Dragonsteel

by Rebecca Baelfire

  I knew what he meant. All my life, I’d often wondered if my father and I hadn’t remained safe only because of his skill with evading capture. Because of Kyas’s fake identities he’d kept giving us. The ones this “Pan” had made for us, whomever that was. Whomever was protecting us, they were linked to Kyas, and that meant we had to disappear even from them. Which would leave us all on our own.

  Memories tickled the edges of my thoughts. Memories of figures appearing in the night outside our house, talking in hushed voices to my father when they thought I was asleep. Of a strange man who seemed too willing to help a father and daughter he didn’t know, or who led us away from danger in the nick of time. Sometimes the men who came to us in the dark wore strange uniforms. All black and formfitting, with masks that left only the eyes showing. Like ninjas, but different somehow.

  We’d been protected from the shadows, but no more.

  “How do we go off the grid from people who have always been able to find us?”

  My dad closed his eyes. Then he slowly pulled something out of one of the deep inside pockets of his trench coat and held it up.

  A glittering crystal about the size and length of my index finger hung off a silvery chain. It seemed to glow with a hint of power, and there was an odd looking symbol on it I’d never seen before. Dad turned in the seat to me and slipped the amulet around my neck.

  Use the amulet, Rishtar had said. “This is what Rishtar was talking about.”

  He nodded and tucked the amulet into my shirt so that the crystal rested on my skin. It was cool, and almost too smooth, like marble. There was an odd sensation when it touched me, like magic passing over me. I looked down. The amulet was just disappearing from view when I looked, and in an instant, it was gone from sight. I couldn’t feel it anymore, either.

  “What is that? What happened to it?”

  “It’s a spell medallion. In this case, it holds a charm that makes your magic invisible to anyone who would normally sense it. The necklace itself is magicked so that as long as you don’t use your powers, no one will see it or be able to touch it. Even when you do use your magic, only a Dragonlord will know the necklace is there.”

  Fascinated, I ran my hand over the place where the medallion rested. Nothing. It was as though it wasn’t there.

  “Where did you get it? What kind of magic is it?” It didn’t feel like anything I’d ever felt before.

  “It’s the kind that will keep you safe.” Dad cupped my face. “Helena, this means under no circumstances can you use magic, do you understand? If you do, the shield will break. Only for a moment, but a moment is all the Dragonlords seem to need sometimes.”

  I nodded shakily. Then I licked my lips, forcing myself to ask him the one thing I wished I didn’t have to ask.

  “Dad. Solarr said…he said there was something I didn’t know. Something you didn’t tell me. Something Kyas didn’t tell me. What did he mean?”

  I half expected him to wiggle his way out of answering. In the last few days, I’d grown more and more convinced he was keeping something from me. Now I knew I’d been right.

  He cleared his throat heavily. When he spoke, his voice sounded hollow.

  “The night your mother died, the night they killed her. She tried to tell me something.”

  My mother… I leaned forward, every muscle tense with excitement, and cold bite of fear. He’d never talked about her in any detail. The idea of hearing any information about her sent a thrill through me. My mother, the only other witch I knew of, who had died without my knowing her.

  I waited, silent.

  “She died in my arms. With her last breath, she tried to tell me something about you.”

  “Which was?”

  “I don’t know. She said, ‘Our daughter is…’ ” He trailed off, shoulders lifting in a shrug.

  Damn.

  My dad’s eyes were closed, and he took my hand, holding it in a death grip. “She said, ‘You must protect her. Our daughter is….’ And then she was gone.”

  Fuck, he hated talking about her. For the first time, I could see how much it hurt him, how it killed him inside.

  I wet my lips again, shaking with rage at the thought of what they’d done to her. “Solarr said I looked just like my mother.”

  He nodded, not looking at me. “You do. It’s uncanny. Your hair, your eyes, your mouth.”

  “He said he understood why he wanted control of me. That I was like her. My mother was his weapon, wasn’t she? He had her. She escaped or something.”

  “She escaped him, yes.”

