Water went up my nose and down my throat, I couldn’t cough, couldn’t breathe.
Blackness consumed me. I was dying—strangled and drowned at the same time, by an Earth-magic mage I didn’t even know. Not really the way I wanted to go.
A ton of regret rose up in me, and I wanted to cry, but I was too busy dying.
Tingling darkness, terror, and grief swallowed me whole, and I barely felt the new set of hands dragging at me before I was gone.
* * *
Colby
I reached through the darkness surrounding Drakey, grabbed him by the back of his now ruined coat, and dragged him outside to a huge spread of garden with pruned trees that didn’t grow naturally in this climate.
“Hold it together,” I growled while I swatted at the tendrils of his magic that swirled around me.
Getting covered in another dragon’s magic is unsettling. I flinched and said “fuck” a lot.
Finally, I threw Drake behind a high hedge that would screen him from the rest of the hotel. He could either go dragon and get the hell out of here or hunker down until he healed himself.
I deserted Drake and sprinted back toward where I’d seen the slayer run out, chased by Gabrielle. I couldn’t leave her to fight a man who knew how to reach into the heart of a dragon and use the dragon’s own magic to tear him apart.
The back of my mind told me Gabrielle wasn’t a dragon and didn’t have anything to worry about, but the thought of the slayer anywhere near her made my scales itch.
Janet’s magic mirror had gleefully showed me earlier tonight how Gabrielle had broken a ton of demons out of bondage and sent them back to Beneath, which was why I was here. I’d winged up to see if she was all right. Drake, who’d been with me at the time, insisted on joining me.
So we run into the hotel, and there she was, trying to chase off a dragon slayer.
She’d fought valiantly to protect me and Drake when she could have scuttled off and left us to it—there was more honor in Gabrielle than anyone gave her credit for.
I saw the dragon slayer running like hell across the garden, Gabrielle right behind him. For a second, I admired her long, sexy legs as she sprinted after the guy, her beautiful face set in determination.
But she didn’t understand her danger. I ran after them.
They went so fast that they disappeared into the pool area long before I got there. Fucking pool gate got in my way, so I ripped it from its hinges and threw it aside.
I heard the frantic splashing of water in the dark. My dragon sight showed me roiling, bubbling foam in the pool, pale in the dawn light, and my heart squeezed in fear.
Before I could leap in to rescue Gabrielle, the churning ceased. The dragon slayer pulled himself heavily out of the pool to flop on his stomach on the tiles around it and lie in a limp heap, his breathing ragged.
The pool settled down, showing me scraps of blue dress and smoky tendrils of blood.
Gabrielle? Nowhere in sight.
Chapter Nine
Colby
The dragon slayer was down, his magic deflating—I could feel it back off like pressure easing in a descending plane.
I bolted to the other side of the pool and stepped on him with my thick-soled motorcycle boot.
“Where is she?”
I should just break the guy’s neck. But not when the slayer knew what had happened to Gabrielle and I didn’t. Her dead body wasn’t in evidence, but there was a lot of blood and the remains of a blue dress floating in the water.
The slayer mumbled something. Weak, dazed, vulnerable. The dragon fire in me burned, itching to come out of my fingers and fry him whole.
I satisfied the itch by grabbing him by his hair and knocking his head against the tile. “Where. Is. Gabrielle.” Each word was accompanied by a thump of skull.
“Took …” the man rasped.
“Who took her? Where? Why?” Smack, smack, smack.
“Don’t … know …”
I felt the man’s power trying to resurge. I couldn’t be here when he restored himself, or I’d be dragon meat.
I hadn’t met this dragon slayer before, but they were mostly the same. See dragon, kill it now—dragon either escapes and has nightmares the rest of his life or ends up as a lifetime supply of dragon burgers.
If he didn’t know what had happened to Gabrielle, he was no use to me anymore, and too dangerous to be allowed to live. I needed to kill him now and go find her.
