by Ann Gimpel
Katya bowed low. A split second later, so did Johan. I figured I should too, since I was standing next to them.
When Katya straightened, she offered a warm smile. “Keir and Gavin. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
“Of course, ye did,” a dark-eyed faery told her.
“If you say so.” Katya kept her voice agreeable and even-toned. I remembered her theorizing with Kon that her side trip to the Scottish Highlands had been far more than happenstance.
The dark-eyed man inclined his head. “I am Keir. This is Gavin”—he tapped a man with sky-blue eyes standing next to him.”
The female stepped in front of the rest of them. “Goddess’s tits. I shall punish you for your lack of manners, but later. I am Titania. Oberon would be here, but he is…indisposed.”
I leaned closer. Indisposed was right up my alley. I almost opened my mouth to stupidly offer doctoring services when I remembered myself. I tried to wrench my gaze away from the faery queen and had a hell of a hard time. It was as if once I looked at her, I was lost.
A subtle jolt of magic did the trick, courtesy of my beast. “You must be careful,” she murmured. “Their power is ancient—and quite cunning.”
Ylon made his way to the Sidhe and nodded pleasantly. “What is Oberon’s ailment, and how can we assist?”
Titania craned her neck, scanning the assembled shifters. “Where is the dragon shifter who speaks with the land? I do not sense his presence.”
“Right here.” Konstantin’s deep voice boomed from farther inland. He loped into view.
Happiness seared me. What manner of magic was in play? Had Konstantin bewitched me to be so delighted by his simple presence?
“No magic at all,” my bondmate said. “I have told you. He is ours.”
“Come to me.” Titania’s clear, ringing voice could have lured sailors with the same efficiency the Sirens had possessed.
Konstantin stopped dead behind the line of shifters. “No one orders me about. You stand on my territory, Faery Queen, and you would do well to remember that.”
“As ye will.” Titania glided toward where Kon stood.
I didn’t trust her, not for a minute. He was mine. I shook my head to clear it. Where the hell had that come from? Or had my possessive nature finally risen to the fore? Regardless, I hustled around the far edge of the row of shifters, reaching Konstantin a second or two after Titania. My dragon wanted to coat her in ashes, but I held it back.
Konstantin didn’t take his eyes off Titania, and I didn’t blame him. “Why are you here?” he asked.
I gave him credit for not getting sidetracked about whether the Sidhe had waylaid Katya and Johan on purpose.
“Are ye the dragon prince who speaks to the land?” she answered his question with one of her own.
“I am. What is it to you?”
I felt power, a warm, seductive heat, slither from her and wrap itself around Konstantin. Fire shot from his mouth. He averted his head at the last moment, and the flames piled into a large rock cairn.
“Sheathe your magic,” he growled. “Tell me why you’re here. You have until I count to ten. If you haven’t managed a credible reply, I shall leverage magic of my own and—”
“Enough,” she shouted in Gaelic. “No one speaks thus to me.”
“Fine. Both of us are laboring under god-complexes.” Kon skewered her with his spinning gaze. The dragon was very near the surface and not about to take any crap. From anyone.
Titania spread her hands in front of her. She had long, tapering fingers and skin the shade of warm cream. Rings adorned all but her thumbs. “Oberon is a land-linked liege. The land is…beleaguered. So careworn, she has all but given up.”
“You were hoping I’d establish a link to the land and tell her to shape up?” Konstantin furled his tawny brows.
“Something like that.” Titania looked away. Rosy spots dotted both cheeks. Anger. Or shame. I couldn’t tell which.
“I am not insensitive to your problem,” Konstantin said, “but my gift doesn’t work that way. The land does not answer to me. Or to you, apparently.”
“Apologies for bothering you.” Titania spoke stiffly. “We shall be on our way.”
“Hold up.” Kon’s voice cracked like an old-fashioned lash. “You are free to go, but before you leave you should know that sea-serpents are intent on taking this world for their own. If that happens, and Oberon is still land-linked, he will sink into evil.”
