Chapter 3
Nut had to hold it together. She couldn’t, no matter the primal need, shift and hunt down the monster who shot her Isis and left her for dead. She could still feel the jolt of fear and dread that had shocked her awake.
Her daughter’s cries of pain and agony had Nut tumbling out of bed and running to Isis’s room, to find Makara already there. Makara was standing outside of a closed door, hand raised to the knob and the beginning of rock scales on her arm.
Like Nut, she’d heard Isis’s roars, sounds Nut didn’t think she’d ever forget. The echo of her terrified and enraged hatchling was soon eclipsed by the sight that greeted Nut and Makara when they’d entered Isis’s bedroom.
Lying on her back, a river of red liquid ran from Isis’s belly, down her side, and onto blood-soaked sheets. At the grisly sight, for a moment, for a few terrible seconds, Nut couldn’t move. She’d been paralyzed by the head twisted to the side and the red eyes, open but devoid of life, that had stared at her.
It wasn’t until Makara screamed and pushed past Nut and toward Isis that she’d recovered her wits. After that, it was a blur of phone calls, sirens, medics, police, and dragons. Through it all, no one knew where Osiris was or had been able to contact him, which added to everyone’s stress.
Now, hours later, the Philae and Ombos clans were gathered in a waiting family area at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown. Members of other dragon clans were also there, although most of them hovered in the sky over the hospital, waiting for only the goddesses knew what. For the Queen of Nebty to die? For Nut to give them a command to kill the perpetrator? For all she knew, one of them could’ve committed the foul deed.
She’d experienced, once before, the brutal slash of dragon betrayal. Nut couldn’t lose Isis. Her heart hadn’t yet healed from the loss of Geb. She didn’t think it ever would. Unable to stay seated, she pushed from the chair she’d sank into after the nurses wheeled Isis into surgery. The doors had clicked ominously behind them, barring her entry.
She hadn’t liked it, entrusting the care of Isis to the human medical staff. What choice did she have? In human form, Isis could do little to help herself by calling on her dragon strength. As it was, only her spirit and stubborn will had kept her alive long enough for Nut and Makara to get her help.
Set, Osiris’s younger brother, sat next to his mother, a supportive arm around her shivering shoulders, the other in a sling. Off and on, the rock dragon would weep. For Isis or her missing son, she didn’t know. Likely both, since nothing, short of death, would keep Isis’s mate from her side. The more time that passed without hearing from him, the greater the likelihood that something awful had befallen Osiris. Perhaps, like Isis, he’d been attacked and shot. The thought tasted like rotten meat in her mouth.
Members of Dragon Investment Group’s board were huddled together, coffee in hand and voices lowered. If Isis died and Osiris didn’t return, as co-CEOs the impact would be felt through the company. The twin losses would be a personal, economic, and social nightmare.
Nut turned away from them and strolled down the hall and onto an elevator. She took it up to the roof. Two minutes later, she walked through the wide doors that led to the rooftop and the helipad in the center. Nut had no idea, when she’d donated two million dollars to the building of the hospital’s helipad, two years ago, the project taking one and a half years to finish, that Isis would be one of the patients who’d benefit from the service.
However, it wasn’t her oldest daughter that had her up on the roof but her youngest. A moon dragon, white with crystal scales like an ice dragon’s, but with folds instead of icy spikes. Nephthys flapped her feather wings, long, pointed, and agitated, as she paced the helipad. The Tyets were also on the roof. Thankfully, not in dragon form. They each sat at a cardinal point at the edge of the helipad. Nut nodded to each woman as they rose to greet her.
Aset, Merit, Hathor, and Serqet were Isis’s closest friends. More, they were her bodyguards, the fealty to the Clan of Philae forged in faith and blood. Their parents, like Geb, had died fighting to save their way of life and the scepters. Twelve to fifteen years older than Isis and Nephthys, Nut had raised them alongside her daughters, as much as they would allow her to step into the role of parent.
