Let us just say we have our ways,” Aidan said.
Lorcan was quiet for a moment, then let out a huff of breath. Fair enough. You are right that we elected a new pendragon just two weeks ago.
Who is it? Falcon asked.
My mother—Hildegard of the Faegud.
Aidan hid his surprise. That is excellent news.
Indeed. Lorcan dipped his chin.
It wasn’t often a female wrested power over a toriq, but he supposed if anyone could do it, Hildegard would be the one. When Aidan and Lorcan were not much beyond their first dragon shift, she’d swat them with a stick every time they passed by her to “toughen their hides.” Throm was never bothered by the welts covering Aidan when he returned home. According to him, it was a sign of Hildegard’s love that she beat on Aidan as well. It helped him to learn pain management—an important quality for a future warrior.
How did she take over? Aidan inquired.
Either Severne had died, or he’d been challenged in one form or another. If a dragon wished to take over leadership when the position was currently occupied, they had to prove the current pendragon incompetent and gain a majority vote with the elders. That was tricky if the current leader had many supporters who might sway sentiment. There was one other option—fight for it.
She challenged Severne to a death duel. He wasn’t half the warrior he thought and didn’t last ten minutes before she cut him to pieces. If the victor wasn’t my mother, I might have been embarrassed to watch my uncle beaten so badly.
Aidan cocked his head. Do you think she’ll agree to peace negotiations?
Will you be representing the Taugud clan? Lorcan asked, surprise in his orange eyes.
It is a task my father has set before me. Aidan refrained from explaining more. The Faegud might be less amenable to a treaty if they knew the current pendragon wouldn’t be around much longer, and the next in line had not been selected yet. It would be a gamble for them.
Lorcan swished his tail. You do realize that even if my mother agrees to meet with you, negotiating a treaty will not be easy. There are protocols to follow and elders you must impress. We’ve been under poor leadership for too long. Tensions remain high, and everyone is more than a little distrustful at the moment.
Aidan was afraid of that, but he had little choice. He could not fail his father and would do whatever it took to make this treaty happen. The only thing he regretted was that he could not be more open and honest with his friend about the circumstances.
I understand, he said.
Lorcan unfurled his wings. I will inform my mother of your request. You and Falcon may wait here until I return. Our guards will not bother you, but do not tread any farther into our territory until you are invited.
How long must we wait?
The dragon lifted a shoulder in what passed for a shrug. It is difficult to say. My mother is quite busy these days and will need time to consider it, but I will do my best to return tomorrow.
Aidan had expected no less. There was a reason his father gave him until the Bitkal to conduct the negotiations. Every step would require time and patience.
You have my gratitude, friend. Aidan bowed his head. We will await you here.
Chapter 11
Bailey
Collecting dragon scales was my new top priority, but first, I had to stop by Earl’s place to check in with him and my friends. Talking to Kayla the previous evening had reminded me of how important it was to stay in touch with those closest to me—even if I couldn’t be around them much anymore. The teenage girl’s loneliness had shown through during those hours we chatted and emphasized how easy it was to get caught up in the dragon world, losing part of yourself in the process. Though she had a few friends, none of them were close to her age. She moved about the world mostly unseen by it. I wished I could do something for her, but I had enough on my plate already.
After forming a strategy for the coming days and preparing my weapons, I’d left Aidan’s lair a couple of hours before noon. That would give me just enough time to check in with everyone without the risk of drawing any dragons to the neighborhood.
I turned off Lindsey Street and headed up Berry Road toward Earl’s neighborhood. Many of the houses in the area had been abandoned after all the disasters that struck, including earthquakes and a tornado that crossed the path I now drove. I passed a few homes that were totally demolished and a few more that were on the verge of collapse. Nothing had been repaired, but some of the power lines that had fallen were shoved out of the street. These days, the only reason anyone performed a public service was for their own benefit. In a lot of ways, Norman was like a ghost town now. It used to be all I wanted was to avoid people and crowds, but now I missed seeing the flow of life around me—even if I wasn’t a direct part of it.
Justin and another young guy stood guard at the blockade to Earl’s neighborhood. As soon as they saw me, they started rolling the fifty-five-gallon steel drums aside so I could drive through. The rest of the entryway was blocked by the stone wall they’d erected recently. Sometime soon, they planned to design a better gate system, but everything had to be taken one step at a time.
There were always two guards on duty—day and night. They protected against looters, but also provided an early warning against any approaching dragons. The neighborhood had several underground hideouts interspersed throughout, including one by the gate, where people could take cover. For reasons even Aidan couldn’t explain, dragon flames couldn’t burn dirt. You had to have at least six inches of it over your head for it to fully block the fire, though, or you’d still get torched. Over the last few months, we’d learned many things the hard way.
As I pulled up, Justin gestured at me. I stopped and rolled down my window, praying this wasn’t going to be another one of his speeches about safety. He meant well, but he had major control issues. I’d been kind of glad not to see him for a few days.
