by Silver Milan
“Do you have somewhere to stay in Belgrade?” Cliff asked.
“I’ve already made arrangements…” Jett said. He paused. The many decades of palace intrigue he had endured as king made Jett want to leave his answer as vague as possible. But Cliff wasn’t a part of all that. The man was his friend, his loyal Second, and Jett saw no reason to hold back. “I purchased an apartment complex to serve as my lair.” Still vague, but better.
“A whole apartment complex?” Cliff said. “The resources of a former dragon king…”
“Speaking of resources, I’m leaving the pride a hundred K,” Jett said. “I want you to see that it’s put to good use.”
Cliff seemed about to object, but Jett interrupted him with a raised hand. “Please. It’s the least I can do. You have all served me with more loyalty than I deserve. I am a dragon, after all, and you are lions.” He sighed. “Anyway, I want to make this quick. I was never the best at goodbyes, especially when they’re drawn out. Have you gathered Blue Hurricane outside?”
Cliff nodded. “They’re waiting.”
Jett stood. “All right, let’s get this over with.”
He followed Cliff outside. True to his word, the pride was seated cross-legged in a half circle around the entrance to his cabin.
Jett gazed from face to face. Random memories popped up when he met each of their eyes. The time Teri baked Jett and Ariel a pie with berries she had picked in the forest. Connor, attacking a cougar that had tried to sneak up on Ariel during a hunt. Razor, one of the first to kneel during Jett’s swearing-in as Alpha.
He would miss these lions. They were a strong bunch. Brave as hell. And they had heart. If any individuals could take credit for the origins of the word lionhearted, it would be these men and women.
“I know I’ve hinted to you all that I’d be leaving to join Ariel, but I never gave you a solid date,” Jett said. “Except for Cliff, though I was still vague with him, telling him I’d leave when Ariel landed in Serbia. I wanted to tell the rest of you, but the truth is, I was avoiding it. Saying goodbye has never been one of my strong suits, especially when that goodbye is to such a brave group of men and women. But I can’t just run away from you all in the night like a coward, not after everything you’ve done for me and Ariel. So. I’m making it official. The time has come for Blue Hurricane and I to go our separate ways. I’m stepping down as Alpha and heading to Serbia. I leave you in good hands.” He gestured toward Cliff. “If there’s anything you ever need, you all have my info. Call or email anytime.”
He waited for some sort of response from the pride members, if not verbally, then at least physically—expressions of disappointment, attempts to convince him to stay—but they merely stared at him blankly.
“Okay then,” Jett said awkwardly. “I guess it’s done.”
Cliff cleared his throat loudly beside him, and stepped forward.
“If I may…” Cliff said.
Jett cocked an eyebrow, and then gestured to the pride. “Go ahead.”
“You mistake me,” Cliff said. “I don’t want to address the pride. But you.”
“Okay…” Jett said.
“The pride is yours now,” Cliff said. “You can’t just step down.”
“But—”
“Let me finish,” Cliff said. “All of us have knelt before you and sworn a blood oath to follow you to the ends of the earth, through thick and thin. If you journeyed to the gates of hell itself, we would follow. And yet you assume that at the first hiccup, the first bump in the road, we’re going to throw you to the wolves? That we’re going to let you travel to Serbia on your own?”
Jett didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t believe he was hearing this.
“What are you saying?” he finally managed.
“We’re going with you,” Cliff said. “It’s as simple as that. We’re your pride. You’re our Alpha. Besides, relocating to Belgrade will be safer for us all, I think, especially if that vampire still roams these woods.”
“And if she follows us there?” Jett said. “Or rather, follows me? Because we all know she has no interest in you.”
Cliff shrugged. “We’ll still be under the protection of a dragon. And honestly, I think an apartment complex is far easier to defend than cabins in the woods.”
“You’re assuming I’ll let you stay in the apartment building I purchased,” Jett said. “Or even come with me in the first place.”
“You don’t have an option,” Cliff said. “You should have thought of that before you chose to be our Alpha. Where you go, we go.”
