Fang and Claw: Nocturne Academy, Book 2

by Anderson, Evangeline

  “I said shut up!” he snarled at her and for a minute, I really thought he might slap her. He seemed to restrain himself only by force of will. “If it turns out she has a Drake inside, we’ll bring her to the same bruja who spelled the manacles for us—she can break the bond. And if she doesn’t have a Drake and fails the Trial of Flame, well then…” He shrugged. “Then that’s one less Reyes we have to kill.” And he nodded meaningfully at Ari, who was glaring back at him with glowing, golden eyes.

  His wife still didn’t look happy but she finally stopped talking about the new Blood Bond between me and Ari.

  “Fine.” Her words were terse and she crossed her arms over her chest tightly. “Then let the Trial of Flame begin.”

  “You heard your new queen!” Sanchez bellowed at the men who were holding me. “Push the girl out into the middle of the floor. And you…” He looked up at the four Drakes—one green, one yellow, one blue, and one orange—who had arranged themselves in the four corners of the large square space between the feasting tables. “Be ready with your flames. Hit the girl with everything you’ve got the minute they drop their hands.”

  Four huge heads nodded and then the two men holding me were dragging me forward, into the middle of the white marble floor. And I do mean dragging because my legs had suddenly gone weak with fear and I couldn’t seem to make them move properly.

  The Fire—The Fire! screamed a little voice inside my head. And I also heard the voice of the Blind Crone saying, “Beware, child—The Fire isn’t finished with you yet.”

  I had nearly been burned to death before—it had cost both my parents’ lives to save me. Had I only cheated death for a little while? Was this really how my life was destined to end? Burned to a crisp by Drake flames in a far distant land where I didn’t belong?

  I hated to say it, but the answer was looking like a very definite yes.

  95

  Ari

  My heart was pounding as I strained against the manacles that held me. All of my attention was fixed on Kaitlyn as they pushed her to the center of the room to meet her fate.

  Kaitlyn…L’lorna! How I longed to be with her! To shelter her from the coming flame! She was Blood-Bonded to me now, so she would have been immune to the flames of my own Drake. Unfortunately, that immunity wouldn’t carry over to the flames of another.

  I could feel her fear and dread through our newly formed bond, just as I would soon feel her pain and anguish. I set my teeth, prepared to take as much of the pain as I could from her. Watching the female I loved be burned to death would be terrible but if I could take the pain for her—if I could bring her anguish into myself instead of letting her experience it—I thought I might bear it without going completely mad.

  My Drake, however, was strangely calm and quiet within me. I would have expected him to be spreading his wings and thrashing to get free, as he first had when they had placed the damn manacles on me to keep him contained. But now that Kaitlyn had drunk of his blood, he seemed almost tranquil—so quiet I wondered if he had gone to sleep.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I demanded of him. “They have Kaitlyn and they’re going to burn her!”

  “She has taken my vein and had her fill of my blood,” he replied in that same tranquil tone I couldn’t understand.

  He had been most insistent on this earlier, and I had obeyed his wishes, though I didn’t understand them. And now that Kaitlyn had drunk from him, he seemed content—though I didn’t see how he could be. There was no way she could survive the coming ordeal.

  The Trial of Flame is something every Drake male must go through on his tenth name-day—or his fifteenth if his Drake hasn’t manifested by age ten. Whichever age he is, the test is always the same. He has to stand in the center of a circle of adult Drakes and allow their flame to wash over him to prove his worth. The heat of the flames causes his own Drake to break forth automatically to protect him. In this way boys whose Drakes are late to manifest are often made to shift for the first time.

  But Kaitlyn had no Drake to shift to—she had no second nature within herself. I was certain if she had, I would have felt it when we Bonded. You can’t hide something as big as a whole other creature you share your body with from the person you are Blood-Bonded to—it simply isn’t possible.

  So I knew what was going to happen when the Drakes started shooting flames at her. She was going to go up like a torch, right before my eyes.

