Graeme, do you hear me? he asked, his mind focused entirely on the red-headed man who was now assessing the ammunition on the luggage rack.
The red dragon shifter nodded slightly, acknowledging. Conor’s communications were coming more clearly now, their mutual powers strengthening.
Disarm him.
Next to them stood a series of metal shelves used for storing oversized luggage.
“Move, get behind me,” Graeme said quietly. He wondered for a moment if he could employ the mind-control trick on the vulture shifter, but now was not the time for such experiments. If it ended badly, it could mean a serious wound or death.
Lily and Conor moved by him slowly and stood by the door as Graeme’s body served as a barrier between them and the would-be assassin.
Unfortunately, the vulture took the large, vulnerable target before him as his signal to shoot, and raised the handgun to aim it directly at Graeme’s face.
There was no time to ponder further possibilities.
A small, hard suitcase went peeling down the passage, hitting the man square in the chest as he kept hold, somehow, of the gun. But then another, larger case came at him, this one blocking his sight as it aimed itself at his head.
It hit with the force of a dozen bricks flung at once, knocking him several feet backwards, the gun tumbling out of his hand without firing.
Graeme thrust his fingers out then, reaching, and in a second the silver weapon had flown at him, its butt in his own hand, the muzzle pointed back at the man who was rising slowly. A scowl was moulded into his features as he stared with hatred at the dragon shifter.
“Don’t even think about following us,” said Graeme loudly. “I’m assuming this little weapon of yours is loaded. But even if it contains no bullets, I’m very capable of making it into one. And when it comes flying at your head, you won’t find yourself getting up again.”
Behind him, Conor slid the car’s door open and the three traversed into the next, making their way with rapid steps to the front of the train.
“Do you even know how to use a gun?” asked Lily quietly as they moved forward.
“Not in the least,” said Graeme. “But I assume that the small hole is a bad thing.”
“Yes, that’s where bullets come out.”
“Well then, at least I aimed it properly.”
The train began to slow a minute later, decelerating too hesitantly for comfort as they approached the station. At this rate it would still be several minutes before they halted altogether.
“Graeme, can you manage to open the door?” asked an impatient Conor. “We need to get out of this thing.”
“With pleasure,” said Graeme, bowing elegantly towards the back of the car as the lock popped open and the door to his left slid aside, cool air coming at them now from the outdoors.
Lily’s eyes were still fixed in the direction they’d come from, where the vulture stood, a pale man, hands pressed against the glass, watching their every move with keen eyes. He wouldn’t be letting them slip away easily, she knew. His job was to keep them within his sights.
Through the open door they leapt out one by one. The train’s velocity was greater than expected, but few were more agile than shifters, and each managed to land without damage on the ground, taking off at a sprint towards civilization.
“Come,” said Conor, leading the way. “We need to lose that greasy bird.”
The vulture shifter hadn’t leapt out of the train, though his reasons were as unclear as everything else. For a moment they hoped to have lost him, focusing instead on their goal: concealment within the city’s walls.
Conor led them forward until they found themselves protected from the exposure of parallel tracks, climbing up a short stone wall. They kept running until they reached a dingy-looking area, between age-stained buildings and over wet streets littered with cigarette butts, bottles and cracks revealing that few cared much for the area’s well-being.
Conor’s eyes shot up on occasion, looking for the spread wingtip feathers of a menacing flyer overhead.
After a minute he veered to the right, down a narrow alleyway concealed a little by overhanging architectural details and fire escapes. At last he stopped, his breath heavy as he leaned against the wall.
“Welcome to Edinburgh,” he said.
56
Loyalty, Chapter Seven
Here they stood, in a strange city, disoriented and lost with no lodging for the night ahead. At least a roof, even a meagre one, would offer visual concealment from the enemy. But this was no tourist zone where hotels stood on each street corner; this looked more like an area where one might get knifed for rooting for the wrong football team in front of a rival team’s intoxicated fan.
There was no safety here—only isolation.
If only Merriman were here, thought Lily, perhaps he could shield us for a time. But now it was to her companions and herself to come up with a solution. It was time to own their powers.
She felt once again like a small, helpless girl; not at all like the powerful dragon princess that she’d grown into. The powers that she possessed seemed pointless in times like these; a dragon was a no-no, and leaping would only result in moving backwards to times which they’d already inhabited, not forwards.
Teleportation into a lavish suite at the Ritz Carlton would have been a wonderful thing; why wasn’t that in her arsenal of skills?
The only defence they had from roving eyes was the cloud cover and the few bits of metal and stone hiding their forms from above. It would do nothing to conceal the scents of two dragons and the musky smell of Conor, his hidden déor so enticing, so enervating.
“Well, I suppose we need to move,” said Graeme. “If we remain here, they’ll certainly uncover us.”
Seconds later he was proven right, as a black form darted through the air above: the vulture, no doubt spying them in their hiding spot.
“Come,” said Graeme, taking charge and leading the way deeper into a series of dark alleyways.
