by C. I. Black
Someone yelled and gunfire exploded. The man in Nero’s grasp jerked — they didn’t even care if their own men were caught in the crossfire — and more pain slammed into Nero’s chest.
This was supposed to be reconnaissance, he growled. Find Grey.
Did she even know who Grey was? Yes. He was the big blond guy who’d been in the kitchenette when she’d been shot. Still, how the hell was she going to find Grey?
He’s in the transition suites… I think.
You think? She couldn’t go running through the house. Hell, she didn’t even know where she was.
Something flickered at the edge of her senses. Nero yanked his attention beside him to the mouth of an alley, but no one was racing out. It wasn’t his senses, but hers, the whisper and rush of the other voices in her head threatening to overwhelm both of them.
Someone behind him grabbed his arm. He sent a blast of wind into them and staggered to catch his balance, his limbs numb from the tranquilizer but gaining strength.
I just need a few minutes, he said.
I’m not willing to bet your life on a few minutes. She was finding Grey and extracting Nero from this mess.
Can’t send Grey, but he’ll know who can help.
You’re going to be picky about who saves your ass?
Need to protect the puzur.
Shit. He was right. She didn’t know half of the complicated details around dragons. Forcing Grey to join a rescue team might create more problems. Still, if Grey knew what the hell was going on, she needed to find him. She just had no idea how.
The voices in her head grew louder, drowning out Nero’s essence, and she fought to tune them down and get them quiet. Not now. She needed to find Grey.
Coffee? a voice asked, the words clear unlike all the other voices in her head. The tone was masculine but different than Nero’s and familiar, like—
Nero ducked a punch at his face, stumbled, and swept a whip of wind at the M4 in the hands of another man, wrenching part of Becca’s essence back to him.
Nero is out, the voice said. He’ll be back in a bit.
Thanks, Grey, Raven said.
Yes! Her concentration stuttered, and the other voices flooded her again.
No! If they’d just shut up for a minute, maybe she could communicate with him like she could with Nero. She strained to focus on Grey and only Grey. She could sense he was close, below her and… out beyond the window… in the yard? But that didn’t make sense. It felt as if he was lower than that. Below the ground. Where are you?
Grey was silent, and the voices grew louder.
Crap.
Come on.
Please.
Where are you?
Maybe she could only overhear what others were thinking and could communicate with Nero because he was inamorated with her.
But if that was the case, she needed to be physically searching for Grey as well.
She scrambled across the bedroom and out the door, into a hall with classic dark wood paneling and floorboards, a thick rug running up the center, and half a dozen other doors. She still didn’t know if Grey was in the transition suites, only that he was with Raven, and had no idea how to get to wherever he was.
She banged on the first door. No answer. Same with the next. Halfway down the hall, it opened up into a stairwell landing, revealing another story above and one below.
She raced down the stairs. Pain sliced through her chest. Her vision wavered back to the dark street and the men surrounding Nero.
A fist cracked against his cheek. He snapped the elbow of one man then shoved him into the one who’d hit him. Two more men lunged at him, and he knew they were keeping tight to prevent him from summoning a gate. They knew he was a dragon, and knew how to take him down.
Not going to happen. She was getting him out of there. No one else was going to die because of her, and she was God damned going to find Grey.
Grey’s consciousness flashed to the forefront of her mind. Who the—?
She seized at his thoughts and held tight. Becca. Nero’s in—
Nero growled, wrenching Becca’s attention back to him. He jerked a dart from his arm, and a massive wave of exhaustion swept through him.
Hold on. God, he just had to hold on. I’m coming.
What’s going on? Grey’s confusion snapped through her. She stumbled over the last step into a wider hall with similar dark wood floorboards and paneling, but no rug.
Nero needs—
Another blast of pain in her chest. Nero clutched the front of the tactical vest of the guy in front of him, his legs weak. The man sneered, yanked his three-inch knife from Nero’s chest, and slammed it back into Nero’s gut.
Becca’s knees buckled and she staggered, fighting to keep her balance. Nero howled. He shoved the man — helped by his wind — into another, but the weight of the second tranquilizer dose dragged at him, turning his thoughts muddy and filling Becca with a heavy fog.
He was going down. His panic clutched around his heart and hers. He had to protect his kids, and above all, he had to protect Becca.
You God damn stupid drake. I’m not helpless.
He dropped to one knee, and two men rushed to grab his arms.
Stand up, she barked at him. She was going to get him out of there. He just needed to hold on.
He struggled to rise. The closest man seized his wrist. If both of them got him, he wouldn’t be able to break free.
I said stand the hell up and fight, she roared.
He jerked up and slashed a whip of wind at the man holding his wrists. The guy released him with a yelp, and the other man lunged in. Nero wrenched out of reach. Gunfire roared beside him and more agony sliced into his chest.
He dropped to his knees again.
No. Stand.
He heaved himself up but couldn’t catch his balance. His breath burned. He’d taken too many shots to the chest, and with the second tranquilizer dose, he could barely think.