Something—the faery queen’s glamour?—splintered to shards; Titania looked ancient and terrifying. Nothing soft was left of her ageless face. Fury poured from her. “Do ye think me daft? Of course, I know such to be true. ’Tis why I am here, groveling at the feet of a magical inferior.”
I assumed Konstantin would react with fire and anger. Instead, he softened his voice. “I’m sure this isn’t easy for you. We could work together, your people and mine. It might ensure the serpents never gain the upper hand.”
Keir, Gavin, and the other two men materialized around their queen. “What do ye wish of us,” Keir asked Titania.
“Aye, we anticipated their refusal and left our portal open,” Gavin added.
“Shut it! Before all manner of darkness realizes it’s there and grabs a free ride. We must remain, at least for now.” Titania’s voice was lined with bitterness and resignation. “What choice do we have?”
Konstantin
“You have infinite choices.” Konstantin kept his voice smooth, soothing, more to mask his anger than to calm the high-handed bitch who ruled Faery with an iron fist. Stories of Titania never painted her in anything but manipulative colors. “You could sever Oberon’s link to the land and start anew on a different world.”
“Never. Our roots are here,” one of the other Sidhe said.
“So? Put down roots elsewhere,” Kon countered. “It’s better than being lost to sorcery.”
He was careful to shutter his thoughts. The last thing he wanted Titania to know was that he’d spoken with Earth, and that the land was considering going out in a blaze of glory. Just like Mu had done. He’d have to bear in mind that Earth was cagey. Akin to many ancient, magical creatures, she kept her own interests front and center.
Surely, she knew Oberon’s fortunes were tied to hers. Did she also understand she’d obliterate the Sidhe if she chose Mu’s way out of a distasteful situation?
Mu had no choice. Earth did—for a while, anyway. Dying was a relative term. This world was changing quickly, but becoming less able to support the millions of lives sucking the marrow from her bones might be her salvation.
Titania pushed her shoulders back. Her glamor had broken when she’d become too angry to funnel magic into it. Still magnificent, her beauty held an otherworldly aspect. No one would ever accuse this version of the faery queen of being a mortal.
A swooshing sound told him someone had sealed the gateway.
“You’re in time to join our strategy session,” he told Titania. “Any chance of securing a few more Sidhe warriors? Your fighting ability is legendary.”
“Perhaps.”
Konstantin wanted to drop his hands onto her shoulders and shake the crap out of her, but he didn’t need an internecine war. They had enough problems. Everybody had their own agenda. His was to annihilate the sea-serpents. Earth’s was to find a way out of her loneliness and pain. From her point of view, humans had abandoned her, so she saw no reason to stick around for them. Titania wanted to save her husband—and all of Faery.
Even if they managed to drive the serpents out, the other two issues would remain. Many worlds had chosen oblivion. Was it simply that they’d lived too long? Rather like dragon shifters who wearied of immortality and either gave up the link to their bondmates or signed on to work for Y Ddraigh Goch?
Everyone was looking at him. He clapped his hands together and said, “Ylon and Nikolai, outline what you came up with during my absence.”
The ragged line of shifters formed a half circle so e
veryone faced him. He’d been delighted when Erin had approached about the same time Titania planted herself in front of him. He motioned to his almost-mate to stand next to him, but she shook her head and strode to where Katya and Johan were.
Ylon and Nikolai flanked him, facing the assemblage of magic wielders. “Before I begin,” Ylon said in his deep, rumbly voice, “were you successful contacting the land?”
“You were gone longer than your estimate,” Nikolai cut in, “so we assumed things went better than they have before.”
Konstantin debated whether to simply lie and have done with things, but it went against the grain. He was the de facto commander of this group. Eventually, they’d discover he hadn’t been truthful, and it would drive a serious wedge between him and the others, and erode his position.
