by Abigail Owen
“One more thing and then I really must go.” As though they were having a casual chat.
Ladon rolled his eyes. “What’s that?”
“One of my king’s most…valued…cohorts has been sent after your prize.”
No surprise there. “Anyone I know?”
“Uther.”
Ladon gripped his phone tighter. “You’re shitting me.”
“I don’t…shit…my lord. Not in this sense, at least.”
“Pytheios risked sending another king?” The Rotting King had lost his bloody mind if he actually trusted Uther. Granted, Pytheios had helped put Uther on the gold throne, but a phoenix was too tempting a prize to trust to another king, especially one that ambitious.
The man was ruthless, something Ladon had heard from Brand firsthand. Despite how Ladon had helped him, and years of working and plotting together, Brand never gave up much about himself. But he had divulged who killed his family, and many other families with royal bloodlines within the Gold Clan.
Was the Red King getting desperate, or careless, not to have handled this himself, instead sending a king likely to double-cross him? Ladon tucked that piece of useful info aside for later examination.
His informant continued, oblivious to Ladon’s thoughts. “Uther has been given certain incentives to bring her back here. Unmated.”
Those must’ve been some hefty incentives. “Is he close?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you knew everything.”
His informant chuckled, an oily sound oozing through his cell phone. “Some things are even beyond me.”
“Find out.”
“The rogue.” Now a demand.
Dammit. “I’ll consider your request.”
“Excellent. I’ll see what I can find out about Uther.”
…
Awkward did not begin to cover a morning after when the sex had been nonstop, mind-blowing, panty-melting, and maybe even soul-shaking…only to turn around and move forward with their plan of taking her the rest of the way to a different man who might become her mate.
Kasia pulled her jeans up over her hips and zipped them, conscious of how loud the rasp sounded in the heavy silence of the room.
“Nice of Hershel to wash our clothes last night,” she commented, just for something to say.
Brand grunted what she assumed was supposed to be an agreement.
“I must’ve smelled like bad body odor to you after so many days without a shower.” Oh my god, stop talking.
“You were fine.”
Obviously, Brand was not a morning-after type guy. Bet he has most women out of his bed before after-sex turned into a long cuddle.
Which begged the question, would he have done the same to her if he hadn’t been forced to watch over her all through the night?
Probably.
So yeah, keep your mouth shut and play it cool.
He pulled his black T-shirt over his head, hiding that fantastic set of abs as well as the top half of his tattoo. Kasia shoved a strange sense of discontent down deep as she plopped onto the bed and worked on getting her sneakers on her feet and tied. Only her fingers didn’t want to cooperate, so it took several fumbled attempts. She blamed it on lack of sleep. That and Brand’s golden stare—perceptive and disarming—which seemed to follow her around the room despite the fact that anytime she glanced over, he wasn’t looking her way.
And now I’m imagining things. Stress was going to crack her up before her time.
A sharp rap at the bedroom door had her jumping, heart attempting a jailbreak up her throat.
“Breakfast.” Hershel’s gruff voice came through slightly muffled.
She tossed Brand a self-conscious smile. “Coming,” she called. With what was probably a telling amount of speed, she hustled over, swinging the door wide.
“Good morning, Hershel.”
“Morning.” He glanced over her shoulder at Brand and nodded.
Kasia didn’t turn to see if Brand nodded back, instead following Hershel out into the hallway and down to the kitchen where she plunked herself down on a stool.
The kitchen held the same rustic charm as the rest of the house with cabinets in warm woods. The center island, which included the stovetop, ended in a bar-height tabletop where she sat.
“Can I help?” she asked as he scooped eggs and bacon from frying pans onto a plate.
“No need.” He set the plate down in front of her along with a fork.
Her hunger returned with a vengeance—probably thanks to the sexual Olympics she and Brand had engaged in all night—and Kasia shoveled the eggs into her mouth.
“Coffee?”
Embarrassed to be caught wolfing down her food again, she swallowed and sent him a sheepish grin. “Please.”
Thankfully, Hershel didn’t comment. He just poured her a cup and set it beside her plate with cream and sugar.
“Hershel?”
“Mmmm?”
“I hate to ask, but…” She paused, trying to figure out how to ask this.
He beat her to it. “What am I?”
She nodded.
He leaned back and crossed his feet at the ankles. “You sure you want to know?”
Kasia swirled the coffee in her cup. “I find it’s usually better to know.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He grinned. “My name is Pazuzu.”
Kasia frowned. Why did that sound familiar? Realization widened her eyes. “Isn’t that the demon’s name in The Exorcist?”
Hershel snorted. “Don’t get me started on that movie. I’m neither demon nor god. I’m an ancient spirit. Like humans, I can bring both good and evil.”
Dang. Brand had said Hershel was ancient. He meant it.
“So you’re not going to take possession of my body and make me spew green vomit everywhere?”
“Not today.”
Hershel winked, and Kasia laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Brand asked as he came into the room.
“Just swapping backgrounds with your phoenix,” Hershel said.
