Of course, he’d been suicidal then. Tonight was going to make that little disaster look like a party.
Alys led the way out into the two-car garage that had been seared into Davon’s memory. Carilla’s brick ranch didn’t look like the kind of place where you held a fight to the death. The surrounding Atlanta neighborhood was thoroughly middle-class.
A sturdy wooden play fort stood in the backyard, not far from the stand of oaks, maples, and pines that lay cool in the evening dark. Davon’s mouth tightened as he remembered the preparations he and Alys had made in those woods the night before.
Christ, he dreaded this.
Moonlight glinted on Alys’s golden armor as she swept one hand in an intricate gesture. A pulse of magic flashed over the area. Catching him looking at her, she misinterpreted his expression. “I’m casting a cloaking spell to make sure the neighbors don’t call the cops when all hell starts breaking loose. The last thing we need is someone shooting cell phone video of me hurtling magical blasts at big blue aliens.”
“Yeah, we definitely don’t want that.” He tried not to wonder what Bres was going to do to her.
Goddamn it. He ached to scream the truth. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here -- now! We’ve got to just fucking leave!” Maybe her visions were wrong and there was something he could do that wouldn’t leave her in Bres’s hands, suffering God knew what…
“Davon?” Alys’s gauntleted hand landed on his shoulder as he stared blindly into the night. He resisted the urge to turn and look at her. He wasn’t sure he trusted his face. She peered at his profile, frowning. “Are you feeling all right? Do I need to conjure you a quick glass of blood?”
He forced a smile, hoped it was too dark for her Maja eyes to see how false it was. “No, I’m fine.” I drank from you last night.
The memory smashed into him -- the feel of her silken throat against his lips, the taste of her blood pouring into his mouth. He’d rarely tasted it in anything other than a glass. And every other time he’d drunk from her vein, he’d been mortally injured and in no shape to appreciate it.
And she doesn’t remember. It was as if it hadn’t happened at all. That thought was inexpressibly lonely. He hoped to hell he had the chance to drink from her again -- or even just kiss her again. For a moment he stared at her mouth through the transparent visor of her helmet, craving the taste of her so badly, he ached from his cock to the root of his fangs.
His hand lifted, reached toward her, but before he could touch her, she snapped around, her lean body tensing. “There they are.”
Chapter Six
Davon’s stomach seemed to drop as if he were in free-fall, and a wave of ice rolled to the top of his head. He must be going as pale as his complexion would allow.
Through the open garage door, he saw sparks bloom as the dimensional gate expanded. Four Fomorians stepped through. The sizzle of alien magic rolled over him, and he heard Alys make a soft, purring hum. She stepped forward, drawing her sword. He drew his and followed.
“Hello, boys!” Alys called as her helmet echoed of the words in the guttural language of the Fomorians. “I’m sorry, you’re not going to be kidnapping anyone’s kids today.” Lifting her sword, she charged with that ringing Mad Alys cackle.
Davon ran after her, leaping at the nearest Fomorian. And the battle was joined, the two Magekind falling into their old familiar pattern: Alys firing blasts after blast at the lead Fomorian, spaced so tightly they overwhelmed his shield. The instant it fell, Davon leapt forward and swung his sword. Fomorian armor wasn’t quite as good as theirs -- the Fomos depended more on their magic to shield them -- and he’d learned precisely the right stroke to cleave through armor, bone, and flesh.
The Fomorian’s head tumbled away, trailing a violet spray of blood.
Another warrior lunged at him, and he spun aside, avoiding the Fomo’s hurled blast. But even as they fought, Davon worked his way toward the edge of the woods, watching Alys from the corner of one eye. She was having a great time, hurling blazing magical blasts like fastballs. Ferociously alive, as she always was in combat.
Two Fomorians charged her, and there it was: she dropped her shield to swing her blade in that that fucking figure-eight sword swing from the vision. Davon snapped his eyes off to the left. Sure enough, a white-hot point appeared in midair, swelling outward into a gate. The one the eight Fomorian would step through.
