Dragon's Promise

by Natalie Grey

  No one’s come after me yet, she’d said in her first, rebellious message to Nyx. She wanted to sink through the floor at that memory. It was just the sort of painfully awkward thing she would have said at 18, when she was completely unaware of the vastness and malice of the world.

  And now she was going to die. As the bodyguards appeared back in the doorway, Mala unhooked her restraints and pushed past them into the hall, trying not to panic at their presence behind her. She led the way through the tiny ship to the exit ramp, shoulders back and chin raised, and didn’t even wait for the ramp to descend fully before she began marching down it. She wanted to get this over with.

  At the bottom of the ramp, however, she stopped dead.

  It was one of the most beautiful places she’d ever seen. She sorted through planets in her head, trying to remember which ones might house a place like this, and found that all names had fled. Despite herself, she turned slowly, her lips curving in a genuine smile.

  The landing and launch pad was an incongruous square of slate-grey metal that stood, she guessed, ten or fifteen meters above the ground. It was still dwarfed by the trees that rose alongside it. Their canopies rustled in the breeze and birdsong rose around them. A few leaves, each the size of Mala’s ribcage, lay on the launch pad.

  To one side the horizon was occluded by the trees themselves, but to the other, a massive mountain range began. Row upon row of snow-capped foothills gave way to distant, looming peaks. The fragrant air of the jungle was so at odds with the cold mountains that Mala didn’t know whether to laugh or shiver; she did both.

  Footsteps recalled her, and she whirled. She was here to die, she remembered. And that would be if she was lucky. Working in Intelligence had taught her that there were far worse things than a quick death. She swallowed at the sight of the man approaching her. He, too, was tall—but without the muscles that made his lackeys so terrifying. To her surprise, the smile on his face was neither smug nor cruel.

  “It is so good to meet you.” He held out his hand as he approached. “And a true pleasure to meet someone who appreciates the beauty of Camelot as I do.”

  “Eh?” Mala stared at him, her hand clasped in his. Not one word of what he said fit into her brain in a meaningful way.

  “Ah, yes. A conceit of mine. I’ve always called Elsevier ‘Camelot.’” He gestured for her to walk with him across the launch pad. “My many times great grandmother was English, you know. They say she told all of the old stories … which my other family members carelessly forgot. But Camelot was a myth and a dream everyone remembered. It seems right to call this place by that name.”

  “It’s larger than….” Mala searched for words. She tried to come up with a good way to ask why she was here, and after a few seconds of thought, gave up. Her captor seemed to like the planet, so she would get on his good side by agreeing. “I feel out of scale here. Dwarfed by the trees.” She looked around to the forest and the mountains. She had never seen Earth, which lay far away in a planet-poor constellation of stars, but she had the sense that if she could see its forests and mountains, they would be smaller. “It does seem like a myth,” she said softly, looking around herself. “As if this is a place where gods might walk.”

  It would be, she decided, a good place to die. But when she looked over, the man was smiling at her, clearly delighted.

  “Just so. I admit I was nervous, bringing you here—but I think we may come to an accord, you and I.”

  So many questions appeared in Mala’s mind at once that she could not think of which to ask first. She stared at him mutely, and proceeded to nearly fall down the stairs that led from the launch pad to the forest floor. Her host offered a hand, considerate and concerned.

  “I’ve shocked you,” he said apologetically. “I know we weren’t supposed to move yet, but to be perfectly frank with you, I’ve become uncomfortable with the plan, as things stand now.”

  What the hell was he going on about?

  But she had to say something, even if she didn’t know.

  “Ah.” Mala nodded, trying to match her expression to the man’s. “And, uh … what aspects specifically are making you uncomfortable?” Hopefully, there would be a long list, and she would have time to come up with a clever way to figure out what he was talking about. She was trying desperately not to be stupid, but hope was fluttering in her chest. While she didn’t have much experience with this sort of thing, she was fairly sure that this wasn’t how one spoke to someone who was about to be summarily murdered in a jungle.

