My father’s shoulders sagged, and his head drooped.
“There’s a good skathic.” Solarr released him, shoving him toward the basin. “Wrists through the bars, now.”
Dad took his place beside me, slipped his hands between the bars and put his wrists together. His eyes met mine for an instant before he ripped them away. Shame pounded off him. Shame, and rage. My heart squeezed for him.
Dack waved his hand. White-gold light flashed, and ropes of bright wind bound my dad’s wrists together.
“It’s me you want,” I snarled. “You have me, let him go.”
“Helena, no!”
“Not on your life, witch,” Solarr growled.
God damn it, they had us. Memories of what had happened to us during our last major scuffle with the Dragonwatch slashed at my mind. The day Dad had lost his eye. I couldn’t let Solarr take his other. What else could I do?
“You want me as a weapon, leave him alone and we’ll talk.”
“Helena, don’t!” Dad yanked at his binds, the bars rattling.
Solarr raised his brows, glittering blue eyes amused. “You would swear yourself in service to the Dragonwatch? Ours to command?”
A cold chill stole over me at the thought of myself caged, hair shorn, tongue sliced out, a husk of what I had once been. Forced to kill on command or be beaten like a dog. It took all my effort not to back down. “I said we’ll talk.”
“Lookie here, Dack. We have ourselves a deal maker.”
Dack chuckled darkly like the words were an inside joke.
Solarr put his face in mine. “Swear fealty to the Dragonwatch Guard, or no deal. When he has you under his boot, the first thing he’ll do is bare that pretty body of yours and whip you senseless.”
“I know how you Suvia Kyans work. I swear myself to you, and you’ll throw him in a cell somewhere. I’ll never see him again.”
Dack looked behind him at the darkened entrance to a hallway to the left. “Captain, Grimlar is taking too long. I’ll go find him.”
His superior shook his head. “Grimlar! Stop fucking around with those consorts and get out here!”
A grunt carried from down a hall. There was a loud thump. The crunch of what sounded like bone. Then another Dragonlord walked down the hall into the room where we stood. Red eyes gleamed in the candlelight from around the room. A crimson dragonsign glittered on his throat, above the neckline of his tunic and the steel of his breastplate.
A Firewalker. Fuck. They had all three dragon powers here, all they needed to cut me off from my magic. Dragonsteel irons cut a witch from her powers while she wore them, but the use of all three dragon powers in a specialized way could severe me from my magic permanently. Was the procedure as painful as I’d always heard? I shuddered.
As soon as the Firewalker joined the others, Solarr turned his focus back onto me.
“How we Suvia Kyans work?” He grinned at my father. Strangely, under any other circumstance, I’d have thought he was good looking, with his chiseled features and deep-set eyes. “She doesn’t know, does she, Adam?”
“Know…know what?” But I saw something flicker across his face before it became a mask of confusion.
Solarr shook his head. “You never told her, did you? And Danshar never told her. I’m betting it was his idea to keep her in the dark.”
My father looked away. His features were so closed off, I hardly recognized him. My heart beat harshly in my throat.
Solarr’s grin stretched huge and mean, victorious. “Secrets will always undo those who don’t know how to keep them well. Does she know what secrets of ours you’ve been digging into at night, Adam? Does she know who you’ve been hunting instead of vampires and other nasties?”
“If you’re going to kill me, get it over with.”
“Oh, no, human. I want you alive, knowing the one person you have left is on her knees to him. That when he points his finger, she brings death to whomever he wishes. And I want her knowing you’re alive, suffering in a cell every day for your actions against our people.”
My father whipped around as best he could with his hands bound, every muscle straining to break the magical ropes. “You better hope I don’t get free, you sick dragon bastards, or I’ll take your heads off. And when I find him—and I will find him—I’ll take his heart out and serve it to Sarconis on a pike.”
Sarconis. It took me a moment to recognize the name. I’d only heard it once or twice in my life, but Sarconis was the Great Dragon. God, to Suvia Kyans who worshipped him, but to those who didn’t, he was the first Suvia Kyan, the father of their race.
