Joe’s body convulsed, knocking the container from Nik’s hand. He scrambled for the jar, but the black liquid had already spilled to the ground. Dammit!
Connor snarled behind him. “I took up with someone worthy, someone I would be proud to call king.”
“That scrawny, weak…”
Nik brushed Joe’s long, silvery hair back from his closed eyes. He was breathing, but barely. Did he even swallow what Nik had given him?
“Strength alone does not make a good king.” Connor’s voice boomed through the hall. “You’ve proven that well enough to everyone.”
Gale howled.
The air wafted and blurred before a bright light flashed, blinding Nik. He blinked the spots from his eyes, refocusing as Connor dodged the trashing, clawed tail of a huge, gray dragon where human Gale had once stood.
Cheating bastard!
The drumming of the dragons above began anew. They hissed and their gravelly voices echoed through the chamber. The cacophony shrieked like a freight train’s brakes slicing through the room.
None of the other dragons moved to stop the fight, though. Nik tried to recall the ancient tomes he’d studied. Somewhere it had to say that fighting a man in dragon form wasn’t allowed.
Connor slammed his shoulder into Gale’s leg, and the dragon shifted across the floor. Gale roared and stepped back, favoring the limb Connor had hit. Maybe the fight wasn’t as one-sided as it seemed.
Joe groaned, startling Nik. “Boss!” He shook the unconscious boy. “Come on, snap out of it.”
Gale opened his wings and whipped his tail. Connor dropped to his knees before reaching up and grabbing the edge of Gale’s wing as it passed over his head. He held on as Gale arched his back, lifting Connor into the air.
“Nik.” Joe’s eyes fluttered open, his voice barely audible in the booming theater-like cave. He rolled his arms one at a time, as if making sure they were still attached to his body.
“You’re all right,” Nik told him. “Just take a few deep breaths.” And please do it quickly. He tensed as Gale roared again behind him.
Every ounce of Nik’s flesh crawled and twitched, prodding him to run for his life. But he had to trust Connor, and he had to trust that the dragon venom would prove the miracle they all expected. The little voice in his head told him their plan had too many holes, though, and the boss getting taken out so early made their predicament even worse.
Joe’s pain seeped through the bond. Nik did his best to block out the phantom burn searing his side as Joe’s chest rose in a deep breath and fell. The kid’s eyes widened before he grabbed Nik by his collar.
“Duck!” Joe pulled Nik to the floor.
A whoosh of air rolled over them before rock and dirt cut into Nik’s cheek as Gale’s tail slammed into the wall where they’d both rested. Gravel and a massive hunk of stone fell to the ground.
Joe coughed, his eyes on Connor’s back as the older man readied for another lunge. “I see Gale didn’t keep his temper long.”
“All of about three minutes.” Nik helped Joe to his knees. “Are you going to be all right?”
Joe nodded, but the apprehension spiking through their bond told Nik otherwise. He stood slowly, his gaze carrying to the far side of the room, where Anna yanked against her bonds. The air between them vibrated with the need to free her.
Nik grabbed Joe’s shoulder. “Hey, stay with me. We can’t help her until we get past the big ugly dragon.”
“She’s hurt,” Joe whispered. “We need to get to her.”
With a screaming roar, Gale flung his arms outward, sending Connor careening through the air to slam against the rock wall behind them. He slid down the damp surface until his lifeless body rested on the floor. Blood oozed from a deep, open wound in his stomach.
“Help him.” Joe wove the dragon talon between his fingers and moved toward Gale.
Nik eyed the spilled potion on the floor. “I can’t.” They’d had more than enough elixir for several hits, Connor had even marked the jars into four rations, but there the miracle medicine was, soaking into the floor.
The ground trembled and Nik swung to find a golden dragon standing behind him.
Gale roared at the gold. Draconic gibberish rose through the air, grating Nik’s ears until the soft translation filtered from Joe. “Take one more step, youngling, and I’ll consider it treason.”
