by C. I. Black
“The medallion? Oh, my God—” The line went dead and a white vortex appeared against the bank of windows. Anaea rushed out, the medallion hanging around her neck on a thick gold chain.
“Can you tell me if he’s dead?” Diablo asked. Mother, don’t let him be dead. Please don’t let him be dead. They weren’t close, but that was just a matter of time. Between one blink and the next, Grey had become a member of his coterie, his real coterie, Nero’s puzur. They were a family with ties stronger than blood.
Anaea’s magic wind gusted around her and dropped her to her knees by Grey’s side, her eyes wide, her face ghostly. She pressed her fingers to his neck, her wind knocking a vase off a table on the other side of the living room.
“Anaea. Is his soul still in there?” It had to be there. Grey had been struggling. Diablo had known that the moment he’d met the silver drake. Something haunted him and tore into his soul, and an hour ago, when Diablo had last gated into this hotel room, that ghost had been weakened, overwhelmed with such joy and uncertainty and—
Diablo bit back a growl. Now was not Grey’s time. A drake didn’t just find his inamorata and then die. Things like that didn’t happen.
“I don’t know,” Anaea said, her body trembling and her breath coming too fast. Her wind picked up strength, ripping the large painting off the far wall and tossing it into the kitchenette. Dishes rattled in the cupboard over the sink and stove and a half-filled glass of water on the kitchenette counter tumbled to the floor and shattered. “He’s not breathing. I can’t feel a pulse. What do we do?”
“Use your magic.” She had to do something, had to have a way of knowing he was still alive.
His beast growled and he hugged himself, fighting the need to join Anaea’s wind and trash the hotel room. Unconscious, Grey wasn’t giving off any emotions, so Diablo’s empathy couldn’t detect anything, but there had to be a spell, an instinct, something that would tell Anaea Grey was still alive.
“I don’t know what to do.” Anaea’s wind shoved Diablo to the side, knocking him over the arm of the couch, and the cupboard doors crashed open and half the glasses flew across the room and smashed against the wall.
Her gaze turned inward and a tight line formed between her brows. “I don’t—”
The medallion suddenly flickered with light, a sign that the magic within it was activating to absorb a soul.
With a gasp, she jerked back. Her wide-eyed stare jumped to his and her fear, sliced through with heartache, slammed into him.
“He’s got to still be in there,” she said. “The medallion wouldn’t start to activate if his soul was gone.”
“Thank the Mother.” A pressure in Diablo’s chest eased and his legs buckled. He sagged into the chair beside him and dropped his head between his knees. He couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t breathe past the lump in his throat. “Thank the Mother he’s not dead.”
Not like Andy. He couldn’t get his mind to move past that.
Of course, with the medallion activating, that meant the medallion’s magic sensed his body was too damaged and it was better to move his soul… maybe. Diablo didn’t know enough about the medallion to know how its magic worked, and he was sure Anaea knew less about it than he did.
“We should get him in a bed. Diablo—” Anaea’s tone turned sharp and he jerked his head up and met her gaze. “Where’s Ivy?”
“Servius took her. She was covered in blood and impaled on his blade and—” Fucking stupid drake. There was still a decapitated body lying in the driveway at the museum, and pools of blood. He pulled Capri’s number from his contacts and dialed.
“What?” Capri growled, her emotions snapping into him when their phones connected. From the growl and frustration, it felt like he’d interrupted something. Well, too fucking bad. He’d gotten her out of Regis’s prison and she owed him. She also owed Grey for protecting her inamorato during the mess with her arrest, and Diablo had no problems cashing in those debts right now.
“I need a rush clean-up at the Royal Vancouver Museum. Loading bay around back.”
“Isn’t that where Grey was going?”
“Yeah. Where are you?” Neither Capri nor the two other members of her team could free gate, and there wasn’t time to wait for them to get to a gate then gate to Vancouver then get to the museum.
“I’m in Nero’s house.”
“The solarium?” Her usual hang-out with Ryan.
“Yeah, but I’m not decent.”
