Dragon's Gift: The Amazon Complete Series: An Urban Fantasy Boxed Set

by Linsey Hall

  A tiny part of me wanted to run and hide—heck, I was no moron—but it was a terrible idea. We needed to stand our ground.

  Actually, maybe only I needed to stand my ground. I didn’t want to risk Maximus’s life on my hunch. “Go hide.”

  His head swiveled on his neck, and he shot me an incredulous look. “You’re going to stand out here, and you expect me to go hide?”

  “Fine.” I realized what a dumb idea it was. With him giving me that look, it was hard not to. “I just wanted to protect you.”

  His expression softened. “I know. But I’m not hiding while you wait to meet a bunch of dragons. One, I want to meet them, too. And two, if they decide to eat you, I’m not going to watch from a hiding place.”

  “Good point.” I smiled at him, glad to have him at my back.

  He grinned, and the feeling that bloomed in my chest was so warm and bright that it felt like my heart was turning into the sun and rising. I gasped, stunned by the feeling.

  The dragons shrieked again, all six in unison, and my gaze was dragged upward.

  They descended gracefully toward the ground, flying in a clockwise circle as they approached. One by one, each landed on a stone platform.

  Awed, I spun in a circle to take them all in. Their magic rolled over me in an intense wave, making me feel lightheaded and powerful all at the same time.

  They were all remarkably different up close, each a different species. Perhaps even a different culture. The blue one looked a lot like a Chinese dragon from illustrations that I’d seen, while the red one looked like the dragon that decorated the Welsh flag. There was also a gold dragon, a green one with three heads, and one that appeared to be made of ice. Since Ladon was definitely the Greek dragon, these ones must’ve been from other places.

  I’m meeting the Council of Dragons.

  I didn’t know if that was what they formally called themselves, but that was what they appeared to be.

  I turned toward Ladon, since he was the only one I knew. I drifted my hand toward my pocket, where I still kept the magical scale he’d given me. It turned into a boat upon command, and it was still one of the best gifts I’d ever received.

  Instinct made me bow low, and Maximus did the same. I stayed that way for a few moments, then rose.

  “Hello, Ladon.” I spun in a circle again, my gaze landing on each dragon in turn. “Hello.”

  I wished I had something cleverer to say, but apparently six enormous dragons were enough to strike one dumb.

  “Rowan Blackwood. Dragon God.” Before, the dragon had spoken in my mind. This time, he spoke out loud. Was it the magic of Olympus that made that possible? Ladon turned his clever gaze to Maximus. “Maximus Valerius, gladiator.”

  “I was sent to you by the Great One of the Amazons,” I said.

  “Yes, we’ve been waiting.” Ladon gestured to the dragon nearest him, the one who looked like he could lead a Chinese New Year’s parade. “This is Lóng, my Chinese compatriot.”

  Ladon went around the circle, introducing me to the golden Indian dragon named Nāga, the green Slavic dragon named Zmiy, the red Welsh dragon named Y Ddraig Goch, and an Arctic dragon named Siku. Each nodded at me in turn, and the enormity of the situation made it nearly impossible for me to do anything more than nod in response.

  It felt like my insides were full of butterflies—so many that I might lift off into the air at any moment.

  “You are here to complete your transformation into a Dragon God so that you may defeat the Titans,” Ladon said.

  I nodded. “Complete my transformation into what?”

  Please say dragon. Oh fates, I was about to pass out from excitement. If he said dragon, I probably would.

  “That is yet to be determined,” Ladon said.

  Dang. But that didn’t mean no dragon.

  “What must I do?” I asked.

  “I have seen you and believe in your strength.” Ladon gestured to his companions. “But they have not. You must go on a journey to prove yourself.”

  I nodded. “Anything.”

  “You must go to the forest where Medusa dwells and return with her heads. You will find her by following the whistle.”

  Crap. Medusa? She was the dangerous one who turned people to stone. That was going to be tough. I glanced at Maximus, and he looked concerned as well.

