Kingdom of Storms
The Desert Cursed Series, Book 8
Shannon Mayer
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Next Up!
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Sometimes a book takes more time than you think it will need. This was one of those books. Not because of Zam, Maks and Lila, but because of real life. 2021 has been a year of trials for me, and the exhaustion finally caught up to my brain and . . .well . . .things were tough.
But I found my footing again, and the book flowed, and my brain finally let me write. Thank you for your patience, and for you understanding. Thank you for your support. Thank you for being my people.
And for those who don’t want to be patient or understanding . . .I’ll await your scathing emails and be sure to share them with Satan—I mean my author friends—over a cup of tea as we decide how to respond. :)
1
“Now is the winter of our discontent,” Lila muttered under her breath, right in my left ear. I didn’t look over at the pint-sized dragon, but I did reach up and tug at her tail. She dug her talons into my shoulder to keep her balance, then whapped me with one of her wings.
“Don’t egg karma on, we don’t need fate to choose today to shit on us,” I said, brushing her wing away from my face.
We had not had a good go of things. Sure, we’d found the Vessel of Vahab—the first challenge facing us on our way to deal with the Beast from the East. Sure, we’d saved the unicorn herd. But we’d lost Torin—Balder’s father. Maks was stuck with some psycho who wanted him to father her a child. And we were here, in the middle of fucking nowhere in the middle of this fucking storm.
Running from Asag instead of facing him.
The desert night wind blew sharp and deadly cold in a way I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt in any section of our western desert, spinning my words away from my mouth. This far south and east the sands should never have felt anything more than a warm rain. Even a flood could happen on a regular basis, but nothing this cold. Nothing that felt like we were in the far northern climes.
Yet here we were riding head on into a storm that screamed magic, witchery, and just a general ‘someone doesn’t like you, so have fun with this while they try to kill you’ kind of vibe. I mean, come on. Icicles dangled from Balder’s mane and off bits of my saddle, even my own hair. The sand crunched under his hooves, and under the mare’s hooves next to us.
Lila shivered where she was but didn’t leave my shoulder. The cold was only part of the danger. She knew as well as I did that more could come on us in a flash.
Even with the cold, Balder had his head down as he kept on moving straight into the wind, trooper that he was—he was no slouch when it came to shitty weather.
A quick glance at my other side showed me the other horse, Dancer, tucked tight to Balder’s hip, her face close to my knee. Her petite rider was wrapped in her cloak and hunched over the saddle to keep the wind out of her face, hands tucked close to her body. She didn’t need to have her hands on the reins; Dancer would follow Balder anywhere.
I reached back and put a hand on Reyhan’s shoulder. She wasn’t shivering, at least, so that was good—shifters tended to run hot and that would help her here. Reyhan couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. But like so many shifters, she was mature for her age in both her mind and her ability to survive. She’d faced the vampire-like rabisu alongside me, the winged rhuk, and she’d seen me take on the Nasnas monster and the oversized crocodile beasts.
I squeezed her shoulder gently and she lifted her head and smiled at me before tucking herself back under her cloak. If I could have left her behind at Mamitu’s home I would have, because I had no doubt that there would be more monsters ahead of us and taking a child on a journey like this was not a great idea.
Why didn’t I leave her behind? Asag, the Beast from the East, was on the move, headed straight to Mamitu’s to punish her, all because I’d passed the first test that would allow me into his realm, the realm of demons. A test that he’d set out—yeah, it made very little sense to me too. Worse and worse, Asag had a thing for young shifter girls. Of which Reyhan was, and I was not about to let her get taken by a demon.
For that alone, I was looking forward to killing him, even if he hadn’t been stealing away the dragon hatchlings for years. The blade strapped to my back whispered inside my head. I look forward to the demon’s death as well. I will help you. We will destroy him together.
I grit my teeth, and struggled to keep my hands on the saddle, as I whispered under my breath. “Shut up, Lilith.”
Lila swung around so she hung from the front of my neck and looked up into my face, tiny bits of frost clinging to the tips of her wings making them an even darker blue-purple. “Are you okay? She talking to you?”
“Lilith is . . . encouraging me to be violent,” I said and shifted my shoulders as if that would settle the weapon’s murderous words. That pull of her magic was stronger than I wanted to let on.
I’d dealt with a sentient weapon before, I could deal with Lilith too. I just had to get used to her.
Lila’s ridged brows furrowed, and she crawled back up to my shoulder. “Maybe don’t pick a cursed weapon next time, how about that? How about just a nice, normal killing tool. Not one that wants to kill you. Not one that wants to help you kill. Just . . . a normal weapon. One that doesn’t talk.”
