by Kira Brady
The weight of his guilt pushed Kai down to his knees, and he dug his hands in the freezing tide. Could he see himself in Lucia’s bed? With the prophecy hanging above their heads ready to fall like an ax? Could he see himself on the madrona throne? Gods damn him. He disagreed with Corbette’s rules, but he didn’t want to take his place. Jace would have done it. Jace had always been a better man. The better twin. Light to Kai’s dark, good to his bad. The more Jace went right, the more Kai went wrong. And it suited Kai. He’d never envied his brother for the mountain range of responsibility he’d shouldered at an early age. Jace had even dragged Kai along when it became apparent at thirteen that they would be some of the strongest Kivati born in a century. Kai had never intended to stay this long. He’d fought for the general role only to appease his brother, not realizing that he’d be stuck toeing the straight and narrow long after Jace had flown on.
Why’d you set off on adventures where I can’t follow, bro?
The salty waves of Puget Sound lapped the beach. Ten yards in front of him, the water splashed. Too big to be a fish, but black and silver and sparkling like scales. He pushed to his feet. Nothing good swam in the water. “Show yourself,” he ordered.
Sinuous coils broke the surface. A giant serpent floating in on the tide. Instinct urged him to Change and flee the evil that stalked the shore.
Just what he needed.
Kai let the tips of his talons break through his skin. He caught the Aether to him, ready to Change. Between his fingers the Aether coalesced. It buzzed like the golden glow inside a Leyden jar. He waited for the ripple again and shot the thunderbolt. The bolt hit with a crackle and crash. Ripples of what looked like lightning splashed out, and the creature roared. It shot from the deep water straight into the sky, a slender dragon more serpentine than bestial. Its silver-tipped scales and three horns were as familiar as the gold whiskers and almost dainty claws. Astrid Zetian, the imperial dragon adviser to the Drekar Regent. The malevolence in those silver eyes didn’t scare him. He’d fought her before and won.
He’d fucked her before too. Was still making up for that bad decision.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” he called up to her. He watched the silver dragon hover in the air for a long moment highlighted by the moon behind. The Lady provided. He needed a fight, and he couldn’t image a better adversary than this pumped-up dragon harpy. A little part of him had to admit that her dragon form was as beautiful as her human one. She did it for him in a kinky, love-thy-enemy sort of way. The memory of that one colossal mistake still woke him hot and bothered in the middle of the night, which only reinforced his belief that the wrong brother had died. Jace would never have been turned on by their mortal enemy. But Kai was not a model Kivati, and never had been.
Lucia wouldn’t have been able to blackmail him if he were.
He’d thought Zetian had died in the battle with Kingu. But it was impossible to kill a Drekar unless one cut his head off. Immortal and soulless, the creatures had been doomed to roam the earth forever alone. Unless the rumors about the new Drekar Regent were true, and he’d really found his soul mate in that caustic fighter Grace Mercer. The hill had been rife with speculation that Grace had actually joined her soul with the monster. They would die together and pass on through the Gate into the world beyond. Together forever. He wondered if Alice and her Dreki, Brand, had done the same thing. Two Drekar in the Land of the Dead? Lady be damned.
Kai let his anger shoot through him to embrace the Change. The Lady Moon lent her energy as he shed his human skin and the Thunderbird took over. Twenty-foot wingspan, cruel, hooked beak. Hawk eyes of green and blue with sharp focus. The night winds buoyed his feathered wings and he shot toward his adversary, talons out. The dragon was smaller than his Thunderbird form, but she slithered like an eel away from his attack. A high shriek echoed from her vocal chords.
Laugh it up, he thought. You just made my day.
Fighting Drekar was a hard thing; their magic blood healed in moments, so the only way to beat them was to keep them so busy defending themselves that they didn’t have any free energy to heal. He tried that technique now, but every move, she blocked him. It was like she could read his mind. Eerie. Uncanny. When was the last time he’d had a real fight?
She banked hard, and he overshot his next attack. Where had she pulled that from? She landed on his back and clawed her way across his wings. Pain ripped across his skin. Fuck. She was stronger, quicker than last time. His body protested. The pitter-patter of feathers and scales into the ocean below looked like falling stardust.
