Shards (Dragon Reign Book 2)

by Kit Bladegrave

  I ignore them both, stepped out onto the ledge and sidled my way around the outer edge of the room. When I was nearly halfway, and nothing fell apart, I waved my hand for Craig to send Kate next.

  She appeared at the wall and gingerly stepped onto the ledge, but it started to crumble, and she backed off just as quickly.

  I flattened myself to the wall as the beasts below shifted and grunted, but none of them awoke.

  We’d have to do this one at a time.

  I carefully moved my way around the room, but the ledge grew narrower as I neared the mouth of the other tunnel.

  My foot suddenly dangled into open air, and I pressed myself to the wall again, sucking in a deep breath as I realized I’d have to jump. I wouldn’t be able to push off too hard, but steadied my breathing and went for it.

  I grappled with the ledge of the tunnel opening, trying to pull up my feet. They dangled too close to a sleeping monster.

  Finally, I hefted my weight over the ledge and lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling as my nerves frayed and I struggled to catch my breath.

  Pulse still pounding loudly in my ears, I stood and waved for Kate to come next.

  Craig helped her find a grip, but she was shorter than I was and had trouble reaching up over her head.

  Once she appeared comfortable, she moved her feet forward cautiously. She started to look down, but I waved my hand and her gaze focused on mine. I held it, silently urging her forward.

  The ledge continued to hold, and she was halfway across when one of the fractorns growled suddenly and rose.

  Her face paled, and she froze against the ledge.

  Craig ducked back into the shadows as did I.

  All three of us held our breath as the lumbering beast shifted around, pawing angrily at the stone and dirt before it sank down again, its eyes closing over those dark red pupils.

  I counted to ten in my head, then motioned for Kate to keep going. She looked uncertain, but did as I said.

  She was halfway across when the same beast suddenly lifted its head and sniffed the air, swinging its head to the left, then right.

  Kate shouldn’t smell any different than me, and if it was sensitive to demon, it would’ve picked up Craig the first time it stood up.

  Kate’s eyes shut tight, and she flattened herself against the wall.

  The fractorn rose and lifted its head.

  The cavern was dark, but far above, light poured in from the midday sun. Not that it mattered. Fractorns could see well enough in the dark. It sniffed again, moving in Kate’s direction. The light played off its matted dark brown fur, and a deep, guttural growl erupted from its mouth.

  It snarled, and its gaze zeroed in on Kate. The growl grew louder and one by one, they awoke until all of them snarled at Kate, gnashing their jaws filled with razor sharp fangs.

  I started to creep out, but she shook her head fiercely, no. They hadn’t seemed to notice me or Craig yet, but she couldn’t take them on alone. There was no way.

  Just when she reached around for the sword at her back, smoke filled the cavern.

  The beasts hacked and gagged on it, staggering around in confused circles.

  I had no idea what was happening until I spied Craig on the opposite side of the cavern moving across the ledge.

  “Kate! Move!” I yelled, and she replaced her hand on the wall to start coming towards me again.

  Craig and she moved almost perfectly in sync, but he was surer of his movements and reached the edge of the ledge. There was another gap to jump, and he launched himself towards the tunnel opening.

  I caught him, so he didn’t fall on his face and steadied him as we both turned to wait for Kate.

  “What did you do?” I asked Craig.

  “Distraction, the fog vials from Lucy,” he muttered. “It won’t last long.”

  “Can’t we stun them?”

  “It might hit Kate,” Craig told me. “We can’t risk it.”

  “Kate! You have to hurry!” I urged, and she picked up the pace. The smoke was starting to thin out, but I only had eyes for her. She found the edge of the ledge and made ready to jump—

  The ledge trembled and shook beneath her, crumbling away at the edges.

  I glanced past her to see the fractorns banging their bodies against the wall, trying to get their prey to fall.

  Her wide eyes met mine before the ledge gave way and Kate disappeared with a scream, down into the smoke and mass of furry bodies.

