“You’ve beheld more wonders than I ever will. It’s all locked away in that clever mind of yours.”
“Flattery? Really?” Heady relief swirled through me, though I hid it from him. “Your leg’s hanging on by a thread, and you’re stroking my ego?” I dug my thumb into his ribs. “Do not make any comments about what else you might like to stroke.”
Gold washed over his eyes. “I would never.”
“Liar, liar, wings on fire.”
A dozen steps, and we would reach our goal. Ten, nine, eight . . .
A low reptilian growl reverberated through the space, and I whipped my head toward the sound. What might qualify as the world’s largest American Alligator lifted its blocky head from the sludgy water in a shattered fountain I had dismissed as debris. Our eyes locked, and its nictitating lids blinked once.
“Wu.” I stepped away from him, angling my body between him and the gator. “Get out of here.”
“No.” He panted with the effort of standing alone, but I needed both hands free. “I won’t leave you.”
“Then we’ll both die.” I mashed my lips into a flat line. No point arguing my own logic with him.
The Drosera climbed out, its weight cracking the fragile tiles underfoot. Jaws snapping, it roared a challenge then charged. The furious beast moved impossibly fast for such a large creature. I was trapped unless I abandoned Wu, and that wasn’t happening. I raised my falchion, the blade the length of one of its arms, and braced for impact.
It never came.
An enormous snake—its wedge-shaped head longer than the gator’s entire body—whipped in from one of the connecting hallways. Vibrant crimson and burnt orange scales provided camouflage for a foreign world. The snake pierced the gator’s body with fangs longer than my legs, and the Drosera screamed while the beast kept pumping it full of venom in green, fragrant drops that slid down the creature’s side to melt the tiles beneath.
“Miller,” I breathed, and the snake cut its citrine eyes toward me.
“Don’t move.” Wu gripped my upper arm. “He might not remember you when he’s like this.”
“He knows me.” I pried free of him with gentle hands so as not to hurt him worse. Then I made a gesture to indicate he needed to make with the wings. “Otherwise, me seeing him like this wouldn’t humiliate him so much. If he wasn’t in there, if he didn’t remember, it wouldn’t matter, but it does.” On high alert, I waited for the cataclysmic explosions, lava flows and solar flares to start, but nothing happened. “I thought the world would end and spare me the headache if he shifted.”
“This is a partial shift. He’s in his natural form, but his size . . . ” Wu couldn’t peel his eyes off Miller. “It ought to be impossible to fold himself into such a compact skin without it bursting.”
“So should bird-men, and yet there you stand.” I snapped my fingers. “Wings, Wu. Wings.”
“He’ll snatch me out of the air,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m prey to him.”
Of all the mythical combinations, why did Wu have to be considered a delicacy among my coterie?
“I’ll distract him, but you’re going to have to work fast.” I couldn’t help sounding oddly proud, like I had anything to do with Miller’s prowess. “He moves like lightning.”
“Buy me five minutes.” He hefted the pipe in his hand. “That’s enough to break the glass and get out.”
“I’ll do my best.” Inhaling deep, I exhaled slow. “Here I go.”
The enormous snake angled its head toward me as I approached. Eyes the size of my head put on a good show of not being able to look at me, which was confirmation enough. Miller was in there, and he was ashamed.
“You saved our lives.” I walked right up to him, projecting confidence. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stepped in when you did.” Upon closer inspection, I noticed each delicate scale was about the size of my hand. “Thank you.”
Miller’s head drooped on his muscular neck.
A memory surfaced of the night we located Angel Claremont, the kidnap victim who started it all. The naked longing in Miller’s gaze when Thom revealed himself to me had made me ache then, and I hurt for him now. He wasn’t majestic like Cole or adorable like Thom, nor was he beautiful like Wu. But he wasn’t the grotesque he imagined himself to be, and it was time he accepted that.
Behind me, air stirred as Wu thrust his wings. Miller’s tongue struck the air, tasting, debating.
