing Nostradamus as a stripper in a direct-to-video movie which didn’t even make it to Netflix.”
Steven had to laugh. That was funny. Tessa snorted. “I can see it. But we’re getting off track. Steven, best road trip song.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “My dirtbag adopted father was an actual rambling gambler. So I guess I’ll go with another cover, ‘House of the Rising Sun’ by Five Finger Death punch.”
“Nice.” Tessa turned around. “Aria?”
Aria smiled widely. “I know my favorite. It’s the complete soundtrack to Mohabbatein. It’s a mov
ie about a music school in India, and it did very well. I love it. Some have said it reminds them of Dead Poet’s Society, but more drums, violins, and dance numbers.”
Another round of laughter broke out in the big Suburban.
“Liam?” Tessa asked. “Do you want to add anything? Or are you sleeping?”
“I’m trying to sleep,” the Yellow Ronin said in an exasperated voice. “But if pressed, I will say ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ by Richard Wagner. If that is too popular, the train songs of Jimmie Rodgers, and if I can only choose one song, it would be ‘Train Whistle Blues.’”
“Obviously too popular!” Tessa laughed. “My choice? Either ‘Stacy’s Mom’ by Fountains of Wayne or “Drive” by Halsey. Then again, if it’s night, just put on Halsey and Lana del Rey and let them play and play, especially if you’re driving through a city.”
Steven crinkled his nose. “Uh, what?”
Aria piped up. “No, since we are in a car, I choose ‘We Own It’ off the Fast & Furious 6 soundtrack, also known as Furious 6 or Fast Six.”
“Wait, what?” It was Tessa’s turn to be confused. “You like those movies?”
“Yes. I had a crush on Lettie. I said that right? A crush?” Aria asked.
“Yes, a crush,” Tessa answered.
“Now I know why you like me,” Sabina said softly. “Though I am more Salma Hayek than Michelle Rodriguez.”
Steven, though, was baffled. “‘Stacy’s Mom’?”
“Yeah, so? It’s music. There are no wrong answers.” Tessa leaned over and kissed his cheek. She whispered in his ear. “And I hope some young horny boy chases after me when I’m older.”
“That boy would be me, chasing after you, no matter how MILF-y you get,” Steven said.
They had to get gas in Columbus, so they stopped at the Town Pump, which included the Coffee Connection. Tessa loved that. Steven’s Escort and Liam walked into the convenience store while Steven pumped the gas.
Mouse, though, turned back around. She opened the back and grabbed a small bag and the Slayer Blade. She came over. “Do you know what song I really like?” Mouse asked.