The gold tensed. Its spiraling eyes centered on Nik for a moment. It was Shun, the one who’d healed Joe and gave them his venom. He looked back at Gale, puffed smoke from his nose, and continued to make his way toward Connor.
“Your fight is with me.” Joe held up the talon. “Leave the gold to his healing.”
Hissing, Gale bat Joe to the side. He made to lunge at Shun, when an older gold fell from the sky, landing on Gale’s neck and slamming the larger dragon into the floor.
26
Anna’s wrists bled as she pulled at her chains. Across the room, Joe ducked as the gold dragon snapped and clawed Gale. Above, hundreds of other dragons clambered and growled. If Gale was such a terror, why weren’t more willing to help?
Beyond the theater, blood stained the far wall where Connor had hit the unforgiving stone. Shun’s golden wings loomed over him, blocking his patient from her view. As long as the young dragon stayed there, risking his own life to help, Anna knew Connor was still alive; but now Joe was out there again, with only luck keeping him from getting squashed by two fully-grown dragons rolling across the floor.
Turning back to her shackles, Anna propped her free foot against the wall and yanked. Her hands ached, the metal cool and unforgiving in her grip.
Her muscles quivered as she pulled again, but the bolts holding the chains didn’t budge. She needed a new plan.
A waft of air hit her on the right and a small red dragon, only a little taller than she was hit the ground only inches away. She gasped and stepped back as the creature wrapped its talons around the chain attaching her left wrist to the wall, and tugged.
Anna took three seconds to process that the little dragon was trying to help free her, before adding her own grip to the metal coils.
They pulled together, but the restraints still held firm. Anna growled in frustration as the gold dragon, who she took for granted was Shun’s brother Pijeth, took a hit from Gale’s tail and sprawled across the floor. She was running out of time.
She turned to her little red comrade-in-arms, but a thud sounded behind her, accompanied with the tell-tale waft of air she’d forevermore assign to dragon wings. She spun and faced a formidable, adult-sized red dragon, only slightly smaller than Connor. The creature looked past her and howled at the fledgling, who spat and hissed back. The younger dragon took a defensive stance, while the adult angled its wings.
Trapped between them, she flattened against the cold stone.
Her breath hitched as the larger dragon snapped twice at the smaller, while the little dragon pawed at the air and hissed. Growling, the larger dragon wrapped its talons around her waist and pinned her against the wall.
She gasped as the wind knocked from her lungs. They weren’t here to help. They were going to fight over her.
Anna struggled against a strength she wasn’t built to master as the claws tightened. Maybe they weren’t going to fight. Maybe they just wanted her dead.
The little dragon lunged for her throat.
“Joe!”
Her voice barely sounded above the clatter of the fighting dragons, but Joe still spun. His eyes widened when he saw her, and he dodged Pijeth’s tail as he sprinted toward the platform. Two seconds of relief were shattered as Gale’s giant fist slammed down on the floor, blocking Joe’s path. He skidded to a stop.
Anna tried to fight the ravenous baby dragon, but it overpowered her with ease, gnawing and thrashing. Her metal collar afforded her the only protection as the sticky sensation of blood dampened her neck.
The giant talon of the larger red turned her face to him. The beast hissed and smoky steam cloude
d her vision.
Rat bastard!
She took one hand off the savaging baby to push the adult away. It hissed again, but made no move other than directing her face toward it with the razor-sharp spike.
Another hiss.
But wait, was that a hiss? The smoke cleared and she stared into the creature’s eyes. The cold, soulless stare she expected wasn’t there. The wedge of scales where the dragon’s brow would be creased as it hissed again. It wasn’t a hiss, though, but more like a Shhhhhhh.
Anna glanced over to the theater, where Pijeth yanked Gale’s wing back, steering the beast away from Joe as he scurried across the floor.
Gale’s cold, yellow eyes met hers— eyes that glared death and menace. That demonic trait was missing in the eyes that held her pinned to the wall, while its baby rooted for her jugular.
Unless that wasn’t what they were doing.
