I didn’t move. Inside I reached for the rest of my essence. Only a little. It got easier every time. Claws as long as sword blades sprang from my fingertips with a tiny snick, and Trevor flinched.
“Let me put it another way. Leandra and I have merged into one personality.” I lifted one hand from the desk, not in a menacing way, but so he could clearly see the curve of dragon claws, harder than steel. “You won’t be seeing her old body again, but rest assured, she’s here. Please sit down.”
He subsided into the chair, eyes fixed on the wicked length of my claws. I willed them away and folded my hands on the desk top.
He glanced at his brother. “Is this true?”
Garth nodded. “Every word.”
“Bloody hell.” He looked back at me. “You’ll have to tell me the story.”
“Some other time, perhaps. Today I’d like to discuss a mutually beneficial arrangement such as we used to have.”
Good Lord, I even sounded like Leandra. Well, at least that might convince him I was telling the truth.
“Ah.” He drummed the fingers of his right hand lightly on the arm of his chair. His fingernails were short and very clean. Anyone further from the popular image of a werewolf would be hard to find. There was nothing wild or unkempt about him. Even the faint shadow of stubble on his cheeks looked more city chic than weekend hangover. Werewolves always had a problem with fast hair regrowth. He wore a tie and a long-sleeved blue business shirt, as if he’d just stepped out of the office.
Quite possibly he had. He had a thriving accountancy practice. I could see that logical mind stepping through the options as he sat there, fingers moving in a quiet rhythm.
“I assume you’ve heard about the bounty?”
“What bounty?” Garth growled, instantly alert.
I tensed too, though I tried to hide the fact. “Bounty” was not a good word.
“I see you haven’t. Elizabeth has set one on the heads of two former heralds: Ben Stevens and Kate O’Connor.”
“How much?” Garth asked.
“Half a million for Ben—”
“Half a million? Shit. We’ll have all the world and his brother taking pot shots at us.”
Elizabeth must be majorly pissed. Half a million was a fortune, and guaranteed every second shifter would be gunning for Ben. We were lucky we’d only had to fight off one attacker so far. I’d never heard of such a big bounty. Usually they were more like fifty grand, and only the regular bounty-hunting crowd took much notice.
“—and one million for you.”
I stared, too shocked to hide my reaction. So much for letting the proving take its course. The bitch was determined to see me fail.
“She calls you the abomination,” he added helpfully. “I didn’t know what she meant before, but I guess I see it now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ever quick to take offence, Garth leapt to his feet.
I waved him back to his seat. “Chill, Garth.”
“That came out badly,” Trevor said, inclining his head in a gesture of apology. “I meant that I can see why she thinks you’re a threat. When I thought you were just a herald I couldn’t imagine what you’d done to get so far into her bad books.”
I nodded in agreement. “Valeria was her favourite daughter.” If I’d ever doubted that before, here was the proof. Elizabeth hadn’t lifted a manicured finger to help her two heralds when they were kidnapped by Valeria’s forces, even though violence against heralds was meant to be answered with swift punishment. Yet now that we’d taken sides with Leandra, however unintentionally, she’d gone all fire-and-brimstone on us. Was it possible Valeria had actually cleared the whole kidnapping-of-heralds thing with her first? Surely not. That stunt had been all Nada’s idea, part of her long vendetta against Jason. More likely Elizabeth had let it slide, thinking Valeria was about to win and the point would be moot. Only now she wasn’t happy with how things had turned out. “I’m sure she thought Valeria’s victory was a done deal.”
“Then you went and destroyed the favourite in front of the whole world.”
Yeah. That obviously hadn’t gone down too well. “She may even be as upset about the publicity as the actual killing. She’s always been so paranoid about the shifter world being exposed.”
Trevor sat back and rested one ankle on the other knee. His socks had blue TARDISes on them. “And now here we are, with our arses hanging out in public.”
“Exactly.” I regarded him thoughtfully. Though he looked relaxed and confident, he still hadn’t actually said he would support me. “Though some of us have our arses hanging out further than others. Which is why I wanted to talk to you.”
Though he didn’t move, he no longer looked so relaxed. “I’m not sure there’s much to talk about. My situation hasn’t changed since last time we had this conversation.”
“But mine has. I’m a full dragon now, and I’ve just destroyed my greatest enemy.”
“And earned yourself a million others. How long do you think you’ll last with a million-dollar price tag on your head?”
“As long as it’s long enough to destroy Alicia, it doesn’t matter. If I win the proving Elizabeth can’t touch me.” I leaned forward, wishing I could compel him. But once the effect wore off we’d be back to square one. Part of me wanted to try anyway. This man had been Leandra’s to command. The part of me that used to be her raged at having to beg. “But to do that I need your help.”
“And I wish I could give it.” He rose and walked to the window. Werewolves had a terrible tendency to pace when they were unsettled. Sunlight caught the golden stubble on his face, making him look like he’d been attacked by a kid with a glitter bomb.
Obedience bought with threats could always be re-bought by someone wielding bigger threats. I had to have his willing co-operation. I forced myself to sit still and master my temper.
Garth had no such constraints. He swivelled round in his chair, his expression black. “Do you want Alicia to win?”