  “It’s the secrecy that troubles me most,” the man admitted. He took out a handkerchief and pressed it to his brow. “You look rather uncomfortable with the heat. I am sorry.”

  “It’s perfectly all right.” For one thing, it gave her a good excuse to look nervous and out of her element. Now that she’d been alerted to the heat, however, she realized she was sweltering in her leather jacket. She shrugged it off her shoulders, and raised her eyebrows when the man laughed delightedly at her grease-stained shirt.

  “Ah, you are quite as eccentric as described! Forgive me—I had you under surveillance, you see. I wanted to make sure that you were the right person to approach about this. It took me ages to find you.”

  Mala bit her lip, wondering how to suggest delicately that he hadn’t, in fact, found the right person, but he carried on without a break.

  “At the start of this, of course, secrecy was paramount. I was fully in agreement with the terms that were suggested. Now, however, I begin to fear that we are all being played for fools.” He looked over at Mala, his eyes sharp, and for the first time, she had the sense that she would not want to cross this man. “I do not like being played for a fool,” he said simply. His voice was cold as ice.

  “Yes,” she managed. “Of course. Who does?”

  He raised his eyebrows and looked away moodily, and Mala grasped at straws. Flattery often got people to talk; she’d learned long ago that people could talk about themselves almost endlessly, which was very useful when she wanted people not to ask much about her.

  “You know,” she suggested quietly, looked carefully away from him, “I’m surprised that they would even try to do that to us.”

  “Precisely!” Her host looked back at her, intent. “You could be forgiven for thinking it. That was what kept me in the dark as well. But there really is no other explanation, wouldn’t you say? All this time, and we are clearly being kept from each other not for our own protection, but to keep us powerless in this endeavor. Something of this magnitude, well…wouldn’t you have created cells of operatives, instead of keeping each one in the dark?”

  Mala blinked. Agreement might make him ask her for details, but disagreement might be risky, even if it prompted him to explain his reasoning.

  She was saved from answering by the boom that echoed overhead. Her host and his bodyguards jerked to attention, and one of them shoved Mala hard in the small of the back.

  “Run! Get to the compound!”

  Her host took off, his dress shoes and suit at odds with the desperation on his face, and Mala took off after him.

  “What’s going on?” she called after him.

  “They’ve figured it out. They must have.” The man swore under his breath. “I was so careful. They must be in my goddamned networks!”

  “Who?” Mala asked, exasperated, before she could stop herself.

  “Ghost!” He looked over at her, frowning, and gasped for breath; clearly, he was not used to running. “Who else?”

  “I don’t know!” Mala waved her hands and tried to come up with something to say. “I didn’t know who you were until just now! It could be anyone!”

  “That’s a good point!” he called back. “And I didn’t introduce myself, did I?” He looked over his shoulder and swore again. “Jesus, it’s fucking Dragons. Run!”

  “Dragons?” Mala skidded to a halt, looking over her shoulder.

  “Yes! Come on!” He grabbed for her hand. “Frederick and Lisle wil
l hold them off until the safety protocols—where are you going?”

  “Long story!” Mala took off for the launch pad. She could only hope that the man didn’t have a gun. “They’re here for me!”

  “What?”

  “Long story!” She wasn’t entirely sure how to spin this one yet. The man still hadn’t managed to introduce himself. On the other hand, it was quite possible that if she pretended there was no problem, she could con them into letting her go. “Tell your men to stand down!” They were going to get killed if they didn’t, and she didn’t want their blood on her hands.

  “But how do you know—” His voice was trailing off, his lungs clearly not used to drawing in gulps of air.

  Mala pounded up the stairs to the launch pad, listening to the shouts of the bodyguards as a shuttle descended neatly beside their small craft. She waved her hands at the bodyguards, praying that they would stand down.