“I heard the dragon doesn’t want you living here anymore,” Justin said, resting a hand on my truck. “Conrad told me something about how even that weird creature thinks you’re too dangerous for us to be around.”
He couldn’t be bothered to say Aidan’s name—the jackass.
I gritted my teeth and counted to five. “I’m killing dragons to protect people—like you. Do you seriously have a problem with that?”
“Well, that’s not exactly my problem.” Justin worked his jaw, silent for a moment. “I’m just…annoyed, I guess. Here I am—a trained soldier—and I can’t defend my own damn neighborhood. You’re nothing but a little college girl, but you get the ability to fight dragons like no one else can. It’s…frustrating.”
I gave him a surprised look—that admission was rather unexpected. “You’re jealous?”
I’d had a suspicion that was his problem, but I never thought he’d admit it.
“Trish and I had a long talk about you last night,” he said, referring to his girlfriend, who was also one of my best friends from college. “She said I’ve been a sexist pig and a few other things I won’t get into. Let’s just say I owe you an apology. You didn’t ask to be what you are, but you’ve handled it better than most people would have under the circumstances.”
I pinched my leg, certain I must be dreaming. It hurt, disproving that theory. “Uh, thanks.”
“Just do me a favor and don’t stay too long. The dragons will be coming out in an hour or so.” He pointed up at the clear, blue sky where the sun steadily climbed overhead.
“I’ll be quick,” I promised.
Justin glanced down the street, his gaze focusing on a house with blue siding where he and Trish now lived. His fists clenched and unclenched several times before he turned his attention back to me. “But before you go, you might talk to Trish for a few minutes. She has something she needs to tell you.”
That piqued my curiosity. How much had I missed after being gone a few days?
“Yeah, sure,” I agreed.
He slapped the side of my truck, a
nd I drove about halfway down the street before pulling into Earl’s driveway. His red brick home wasn’t as big as some of the other houses on the block, but he took good care of the lawn, and he had a nice sized basement underneath for storing survival gear. Aside from my one-month stay here, no one else had lived with him since his wife passed years ago. He was a bit cantankerous and tended to scare most people off.
I got out of the truck and headed toward Earl where he sat on his porch in a rickety lawn chair. His back was stooped a little, and he had a bit of a paunch in his belly, despite being limited to rations for the last few months, but he still moved around fairly well for a sixty-five-year-old. It was his rugged face with the faded shrapnel scar on his left cheek and the gray beard that made him look his age. He snubbed out the cigarette he was smoking with his boot and narrowed his gaze on me. I braced myself for what would likely be a long lecture.
“You get that damn dragon taking kids yet?” he asked, his voice coming out gruff.
I shrugged a shoulder. “Working on it.”
“That’s what I heard.” He stared at me with clear blue eyes. “You do whatever it takes to get that thing, but you make sure to check in with me every so often. That’s all I ask.”
“I will.”
“And you’re gonna have to call your momma soon. You know how she gets if she don’t hear from you.” He spit on the sidewalk. “I don’t wanna be the one explainin’ why you’re too busy to talk to her.”
Earl had a satellite phone and a generator to charge it. Despite all the natural disasters, nothing had affected the satellites overhead, so those phones still worked. The trick was having one that was already operable before D-day and knowing the number to anyone else who owned one. Luckily my stepfather had one as well, partially because our ranch didn’t get good cell phone reception and partially because he was a survivalist like Earl.
“I’ll call her…soon.” It was just that I didn’t know what to say every time we talked. There was never anything good to tell my mom, and I hated lying to her about what I was up to.
At least Earl had kept the secret about me slaying dragons from my parents so far. The last thing they needed was one more thing to worry about. It was all they could do to protect the ranch and keep my brothers from getting themselves killed.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Earl replied, leaning back in his chair.
I left him and headed toward Trish’s place two doors down. It really concerned me that Justin had asked me to talk to her. He wouldn’t do that unless something was seriously wrong with her. Was she sick or depressed? We’d stocked up on as many kinds of medicine as we could, but we didn’t have them all and Danae’s healer abilities had limits. Diseases were still beyond her magic.
Please don’t let anything be wrong with Trish, I prayed.
I knocked on the door and shifted on my feet as I waited. A few moments later, footsteps came from the inside, heading my way. The deadbolt slid with a click and Trish opened the door. Her curly red hair was a tangled mess, her eyes were swollen, and her t-shirt had stains on it like she’d been out working in the garden recently. Wordlessly, I pulled her into a hug. Her soft form squished against mine and she broke into tears.
“Did…did he tell you?” she asked, her voice coming out muffled from my shoulder.
“No,” I said softly. “Justin just said I should come see you.”
She took in several stuttering breaths, shaking against me. “Oh, God, Bailey. I’m in so much trouble.”
“Shhh. It can’t be that bad.” I patted her shoulder.