If the Sidhe weren’t here, he wouldn’t have had any problem at all sharing precisely what had occurred, along with his concerns Earth was playing him to gain her own ends. She was the one who’d brought up Mu’s fiery demise—and reminded him of his part in it.
He inhaled deeply, blew out the breath, and did it once again as options blazed through his head. He’d invited the Sidhe to fight with them. He could just as easily uninvite their participation. They could run back to their hidey hole in the UK and live with the outcome of a war that played out half a world away.
“Konstantin?” Nikolai’s voice held a worried undernote.
“Yes. I was considering how to spin things, and then I got over it. We are either allies”—he narrowed his eyes and scraped them across everyone’s face—“or we are not. Allies means there are no secrets since we fight a common enemy.”
He squared his shoulders and kept rolling. “The way I see things, our primary problem is the serpents. If they gain a toehold, we will be battling their evil forever to the exclusion of all else. Until we give up and leave Earth to them.”
“Why are you so certain they’d win?” Boris called from a spot toward the center of the throng.
“I’m not,” Kon replied. “But it is a possibility we cannot discount.” He held up a hand and counted off on his fingers. “One. We have no idea how many serpents there are. Two. We have no idea if there are more breeding farms for atrocities on distant worlds. Three. There’s the niggling problem of renegade dragons who’ve signed on to fight with the serpents. Four. I assume comingled magic flows two ways, which would mean serpents can reclaim their lost dragon essence and become stronger than we are.”
“But Y Ddraigh Goch is hunting them down,” Nikolai said.
“He is, indeed.” Kon nodded. “It’s a process that could well take many annums. The logistics of searching every borderworld will tax even him.”
“Apparently, there is much we do not know,” Titania spoke up. “Ye dinna answer your underling about whether or not ye talked with this world.”
“No, I did not,” he agreed. “But I will get around to that. Your turn,” he told Ylon. “The current topic is serpents and battle plans.”
“We came up with two,” Ylon answered. “Most of us were in agreement we should go on the offensive. Find them where they’ve concealed themselves and figure out if they’re still mortal in human form.”
“What if they are not?” Konstantin pressed.
“That was where cooperation from the land came into play,” Ylon said. “We could do something similar to our method on the ninth world where we bound them with dinosaur enchantment and the land secured them. Forever.”
Konstantin kept his gaze firmly on Titania when he said, “The land did talk with me. Reluctantly. She is not certain what she wishes to do, or if she will assist our cause. She sees herself as weak, tired, but she did not say no outright. She is thinking about my proposal.”
He stopped there. He wasn’t about to go into what he’d promised, nor that he’d given his word with incomplete information to hand.
“Pfft!” Titania spat on the ground. “All of us are ancient, weary to our bones. It doesn’t excuse us from doing the right thing.”
“But what if that ‘right thing’ is in the eye of the beholder?” Konstantin challenged her. Before she could dress him down for impertinence, he went on, “For the shifters gathered here, the right thing is doing everything in our power to deal with the sea-serpent threat. For you, it’s ensuring your mate’s survival, so the Sidhe will not fade. For Earth, it might be that no one has cared about her for so long, she’s sick of being taken for granted. For her, closing up shop may feel like the proper path.”
“But we pay homage to her,” Gavin protested.
Konstantin eyed him and shrugged. “While I’m certain that’s true, a handful of Sidhe don’t balance well against a hundred million humans all out for their own ends.”
Wind whistled up out of nowhere. It held a warning note. Konstantin sent seeking magic auguring outward. The sound of ice floes cracking against one another echoed in his ears, and he reeled in his casting. While they’d been occupied in philosophical chatter, the serpents had crept close. They’d obviously warded themselves. If they hadn’t, he’d have smelled their foul essence long since.
“If you got as far as developing battalions, now would be a good time to form them.” Konstantin raised his voice, amplifying it with magic.
“We did.” Nikolai sprinted forward, motioning the shifters into groups of ten or so.
Kon noted the mix of shifter magics with approval. Power shimmered around the five Sidhe. When it cleared, their robes had been traded for form fitting hunting leathers. Golden bows hung from their shoulders, along with quivers full of black-tipped arrows.
