by C. I. Black
“We can’t control everyone in our coteries,” Barna said. He was the next eldest drake after Nero on the council and controlled the second largest coterie. “That’s impossible.”
Regis glared at Barna. “Then maybe you shouldn’t be doyen. They’re your drakes. You’re responsible for what they do. Everything they do.”
Get up.
Get up and run.
“You should be a better example for them, instead of hosting charity events for the very humans intent on making us extinct,” Regis said.
Barna clasped his hands in front of him on the table. The motion was relaxed, although the rest of his body was anything but. “If I’d canceled the event at the last minute, the humans would have been even more suspicious.”
Another tremor rippled over Nero, and the council chamber faded into darkness then flashed into a hall? …stairwell?
He stood— no, was sprawled on his back in a gray concrete stairwell with agony shooting up his neck and chest — possibly from a broken collarbone? — while a lesser agony throbbed through the rest of him, churning with a massive weight that dragged at his thoughts and muscles and—
Except it wasn’t him. It was Becca, and his dugga’s magic had thrown his consciousness back into her body again.
Shit. The convulsions would follow soon if he didn’t break free.
“Dragonkind must be protected at all costs,” someone said— no, that had been Regis. Back in the council chamber.
Focus on Regis. On the room with the other doyens. On how dangerous it was to expose such vulnerability to any dragon.
But the stairwell remained. Heavily armed security men at the top of the stairs yelled. A large bulky man with shaggy hair and a bushy beard fought with two others, while another man was pinned to the floor by someone else in tactical gear.
“Your drakes step out of line, you’ve stepped out of line,” Regis said, his tone dark.
“It’s more important now than ever,” Maize, doyen of the Major Yellow Coterie, said, her gaze sliding to Barna’s. “We can’t risk having another disaster like the one at your human fundraiser.”
“Run, Becca,” the man with the bushy beard yelled from the top of the stairs. Werner. His name flashed into Nero’s mind. “I. Said. Run.”
He— She lurched to her feet. The stairwell twisted and darkened, and the weight within her swelled until it felt as if he was running and thinking through water.
More agony seized his chest. Mother, just break the connection.
Run. God, run. This was her only chance. There was no hope of the nightmare ending if she didn’t escape. But God, it hurt to leave everyone behind. She hadn’t done that in Afghanistan. She didn’t want to do that now.
But she was helpless. She couldn’t fight. She could barely walk. It was taking everything she had to get down the stairs. Regroup and return was her only option.
Another snap of lightning. Nero couldn’t tell if it was his or her pain, only that it burned through his head, threatening to overwhelm what little connection he had left with his body.
His body!
Shit. He was going to lose it in front of everyone and endanger his puzur.
“Any drake steps out of line, he gets a date with Odyne,” Regis said, sounding miles away.
Nero mentally grasped onto the prince’s voice again, determined to drag his essence back to the council chamber.
“The Handmaiden banned using Odyne’s magic for a reason,” Lothair, the doyen of the Major Orange Coterie, said, his form materializing through the stairwell railing as he leaned forward against the council table, placing his bony elbows on the polished top. “Is the situation so dire we need to ask your father’s torturer to return to the Royal Coterie’s service?”
“Are you saying it isn’t dire?” Maize crossed her arms under her ample bust. “One of our own thought she could break our highest laws and make human mages.” Her attention jumped to Pike, the new doyen of the Major Green Coterie and former third-in-command to Zenobia — the doyen who’d broken those laws.
“I’ve already sent two dozen from my coterie to Odyne for their participation in the… events perpetrated by the former doyen,” Pike said.
“I’m still not convinced you didn’t play your part in that.” Barna cocked an eyebrow, accentuating the lines in his forehead. His human vessel was twenty years Nero’s senior, with more gray in his dark hair and his face more weathered and lined. “You were her Third.”
“By rooting out and sending traitors to Odyne, he’s more than demonstrated his loyalty to the Royal Coterie,” Regis hissed.
