by Ann Gimpel
“Who are you?” he asked the Selkie he hadn’t recognized.
“Brock.”
“How is it we’ve never met?” Aegir pressed.
Gregor hadn’t made any move to cover himself. “You don’t know every Selkie,” he told Aegir. “I imported Brock. He came highly recommended.”
“For what?”
Brock pushed his shoulders back. Red hair streaked with silver fell to midback, and he trained very green eyes on Aegir. “I am master magician to this pod. I ensure no harm befalls us.”
Aegir narrowed his eyes in the man’s direction, thinking he couldn’t be much of a magician if he’d missed the undercurrents of dragon magic eddying through the cave. Britta had done a fine job masking her true nature, but anyone worth their magical salt—a master magician, for example—could have sniffed her out.
He risked a quick scan with his own power and nodded pleasantly to conceal his dismay. Brock might be wearing a human face, but something wicked and ancient lay beneath. He wanted to warn Britta, but perhaps she’d already figured it out.
“And who is this?” Gregor’s dark eyes zeroed in on Raene.
Huddled next to Britta, she’d kept her face hidden.
“My maid,” Britta replied in crisp tones. She’d adopted an American accent with overtones of the South.
“Perhaps she’s up for a spot of fun.” Gregor chuckled. “Gets boring with the same faces day in and day out.”
Aegir pushed shock and revulsion from his mind. Had things changed so much in this pod that Gregor was obvious about cheating on his mate?
“Come on, sweetheart. Be a sport.” Gregor sidled closer to Raene, nostrils flaring. “She’s no maid. What’s one more cock?” He wrapped a hand around his jutting appendage.
Aegir stepped between them, bristling with barely controlled rage. If he didn’t watch it, his anger would get the better of him and he’d land a punch in the middle of Gregor’s lecherous smile. “I dinna bring my wife and her maid for your entertainment,” he gritted out.
“Fine, mate.” Gregor moved back a couple of paces. “I’ll have plenty of time to…explore these two once you’ve joined us.”
Aegir pressed his mouth into a thin line. He could keep the charade going, or they could dive right into why they were here. Movement caught the corner of his eye. Brock was edging away from the lighted areas of the cavern. His glamour had slipped a little, enough to reveal bulging green eyes, a long snakelike tongue, and pointed teeth, all of which vanished as soon as Aegir looked his way.
“What the hell?” Aegir blurted before he could stop himself.
“Whatever are you referring to?” Gregor asked.
Johannes and Viko flanked their liege, eyes trained dead forward in thousand-yard stares as if they’d been hypnotized.
Britta unhooked her arm from his and stood straight. Power flared, so bright Aegir squeezed his eyes shut. The smell of sunbaked clay nearly choked him as robust power poured through the cavern. He pried his eyes open as fast as he could and saw a pulsing crimson vortex surrounding the cave’s perimeter with Tarika dead in its center.
Brock had given up any pretense of humanity. Where he’d stood was a creature unlike anything Aegir had ever seen before. A leonine head with a tawny mane of fur surrounded a reptilian face. The huge green eyes were squarish, and a forked tongue slid in and out of the thing’s mouth. It’s lower body was more equine than anything else with four squat legs. Each ended in a pointed black hoof that looked as if it could do a lot of damage.
Rather than trying to escape as Aegir had predicted, Gregor stood tall, head thrown back. “If you wanted to declare war, there are more direct ways.” He scrunched his face into a frown. “Is the dragon shifter truly your mate? Now, that would be a coup. I’ve heard they’re into sex any way they can get it.”
“Silence!” Tarika roared, punctuated by a staunch blast of flame.
“You stand on my ground,” Gregor countered. “I’d watch those commands, if I were you.”
“And I’d watch stealing what belongs to me and Fire Mountain,” Tarika retorted.
Raene had moved next to Aegir. She threw her shoulders back and regarded her father with bitter eyes. Britta’s disguise still cloaked her. “What a bastard you are.” She spat the words.
Aegir caught her eye before she said anything that might reveal who she was.
The leonine creature suddenly sprouted wings. Long and green, they didn’t match anything else about him. What the hell kind of magic stood behind such fluid shifts? Could the thing take an infinite variety of forms?
