by Rachel Aaron
“The Planeswalker is famous for her humans,” David said with a shrug. “She probably loaned her to Julius to help him, because everybody helps the Nice Dragon.” He bared his teeth. “I swear, the universe itself bends over to protect his delusions.”
“Maybe it does,” Gregory said. “He is Bob’s pet project.”
“Brohomir is insane,” David replied dismissively. “Has been for centuries. Don’t waste your time worrying about him. If the human girl won’t work, we’ll just have to find a new way.”
“Why?” Gregory demanded, turning on his brother. “Why are you even doing this? Just have the stupid vote. I still don’t understand why you told me to stall it in the first place. Even with Ian’s new support, he doesn’t have enough votes to beat you. Just call it and let this be done.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m not calling it,” David said, looking down his nose at his overgrown brother. Quite the feat considering how tall Gregory was. “I can win this silly little popularity contest any time I choose, but that’s not the point. The point is that this Council shouldn’t be happening in the first place. If Julius’s vote goes smoothly, even if it goes to me, the clan’s going to start thinking the new system works. They’re going to accept this as the new way, which means I won’t have to beat Ian and his J brigade once. I’ll have to do it every five years for the rest of our lives. That’s a lot of work, Gregory, and worse, it gives the ambitious ones ideas. If they start listening to Ian and thinking this Council is their ticket to power, they’ll never go back into their rightful place on the bottom.”
“So just dissolve it,” Gregory said, frustrated. “Win the vote, get on the Council, and—”
“Of course I’m going to dissolve it,” David snapped. “That’s always been the plan. But I’m not wrecking things until I’m sure I can do better. Bethesda’s already offered me Amelia’s position as heir, but only if I make sure this Council dies and stays dead. That’s a tall order with Ian and Julius filling the lower-alphabet’s heads with dreams of power. If I’m going to stomp this foolishness down for good, it’s not enough to win a vote by a landslide. I have to prove that the entire concept of voting in a dragon clan leads to nothing but chaos and disaster.”
“That shouldn’t be hard,” Gregory said. “We’re already boxed up in this mountain like starving lions. A few more days, and there won’t be a Heartstriker left who isn’t at someone else’s throat.”
“Exactly,” David said with a smile. “For all her other flaws, Bethesda understands her children very well. She knew we’d fall on each other like dogs, and the longer we stay like this—trapped together, unable to move forward, leaderless—the lower everyone’s opinion of Julius and his ill-advised changes will sink. Even the Js will start to lose faith as they get picked off by larger dragons, because good as she is, Chelsie can’t stop everything.” He grinned wide. “By the time I actually allow the vote to take place, our family will be so desperate to go back to how things were, they won’t make a peep. They’ll welcome the dissolution of the Council and Bethesda’s return to power with open arms, and Mother will owe it all to me.”
“And you’ll owe me,” Gregory reminded him with a greedy grin. “I’m the one who stopped the vote.”
“And failed at everything else,” David growled, rolling his eyes. “But I suppose you can take comfort from the fact that you’re not the only one. The last twenty-four hours have been a carnival of failure. You’d think killing the smallest dragon in the mountain would be easy, but between Chelsie and that surprisingly observant idiot Justin, we haven’t managed to take so much as a feather off Julius’s obnoxious snout. Now you’ve let his human—”
“I already told you that was not my fault!” Gregory roared. “That girl has a monster with her! You weren’t there. You didn’t see—”
“Make excuses all you like, it’s still failure,” David said. “Fortunately for you, I’m still on the ball.”
Gregory’s scowl turned into a grin. “You have a plan?”
“I’m a politician,” David said. “I always have a plan. You won’t like it, but there’s no way you can fail this time.” A smile spread over his face as well as he reached for his phone. “It’s time to call in the big guns and permanently solve our—”
He froze, his hand stopping midway into his pocket. A second later, Gregory felt it, too: a cold stab of cringing, instinctive fear that cut right to his gut moments before Chelsie stepped out of the shadows between them.