  And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it.

  The only thing I could do was send a wave of love and devotion to her and a promise to try and take as much of the pain as I could.

  “Oh, Kaitlyn,” I thought at her. “I love you, my L’lorna. I love you forever!”

  96

  Kaitlyn

  I felt Ari sending me love and strength through our newly forged Bond and I was incredibly grateful for it. Without his love and the courage distilled in the blood of his Drake—which was flowing through me like electricity through a wire—I couldn’t have even stood upright when the men pushed me to the center of the vast marble floor and left me there.

  As it was, I forced myself to stop shaking and stood with my chin lifted and my shoulders back. I might start screaming when the flames hit me—in fact, I was pretty sure I would—being burned alive freaking hurts. But I wouldn’t beg or plead. I wouldn’t let that be Ari’s last memory of me.

  The men pushing me stepped back, out of range of the flames and I was alone. I heard Sanchez bellow an order—“Flame now!”

  I closed my eyes and waited for the end.

  But the end didn’t come.

  The Fire did, though. I felt it pouring down on me like hot rain, enveloping me, licking at me like hungry tongues, setting my hair afire with light.

  But somehow, this time, it didn’t hurt me.

  I thought of the strange dream I’d had, still back at the Academy—the dream that I was walking through The Fire unharmed, unafraid, with it lapping like friendly tongues against my skin.

  I opened my eyes and saw everything through a wavering heat haze. What was happening to me? How could I stand here in the middle of what was essentially a blast furnace fueled by the flames of four huge dragons and not be burnt to a cinder?

  I had an awful thought—maybe I was being burnt up but I couldn’t tell it because Ari was taking all the pain for me! I didn’t want that for him—didn’t want him to bear my anguish and torment just because he loved me so much.

  I looked at him through the flickering wall of orange and yellow and red but his face didn’t appear to be contorted with pain. Instead, the expression I saw in his clear amber eyes was more like stunned shock—like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Which was his L’lorna being covered in fire and yet not burning or having any pain or sensation from the flames at all.

  Well, that wasn’t quite true. My scars where The Fire had touched me before were itching, I realized. Especially the ones on my back. In fact, they were suddenly itching so badly I couldn’t stop myself from scratching them.

  Looking down at myself, I started to scratch the pinkish-white twisted burn scars on my left forearm. I dug in with the nails of my right hand—which seemed sharper than usual for some reason—and pulled down.

  I nearly screamed when a long strip of skin came right off.

  But underneath, in the area where the skin of my forearm had been, wasn’t glistening muscle or white bone—instead, I saw something so strange I could hardly believe it.

  I saw scales.

  Beautiful bronze scales with a metallic pink tint to them. It reminded me of that color they call rose-gold, only darker and richer.

  Mesmerized by my own apparent metamorphosis, I decided to scratch some more. But when I lifted my right hand, meaning to apply my nails to the skin of my left upper arm, I saw they were no longer nails at all.

  They were talons.

  Long, glistening talons like knifes at the ends of my fingers.

  But my finger
s didn’t look strictly human either.

  What’s happening to me? What’s going on?

  I had no answer but that awful itching persisted. Without thinking about it, I reached up to scratch my nose…

  And found I had a long, sleek muzzle instead.

  My hair was gone as well—replaced by a ridge of diamond-hard spines that started at the top of my head and ran in a ridge down my back.

  And speaking of my back, the itching there was reaching a point where it was nearly unbearable.

  I turned my head—finding that my neck was somehow longer now—so I was perfectly able to see my own back, which had been an impossibility before.

  And what I saw astonished me.

  My robe was burned away and my back was long and sleek and smooth—covered in the same bronze-rose scales I had seen on my forearm. There were two triangular patches on it where the scars had been that itched more than any other part of me.

  I ducked my head down, intending to scratch the two spots with my fangs, when suddenly the former scars erupted at the same time and two long, shiny things came out of them.