“Typical human. No respect for what is sacred,” the Firewalker said, speaking up for the first time. He kicked my father in the back. Dad grunted in pain, feet almost giving out under him. “Let me gut him, Captain.”
“Sorry, Grimlar. They are for him to deal with now.”
“Who?” I bit out. “Him who?”
“The one you will soon call Master, witch.” Captain Solarr pushed a lock of hair behind my ear with mocking tenderness. “Sit tight. He’ll be here soon.”
“Leave my father alone.” I twisted in the cuffs. “He’s not important to you.”
“Oh, but he is. He must pay for his sin against us.”
“What sin!”
“I love this.” Dack gave a thunderous cackle. “Her unawareness is delicious, Adam.”
“Fuck you,” my dad muttered.
Solarr seized his head and jerked it back until he winced. “Speak to us like that again, and I will take out your eye and eat it.”
“Try it.”
Anger twisted the captain’s face. He marched over to me and slid my wrists up off the bars, then spun me around. His gauntleted hand grabbed my throat and he lifted me clear off the floor. I gurgled, clawing uselessly at the steel. His hand only tightened while the glow in his eyes intensified. He’d summoned his power. I knew that even before he’d lifted his other hand, huge palm splayed before my eyes, shimmering with blue energy.
“Learn some manners, human, or she’ll feel what it’s like to drown by magic.”
Barely a heartbeat passed before he covered my mouth with his hand. Cold water came from nothing, gushing into my mouth as if I’d been dunked into a pool with my mouth forced open. I tried to press my lips closed, but somehow, he worked them open with his palm, and the water shoved in, filling my mouth. It spilled down my throat; I couldn’t breathe. I screamed, kicking, flailing while my head started to feel light.
“All right!” my father screamed. “I’m sorry. I won’t insult you again, just stop. Leave her alone, please.”
“See? Fear is the great motivator. With it, we make kings kneel. And men like you bend to our every whim.” Solarr took his hand away from my mouth, his other from my throat.
I crashed to the floor on my side, coughing and choking. Water splashed onto the floor. I gulped in huge lung-fulls of air.
“Take him off the bars.” Solarr.
I heard the keening sound of magic being dispensed—dad’s ropes taken off.
“Kneel.”
My dad made a soft, pained sound, but he dropped to his knees behind me.
“Swear yourself to the Dragonwatch, slave.”
“Daddy…no…” I choked.
“Say it!” Solarr gritted out. Then he was on one knee beside me. He pushed me onto my back, and the next instant, his hand was over my mouth again. His eyes glowed bright, and water flowed into my mouth. “Say it, human. Forfeit your life for your sin against the Suvia Kyan people, or let her drown.”
“I swear—”
I thrashed and kicked, bucking wildly.
“I swear to—”
My body went still, and my father cut off. An odd sensation, as if someone had cast some sort of immobilizing spell on me kept me frozen in place. Calmness stole over me, even as water threatened to drown me. My body went limp, and my eyes closed of their own will.
Solarr slid his hand away. Thinking I was dead? My dad’s
silence swelled with fear.
“You killed her. You killed my—” he started in rage.
Solarr leaned over me; I felt the shadow of his face above me.
Something powerful buzzed along my arms, like magic, but different. Then my fists were clasped together and I belted Solarr across the face with a berserker strength I knew I didn’t possess on my best day.
Solarr yelled in rage and pain. There was a horrendous crash. I had a moment to see his body slam into a pillar near the door, the pillar cracked up the side, and his body slumped.
How?
Grimlar growled, and his hand flung out, fire glowing red hot from his palm. A ball of flame shot out toward me; I rolled aside, and the fire struck the side of the stone basin. Stone crumbled and caved in, sending water flowing in a wave across the floor.
My dad scrambled to my side, out of the water’s path, while Grimlar and Dack toppled to the tiles, feet swept out from under them by the force of the water.
My dad stared at me, stunned.
“Go!” I shouted over the two Dragonlords’ curses.
