Fang and Claw: Nocturne Academy, Book 2

by Anderson, Evangeline

  I tried to push that awful little voice away, but it didn’t want to go. It kept tormenting me as my captors dragged me down the long marble hallway, taking me who-knew-where for who-knew-what purposes.

  I had never been more terrified in my life—except for the night of The Fire. And even then, there had been people with me who loved me. Now I was all alone and I had no idea what to do or what would become of me.

  I was trapped with no way out.

  94

  Kaitlyn

  I had no idea where we were going until I saw a familiar arching doorway up ahead. My captors were dragging me back to where I’d been earlier that night—back to the Feasting Hall, for some reason.

  They opened the door and pushed me into the vast, echoing space ahead of them. The tall stone Drake tables were still set up, lining the four walls of the room, and chained to the furthest one was Ari. His mother and father were chained to another table and even little Jalli was there, also chained up. I could see by the tear-tracks on her pale cheeks that she’d been crying but she was quiet now—they all were—until Ari saw me.

  “L’lorna!” he cried and strained against his bonds to no avail. I wondered why he didn’t simply turn into his Drake—for that matter, why didn’t his father do the same? Was there something stopping them? Some magical spell or maybe just the thick metal manacles they wore around their wrists?

  Had the people who had captured me decided to chain Ari and his family up and hold a kind of intervention to talk about what a bad queen I would make? If so, there was no better way to force them to listen than to take away their ability to shift into their Drakes.

  The answers came soon enough when the man who was holding me came around so I could see his face. It was Chamberlain Sanchez and beside him was his son, Pedro.

  I hadn’t seen Pedro since he’d been expelled from Nocturne Academy for hurting me by hitting me in the face with a football but the blue outline of Megan’s handprint on his cheek was unmistakable.

  “Pedro?” I looked at him uncertainly and he glared back, baring his teeth at me.

  “Hello, puta,” he said and slapped me hard, across the face.

  I heard Ari’s angry roar as my head rocked back and stars exploded in my field of vision.

  “That’s for getting me marked,” Pedro snarled and slapped me again, across the other cheek. “And that’s for getting me expelled.” Another slap which almost didn’t hurt because I was so numb from the first one. “And that’s one just because I feel like it.” He laughed and spit on the marble floor at my feet.

  I felt cold now—cold and sick inside. On the other side of the vast room, Ari was still fighting the heavy metal manacles and roaring that he would kill Sanchez for daring to strike his L’lorna. Ari’s father raised his voice as well.

  “How dare you do this to your Alpha and his family, Sanchez?” he thundered. “Knowing that the punishment for such disrespect is death?”

  “I dare because you’re not going to be the Alpha for long.” The Senior Sanchez gave Ari’s father a cruel smile. “You and your family have ruled the Sky Lands for long enough—it’s time for fresh blood. I and the rest of the Chamberlains agree.”

  He nodded at the group of men standing with him and I recognized them as the same ones I had seen when Ari’s Drake had first brought me into the palace.

  Understanding dawned on me. This wasn’t just a kidnapping or an intervention—it was a coup. Sanchez had convinced some of the other Drakes to back him and he planned to murder the entire Reyes family—even little Jalli—and take the throne for himself.

  I felt sick to my stomach. Oh God, how horrible! And what were we going to do?

  “Don’t do this!” Ari’s mother looked pale and Jalli, who was chained beside her, had started to cry. “You know you cannot spill innocent blood without incurring bad luck and the wrath of the Goddess. If you kill us all—”

  “Oh, we aren’t going to kill you all, Maria,” Sasha Sanchez purred, coming out from behind another one of the huge tables. “We’re going to keep this one.” She pointed at me. “Just as soon as she proves that the Blind Crone’s words are true. You see,” she continued, glaring at Ari’s mom. “That little puta your son chose as his L’lorna got my son shame-marked.”

  “Kaitlyn never—” Ari began but Sasha Sanchez didn’t let him finish.

  “Look at him!” she shrieked, pulling Pedro forward and pointing to the blue handprint on his cheek. “Look at his face! Do you think any girl will have him now—will want to tame his Drake and be his L’lorna? No!”

