by Ann Gimpel
“We would have said no,” Johan replied. “End of story.”
“Not really,” Katya said. “They’d have assumed it was a secret rebellion.” She beat back half a smile. “Shifters are grand at cloak and dagger theories. Regardless, the net impact would have been they’d like as not have decided as a group not to follow us dragon shifters into battle. Presenting a united front is critical.”
“Even if it’s false?” Erin asked.
“Is it?” Katya pressed. “It isn’t that you were truly challenging Kon. You were merely forwarding an opinion. It’s a very human way of interacting. You didn’t see any reason to muffle your desire to be included.” She stopped to collect her thoughts and drew two partially overlapping boxes in the sand. “If one of these is how things really are, and the other is how people perceive them to be, you see there is some overlay, but large areas remain that are full of potential misunderstandings.”
Erin nodded. “I’m beginning to at least have a frame of reference. I spent six months in Japan several years ago. I was working in a hospital, and it was very different from the surgical practice I was used to. I missed a whole lot of social cues, and I was certain my Japanese hosts were laughing at me behind my back, but I never caught them at it.”
Johan snickered. “They were. Trust me.”
“I finally decided you almost had to be born Japanese to live in that culture without mishap,” Erin went on. “It wasn’t so much unpleasant as I always felt like an outsider.”
“They consider us inferior,” Johan muttered. “Gaijin. I played dumb when I was there, but given my facility with languages, I got the gist of most of their taunts.”
“What could they possibly have made fun of you for?” Erin asked.
“Not me per se, but how I look. I’m much larger than the average Japanese, and they likened me to a gorilla.” Johan shrugged. “Apes are very smart, so I took it as a back-handed compliment.
“Circling back to dragons,” Katya said. “Dragon shifters are at the top of the heap. The other shifters owe us allegiance whether they wish it or not.”
“We have military examples of the same type of thing,” Johan explained. “They all operate as hierarchies with severe penalties for failing to follow protocol.”
“They used to shag unpopular officers during the Vietnam war.” Erin shot a look Johan’s way.
“What does that mean?” Katya asked.
“Bad officers met with untimely deaths in the jungle,” Johan told her.
“But that’s terrible.” Katya’s voice had risen, and she lowered it. “Were those responsible punished?”
“Only if they were caught.” Erin leaned forward. “Humans don’t have magic. We lack foolproof ways of sorting out the truth. Good liars can get away with a whole lot. Including murder.”
Katya’s bondmate thrashed within her. The dragon was outraged. Underlings did not plot to kill their masters. For them to do so and not suffer consequences was unconscionable.
“My dragon is pitching a fit,” Johan said.
“Mine too.” Erin frowned.
“They’re incensed by what you described. It violates precepts at the very heart of what it means to be a shifter.” Katya placed a hand on Johan’s thigh and her other on Erin’s. “You are dragons now. You must learn and accept new ways. This will not be like your experiences in a foreign country. We consider you equal to any other dragon shifter—except Konstantin.
“He is your prince. Mine too. It means you respect him and defer to his guidance.”
“Do you ever think he’s made a mistake?” Erin asked carefully.
“Oh my, yes.” Katya rolled her eyes.
“What do you do then?” Erin’s forehead scrunched into a web of tiny lines.
“I share my concerns, but ultimately, the decision lies with him.”
Erin pushed her hair back over her shoulders. “So I can have an opinion. That’s a relief.”
“You can have lots of them”—Katya withdrew her hand—“so long as those opinions don’t challenge his authority in a public setting.”
Breath whistled softly from between Johan’s teeth. “I will do my best. Thank you for the explanation. I recently established what I hope is a permanent détente with my bondmate, but my job is far from done. I see now that we are only free so long as what we wish to do does not fly in the face of Konstantin’s will.”
Something about the stiffness and formality of his words told Katya he wasn’t pleased with his newfound knowledge. She started to apologize but decided against it. Being a dragon shifter was a great honor. That a dragon wished to share its heart and soul with Johan outweighed any petty inconvenience he might find in the arrangement.
This is all very new to them, she reminded herself. It would take more than a few hours for him and Erin to fully embrace their bondmates and their new lives.
“Come now.” Konstantin’s voice rattled through her head. “There is much you must see.”
A glance at her two companions told her neither had heard her twin, which meant his communication had been for her alone. Yet, she couldn’t leave Johan and Erin by themselves. They weren’t quite defenseless, but almost. Katya cleared her throat. Perhaps she wasn’t as obedient to her twin as all that, despite her recent pep talk.
“Kon just summoned us,” she said and began the process of crawling out of the tangle of roots.
“So, of course we must go,” Johan mumbled under his breath.
Katya wanted to shake him. Had he not heard any part of what she’d said this past half hour or so? She remembered the discussion they’d had about freedom before he’d chosen to try to transform himself.
Katya filed it away. She’d remind him if she had to, but it wouldn’t do to rub his face in what he’d said about not truly being free within his human world, either.
“He’ll come around,” her bondmate spoke up.
Katya didn’t answer. She wasn’t as certain as her dragon they’d made the wisest choice. But they didn’t have to consummate their troth anytime soon. By the time they got around to even talking about the permanence of the dragon shifter mating ceremony, she’d have more information.
