Kiss of Fate

by Deborah Cooke

  Eileen bristled to find even her choice of specialty under attack. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean you’re writing down other people’s stories instead of living your own.”

  Eileen stared at her sister in surprise, hearing a peal of truth in her words.

  “Trust your instincts, Eileen. You do in every other facet of your life and they’re good. Trust them with men, too.”

  Eileen heard Erik telling her to trust him in that velvety deep voice. There was a man who was trouble in spades. Her instinct had been to trust him, which showed how reliable it was as a guide.

  Eileen pulled on her coat with impatience. “Well, sorry to disappoint, but this is really a research lead. I need to go back to Ironbridge once more before I go home.”

  “No man involved?”

  “No.”

  “Well, keep your eyes open, big sis. The best ones lurk in unlikely places.”

  “Like frogs,” Eileen joked.

  Lynne grinned. “Princes in disguise.”

  Eileen gave Lynne a tight hug and wished one more time that they didn’t live so far apart.

  “No hurt feelings?” Lynne asked, pulling back to look at Eileen’s eyes.

  “No. I know you mean well.” She grinned. “Even if you are completely wrong.” She caught a glimpse of the wall clock. “Gotta go,” she said, and hugged Lynne again. “You be good.”

  Lynne wagged a finger at her. “And you be careful.”

  “I thought I was supposed to follow my instincts,” Eileen teased. She waited just long enough to see exasperation cross her sister’s face before she laughed and left.

  Eileen headed for the train station with the wooden chest in one hand and the overnight bag in the other, her satchel over her shoulder. Although it was still dark, she was relieved not to be walking in the rain for once. She had intended to take the tube, but decided it would have been awkward to carry luggage. She grabbed a cab instead, then found herself scanning the traffic for big black sedans.

  None.

  She wasn’t reassured.

  She tried not to think about Lynne’s comments. The problem was that there was a core of truth in her sister’s observation. It was true that she had rotten luck with men, that she always picked the one who would be unfaithful—like her ex, Joe—or the one who didn’t want to make a commitment, the one who was bisexual, the one who was a chronic liar, the one who was married already . . . the list went on and on.

  But Eileen was never surprised by the revelation. She could always see the pattern in hindsight, could always remember the conversations when she’d wondered. No matter how big the revelation, it was never a shock.

  She cried over a lot of things—lost opportunities, friends shot dead by thieves, babies who would never be born—but not men. She certainly hadn’t cried over Nigel. She’d shed a couple of tears over Joe, but even at the time she’d thought he wasn’t worth that much grief.

  Could Lynne be right?

  Eileen dated a lot and never had trouble finding a man who was interested in her. In a way, though, it was wearying to have every relationship be short-term. She could joke that variety was the spice of life, but she had to wonder.

  Was it really that she was unlucky in love—or were her own choices shaping her luck?

  At Euston Station, Eileen checked her overnight bag into a locker. She quickly rolled the locker key in another piece of fabric and pushed it into the envelope addressed to Lynne, the one with too many stamps and the note. She sealed the envelope, mixed it into the middle of the postcards, then went to a newsstand to mail them.

  She handed them to the man who was selling papers and magazines, waiting while he checked that they all had stamps. She glanced over the shiny magazines and newspapers, the racks of gum and candy, then froze.

  Bloody Heist Leaves Two Dead! screamed the headline on one newspaper. The accompanying picture was of sunglasses, broken and spattered with blood.

  Eileen blinked. She knew those sunglasses. They were the security guard’s sunglasses, at the Fonthill-Fergusson Foundation.

  Eileen had to turn away before she was sick. The coffee churned in her stomach and her thoughts spun. It had really happened. Teresa was dead. The security guard had been shot. It was harder to pretend otherwise in the gray light of morning, with newspaper headlines announcing the truth.

  “How tragic,” said a man beside her. He had a French accent and his voice was uncommonly deep. The cadence of his words was melodic.

  She gave him the barest glance, assuming that she was in his way. “Excuse me,” she said, gripping her belongings and meaning to step past him.

