by Ann Gimpel
A long, whistling breath steamed through Katya’s clenched teeth. “Good. They’re not gaining strength as quickly as I feared they would.”
“Your brother said the same,” Erin agreed. “Yet we can’t assume our good fortune will continue. We were going to hunt you down and then hit up that borderworld system for allies.”
“Fleisher,” Katya muttered.
“Yeah. That one,” Erin said.
I was only listening with half an ear. I’d begun reading the scroll. It did a most excellent job separating out the elements and delineating the strengths of each. Soon, I’d dug into the next item down, a book so old it was handwritten in Old Greek.
Blessing my eidetic memory, I plowed through as much as I could before Konstantin showed up carting an enormous platter. Katya tried to talk with me. So did Kon and Erin, but I was determined to absorb as much as I could.
Finally, a hand closed around my upper arm. I turned to find Katya regarding me with a bemused expression. “Who would have guessed you were such a bookworm. Time to go.”
I closed the book I’d been deep into, not worried about losing my place. These magical books had their own ways of interacting with me. When I said, “I’m ready,” I meant it. I was far better prepared than I’d been when I entered the extensive lore collection.
“When did you come by all these?” I stood and swept both hands to the sides.
“They belonged to all the dragons who used to live here,” Katya replied.
“They didn’t take their source materials when they left?” Erin raised both brows.
Konstantin shook his head. “No, but they took their respective hoards. If you were to ask any dragon, they would tell you human bondmates have no need of books.”
“Because the dragons can teach you everything you need to know,” Katya added.
“I can see a clear advantage in holding my own knowledge,” I muttered, still fresh from the power struggle with my beast.
Katya laughed, high, pure notes that heartened me, gave me hope. “I bet you can,” she said.
Konstantin herded us into the living room and sealed up the library, hiding it behind illusion once more. “Gather close,” he instructed.
The air developed a liquid, glistening aspect as his magic built around us. Quiet pleasure filled me because I was able to isolate the parts of his spell, understanding how they worked together. The great room fell away, and we floated in darkness.
It would take time—and a whole lot of hard work—but I’d master the magic at my command, no matter how high the cost. I vowed to turn myself into a man my dragon would respect, not one he’d waste energy playing silly games with.
“It’s a good goal,” Katya said very near my ear.
I startled. “You were inside my head?”
“Of course. How else will I know what you’re thinking.”
Before I could protest, say a man needed some privacy, she went on. “The nature of dragons is to dive into conflict. Yours will engage in skirmishes for the fun of it, but if you don’t take him seriously, his attempts will lessen over time.”
She floated near me but not touching. I reached for her hand. When she took it and squeezed lightly, I squeezed back. The dragon and I would begin anew when he returned. Perhaps Katya and I could as well.
Far quicker than I’d anticipated, Konstantin brought us out into something that looked like an overgrown jungle version of primordial Earth. Deep fissures reminiscent of canyonlands in the southwestern United States cut the landscape into furrows. Screeches, bellows, and grunts filled the humid air. Dinosaurs, heavy, lumbering beasts, formed a circle about us. Others flew in circles around our heads, toothed beaks open in a challenge.
Why weren’t we leaving? Surely, this couldn’t be the right spot.
Konstantin and Katya began to chant. The air developed a silvery hue and, one by one, the primeval beasts shifted into humans. Naked, they looked a lot like indigenous tribes from South America with dark hair, copper skin, and sharply defined cheekbones. Or they would have if the native tribesmen had been seven feet tall with silver eyes.
One of the men stepped toward us. He didn’t bow or smile or look particularly friendly. “If you have come for help with dragon problems, leave.”
“Aye, plenty of dragons you could solicit,” another yelled.
The lot of them erupted in shrieks, squeals, and raised fists.
Konstantin shifted between two breaths. One moment, he was a man, the next his black dragon stood, fanning its wings. “Silence.” Fire punctuated the word in dragonspeak. “You will do me the courtesy of listening. I, Konstantin, prince among dragons, have spoken.”