The buildings on their left and right rose up, charcoal grey and menacing, closed windows hiding whether there were inhabitants and activities within. A feeling of abandonment hung in the air, as though all the structures were derelict, condemned for their failure to stand the test of time.
They moved quickly, running towards a fork which led to the left and the right. But which way should they go? No plan existed yet, other than to avoid the eyes in the sky.
Graeme turned right, leading them onto a cobbled passageway which led far into the distance.
“Any idea where we’re heading?” asked Lily.
“None.” But Lord Ramsey seemed to have some plan in mind, though it lay deep in the compartments of his mind, unreadable to Conor or Lily.
Ahead, their route was lit by dim lanterns, framed in dark iron and hung by bolts from the walls around them. The light was diffused through particles of water which hung in the damp air, creating a dream-like feeling and obscuring the distance in delicate mist. The buildings’ foundations were coated in a dark green moss as though they grew out of the cobblestones organically, ancient and strong despite their disuse.
The three didn’t speak. There was no need to communicate as they had a common goal: avoidance.
As they moved forward, a wall seemed to spring up before them and they turned again, this time to the left. A few hundred feet in the distance they saw cars moving along a perpendicular road, indicating public. Humans. Safety and potential to hide indoors.
They made their way towards the action slowly now, not wanting to draw further attention to themselves.
But they were too late, they soon discovered.
* * *
Out of a dark doorway stepped a figure: tall, imposing, broad. A male shifter, built like a fortress, hatred written all over his scarred face.
Lily gasped, the human woman inside reacting before her fire-breather. This man was enormous, threatening. His light hair was close-cropped and he stood before them, f
eet spread, arms crossed so that his muscles seemed to burst through his tight leather jacket.
The three companions stopped, quickly assessing their limited options. Conor turned to look back the way they’d come. Two other figures were moving towards them; these ones less enormous, but no less determined.
To their right at the base of the building which rose up above them was a darkened semi-circular opening coated in iron bars. A sewer grate, perhaps? It was probably impenetrable; a blowtorch or dragon’s breath would have been convenient just then, but they were too close to the general population to risk shifting. It looked as though a fist fight, or worse, were inevitable.
“We’ve been waiting for you, my Lords,” said the gigantic man before them. “And you’re not making this meeting easy for us.”
My Lords? thought Lily. Strange wording, even for one of them. There is only one lord here.
“You know how it is,” said Graeme. “We Lords like to run around alleyways looking for rats. And oh good, we’ve found some. From the looks of it, they’ve mutated in the city sewers.”
The man smiled, his teeth revealing themselves as jagged spikes. Good lord, he was unattractive.
“Hardly rats,” he said. “But if you want to see our true forms, keep running.”
“If you want to see my true form, keep approaching,” growled Graeme, pushing himself between the man and his mates. “Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”
“Lord Graeme Ramsey, Dragon King, enemy to my kind and to all shifters.”
“You flatter me,” said Graeme. “I have yet to be called a king, but I’ll take it. As for enemy…”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You are the worst sort of shifter. One with a superiority complex who fails to see his own cruelty. Who thinks my kind inferior, and seeks to destroy all who might threaten his fortune and his prestige.”
Graeme could feel a hand on his arm—whether Lily’s or Conor’s, he didn’t know. Only that it was one of his mates, attempting to remind him to hold back his dragon even as red scales began to appear on the back of his neck as he bristled under his own rage.
“I don’t know about your kind,” he hissed. “But you are inferior. You threaten, you pursue. Your people tried to take us out. We have done nothing to you.”
“You have done everything to us,” said the man, who was tearing off his leather jacket as he came. “And now you have mated. Your spawn ensures our destruction. Or our salvation.”
He was moving closer now, and Conor could see the two shifters behind them moving in, breathing hatred through their nostrils. He read no words in their minds, only the coarse glow of emotion. What they wanted remained a mystery, though; they did not look to kill.
Only to take.
57
Loyalty, Chapter Eight
Lily stood between the men, facing the semi-circular grate at her feet, a broad masculine back on either side of her as her mates confronted the threat surrounding them.
Tension wound itself through the air like tightly-pulled wires, and her mind was a mess of thoughts and emotions as she attempted to find a solution that didn’t involve her multi-coloured Firebird.
The man had spoken of their offspring, his tone threatening, menacing. And she realized in a heartbeat that she had not thought of the Ritual and what might have come of it. For all her strange powers, she had not considered what might be occurring inside her now.
Could it be?
But that matter would be dealt with later—for now it was a question of getting herself and her mates to safety, away from the watchful eyes of humans.
She closed her own eyes, looking to heighten her other senses by robbing herself of vision. What did these three men want? What were they thinking?
To her left, Graeme braced himself not so much for a fist fight but to fight his own déor, to hold it back. This proved more difficult for him than for the others; his instincts had been honed over years and shifting was second nature when a threat arose. In his time, on his land, there had never been a reason to conceal his true nature.