  He stepped into her path again and she looked at his face. He was handsome, even though there was a harsh set to his lips. There was a bandage on his throat, one that rose above his shirt collar and looked starkly white against his tanned skin. His hair was a chestnut brown, his eyes as dark as chocolate.

  And there were flames dancing in their depths.

  “There’s no reason to excuse yourself,” he said smoothly. There was something odd about his voice. It was hypnotic, as if it dripped into her thoughts and turned them in other directions. “It’s quite natural to be upset. What is the world coming to?”

  “What is the world coming to,” she found herself echoing.

  What was going on? She sounded as if she were a thousand years old.

  “Let me help you with that,” he said, and reached for the handles of the wooden chest.

  Eileen glanced down and reason seemed to reclaim her thoughts.

  He had flames in his eyes. That wasn’t normal.

  Erik had said that the dragon men were called the Pyr.

  That meant fire.

  This guy had a chest wound.

  Her intuition put two and two together. There had to be good Pyr and bad Pyr. Eileen knew exactly who Frenchie was and what he wanted. She also knew she wasn’t going to give it to him.

  Eileen shoved him aside, so hard that he stumbled, and ran.

  When Frenchie followed, she broke into a gallop. She pushed her way through the crowd, using the wooden chest as a means of breaking trail, and didn’t look back. She hoped Erik had injured Frenchie enough that he wouldn’t be able to keep up.

  Eileen’s heart was thudding. People cursed as she pushed them aside. She heard Frenchie shout after her but didn’t look back.

  The clock at the end of the next platform said 6:04. A lot could happen in six minutes. Her train’s platform was at the other side of the station and she halfway expected an interception. She couldn’t see anyone moving toward her. Eileen glanced back.

  There was no sign of Frenchie.

  She knew better than to believe he’d given up. He might have help—like the gold dragon who had snatched her.

  The one who had shot Teresa twice.

  Or Magnus.

  Eileen felt sick. She bobbed and weaved through the crowd, ducking and feinting. She took a tortuous path to her platform, leaving the train station by one exit and returning by another entrance. There was still no sign of Frenchie when she reached her platform.

  Her train was idling on the tracks, and Eileen dared to feel a bit relieved.

  It was 6:08.

  If Frenchie didn’t know what train she caught, he might not be able to follow her. Certainly Magnus couldn’t follow the train easily in his car. She was almost in the clear.

  She was feeling warm again, probably from anxiety and from running. She strode down the platform double-quick, ducking around people and luggage carts to disguise her presence. She’d open her coat once she was safely on the train.

  Eileen darted toward a car with an open door. She tightened her grip on the handles of the wooden box, preparing to heft it high to climb the steps, and was shocked when someone lifted it out of her hand from behind.

  “You promised,” Erik hissed.

  Chapter 5

  Something wicked was in the air and, worse, it was new. Sophie couldn’t pinpo
int the force with any precision. She flew into the deepest tinge of the new stain in the air, hoping it didn’t draw her to Magnus’s dark academy. She hoped that he hadn’t added some new horror to his arsenal.

  The taint led her to Chicago.

  A confused Sophie found herself near Erik’s lair, the malice in the air growing with every beat of her wings. The stench of it was thick here, dark enough to singe her lungs.

  But Erik was in London. She had just spoken with him on the roof of the house where his mate had taken refuge. Sophie didn’t doubt that Erik had breathed a deep layer of protective smoke around his lair before he departed. It was entirely possible that one of the other Pyr had remained to guard it.

  But Sophie couldn’t sense any Pyr.

  She smelled Slayer.

  In choosing the shadow over the light, in denying the divine spark of the Great Wyvern within himself, a Slayer’s blood turned from red to black. His scent changed as a result, taking on the scorched tinge of destruction, a smell that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.

  Sophie approached Erik’s lair with caution. It was quiet in the area filled with old warehouses, as many still stood empty and derelict. Sophie eased closer, taking in the Slayer’s scent in the hope of identifying him. Her hackles rose in sudden recognition.