Chapter 6
Katya was ready to shift in case her brother needed reinforcements, but the mob quieted and took a few steps back, offering a respectful distance between themselves and her twin.
Good. They should defer to him. Like everything else, magic was built on hierarchies. Dragon shifters had far stronger ability than these primitive beasts. They’d been around since the dawn of civilization, though, a date far earlier than when similar creatures had roamed Earth.
“My goal,” Konstantin was saying, “is to build a cadre of magic wielders. Sea-serpents must return to wherever they originated, and—”
“They’re not here,” a man with silver hair pointed out. In contrast to his companions, he was the only one whose hair wasn’t black.
“Not our problem,” someone else shouted. He must have concealed himself because Katya was damned if she could identify the speaker.
“Aye. Not our problem. Good enough for me.” Another chap, this one sporting a riot of black curls, agreed with his fellows.
A huge, broad-shouldered man with straight black hair braided into many plaits planted himself in front of Konstantin. “If we help you drive them away from Earth, who’s to say they won’t end up here? It’s the nearest group of habitable worlds.”
“We would kill them.” Konstantin fanned his wings. Ash fluttered from his mouth.
The man, who stood only about a head shorter than the black dragon, tossed his shoulders back. “I don’t think so. We are not overly fond of killing, not being dragons and all.”
Katya strode forward. “What happened to the dragons? As I recall, some used to live here.”
“We were too dull for them,” the silver-haired man muttered.
Something about his statement didn’t quite ring true. Katya narrowed her eyes and wove magic into a subtle truth spell. “What do you mean too dull?”
“They’re not here,” the man in front of Konstantin repeated what his companion had said. “They didn’t deign to tell us their reasons.”
His words pinged cleanly off her spell, and they made sense. Dragons weren’t in the habit of sharing their plans or intent with anyone outside their immediate circle. She glanced at Konstantin, meeting his whirling eyes.
He intuited her meaning and summoned shift magic. After a brilliant flash, he resurrected his human side and walked toward a gnarled willow-esque tree several meters removed from the shifter pack. She followed, along with Erin and Johan.
Roaring and stomping behind her told her the men and women had taken their beast forms once again. Unlike most shifters, this batch spent most of their time as animals.
“How long have they lived here?” Erin asked, keeping her voice soft.
“As long as any of us can remember,” Konstantin replied.
“They were here long before our kinfolk,” Katya added.
“Would dragons leave a place because it ceased to entertain them?” Johan knit his dark brows into a thick line.
Katya shook her head. “No. That part wasn’t true, yet I have no idea why they’d lie to us.”
“They were pretty damn protective,” Erin murmured, “but I don’t blame them. Guess humans aren’t the only ones who fall into the NIMBY trap.”
“What the hell is that?” Johan asked.
She muffled a snort. “It’s an acronym.”
&n
bsp; “I guessed as much,” he said, “but I am not familiar with that one.”
“Means not in my backyard,” Erin clarified. “Happens a lot when, say, someone has the bright idea about putting in low income housing or a rehabilitation center for addicts. Everyone agrees conceptually, but no one wants it near them.”
Konstantin sliced a hand in front of them. “Not important. We need to move to the next world, but not before we do a better job searching this one.”
Something inside Katya twisted into an uncomfortable knot. “What? Do you suspect dragon shifters are here but instructed the others to send us packing?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” her brother muttered, and his mouth curved into a frown.
“If they went to all that trouble,” Johan cut in, “we would be better served leaving them alone.”
Konstantin puffed out his chest. Fire shot from his mouth. “They owe allegiance to me.”
Katya resisted the urge to roll her eyes and tell her brother to stand down. Any social structure dragon shifters once had was long gone. She settled for saying, “You’re living in the past, Brother. The distant past.”
He whirled to face her, anger streaming from him, but she didn’t flinch. “I am not the enemy,” she reminded him. Her dragon pushed hard, wanting out. Her response to confrontation was fire and teeth and wings.
