by Black, C. I.
Take the coin. Hide it. Hide it now!
Anaea scrambled to palm the coin, knocked over the flower arrangement, and spilled water across the tablecloth. Gig’s eyes widened even more.
Tobias righted the vase and flowers. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a drake have so much trouble adjusting to a new body.” He patted Gig’s shoulder. The young dragon squeaked and fled back to the safety of his seat.
Ask him what he’s doing here. Tobias hadn’t been to a pahar dinner in centuries. These days he hardly left his office.
“Decided to join us for supper?” Anaea asked.
Tobias shrugged, the movement languid and completely dangerous. “Strangely enough, I do get hungry. Besides, I have a feeling tonight’s dinner will be interesting.”
Anaea snorted. Interesting was overrated, she’d had more than enough of it lately, and didn’t want any more. All the work Hunter had done with the lesson in dragon politics was evaporating.
“Enjoy your meat.” Tobias flashed a hint of teeth and took his seat at the far end of the head table.
God, he terrifies me and I don’t even know why.
Yes, she did, but Hunter wasn’t going to point it out to her. Tobias frightened her because he was a big bad dragon hiding in a human suit. When she was safe, Hunter was going to tear the limbs from whoever was responsible for this mess. The thought was starting to become a mantra. If he thought about the situation, it reeked more and more of Zenobia’s handiwork. Stabbing a dragon in the back was just her style. But first things first. Please tell me you have the coin.
Yes.
Pocket it.
I barely have a dress, let alone pockets.
Okay, this was going to be a problem. He couldn’t be caught with the coin.
Can you slip it into your shoe? he asked.
Anaea eased the coin into her shoe, her gaze darting over the room.
No one appeared to notice, although Hunter wouldn’t be sure if anyone had until someone tried to manipulate or arrest him.
The room went quiet and all eyes turned to the entrance. Regis posed under the arch, resplendent in golden robes. He flicked a finger and a woman, naked save for the flowers in her hair, danced down the aisle, scattering white rose petals. He followed, strutting more like a peacock than the drake he was.
A drake without a coterie was a dead drake. Really.
Regis settled on his throne and leaned toward Hunter. “I think you’re overdressed.”
Anaea raised an eyebrow and let her gaze travel over the voluminous robes. The man was covered from neck to ankle.
“It was what I was provided,” she said before Hunter could feed her an answer.
Hunter held his mental breath. There was no right way to answer Regis. Anaea’s response was as good as any.
Regis sighed. “I’ll have to look into that.” He raised a hand and the meat was brought in. The cow was a good size. It would feed the Royal Coterie and the doyens of the coteries: Counseling, Major, and Minor. The animal rolled its large brown eyes. They always did, as if the creatures could sense it wasn’t surrounded by humans but by predators.
One of Regis’s guards presented the ceremonial sword to him. He nodded his blessing and selected Nero, as always, to swing the killing blow. Nero raised the blade and Anaea tensed.
Shit.
Her stomach roiled.
He should have warned her, he’d just gotten distracted and— Drink your wine. Fast.
So I have something to throw up?
So no one sees I’m upset.
She pressed the glass to her lips and stared into the liquid.
The room erupted into cheers and roars.
It’s dead, isn’t it?
Please tell me you’re not a vegetarian. That would make the evening complicated on so many levels.
No. But I don’t butcher cows in the middle of dinner parties.
A servant placed a plate of raw cow in front of her. Hunter could feel the bile burning the back of her throat.
And I cook it first. She finished her wine and called for a refill. Please tell me we can leave before I have to eat this.
It would be rude not to partake. But given the situation, he doubted Anaea would be able to stomach it. Tell Regis you need to prepare for the ceremony and leave.
She shoved back her chair.
“You’re not leaving?” Regis asked.
“I need to get ready for the ceremony.”
Regis narrowed his eyes.
Maintain eye contact.
She leveled her gaze on him.
