Winter Kiss

by Deborah Cooke

  “I can’t send Quinn or Donovan. . . .”

  “Because Quinn won’t go without Sara and baby Garrett, and Donovan won’t go without Alex and baby Nick,” Eileen concluded, following his thoughts perfectly.

  “Sloane,” Erik said. “The Apothecary might be able to help Delaney through this challenge.”

  “What about Niall?” Eileen suggested. “They were partners and friends. He can send you updates on the wind.”

  “Niall does have a cell phone.” Erik felt compelled to note this fact. “We all do.”

  Eileen laughed. “Don’t give me that. You Pyr love your old-speak too much to surrender the chance to use it.”

  “It’s tradition,” Erik insisted. He felt the eclipse slide toward its totality, even the penumbral eclipse making his body resonate with the urge to shift.

  Eileen smiled at him, reaching up to press a kiss to his cheek. “Do what you need to do, then come to bed with us.” She met his gaze, her eyes flicking over him as the urge to shift grew even stronger. He knew she understood. “Soon.”

  Erik couldn’t argue with that. He shut the blinds, plunging the loft’s main room into darkness, then surrendered to his body’s urge to change shape. It felt good to let the power flood through him, to let his body do what it did best. He felt powerful and invincible, strong in his lair. He recalled that the Wyvern had been able to deny the moon’s call, even on the full eclipse, and wondered whether such a skill could be learned.

  Then Erik closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to pinpoint the respective locations of Sloane and Niall. Niall was with Thorolf—probably arguing—but Erik thought they could do this together.

  It might improve their tolerance of each other.

  Or it might not. He could only try to foster better relationships between members of his team. To be fair, he shared some of Niall’s irritation with Thorolf’s tendency to demand little of himself.

  Erik sent his summons in old-speak, waiting until all three had replied. He checked the smoke perimeter mark around his lair, then scanned for a hint of any of his fellows in the vicinity. It was a habit, one that wasn’t as reliable as it had once been, but it reassured him all the same.

  It wasn’t long before Erik felt the moon slide from the shadow of the eclipse. He shuddered as he let his body change back to human form. He took a moment to compose his thoughts before joining Eileen.

  If nothing else, he had complete faith in the Pyr who followed him. It wasn’t quite as good as taking care of everything himself, but he was learning to accept it as good enough.

  Delaney was driving through the Ohio countryside when the assault came. He began to shift shape suddenly and without any decision to do so.

  He couldn’t stop the change.

  The dragon within him had gained ascendancy and that reality terrified Delaney. He lost control of the rental car in the transition, his talon leaving a long scratch on the dashboard as the car slid sideways from the road. It came to a halt, tipping into a snow-filled ditch. He was out the door just before he shifted shape completely, the change rolling through him with unrestrained power.

  What was happening to him?

  And why?

  It was dark, too dark for morning, and Delaney abruptly remembered why. There was to be an eclipse on this day, only a partial one, but his body was obviously responding to it.

  And how. The beast within was completely unleashed, raging with a fury that was terrifying.

  Lusting for the Dragon’s Blood Elixir.

  The yearning was so violent that his body shook—he was like a junkie being denied his fix. His gut gnawed, he ached and he burned and he wanted, as he had never wanted before.

  Was it because he had come close to the Elixir’s sanctuary?

  Or had something changed within him? All Pyr felt the urge to shift under an eclipse, and felt it most strongly under a full eclipse. It should have been comparatively easy to deny his body’s urge under a partial eclipse.

  But it wasn’t.

  Worse, his body demanded that he go to the Elixir, that he seize it and drink it.

  There was no way Delaney was going to do that. He gritted his teeth and fought his own body’s demands. He threw himself into a snow-dusted field of corn stalks. He rolled, battling his own body, trying to inflict pain on himself, a pain that might recall him to his senses. He fought the imperative to take flight, to go to the Elixir, to drink deeply.

  To lose his soul forever.

