by Ann Gimpel
“Pick a hundred of your strongest,” Konstantin said. “The rest may remain.”
Gustaf bowed his head. “Thank you.”
I wondered what Konstantin had in mind returning to the dinosaurs’ world, but I’d find out soon enough. He hurried away from his spot facing the assemblage and motioned to Katya, Erin, and me.
Nikolai and Boris joined us. Kon nodded once, sharply. “We will shift to our dragon forms as soon as we arrive on the first world. The dinosaur shifters consider themselves the First People, so they have never paid homage to dragons.”
“Why are we bothering with them if they pose potential problems?” I asked. Probably should have kept my mouth shut, but I was in a hurry to return to Earth. I still considered it my home, and I cared about it far more than this constellation of worlds. It wasn’t rational. Earth wasn’t any better or worse than any other spot, but I had friends there. Family. People I’d known for years.
Ja. And will probably never see again.
I couldn’t quite envision myself stopping in for tea at Aunt Margaret’s house. What would I say to her lovingly crafted queries about what I’d been doing of late? Or why I hadn’t visited her in months? The same held true of everyone else too.
The corners of Konstantin’s mouth twitched downward. “We are approaching them because I believe it’s the proper course of action.”
Maybe he was testing me, seeing if I’d keep my word about not publicly challenging him. Ignoring any hidden intent on his part—since I couldn’t figure it out, anyway—I nodded and said, “Full show of force, eh?”
Konstantin nodded. “Dragons have wished to form an alliance with the dinosaurs for a very long while. We’ve approached them many times, but they always rebuff us. They are powerful in a way we are not. Where we destroy with fire, they use their bulk and impenetrable hides. Like us, many of them can fly.”
“They used to live many other places,” Katya said.
I’d been surreptitiously glancing her way. She’d seemed cooler toward me since her mini-lecture about dragon culture, but it might be my imagination. Maybe she labored under some of the same problems I had. As I thought about it, I decided I was mistaken.
I’d remained unattached because I valued my freedom. None of the dragon shifters I’d met appeared to be mated, so perhaps that was one more cultural difference. Humans were expected to pair up, form family groups of one type or another. Shifters lived forever, so they could afford to take as much time as they wanted before settling down.
“They did, indeed,” Nikolai was saying. It took me a moment to reconstruct what he was responding to. The dinosaurs and their domiciles.
“They’re still quite widespread,” Kon said, “but our focus is the ones here. If we are successful, it will forge a path for future partnerships.”
The mantle of a transport spell hovered around us. My beast linked us into it. As the sixth world ceded to darkness, I smiled to myself. Konstantin had answered my question about why we were bothering with the dinosaurs, but he’d done it in his own way. Indirectly. I could live with that. It might teach me patience, a perennial weak area.
I sensed my dragon within me and realized I was growing used to its presence. Something about it was fast becoming a part of me. A welcome part, not the yoke I’d first imagined it to be.
“Not easy for me, either,” it muttered, proving it was paying close attention to my thoughts.
“You are working to get to know me, aren’t you?”
“Would you expect any less of me? How shall we work together, live together, if we are constantly at cross purposes?”
Gratitude rolled through me. Appreciation for the beast I shared my skin with. He’d taken quite a chance on me.
“Good you realize it,” my dragon pointed out quite unnecessarily, but I didn’t snark back.
The darkness of the transport spell grayed around the edges. I felt my dragon’s anticipation. He knew we’d shift to his form as soon as we arrived, and I could practically feel him spreading his wings.
Soon enough, we were dipping and twirling, flying above the jungle and fissures below. The dinosaurs sensed our presence and lumbered out of caves and burrows. The winged ones joined our flight, above and below. Apparently, we were not completely unwelcome.
So long as we didn’t ask anything of them.
After an aerial display that would have done the Blue Angels proud, Konstantin set a flight path for an open spot atop a large mesa. Vegetation didn’t grow as thickly there. My dragon wasn’t keen to land, but he joined the other five.
