Fate of Dragons

by Olivia Ash

  “That—huh.” Drew runs his hand through his hair. “That’s part of it, yes, but our feud goes deeper. For him, it’s personal.” Drew sighs, frowning, rubbing the muscles on his wrist and stretching his fingers after our match. “And I’m not proud of the part I played in it.”

  With a little jump, I hoist myself onto the edge of the empty platform in the center of the room, watching Drew intently. Careful not to make a sound, I silently wait for him to continue.

  Drew sidles up to me and lounges against the tall platform as he stares up at the ceiling. “Jace and I—our families have been at odds many times before. Jace's brother, Garrett, was involved in a clash with my family that should never have happened. We were trying to push the Fairfax family out of a very lucrative business deal so we could take it over. I hardly even remember what it was for.”

  “I can imagine that would piss Jace off,” I admit.

  “That’s not why Jace hates me,” Drew says with a shake of his head. “It’s what happened next.”

  A chill snakes down my spine, and I get the distinct feeling I am not going to like what I’m about to hear.

  “My family knows full well that people fear us, and those in charge of this little takeover—my brother Milo, primarily—were determined to use that to their advantage.”

  Drew abandons his place beside me and paces in circles with his hands on the back of his head. “Garrett was sick of us, sure, but he truly hated Milo. None of us ever really knew why, and Milo still won’t talk about it. I heard through the grapevine that Jace was trying to get his brother to leave this be, to give us the deal and walk away before people got hurt, but the arguments grew into fist fights. Into brawls. One by one, the meetings and negotiations started getting bloody. Then they started shifting, and before we knew it, we had tense face-offs with forty shifted dragons, circling and drawing blood.”

  Drew rubs his face in disappointment. “It wasn’t even about the stupid deal anymore. It became about pride. Neither side was willing to give an inch, and no one would give up.”

  I sigh. This is the sort of thing that only ends in bloodshed.

  Drew pauses, arms crossed, and looks at me intently. “The last fight had over a hundred dragons between the two sides, and twenty-three died. Fairfax dragons, mostly. And, among them, Garrett.”

  I grimace and sigh with disappointment.

  “Yeah,” Drew says with a frown. “He tried to take me and Milo on at the same time. I try not to speak ill of the dead, but that was just stupid.” Drew shrugs. “On the field, no one but me and Milo saw who dealt the final blow.”

  “Who did?” I ask.

  Drew holds my gaze for a moment, his face still and stoic. “Milo,” he eventually confesses. “But everyone assumes it was me, and I let them.”

  “Why?”

  “Milo—ugh.” Drew frowns. “He can be such an idiot. Prideful. Headstrong. Manipulative. A fine politician, honestly, but he isn’t any good as a fighter. If the Fairfax dragons knew it was him, they would come after him. Of us, I think he’s the one who could be taken out in an assassination. If they tried to kill me, they know they would fail—and a lot of their men would die. But Milo? They could do it.”

  Drew’s jaw tenses, and he quietly grunts in disappointment as he pauses to imagine what would happen. “But killing Milo would have consequences, even if killing Garrett didn’t. It would lead to war, but some Fairfax dragons don’t care. Garrett was revered, and many would be willing to die if it meant they would at least have their revenge.” Drew shakes his head. “But they know they can’t kill me. So, I let them think I did it. I let them hate me, even though I was trying to make him stop.”

  “Aren’t there laws against this kind of thing?” I gesture to the training hall around us. “There seem to be all kinds of treaties, agreements—”

  “Since it was me and Milo, well—” Drew sighs. “Because of what we are, we get preferential treatment.”

  Oh.

  Oh, no.

  “You’re an heir,” I say quietly as the realization hits me. “They’re grooming you to be the Boss of your dragon family.”

  “Milo is the current favorite, but yes.” Drew nods. “My Father, well, he keeps hinting that it’s not guaranteed.”

  “Tell me your family,” I demand, standing. “Tell me. Now.”