He threw her off and tried to retaliate, but she dodged again.
Gods, but she was hot. He’d die before he admitted it. There was no one to see him get his ass handed to him. Bested by a woman. By a soul-sucker.
The Aether ripped over the water in the next instant like an electromagnetic pulse from a small atom bomb. It catapulted him head over heels, forcefully stripping the feathers and skin from his bones, a shock of pain and surprise as his Thunderbird form was ripped from him without his consent. And then he was human and falling.
The black water rushed up at him. A scream shook his eardrums. He had only a moment to close his mouth before he was hit with a force so great he blacked out.
Kai woke when the freezing water gushed into his nose and mouth. The salt burned down his throat. He thrashed until his fingertips found the surface, and he kicked his way out of the frozen tomb. He coughed water out of his lungs and treaded ice while he tried to find his bearings. Shock and the icy November sea—gods, he was cold. Embarrassed too. Not even a raw youth lost his hold on the Aether enough to have his totem form ripped from him. Who or what could do such a thing to him? Not even Corbette was that strong.
Which meant there was some monster worse than a Dreki here in the black water with him. With ice in his veins, he managed to swim to shore and pull himself out onto the rocky beach.
He searched the Sound and gray sky for a sign of the Dreki, but the moon showed softly lapping waters and empty air. She couldn’t have done it. Drekar couldn’t manipulate the Aether; they could Turn between man and beast, but nothing more.
“Get a grip,” he told himself. He shook the water from his mane and pulled clean, dry clothes from the Aether. He could dry his hair too, but fatigue made his bones brittle. He felt bruised. He hadn’t managed a single hit on the demon dragon. Fuck him.
How had the Kivati lasted this long in the war against the Drekar if one lowly soul-sucker could kick his ass? And Zetian, even. She was ancient and powerful, but they’d wrestled before in both forms—
“Sorry, Jace,” he whispered to the night sky.
The deserted beach mocked him. The only set of footprints was his own. It was like he’d imagined the whole thing, phantoms from the past plucked from his mind to torment him for his betrayal, his failure.
He heard a faint splash behind him. He turned. The moon illuminated a woman rising from the water like Venus from the foam. Naked, buxom, and powerful, she was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. Her smooth black hair cascaded around her shoulders to kiss her pelvic bone. Her catlike eyes were accentuated with thick lashes as if she’d been born outlined in kohl. Her perfect breasts peaked in the cold of the sharp autumn night. Her coral lips parted just enough to be inviting.
She shouldn’t have such an effect on him, when he’d tapped that already, but he’d learned nothing. He couldn’t move as she floated out of the sea, a siren damning him to a watery grave. He’d dash his brains out on the rocks just for a taste of her. The soft curve of her belly led down to slender hips and the sleek pelt hiding her femininity. Man alive. Her kind killed your bro, remember? He needed to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, but she pushed all his buttons: she was smart, hot, and dangerous as a cracked Gate. He could fight her all he wanted, but she would win. And the look in those all-seeing eyes said she knew it.
Fear iced up his spine while heat rushed to his dick.
He had to get out of here. Se
lf-preservation first.
What would Jace do? He’d sacrifice himself for the Kivati. Die trying to kill this gorgeous creature. Jace wouldn’t be tempted to sin.
Kai swallowed. He took a step forward.
Zetian’s tongue slowly wet her lips. She kept walking toward him with that slow, rolling gait that made all her feminine parts jiggle nicely.
“You ran out on Asgard,” he said. Stupid, stupid. He had to leave. He had to make her mad so she would stop coming toward him.
“Hmmmm,” she hummed deep in her throat.
His brain shot him a picture of her making that noise while his dick was in her mouth. May the Sky God smite him. “You want to start this again? A rematch—human skin to human skin?” He flexed. Even soaking wet, even with those curves, he was easily twice her weight. If he could just keep his mind on track and out of the gutter, he could finish her off.
Not like that. Lady be damned.
Zetian was at arm’s length now. He could reach out and cup those peaches in his palm, but he wasn’t sure he could throw a punch when it mattered. And it did matter, because she was his worst enemy, and he had some honor left to him. Really. He did. He didn’t move.