  “No!” I roared and made to jump in after her, but Craig held me back. “Let me go!”

  “You’ll die, too!” he yelled, eyes wild as he searched for Kate.

  There were no more screams, no sounds of pain. Nothing to tell us if Kate was still alive.

  Chest tight, I sank to my knees and curled my growing talons into the rock.

  “Come on,” Craig whispered beside me. “Come on.”

  I had no idea what he was hoping would happen, but then I felt it, a change in the air like an electrical charge.

  My head shot up and a fierce roar exploded around the cavern as the blue figure of Kate’s dragon appeared through the haze of smoke.

  She filled the space almost completely, and when her head whipped in our direction, she held a fractorn in her massive jaws. It squirmed to get free, but she tossed it up in the air, and when she caught it, a sickening crunch met my ears.

  She tossed the broken body aside, and the cavern erupted in chaos.

  Kate whirled around, her lightning fire shooting from her mouth without any regard for where it landed. The beasts tried to attack, but she swatted them with her powerful tail and stomped them down into the stone and dirt until they didn’t move again.

  She was in full rampage mode, and if she didn’t get herself under control, the entire cavern would collapse on her, and us.

  Fire dripped from her jaws, the bright blue lighting the space and casting her shadow on the far wall. The last beast alive attempted to escape, clawing its way up the far wall, but she huffed and blew fire at it until its dying scream stopped and its body was nothing but a charred pile of bones.

  “You have to get her to come out of it,” Craig said, eyes wide in awe and slight fear.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit afraid myself.

  She couldn’t burn me, but she could still break me in half if she wanted, and the fierce glare in those dragon eyes said she was not ready to simmer down. Her body thrashed into the walls, which trembled and quaked from the force of her body. If we didn’t get her to shift back, the entire place would collapse.

  Kate’s dragon started to dig into the bodies left, eating them.

  Craig gagged. “Man, you might want to stop her. She’ll never forgive us if we sit here and let her eat those things.”

  “Right.” I cleared my throat and stealing my nerves, whistled loudly.

  Her head swung around, and I cringed at the leg dangling from her teeth. Her lips drew back in a snarl, and I saw her chest glow as she pulled on her fire.

  I held my hands up and hopped down from the ledge, into the cavern. The carnage was extensive. Now that the smoke cleared, I could see how she’d torn the beasts apart.

  Blood lust, that’s what she was dealing with.

  “Kate! They’re dead, you need to shift back,” I yelled up at her, but her growling only intensified as she lowered her head towards me. “Kate, listen to me, we’re safe. You saved yourself and us, but you have to change back now before this entire place caves in on us. Is that what you want?”

  Her eyes narrowed, but I saw the rage lessening, the longer she stared at me.

  Stones shifted behind me, and a few moments later, Craig stood beside me.

  Her gaze shifted from him to me and back again, and a shudder raced down her spine.

  “Let it go, Kate, let the anger go,” I urged, and her body shrank and transformed before our eyes.

  Her wings folded back into her body, and after a few moments, Kate stood before us again.
<
br />   Craig cursed, and I blinked at the sight of her with a hunk of fractorn meat still hanging out of her mouth.

  She swallowed and immediately gagged, dropping the hunk of dismembered leg at her feet with a sickening, wet sound.

  She wiped at her mouth with her hand, spitting and sputtering… but froze when she stared around the cavern.

  “Oh God,” she muttered, holding her stomach. “Did I… no, please tell me I didn’t.”

  Craig puffed out his cheeks and looked to me to give the lie.

  I tried to, but she was already paling and turned away from us to wretch.

  Craig and I went to her, him holding her messed up hair away from her face, as I rubbed her back, waiting for her to puke up whatever bit of fratctorn she’d eaten while in dragon form.

  “That’s disgusting,” she mumbled, shaking as the last of the heaving stopped. “I don’t think I can ever eat meat again.”

  “You get used to it,” I said, trying to be helpful, but the glare she shot me said I missed the mark. “On the bright side, you saved yourself and us.”