Tarika spun to face the winged horror and blasted it with dragonfire. Aegir expected it to go up like a torch, but the fire sloughed off its hide, frittering to nothing. It’s mouth spread in a simpering grin displaying double rows of razor-sharp teeth.
“Where’d you really get him?” Aegir shot the question at Gregor.
“Hell. Where else? All the really good monsters come from there.” Gregor tossed his head back and laughed uproariously as if he’d made a wonderful joke.
The thing Brock had morphed into took a step toward Tarika, observing her through narrowed eyes. She spread her wings, fanning the air, and stared back. Usually, no one could meet a dragon’s whirling gaze and not get swept up in its spell, but the winged horse-lion wasn’t having any trouble.
It feinted left and then back to the right.
Tarika wasn’t wasting any more fire on it, but she never moved her gaze from the abomination. Black-rimmed lightning exploded around it. When the lightshow cleared, a miniature version of Tarika faced off against her. It opened its mouth, and a gout of fire emerged, hanging suspended in the air in front of it.
“Shield yourselves,” Tarika warned just before the whirling maelstrom circling the cavern moved inward. It slid harmlessly past Aegir and Raene before forming a barrier around the thing that had been Brock, Gregor, and the Norse brothers. Sparks flew when a sword materialized in Gregor’s hand. Power sheeting from the blade had a greasy, wrong feel about it.
“This is why ye moved away from the North Sea.” Aegir skewered Gregor with the full force of his outrage. “Ye parlay with evil.”
“We all do,” Gregor replied coolly. “I’m just more obvious about it.” He sliced from side to side until a gap opened in the vortex. Johannes and Viko ran through. Gregor joined them as the gash swooshed shut with a cry like a hunting falcon who’d just sighted prey.
“Isn’t this cozy?” Gregor, who was still buck naked, sashayed toward Aegir and Raene. “Brock will keep your dragon shifter entertained while I make short work of you.”
“Aye, I never liked you, either,” Aegir sneered while casting about for something he could use as a weapon.
“I must admit to curiosity about why ye came, but the dragon clinches it. She must want her young one back. The old bitch is certainly persistent. I’ll give her that.” More peals of malevolent laughter told Aegir how far Gregor had sunk into madness.
“Ye have no right to dragonkind.” Aegir kept his tone mild.
Gregor shrugged. “Brock found him for me. We’ll break his mind, and then he’ll serve as a weapon for us.”
Raene had darted back toward the clothing chests. Good. She’d be out of harm’s way. Aegir lifted both hands and summoned power, letting it flow into him from the earth beneath his boots. Other magic threaded itself with his.
Raene’s. She was helping.
Brightness flashed and flared as he rocked on the balls of his feet, light and nimble. Gregor swung his saber. Aegir jumped over its trajectory easily and sent what should have been a killing blow directly into Gregor’s chest. The other Selkie—or whatever he was these days—stumbled back a few paces but recovered fast.
He dove forward, blade slashing downward this time. Aegir leapt aside, missing the blow, but not by as comfortable as margin as before. His heart rate accelerated. This would be a fight to the death. One of them wouldn’t walk out of here.
So far, Viko a
nd Johannes had done nothing but stand on either side of their liege. Were they even capable of independent thought, or had Brock bewitched them somehow?
Fire flew back and forth between Tarika and the faux dragon, amid bellowing and strident cries. The air thickened with steam and smoke until breathing became difficult. He couldn’t pay any attention to the dragons, though. Gregor was warming to his swordplay role. Remaining out of the path of his blade was taking all Aegir’s stealth and speed, with a magical assist layered over everything.
He hoped Raene had taken cover near the floor of the cave where breathing would be easier. The sword whistled past. He jumped and twisted midair, but it still caught the edge of his upper leg, slicing cleanly through trousers and flesh. The wound stung and burned far more than it should.
Poison.
The blade must be coated with poison. Aegir sent a river of magic to create a barrier between his body and where the sword had cleaved through his flesh. Fury burned a path from feet to head. He dug deep and threw magic at Gregor’s head, aiming for his vulnerable eyes. One burst from its socket. The other caught fire.