“Not now,” Katya said firmly.
“But you need me.”
“It’s my brother,” she reminded her bondmate.
Amid grumbling, smoke, and ash, the dragon retreated about the same time Konstantin came to his senses. Katya didn’t expect an apology, and she didn’t get one.
He said, “We’re leaving,” right before the bite of his magic surrounded them.
Katya didn’t like the idea of dragon shifters hiding from them. When had her kin become such cowards? Any dragon worth its scales welcomed conflict, lived for it. Was that what had happened here? No opportunity to test their mettle, so they’d left for greener pastures?
She’d find out. It wouldn’t take long to hit the remaining sites in this constellation of worlds. Their next stop had air so thin breathing was a challenge. They didn’t remain long. The following destination looked more promising. She peered out at a frozen expanse of white, not unlike Antarctica, except there was no ocean. Icy cliffs rose all around them. Snow covered the ground. Katya battled confusion. She’d been to all the worlds in this system, and none had looked like this.
Erin stood close to Johan, gesturing with her hands as she instructed him how to marshal magic to keep himself warm. Katya had planned to do that for him, but there hadn’t been time. For the barest instant, jealousy nipped at her, but then she got hold of herself. She didn’t own Johan. Far from it. He had an absolute right to sharpen his skills, and—
“And you have a right to him. Dragons were born possessive,” her bondmate spoke in take-no-prisoners tones.
“Yes, but he wouldn’t understand. He’s human.”
“Not anymore.” Her dragon sounded positively jubilant.
“Katya!” Her brother’s tone was pointed, and her head snapped up.
“Yes?” She fanned seeking magic in a rough circle, an automatic response to make certain she wasn’t missing anything critical. Breath hissed through her pursed lips.
“Indeed,” Konstantin snared. “They were here.”
“Who?” Erin asked, looking up from where she was demonstrating a point to Johan.
“The serpents, but its been a while.” Katya poured more juice into her spell, willing it to gather information. There were limits, though, to what she could glean from dibs and dabs of magical tracings.
“It might explain what happened to the dragons two worlds back,” Johan muttered. Magic glistened around him, and the blue-white cast had left his lips and fingers.
Katya kept her eyes away from the real estate below his waist—this time. She’d helped herself to more than an eyeful before. He had a gorgeous body. On the leanish side but graced by muscle attractively arranged across his shoulders and winding down the length of his arms and legs. Bands of muscle wandered across his abdomen to the thick thatch of dark hair between his legs. Before she recreated his phallus, which was pretty damned impressive, she said, “Dragons would never run from sea-serpents.”
Her tone may have been somewhat harsher than normal, but she was doing her level best not to lose sight of the topic at hand. If she didn’t watch it, she’d be sunk in lust.
“There is a difference between running and choosing not to fight,” Johan replied. Fire jetted from his mouth, and he turned his head to the side to avoid hitting anyone.
Katya resisted rolling her eyes. His dragon was back, and it had taken exception to his offhand remark as well.
Erin bent her head closer and suggested mixing in more air to conserve his magic.
“Thanks. I believe I understand how this one works.”
“You did pick it up handily.” Erin beamed at him, and another sharp jab of jealousy pricked Katya. It was stupid. Erin was slated to be Konstantin’s mate. While the two of them weren’t yet joined, they were fond of one another from the looks of things.
Johan and Erin are friends, she told herself firmly. It wasn’t exactly a foreign concept to dragonkind, but neither did they glom onto the idea of being surrounded by acquaintances as she’d seen humans do. When you lived forever, most people’s company grew stale after enough years passed.
“Not mine,” her bondmate reminded her.
“No, dearheart. Never yours.”
Erin congratulated Johan once more on his mastery of the magic that warmed him. He hadn’t completely grasped the skill, but Katya didn’t correct him—or Erin. Anything she said at this point would make her look small, petty. And a know-it-all. Both Johan and Erin were doing surprisingly well shaping their newly acquired magic into something useful. Compliments would serve both of them better than criticism at this juncture.
