by Susan Illene
“This town could be a lot worse,” I said, noting only a few buildings had been burned in the area we currently traveled.
Kade twisted around to look at me. “That is because…”
“Uncle, don’t,” Aidan warned.
“What?” I looked between them.
“If the dragons don’t destroy a place, they have their reasons.” Aidan’s face was like a mask. “Leave it at that.”
Conrad gripped the wheel tightly. “What you’re sayin’ is they’re savin’ these folks for later.”
Aidan expelled an annoyed breath. “Must you always make things worse?”
“She’s a dragon slayer. You can’t shield her from that shit.”
“He’s right,” I said, going back to sharpening my sword. Inside, I was so angry I wished a dragon would show up right then so I could kill it. Naturally, none did.
We eventually reached the other end of town and went back to endless countryside. The land rolled and dipped, much like the area around Robbers Cave. It appeared most of eastern Oklahoma was full of hills and forests. In the central part of the state where we lived, you’d think almost every tree struggled with its last breath to grow and survive. It wasn’t as apparent in the summer when leaves covered their limbs, but winter showed the deciduous trees for exactly what they looked like without their leafy decorations.
This was the result of the high winds that rolled through the plains in bad weather. They could easily reach seventy to eighty miles per hour, pushing cars around like toys. Strong thunderstorms, tornadoes, and even ice storms also worked to hit the land hard. That didn’t show as much in the area we traveled now, though the trees did still appear rather barren. It just wasn’t quite as bad since there were more hills and evergreens to give the terrain a fuller appearance.
I kept an eye on the sky, watching for any signs of green dragons. It was turning into midafternoon, and they would be coming out soon. We’d been lucky we missed the patrol when we crossed the border. Aidan had moved over to the far end of the backseat to look out the other window, and Kade had leaned forward to stare out the windshield. Conrad gripped the wheel like he could muscle his way through dragon territory. I hated feeling this vulnerable. It was different when I hunted in Norman where everything felt familiar, and I’d claimed it as part of my turf. Out here, we were the strangers invading someone else’s land. The only good thing about it being dragon roaming time was that it reduced the chances of any humans bothering us. They lived in fear out here.
There was one big issue I was trying not to think about. The wild scent of the shifters was getting stronger the longer I sat in a closed vehicle with them. I hadn’t killed a dragon in a week now, and the need to slay grew stronger every day.
Driving helped keep my mind off of the problem, but Conrad had taken over. If one of the Shadowan didn’t show up soon, I didn’t want to think about how difficult controlling my instincts might become. Aidan might be okay for a while since his scent was the most familiar to me, but Kade didn’t stand a chance once I lost control. Even now, I was eyeing the back of his head and thinking deadly thoughts. I hated this part of myself. It seemed to have gotten worse while Aidan was away for two months.
It wasn’t until we’d reached the town of Stilwell that Kade called out, “There!”
He must have had eagle-eye vision because I could barely make out the tiny shapes moving to the northeast of us. I grabbed the radio mic and informed Miles of the patrol. The brake lights on his truck immediately brightened as he slowed down. We were still far enough from the dragons that we kept going, but not nearly as fast. Only if the beasts turned in our direction would it be worth the trouble of stopping. Sometimes they had their eyes on other prizes, and it wasn’t worth wasting time hiding when they had no interest in us. Still, I could feel my heart pumping harder with the increasing potential for a fight.
We finished passing through Stilwell and continued north. The dragons were still some distance away, but their figures had grown larger. I could now make out that there were three of them flying. The road started to curve northeast and we headed straight for them. Miles hit his brakes ahead.
Aidan reached through the seats and grabbed the microphone from the front. He’d watched me enough times to figure out how to speak into it. “We still aren’t close enough to them yet. Keep going, but not too fast.”
“Are you sure?” Miles asked, his skepticism coming through loud and clear over the radio.
“Until they notice us, we keep going.”
We only had about three hours left of daylight thanks to sunset coming early at this time of year. If we hoped to make our destination by dark, we couldn’t afford too many delays. Plus, we could easily take three dragons and be on our way soon enough. It was waiting for them to leave the area that could take a whole lot longer. We’d all had enough experience with them by now to know that.
The radio crackled twice before Phoebe’s voice took over, “Brother, I’ll let him know when to stop. He’s just nervous about his borrowed trucks getting damaged.”
Aidan pressed the talk button. “Your trucks will be fine, Miles.”
There was no response after that. I could only guess he was arguing with Phoebe and Danae over what to do.
A few minutes later, the dragons turned in our direction. I could see them well enough now to tell they’d spotted us. They streamlined their bodies and started flying fast in our direction. Miles hit the brakes hard and pulled onto a narrow dirt road, waiting to park until he got us under some tree cover. The shifters and I didn’t even wait for the trucks to stop before we leaped out of the vehicles and ran back toward the highway.
