Dragon Oracle Urban Fantasy Boxed Set (Dragon Oracle Complete Series: Books 1 - 9)

by Jada Fisher

  It wasn’t that we didn’t trust Mal or Krisjian, it was just that they were still so new to me and it wasn’t their responsibility to take care of my night terrors.

  And maybe…it was also because I didn’t want them to see me being so weak.

  Not that I would ever admit that.

  “What, are you avoiding me?” Mallory asked, hopping up onto a stool next to me. “What do you have there? Is it good?”

  “Since when is Chef’s food ever not delicious?”

  There was a pleased harrumph from somewhere in the massive kitchen, and I couldn’t help but crack a smile. It seemed the master of the culinary area really could hear everything that happened in the room. Maybe it was a magic dragon thing.

  “Fair enough. Share with me.” She opened her mouth, and I debated draining the entire stew in several big gulps just to mess with her, but it would be a crime to ever waste Chef’s delicious efforts like that, so instead I scooped up a good bit with my oversized spoon and popped it right in her mouth.

  “Mmm,” she said overdramatically before snatching the utensil from my hand and scooping out another bit to hold in front of my mouth.

  “I’m good,” I objected, leaning backward.

  “What are you talking about? Fair is fair.” She batted her lashes at me. “Now say ahhhh.”

  I gave her a long look, but she held her innocent look uncannily well. It was another reminder of how she would get opponents to underestimate her in the ring only to tear them completely apart.

  “It was funny when I did it,” I said, only to have her pop the spoon right into my mouth. My brows furrowed, but I dutifully chewed and swallowed.

  “See?” she said saccharinely. “It could be so much worse.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked once I swallowed.

  “I know it rubs on your nerves to be so dependent on us. And I know that Mickey and my mothering can grate your nerves, even if you do need us at night. So, I just wanted to show you that it could be way worse.” She scooped up another spoonful and held it in front of my face.

  “Now say hello to the airplaneee!”

  I rolled my eyes and took the spoon for myself. “Alright. Point proven. And it’s not that you guys irritate me. It’s just…that I feel bad.”

  “You feel bad?” Mallory repeatedly a bit incredulously. “Davie, you saved this castle and all the people in it. You died for us and then you found a way to come back and save us again. If you ask me, you would be justified in acting a bit more like a diva.”

  I smiled ruefully as I ate more. “Geez, when you say it that way, you make me sound like some sort of holy figure.”

  “Well, aren’t you, kinda?”

  I snorted outright. “I definitely don’t think we should take it that far.”

  “Why not? I mean, you’re one of the last three of an incredibly powerful race with mythical powers. Almost like a trinity, ya know.”

  “Alright, I’m gonna draw the line well before there. It’s not like I need to start a cult. That sounds like a rotted dragon sort of thing.”

  “It really does, doesn’t it?” She took the spoon and ladled some more into her mouth. “Do you ever wonder what his human form looks like? Or even if he has it still? Dude seems to like to hang out as a dragon mostly. Granted, if I was the size of a skyscraper and had a wingspan like that, I’d probably never be a dinky primate.”

  “Is that your inner dwarf talking?”

  Her eyes flashed, and for a moment it felt like we were back in old times, before I was kidnapped, before I stopped taking my medicine and let myself give into the visions. Back when my biggest thing was being a barista with some mental health issues and a whole lot of money problems.

  “Did you just make a short joke?”

  “What? I would never! How dare you accuse me of such a thing…”

  I trailed off. My eyes were drawn to movement just outside the window facing the massive garden in one of the inner courts. At first my mind dismissed it as the shadow of a bird or something of that nature, but then it slowly started to grow, like a drop of dark ink flicked into a glass of water, curling in on itself in artful little wisps.

  “Hey, Davie? You okay?”

  I couldn’t answer her, my eyes stuck right on the little scene as it unfolded in front of me. In a melodramatic, beautiful sort of way, the cloud grew until I could half-see an ephemeral figure standing there.

  “Hey, Davie? Davie? You having a vision?”

  “I…” I pushed the last bit of my stew at her and quickly stood. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”

  “Huh? You alright?”

  I nodded, probably a little too overdramatically, but it was what it was. “Yeah, uh, just getting used to having a bladder again. You want to meet me outside the servant’s entrance later for a walk? I could use some air.”

  “Uh, yeah, sure. It’s just… Davie, you look really pale. Are you sure you’re not doing that thing where you hide what’s wrong?”

  “Nope,” I answered quickly, rushing out of the kitchen and out toward…well, actually, I didn’t know where. Was I dreaming again? Was I seeing things that weren’t real? I didn’t know, and I didn’t have a way to tell. Was it just bleed-over from my nightmare?

  I rubbed at my temples, standing at the foot of a staircase that led up to the main hall but also down to the library. Would it make a difference which one I chose? Was there somewhere I could get away from the dark figure that may or may not have been real?

  I chewed at my thumb, feeling anxiety build in me like it never had before I had died. Which was also a pretty strange thing to think. One would think with all the power I had simmering under my skin, with everything I had learned from my after-life journey, that I would be more sagely and chill about everything.