  I don’t know of any Milo or Drew in the Boss families—but we never had to study the heirs. The list of possible heirs for any given family is always a dozen or so long, and the current favorite can change on a whim. Since it was rarely important to the missions Zurie sent me on, we never bothered to learn all the names.

  Drew’s eyes flit to me, his expression sharp and authoritative at my demand. “It’s technically illegal to do that, here. That’s why even Jace hasn’t told you, though I suspect he desperately wants to.” Drew pauses and, after a moment, shrugs. “That, and I threatened to reveal a few secrets of his own if he dared.”

  I gesture to the room around us. “We both know you’re not exactly fond of rules, Drew. Don’t let that stop you.”

  His jaw tenses as he watches me silently, no doubt toying with whether or not to follow through.

  Oh, he’s going to. One way or another.

  I’m about to dig into him, to give him a piece of my mind, when the air vents shut off.

  The soothing rush of air filling the room becomes a painfully quiet eeriness that settles on the massive space.

  I tilt my chin upward, careful to keep Drew in my periphery as I examine the air vents along the ceiling, but there’s no indication of anything wrong with them. No smoke. No fire.

  They just… stopped.

  The hair on my neck stands on end, and my intuition screams that something is very wrong.

  “That’s not good,” he mutters, scanning the ceiling.

  With those three words, his entire mood shifts in an instant.

  His back straightens, those broad shoulders of his squaring up for trouble. All at once, he’s ready for war, and I get the feeling he knows what’s happening topside.

  “This isn’t over,” I say sternly before heading to the door.

  He ignores the comment and reaches the exit first, peeking his head into the empty hallway, tense and alert.

  Instead of scanning the halls, I watch him. His tension. His mood. He’s on edge, ready for a battle, a hint of knowing in his eye.

  I didn’t make it this far in life by letting my guard down. If he tries to lead me in a trap, I don’t care how much he claims to care for me—or how much I deeply care for him.

  If he tries to trick me—if my growing suspicions are correct, and he’s a Vaer—I will have to take him down.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  As we sneak through the dark halls of the dojo, I’m a little surprised at how often I have to correct Drew’s stealth.

  He’s powerful, sure. Strong. Imposing. But he has some serious work to do when it comes to patience and controlled, undetectable movement.

  With a mischievous little grin, I wonder how much it would piss off Drew if I asked Tucker to train him.

  Sometimes, it’s just too easy to get under a dragon’s skin. Prideful creatures.

  My first goal is to find Jace, and the route I’m taking will eventually lead to his suite. It’s a bit of a gamble, assuming he’s still there, but it’s all I have at the moment.

  We near another hallway, one that runs by his bedroom. I press my back against a wall and strain my ear, listening for who—or what—might be around the corner.

  Impatient as ever, Drew shifts his weight anxiously and tries to sidestep me, to just look into the hallway and be done with it. I smack him in the stomach to get him to stop. He grunts lightly and shoots an annoyed look at me, but I press my finger to my lips.

  Once more, I listen—there. The shuffle of fabric and boots on the tile. Two—no, three men.

  I catch Drew’s eye and hold up three fingers, nodding at the corner he was trying to go around blindly. />
  He lifts his eyebrows in surprise, pursing his lips briefly and apparently impressed. With a nod, he gestures for me to continue.

  The soldiers’ footsteps begin to retreat, and I almost follow. But as I instinctively pause, my senses catching something my brain missed, I listen again for signs of trouble.

  There—the hiss of air through a grate.

  I frown, scanning the dark hallway, until I see it—a soft yellow haze seeping from the vent on the floor.

  Crap.

  I elbow Drew in the side to get his attention and point at the golden fog, silently asking him what the hell that is.

  He grimaces and pulls on his collar, gently lifting his shirt over his mouth, and I follow suit. It won’t be a ton of help in filtering out toxins—or whatever the yellow haze is—but it might help us avoid inhaling at least some of it.

