Serpent's Kiss

by Deborah Cooke

  The mate leaned forward, her devotion to her dragon making Thorolf’s heart swell. He wanted that from Chandra. He wanted the partnership that Rafferty always said was possible.

  Which meant he had to win her over.

  “I forbid this!” a woman shouted, just before the snake made contact.

  There was a flash of brilliant blue-green light, like a crack of lightning out of a clear sky.

  “Darkfire,” Rafferty murmured. “Drake said the darkfire crystal plunged them into the past. This must be part of what it did.”

  Everything happened very quickly and Thorolf didn’t know who to watch. Jorge pounced on the man fallen by the side of the road. He snatched at that man’s arm, tearing it away from his body with savage force. The man’s body was dragged across the ground as Jorge tore the arm free, and blood flowed copiously when it did. The man moaned in agony but Jorge suddenly disappeared.

  “So, that’s where it came from,” Sloane breathed. “That’s the source of the virus in Seattle! I wonder what the man had.”

  “Quiet!” Chandra snapped.

  Meanwhile, the woman who had been huddled beside the fallen man had leapt to her feet. Her cloak had fallen away, revealing that she was young and beautiful. She pointed at the hag with the snakes for hair. “Your battle was your own until you dared to threaten a child of mine. I banish you from this age and this realm!”

  “You can’t banish me!” the hag replied. In the strange blue-green light, she looked even more like a nightmare come to life.

  The beautiful woman stalked toward her as she spoke.

  “Across the centuries and the years,

  You will wait and shed your tears…”

  She kept talking but the vision sputtered.

  Snow appeared around the perimeter of the scene, gradually encroaching on the middle. The sound became static, the beautiful woman’s words obscured even as her mouth kept moving.

  The hag screamed in protest. She took the form of a snake again, a large green snake that made Thorolf take a step backward. This had to be who—or what—had attacked him.

  In that moment, thunder boomed loud enough to make the earth shake. The light of the darkfire disappeared, along with the vision.

  There was only the hotel room, and Chandra looking about herself with dismay.

  She hadn’t ended the vision on purpose.

  Something had gone wrong.

  Thorolf had to think that if Chandra lost her powers, that would be a very bad thing. He had to reassure her, somehow.

  They had to become a team. And the only way to do that was to work together to help her fulfill her pledge to her brother.

  It was only if they joined forces that they could save the Pyr and satisfy the firestorm.

  * * *

  Chandra felt the fizzle. She knew the vision was slipping away, although she couldn’t make sense of why. She fed it new strength, buttressing it, but it faded all the same.

  What was going on?

  This had never happened to her before.

  Despite that, the vision disappeared before it was done, and there was nothing she could have done to stop it. Chandra stared at the space, shocked by her own failure.

  “Excellent,” Thorolf said. “I’m glad to see we have things in common.” He looked satisfied and almost happy, which was the least appropriate reaction in this moment, at least to Chandra.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Screwing up,” he said, his satisfaction so clear that she wanted to smack him. “I always seem to be letting things slip in that last key minute, right when everyone’s counting on me.” He grinned at her. “It’s reassuring, actually, that you’re not completely perfect. Our firestorm has a chance.”

  She sensed that Thorolf was making a joke, that maybe he was trying to make her feel better, but she’d never feel good about being a failure.

  How could he talk about the firestorm at a moment like this?

  “This has never happened to me,” she said, appalled by her own failure. “I’ve never failed…”

  Then she fell silent, her gaze snared by the golden glimmer of the firestorm.

  The Pyr thought the heat of the firestorm could burn away whatever was affecting Thorolf. If it could destroy magic, was it destroying her own powers?

  Thorolf was right to talk about the firestorm. It was changing her as well as him.

  She’d thought it was just lust, but there was more. She could still feel the heat the firestorm had awakened in her. In fact it was inescapable, a hum of energy that fed a simmering burn of desire whenever she was near Thorolf. That was a new sensation to her. She’d thought she could flirt with the spark of the firestorm, help Thorolf recover and it wouldn’t cost her anything.