She didn’t say anything. Didn’t do anything except stand there staring at them with her killer’s eyes. Then—slowly, languidly—she lifted her black-gloved hand and extended one finger, wagging it back and forth.
That was it. Just the silent no, no, no of her moving finger, and then she was gone, vanishing back into the deep shadows of the windowless room like smoke on the wind. When the last of her faint scent was gone, Gregory’s legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground like a dropped puppet.
“That’s it, then,” he said quietly, reaching up to wipe the fear sweat from his forehead. “If she knows, it’s over.”
“Don’t be stupid,” David said, pulling himself straight, though no amount of good posture could hide his too-pale face. “Of course she followed you. You flew down here as a dragon. But Bethesda’s Shade is not a problem. Leave her to me.”
“You?” Gregory snorted. “What can you do against Chelsie? She’s the clan enforcer, and Julius is her favorite right now. We can’t beat that.”
“But that’s the trick,” David said as he lifted his phone to his ear. “We don’t have to. Chelsie was already beaten long ago, and believe it or not, this actually plays into my new plan perfectly.”
Gregory didn’t see how Chelsie’s presence could benefit anyone. But before he could ask what his brother was planning to do, David’s call picked up, and the politician’s scowling face transformed back into his usual charismatic smile.
“Hello, Mother.”
Chapter 9
Julius had never run down stairs so fast in his life. At one point he was certain it was less running and more controlled falling, but anything that got him to Marci faster was fine with him, especially now that he could scent Gregory in the stairwell as well.
That pushed his panic even higher, and he finished the final flight in a single jump, ignoring the icy brush of Ghost against his chest as he pulled Marci into a frantic hug. “Are you okay?! Did he hurt you?”
“He tried,” Marci said cockily. “But I’m fine. Ghost and I sent him packing.” She grinned at him. “Let’s just say he won’t be messing with me again anytime soon.”
Given that he’d seen the shadows all the way up at Amelia’s, Julius had no doubt of that. The whole upper half of the mountain was probably traumatized by whatever Ghost had done to make Gregory run. As a responsible Council member, he probably should have been worried about the implications of that, but he was too relieved to care. So long as Marci was okay, all was right with Julius’s world, and the fact that she hadn’t made him stop hugging her yet only made things better. He didn’t even mind that her undead cat was still stuck between them like an angry, icy lump. So long as she was with him, he could have stayed like this forever. He was about to lean down and bury his nose in her short brown hair when he heard his brother’s heavy footsteps stop directly behind them.
“So let me get this straight,” Justin said as Julius reluctantly turned away from Marci to face him. “You”—he pointed at Marci—“and your cat”—he pointed at Ghost, who’d poked his head out right through Julius’s back like a freezing spike—“defeated Gregory, the G who made a giant show of himself yesterday by claiming that Julius wasn’t hardcore enough to run a dragon clan? That Gregory?”
“I guess?” Marci said with a shrug. “I mean, I’d never met him before, but unless there’s another dragon named—”
Justin’s whoop of laughter cut her off. The Knight of the Heartstrikers doubled over, laughing so hard tears ran dow
n his face. “Gregory,” he gasped. “Mr. ‘Terror of the Amazon,’ defeated by a little…a little girl…and her pet cat.”
“Who are you calling ‘little girl?’” Marci demanded. “I’m a year older than you are! And Ghost is not just a cat. He’s a fearsome and powerful spirit.”
“He’s fluffy.” Justin cackled. “And Gregory’s such a pompous—” He was laughing so hard he couldn’t even finish. He did, however, manage to get his phone out of the pocket of his dark jeans, his large fingers clumsily gesturing through the floating AR display between fits of laughter.
“What are you doing?” Julius asked after Justin’s third failed attempt at…whatever he was trying to do.
“What do you think?” Justin gasped, finally getting enough of a hold on himself to actually type. “I’m telling everyone. I don’t care how they feel about the vote, this is too good not to share.”