“I don’t care. Call your team. You’re all flying Air Diablo tonight.” He hung up, grabbed Grey, and gated them into the bedroom — if he didn’t move Grey, he’d never hear the end of it from Anaea, since he doubted she was strong enough to move the drake, especially from the floor onto the bed.
Anaea rushed through the bedroom doorway, along with her wind. Her fear had deepened, but she’d wrapped a suffocating grip of determination around it and her magic no longer gusted to the degree that things flew around the room.
“Call Nero. We need a plan. We have to assume Servius is Jet’s boss and he has both pieces of the coin and Ivy.” Diablo climbed off the bed and his gaze dipped to Grey, still as death, his face ashen. Blood still oozed from the wound at the side of his head — and, from the blood on the pillow, a second injury hidden in his hair. Diablo had never heard of a dragon surviving a bullet to the head. Of course, usually after the drake was incapacitated with the gunshot, the next move was decapitation. With Grey’s slow healing, he had no idea how long it would take him to recover from something like that. Could a drake fully recover from that? Was any drake’s soul magic strong enough to fix something as complicated as a brain?
“We also have to assume he’s not going to wake up anytime soon,” Anaea said, her hold on her magic trembling and the painting above the bed rattling.
He pulled the painting from the wall and shoved it under the bed. “Let’s get his inamorata back before then.” Because Grey wouldn’t recover at all if something happened to Ivy.
CHAPTER 33
Ivy staggered as pain shot through her chest and cheek. The ancient black drake who’d dragged her into his gate had taken her back to the anchor on the cliff’s edge near the Handmaiden’s secret residence. He’d pushed her through the tunnel and across the ice garden and now shoved her against the stone wall beside the Handmaiden’s gray door.
“Move, and I impale you again,” he growled, his breath misting against her cheek and drawing a shiver of cold and fear.
He pulled his phone from his coat pocket, texted something, then returned it to his pocket. A few seconds later, the door opened with Jet standing in the entrance.
Her eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you doing with her?”
“I’ll need her magic once I’ve taken the throne.” The black drake pushed Ivy past Jet into the antechamber with the settee in the center of the room, the coat rack, and the glass and wrought iron door at the back.
Heat swept around Ivy, and the pain in her chest from both the sword and the gunshot wounds burned hotter, as if the few minutes in the freezing mountain air had numbed her. Everything but the ice in her gut turned into an inferno, and agony squeezed around her heart and tightened her throat.
“She can find traitors. That’s invaluable,” the black drake said.
“And what will you do if she refuses to work for you?” Jet slammed the outside door shut and stalked past Ivy to the inner door. “What then, oh King Servius?”
“That’s Emperor Servius. Earth magic comes from the human body. Not the dragon’s soul.” He jerked his chin to the inside door and cocked an eyebrow.
Jet rolled her eyes and opened the door for him.
He pushed Ivy onto the second-story balcony, sending her staggering across the dried pool of Grey’s blood. She caught her balance on the wrought iron railing.
“With the coin pieces joined, I can rip out her spirit and replace it with someone who’s loyal.”
A shiver rushed over Ivy, spiking more pain
through her. She was dead if she didn’t help him. She doubted this drake — Jet had called him Servius — would rebirth her into another body. And even if she was reborn, she wouldn’t remember Grey, she wouldn’t have the power he needed to keep his magic at bay, and she didn’t know if they’d still be inamorated.
Her throat grew tighter and she fought to breathe past the knot. He couldn’t be dead. Mother of All, please. Just let him be alive. But he hadn’t been breathing. He’d been shot in the head. Even if Diablo got to him, there might have been nothing he could do to help Grey.
A tremor swept through her, forcing her to grip the railing to keep standing. Her gaze dropped to her hands and forearms, covered with blood, and the memory of Bolo collapsing to the ground, his severed head rolling into a puddle, flashed into her mind’s eye.
