His dark mood showed because Lars raised his hands in peace.
“What are you going to do with the mercenary?” Valerian pointed his chin at the bedroom he had just vacated. It seemed that his friend had only one question on his mind.
Dragon was about to unleash his tongue, but realized that his frustration was to blame, not his friend, who had reason to take him to task.
“I can’t get rid of her,” he finally admitted.
Two stunned friends stared back at him.
“I didn’t expect you to be so… honest,” Valerian said after a moment of silence.
“What’s happening to you?” Lars asked, brow furrowing.
Dragon passed his hand over his jaw, his growth scratching his skin. He dropped on the couch by the fireplace, one leg over the armrest. “I don’t know.” Leaning his head against the edge of the backrest, he looked at the wooden beams on the high ceiling, looking for an answer. “I’ve never felt so off-center.”
“She’s dangerous.” Valerian sat on the opposite divan.
Dragon scoffed and shook his head. “Don’t I know it. She just pressed my dagger against my jugular.”
“Dragon—” Valerian started, then stopped.
Dragon lowered his gaze to his friends. “Have you ever felt like you can’t breathe for want of someone?”
Valerian’s mouth flattened in a tight line. “Yes, I have.” His hand fisted. “Not something I’d recommend.”
“You can’t possibly entertain the thought of having an affair with the assassin.” Lars stared at Dragon, then turned toward Valerian as if looking for support. “It’s wrong on so many levels. I can’t even start to list them.”
Valerian’s lips quirked in a sad grin. “But that’s the whole point, isn’t it?” he asked Dragon. “It’s so wrong, somehow it makes it right to pursue what you can’t have.”
The pain in his friend’s voice was difficult to ignore, but the foyer’s door opened, interrupting their conversation.
Lauren strode in, followed by Gilda a few steps behind. Dressed in their evening gowns, the two women looked beautiful, and yet Dragon couldn’t muster any desire for them.
Lauren stopped in front of Dragon. “I heard that the assassin is still here.”
Dragon shot an accusing look at both Valerian and Lars, but they shook their heads.
“What’s going on?” Lauren stepped closer to the couch, her dainty slippers touching Dragon’s naked foot.
Gilda lingered behind, hovering by Valerian.
“It’s a matter of safety,” Dragon said, standing up.
She tilted her chin to meet his eyes but didn’t step back.
“Whose safety?” she asked.
“Yours.” True, but not the entire truth.
From a tactical point of view, it was good practice to keep your enemy close. With Jade by his side, he didn’t have to guess where the following attack would happen. Eventually, they would apprehend someone who would talk, and Dragon would gladly relinquish the prisoner to the Fifth Moon Confederation. As long as it wasn’t Jade.
Lauren canted her head. “Let’s be clear on something,” she said. “I won’t be humiliated. I don’t care what you do with that bitch you keep in your room as long as word of your unnatural affair doesn’t reach the rest of Solaria.”
The princess has unsheathed her claws. Good for her, Dragon thought, considering the woman in front of him with renewed respect.
“Do you have any other requests?” he asked.
Lauren’s eyes went to Gilda who slightly lowered her head, then she turned back to Dragon. “Once your heirs are conceived, we’ll move out to a villa of our choosing.”
It wasn’t unheard for dragons’ brides to live independent lives, but they usually remained under the same roof, so that their progeny grew up with the three parents. While Valerian and Lars’s befuddled expressions showed their shock, Lauren’s unorthodox request didn’t stir in Dragon the angry response it should have. Not because the idea of living separated from his children didn’t make him livid. The truth was he couldn’t envision conceiving those children with either Lauren or Gilda in the first place.
26
Jade heard the princess lashing out at Dragon. The woman’s voice was high and slipped under the door, reaching her ears.