His gut clenched, and he shot an agonized look at her. And longed to tell her this wasn’t a betrayal. Ached to stay and fight for her, to save her from the horror that awaited her…
I have one chance -- humanity has one fucking chance. And that’s for you to believe me and follow the plan.
Cursing himself -- cursing her -- Davon wheeled and ran, sprinting for the woods that lay at the edge of the yard. They won’t kill her. She swore they won’t kill her. He heard Alys’s startled shout. “’Von? Where the hell are you…” Her voice sounded high with disbelief and a hint of panic.
But she had no time for more as the Fomorians closed in. She’ll think I betrayed her. The thought rasped over his heart like sandpaper. But he didn’t stop, didn’t slow as he raced into the woods.
I have one chance -- humanity has one fucking chance. And that’s for you to believe me and follow the plan.
Just ahead, a white-hot spot appeared in midair, the dimensional gate generator they’d planted the night before activating at his approach. Davon threw himself into the gate without breaking step. His feet hit the ground on the other side, and he slammed to a halt to keep from running into the hotel room wall. Tripping over his own feet, he hit the floor so hard his armor rattled. Behind him, he heard a distant whomp as the gate generator destroyed itself, leaving no clue where he’d gone.
* * *
Alys watched in disbelief as Davon fled, a streak of glittering armor in the moonlight. “’Von? Where the hell are you…”
The instant’s distraction was lethal. She saw something fly toward her from the corner of one eye. She whirled… right into a magical blast. She didn’t have a shield up -- she’d been in the middle of an attack -- so there was nothing to protect her except her helmet.
Her helmet wasn’t enough. Light and pain exploded in her face.
She saw nothing else.
* * *
Davon crouched where he’d fallen, staring at the carpet beneath his braced hands. The great sword lay on the floor where he’d dropped it.
They have her now. Mechanically, he picked up the sword and stood. Walking over to the second of the two beds where he and Alys had left his gear piled, he put the sword down on the mattress.
The Do Not Disturb spell Alys had laid on the door had kept housekeeping from discovering it. If anyone touched it, they’d believed they’d already serviced the room. Then they’d remember something else that urgently needed doing.
Moving slowly -- his body ached as if he’d been beaten -- he reached up and took hold of his helmet. At his touch, it released its grip on his armored neck, allowing him to pull it off. His hands continued the business of removing his armor on autopilot, touching his breastplate, his gauntlets, his boots, his scale mail vanishing into each piece as he removed it.
Naked but for his briefs, Davon put it all away in the waiting metal case, then closed the case and locked it.
With a sigh, he picked up his sword and sat down in the desk chair beside the window. In the street beyond, brilliant electronic billboards lit up the towering buildings, advertising Hamilton, Kinky Boots, and Les Mis.
They’d booked the room the night before, finding it as miraculously available as Alys’s vision had predicted. Which was how he’d ended up with a room overlooking Times Square in one of the most expensive hotels in the city. Damn, he wished he were sharing it with her instead of waiting for all hell to break loose.
Watching the lights flash, he absently spun the hilt of his sword between his palms. One thought pounded in his brain. Over and over, like the tolling of a bell. She’ll
think I abandoned her. She’ll think I betrayed her.
The lights of the signs blurred, and something cold lay across his throat. It was only then that Davon realized he held the sword’s edge pressed to his own carotid artery. He didn’t even remember lifting it. With a curse, he tossed the weapon on the bed, getting it as far away from himself as he could.
Bending over, he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes as the first sob tore his throat. His gaze fell on the minibar under the television, and he had a strong impulse to get very, very drunk. But the last thing he needed to do was fuck up his self-control with the sword lying across the bed.
He couldn’t save her if he were dead.
A muffled voice sounded from his armor case. Morbidly curious, he stood, walked to the bed and flipped the case open. Arthur Pendragon’s voice rang from his helm. “Fredericks? Fredericks, where the fuck are you?”
He slapped the case shut again. According to the vision Alys had re-created for him, by now the Magekind would have arrived at Carilla’s house to find everyone gone. Arthur and Morgana would assume they’d both been captured by the Fomorians.