Jet snorted, strode past Ivy, and headed down the stairs. “Don’t look at me. I like the magic I got just fine. Besides, it’s only been a few years since I’ve figured out how to extend my camouflage to cover my tracks. I can’t wait to see what I can do in a couple hundred more.”
Ivy’s pulse roared. She’d killed Bolo. Taken his head. Something she’d never done before. She was sure something like that would have been imprinted in her locket with a force of emotion that would have brought it to the forefront of all the memories imprinted there.
Her hand jumped to her throat, the instinct to touch her locket making her move before cold realization added to the churning in her gut.
The locket was gone. Fallen down the sewer grate. When she fell asleep — and at some point sleep was inevitable — and woke, she’d forget everything, being shot and stabbed, killing Bolo, getting caught in Servius’s horrible plans to take the throne. But she’d also forget Grey. She’d gladly remember all those horrible things just to keep her memories of Grey, his smile, the hard strength of his body pressed against her… how he made her feel.
Even if she imprinted her memories into her clothes and was still wearing them when she woke, she still wouldn’t be able to get to them, not without her power word that had been engraved on her locket.
“Come on.” Servius grabbed her arm and shoved her toward the stairs. “You’re going to watch history being made.”
She staggered to the main floor and followed Jet through the maze of bookshelves, back to the nook where she and Grey had discovered the truth about why the Handmaiden’s chambers in Court had been ransacked.
It was hard to believe it hadn’t even been a full day since Tobias had told her to read those memories then sent her here, out of Court for the first time.
The podium, where they’d read the book Jet had torn the page from, glowed with magical power. It swirled in a complicated glyph that hadn’t been there before. The coin pieces sat on the podium’s ledge, joined together to look like one coin save for the band of light splitting it in half.
Magic tingled over Ivy’s skin, making the hair at the back of her neck stand up, and she had a sense that she couldn’t explain, that the spell to join the coins was powerful.
Which was what it all came down to. Power. Power over other drakes, but more importantly, power over one’s life. Regis had too much power over everyone. That much had been clear from the moment she’d woken and read the memories on her locket. Other drakes had defied him and she’d unwillingly been a part of the regime that had captured and punished them.
She’d known even then that she hadn’t had a choice except to obey. She worked for Tobias and they belonged to the prince. But Servius wasn’t acting much different from Regis. If she didn’t use her magic to help him, he’d kill her.
She was a pawn, had always been a pawn for stronger drakes. How could she grow beyond a hatchling if she never remembered anything? Even with the help of her locket, she’d been at a disadvantage, and without the locket, she was helpless. She should have never left Court, should have figured out how to escape Tobias before ending up at the museum, and should have never agreed to help Grey figure out what was going on.
Except she couldn’t have stopped herself from doing any of that. Ophelia had practically tossed her out of Court, she hadn’t known nearly enough about anything to develop any kind of escape plan, and Grey… Grey held her heart. She’d have gone anywhere with him.
Her vision blurred with tears. Please don’t let him be dead.
A single tear leaked down her cheek.
Jet glanced up from the glowing podium and sneered. “Jeez. Are you crying for yourself or because you couldn’t stop Bolo from taking Grey’s head?”
Because Grey wasn’t breathing and she was helpless—
Mother of All, she was pathetic. Real drakes didn’t cry.
“You mean you didn’t kill Bolo?” Servius asked.
Jet raised an eyebrow. “Bolo is dead?”
And Ivy had killed him. She had. With a ferociousness she hadn’t known lay within her.
“Head severed from his neck.” Servius’s dark gaze turned on Ivy.
Jet followed his gaze, and Ivy pressed back against the bookshelf, unable to fight the urge to make herself as small as possible. Ferocious or not, these drakes scared her.
“Wow.” Jet barked a harsh laugh, making Ivy jump. “Looks like you’ve got more bite than expected. Might make a dragon out of you yet, hatchling.”
If she survived this. Except she wanted more than just survival. Before she’d met Grey, she’d wanted her freedom. Now she wanted it more than ever.