Dragon would marry those two women and have kids with them. That was the way of the dragon shifters. The intergalactic voyage from Earth to the Fifth Moon System had altered the shifters’ physiology, making it impossible for them to shift at will. Only when in life-threatening situations did their dragons come out to heal them as Jade had the rare opportunity to witness. Another consequence of prolonged exposure to cosmic rays was that shifters couldn’t procreate any longer. Special brides were engineered to bear them progeny. In the case of the dragon shifters, two princesses were created to increase the chances of a successful pregnancy, because dragon children were difficult to conceive. It was public knowledge, and until a day or two ago, it had meant nothing to Jade. The man shouldn’t have survived meeting her.
But now, she had tasted his passion, and the notion that he would kiss and touch another woman like he had kissed and touched her, coiled inside her like a malignant cancer. She pressed her palms against her stomach to lessen the dark twist causing her unbearable pain because it wasn’t physical. The emotion was raw and unexpected, and it wounded her the more she thought of what Dragon would do with his brides. They would be doing much more than kissing and touching.
A sad laugh escaped her lips. What was she thinking? How could she so easily forget she was an assassin sent to kill him? There was no future that included the two of them together. And she wasn’t going to live much longer anyway. Because, if it was true that she didn’t have a death wish, she most assuredly was an idiot and had squandered her one opportunity to make amends with the Academy.
She was a breathing corpse.
Jade had come to terms with the fact that she wouldn’t kill Dragon—she just couldn’t accept a reality without him—but the Academy would never leave her alone. No amount of wishful thinking would create an alternate reality where she would get the man and live long enough to tell the tale.
Her fingers traced the white marks on her arm. She shivered and grabbed the sheet that smelled of Dragon.
The woman, Lauren, gave Dragon an ultimatum, then the click of wooden heels resonated fainter and fainter until it stopped, leaving only silence behind.
The door of the bedroom opened, and Dragon’s frame filled the entrance.
Jade clutched the sheet in her hands, covering her breasts. She had never been conscious of her body before—in the Academy, men and women lived in shared quarters—but her earlier wanton reaction to him had upset her deeply.
She wasn’t a virgin, and satisfying carnal pleasure wasn’t a priority for her. Men or women had never awakened in her more than a passing fancy, an itch easily gratified in a dark corner. A few minutes later, they would part ways and forget all about it. But her lips still tingled and her skin burned where Dragon touched her. There would be no forgetting where he was concerned.
And there was his tenderness. That quality of his was Jade’s downfall. She could handle violence and cruelty, but wasn’t equipped to withstand his soft, goodhearted side. During mind-blowing passion, Dragon still took care not to hurt her, even though she had just attempted to kill him. She couldn’t help but wonder why, when he could have any woman in the entire Fifth Moon System, he wanted her.
From the door, Dragon looked at her, his bright blue eyes devouring her in a slow gaze that started at her head and finished at her toes peeking from under the sheet.
She wanted him to jump on the bed and kiss her senseless. She couldn’t say yes to him, but wanted him nevertheless. It didn’t make any sense and it infuriated her.
“Did you say the truth before?” he asked. His voice was a low purr. “When you said you can’t kill me.”
She nodded. There was no reason to lie.
Satisfied, he nodded and said, “Are you going to collaborate and tell me what you know?”
She shook her head.
He left the door and was at her side before the panel closed. “I need a reason to keep you here.”
She looked at him, dying to raise her hand and caress his face. “I can’t tell you anything.” What would it be like to feel him inside her? To be one with a man like him? Her heart ached at the loss of something she would never experience.
Dragon’s hand reached her leg but didn’t touch her. Instead, he lowered it to the bed, a few centimeters from her. “Listen, I don’t want you to be my whore.”
Her heart thumped loud in her chest. What did he mean?
He continued, “There are forces at play, and it’s complicated, but I want you at my side.”
He was proposing to her, but it wasn’t the kind of offer she would ever be interested in. A courtesan, that’s what he meant. Even if he were free, Jade’s low station in life would never grant her more than a mistress position. And she was still an assassin. That hadn’t changed in the last five minutes.