Jett was touched, he really was. He knew the pride didn’t have to follow him. There was no law or rule requiring it. They were doing it because their loyalty wouldn’t allow them any other option.
But still Jett shook his head. “You can’t uproot the pride.”
“We’ve done it before,” Cliff said. “Change is good. I’m not big on the idea of operating in territories ruled by the witches, but with you at our head, I’m confident they’ll leave us alone.”
Jett nodded. “I’ll have to register the pride with them. One of the pluses, they’ll demand less tribute than the dragons. At least, that used to be the case.”
“Probably not anymore,” Cliff said. “I’ve heard from other prides in Eastern Europe that the yearly tributes are about equal to what we pay Midnight.”
“What about the littermates?” Jett said, glancing at the four children who stood obediently between Julia and Connor. Fraternal twins, all born at the same time. Three more littermates held the hands of another couple beside them.
“They could use a change,” Julia said.
“Moving from the woods to the streets of Belgrade will be a bit of a culture shock,” Jett said. “You’ll see poverty. Despair.”
“But also goodness and hope,” Teri said.
“And we’ll never experience poverty ourselves,” Julia said. “Not while you lead us.”
“You’ll have to learn how to speak Serbian…” Jett said.
“That doesn’t frighten us,” Connor said. “We’re lions. We’ll learn.”
“And what about you, Teri?” Jett said. His eyes were on her baby hump.
Teri dropped her hands to her belly. “I’m looking forward to giving birth in Belgrade.”
Jett sighed. “I can see I’m not going to change any of your minds. All right, if you’re really set on coming with me, then you should know I’m planning to bring along a couple of dragons. And a vampire.”
“We agree,” Cliff said without hesitation.
Jett looked at him, slightly puzzled. “No objections? No complaints about imposing on pride autonomy?”
“Nope,” Cliff said. “Why would we object, when we’ve allowed your scouts from Midnight to operate with impunity in our territory already?”
Jett stared at the man, surprised he had known about the White Swords. Jett glanced at the other members of Blue Hurricane, expecting a few shocked expressions, but their faces remained calm. They all knew.
“You really think we wouldn’t find out?” Razor said. “That we wouldn’t smell your scouts in our territory? Two dragon shifters and one vampire?”
“It was slightly insulting,” Duncan said. “But we agreed to ignore it because you were our Alpha, and we knew you were only acting in what you thought were our best interests. But still, as I said, slightly insulting.”
Jett couldn’t believe it. They had known all this time, and they had already forgiven him for going behind their backs. “I should have told you my intentions. As Alpha, it was my responsibility to do so. I apologize for letting you down. And I promise, going forward, I’ll never hide something so important from you all again.” He surveyed the pride. His pride. “All right, well, I guess I should give you some time to pack.”
“We’re already packed,” Jayden said. “Say the word, we’ll load our luggage into the trucks and drive to the airport.”
“You all planned this out, didn’t you?” Jett said. “A
s soon as Ariel left, you packed.”
“Pretty much,” Cliff agreed.
“Okay then, Blue Hurricane,” Jett said. “You want to go, then let’s go. We have a private jet to catch. But first, let me introduce you to some scouts of mine. I call them the White Swords.”
11
Medeia Tenebris stood in chains before Aldam, vampire king of the Middle East. She had been captured in the border regions between Saudi Arabia and Yemen while on her way to visit a witch who had expressed interest in becoming a vampire on a certain Darknet forum Medeia frequented. She had taken the utmost of precautions, fully expecting that the Wayfarers had laid a trap, but what she hadn’t been expecting were fellow vampires. None of her defensive Weaves could protect against Death magic. And so she had been captured.
Everything had been for nothing. She had survived ignominious defeat outside Midnight, left for dead among the bodies of her followers and forced to feed on the blood of crows until she had the strength to crawl from the forest. When she finally escaped, prized dragon collar in hand, she swore to one day return and exact vengeance. But apparently it wasn’t meant to be.