  “Please!” Her voice was caught and thrown by the roar of the engines. “Don’t shoot!” She staggered toward the shuttle, face flushed from the heat and the sprint, and tried not to stumble to her knees as the hatch opened. When she saw Nyx, she could have cried. She held up a hand to keep the Dragons back. If this turned into a shooting match, people she didn’t even know were going to die for her, and she wasn’t sure she could live with that.

  They hadn’t abducted her, after all—not precisely, anyway.

  “What is this?” Her hosts voice was hoarse. He stood at the edge of the platform, breathing hard, and advanced on Mala. “Did you turn me in?”

  “No!” I don’t even know who you are.

  “Give me one good reason not to blow them all sky high.”

  “That’ s … that’s—” Mala looked frantically between the Dragons and the bodyguards. And as she met Nyx’s brown eyes, she said the first, fatal thing that came into her mind: “That’s my wife.”

  12

  “I still don’t like it.” Loki adjusted his cuffs and looked grimly over at Nyx.

  “Well, I don’t like it, either.” Nyx looked in the mirror, adjusted her hair, and then wondered why she was bothering. “But if she were in danger, she would have found a way to let me know.”

  “This man is a smuggler! Aren’t we looking for smugglers?”

  “We’re still waiting for Lesedi to get back to us on that.” Nyx pulled her dress up and frowned at one of the clasps on the knife holster. She adjusted it and flexed her leg experimentally, then dropped the dress back down. With no pockets or sleeves, all of her weapons had to be secured on her legs.

  It was for reasons like this that she hated wearing dresses.

  “And so in the meantime, we’re … going to a dinner party?” Loki’s voice was incredulous.

  “You’re a foodie, you should appreciate it.”

  “I’m also a Dragon! And since when am I the most paranoid member of this group?”

  “He has a point,” Esu offered. He finished tying a bowtie and examined himself in another mirror.

  “Well, there’s a first time for everything. Including, apparently, getting invited to dinner by smugglers.” Nyx looked over at him archly. “He seems to be treating Mala as a friend, and she’s indicated that we’re not to be harmed. Let’s see where it goes.”

  “See where it goes? You’re overlooking the easiest explanation for all of this.” Loki’s voice was flat.

  “Which would be…?”

  “That she is his ally.”

  Nyx turned back to the mirror, swallowing. In point of fact, she had not overlooked that explanation. It had sprung to her mind in the first moment that she saw Mala hold out a hand to the Dragons to keep them from opening fire. The woman had been afraid of a fight, but perfectly willing to turn her back on the two massive bodyguards and their well-dressed leader.

  “We’ll deal with that if it turns out to be true,” Nyx said simply. “Until then, we treat her as a citizen and worthy of our protection.”

  “Give me one good reason to do so.”

  “If she was really his ally, why would she have sent me the message with the picture of them at her door?” Nyx asked him. When Loki looked away, she pressed the advantage. “Whatever’s going on here, she was terrified when she left her apartment.”

  Loki nodded, acknowledging the point.

  “Commander….” Esu looked up, smoothing over the moment with one of his trademark grins.

  “Yes?” Nyx looked over at him, smiling in anticipation of the joke.

  “You didn’t actually marry her on shore leave, did you?”

  The rest of the Dragons burst out laughing, and Nyx flushed. “No!”

  “You’re sure? Because I think they have those chapels where you can get married by people in weird costumes, and—”

  “I didn’t get married.” Nyx lobbed a hairbrush at him and he ducked.

  They all stilled at the sound of a door opening, and looked round as footsteps approached. One of two bodyguards opened the door and swept into the room, his eyes going over the Dragons as if there were any way he could protect his master from them. The knowledge of his own inadequacy clearly displeased him; his mouth was set in a thin line as Mala edged her way around him and into the room.

  She looked at them. She looked at the bodyguard. And then, as if sensing that everyone was waiting for her to do something, she walked quickly across the room to Nyx and kissed her full on the lips.