The stairwell solidified around Nero again. Shit. He wasn’t going to make it. His only way to keep this problem under wraps was to get away from the other doyens and Regis and get the hell out of Court.
Nero stood and slammed his palms against the council table, wrenching the room back into focus. “This isn’t up for debate. His Highness, Prince Regis, has spoken. Keep your coterie members in line, or they’ll face the prince’s torturer. Anything else endangers dragonkind.”
Barna glared, a clear attempt at proving his dominance, but Nero glared back and flashed his teeth, revealing a hint of the monster curled tight within his human vessel. Barna’s body might be bigger, but he didn’t have an earth magic as powerful as Nero’s. No one on the council did.
Maize and Lothair nodded, while Pike met Nero’s gaze for a heartbeat then slid his attention to the wall behind Nero’s head. Tobias, the Court Chamberlain, watched, his posture neither aggressive nor submissive, while Regis smirked — he always enjoyed it when Nero revealed his ancient dragon spirit to the younger doyens, albeit some of them were only marginally younger.
Run. Come on. Run.
Nero ground his teeth and forced his attention back to Barna, who raised his chin. He’d been on the Counseling Coteries when Regis had proclaimed his father, King Constantine, unfit to rule, and taken the throne. Barna was fully aware Nero had ambushed the previous doyen of the Major Yellow Coterie — and staunch supporter of King Constantine — in the arena and forced the doyen’s rebirth, thereby removing him from his position as leader of the Major Yellow Coterie, to ensure Regis’s succession.
Nero cocked an eyebrow. He’d do the same to Barna if it suited his needs. He’d force rebirth on all of them if it meant protecting his puzur, and he let that resolve seep into his expression.
Barna’s eyes widened, and his gaze leapt to the wall.
Lothair gave a tight nod, the movement so slight Nero would have missed it if he wasn’t in the middle of trying to glare down all of them. The elder drake — not ancient like himself, Regis, or Tobias — was smart enough to know he wanted Nero as an ally.
God. Please. It wasn’t real. But even knowing that, all she could focus on was escape.
Pain slashed through Nero’s head, and he deepened his snarl to hide the agony. He had to get out of there, had to figure out where she was and—
What? Save her?
She thought she was in a nightmare, and he had no idea if he could convince her any of it was real. He had no idea if he should. Her magic endangered his puzur. Besides, she was clinging to her soul by her mental fingernails, and soon she’d lose her grip. So very few human spirits could handle the truth about the world, and even fewer could manage that after being invaded by a dragon’s spirit. In the two thousand years since the Great Scourge, there’d been less than four dozen humans who’d body-shared with a dragon and kept their sanity — and one of them was currently living in his house. No matter how much, since having to clean up Zenobia’s mess, he’d hoped the odds would be in the human’s favor, Becca wasn’t going to be another case like Anaea. God damn it. Being inside her head and knowing she was falling apart, the only realistic kindness he could offer her was an end to her suffering.
Just stay awake. Come on.
The stairwell flickered over his sight.
And an end to his suffering as well.
“It’s been commanded.”
He shoved away from the table and stormed to the door. As much as he wanted to just gate out of the room, doing so broke protocol. A drake didn’t summon a gate near the prince unless he wanted to be arrested for endangering Regis. A gate wasn’t just an exit. It was a portal that allowed others to enter as well as leave.
“Nero,” Regis growled. “A word.”
Shit.
God damn shit. He couldn’t afford to lose it in front of Regis, but he couldn’t afford to disobey his prince’s summons, either.
6
Nero wrenched around to face Regis and managed to force his gaze to the wall beside the prince’s head before he thought Nero was challenging him. “Your Highness?”
“I said, a word.”
No way in hell. He had to get out of there before the convulsions overwhelmed him.
He fought to keep his expression neutral. “Of course.”
“So?” Regis glared at the other drakes.
“Your Highness?” Lothair asked, his gaze dropping to the floor.
“So?” Regis asked again, red sweeping over his face and his eyes narrowing, as if the other doyens were supposed to have known what the first so had meant. “Out! All of you, out! Now. Or the last one to leave goes directly to Odyne.”