“Which is precisely why we have remained mateless,” the dragon snarked. “You’ve found something wrong with every single dragon shifter who wanted you.”
Katya cringed. What her beast said was true—to a point—but now wasn’t the time for that conversation.
She straightened and bit the end of one finger. A few globules of blood bobbed before her. Erin and Johan had crawled out of the roots. Once they stood nearby, she instructed the blood vectors to take them to her brother.
She smelled the battlefield before she saw it. Blood, spilled entrails, and the smoke from at least two dozen fires seared her nostrils. Her dragon bugled merrily. It lived for shit like this.
Kon and Nikolai were in dragon form. They stood next to Y Ddraigh Goch and two other dragons she didn’t immediately recognize. A dark-red one and a brilliant-blue monster who stood even taller than the dragon god.
She wove through the killing field, jumping over the odd serpent foot or tail or severed head. Apparently, the fires were an afterthought, not the primary means of destruction. When she reached the other dragons, she bowed low.
Following her lead, Erin and Johan did the same. Thank the goddess they understood to pay obeisance to the god. Katya bet the two she didn’t know were his minions.
Nikolai blew fire skyward and trumpeted, pawing the blood-soaked ground.
“Thanks to our god, we won a great victory today,” Kon said in dragonspeak, his words mingling with flames.
“May I ask what happened?” Johan’s head was still bowed.
“Why is it important for you to know?” Y Ddraigh Goch asked in his deep, rumbly manner.
“It is more than curiosity,” Johan answered. “I wish to know how many serpents were here and if you discovered anything that shed light on their plans for Earth.”
Bo
th the red and blue dragons had focused their spinning gazes on Johan, but he’d have no way of knowing since his eyes remained downcast. Katya handed him points for courage. Generally, if Y Ddraigh Goch wanted you to know something, he told you. Although, she’d broken a few rules when she’d rebuked him for dragging her from Johan’s side in the space between worlds.
Perhaps many of their rules were anachronisms, but she wasn’t about to probe that particular rabbit hole.
“We have other constellations of worlds to attend to, sire,” the red dragon said in a deferential tone, one that offered the god leeway to demur. Power flashed between Y Ddraigh Goch and his minions.
“Before you go,” Kon spoke up, “we stand ready to examine the other worlds in this group.”
“See that you do so,” the god said. The power flare grew infinitely brighter. Katya shut her eyes against its brilliance. When she opened them, the god and his fellows were gone.
A secondary flash, and Kon shifted back to human.
“Did you find it like this?” Katya asked.
“No. When we arrived, Y Ddraigh Goch and the other two were ripping serpents in pieces and tossing them every which way. Along with a few of the other shifter gods. I recognized Anubis and Thoth. They left once it was obvious the battle was won.”
“I thought serpents were immortal.” Johan picked up part of a serpent head and chucked it a few meters away.
“Our god still holds dominion over them,” Nikolai said. He was back in his body as well, although Katya hadn’t noticed him shifting.
“There were twenty or thirty serpents here,” Konstantin went on. “A few were still alive when we arrived.”
“Not for long.” Nikolai’s gaunt face split into a satisfied smile.
“Who were the two with Y Ddraigh Goch?” Erin asked.
“Dragons who had tired of immortality and wished to serve,” Katya answered.
“I didn’t recognize them,” Konstantin said, “but they were damned handy at meting out destruction.”
“Must be why he picked them,” Nikolai said.
“Any evidence of the serpents’ plans for Earth?” Johan asked and looked from Kon to Nikolai.
“What were you thinking we might find?” Konstantin countered.
Johan shrugged. “Notes. Journals. Tablets, although I do not imagine the electronic age has had much impact on dragons.”
“None of the above,” Nikolai said. “Any plans the sea-serpents had are locked in their dead little heads.”
“We need to get back,” Konstantin said. “We have seven more worlds to examine and ensure they remain habitable.”
“Five,” Nikolai corrected him. “Eleven and twelve lack breathable air. The fifth and eighth are primarily inhabited by humans, so they shouldn’t take long.”
“Even easier.” Kon smiled.
“From the sound of things, the dragon god is on a search and destroy mission,” Johan murmured.
Konstantin nodded. “He is, indeed. He blames himself for this chaos and believes he should have destroyed every sea-serpent eons ago. Pity stayed his hand then. No more.”
“How can you know?” Erin asked.
He draped an arm around her shoulders. “Because he told me.”
Johan repositioned himself until he faced Konstantin. “Katya explained a few things, and I wish to apologize. I was not defying your authority back on the sixth world. Not on purpose, anyway. I will take care to watch what I say from now on.”
“Apology accepted. I must appear very heavy-handed, but until the serpents are fully dispatched, we are engaged in war. My leadership must remain undisputed, or it will dilute our efforts to eradicate our enemy.”
Erin leaned into his embrace. Katya hoped it was a good sign. Her brother loved Erin, but she had to accept him for what he was, or the mating would never work.
