“Yes.”
He shot her a sideways glance. “So willingly?”
“Because there are four more. I’d get this one back if you forced me to it.”
“No more forcing for now.” He extended his hand, catching sight of the dried blood on the forearm of his dress shirt. It was dark brown in the gathering shadows. What had made him trust that she wouldn’t slice his wrist? What made him feel this affinity to be with her?
Fate.
The word was unwanted. It was heinous. Fate meant he had been intended to arrive at that moment, at that time, with this woman, despite every choice he’d ever made. That might’ve been a comfort when thinking of Bakkhos—that he hadn’t been responsible for his actions there—but it also meant that he’d been fated to act as judge, jury, and executioner without any say. Why force that responsibility on him? Or burden him with the title of Giva? Surely there were more violent criminals to do the dirty work and more stable, sensible men suited for leadership.
He took the arrow. It was light … so very light. “Feathers hold more heft. How is this supposed to fire from a bow, let alone serve as a weapon?”
“I already said. Magic.” For the first time, the Pet’s voice sounded almost teasing. “But you don’t believe in magic. Assume it’s useless and give it back.”
Yet Mal was entranced. Twenty-four-karat gold was too soft for crafting jewelry because it was relatively malleable. He would’ve been surprised had the arrow been made of anything less valuable. The gold was deep and lustrous, its orange-bronze gleam too dull to be considered attractive.
He held something unearthly. And this woman, this inexplicable woman, had known it would be among some forgotten ruins in Crete—the apparent ruins of a prison. Unbelievable, even when his senses couldn’t deny the arrow in his hands. Its strangeness. Its great age and fascinating sense of purpose.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Look.”
Mal studied her profile first. The tip of her tiny nose turned up. Her upper lip was full at its apex. She had wide cheekbones and small ears. The upward sweep of haphazardly pinned hair revealed a graceful neck and a hint of delicate collarbones. She still wore the brass knuckles on her right hand. Softness and deadly skill. He was disturbed by his fascination, which was as unwanted as any thought of fate.
He hadn’t noticed a woman the way he noticed her in … He couldn’t recall a more visceral, compelling attraction.
“What?” His question was gruff. Had he spoken that way before the Council, the two representatives from each clan would’ve known a barb had struck home, or a protest had been met with his frustration. It was another rarity he shared with only the Pet.
“This mark.” She tipped another arrow into the light. “What does it look like to you?”
Mal examined it more closely. Shining in the last of the light was an engraving. “The Pendray representation of the Great Dragon,” he said, the hairs on his forearms prickling.
“Exactly. An Earth Mother. Fat and fertile. Yet winged with a tail. Breathing fire.”
Examining the arrow in his hand, Mal found another engraving. “This one’s Garnis. Thin and long, like the Chinese interpretation.”
Sure enough, each of the arrows was marked with a clan’s differing vision. Somewhere throughout the centuries, the idea of Great Dragon—their creator, their mother and father combined into one—had splintered until no clan could agree on its true likeness. They could find less vital topics to bicker about on any given day, but the image of the Dragon brought out fierce tempers. The most level-headed of their kind still mustered loyalties enough to argue the point.
“Which do you believe?” he asked. “Since you’re so intent on believing in myths and superstitions.”
“None of them are real, so it would be a waste of breath.”
He handed the arrow back and watched as the Pet reverently returned it to the unassuming quiver. “None of them are real?”
“We split into five pieces. Do you think any one clan got it right?” She stood and shouldered the quiver. It looked good across her back, the weapon of a fey creature from another era. “I’m done here.”
“Then you’re ready to return to Greece?”
“I’d rather resume—”
Her answer was cut short by the sound of footsteps. She dropped low against the wall. Mal turned—just in time to avoid the downward arc of a huge, glittering sword.
*
The Pet hadn’t known she could move so quickly. Just because she had been raised by a Garnis family, with their superhuman reflexes and animalistic senses, didn’t mean she was blessed with their special skills. Her instincts said that didn’t matter. Three Pendray wearing the collars of Cage warriors leapt over the wall in the throes of berserker rages.
