by Ann Gimpel
When I glanced at the rest of the field, two more pyres crackled merrily. I dusted my hands together. End of this batch of serpents. Or was it? I eyed the group of shifters ranged around me.
“Do all of you know one another?”
A lissome young woman—although for all I knew she could be hundreds of years old—glided toward me. Red hair fell to knee level, and her eyes were an arresting shade of hazel. Like the other bird shifters, she wore formfitting leather breeches and a tunic that reached to hip level. “Yes. Beyond the four newcomers, the rest of us have been here since the dawn of time.” She laughed, lyrical and sweet, and moved nearer still.
“Thank you for saving us,” she went on. “We were holding our own, but our magic was fading.”
“Because the serpents were hogging it up,” another bird shifter cut in bitterly. “Every time I turned around, the bastard had nabbed a little bit more from me.”
I wasn’t quite ready to let the topic of unwanted possession go. “Everyone here may look familiar, but the serpents have made an art form out of taking over other shifters’ bodies.”
Nikolai nodded brusquely and clapped his hands. “Indeed. Everyone here shift. At least far enough I can see your animal form.”
To their credit, no one grumbled or said it was unnecessary and a waste of time. Clothing hit the ground in piles, and a variety of birds glistened into being. Along with two coyotes, a wolf, and two deer. The red-haired beauty who’d spoken with me turned out to be a wolf.
She was gorgeous in that form too, with a thick black-and-gray pelt and the same eyes I’d noted when she was human. She brushed up against me, and I couldn’t resist burying my fingers in her fur.
“All right. Thank you for obeying my order,” Nikolai said. “Shift back. I have a feeling Konstantin will want to talk with all of us.”
I loved the earthy scents of shifter magic. They reminded me of rain-wet greenery and the smell of mossy rocks, or the ocean on a sunny day when the briny smells were strongest.
The wolf was human now, and very naked, just half a meter away. She smiled knowingly and walked near enough her pert breasts were nearly touching my chest. My cock, faithless dog that it was, started to thicken. Before it embarrassed me, I turned away, intent on locating Konstantin and Katya.
She loped up from my other side and stopped dead, looking from me to the wolf and back. I’m sure she noticed my partial erection, or smelled sex or some such thing. The wolf growled. Katya shot smoke and ash all over her. The wolf bared her teeth and batted the smoke aside.
I felt like a sap. I hadn’t given Missy Wolf even one shred of encouragement. Yet it appeared she didn’t require any to have staked a claim to me.
The wolf snarled. Katya started toward her but then shook herself. “We’re all meeting over there.” She pointed to a spot behind her.
It was time to do something other than stand around while the wolf and Katya squared off. I hooked an arm beneath Katya’s. “Let’s go. Shall we?”
She cast a coolly appraising glance my way. “Unless you’d rather remain here.”
Before I could come up with a tactful reply since I was still mired in twenty-first century manners, the wolf said, “But you two are not mates.”
Katya twisted out from under my grip and bared her teeth at the wolf. “No, but he is mine, and you would do well to remember that.”
The wolf dropped her head and looked away, probably the equivalent of showing her tummy to an enemy and requesting clemency. “Apologies, dragon. I didn’t know.”
Katya whirled and took off at a lope across the rolling plain dotted with scrub grass and sagebrush. I ran to catch up. Her announcement about me being hers had both shocked and pleased me, but I needed to double check I hadn’t misunderstood. Perhaps I was only hers because she’d helped me through my first shift, and there was nothing romantic about her statement.
“Wait a moment,” I called after her fleeing form.
She kept right on running. I sped up, loving the augmentation in my physical abilities, courtesy of my bondmate. We were nearly to the assembled group of shifters when I was close enough to grab her arm.
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
She raked me with that same assessing glance she’d employed a few moments before. “What do you have to be sorry for?”
I grinned sheepishly. “Nothing. Except him.” I batted my cock. “He has a mind of his own. Means nothing.” Before I lost my nerve, I plowed on. “What did you mean about me being yours?”
“It’s clear enough, but I misspoke,” she said. “You and I have no claim on one another.”
I laid aside a lifetime of emotional isolation and dove off the high board, the one that’s always terrified me because I was never certain I could keep up my end of the bargain. “I want us to, though.”
She angled her body until she faced me. God she was so gorgeous. When I thought how close I’d come to losing her, it froze my heart into icicles. “Want us to what?”
Was she being purposely obtuse? Or had I truly misunderstood? No time to play games. Kon clapped his hands, wanting order so he could begin talking. I bent close to her ear. “I meant what I said when you were in the serpent’s gunsights. I love you. I want you as my wife, or mate, or however dragon shifters do such things.”
It felt like several lifetimes passed before her generous mouth curved into a soft smile. “I accept. And that will have to be good enough for now. We shall be betrothed, although Y Ddraigh Goch only knows when we will come up with time to solemnize our commitment.”
“Quiet, everyone. Come closer,” Kon’s words were threaded with command.
I wanted to cheer and shout to everyone that Katya had just agreed to marry me, but it would be disrespectful to Konstantin. Besides, he might still be furious with me for offering myself to the serpent. Maybe he wouldn’t think I was good enough for his sister. What would we do if he didn’t offer his blessing? Did dragons elope absent approval from their nearest relatives?
