by Jill Haven
“Are you well since we last met?”
“Better than your clansman.” Evan’s voice was light and airy, as I remembered. He raised an eyebrow and I had to chuckle at that remark, but it all came out forced. His eyes glittered sapphire in the firelight. My chest squeezed in a way it wouldn’t have if Evan came at me swinging a sword.
His cheeks brightened up a bit. I was staring again, like I had the last time. He was impossibly addictive to look at.
“Evan, dear, can you take this for a second?” One of the women thrust a towel his direction, and Evan stepped over to take it with a nose wrinkle, though he gamely held the cloth by two fingers. At last, they were wrapping Ace’s leg. The patient gave me a covert thumbs-up, and I wanted to rip his leg off and beat him with it. I assumed that would undo all the ladies’ hard work.
“How have you been? You didn’t say.”
“Uh… things don’t change much here.” Evan shrugged and let out a relieved sigh when his aunt snatched the towel from him and shooed us away. Without Vince here, no one seemed determined to keep us apart. He walked with me toward the dining table at the far end of the hall on our right, which was set for a meal. It seemed that they were always in the process of feeding people here. He gave me a smile that sent my heart hurtling toward my ribcage fast enough to nearly beat a rib out. “You’re a Blood Dragon, right? How are things in your clan? How is Seth?” He was all wide-eyed attention.
“Good,” I returned gruffly. He bounced on his heels, painfully eager for more of a conversation, and I racked my brain for something that would be reasonable to discuss with him. “The babies are doing well. Seth had his. He’s cute.”
Evan snickered. “The alpha he was with, Mason, is the other father, right? They were fast off the mark. Dr. Hardwick never did tell me how that process works—the birth. Uncle Vince hides all the best books.” He smirked and shook his head. “I’ve got an idea, though.”
“I’m sure you’re at least half right,” I said, and wanted to laugh with him, smile at him, but my face froze up. He was so beautiful and smelled like something I wanted to eat up and die of the glory. He was young, though, and far above my status in the clan. Even this conversation was enough to convince me that if I was smart, I’d leave well enough alone. A dragon who didn’t know how babies and eggs got out of a belly, certainly had no experience getting any in there.
He stuck out his hand, and I stared for a second. “Good to meet you again. Bishop, right?” He held his breath.
Knowing better, but wanting to touch him all the same, I took his hand in mine. His skin was soft, but his grip was firm as he shook with me. He darted a hand to his chest and his mouth fell open. Lightning strikes rushed between our fingers, and the exact same feeling I got from flying too close to thunderheads pelted along my spine. My stomach heated like it did when I was a fully formed dragon, as if fire simmered there. My chest felt like something important had been scooped out and rushed off through my limbs to go hide somewhere else in the room. Evan whimpered—music to my ears.
The front door burst open and Vince’s laughter carried through the hall. Evan yanked his hand from mine and hid it behind his back as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
“Oh,” he said, and a small furrow formed between his brows as he glanced down at my arm. “You’re hurt, did you know?”
Vince rushed to us and slung his arm around Evan, nearly knocking him from his feet. “Go get yourself ready for the evening meal.” He nearly shoved him away from us before he clasped both hands to my shoulders and gave me a great shake that had me grunting. “We got one of the bastards, and I think there’s only one left. One, and our troubles are over, for now anyway. This has been a hell of a fight. Just great.” He shook me again and boomed out an order for wine and food and music. Everyone who filed into the front doors seemed to be just as happy, even though a few were singed and many were bloody.
“The Cloud Dragons didn’t go without a final hurrah?”
“Let me tell you about it!” Vince brushed his curls back from his forehead. His eyes sparked, the same shade as Evan’s, and I finally saw a bit of how they were related. He dragged me toward the table. “You won’t believe what we walked into. Treachery. Such prowess.”
Chuckling, I allowed myself to be deposited in a chair next to his at the end of the long table. Turned out the brew that was served was Grog, or what I liked to call ‘hell in a glass’. “I’m injured,” I pointed out when Vince tried to foist a glass on me. “Could use something more medicinal and less hard on the system.”