“For what it’s worth, no, I don’t.” He threw a frustrated look his brother’s way. “But what does it matter to a werewolf which dragon arse sits on the throne? They’re all the same.”
“Kate’s not.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. Elizabeth is still queen, and if you think I’m going to stand against her you must be moon-touched.” He turned back to me. “I’m sorry, I really am, but I can’t help you. Officially my hands are tied.”
Well, there was an opening if ever I heard one. I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t afford to be proud. I’d take any help I could get. “But unofficially?”
He spread his arms in a who knows gesture. Combined with his own soft orange aura, the sunlight streaming in the window outlined him in a glowing light. He looked like a Renaissance saint bestowing benediction. “Unofficially a couple of my people might be looking for a change of pace. Pack life doesn’t suit everyone.”
Garth was all ears. “Who?”
“Jerry and Mac. I think they’d be willing to join your team.”
“Will they fight? We’re not a halfway house for werewolves wanting to escape the pack, you know.”
I snorted. It had worked out all right for him. “We can always use a good man.”
Trevor laughed, though I didn’t see the joke. “They’re very good. And I think they’ll jump at the chance. I’ll let you know.”
“As long as they understand the danger.” I needed genuine commitment, not the dead weight of unwilling conscripts. If they thought the pack was bad, wait till they tried being hunted by half of supernatural Sydney.
Trevor sobered. “There are all different kinds of danger.”
CHAPTER TEN
I understood the joke the next day, when two young werewolves turned up and introduced themselves as Jerry and McKenna. Two female werewolves.
Jerry fit the werewolf stereotype beautifully. Her short pink hair stood up in gelled spikes and she’d clearly only stopped adding piercings to her ears because
she ran out of flesh. She wore a cropped black top, which displayed the full sleeve tattoo on her right arm. Crucifixes and roses featured prominently in the design, along with a surprising number of butterflies.
McKenna looked barely old enough to vote, and had the biggest blue eyes I’d ever seen outside of an anime character. Her light brown hair had natural-looking blond streaks. A couple of strands had escaped her ponytail and curled softly round her face. Anything less like a werewolf would be hard to imagine.
“You could have told me they were girls,” I said to Garth after they’d gone upstairs to settle in.
He dropped into the chair across from me and put his feet up on the desk. “Why? Does it matter?”
“No … Guess not.” Wolves were wolves. They all fought like trapped animals, and were damn near unstoppable. I glared meaningfully at his giant clodhoppers till he took them off my desk. “I was just surprised. Jerry and Mac? Not your average girls’ names.”
He grinned, unrepentant. “There’s nothing average about those two.”
“They look so young.” Sometimes Leandra’s pragmatism won out, but other times Kate’s motherly instincts were aroused. Mac, in particular, made me uneasy. She could have been playing with Lego herself only a few years ago.
“Leandra wouldn’t have cared.”
I couldn’t read his expression. Was that a criticism or not? Did he think Leandra had changed for the worse?
I guess the real question was whether or not she could still win. All our lives depended on it. There was no backing out once a proving got started: you either won or you were worm food. No middle ground.
The doorbell rang and I pushed it out of my mind. No point worrying. It was beyond my control now. We’d both changed, and the new me that had been formed would have to deal with whatever crap the shifter world found to throw at her.
And there sure seemed to be a lot of it.
Steve filled the doorway with his bulk. I was on the computer again, hunting for any mentions of “Taskforce Jaeger”, but the only official word was the original bland announcement. Other than that it was all speculation. “There’s a herald at the door.”
I rolled my chair away from the desk and stretched, easing the kinks in my neck. “Did you check his Hermes charm?”
“Of course.” He looked offended at the question. “He’s legit. But I’ve got three of the guys watching him.”
“I’ll get Ben,” Garth said, as untrusting as I was. Is it still paranoia if everyone really is trying to kill you?
“Tell him to be careful.”
It could be a genuine message—or it could be an assassination attempt. I waited, nerves jangling, till Ben came in.
Relief rushed over me. “All clear?”
“Yep. I knew the guy. He’s the real deal, and the package checks out.”
Ben knew all the heralds working in Sydney. There wasn’t any kind of guild or association; they were more like contractors to the queen, but there weren’t that many of them. For most the business had been in the family for generations. He perched on the corner of the desk next to me and handed over an envelope, in the familiar buff colour. I’d delivered a few of these myself.
I turned it over. The insignia stamped into the red wax that sealed it was an unfamiliar design. Not from Elizabeth or Alicia, then. I broke the seal and slid out the dragon scale inside.
Bigger than my hand, it had a soft metallic sheen like pewter. At first it showed me only my own hazy reflection, then, as it warmed in my hand, words started to appear, dancing across the surface in lines of fire. As soon as I put it down they’d disappear again. Only my touch could bring them to life. Such was the paranoia of dragons. It was why they didn’t deal in emails or phone calls. When they had something they wanted kept secret, nothing beat a method of communication that would only be visible to the intended recipient.
I scanned the message.
“It’s from Carl Davison.”
Garth’s eyes widened. He crowded in next to Ben, craning his neck to try to read the message. “The software guy? He’s a dragon?”