Kon shimmered into his human form. My beast groaned but ceded our shared body. Half a dozen dinosaurs, including two who’d been flying with us, took on a glistening aspect. Soon they, too, were human. One was the silver-haired man from our first visit. The others didn’t look familiar.
Like us, they eschewed clothing. It was warm here, but didn’t seem quite as humid as it had the last time. Maybe it was a comparison thing. Almost anywhere would seem on the dry side after the seventh world.
“Why have you returned?” One of the men asked. Dark hair fell past his shoulders in many small braids. His silver eyes looked even stranger to me than the dragons’ golden ones.
“For your assistance, why else?” Konstantin leveled his gaze at the man who’d spoken.
“We already refused.” The man’s nostrils flared, making his broad, flat nose appear wider still.
“I know, but I haven’t given up.”
“Dragons always were a stubborn lot,” the silver-haired man muttered.
“Ha! You should talk,” Nikolai skewered the man with his whirling gaze.
Kon shook his head at Nikolai before returning his attention to the other shifter. “When we were here last, did you know the Fleisher worlds had been invaded by sea-serpents?”
“Of course, we knew. Anyone with magic would have to be incompetent not to sense their foul sorcery.”
“So you lied to us when you refused aid on the basis the serpents might invade your world next,” Konstantin growled.
“Yes. Anything to send you on your way,” the man with silver hair confirmed, a defiant note in his voice.
“Did they truly show up here like they claimed?” Katya asked.
The man with many braids nodded. “We never let on we knew what they were, but we made things uncomfortable enough, they left on their own.”
Once again, I was having a hell of a hard time keeping my mouth shut. I wanted to ask why they hadn’t warned the other shifters, like the birds on the sixth world, about the scourge.
“From here, they went to other worlds within this system.” Konstantin’s tone was mild, as if he were recounting a shopping list. “They set up a brood farm for wicked hybrid creations, using dragons to grow their spawn. That was on the third world. They created a de facto headquarters on the seventh world. From there, they dispatched spies masquerading as shifters to the sixth world.”
I was watching the dinosaur shifters’ faces carefully as the story of our last couple of days unfolded. They did their best to remain stoic, but here and there grimaces surfaced.
“We took care of the breeding farm,” Kon continued with more animation in his recitation than before. “We salvaged five out of six dragons who’d been trapped in ice, and we killed all the hatchlings. Meanwhile, I traveled to the sixth world. A handful of bird shifters returned to the third world with me. One was a serpent, masquerading as a shifter.
“I recognized his perfidy but played along with him until we were back on the third world. Despite my caution to corral him, he very nearly took over my sister’s body.”
“How did you fight him off?” braid-man asked.
“With a great deal of help,” Katya replied crisply.
“I’ll spare you most of the details”—Konstantin let his gaze settle on each dinosaur shifter in turn—“but with the help of Y Ddraigh Goch, some of his underlings, and a few other shifter gods, we destroyed all the serpents on the se
venth world. Other shifters are checking each world in this system to ensure we missed no one.”
“You provided a great boon for this group of borderworlds,” the silver-haired man murmured.
“And now they are here expecting a quid pro quo.” Braid-man sounded bitter, but resigned. Or maybe I was reading in the resigned part because I presumed it had to be there.
“Something like that.” Kon nodded. “You know as well as I do that eventually the serpents would have overrun every world in the Fleisher system. Because it’s how they operate. Sooner or later, they would have returned here, and you would have had to fight them.” He paused, perhaps for emphasis before adding, “Except by then, they’d have become ever so much stronger.”
“We would have lost.” Braid-man stated it as fact.
“Yes, you would have.”
“It would be hard for us to refuse you at this point,” the silver-haired man growled, “but you knew that when you showed up here.”
“I did,” Konstantin admitted.