A muted whirring caught the very edges of her hearing. She angled her head to hear more clearly. Konstantin was kneeling, ear angled toward the ground. Was that where the humming was coming from?
She didn’t think so. “We should leave,” she told her twin. Uneasiness spiked through her; the dragon felt it too and made a concerted pitch for freedom.
Konstantin shot to his feet. “Dragons, people. Now.”
“What is it?” Katya screeched with the last of her human vocal chords. And then she saw the monsters. Like enormous gray mantises, but with black-feathered wings. Crap. Their wingspan rivaled the albatrosses she’d grown used to in Antarctica. Hinged mantis jaws clacked as the abominations opened and shut them. Their mouths were big enough to sever a human head.
Heat built in her chest, and fire spewed from her mouth even as she changed form. Would dragonfire kill them? Or did they possess magic rendering them immune to it? She’d never seen anything quite like the dozen or so flying atrocities, and she’d run across plenty of monsters.
These looked like a cross between a relatively harmless insect and a raptor with spiky tips on its wings. Except the whole mess was inflated to a hundred times the normal size of either of its components. A sweetish stench with overtones of rot wafted her way. Possibly poison, but she wasn’t certain. It lacked the acrid reek she associated with the serpents’ venom.
Was this something new? Were they tangled up with the serpents? Seemed unlikely. She started to ask Konstantin, but he was fully engaged immolating everything he could with fire. Beneath him, the frozen landscape hissed and sizzled as chunks of ice cracked away from cliff faces.
Erin was already airborne. Johan seemed to be stuck mid shift. Scales sparkled the length of his body, but his arms were still humanoid, and so was his head.
“Don’t fight the transformation.” She aimed for a calm note but probably failed abysmally.
One of the mantises swooped perilously close. Johan saw it and feinted out of its path with seconds to spare. Was his dragon toying with him
because it was still pissed about their last go-round?
The whistling, whirring noise intensified. Something about the pitch made her ears ache. It was almost as if they’d picked an amplitude that was destructive on purpose.
Of course, they did. Stupid of her not to recognize ill intent. She flew over Johan, shielding him with her body. “Hurry!” She repeated the word out loud in the dragons’ language.
A mantis flew close enough to close its nasty jaws over her flank. It burned like mad, and when she wrenched her hip in an effort to get away, the bastard hung on.
Still more heat scored her side. Konstantin was coating the mantis with dragonfire. Much like molten magma, the conflagration would continue to grow hotter and hotter until it exploded, hopefully killing the mantis trapped within its maw. Whether dragonfire was, indeed, a deathblow remained to be seen. Several smoking pyres burned below her, but she sensed life within every single one of them.
The green dragon was corporeal enough to fly. Finally. If she hadn’t had problems of her own, she’d have given him the sharp edge of her tongue. Katya edged away, intent on scraping the burning mantis off on a nearby cliff. She directed its body onto wicked-looking rocks. It broke in flaming pieces, accompanied by a geyser of black ichor that smelled so bad, she wanted to gag.
She rose higher in the clear, cold air, shaking her body amid rattling scales. The mantis was gone. Why did the spot still burn? When she angled her head around to look, her whirling eyes spun faster. The thing’s head remained, jaws firmly attached to her flank.
How was that even possible?
Between herself and Konstantin, they’d killed it. Dead meant dead, so its insidious teeth should have let go. Growling, snarling, and spitting fire, she took another pass at the cliff. Except now she couldn’t get any leverage. There wasn’t enough of it left to catch on anything.
Resigned to waiting until she was human again to pluck the remains of the thing out of her flesh, she tried to ignore it, but the pain was worse than when it first bit her. Some treacherous poison, no doubt. She directed a stream of magic, intent on walling that portion of her body off from everything else. She might end up with a big patch of necrotic flesh, but at least she could stem the damage.