She was running out of time and still hadn’t come across anyone in the house. Where the hell was Grey? Where the hell was anyone? She had to get to Nero but had no idea how. Even if she knew where the facility was, she wouldn’t be able to drive there in time. She needed someone who could make a gate, but the house was massive and no one was awake at this hour.
A roar filled her, and she screamed her helplessness into the dark hall. She didn’t know what she had with Nero, they’d barely met, but she knew him more intimately than she’d ever known anyone else and she couldn’t lose him. Not now. Not when he was the only one who made her feel stable and sane.
Somebody. Please. Anyone who can make a gate.
Becca. That was Grey, but he sounded far away, caught on the other side of Nero’s desperate thoughts and woolly sedation.
I need a gate. Now. She rushed through a dark kitchen and down another hall. Please. I have to get to him. I need a gate.
The world shuddered and blackness enveloped her. Darkness, deeper but not as bone-weary as the tranquilizer, swept around her. For a second, less than two rapid pounds of her heart, up and down vanished and she was surrounded by nothing. Then her foot hit something solid and slippery—
She tumbled backward as cold bit her bare skin and her gaze darted over surprised men in tactical gear, standing on an empty nighttime street surrounded by brown-brick buildings.
Nero roared, and she heard it in her head and with her ears. Her butt hit icy asphalt and her attention leapt across the street to him. He was on his knees, two men holding him down, his gaze locked on her, his eyes wide.
She scrambled to her feet, lunged at the man closest to her, and grabbed the top of the handguard of his M4. There wasn’t time to think about how she’d gotten there. What was important was gaining a weapon, getting out from the middle of the enemy, and getting Nero to safety. The man yelped, wrenched his M4 from her grip, and staggered back. She heaved forward, determined to keep him off balance and to stay moving, to make herself a harder target to shoot.
Nero screamed. She hit the quick release catch on the M4’s sling and wrenched around as the tranquilizer’s weight flooded her. Darkness swarmed her vision and her knees buckled. Nero roared again, but she couldn’t tell if she heard it or if it had just been in her head.
34
Nero woke on his side, with his heart racing and his wrists on a short chain attached to a ring in the center of a stainless steel floor in a stainless steel room. All four walls — no window — the door, and the ceiling were steel, with every inch covered in hieroglyphics. Inside his head, Becca was silent, but he didn’t know if that meant she was unconscious or dead—
No, not dead. He’d feel it in his soul if she were dead.
So, one plus. And yet so many negatives as well. She was captive again by the same drake who’d had her before, and now so was he.
A heavy lock on the door thunked, and it swung open.
Wonderful. No windows and a solid bolt on the outside, not to mention he could still feel the tingle of the gatelock and the weight of something else, most likely the lingering effects of the tranquilizer.
The woman with the dark-rimmed glasses, the physician’s coat, and the clipboard, who’d been interrogating Becca before, stepped inside and shut the door behind her with another heavy thunk. A hint of flickering aura glowed around her. It indicated she was a human but didn’t have enough magical strength for any kind of power, probably not even enough for the development of an earth magic ability. Which meant she wasn’t the dragon in charge.
She stayed by the door, pulled a pen from her breast pocket, and tapped it against the clipboard.
He shifted, but the chain securing him to the floor was too short to get his knees under him without forcing him into a scrunched, bowed position, so he gave up and subvocalized his power word instead, hoping she wouldn’t notice his discomfort or his magic. Nothing. Not even a hint of the surge of power within him indicated he’d summoned his wind.
She cocked an eyebrow, but he couldn’t tell if she knew he’d tried to summon his earth magic or not. Given she didn’t have any magic herself, probably not. But that meant whichever drake had him was a powerful sorcerer, if not a true power, then close enough. It also meant the weight inside him wasn’t just the last of the tranquilizer. It was the feel of a null magic spell — most likely coming from the hieroglyphics — which would explain why Becca wasn’t in his head.
His gaze slid to the figures in the floor at his knee. There were a lot of glyphs. Grey had said Servius had only had a few symbols on his arms, and he could control the earth and wind as well as gate through a gatelock. How many glyphs were needed for a permanent null magic spell and how many other spells were in this room?
“Not going to try the chain?” the woman asked.
“And then? I’m in the middle of a secure facility. I suppose I could break free and threaten to tear your throat out until you release me.” But that wouldn’t help Becca, and he couldn’t demand her freedom as well, because that would reveal to the dragon in charge that she meant something to him.
“Or do you not have enhanced strength?” The woman pursed her lips, her gaze steady on him.
He didn’t, but that wasn’t the point. Even if he did, the odds weren’t good for escaping from this room. Biding his time and hoping she’d eventually move him someplace less secure was his best bet. Except with a dragon in charge, that could take a lot of time, and the more time Becca spent here, the greater the danger.
“Why don’t we cut to the chase and you introduce me to your boss.”
“What makes you think I have a boss?” the woman asked. “Because I don’t have any magical strength or because I’m not a dragon?”
That would be a yes to all of the above. He met her gaze and held it.
“I expected arrogance from an ancient dragon.” She jotted something on the clipboard. “So far you’ve only partially disappointed.”
