by Susan Illene
“They gotta leave by their own free choice,” Earl interjected. “It ain’t anyone’s decision but theirs if they wanna go with you.”
Nanoq turned toward me. “Will you come?”
“Does your promise of safety go for me as well?” I asked. At this point, I’d grown curious enough about what the pendragon might want that I was actually considering leaving with him. Since he hadn’t tried to kill me right away, there had to be something more to his being here. It would also be my chance to prove I wasn’t a threat to his people—if I could control myself. He didn’t make it easy.
“In the name of Zorya, you will be safe.” He paused. “As long as you cooperate.”
I considered it for a moment longer and told myself it wasn’t just because I wanted to stay near Aidan. “Fine. I’ll go.”
The pendragon looked at Danae next. “And you?”
She met my gaze with a question in her eyes. I doubted the pendragon would lie if he was invoking the dragon goddess’ name. They took their vows very seriously. The tricky part there was—how did Nanoq define cooperate and what would he be asking of us?
“It’s up to you,” I said.
She lifted her chin. “Yeah. I’ll go, too.”
One of the shifters next to her produced a camrium blanket in his hands. He must have pulled it from shiggara, a sort of mystical place where they could store a few things and retrieve them at will. That was also where they kept their clothing and weapons when they were in dragon form.
“Wrap this around you,” the shifter ordered.
While she did that, Nanoq walked up to me. “I will be the one to fly you, but you must not fight me after I shift or this will not go well.”
I wanted Aidan to carry me, but I suspected the pendragon knew that. He probably only let Aidan come to give us a familiar face.
“Just keep your talons to yourself,” I warned.
“I could say the same to you.” He nodded at the sword and dagger strapped to my leg harness. “You’ll need to leave those behind.”
“Don’t trust me?”
He gave me a feral grin. “Consider this a test. You’ll want to pass it if you wish to continue living in my territory.”
Damn. I knew it must be something like that.
Chapter 5
Bailey
I kept my gaze trained to the horizon, taking calm and steady breaths, and did my best to ignore the large shifter holding me against his chest. He wasn’t Aidan. Flying with Nanoq while controlling my instincts was much harder. My fingers twitched with the urgent need to turn in his arms and claw his eyes out. The only thing that helped was Aidan flying ahead of us. Despite his being in dragon form, his presence calmed me.
I will not allow any harm to come to you, Bailey, his beast spoke to me telepathically in a soothing voice. Relax and keep your eyes on me.
He’d been giving me reassurances ever since Aidan shifted into dragon form and let him take over. Nanoq had no idea. It was supposed to be highly unusual for a shifter’s inner beast to communicate with anyone, much less a dragon slayer. Beast liked me, though. I’d begun to think he might even like me more than Aidan did, but Phoebe once told me that the animal within them acted almost entirely on instinct and desire. Their thinking was simpler. They didn’t care as much about the potential consequences of their behavior or how others might perceive it. Aidan had to be the one to take responsibility for both of them and anything they did.
I wished I could communicate back to Beast to thank him for his help.
The spirals and tops of the fortress guard towers appeared in the distance. We weren’t flying high enough to get a full view, but I could see enough to note it was constructed with dark gray stone. And if the spikes protruding all over the rooftops and walls were any indication, the place was built to be intimidating.
I’d avoided going anywhere near the fortress until now. A lot of images had come to mind when Aidan, Phoebe, or Donar mentioned it, but my imagination had clearly been lacking because it was far larger and more imposing than anything my mind had conjured.
Just south of the fortress, I got my first aerial view of the new mountain range that had sprung up out of nowhere on D-day. The jagged peaks rose to several thousand feet high from the base, making the tops of them visible even from Norman. Their blue-gray coloring provided an amazing sight for those of us who were used to only seeing the flat plains of central Oklahoma. The range went on for as far as I could see, though I’d heard they only took up about fifty square miles. Anyone who wished to pass them had to go around since there hadn’t been time for roads to be built through them yet. For now, the dragon shifters were the only ones with full access.
Nanoq’s grip on me tightened, and he started descending toward an empty pasture.
I tensed, wondering if he planned to have us walk the last couple of miles. We landed with a thud on a muddy field. A flash thunderstorm had struck sometime in the early hours of the morning, dumping several inches of rain. In the heat of the summer, it would have dried already, but this was late November and the temperature hadn’t quite reached seventy degrees that afternoon. It didn’t help that clouds had been covering the sky for most of the day, only allowing the sun to peek out briefly this morning.
Nanoq let me go, and I moved a couple of steps away from him, glancing toward the spot where the other shifters had landed. The one who held Danae let her go as well. She stood there with a strained expression on her face, and her fingers clutching the black camrium blanket wrapped tightly around her.
“I think I just developed a fear of heights,” she said, shuddering.
I gave her a weak smile. “You and me both.”
Aidan lumbered toward me in his red dragon form. None of the shifters had changed into their human bodies, and it didn’t look like they were planning on it. He stopped in front of me, rising onto his hind legs. There was a time when having a ferocious-looking creature like him come close would have scared the crap out of me, but I’d grown used to it over the past six months. If anything, I had to resist the urge to hug him.