As I tightened my hand on his neck, a shadow fell, one too vast to be anything human. A huge black dragon, so close I could see the individual silken black scales, hung over the pool house, its bulk covering the pool, the attached bar, and part of the garden beyond.
Drake, obviously back together again, hovered like a hummingbird, except he didn’t buzz his wings—he went for slow, ponderous flaps.
Black threads of magic came out of his talons to crawl over the dragon slayer and wrap him tightly, a few brushing me in passing.
I knew what those were, and no way was I letting Drakey catch me in his binding spell. Not again.
I dove away from dragon and slayer, but unfortunately, the only place to go was into the pool. I found myself in nine feet of water, sinking rapidly to the bottom.
Swimming and me didn’t mix—land dragons don’t float too well. I crawled along the bottom until I reached the shallow end and rose to my feet, gasping for breath. I climbed ponderously up the steps, my jeans and shirt sodden, water in my boots.
Drake already had the slayer smothered in threads of the binding spell. They were magical strands, not tangible ones, but I knew from experience they’d shackle him more solidly than chains.
Drake was one powerful dragon—something I’d never admit out loud—and when he exerted his will on those he bound, it was a terrible thing. I remembered my body obeying everything he said, even half my mind obeying it, while the other half of my brain was screaming at me to get away.
No matter how hard I’d struggled, I’d been trapped. Gabrielle, the sweetheart, had reached through those bonds and freed me.
It hadn’t been Drake’s choice to enslave me—he’d been following orders and had no choice—and I didn’t hold it against him. But damn me if I’d ever let him do it again.
By the time Drake finished his spell, the dragon slayer was a cocoon of black cords. Drake had used far more magical ropes on him than he’d ever wrapped around me, but then, I wasn’t a deadly slayer.
Drake flapped away while I squished around the pool to the slayer and stood looking down at him.
“Okay, we’ll start again,” I said. “Where’s Gabrielle? You know, the lovely lady who was kicking your ass.”
The man glared at me. He was an ordinary-looking human, with brown hair, brown eyes, skin darker than white but lighter than that of anyone of color. Bland, that’s what he was. Mr. Bland.
“You should get some tatts,” I said, holding out my well-inked arms. “Human bodies are kind of dull to me—at least the male ones are—but they take decoration well. Got these done in a little shop in Tokyo, in Shibuya, tucked next to the best onkatsu stand in the world—three stools and a guy cooking like crazy behind the counter. You’d never know that stand was there if you didn’t know it was there.”
Mr. Bland only stared up at me, so I nudged him again. “One more time. Where’s Gabrielle?”
“I told you,” he said through his teeth. “I don’t know.”
If he answered like that, smothered in a binding spell, it meant he really didn’t know. My fears deepened. She couldn’t have just vanished, could she? Not that I knew a hell of a lot about Gabrielle’s magic. But all the blood scared me.
Drake strode in through the gate as a human, one as naked as a newborn. His skin was dark, his hair black, but he didn’t resemble any one specific race of humans. He probably didn’t think he had to, didn’t think about it at all.
He had tatts, black lines depicting dragon’s wings that covered his back and rose up his neck. I
don’t know where he had those done, but probably not my tattoo place in Shibuya. The guys there would be too cheerful for him.
Drake was one of the most obstinate, single-minded dragons I’d ever met. He’d been perfect working for the Dragon Council, because honoring his word was more important than breathing, but he’d quit them when he realized they didn’t live up to his standards.
He eyed me. “I will need clothes.”
I wrung out my sodden T-shirt. “You can’t have mine.” I’d need new ones too—these wet jeans were going to chafe like a some-bitch.
Drake moved to stand over the slayer. Tall and ice-cold, he gazed down at the man, a gleam of satisfaction in his black eyes. “You are bound to my will,” he announced. “If I demand a thing of you, you will do it, even if it is to throw yourself over a cliff to your death.”
“He’s not kidding,” I said. “Trust me.”
The slayer glared up at both of us. “It doesn’t matter. The Earth is rising. I am but a taste of what’s coming.”