He might be Prince, but you’re the better man... woman... whatever.
Regis looked away first. “You’ve just done the ceremony so many times before.”
“Doesn’t mean I still shouldn’t prepare.”
Good. Now go before he can think of anything else.
Anaea stood and smoothed the sides of her dress. She caught Grey’s gaze, who gave an ever-so-slight nod.
Good girl.
Someone at the back of the room among the Minor Coteries yelled and a young drake leapt up. “I challenge you.”
The room erupted into chaotic babble.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Zenobia must have goaded the fool into action because he’d neglected all the fancy phrasing to call a wasu tahazu.
Anaea’s heart skipped a beat, then pounded. What do we do?
Well, he wasn’t going to put her through another wasu tahazu. Damn it. He didn’t want to put her through anything else, but something had to be done.
Grab the steak knife and confront him. These challenges were going to end now and he didn’t care if he broke tradition or the rules or whatever.
Anaea clenched the knife, hidden along her forearm. Anger flooded her. Good. He was angry, too. She needed to get angry. It would make everything more believable.
She strode around the table and leapt off the dais.
Get him to come to you. You’ll need to do this fast.
She gave a slight nod. “You want to challenge me?”
The man smirked and sauntered up to her. He towered, head and shoulders, over her, but she didn’t shrink back. Something had snapped. Whatever had made her tremble earlier now shook her with rage.
He stepped so close that if Anaea took a deep breath, they’d brush chests. “Yeah, little girl, I challenge you.”
Now cut his throat.
Fine. Grim resignation washed over him. He hated what he asked of her, but there was no way in hell he was going to take her into the arena again.
She grabbed the man’s shirt and slashed his throat open without warning and without flinching. It stung to think she was numb to the violence. But as he thought that, he felt her shudder and sensed her iron grip on her stomach keeping her from throwing up.
She shoved the drake back. He fell on his ass, his mouth working like a dead fish. Blood poured from the wound. She’d cut deep, hitting both arteries. Good.
The drake’s gaze grew glassy, but that wouldn’t last for long. He stared at the red stain seeping down his shirt, then back up to Anaea.
“I’m done with challenges.” She held up the bloody knife and leveled a hard stare at those in the Great Hall.
Mother of All, she was fabulous. An Amazon like her namesake. And in that moment he realized he could fall in love with this woman, regardless of the fact that she was a human.
Regis stood, his chair squealing against the floor, loud in the stunned silence. “There are ways things are done.”
A distant heat rippled through Hunter. Magic. Hot, fiery magic. It poured into Anaea’s hand, covering it in undulating blue flame. He could feel her intent to end this and kill the challenger.
You can’t kill him.
Then I’ll use the medallion. The words growled through her as if she were a true drake.
You can’t.
Why not?
There are some rules even I’m not willing to break. Mother of All help him. If he broke the Handmaiden’s pers
onal mandate to him now, to never take a soul indiscriminately, he might not be allowed to leave Court for years and they would fall for certain to the soul sickness.
Fine. What do I do?
Make him rescind. Scare him into it.
The flame on her hand billowed and the drake on the ground whimpered.
“There are rules, Hunter,” Regis said.
Even Grey looked as if he was going to have a fit.
She leveled her gaze on her challenger.
He inched back, smearing his blood on the floor.
“Rescind.”
The drake whimpered. His gaze flew about the room.
Why couldn’t the fool just call uncle? Even if he was almost healed enough to fight, with Anaea’s fire already called, he didn’t stand a chance.
“Rescind,” she said again, her voice low. Just like Hunter’s would have been if he had control of the situation.
It made his stomach churn. How much of himself had imprinted on her? She hadn’t been like this before the wasu tahazu.
The drake stared at the tables where the Major Black Coterie sat. Nero’s expression was flat, unreadable. Interesting. Perhaps Hunter’s initial assumption about Zenobia had been wrong. Nero wasn’t who he’d expected, but he wasn’t entirely a surprise, either.
