Earth Born (The Earth Born Cycle Book 1)

by N. E. Conneely

  Almost all of the story was very much as Shasta had expected, but there was one notable section. Matilda didn’t remember traveling and had felt as though she’d flown. While at the time it had certainly appeared as if Matilda had simply vanished right in front of them, now Shasta had a better idea of what probably happened. At some point during Matilda’s troubled flight, the creature hid her from view and instead had an illusion follow them to the ground. By the time they realized it wasn’t her, not only was Matilda miles away, but she was under the control of Mr. Evil, who obscured her memory and forced her to fly back to his cave.

  While none of that was great news, it put his power in perspective. Yes, he could send spells over a distance, but it was unlikely he had done all of it from afar. Being able to affect a dragon still made him especially powerful, but that took him from so scary she was about to wet herself to a more manageable level of fearsome and powerful.

  Scyld asked Matilda if she had smelled or heard anything notable. Unfortunately, none of her senses had been able to detect anything unique enough to prove useful.

  Apparently satisfied with that line of questioning, the huge dragon turned his attention to Shasta. “What did you do when your students were attacked?”

  Shasta released Cord’s hand and stepped forward to stand on her own. Taking a deep breath, she began with the moment she noticed the attack, when Byron had begun plummeting through the air. From there she recounted every detail, down to them escaping the cave and flying back to town.

  When she finished the story, she stood there, alone in front of Scyld. “I did my best, but I’m afraid this won’t be the end of it. I think Ophelia is dead. I can’t imagine one of you surviving having that many scales removed, not to mention the bones and the cauldrons of blood. I don’t know what this sorcerer is planning, but he’s not done. He wants something from you.”

  Even with Scyld staring down anyone whose voice rose, whispers raced across the field.

  “There’s more,” Shasta said quickly, wanting to tell the rest while she still had the courage. “Not terribly far from town, there’s a strip of trees with some type of shelter. Beside it is a skeleton. I couldn’t tell if the bones were from an animal or potentially a young dragon. Cord went with me to the spot and felt it was possible the bones had belonged to a dragon. We decided we needed to talk to one of you so it could be verified who or what they belonged to. For this person to master this much power, well, Ophelia wasn’t the first dragon he’s taken. Truthfully, it’s a question of how many others have been taken and what they’ve been used for.”

  A cedar-toned dragon pushed its way through the crowd. “You found”—its mouth worked, finally getting the next words out—“bones from a baby dragon?”

  Shasta hesitated. “I think so.”

  The dragon leaned down, its nose only inches from Shasta. “Take me there.”

  “Amelia.” Scyld hissed, his voice infused with warning.

  The dragon jerked her head up. “It’s my right to know.”

  Shasta should stay out of it while the dragons decided among themselves the best course of action, but if it was her family, she’d want answers too. “With Glimmer’s help, I can take you there in the morning.”

  The speed with which Amelia turned back made Shasta’s own neck twinge. “Today.”

  “No,” Shasta said softly, her heart aching for her.

  “Today. I must know if that is my Edgar.” There was a whistling undertone to the name, like Amelia was trying to say her son’s English and draconic name at the same time.

  Shasta took a deep breath. “No.”

  The word reverberating through the air in a mix of three voices was enough to make Amelia pause.

  Cord stepped forward and was speaking before Scyld had a chance to form another word. “You can go now, but both Shasta and I need to rest.” He motioned to the setting sun. “Plus we are losing the light.”

  Before Amelia could protest again, Scyld agreed. “So it will be.”

  Amelia’s tail thrashed to and fro, but the dragon offered no further protest.

  Scyld sucked in a deep breath and then let out a series of trills and whistles. “All classes are canceled. All young dragons will stay in town. We will begin patrols. Branstan will make assignments.” His eyes lowered until they were focused on Shasta and Cord. “You may go. We have much to discuss among ourselves.”