  The nightmare came to him then, assaulting him in daylight as it had every night he’d dared to close his eyes and sleep. He had endured it a thousand times already. In a way, it was more horrific to be awake and see its threat.

  Delaney saw the earth in its verdant infancy and tried to force the vision from his thoughts. He knew where this nightmare led, what fate it assumed for the planet and the humans who lived upon it, and he didn’t want to see it again.

  But the nightmare was relentless. It had a hold on his mind and wouldn’t let go. It showed the spread of industry across the planet’s surface, devouring the pristine wilderness it had just displayed to him. It documented fallen rain forests and oil spills, species eliminated and birds covered in fuel oil. It showed him plumes of pollution rising into the sky; it showed him mercury slipping into the bodies of fish. It showed him rivers of trailings that ran crimson, like the blood of Gaia herself spread across her land.

  And that was the effect upon nature herself. It also displayed the malaise in the hearts and minds of men. It showed him injustice and genocide; it showed him violence and hunger and poverty. It showed him polluted water and wells gone bad; it showed him air too toxic to be breathed; it showed him nuclear fallout. It documented birth defects from exposure to contaminants and children living in garbage dumps. He saw humans sicken and die; he saw selfishness become ascendant and individuals condemn others for their own profit.

  Delaney saw the selfish perspective of the Slayers grab hold in the minds of men and was sickened by it all over again. The trouble ran deep, deep in the hearts of men and the soil of Gaia.

  And he saw Gaia retaliate in an effort to save herself. He witnessed floods and tornados, tsunamis and earthquakes. The planet was in her death throes, prepared to do anything to preserve herself, and humans were destroyed by her mighty power.

  But still the shadow spread. He struggled as he was pulled back to view the earth from afar, as if he sat upon a distant planet and was apart from the entire ordeal. But Delaney’s heart was on the earth, with Gaia, with the humans who called the planet home, and his responsibility as a Pyr was to protect the treasure of both of them.

  So he despised the sight of the shadow sliding across the surface of the earth. It was like watching an eclipse, except that the earth was cast in shadow instead of the moon. On this day, he felt its chill right to his marrow, and knew that the Elixir was the toxin at work. The darkness spread across the planet, and he recalled the old idea of the dragon in the sky devouring the moon during an eclipse.

  But these dragons, the Slayers, devoured the earth itself.

  He heard wind and he heard rain and he heard the calls of humans in distress. He heard hurricanes thrashing against shores and he heard the despair that comes in the night, fed by the terror of the unknown.

  The shadow deepened, claiming more of the earth’s surface, gradually moving across its face. Delaney was cold, colder than he’d ever been, and in his vision, the earth was being plunged into a deep freeze. He watched hoarfrost grow along coastlines, saw trees and buildings encased in ice. He saw the ice spread relentlessly across the earth, moving like quicksilver, stealing life and vitality from everything it touched. It claimed everything in its cold grasp.

  When the eclipse was complete, when the earth was completely devoured by the shadow, the planet glistened in the darkness. The shadow passed, as the light would return after an eclipse, but the earth that was revealed was utterly changed. Its rivers were frozen. Its mountains were buried in snow. The for
ests were frozen icy white.

  And it was silent.

  There was no motion upon it. No life. The sheen of ice reflected the light of the sun, sparkling and glistening with horrific import.

  The Elixir had consumed the planet, exterminating everything upon it and preserving what was left forever.

  Dead.

  And it was all because Delaney had not taken the initiative to destroy the Elixir.

  The duration of that morning’s eclipse was four hours and three minutes. Delaney felt every second of it. He spent that entire morning thrashing in a farmer’s field as the snow fell steadily, his mind haunted by a vision of what could be.

  No one saw him triumph over his body’s need, not in that remote field in the middle of a snowstorm. No one saw him shift back to human form and stand up, panting and exhausted, in the snow. No one saw him wipe the sweat from his brow, shaking from his ordeal.

  And no one saw the resolve harden in Delaney’s eyes.