“Justin!” Julius hissed, letting Marci go in a desperate attempt to snatch his brother’s phone away. “You can’t do that!” If the mountain found out about this, Gregory would be a public laughingstock, and any hope of bringing him around peacefully would vanish forever.
But even crippled by laughter, Justin was way too fast. He easily defended his phone from Julius’s attack, holding it high above his head, a good foot out of his shorter brother’s reach. “What’s he going to do? Try again?” he asked as he watched Julius jump. “Maybe Marci could defeat him with a pony next time.” He started snickering again. “A little white pony, with a pretty pink bow in its mane.”
“Now you’re insulting everyone,” Marci said, placing Ghost, who seemed to be falling asleep in her arms, into her shoulder bag. “Just let him send the message, Julius. Gregory’s a jerk who was trying to kidnap me to get leverage on you. He deserves what he gets.”
“He’ll hold a grudge,” Julius warned. “If we humiliate him, he will never let it go.”
“I think that’s going to be the case no matter what we do,” she said with a shrug. “He doesn’t strike me as the forgive-and-forget type. But so what? If he’s stupid enough to come back, Ghost and I will just scare the feathers off him again, easy peasy.”
That was probably true, but “I don’t want there to be an again. You shouldn’t be getting attacked in the first place.” And that was all his fault. Marci would never have been in this position if he’d hadn’t dragged her—
“Would you quit it?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, Julius. I can feel you blaming yourself.”
“Because it’s my fault!” he cried. “You just said Gregory attacked you because of me!”
“Gregory attacked me because he’s a dick,” Marci said flatly. “That’s his fault, not yours.”
Julius didn’t see how that made a bit of difference. He was so tired of Marci getting hurt because of his stupid family. He never should have brought her—
“Ow!” He jumped in the air, grabbing his upper arm where Marci had just punched it. “What was that for?”
“To make you listen,” she said, glaring at him. “You keep saying this is your fault, but you’re completely forgetting the part where I wanted to come here. You think I don’t understand how dangerous this mountain is? Believe me, I get it, but what you don’t seem to realize is that we’re dangerous too. Maybe you were a weak dragon at the bottom of your clan before, but that’s not the case anymore. You don’t have to cower, Julius, and you don’t have to take responsibility for every single thing. I volunteered for this, and I think I just proved that I’m not some weak human who’s going to bring you down. Even Justin gets that. Why can’t you?”
“Hey!” Justin yelled. “What do you mean ‘even Justin?’”
“I do get it,” Julius said at the same time, ignoring him. “I’ve never thought you were weak. I just…” care for you, love you, want you to be safe, “worry.”
“And I appreciate that,” she said with a wide smile. “But I’m not going to stop doing what I need to do just because it makes you nervous. I’m not some pet you can keep safe in a tank, Julius.”
He knew that. From the very beginning, he’d steadfastly avoided thinking of Marci as his—his human, his treasure, his weapon—any of the classic draconic possessives. But while he was determined she’d never be his in the dragon sense, she was still his trusted partner, ally, and friend. For a dragon who’d grown up constantly alone and afraid, he didn’t have words for how much all of that meant to him. How could he not freak out when the consequences of his gambles landed on her head? The need to keep her safe from his mistakes was overpowering, and yet, Marci was right. Unless Julius was ready to send her away, lock her up, or give up on his push for change within his clan—none of which he was willing to do—then he was just going to have to accept that Marci would always be in danger. At this point, his only options were to continue worrying himself to death, or trust her to take care of herself.
Julius being Julius, he was sure he’d end up doing both. For now, though, he sighed in acceptance, reaching out his hand. To his continual amazement, she took it, sliding her warm fingers around his with a smile that made his heart pound.
“There,” she said happily. “Was that so hard?”
“Yes,” he muttered. “But I’ll get over it.”
“Well, you’d better do it fast,” she said, letting him go to check her phone. “Because I have to be at a meeting in town in fifteen minutes.”
Julius was so busy being disappointed that she was no longer holding his hand, he almost missed that last bit. “What meeting?”