She jumped almost straight up, landing in a crouched balance on the top of a wall. A sharp spike of glassy rock pierced the sole of her boot. Malnefoley had fallen backward, scrambling crablike away from his attackers. Had he not reacted so quickly, he would be dead—his head severed forever from his body. The glittering metal meant the Pendray wielded a Dragon-forged sword. Its metal had been honed in the fires of the Chasm. Decapitation by such a weapon was the only way to kill a Dragon King.
The Pet jumped off the wall and onto the back of one of the Pendray. With her knees on his shoulders, she clamped her thighs and squeezed. His rage was so intense that he resembled an angered wolf, spinning and snarling. He flailed back with his arms, trying to dislodge her. She wrapped her forearm around his eyes. His bellows were more powerful than an animal’s howls, like a bear ready to swallow her whole. She used her brass knuckles to repeatedly punch his temple. He staggered, then caught her around the waist and flipped her onto the ground.
She landed on her side. The wind gusted out of her lungs. She reached behind her back and grabbed one of the seemingly fragile arrows.
The Pet exhaled and strove for calm. If the arrows were strong enough to serve as Cadmin’s weapons in a Grievance, surely they would protect her.
Trust.
Belief.
The Pendray man leapt down to straddle her, with his fists raised to pummel her head against the rocks. With all her strength, she held the shaft straight up. His descending body did the rest. The tip of the arrow pierced his right lung. He screamed and landed a solid punch to her gut before rolling away in agony. Still winded, her stomach clenching in pain, the Pet jerked the arrow from her enemy. Blood flowed in its absence.
Goose bumps flared across her skin in the now-familiar feeling of an oncoming storm—not one made by nature, but forged by a very angry, very powerful Tigony man. She turned toward the force pulsing at her back, powerless to do anything else.
All around the Honorable Giva, sparks of frenetic electricity gathered and intensified. The color of his eyes deepened to a blue that was almost black, and blazed with an otherworldly glow. He made for a ghastly, primal sight, with blood from his torn shoulder soaking the sleeve of his shirt. He was a warrior in the midst of battle. He was wounded, but not on the defensive—not when he was master of one of the greatest of the Dragon’s gifts.
Their eyes met. “Run,” was all he said, aiming that eerie blue gaze directly at her.
A third Pendray, a woman, tried to catch the Pet as she darted past. She only managed to grab a purple linen sleeve, which tore away. The Pet clasped both hands into a knot of knuckles—one set protected by a row of metal—and swung her arms like an Olympian spinning to throw a hammer. Connect. Crack. The woman’s jaw skewed to a garishly sick angle, like hinges coming loose from a door.
Heart pounding, with hair freakishly active across her skin, straining up from her pores, the Pet did exactly as the Dragon Kings’ leader instructed. She ran. The quiver containing five arrows bounced against her back. Her direction didn’t matter. The maze could consume her, but she knew what she needed to do to escape.
Those Pendray didn’t stand a chance.
The air crackled and swirled. A slim tornado
appeared from the clear dusk sky. She turned left, right, forward, dead end, back again, as the Cretan plain transformed into a battle between ozone and humidity.
Her gift served her well. Moments before the first lightning strike, she saw when it would happen, how it would happen, and who it would destroy. She pressed into a bleached stone corner, tucking between a small boulder and a wall. Vital organs protected. Head bowed. Only at the last second did she whip the quiver off her back and huddle over it, protecting it with her torso—as if her body could protect a weapon that had weathered countless years. Then again, it had likely never been struck by the full force of an enraged Tigony.
The sky lit like the explosion of a bomb. Heat ricocheted through the maze walls. The Pet huddled as energy washed over her hiding place. It wasn’t enough to protect against the quick-burst fires that streaked her skin and singed the ends of her hair.
