by Nora Roberts
“I fight with my people. Do you fight with yours?”
“I’m not a warrior, but a ruler. Still, I guard what’s mine. I’ll kill to protect it.”
“Show me.”
Daintily, Vivienne set down her coffee, dusted crumbs from her fingers. And shifted.
Fallon studied the flame-red dragon with the glittering green eyes.
The red flame from the north, she thought.
“Impressive. And only the second I’ve seen.”
Vivienne shifted back. “We are few. I don’t know why. You saw another?”
“Twice. Larger, black. Of the dark.”
“It saddens me that when we are few, any would choose the dark.” With a delicate shrug, she lifted her coffee again. “Ah, well. I will not keep you, but I trust you will think about my offer.”
“I will.”
“I’ll get you some coffee beans.”
“You’re kind.” Vivienne offered a hand to Fallon as she rose. “I’m not unkind. I’m not unselfish. But I don’t see those as . . . Ah!” On a gesture of frustration she rattled off a phrase in French.
“In opposition,” Fallon told her.
“Yes, thank you. They are not in opposition. I am known to lie. To a lover, when it is . . . simple? I do not lie about life and death, about dark and light. I may lie to you,” she said with a gay smile. “But not about that.”
When Lana came back, she took the cloth bag offered, slipped it into her pocket after sliding back into her coat. “Thank you, very much. I will have a gift for you when I see you next. And I would send to you General D’Arcy if we proceed with the alliance. You will find him very clever.”
“Safe travels, Vivienne.”
“And to you, Fallon Swift. Madame.”
Fallon watched her walk out, move to her men. And, standing between them, flash.
“She’s . . . interesting,” Lana decided.
“And complicated. She has shadows, but she isn’t of the dark. Not like them. Not quite like us. An alliance. Two thousand troops.”
Fallon shut the door. “She has more than two thousand or she wouldn’t have offered two thousand.”
“Now that you say it, that wouldn’t surprise me. She’s canny. Canny is a good ally.”
“It could be. Let’s see what else anyone’s heard about her, what else we can find out. It’s going to be worth, at least, meeting this general.”
“You’re likely to get an argument from some quarters.”
“What else is new?” As they started back, she looked at her mother. “From you?”
“No. You’re going to need alliances. New York isn’t the end of it. You never told me about the black dragon again.”
“It was in a vision dream, with Petra.”
Lana stopped, gripped Fallon’s arm. “Petra.”
“She rode it, I think. It’s not all the way clear, and I wasn’t sure until now it was real. I need to talk to Mallick.”
“Let’s take some food down,” Lana suggested. “An alliance with a dragon queen might go down easier with some stew.”
“You’ve got a point.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
While the others ate, Fallon took Mallick and her father aside, related the meeting with Vivienne.
“I’ve heard of her,” Mallick confirmed. “Bits and pieces, rumors, gossip. From what I know, she has her realm, her palace and people, and they’re loyal to her. She is, or has been, content with that. If she’s come to you I suspect she’s concerned about invasion.”
“We push the DUs out of New York,” Simon agreed. “They may head north. She’d be more vulnerable. You’re serious about the dragon?”
“Yeah, and she’s impressive.”
“Adding a dragon and two thousand to our ranks against New York wouldn’t hurt a thing. And,” he added, “it’s likely she has more than the two she offered.”
It added to Fallon’s confidence that she and her father thought alike. “Exactly.”
“Just as likely, she has other alliances.”
“I wondered about that, too. She’s both forthcoming and cagey. Clearly, she wants to preserve her own, and why wouldn’t she? If her advisers estimate we’re moving on New York within a year, maybe six months? The enemy likely thinks the same. If we can add her in, and potentially others she’s hooked with, I’m looking at six to eight weeks.”
“You didn’t tell her that?”