  “Which is why I’ll be taking your L’lorna, ex-Alpha-to-be,” Pedro snarled, smiling nastily at Ari. “She’s not much to look at, I admit, but if she’s really got a Drake inside her and she’s going to be the mother of a new race, well then, my name will go down in history as the male who bred her!”

  “Leave her alone.” Ari’s voice had gone low and deadly now and his eyes were glowing the murderous gold of his Drake. “I swear to the Goddess, Sanchez, if you touch one hair on Kaitlyn’s head I and my Drake will make you pay and pay and pay.”

  “Shut up,” the Senior Sanchez said rudely. “Your threats don’t scare us, boy. Your Drake is locked up tight and so is your Sire’s—you’ve got nothing left to bargain with.” He turned to me. “All right, enough talk. Let’s see what you’ve got girl.”

  “Wh-what I’ve got?” I stood there, trembling and uncertain.

  “You know what he means!” Sasha Sanchez came up to me and glared into my eyes. “Go on—shift!” she screamed at me so loudly that I started backwards and nearly fell. “Show us your Drake!”

  “I don’t have a Drake!” I gasped, taking another step back from her. “Please, I don’t know what the, uh, Blind Crone was talking about. I wanted to tell everyone the truth but I couldn’t.”

  Pedro Sanchez looked at me in disgust.

  “So it was all a lie—something they paid that blind old bitch to say in order to make the people accept a non-Drake as their queen.”

  “I don’t know about that.” His mother was eyeing me in a crafty, speculative way I didn’t like a bit. “The Blind Crone could not be bought—and she was never wrong, though sometimes you had to interpret her words. What did the prophecy say now?” She closed her eyes and recited from memory.

  “Drake Flame cannot Harm her

  Drake Fire will but warm her.

  She cannot be Burned

  When her Lesson is Learned”

  Her husband frowned.

  “What are you saying, Sasha?”

  “Only that perhaps this little puta won’t be able to let her Drake out until she learns the lesson that we are serious,” Pedro’s mother said, frowning. “And since the Blind Crone specifically said that Drake Flame cannot harm her, I think we ought to put her to the Trial of Flame.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but the Trial of Flame sounded like a really, really bad thing. And the shocked and horrified look on Ari’s face didn’t do anything to make me feel better, either.

  “You can’t do this,” he said hoarsely. “Kaitlyn is telling the truth—she has no Drake within her to bring out with the power of flame! You’ll only succeed in killing her!”

  “We shall see about that.” Chamberlain Sanchez motioned to the other men he had brought with him. “Out of your robes and shift. We need at least four males with the hottest flame possible to peel away the skin and release the girl’s inner Drake.”

  Oh God, I really didn’t like the sound of this! I felt sick and my knees were weak. I wanted to run but where could I go? I was literally surrounded by people who apparently wanted to burn me alive. Also, I couldn’t leave Ari and his family to die—though I had no better idea of how to get them free than I did of how to free myself.

  All around me the Chamberlains the Senior Sanchez had recruited for his evil coup shed their robes and began to shift into their Drakes. None of them, I noticed numbly, had the power to shift as smoothly and quickly
as Ari did. Their transformations were grotesque—their faces and frames swelling and bulging, growing scales and tales and snouts and talons, until at last four huge Drakes surrounded me.

  Now I understood why they had decided to do this in the Feasting Hall—they wanted to be in a part of the palace large enough to accommodate their Drakes when they shifted. And now those same Drakes were going to burn me with their fire—presumably to make my own, nonexistent Drake come out.

  “Get ready,” Sanchez—who had remained in human form commanded them. “We’ll push her to the center of the room and then you’ll all breathe flame as one. If that doesn’t release her inner Drake, nothing will.”

  “Wait!” Ari’s voice rang out and I saw that he was staring at the older Sanchez. “Wait, Sanchez—you cannot refuse me the right to say goodbye to my L’lorna,” he said.

  “I told you, Reyes, she’s not your L’lorna anymore—she’s mine,” Pedro Sanchez sneered. “Or she will be if she survives the Trial of Flame. If not…” He shrugged. “Then I guess she’ll just be a grease spot on the floor.”