  “And you’ve been looking for him. When you’ve gone on hunts, it’s not always for vamps or weres. It’s for the Dragonlord who kept her as his killing machine.”

  “I have been hunting him, yes. Never found him, though.”

  My heart battered my ribs, fists tight with simmering hatred and rage for this nameless Dragonlord. For the ones who’d hurt my father, the ones whom we’d just escaped. For Kyas, who’d made me like him and then betrayed us.

  For all of them.

  “So, what am I, then? Our daughter is… what?”

  “I’ve wondered that for sixteen years, Mittens.”

  “And Kyas knows. Whatever my mother meant, he knows, and he didn’t tell us.”

  We sat in the truck for a long time, my hand in his, saying nothing. My thoughts spun endlessly, hatred burning in my blood like poison. Hatred for anyone with a dragonsign and glowing eyes.

  After a long time, Dad finally turned to me, and there was a new urgency in his eyes I’d never seen before. He brushed my cheek with his fingers. I had the haunted feeling he was seeing someone else in the seat next to him. He shook himself.

  “I don’t know how you saved us today, Helena, but you did.” His eyes shone with pride. “There is a silver lining in all of this.”

  “Oh, really?” I gave a disbelieving laugh.

  “Yes. You were right.”

  “About what?”

  “If you can’t use magic, we’ll have to find another way to help you control it, and we will. But you’ll need another way to defend yourself. It’s time for me to bring you into the family business. It’s time I taught you to fight bad guys.”

  Chapter 12

  Wanting

  Present Day…

  I cracked open my eyelids and immediately regretted it. Light stabbed brightly, making me squeeze my eyes shut on a groan.

  “Easy, Helena. Take it easy.”

  The voice soothed, pushing back the fear and uncertainty that had already started eating away at my resolve before reality had fully reasserted itself.

  Hunter?

  But it couldn’t be. The last time I’d seen him…

  I turned my head to the side as if doing so would help me escape the memory. A memory half remembered. Images collided with each other in my head, flashes of colored movement that made no sense. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t, what was past and what was present.

  Hunter’s voice spoke again, a beacon of hope in a dark place. “It’s me, sweetheart. Open your eyes. Wake up.”

  Oh, God. Why did the idea that he was really there with me make me want to bawl like a baby? Damn it all, I’d been nothing but a mess, falling apart at everything since that fucking wolf bit me.

  Pathetic.

  I blinked, jerking my eyes down, away from the bright light that streamed in from the window of the containment cell.

  Wait…

  The last time I’d been awake, I’d been chained to the wall, with the window on the same wall, but on the other end of the room. Now the moonlight was streaming in from above and to my left. How?

  The window was a strip of dusty glass near the ceiling, and the dust muted the light, but not enough to stop it from stinging my eyes. Why was the window in a different spot? Had we moved?

  Then I realized. I felt a soft mattress under me. A bed.

  I jerked to sit up. Metal clanged. My wrists were bound, dragonsteel cuffs holding them
to either side of the headboard.

  Cuffs like the ones those Dragonlords had put on me.

  Panic stabbed at me. I twisted on the mattress.

  “Helena, calm down. It’s me.” Hunter’s hands had me by the shoulders, holding me down, his grip gentle, yet firm. I turned my head, blinking up into his face.

  Relief washed over me. Relief and an overwhelming joy. “Hunter. You are here.”

  Hunter smiled tenderly. “Yeah. Thank God you’re awake.”

  Awake. Now I remembered. The bed I was lying on was the cot in the corner of the containment cabin an hour outside of Allentown.

  The memories I’d been struggling to recall moments ago now came into focus. My father’s kidnapping. He’d gone missing, and I’d reached out to Hunter for help…

  I closed my eyes. Hassik said he knew where my father was. If I thought about who had my father and what he might be going through, I’d fall apart completely. I needed to stay strong for him.

  “How long have I been out?” I asked.

  “A couple of hours. It’s almost midnight. How are you feeling?” The uncertainty in his eyes tightened my chest.