“You don’t understand,” she wailed, pulling back to look at me. “It’s worse than you can possibly imagine.”
I examined her from head to toe, not seeing any sign of illness or injury. “Well, you’ve got all your working parts, Justin is still your boyfriend, and as long as I leave soon, you should be safe here. What could be so bad?”
Trish opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “I’m pregnant.”
“What?” I took a step back to look at her closer. She’d put on a little weight recently, but not that much. I’d just assumed it was from stress eating. Everyone had their own way of dealing with the dramatic changes in the world, and she took consolation in food. I didn’t judge. Heck, I even gave her some of my rations because it made her happy.
“I found out last night. Danae brought it up after she caught me puking for the third time. She sent Justin out to get a pregnancy test.” Trish paused and seemed to calm a bit. “Would you believe there are still plenty of those in the stores even though almost everything else is gone?”
“Well, uh, I guess it wouldn’t be a priority for the looters, but I thought you still had plenty of birth control and condoms.” This was really the last thing I’d expected to hear. She’d told me a while back Justin was obsessed with preventing pregnancy for obvious reasons, and he had stocked up on everything he could. At the very least, they were going to get married first and wait until things weren’t quite so dangerous.
“We did. We were so careful.” She led me into the living room, and we sat on the couch. “But I guess this was one of those one percent cases or whatever.”
My mind raced. I wanted to be supportive of her, but this was definitely not a good time for pregnancy. She couldn’t bring a baby into the world now when the future was so uncertain, and there wouldn’t be a hospital for her to give birth in. How was I going to help her when I couldn’t even live here anymore? A thousand thoughts raced through my mind, but I couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say. Was this why Justin had suddenly become friendlier? Even he didn’t want to do anything to upset Trish further now that she was so vulnerable.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Have the baby, I guess. Even if there was a way to get an abortion, I don’t think I could do it and Justin is Catholic. He’d never agree to that.”
No, he wouldn’t, but I suspected he was about to redefine the meaning of over-protective. Trish was going to have her work cut out for her handling both this pregnancy and him.
“Do you have any idea how far along you are?”
She nodded. “I worked it out with Danae, and we think I’m two months.”
“Wow, so you got pregnant back when we still lived in the library.” That seemed like ages ago, rather than about five weeks.
“Yeah,” she said, sighing. “Who knows where we’ll be by the time this baby is born or if we can find an experienced midwife or doctor to help me…and now you’re hardly around anymore.”
Danae’s combat medic training would have given her some basic skills on how to deliver a baby, but Trish would definitely need someone with more experience to monitor the pregnancy and handle any potential complications. I couldn’t even consider the idea that she might die in childbirth the way many women had before medical advancement reduced the risk. There had to be at least a few people still around town who could help. It was only a matter of finding them, which I was certain Justin would make a priority. In this case, his being overprotective might be a good thing.
I grabbed Trish’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry I won’t be around as much, but if you need anything—anything at all—just let me know.”
“Thanks, Bailey.” She managed a weak smile. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.”
“Good.” It relieved me to see her mood brighten a little. The last thing I wanted was to leave when she was still upset.
“So, um, you’re staying at that house by the lake now? The one that Aidan uses?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She swallowed. “Maybe I can visit sometime.”
“Maybe,” I said, then glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost noon. “But I have to go now.”
“But you just got here,” she argued.
I stood, grimacing with regret. “I’m sorry, but I can’t risk staying any longer.”
“When will you be back?” she aske
d, angling her pale face up at me.
“Hopefully in a few days.”
Trish narrowed her eyes. “Promise?”
In the movies, people who made promises almost never kept them. I wasn’t making that mistake. “I’ll do my best.”
She leaped up and gave me a hug. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
I left her house and stepped outside. Two driveways down, Conrad leaned against my truck with his arms crossed. I made my way over to him.
“You’re not going with me,” I said.
“Yes, I am. Someone’s gotta have your back.”
That was the excuse he always gave. It had become almost a habit to go through this argument every time I went out hunting. “Fine, but if you rub it in my face that you’re better with the crossbow, I’m ditching you.”
“Damn, girl, you’re no fun.” He hopped in the truck, waiting until I started the engine and pulled out of the drive before grinning at me. “But I am better than you.”
Chapter 12
Bailey
“Think they’re goin’ to be roaming around here?” Conrad asked.
We were driving around the west side of I-35 where the Thamaran clan of dragons hunted. According to Aidan, their territory took up the western half of Oklahoma with the interstate being the border. I didn’t want to risk getting into it with the Shadowan yet, so I was targeting the other clan for now. I’d get back to Matrika and her fellow dragons soon enough.
A series of gunshots sounded in the distance, followed by the furious roar of a dragon. I glanced over at Conrad. “Think that’s our cue?”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded, his eyes lighting up. “Let’s get there before the dragon kills whoever is shooting at it.”
I hit the gas, speeding up. “You’re becoming such an adrenaline junky.”
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