  He wouldn’t fight that battle again. A vicious monster had awakened within him, one that he couldn’t control and didn’t trust. He’d come too close to losing this fight, and he was determined to never surrender to the Slayers and their Elixir.

  He was close, very close, to the Elixir’s hidden sanctuary. If nothing else, the bit of it in his body allowed him to sense it more accurately. He’d find it and eliminate it, no matter what the price to himself.

  He climbed out of the field and checked the road for possible observers. When he saw none, he shifted shape and pushed the car out of the ditch. He felt normal again, his dragon form tame and easily controlled.

  Delaney wasn’t fooled. The next eclipse would be worse.

  The car started right away, giving him only a moment to note the long scratch on the dashboard from his talon. It was a potent reminder of the involuntary change.

  Never again. By the next eclipse, Delaney would be dead and the Elixir would be destroyed.

  Chapter 1

  Delaney decided to attack the sanctuary of the Dragon’s Blood Elixir on Saturday morning.

  There was no question of his sleeping on Friday night. Magnus’s dragonsmoke perimeter mark on the sanctuary was almost cursory, and it had certainly broken. There would be no issue in getting into the sanctuary of the Elixir.

  And Delaney didn’t have to worry about coming out.

  Delaney couldn’t summon the Pyr to help him, couldn’t risk that Magnus would compel him to turn against them or that they would be imperiled in his last mission.

  He was on his own.

  He had sensed Magnus’s presence in Ohio, as well as that of Magnus’s current favorite, Jorge. The Slayers seemed to have gathered, maybe to fortify themselves with the Elixir.

  He’d spent the week observing Magnus’s external security measures, which weren’t worth concern. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure what he would find within the sanctuary—how the Elixir was stored and how precisely he would destroy it—which made it hard to formulate a plan of attack. Delaney had been unhappy with this lack of information, but more unhappy with the doubt it fed within him.

  Once he had been bold. Once he had been confident. Once his brother, Donovan, had called him a daredevil. Once he would have simply charged into the sanctuary and dealt with whatever confronted him, assured of his own success. But the Elixir had cast a shadow on his heart, making him doubt his abilities and his success, making him delay. His chronic lack of sleep didn’t help.

  He despised what he had become.

  It was time to resolve the matter.

  Delaney knew that he was on a suicide mission.

  He didn’t care. Dying had to be better than living as he had these past years, and if he could accomplish something with his death, all the better.

  He’d destroy the source of the Dragon’s Blood Elixir so that Magnus couldn’t make more shadow dragons of dead Pyr. Slayers wouldn’t be able to drink the Elixir to become stronger, either. And no one would ever have to suffer what he had endured, being forced to consume the Elixir against his will.

  No Pyr would ever have to be afraid to fall asleep again.

  Delaney had spent a year preparing, mastering his fighting skills, and getting his body into prime condition. He’d sold everything and made his will, prepared for his own demise.

  Delaney was between the forms, so to speak. He hadn’t embraced the Elixir, so it hadn’t turned him Slayer. He hated how the shadow seed that Magnus had planted in his heart refused to be banished, hated how he had been unable to stop himself from attacking Donovan’s pregnant mate, Alex. His action had been disgusting and reprehensible.

  Exiling himself from his fellows had been the only choice.

  Delaney drove his rental car aimlessly on Friday night, fighting his exhaustion. The recurring nightmare pressed at the back of his thoughts, threatening to consume him if he succumbed to the need to sleep. Its bleak vision always left him shaking and disheartened—he couldn’t risk it on this night.

  He drove on country roads, past fields lying fallow, past snow under moonlight and forests of bare branches. Just when he was sick of his own company, he saw lights.

  Delaney pulled into the parking lot of the roadhouse on instinct, and realized he was craving the company of the humans he and the Pyr were charged to protect. He didn’t give himself time to think twice.

  He strode into the noisy bar, savoring the sounds of laughter and music, the sight of people dancing and celebrating, and appreciated the point to his sacrifice. They would all be oblivious to what he did, just as humans were always oblivious to the efforts of the Pyr, but their optimism would carry on.