  “Is there anything else I need to do?” I asked.

  Ladon shook his head. “Do it quickly. And here.” He climbed down off of his platform, his massive body graceful despite its bulk. He walked toward me, then handed me a sharp, curved object.

  “A dragon’s claw.” Awe shot through me. The claw was about six inches long and gleamed like opals. I looked over toward Siku, the Arctic dragon. The claw matched the ones that tipped her toes, and she inclined her head.

  “It will help you with Medusa,” she said.

  Was I supposed to stab her with it?

  “Go now. And be quick.” Ladon’s words dragged me away from my question, and before I could voice it, the ether sucked me in and spun me through space.

  When it spat me out in a shady forest, I gasped and stumbled, barely managing to keep my feet. Maximus appeared next to me.

  “Did you get all of that?” I asked him.

  He nodded. “But there was something strange that he said. We are supposed to retrieve Medusa’s heads. Plural. But she only has one head.”

  “He didn’t speak out loud before, in the Garden of the Hesperides. Maybe he’s not used to it.”

  Maximus frowned. “Perhaps.”

  The forest shifted around us, the trees almost seeming to move. I stiffened, going on the alert, and spun in a circle to inspect our surroundings. Massive white trees surrounded us in the woods, their branches devoid of leaves. The forest floor was clear of underbrush, and the whole place vibrated with magic.

  “She must live in this forest,” I said.

  “Hiding, perhaps.”

  I tilted my head, listening for the whistle that Ladon had mentioned. After a moment, I heard it, faintly. I pointed in the proper direction. “I hear the whistle from over there.”

  “So do I.”

  “We’ll need a mirror to defeat her,” I said. “We can’t look directly upon her, but if we see her through a mirror, we may be all right.”

  Maximus nodded, conjuring two mirrors in plastic frames. “Since we don’t know where she’ll be, we should navigate using the mirror.”

  “Good plan.” I didn’t like the idea of becoming a statue by mistake because I unintentionally looked at her when she stepped out from behind a tree. If I did something that dumb, I’d probably end up in a museum with a sign that said Statue of a Moron.

  I took the mirror from Maximus and held it so it showed the forest in front of me. It was a crappy way to travel, but if I used my animal hearing, it’d give me an advantage.

  “Let’s go,” Maximus said.

  As we crept through the woods, my heart started to pound in my chest. Looking through the mirror majorly upped the tension. The tiny window made it hard to see, and enemies could be lurking anywhere. Medusa might not be a giant monster with claws and fangs, but she was more dangerous. One mistaken look and…done.

  Fear shivered over my spine. Would I be conscious if I were still a statue, trapped inside the stone forever?

  Oh fates, that sounded awful.

  In fact, it sounded a lot like my time in captivity with the Rebel Gods. I’d been under a spell most of the time. Sometimes I’d been totally unaware of my environment and actions, but other times I’d been trapped in my body, dreadfully aware of what was going on but unable to do anything to stop it.

  The spells had made me the perfect captive and perfect tool for their evil deeds. But they’d also made me so miserable that I’d almost gone insane.

  Medusa could do that to me.

  A nightmare come true.

  Fighting and killing one monster didn’t sound that hard. But Medusa?

  She was the worst mo
nster of them all—at least for me.

  I tried to shake away my fear and focus on the forest around me. We made slow progress through the trees, using the mirrors to guide us as we followed the faint whistling sound. My hearing picked up no sense of life around us. Not even the noise of wind through the trees.

  “This place is eerie,” Maximus whispered.

  “I’ve no idea where we are.” The forest felt like it was so far from civilization that it might as well have been on the moon. Why would Medusa choose to live here?

  The thought was my last.

  Something gripped me around my ankle and yanked me upward. My stomach lurched into my throat, and panic tightened my chest.

  Oh shit!

  I spun in the air, the world upside down.

  “Hang on. I’ve got you.” Maximus moved fast, conjuring a sword and slicing through the rope that suspended me.