“The wasu tahazu must be done properly,” Regis said.
Anaea shoved her hand against the drake’s face. He screamed and she eased back, leaving a charred handprint that oozed fluid. “I said, rescind.”
The drake moaned. “I take it back.”
“I can’t hear you.”
“I take it back.”
The flame on her hand vanished. “Anyone else want to challenge me?”
Silence filled the room.
CHAPTER 14
Anaea stormed out of the feast hall and back to Hunter’s suite, slamming the door behind her. Hot, ferocious rage consumed her. She wanted that man dead, had wanted to burn the life out of him. She wanted to wreak vengeance for all the hurt laid upon her and she had finally cracked. Her soul was bare before her and she no longer liked what she was. Blood, blood, and more blood. She was bathed in it. She drank it, reveled in it. She was a beast.
No.
The word was soft, gentle. Hunter had merely thought it, not spoken it... or projected it, or however they communicated.
She’d done what she’d had to do.
Grief and shame washed over her, but it wasn’t hers.
She pressed her forehead to the door. God, what was happening to her? Please let this be a dream, a bad, bad dream.
Her breath hitched in her throat.
But it wasn’t a dream. It was all too real.
Trembling shook her. She hugged herself but couldn’t stop the tremors.
Anaea. He whispered her name.
“I—” Her teeth chattered. “I—” I can’t— She couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t stop shaking. She thought she was strong, but she wasn’t. She couldn’t even recognize herself any more. There was something horrible within her.
That’s me, Hunter said, his mental voice thick with regret.
No. It came from within.
From the memories I gave you.
But she couldn’t completely believe that. She’d already gone to terrible lengths to save her life. Lord help anyone who threatened her or those she cared about. She would rain fury upon them. She knew it deep within her. These awful events merely galvanized that part of her.
We don’t blame the mother bear for protecting her young. Or the lioness. Or the soldier.
I’m not a bear or a lion. She sniffed. I’m not a soldier.
But you are a warrior. You’ve faced every creature’s greatest fear.
She sniffed again. Yep. And I’m on the verge of tears.
A true warrior is allowed to cry.
Oh, and you’ve cried.
Sure.
She could tell he was keeping something back. Really?
Well, Grey has.
She snorted. At least I’m in good company.
Warmth and fraternal affection washed through her.
Grey is very good company. Now, if I promise not to look will you take that bath you wanted earlier?
She didn’t want to think about what she was or wasn’t, or what she had done. But for now, Hunter had blunted the edge of her panic. He seeped understanding and compassion and a little confidence into her. For a moment, she felt as if she had some of his deep affection that he carried for his friend.
Even if she knew, without a doubt, that he’d try to sneak a peek. He was, after all, still a man.
* * *
Grey staggered away from the feast hall, his neck burning, his breath hitching in his throat just like when he’d been attacked back in 1946. The room roared with wild conversation from the shocked drakes at the dinner. Hunter had been amazing. Even stuck in that woman’s emaciated body he’d taken on that young drake and won. But the sight of that slit throat and all the blood released the cascade of painful memories Grey had been struggling to keep at bay.
Mother of All, he couldn’t bear it any longer and he couldn’t wait for the mess with Hunter to be resolved. He needed the Handmaiden’s soothing magic now before he drowned in remembrances.
With the hall seeping in and out of darkness, Grey gated to the door to the Handmaiden’s chambers, not trusting he’d last the ten-minute walk to the other side of Court. This time she had to do it. She had to rebirth him. It was worse than any time before, although this was the longest he’d held out before seeking her help. The attack in the alley had only been sixty-nine years ago, but it felt an eternity to him. The agony of that knife slicing his throat. The heat of his blood pumping down his chest, mixing with the icy rain.
The memories of everything, all he’d done and survived as a human, were just too much. Every wound, physical and emotional, was ready for crystal-clear recall.