She studied the man sitting in the throne before her. Aldam was beautiful, yet terrifying. His features were typical of Gulf Arabs, with thick brows, big eyes, and a vaguely aquiline nose hooking down over those blood-red lips. He was unusually pale for an Arab, of course, and his eyes shone with a blue that no mortal man could ever possess. It was like starlight, that blue: magical, yet distant. He looked like he could be anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-five, but the agelessness of his face was an illusion of course, because Aldam was one of the oldest vampires who ever lived.
In his hands, he held the dragon collar Media had retrieved at such great cost from the forest outside Midnight.
She tried to hold his gaze, but the longer she stared into his blue eyes, the more she saw, the layers of his soul peeling back. On the surface she perceived unfathomable cruelty, a man who would skin his own men alive to prove a point. But beyond that she saw a haunted man, a man who had known a thousand years of unimaginable pain and torment. A man who might not be entirely sane.
At last she had to look away.
“Tell me, what is a rogue from Raquel’s den doing in my domain?” Aldam asked. When Medeia didn’t answer, Aldam added: “Did you know she has offered a reward of a hundred million dollars for your head? The queen of Africa is not pleased with you.”
Medeia sighed. There was no point in lying to him. While Medeia might be strong enough to resist whatever compulsion his witches would use on her, she doubted she’d survive whatever torture he might have planned thereafter. Aldam was not known to be merciful.
“I was recruiting,” Medeia said. “You know this. You laid the trap.”
“Recruiting witches who want to turn into vampires…” Aldam tapped the collar he held with a bone-gauntleted hand. “It was you who used Death magic outside of Midnight, wasn’t it? Enough to draw the attention of the Wayfarers.”
“Yes,” Medeia said.
“You were creating undead?” Aldam asked.
“Yes,” Medeia answered.
“To what purpose?” Aldam pressed.
“I was going to infiltrate Midnight,” Medeia said. “I planned to capture a dragon shifter, and make him undead.” She didn’t feel the need to tell Aldam that the dragon who had fallen into her hands was Jeddah Flavius Vespasianus III, the very king of Midnight himself. Or at least he had been at the time. She had heard rumors that he had since stepped down.
“What then?” Aldam asked.
“I would use the shifter to work my way through the citizens of Midnight,” Medeia said. “Converting dragon families one at a time until every last resident was undead and under my control. Midnight would then become a vampire coven. Mine.”
“Interesting,” Aldam said. “And then you would own North America and become a member of the Council of Seven by default. I applaud the ambition, and I can certainly see why you require witch accomplices. Controlling that many undead would be… unwieldy. So you failed, obviously, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I failed,” Medeia agreed.
“So let’s say the witch you came here to meet was real, and not some wild goose chase I engineered, what then?” Aldam said. “What would you have done?”
“I would have converted the witch into a vampire and trained her for a year,” Medeia said. “During that time, I’d also stage a trap for some Orions, and capture them. Make them into my undead minions. Then I’d return to Midnight and try again.”
Aldam smiled, baring his vampiric fangs for the first time. “A woman who takes after my own heart. The question is, what do I do with you?”
The vampire king was silent for a time; he simply stared at her with those brooding eyes.
Medeia shifted uncomfortable under his gaze, finally dropping her chin toward her feet.
She sensed movement from the throne, and when she looked up Aldam was standing.
“I will sponsor you,” the vampire king of the Middle East said. “Because I like your spunk. Plus, I want to spite Raquel. It’s an insult that she offers a paltry hundred million dollars… the combined GDP of the countries I rule is a hundred times that.”
“Sponsor?”
“I will give you three vampires witches,” Aldam said. “Each with a minimum of ten years experience with Death Weaves, so you won’t have to spend the time training them. And I will give you twenty good men. Vampires ready to die at your command. Not undead Orions, but just as good. With this small group serving you, you won’t have to delay… you can return to Midnight and set your plans in motion immediately.”