Normally I ignore crazy statements like this one, but for some reason the words sent a tingle of warning through my body.
“See, I hate cryptic shit,” I said, nudging him with my wet boot. Okay, so maybe it was more of a kick than a nudge. “What is coming?”
“She woke the Earth. She angered it. And now, it rises.”
I kicked him again, harder this time. “See what I mean? Really hate it.”
“I am but one vessel,” the slayer said.
“Yeah, yeah.” I was tired of kicking him, and besides, my socks were all squishy with water which was hurting my toes. “Aren’t we all?”
“We must take him to the dragon compound,” Drake said.
I gave him a wide-eyed stare. “Take a dragon slayer to a dragon compound? Now there’s a great idea. He’ll last, what, two minutes? Then die before telling us anything. Anyway, I thought you quit them.”
“I did. But there are cells there that can hold him. His magic is strong, and he might eventually work his way free of the binding spell.”
“Don’t give him ideas. I understand your logic, but I have a better idea. Two actually. One, kill him and put him out of our misery. Two, since I want him to live a little longer, take him to Janet.”
Drake paused a long moment, face impassive, while he weighed my suggestions. Then he gave me a nod. “I believe you are right.”
“I am? Wow, would you look at that?” I said to the slayer. “Drakey agrees with me. Write it down. Date and time stamp it.”
The slayer’s lip curled. “It matters not what you do with me. You are obsolete.”
I put up with squishy socks to kick him one more time. “Now you’re hurting my feelings. And who the hell says ‘it matters not?’”
“Take him,” Drake said impatiently. “I need to clothe myself.”
“Huh.” I leaned down and hauled the slayer up and over my shoulder. Now that the binding spell was complete and specific to the slayer, it wouldn’t grab on to me, at least in theory. “I’m surrounded by guys who talk in medieval poetry. Where am I taking him?”
“To Janet.” Drake was already walking away toward the gardens, possibly to mug someone for their suit. I imagined him waiting a while until he found a man his exact size with his exact taste before he struck.
“Great.” I adjusted the slayer’s weight, and he hung limply without fighting me. “I always get stuck with the dirty work. So I’m supposed to drag you out, me soaking wet, through a posh hotel casino and lug you back down the Strip to find my friends. I’d much rather stay here and find out what happened to Gabrielle. If she’s hurt, you, my friend, will pay with your life. Understand?”
* * *
Janet
Mick led us at a run through the C hotel and out into their gardens. Security tried to stop us, but Nash flashed his badge and we charged through. I don’t think it was so much the badge that did the trick as our determination and Nash’s air of authority. The whole world backed down from Nash when he was after a culprit.
I was right behind him and Mick, with Titus following me. I didn’t like Titus behind me, but I didn’t have much choice at the moment.
One of Mick’s friends had called us while I was struggling out of bed, saying he’d spotted Gabrielle at the C, fighting for her life. I’d thrown on clothes, and we’d charged over here.
I stopped in the middle of a vast swath of greenery bordered by hedges and trees pruned into careful cone shapes. Dawn light streaked the sky pink and touched fleur-de-lis shaped flower beds that pumped blue, scarlet, and gold notes into all the green.
Through this beauty came a dripping man covered in tattoos that rivaled the flowers’ colors. He carried another man over his shoulder, that man half-conscious and helpless.
I darted forward. “Gabrielle? Where is she?”
The glare Colby turned on me could have started fires. “She was fighting this dickhead, but by the time we caught up to them, she’d disappeared.”
Colby upended his burden and dumped a man I’d never seen before onto the grass. He was thick-bodied but not fat, the thickness due to muscles and sheer bulk. He, like Colby, was wet, clothes soaked.
Titus and Mick pulled back involuntarily, and I felt the deep bite of Earth magic in him.
“You’re the dragon slayer?” I asked in surprise. He didn’t look that dangerous, but then, neither had Emmett, the most powerful mage in the world. Nor had Pericles McKinnon, the second-most powerful.