Good! If the bastard couldn’t see, evading his sword would become much easier. Gregor screeched, a high, thin cry, and his body arched like a bow before falling to the ground. Aegir stared and bolted forward, willing his gaze to pierce the murk filling the cavern.
Her glamour gone, Raene straddled Gregor’s back. Her face had twisted into a rictus of agony as she plunged a dagger into his back, withdrawing it and sinking it time and again. “I’m your daughter, you son of a bitch,” she shrieked as she drove the knife home.
Akin to marionettes that had just been animated, Johannes and Viko rushed them from either side shrieking imprecations in an Old Norse dialect.
Aegir swept up the sword that had fallen from Gregor’s hand and hefted it. He may have known both men, but whoever they’d been had departed long since. One mighty swing separated Viko’s head from his neck. Blood geysered, coating everything in its path. Aegir twisted to deliver the same blow to Johannes, but the Selkie fell to his knees.
“Please, Master. Deliver me from evil.”
His face was downcast. Aegir said, “Look at me.”
When Johannes raised his face, it was drawn into a mask of pain. “Being dead would be an improvement over how I’ve had to live. Do it.”
“Can ye be redeemed?”
The Selkie’s blue eyes sheened with agony. “I don’t know, but I shall try my damnedest.”
“We are too few to squander ourselves.” Aegir dropped the blade and snarled, “Do not make me sorry.”
“I won’t, Master.”
“I am not your Master. Selkies bow to no one.”
Aegir turned his attention to Raene. Tears streamed down her face as she stabbed the lifeless body of her father again and again. Blood splattered her hands, arms, and face. He knelt behind her and held both her arms. “He’s dead, Raene. Stop.”
“I can’t.” She surged forward, but he held her in place.
“Tarika needs our help. Get up. Ye can mourn later. Where did the dirk come from?”
“It was in the shreds of Britta’s clothing. Pah.” She spit on the bloody mess between her legs. “Mourn that piece of dung. Never. The world is a better place now.” She looked square at him and grinned, showing bloody teeth that made her look wild, feral. “I’ve avenged Mum. Wish she was here so I could tell her.”
“She knows, lass. Believe me, she knows.”
Dragon bellowing rose in intensity. The smoke was even thicker now.
“Get out of my way,” Tarika commanded, her words teeming with compulsion only a true dragon could command. And she was one of the First Born of dragonkind.
Aegir rose to his feet and dragged Raene upright with her still clinging to the dirk. Through the smoke, he could make out the faux dragon. It was on fire and burning merrily. Whatever warding it had mustered must have failed. It morphed back into the leonine creation and then into Brock.
His red and silver hair was a smoking ruin, and his skin blistered. He held out both hands. “I concede, Madame Dragon.” His tone turned silky. “You must not kill me. I’m the only one who knows where your young one is.”
Short, hard blasts of laughter pulsed from Tarika. “Are ye so stupid, ye doona understand I can find my own without any help from anyone. Even if my youngling is buried deep within your wicked power, I will find him. Ye doona deserve to live, Hellspawn.”
“Send me back. Um, please.” He batted at a spot the flames had worked their way down to bone on his forearm. “I promise—”
“Promises from the likes of you are worthless,” Tarika proclaimed just before a rolling gout of fire ignited around what was left of Brock. It burned hot and fast, leaving a pile of cinders where he’d stood.
Aegir glanced at Johannes. The Selkie crouched right where he’d been before. That he’d made no move to escape to the sea told Aegir all he needed to know. Evil couldn’t corrupt everyone, and Johannes had retained enough of his Selkie nature to resist complete contamination.
Tarika huffed steam and magic. The air cleared. “By all the dragons who ever flew,” she trumpeted, “’twas far harder than I anticipated. The demon had grown strong because he was borrowing Selkie magic from Gregor and the other two hand over fist.”
Aegir draped an arm around Raene who was weeping silently, still clasping the dagger. He squeezed her shoulders and then let go to walk over to Johannes. “Get up,” he instructed.
