by Love, Dianna
Now she had good reason to talk to this man.
He would still be the sought-after scholar he had not been betrayed. Someone had filmed him secretly while the professor sounded as if he had an encounter with a fairy. Of course, the film showed no one in the room with him during a livid one-sided argument.
He tried to justify his moment, saying as a historian that he considered all details. He suggested others in the academic field should acknowledge the potential credibility of a specific ancient parchment scroll.
That might not have caused much of an uproar if the scroll hadn’t included specifics on a conflict among fairies.
Casidhe had seen the secret film. Based on his words and warnings, she believed he’d been communicating with someone nonhuman, and very likely a fairy.
His peers thought him crazy and some friends tried to explain away his actions as becoming senile. The media ran with the story about a professor talking to ghosts and goblins, as per their articles.
After that hit the news, media flocked to the university where he’d been the chair of medieval studies to humiliate him publicly. The media might argue they were doing the public a service, but the end result had been the destruction of his career.
He’d walked away. No one could find him.
One day as Casidhe strolled the streets of Wexford on the eastern coast below Dublin, she caught sight of a man sitting alone with his tea.
While she stood in a doorway across the street watching covertly, or so she’d thought, he lifted his head slowly and turned to her. They stared at each other for long seconds, then he folded his paper, got up, and walked away.
She was drawn to the table where she found this card.
Curiosity had paid off.
She’d spent over a year tracking down a contact number for him, but she never tried to call. She held onto the information for the day she hit a wall and needed help finding Skarde.
Sitting here, she struggled, torn between making the call to request help on finding the grimoire or putting the card aside to use only for hunting Skarde.
She hated indecision.
Herrick had trained her to be decisive if she wanted to survive. Hesitation to act would get a person killed.
That solved her dilemma.
If she found the grimoire, she might be able to use it to force Daegan to share what he knew on Skarde, but only if Casidhe had already found Fenella first.
Dialing the number on the old desk phone, she held the receiver next to her ear.
Redmond answered the phone, “What do you want?”
Knowing his history, Casidhe went hard with honesty up front. “I am looking for help that only someone with your background can provide. I am not the media. I am not a treasure hunter. I preserve the—”
“I am not interested.”
“Please don’t hang up!” she shouted and cringed at how that must have sounded.
No click. No dial tone returned.
She calmed her voice. “I will not in any way expose your help or your location to the public. We ... ” Should she say this or not? No time to go halfway. “We have similar backgrounds. I think you knew that when you left your card for me on a table in Wexford. You are the rare person who would understand ... me.”
He didn’t hang up, but neither did he speak.
She started twice to talk and stopped. How much was too much with a man who she believed knew about nonhumans?
When he finally spoke, his voice came out in perfectly spaced words. “You ... preserve ... what?”
She drew in a deep breath and let it out, calming her frayed nerves. “I preserve ancestral records for specific families that go back two thousand years and more.”
“You are Luigsech,” Redmond stated flatly.
Chapter 7
Daegan hadn’t wasted a thought for the venom draining his powers before he teleported out of the centre. He only knew he had to reach Tristan immediately.
Teleporting ended up being slow. Daegan reappeared, stumbling in an onslaught of rain and lightning. He caught his balance and stood on an endless stretch of land ... five strides from Tristan. His second-in-command was in the middle of what appeared to be a slow shift into his gryphon.
Daegan started for him. “Tristan, what is wrong?”
Tristan shouted in Daegan’s head, Watch out for the dragon!
Whipping around, Daegan took in the miles of cliffs dropping far below to the ocean.
Closer to the edge than he stood, a shifter changed into a sparkling blue and silver dragon.
An ice dragon?
With no time to waste, Daegan called up Ruadh, who had been hammering him to be released. In spite of the sluggish teleportation, his dragon ripped out of his body in a fast, but agonizing change. Muscles stretched, bones lengthened, and his jaw warped with the change to Ruadh’s elongated reptilian head.
Rain poured from the heavens as if a dam had been ruptured.
Thunder pounded and shook in a deafening sound.
The iridescent-blue dragon roared and shot a frozen stream of ice and water straight up into the storming skies, then lowered a deadly blue gaze to Daegan’s red dragon.
Brynhild.
Her dragon started running and flapping before it shot out another blast of ice and dove at his dragon with jaws open.
Tristan’s weak and failing voice warned, She’s with Cathbad. They want to kill you. You gotta go, boss.
Daegan had no time to reply.
Ruadh dipped down and leaped straight up in the air right before the stream of ice and her dragon reached him. Ruadh launched high enough to kick her dragon in the head and flap hard, leaping away.
She made a crazed screeching sound.
Brynhild might want to annihilate him, but Daegan did not want to kill her if he could help it. He did, however, expect her to pay a price for what she’d done to Tristan.
Ruadh took another step and pushed up, flapping fast to go airborne. His massive dragon body remained thirty feet off the ground as he swooped for the cliff. Gray-blue ocean reached forever until blending with dark clouds releasing a torrent of rain. The ground fell away hundreds of feet beneath Ruadh to where the sea thrashed boulders, which appeared no larger than small skipping stones at this height.