He grabbed my hand and we bolted for the doors. I raced after him a little awkwardly, hands still bound at the wrists.
At the entrance to Rishtar’s castle, my dad and I threw the doors open. Behind us, angry shouts filled the halls, Suvia Kyan voices turned demonic with their dragons.
“We won’t be able to outrun them for long.” I bounded down the steps with my dad two at a time.
“I know. They should have horses here. I saw a stable at the side of this place coming in. We’ll steal one and take it back to the truck.”
“These medieval blockheads, what do you think their punishment is for horse thieving?” What don’t I know, dad? What didn’t you tell me?
We found the stables at the side, and my dad vaulted into one of the horse’s pens. Neither animal was saddled or ready for riding. Honestly, I had no idea how to go about it. I knew a saddle to look at it, but most of the other riding gear—tack, was it called?—on the walls looked about as familiar to me as Greek.
My father didn’t bother with any of the gear, only swung onto a black stallion that looked almost as big as the one Kyas rode, straddling the animal bareback.
My eyes widened. “You know how to ride?”
“Barely.” The horse danced about in the pen, my father swaying dangerously with the movements, barely managing to stay on the horse’s back.
“That’s reassuring.”
“Just open the gate.”
I swallowed. Standing below the horse’s dark head, it looked enormous. I was pretty sure it was bigger and stronger looking than any human-bred mount. Fingers numb, I opened the gate to the pen. My dad made a clucking noise and the horse pranced out of the pen, tossing his head.
“Get up here,” he ordered, hand held out.
“How?” There were no stirrups to push myself up by.
He pushed himself back toward the rear end of the horse and grabbed my hand. Next instant, I was being pulled up onto the animal’s back. The horse kept sidestepping, so my dad had to keep rearranging his grip on me.
“Whoa. Stay still, horse.” I tried to swing my leg over but the horse neighed and tossed his head again.
“Damn. What were those words he said? Ana tan tyuk,” my dad whispered softly to the animal. The words sounded distinctly Suvia Kyan, odd on his tongue. I shivered. How would he know something like that?
I somehow swung my leg over until I was straddling the horse in front of him just as the two Suvia Kyans came barreling into the stable.
“Relax, and let me do this,” my dad soothed. “Hang on to the horse’s mane and grip his sides with your legs. If we’re lucky, we won’t break our damn necks.”
I obeyed as best I could. One arm around my waist, the other hand gripping the horse’s mane, Dad somehow got the animal to rear, kicking at the two Dragonlords until they backed away.
“Get off my horse, or I’ll skin you, human,” Grimlar shouted, fire glowing in his palm.
But my dad squeezed the animal’s sides, and the horse shot between the two Suvia Kyans, leaving them yelling after us as it galloped around to the front of Rishtar’s castle and down the path we’d taken to get here.
In moments, hooves pounded the ground far behind us. I tossed a look over my shoulder. Grimlar still held a ball of flame in his hand, but he didn’t hurl it. Unwilling to risk hitting me and damaging his prize weapon, whomever he was? Or was he unwilling to risk injuring the horse, his getaway mount?
The horse we rode continued on at breakneck speed. I bounced around, only my dad’s arm around me—and the fact that he had us both leaning forward nearly flattened to the horse’s neck—keeping me from falling off to my death. How I wasn’t screaming in terror, I didn’t know.
Frantic, pressing my face to the horse’s neck, I tried not to think of all the accidents I’d read about where people had fallen off horses and ended up with broken backs, or paralyzed.
“When we get you, we’ll have you whipped bloody and hung in a square for the crows to pick at, skathic!” Solarr roared over the hammer of hooves. His voice was a terrible dragon’s roar. Energy made a high keening sound behind us. The horse veered hard right and a blue ball of water lightning whizzed by, just missing us.
Considering that my dad said he barely knew how to ride, I wondered if the animal was evading the magical attacks on its own. The horse galloped faster, its breathing hard and heavy in my ear.
At the archway, we raced through, the magical energy tingling across my skin hotly for an instant before we headed down the incline toward the outcropping where we’d hid the truck.