Ben frowned. “I thought he was one of Elizabeth’s cronies. What does he want?”
“He wants to meet with me.” I checked my watch. “In less than an hour. He says I need to know what my sisters are doing.”
Ben was right. Carl was pretty high up in Elizabeth’s court. How could I trust him? But if he had information for me, could I afford to ignore that?
“What does he mean, sisters?” Ben looked as puzzled as I felt.
I leaned back and stared at the ceiling, thinking hard. My turn to put my feet on the desk.
“Maybe it’s a typo,” said Garth.
I snorted. Dragons didn’t make typos, not on scales. There was no writing or typing involved, just pure will. If he said sisters, he meant it.
But what did he mean? I’d had four originally: Valeria, Ingrid, Monique and Alicia. Alicia was the only one still alive. Valeria and Ingrid I’d killed myself. Monique had been blown into itty bitty dragon pieces by a bomb of Valeria’s that had almost wiped me out too. There hadn’t been a body left to see, but I’d been sure she was dead.
Could I be wrong? Could she somehow have escaped the blast?
If she had, she’d been lying so low for the last year that there hadn’t been so much as a whisper of her existence. I found that very hard to believe. Not a single sighting? Not even a hint, in a whole year, of something odd going on behind the scenes?
In a relatively small shifter community like Sydney, where everyone watched everyone else, and the proving was like some giant free show where the non-combatants sat back with their popcorn to enjoy the spectacle, it seemed hugely unlikely. What did she gain by basically putting her entire existence on hold like that?
But what was the alternative?
I sat up, slamming my feet to the floor, and gazed at Ben in horror. “There must be another sister.”
There had been six eggs in that clutch. The sixth egg had supposedly never hatched. It happened sometimes, and I’d never given it any thought until now.
I tossed Carl’s scale on the desk, its message fading as it left my hand. It lay like a pool of quicksilver, glinting against the blood red of the leather desk top. My mind raced. “Elizabeth only declared the five of us, but she must have kept one back.”
But why? Dragon queens were notoriously unsentimental about their offspring. Her current attitude to me was pretty clear proof of that. She’d have to be very sure that this hypothetical sixth daughter far exceeded her sisters’ abilities, or risk putting a weakling on the throne. But if she was as good as all that, why not let her join the proving and destroy the rest of us in the usual way?
I slammed my hand on the desk top. “God damn it. And all this time I thought Valeria was the favourite.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Ben. “How could she know which daughter was strongest if they didn’t all compete?”
Garth looked from one to the other of us in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about? I have enough trouble keeping up with pack politics, much less this dragon shit.”
“Well, this dragon shit just got a lot stinkier.” I rubbed my forehead, feeling a headache threatening. Stress could kill you—as long as the bounty hunters, your mother, your sisters and half the people you knew didn’t get there first.
“Elizabeth laid a queen clutch, twenty-six years ago. You know queens do that, right, when they’re nearing the end of their lives?”
“Yeah, and when the daughters grow up they fight and the winner becomes the next queen.”
“Right.” As if I was likely to forget that part. “But the eggs don’t all hatch at the same time. There can be as much as five years between the first hatching and the last. In our case it was only about eighteen months.” Or so I’d always been told. “Valeria was first, and Monique was last.”
“How is that fair? The older ones are bigger and stronger.”
“True. Which is w
hy the hatchlings are reared separately, and the proving doesn’t start till the queen judges they’re all ready.”
“But why does she care? If the queen’s about to die, what difference does it make to her who takes over?”
“Dragons are very territorial. If they don’t make sure they have the strongest possible successor, they risk having a queen from another domain move in and take over. No queen can stand the thought of her bloodline being wiped out and one of her rivals stealing her throne. Anyway, when she thinks they’re ready, you get the Presentation Ball, where the candidates are officially introduced and the proving is announced.”
“Though some don’t wait for that,” Ben pointed out. “If you can believe the legends, Elizabeth finished off her sisters before the last one was even out of nappies.”
“Maybe that’s why she was so careful with us. The first time I met my sisters was at the Presentation Ball—though I tried once before that.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I was twelve years old and convinced I already knew everything. I’d devoured every book in the farm’s small library, and could rattle off the powers and weaknesses of every type of shifter like a regular little encyclopaedia. I knew the colours of their auras and their special abilities plus the personal histories of every shifter in my mother’s court. On top of that I knew all the turning points in my mother’s long rule, and was pretty well acquainted with the courts and histories of the other queens too.
And then Mr Saunders arrived to teach me economics and human history.
Well, economics I could at least see the use for. After all, when I was queen I’d have a huge business empire to oversee. Though my servants would do the actual work, I would need to understand what was going on. But human history?
I sat at my desk in the library. I’d been having lessons here since before I could read, and the wooden surface of the desk showed my evolving handwriting skills, with various sets of my initials, snatches of poetry and the occasional swear word carved into it. From here I could look out over the paddocks of the farm and see cows and horses grazing, and maybe the odd hawk circling far overhead. Some days whole afternoons slipped by in a kind of dreaming haze, but today I lounged back in my seat and glared at Mr Saunders.
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