Beneath everything, I recognized I was focused on fluff because I was more-or-less the same commitment-phobe I’d always been. If Katya and I married, would I be able to keep my side of the covenant?
I wasn’t worried about my unruly appendage. Remaining faithful had never been an issue, but I had a straying spirit. Adventure had always trumped romance. Maybe being a dragon shifter would, indeed, change all that. The ability to shift forms and fly whenever I wanted added a whole new dimension to things.
Katya gripped my hand and kissed me once, sweet, quick, and full of promise. Our tongues tangled for a few seconds, and then she stepped away. With a great deal of difficulty, I focused on Konstantin. Nikolai had joined him, and the two of them were gathering data from the assembled shifters. They admitted they’d heard rumors that the next world over, the seventh, contained at least a few serpents. Not wanting to court trouble, they hadn’t gone to look for themselves.
“We were a bunch of fucking cowards,” Gustaf cursed. “Given what I know now, the seventh world is probably the serpents’ command post within this group of borderworlds.”
Privately, I agreed with him, but it didn’t make our next steps any clearer. Should we take them on and risk the serpents on Earth becoming too strong to vanquish? Or should we remain here long enough to cleanse these borderworlds and make them safe for habitation once more?
“Can you ask Y Ddraigh Goch for help?” I shouted from my spot near the back of the crowd. The dragon god would speed things up. It might be wrong of me, but I was still driven by an illogical need to ensure Earth’s safety.
“We have our own gods as well.” A shifter turned to look at me. “We have already put out the call.”
“Why was I not informed?” Konstantin’s tone was deceptively mild.
“Because we don’t report to you,” the shifter who’d spoken to me replied. He was medium height with short black hair, and I remembered him turning into a hawk.
“This is war.” Kon’s tone was dec
idedly less neutral. “War requires leaders, and we must all pull in the same direction. What that means is I must know everything, no matter how inconsequential you deem it.”
“Understood,” the man murmured. “My apologies, dragon prince.”
“Accepted.” Kon nodded. “We move forward. I require a small team of spies to visit the seventh world and report back.”
“I’ll go,” Katya called.
“Not without me,” I told her.
She grinned, but it held savage edges. “Excellent. Kon will get two of us for the price of one, so long as he agrees.”
Chapter 12
The last thing Katya wanted to do was spy and fight, but her self-discipline took over, rose to the fore. Just because she and Johan had pledged their troth didn’t mean they’d find time to tumble into one another’s arms.
No matter how much she longed for him.
She wouldn’t have been so brazen about her feelings, but when the hussy wolf made her intentions clear, with pheromones streaming from her, something in Katya had snapped. Her dragon possessiveness snatched away common sense, and she would have battled the wolf to establish her claim to Johan. Fortunately, the wolf backed down.
Smart of it. Teeth were no match for fire.
“Told you he was ours,” her bondmate gloated. “We must fly and formalize the bond.”
“Not before he understands how permanent it is.”
Katya winced. There was that part. Johan had to understand once they made love in either form, they would be bound together forever. No divorce in dragon-land.
“Are you certain you’ve recovered your full strength?” Konstantin asked.
Katya wasn’t certain he was speaking to her; she dragged her full and complete attention back to the task at hand and tried for a confident demeanor. “Probably not, but all I have to do is ward myself.”
“That ward has to be totally invisible,” her twin reminded her. “And invincible. The serpents will be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary.”
“They’ll know about their dead kinsmen, won’t they?” Gustaf furled both brows.
Konstantin nodded. “They will, indeed. What they may not know is the manner of their deaths. By now, I’m certain they also know their little hybrid breeding project is no more.”
“What were they going to use those mantis-bird things for?” Erin asked.
“To augment their ranks,” Nikolai answered her. “What better way to create an army than to build one from the ground up. No need to train your troops. No worries about their commitment to your cause since part of their programming is absolute loyalty.”
Katya did a quick count of the cells they’d destroyed. 144 hybrids, twelve of which had hatched just prior to their arrival. When the dragon vessels were once again available, she had no doubt the serpents would have filled them with more of the hybrids. Perhaps a different variety. Soldiers specialized to do something other than fly around snapping off heads with their insectoid jaws.
“Question for the shifters living here on the sixth world.” She raised her voice to be heard over the din of burgeoning side conversations. “How long ago did the four serpents show up?”
“Not long,” Gustaf replied. “Perhaps a couple of months. Hardly long enough for us to get to know them. Why are you asking?”
Katya shuffled back into battle mode, having left dreams of a romantic interlude far behind. She trotted to the front of the group and faced them. “We ran into sea-serpents a short while ago at the extreme southern end of Earth. They’d fled a world they decimated and were searching for a new home. At the time, Kon assumed they were plotting evil. A conversation we overheard clinched it, but Earth is a big place.”
“Hence the need for an army?” Gustaf nodded grimly.
“Are you thinking the group on the seventh world showed up about the same time as the batch on Earth?” Konstantin asked.