Johannes rose unsteadily to his feet, keeping his gaze downcast.
“Talk,” Aegir said. “Has the entire pod become corrupted?”
“Nay, Master, uh, Aegir,” Johannes said and shook himself from head to foot as if dispelling a heavy weight. “They will rejoice.”
“Who will become king?”
“I know not,” Johannes replied. “Gregor shared power with no one.”
“What of your council?”
“He disbanded it after we moved from the North Sea.”
“What of the queen? Or his children?”
Johannes shook his head. “She died of shame. His children fled. No one has heard from them in the last hundred years.”
Aegir raked his sooty hair back from his face. Selkies did best within their familiar pod formation. He placed his hands on Johannes’s shoulders. “Return. Tell them what has happened. If no one wishes to lead, your sisters and brothers are welcome to join my pod until a new leader takes up the mantle.”
“Ye can tell them yourself,” Tarika spoke up. “We must enter the sea. ’Tis why ye brought your skins along. Once I’m closer, I will know where my dragon is, and I will bring him home.”
“Quite a lesson for him,” Raene muttered.
“Aye.” Tarika laughed bitterly. “I bet adventure-boy never puts so much as a claw outside the boundaries of Fire Mountain for the next ten centuries.”
“Will he be all right?” Raene pushed her shoulders back until they were square and looked at Tarika.
The dragon nodded gently. “Aye. We dragons are a tough lot. Thank you for caring enough to ask.”
Aegir unzipped his jacket and laid it aside. “Ye doona have to accompany us,” he told Raene.
“I’d rather be with you than holding court with that.” She jerked her chin at what remained of Gregor and shook her head sadly. “How could Mum have ever fallen for him. He’s rotten through and through.”
“He wasn’t anywhere near this wicked in years past.” Aegir reassured her as best he could. “He was always high-handed and arrogant, but this full-blown swan dive into evil is fairly recent. It happened long after he threatened your mum with death if she revealed his infidelity.”
“How’s your leg?” Raene angled her gaze to his shredded breeches.
“’Twill be all right.” He stopped shy of mentioning the poison. He’d caught it in time, and it was oozing from the wound. A dip in the sea would complete the healing process.
A sharp blast of mag
ic laced with silver, gems, and gold announced Tarika’s shift back to Britta. The dragon shifter shook out her red mane and strode to Raene, wrapping her in her arms. “All will be well,” she crooned. “Ye did the only thing possible under the circumstances. ’Twas right and fitting he die by the hand of one with his blood. It ensures he willna enter the Dreaming but will wander forever, lost in Hell’s halls.”
“Thank you,” Raene mumbled.
Britta let go of Raene and held out her hand. The dirk jumped into it. “’Tis a magical weapon, and it sensed your need. ’Twas why ye found it within the ruins of my clothing. ’Tis always with me when I am in my human body. Tarika gifted it to me long ago, and it somehow survives the shift.”
Aegir shed the remainder of his garments. Once Raene and Johannes were naked, he led them outside to the icy shoreline. He dropped the enchantment around his pelt; Raene did the same. He called enough shift magic for both of them.
Johannes was on his own in the latter department. Aegir assumed he had a spot where he usually hid his pelt.
Britta waded into the ice-shrouded salt water next to the Selkies. Her lovely face was set in grim lines. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
Aegir barked at her, ducked beneath an ice floe, and swam for where he felt the Selkie pod’s magic. Raene had been strong and brave and resolute. Before, he’d asked her to stay because she fascinated him, but now he was falling in love with her.
Aegir put the brakes on hard. She’d just lost her father. He was dead by her own hand. If he approached her now, she’d assume he felt sorry for her. He swam faster. He’d have to pick a better time. One not tinged with loss and death and battle-guilt.
Would such a time ever exist again?
He didn’t want to think about it, but he had little choice. Evil was rising. Had other pods fallen prey to its pull? He’d consult with the Druids on Arcadia once they returned. Seers, one and all, perhaps they’d hold the answers he sought.
Beyond that, he had no idea how many Selkies were in Gregor’s pod. If they all wanted to join his, his existing pod would have to make some fairly serious accommodations.