Somewhere during the exchange, my respect for his statesmanship took a great leap forward. He’d understood full well this group of shifters would be beholden to the dragons, and that their debt would leave them little choice. They could refuse, send us away, but word would spread. Other shifters would know dinosaurs didn’t treat fairly with other shifters.
Idly, I wondered where this group sat in the shifter pecking order.
“Just beneath us.” My dragon’s quick answer told me he’d been following the proceedings right along with me. “Unless they told Konstantin to leave again. Then they’d slip quite a few notches.”
Someone, maybe Kon, maybe Katya, had said my dragon would be a tremendous resource. I was coming to appreciate that.
“Give us a few minutes to talk with our people,” the man with braids said.
“Of course. We’ll wait here, unless you’d prefer we selected another location,” Konstantin told him.
“Here is fine. How many of us were you hoping for?”
I waited for Konstantin to tell him we needed everyone. Instead, he replied, “At least twenty-five. Our first stop will be Earth’s southern pole. You will not find the climate to your liking, but we should be able to deploy you to a more temperate location quite soon.”
“Any particular type of dinosaur?” the silver-haired man asked.
“I am building an army. I need warriors.”
“Understood.” Braid-man beckoned to his fellows. They turned as a unit and stepped off the edge of the mesa. The air swallowed them immediately.
Katya strode to the lip of the mesa. “Neat trick. They teleported without a burst of magic to cue me what they were up to.”
“Nicely done,” Erin told Kon.
“Why thank you. Did you doubt me?”
“Never.”
I left them to coo at one another and hustled to Katya’s side, but when I got there I wasn’t sure what to say. Apparently, she wasn’t either. We stood next to one another as an awkward silence grew.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked.
She hesitated before shaking her head. “No. I was, but no longer.” She turned to face me. “My dragon is certain you’ll adapt to our ways given more time.”
“But you are not as sure?”
She raked a hand through her unruly hair before she looked me square in the eyes. “This is as much about me as you.”
I waited to see if she’d say more. Like I’ve mentioned, I’m no expert on women, but it didn’t seem to me that a flood of questions would hurry things up on her end.
“I’ve been alone a long time. You as well. From what I’ve read, it’s uncommon for humans to remain unmated. Dragons, however, can choose many different paths. Some mate when very young. Others never mate at all. Some of us tell ourselves we’ll settle in with a mate eventually, but eventually stretches further and further out.”
She scrunched her forehead into thoughtful lines. “My beast reminded me a little bit ago about how I’ve sidestepped mating. She’s lonely. She longs for a dragon to fly with, but there are things I’ve neglected to tell you.”
Katya’s words were flowing faster now, almost as if she was afraid she’d lose her nerve, although the Katya I knew was fearless. “Much like the bond with your dragon is permanent, dragon matings are as well. Once we’ve consummated our relationship—in either form—we will be bound to one another as mates forever.”
My eyes widened. Not that I planned to dally with Katya and then abandon her, but I’d never anticipated not having a choice in the matter.
“No divorce?”
She shook her head. “It’s one reason I never mated. I was unsure I’d be able to sustain that level of commitment to anyone except my bondmate.”
My vow not to ask questions foundered. “What is different with me? Or is it more that you did not want the wolf to move into your territory?”
She shrugged sheepishly. “I admit, it was a wee bit of a driving factor, but I’d never have chased her away if I weren’t seriously intrigued by you.”
She’d said intrigued, not that she was in love with me. The two were very different. I threaded an arm around her shoulders, treasuring the silk of her skin and hair beneath my fingers. She didn’t pull away.
“I meant what I said before. I do love you, with all the messy, emotional bits that go along with loving someone. I love you enough to drop the wall I have always hidden behind and take a chance on what our future could hold.”
My beast bugled and puffed steam. It settled around us in a cloud.
