Waking the Dragon

by Juliette Cross

  The beast’s words filtered through my mind. There is only power, and who has the most.

  Silence. I stood up. Realization dawned on all of us at once. It wasn’t just the freedom of humanity that was at stake. It was the freedom of everyone. Every race.

  Valla rose to her feet next to me, shaking her head. “I just can’t believe it.”

  “What is he like?” Bowen asked, meeting my gaze.

  “He’s a monster. He’s bigger than any of you.” I eyed Kieren’s large proportions, identical to his brother’s. “Even you,” I added. “He’s malformed. Claws instead of hands. Sharpened fangs, like that of a—”

  My fingertips unconsciously brushed along the seam of my jeans near the punctures in my thighs.

  “Like that of a dragon,” Valla finished for me in a small whisper, watching my hands.

  I folded my arms to keep them still and nodded. “But we don’t need to worry about him anymore. I injected him with poison to escape. He should be dead by now.”

  “That doesn’t mean his army will give up their quest,” added Gaius. “Coalglass is his second-in-command, and he’s maniacal.”

  “They had other girls there.” I stepped toward Gaius.

  Bowen tensed as tight as a bowstring, his expression darkening. “How many have they taken, Gaius?”

  “There have been dozens of girls from every province, every human village imaginable. Not just the four from Gladium. They’ve kept it quiet, but soon, human police precincts will make the connection. And now the Guard will know.” He paused, his brow pushed into a deep frown. “I believe…their blood made him stronger, made him more dominant.”

  I scoffed. “More dominant.”

  The others glanced at me.

  “He wielded it like a weapon.”

  “So,” interrupted Bowen, “they have been the ones responsible for the missing girls in Primus.”

  Gaius nodded. Bowen pivoted back to the window, fists clenched at his sides.

  “I’m afraid the blood was for other reasons as well,” continued Gaius. “Coalglass and the king kept the army divided in a way that each faction was responsible for particular missions, no one knowing what others knew. It was the king’s way of keeping control. Only Barron has full knowledge of the greater plan. But I can tell you, he bled a lot more girls than he was drinking. There’s more to discuss, but we must move from here. Immediately. There’s no guarantee the locations of any safehouse known to the Morgon Guard is still confidential.”

  Kieren stalked toward the hole in the corner. “Give me thirty seconds to change.” He dropped through the floor. I heard a soft whoosh as he landed below.

  Gaius pulled a leather pouch from his pocket. He opened the pouch and handed a small object to Valla. A comm micro-drive.

  “I’ve stored my logs on these micro-drives.” He handed a second one to Bowen. And a third to me. “I hope to give a full report to my captain, but I need to know if we’re separated or I’m captured—or worse—that what I’ve endured was not in vain.” His voice dipped low, filled with an anguish I hadn’t detected before now.

  Valla placed her hand on his arm. “You will deliver your intelligence to my brother yourself. But know that I will keep this safe. Just in case.”

  His captain. Kol. How I longed for him, wanting so desperately to send a message via comm. But I trusted Gaius. I wouldn’t risk anyone’s life for my own peace of mind or to still my restless heart. I’d have to wait.

  Kieren reappeared, newly attired in dark clothing, a huge scabbard strapped to his thigh. Again, my heart leaped at the sight of him, looking so much like his brother. He gave me a wink. “Well, Moira darling. If things don’t work out with Kol…” He swept his arms down his body as if gesturing what I could have.

  I shook my head with a light laugh, the first time since I’d tickled Julian in his bedroom. My laughter faded fast, wondering how my sweet nephew fared after witnessing such a nightmare in his own home.

  “Let’s go,” snapped Gaius, picking up the body bag.

  Bowen was at my side. “May I assist you to the roof?”

  “Please.” I let him put his arms around my waist, and with one beat of wings and a swift jolt in the air, we were thirty feet higher on the platform leading to the rooftop.

  Bowen let me go as soon as I regained my footing, all of us following behind Kieren as he disabled the alarm and ushered us out the door.

  “If I may ask,”—came the deep, quiet voice of Bowen—“did you see any young women from Primus in captivity where you were?”

  “I did. I met two from Primus.”

