by Tamsin Baker
She shoved him back again, and felt her incisors elongate and slide through her gums.
Blood filled her mouth. She dropped his collar like her fingertips burnt where they touched him, clutching at her mouth. She had to get out of here, now. Her body moved with no rational thought.
Instinct tore through Hana.
There was barely a barrier here between buildings. In one leap, she was on top of the thigh-high wall. Horror surging through her, she turned from the Dragon who watched her with no little amusement and in another gut-clenching leap, she was off the gods forsaken balcony.
She crashed into the fencing around a balcony of the adjacent building. Not far away enough from whatever madness had poured into her in that place. She climbed down as quickly and quietly as she could, hands shaking, not pausing as she hit street level to examine what had happened in her mouth, her body, her soul.
Chapter 14
Logan Katana paced the length of the low balcony wall, watching the female shimmy down the apartment balconies on the next building as though she’d been born to it. Tumbles of ebony hair streamed over strong shoulders, an athletic, capable body that had clearly surprised her tonight. With his keen vision he saw the pauses, the slight shake of a hand, recalled to mind those deep, amber eyes dilated with the effects of whatever she’d chanced to drink at the party below.
Throwing wild, ridiculous parties was in his job description as a Dragon Master, but the events had got tedious over the years. Despite the stunning outfit, the fringe of silver over long, long legs that made Logan’s mouth water, he sensed the moment he saw her that she wasn’t an ordinary courtesan.
The tattoo of Dragon blue-green that circled her upper arm was genuine, but incongruent. He saw the fire in her eyes, wondered at the strength it took to keep that mark shimmering and real.
So, who was this female?
He scented old—scrap that—ancient power in her. His dragon preened as though she shone sunlight on his scales, spearing rainbows across his body. The way she had held him against that wall, leaped from the building, the flare of shadowed wings against her body.
Did she even know what she was capable of?
Danger. She’d come to warn him of danger?
He’d barely been able to bend Stryker to his will. The old Tiger did not take lightly to losing a territorial battle, especially over a female—so whoever she was, she’d better shimmy off back to where she came from, and hope the Dragon Clan marking that jarred his sight, like it was glamoured onto her skin, could offer her some protection.
When it came to warning him of danger, she could get in line. He lived with the death mark against his name. In order to maintain any contact at all with the son he’d borne to his Tiger lover—a union that had cost her life in childbed—he accepted that he would place himself under Tiger control.
So, he’d host the bourgeois, hideous, extravagant parties at his penthouse suite. He’d run the lucrative gambling dens and uphold what passed for justice in this town. And whatever agenda this girl thought she had, well, for her sake he hoped she’d given up on it tonight.
He dressed and went back down to his party, collecting his entourage where he’d left them at the doors.
They knew well enough not to question what had happened to the girl he’d gone inside with.
His lieutenant, Jyll, murmured to him about reparations for the interrupted fight with the Tentacular demon. Logan didn’t usually grace his own fight pits, but his son had got into a scrap with the Tentacles, and Logan had agreed to the fight to pay off his son’s debt. He sighed.
He had enough on his plate without wondering about mysterious women, no matter how intriguing, so he drank the champagne, watched the Clan members fight various demon classes, placed bets that would be talked about for days, and entertained courtesans who sat on his knee and giggled and ran their hands all over him.
All the while Stryker glared daggers at him. He’d probably just earned another black mark against his name. Would probably feel the repercussions of his actions tonight in what the Tigers might next demand of him. He just hoped Stryker wasn’t pissed off enough to mention this to his son’s handlers.
He needed to see his son soon, reassure himself of his well-being. He didn’t like him being sequestered in the palace for months at a time. Who knew what the Tigers were teaching him.
Logan wanted to have some influence on him, despite the role he played for the Tigers. It was all to protect his son.
