His lieutenant answered from the entrance, “I knocked.”
The second guard came into sight, peeking from behind the lieutenant. “Dragon—” His eyes darted from Jade to Dragon, who was now sitting at the edge of the bed, his back to Jade, one hand clutching the duvet in an iron grip.
“What is it, Lars?” Dragon barked.
“One of the sentinels at the bridge hasn’t reported for the quarter of an hour check.” Walking around the lieutenant, Lars stepped in.
“I’ve already sent guards to investigate,” Valerian said.
“Why aren’t you with my betrotheds?” Dragon’s posture was straight, but his immense shoulders rose and lowered, betraying how upset he was.
“We are.” Valerian’s eyes cut over his shoulder at the room behind him. “We brought the princesses here—”
Commotion ensued, and a high, feminine voice demanded, “Let me through.”
“Alongside fifteen guards,” Valerian finished. He gazed at Jade, then focused back on Dragon and tilted his head. “Do I let them in?”
“How dare you!” could be heard from behind the two men.
A second, gentler voice said, “Please, we just want to know what’s happening.”
At Valerian’s raised brow, Dragon’s head lowered in assent. The lieutenant turned and gave a short command. A moment later, he and Lars moved to the side as two young women burst into the bedroom.
Eyes as wide as saucers, a blonde with curly locks and a curvaceous figure stopped in the middle of the room, looking from Dragon to Jade. The woman studied Jade with a narrowing gaze that soon ended in a pronounced frown. “Who is she?” She brandished her pointed finger with as much skill as Jade handled her knives.
Jade noted how the imperious beauty’s first question wasn’t why her husband-to-be had a woman tied to his bedposts.
“An assassin sent to kill me,” Dragon answered, eliciting a gasp from both women.
Somehow, the High Lord’s answer pleased her. He had given Jade her proper place.
“An assassin? Here?” The blonde’s finger pointed at the bed. “Don’t you have cells?” She shook her head, sending her curls bouncing on her naked shoulders. “Interrogators?” A delicate shrug followed her next words. “Surely you have people to take care of such things.”
Jade bristled at the way the woman gifted her with a malicious glare when she said such things, and felt the urge to reveal that just a moment ago the High Lord had been kissing her.
“I heard assassins are the most dangerous of mercenaries,” the tall brunette said with a timid voice. She had been silently watching, a step behind the blonde as if she wanted to remain in the shadow. “I’m sure you are more than capable of defending yourself, High Lord, but maybe it would be safer if she was taken somewhere else.”
“Thank you, Gilda, but I assure you that the situation is perfectly under my control,” Dragon said.
Jade shivered. She didn’t know about the rest of the manor, but she had been under his control for sure.
At the blonde’s not so subtle sneer, Dragon added, “Lauren, if you fear for your safety, Valerian and Lars will escort you back to King’s Ridge.”
As the haughty princess blanched, the lieutenant’s expression morphed into something that looked much like hope, but he was fast in suppressing the emotion in favor of a blank stare. Before the man could hide his feelings, Jade caught his fleeting glance aimed at the brunette, who promptly lowered her gaze to the floor.
“No, there’s no need to send us back. We’ve just arrived, and delaying the wedding wouldn’t look right,” Lauren said, her demeanor humbler than a moment before. Still, she managed to throw daggers at Jade with her eyes. “Although I don’t think Gilda and I should be in the same room with an assassin.”
“I agree.” Dragon nodded at Lars. “Escort them to the spare bedroom and stay with them. Take with you all but two men.”
Lars bowed at the two women, opened his arm to the side to indicate the door. “If you’d follow me, princesses.”
Lauren sent one last withering look Jade’s way, while Gilda’s eyes lingered for the briefest of moments on Valerian before stepping outside.
“The assassin will be here shortly,” Dragon said, turning slightly toward Jade.
There was no point in denying the truth and she nodded, already coming to terms that her life was about to end, but not before enduring unbearable pain.
