Dragon's Ground (The Desert Cursed Series Book 2)

by Shannon Mayer

  The question Merlin had now, though, was far more complex.

  Just what the hell was Maks if he wasn’t a Jinn?

  Chapter 9

  Noises all around me made me think perhaps I was having a psychedelic dream, but I was fairly certain I’d not eaten anything that would create what my ears were picking up. A pair of goats being strangled, the roar of a lion, hooves everywhere, and was that one of old Will’s insults. . .

  “You cream-faced loon!” she screeched. Lila’s voice was the best thing I’d heard all day.

  I turned my face into the rain as it poured over me, so happy, I couldn’t hold the grin off my stupid face. “Macbeth and it’s thou, not you.”

  Blue and silver scales, and seemingly giant violet eyes came into view, then a familiar weight settled on my chest. Lila grabbed at my face with her tiny claws, squishing my cheeks. “You’re alive! Look, she’s alive!”

  I groaned and tried to sit up. But between Lila’s weight, as little as it was, and the spinning inside my skull, the attempt ended with me puking to one side. The sounds of strangled goats continued, and I made myself look at the chaos around me.

  Kiara had shifted and stood between me and the two satyrs who were arguing violently. Shit, who knew that female satyrs were so damn big? She was easily eight feet tall and three hundred pounds of pissed off half-goat woman.

  I lifted a hand to my skull and my fingers came away sticky with blood. “What did she hit me with? A spiked club?”

  “Wooden spoon,” Lila said.

  A wooden spoon. Who the hell used a wooden spoon as a weapon? I groaned and pushed to my knees. Lila swept into the air, giving me room. I wobbled and leaned against Balder who’d not left my side. I clung to the saddle, the shouting between the two satyrs and the roaring of Kiara making me want to pull my own head off.

  “ENOUGH!” I shouted the word and instantly regretted it, swaying with the force of my gorge as it climbed my throat. I clutched at the side of my head, but blessedly there was silence after that. I looked up to see all three of the noise makers staring at me. “Kiara, shift back. I need your help.”

  The words would have been difficult to say another time, but not then. My head hurt too much to let my pride get in the way of help. Kiara shifted, and I pinned a look at Marcel. “I’ve saved your ass twice now; get your friend to help us.”

  “You, I will not help you!” Rev’s wife screeched, and she came at me with the wooden spoon. Before I could do anything, Lila shot between us and let out a miniature roar.

  “Damn it, Stella, these are my friends and I will pour my guts out on you if you don’t let them come in out of the rain.” Lila held her ground even while Stella held her wooden spoon high. Rain, was it still raining? I barely felt it through the throb of my head and the horrid taste of bile on my tongue.

  This was where Lila had been hiding? With the female satyr?

  This was quite the standoff if I ever saw one. Something like a laugh slid out of me and then Kiara was there, helping me stand, and we were being hustled out of the rain and through a door big enough for Stella to stand upright to pass with plenty of clearance.

  “Horses, someone take care of the horses.” I handed the reins to Marcel and then I was out in the black night of unconsciousness again. I knew I’d heal, that wasn’t the concern. The concern was how fast I’d manage to heal. Because there were gorcs behind, and dragons ahead. And Bryce needed me to find him somewhere in between.

  If Steve got to him first, the dragons would be the least of my brother’s worries. I didn’t doubt what Steve had said before I left—that he thought my brother and I should have been left to die.

  And with Bryce on his own, I had no doubt Steve would take advantage of that fact.

  Speaking of dragons. . . Lila curled up in the crook of my neck as I came to. I was on the floor, and my clothes had been stripped off me, but at least I was dry and warm.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. I turned my head slowly, her words confusing me.

  “What for? You got us out of the rain. You kept Stella from smashing me with a wooden spoon again. What a psycho that one is.” I reached up and laid a hand on her back.

  “I’m sorry for leaving, for betraying you at the very end. There was no other choice for me, you must know that. I was still not in control of myself.”

  Right, there was that. Maybe I was finally gaining some wisdom in my later years, but I understood her better than she probably realized. I patted her back. “You thought you were doing the right thing. I get it. I really do. Besides, it’s turned out. . . ” I wanted to say it had turned out okay, but I wasn’t so sure about that. At the moment, things were looking pretty ugly, but that had little enough to do with Lila leaving my side.

  She buried her face under my hair, tiny sobs wracking her body. “They cut me off, Zam. They cut me off. I’m no longer a dragon. I can’t feel them. I’m no longer bound to them at all. They cast me out like I’m worthless.”

  I kept my face as neutral as I could as I tried to absorb this new information. She went on, the words bubbling out of her. “I was coming to find you when the rainstorm hit, and I was blown off course. I saw the Jinn, and I think. . . I think they have Maks.”