  Carefully, Drew slips a nearby curtain off the rod and balls up the fabric, stuffing it into the grate as tightly as he can to block the yellow smoke. A thin ribbon snakes out of one gap, but he otherwise did a great—and thankfully silent—job.

  As the strangers’ footsteps recede, I peek into the hallway to find three soldiers rounding the next corner at the far end of the hall. Each of them wears a gas mask and a crisp, wine red uniform with a gold stripe on his left leg. What’s more, however, is that each soldier also carries an advanced military rifle with what looks suspiciously like a laser scope.

  Oh, that’s just freaking super.

  This is a full-on, military-style hit.

  The gas, the soldiers—this is a premeditated, calculated mission to infiltrate the dojo, and it’s not hard to imagine what—or who—they might be looking for.

  Can’t I catch a damn break?

  Two soldiers in the dojo’s black and yellow uniforms lay sprawled across the floor in the middle of the hallway. With the immediate threat now gone, I tense and run to them, kneeling to check for a pulse, hoping that this gas isn’t lethal.

  Beneath my finger, I feel the first soldier’s steady pulse. I let out a sigh of relief and check the next one. He’s alive, too.

  Thank goodness.

  I may be pissed at Jace, but that doesn’t mean I want any harm to come to his dojo or the people who live here.

  “Rory, we need to go,” Drew says, his hushed tone shattering the silence.

  I flinch, a little caught off guard—since this is supposed to be a stealth mission, damn it all—and shake my head. “We need to find out what’s going on.”

  “I know what’s going on,” he snaps back. “I know these people.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll explain on the way.” He grabs my wrist and tugs, shooting an anxious glare down the hall at the side corridor the guards in the red uniforms had just walked down. “Let’s go.”

  “Drew, I’m not—”

  “Fine,” he mutters. “This is for your own good, so don’t you dare hate me.”

  With that, he grabs me and flings me over his shoulder in true caveman fashion. His hand firmly on my ass to root me in place, he jogs down the hallway in the opposite direction from the three soldiers.

  “Drew!” I hiss quietly, smacking my fist on his muscular back. “What the hell do you think you’re—”

  “Quiet,” he chides. “You’ll get us caught.”

  “I’ll get us—” I groan in frustration. “You’re the one who spoke during a silent recon mission!”

  It takes everything in me not elbow him in the back of the neck to make him drop me—though, honestly, I’m not entirely sure that would even work on someone as solidly built as Drew.

  The man is seriously a tank. One made of rippling muscle and brimming with witty comebacks, but still.

  He pauses at a random wall. A second later, the soft chirps of buttons on a keypad hit my ears, loud and piercing in the otherwise deathly silent hall.

  Determined to get down, I wriggle in his grip, half tempted to just kick him in the face and be done with this.

  Not to be outdone, the dragon shifter slides his hand down my legs and pins my thighs to his chest, so that pretty much only my knees and ankles have free motion any more.

  I can’t move. I can’t wriggle. I can’t break free.

  It’s astonishing how strong he is. Every time I think I learn Drew’s limits, I discover another level to his strength.

  And not always in a fun way.

  My heart stutters, and I feel the momentary sting of claustrophobia as I’m rendered utterly immobile. After a lifetime of Zurie’s brutal training, the idea of being at someone’s mercy is making my pulse skyrocket—even if that someone has fought for my best interests up until now.

  The lack of control, the lack of free movement—it makes me want to kill something.

  “Drew, let me down,” I demand, barely able to keep my voice quiet anymore.

  “I will,” he promises as a hidden door in the wall slides open. He ducks inside, carrying me into the shadowy corridor as the secret door closes behind us.

  But he doesn’t.

  He trots down a flight of steps in the secret hallway, and for the life of me, I have no idea where he’s going or what he’s doing.

  Drew, the mysterious and silent dragon shifter that he is, must think he’s doing something noble right now. I get that he doesn’t share his feelings, rarely shares his thoughts, and never wants to divulge much of anything, but this is beyond what I’m willing to put up with.