Any other night, they would’ve been at Philae Manor, but Isis had convinced them to leave with Nephthys. Isis never thought she needed her friends’ protection. To her way of thinking, no human would dare start a war with dragons, and no dragon would want to revisit the pain and horrors of a century ago.
For all of Isis’s business savvy, her daughter could be naïve when it came to the uglier aspects of human and dragon nature. Tonight’s cruel lesson, unfortunately, may prove her last.
Aset, the oldest of the group at a hundred fifteen years, stood and approached Nut. At six and a half feet, the shadow dragon moved with stealth and was as deadly as she was loyal.
Her shadow dragon may have been as dark as midnight with a chest as vibrant as a Violet Ranunculus flower, yet her youthful human skin was the color of buttery soft toffee. Dressed in the same black jeans, black boots, and red silk blouse she had on at the baby shower, Aset lowered her eyes in shame when she reached Nut.
“None of that. Raise your head and eyes and let me gaze upon you.”
“We failed our queen. I’m sorry, Nut.”
The other Tyets rose. One by one, they came to her and offered their humble but unnecessary apologies. Guilt and sadness had their eyes cast downward. With each mumbled apology, the more agitated Nephthys’s moon dragon became.
If anyone were to blame for what happened to Isis, it was Nut. She’d been only three rooms down and had heard nothing until her daughter cried out in a desperate attempt to save herself and the life of her baby. She wouldn’t allow these dragons to carry the weight of tonight’s attack on their capable but young shoulders.
Attack. What a mild word for what it truly was. An assassination attempt. No one had yet used those words in Nut’s presence, not even DIG’s board, but they all were thinking it. With Osiris missing and Isis fighting for her life on an operating table, how could they not?
In turn, she embraced each of the young dragons, giving them what she hoped were words of comfort. Merit, the smallest and youngest of the Tyets at five and a half feet and a yellow energy dragon, held onto Nut the longest, her dreadlocks nearly as long as the woman was tall.
“Come Merit, allow Nut to speak to her daughter.” With a gentleness that gave no clue to the strength of Hathor’s gray mist dragon, the Tyet led Merit away, her arm around the shorter woman’s shoulder.
Serqet, after offering her apology to Nut, had gone over to the moon dragon. Of the Tyets, Serqet and Nephthys were the closest. They were kindred spirits, both full of life and laughter. Coming up, if mischief were to be found, the two of them would be in the center of it. Like all of Isis’s guards, they were different kinds of dragons with varying skills and abilities. Isis may not have thought the bodyguards necessary, but she possessed a strategic mind. Friendship did not factor into who she’d chosen as her personal guards.
So it was with Serqet, boisterous, lighthearted, and even-tempered, the blue-and-silver thunder dragon spoke low and soft to Nephthys. Aset and Nut watched them in silence. Nut didn’t strain her human ears to hear what Serqet said to her youngest daughter. It didn’t matter. What did matter was the moon dragon was listening and had stopped her angry pacing.
Fifteen minutes later, the moon dragon had given way to Nephthys’s half human, half dragon form. No other dragon, other than Isis, had a third form. Nephthys was human everywhere except for the white falcon-like wings that came outward from her shoulder blades and her long, white tail with ridges that grew out of her tailbone.
“With so many other dragons in the vicinity, she shouldn’t be in any form other than human.” Aset’s cautious eyes lifted to the sky. Her wavy black hair with streaks of purple hung to her shoulders in a flat-twist design that was low maint
enance yet attractive on a dragon who disliked the aesthetic expectations that came with being a human female. “When you called about Isis, there was nothing we could do to stop her from shifting and flying here. We were fortunate to get her out of the nightclub before it happened.”
Nut hadn’t wanted to phone Nephthys, especially when she didn’t have an update on Isis’s condition. With the way Isis had appeared when the paramedics loaded her into the helicopter, so close to death, she feared if she didn’t call it would be too late when Nephthys arrived. At least, if the unspeakable happened, Nephthys would be there to say her final farewell to her twin.
As it was, when the moon dragon appeared, shifting into her human form and greeting the helicopter on the helipad, naked and breathing hard, it had taken Aset and Serqet to pull her away so the paramedics could take an unconscious Isis into the hospital.