  Instead, he kept drawing her into a sensual experience that she couldn’t stop—and didn’t really want to—and now her abilities were affected.

  Badly.

  She thought of her new impulsiveness and the passion his touch had awakened in her. She thought of the temptation Thorolf offered, an invitation to physical pleasures that had never tempted her before.

  “This is your fault,” she said, spinning to face him.

  He didn’t look troubled. In fact, his eyes were gleaming with an intent that might have made a lesser woman’s knees turn to butter. Chandra was feeling a bit less steady on her feet than she should have been.

  “I wish I could take all the credit,” he said and smiled.

  That dimple was trouble.

  “You chose me. You came to me,” he reminded her in a low and very sexy voice. Oh, he was confident, that was for sure. “You kissed me. A couple of times. Just a few minutes ago, in fact.”

  “It was supposed to help you.”

  “I feel much better, thanks.” He smiled a slow smile that did dangerous things to her knees. “How about another?” His gaze turned assessing. “Or maybe even more than a kiss? We’re in this together, Chandra.”

  “No! It’s not like that.”

  “You told me you work alone,” he continued with that infuriating confidence. “But the firestorm is changing that. We need to work together.”

  No. She’d never had a partner and she wouldn’t have one now.

  Chandra spun so that her back was toward Thorolf and furiously tried to change shapes. Nothing happened. She stretched out a hand, conjuring a flurry of snowflakes for a vision, but saw only the glimmer of the firestorm. The dark-haired Pyr they called the Apothecary watched her warily. She fired a look at him and he turned away.

  Rafferty was drumming his fingers on his knee, as if the entire world wasn’t coming to an end. “That’s the beginning of the verse the Drake brought back to Erik.”

  Chandra was busy trying to conjure a vision. No luck.

  Rafferty looked at the ceiling and recited the verse from memory, the one that Hera would have said in Chandra’s vision if her powers hadn’t completely failed.

  “Across the centuries and the years,

  You will wait and shed your tears,

  Until the darkfire is freed again;

  Your vengeance can cause Pyr no pain.

  I close the portal, for once and all,

  To see those I love out of your thrall.

  When darkfire will burn once again,

  Your sister’s death can be avenged.

  When daughters of all elements are mates

  Then will the dragons face their fate.”

  “That was what I wanted to show you,” Chandra muttered. She couldn’t summon so much as a snowflake.

  This was bad.

  This had to be why the mirror spell wasn’t holding.

  “Brandon’s mate Liz is a Firedaughter,” Rafferty continued. “We just need three more.”

  Niall shook his head. “No, Liz had to have been last. The terms of the prophecy must have been fulfilled.”

  Chandra nodded impatient agreement. “This mate who appeared out of nothing was an Airdaughter, a nymph under Hera’s protecti
on. The one in Hades was an Earthdaughter, and the mate of Alexander, who we didn’t see, was a Waterdaughter. This Liz must be the last.”

  “But where’s Tisiphone?” Rox asked.

  “She has taken the form of a woman named Viv Jason,” Chandra said. She wished she could have shown that to them. They were all shocked and she could feel Thorolf’s disbelief.

  “Is this why you were trying to kill her?” Thorolf asked.

  Chandra had to wish that he wasn’t quite so loyal. She turned to face him, her hands fisted at her sides. “Tisiphone is one of the Erinyes, given the right by Hades to avenge herself on the Pyr, as you just saw. The form she has taken in this realm is that of Viv Jason. They are one and the same.”

  Thorolf swore. “I don’t believe it.”

  Chandra gritted her teeth. “My pledge to destroy her could have been completed today, but I was…interrupted.” She fired another look at Thorolf, who now seemed embarrassed. “So, your kind remains in peril, thanks to Thorolf’s efforts to help.” Chandra softened her tone a bit. “Your loyalty is admirable but misguided.”

  “Okay, you’re my mate. So, we’re a team.” His gaze hardened, his eyes becoming a steely blue that sent a thrill through her. “How do I fix this?”