Sound came next—the loudest, nearest thunder eardrums could endure, whether human or Dragon King. She screamed, as if a bellow of equal fury could ward off the pain. She never heard the noise tearing out of her mouth, although her throat was abraded and raw by the time she took a breath.
Then … nothing.
She couldn’t tell beyond the buzzing in her ears if the skirmish was over. She dared look back over her shoulder, peeking out from her meager shelter.
“Giva?” she shouted, although the word sounded warped.
Across the half dozen leveled walls between her and the Giva, the Pet could no longer see the Pendray. He held the first attacker’s Dragon-forged sword, which was streaked with crimson. His eyes …
His eyes were lost to a fury she had never seen, not even from a Pendray at the height of a berserker rage. Yet his voice was utterly flat when he said, “They’re dead.”
“I know.”
The Pet shouldered the quiver and ran back. The way was easier now. Flattened. A few pits and smoldering, lava-hot rocks meant she still had to be careful. Forgoing the risks, she nimbly hopped on a wall. Her balance faltered. She was standing on one foot, her arms pinwheeling. She breathed through her nose and calmed her pulse until she could lower her leg. Using the back of her boot heel, she kicked away some razor-sharp rock. Then it was a quick hop down to run toward the Giva.
Winded, her abdomen tight with continuing spasms, she landed and found herself in the midst of three fallen bodies. They were charred black, their skin peeled away and turned to ash. They’d been decapitated.
The Giva transferred the Dragon-forged sword to his left hand. His shoulder, which had been ripped open in the fighting, was now gashed to the bone. The injury only made him look more ferocious. He was pulsing with energy, even though he’d just aimed an electrical storm at three of their own kind. Maybe that was why he still pulsed with unspent aggression. The Giva was not meant to kill other Dragon Kings.
Then again, when was the last time anyone had attempted to kill an Honorable Giva?
“Hello?”
He lifted his chin. Blood smeared across his forehead and dampened the hair around one temple. The Pet jerked when his eyes met hers. She was looking at an entirely different man, one drained of civilization and hewn of primitive impulses. She’d suspected he was capable of such rage, but to see it in the flesh was overwhelming. Cadmin might stand a chance if she could turn this sophisticated, influential beast to her cause.
Moving with caution, she recalled the techniques Dr. Aster had used in his lab. He never wanted to lose his so-called patients. That meant each surgery was precise and careful. No mistakes. The men and women he’d captured were there for the long haul, and he needed them completely recovered after each experiment. The Pet was as well versed in the use of sutures as she was scalpels, but the Tigony had other methods.
“May I … ?” She nodded to his wound.
He looked down at it as if taking notice for the first time. When he returned his eyes to hers, he had regained some hold on himself. The man was returning. The tempestuous beast few ever witnessed was retreating, gone back into hiding behind a cultured facade.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“You trust me with your care?”
“I have no other choice. And others may try again. We can’t stay here much longer.”
“I’ve found what I came for.”
“Guided by prophecy,” he said with a sneer. “Do what you can for my shoulder and keep your mouth shut. Fate. Destiny. They doesn’t exist. The only thing I care about is getting you back to Greece. I’ll drag you there by your hair if I must.”
She couldn’t help a quirking smile. “Then maybe I shouldn’t mend you after all.”
“Are you surprised?”
“What?”
“You said you’d be surprised if you made a joke.” He sat heavily. “That was close.”
“I can promise more if you quit with this talk of returning to Greece. But that won’t happen, and you told me to shut up.”
Gingerly, he edged to the ground, still gripping the sword. She knelt before him. At that lower vantage, he was even bigger than she’d imagined, with long limbs and a sturdy, muscular torso, made even more apparent because of a long, singed rip along the midsection of his dress shirt. He was breathing through his nose, probably to process the pain. Each inhalation lifted his chest and tightened his exposed abdominals.
Gorgeous.
The thought was as quick as it was pointless, unless she chose to believe the most intimidating of her prophecies: that she and Malnefoley would become lovers. She’d known since first meeting him among the burning rubble of the Asters’ laboratory. The fleeting image had grown stronger every day. Until that moment, she had never believed it to be more than curiosity born of her imagination. Now it blazed with the certainty of something that had already happened.