  I plummeted, and he caught me then spun me upright.

  “What the hell was that?” I looked up, spotting the snare. “A booby trap?”

  Maximus nodded. “We need to get out of here before the hunter comes.”

  I nodded. There might be no hunter—maybe we were supposed to dangle there till we died—but I didn’t want to wait and find out.

  “Hang on.” Maximus’s magic flared, and he handed me a stick with a heavy wheel on the end. “Roll that in front of you. Hopefully it will trigger the snare if there are any more.”

  Man, he was clever. “Thanks.”

  He conjured one for himself, and we got the heck out of there, each of us navigating by mirror and rolling the sticks in front of us. It was a weird, slow way to travel, but it worked.

  I kept my ears perked as we walked, hoping to hear the sound of the hunter coming to find us after the snare had been triggered. Maybe it was Medusa, trying to catch her prey.

  My rolly-stick caught on two more snares as I walked, and each time, my heart jumped into my chest. Maximus also caught two snares, but after a while, they seemed to clear out.

  Part of me was tempted to stop with the rolly-stick, but that was probably a bad idea. We kept going, moving as quickly as we could through the trees.

  Eventually, we reached an area where massive twiggy bushes sat in the forest. Like the trees, they were devoid of leaves, but their branches were thick and strong. We stepped between two, and magic flared in the air.

  I had barely a moment to process what was happening before sharp pain pierced my arms and legs. “Watch out!”

  But it was too late. Thorns were flying at me from the bushes, striking my jacket and jeans like bullets, piercing my skin and sending pain through me.

  Maximus grunted.

  He was being hit, too.

  We dropped to the ground, huddling together, and he conjured two massive shields that we used to cover ourselves. The thorns continued to fly, pinging off the shield.

  Agony streaked through me from the thorns that had pierced me, and my head began to grow woozy.

  “Poison.” Maximus’s voice was rough with pain.

  Poison.

  He was right. I could feel it streaking through me, weakening me with every second.

  8

  Maximus and I lay on the ground, our faces so close together that I could see the lines of agony cut around his eyes. Tiny thorns protruded from his clothes, the points stuck into his skin.

  He should be immune to most injuries—a gift from the god who’d given him his magic. But this poison, whatever it was, seemed to be affecting him, too.

  Pain streaked through my body, and my mind began to move slower as I tried to figure a way out of this. The thorns continued to ping against our shield, but our real problem was the poison in our veins.

  I needed an antidote.

  Shaking, I reached for the little vials in my potion belt. I gripped a general antidote and thrust it at Maximus. “Take this.”

  “You first.”

  “I’ve got another.” I shoved it into his hand and reached for my belt again to withdraw a second. I had no idea if it would work against this poison, but it was my best shot.

  I let go of the shield so it was propped against my back to protect me, then fumbled with the vial. I slugged it back, wincing at the sour taste. Maximus did the same, and I waited, praying.

  Finally, some of the wooziness began to retreat from my mind. Strength returned to my limbs, and the tremors ceased.

  “It’s working,” Maximus said.

  “Thank fates.”

  “What is it?”

  “General antidote, but an extra strong dose. I have a few like it, meant for different things. Some turn back the effects of poison, others break a strong spell. But since I invented them and haven’t been able to test them in all circumstances, I’m never quite sure if they’ll work when I need them to do something new.”

  Maximus grinned and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. “You’re a genius.”

  I grinned, then winced at the pain that still sliced through the areas where the thorns stuck into my body. “We need to get these thorns out.”

  Maximus began to pluck the thorns out of my arms.

  “Work on yourself,” I said.

  “You first.”

  Oh fates, this guy. I was totally falling for him. Had fallen, really. There was no question about it. Love.

  I looked up at him, about to say something, when he grinned.

  “Hear that?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “The thorns have stopped hitting us.”

  Oh, thank fates. The coast was clear.

  Maybe.

  “Did they stop because the bushes ran out of thorns, or because someone stopped them?”