Her dragon bugled. At first, she didn’t understand what had gotten its attention, but then its meaning hit her broadside. She was really grand at dishing out advice for her twin. But the selfsame guidance went for her too. Johan was who he was, not someone for her to make over into someone more to her liking.
“I love you,” she told her beast.
Steam puffed through her open jaws. The creature’s way of loving her back.
The mantle of Kon’s transport spell snared her and the others. She rode it back to the sixth world. Their next task—after checking the other worlds in the Fleisher system for serpent contamination—would be ensuring every shifter in the Fleisher borderworld group joined them on Earth to fight the serpents.
Even the dinosaurs.
She chuckled. If the war ever left Antarctica, and it well might, what would humans think about seeing beasts they’d thought extinct for tens of thousands of years?
Guess I’m about to find out.
Chapter 13
I can be a stiff-necked bastard. I’m Dutch. It’s in the blood. But after Katya’s explanation about some of the ins and outs of dragondom sank in, I felt I owed Konstantin an apology. I’d been laboring under the illusion I could do as I pleased. I have no inkling why I clung to that idea.
Maybe it was a way of doing my damnedest to hang onto what used to be familiar. Seeing that smoldering field filled with dead, dismembered serpents was a hell of a wakeup call. Nothing familiar is left, and the faster I build new habits from the ground up, the smoother things will go.
I wished I’d arrived early enough to see Y Ddraigh Goch and the other shifter gods in action. My newfound taste for gore surely boded well for my future as a dragon shifter.
We dropped onto the same rolling plain we’d left. It appeared even more shifters had assembled, so I guess the word had gone out.
Konstantin loped to the place he’d recently vacated and faced groups of men and women, all shimmering with what I’d come to recognize as shifter enchantment.
“Thank you for heeding Gustaf’s request.” Kon must have projected his voice with magic because it boomed all around me.
“What happened?” rang from every corner of the field, voices echoing and repeating themselves.
A man standing next to me leaned close. “Did you find serpents?”
I pointed toward Konstantin, determined not to steal any of the attention or dilute his message.
“When we arrived,” Konstantin said, “Y Ddraigh Goch was already there, along with two other dragons and four of your shifter gods. They were fully engaged in killing serpents. I counted twenty-seven, but I could be off by one or two. Not much for us to do but light pyres to burn the remains and cleanse the land.”
“Was it frozen?” Melara called from a spot off to one side.
Her question brought me up short. Perhaps Nikolai had been onto something when he’d theorized the ice came from an outraged land and wasn’t the serpents’ doing at all. But why wouldn’t the seventh world have mobilized to defend itself?
“No, it wasn’t,” Kon replied. “I would have liked to ask our dragon god about that, but I never had a chance. I did sink my consciousness into the land, though.”
All around me, shifters moved nearer. Konstantin’s link to the land must be something all shifters understood and revered. It was certainly something I wanted to know more about. If we ever returned to the library deep beneath the Antarctic land mass, it was the first thing I’d look up.
“The seventh world is slow, sluggish,” Konstantin went on. “But she was willing to talk with me. She was working up to crafting a defense, but the simplest route for it was adding more water to the already porous earth, creating quicksand.”
“I’d have liked to have seen that,” the dark-haired woman who’d lost her mate said. “Those unholy bastards thrashing around up to their scaled heads in slime.”
“They’d still have had access to magic to break free,” Konstantin reminded her, “but they’d have had no choice but to leave. I understand why you’ve chosen not to live there.”
“We tried to establish an outpost,” Gustaf said, “but
everything we constructed eventually sank. Wood rots in all that damp, and stones drift into the mud.”
“The most important part is all the serpents on the seventh world are dead,” Konstantin went on.
Cheers erupted all around—along with hoots and howls and bird noises. He waited for them to die down before continuing.
“Our current task is ensuring the remainder of the worlds in this system are free from serpent taint. My small group will return to the first world. The remaining worlds are the fourth, fifth, eighth, ninth, and tenth.”
“Five and eight will go fast,” someone shouted. “Mostly humans.”
“Make sure no serpents are hiding in their midst,” Konstantin cautioned. “Although serpents are much like dragons in that we prefer living in groups. It would be very unusual to find a single serpent anywhere.”
He ran his whirling golden gaze over the crowd. “Volunteers? I seek ten shifters to visit the worlds I listed.”
“Ten for each world?” Gustaf asked.
“No. Two apiece.”
The broad-shouldered shifter moved quickly, light on his feet for such a big man, and tapped a shoulder here and another there.
“Consider yourselves forward guards,” Konstantin said. “If you locate serpents, do not engage them. Return here as quietly as possible. We will send a much larger crew, including dragons, to deal with any serpents you might find. Do any of those worlds contain shifters?”
“A few,” Nikolai replied.
“Bring them back here with you,” Kon instructed. “Assuming things go well, we will leave sometime tomorrow for Earth.”
“How long will we be gone?” someone asked.
“I wish I could tell you,” Kon answered.
“Must we all accompany you?” Gustaf asked, adding hurriedly, “Not that we won’t if you require such, my liege, but our crops sit at a precarious juncture. If no one is here to water them, we will have no grain during the cold season.”