Shhhhhhh, the dragon cooed again.
The baby could easily have sunk its teeth into her flesh above the collar. Either one of them could have attacked her face for a death blow with far more efficiency. Unless this was a parent training a baby how to rip out a throat. Those eyes, though, there was humanity there. If not humanity, then at least humanitarianism.
If she was wrong, she was dead, but tied to a wall, her only choice was to act on instinct. Steeling herself, Anna dropped her hands.
The baby growled, intensifying its attack, yet still thwarted by the metal collar. Anna kept her eyes trained on the adult, biting her lip against the sting in her throat, trusting that…
Pop!
The baby retreated, and the talon holding her face drew down her neck, and flicked the collar. The weight slipped from her neck and Anna released the breath she’d been holding as the bloodstained metal clanked against the wall, hanging from the chain above.
She gulped and looked from the adult, to the baby. “Thank you.”
The baby wagged its tail like a puppy before snapping at her wrist. She held her arm to the wall for leverage as the creature gnawed at the thinner metal until the restraint snapped and fell away.
The baby reached for her other arm, when a deafening roar echoed through the chamber. Gale held Pijeth down with one foot, but his eyes were trained on Anna and her treasonous new friends. The red snatched the baby with one clawed hand and slashed the chain holding Anna’s other wrist, leaving her hand free, but still incased in iron. It then pushed off the floor and flew up into the rafters and away from Gale’s poisonous gaze.
Pijeth took advantage of the gray’s distraction and stabbed his forked claws into Gale’s chest. The huge gray’s cry reanimated the dragons above, who stomped their talons on their perches.
Joe jumped onto the platform and gathered Anna in his arms. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “The red dragons.”
“I saw. Be thankful reds are egg bearers.”
“Why?”
“Otherwise that baby would be a seventeen-year-old adult and too big to gnaw that collar off.”
Cupping her cheeks, his gaze roamed her face. Joe seemed to reach through her eyes as his essence ran over every part of her body. Her wounds tingled, while some of the ache in her bruises disappeared completely.
This joining, this sense of connection was almost too much to bear, though. She needed to touch, to feel and connect in a human way to center the rampant energy pulsing through her. The chain hung loose from her wrist as she ran her hand down Joe’s uninjured side, drinking in the warmth eradiating from his skin and relishing its embrace.
He glanced at her mouth and leaned toward her. All the unease about dragons and humans and her current altered reality slipped away, drowned by his overwhelming Joe-ness. Anna licked her lips. She closed her eyes and relaxed despite the dragon battle still raging a few steps away, and surrendered as he lowered his mouth and… rubbed his temple against the side of her neck.
Anna’s eyes shot open as he drew away.
He checked the battle behind him. “You’re fine. I’ve healed what I could.”
“Oh.” Anna blinked. Her cheeks burned.
Why had she even dreamed he would kiss her when Gale could still bite their heads off at any minute?
Across the room, Nik fumbled with something beside his backpack. He wiped his brow, and his face twisted in concern before he rose slowly, gaze fixed on the dueling dragons.
The flickering torches caught the furrow in his brow and the grim, straight line of his mouth. He opened and closed his left fist. His right remained in shadow until he stepped further into the arena, allowing the torchlight to dance across the shimmering length of the dragon spear.
27
No one is born a hero. They become heroes, either by courage or necessity. At least that’s what Nik had been taught as a kid. Facing a dragon the size of a house, though, sent his courage running down the mountain, leaving him alone with necessity, and a pulse throbbing like the incessant beat of an alarm clock buzzer in his ears.
Throughout the theater, the onlookers jabbered and roared, slamming their claws against their massive box seats. On the platform, the boss had managed to scare off the two red dragons and free Anna’s hands and throat. The chain on her left ankle still seemed securely shackled as she and Joe stared at him from across the dragon-dueling mayhem.
He adjusted his grip on the spear. The weapon’s energy surged as if it had a life of its own, cooling and heating beneath his grip.