She blinked back more tears. Grey would want her to have her freedom, and she knew a doyen who’d arranged for her to be free of Regis, Tobias, and the Dragon Court. Mother of All, she might not be able to stop Servius, but she sure as hell could get away from him. Nero’s coterie might not be Grey’s, but there was a friendship there. Grey trusted them. He’d brought her to them when he was injured and they’d needed a safe haven. Without a doubt, they’d want to get revenge for Grey.
Light flickered from the coin and Servius shifted closer to the podium. “How long is this supposed to take?”
“The book said a quarter of a day,” Jet said.
“Six hours.”
“That’s going to be a long wait.”
Servius pursed his lips, his attention locked on the coin. “This is complicated magic. If the Handmaiden wasn’t so skilled as a sorcerer, knitting the coin — and, more importantly, the spell in the coin — back together could take days, even years.” He glanced at Jet. “You should go back to the museum and kill Grey.”
“Grey won’t be getting up any time soon. He’s such a slow healer. That bullet to the head will have him down for hours if it didn’t outright kill him,” Jet said.
Ivy’s throat tightened and more tears blurred her vision. Grey hadn’t been breathing.
Jet leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms. “I say I’ve completed the job you hired me to do.”
Servius roared and slapped his wrists together. The ground under Jet wrenched up. It tossed her onto her back, then curled around her forearm and locked her in place. “The job isn’t done until I’m emperor.”
Jet’s eyes grew wide, fear racing across her expression, then she flashed her teeth and growled. “So what? You can control stone.”
“I can do more than control stone.” He shoved back his sleeves, revealing four thick bands of tattoos, one set wrapped around his wrists, the other around his forearms, which he pressed together. Light flared from them, and wind snapped from his hands and sliced into Jet’s shoulder.
Jet’s complexion paled. “Holy Mother, you’re a sorcerer.”
“I’m the rightful dragon emperor, and the goddess has given me the sorcerer’s power as proof. You’ll swear your allegiance to me, or I’ll hunt you down and ensure your soul doesn’t even make it into the universal ether.” He bared his teeth at her and hissed. “Are we clear?”
Jet glared at him and another blast of wind sliced into her.
“Are we clear?” The earth around her shook and a tornado roared around S
ervius, yanking books and knickknacks from the shelves and flinging them around the nook. “Are. We. Clear?”
“Yes.” Jet’s gaze dropped. “We’re clear.”
“I can’t hear you,” Servius growled.
“We’re clear, Emperor Servius.”
“Good.” He flashed his teeth, his expression half aggression and half satisfaction, and tapped his wrists together. The stone capturing Jet melted away. “If Grey isn’t dead, he needs to be an unfortunate casualty of war. He knows how to get here. He can’t live to tell anyone else what’s happening.”
Mother, No. She couldn’t stop Jet from going back to the museum and killing Grey, if, God, he wasn’t dead already. She could only pray Diablo had gotten to him in time. Please, oh, please. But she also couldn’t let Nero or anyone go up against Servius without knowing how powerful he was. She had to figure out a way to escape. They had to be warned.
CHAPTER 34
An inferno consumed Grey. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see past the darkness, and couldn’t hear or sense anything. There was only pain. An unending agony howling through him, squeezing his head and chest in a vise. Crackling, searing… flickering?
No, the darkness was flickering. Hints of white…? Not quite white? Something soft at his back.
A woman screamed.
Ivy.
Ivy was in trouble. Jet and Bolo were attacking. He had to get to her. Protect her. Mother, he had to see past the pain and get up.
Except he had no idea what had happened. They’d been fighting. It didn’t sound now as if anyone nearby was fighting… but that could be the agony making it impossible to hear anything… except he’d heard that scream.
Ivy’s scream…
Ivy had screamed. There’d been a bang, then pain and darkness.
Another scream cut through the haze, and instinct jerked his head toward the sound and fire exploded behind his eyes.
His consciousness wavered, the darkness flooding over the not-quite-white, but he managed to hold on and focus. An open doorway materialized out of the haze with a hint of light beyond. A woman— Ivy? Please let it be Ivy — rushed into the room.