“I’m going to pet you now.” I reached out, careful not to let my hand be a conduit for my nerves. “And you’re going to suck it up and deal.” I smoothed a palm down his side, uncertain what to expect and delighted by his velvety texture. “How are you this soft? It’s ridiculous.”
A rhythmic pulse started under my palm, and I caught Miller studying me.
“You can purr?” Nice to know Conquest stayed on brand with her coterie. “We’re going to talk about this later, mister.”
No. Damn it. He was watching Wu over my shoulder, and his eyes were dilating in a not-very-comforting manner.
Shit, shit, shit.
I played a low card. “Even Maggie said you were magnificent.”
That got his attention, but it didn’t stick to me for long.
Time to lay the full deck on the table. “You can’t eat Wu.”
A ribbon of tongue lashed between Miller’s lips.
“Seriously, he’s my partner, and the best resource we’ve got.”
Muscles flexed under my palm, and he started this side-to-side wiggle like a cat readying to pounce.
“Miller, no.”
All that tension uncoiled in a strike that would do any death adder proud.
“Wu!” I screamed a warning, whirling away from Miller so he didn’t crush me when he landed. Glass shattered overhead and rained down on me. All I could do was cover my head and face until the shower ended. The ground vibrated under my feet when Miller smacked the tiles, and I fell on my butt. “Goddamn it, Miller.”
The snake looked smug.
I searched his mouth for feathers but found none.
“Luce.” Wu’s voice echoed through the food court. “Go.”
That’s when I put it all together. Wu must have struggled to break out, and Miller had fixed the problem.
“Okay, fine.” I held out my hands. “You got me.” With Wu safely out of the picture, we had no more time to spare. “Where are the others?” Miller angled his head in the direction of his tail, which was nowhere in sight. “Are you done clearing your quadrant? We’ve secured the mall from our entry point forward.”
A shiver rippled beneath Miller’s skin, and he made a rasping sound that came out pained. It seemed Cole wasn’t the only one with an upset stomach.
“It’s almost over,” I promised him. “Let’s go get Thom.”
Retracing the length of Miller’s body was surreal. His massive head filled the hall behind me as he doubled back on himself, but to the left was yards and yards of snake belly, and it grew more distended the farther we traveled. I didn’t want to count the lumps that might have been heads or knees or elbows pressing against his skin, but I couldn’t stop myself from noticing each blemish marring his sleek lines.
“Luce?” Portia marched over to me, scimitar in hand. “Where’s Wu?”
“He’s wounded.” I scratched beneath Miller’s lower jaw. “Miller saved our asses, and Wu retreated through the skylight in the food court. He can’t walk, so he’s going to hunt down stragglers from the air.” I searched the other shop entryways for signs of the others. “Where are Santiago and Cole?”
“Cole is hunting for Thom.” She glanced over her shoulder. “There’s Santiago now.”
Drenched in blood and grinning about it, he swaggered out to join us. He took one look at my hand where it rested on Miller and snorted. “Guess the snake’s out of the bag.” He thumped Miller on the tip of his nose. “Idiot. I told you she wouldn’t care. You’re the vainest damn charun I’ve ever met. Maybe this
will finally let you get over yourself.”
Stepping between them—like a giant snake needed my protection—I cocked an eyebrow at him. “I haven’t seen your true form yet.”
Santiago smiled, and it was ugly. “I’m shy.”
Portia bit her lip so hard against a retort I worried it might bleed.
“Status,” I snapped at him before he noticed, and they started bickering.
“The mall is shaped like an uppercase E. You and Wu cleared the lower leg and the hall leading up to this point. We’ve done the same for the middle. That means the upper leg is all they’ve got left.”
“That’s where they’re keeping Thom.” It must also be where Cole had gone. “Move out.”
Santiago took point, and Portia fell in behind him. They moved like two halves of the same whole, their partnership a well-oiled machine.
I kept pace behind them, and Miller brought up the rear. That much of the building had already been cleared, but even if there were survivors, they couldn’t very well get between Miller’s coils to reach us. His body, doubled over as it was, clogged the hall until nothing could get past him.