  Throat dry, I worked moisture into my parched mouth. Sweat no longer slicked every inch of my body. I felt like I’d just gotten over the world’s worst case of the flu, but I wasn’t shivering or feeling like I was being burned alive anymore.

  Was it over? Had I survived a bite from a Demon Wolf? How was that even possible?

  Unwilling to think too closely on why I might not have turned into a monster ready to tear someone’s throat out, I decided evasion was best. “I’m thirsty.”

  Hunter picked up a glass of water from the small table beside the bed. He bent, putting the glass to my lips, carefully tipping water into my mouth. I swallowed, and he poured more in. The cool liquid exploded on my scorched taste buds, soothed my throat. It was the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted.

  “Is it over?” I croaked. “I’m not going to change?”

  “Looks like the sickness has passed for now, yeah.” He backed up and sat in a chair beside the bed. Leaning over, his hand cradled my arm, palm warm and soothing. “Your father’s book on Rakar says that he’d heard somewhere that the effects come in cycles, though. You still might get sick again. I wasn’t sure if you still might change, so I kept you cuffed until I could make sure.”

  I offered him a cheeky smile. “I’m sure that’s why.”

  His lopsided smile looked a little shaky. “Cute. Back to yourself, I see.”

  He dug into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the key. He paused and looked me over, taking in my wrists cuffed to the bed, body splayed out. His azure eyes sparkled. “Under any other circumstance, this would be hot as fuck.”

  My cheeks flamed. My nipples also pressed against my shirt, hardening.

  One at a time, he unlocked the cuffs on my wrists. Why in the hell hadn’t I changed? Or died?

  “Where did your dad get those things, anyway?” Hunter helped me sit up and swing my feet over the side of the cot. God, my head hurt. Dizziness threatened to lay me out again.

  “You know, it’s funny, when you put the cuffs on me, I recall trying to figure that out. But then while I was out cold, I remembered how. At least I remember where he got one set of them. We were almost captured by the Dragonwatch nearly a week after you left. I still had the cuffs on when we escaped.”

  “He has four sets on that wall, though. I found those two pairs on a shelf.” He gestured to the two sets of cuffs hanging from the headboard. “And that’s only in this cabin.”

  “I don’t know where he got them.” So many secrets. How many secrets was he still keeping before they took him?

  “Are you sure?”

  I ran my hand through my hair. Memories of the times I’d seen my dad shoot bolts or throw blades at targets that were obviously meant to represent Suvia Kyans cycled through my mind. How many times he’d taught me how to kill them, or how to break their bones and hit both hearts.

  I wish I was sure. “Does it matter? He probably stole them or something.”

  The doubt in his eyes twisted my gut.

  I tried to stand up, but I stumbled, head swimming. Hunter stood and caught me under the arms, setting me back down.

  “Why are you so pro-Dragonlord all of a sudden?” I muttered. Hunter had never expressly shown the dislike for Suvia Kyans most humans who knew about them displayed, but he’d never gone out of his way to defend them, either.

  “I’m not, all of a sudden. Look, I understand why you hate them so much now. They killed your mother, and you were right about your dad. But no one is bad just by being a certain race, Helena. Not even them.”

  I gave a bitter laugh and stood up again, this time barely managing not to wobble when my head swam. “Hunter, please don’t make me a bigot here. You know I don’t think like that.”

  “I know.” His hand grasped mine, making me turn toward him. “Believe me, I’ve seen some of the horrible things they do to humans. Things they’ve done to members of my pack. It’s hard for me too, sometimes. But we have to keep things in perspective.”

  Any number of rebuttals alighted on my tongue, but quickly died. Did his response sound canned? Like…. Like what? The answer half formed, then vanished like fog.

  I shook his hand off, then squeezed his arm gently when his brows rose. “I love that about you.”

  “What?”

  “That you see the good in everyone. Even when they don’t deserve it.”

  “Helena, sit down. I need to ask you something.”

  “So ask.” But I didn’t sit, instead walking over to the wall where the window was, keeping my back to him, eyes on the wood paneling.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you….?”