Maize sneered, but leapt from her chair and rushed to the door. The other doyens scrambled for the exit as well, and Nero pressed tight to the wall to keep out of the way. Barna — closest to the door — was out first. Maize shoved Lothair behind her to get out next, which blocked the path for Pike, forcing him to be last.
Regis threw his head back and laughed.
The color drained from Pike’s face. “Your Highness, I—”
“Pike,” Regis said with a dark chuckle, “keep cleaning up Zenobia’s mess, and I’ll give you a reprieve from meeting Odyne.”
“Yes, your Highness.” Pike bolted into the hall.
“Oh, and Pike,” Regis said, stopping the green drake mid-step, “I think you owe a report to my chamberlain about the state of your coterie.”
“Of course, my lord.” Pike’s gaze jumped to Tobias, who still stood in the corner, somehow making his massive body and radiant aura unobtrusive. “I can do that right now.”
“In my office,” Tobias said as he stepped away from the wall and strode out the doorway.
“They need to understand,” Regis said as Tobias and Pike walked away. “We can’t be exposed. Every time a drake goes into the human realm, he risks revealing us to the humans and then they’ll destroy us for good.”
“Your Highness,” Nero said.
Someone yelled, and lightning shot through his head.
Five flights down. Looks like a door. Please let it be the way out.
“Every drake must be recalled from the human world. They can’t be allowed to leave Court again.”
So that’s what Regis had been ranting about. No wonder Barna was so upset. His coterie’s wealth had grown to enormous proportions because of dragons going into the human realm. His whole business was designed to cater to drakes living and shopping and being entertained outside of Court. If Regis recalled everyone, that would mean the Major Brown Coterie would take a financial hit and could lose its position in Court. As well, Nero’s puzur would be nearly defenseless, and his most valuable member, Raven, would be trapped in Court, since she wasn’t a member of the Asar Nergal and therefore wouldn’t have permission to be in the human realm.
The bottom of the stairwell flickered into sight, and a heavy metal security door materialized in the middle of the council table.
Nero ground his teeth. Just get the hell out of there.
Yes. Get out.
Of the stairwell. Of the building—
No. Out of Court.
Nero yanked his attention to Regis’s jowls, dangerously close to making eye contact, which could be misconstrued as a challenge for dominance. “I’ll let Tobias know.”
“Tobias?” Confusion flickered over Regis’s expression. “My father’s chamberlain?”
“Yes.” A chill fluttered through the pain. Regis was regularly demanding, sometimes even cruel — they were after all a spirit race of predators and aggression was part of their nature — but lately he was becoming more and more confused. Just like his father when his soul sickness had started to overwhelm his spirit.
Regis’s confusion melted into rage. “My father,” he said, his tone dark. “You must deal with my father, Nero. He can’t be allowed to hold the throne. It puts us all in danger.”
“He can’t.” Mother, Nero had no idea what to say to that. He could barely think past the pain and see the council chamber through the semi-translucent stairwell, but this was the same conversation he’d had with Regis five hundred years ago, before they’d imprisoned Constantine in his suite.
“Yes.” Regis bared his teeth and hissed. “And I want to see the heads of Hunter and the sorcerer he created at my feet within the week.”
Nero’s brain stuttered at the sudden jump in topic.
“Within the week,” Regis growled.
“Hunter is a resourceful drake.” Shit. How was he going to get out of this? Even if he wanted to kill Hunter or Anaea, they were too powerful for him or any of his soldiers in the Asar Nergal. “It might take more than a week. Hunter has gone into hiding.”
“You’re the dugga. She’s a sorcerer. You know exactly where she is. Isn’t that how your magic works?”
The simplified version. Yes. “She’s—” Come on. Just think of something. But even just concentrating on Regis’s words was difficult. “They’re—”
Regis’s eyes narrowed. “This should be an easy answer. Do you need Odyne to jog your memory?”