  That made it worthwhile.

  He had ordered a beer and a tequila shooter before a woman rapped him on the elbow. “Hey, this is a private party,” she began, falling silent when a spark leapt between her fingertip and Delaney’s elbow.

  He felt his own eyes widen as an unfamiliar heat spread through him like wildfire. Even though he’d never felt it before, Delaney knew exactly what it was.

  His firestorm.

  His last chance to do something right. It was a gift and a sign—Slayers didn’t get firestorms, so Delaney knew that the Great Wyvern was blessing him with a chance.

  He was going to use it.

  His blood seemed to sizzle and he became keenly aware of everyone around him. He felt a desire so sharp and hot that it nearly took his breath away, and he knew the role of this woman in his life. This was how his body was supposed to work, and that predictability made him bold.

  It didn’t hurt that the petite redhead at his side was the cutest woman he’d ever seen. She was as small and delicate as a fairy, but more curvy than any fairy could have been. Her hair was a mass of coppery gold—long and curly and thick—and her eyes were blue and bright with curiosity. She looked on the verge of laughter, reminding him of a beam of sunlight dancing on the sea.

  She was as different from him as a human could possibly be.

  She wore a black sparkly camisole that highlighted the curve of her breasts and a flirty black skirt that danced around her hips. Her dangly earrings were set with amber, one of his favorite stones, and they swung against her cheeks as she talked. She was wearing very high-heeled strappy black sandals, but even with them, she stood only as high as the middle of his chest.

  She was also a bit unsteady on them, as if she wasn’t used to wearing such high heels.

  She pursed her lips, flicked him a look, and touched her fingertip to his elbow once again.

  He liked that she wasn’t afraid.

  The spark of the firestorm flared right on cue, lighting her features with golden splendor. She stepped backward in astonishment, caught her balance by grabbing the edge of the bar, but didn’t run away.

  Instead, she whistled in admiration, licked her fingertip, and made a hissing sound. Then she laughed.

  It was the most enchanting sound Delaney had ever heard. Her laugh was lower than he would have expected, the laugh of someone who lov
ed life and made the most of the moment.

  He could admire that.

  She wasn’t spooked by him or the firestorm, which had to be a good sign. Delaney held her gaze and knew with utter clarity how he’d be spending his last night. He’d make one more play for the team. He’d consummate his firestorm and give Erik another Pyr for the ranks of his warriors.

  It would be the right thing to do.

  “You’re a real firecracker,” he said quietly, and she smiled. Her smile lit her face, and Delaney sensed that she smiled often.

  He found himself smiling at her pleasure, the expression feeling unfamiliar upon his lips.

  But good.

  “You stole my joke,” she complained, not looking offended in the least. “I was going to toss you out, but maybe there’s more to you than meets the eye.” She gave him an appreciative survey and her eyes shone with mischief. “Maybe I should say you’re hot stuff.”

  “Maybe we should find out just how much sparks fly.”

  She laughed again and Delaney felt less burdened. “Or whether those who play with fire have to get burned.”

  “Now you stole my joke,” he complained.

  “Turnabout is fair play.” She laughed again, then put out her hand. “Ginger Sinclair. Eternal bridesmaid, go-to party organizer, best chef in four counties.”

  “And the light of the night,” Delaney said, wanting only to make her laugh again. She did and he felt triumphant.

  Alive.

  Daring.

  “Delaney,” he said, taking her hand. When his fingers closed over hers, the firestorm’s heat surged through his body from the point of contact, leaving him shimmering in its wake.

  Leaving him unable to think of anything except peeling Ginger out of that camisole and skirt. There were freckles in her cleavage, a smattering of them that would extend across her breasts and over her shoulders. He wanted to find them all, caress them all, kiss them all.

  Meanwhile, Ginger’s eyes widened and she caught her breath, a flush launching over her cheeks as she stared up at him. She swallowed visibly. “Delaney what?”