Marci shot a poisonous look at Fredrick, who was waiting discreetly up the stairs. “While you were busy with your very important whatever it was, I got a visit from the Raven spirit.”
That got everyone’s attention.
“A spirit was here?” Justin yelled, hand going for his sword.
“He’d hardly be the first,” Marci reminded him, patting her bag where Ghost was sleeping. “But yeah. He found me less than half an hour ago to invite me to a meeting with Sir Myron Rollins!”
She was practically squeeing by the end, and Julius cursed silently. So much for his big surprise. But while he wasn’t at all shocked to hear the UN humans had gone behind his back, Raven’s involvement was a new and far more disturbing development. “So Raven is working with the UN now? Isn’t he a big spirit?”
“That was my impression,” she said, giving him an odd look. “But you don’t seem nearly as surprised about this as I’d thought you’d be.”
“That’s because he already met with the UN humans earlier this morning,” Justin said, cutting in. “The Rollins guy in particular seemed pretty interested in you.” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Is there something you want to tell us?”
Julius winced at the hostile question, but Marci’s jaw was hanging wide open. “Sir Myron Rollins was here?” she cried, whirling on Julius. “That was your important business?”
He shifted awkwardly. “Part of it.”
“And you didn’t bring me?”
He would have if Ghost hadn’t stopped him. But Julius didn’t want to cause trouble between Marci and her sleeping spirit, especially since Ghost had just saved her life, so he told her another truth instead. “I didn’t know he was that important. I just thought he was some mage the UN sent to talk to Mother about Algonquin.”
Marci gaped at him. “Sir Myron Rollins is the greatest living human mage. How do you not know about him?”
“Because I’m neither a human nor a mage,” Julius reminded her. “He wasn’t even on my radar until a few hours ago. But I still don’t understand what Raven has to do with this, or why they all seem so desperate to meet you. Not that anyone wouldn’t want to meet you, of course, but it just seems odd.”
She smirked at his quick recovery. “Well, I do have a Mortal Spirit fifty years ahead of schedule. That seems to be a pretty big deal, and Sir Myron does a lot of work with spirits. I bet he just wants to have a look. I know I would if I were in his position.”
That made sense, Julius supposed, but he couldn’t help feeling uneasy about the whole thing. Maybe he was more of a dragon than he realized, because the thought of Marci going to a meeting with people who might try to steal her away from him put his teeth on edge. Unfortunately, it was a feeling he was going to have to suck up. He’d just decided to trust Marci to handle herself. He couldn’t very well turn around now and try to convince her not to meet the mage she was having a fangirl freak-out over just because he was feeling antsy. So what if they tried to “free” her from her dragon? Marci wanted to stay with him. If they said anything about her being a dragon’s servant, she’d just laugh in their faces and set the record straight.
Right?
He clenched his fists. He trusted Marci, he really did, but it was just so hard to believe she’d pick him over someone else, especially someone as apparently famous as Myron Rollins. But just as the old insecurities started to rear their heads, Marci looked up at him again, and suddenly, Julius didn’t feel so bad. It was hard to feel like a worthless failure when she was smiling at him like he was worth everything. He had to remember that she’d had a choice, and she’d chosen him. Over and over again, she’d chosen to stick by his side, even when things had looked impossible. She’d even chosen to kiss him when he was positive she could have had any dragon she wanted. And while Julius still didn’t think he deserved any of that, he was determined to prove to Marci that she hadn’t chosen wrong.
“I guess the only way to find out for sure is to go to the meeting,” he said at last, forcing a smile so she wouldn’t see how hard it was for him to let her go. “What can I do to help?”
The moment he offered to help, her whole face lit up like a sunrise. It was so lovely, so happy and excited and Marci, it made him giddy. He could have stood there soaking it up forever, but in classic Marci fashion, she’d already burst into motion, rummaging through her bag with both hands.
“I mostly need directions. The signage in this place is severely lacking. I’m trying to get here.”