  Shasta bowed, and out of the corner of her eye saw Cord do the same. Then, without speaking to any of the dragons, they wound their way through the crowd. They were most of the way back to town when a bellow reached their ears. Shasta started to look back, but Cord grabbed her arm and tugged her forward.

  “That’s their business now.” He angled the two of them around a set of perches. “Besides, there are a few things we need to discuss.”

  Tilting her head, Shasta saw his pursed lips and hard eyes. “Like what?”

  He shook his head and lengthened his stride, hurrying them to their house.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, he spun to face her. “We’re a partnership. Do you understand that?”

  “What is your problem?” She searched his face, seeing fear under the anger.

  “You,” he sputtered. “You’re not acting like I’m your partner. You should’ve come back. We would’ve rescued Matilda together.”

  She wished there was an easy way to say the next part, but there wasn’t. “I didn’t have time to get back here. Not with her life hanging in the balance.”

  “You could’ve—”

  “No. It’s my turn.” She glared at him until he gave a tight nod. “I could have done a lot of things, but I did what I thought was right and I did it to the very best of my ability. Sometimes being in a partnership isn’t being at one another’s side but trusting them to do their part while you do yours. I went after Matilda believing you would be there if I needed you and that you would do your best to keep the rest of the dragons safe. Tell me, partner, what did I really do wrong?”

  Cord’s shoulders rounded, and he lowered his gaze to the floor.

  She’d expected more bluster, but this was something else. Though she didn’t have the foggiest idea what or how to move the conversation forward. Every part of her was heavy with fatigue, and if she didn’t value him so much she’d already be in the shower washing off the caked-on grime so she could crawl into bed feeling clean. She inhaled as quietly as she could, wishing he were a little less prone to bouts of introspection.

  “I think you need a different partner.” The words were hardly more than a whisper, and as soon as they left his lips, he turned and headed for his bedroom.

  It felt as though she’d been slapped. Cord was her partner. He was one of the most dependable men she knew. They’d trained together, signed the contract together, lived in the same house. Her brain caught up with what was going on, and she scrambled forward, putting herself between him and the door to his room. “Why would you say a thing like that?”

  When his eyes met hers, it wasn’t anger in them. Before she could react, he stepped forward, slid one hand around to cup the back of her head, and set his lips against hers. For a moment she resisted, but the arm around her waist pulled her against him. He nipped her lower lip before deepening the kiss. She forgot everything but the hard line of his body and the press of his lips against hers.

  Right as she was forgetting about the day and their fight, he staggered back. Shasta swayed before catching herself against the wall. She had to blink twice to get her eyes to focus. Cord was leaning against the sofa, one hand covering his face.

  As she watched him, her heart ached. Months of suppressed emotions came rushing back. The delight of being in his arms, the thoughts she could convey with nothing more than a glance, the times he knew what she needed even when she didn’t. That one kiss had undone months of avoidance, and she lost her heart to him again.

  “Narzel blast it.” They were going to have that conversation after all. She pushed herself awa
y from the wall, across the room, and knelt down in front of him. “Why did you leave the police department?”

  He scrubbed his face before moving his hand enough to look at her with one eye. “Our previous bargain still stands. I’ll talk when you do.”

  “Do you have a Calling?” she demanded.

  “You know what, I’ll add that to my part of the bargain.”

  She should be patient, she should take the first step, but today seemed like it had spanned a year, and she really wanted to get that shower so she could crawl into bed. “You have my word that as soon as you say your piece, I’ll say mine.”

  His hand dropped to the side. From his slumped shoulders and rounded back to the resignation in his eyes, defeat was written across every part of his body. “In the morning I’ll activate the emergency charm, someone from the company will open communications, and I’ll get reassigned.”

  Shasta let some of her annoyance creep into her voice. “You do that and I’ll never tell you what you want to know.”

  “What would you really tell me?”

  “I keep my promises.” Shasta pushed herself to her feet and paced across the room. Either he believed her or he didn’t, but if he wasn’t going to believe her, there was little point continuing this conversation.