  “Guess.” Chandra saw him struggle against the idea of injuring the woman who had been his lover and knew he wouldn’t be able to do it.

  Loyalty was a double-edged sword.

  “She’s never done anything to me,” he protested and she turned her back on him. She’d never convince him, not without a visual display. She tried to conjure one again, but there was nothing.

  “So how do you come into it?” the fair-haired Pyr asked her.

  Chandra glanced toward him, then straightened. She might as well lay it all out for them. “I am Chandra, Freya, Selene, Artemis and Diana, the virgin goddess, the huntress, the daughter of the moon and the sister of the sun. I am the one who vowed to defend the Pyr against Tisiphone’s vengeance.”

  “Not just any goddess,” Thorolf said with such approval that she found herself blushing. “A major kick-ass deity. I like it.”

  To his credit, the blond Pyr didn’t seem to be surprised. “But why you?”

  “My brother asked it of me and I pledged my word to him that I would see it done.”

  “That still doesn’t tell us why you’d care about defending the Pyr?” the Apothecary said.

  Chandra cast a glance over her shoulder at Thorolf and her heart leapt at the admiration in his eyes. “I am the patroness of thieves, outcasts, wild animals and the wilderness. I guess that puts the Pyr in my jurisdiction.”

  Thorolf chuckled and that dimple, hmm.

  “I accepted a challenge to eliminate a threat to the survival of the Pyr.” She gave Thorolf a hard look. “It was supposed to be simple.”

  He gave her a look that should have melted every reservation she had. “Simple is boring,” he said in a low voice that made her body thrum. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Kind of like chastity.” He winked and her heart skipped. “This is way better.” He beckoned and Chandra found herself moving back toward him, lifting her face for his kiss, savoring both the sparks of the firestorm and the majestic power of her mate. She stretched to her toes, ready for that kiss, then someone spoke behind her.

  “Maybe it’s Slayers who are under your jurisdiction, not the Pyr.” The husky voice came from within the room but not from any of the occupants. They all looked around in confusion, and Chandra caught her breath at the telltale blue shimmer. “After all, the Pyr consider them outcasts and that would explain your relationship with Thorolf.”

  A young Asian woman manifested right in front of Chandra, her long red nails painted exactly the same color as her fitted cheongsam dress. The woman smiled, the light in her eyes malicious, even as she snatched Chandra’s wrist. Her grip was as cold as ice and sent a strange paralysis through Chandra’s body. When she struggled, the woman’s smile broadened. “The problem here is the firestorm and its interference in my spell,” the woman hissed. “And the mate is always the weakest link.”

  “Chen!” the Pyr shouted in unison and leapt toward the two women. Thorolf roared and shifted shape. His bellow of pain echoed in Chandra’s ears as the wind began to swirl around her.

  “Just bring the sword!” she shouted to the Pyr, then held fast to the Slayer who planned to destroy her. A new resolve filled her even as she had to close her eyes against the rushing wind and the nausea in her gut.

  If Chen thought the mate was the weak link, he could think again.

  * * *

  “What sword?” Niall asked just as Chandra and Chen disappeared. Thorolf knew which sword, but he also knew it was gone.

  Just like Chandra.

  It was easy to decide which was more important.

  It was, in fact, time to stop screwing everything up.

  “Not my mate!” Thorolf bellowed and the sound make the walls shudder. He couldn’t wait for his fellow Pyr to change the permissions on their dragonsmoke. He had to follow Chandra!

  He shifted back to dragon form in a brilliant shimmer of blue, then lunged through the dragonsmoke barrier. It burned his scales with ferocious power, stabbing into the skin at one spot on his chest, but he didn’t stop and he didn’t scream. He already felt flayed alive—a little more pain was no big deal. He endured it and emerged on the other side, his scales blackened and smoking.

  Chandra might be infuriating. She might not tell him everything, and she might have chosen him initially because she wanted him to complete a task. She was persistent and determined to keep her word, and he admired that. The ghosts and the visions didn’t lie. Best of all, she was his destined mate, chosen for him by the Great Wyvern.