Thankfully, the spells Alys had placed on the armor would keep even Morgana from being able to track him. The Magekind wouldn’t know where he was until sometime tomorrow night, when all hell broke loose.
After that, it was even odds whether Arthur would kill him personally.
* * *
The dragon was about the size of a Labrador retriever, if you discounted its long neck and tail. Considering how fast the species grew, it was either a newborn or damn close to it. In the dim light cast by the containment spell, its tiny scales gleamed gold, making it look like a pile of coins. Huge liquid eyes glowed spring green under a pair of tiny horns, and its pointed muzzle was much shorter than Kel’s.
It almost radiated terror.
“I won’t hurt you.”
The little creature jerked and wound tighter around itself, as if it didn’t understand her. Alys wished she could speak to it telepathically. Once again, she tried to reach out to its mind, but once again she failed.
She wasn’t particularly surprised. She and the little dragon were imprisoned in a cavernous stone room lit by globes of blue light that bobbed against the ceiling high overhead, reminding her of trapped helium balloons. The floor for ten feet around them was deeply inscribed with shapes she recognized as draconic glyphs, along with other symbols she didn’t recognize at all. She was willing to bet this was the Fomorian equivalent of a spell circle, though it was less ring than some kind of intricate alien shape.
Whatever it was, the spell it generated was an effective one. She couldn’t seem to draw on the Mageverse at all. She’d never been so completely cut off from her magic, and it made her feel as if she’d gone blind.
Then again, if she’d abducted a newly-hatched dragon, she’d have erected the most powerful spell she could manage, too.
Sir Kel had told her once that dragon young had psychic links to their mothers that were almost impossible to break. Somewhere there was a terrified scaly mama searching frantically for her missing hatchling. Damn, Alys wished she could get out a distress call to her, whoever she was. The female would rip apart Bres’s palace -- assuming that’s where they were. She’d damn sure kill the Fomorian king and everyone else involved in the kidnapping.
The mental image of that searching dragon made Alys think of Davon. Where was he? Was he looking for her? Why had he run? She knew it wasn’t cowardice. He’d demonstrated his rock-steady courage too many times.
Besides, cowards didn’t become Magekind in the first place. Either the Majae’s Council rejected them, or they went mad when Merlin’s Gift transformed them. So why the fuck did he run?
But that thought only intensified her agitation, so she shoved it away. Better to concentrate on soothing the baby. Its fear was the only thing she could do anything about. Not that she could protect the little creature, but making the attempt was better than stewing in her own terror.
The dragonet gave a pitiful moaning cry that wrung her heart. She wanted to give it a hug, despite the inch-long talons and all the teeth concealed in that scaly little muzzle.
What the hell. It wasn’t as if she had anything to live for. Bres was going to try to use her against the Magekind, probably through the same contagion he’d used to infect the werewolves and Prince Dearg’s bodyguard. But though her head ached fiercely, she didn’t feel sick. It was possible they’d infected her while she was unconscious, but she had the feeling they hadn’t gotten around to that yet.
They’d stripped her of her armor and sword, of course, leaving her in the thin one-piece suit she’d worn beneath her kit. Which would offer very little protection if the hatchling decided to take a bite out of her.
The dragonet moaned again, and she began to inch toward it, crawling on the icy stone in a bid to appear less frightening. The little gold head raised and it gave a warning hiss, its open mouth revealing an impressive number of a very sharp teeth.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Alys said softly. “I’m a prisoner too.”
The hatchling only curled in on itself tighter, quivering. She stopped a short distance away, crooning softly. Big green eyes met hers, blinking slowly, the nictitating membranes sliding back and forth across its liquid eyes. It uncoiled a little.
Alys reached out a hand to touch one thin foreleg. Unlike Kel’s adult scales, the hatchling’s felt thin and smooth, reminding her of the delicate skin of a human infant. When she inhaled, the dragonet’s scent was sweeter and lighter than an adult dragon’s heavy, dark musk. The baby gazed at her, eyes widening as the vertical slits of its pupils expanded slowly, eating up more and more of the green.