“Join with one of our groups or form your own,” he told Titania. No time to check how the Sidhes’ brand of power would mesh with theirs. The arrows looked lethal. He hoped they were magical enough to deal death blows to those who were immortal. If that was true, they also posed some level of risk to him and his shifters, but he didn’t believe the Sidhe would be so stupid as to sabotage their only chance of wresting Oberon away from danger. If Earth should fall to dark sorcery, they were all in this together. Surely, Titania recognized that.
“Erin!”
She ran lightly to him and said, “I’ll be with Katya and Johan. You’ve got plenty to do. If I’m nearby, you’ll worry too much about me.”
“I’ll worry about you no matter where you are.”
“Order her back to the grotto.” His dragon puffed steam until it shrouded them from view.
“I heard that.” Erin smiled ruefully. “My dragon respectfully declines. So do I. What kind of mate would I be for you or any man if I hid myself away at the first sign of trouble?”
He wanted to ask if her statement meant she’d come to a decision about him, but there wasn’t time for that conversation. Instead, he dragged her close, arm around her shoulders, and kissed her once. Quick. Hard. Desperate. He did his best to infuse all his longing and love into that kiss. Her tongue tangled with his before he let her go.
“No heroics.” He tipped her chin up with an index finger.
“You should talk. See you on the other side.” She trotted to where Katya, Johan, and several other shifters had formed a group. Nikolai was part of it. Good. He was as solid as dragon shifters came.
All around him, shifter magic glistened as his army found their animal forms. His dragon pressed for its freedom, demanding ascendency. Kon kicked his magic wide open, glorying in the miracle of scales and talons. No matter how long he’d lived, how many tens of thousands of times he’d shifted, he’d never lost his sense of wonder at the transformation.
He spread his wings and let the wind carry him skyward. He’d oversee all the groups, adding his magic where it was needed most. Surely, by now, the sea-serpents knew about the wholesale destruction of their plans—and their kinsmen—across several borderworlds in the Fleisher system.
Before, their skirmishes with the sea-serpents had been small, inconsequential. He’d viewed the serpents as more of a minor inconvenience than anything. B
ut that was before they’d kidnapped half a dozen dragons and turned them into broodmares, tapping their essence to nurture evil.
Tarnishing dragon purity had made the fight personal. On both sides. Konstantin didn’t doubt for a moment that the dead serpents they’d left on the ninth world had riled Surek and his companions to a fever pitch.
He scanned the ice-crusted sea. Sure enough, it teemed with serpents. Gray. Black. Dull red. Green. Blue. Dragon colors, but lacking their luminosity. No time like the present to find out if their human forms were still vulnerable. He focused drawing magic on a horny-headed gray just hauling his bulk onto the beach.
Before his incantation even got rolling, one of the Sidhe danced close, arrow at the ready. When the beast opened its mouth to snarl a challenge, revealing rows of double teeth, the Sidhe loosed his arrow. Almost too fast for Kon to follow it, the shiny black shaft dove into the serpent’s open mouth.
And vanished.
The serpent clawed at his throat with both forelegs. It rolled onto its back, bellowing in what sounded like agony. Other serpents flowed around it, giving it a wide berth, almost as if the havoc the arrow had created might be catching. Kon considered blasting the wallowing serpent with fire, but he wanted to see if the Sidhe arrow would take care of the beast on its own.
Ice cracked in long fissures. Groups of shifters converged on serpents as they crawled out of the sea. They were smart enough to wait until the serpents had put a few meters of shore between themselves and the water. It allowed the shifters to form a line behind the wyrms and cut off their exit.
Serpents were their strongest—and most maneuverable—in water. Once they retreated to their native element, pursuing them would become nearly impossible.
Bugles, bellows, caws, howls, grunts, and screams battered his ears.
“Look to the fallen,” Titania’s unmistakable voice blasted through his mind.