“That won’t get you Hunter’s head any sooner.”
The red fury swept over Regis’s face again in a giant wave, rushing from his throat to his forehead. If the situation weren’t so serious, Nero would have laughed at how close to a cartoon it was.
“You can be replaced,” Regis growled.
“I can. But do you trust any of the other doyens?” Nero’s pulse pounded. Confronting the prince was a risk, but he didn’t have the time or ability of thought to be delicate. He needed to finish this conversation and get the hell out of there, deal with this Becca Scott, then figure out what to do with a prince whose mental state was even less stable than Nero had feared.
“I can’t trust anyone.”
“You can trust Tobias, and you can trust me.” A tremor raced through Nero’s chest.
“I’ve yet to decide that,” Regis said. “You still haven’t killed Hunter or his sorcerer.”
“She’s hiding herself with magic. But when I find her, I’ll kill her.” Just let him go. Please. “I’ll kill Hunter, too.” And when he had a moment to figure out how to deal with that, he would. One problem at a time.
“You’d better.” Regis stormed away, his two-man guard — who’d been standing discreetly a dozen feet away — falling into step behind him.
Another bolt of pain shot through Nero’s head, and the muscles in his chest spasmed. He pressed a hand to the impossibly smooth granite wall — shaped by the Handmaiden’s powerful magic, like all the halls in Court — in part to summon a gate to get the hell out of there, but mostly to keep standing.
He’d known keeping a puzur of natural human mages — in direct defiance to dragon law — would eventually become a problem. Even as the dugga of the Asar Nergal, he’d known he wouldn’t be able to keep his kids a secret forever. But he’d hoped, from the depths of his soul, that dragon attitudes would have changed by the time his secret coterie was discovered.
Except Zenobia and her coup, using unnaturally created mages, had once again swung popular opinion among leading dragons away from openly co-existing with humans. While there were few drakes who remembered the first couple hundred years of chaos after the Great Scourge, and even fewer who remembered the Great Scourge and the time before, it was as if the fear of being wiped out of existence was written in the DNA of half
the dragon population, whether they remembered those times or not. The fear even defied logic, making drakes kill other drakes in order to seize leadership — marching them closer to extinction.
It made no sense. And yet the need to do anything to protect his puzur strained against all logic. It was as if his bonds of family — even if it was an unusual family — were stronger than the bonds of species. Like a miniature insanity, a ghostly reflection of the insanity that captured the newly inamorated.
And Regis wasn’t helping by demanding all drakes return to Court. That would only fuel the fear as well as the divide between those drakes who were afraid and those who weren’t. Hiding wasn’t going to help. Getting information. Making informed decisions. That was their best recourse. Not all humans wanted to finish what their ancestors had started. The kids in his house and those he’d raised and taught over the centuries were proof of that. No one would win in an all-out war. Only a minute fraction of the human population even knew the truth about magic, and even fewer knew about the existence of dragonkind. The only conflict dragons were involved in was one of their own making and imagination.
Another slice of agony burned through him, and the muscles in his chest tightened. He gasped, fighting the convulsion. He needed to hold it together long enough to get out of Court. He could give in to the pain back in the privacy of his room — and he wasn’t going back to his office. Someone still might find him and he didn’t want to terrify any of his kids. Once he’d pulled himself back together, he could find Becca Scott, deal with her, then deal with Regis and the rest of this mess.
He subvocalized his power word and summoned a gate. A speck of darkness, the heart of the gate, flared to life against the wall, then whooshed into a man-sized vortex. He concentrated on his bedroom at his house in Newgate. A simple room, decorated by Raven in black, white, and burgundy, with a king bed and an en suite bathroom. Since Zenobia’s coup, he’d been spending more time than usual in Newgate. As dugga, Newgate was currently where the greatest gathering of human mages were, and even with the ability to free gate anywhere in the world, it helped if he wasn’t juggling too many time zones. But if he wasn’t careful, the other doyens — who didn’t know he was the dugga — could become suspicious, and then this mess would get worse.