The remaining Drosera had cleared out, falling back to defend the last unclaimed wing.
“Stop,” a man barked. “Or I will pluck each of his feathers then use them to make you a hat.”
We froze on the spot, Santiago and Portia shifting aside to give me a clear line of sight to where the speaker held Thom’s small body aloft by a ragged wing. The other was broken, jutting out in front of him at a wrong angle, glistening bone punching through his fur. Blood slicked his fur and dripped onto the floor in a viscous puddle, and pain glazed his eyes until they failed to track our arrival.
“Release him,” Santiago snarled, “and we’ll make it quick.”
“Retreat,” the man countered, “and we’ll let him live.” He lifted Thom to eye level then sniffed him. “He doesn’t have long. An hour. Maybe less. I’d make a quick decision if I were you.”
Shouldering to the frontline, I growled, “What do you want?”
“You.” His eyes gleamed. “What else?”
“Kill her,” the woman beside him snarled. “Dead or alive, the reward is the same.”
“Hush,” he told her. “This one is special. The reward will be greater if she’s still breathing.”
“Release Thom,” I said, cutting short their squabbling, “and you can have me.”
“No offense meant, my lady, but no.” He inclined his head. “I’m well aware of your prowess, even in this diminished form. Have one of yours walk you over to claim his body, and I’ll have one of mine meet you halfway to escort you to my side.”
Behind me, Miller shifted his weight, the rasp of his scales on tile rustling like corpse laughter.
“Luce,” Mags begged on a ragged whisper. “Please, don’t do this.”
“That was low, Portia.” I didn’t look back, I couldn’t if I wanted to finish this. “Santiago, you’re with me.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” He scowled down at me. “Cole will murder me if you die.”
“Then you better not let that happen.” I set out for the middle ground, Santiago at my side. “Take Thom and fall back.”
“I’m not leaving you unprotected.” He kept his face neutral. “Forget it.”
“I won’t be.”
Cole was out there. Somewhere. I could sense him. Closing in on the Drosera from behind.
The ambassador for the Drosera passed Thom off to the woman beside him. Lip curled, she dangled Thom by the scruff of his neck. Once she reached us, she thrust out her arm toward Santiago. Unable to risk sheathing his sword in the presence of so many enemies, he reached for Thom the same way. The woman smiled, a cruel slash of her mouth, and yanked her arm back.
It happened so fast, I didn’t get it at first. Not until Santiago wobbled like his knees might buckle.
Thom hung limp from his hand, but his broken wing was . . . gone. Ripped clean from his body.
The Drosera standing before Santiago used the wing to fan her flushed cheeks, and laughter rang out behind her. The man who had bargained with us winced, backing away from the cheering crowd. He must have been older. His actions proved him smarter. Too bad that still didn’t make him intelligent enough not to pick a total moron to handle the exchange for him.
Ice spread through my body like a cancer, freezing me on the spot, and when I spoke, a white plume shaped the words. “You will regret ever being hatched.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Darkness swam before my eyes. Walls. I was in a small room. I shoved upward, and my palms sank into the plushness of a mattress. Panic swelled my heart, and I bolted off the bed. The frantic thump of my heart beat out a single name. “Thom.”
“Here,” he rasped. “I’m here.”
Fumbling in the dark, I found my way to the bed and climbed back in with him. “Hey.”
His eyelids fluttered, unable to rise, but his mouth curved. “You’re in my me space.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. “Thom—”
“Shhh.” A wide palm wrapped my ankle, as familiar to me as my own hand. “Let him rest.”
Eyes adjusting to the gloom, I could make out Thom’s outline in the center of the bed. I had slept next to him on one side while Portia snuggled up to his other. Santiago lounged on the floor beside her, his head tilted back to rest on the mattress, and Cole had chosen to sit at the foot of the bed, guarding the door. I noted another shadowy figure and identified Miller slouched in the far corner, using the walls to wedge himself upright.