“Perhaps a little earlier,” she replied, “but I can’t believe the two clusters are unrelated. Like us, they communicate telepathically. This group of borderworlds is closest to Earth. It’s probably not coincidental there are serpents here.”
“How did you discover the serpents on the seventh world?” Konstantin asked.
A willowy woman with masses of black hair walked closer to where Konstantin stood. “In the worst possible way. My mate and his two brothers traveled to the seventh world to gather a particular type of grain that only grows there. They make the same trip every annum.”
She spread her arms to the sides. “You may have noticed how dry it is here. Not the best for crops. There are advantages to not living in the midst of a rain forest, though, which is why we never considered moving.”
“What happened?” Kon’s voice was as gentle as he ever made it.
“They never returned,” the woman said. Sorrow had hollowed circles beneath her eyes. “I heard his pain—and his death—through our mate bond. Not too long afterward, the four serpents showed up. They said they were from the first world, but that the dinosaurs had chased them off.”
“We believed them,” Gustaf picked up the tale, “because our prehistoric kin can be crusty and are particularly harsh on strangers.” He shook his head. “I blame myself. I meant to check out their story, but I never carved out time to teleport to the first world. If I had, perhaps we’d have had a different outcome.”
“Hard to say what it would have been,” Konstantin said. “When we arrived, you were holding your own against three of them, but barely.”
“You’re right of course,” another bird shifter spoke up. “We outnumbered them, but they clearly had reinforcements nearby. By the grace of the gods, more serpents never showed up.”
Katya latched onto his words. Damn it! Had the three serpents put out a disaster call before the dragons arrived and killed them? What about the one intent on occupying her body? Surely, between all of them, they’d managed to launch a single cry for help.
Why wasn’t the sixth world crawling with serpents who would have harkened to their companions’ summons?
“Do you supposed Y Ddraigh Goch got to them first?” she asked.
“All the gods know one another,” Nikolai said. “The shifters here called upon their own gods. Perhaps they converged on the seventh world, and—”
“I’m going to go look,” Konstantin cut him off. “Katya. You’re coming with me.”
Johan hurried forward. “Then I am coming too.”
“No, you are not,” Kon said.
Johan stood tall and faced her twin. “Either you take me, or I shall teleport there on my own.”
Oh-oh. Katya made a grab for her brother’s arm before he advanced on Johan and pulled serious rank.
“I want to come too,” Erin announced brightly. “Johan and I will stay out of the way.”
Konstantin looked from one brand-new dragon shifter to the other. “Fine,” he said through clenched teeth and motioned to Nikolai, who nodded tersely.
Red-tinged magic boiled around her twin. He was so angry, he wasn’t trusting himself to speak. She understood why. Both Erin and Johan had challenged his leadership—to his face. It may not have carried ill intent. In truth, she was certain it didn’t, but Kon would feel he’d lost status in front of the other shifters. Not a good place to be on the leading edge of planning a war.
Johan’s announcement he’d show up on the seventh world one way or another was tantamount to challenging Konstantin to an aerial duel. She had to educate him—and damned fast.
The teleport spell swept them up and spit them out nearly as quickly. Where the other world was arid, desert like, this one was so damp water dripped off greenery. Her feet sank into warm mud, and tepid rain dribbled from a cloud-filled sky. Sludge sucked at her feet. No wonder the shifters didn’t want to live here. She doubted the waterlogged ground could support any type of structures.
“Remain here.” Kon’s words shot through her head like a cannon. He and Nikolai vanished into the thick mist.
“This is a good place to wait.” She kept her voice very low.
“Why is he so angry?” Erin whispered back.
“He is mad at me for offering myself to that serpent,” Johan explained.
Katya shook her head. “Not it at all.” She hesitated. Where to begin?
“What then?” Erin pressed. “Help me understand. He wants me as his mate. I was almost ready to accept, but it’s like he’s turned into a different man since we left Earth.” She closed her teeth over her lower lip. “He’s so abrupt. It’s hard to find anything approachable about him anymore.”
“Dragon culture is very different from human,” Katya replied. “It’s based on hierarchies and obeying the dragons above you in the pecking order without question. I’m sure it seems terribly medieval to you, but it’s how we’ve operated since the first dragon shifter was formed with Y Ddraigh Goch’s blessings.
“When both of you challenged Kon in front of all those other shifters—”
“But we didn’t,” Erin protested.
“Yes, you did. It was for him to select whom he wanted to send to this world. You were free to indicate you wished to be chosen, but the actual choosing was for him to do.”
“So when I announced I was going regardless, it was rather like a big fuck you?” Johan asked.
Katya nodded. “A very big one because it was public. The other shifters would be within their rights to assume Konstantin lacks control over his people.”
“That’s the reason he was so angry he almost couldn’t speak?” Erin blew out a sad little breath.
“Why did he not simply tell us to stay put?” Johan cocked his head to one side. Dark strands of hair fell across his face.
“Don’t you see?” Katya spread her fingers in front of her. “He was in an impossible situation. You’d already announced you were going no matter what. Had he forced his will onto you—made it impossible for you to leave—the other shifters would have grilled you, wondering if a rebellion were brewing.”