“You must have faith in me—”
A sudden roar from outside drowned the rest of his words. They both turned to look at the terrace where Carellian lay on the floor, half of his body dangling from the edge, blood pouring from his wing and chest. Contessa surged in the air, her wings splayed as she protected the fallen draglet.
Dragon jumped off the bed and dashed toward the terrace. Reacting on pure instinct, Jade followed him, and only when the breeze and the rain battered her naked skin did she realize she wore nothing.
Carellian cried in pain. Dragon ran to his side as Jade hurried to the edge. She followed Contessa’s fierce gaze. The attacker remained hidden from Jade’s mortal sight, but the draglet hissed and roared at a precise point over the bridge connecting the palace to the satellite dwellings of the court, indicating that she could see the assassin.
She looked at Dragon who was passing his hand over Carellian’s wing, checking his injuries as the rain washed away the blood seeping from one of the wounds. Hurried steps resonated from his bedroom, and his friends burst onto the terrace. Jade turned back to the she-draglet.
A plan hastily hatched.
She whistled to draw Contessa’s attention. “Here,” she called when the draglet swung her long neck toward her. “Come.” She gestured for the winged mare to hover down toward the terrace. It was a wild gamble. Draglets were loyal creatures and independent thinkers; they decided their rider.
Contessa’s nostrils huffed long puffs of white smoke, but she angled her body for Jade, who reached for the lowered wing and vaulted on the draglet’s back before the creature changed her mind.
Dragon called after her, but Jade was already spurring her borrowed steed toward the suspended bridge. Valerian’s loud curses echoed after her, but fortunately, Contessa decided not to heed her master’s commands.
She didn’t have much experience with riding draglets—at the Academy, clockwork gear was preferred because it was more practical. “Easy, beautiful girl,” she whispered while soothing the unpredictable mare with a few strokes between the ridges on her neck.
Something moved ahead of them. Black wings flapped against the dark canvas of the night sky. Who was her next opponent? It didn’t matter. She would kill the assassin, and this time make sure to steal the clockwork wings and fly away, sending Contessa back to her master. Her secret stash waited for her in her hideout, and she would use it to book a flight to one of the Outer Belt planets. It was a long stretch and a merely-rectified version of her earlier plan that failed miserably, but she didn’t have much going on for her at the moment.
27
Jade steered Contessa closer to the last spot where she had glimpsed the fluttering of wings. Her eyes weren’t as keen as the draglet’s and it was raining harder now, but she knew what to look for. She cocked her head, listening for the subtle whirring that no amount of grease would ever conceal. And sure enough, below the serenade of the night bugs filling the air with their mating calls, her ears caught the faintest of mechanical humming.
Guided by Jade’s silent commands, Contessa glided under the suspended bridge, zigzagging to make it almost impossible for the assassin to shoot at Jade. The draglet flew toward the wild draglet’s nest dangling underneath. The round structure swayed with the breeze, long tendrils trailing down, making it look like one of those Celestian marine creatures that filled the vampire planet’s seas.
The assassin lay in wait on the shadowed side of the nest, hidden by its large diameter, ready to attack. That’s what Jade would have done if the positions were reversed, but she had an advantage on her hunter. She was counting on the Academy wanting her alive to humiliate her in front of the whole congregation before killing her. Their strict adherence to their code would be her way out if luck was finally on her side.
At the unmistakable sound of flying draglets behind her, her focus wavered briefly. It didn’t come as a surprise that Dragon’s men would follow. She knew she must act fast and get hold of the assassin’s gear before the clockwork wings were lost to her.
Uneasiness nudged at the back of her mind. The feeling was unwelcome, like the touch of the icy raindrops slushing over her head and running down her naked back. A few minutes earlier, the night sky had been still visible despite the heavy rain. Now, the distant Fifth Moon and the bigger and closer Aurealis had disappeared, hidden by a deluge.