I snorted. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” Not that I’d had a ton of choice. I’d felt the pull to Lilith from the second I’d stepped into the armory at Mamitu’s, and I’d known that for whatever reason, I’d needed to take her with me. It. Damn it, I did not need this right now. I shoved all the pull of the weapon down deep, blocking out her mutterings as best I could.
Because right now . . . now we were riding deep into the night to put as much distance between us and Mamitu’s as we could before we stopped, and even though the fatigue was tugging on me, I felt that urge to keep going. Asag was behind us, and his eyes would turn our way in no time.
Sure, he’d laid out three tasks that had to be completed before anyone faced him, but I had no doubt that he would do everything in his power to stop me along the way.
A particularly hard, cold gust of wind slapped us in the face, stealing my breath.
“How much further are you going to push this?” Lila asked through chattering teeth. “You know that even Balder will have to rest at some point, and Reyhan is about ready to fall out of the saddle.”
I sighed and looked over at the young girl bobbling in the saddle, clutching at it with her tiny hands. “You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. I’m a dragon.”
My face was cold enough that smiling was not an option, my skin tight, partially frozen.
“
Reyhan,” I called out over the wind. “I need you to shift.”
She turned her head, big green eyes wide for a moment, and then she blinked and was a tiny jungle cat cub balanced on the middle of the saddle. I held a hand to her, and she leapt up to me. I tucked her under my cloak, and she started purring as my body heat sunk into her.
“Balder. Let’s find some shelter, my friend. We all need a break.” I urged him into a quick trot which brought the wind smacking into my face. I didn’t dare go any faster, and not just for the cold. In the dark on uneven icy ground, a full out gallop was reserved for emergencies only. We did not need a broken leg. Not when there was no one who could heal it.
I clamped down on my thoughts of emergencies lest the fates decide even that was tempting them.
The sky above us was deep with thick clouds so there was no light even from the stars, but between my shifter abilities and Balder’s keen eyes we made our way down a slope onto a flat plain that was surrounded on all sides by high cliffs. “There. On the other side.”
I pointed at the stepped walls on the northern side, a good mile away. Even at that distance I could see that there were large dark patches in the sandstone walls.
Caves.
As I pointed, the first blotch of solid frozen rain hit my face with a gust of wind, stinging like a bite. One, and then more, and more. The deep clouds opened and let loose a barrage of hail.
“Let’s go, quick as we can!” I yelled over the suddenly flying icicle pieces. I tugged my cloak over my face as best I could. At least Reyhan was out of this. Lila slid down the back of my cloak and tucked herself out of the weather.
Balder grunted and Dancer squealed as they were pelted all over their exposed hides.
Lila hid inside the back of my hood. “Ouch! This is the shits!”
The horses raced across the open, flat valley. We galloped the distance to the far side in less than a minute, but even that little bit of time cost us. My cheek was slashed open, and my hands were pelted as I clung to the reins. Flecks of blood flew back from the wounds blitzing open on the horses with each chunk of hail. So sharp, more like little daggers than rounded hail . . . far beyond what it should be, which lent itself to my belief that this was no natural storm.
A sensation buzzed over my skin of a magic that felt . . . like my own. Impossible? I turned my head toward the sensation to look up into the sky.
Eyes stared back at me from the clouds, and in a flash of lightning they were gone. But I’d seen them.
The question was who the hell was trying to kill us now? Asag? Somehow, I didn’t think so.
In a split second, we were out of the storm. Balder slid to a stop just inside one of the caves, and I leapt off his back, clinging to Reyhan and staring out into the darkness. One last chunk of sharp hail shot at me and smacked the back of my head, making me stumble.
Even with that, I hesitated to go further into the cave that we’d been forced to take shelter in.
I’d survived this long in my life for a reason.
There was no way to know what waited inside the cave—another creature, another traveller, a big ass monster who hadn’t eaten for three months.
But we couldn’t stay out here, and I made the decision quickly as more hail slammed into and around us.
“Get in, get in!” I waved at the two horses, and they trotted into the cave, their bodies covered in miniature slices, skin flecked with blood and twitching as if that would rid them of the wounds.
I followed, pausing at the entrance next to Balder’s hip.
Not so long ago I’d faced a creature, a rabisu, that couldn’t cross the threshold of a doorway without an invitation.
There was a sudden flash of lightning, and I stared out across the open space we’d just galloped. There was nothing on the ground following us.
But movement in the sky drew my eyes upward. Sinuous and long, like a serpent. Was that attached to the eyes I’d seen?
Another flash of lightning and I was sure there was something flying above our heads.
I stepped further into the cave, cradling Reyhan with one arm. “Lila, do not fly out there, but can you see what it is?” I pointed to the wrath-filled sky.