Under the judging eyes of his lieutenant, and to Jade’s surprise, Dragon’s hand left the mangled fabric of the duvet to gently rest upon her cheek.
“I won’t let the assassin kill you,” he said.
Warmth spread from his palm to her face and propagated through her body, thawing the forgotten corner in her heart where her trust in humanity resided. Frozen and shriveled, that side of her had been under lock and key since she was but a girl and her family sold her.
“I won’t let the Academy hurt you,” he added.
This man meant every word he said. She could feel it in the ripples of awareness created by the joint action of his promises and his touch. Unbidden, tears welled in Jade’s eyes.
“Dragon—” Valerian walked closer to the bed until his large presence hovered like a dark cloud over both Jade and Dragon. “What are you playing at? She’s your enemy.”
“She won’t be hurt.” Dragon’s words were clipped, but his hand on Jade’s cheek was soft, his thumb gently massaging her jaw. His other hand reached over her head, brushing her wrist before moving to the bedpost.
“What are you doing?” Valerian asked.
“She can’t fight the assassin all trussed up.” Dragon’s fingers deftly worked for a few heartbeats, until her hand was freed from the restraint, and he guided it down to the mattress.
Rushing blood tingled her extremity, causing her pain, but she didn’t move. The lieutenant’s body was taut like a harp string, coiled to spring on her at the least provocation.
“This is insane.” Valerian started pacing.
Dragon freed her other hand, then turned to her ankles before caressing her numb legs to speed up the awakening process of her limbs.
“I know you won’t betray me,” he said, his eyes the color of the clearest pools of water on Celestia.
Jade knew she should have said, “I’ll kill you,” but with each passing second it was becoming harder to fight him. Her survival was at stake, and the only thought left in her brain spoke of unbridled passion with no regard for her wellbeing.
The High Lord was like a flute of aged Amarillian, exotic, sense-altering, and sometimes fatal. Distilled from the berries that grew on the flanks of the Tomolan volcano, the substance was deceivingly sweet. Vermillion bees pollinated the flowers with a natural hallucinogenic that was impossible to remove from the final product, and that could on occasion speed up the drinker’s heart rate to a prohibitive pace. At the Academy, assassins in training took the Amarillian, daring to prove they were fearless. Jade almost died after downing a crystal chalice of the burgundy brew, but she remembered her last thoughts before succumbing to the dark embrace of the poison; she had never felt so alive. Every inch of her body tingled with renewed energy, and pleasure engulfed her as she drowned in a sea of sensorial stimuli.
This is how Dragon made her feel.
She had never thought she would ever again experience that kind of high, but here she was, staring into the eyes of a man who was going to be the end of her, without taking advantage of the fact that her hands and feet were finally free. This close, the side of her palm could easily crush his windpipe.
Instead, she remained still.
21
Dragon watched the array of emotions playing on Jade’s face, and wanted nothing else but for Valerian to disappear. He knew that if he took her in his arms now, she would let him. And her arms would rise of their own volition and her long fingers would hook at the nape of his neck. Her body would press against his when he leaned away, because she wanted him as much as he wanted her
. He saw how her eyes softened when the fight left her. Desire pulsated in her obsidian gaze, a yearning he needed to stoke and guide.
“This is a mistake,” Valerian reminded him.
His friend was right. Freeing an assassin was as idiotic as it was kissing her and letting his imagination run wild with all the positions he could have her in. The countless ways he could mold her slender body under his—
But would his beautiful mercenary betray him at the first occasion?
He had never thought himself prone to gambling, yet the woman on the bed pushed him to embrace a wilder, darker side where he bet on his life without a second thought.
His hand trailed away from her ankle, and he was pleased by the fleeting look of disappointment that passed across her face.
Dragon pushed himself off the bed and looked down at her. “Your replacement is coming. Are you ready?”