Is she following, Ruadh? Daegan asked, unable to see unless his dragon looked.
Twisting around, Ruadh found the ice dragon hurrying to catch them. That would allow Tristan a chance to finish shifting.
The sea churned waves fifteen feet high and slammed the rocky coastline of Daegan’s beloved island. Once Ruadh reached a steady speed flying into the buffeting wind and constant deluge, Daegan directed him to head for the outcroppings farther down the coast.
Brynhild’s beast followed, trying to catch Ruadh.
She had never been the most powerful ice dragon. That title had belonged to her brother, Herrick. But she was no easy opponent either.
Ruadh told him, First we test her. His dragon banked hard, coming around fast to catch Brynhild’s beast by surprise.
The move forced her dragon to cut away hard just before Ruadh sent a short blast of fire.
Daegan told his dragon, We need that one alive.
Ruadh replied, Yes, but she must pay for harming the gryphon first. We must defeat her or she will continue to attack.
Daegan would not quibble with Ruadh. His dragon had been patient while they waited to find out if Tristan lived. Ruadh valued loyalty above all else and Tristan had proven his time and again.
Ruadh finished his wide bank and continued back along the coastline, intending to push Brynhild’s dragon from behind.
But her dragon arced her head straight up, flapping fast, and curled her body over the top of Ruadh’s.
Daegan warned, Ya can’t get by her before she lands on top of us. She shall drive us into the rocks below the walls if she comes close enough to blast us with ice.
She will not.
Ruadh pushed incredibly fast, muscles pumping
feverishly to get the most from every flap of his giant wings. The wind knocked him back and forth. Daegan’s dragon would expend twice as much energy working against this gale.
Bad idea just before a battle.
Daegan wanted to make Brynhild pay, but not at the risk of crashing into the walls of rock they sped past. Ruadh flew out of reach before her dragon could ice them.
He tried calling out telepathically to Brynhild. Stop your attack and let us talk.
Her throaty voice came back sharply. You. Will. Die.
Ruadh made a sound that Daegan interpreted as a snort of disdain. He would always support his dragon just as Ruadh supported Daegan no matter what.
He asked Ruadh, Do ya recall how we trained with Fadil’s dragon before I reached adulthood?
Yes. I forget nothing.
We go there.
His dragon turned into a wind that battered and pushed his large body around, much like the days they had fought Fadil. During those early times with someone Daegan had once called friend, most battles ended in a draw.
Eventually, the red dragon could not be defeated.
As Daegan grew, he studied every warrior in human form, nonhuman form, and dragon form. How else was he to defeat those who wished to war when his duty was to keep the peace?
But while Ruadh would not admit a weakness, Daegan could feel the effort his dragon put out to fly against a strong gale he normally blasted through many times before.
I am the red dragon, Ruadh told him, quieting Daegan’s concerns.
Daegan’s father had always said, “’Tis only winnin’ the next battle that matters, nothin’ before, nothin’ after. Pay attention to what ’tis right in front of ya.”
In the distance, long sections of land jutted away from the coastline reaching toward the horizon. Supportive columns of stone and earth ran from the land to the ocean below. Though solid many thousands of years before Daegan had been born, wind and water had joined forces, carving away the weak parts to suit its purpose.
The result had been tall columns Daegan and Fadil as young boys had used as a training ground for their dragons. They lived for any chance to put themselves through the ultimate test of flying in and out of the narrow passages. They’d shift to their human forms back at home skinned and limping, but recalling every tight turn and bank their dragons had executed.
In the distance, the openings between columns appeared a bit more worn down today, but not much. As Ruadh drew closer to the tall earthen columns interwoven with rocks, Daegan had doubts about his mighty beast weaving through those narrow openings and surviving.
Ruadh twisted his long neck, checking Brynhild’s distance from his tail. If she could pull close enough, she would blast ice water and freeze his tail, sending him cartwheeling into the sea and sharp boulders.
She could catch him in those columns.
Daegan would find another way to stop her. He told his dragon, Go around the columns and find another place to take a stand.
Ruadh said, No. We must show her we are strongest. She will not listen to your words if we do not.
What about the venom that had drained his power for teleporting? Would it affect Ruadh’s ability to fly?
Ruadh flew straight at the columns.
Brynhild’s dragon screeched a war cry, closing in on Ruadh’s tail.
Daegan tried to find the excitement he’d once embraced while flying this course back when he was young, but that had been when no dragon would seriously injure the other. When their community of dragons had an unspoken alliance to protect all of their lands from outsiders.
Entering the hollowed-out vertical openings, Ruadh banked hard left, then back to the right. He wove his way through brilliantly, bursting free over the open sea, then turned in a tight circle.
Ruadh headed straight for the ice dragon emerging from the narrow columns.
Daegan knew his dragon’s next move. You didn’t share a body for this long without being truly joined.
Brynhild’s dragon had only one hope for avoiding the blast of fire coming from Ruadh.
Her beast dove hard, dipping underwater as the blaze boiled water above her. Ruadh eased around in a gentle flight to regain energy. No sign of Brynhild.