  Pain creased the man’s brow, making me feel even more miserable that I hadn’t helped them. As if I could have.

  “Did you get their names?” His green eyes glittered under the moonlight, so familiar.

  “One was named Lena. The other I didn’t find out.”

  His eyes closed, then it hit me. His features, though more masculine, mirrored the girls I’d met in that horrible place. Specifically the older, angrier girl. Was he somehow related to them?

  I continued softly. “They couldn’t speak to me very much, and I only saw them a short time.” I wouldn’t tell him they were being used as sex-slaves for those beasts, for he knew and cared for these human women. I wouldn’t add to his pain, but I would give him hope. “I don’t know much, but I can tell you they looked strong, determined to survive.”

  “Thank you.” He gave me a sharp nod, his eyes full of heavy emotion as he spun away to the edge of the roof.

  “Hurry, Moira.” Gaius held open the body bag.

  “Wait!” shouted Bowen, expression taut and strained.

  I’d stepped one foot inside the bag and froze right before the wind was knocked out of me. Someone slammed me to the ground. Kieren stood above me, swinging a dagger at a yellow-winged Morgon in a familiar black tunic. Balisk.

  The whip of wings and boots hitting pavement sounded just before the sliding of steel on steel and the pounding of fist into flesh. Bowen swung a long, thin saber in deft arcs. His opponent, a Sunsting, dipped and puffed a lungful of air, blowing a burst of fire at Bowen who somersaulted above and out of danger. He landed behind him, swinging his silent blade and severing the Morgon’s head from his body. The head bounced on the pavement. My stomach churned. Before the body hit the floor, Bowen engaged another enemy soldier in combat.

  Gaius launched himself at the towering Balisk, while Kieren fended off another coming for me. Barron wasn’t in this crowd of Sunsting soldiers. Gaius stabbed one in the shoulder just as Balisk came up from behind and locked a thick arm around his neck.

  “You should die slowly, Gaius, but I want your death too much.”

  Gaius flapped his wings, partly trapped by Balisk’s body. A flash of silver. A line of red. Gaius gurgled and crumpled to his knees.

  “No!” I screamed.

  Balisk pulled his arm back and swung full-force through the air, slashing one of Gaius’s wings in half. A post-mortem humiliation. Hatred burned inside my chest. My days of body boxing didn’t prepare me for full-combat mode amidst falling bodies. How ill-prepared I was for this entire investigation, for this ruthless world.

  Balisk stalked toward me with a feral grin and yellow eyes penetrating through the dark, looking more demon than Morgon or man. A primal shiver tingled up my spine. I scampered back, trying to get to my feet.

  Kieren dispatched a soldier and shoved me back behind him. “Stay down.”

  Balisk circled, obviously angling for his target. Me.

  “Didn’t take you for a human lover, Moonring,” he growled, ducking Kieren’s swift slice through the air with a thick short-sword. Kieren dodged another swing of Balisk’s dagger, saying nothing. Balisk pivoted closer to me.

  “I’d like to gut her for what she’s done,” he grated, “but my orders are to bring her back alive.” He swung high with his sword. Kieren dodged and spun away.

  “Too b
ad,” said Balisk. “She’d make a pretty corpse.”

  All the rage I’d held bottled inside behind the fear boiled to the surface. For myself, for Maxine Mendale, for Layla, for the Primus slave-girls, for every young woman taken against her will. For the rapes, the beatings, the terror, the murder, the mutilation, and for Gaius, I swallowed that fear and used the anger to do something besides cower and wait my turn.

  Lying on my side, I swung my leg the way Demetrius taught me to when I needed to do serious damage. I felt a crack when I landed a hard kick sideways against his knee, sweeping Balisk to the ground. Before he landed, I lunged, using all my weight to keep his head pinned with my bended knee, grinding it into the tile roof. One of his hands jerked up, grasping for my throat. Kieren lowered to his knees and shoved his short-sword directly into Balisk’s heart.