  But I wasn’t, not at all.

  In fact, now that I had already died once, I was a lot more terrified of that idea than I had ever been.

  It wasn’t like I was immortal or anything. I came back on a technicality. It was only because I sacrificed myself in another dimension using my power that I sorta kinda found a back door. The thing was, my original body was still encased in crystal, trapped forever in that awful alternate reality. I was basically running around in a sort a replica, a golem of earth and magic that Krisjian had been able to channel my soul into. Sure, I was flesh and blood, and if a doctor ran a bunch of tests on me, I would read as a human, but that was only because I called on some very, very ancient magic.

  Ugh. It was all so complicated. I just needed—

  My thoughts were cut off by the sound of a trumpet. My eyes went wide, and I was almost sure that it wasn’t a good noise. Momentarily distracted from my existential panic, I rushed up the stairs, bursting onto the main floor just as several of the nobles, knights, and other to-do people were rushing out the front, bursting into their dragon forms as soon as their feet touched the grass.

  I looked around wildly for Bronn, wondering what was going on. It took me a moment, but I spotted him exiting the doors, a grim look on his face.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, rushing up to him. His advisors shifted, as if they were either uncomfortable or inconvenienced by my presence, but he stepped away from them.

  But instead of just talking to me right there on the steps leading out to the long, long drive, he gently gripped my arm and guided me to the side. I wasn’t used to seeing him so serious and it startled me enough to let him pull me along until we were well to the side of the oncoming rush of dragon shifters.

  “I need you to stay here.”

  Since coming back to life, there were a lot of things I had to relearn about myself. One thing that I had never forgotten, however, was that I didn’t like being told what to do. “That didn’t answer my question.”

  “Davie,” he said firmly, in a tone he’d never used with me before. Suddenly the affable, sweet Bronn was all business and royalty. It was…weird. “Please, just stay put. I’ll deal with this and when I come back, I
’ll tell you everything you could possibly want to know.”

  “Or we could just cut out the relaying part and just let me hop on your back.”

  “Davie!” His voice was so sharp that I could only stare at him in shock, mouth open a bit. He never raised his voice to me. Not like that. What was going on? “We don’t have time to argue. For once, just sit back and let me take care of things, alright?”

  I didn’t say anything, taken aback by the whole situation. When I had no answer, a fleeting look of regret passed over Bronn’s handsome features, but then he quickly turned away and returned to the advisors still waiting for him. Not a single other word was said before they all shifted into their various forms and took to the sky.

  Wow.

  That sucked.

  I sat down hard on the steps, trying to identify everything that was going on inside of me. While I’d had a pretty intense concentration of emotions in me ever since I’d died, something new was blooming in my chest. I didn’t know if it was frustration, anger or embarrassment, but it certainly stung like lemon juice in a paper cut.

  I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, staring off into the distance as the dragons disappeared from my sight. They must have been going to the very edge of the castle’s territory. That couldn’t bode well at all.

  But before they could vanish entirely, I heard the distinctive sound of wheels skidding across the ground and I turned to see a car rushing toward me from around the house.

  I jumped to my feet, thinking it was some sort of trap, but the car skidded to a stop in front of me, tinted windows rolling down to reveal Mal grinning at me like a jackal. Krisjian was just behind her, looking a little green around the gills.

  “Hey there,” the small woman said. “Need a ride?”

  I let out a bark of joyous laughter and rushed around to the passenger side. “Where did you even get this?”

  “Would you believe that one of those draggo boys left it running when that horn sounded? Seemed a shame to just leave it sitting.”

  I buckled up as I got in then slammed the door closed. “Since when do you even know how to drive?” I asked as she peeled out.

  “You were dead a long time. I had to do something to keep myself occupied from the fact I was here, in your world, and you weren’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “For the record,” Krisjian said from the back, “I was just reading a book. I had no plans for carjacking.”

  “Yeah, because for a homeless kid, you really are boring,” Mal said, grinning at the rearview mirror.

  Krisjian just groaned and sank further into his seat, looking greener by the moment. I wished I could help him, but for being a supposedly super powerful magical oracle whatever, I was pretty powerless against the forces of nausea.

  “Hopefully we won’t miss all of the fun stuff,” Mal said, pressing the pedal down farther as we flew across the grass. I was pretty sure that the fancy, most definitely expensive car we were in wasn’t meant for off-roading, but oh well. If someone had a problem, they could take it up with Bronn.

  There were upsides to being close with the prince.

  …even if he had just been kind of a butt to me.

  I tucked that thought out of my mind, however. It could wait until after I saw what the dragons were rushing to.

  Huh, strange to think that just a few months ago—not counting the time that I spent dead—my biggest worry was making sure I filched enough hours from my coworkers to pay our bills. Now I was chasing after people who could shapeshift into dragons and basically declaring war against some other dragons who wanted to subjugate my entire people.

  Heavy stuff.

  I didn’t have much time to ponder it, however, because we crested a hill and suddenly, all of the dragons were in view.

  And I meant all of them.

  On one side of the shield that I had created, I could see Bronn and all of his subjects, hovering with tension evident in their reptilian forms. On the other side was Baelfyre and what I assumed were all of his people.