Medeia wasn’t sure whether to feel thrilled or caged. The latter feeling was winning out. “And what, perchance, do you ask in return?”
“Perchance!” Aldam slapped his knee as if she had said the most entertaining thing in the world. “No one talks like that anymore, dear girl! You have to work on updating your vocabulary sometime. Though I suppose when I speak Arabic I use a lot of archaic words as well.”
Medeia stared at him, smiling patiently. “My apologies. So in return for giving me these vampires you want…?”
“Ah yes,” Aldam said. “In return I will ask certain favors of you from time to time. And permission to travel throughout North America whenever I please.”
He had essentially avoided the question once again. Medeia decided to try a third time: “Favors?”
“Yes,” Aldam said, his eyes boring into her, daring her to question him one more time.
He wasn’t going to clarify, that was obvious. Unfortunately, Medeia didn’t really have the option to say no at the moment. She glanced around the cave that served as his throne room, at the hundred or so vampires lining the walls who would tear her apart if he gave the word. She wore no dragon bone accessories—her captors had stripped them away first thing—so she couldn’t even defend herself.
Yes, she was firmly in his hands. For now.
“Do we have a deal?” Aldam said.
Medeia smiled coldly and bowed. “Yes. Thank you, Great King.”
He tossed the dragon collar to her feet and it landed with a heavy thud. “Then go before I change my mind. I will have the promised vampires join you at the surface. They will return your bone accessories.”
Medeia scooped up the collar, bowed once again, and quickly retreated from his presence.
She would use the vampires he gave her to take Midnight, and at some point, when the capital city was almost hers, she would find a way to dispose of them.
Midnight was hers, and hers alone. There would be no favors granted. Not to anybody.
12
Ariel dormed on the fifteenth floor of the Steel Tower with red-haired Michelle, in a cramped alcove of a room that contained two small bunkbeds next to a pair of tiny lockers to store their belongings. There was a window, an aisle to the door, a tiny nightstand, and that was it. There were two shared bathrooms on the floor, ea
ch containing a shower, two toilets, and three sinks. The line-ups could get long at peak hours.
The first day they were given RFID rings just as Mathis promised, along with smartphones fitted with local SIM cards. Both were to be kept on their person at all time, to be presented on request. Ariel kept her own sat-phone, because even though all international texting and data was paid for by the witches, she wasn’t keen on whatever spying apps the Wayfarers might have installed on their device. She decided to reserve the witch phone for Tower-related calls, and her sat-phone for personal use. She was glad she could afford the luxury of a private phone—not all the apprentices could, seeing as none of them could hold jobs, not while stuck in the Tower for three months at a time. Brian said he planned to keep freelancing as a web designer during whatever spare time he had on the weekends, but Ariel doubted he would have as much free time as he hoped.
“There is such a thing as homework, you know,” Tina told him.
“I have a rule,” Brian said. “All homework gets done during the week.”
“We’ll see,” Tina said.
The rest of that first day, Ariel and the other newcomers were given menial tasks such as sweeping and mopping. They wore their white robes at all times, a reminder not just to everyone else of their lowly status, but to themselves. They hadn’t yet joined up with the other First Year apprentices, though the newcomers sometimes passed other white-robed individuals as they made their way through the Steel Tower halls, and exchanged nods.
“We’ll fit you in with the other First Years after their current course evolution finishes,” Walter said. “We can’t just throw you in randomly, you know. It would disrupt classes.”
“Is an evolution like a semester?” Tina asked.
“No,” Walter said. “An evolution is a unit of course work within a semester. One evolution is two weeks. Now back to shining that mural.” The team were standing on the tops of ladders and shining the mural painted onto the ceiling of the grand hallway on the ground floor. It depicted a robed man with a bone staff facing off against a large dragon, disturbingly enough. At the dragon’s back was an army of vampires—judging from the fangs protruding from their mouths. It looked like they were fighting on the side of the dragon against the witch. Ariel had to wonder if that was how the Wayfarers truly saw themselves: as witches protecting the world from other shifters and paranormal threats.