It moved in a blur. Before Alys could even cry out, she had a lap full of dragonet, its tail encircling her waist, wings curled around her back. It ducked its little head between her breasts and quivered.
Alyssa wrapped her arms around it and cuddled it close as a fierce determination rolled through her. “I don’t know why they’re holding you, but it can’t be anything good. I’m going to get you out of this.”
“No, you won’t.” The voice rumbled, edged in a hiss, so menacing it made her blood chill. It spoke the Draconic language. Bres must have bespelled her to understand.
Alys jerked up her head to see that a doorway had opened in the cavern wall, revealing the hunched emerald form of a dragon, eyes glowing orange, plumes of smoke wreathing its huge, frilled head. She thought it might be a little smaller than Kel, though thirty feet of dragon was still thirty feet of dragon.
In her lap, the dragonet made a high, terrified squeak and ducked lower in her lap, its heartbeat rabbiting against her chest. The green dragon slid endlessly into the room. Instinctively, Alys scrambled to her feet, lifting the hatchling’s seventy or so pounds with easy Maja strength.
The dragon laughed at her, each breath a puff of smoke. “You clutch that creature as if you could protect it. You can’t even protect yourself. Once Bres has cracked your mind and Avalon falls, we will slay the Sidhe and Magekind alike.”
“And what would the God of dragons say to that?” She was proud her voice didn’t shake. “I doubt Cachamwri would approve.”
“He is no god,” the dragon snarled. “He’s turned us into the slaves of those bipeds. I will free my people from that false idol.”
Staring up at the huge head gloating at her, Alys got a sudden, wild idea. “You’re mad, lizard. Cachamwri will feast on your heart -- if Kel doesn’t eat it first.”
Hissing, the dragon reared, his huge head shooting up on his long reptilian neck. Alys readied herself for its attack. She’d toss the dragonet to safety and throw herself at the dragon. A flying kick into one of those big orange eyes might kill the thing. It was worth a try. It would definitely distract the green fucker long enough for the hatchling to…
“Farek, wait!” a deep voice barked in Fomorian. “If you break the spell barrier to get at the witch, the
child will call its mother. You don’t want that, do you?”
The dragon’s head snapped around, eyes blazing orange as a great cloud of smoke rolled from his mouth. “You don’t tell me what I do and do not want, Bres!”
“Of course not,” the king said, strolling into the cavern. “But do you really want to allow a human to so manipulate you? She only wants you to kill her now so she can avoid her just fate.”
The dragon snarled, but the smoke thinned around his muzzle as he closed his mouth.
Goddamn it.
Bres turned toward her. He was a towering figure, standing on his toes like a werewolf in robes of some iridescent, glittering fabric. Gemstones draped around his blue, hairless head, dangling from the crest of stubby horns that ran down the center of his skull to his spine. Each stone shimmered with magic, probably designed to amplify his power. “Now,” Bres said, his voice low and rich with anticipation as his gaze locked on hers. “Let us begin.”
Farek murmured a liquid snatch of spell, and the dragon glyphs suddenly shrank, wrapping tight around the hatchling. It cried out in distress as the spell pinned it to the floor. Simultaneously, Bres gestured and the Fomorian glyphs dimmed. Alys felt a trickle of returning magic.
Instantly, she exploded into motion, leaping into a spinning kick. But before her foot could slam into his skull, Bres’s magic froze her in midair. She flung her magic against his, trying to break his hold, but it was like being trapped in industrial vise. The pressure clamped her so viciously her bones seemed to howl. The hatchling wailed in terror as she clenched her teeth against a scream.
Bres stalked toward her. Cold red eyes met hers as she hung helpless in the air. “You are arrogant, human. You need to learn your place. I’m going to crush your mind and leave you an empty shell.”
Go fuck yourself, she thought, and hurled her will against his.
His magic began to tighten around her mind, seeking some vulnerability he could exploit, but she concentrated on making her consciousness as smooth and reflective as a mirrored dome, offering no purchase to his scrabbling mental claws.
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