  I gasped in surprise, rearing my head back on my much-longer neck. The itching was gone but it had been replaced by an urge to flap.

  It was such a strange urge that I almost didn’t understand it. But when I saw the long shiny things that had sprouted from my back expanding and spreading, I suddenly understood.

  No wonder I wanted to flap—I now had wings!

  Gorgeous wings, too, I saw. Their outsides were the same bronze color as the rest of my scales but the insides were a warm glowing rose-pink, deepening to magenta towards the edges. Experimentally, I flapped them and felt my body rise a little off the floor. I did it again and realized that the wind from my wings was blowing around the little toy action figures down on the ground below me.

  Wait—action figures? These were men, I suddenly understood—the same men who had pushed me out into the middle of the room so the other Drakes could breathe flame on me. But they were tiny now—I could have picked them up in one taloned hand.

  Or maybe they weren’t tiny—maybe I was huge. Had I grown?

  I looked up at the beautiful stained-glass dome of the ceiling—the one showing the scarlet dragon breathing flames on the sky-blue background. It seemed much closer to my head than it had at the banquet that night. So close that I bet if I just flapped my wings a bit harder, I could reach it with very little effort.

  I started to do exactly that but as I began rising into the air, I heard one of the little toy men on the ground shout that I was getting away.

  “Don’t let her go!” It was the older Sanchez, bellowing for all he was worth at the four Drakes who had finally stopped shooting flames at me. “Chain her! We must keep her here!”

  Before I could move another inch, one of the Drakes threw a huge, heavy chain around my neck. I was weighed down at once—there was something besides metal in the iron links wrapped around my throat. I felt the itching tingle of magic where they touched me and it seemed to sap my strength and make me feel weak and tired.

  “Fight it, Kaitlyn!” I heard Ari shouting. Looking down, I saw that he was still in human form. He seemed so small and yet I felt in my heart that he was the most precious treasure I could ever hope to have. His fragile human form had to be protected—cherished and guarded with my life.

  Was this how Ari’s Drake felt about me, when I was in human form, I wondered? I didn’t know but I did know I had to save him and keep him safe.

  Shrugging at the heavy chain still wrapped around my throat, I reached for him, intending to snap the silly manacles that bound him with a flick of my talons. Though they had seemed so thick and un-giving when I was in my human form, now they looked as easy to break as toothpicks.

  But Sanchez saw what I was planning to do.

  “Stop her!” he shouted, gesturing wildly at me. “If she sets free the Alpha or the Alpha-to-be and we have to contend with their Drakes all is lost!”

  Another heavy chain wrapped around me—this time around the forearm I had reached out to Ari. Again I felt the itching prickle of magic, draining my strength.

  “No!” Ari shouted at me, his chest heaving with emotion. “No, Kaitlyn—don’t let them trap you! Don’t worry about me—just fly! Fly out of here and be free!”

  As if I could just go, I thought indignantly! We were Blood-Bonded—he and his Drake were part of my soul, now. I could no more leave him behind than I could leave part of my tail.

  Oh my God, I had a tail!

  It flicked forward, as though I had called it, and smacked Pedro Sanchez in the chest, sending him sprawling.

  He got up, scowling—his face as purple as a thundercloud.

  “That’s it, you fucking puta,” he snarled and then began to change.

  His Drake was green and his scales were rough—not smooth and sleek like my own, I saw with distain. Also, they lacked the royal two-toned sheen—all his scales were the same dull, grayish-green color you saw on alligators in the swamps of my home state of Florida.

  When Pedro’s Drake reached his full size, I saw with surprise and satisfaction that I still towered over him. He might be a big bully in human form but as a Drake, I held the advantage.

  He reared up at me anyway, despite our size difference, and made a swipe with his talons.

  I pulled back, snorting in anger. I had lived with scars in my human form for years—I wasn’t about to let my sleek new dragon hide be marked by his clumsy slashing.