“How fast can you heal?” they had hissed at him, knowing he wasn’t a fast healer, not like other dragons, not like Hunter. Certainly not fast enough to recover before they decapitated him. The pain had even made it impossible to create a gate, the one thing he was really good at.
He pounded on the Handmaiden’s door.
In truth, he hadn’t healed at all. Not on the inside.
She had to do it. This was a practical, necessary use of the spell, although he knew she’d argue it wasn’t. Everyone else saw rebirth as a punishment because a drake lost everything: status, hoard, wealth, and memories. But Mother of All, Grey would give everything for the fresh start.
The door cracked open. He took that as permission to enter and rushed in. “Please.”
He didn’t need to say more. They’d had this conversation countless times and every one he could recall in perfect detail if he put his mind to it, which he didn’t. Mother of All, just turn his memory off.
“Please.” He couldn’t bear to remember in excruciating detail every bad thing he’d experienced. “Please just rebirth me and make it stop.”
“And what about Hunter?” The Handmaiden sat in the chamber’s only chair. Her grimoire lay on the table beside her—the only other furniture in the room.
“Hunter can take care of himself. He’s a big boy.”
“That’s not what I hear any more.” The corners of her eyes softened. The room’s magical illumination shimmered in her salt-and-pepper hair, and the hint of lines around her eyes, denoting her false age, made her appear as profoundly wise as she really was.
“Do it tomorrow after the others.” He jerked his gaze to the walls. He couldn’t look at her when she wore that expression. It was too close to pity. The walls were bare, smooth, perfect, breathed into existence with a thought. No tool marks, nothing. “Tobias won’t care if I bring in another body.”
“No.” She said it so matter-of-factly.
His frustration exploded with the verbal blow, white and hot in his chest. He rushed at her, raising a fist. Her silver gaze met his and
held it.
Then she blinked, her lids closing and opening as if in slow motion, and blue power flickered over her eyes. But she didn’t cast anything. She didn’t move, didn’t subvocalize, not that she needed to. A true sorcerer who wasn’t magically depleted could gather energy and will her spell into existence.
In that moment she seemed more than just a dragon. She was otherworldly, divine. Perhaps it was because she was a true sorcerer, more powerful than any other dragon. Perhaps it was how she kept herself apart from dragon-kind, isolated in her magically shielded suites, not part of any coterie. And perhaps it was because Grey didn’t know what color she was. Sure, she gave the impression of being a silver drake, and most times so did her aura. But while other dragons accepted that, Grey couldn’t because he couldn’t remember her from before the Great Scourge. And yet, when he wasn’t desperate, he adored everything about her, even her mystery.
More energy crackled over her eyes.
Grey’s knees buckled and he collapsed at her feet. Surely attacking the Handmaiden was evidence he’d lived too long. His eyes burned.
The Handmaiden ran a hand over his hair. A gentle stroke. Then another. Energy tickled his skin, seeping her soothing magic into his flesh. It eased the knot in his chest and his memories grew distant and murky, as they always did when her spell slipped into him.
“I barely have any magic.” How could he call himself a dragon, a warrior, when he felt such relief over forgetting?
She shushed his weak argument. “We’ve already discussed this.”
“My memory isn’t magic. I don’t have to cast, it’s always on.” But the ache that had propelled him to her chamber no longer filled him.
“Just because it’s ‘on,’ as you put it, doesn’t mean it’s not magic.” She hooked a finger under his chin and raised his head. “Now, I have a job for you.”
“Mother of All, you have a request?” Since he’d sworn himself to her just after the Ninth Crusade, she’d refused all but the most basic services—although many at Court assumed he was being used in one very particular way.
“Don’t get tart with me.” She swatted playfully at his head, stood, and headed toward her inner chamber. Probably where she kept her hoard, but since no one, not even Grey, had ever seen inside, or managed to get past the wards on the entrance, no one knew for certain.