Bone Dance

by Lee Roland

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Bone Dance

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  A word about the author…

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Eighty feet of reptilian splendor touched down with the poise of a champion gymnast coming off a high bar. Headlights flashed across silver scales, and each scale was a polished coin, ready to spend in some enchanted world. A rough, horned head peered at them with kaleidoscope eyes. Flor gripped the steering wheel with pale hands and whispered in a strange, clipped language.

  The dragon’s wings swept up into the night and diamond points of light fractured in a million rainbows as they melded into human form. Silver-haired and slender, almost androgynous, it might have been difficult to determine gender—if he hadn’t been naked and obviously male.

  “Oh my.” Flor spoke in a breathless whisper.

  Maeve stroked Harriet’s head. “Raymond. Has he been mean to you again, sweetheart?”

  With exquisite grace, the dragon walked to the driver’s side of the vehicle. Flor pushed the button, and the window murmured as it slid down.

  “Raymond,” Maeve said. She didn’t ask what he wanted. Harpies might talk too much, but dragons spoke in their own time.

  Opal flecked eyes glimmered in the dash lights as Raymond reached in to grasp a handful of Flor’s midnight hair. The pace of Flor’s breathing increased. She quivered when his long fingered hand caressed her face and throat.

  Maeve glanced down at Harriet. “I don’t suppose it’ll do any good to tell her not to look in his eyes.”

  “Too late.” Harriet sounded smug. “Already got her.”

  Bone Dance

  by

  Lee Roland

  Bone Dance Series

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Bone Dance

  COPYRIGHT © 2017 by Lee Roland

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Fantasy Rose Edition, 2017

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-1415-0

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1416-7

  Bone Dance Series

  Published in the United States of America

  What can I say? Witches are devious, secretive, seeking magical power, some at all cost. Even the gentlest, the kindest of witches share those traits to a certain extent. Curious creatures at best and abhorrent in general.

  Dragons? They live in the moment, open, honest, and practical. They are the Sky Lords, the ancient and noble keepers of magic. All of that nobility, that insufferable practicality—they’re only better than witches because they spend most of their time in the sky and rarely meddle in magical affairs.

  ~Letter from the personal writings of the Sorcerer Sorath

  Chapter One

  “There’s a harpy on the hood.”

  Maeve jerked awake. She rubbed her eyes and stared at her driver. What was her name? Flor? Yeah, that was it.

  “What? I didn’t…”

  “I said, there’s a harpy on the hood.” Flor pointed toward the windshield.

  It certainly was a harpy—an agitated harpy. Her wings gyrated and flopped like a broken fan as she hopped up and down. Barely more than a foot high, she could be mistaken for a barn owl—except for her rosy-cheeked, doll-like face.

  “Harriet?” Maeve’s heart jumped, first with joy, then fear. What had brought the little creature so far from home? She heard the engine running, but the SUV sat motionless, bright headlights scanning the red sand road ahead. When did they leave the Utah highway for the desert’s interminable rock and dry earth? She shouldn’t have fallen asleep.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “On the road to my house,” Flor said. “My aunt wants to meet you. She told me to go to the truck stop and pick up a witch. I searched auras, and you were the only witch at the truck stop, so I’m pretty sure you’re the right one.”

  Maeve shifted in her seat and stifled a groan at the ache in her back. More trouble. Oh yes, Maeve was a witch. But Flor was a witch, too, and she could see Harriet. Ordinary humans couldn’t do that. As with most magical creatures, ordinary humans would only see or feel a disturbance in the air if they moved close enough.

  Yes, witches were technically human, but their power in magic set them apart. She sighed.

  “I better let her in. She’ll scratch the paint.”

  Maeve pushed the button and rolled the window down. Harriet flew around and jammed her way through. She tumbled over Maeve’s lap and rolled to the floor. Wings flapping and feathers askew, she clawed her way back up Maeve’s jeans. Harriet screeched, her reedy voice reaching a higher and more furious note with every word. “About time…said he would…ungrateful.”

  One wing slapped Maeve across the face and not so tiny talons poked through her jeans.

  “Harriet, stop! You’ll hurt yourself.” She caught Harriet’s wings and gently folded them against her sides. She pushed the harpy out the window and rolled it up before Harriet could recover. Harriet went back to dancing on the hood. Maeve tapped on the windshield. “Calm down, and I’ll let you back in.” At least she wouldn’t injure herself outside.

  Maeve leaned back and crossed her arms. “Sorry,” she said to Flor. “I owe you a paint job—and for dinner. I’m a pig. You feed me, and I fall asleep.”

  “You were hungry. How long since you’d eaten?”