Katya nestled into my embrace. “I was certain once I told you there was no escape, you’d find a million excuses to…”
“To what?” I murmured. “Run away? I am not the running type, particularly once I have made a commitment. Before, I never got as far as the commitment stage, but I am well past it with you.”
Kon and Erin and Nikolai and Boris had faded to background noise. My entire focus was on the woman in my arms.
“What about you?” I asked.
“What are you wanting to know?” She tilted her head and looked at me.
“Do you love me?” Breath snagged in my dry throat. It might not be a fair question, but I needed to understand where she stood. She’d agreed to marry me, but she’d never said a single word about love.
Steam puffed from her mouth, mingling with the steam from my bondmate. Her dragon approved of me, and of our match, but I needed to hear from Katya.
She twisted until she stood in front of me, arms wrapped around me and head tucked into the hollow between my neck and collarbones. “I’m not sure I fully comprehend what love is. I love my beast, but that’s different. She is part of me. I love my twin, but we have been together since we shared space in our mother’s womb.
“I respect you. I admire you. My heart yearns for you, and I cannot imagine my life if you weren’t part of it, which surprises me since we’ve not known one another long. I’m who noticed you and Erin first. Something about your energy drew me, and it still does.”
She hadn’t said I love you, not exactly. But what she’d told me was deeper, had more substance. It gave us grist for our relationship to grow.
I cradled the back of her head in one hand and kissed her. She kissed me back, and the passion that had smoldered between us burst into flames as hot as any dragonfire.
Katya broke the kiss before it got totally out of control. “Not here,” she murmured.
“Ja. Not here.”
“Hey, you two lovebirds,” Erin called from the other edge of the mesa. Apparently, everyone had retreated there to offer us privacy.
“The dinosaurs are returning,” Kon added, “but if we ever get to the far side of all this, I’ll be the first to throw fire around during your mating flight.”
“Another custom you failed to mention?” I grinned at Katya.
“One of many.” She grinned back.
Fingers laced together, we walked to where the others stood.
Sure enough, the other shifters were taking shape from thin air.
“You’ve come to a decision?” Konstantin asked after they were fully corporeal.
“Yes, dragon, we have,” braid-man replied.
Chapter 14
Katya still felt the press of Johan’s lips against hers. His scent eddied around her, deliciously male and thick enough to coat the inside of her nose. She inhaled hungrily, wishing for more.
The dinosaurs were back wearing grave expressions. Her twin had done a masterful job maneuvering the other shifters into a corner. It would force them to cooperate, but she didn’t totally trust any capitulation that came under these circumstances.
If she was in their position, she’d resent the fuck out of Konstantin. It didn’t make for trustworthy allies, but if this was the best they could do, it wasn’t for her to tell the dinosaurs to buck up or go home. Kon was convinced they needed help. She agreed, but she’d have stopped with the shifters on the sixth world.
The willing ones.
“We shall provide thirty shifters.” The man with his black hair braided in what looked like a Celtic warrior pattern said. “Tell me when and where you require them, and they will be there.”
“Thank you.” Konstantin’s tone was formal. “I have wished for a closer working relationship between our people for a long while now. It is my hope today’s alliance will forge a new path.”
“We are not looking beyond the battle with the serpents,” another of the dinosaurs spoke firmly.
Katya clamped her teeth together. There it was. Proof the dinosaurs had been backed into a corner. They didn’t like it, but they’d do the right thing. On a one-time basis.
“I appreciate your candor.” Kon nodded. “As you desire, we shall proceed one event at a time. Worlds are failing. We always lost the occasional one, but ever since Mu shattered, my observation is that far more realms have followed suit. Either they copy Mu’s dramatic path and explode, or something changes in such a way they can no longer support life.”
“Your point, dragon?” one of the dinosaurs asked. This one was a little shorter than the others, but shared their copper-toned skin, straight black hair, and silver eyes. Katya wondered how the one with silver hair came to be. He must be far older than he appeared. The delegation was all male. Were there no women in leadership roles?