She crawled up to my shoulder and peered out with me, eyes straining against the dark and the storming weather. “Nothing, I got nothing.”
There were no more flashes of lightning and the ice rain continued to fall in larger and larger chunks. Ice rocks pounded down to the ground with enough force that I wasn’t convinced someone hadn’t hired giants to throw them at us.
Again, that made me think that the eyes had been looking for or at us, and literally taking shots.
Even so, knowing that, I stood my ground at the entrance. What if Asag had one of his captive dragons following us? That was my first thought with the flying creature. The second was that we’d taken up hiding in a creature’s cave and he or she would show back up when we least expected.
“Whatever it is,” Lila said, “I don’t see it now. What do we do? You think it lives here, whatever it was?” Her question echoed my own. But with the hail, there was no choice. We couldn’t survive out there. If we’d taken longer to leave Mamitu’s, we wouldn’t have made it. Being caught out in the open desert, there was no way we wouldn’t have been pummeled to death.
“Keep going,” I said, bumping into Balder’s rump, pushing him further into the darkness, away from the entrance.
The shattering of a boulder-sized chunk of ice speared through the doorway and into the cave, scattering across our feet. If we’d been even a few feet closer that would have been a problem.
Again, that sensation buzzed along my skin of a magic that felt . . . like my own. A female Jinn maybe?
I shook my head. Who had I pissed off lately that was a woman?
My jaw dropped as the answer hit me as surely as one of the hailstones would have.
“What do you want to bet that’s the Storm Queen?” I muttered as we worked our way deep enough into the cave that we could see the opening but weren’t getting slashed or speared by the shrapnel of the ice explosions. “She has Maks. She controls the weather and we killed one of her rhuk.”
Lila groaned. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. You think that Maks turned her down?”
“I’m sure of it,” I whispered.
“Then she’s trying to kill you?” Lila nodded. “That makes a wicked sort of sense.” She flew around my head as we went deeper into the cave. “I would like to ask the Toad if he thought that his idea was a good one. You know, getting caught by a woman who has the ability to wreak havoc on the weather. Why couldn’t it just be a lonely old lady in the desert with a crush on him? One that would make him muffins every week. And call him sweety-buns. No, he had to go and make frenemies with—by all accounts—a psycho.”
I sighed and went to my knees, without even the energy to laugh. Because Lila was right, this was a terrible situation—though she was wrong, it was no choice that Maks had made. Maks being caught by the Storm Queen had changed everything. Instead of working our way through the three challenges, to face Asag and free the dragon hatchlings, now we had to deal with the Storm Queen and save Maks. We had to save my mate. There was no other option in my mind.
Because with him at my side, I could face anything—even a demon.
Balder dropped his nose and worked his tactile lips across my cheek.
I lifted my hand and held his warm nose to my face, whiskers tickling my cheek. “Thanks, friend.”
He blew out a long snort and lay down next to me. Starting a fire wasn’t going to happen, so I leaned against the curve of his neck and shoulder and just closed my eyes.
I wasn’t sleeping.
I just needed . . . a moment. The last twenty-four hours had been . . . well, rough was an understatement. We’d lost Torin, Balder’s father. We’d escaped the rhuk and managed to get to Mamitu’s. I’d faced down Vahab, and now we were on the run again. Not to mention the whole Maks being caught
up by the Storm Queen who wanted to make cubs with him.
My guts clenched at the thought of the Storm Queen having her way with my mate. Jaw ticking, I struggled to breathe normally, to bring my heart rate into some semblance of normal.
We still had to get through the mountains to Pazuzu, the next guardian that Asag had in place to keep his realm safe. Somewhere in all that were the dragon hatchlings that needed rescuing.
But first, Maks.
A slow hiss of breath escaped me.
Reyhan shuffled in the crook of my arm, getting herself more comfortable or maybe just protesting that I was holding her a little tighter as I struggled and waded through some heavy emotions.
There was one other person, though, that I’d been decidedly ignoring for the last eight or so hours.
The person who had some seriously big mojo by all accounts and who had at one point really pissed people off. I mean, they’d stuck him an oversized flower vase.
Against my hip, the Vessel of Vahab shook and shivered. Opening my eyes, I fumbled with my free hand to press it against the top of the vessel. It really did look a bit like a flower vase with a lid. Bronze, etched with only a single symbol on it and it held the very first Jinn ever. Vahab. Demon-created. Which meant, well, it meant that there was some demon in me too if this was real. Bile rose in my throat.
Nope, I didn’t like that much. I was part Jinn, and if all Jinn were from Vahab . . . ugh. I did not like that reality, but it was at the moment the easier thing to think about, rather than thinking about Maks naked with another woman and knocking her up.
Kingdom of Storms (The Desert Cursed Series Book 8) Page 1