  “And nearly brought down the cavern around us while in dragon form,” Craig added.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had no idea what I was doing.”

  “You need to learn to control your other half a little bit better.”

  She tugged out the rubber band from her hair and shoved it all back into another messy braid, glaring from Craig to me. “I’m sorry, alright? This is all still new to me so back off,” she growled, and I caught Craig’s arm in warning for him not to keep pushing.

  Kate’s eyes flickered a vibrant green, and I watched a shimmer come over her skin as if the dragon was looking for an excuse to break free again.

  “Once we get out of here, we’ll work on it,” I promised. “Can you control yourself a bit longer?”

  She held onto the strap across her body and nodded. “As long as nothing else tries to eat me.”

  “As long as you eat it first, you’ll be fine,” Craig assured her.

  She managed to glare at him, before she turned around to vomit once more.

  7

  Craig

  “I think it was quite an attractive look,” I told Kate, once we were finally out of the tunnels and moving through the thick wooded outskirts of the dragon clan territories.

  “What was?” she asked, shoving a branch angrily aside.

  “A leg dangling from your mouth.” She whipped around and punched me hard in the shoulder, but I caught the glimmer of amusement in her eyes before she faced forward again. “Damn, woman. I think you bruised me.”

  “Good, serves you right.”

  Ahead of us, Forrest raised his hand for us to pause, then sniffed the air. “We should be safe here for the night,” he said and kicked away some of the leaves and pine needles. “We can’t risk a fire, but this grove is protection enough. No one will see us unless they’re right on top of us.”

  I dropped the pack on the soil, and Kate unburdened herself of the sword and dagger, slumping to the ground. She laid out, arms spread wide, and stared up at the sky.

  “What are you doing?” Forrest asked her.

  “Trying to sleep,” she mumbled and closed her eyes, but he kicked her foot. “What?”

  “Training first, then you can rest.”

  She growled at him fiercely, but he returned the favor and kicked her foot again. “Seriously?”

  “He’s right,” I said, hating to agree with him. “If you lose control like that again, who knows what hell you’ll bring down on us.” I sniffed the air and smelled the subtle hints of wild game nearby. Deer, maybe an elk. “I’m going to grab us some food.”

  “We can’t have a fire,” Kate reminded me.

  “We don’t have to have a full-fledged fire when we’ve got two dragons.” I left them to their training and promised I wouldn’t go far.

  My stomach growled, needing to eat, and I sniffed the air again, wishing I had the full range of my senses, but this would have to do.

  The deer wasn’t as large as I hoped, but it would be enough to feed the three of us for a night. If Kate hadn’t gotten sick, she probably wouldn’t have had to eat for a few days.

  I smirked, remembering how she’d torn into those beasts, and my hope at how strong she could become rose even higher. Once she was trained, and knew who she was, she’d be nearly unstoppable.

  I snuck up behind the deer and took it down with a quick stab straight to its heart. It never made a sound. I did a quick field dressing and hefted it up onto my shoulder, moving silently back through the trees towards our tiny, makeshift camp.

  I stopped short when I heard Forrest’s low rumbling voice, and sat myself down to watch.

  A white-hot spike of jealousy shot through me to see him standing so close to Kate again, just as it had in the tunnels when chanced a glimpse of their hands clasped together.

  I reminded myself she was only drawn to him because he was the first of her kind she’d seen in over a decade, but another part worried she would choose him over me,in the end. Watching them now, that worry increased until I found myself picking angrily at my nails with the tip of my dagger.

  Forrest stood behind her, holding her arms out wide mirroring his, whispering about the nature of the dragon and learning to control emotion. “Your beast has to understand who is really in control,” he told her softly.

  “Clearly not me,” she replied, but he shushed her.

  “You have to be in control, or next time you might kill us instead of your prey. Focus, what do you feel?”