  Chen wasn’t going to claim her as a sacrifice.

  Thorolf seized Rafferty in one claw and held him aloft. He wished his friend wasn’t so tired but he knew that Rafferty would push himself to the max for the sake of the firestorm. “We have to follow her!”

  “Where?” Rafferty demanded in old-speak. He sparkled and became a salamander, coiling his tail around Thorolf’s claw. “Where did he take her?”

  Thorolf inhaled sharply and peered at the space where Chandra had been. He stretched out one talon and saw a single spark of the firestorm’s golden light.

  “Follow it!” Rafferty advised and Thorolf tried to pursue the elusive spark. He filled his mind with the firestorm’s heat and the passion of its promise. He recalled Chandra’s sweet kisses and the feel of her body against his own. He thought of the way the heat burned over his skin and through his veins, and the light brightened before his very eyes.

  He believed he could succeed.

  That was when he saw a trail of sparks, a line of fire, a path of light that had to lead directly to her. He leapt toward it, narrowing his eyes as the wind began to tear around them. He took flight and flew after the spark, beating his wings hard as he chased it through time and space.

  “Focus,” Rafferty whispered in old-speak, his words resonating in Thorolf’s mind. “Keep her bright in your thoughts.”

  Thorolf focused. Thorolf let his admiration for Chandra fill his mind. He thought of her various forms, the way she shifted shape beneath his kiss, the way she responded to his touch, the way she challenged him and surprised him. He thought of how valiant she was, how she’d nearly kicked his ass, how resolved and stubborn and beautiful she was. He thought of the way she blushed, and how she’d already learned to kiss him back. He thought about tutoring her in the delights of the flesh.

  Rafferty murmured encouragement, words that Thorolf felt more than heard. He kept his focus tight upon Chandra. He saw the light shed sparks, like a sparkler lit on the Fourth of July, like a firecracker shooting into the air over a park, like a comet racing across the sky.

  He raced after the spark as it grew into a flame, then smiled as it became a bonfire in the distance. He flew harder, straining himself to get to her side in time. He seemed to fly right
into the blaze and be surrounded by it. He flew enveloped in a sphere of light that steadily became both brighter and lighter, its radiance such that his eyes were narrowed to slits against it.

  When the light burned white hot, he knew they were close.

  So, he wasn’t that surprised when they manifested high above a mountain range. There were snow on the peaks, a few clouds overhead, and the sunlight was piercingly bright. The mountains were sharp and rose steeply on every side.

  And below him, on an angled face of sheared stone, Chandra was kickboxing with an opponent he knew had to be Chen.

  Thorolf roared and turned, diving toward his mate with ferocious power.

  This time, he wasn’t going to fail or fall short. Thorolf had finally found something worth fighting for, and something worth dying for. The heat of the firestorm burned hotter with every beat of his wings, filling him with joy and power, as well as the sense of being a hero with a plan. He found himself smiling in anticipation of thumping Chen for once and for all, and then his smile broadened as he imagined how he and Chandra would celebrate.

  It would be the perfect time to satisfy the firestorm.

  And he’d make sure she never regretted it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Chandra was caught in a now-familiar maelstrom, but this one was filled with burning coals of debris. Chen’s was a dirty wind, one that seemed to have swept up all the ashes and filth of the world. She felt sick, as she had when Rafferty had moved them through time and space, but the dirt in the air made it worse. She was surrounded by soot and covered by it, polluted by it and disgusted by it. Chen in his female form held so tightly to her wrist that those long nails dug into Chandra’s skin. The wind kept them apart, although Chandra wanted to pound her opponent to oblivion.

  Suddenly the wind stopped and she was slammed so hard into rock that the breath was driven out of her. She saw stars, but felt Chen’s grip loosen on her wrist. Chandra rolled to her feet, ready to fight, only to be faced with a shimmer of pale blue light. When it faded, she faced a young and agile Asian man in a leather jacket and jeans. The line of his mouth was mean and she saw the knife shoved into his boot.