  “Oh man,” Mal said, voice dry from beside me. “I may not be from around here, but I’m pretty sure this ain’t a good thing.”

  “I think you’re right,” I whispered.

  It didn’t make sense to keep our voices down, we were still too far away for even their enhanced hearing to pick us up. They’d hear the roar of the engine before they caught the words out of my mouth anyways. But still, there was a sort of heaviness to the air. A tension so thick and palpable that I could practically choke on it.

  As if some sort of signal had sounded, the dragons began to land and shift into their human forms. It was an impressive display of scales receding and wings folding in on themselves until not a single beast was in sight.

  As the two armies faced off, a white-hot flash of warning snapped through me, making my chest ache and my throat burn.

  “Stop the car.”

  “What? We’re way too far to hear anything.”

  “Just stop it.”

  Thankfully, Mal did as I asked, and the burning in my chest faded. I could feel both her and Krisjian looking at me curiously, but I needed to catch my breath.

  “We shouldn’t get any closer,” I said once I was physically able to speak again. “It’s not safe.”

  “Well, what’s the point of coming out here then? Unless you can read lips…”

  She trailed off, no doubt because her eyes were fixed on me as I pressed both hands to the console. Closing my eyes, I concentrated, stretching that fizzing energy out to spread over the fields like water.

  It washed over everything, dizzying in its unbridled power. I guessed that I had been holding back quite a bit since I’d restored and strengthened the shielding of the entire castle. Maybe it was because it was scary to tap into that level of power. Or maybe it was because it was so utterly exhausting. But whatever the reason, I let my death grip on my abilities go and just let myself feel.

  I had never been much for illicit drugs, but if I had to guess what being high was like, I figured this feeling had to be pretty close. My face flushed, my heartrate sped up, and everything took on a syrupy sort of warmth that made me want to snuggle into the closest soft thing and never come up.

  Then, finally, whatever it was that was in me reached the shifters and slid over them, curling around them in invisible little eddies, licking at their limbs and floating along their breaths.

  “What are you doing?” Krisjian asked breathlessly behind me. “I can feel you.”

  I didn’t answer, trying to keep my shaky focus centered. Then, after what seemed like forever floating in that delicious comfort, voices began to play through the radio.

  “Holy… Is that… Is that them?” Mal asked, leaning close to the radio as if she could see her answer there.

  “Yeah,” I said, sitting back and wiping the sweat from my brow.

  “Since when can you do that?”

  “Since right now, when I decided to try.”

  She let out a whistle. “Man, you seers are something else, aren’t you? I thought you were just supposed to see the future.”

  I shrugged. “Things have changed.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  I could tell that she would have liked to say more, but Baelfyre’s voice boomed through the speakers and all three of us bristled. His words poured like oil, slick and cloying and getting into my every pore. I didn’t think I’d ever had such a visceral reaction to a voice, and I didn’t know if I wanted to puke or just vault myself out of the car and right back into oblivion.

  “Hello there, cousin,” he practically purred, so sure of himself, so cocky. It made me want to uppercut him, even if I was pretty sure that uppercutting a dragon shifter was a bad idea.

  I mean, I’d headbutted one before.

  Then again…that had been a lesser drake. Not a fully-fledged, battle-worn dragon shifter who could go toe-to-toe with Bronn.

  “You lost the right to call me that when you decided to betr
ay our family,” Bronn said even more firmly than he had talked to me. He had such strength to his voice, a determined sort of steel. Yeah, he definitely was going to be a good leader for his people.

  Assuming he had a people once all of this was said and done.

  Geez. That was dark. Even for me.

  “I assume you have come to declare your surrender,” Bronn continued. “If so, lay down your weapons and willingly allow yourself to be fitted with shifting collars. We will be merciful, despite all you have done.”

  My breath hitched. Could it be that easy? Had my coming back from the dead and the grandstanding that followed been enough to stop the growing war before it could actually get to the war part? That would be…amazing, to say the least.

  But instead of capitulating, Baelfyre let out a smarmy, over-the-top laugh. It made my skin crawl, and my fingers curled into fists. What was the point of being built like a Mack truck if I couldn’t beat the crap out of the treacherous man? Thinking of how he used to flirt with me, how he tried to win me over when I was still so new and overwhelmed with his world, made me nauseous. I didn’t like being nauseous.

  “You think I’m here to surrender, cousin? Hardly. I have superior forces, superior supplies, and I am not the one huddled behind a little shield that we’ve already destroyed once.

  “No, I’m here to give you a chance to surrender. Deliver the three oracles we know you’re hiding in there, and we’ll allow you to run away to your allies in Europe. You can take as much as you want with you, and we’ll leave you alone until you inevitably return to try your hand at this war business you keep playing at.”

  There was a beat of silence as his words sank in, making my spine go cold. Suddenly, I wished Mickey had been by Mal when she had—

  He’s crazy if he really thinks we would ever go willingly.

  I nearly jumped out of my seat as I felt more than heard my sister right behind me. Craning my neck, I saw her sitting next to Krisjian, the edges of her shimmering slightly.

  “You’re not really here, are you?”