When the last revellers had left to seek out the downtown establishments still open in Dragon Quarter, Logan finally dismissed all his men and climbed into his four-poster bed. The ostentatiousness of the bed pissed him off regularly, and tonight he tossed and turned before finally leaping out, dragging the black silk covers with him and making himself a nest before the open fire.
He gazed long into the flames, thinking of the little spitfire he’d had in his room earlier. The mysterious female. He knew girls like her were turning up dead all over the city under the cover of darkness. He hadn’t wanted to know why, or felt particularly bothered about that before tonight. So why couldn’t he get the feel of smooth skin under the Dragon marking on her upper arm out of his head right now? Why couldn’t he stop wondering about the gifts that had allowed her to cut through his mind-control?
Why couldn’t he stop himself from getting out of his gods-damned nest and seeking out the solace of the Indigo River? And why was he opting for a long, exhausting, solo swim in the cool water to settle the dragon writhing under his skin, instead of seeking the usual comfort of some courtesan’s bed?
Chapter 15
In the morning, Hana’s head pounded with a hangover as vicious as she’d expected. She’d huddled in the blankets of her loft half the night, not daring to look in the mirror to see the face that greeted her.
She felt it even so.
The sting of canines that had burst through gums. Aquiline cheekbones and delicately pointed ears, like the ones she’d been reminded of when watching the males in the fight pit. The shivering and shaking as she came down from the illicit champagne gradually diminished as light crept around her flimsy curtains. Finally, her eyes drifted closed. Strange images and scents and sensations filled her dreams. Logan Katana’s face—but with graceful, aquiline cheekbones and delicately pointed ears snarled at her with feral, otherworldly beauty.
When she woke to full daylight, she felt like herself. She swiped her tongue over her upper gums. Nothing. Throwing off the blankets, she rushed to the oriental screen, positioning herself in front of the gilded mirror. No pointed ears, no high, jutting cheekbones…no teeth. No sign of the Fae madness.
Except.
Twin lines of dried blood tracked down her chin, directly underneath both incisors. What the hell? Had the laced champagne contained magical properties? It had to be powerful, for the hallucinations it had projected. The way she’d seen Katana fight—the strength and speed and skill. Remaining airborne so long he might fly.
And then the effect it’d had on Hana. The power, when she’d pushed Katana, the way she’d leapt off that balcony. Spiked champagne and adrenaline and a healthy imagination fuelled by thoughts of her grandmother’s fairy tales. That was probably it. Hana glanced at the height of the sun as she opened her blinds.
Shit. She was late. She scrubbed at the marks on her face, glared at the cream tunic she’d discarded on the floor last night and dressed as quickly as she could. She couldn’t afford to piss off the low-life Dragons at Justice.
She endured a slow day at her desk, and the snide comments from her colleagues about what she’d been up to last night that had put the rings under her eyes. There were no call outs for clean-up duty. Hana prayed that meant no more youngsters had gone missing overnight.
After work, she followed her usual routine, gingerly making her way to Quan’s fight den.
Her body ached from what she’d put it through last night. She couldn’t believe that she’d jumped from the penthouse.
Her knuckles were all bruised and scraped, likely from when she’d thrown the Dragon against the wall, and her side was wicked purple from where she’d crashed into the balcony at a full leap. Adrenaline and laced champagne overdrive. She’d been lucky she hadn’t plunged to her death.
Quan whistled when he saw her limping in.
“Should I worry about the other guy?” Quan asked.
“You know me, Quan. I can take care of myself.”
“That is as may be,” he muttered, stepping behind the bar and coming back with two shot glasses and his favourite whisky.
She shivered as she saw the bottle of whisky, the strong scent of the amber liquid bringing back another pair of lips, preternatural, otherworldly, as they drank the earthy substance.
Did Fae Warriors also enjoy whisky?
“Let me fix your hands, Hana.”
“You fuss like an old woman, mate,” she muttered, but she proffered up her hands.
Quan lifted his shot glass to his lips.
“One for me, one for…you.” She hissed as he used the alcohol as antiseptic against her scraped and bloody knuckles.