  Ari’s face was pale but his voice was steady as he spoke—not to Pedro but to Pedro’s Father and Mother.

  “You know that if you take my L’lorna and kill me, my soul will haunt you and your son all your days and bring bad luck to your family for seven times seven generations. You know it is true!”

  Pedro Sanchez sneered at this but I thought his mother and father looked distinctly uneasy. But the older Sanchez clearly wasn’t about to let his superstition get in the way of his ambition.

  “Shut your mouth, boy—you don’t scare us!” he barked.

  But Ari kept talking, still staring steadily into the older man’s eyes.

  “Only give me a little time to bid farewell to my L’lorna and I swear I will not curse you or haunt you. My spirit will ascend to the Sky above the Sky Lands and leave your family in peace. Please, just give me a chance to say goodbye.”

  The Senior Sanchez seemed to hesitate a moment but finally he gave a sharp nod of his head.

  “All right—but I won’t be unchaining you. You’ll have to bid her farewell as you are.”

  Ari nodded as though that suited him.

  “Let her come to me.”

  “Go, girl!” One of the traitorous Chamberlains who had remained in human form gave me a shove, right between my shoulder blades that nearly sent me sprawling. I tripped over my long robe and managed to catch myself just in time to keep from falling over.

  As soon as I found my feet, I ran to Ari, who was chained with his muscular arms manacled above his head in a wide V.

  “Ari!” I whispered, standing on tiptoes to throw my arms around his neck. “Ari, I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have shouted at you the way I did. I love you too—I swear I do!”

  Because this awful situation had finally broken through the last barrier standing between us. Now that I knew I was going to lose him—now that I knew we were both going to die—I understood, too late, that I did love him. I saw how I had let my own self-doubt and loathing hold me back from the true happiness he had offered me. If only I had been able to recognize it earlier! But now it was too late…too late…

  “Oh Kaitlyn, my L’lorna…” Ari nuzzled me as well as he could, pressing his face to my hair. “I love you too,” he murmured, “So much. But we don’t have time for this now—you must drink from my Drake.”

  “What?” I pulled back, my vision pink from the tears of remorse I’d been crying. “What do you mean?” I asked him. “How can I drink from your Drake when you can’t shift into him?”

  “These bruja-cursed manacles are keeping me from a complete shift,” he said. “But I think I can still manage a partial one. Look.”

  Tilting his head to one side, he offered me his vein as he so often had. Only this time instead of smooth, caramel-colored skin, I saw royal purple scales with an emerald sheen. He had indeed managed a partial shift and the vein I saw pulsing beneath the patch of scales was much bigger and thicker than the one he usually presented to me—it was clearly his Drake’s.

  “Bite me—bite my Drake, Kaitlyn,” Ari murmured to me. “Do it quickly—we don’t have much time.”

  I didn’t ask any more questions. Pressing my face to his neck as though I was crying again, I felt the itching in my fangs. The moment they grew long and sharp, I plunged them into the thick Drake vein I saw before me.

  Immediately the Drake’s blood gushed into my mouth like liquid gold. Had I thought that Ari’s blood was like a fine wine? Well drinking from his Drake was like tasting the finest, sweetest, strongest liquor ever distilled. It was like drinking pure, liquid sunshine—like drinking fire that didn’t burn me but somehow changed me inside, transforming me in a way I didn’t understand.

  “That’s right, L’lorna,” I heard Ari murmuring in my ear as I swallowed the sweet, strong, heady stuff. “Drink your fill. Every vessel in your body must be filled with my Drake’s blood. Drink until you can hold no more.”

  The strong jets of blood pumped by the unseen Drake’s heart filled my mouth as fast as I could swallow. I drank thirstily from the gushing fountain, obeying his command to completely satiate my thirst.

  At last, when I had enough, I pulled back and looked up at Ari. I was surprised to see that the blood which still trickled from the patch of purple and green scales really was golden—as golden as his Drake’s eyes.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “And thank your Drake for me. I feel stronger now—not so afraid.”