Daegan warned, She sets a trap for ya.
Ruadh flapped harder heading out to sea through a nonstop deluge of rain, then whipped around quickly and picked up speed, flying to the columns.
Ruadh?
His dragon replied, This is our battleground. Not hers.
Daegan said nothing, a solid show of support when they were in the midst of a battle.
Just before Ruadh reached the columns where he had to bank hard right to enter the narrow space sideways, Brynhild’s furious dragon exploded out of the sea right behind him. Rivers of water rushed off her dragon’s head and wings. With the next flap, she cruised through rain hammering every surface.
Daegan held his thoughts. To remind Ruadh that flying this course backwards had almost crashed them once would only distract his dragon.
Ruadh had the lead and remembered their time here.
Brynhild’s dragon had rolled in the air and shot in so fast, Daegan caught sight of that shimmering blue beast as Ruadh made the next hard cut to the left.
His wing tip banged the tower. Bone cracked.
Ruadh kept flying, though that tip flapped loose.
Ice blasted across his tail. Damn.
His dragon dipped to one side.
They would slam into the next column.
Ruadh strained every muscle and made a tight turn, rolling onto his side. Daegan readied himself to take the body before his dragon crashed into jagged rocks below.
But his wily beast slammed his tail against the stone structure, breaking the ice.
Daegan felt the excruciating pain.
Ruadh only rumbled, always focused to win any battle.
Escaping the columns, Ruadh struggled to bank this time with his injured tail. He fought the wind, angling around to face the columns as Brynhild’s dragon shot free.
When her dragon screeched this time, it was a victory cry.
Ruadh roared.
Both dragons flew at each other.
As victory gleamed in the glowing blue eyes of Brynhild’s dragon, Ruadh dove at the last moment, flying fast, ignoring the pain burning through him. She tried to turn out to sea, but Ruadh had anticipated the move and lurched up, blowing out a fiery blast at the ice dragon’s vulnerable underside.
Ruadh kept pushing up. He knocked her dragon sideways into the open sea.
Brynhild’s dragon hit the ocean, bouncing and thrashing, until she stilled. The huge blue and silver body half under the surface.
She started changing back to her human form.
Daegan felt every bit of the agony Ruadh suffered as his dragon circled above her.
Pick her up, Ruadh. I need to talk to her.
Ruadh blew out a smoky growl then slowed to catch her naked body in his claws and lift up into the air. They flew back to the place where Tristan now waited in human form much farther back from the edge.
Daegan called to him telepathically. Are ya hurt, Tristan?
I’ll live.
Stay there while I deal with this one first then I shall come to ya.
Not going anywhere, boss.
Ruadh dropped Brynhild on a pass over the land.
Daegan pointed out, Ya could have gotten closer to the ground.
She is dragon. Not fragile.
She’d also caused Ruadh to break bones in his wing and tail. Daegan could accept a little rough treatment of an ice dragon in return as justified.
Brynhild had grown up training with four dragon siblings.
She fought as powerfully as any male shifter in dragon or human form.
Ruadh landed and gently lowered his tail. Head turned into the wind, he took time to repair the damage inflicted. Brynhild remained facedown on the ground, not moving, but not dead. The venom had to be slowing Ruadh’s healing, b
ut the tail healed enough to function properly, though painful still.
Daegan told Ruadh, Ya fought well and showed mercy. Thank ya. Ya reminded me of who we are and our ability.
You try to save all, even those who would kill you. I fight for us. We spared her dragon this time, but we may not spare it next time.
I understand and agree, Ruadh. Daegan would never expect his dragon to give an inch when their survival hung in the balance.
His dragon gave Daegan back his human body.
Daegan pulled leathers and fur to him, choosing clothing he’d worn when he and Brynhild had first lived on this island. He wanted to appear familiar to her. He strode to where she lay on the ground. Pain shot through his back and right wrist.
If Ruadh could battle with broken bones, Daegan would not wince as he faced Brynhild.
He drew in the smell of singed hair and skin.
Pulling both of her arms back slowly, she shoved her palms down and pushed up, then gave her head a shake. A tangled mass of soaked blond hair stuck out across her head and drooped unevenly down her back. Some of it had been burned off.
She spit out something, cursed, and got to her knees, then to her feet.
As she stood, she clothed herself in black armor and boots of her family’s crest, but she did no more. Skin puckered on her face, arms, and legs as the flesh healed.
She should be able to fix her hair and skin by now with her power. Had the battle exhausted her so much?
Grabbing what she could of the thick mass in both hands, she twisted it into an ugly knot.
Daegan asked, “Why would ya attack me, Brynhild? I offered to talk. My dragon could have killed yours, and would have had I not asked to spare ya.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “Do not act as if you show mercy to anyone.”
“When have I not?” he demanded. “I once fought beside your family, just as I fought beside the other dragon families.”
She raised her fists. “Liar! You brought death to my family.”
That echoed Fadil’s words from thousands of years back. Daegan shook his head. “I did not. Whoever told ya such was the liar.”
Her gorgeous eyes teemed with fury. “You burned our crops then your allies attacked us.”