Jade tilted her chin to meet his gaze before nodding. She straightened on the mattress and stretched her limbs and neck. One moment later, she unfurled. Her long, lithe limbs moved with the grace of a ballerina, and the precision of a martial artist. She never lost eye contact as she slowly stood in front of him. Like one of the mountain phoenix-panthers that proliferated in the crevices of the northern regions, his assassin was beautiful and lethal. One could never master those proud creatures, but they sometimes lived for a time with the few elected humans they chose not to kill.
Would she choose Dragon?
From the terrace, Contessa and Carellian flapped their wings and roared, alarming Dragon. A third winged creature shadowed the draglets. Valerian unsheathed his scimitar, while Dragon reached for the holster and grabbed his dagger.
Dragon’s first thought was to shield Jade from danger, then he caught a sideway glimpse of her and remembered she was an assassin.
She stood at the ready, her body taut and her face a determined mask. Pure energy emanated from her body. His admiration for her grew. She might be planning how to kill him, but he still couldn’t bring himself to send her out to her demise. Insanity possessed him, and he didn’t mind if the result of his lack of judgment was that they would end up in a tangle of limbs later in the night.
With a violent war roar, Valerian burst onto the terrace as the draglets fought the intruder.
Dragon spared a moment to give his mercenary one last look, and she regaled him with a naked, unguarded small smile that lit her face.
No matter what happened tonight, Jade would be the end of him.
Dragon ran outside, his own war cries tearing through the nocturnal air as he charged the assassin flapping his clockwork wings at the edge of the terrace.
The draglets shrieked and bellowed when flashes of orange and blue colored the sky. The large bulge of the mercenary silhouetted against the backdrop. The Academy had sent a man this time. A heavily armed mercenary who didn’t have any moral restraint when it came to hurting animals.
Silent as the predators he had compared her to, Jade slid to his side. Her body tightened when the winged man’s face came into view.
“Do you know him?” he asked.
“Antoine—” She dipped her head in the slightest of nods. “His weapon of choice is firearms. His right side is his weakness,” she answered his implicit question. “And flying is his strength.”
“Hear that?” Dragon called to Valerian, who was engaging the mercenary and shielding the draglets from another firearm blast.
Valerian’s head swiveled toward Dragon, confirming that his shifter ears had caught Jade’s words. He immediately lunged forward, forcing the man to expose his right side, but his wing shielded his flank and caught the hit.
Dragon joined the fray, slashing his dagger at the membranous fabric of the mechanical wing, aiming for the clockwork cartilage that whirred with every powerful stroke.
A subtle whoosh of air ruffled Dragon’s mane when Jade ran past him and jumped off the edge, propelling her legs forward. His arm automatically shot up, reaching for her, but it was too late. She had already landed on the mercenary, her limbs securing her hold as she circled her legs tightly around his waist and her hands around his throat. When the man pulled his wings higher, the two of them spiraled in a vicious fight.
Amidst the draglets’ cries and the frantic flapping of wings, Dragon held his arm out to stop Valerian’s scimitar from completing its descending arc and potentially hit Jade. His lieutenant stopped the blade a hairbreadth from severing Dragon’s wrist.
The assassin’s hands were at Jade’s throat, mirroring her stance. The man’s big fingers easily circled the base of her neck, pressing deeply into her flesh, reddening her skin as her face started changing color.
Dragon tried to reach for the man’s spinning wings with the intention of pulling him closer to the edge. Once on the terrace, he and Valerian would neutralize the assassin, but as long as he was in the air, there was nothing that could be done to stop him without hurting Jade in the process.
Valerian shot him an enraged look, brandishing his scimitar high.
Dragon shook his head. He wouldn’t risk Jade’s safety.
A heartbeat later, the decision was taken away from him. A shot, then a silver glimmer flashed in the night, followed by the acrid stench of gunpowder. For a moment, time froze, and Dragon locked eyes with Jade’s as she looked at him from behind the assassin. Her gaze held a note of regret before she blinked away moisture.
A second flash exploded, and both she and the assassin disappeared under the terrace’s edge when the clockwork wings plummeted down, toward the abyss below.