  My tail came out again, as though it had a mind of its own, and slapped Pedro’s Drake full in the face. The force of the blow was enough to send him staggering backwards, growling angrily all the while.

  “Stop her—stop her!” Pedro’s father was shouting angrily far below my head. “See what she’s doing to my son? She must be stopped—she must be chained!”

  More of the magical chains were thrown around my body, my other forehand was restrained and then my right hind leg and my tail. Though I tried to fight the prickling magic chains, they were too heavy for me. I felt myself being dragged down by their weight—a terrible lethargy creeping into my very bones everywhere they touched me.

  “Fight it, Kaitlyn!” Ari was shouting at me. “Fight it! Fight the magic!”

  But I was so tired and I was terribly outnumbered. Some of the other Chamberlains had taken their Drake forms too—though Pedro’s own father remained human, the better to shout orders at his henchmen. The formerly vast Feasting Hall was rapidly becoming very overcrowded. It seemed that wings and talons and fangs and tails were everywhere and all of them were aimed at me.

  In the midst of all this, I was still worried about Ari and his family. They were under the protective shelter of the huge Drake tables but all it would take was the stray swipe of a tail or one misplaced taloned claw to kill any one of them.

  For the first time I became aware of how terribly vulnerable the human form was. I wanted desperately to gather the humans who were precious to me—mostly Ari but I felt for his sister and his mother too and to a much lesser degree, his father—and fly away with them. But the horrible magical chains encircling me wouldn’t let me go! In another minute I would be completely overpowered and unable to do anything but give up. But I didn’t want to do that.

  In desperation, I lifted my head to the domed glass ceiling and roared—a soul-shattering sound like nothing I had ever uttered before, that seemed to fill the entire Feasting Hall with my despair and doom. It was an expression of my hopeless state—my fear for my loved ones and my desire to keep them safe all rolled into an ear-splitting sound that seemed to come from my very heart.

  And then, to my surprise, somewhere from outside the high glass ceiling, another roar answered me.

  97

  Kaitlyn

  I looked up in amazement only to see the beautiful stained-glass window depicting a dragon shatter with a deafening crash. In place of the red dragon on the sky-blue field, a black dragon appeared. Black w
ith a blood-red sheen to his scales, I saw, and knew at once who it must be.

  Saint’s Drake was the biggest I had ever seen—even bigger than Ari’s father’s scarlet and gold-toned beast. Its roar was deafening and its glowing red eyes—like two live coals—rolled madly in its head. It was clear it wasn’t completely in its right mind, the way Ari’s Drake always was—but it certainly knew who the enemy was.

  It dived right at the older Sanchez, who saw what was coming for him too late. He started to shift but since he couldn’t change in a fraction of a second like Ari could, he had barely begun to sprout a snout when Saint’s Blood Drake bit him in half. I thought he would eat the top half of Sanchez, but he spit it to one side disdainfully, like a man eating sunflower seeds spitting out a shell.

  Sasha Sanchez let out a blood-curdling scream as she watched the bottom half of her husband fall to its knees and then slowly topple over, squirting a gaudy spray of blood all over the white marble floor. It might have been better if she hadn’t drawn attention to herself, though. The Blood Drake picked her up almost delicately in one taloned forehand and brought her up to its enormous face.

  Sasha continued screaming and then began to beat at the enormous blunt nose of the Blood Drake, shouting orders all the while.

  “Let me go, you cabron, you! I am a noblewoman of the highest house in the land! And I’m going to be queen! So let me go! Let me go!”

  The Blood Drake studied her, his head cocked to one side in an almost thoughtful attitude while it considered her tantrum. Then, with the delicacy of a chocolate connoisseur nibbling just the corner of a chocolate bar, he brought her to his enormous, fang-filled mouth and neatly bit off her head.

  He tossed the body away like a doll he was bored of and spat the head with its long, dark hair in the other direction. Then he turned to face Pedro Sanchez’s gray-green Drake, which wasn’t even half his size.