  “I feel it shifting around inside me,” she whispered, and I stopped picking my nails to listen. “She’s so strong… and her emotions are raw, so raw it’s like I’m touching a live wire.” Her eyes scrunched tight, and I had to smother my instinct to rush over and make him stop her training before she hurt herself.

  “You are strong. It’s your strength that fuels it, not the other way around.”

  “You sure about that?” she said with a half-smile, but he was moving her hands, holding them as he gracefully moved and guided them through some meditative dance of sorts.

  It mimicked the fighting style Kate had shown in the Burnt World, and I found myself mesmerized.

  “Your dragon must follow your moves, your thoughts, your desires,” Forrest went on. “It must learn to shift with you, not fight against you.”

  Kate’s head bobbed, and her face relaxed. “I feel it,” she whispered.

  I leaned closer, careful not to make a sound. Slowly, she turned and faced Forrest, her eyes still closed, and went through the motions again.

  “Very good,” he mused. “Who’s in control now?”

  “I am,” she told him and opened her eyes.

  I heard her breath catch, and Forrest’s hands lifted to cup her face.

  I stabbed my dagger deep into the mud as he kissed her. Her hands covered his, and she kissed him back.

  I wasn’t sure what would happen next, but I half-smiled when she drew back first, frowning.

  “I’m sorry,” Forrest mumbled. “I’m not sure what came over me.”

  “It’s fine. I uh, I think I’ll check our supplies,” she said, cheeks burning red, and I took that as my cue to interrupt them.

  I picked up the deer and made sure to stomp on a few sticks as I neared the camp.

  Forrest glared at me fiercely, and I realized he knew I’d been watching the whole time.

  Sneaky bastard. I dropped the deer and grinned. “You two finished already?”

  “For now,” Forrest replied, and I saw Kate’s hands still as she dug through the pack.

  Her cheeks reddened even more, and I started working on the deer.

  My, my, this was turning into some adventure.

  8

  Craig

  I was on the first watch for the night and had my back propped up against a fallen tree while Kate and Forrest slept on close by.

  After eating our dinner, Kate forcing a
few mouthfuls down once Forrest cooked them with a burst of fire, she downed some of the water, and curled up in a ball against the stump of a tree. She’d shut her eyes, but I doubted she was actually asleep.

  Forrest hadn’t said a word either, about what happened between him and Kate, and what he knew I’d seen. He nodded gravely at me, said to wake him up in a few hours, and found a spot on the ground on the other side of me.

  The surrounding woods were quiet except for the hooting of a few owls and the rustling of other small animals rummaging through the leaves.

  There was no scent of dragon, aside from the two sleeping beside me. I picked up a hefty sized stick and using my dagger, whittled away at it, not paying much attention to what I was doing, but needing to keep my hands busy.

  Each time I closed my eyes, I saw Kate kissing Forrest, but then the image changed, and we were back at the witch’s house, and she was kissing me instead.

  Our kiss had certainly been more intense then hers with Forrest, and I grinned, remembering the warmth of her lips against mine, how her hands had traced my tattoos so confidently and so comfortably.

  I tried to tell myself, as wood shavings piled up beside me, that there wasn’t time right now to deal with a possible romance. I was with Kate for one reason only, and that was to find the rest of the shield, put it back together, and use it to trap the darkness for good.

  But no matter how hard I tried to forget the way my heart pounded in my chest, remembering her kiss, it wasn’t possible. I wanted her to be with me and not the stuck-up dragon prince.

  “Careful you don’t cut yourself,” Kate suddenly whispered beside me, and the knife slipped.

  It barely missed my finger, and I frowned, watching as she sat down beside me, so close our shoulders touched.

  “Thought you were asleep,” I said.

  She shrugged and reached over to take my hand, checking my finger. “Hard to sleep when I keep dreaming about half a leg stuck in my teeth.”

  I grinned, waiting for her to give me back my hand, but she held it, running her fingers over the small scars that covered my fingers and the back of my hand, mostly hidden beneath more tattoos. She laid her cheek against my shoulder and without thinking, I leaned over and kissed the top of her head.