  “You’re so lucky”—Kieren’s voice ground out like crumbling stone—“that I’m the one killing you and not my brother. He’d keep you alive to cut your heart out slowly for what you threatened to do to his mate.” Balisk’s hand squeezed my forearm. Kieren twisted the blade in his body and gave it a violent jerk. Balisk sputtered blood out of his mouth, wide eyes glazed, his arm going limp and dropping away from my arm.

  “Get up, Moira.”

  I did. Kieren took hold of one of his wings, dragged him to the edge of the roof, and launched his body over the edge.

  I crawled to Gaius’s side. His eyes stared up into the night. A slow blink and the faintest of breaths told me he still lived. I angled his face toward me. “Gaius. Can you hear me? It’s going to be okay.”

  I knew it would never be okay, but thoughtless words of comfort still spilled from my mouth. He blinked again, focusing on my teary gaze. “No,” he choked out. “I don’t want to survive this.” What was he saying? “I had to become one of them, you see.” He gasped for breath, pleading me to understand. I listened as I always did when someone wanted to tell their story. “They threatened to kidnap my sisters, my mother, to do to them what they did to the others.” Blood gurgled and streamed from his mouth. “I became one of them. My sins are so great.” He gasped for breath, a line of blood trailing from his mouth. “But you. When you came…had to get you out. My captain’s mate, I couldn’t leave in their hands.”

  His breathing was shallow and raspy. He closed his eyes as he exhaled one last breath. I held in a sob welling in my chest. “Sleep, Gaius. Rest now.”

  “Kieren!” Bowen bellowed from across the rooftop. “Go. Get her out of here.”

  Jolted from the somber scene at Gaius’s side, I glanced up to see Kieren storming in my direction, having just fought and killed another Morgon. Bowen and Valla were in combat with the last two soldiers. Valla defended herself with swift moves, leaping through the air and slicing her opponent across the face with the twin rapiers in both hands. She literally kicked him in the ass after she ducked and slipped under his lumbering form, knocking him off balance.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Go! To Blind Bird Falls!” she yelled, ducking her attacker as he tried to snatch her by the hair. She twisted away, slicing him across the face.

  Kieren sheathed his sword and pulled me off my knees. “Arms around my neck, Moira darling.”

  I wrapped my arms around him, locking one hand on the wrist of the other arm. He lifted my legs, holding me in a tight embrace, took three long strides, and leaped off the building. My stomach dropped out from underneath me. He banked hard right away from Cloven, winging high up into billowy clouds.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, teeth chattering. From fear or cold, I wasn’t sure. Probably both.

  “A special place. Hang on tight. My brother would never forgive me if I let anything happen to his mate.”

  Chapter 23

  Did he say mate? Just like Gaius had. But I wasn’t.

  Teeth chattering, we flew into a spray of misty sleet.

  “Cover your face,” he commanded, sounding so much like Kol. “I’m going to speed up. This’ll sting.”

  I turned my face into his neck, the flap of my collar forming a tent across my cheek. We rocketed forward, flying at a speed that would have me dizzy and nauseous if I were looking.

  “Morgons have skin of leather, t-t-too?” I stuttered.

  He chuckled, the sound dying on the biting wind. “Our bodies relegate temperature much differently than humans.”

  “I n-noticed.”

  He wore nothing but a long-sleeved black shirt as a second skin and wasn’t fazed at all by the freezing cold. I, on the other hand, was suffering rather badly, even wrapped in an insulated trench coat.

  “How f-far is Blind Bird Falls?” was all I could mutter between my teeth.

  “Not far. It’s not a place, actually. Blind Bird Falls is a childhood game Kol and I used to play with Valla at our summer home. That was Valla’s clever way of telling me where to go.”

  He dipped out of the clouds.

  “Sorry about the cold. I’ll have you warm soon enough.”

  The lower and farther west he flew, the less my teeth chattered, till finally I was just plain cold and miserable, rather than freezing to death and waiting for a limb to fall off. Kieren skimmed deep into a valley, one story above the earth.

  A lake spread wide like a multi-fingered hand, jutting into perfect, tree-lined coves. Ideal for a summer home, a getaway from the world, tucked into a lush valley. Of course, even under the cloak of night and full cloud-cover, I could see that nothing was green and the trees were bare. But in summer, it would be lovely.

  “It’s so beautiful,” I murmured.