Unsympathetic, Vince raised his eyebrows and continued to hold the glass until I took it. I grunted and took a swig for etiquette, managed to swallow the fiery poison, and sucked air through my teeth and barely held back a grimace. Vince smirked and took a sip of his own, with no visible reaction whatsoever. Impressive.
Music started up in a corner, a strange mish-mash of modern songs from the radio on violins, with an odd Blue Grass twang. Ten slid into the seat beside mine and knocked me in the side with an elbow, pointing at Ace who was already sitting by the fire with a crowd of admirers—a couple of men mixed in with the dragonesses—offering to do who knows what for him. I rolled my eyes and Ten smiled, brushing his fingers absently over the scarred side of his face. I had my own battle marks, but his were deep and widespread, and not something to be easily looked over.
“Tell me about your fight,” Vince demanded happily, his glass back at his lips. Ten jolted in his chair and then leaned farther into the table to regale everyone with his own story, with many embellishments that I didn’t counter.
Hours later, I lounged against a wall near the fire as the rest of the Redcap clan began to filter to the living quarters out of this main room and the side rooms connected to it, in much higher spirits than during my last visit. Most were drunk, and I couldn’t fault them for that. They’d been under siege and that took its toll. Something peculiar caught my eye and nose, however.
Evan’s delicious, sweet scent tickled my senses, and a compact figure decked out in a hooded cloak slunk along the stone wall toward the door. It had to be him, even though the hood was pulled low. He had a leather bag slung on his shoulder. Vince was extremely involved with both of his wives at the table, to the point that I thought they should likely have gone to their bedroom by now. No one else seemed to notice or care about the small figure, doing his best to hide in plain sight. He glanced around as he arrived at the front entrance and tugged at the heavy metal handle. He managed to crack the door open. With one last, less than sly glance, he slipped outside. What could I possibly do but follow?
2
Evan
The guard who was supposed to be watching me tonight had gotten soused and taken off for a dark corner with Meredith Woodrow. I’d seen him in the gallery on the second floor, hidden in a corner with her, his hands very busy. That was good, because I didn’t want him to see me. The homestead had become a prison since the entire family invaded to solidify the clan defenses. Uncle Vince had decided I wasn’t able to go anywhere alone. Of all things, he was concerned one of our clansmen might corner me and be inappropriate in our home. That would never happen. He really worried too much about everything.
“That stuck on himself, old windbag,” I grumbled, kicking at some gravel in the drive. I clutched the paper in my hand so hard it wrinkled, and then stopped to shove it into the small bag I carried. I’d stolen a party invitation to celebrate Seth and Mason’s mating and the birth of their baby, and the festivities would be happening soon. The date was in a few weeks, which was surely enough time to make my way to the address, though I had no idea how far it was or how many kingdoms I'd have to cross to get there. Oddly, the year on the invitation was completely wrong. I wondered if it was a hint that the party would have a science fiction theme, if I should come dressed as a time traveler from hundreds of years in future. Not that I had much of a choice in what I’d be wearing, with barely any space in my leather ba
g for a single change of clothes as it was.
The darkness didn’t totally hinder me as I made my way forward, and I was grateful. One of the few dragon abilities I seemed to have inherited was my better than usual night sight, but I was still uneasy with shadows all around. The guards seemed to have abandoned their post by the gate. There was a spot near a bush where they tended to hang out and smoke. No one was there. More furious than ever, and I’d been mad at Uncle Vince in the past, I marched myself right outside the walls I’d been instructed never to leave alone.
“Don’t go by yourself for any reason, Ev. You’re too important to us. We love you.”
Uncle Vince’s stern tone was so clear in my head it was almost like he stood near me speaking. Well, a blight on him. If I listened to him, I’d be dust before I got to have any fun. I tugged my bag back up my shoulder from where it had slipped and shoved my hand into my pocket to clasp the folding knife I’d hidden there, before I set off along the dark path. The dead fields on either side of the trail were eerie in the moonlight and my eyes played tricks that had the darkness slithering like snakes.