  He can carry off someone else macho-caveman style.

  I’m done.

  “Drew,” I say, seething. “I swear to all that is freaking holy I will beat you senseless with a fish unless you tell me what you’re doing! Right now!”

  “We’re leaving,” he says simply, pausing at the end of the corridor as it forks into two directions. After a moment of silent debate, he jogs down the path to the left without saying anything else.

  “Leaving?” I ask, incredulous. “I’m not leaving, not without Tucker and Levi.”

  “Those people up there don’t care about Tucker or Levi,” Drew snaps. “They probably don’t even know about either of those men. They want you, and they’re going to rip this place apart until they find you.” He hesitates, looking back over his shoulder, the way we just came. “I know there’s another exit to the forest down here, if I can just remember—”

  “You had better give me answers, Drew,” I say, my voice dark and dangerous. “Real ones. Ones that make sense.”

  I’m about out of patience.

  I’m about out of calm.

  My magic burns within me, sparking as it pushes against my palms, eager to break free.

  To defend me at any cost.

  With my bubbling fury, I can barely rein it in.

  “I’m—” He groans and pauses, sucking in a sharp breath. “Rory, I’ll explain everything.”

  “Then do it,” I demand. “Now. Starting with who the hell you really are.”

  “I’m…” He groans. “I’m a Darrington.”

  I freeze, squeezing my eyes shut as the reality of what he just said washes over me.

  A Darrington.

  The most feared dragons in the world. The most powerful family, with the most connections of any dragons alive. The most wealth, the ones who can get away with murder.

  Or in this case, abduction.

  Suddenly, everything makes sense in the absolute worst way.

  “What’s the plan here, Drew?” I ask, seething, my heart shattering at the thought of the man I’ve been growing so fond of betraying me so completely. “Are you going to take me back to Jett Darrington? To the Capital? Hand me over?”

  My throat tightens, and as angry as I want to be, all I can feel is hurt.

  “Listen, Rory,” Drew says softly, jogging down the hall again. “I’m—”

  He turns a corner and pauses. Something he sees makes him stiffen, and I wonder what it could be.

  Jace, maybe. Or Tucker. Someone to distract him long enough for me to break free, to— />
  “Father,” Drew says tensely, his voice lowering an octave. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  With those simple words, my last shred of hope burns to ash in my chest.

  Drew, to his credit, finally puts me down. He sets me on my feet, never once looking at me, his intense gaze focused on the hallway ahead of us.

  But I’m not about to stay and witness their little reunion. I don’t care about meeting the Darrington Boss or getting more information about how I fit into his grand scheme—not right now, anyway. A Spectre knows when to retreat, and this is my freaking cue.

  Fast as a bullet, I pivot, ready to bolt, but Drew grabs my arm. I grimace, astonished he was faster than me. His grip is impossibly tight, and no matter what I try, I can’t move.

  He has me pinned to the spot, but I don’t go down that easy.

  Furious, enraged, and ready to kick ass, I land a perfect blow in the back of his knees.

  I give it everything I have, but even a lifetime of training, my flawless precision, and the force of the dragon gods smoldering in my body isn’t enough to do more than knock him slightly off balance.

  He teeters for a moment and instantly recovers, not even grunting with the effort.

  Shit.

  Drew tugs on my arm, dragging me closer, angling his body so that he mostly shields me from the other people in the dark hallway.

  Finally, I look over my shoulder to find two men standing alone in the corridor, their faces illuminated by one of the bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Both men have a gas mask under their arms and wear the same wine red uniforms as the soldiers above us, though theirs have more golden threads woven into the hems and intricate patterns of gold on their chests.

  They look like mirror images of each other, though the elder man must have a good thirty years on the younger one. Strong shoulders. Piercing brown eyes. Jaws lined with rough beards.

  The older man I know all too well—Jett Darrington, the merciless dragon Boss. The younger man can only be Drew’s brother, Milo.

  As I study the uniforms, something clicks in the back of my mind. The soldiers upstairs—