  “Good point.” Maximus grabbed his mirror and surged to his feet, protecting himself with the shield as he looked into the mirror and spun in a circle, checking our surroundings. “Coast is clear.”

  My shoulders relaxed just slightly. I stood and began to pluck the thorns out of my body. Maximus worked on himself, and soon we were thornless.

  “There sure are a lot of booby traps in this forest,” I said.

  “It’s odd, all right.” He set off again, heading in the direction we’d been going, following the faint whistling noise that never let up.

  We went as quickly as we could with the mirror, roll-stick, and shield, but it wasn’t fast going. By the time I heard the rustling in the woods, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  When I spotted the Centaur behind me, my heart thundered. He was massive, at least eight feet tall with a powerful brown horse’s body and a broad chest. A wound striped over his chest, yellow and green. Infected.

  He raised a bow and arrow, sighted it at us.

  Since he wasn’t Medusa, I turned and looked at him straight on, holding up my hands. “Wait! We aren’t here to hurt you.”

  He scowled, his dark brows crouching low over his eyes. “Then why are you here?”

  “We’re hunting Medusa.”

  His scowl deepened, and he drew back on the bow.

  Well, shit, he didn’t like the sound of that. My mind raced, trying to find something—anything—that would make him lower the bow. I could duck behind my shield, but I didn’t want to start a fight with a guy who could outrun me and kick me in the head with his hooves.

  “She can heal your wound,” Maximus said.

  I brightened. That was good.

  The Centaur scowled. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not. It’s infected.” And he was a smart-seeming guy, so he’d probably tried to treat it. The fact that it was oozing yellow and green stuff made it likely the treatments hadn’t been working. “I’m a potion master. I’m sure I have something to fix that.”

  The Centaur scowled again and didn’t lower his bow.

  “Please, let me help you,” I said.

  He glared at us, clearly considering. Then he nodded. “Fine.”

  My shoulders relaxed. Okay. This was good. I could work with this. Just like the mouse that had pulle
d the thorn out of the lion’s foot, I would help this guy.

  Slowly, I approached him. His bow stayed lowered, thank fates. Maximus stuck close to my side, trying to look small and nonthreatening. It was a hilarious fail, but I didn’t tell him so.

  I stopped in front of the Centaur, my face nearly level with the wound. “What gave you this?”

  “A poisoned blade.”

  I nodded, inspecting the cut. “Did the poison smell of anything? Did it have a color?”

  “It smelled of anise and was black.”

  Okay, so maybe a Morticella Poison. Hopefully. “I think I have something for it.”

  He waited in silence as I dug around in my potion belt. Like the antidote we’d just taken, I couldn’t be sure it would work since I wasn’t sure that it actually was infected with the Morticella Poison, but it shouldn’t hurt him.

  I handed it over. “You can spread it on your wound.”

  For one, I wasn’t keen on touching it. And for another, he didn’t look like the type who wanted to be touched.

  The Centaur nodded and took the potion.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Chiron.”

  “I’m Rowan, and this is Maximus.”

  He nodded. As he spread the potion on the wound, I figured that we should probably try to get some info out of this guy.

  “Why are there so many booby traps in this forest?” I asked.

  “To protect Medusa.”

  My brows jumped. “To protect her?”

  Chiron looked at me like I was an idiot. “And to protect you.”

  “I don’t see how dangling upside down from a snare protects me.”

  “You are approaching Medusa’s lair. As you get closer, the traps become more dangerous. The point is to drive you off before you see her.”

  Suddenly, I understood. “Oh, so someone put them up to protect people from her.”

  “No.” Disgust echoed in his voice. “I already told you, they are to protect her. You are protected as an afterthought. She doesn’t want to be hunted, and she also doesn’t want to turn anyone to stone.”

  “She doesn’t?” Maximus asked.

  “No.” Sadness entered the Centaur’s eyes. “I assume you were told the version of the myth where Medusa was born as a Gorgon and thrives on turning men to stone?”