Another ball of blue lightning flew past us to the right as the horse veered left. Hooves pounded dirt.
“Here.” My dad thumped down beside the outcropping, arms held out for me. I slid off the horse and into him. We scrambled into the truck and he got the engine going.
Still cursing us, the two Dragonlords galloped toward the truck as my dad slammed the gas. The truck shot across the desert, headed back the way we’d come, toward Red Rock.
“This is much better. I don’t like riding anything that has free will.”
“Agreed.” My ass was going to hurt for a week.
Dad gunned the Blazer, and we drove into the night.
Soon, the Dragonlords’ curses died off.
How much time passed, my thoughts spun too fast to tell, but we eventually pulled into a large, dark crevice between two high rock peaks, our pursuers long behind us. Dad turned to me, taking my face in his hands.
“Baby, are you all right?”
I nodded. My whole body trembled, fear threatening to crush me in a tight fist. They’d tried to drown me with magic, would have caged me as a witch weapon if we hadn’t escaped, and handed me off like cattle to some unknown Dragonlord who wanted me for his own ends. They would have tortured my dad and held him prisoner to keep me in line.
And I would have done whatever they wanted in order to save him.
“Daddy…” My throat tightened, eyes stinging. Shame scalded me for my weakness, but I threw my cuffed wrists around his neck. I’d be strong later.
He held me close, burying his face in my hair. Tobacco and leather and the faint smell of horse wafted off him and I breathed it in. How close had I come to losing him?
“I’m here, Helena. Always here.”
“Would you really have sworn yourself as a slave to them to save me?” I drew back. “Dad, you can’t do that. Don’t ever do that for me.”
“Yes, I would have, and I will again if it’s the only way to save you.” He pushed my hair out of my face. “Baby, I need to ask you something. How did you do that? The way you hit Solarr?”
My blood turned to ice. One hit, and he’d flown across the room, hitting the pillar hard enough that he’d been knocked out. A Suvia Kyan, with the strength of ten men, and I had dragonsteel cuffs on. Cuffs that should have shut off all my powers, including my super strength
.
“I have no idea. Dad, can we get these off, please?” I held up my bound wrists.
“Shit. Yeah.” He swung open the door, went to the back of the truck and returned a moment later with the key to his own set of irons. Once in the seat beside me again, he took my wrists. “Let’s hope these things are one key fits all.”
Yeah, I hoped so too, because according to what he’d told me, no human-forged metal could cut through dragonsteel. If there was a Suvia Kyan steel that could break them, he didn’t have anything made from it.
A turn of the key in the lock on each cuff, and they popped open with a metallic click. I shook them off and they fell heavily into my lap.
“Thank God.”
Dad picked them up and opened the glove compartment, tossing them in along with the key.
“Barbarians.” He rubbed my wrists soothingly, hands massaging the red welts left by the irons, where they’d cut into my skin. “They need to burn in hell, every last one of them.”
“Even Kyas?” A hard lump formed in my gut. Once, saying his name had made my heart flutter. Now it left a sour taste in my mouth.
My dad sighed and put his chin to his chest, holding my hands tight. I wished he’d look at me, wished I could read the emotions in his eyes. What I sensed in his mind was too jumbled, intense emotions that tumbled over one another. I don’t know that ‘friends’ had ever been the right word for the relationship my father had with the Dragonlord, but there’d been some measure of respect between them, respect and trust, odd and tenuous though it might have been.
“Solarr was lying, Mittens.” But he took too long to look at me, and there’d been a full two seconds before he’d answered. “He was trying to rattle us into surrendering.”
“Was he?”
My father let out another long sigh and put his head back on the seat rest. His jaw was set. He didn’t look at me.
“Dad, come on. What if Solarr was telling the truth?”
“He wasn’t.”
“But what if he was?”
His shoulders dropped. I felt like I could literally see a battle waging inside him. He lifted his head slowly. “If.” His throat worked. “If he was, then we have a problem.”
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