“Want to talk about it?”
She shook her head.
“Nah. Dumb cop business, Quan. I can handle it.”
Hana thought she just might be able to, if she stayed away from whatever the hell was in that champagne last night. That didn’t solve the puzzle of Katana, though. Silver’s intel was usually solid. But Hana knew for a fact she wouldn’t be getting close to the Dragon again any time soon. Not if she wanted to hold on to her sanity.
Quan watched her thoughtfully as he wrapped her hands. He’d wrapped them like she was about to fight, but she knew he wouldn’t allow her to step into the ring tonight. She hadn’t done enough to cover the limp or the soreness in her side.
“How is the young buck? He come back in?”
“Rex? Every night.” He tipped his head toward the corner, where the red-headed youngling was sparring with a girl with long black hair.
“Good. He managing the aggression?”
“So far.”
She nodded again.
“You can go and ref tonight, Poncoyo. No active duty for you.”
Hana gave Quan a rude gesture, but her lips were turning up at the corners as she made her way over to the youngsters, whistle in hand. When she was satisfied that the young boy was engaging with Quan’s gym, got his assurance that he’d be back the next day, Hana refused Quan’s offer of a drink and headed out.
As she stalked down the cobblestoned laneway, she ignored several pings on the hand-held from Silver. She didn’t need any more “help” from him right now. She knew she should just crawl into bed in her loft with a cone of Mama Sing’s spiciest fried noodles, but she was too restless, despite the time in the gym that usually settled her.
Her muscles twitched with the echo of the power she’d used when she slammed the Dragon back into the wall with a satisfying crunch. Ignoring the soreness in her side, Hana started to run.
Chapter 16
Logan was soothing the sting of the multiple cuts and burns he’d sustained from the rematch with the Tentacular demon this evening at Scales by downing several neat whiskies. He tipped the ice into his mouth for good measure.
Jyll came to sit by him at the bar, barely hiding his wince at the state of Logan’s arms and face. Long, jagged cuts ran down his arms in angry red welts, and he could feel the same on his cheek. At least the shiner he’d sustained keeping the mysterious Madame Toulouse out of Stryker’s clutches had healed up nicely.
“Boss,” Jyll said, gesturing to the barkeep that he’d have the same as Logan, “that’s nasty. How many times has he pissed off the Tentacles this year?”
“Enough that I needed to step in, Jyll,” he growled. He wasn’t in the mood for an interrogation about Seb. The little bastard just attracted trouble, and everyone knew it. But he’d sooner shoulder the outcome of a little flirtation with the blood-sucking Tentacles. What else was a father for?
“Kid takes you for granted, you ask me.”
He knocked Jyll on the shoulder. “You wait till you have a kid, Jyllie. Then you’ll know all about it.”
“Speak of the devil.”
Sure enough, Seb, with his silver-white hair and pale, ice blue eyes, having inherited the dominant Tiger genes of his mother, stepped off the dance floor, chest heaving, the picture of young male vibrancy.
The arrogance of youth, Logan thought, clapping Jyll on the shoulder again.
“Be nice, Jyll.”
Jyll was a few years older than Seb. Old enough to control his need for Clan dominance and his allegiance to Logan, just a little better than Seb. Still, Logan was on edge whenever the two were in a hundred-yard radius of each other.
“Father,” his son greeted him with a lazy, cat-got-the-cream kinda smile.
He glared at the stool that Jyll sat on, until Jyll snarled and clambered down. “Mr Katana, sir, if you need me, I’ll be down checking in on the card games.”
Logan nodded his agreement.
“Sebastian. I didn’t think it was your weekend in the city until next week.”
“I convinced my handlers that blowing off some steam would be good for me.”
“Is that right? Well, I’m still paying off your debt for the steam you blew off last month.” He glanced pointedly down at the welts on his arms. “So if you don’t mind keeping that steam under control tonight, it would be appreciated.”
“Well, that depends, Father.”
“On?”