  Boris Vassily.

  Sophie had no doubt. The leader of the Slayers had captured and tortured Sophie just a year before. The cut below Sophie’s wing still ached at the torment she had endured, the injury that Boris had ordered. She would never forget his scent. She had thought she might die then, a Wyvern in Slayer captivity, but she had survived with Sara’s help.

  There would always be another Wyvern born to the Pyr, although none could say when or where. Sophie, however, hadn’t been quite ready to die.

  That incident had tugged her from the aloof position traditionally held by the Wyvern right into the battle of Pyr against Slayer. She didn’t want to sit back and observe—Sophie wanted to help the Pyr win.

  No Wyvern had actively engaged so consistently in the past. At most, each Wyvern made one intervention in her lifetime. Sophie had a growing sense that she was courting her own destruction, but she couldn’t stop and let the Pyr lose.

  Boris’s scent reminded her all too clearly of the price she might pay, the price she had nearly paid a year before.

  But the whiff of his scent made no sense. Boris had been killed by Erik the previous summer. Erik had ensured that Boris’s corpse was exposed to the four elements, so that the leader of the Slayers couldn’t be revived or turned to a shadow dragon.

  Sophie smelled Boris all the same. Her nose defied the truth she had been told. It was impossible.

  Or was it? She feared again what Magnus might have done.

  Or what lost lore he might remember.

  Sophie saw Boris a heartbeat later. He was immediately outside Erik’s lair. She shifted to become a small white salamander and hid in the cracks between the bricks of the building. Her body became the same color as the mortar, hiding her completely.

  She was still afraid to be so close to Boris, but she watched.

  Boris was pale and feral as ever in his human form. Sophie heard the clear, resonant ring of Erik’s dragonsmoke and saw that it was woven high and deep. It was one of the best territory rings Sophie had ever seen, almost as good as the one Erik had just breathed in Notting Hill. She felt a certain satisfaction that Boris wouldn’t be able to breach it.

  Sophie hoped Boris tried. She would like to see him destroyed by dragonsmoke. She would like to watch the dragonsmoke singe him, suck the life out of him, and leave nothing but a charred shell behind. It wasn’t like Sophie to be vindictive, but Boris had changed that.

  She hated him.

  Boris’s manner was furtive. He looked to the left. He looked to the right. He sniffed, as if he sensed the presence of another of his kind, but even with his keen eyesight, he wouldn’t be able to see Sophie at this distance.

  She shuddered all the same.

  Then Boris lifted a talon. He was in human form, but had a dragon talon on his right index finger. Sophie didn’t believe her eyes. Boris was hovering between forms.

  And he held the shift at only his right talon.

  Neither Pyr nor Slayer hovered between forms: Once the shift began, it was impossible to stop, although a few Pyr learned to shift more slowly or to hesitate during the change.

  Boris was frozen between the two forms.

  To Sophie’s further surprise, Boris used that talon to slice an opening in the dragonsmoke. Sophie gaped. Erik’s dragonsmoke was breached, but it still rang true.

  Sophie was shocked to her marrow. Neither Pyr nor Slayer could cross dragonsmoke without the express permission of the dragon who had breathed it—and live to tell about the deed. It was impossible for Boris to be doing what he was doing.

  But he did it all the same.

  Only the Wyvern could breach dragonsmoke unscathed.

  Only the Wyvern could hover between forms, if she so chose.

  Sophie’s eyes widened as she thought of the other feats she could do.

  How was Boris stealing her tricks?

  Had he adopted them all?

  Meanwhile, Boris severed the dragonsmoke to the ground. He let his nail shift back to human form.

  Then he stepped through the breach in human form. Sophie gasped and sputtered. The dragonsmoke did not injure him. There was no mistaking the evidence of her eyes. Boris picked the lock on the door and entered Erik’s lair, unscathed.

  It was up to Sophie to stop him.

  Somehow.

  Sophie materialized in Erik’s lair, her manner watchful.