  Nyx tried not to go rigid in surprise. She was used to being far taller than anyone she dated, but Mala was, if anything, an inch or so taller than she was. Her lips were soft, her blue eyes drifting closed with the kiss. One hand lay on Nyx’s neck, burning like a brand, and Nyx felt her lips part under the other woman’s. She should draw away, she knew, but the kiss deepened and she was lost in the scent of soap and sweat and the faint smell of engine grease.

  The sound of the door closing recalled her, and she looked over as Mala drew away. The woman laid a finger to her lips and crept to the door, peering out.

  They’re gone, she mouthed, offering a thumbs up.

  Of course. She had been playing the part of the wife, trying to make the bodyguards uncomfortable with a display of affection. Nyx dropped her fingers from where they were tracing wonderingly over her lips, and nodded jerkily.

  “We’ve disabled the bugs in the room,” she said, her voice as flat as she could make it. And then, for her crew’s benefit, “So what’s going on here?”

  To her horror, Mala looked guilty. She turned her face away, studying the floor, and her thin shoulders hunched.

  “I—could we talk alone?”

  Nyx hesitated. Being alone with this woman was going to be far too distracting.

  And yet, she might be an ally to a rather dangerous smuggler. If so, Nyx needed to know, and she had little doubt that she could get the truth out of this guilty, self-conscious woman if she needed to.

  Unfortunately, probably not by kissing her again, but one couldn’t have everything in this life.

  She gestured to the other Dragons. “Would you give us a minute?”

  They filed out, Loki throwing a suspicious glare at Mala’s back. Nyx waited until the door clicked shut behind them, and then forced herself to keep waiting. She needed to know what Mala would say.

  “I’m so sorry about saying you were my wife.” The words came out of Mala in a rush. “I don’t know why I….” She cleared her throat and her cheeks flamed. “It was the first thing that came to mind.”

  And why would that be? The question hung in the air between them, tantalizing, and Nyx swallowed hard to keep herself from giving voice to it.

  “I see.”

  “And you don’t have to worry about surveillance.” Mala’s eyes came alight. “I shut off this whole wing.”

  “You what?”

  “There’s a really easy workaround with the sort of thing. The power structure is modeled the same way as shipboard communications structure for the big freighters, and….” Mala’s voice trailed off. “Well,
it’s not important. Anyway, it’s a pretty easy switch to flip, so I did. You don’t have to worry about being watched.”

  “Thank you,” Nyx said cautiously. “And, er…if you don’t mind me asking….” It really was distracting, how delicious Mala looked when she was so guilty and unsure of herself. Especially now that Nyx knew how soft her lips were. The Dragon took a deep breath to steady herself. “What exactly is going on here?”

  “I wish I knew!” Mala was shaking her head. She looked genuinely bewildered. “I’m so sorry I called you. Well, okay, I’m not. I don’t know … look, I really thought I was going to die. They just showed up and said there was a car, and I thought … I thought….” She looked away, squeezing her eyes shut.

  “What is it?” Nyx went to her side.

  “I’d left you that stupid message about no one coming after me, and I thought, ‘well, this is fucking ironic, I’ll get assassinated right after I told her she didn’t need to worry.’” Mala gave a choking laugh and wiped away tears with the back of her hand. “I was so afraid,” she whispered, and for the life of her, Nyx couldn’t see any indication that any of this was a lie.

  “Hey. Hey.” Nyx took her by the shoulders, trying not to press her fingers too obviously against the skin. “Hey, look at me.”

  “Yes?” Those gorgeous blue eyes met hers.

  “I’m never going to let anyone hurt you,” Nyx promised her. “I’m going to keep you safe. Always.”

  To her surprise, the woman’s face closed off, and she stepped backwards. “Right.” She nodded. “Because of Kiran.”

  Because of you. Nyx clenched one hand where it was hidden in her skirts, and tried to remember that Kiran would have tried to beat her to a pulp if he thought she was going after his little sister. “Yeah. Because of Kiran.”