Brand took the stool opposite her at the island table. She tracked his movement but avoided outright eye contact. Eye contact was like being touched by the fire of his kisses all over again.
This was getting ridiculous. They were grown adults who’d agreed to a one-night fuck-buddy session. No future. She knew that with a painful logic that lodged in her throat.
So what if it had been the best sex of her relatively young life?
So what if she wanted to drag him back to that room and see what else he could make her body do?
So what if…lots of things.
As much as she touted having choices, she knew mating a dragon king was her best shot at surviving now that her existence was more widely known. No matter what Brand did for and to her body, she’d walk away before her heart was a total goner and she started making stupid choices.
Selfish choices.
Her sisters were still hidden, and she could keep it that way. As far as dragons knew, there was only ever one phoenix at a time. A mother had to die or deliberately pass on her powers to her daughter. Either way, only one woman held them at any time. Hell, she didn’t even know if her sisters had any. As the firstborn of the four, maybe she was the only one, but that was neither here nor there. Their safety was the important part.
Maybe she should ask Brand to leave as soon as he delivered her to Ladon Ormarr. But the mere thought brought on a wave of despair, so she tucked it away, deciding to Scarlett O’Hara that shit and think about it another day.
“What’s the plan?” Hershel asked around a steaming cup of coffee as he leaned against the farmhouse sink.
The man must be a mind reader. Kasia turned to Brand, eyebrows raised.
He shot he
r a quick, inscrutable glance. “We’ll be leaving after breakfast.”
Hershel’s bushy eyebrows shot up to meet his hairline. “Flying?”
“Driving,” Brand corrected.
Was he going to risk summoning the Hemi Cuda again?
The older man must’ve caught Brand’s “don’t bother with more questions” tone, because instead he turned to Kasia. “How do you like flying?”
A snort came from the brooder across the table.
“What?” Kasia asked.
“Nothing.” But she swore Brand was smiling on the inside.
“I like flying fine,” she answered Hershel’s question.
“Just fine?”
“She hates it,” Brand interjected.
“No, I don’t,” she protested. Lies. All lies.
He pushed his plate back, leaning his elbows on the counter. “No? I think my back has permanent bruises from your death grip on me.”
Kasia rolled her eyes even as Hershel chuckled. “Dragons don’t bruise.”
Brand stood. “Want me to show you?”
Half afraid he’d pull off his shirt and give Hershel a firsthand view of the nail marks branding his skin after a particularly robust tussle in the sheets, she jumped to her feet, cheeks warming. “Nope.”
The two men shared a grin, but she ignored them as she took her and Brand’s plates to the sink and rinsed them off. Taking her time, she dried her hands on the towel before turning back. “Ready?”
At the question, the almost indiscernible spark of humor in Brand’s eyes disappeared, and his lips flattened. “In a rush, princess?”
Before she could answer, he about-faced and headed for the front door, shaking his head as he walked. “Let’s go.”
She glanced at Hershel, who shrugged.
“Fine. I’d sure as hell like to get this over with,” she muttered under her breath at her would-be rescuer’s back, which stiffened.
Had he heard? Well…good.
On the front porch, Kasia wrapped her arms around Hershel’s neck and gave him a solid hug. “I’m sorry we couldn’t stay longer. I suspect you have some great stories to share.”
He laughed as she stepped back, his mustache twitching from side to side with the movement. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re a demon.” She shrugged. “Just a hunch.”
Before she could move out of the way and let the two men say goodbye, in whatever way that looked like, a shout rose up from a direction across from the bar but farther south than Hershel’s house.
“What was that?” she asked.
It couldn’t be the wolves. Despite the lead wolf telling her Angelika was waiting, Kasia had been crystal clear she wasn’t going with them.
Please let this be some problem that has nothing to do with us.
A tendril of smoke rose up above the rolling hills of land between where they stood and the barracks.
Hershel yanked the screen door open. “Get inside.”
“No.” Brand grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her down the stairs behind him. “You get inside, hunker down. Whatever is out there, they’re after us.”
Hershel started forward, scowling in a way that would’ve made Kasia shake in her sneakers if she weren’t already too focused on more sounds of shouts.
“No way should you risk Kasia’s life—”
Brand cut him off. “I’ll get her out of here. I’m not bringing this down on you. Get inside.”
“I agree,” Kasia added her two cents. “This is about me. I don’t want you hurt.”
“You’re both off your rockers,” Hershel grumbled through clamped teeth before stomping off inside.
Was that gratefulness in Brand’s expression when he turned to Kasia? “Step back.”
As swiftly as she’d ever seen him do it, Brand transformed into the massive creature she’d long feared. Only fear no longer filled her. Awe was there. Even faith.
Without waiting to be asked, she scrambled up onto his back as soon as he lowered his body to the ground, wrapping around her spike on his back. “Go.”
The sound of shots rang out, joining the shouts of the men as smoke rose into the air in black billows. Brand angled away from the noise and pushed off, taking to the air with a few swift beats of his wings. Kasia turned as they rose higher, searching for the source of the commotion, and gasped as she spied a large rectangular two-story building going up in a violent fury of flame and smoke.