Even a touch from the spear will burn a dragon, the history books said, and from the way Joe and Connor had reacted in the spear’s presence, at least some of that had to be fact.
He needed to do more than just burn Gale, though. It was obvious that Pijeth was faster than the gray, but not stronger. The gold dragon was still fighting because Gale hadn’t managed to land more than a few hits, but Pijeth’s blows weren’t doing enough damage.
Nik’s grip tightened on the tingling metal as the gold dragon spun around the hulking gray. The plan had been for Nik to throw the spear as Connor distracted Gale. Stuck in human form, Connor was a much smaller obstacle than the huge gold.
If Nik threw and hit Pijeth, this competition would be over, and he would be to blame. Gale lumbered, but the gold’s constant movement fluttering between Nik and the gray dragon’s hide was a variable Pops hadn’t accounted for when teaching him how to throw.
Faith was all he needed, but not something easily achieved in the face of mythological monsters.
*I have faith in you.*
Startled, Nik’s gaze carried to Joe, who’d stopped yanking on the chain holding Anna to the floor to stare into his eyes.
*I’ve always had faith in you. If I hadn’t, I never would have chosen you.*
Nik choked down the lump in his throat. “If I hit the wrong dragon—”
*You won’t. End this for me.* His gaze moved beyond Nik, to where Connor still lay motionless against the wall. *End this for all of us.*
The throbbing in Nik’s temples heightened before seeping into the background. Even the sound of the dragons snapping and growling sucked away, as if he heard everything through water.
Just one hit. That was all he needed. Gale was a huge target. He could do this.
Taking a deep breath, he tilted the spear up, letting a portion of the heavy metal fall behind him for balance, and then he flung the quivering javelin toward Gale’s spine.
The lines etched in the weapon’s shaft glowed with the firelight, promising the swift death for which the lance had been forged hundreds of years ago. The point arched, then fell with an ethereal grace of a silent stalker, never seen until it struck.
Nik’s heart swelled as the weapon dropped toward its target. He drank in the heady sensation, thrilled that he’d done the impossible, until Gale roared and flapped his wings. The metal shaft clanged against bone, knocking the spear back into the air where it landed, impaled along the edge of a balcony above, surrounded by wide-eyed blue dragons.
There it remained, the greatest w
eapon ever forged against dragons, lost when they needed it most.
Pijeth managed to get his jaws around Gale’s throat, but the larger gray tossed him off as easily as he’d thwarted the spear. Joe and Anna stood, motionless and gaping. Anna stared at the spear in the rafters above, while Joe centered on his Kotahi. Nik waited for his boss’s voice to boom within his head, shouting encouragement, but silence prevailed. Joe’s shoulders slumped as he lowered his gaze to the floor.
Nik clenched his teeth. “No,” he whispered. “This is not over.”
Spinning away, Nik felt along the wall for something to grab onto. People scaled rocks all the time for fun. He was in decent shape. He should be able to climb up to at least the first platform, where several golds now stared down at him with cold eyes.
It was their challenger that Gale had killed during the competition. The golds had more reason than any to want the gray dead.
He only needed to convince one dragon to fly up and get the spear. They would listen to him. He knew they would.
Nik considered the shiny, sleek stone. Getting up there so he could convince them was another matter.
One gold sprang from its perch and landed beside Nik, hissing. He recognized those condescending eyes. “Dammit, Takata, I don’t have time for your shit.” Unless he could persuade this annoying little dragon to go up there and...
Growling, Takata snatched Nik’s wrist in one claw and flung him into the air. The world spun. His heart throttled and Nick howled, before a massive black dragon leaned off his perch and snatched Nik’s waist in its jaws.
Nik thrashed against teeth and slobbering goo before the beast tossed him back into the air. He flew across the theater and slammed chest-first onto a hard platform.
His hands trembled on the stone. The sound of the two dragons fighting echoed in the vast space, and the air seemed cold and thin. He wasn’t on the gold’s perch. He was much, much higher.
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