  “Couple of days.” It had been more than two days. In the p
ast few weeks, her days had melded together in a desperate struggle for food and rest. She’d gone from one truck stop to the next, her worldly possessions stuffed in the ragged backpack now lying on the SUV’s backseat. Temptation to use her deeply flawed and disastrous magic had grown strong. She had refused to yield—so far.

  Flor had appeared at a fortuitous—and now suspicious—moment. Flor’s skin was the color of honey, and her eyes dark as obsidian. Her midnight hair completed the picture as it fell across her shoulders like a bridal veil. Young and lovely, nothing in her words and actions had projected the slightest threat.

  She’d struck up a friendly, innocuous conversation, bought Maeve dinner, and offered her a place to sleep for the night. Maeve, in a most unusual, incautious and impulsive manner, followed her like a lost child. There was a vague offer of a temporary job, too. Hunger and sleepless nights had taken a dangerous toll on the basic survival instincts she’d lived by for years.

  Maeve bit her lip and sighed. How long had she been bumming around the country, hitching rides on the big trucks, trying to avoid magic and magical beings? Eight years? No, closer to ten.

  “Is your hair really that color?” Flor asked.

  Maeve fingered the strands tickling her ears. The cap she usually wore had slipped off while she slept. “Yeah, it’s real.” Her vivid strawberry-blonde curls and cinnamon colored eyes would often attract unwanted attention.

  Harriet sat quietly now, glaring at them through the glass.

  “Are you ready to be calm?” Maeve asked.

  Harriet fluttered to the window again. Her second entry was no more graceful than the first, but Maeve caught and hugged her close. She rubbed her face in the soft feathers on Harriet’s head and neck. The little harpy smelled of a cut-rate truck stop—diesel fuel, motor oil, and dirty laundry. Where in the Mother’s name had she been? She lifted the harpy up. “Missed you, little chicken.”

  “Missed you too,” Harriet chirped. “But—”

  Maeve laid a finger across her mouth. Harriet shouldn’t talk in front of a stranger. It was bad enough she was there. “Later. Okay?” She lifted the finger.

  “’Kay. Don’t let him eat me.”

  “Don’t let who eat you?” Maeve held her closer.

  “Him.” Harriet turned her small face toward the windshield where headlights showed only empty desert.

  “Something’s coming,” Flor said in a soft breathy voice. “Something big.”

  Magic knows magic.

  Red sand exploded and twisted into whirlwinds as the dragon landed. Thick, solid legs folded to absorb the massive shock, and dense claws punched into the earth. Eighty feet of reptilian splendor touched down with the poise of a champion gymnast coming off a high bar. Headlights flashed across silver scales, and each scale was a polished coin, ready to spend in some enchanted world. A rough, horned head peered at them with kaleidoscope eyes. Flor gripped the steering wheel with pale hands and whispered in a strange, clipped language.

  The dragon’s wings swept up into the night and diamond points of light fractured in a million rainbows as they melded into human form. Silver-haired and slender, almost androgynous, it might have been difficult to determine gender—if he hadn’t been naked and obviously male.

  “Oh my.” Flor spoke in a breathless whisper.

  Maeve stroked Harriet’s head. “Raymond. Has he been mean to you again, sweetheart?”

  With exquisite grace, the dragon walked to the driver’s side of the vehicle. Flor pushed the button, and the window murmured as it slid down.

  “Raymond,” Maeve said. She didn’t ask what he wanted. Harpies might talk too much, but dragons spoke in their own time.

  Opal flecked eyes glimmered in the dash lights as Raymond reached in to grasp a handful of Flor’s midnight hair. The pace of Flor’s breathing increased. She quivered when his long fingered hand caressed her face and throat.

  Maeve glanced down at Harriet. “I don’t suppose it’ll do any good to tell her not to look in his eyes.”

  “Too late.” Harriet sounded smug. “Already got her.”

  Flor smiled at Maeve. Maeve wasn’t sure if the smile said “lucky me” or “go to hell.”

  Harriet was right. Raymond already had Flor under his spell. It wasn’t unusual for witches to bond with dragons in human form, and the enchantment would eventually ease. How fascinating, though. Maeve had known Raymond all her life, and to the best of her knowledge, he’d never shown that kind of interest in any witch.

  Raymond released Flor, opened the back door, and climbed in. Leaning between the bucket seats, he gently grasped her hand, kissed it, and sucked her fingers like a little boy savoring sweet candy.

  “Eweee-uu,” Harriet said. “Nasty.”

  Raymond reached for the harpy. She ducked under Maeve’s arm, scrunching herself against the door.

  “Stop that.” Maeve smacked Raymond’s hand.

  Raymond gave a deep, seductive dragon’s laugh, so at odds with his slender body. The sound didn’t affect Maeve, but Flor squirmed in her seat. Maeve wrinkled her nose as the sweet pungent odor of magic and lust pervaded the air.