Black cloth appeared in his big, red hands, and he lifted it with a talon.
I stared at it. “What’s that for?”
I am sorry, little one, but the pendragon does not trust you yet. Your eyes must be covered and your hands bound before we finish the journey to the fortress. Please do not fight this. The less threatening you appear to him, the easier this will go. He pushed the cloth into my chest since obviously no one else could know he was talking to me, so he had to make some kind of physical gesture.
“Take it,” Nanoq said with a growl.
I just barely made out what he said. Until then, I hadn’t realized shifters could speak in their dragon forms, but I could see why they usually didn’t bother. The words came out mangled and almost incomprehensible.
“Fine.” I took the cloth from Aidan.
As I unfolded it, I realized it was a hood to go over my head. I grimaced. This was going to suck so badly, but they wouldn’t be bringing us to the fortress—their home—unless they had a very good reason. It couldn’t be to kill Danae and me since they could do that anywhere. Something much bigger had to spark their coming to get us and the expression in Aidan’s yellow gaze said as much. I had to trust him that going along with this plan would be worth it.
I glanced at Danae, who’d also been given a hood by one of the shifters next to her. “Let’s just put the damn things on and make them happy.”
“Remind me never to go anywhere with you again.” She lifted the hood and glared at Nanoq. “I’ve got patients to look after. If they die because I wasn’t there to take care of them, I’m holding you responsible!”
The pendragon let out a puff of steam.
She gritted her teeth and shoved the hood over her head. I followed her example, putting mine on next. The cloth was woven together thickly enough I couldn’t see through it, but it was loose enough that I could still breathe, and some hints of light made th
eir way inside. Aidan took hold of my shoulder and turned me around, grabbing my wrists to pull them together. Despite his long talons, his fingers were surprisingly dexterous and careful as he put the manacles on me.
I began to breathe harder inside the hood, panicking at the thought of allowing myself to be bound while traveling with a group of dragons. His thumb grazed my palm in a soothing motion. I exhaled the air in my lungs slowly, forcing myself to calm down. He wouldn’t let anything happen to me—I had to trust him. No way did he spend all that time training me only to let me die now. Never mind the attraction that still burned between us despite my best attempts to ignore it.
The cold shackles weighed heavily on my arms after he let go. They were tight, but not so tight they cut off my circulation. The pad of his thumb grazed me one more time and then he stepped away. I overheard Danae cursing where they must have been binding her. She used to be a soldier, and she’d served over in Afghanistan a few years ago, but she’d never been on the receiving end of this kind of treatment. It had to be tough for her, too, not to fight.
Nanoq took hold of me once more, and we lifted into the air.
A few minutes later, we touched down again. The ground was sturdier and drier here. Considering we were on a slight slope, judging by my footing, the rain water must have drained off after the storm. The pendragon let go of me. I sensed the heat of his flames as he shifted into his human form. Aidan had mentioned the fortress was designed so that no one in dragon form could enter it. Would we be going through the front entrance? That would be embarrassing, even if I couldn’t see the people gawking at me as I passed with manacles on my wrists. I supposed it had been a kindness that he didn’t have Danae and I trussed up while we were still at Earl’s neighborhood. That would have caused a world of trouble.
Nanoq’s hands gripped my hips, and he threw me over his shoulder. The air whooshed out of my lungs as my head swung down behind his back. His arm locked around the back of my thighs, making it rather difficult to move or adjust myself. This was ridiculous. He could have led us to wherever we were going, rather than make us feel like sacks of potatoes. Did he seriously think I’d tried to escape at this point? Sure, if I got angry enough, I could break my chains and get free, but I wouldn’t have allowed them to be put on me in the first place if I planned that. Or maybe he was more worried because we’d arrived at the fortress and he couldn’t risk me getting loose among his people. I hated that I had to prove myself to the shifters, even if logically it made sense.
I inhaled a deep breath and caught Aidan’s scent a few feet away. It reassured me and gave me the strength I needed to tolerate my poor treatment. One advantage to being a slayer was that I had heightened senses. Not as good as the dragons, but enough to give me an edge I didn’t have before my transition. It was rather ironic that they couldn’t scent my kind the way they could a sorcerer, though. I could sniff them out at close range, but the only way they could figure out I was a slayer was after I attacked them with superhuman strength—or I failed to burn in their flames. There was also a birthmark on my wrist as a sign, but my bracers covered that.
The pendragon began walking, and a moment later we started moving downward like we were descending stone stairs by the sound of it. The air turned cooler the farther we went. The tiny rays of light that penetrated my hood before were gone, and I was surrounded by complete darkness. I bounced with every step Nanoq took. It was hard to say how much time passed or how long we walked, but I estimated it to be about ten minutes. The only sound I heard during that time was booted steps on the stone and the occasional drip of water. He was taking us through an underground route where I assumed no one would see us enter the fortress. The hood and shackles made more sense now. This was probably a secret passage of some sort, and the pendragon didn’t want us to learn the location.