She looked into his eyes and shivered.
Fighting back to the present, she withdrew her switchblade. She cut his shirt into strips, and whipped off her own belt. “In your condition, how precise can you be with your gift?”
He lifted his left hand. It wobbled. Sparks shot in all directions. He made a frustrated grunting noise in his throat.
“If you don’t help me,” she said, “your fighting hand will be useless. I have the feeling you’ll be needing it again shortly.”
“I think you’re right. Curious, what that quiver brought down on us.”
“If you don’t consider that an assassination attempt, you’re crazier than you think I am.” She caught his left hand and carefully aligned each fingertip along the deep tear in the flesh of his shoulder. “I’m going to hold you still. Understand? Dig deep, but only enough to cauterize the wound.”
“It’ll hurt you.”
“You can feel bad about it later.” She nodded to the torn shirt and her belt. “I can help you with those, but not enough.”
He winced. His face was slicked with sweat.
She leaned close, closer than she’d been to another individual since escaping Dr. Aster. She pressed her forehead against his. “Malnefoley, you must. Did you hear me? I used your name. Do this, and you can help me pick my name. I’m no one’s Pet. You know that by now.”
He said nothing, but the upward press of his forehead was stronger. “I’m ready.”
“Then do it, Malnefoley. Do it.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
Beyond the blasted annoyance of his raw nerves, Mal could feel two things: the Pet’s forehead pressed against his, and her fingers aligned with his. He could see where he touched the gash in his shoulder, but his nerves were malfunctioning. Pain and flesh had no barrier. They were one fluid entity.
But he could feel her.
The Pet smacked her forehead against his. “Concentrate. Do it!”
Mal surged.
He had never felt his own electrical shocks. He was immune to the tornado of sparking lightning he flung at his enemies. So nothing prepared him for the squirming eels of static and sparks that burned his flesh. He cried out a curse.
<
br /> She didn’t reply, likely because of the anguish reflected in her green-gold eyes. She was his conduit, the equivalent of touching a downed power line when standing in a puddle. On his own, he was grounded. Gripped by her hands, with his blood as the lubricant between their fingers, he was just as much a victim. His body jerked. He kicked, fought, but kept up a river-wild current strong enough to cauterize without paralyzing them both. Nerve damage. Crippling burns. So many risks.
She didn’t let go.
He watched and watched as fireworks obscured where their palms twined. Surely his skin must be flaying away. So many said the Tigony power was exactly that: the feeling of having one’s skin burned away one layer at a time.
“Enough!”
Yanking upright, she pulled their hands away. Sparks shot from his fingertips but they were soon exhausted.
The Pet was straddling his torso. She lowered her arms so that his hands lay inert on the rocky earth. She was wild, with her pinned-up hair in static spikes and her eyes full of daring. And triumph.
She leaned down and kissed him. An errant spark renewed between their skin, with slippery wetness to soothe the melding of flesh against flesh. The kiss itself was anything but soothing. The strong, sure push of their mouths turned everything unnatural … natural. They had done battle, and they would celebrate in the oldest, most pleasurable way. Mal used his good arm to clasp behind her neck. He pulled her closer and took control.
One of them tasted of blood. Perhaps they both did. There was dust and salt and hidden sweetness. She had an agile tongue, keeping pace with the bold strokes he swept through her mouth. Sharp, tiny teeth nipped his lower lip. He caught her lip in the return, this time with more force. He liked her wince. She shook against his hold at the back of her neck. Mal wasn’t letting go; he was enjoying this heat and sense of command. The Pet changed tactics. She adjusted where her knees straddled either side of his chest, finding a resilient balance. She brought up both sets of knuckles—one skin, one brass—and angled them against the sides of his neck. A pinch of pressure against his carotid artery streaked washes of black across his vision. He grabbed a tight fistful of short hair at her crown and chuckled against her mouth.
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