“Come on.” Cole rose, hauled me up, and led me into the living room. “Let me get you some food. Then we can talk.”
While he puttered around in the kitchen, assembling a stack of sandwiches, I sank onto the couch. The bedroom had been so dark, I assumed it was night, but that couldn’t be right. And out here, it was obvious a new day had dawned.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Cole sat next to me and balanced a plate on my lap. He carried soft drinks in the other, and he set those on the coffee table. “Take your time.”
“Thom was missing.” I bit into the first sandwich after he put it in my hand, and my stomach roared. I devoured it like I hadn’t eaten in days instead of hours. “Wu escaped through the skylight.” That part still gave me sweaty palms. I took my next bite slower. “I saw Miller. He wasn’t thrilled, but he got over it.”
“He associates his true form with his past.” Cole popped the tab on a can and passed it over. “He finds them both hideous.” He watched me polish off the first can then handed me a second. “Is that all?”
“No.” I scrunched up my face trying to remember. “There’s more.”
“Don’t strain.” He noticed my first sandwich had perished and lined up another sacrifice. “I’ll tell you.”
“I get the feeling this isn’t going to be happy news.”
“Thom had been captured, he was injured. You traded yourself to the Drosera in exchange for him.” He squared his shoulders, bracing himself. “They tore off his wing in front of you, and . . . you shifted.”
The thunder in my chest rolled. “I did what?”
“You shifted,” he said again, quietly, “and you slaughtered them all.”
The hunger vanished, and I pushed away the plate. He captured it before it hit the rug and set it aside. “I . . . ate them?”
“Yes.”
Feeling ten kinds of stupid, I pulled up my shirt and examined at my flat stomach. “How is that possible?” The full scope of what I had done smashed into me, and I shot to my feet. “I don’t remember. Any of it. I ought to recall turning into a . . . ” I had never asked about my true form. I hadn’t wanted to know. It seemed so distant, so impossible, I dismissed it out of hand. But if I was at risk of exploding into that shape, rampaging without memory of doing so, I ought to at least have an idea of what I was up against. “Was I her or was I me?”
The answer was a long time in coming
. “You were some combination of the two.”
“Then why don’t I remember?” I rubbed my face with my hands. “If she didn’t kick me to the curb, how could I forget?”
“Human minds are fragile,” Wu said softly, gently, like he was afraid of spooking me. I hadn’t heard him enter the room. “They break so easily, and what you did would have shattered yours. I have a theory if you’d like to hear it.”
I almost pushed the matter of what I had shifted into, but I was turning pro at ignoring things that caused my brain to stutter and smoke to pour from my ears. “Sure.”
Cole gripped my hips and lifted me onto his lap. I curled against him, safe in his arms, and waited for Wu to get to the point.
“Your brain has a partition,” he hypothesized. “The same thing that altered you when you entered this terrene built a failsafe into your mind. When Luce is in control, you’re aware of everything that happens. She is your dominant personality now. She’s the persona you revert to when the danger has passed.”
I wet my cracked lips. “You’re making me sound schizophrenic.”
“You are, in a way.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “The stress of your awakening is causing fractures, but it’s not rupturing your core the way I feared. It’s splitting you in two, giving you two personalities. One is Luce Boudreau. The other ought to be Conquest. The other is Conquest, but less.” He gazed at me with what I hesitated to label as awe on his face. “You’ve leashed her. She can only do so much for so long, and then you snatch her back.”
That sounded . . . not entirely terrible. “Does that mean I have no control over my other form? Is it hers?”
“Now that your body recalls how to shift, you might convince Cole to help you slide into that shape and test it.” Wu dropped his arm. “I believe it’s a mental shift, not a physical one, when Conquest surfaces.”
That made sense given my access to the cold place had never been impeded by my human body.
“Okay.” I blasted out an exhale. “I can deal with that.”
Warm lips pressed against my temple, and Cole breathed in my ear. “You were magnificent.”
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