Nanoq set me down on my feet and pulled the hood over my head. I immediately ran my gaze around, thirsty for information. We were in a small room constructed entirely of dark gray stone. One table with a glowing lamp set on top was at the center of the space, as well as two chairs—nothing else. They’d shut the door before I could see anything beyond that. Aidan stood in the corner, partly in the shadows. I couldn’t make out the expression on his face, but I got the sense he was uneasy.
Nanoq pointed at a metal chair. “Sit.”
“Where’s Danae?”
“She is close. Do not worry about her.”
I narrowed my eyes. “She’s my friend. I need to know she is okay.”
“You will see her soon—if you both cooperate. Now sit,” he commanded.
I straightened to my full height, which was almost a foot shorter than the pendragon, and stuck my chin out. “I’ll cooperate, but if anything happens to her, I’ll hold you responsible.”
Nanoq ground his jaw. “You would do well not to question me.”
He had no idea how hard it was not to punch him right then. I settled into the chair, making a point to do it slowly. It wasn’t easy to pull off since they’d left the chains around my wrists. I didn’t know if I should be honored that the pendragon saw me as such a big threat, or offended.
Nanoq came to stand on the opposite side of the table. “How long have you known you were a dragon slayer?”
That question was easy enough to answer. “When Aidan told me a little over six months ago.”
“When did you complete the rite of passage?”
“About three and a half months ago.”
Before I’d completed the rite, my enhanced abilities were limited and unreliable. It was only after I made my first kill and consumed some of the dragon’s heart that I underwent the full transformation to become a slayer. It took several days, but after it was over, I became immortal. My body was stronger, and I healed a lot faster. Aidan said I could still die if my wounds were grave enough, but I would never age. I was locked into looking twenty-two years old for as long as I lived.
“Your first kill was an ancient?” he asked.
“That is what I’m told. All I knew at the time was that he was big, mean, and ugly with horrible breath.”
Nanoq’s lips twitched. Good to know he had a sense of humor in there somewhere.
He paced in front of the table, quiet for a moment. These were simple questions that he probably knew the answers to already. I could only assume this was a test to see if Aidan’s version matched mine, and then he’d move on to something I probably wouldn’t like. My last conversation with Verena came to mind. Was her prediction coming true, and if so, what would I do about it?
“How many dragons have you killed?”
I shifted in my seat. “I lost count after twenty, but that was a couple of months ago.”
After a while, the kills began to blend together. I didn’t take pride in slaying dragons, though relief did come from slaying the ones who hurt humans.
Nanoq leaned down and put his hands on the table, locking his gaze on me. “You have shown considerable restraint by not attacking my people. Why is that?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Other slayers do not care whether they kill pure dragons or shifters. Why do you?”
“Aidan showed me you’re not a threat to humans.” I glanced at the man in question, who gave me an encouraging nod. “He was willing to teach me and protect me until I became strong enough to battle on the shifters’ side. I’ve never been given a reason to fight you.”
At least, not on purpose. There was that one time with Ruari, Aidan’s brother, but I managed to stop before killing him and let him go. I wasn’t about to tell the pendragon about that. It wouldn’t matter that I’d still been working on my control back then and couldn’t help attacking. The pendragon would probably see it as proof I might still target his people.
Nanoq lifted his brows. “He protected you?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t look at Aidan this time.
“From the pure dragons?”
“I couldn’t become a full slayer and his al
ly if I was dead.” I scooted forward in my seat. “He did what he had to do to keep me alive until I was ready. If you recall, that worked out for your clan when you fought that battle with the Shadowan. A lot more of your people would be dead if I hadn’t stepped in to help.”
Nanoq stared at me. “That is the only reason you remain alive now.”
“How kind of you,” I said, bitterness tainting my voice.
“It means more than you can possibly realize. Especially considering a new threat has emerged, and I am considering asking for your help resolving it.” His gaze moved to the door. “Yours and your friend’s, if you both prove trustworthy enough.”
“And how are we supposed to prove trustworthy?”
“Cooperate in every way I ask,” he said.
“I’ve been doing that.”
He gave me a skeptical look. “We’ll see. Now tell me about the other sorcerers you know.”
“There are just two more—Javier and Verena. Neither are my friends, and I only deal with them when I have to, and there’s no way around it.” That was true enough.
“Have either of them asked for special favors from you?”
I tensed. “Javier asks me to bring green dragon scales for him when I can. He uses them for some kind of protection spells.”
“We are already aware of that, and we’ve sanctioned him to continue doing so as long as there are no red scales involved.” He gave me a warning look.
I lifted my chin. “There hasn’t been, and there won’t be in the future. I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“Are you saying you would never do anything that could potentially harm my people?” he asked.
“Yes.” I stared up at him. “As long as you don’t harm humans.” That was the main reason I wanted to build an alliance with the shifter clan, and why I was willing to put up with Nanoq’s crap. One day, I’d be heading back to my family in Texas. I needed to know the people in Norman would be safe after I left.
“What has the other sorcerer asked of you?”
I dropped my gaze. “Nothing really—until yesterday.”