Dragon fire.
No other fire burned that hot that fast. Terror slammed through her, its icy cold talons piercing her heart even as they gained altitude and Brand leveled out.
A shadow passed over them, and suddenly Kasia was transported back to the night her mother died. A shadow had passed overhead then, too, preceding the red dragon.
Before she could duck, or look up, or even scream, something massive rammed into Brand from underneath. How the hell had it moved around them so fast? The momentum tossed Brand sideways as he wrapped his wings around their attacker to wrestle him.
Kasia tried her damnedest to hold on, scraping and clawing to keep her grip, but the violence of the fight raging beneath her and the wind trying to pluck her from her spot as two massive dragons plummeted through the air was too much for her puny arms. She slid up the spike until she dangled from the tip, her legs flapping around in the air, kicking and scrambling to return to the safety of his back. But the tip of that spike was razor sharp, unlike the smoother base, and sliced into her hands, spilling her blood and making the surface too slick for her to keep her grip.
Swallowing her scream, she was ripped violently from Brand’s back. Relative to the dragons, she shot up in the air, her body lighter than their bulk and not falling as fast. Ridiculously, an old physics lesson from her human schools struck her right then about bodies falling at the same rate despite size. But was that in a vacuum? Because it sure didn’t apply here.
Who cared? She was fucking tumbling toward the ground with no way to save herself from splatting when she hit.
For a strange reason she didn’t have time to examine, that image of her body broken and smeared across the green lushness of northern England gave her the injection of calm she needed. If she was going to live, she needed to think, not panic.
First move, stop flailing.
She threw her arms out and aimed her belly at the ground like she’d seen in Skylar’s videos. Who knew her sister being a licensed pilot and skydiver would come in handy in quite this way. Kasia tried to mimic the posture she’d witnessed. After a couple of tries, she managed to stabilize. Now what?
Her eyes blurred and teared up as the wind seemed to want to push her eyeballs out of her head, but she squinted and tried to keep track of the dragons grappling below her. If Brand could get to her before the ground…
Hard to tell through the distortion of tears, but it looked as though Brand was wrapped around a larger, amber-gold dragon, more orange in color than Brand. Another gold dragon fighting his own kind?
Oh hell, the ground was getting closer by the second.
“Brand!” she yelled, the wind greedily snatching the sound from her vocal cords even before it moved past her lips.
“Brand!” she screamed louder, already going hoarse with the effort.
But the dragons didn’t part, and the ground was rushing up at her. She could make out details now, like trees, and the fire from the barracks and the bar and Hershel’s house.
She was going to die. Right here and now.
A miniscule shard of logic pierced the overwhelming panic trying to flood her system. She might not fly, but she could teleport. If she could ignite. The last time she’d tried she’d messed up, and that had been only thirty feet. Not thousands.
Closing her eyes, to shut out the view of her imminent death, Kasia tried to light the fire insi
de her soul, willing the inferno to take over. But other than a small spark that the wind kept blowing out, she couldn’t focus enough, her fear mounting with every second she plummeted.
This wasn’t working, and the ground had to be so close now.
“Brand.” She didn’t scream his name or even yell it. She whispered it, like a prayer.
Even as she continued to try to burst into flame, she waited for the impact with the unforgiving earth and hoped her death would be quick. Like snuffing out a candle in the dark.
Unable to stop herself, she opened her eyes and threw her arms out as the ground rushed up at her. Then choked on the screech that clawed out of her throat as something huge snatched her from the jaws of death.
“Got you.” Brand’s deep tones penetrated the eerie acceptance that had settled over her about two seconds before talons wrapped around her body.
He flared his wings, slowing their momentum, then adjusted his grip, effectively caging her in. “Hold on, sweetheart.”
Kasia looked down and jumped into his grasp to find solid earth only twenty feet from her face. Damn, that had been close. Brand seemed to hover with her. As gently as a mother handling her newborn baby, he set her down on the ground, just outside Hershel’s house.
“Run. Hershel will be waiting.”
Then dirt and leaves flew up, coating her hair and clothes and lungs, as he flew away.
…
Uther.
The false Gold King himself had come to capture the phoenix.
A roar of challenge punched from deep inside Brand.
I’m going to kill this fucker here and now and end this once and for all.
As soon as he delivered Kasia safely to Hershel, who could defend her better than most, Brand took off into the dull gray of the cloud-covered morning sky, searching for a glint of amber-colored gold. If Uther was above him, he wouldn’t know until the last minute. Damn the camouflage that kept them hidden from prying human eyes.
Brand’s only warning was a flash, like seeing sun glint off glass from far away.
This time he had a better idea of how Uther liked to fight. The amber dragon was a grappler, wrapping around his adversary and clawing at the underbelly, trying to gut them. At the same time, Uther would dig in tight while they plummeted to earth, letting go only at the last moment in a maneuver meant to slam his opponent into the ground with all the momentum of two massive dragons, crushing his victim with the impact while he flew away.