“What are your orders?”
She may still be viewed as queen by some of the dragons, but the Tyets did not answer to her. She’d made sure all understood that Isis was in charge, not just of Dragon Investment Group but of those dragons who still thought of Nebty as their home.
“If Isis were awake, what would she want you to do?”
Black eyes with a purple iris lowered to Nut. “She’d want me to search for Osiris.”
“Then that’s what you shall do. Do you have any idea where to begin?”
“No, but Osiris is a dragon of habit. He eats lunch with his mother twice a week and at the same restaurant, jogs with Set every Saturday morning, regardless of the weather, carves Isis a different sun dragon figurine for her birthday and their wedding anniversary.” Aset shoved a hand into her front pocket and cursed under her breath. “He loves his family more than anything in the world.”
“I know. So where would Osiris have gone last night?”
“Flying. He has his favorite spots.”
“Yes, mountains.”
“The higher, the better. I’ll begin my search of the best New York peaks and spread outward from there.”
“Take the moon dragon with you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Nephthys is the perfect dragon.” In a way, the shadow dragon knew but had never seen first-hand, which she would if the worst had befallen Osiris. “I’ll speak with her first. I assume Merit and Hathor have found posts as close as possible to the operating room where they can protect Isis.”
“Yes. Once I leave with Nephthys, Serqet will take to the sky and make sure those dragons on the other side of the building don’t come nearer.”
For now, that was the best that could be done.
With a nod of agreement, Nut strolled away from Aset and to her daughter, who was still in her hybrid form and as naked as she’d been earlier.
In silence, Serqet left the two of them alone and made her way to Aset.
“I have a job for you, daughter.”
“Does it involve me tracking down and killing whoever hurt Isis?”
Nephthys’s cold, low voice threatened to break Nut’s heart. The twins didn’t remember their father to miss him the same way as Nut. But there could be no closer siblings than Isis and Nephthys.
“I need you to help Aset find Osiris. Use your special powers.”
White eyes, full of unshed tears, met Nut’s. “You think he’s dead. Why else would you want me to use those powers?”
“After the night we’ve had with Isis, I don’t think we can rule out the possibility.”
“Osiris loves Isis. He would be down there, in the operating room, hospital rules be damned.”
“I know. That’s why I need you to go with Aset.”
“I don’t want to leave her. What if, while I’m gone, Isis…” Furious, a hand swiped at her tears. “I hurt so much, Mother. She can’t die. We can’t lose Isis. I don’t know how I’ll cope if we do.”
“We won’t lose her.” Nut wrapped her arms around her distraught moon dragon. “We won’t lose our sun dragon. Isis is stronger than the two of us combined. She’ll make it.”
“What about her hatchling?”
Goddesses above, Nut had never lied to her daughter, but she wanted to now. Nephthys hadn’t seen the full scope of the damage done to her sister, the way Nut and Makara had. She’d been covered by blankets by the time she’d arrived at the hospital.
Three bullet holes, all in her stomach. What kind of evil barbarian shot a pregnant woman in her stomach?
“Her hatchling will be fine. No more tears. I need the strength of your moon dragon.” She kissed Nephthys’s wet cheek, then stepped back. “Go with Aset and find Osiris.”
With a heavy heart, Nut watched Nephthys fly away with Aset’s shadow dragon. Once they were away from potentially prying eyes, Nut knew Nephthys would shift into her full dragon form, which would allow the females to fly faster and cover more distance in less time.
“You have to go, Nut.” Serqet, five-eight with silver eyes the same color as her wings, black hair in a short afro hairstyle, shoved her cell phone into the front pocket of her gray dress slacks. “Merit said the surgeon is looking for you. He’s with Makara and Set but won’t tell them anything until you get there. You can go, I’ll watch the sky.”
Heart pounding, Nut went.