22
Still anchored to Antoine’s body, Jade fell, the wound on her shoulder a throbbing ache that occupied most of her consciousness. After he shot her, she deflected the next hit aimed at her leg by wrenching his wrist until the gun pointed at his chest instead.
The Academy wanted her alive to be publicly punished, and while Antoine had aimed to incapacitate her, she didn’t hesitate when she pressed her fingers over his to release the trigger. The shock at seeing Antoine—her training partner for many years—hovering a few meters above the terrace, immediately transformed into rage.
The wind whistled against her ears as she hurtled toward the chasm, head down. How many times had she practiced the conjoined fall with Antoine? Now, she couldn’t let go of him. His wings were her only means of survival, but her head spun and her hands couldn’t unfasten the harness.
If she didn’t succeed in freeing the wings from the uncooperative body and use them to fly away, she would be dead too, in seconds. The night was dark, and she couldn’t see past Antoine’s hood flapping around, but they were gaining speed and it wouldn’t be long before they reached the base of the cliff.
Forcing her mind to relax, she slipped into a meditation loop to leave behind the physical pain of the gaping wound in her shoulder. Blood already soaked her vest, but she ignored the throbbing. If she didn’t free the harness and take control of the wings in the next few heartbeats, they would be her last.
The vertical wall of the ridge flew by, floating lichens tangled in her cropped hair, the fresh scent of the river water rushing up.
Her fingers fumbled with the leather hooks on the back of Antoine’s vest. Water sprays wetted her face. She was plummeting too fast.
Jade channeled what remained of her strength to her arms before bringing her hands to the front and shoving at Antoine’s chest. The pain in her wounded shoulder exploded, and she pushed it away as if it were a physical obstacle, redoubling her efforts at displacing Antoine. After one last superhuman thrust, his body finally angled and his wings caught the current and spread, slowing her descent. It was enough to give her time to reposition her body and use Antoine’s as a shield against the incoming waters.
Even at a slowed-down velocity, the fluid surface of the river transformed into a solid slab. A cold wave surged at the impact that broke the corpse’s bones and gears alike. Jarred, Jade swallowed a mouthful of water before remembering to close her lips ove
r her chattering teeth. Blood sloshed in her mouth from where she had cut herself. She hurt everywhere, but she was alive.
The churning foam swept everything away in its path and dragged the clockwork wings under. Antoine began sinking, pulling her down with him.
Ahead, the river raged in a misty cloud, and the sound of falling water crashing against rocks grew louder. Depending on the height, she might not survive the drop.
Jade let go of the body, scissoring her legs against the current. Her maimed shoulder resisted the movement, and she forced the pain away. Her hands reached out, looking for a jutting rock to anchor herself, but her grasping fingers slashed at empty water. The river sapped her strength fast, leaving her gasping for air as she tried to keep her head up. Her lungs soon burned as much as her legs.
Plans change. Assassins adapt, she reminded herself.
Dark blotches appeared before her eyes, compromising her already limited vision in the dark night. She gasped once. Water filled her mouth. She felt lightheaded. How much blood had she lost? Chilled to the bone, she fought the current, her feet heavy and already numbing. Once again, she focused on her mental exercises to center her mind and suppress her fear of drowning. An assassin wouldn’t be bested by a mere river, no matter how exhausted she was.
Arms and legs cut the current in strokes that weren’t strong enough or fast enough to take her to the other side of the bank. Several meters ahead of her, a low branch leaned into the water, thick in diameter and sturdy-looking, offering the first glimpse of hope. The current transported her tired body at a rapid pace, slowing her progress toward the solitary branch and at the same time rapidly moving her away. She stretched her arm, propelling her legs, fighting nature to reach the tree. Her shoulder couldn’t move any longer, pain radiated from her neck down, but she reached deep inside her for that residual strength that came from desperation.
Her outstretched fingers brushed the rough bark of the branch. Her heart beat faster. Hope surged in her chest. The next moment, she was grasping at the flowing water, the tree already behind her.
The Fifth Moon’s Dragon Page 7