Aidan and Phoebe lit up in flames, shifting to dragon form. Kade and I pulled out our swords. The dragons were closing in on us fast, dropping altitude as they came closer. As the seconds ticked by, I prayed Aidan and his sister finished shifting quickly. A glance back revealed the others were pulling the large camrium blankets over the vehicles. The black cloth wasn’t a perfect fit, but close enough that only the bottom of the wheels were left vulnerable. We’d brought extra tires in case they got damaged.
Turning back, I watched Aidan take flight with his sister a second behind him. They barely got into the air before clashing with two of the Shadowan. The third was farther behind, but it looked like it planned to bypass the ensuing melee and attack Kade and me. I met the beast’s red gaze, letting it see its inevitable death in my brown eyes.
“I’ve got this one,” I said.
Kade frowned at me. “Are you certain? This is a large dragon.”
“I haven’t killed one in nearly a week. If I don’t get this out of my system, you’re going to be one of my targets soon,” I said through gritted teeth. “My control over my instincts still has its limits.”
He stepped away, giving me space. “Then by all means, slay the beast.”
The dragon rushed toward me with its jaws wide open. My blood pumped through my body and fueled me like gasoline poured on a fire. This beast was flying too low for me to use my favorite “crouch down at the last second and stab the belly” move. Twenty feet…ten feet…I dropped the sword, leaped up and grabbed it by its jaws, using the dragon’s continuing momentum to swing to the top of its long neck. Wrapping my legs tightly around its throat, I let go of its head with one hand and pulled my dagger. There was a soft spot just behind the skull where a blade could push through.
As the dragon continued its flight, trying to get higher now that I was on it, I stabbed downward. The zaphiriam dagger went straight through the thin scales and into the soft spot, piercing the beast’s brains. I twisted for good measure. The dragon floundered and crashed onto the road. I flew off, hitting the pavement hard and rolling over and over until eventually landing face down in a ditch. It took a moment for the stars to clear from my vision, but then I managed to get on my hands and knees.
A pair of legs appeared before me. “Are you insane?”
“No.” I peered up through
my fallen black hair.
Aidan’s face was a mask of anger. He reached down and jerked me to my feet. “Did I not teach you to never jump onto a flying dragon? He could have taken you high in the sky and dropped you. Even a slayer cannot survive that.”
“I knew what I was doing,” I said, pulling away from him to brush off some loose gravel and dried grass from my body. Other than a few scrapes and small cuts, the damage was minimal. I’d be good as new in half an hour with wounds that minor.
“Bailey, that trick was not necessary, and you know it.”
I glanced over at the dragon remains lying in the middle of the road. Its wings were crumpled and its tongue lolled out of its mouth. My dagger still stuck out from the top of its head. I’d have to remember to grab that on my way back, along with my sword.
Reluctantly, I dragged my gaze back to a very upset Aidan. “This is what happens now when I don’t kill a dragon often enough. All I can think about is the fastest way to take it down and in this case...” I paused to point at the beast’s body. “That was the quickest.”
“Do you feel better now?”
I nodded. “Yes, I do.”
He expelled a breath. “How often do you need to kill?”
“At least once every four or five days if I don’t want the blood lust to start up. Each day after that, my control diminishes.” I could see him doing the math and figuring out I’d gone a week.
He ran a hand through his thick, black hair. “And as long as you kill a dragon every few days, you will not take such high risks?”
I could see he was trying really hard to be patient with me because he knew this was a part of my nature. He might have helped me strengthen my discipline, but I could never be anything other than a slayer. It boggled my mind that he’d actually admitted he loved me the day before. How could he possibly care that much about a person genetically disposed to killing his kind? Every time I saw him, I couldn’t decide whether to punch him or kiss him for making his confession to me. We still hadn’t talked about it. I needed time to think through all the ramifications, so I’d told him to give me time. For now, we were close, but not too close.
“Right.” I nodded. “It’s easier to think and control myself if I’ve killed one recently.”
Aidan pulled me into a tight hug. “Then, Zorya help me, I will make certain you kill a dragon every few days.”
I looked up at him with a smile. “Every two days is even better.”
He let out a martyred sigh. “Don’t push it.”
“You two need to help clean up this mess so another patrol doesn’t find it,” Phoebe called out from the road.
We broke apart reluctantly. The dead dragons would need to be dragged into the trees and covered with stinguise juice so their brethren wouldn’t sniff them out before their corpses disintegrated in forty-eight hours. It was the only way to be sure the Shadowan didn’t figure out we were in their territory and come looking for us. At least there were enough of us to get the job done fast.
Chapter 20
Bailey
For the next hour, we drove in watchful silence, waiting for another dragon patrol to show up. Crossing into Arkansas had been uneventful as we continued our way north. The land had become flatter and wider open with sparse trees dotting the landscape. There would be no way any pure dragons could sneak up on us in this area, but it also meant we wouldn’t have anywhere to hide the trucks.
“You’d think there would be more of them flying around,” I said, glancing at Aidan.
He shrugged. “We estimate the Shadowan have about five or six thousand members in their toriq. With their territory being vast, and their preference for nesting in larger towns, it is not entirely surprising we haven’t seen more.”
I supposed he had a point.