  “About your mother. That the Dragonlords are after you.”

  I dropped my arms and turned to him. “You’re a cop. Police are tied to the Dragonwatch.”

  “So, you were afraid I’d turn you in? You didn’t trust me.”

  “It’s not like that. Dragonlords have ways of getting people to do what they want.”

  After a moment, he nodded, but I wasn’t sure if he really understood.

  “We need to figure out how they found us at that farm. If someone betrayed us—” He cut off when he saw me nod. “I don’t know if you heard it over the scanner, but the Allentown PD are looking for us. They think you killed the Weatherbys.”

  I put my head back, a little more of my resolve leaking away. “I know. You need to get out of here. If they find me, I don’t want you caught up in it.”

  “I’m not leaving you. But when you’re well again, we need to get gone from here.”

  My heart swelled at his willingness to remain with me. Unsure what to say, I offered him a grateful smile.

  “That one Suvia Kyan, Hassik. He said, ‘He told us you were as stubborn as your father.’ He who?”

  “I wish I knew.” Lawson couldn’t have done this. He’s Dad’s friend.

  His head dropped, hands clasped in front of him. For a long time, he said nothing.

  “Helena.” He lifted his head. Opened his mouth two times, only to close it. I didn’t need to read his mind to sense that something important weighed on him.

  “What is it?” I walked back over to him and lowered myself back onto the cot.

  “It’s just that, your father’s been missing for seven years,” he said carefully. “You have to consider the obvious.”

  “No. My father is alive.” I’d answered much too fast.

  Hunter’s eyes met mine. “I’m just saying.”

  But his words stabbed too deep, threatening to rob me of all that kept me going when I thought of what was happening to my dad now. “He’s alive, Hunter. You have to know my dad. The Ghost is alive. I have to believe it.”

  He drew a deep breath and nodded. Both of his hands closed over mine.

  “There’s something else.” He’d opened his mouth and clos
ed it again. The battle that seemed to be playing across his face disappeared and his hands settled on my knees, then slid warmly over them a few times. “I thought I was going to lose you to Rakar’s bite.”

  I bit my lip, unsure how to react to such open warmth from him. Since my father had been taken, we’d seen each other a handful of times. Each time I got a lead on who held my dad or where he might be, I’d gone to Hunter, the only person I could trust to help, but neither of us had dared let our relationship progress.

  “You have no idea how badly I wanted to pick up things where we left off after that date all those years ago,” I told him at last. I cradled his face in my hands, loving the feel of his hard jaw, the rusty-colored stubble that dusted it.

  “I would have insisted on it. I should have, but I knew it wouldn’t have been fair to you. Not knowing what I knew about why you held back.” He kissed both of my palms.

  “Do you know why, though?”

  He looked at me, waiting.

  “It wasn’t just the monster hunting. Getting close to you would have made you a target. Plus, I didn’t want to hurt you without meaning to.”

  “With your magic.”

  “It’s…more than that.” I closed my eyes, shutting out the memory of what I’d done seven years ago the night my father had gone missing. My power kills. “I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you.”

  “I know what you are. That you have Spiderman strength and speed that’s probably as good as mine. I know the risks. I don’t care.”

  “My dad probably still wouldn’t approve.” I smiled half-teasingly. “I thought werewolf culture says a guy can’t go against the girl’s daddy.”

  “Fuck culture. That was when we were younger.” One tug, and he had me on my feet with him, staring up at him. “You just don’t get it, do you?” His grin made my knees wobble. “I’ve wanted you for ten goddamn years. Tonight, you almost died without ever knowing how I feel about you.”

  “Hunter,” I warned softly. My heart ached with what I knew I couldn’t allow to happen.

  He slid his arms around me, and when he spoke, his voice dropped to a husky growl. “No. I’m not asking to fuck you. I wouldn’t do that now. But I want you to know, I need more than what we’ve had. I want us to move forward. Not now, not tomorrow, but soon, when you’re well.”