Chapter 4
Mount Marcy, Algonquin Peak, Mount Haystack, Mount Skylight, and Whiteface Mountain. Nephthys and Aset had flown to the five tallest peaks in New York, all of them in the Adirondack Mountains. By the fifth mountain, with no sign of Osiris’s rock dragon at the first four, Nephthys knew two things. One, she’d wasted her and Aset’s time, the sun hours in the sky when they landed on Whiteface Mountain. Two, Osiris was dead.
She’d waged an internal war from the moment they’d left the hospital and gone in search of her brother-in-law. As a young dragon, Nephthys hadn’t comprehended her ability. She could, quite literally, smell death in an extra-sensory way unknown to dragons.
Dead, death, and decay, a morbid “gift” she’d never wanted. How could being able to locate the dead be useful to dragons? Up until today, Nephthys never imagined it would.
When they were children, she used to joke with Isis about selling her services to the NYPD to help them find buried bodies of crime victims. They would laugh when Nephthys dropped to her hands and knees and imitated a Bloodhound on the hunt and in search of a dead body. Children could be insensitive, especially when their immature minds couldn’t grasp the magnitude of adult situations and real-life horrors.
There was nothing humorous about dead bodies and murder. For every corpse an animal like a Bloodhound found, there were dozens of others left to rot with no funerary rites given, but many tears shed by loved ones left behind.
She’d deliberately not used her powers, hoping and praying for an explanation for Osiris’s absence other than the one she wasn’t ready to accept in her heart. Nephthys loved Osiris. She’d even had a crush on him when she was thirteen and he a twenty-three-year-old full of swagger and charm. As with most things with teens, her crush didn’t last the span of a season before her attention was drawn to something else.
Osiris was her brother, in all ways but blood. The thought of his death had her dragging poor Aset to five mountains.
Taking a deep breath, the moon dragon lifted into the air and did what she should’ve done hours ago. Nephthys tapped into that part of her that recognized death, a sensory perception that existed on two planes of reality. The metaphysical plane where ghosts and specters dwelled, detached from their earth-bound body but formed anew from the distillation of their heart and mind.
Then there was the corporeal plane of the living, three-dimensional and multi-faceted. Touch. Sight. Sound. Taste. Smell.
Life but also death, which existed on both planes of reality.
Linked, as they were within Nephthys. She could reach for one but also the other.
With Aset beside her, the moon dragon, guided by the twin links inside her dragon’s soul and with the preternatural scent of decay and death i
n the air, flew from the Adirondack Mountains to the Appalachian Mountains.
No longer fighting the pull of death magic, Nephthys scoured the base of Mount Mitchell until she found physical evidence. Her mother would accept nothing less.
“Where’s the rest of him?”
Aset posed one of several questions running through Nephthys’s head, such as Who would do this to Osiris and why? Yet there was one question neither asked, which was How will Isis react when she learns of her mate’s death? The dragons knew, which kept them silent about Isis and their minds on the current task.
“I have to find the rest of him for my sister.” Nephthys held a portion of Osiris’s rock dragon tail between the claws of her front legs. Blood stained the mangled appendage.
At Great Falls Park in northern Virginia, she found half of his head. At the ghastly sight, Nephthys had broken down, roaring in dragon form then shifting and crying her eyes out as a human in mourning. Aset cried with her, although a part of them wept for Isis’s future pain.
Two hours after that, they were in the wine cellar of Philae Manor. Once returning home, they’d called Merit, Serqet, and Hathor, who stared at the two recovered remains of Osiris.
“She’s going to go ballistic.” Merit ran shaky hands over her face, both coming away wet from tears. “Isis can’t see him like this.”
“I know, and we still need to find the rest of him.” Nephthys looked at the gathered Tyets. They would kill to protect Isis, just as she would. Yet none of them could protect her from this.
“Isis barely survived the operation.” Hathor, who sat on the floor of the cellar, clear across the room and away from Osiris’s remains, had spoken more to her chest than to them, so low did her head hang. “Her surgeon said the operation went as well as could be expected. She lost a lot of blood.” Raising her head, Nephthys could see a deeper pain her friends hadn’t yet shared with her. “They couldn’t save the hatchling.”
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