“Does that gas station look open to you, Bailey?” Conrad asked, leaning closer to the steering wheel.
We’d entered Siloam Springs and had been driving through it for a couple of minutes. I squinted at the large fueling station down the road with yellow trim and white-washed walls. It didn’t show any signs of damage, and not only that—I could have sworn there were lights on inside. I frowned and checked both sides of the road. The whole town looked like it was in better shape than anywhere else we’d passed through on our trip. The traffic lights didn’t work—no surprise there—but I could almost hear the faint hum from the electric lines with my enhanced senses. I’d never been able to do that before since I didn’t become a slayer until after the power grid went down. There still weren’t any cars on the roads, but when I peered down a side street, I saw a couple of people standing on their lawns. No fear of being caught out.
“We need a better map of this area anyway. How about we stop by there?” I suggested.
Conrad knitted his brows together. “You don’t think that could be dangerous?”
It could, but we didn’t have much farther to go before we reached our next destination, and it wasn’t like we were easy targets. “We’re never going to find out how life is anywhere else if we just pass every place by, and we’ve only got maybe an hour or so of driving left.”
“The sun will set in a little over two,” Aidan said, checking the sky though the window. “But I agree we should talk to the humans here. They could provide us with useful information.”
I got on the radio and told Miles to pull off at the gas station. He argued but ended up doing as I asked. We parked the trucks in front with the shifters and I getting out first to check for any signs of danger. Around the side of the building, I noticed a man standing there smoking a cigarette. He appeared worn and haggard, maybe in his early forties, with thinning brown hair.
“Is this place open?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yep. They ain’t got no gas left, though, if that’s what you’re lookin’ for.”
“Okay, thanks.” I turned toward the others. “How about Aidan and I go inside? The rest of you can stay out here and keep an eye on things.”
Phoebe gazed around with suspicion. “Don’t stay too long.”
“We won’t.” I gestured at Aidan, and we entered the building.
Going inside, I discovered I was right about the electricity. The overhead lights were on and even the coolers appeared to be running. My nose caught the scent of freshly brewed coffee. I wanted to go straight to the back where the pots were set up, but forced myself to search for the person running the place first. The last thing I needed was to die because of coffee, though there were worse things to get killed over.
No one stood behind the checkout counter. I noted the shelves weren’t even half full with merchandise and nearly all the cigarette slots were empty, but a few packs remained. Earl would throttle me if I didn’t get him some after he’d made a point of asking. They might be bad for his health, but these days smoking was probably one of the last ways you could go.
“Can I help you?” a woman asked, coming from the storage room in the back.
“Um, yeah.” I took a few cautious steps toward her. “How do you have electricity?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re not from around here.”
“No, just passing through.”
“We don’t have any gas.” She gestured toward the front window. “Stopped sellin’ it months ago.”
“But you have electricity?”
She nodded. “What’s left of the fuel goes to keep our power plant runnin’. We’re working on other ways to keep it goin’ after that.”
I noticed Aidan had left my side to inspect the store. The woman kept glancing between him and me like we might be shoplifters or something.
“Don’t you have any problems with the dragons?” I asked.
She grinned. “Nope.”
“How?”
“Magic,” she said, not bothering to explain further.
I tensed. “There’s a sorcerer here?”
“I suggest you tell me what you need and get goin’. As long as you don’t cause any trouble and don’t stay l
ong, you should be alright.”
Suddenly, I was all too happy to hurry up and get out of there. The last thing we needed was a run-in with an unknown sorcerer. “Do you have maps of this area?”
“Yeah, I do.” She headed around the back of the counter and pulled one out. “You got somethin’ to trade?”
I thought about the supplies in our trucks, particularly the spare stuff we’d picked up along the way. “We’ve got some hot chocolate packets and granola bars.”
She lifted a brow. “That’ll do, though I gotta see ‘em first.”
I glanced back at Aidan. “Can you get them?”
He hesitated, clearly not wanting to leave me alone with the woman.
“I’ll be fine,” I reassured him.
Aidan gave me a warning look to be careful before heading out of the store.
“That man has strange eyes,” the woman said, a shudder passing through her.
“It’s a genetic mutation.” Which wasn’t entirely a lie now that I’d learned how shifters came to be. “His whole family has the same problem.”
“And what about you?” She looked me up and down.
“What do you mean?”
“As best as I can reckon, there ain’t no more Comic Cons these days and sure as heck not around here.” She gestured at my outfit. “Don’t know what you’re thinkin’ wearin’ that getup.”
I wasn’t about to explain. “It’s more comfortable than you would think.”
She shook her head. “I heard tell it’s gonna get cold tonight—might even be some snow. You should consider a jacket.”
“I’ll do that,” I said. There definitely had to be a sorcerer around here if she even knew about the weather, but it couldn’t be her, or Aidan would have reacted differently.
He pushed through the door a moment later with two boxes of hot chocolate and a pack of granola bars. Moving aside, I directed him to put them on the counter. He backed up a couple of steps to stand behind me in a protective posture. I couldn’t help but be amused that he thought I needed any kind of help against this woman.