“I’m standing here with two men who helped teach me to be cagey, so no. And we’ll just keep that to ourselves until we’re sure of her. Can you go?” she asked Mallick. “She talked about sending one of her generals here to negotiate, but I want a better sense of her and her people, her place. You could get that. She’d respect you, and you wouldn’t fall for any bullshit.”
“Of course. When?”
“As soon as possible. She popped in here, we’ll return the favor. I’d like you to take Travis with you.” She looked at Simon. “As an empath he’ll feel as much as see or hear. And he’s diplomatic, political.”
“He’ll love it, and he’s a good choice. I’m not going to say Mallick and Travis can’t handle themselves if anything goes shaky, but you need another, at least one more.”
“I was thinking Meda. Female, and one who led her own tribe. And Arlys. Our chronicler. Travis will see, hear, feel, but Arlys won’t miss a detail. She also knows how to negotiate and lead.”
“Well chosen. Do you agree, Simon?”
“Yeah, it’s a good mix.”
“Great. Let’s make it happen.”
Everyone had a voice, Fallon thought later. The fact that she would defend that right with sword and shield didn’t make it less of a pain in her ass.
Still, after the grumblings, objections, second-guessings, she had her negotiating team set and preparing to head north.
As the commanders left, Fallon broke away to find Mick.
“Got a question.” Duncan took her arm, drew her outside. “Why aren’t you sending me to Quebec?”
“A couple reasons.” She looked over toward the barracks, but saw no sign of Mick. “First, Vivienne would try to seduce you.”
“Jealous?”
She looked back, nearly laughed at his smug expression. “If I thought you’d fall into her bed, I wouldn’t invite you into mine. But it would be a distraction, and this needs to go smooth. Second, it’s a good balance. Third, I’d like Travis to work with Mallick more. And last, you, Tonia, and I are going on a hunt.”
“We are?”
“For a black dragon.”
“Now we’re talking. When?”
“Tonight. But right now I need to talk to Mick.”
“He took off,” Duncan told her. “When you were talking to Arlys and Chuck about digging up more intel on the redhead.”
“But—” Not even a good-bye, she thought. “I can’t leave it this way. I need to fix this.”
“You can’t fix everything, Fallon. The guy’s in love with you. It ought to piss me off but, hell, you’ve got to like him. Plus, he fights like a son of a bitch.”
Maybe she couldn’t fix everything, but this? This was different. “I have to try. I can’t explain how sad and lonely and angry I was in those first weeks with Mallick, how much I missed my family. And Mick was there. It mattered. He matters.”
“I get it, but—”
“What should I say to him?”
Thrown off, Duncan stared at her. “You want me to tell you what to say to a guy who’s in love with you? Jesus.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he paced away. “Damn it, Fallon, you’re mine.” Eyes hot, he strode back to her, gripped her face in his hands. “Mine.”
How could the words, the anger in them both thrill and infuriate her at the same time? “You don’t—”
“Hell I don’t. You’re mine. And I’m yours.”
With that, the thrill drowned out everything else. She took his wrists as his mouth came down on hers, felt his pulse beat in time with her own.
She
eased back, brushed her fingers down his cheek. “That’s the point. So help me, please, help me try. What would you need to hear when someone you loved couldn’t love you back the same way? I’ve hurt him, Duncan. What should I tell him to ease the hurt?”
“Damn it.” He shoved his hands in his pockets again. “Tell him the truth, and don’t use any bullshit like ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’”
Baffled, she threw up her hands. “But it is me.”
“Don’t go there, it’s insulting. Don’t pull the can’t-we-just-be-friends line out, either.”
“But—”
“Did you ask for my help here?” he shot back.
“Yes.” Still, she raked her fingers through her hair, twice. “Yes. All right.”
“Just don’t do the let’s-be-pals crap unless you want to stick a knife in his ribs. Tell him straight. He matters, he’s always going to matter. And for Christ’s sake, don’t expect him to snap back like a bowstring.”
“Okay. All right. I’ll go to The Beach, talk to him now.”