“Dragon slayer under a binding spell,” Colby said. “Drake’s specialty.”
Both Titus and Mick stepped closer to the slayer again, and I sensed their dragon-ness awakening—dragons were very, very good at taking revenge.
Studying the slayer with the eye of magic, I saw the dark threads that wound him in a tight, unbreakable swath. If those had been tangible ropes, he wouldn’t have been able to move or breathe.
“Don’t kill him yet,” I said quickly to Mick. “Not until he tells us where Gabrielle is.”
“I don’t know,” the dragon slayer said groggily, with the impatience of a man who’d been asked the same question a dozen times already. “Something hit me, and when I pulled myself out of the pool, the girl was gone. What is she? She crackles with demon magic. And why is a demon defending dragons?”
Not demon—goddess, I could have told him, but he didn’t need to know my family history.
“You really don’t know where she is,” I stated.
“I keep saying …”
“Good.” Mick went for him, dragon fire dancing in his hands.
Titus’s expression was stone cold instead of eager, and his suit wasn’t even wrinkled, but the ball of dragon magic he brought to his hand was deadly. The dragon slayer, in the next second, would be toast.
“You can’t kill someone in your custody,” Nash said. He was ever a stickler for the rules of law and order.
“Dragons can,” Mick said.
The dragon slayer held up his hands, his fear unfeigned. “Wait! You need me. You need me against what’s coming.”
“What?” I bent forward, carefully avoiding Mick’s line of fire. “What do you mean what’s coming?”
“He’s been spouting that crap since Drake bound him,” Colby said in disgust. “A ploy to save himself, I’m thinking.”
“No.” The dragon slayer shook his head, sending droplets of water flying. “I’m bound to the Earth, so closely that I know every move it makes—every tiny shift in its crust. That woman woke it when she opened the way to send my demons home, angered it by letting the wrong magic beings penetrate its heart. The Earth is rising. I guarantee it. It will bury every demon, dragon, and creature of darkness in its wrath. That is why you should not have tried to break your contracts with me, dragon creatures—your mistake will cost you everything you have.”
I did not like the sound of this. Colby might be right that the slayer was trying to keep himself alive by feeding us a load of bullshit, but his words held a ri
ng of truth.
He was talking about Gabrielle and me creating the vortex in the hotel to get rid of the attacking demons. But why should the slayer focus on her alone, when our magics had combined to create the hole? And what did he mean, letting the wrong magic beings penetrate its heart?
“He keeps saying that,” Colby said. “The Earth is rising. Sounds like a bowel movement. Can we dust him now and find Gabrielle?”
“No,” Titus said. The flame in his hands died, and Mick had dampened his as well. “We need to interrogate him. Find out exactly what he means.” He gave Colby a nod. “Then, we dust him.”
Colby grinned and jerked his thumb at Titus. “I don’t know who this guy is, but I like him.”
“You can’t interrogate him here,” Nash broke in. “The line of security guards behind us are going to stop believing I’m here to make an arrest and come for us.”
I glanced around and saw the formation of about fifteen men in dark suits with earpieces and sunglasses in the morning light, all focused on us. These security guards weren’t cheerful retired men in uniform; they looked like Secret Service agents ready to take down anyone who even remotely looked like a terrorist.
“I’ll get him out,” Mick said. “Best place, the Crossroads Hotel. We can bind him doubly there.”
The Crossroads would be a good place to take the slayer, I agreed, but I definitely didn’t want to leave Las Vegas before I found Gabrielle. Not only was I worried about her safety, but it would be foolish to leave her in this town alone. Grandmother would kill me.
So much for vacation.
* * *
Gabrielle
When I finally woke, I was in a bed. A soft, comfortable bed, nothing like Janet’s lumpy mattress in her bedroom in Many Farms. The room was much larger too, and beautiful, with a high ceiling painted like the sky, soft furniture, and tall windows letting in streaming sunlight.
Dragon Bites Page 8