  “I had to quit. I violated the morality of my oaths.”

  Shasta spun around, her mouth agape. “But… you’re one of the most honorable men I know.”

  “Am I?” He laughed bitterly. “The twenty years between us may not be much for elves, but other species often see things differently. When we met, you were a precocious child and I was an adult.”

  “And you did nothing inappropriate.” She sat on the coffee table, elbows resting on her thighs. There had to be words to fix this. He wasn’t the monster he believed himself to be. “You rescued me, helped me find my parents, and became a friend.”

  Cord closed his eyes and shook his head. “And then I took you to bed, someone I’d sworn to protect.”

  “But that was after you quit.” As she looked at him, heard the guilt in his voice, an idea began to form, one she’d only dared to consider in her dreams. Perhaps he could care for her as she did for him.

  “A couple of years ago you came back from college for the summer, and I didn’t see a girl but a woman.” He pointedly kept his focus on the floor. “I wanted to ask you on a date, but how could I? I’d sworn to protect the innocent, to never allow my personal feelings to impact my judgment, to live an exemplary life.” His voiced dropped so low even her ears could hardly make out the words. “And I wanted you, a girl I’d once rescued.”

  Shasta’s heart ached for him. She wanted to soothe away the pain, defend his honor and his choices, but she held back, afraid that if she interrupted he wouldn’t continue.

  “I agonized over the ethics and tried to reason away my feelings for you. I told myself they would fade, but they didn’t. I told myself I could stay away from you, but I never could. So I quit. I’d planned to move away, but your parents offered me a job. You graduated and we ended up as partners.” He shook his head, as if that could undo the past.

  “I quit for the same reason I took this job and for the same reason I’m leaving.” Cord pushed himself to his feet and circled the sofa. “I love you, Shasta.”

  In three big steps he was out the door.

  Shasta sat there, too tired to go after him, and said her words to an empty room. “I love you too.”

  Chapter Ten

  She stayed awake most of the night. The dragon snoring on her roof had nothing to do with it either. Instead of sleeping and recovering, she went over their conversation again and again. She should’ve interrupted him, told him he’d never dishonored himself. She’d grown up. He was already grown, and they both saw something for the first time. Maybe all his motives hadn’t been pure, but holding himself up to morals even a saint would struggle to follow was silly.

  In case the snores had obscured his entrance, Shasta checked his room when she got up. Cord’s bed hadn’t been slept in, and the couch pillows were arranged all wrong for someone to have spent the night there. She scrubbed the morning grit from her eyes, wishing it were that easy to take the ache from her heart.

  As the night sky gave way to day, she stood in the kitchen, drinking black tea brewed stout enough to hold up a spoon—and hopefully her for most of the day—without a drop of sugar. Her heart still hurt. It hurt for her and for Cord. She hoped he’d gotten better rest than her, but that wasn’t something she’d bet money on. Besides, she knew her partner. No matter how he’d spent the night, he’d be in the gathering place at dawn, ready to work. And no matter how much she wanted to, this was the absolute wrong time to tell him she loved him, that she’d always loved him.

  She took a sip of tea, wincing at the bitter undertones even as they livened up her nerves. There might never be a good time to tell him that she’d always loved him. Even thinking it made her heart ache, but she knew Cord, and last night’s words were still fresh. If she told him she couldn’t remember not loving him, first as a friend and member of the family and then something more, he’d go back to believing he had corrupted an innocent and broken not only the oath he made as a police officer but his own moral code.

  Maybe if she told him the truth, the whole truth about where she came from, even the part she hadn’t told her parents, he’d understand. She wasn’t just Shasta, daughter of an elf and a witch, created by the very earth to be their child. She was Shasta, and she’d been created with a purpose.

  With a snort she dismissed that line of thinking. He’d find it unbelievable. She downed the last of her tea with a grimace, set the cup in the sink, and strode out into the morning light. There was a dragon who needed to know if they’d found the bones of her baby. That, not smoothing things out with Cord, was today’s job.