After Uncle Vince chased me away from Bishop, an absolutely magnetic male if I’d ever met one, I’d decided he was busy enough to risk rummaging around in his office to see what news of the outside world I could find. No one ever told me anything, and spying and snooping were the only ways I ever found out what happened at all. I discovered the invitation in a drawer of his desk, and that had been the final straw. He wasn’t going to tell me about the party—I just knew it. I’d begged for weeks to be allowed to visit Seth, and Vince had told me he was too busy. He couldn’t be bothered with me at the moment.
Well, I couldn’t help but think maybe that wasn’t the truth. Those words still stung. Busy. Well, I wanted to have a life too, not stay locked away in the Redcaps’ horrible homestead. Clan life wasn’t all bad, and this land was my home, so I loved it, but I was ready for something more. I wanted to see the world, not the insides of the same stone walls every day.
Maybe fleeing in the night was dramatic, but I’d been ready to escape for the last several years.
Since the Cloud Dragons were dead, or at least I assumed they were, given the intoxicated revelry going on inside, now was as good a time as any to make my escape. It wouldn’t take long for someone to notice I was gone, and I needed to be well away before that happened. I broke into a light jog and kept it up until I was deep into the trees with the small sounds of night all around. I still wasn’t sure what had started the miniature war with the Cloud Dragons, except that it had something to do with Seth. Obviously, the Cloud Dragons had done something bad, so that the Redcaps helped the Blood Dragons find justice. Everyone was frustratingly tight-lipped around me.
The farther I walked, the more the trees seemed like they were leaning into the path to reach for me. Spindly branches scraped at my hair when I didn’t expect it and grabbed at my cloak. It gave me the willies. I stepped from the path to lean against a fat, solid old tree and rubbed a hand on my jittery chest. My nerves were tangled and jumpy, and had been since I shook hands with Bishop earlier. There was a rushing energy buzzing inside me that was new and oddly good. I gritted my teeth.
Bishop. He was so utterly man, clearly a fighter—muscles on top of steel. Everything about him made me want to get closer than would be appropriate. But if I wanted to escape, I’d have to abandon the fantasy of having an alpha. Chances were, I’d need to vanish into human society in order to stay free. I bopped my head back against the tree and stared out into the darkness. What was I going to do? I had no resources. I had no family I could go to outside of the one I’d just left.
Seth and his alpha, Mason, lived in a city in West Virginia, the same state we lived in. The address of the party was on the envelope we’d received, but I had no idea how to find it. If I kept walking, eventually I’d have to leave the woods, but then what? Would I ask people for directions until I was able to reach Seth? Were there many people to ask between here and the city? How many days would it take? Where would I sleep? My heart hammered harder and I tried to find the courage and anger that had warmed me as I threw a few of my belongings into a bag earlier. Going home wasn’t a choice I would willingly make.
The slow scrape of something large against a tree nearby had me crouching close to the ground. I got my knife out and held it in front of me with a trembling hand. I’d been trained to fight, but mostly with range weapons. Everyone thought I was too fragile for hand-to-hand. Cursing under my breath, I put my knife away again. The steps sounded slow, heavy, and uneven. It was probably a drunk Redcap coming my way, and I needed to escape or risk getting forcibly returned. Climbing to my feet, I bolted into the darkness and ran smack into something gargantuan and sturdy that I didn’t think should have been in the path. I fell to the ground on my back and hissed at the pain. Glowing green eyes lowered to glare at me and the sparking, smokey muzzle of a dragon followed, but he was all wrong. He didn’t have the red scales on his crown that my family did. Blood plopped to the ground from a deep wound on his snout.
He wasn’t one of ours. I fumbled my knife out and held it in front of me. “Let me pass. I’m going to visit a friend.”
The dragon bared his teeth and snuffled out a sound that was the equivalent of a laugh. My stomach turned into a pit as I climbed to my feet and prepared to defend myself, for what little good that would do.