“He didn’t go with his crew. He and Mallick flashed out.”
“Oh. Oh, I know where he is. If you could get Tonia, we’ll talk when I get back.”
“And go dragon hunting.”
“Yeah. I need to try to fix this first.” She laid a hand on his cheek again. “Thanks.”
He dragged her in for another kiss, and if it was staking a claim, so the hell what? “I’m not going to say anytime because this better be the last time.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t leave room for hope—it’ll just hurt more.”
She nodded, stepped back, flashed.
“Because who the hell could ever get over you?” he murmured, then turned when Simon came out of the house, gave him a cool-eyed stare.
“Looks like we need to have a conversation.”
Though he’d rather have faced a horde of DUs, Duncan braced himself. “I guess we do.”
Fallon walked through the green light of the faerie glade toward the pool where Mick sat cross-legged, brooding into the mists rising over the water. He bounded to his feet, and when he saw her, the hand on the hilt of his short sword fell away.
“You didn’t say good-bye.”
“You were busy.”
“Mick.” When she started toward him, he stiffened, so she stopped. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” His shrug was a sharp jerk of movement. “For not being with me like you are with Duncan?”
“Don’t ask me to be sorry for loving him, because I can’t, but I’m sorry it hurts you.”
“Why him?” Mick demanded while the pixie lights blinked nervously in the green shadows. “Why not me?”
The truth, Fallon reminded herself, and found it. “Because what I feel for you is different. It’s real and it’s deep and it’s true, but it’s not what I feel for him.”
“So, I’m just your good old pal Mick,” he said bitterly.
“You’re the one who was with me when I found each of my spirit animals. You’re the one who made me laugh when my heart ached for my family. You’re the boy who gave me my first kiss, and the man who fights with me. You gave me my first tribe outside of my family. You’re an essential in my life. You always will be.”
“But you’re never going to love me.”
“I’m always going to love you. You know that.”
“It’s not the same.”
“No, it’s not. But it’s real and deep and true.”
“I thought maybe there was a chance.” He looked away from her, out over the misted water. “Now I know there’s not.” He turned back, met her eyes, but kept a wall between them.
“I’ll fight with my last breath for The One. But I can’t be around Fallon right now. Mallick will get me back to The Beach, and we’ll be ready to strike New York when you say. You could pass any orders through Jojo for now.”
“All right. I— If you and what you feel didn’t matter, I wouldn’t have come. If you and what you feel didn’t matter, I wouldn’t go. Blessed be, Mick.”
She didn’t go directly home, but called to Laoch. She took an hour for herself to clear her head, and her heart.
She flew over fields, some fallow with winter, others overgrown with neglect. And over roads and highways with cars and trucks long since abandoned, bridges crumbling into rivers. Herds of deer and wild horses roamed freely.
A hawk soared nearby, then dived with an echoing cry to claim its prey. After that small death, silence. A world of silence.
Here and there she spotted signs of humans, small camps and communities, and the glint of solar panels on roofs as the winter sun beamed down.
And the ash and smoke left in another by a raid.
As a matter of course more than hope, she turned Laoch toward the smoke to check for any survivors. She heard screams, engines, and through the smoke saw a man sprawled on the ground while Raiders circled a woman on their bikes.
Three bikes, two with double riders, she noted. And all of them armed. An even better way, she thought, to clear the mind and heart.
Like the hawk, she dived on Laoch.
As she leaped from her mount, sword flashing, she sent the first bike and its two riders flying. Spun and used her shield to block a peppering of bullets before decapitating the lone rider.
The last whipped a tight circle, the male riding pillion jumping off to try to take her from behind while the female driver, dozens of braids streaming, shrieked, eyes mad with the kill, and barreled straight toward her.
Idiot, Fallon thought, leaped aside, flipped, and slammed her shield into the woman’s face. Spun again, planted a kick in the belly of the one trying to take her flank.