“I like you.” She butted up against him and rubbed her head along the underside of his chin like a cat. She made another deep, lust-filled noise in her throat that sounded like a very large, rather aggressive purr. He expected her claws to come out any moment. Instead, she reached her arms up and wrapped them around his neck, plastering her icy body to his. Her skin was still wet and slick with salt. The water soaked through his clothes. He seized her arms and rubbed hard and fast. It was part chivalry and part deviltry, but she laughed and shrugged him off. And then her claws did come out, but only to tear the fabric of his shirt until the ribbons of good linen floated to the dusty sand.
“This isn’t a good idea,” he said. His hands closed around her shoulders and back, but whether to immobilize her or to draw her close, he didn’t know. His fingers dug into the curve beneath her shoulder blade. He could shoot out his talons and bury them between her ribs. He should. She sunk her teeth into his bicep. “Fuck!” Pain shot up his nerves. Finally, the fog cleared from his mind. He shoved her hard.
She tumbled back into the sand, limbs splayed, hair tangled with the seaweed like a mermaid washed to shore. She laughed up at him. “I like the taste of you, little bird warrior.” One long, clawed finger beckoned. “We will make such pretty babies to eat the world.”
“What? You’re out of your mind.” He backed away slowly. “You’re a soul-sucker. Damned to eternity. Filth.” He spat.
She looked down at her gorgeous, goddess body and lingered at the apex of her thighs. She tilted her head quizzically. “This body appears pleasing to me.” Her eyes shot to his crotch. “And it appears pleasing to you. Come.” She beckoned again. Her smile curled seductively. “Let me see if it’s as pleasing to touch as it is to look at.” The way her lips caressed the word “touch” had to be illegal in fifty states.
He didn’t think his dick could get much harder, but even the shame of being attracted to a Dreki couldn’t make it see reason. He coveted. Hatred only spiced the proposition.
Fuck.
He thought of the tournament. Of Corbette on the ground with blood trickling from his lip. Responsibility, the memory of his brother hissed in his mind. This woman and her kin had killed his brother and countless of his friends.
He turned his back on her. His feet plodded through the sand, carrying him away from temptation. A moment later he hit the sand with a hundred pounds of angry female digging her claws into his back. Her scream filled the night, part rage, part desire. Rolling, he tried to throw her off. He threw out his elbows and rammed his back against the nearest jagged edge of driftwood. She just laughed and wrapped her legs around his waist.
“What did you eat, woman?” he grunted. She was much too strong.
“Harder, harder, little pet,” she whispered in his ear.
“Show me your claws. Show me your power, poppet. You cannot break me. But I want to see you try.”
He slammed his head back and hit her in the forehead. She broke her hold for a moment, and he dislodged his back from her claws. He rolled over and planted a fist in her gut. Such a slender thing, and—Lady forsake him— he’d never hit a woman. But this wasn’t a woman. She was a demon in disguise, and the pain seemed to startle her more than hurt her. She snapped her legs around his waist and squeezed. They rolled down the rocky beach toward the water, sand and salt bitter on his tongue. His eyes watered. He tried to rip her off, but she was like a noose. The harder he fought, the tighter she got, and, fuck, now he couldn’t hide the bulge that grew up against the V of her thighs.
She laughed and sliced her claws down his back to cut through the waistband of his trousers. The cold of the damp pebbles cut his ass when she flipped him. She held him down with the strength of her thighs, ripped back the cut fabric separating them, and impaled herself on his shaft. Spirits haunt me. He couldn’t move as all the blood rushed south. The wet heat surrounding him pulsed with the beat of her heart. Mesmerizing pleasure shot up his nerve endings and across his skin. Zetian rose above him and threw back her head, her hair a ribbon of blackest black against the night sky. She turned her heart-shaped face to the Lady Moon above with a deep, satisfied moan. She was glorious, a goddess fucking in the moonlight.
“Yes, this,” she moaned. “I missed this. I’m so very glad you were waiting for me to rise. There are some things worth waiting millennia for.” Her silver eyes cut back to him. Unearthly light swirled in their depths, and as she slowly levered herself over him, shooting paralyzing sensation over his heated skin, the small voice of reason started screaming in the back of his brain.