Conor, to Lily’s right, did the same, holding in whatever it was that lurked inside him aching to appear. The rational man scanned his mental banks for a peaceful solution. The creature within wanted to tear to shreds anyone who threatened him or his mate. His mates.
Lily’s dragon, too, urged her to take the enemy on, knowing that it would win any battle. She could all but feel its massive tail beating from side to side impatiently, asking her to allow its flaming body a release.
“No,” she said under her breath. “Not here. Not now. Stand down.”
She felt her two lovers’ backs tighten as they assumed the pose of fighters, ready to spar bare-fisted if necessary with their opponents as their assailants came to a stop within a few feet of them. Overhead, she knew, the vulture still circled, a beacon for any members of the Stranieri who sought them, announcing their location in no uncertain terms.
On the ground near Graeme sat a large stone, likely a fallen relic from one of the building’s façades. His fingers twitched as he raised it without touching it to the height of his eyes, preparing the floating trajectory to deploy as artillery against the large threat looming before him.
As Lily braced herself for the mayhem about to unfold, a loud clang sounded at her feet. Her eyes shot open to see the head of a young man, standing in the dark space below the building. Somehow, he’d pulled the iron bars away from the rounded opening, which was now large enough to slide through in single file.
In the distance pedestrians had begun to congregate at the entrance to the alleyway, curious about the altercation which was unfolding before their eyes.
“Come with me,” the man below Lily hissed in a loud whisper, gesturing frantically. “Now.”
There was no other choice, and no time to assess him. She stepped forward and leapt into the abyss, calling to the other two as she did so.
Each came after her, quickly but reluctantly, neither wanting to flee. By the time they’d turned around the young stranger had thrust the bars back into position, the shifters outside trying to kick them in. But it was a futile pursuit; the bars weren’t moving anytime soon.
“How did you do that?” Lily asked, watching in wonderment. The iron seemed to have embedded itself once again into the building’s stone as though it had been part of the structure for centuries.
“It’s a little trick I know,” the man said, walking away and gesturing to them to accompany him. “I’m sure that you have some gifts too, dragon.”
“You’re one of us,” Lily replied. She could smell him now, and see his mind: he was leading them somewhere that he knew would be safe for a time. But in him was also a sense of panic, of imminent danger. He knew how powerful those men in the alleyway had been, though he didn’t know exactly what they wanted.
“Yes, I am one of you,” he said. “And I’ve been looking for you.” With that, he threw on a black cloak, reminiscent of those that Xin, Asta and Duncan had worn. Their allies in London; the ones who’d known Lachlan.
“You’re…” Lily began again, searching for a word that she hadn’t yet learned.
“We call ourselves the Díegol,” the man said as he walked into the darkness, leading them along a stone wall, feeling his way with his fingertips as though in search of a hidden object.
“Díegol?” asked Conor. “What does that mean?”
“Secret, dark,” said Graeme. “Old English.”
“It is the name for those of us who hide our identity from the enemy. And you are among us now. Some of us are human—the ones who help our kind. Others are shifters, like us. We look to keep the peace, to maintain the safety and secrecy of shifters. To fight cruelty and evil. Ah,” he said, his fingers landing on a loose stone which jutted out an inch or so from the wall. He pushed it inwards and the low rumble of sliding rock sounded from their left.
“It will be quite dark for a little,” he said, “but follow me and I will light the way
.”
An opening had formed in the stone wall, tall enough for even a large man to walk through. As they followed the stranger, the door seemed to read their movements, sealing itself shut. They found themselves in total darkness, walking along precarious downward-sloping cobbles. The shifters’ eyes took a moment to adjust, and then they could just make out one another’s faint outlines.
“Under Edinburgh are a series of passageways, known as the Vaults,” their guide continued. “Hang on one second, and I’ll show you.” His hand reached again for something against the wall and he extracted a wooden torch from a recessed opening in the stone. From his pocket he pulled a lighter.
“I know that you could do this with your breath, but this bit of tunnel is a little small for a dragon.” He lit the torch, which revealed an arched length of steep passageway ahead, ancient and worn by time. “But follow and I’ll lead you through.”
As he led them, he told them about the passageway’s history.
“Most of the Vault is well-known, some used for what they call ‘Ghost Walks,’ used to teach tourists to fear the underground. Originally built centuries back as storage for merchants and tradesmen. But these—the ones we’re in—were built for another purpose entirely.”
With that he held out the torch, revealing that they’d arrived at a large, open space, leading far into the distance. Its ceiling was high and arched, its walls so far apart that they could no longer be seen.
“These,” he said, “were for déors, during the Dracan Wyrre. The Dragon Wars.”
58
Loyalty, Chapter Nine
“What are you talking about, with these so-called Dragon Wars?” asked Graeme. “We dragons fight on occasion. But outright war? I’ve never heard of combat in Edinburgh by our kind.” He spoke in the present tense, forgetting that he now found himself centuries outside of his own time.
Seeking Her Mates Boxed Set: A Shifter Menage Serial (All Five Parts) Page 30