  She was all of twelve feet from her front door when she had to detour around a sage-green dragon. She stopped and actually looked around. There were dragons everywhere. There was hardly a square foot of ground not covered by snout, claw, or tail. There were even dragons sleeping on the perches, lying longways across the top with their tails draped off the end. She spared a moment to pity the poor brownies who had to feed this lot and then resumed picking her way around them.

  The sun was peeking over the horizon when she reached the field. Cord was there, standing between Amelia and a ginger dragon. Glimmer and Silas were there as well, and to her surprise Branstan was standing across from the rest of the dragons with smoke curling out of his nostrils.

  Shasta jogged the last bit of the way over to them and raised a hand in greeting. “Good morning.”

  Amelia and the ginger dragon simply nodded. Silas and Glimmer returned the polite sentiments, and Cord said nothing. She sternly reminded her heart that this was work and her heart could hurt later, but that didn’t lessen its ache. Branstan made some sound that could’ve been in the dragon language or perhaps was simply a belch. Shasta wasn’t brave enough to ask.

  Branstan huffed out a cloud of smoke. “Shasta, I believe you’ve met everyone but Finn.” The ginger dragon bobbed his head. “You’ll be riding Glimmer and leading us to the location of the bones. Cord will be on Silas, and I’m here to make sure we get there and back in one piece. Now move.”

  The bellow must’ve been as effective on dragons as it was on her, because not only was Glimmer darting in Shasta’s direction as quickly as Shasta was running toward the dragon, but Amelia and Finn were already in the air. Shasta clambered up into the saddle and had just enough time to set her feet in the stirrups and tie them down before Glimmer took off. From the corner of her eye Shasta saw Silas, with Cord on his back, keeping pace with them.

  The dragons quickly fell into a formation, with Glimmer and Silas in the front. Shasta looked over her shoulder. Amelia and Finn were side by side. Branstan flew slightly above and behind everyone, clearly guarding the group. Unlike last time, this group was focused on speed, and in not much more
than ten minutes, Glimmer was zooming past the tree where Shasta had escaped to only a few days ago. Somehow it felt like that afternoon had been years ago and she’d been a very different person.

  Glimmer flew over the thicket before gliding in a half circle and landing with her nose pointed toward the trees. Silas landed next to them, followed quickly by Finn, Amelia, and Branstan. Shasta slid off Glimmer’s back and thanked the dragon for the ride. She turned around and jerked back in surprise.

  Amelia’s face was level with her torso, and her eyes drilled in to Shasta. “You will take me to the bones.”

  “We will take you.” Cord’s voice was rough but firm. He strode over and stood beside Shasta, facing Amelia.

  Amelia pulled her head back, glaring at Cord. Shasta held her breath, not sure what the dragon would do. Finn nudged Amelia, and with a sigh, she nodded.

  Cord motioned in the direction of the woods. “This way.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he started walking.

  Shasta was right behind him, not wanting to know what the dragon thought of his manners. It was unusual for him to be brisk. Whatever Cord had done last night, he hadn’t found a better mood. She followed him between two trees that would hopefully leave enough room for the dragons. Though, judging from the cracks of saplings and irritated grunts of the dragons, this wasn’t their idea of a great time. Unfortunately, Cord worked his way through the underbrush with typical elf grace. Occasionally, a branch tried to cling to Shasta, but she was able to brush it off without much trouble.

  “Careful around the shelter, you may wish to examine it,” Cord called back to the group.

  Shasta walked into the clearing around the lean-to. Between the baby pine trees and the brush, what there was of the clearing wasn’t truly large enough for the dragons. Most of the group ended up wedged between trees around the outside of the clearing.

  Cord stopped off to the side. Shasta circled around him, carefully walking toward the bones. When she spotted them, she stopped and turned to face the dragons. “The bones are here.”