“Oh?”
“I wanted to see how long it would take you to figure out that, even with enhanced strength, you couldn’t break the chains.”
“You can put me down for five seconds.”
She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t have a clue until I told you.”
“And you’ll never really know.” Come on. Slip up and mention the dragon in charge.
“You’re right. I never really will.” She flipped over the page she was writing on and drew out a slip of paper the size of her palm, clipped to the top of the next page. “But let’s find out for certain if you’re the dugga of the Asar Nergal.”
She sauntered toward him, confident in the magic on the chain securing him to the floor, and crouched opposite him, his hands and the ring on the floor between them.
“No growl? No sneer?” She flipped the first page back and made another note. “I wish I’d had an ancient dragon to study sooner.”
Which suggested her boss wasn’t an ancient dragon. “You’ve studied a lot of dragons?”
“A few.”
“Because your boss won’t allow more?”
“Back to the boss again.” She clicked her tongue. “Are you hoping to make a deal?”
He was hoping to find a way out of there and take Becca with him. “Just trying to fully understand the situation.”
“Understandable. You wouldn’t have survived as long as you have by being an idiot.”
Even if right now he felt like an idiot for having been caught by a human with only two dozen men and a sniper with a tranq gun.
“The problem is that you won’t be able to figure it out.” She raised the small piece of paper to eye level, drawing his attention to the four black hieroglyphics on it. “The others never did.”
“I’m sure just about any dragon, including a hatchling, could recognize a sorcerer.” He let a hint of a sneer seep across his expression. Maybe if he got her riled up, she’d reveal something. “It isn’t even the most powerful kind of sorcery if it needs glyphs.”
“It’s powerful enough for what I need.” She pressed the paper to the back of his hands and lightning exploded through his body, jerking his muscles taut, as if he’d been hit with a Taser’s current.
Mother of All, that hurt! And he wouldn’t have thought it possible with the null magic spell on the room. But whoever had cast it must have woven in an exception for this woman, since the only way she could have cast a spell would have been an exception to the null magic, or if she’d cast the original null spell herself.
The woman gasped and her eyes widened with dark delight. “It’s true. You’re the dugga.”
The paper turned to ash, the blast released him, and his muscles went limp. If he’d been standing, he would have crumpled to the floor. Black and white specks flashed across his vision and he fought to catch his breath.
“What the hell was that?”
“A little spell I wrote. You know, nothing overly powerful, just a way to know if you possess the dugga’s magic.”
“Well, now you know.” And she could take her confirmation to her boss and destroy everyone he was trying to protect.
She pulled more pages from her clipboard, the sheets bigger and covered with more hieroglyphics. “And I’m going to take it.”
“You’re what—?” If she took the dugga’s magic, she’d have a mental connection with every member of the Asar Nergal, as well as every human mage he’d let live. She’d know who they were and where they were. He couldn’t let her do that, except he had no idea how to get out of there. “Wouldn’t your boss rather have the magic, or is this an attempt to unseat him?”
Buy time. Just buy time, and he could figure a way out of this.
The woman tipped her head back and laughed. “Really. You have to stop thinking about my boss.” She set the papers on the floor beside her — out of reach — and held up her hand, wiggl
ing her index finger and drawing his attention to a gold ring.
With a wicked grin, she slipped off the ring, and her aura blazed white around her with a ferocious magical strength. The flicker was still there, indicating she was human and not a dragon in disguise, but the promise of her magic was revealed in full. She was a sorcerer. Not as powerful as Anaea, but more powerful than most drakes — since dragons only had one or two earth magic abilities or at most a moderate sorcerer’s magic.
“I am the boss, and when I have the dugga’s magic, I’ll be able to hunt down every one of your assassins and kill them.” She slipped the ring in her pocket, pressed her palm to the center of the top paper with the hieroglyphics, and hissed, “So it be done,” in ancient Egyptian.
Light exploded from the glyphs, consuming the black ink into a blazing white brilliance that poured over the papers and ignited the glyphs on the floor. It raced around Nero, shooting from the floor as if cracks had formed and light was bleeding through, then rushed up the walls and over the ceiling.
“So it be done,” the woman hissed again.
The light around Nero blazed stronger, writhing up from the glyphs in strands that strained and stretched and latched around his wrists and ankles.
The woman stood and stretched out her arms. “So it be done.”
The light snapped tight, cut into his skin, and shot straight to his heart. Fire exploded within him, a mix of Taser-convulsing lightning and heart-of-the-sun searing. He couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t move, and could barely think, his thoughts locked on how he had to stop her and how he had to save Becca.
Through the haze of white, the light swept around the woman’s ankles, dug into her skin, and raced like glowing veins through her body.
She gasped and turned a wide-eyed, wild look at Nero. “I will hunt the hunters and your reign of terror will finally be over.”
The light surged, consuming Nero’s vision with a blinding white nothing and filling him with blazing agony, freezing him in a torturous convulsion and stealing even his thoughts of escape. There was no escape. Even if he could move, he wouldn’t be able to break the chain, and he wouldn’t be able to stand.