  “We’re not done yet,” Ari murmured. “And we must be quick—Sanchez and his brood are getting restless.” He nodded over my shoulder and a quick look showed that the Sanchez family was indeed tapping their feet and frowning at us, as though wondering what was taking so long.

  “What else can we do?” I asked uncertainly. “Is there some way I can get you free of these?” I looked doubtfully up at the chains.

  But Ari shook his head.

  “Bite your thumb before your fangs retract,” he told me, just as he had when he’d wanted me to mark him.

  “But…I’ve already marked you, Ari,” I protested. Nevertheless, I brought my thumb surreptitiously to my mouth and pierced the pad of it with one still-elongated fang. I looked at him. “All right—now what?”

  “Now put your thumb to my mouth,” he directed in a low voice. “I’ll make it look like I’m kissing your hand.”

  Still uncertain about what he meant to do, I put my bleeding thumb to his lips and watched as he kissed it tenderly. At the same time, I felt his warm tongue sweep across the pad of my thumb, licking away the little droplet of blood.

  “Good,” he said after I pulled my thumb away. “I’ve had your blood and you’ve had mine. Now repeat after me—‘Blood of my blood and breath of my breath, nothing can part us now except death.’”

  As he spoke the words a ripple of power seemed to flow out of him and into me. It shocked me and I almost jumped back. I remembered where I had felt something like that before—it was like when we had marked each other. That had been a much more obvious display of power—this was more subtle, but even stronger.

  “What is this?” I asked him uncertainly. “What are you doing?”

  “Blood-bonding you to me,” Ari said evenly. “Say the words, Kaitlyn—bond me to you as well.”

  “But…” I didn’t know a whole lot about Blood-Bonding, though I knew much more than I had before Megan and Griffin had bonded each other. I knew it tied a couple together for life but wasn’t it also true that if one of them died, they would drag the other down with them into death?

  “Ari,” I said, frowning. “If we get Blood-Bonded and they…they burn me to death…” I could scarcely get the words out and it took me a minute to continue. “If we do that then you’ll die when I die, won’t you?”

  “Yes.” He gave me an intense look. “Yes, Kaitlyn, my L’lorna—I don’t want to live if you die. So bond me to you now!”

  “I don’t want to ta
ke your life in some kind of Romeo and Juliette lover’s pact!” I exclaimed in a low voice. “I don’t want to kill you with my death, Ari.”

  “Dios!” He looked frustrated. “Don’t you understand? I’m dead anyway. Sanchez plans to kill me and my entire family. If you Bond me to you, at least I can help you bear the pain when they put you to the Trial of Flame. Please, Kaitlyn…” He looked into my eyes again. “Please, just say the words.”

  I couldn’t resist his plea any longer. And I knew that if we were both going to die, I wanted to do it bound to the man I loved. I took a deep breath.

  “All right, that’s enough! You’ve had your time to say goodbye,” a voice behind me said and rough hands grabbed me by the shoulders and started dragging me backwards.

  “No!” Ari’s eyes went wide and golden. “Say it, Kaitlyn!” he begged me. “Say the words!”

  “Blood of my blood and breath of my breath, nothing can part us now except death!” I cried, giving him what he wanted as the men dragged me away.

  Another wave of power—this one much stronger and more obvious—rippled through the room like a crashing wave. For a moment the entire huge marble Feasting Hall seemed to tremble. People stumbled and nearly lost their footing—some actually fell over.

  Pedro Sanchez, who had fallen to his knees, looked around with an expression of stupid surprise on his lumpish face.

  “Dios! What just happened?”

  It was his mother who figured it out.

  “The fools just Blood-Bonded themselves together!” she spat, glaring angrily at Ari and me. She rounded on her husband. “Mierda! I knew letting them have time together was a bad idea!”

  “Callate, woman,” the older Sanchez growled irritably. “It doesn’t matter if they’re bonded or not.”

  “Yes, it does, idiota!” she snapped. “For now if the girl turns out to be valuable, we can’t kill the Reyes brat without risking her life too! And how can she become L’lorna to our son if she is bonded to another?”