  “Flor, could we move along?” Maeve flipped her hand to show forward movement. “I’ll drive if you want. No telling who or what’ll show up next.” The sudden appearance of magic where it shouldn’t be rattled her. Like standing on a railroad track, feeling the sudden vibration of an onrushing train. Harriet and Raymond were a welcome surprise, but there were other creatures she’d prefer not to meet in the wild, empty Utah desert.

  Flor sighed and the vehicle rolled forward again. Raymond transferred his affections back to her hair, gently drawing strands over her shoulder and rubbing them across his face.

  Maeve decided to get the worst over. “So, what are you two doing here?”

  “Tana sent us,” Harriet chirped.

  Raymond kept his fingers in Flor’s hair as he spoke to Maeve. “Tana wants you to come home.”

  Tana—Aingeal Nyx Pallas, High Witch and Matriarch of the Random Clan—wanted her wayward granddaughter to come home? Not impossible, but highly unlikely given the circumstances of Maeve’s departure years ago.

  “Why, Raymond? Why should I go home?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. Tana and Chaos—”

  “Chaos? Who let him loose? Do you know how much blood I used to bind that demon?” Mention of the binding made the scar on her arm ache.

  “Tana felt sorry for him.” Raymond sounded cautious.

  Maeve gritted her teeth. That cut deep. “She didn’t feel sorry for me. She ran me off like a stray dog and―”

  “No.” Raymond’s voice firmed. “You left rather than face the consequences of what you did. She wants you to come home anyway. She sent a message.”

  The world around Maeve faded and disappeared as a powerful mind-spell, an inescapable magical wave, swept over her. In that solitary place, a beautiful, silver haired woman appeared before her.

  “Greetings, my love.” Tana’s sweet voice stirred an ache in Maeve’s heart as she spoke with words only Maeve could hear. “I need you, and I beg you to come home. This doesn’t mean I condone your actions, but I’m willing to forgive. Please come.”

  The image faded, and Maeve once again sat in the SUV.

  “What’s wrong?” She squeezed Harriet so hard the little harpy squawked. Poor Harriet was having a rough night. Maeve released her, and Harriet danced on Maeve’s leg. She fluffed her feathers. “Promised we wouldn’t tell. You come home. Now.”

  Tana had enough power to blast a mountain to beach sand. Why would she need her rebellious granddaughter? The world outside their protected home was a perilous place for magical creatures, though. Only extraordinary circumstances would cause Tana to send Raymond and Harriet into that kind of danger.

  Maeve sighed. The years away from home had offered her many excellent days—and many bitter days, many endless nights. Hunger, cold, loneliness, none of it had driven her back. Nothing had tempered her an
ger at the deeper betrayal of her trust, either.

  “I don’t need her forgiveness,” she said in a husky voice. “And I’m not going back.”

  “Where’s your home?” Flor asked. She sounded less dazed as Raymond’s initial dragon spell faded. She maneuvered the SUV along the rough desert road and past red and yellow rock formations as if it were a meandering country lane.

  “Me? Name a truck stop—or a highway.” Maeve shrugged. “I’ve seen most of them.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Maeve hesitated, then decided to go on. After all, Flor certainly had Raymond’s approval. “Elder Valley. East Tennessee. In the mountains. All the Iameth live there.”

  “Iameth?”

  “That’s what we call ourselves. Those who live with magic. Madoc’s children. Madoc was…it’s sort of an epic tale. Takes at least three days to tell it all. What about you? I never heard of any witches outside of Elder.”

  “And Elder is the only place magic exists? My story would take two or three days, too.” Flor turned the wheel to the right, and the road dipped down across a tiny trickle of water. The vehicle’s engine revved as it climbed the steeper bank on the opposite side. Ahead, a squat brown adobe house captured the headlights. Flor parked near the front door and cut off the engine. “We can talk later.”

  Maeve clamped her teeth together. Not a satisfactory answer, but she couldn’t force the little witch to speak.

  “Okay.” She opened her door. “Let’s see if we can find Raymond clothes. No point in flashing Auntie in her own living room.”

  Raymond objected, but Maeve finally forced him into a pair of sweatpants she had in her backpack.

  “They stink.” He wrinkled his nose. Dragons rarely wore clothing. Dragons almost never left Elder Valley where they did not need them.

  “Sorry Raymond, best I can do.” Her current financial situation made no allowance for laundromats. With the dragon presentable, or at least with the potentially embarrassing parts covered, they followed Flor inside to meet her aunt.

  Kerosene lamplight caressed caramel-colored walls, and the scent of piñon pine and sage hung in the air like invisible curtains. A perfect peaceful room—except for the withered body, wrapped in a blanket and sitting on a braided rug in the middle of the floor.