Distant sheet lightning lit the sky in shades of pink and white. The resounding booms that followed seconds later confirmed that a storm was traveling toward the palace and the worst was yet to come.
As Contessa balked, Jade weighed her options and found she could live with the outcome, literally. The tempest would soon reach a tropical level, but clockwork wings were built to withstand worse weather if the rider was skilled.
Contessa reared her neck, her head swinging to the side as her dark, round eyes stared at Jade.
“Just a few more meters,” Jade said. “And I’ll let you go. I promise.”
The draglet whinnied when the sky lit and thunder struck. The large body under Jade shivered, but she calmed Contessa with a few caresses. The animal turned, lowered her head, and flew—although unwillingly—toward the nest.
As they neared the structure from an angle, the gnawing sensation came back to Jade, lodging in her throat. The black tip of a wing peeked from around the nest. Something wasn’t right. Why hadn’t the assassin shot her yet? At such a close distance, her hunter wouldn’t have any problem dealing her a non-mortal wound, enough to incapacitate her. The rain falling down by the buckets might have concealed her approach, but by now, whoever was behind that nest must have spotted her.
Unless—
Jade’s heart thumped hard, almost louder than the storm. The truth stared at her mockingly as Contessa rounded the corner and the squall unfolded one of the mechanical wings hooked to the nest. No assassin waited for her.
Lightning struck close, hitting the far end of the bridge and spooking Contessa, who jerked to the side and almost threw Jade off.
The realization that she had been wrong all along hit Jade like a punch, making her gasp.
Since the previous attack, she had assumed she was the target, but the Academy couldn’t know she was alive or where she was yet. Antoine first, and now this second assassin, had been sent to deal with Dragon. Most assuredly, a second team was looking for Jade, and had Antoine killed her, that would have been a fortunate coincidence, but he didn’t have time to pass the information that she was at Sol Palace. Running on fumes had compromised her reasoning.
“Stay where you are,” a man called from behind her, his voice mechanically amplified.
Four of Dragon’s guards flanked her, two per side. At least another three, including the one who had just spoken, hovered behind.
“It’s a trap,” she yelled above the din of the tempest and pointed at the clockwork wing slamming against the nest�
��s wall. “Nobody’s here.”
The guards reached their own conclusions a heartbeat later. The assassin had wounded Carellian so that the High Lord remained behind as his men left in pursuit of the shooter. It was a basic warfare tactic: Divide and conquer. The entire squad flew away at once, leaving behind only one of the riders. The man glided closer to Contessa, a leather lasso in his hand he swung toward the draglet’s head.
“Don’t betray me now, beautiful girl.” Jade’s plea reached deaf ears because bright lightning lit the sky, and Contessa jumped a few meters high, roaring in fear before a crack of thunder silenced her.
The guard circled them, his arm swinging faster and faster, waiting for the right moment. In between thunder, the whooshing of the flinging lasso resonated loud. A moment later, the leash slid down Contessa’s neck and stopped at its base, tethering her to the other draglet, who started to drag her away from the bridge.
Desperate, Jade calculated the strength of the wind and the swaying of the nest, then stood on the back of Contessa before diving, arms outstretched and fingers reaching for the clockwork wings that were now her last hope.
Hurtling with her head down, she grabbed the tip of the wing and pulled hard. For a frozen moment, she stood there, suspended over the abyss, the clockwork feathers slipping between her clutching fingers. She lost her grip, her body becoming heavier as the unforgiving force of gravity reclaimed her and she began spiraling toward her death.
Although the nanite in her system had gifted her with the possibility of a long life, she had never harbored any hope that she would ever reach an old age. She knew she would die young but had always thought that when the moment arrived, her entire life would play before her eyes. Instead, no memories of her miserable youth in the Celestian ghettos came back to haunt her last minutes. The images her mind played for her were of Dragon.
The Fifth Moon’s Dragon Page 9