  Boris was in the room where Erik secured his hoard. How had he done that? It was less important to know how Boris had foiled Erik’s defenses than that he had.

  For the moment.

  It certainly wasn’t a time to be offended that some Slayer had usurped the abilities that should have belonged to the Wyvern alone.

  Even if that made Sophie furious.

  She eased closer to the hoard, seething at Boris’s audacity. She heard him rummaging and wondered what he sought. Erik’s hoard was very orderly—what reason was there to make so much noise?

  She knew the answer a beat later.

  She reached the door leading to Erik’s hoard and glanced back at some minute sound; then Boris seized her by the throat.

  “I thought that would tempt you closer,” he said, bringing his face near to hers. “You’re too curious for a Wyvern. Aren’t you supposed to be above earthly concerns?”

  Sophie caught her breath when his grip tightened. She could feel the sharp edge of his talon digging into her throat.

  It couldn’t be an accident that it was right over her carotid artery. Sophie didn’t dare move.

  She saw that Boris held the Dragon’s Egg in his other hand, the obsidian sphere of stone freed from its velvet sack.

  “What are you doing with the Dragon’s Egg?” she asked in old-speak.

  “Guess.”

  “You can’t steal it.”

  “I could, but I’ll do better than that.” The hatred in his eyes made Sophie catch her breath. “I’ll destroy it instead.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.” Boris leaned his cold smile close to Sophie’s face. “The Pyr learn too much from this chunk of stone.”

  “You can’t destroy the Dragon’s Egg. It’s forbidden—”

  Boris interrupted her with a laugh. “Just as it’s forbidden to destroy you?” Sophie felt her eyes widen, but Boris just smiled. “How accommodating of you to provide for one-stop shopping.”

  “I thought you were dead.”

  Boris chuckled. “I guess you were wrong.” He stroked her skin with the edge of his nail, as if choosing a spot to slice.

  “It is forbidden to injure the Wyvern.”

  Boris laughed. “I’m not going to start playing by the rules now.” His grip tightened just a bit, as if he would remind h
er of who was in control. “In fact, I’ve decided that you are far too helpful to the Pyr. The Wyvern should be remote, unseen, uninvolved in the matters of the world. I can fix that.”

  Sophie flushed, because there was truth in his accusation. “The Wyvern is obligated to aid the cause of righteousness,” she said quickly. “And these times demand more of me.”

  “No,” Boris said with finality. “Only one of us can challenge the rules, and that will be me.” His talon dug deeper with sudden force and Sophie caught her breath at the pain. She gasped at the warm trickle of her own blood on her skin.

  “Ready to die, Sophie?” Boris murmured in old-speak.

  Sophie became aware of another presence in Erik’s lair just before she saw him.

  Nikolas.

  The ancient Pyr raged toward Boris, shifting into an anthracite dragon en route. He bellowed and blew a fearsome stream of dragonfire.

  Boris pivoted quickly, positioning Sophie between himself and Nikolas. Nikolas froze and stared, his breath coming in furious puffs of dragonsmoke. He was enormous and livid. When he remained still, he glittered coldly. His gaze was calculating.

  “You have no scent,” Boris accused. “How can this be?”

  Nikolas’s smile was predatory. “Perhaps you are not the only one who breaks rules.” His tone turned deadly. “Release the Wyvern.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Boris said.

  Sophie saw Nikolas’s eyes narrow with the same suspicion she felt.

  “You see,” Boris said conversationally, “you’ll have to choose.”

  Before Nikolas could reply, Boris hurled the Dragon’s Egg toward the window. The glass bricks shattered beneath the impact of the large stone in the same moment that Boris’s talon dug deeply into Sophie’s neck.

  Sophie screamed.

  The Dragon’s Egg plummeted toward the pavement six stories below.

  Nikolas chose.

  Chapter 6

  Erik was livid. His mate seemed determined to put herself in the path of destruction. He knew she didn’t understand fully about Slayers or the danger of the Dragon’s Teeth, but she had broken her promise to him.