3
Bishop
“You wouldn’t dare touch me.” Evan’s voice rang out, clear as a bell, his haughty tone and attitude as apparent as the sour fear I scented drifting on the breeze. My chest ached and felt empty in a peculiar way that had me speeding forward even faster.
When I rounded a tree into a small clearing, battle fury surged in me. The dragon had Evan flat on the ground with his nose buried against his stomach while Evan tried to scramble away, but he wasn’t getting very far. I unsheathed my sword and my arm ached. This Cloud Dragon wasn’t badly injured, and alone against a shifted dragon I’d have a hell of a time, but fury beat a tattoo on my heart. I raced forward at top speed and slashed for an eye, which I connected with.
The dragon’s bellow shook the clearing, and Evan clamped his hands over his ears. The dragon stamped his feet and flew at me, lifting himself from the ground with a strong flap of his wings, and it was a good thing, or Evan might have been trampled. He lay there stunned, not doing anything to protect himself. I couldn’t pay attention to him, I had to focus on the fight or I’d end up dead. Teeth gnashed at me and claws raked in my direction, but I backed away and hacked with my sword. There was little finesse to what I was doing, but I wasn’t going for pretty. I jabbed for the big vein in his neck, my sword hitting hard scales, but then parting them and sinking deep. Blood sprayed in an arc as I ripped my blade free and danced out of the way of a claw swipe.
He spun from me and his scales lacked the gloss they should have. They were dull, which was wrong, even by moonlight. He was malnourished, or maybe even ill already. This male was sickly. He spun and attempted to swipe at me with his tail. On his left hind quarters, an old wound festered. That didn’t happen often.
I dodged his tail and his own momentum toppled him sideways, disorienting him. He let out a confused growl, and stumbled on heavy feet away from us. I took the opportunity to race over to Evan. Dropping my sword, I grabbed him under both arms and hauled him over near a tree, out of my way, but in touching him a new bolt of lightning seemed to arc between us, much like the few times I’d been struck while flying in a storm.
Energy sizzled between us, and he moaned. His pretty aroma clouded my mind and made my mouth water.
“Hold that thought,” I ordered as the dragon clambered toward us.
Slashing at the dragon with nothing more than a dagger on my way past him, I darted through the trees in an attempt to lure him away from Evan. Thankfully, he followed after me, jaws wide. Shouts sounded nearby in the woods.
“Over here. It’s the last one!” I yelle
d.
By the time I turned myself around, the dragon appeared to be losing his stamina. I dodged through the trees and made my way back to my sword to scrape it from the ground. Blood dotted the grass and the tang of it was heavy in the air. My first true strike had done the job.
The Cloud Dragon collapsed to the ground near us and gave a great shuddering sigh. The transformation back to a man happened so slowly that I gagged as I watched. Despite my reputation as a brute, I wasn’t one who enjoyed the sounds of the body breaking and rearranging. Swiftly, I turned to locate Evan. He was on his feet already, and I gave him credit for that, but I stalked over and backed him up against a tree. He stared up at me, his big blue eyes luminous and wild. At this close distance, I couldn’t smell the fight, only him.
“You’re fantastic. You were so fast,” he said softly, and touched a hand to my chest, almost as if he couldn’t help himself. Beautiful. Every bit of him was enchanting. No wonder Vince had hidden him in that stronghold, the same as any other treasure.
My blood was up from the fight and want sang through my veins. I brushed my fingers through strands of his long hair, pushing them back over his shoulder, and the silky softness made me want to touch him more, explore all the sweet places on his body. I bent my head and all I could see was his ripe, pink lips. I wanted them.
“Bishop, you old warhorse! You did him in on your own!” One of Vince’s clanswomen shouted this, and the rest began laughing from farther out in the darkness. “You stole all the fun.”
Someone landed a hand on my shoulder, and I reacted without thinking, knocking my elbow back and spinning around with my sword out. The man held up both hands and grinned, but that was swiftly replaced by a frown as he leaned around me.