  “That’s Pearl Bottom Lake.”

  The moon broke over the wind-rippled water like slivers of white glass, sparkling iridescent like pearls. Cool mist rolled along the edge. Kieren cut a sharp left into a dense growth of evergold trees. There weren’t many in or around Gladium, but I loved them because they kept their leaves the longest, falling finally in the dead of winter. The moonlight shone on the golden leaves, gilding the lakefront area in a vibrant halo. One of the trees was huge, four-men thick, with branches stretching out like a great beast to protect its lair.

  Kieren swept under the ancient tree, lighting not thirty yards into the grove where a river-rock cabin stood. It blended so well with the woods that I gasped in surprise when he set me down.

  Kieren stepped up to the alarm panel and punched in a lengthy series of numbers, letters, and symbols. A stone door slid sideways into the wall. He swept an arm for me to enter, glancing over my shoulder.

  “Not completely rustic, is it?”

  He tapped the alarm pad, sealing the door shut behind me. “After my father died, Kol had an alarm system installed in the place, complete with twelve-inch thick granite.” He laughed in a bitter sort of way. “At the time, I thought he was acting a bit overzealous and paranoid. But now I’m damn glad he did.” He said the last with an edge of regret.

  I peered around the room, hugging my body, shivering. Thick wooden beams cross-hatched cathedral ceilings, opening the room into a wide space. Morgons liked their rooms big and open. Two huge, round skylights were symmetrically placed in the ceiling, both sealed off at the moment. There was a second floor loft, but no stairs. White cloth draped the furniture. Kieren whipped off a blanket from a plush, earthy-brown sofa. The cabin had a familiar feel to it, like that of Kol’s place in the Feygreir Mountains.

  “Sit. I’ll get a fire going.”

  He opened a door next to the river-rock fireplace and pulled dry kindling and logs from a pantry. I sat down while he blew a puff of orange flame, licking a fire to life. Must be nice to have warmth at their fingertips. Or at the tip of their tongue, actually.

  Though still cold, I had stopped trembling.

  “I’ll get you some towels and a blanket.”

  He disappeared into what must have been a bathroom, returning a minute later. He tossed me a clean towel, using another to dry his hair. He reached one hand behind his b
ack to unzip the back flaps of his shirt under his wings. As he was about to pull the shirt over his head, he paused, realizing he was about to strip half-naked in front of me. And damn it, I was staring. Not because I found Kieren attractive, but because I found Kol mind-blowingly sexy. And he looked too much like his brother. Perfectly defined bronzed abs peeked out from where he’d lifted his shirt, his upper torso broadening at the shoulders. But he wasn’t Kol, and no sparks flared as they would for him.

  I glanced away, remembering how Kol used his body on me, how he’d made me climax over and over till I was a bag of bones, how he’d held me against him all night long afterward, tucked safe in his arms.

  “I think I’ll change upstairs.” He winked. “The way you’re carrying my brother’s scent, it’s like he’s in the damn room.” With two beats of his wings, he landed on the loft and shouted down, “And I won’t be accused of coming on to you or anything. He’d kick my ass, and I wouldn’t blame him.”

  I was glad he left the room, so I could be alone a moment with my thoughts of seeing Kol soon. What would I say to him? Forced together out of necessity, we’d been reluctant professional partners, never behaving very professional at all. Then we’d become more than willing partners of another kind. Sex had broken down barriers, wiping away our walls of isolation. Yet, neither of us was comfortable with vulnerability. And neither of us had voiced emotions beyond profound pleasure and desire. I told him I needed him. And I did. Not just my body, but something else deeper inside yearned for his presence, his scent, his…everything.

  Kieren returned in dry clothes, his shape so much like his brother’s, my heart ached. He must’ve seen it in my eyes, throwing me an apologetic glance.

  “I had to borrow some of Kol’s clothes.”

  “You don’t have your own things here? I thought this was the family summer home.”

  He grunted, stoking the fire with a cast iron poker. “Once, yes. Not so much anymore.”

  His expression hardened as he stared into the flames. That wasn’t a subject I wanted to broach with him. He glanced back at the door. “The others will be along soon.”