He stumbled back, but regained his balance. The female, blood spilling down her face, got to her feet, drew a knife. One of the first riders limped forward while he shouldered the rifle he’d had slung over his back.
Just like fighting ghosts at Mallick’s cottage, she thought.
“You still have a chance to live,” she said as they circled her. “Put down your weapons and surrender.”
In answer the female let out a war cry and leaped, the gunman fired, and the third slashed down with a blade.
She downed the woman with a sweep of her sword at the knees, flung the bullets back at the shooter with a punch of magic. Even as she blocked the slashing sword with her own, more shots rang out.
His body jerked in place as blood bloomed on his chest. And he fell.
The woman they’d circled knelt, the gun of the headless rider clutched in both hands. Her face, gray with shock, dark eyes wide with it, held frozen in a grimace of fury.
“You won’t need that now,” Fallon said gently. “It’s over now.”
The woman dropped it as if it burned. “Johnny!” She scrambled up, ran to the man who lay sprawled in the ash-covered dirt. “They killed my Johnny!”
“Let me see.” She had to push the woman’s hands away to search for a heartbeat, for light. “He’s alive. Let me help.”
He’d been shot, but the wound wasn’t mortal. He’d been beaten unmercifully, and those injuries could be if she didn’t heal enough to bring him back.
“Help him. Please help him.”
“I am. I will. He’s Johnny?”
“Yes, yes, Johnny.” She cradled his head, kissed his battered face.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Lucia. Lucy.”
“Talk to him, Lucy. Let him know you’re all right.”
While Lucy murmured, wept, stroked, Fallon opened to the most serious injuries, began, as she’d been taught, to heal slowly, layer by layer.
The skull, fractured. Her own head roared with pain, forced her to back off even more. Slow, so slow, so careful, mending, easing. Jaw broken, and the nose, cheekbones. Wrist, arm, ribs.
When he moaned, stirred, Fallon eased back.
“It’s enough.”
“No, no, please. Help him.”
“I did. Trust
me. He’s stable enough now. I can get you to a doctor, to healers. He’ll do better there. You’re hurt, too.”
“Just a little. It’s Johnny—”
“I know a place where you’ll both get help, both be safe. Laoch!”
He trotted over, and at her signal lowered himself. “Get on.” Fallon read fear in Lucy’s eyes, but she climbed onto Laoch’s back. Carefully, Fallon lifted Johnny, stirring the air to bring him up so he lay over Laoch’s back.
“You . . . You’re of the Uncanny.”
“That’s right.” Fallon glanced back at the bodies. No life left. Their choice, but still she wouldn’t leave them for the crows and vultures. With a flick of her head, she set them to flame, then mounted. “I’m Fallon.”
“Johnny told stories, but I didn’t believe in them. I didn’t think you were real.”
“Now you know. Don’t be afraid. I won’t let you fall.”
As they rose up, Lucy leaned over, wrapped her arms around Johnny—to protect him, Fallon thought, as much as herself. “He wanted to come to you, to fight with you, but I begged him to stay with me. And now—”
“He’ll be all right. You were brave. You could have run when I fought them. You stayed, and fought back.”
“When they came, Johnny told me to run, to hide, but I wouldn’t leave him. He wouldn’t leave me. He could have left me when they came. He can run so fast, but he stayed, he tried to fight. He’s of the Uncanny, like you.”
“An elf, yes.”
“We ran away. My grandmother, she lived through the Doom. I was only a baby, and she protected me when everyone died. She’s very strict, and doesn’t believe magick can be good, like Johnny. She isn’t bad, she wouldn’t hurt anyone, but—”
“I understand.”
“‘You have to stick with your own kind, Lucia,’ she’d say. Even though once she helped hide a family from the PWs, and the little boy had wings. She says they’re evil, the PWs, but the Uncannys aren’t like us, and we have to stick with our own kind.”
“One day she might see differently.”
“That’s what Johnny says.”