This is not right. But it felt so good. She is not Zetian.
A question penetrated the haze of lust. She slammed herself down, grinding her pelvis against his. His eyes rolled back in his head. “Zetian.” He grabbed her hips to stop her. “What game are you playing?”
She bent over him and shook her breasts in his face. His fingers slipped on the smooth skin of her hips. “Do you love this ‘Zetian’?”
“No!”
“Your cock says different.”
He grit his teeth. “What is with you? You always talk about yourself in the third person?”
She gripped his hands and drove him deeper. “I like you, warrior. I’ve been trapped in a weak, human shell for too long. But now I’m in control. Ah! Sweet, sweet sensation. This body pleases me. This body is fertile and strong.”
His eyes shot open. “Fertile? Hell, no. Who are you?” Her silver eyes reflected the moon. “Astrid Zetian, adviser to the Drekar Regent?” Or something else?
“Adviser?” She laughed and pinned his wrists to the sand. “I am queen.”
“I think someone beat you to it.”
“I am queen, and I need a consort.”
He thrust up to meet her hips. She moaned, wanton, wild, louder until it echoed against the stars above. A bolt of blue flame shot out of her to light the night sky like a beacon. A bolt of Aether lit through his body from the place they were joined to scald the inside of his skin. As if one of his own thunderbolts had turned on him. Pleasure and pain rocked him, an orgasm so strong and so terrifying that he almost blacked out. Again.
What. The. Fuck.
It wrung every thought from his body, leaving him worn as a millstone. This wasn’t Astrid Zetian. Her svelte body, but not her mind. Drekar couldn’t manipulate the Aether, but this woman straddling him had done just that. Who was strong enough to pilot a dragon?
He was suddenly very, very sick.
“Tiamat,” he whispered.
She turned her face back to him. Aether crackled across her lovely face as she smiled. “Yes, you’ll do quite nicely, warrior. It’s been millennia since I walked this earth with my own body. This one . . .” She held up her hands to examine them. Claws shot out of her fingertips, and her eyes gleame
d. “. . . is extraordinary.” She dropped her hand and trailed a claw lightly down his face. “You like it, don’t you, Kai Raiden? You are strong. I lost two pantheons of useless children, but, as you mortals say, third time’s a charm.” She bent over him and whispered in his ear. “Together, darling, we will birth a new army and take back this glorious world and the next.”
He was in deep shit.
Chapter Four
In the topmost turret of Kivati Hall, Lucia leaned against the window and watched small groups of Kivati peel off into the brewing storm. Already the four sacred Houses with mixed totems, each led by a Thunderbird general, were starting to crack. It was only natural, she supposed, for their Animal spirits to cling to their species mates in time of crisis. Corbette’s strict House system had gotten rid of tribal infighting, but without him it wouldn’t last. Not unless a strong leader stepped up to take his place.
At the foot of the hill, the Space Needle rose like a towering tombstone, representing every failed futuristic dream that lay beneath the rubble of the Unraveling. The Unraveling had thrown civilization back in time, not forward. Space travel, nanotechnology, atomic power, and genetic manipulation were nothing more than pipe smoke in the dark when the Aether frothed and Babylonian goddesses rose from the dead.
The Kivati had been ready. Thanks to Corbette, they’d never really joined the twenty-first century anyway. He’d built them a sanctuary from the outside world and kept them sheltered and closeted and—gods, but she was growing to hate that word—safe.
Safety was stifling. If she never took great risks, how would she ever know how much she was capable of?
Delia sat near the fire taking notes. “So we have Lady Acacia to speak to Cougar and Lady Alice for Owl, but who can we appeal to in Crow?”
“If only Johnny was still alive.”
“No, no one would have listened to him. He was dishonored. We need someone with cred.”
“Maybe Great Uncle Lonan?” Lucia listened to the distant strains of violin and drums from deep within the Hall. Despite the chilling end to the contests that day, the celebration party went on as planned. “We need to hurry so we can get down there and start making alliances.”