“Paulo.” He named the game-keeper who oversaw the games of chance, cards and dice and the like, downstairs. “He says my credit’s no good.”
“Because…”
“I don’t know why he’d think that. The man’s a shot short of a blinder if you ask me.”
Logan peered into his son’s eyes, wondering if he’d been partaking in the delicacies of this establishment already tonight. He really needed some other direction than the one he seemed determined to take.
Logan had no choice, his head was over a barrel. Seb, on the other hand…Seb just enjoyed the lifestyle a little too much for Logan’s liking. But, hell, the boy was only a youngling.
“I’ll speak to Paulo. On one condition.”
Seb rolled his eyes. “What’s your price, Dad?” he asked, a mocking smile lining his handsome face.
“My price is each time you’re in the city, you come to the apartment and you swim some laps with me.”
Logan was a firm believer in the centring power of physical exercise. And swimming was the best of it.
Seb sighed. “You know I hate the water.”
Logan felt the curl of his lip. “More than you love my nightclub?”
Seb slunk off to the dance floor, and Logan had his answer.
Chapter 17
Each night that week after her shift, Hana went a few rounds with the young Turtle Clan boy, who she’d discovered through his grumbling speech was named Rex, at Quan’s gym. The boy showed dedication, even if only to impress the long-haired girl he glanced at every spare second. Whatever his motivation, it didn’t matter as long as he kept coming, kept channelling that rage, his fire, into something safe like boxing, under Quan and Hana’s watchful eye. Quan kept him busy most days sweeping and mopping the floors for a feed.
Hana only wished the workout could calm the torrent within her as well as it seemed to for the boy. After she’d exhausted herself with a few rounds each night at the gym, Hana found herself taking an extra run. Not toward Dragon Quarter and the penthouse of Logan Katana, though that night and his gleaming, feral eyes were never far from her thoughts. Right alongside the way she’d reacted to the laced champagne. Her hallucinations of turning strong and feral….and…Hana barely dared to voice the thought. It had felt as though her body had started to manifest qualities of the pure Fae of her ancestors.
That night still burned in her consciousness, and her phoenix urged her to examine it, to seek out Ka
tana again, work out the puzzle of his having been marked by the Tigers. But instead she ran in the opposite direction, through the back streets each night, out of the city limits.
To the cemetery.
It felt as though she were pulled by an invisible string at her navel, as though sitting high up in the tree, the adrenaline coursing through her each moment courtesy of her proximity to the Jade Palace, the Tiger stronghold, would somehow bring her answers. She stared and stared at the gold mausoleum that housed her grandmother’s remains and sister’s memory, and her ancestors before them, and wondered what the hell she was doing.
Perhaps she was going crazy. The fire of the phoenix in her belly, flaring across collarbones and shoulders, perhaps denying what she really was would finally tip her over the edge. She wasn’t any stronger, any different than the kids who turned murderous and flamed out across the city. She wasn’t any different than her sister. And Hana hadn’t been able to save Lylah. How could she save herself?
“Gran,” she whispered. “Tell me why I’m here.” There had to be a reason Hana was drawn here, night after night. She sighed, taking the lid she’d fashioned out of cling wrap from the heirloom flask and inhaling the scent of lemongrass and ginger.
The sound of shattering china brought Hana to consciousness. She cursed, the phoenix inside her trilling with distress and something else… Hana was still up in the tree above the cemetery. She’d fallen asleep in the crook of the familiar branches, letting her precious family heirloom smash to the packed earth beneath her.
She swore, and the phoenix flew in agitated circles in its cage inside her. Moonlight shone above the Jade Palace, turning it silver in the distance beyond the cemetery. Hana shifted her stiff legs, readying to climb down, when a distant scraping caught her attention. The palace gates at the southern entrance were opening.
Hana froze. There was no way she would move while Tigers were coming in or out of the palace. Who knew what throwback to their Fae ancestors they possessed. Rumour had it a select few had night vision.