  Of course, she didn’t know the truth about that bastard. I put a hand to the back of my head, feeling the lump there, wincing as my fingers slid over it. “He’s one of them, Lila. Maks is a Jinn.”

  She flicked her tail violently from side to side, thrashing the air. “No, they had him staked out, face-down in the mud. You don’t do that to your own unless you hate them.” She lifted her head so we were nose to nose. “I know you care for him. I know he cares for you. Maybe we could go get him. We could be like before, just the three of us.”

  Just the three of us against the world. It would have been simpler if Maks had really been a human.

  I knew she was in part trying to keep me from asking too much about being cut off from the other dragons. But her words forced me to consider what she was saying. “Even so, he doesn’t want us in his life. He left, Lila. He’s trying to escape the wall.”

  Those big eyes of hers blinked a few times. “Maybe he’s got a good reason for trying to get away, Zam. I left because I was trying to protect you; what if he was doing the same? We need to save him. We need to give him that chance.”

  I sat up, holding the blanket to me. There was no wave of nausea, so score one for me. “We do not need to save him, Lila. He chose to leave.”

  “So did I,” she whispered. I looked at her, sitting beside me.

  “You also chose to come back,” I pointed out.

  It was at that moment Marcel decided to chime in. “He can’t come back if he’s tied down in the mud.”

  I rolled my eyes, but Kiara’s voice made me cringe.

  “Maks is a Jinn?”

  Well, shit, that wouldn’t go well once we were back at the Stockyards. Everyone thought Maks was a human, and he’d let it slip that he’d been sent to the Stockyards to kill Steve and Bryce. But in the six months he’d lived with us, he’d been nothing but a model servant and human. There hadn’t been a single “accident” in all that time that would’ve left me suspicious of his behavior. Had he been telling the truth or just lying once more.

  “Kiara, hand me my clothes.” I pointed at my drying garments by the gigantic fire.

  “Not until you tell me the truth. Were we living with a Jinn?” The horror and fear that laced her words was not surprising. The fatigue it gave me, though, was.

  “Yes. As far as I know,” I said. “I think he was on the run from his own kind.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath as she made her way to the clothing stretched out to dry, picking up my pants and shirt. She tossed them to me and I caught them in midair, pulling my shirt on with only a low wolf whistle from Marcel.

  “Nice rack.”

  “Shut up,” I growled.

  “I thought shifters liked being nude.” Marcel grinned at me from across
the way.

  Kiara nodded. “We do, but she’s not really a shifter. Not like the rest of us.”

  She might as well have slapped me across the face. Even Marcel’s eyebrows shot up. “Miss Preggars a friend of yours?”

  I shrugged. “A child whose mouth runs away with her.”

  Kiara blushed, and I pushed to my feet, yanking my pants on. They were mostly dry, which meant I’d been out a few hours. The house we were in was made of mud and straw, and through the shuttered window, I heard the rain still pounding down.

  I frowned. Pounding. . . the rain didn’t fall like that, like the sounds of galloping hooves.

  “Fuck, the horses are loose.” Something had to be chasing them to send them into a gallop in the rainstorm that still thundered around us. I ran out of the house barefoot. No one followed.

  Idiots, did Kiara really want to be on foot the rest of the way?

  It was hard not to grab them and shake them until their teeth rattled. I stared through the rain to see a horse galloping straight for me. “Easy, easy, buddy. . . ” I trailed off as he slid to a stop, his dark coat slicked with sweat, steam rolling off him while the rain sluiced across his body and all around us.

  “Batman?” I whispered his name as I slid a hand up slowly. He breathed into my palm and bunted me. When I reached for his dangling reins, he pulled back a step and flicked his head.

  “I am not following you out in this,” I said. “You’re insane.”

  He snorted and bobbed his head again. The mud squelched between my toes, turning my feet into ice blocks. I had to make a decision.

  Did I care enough about Maks to make sure he was at least okay? Even if that meant walking right into a Jinn’s encampment? The very thought took my breath away.

  Maks as a Jinn didn’t frighten me, as foolish as that was. Maybe because I knew him. I knew his laugh and knew even if he was inherently a bad Jinn, he’d not even tried to kill me. And I’d given him plenty of opportunities where he could have, and no one would have been the wiser. And I’d known him before as he’d masqueraded as a human. I couldn’t seem to not see him as that man no matter how hard I tried.

  The taste of his mouth, the feel of his skin on mine, the safety in his arms, those sensations caught me off guard. I turned away from Batman, my heart pounding with the memory of Maks and me in his lap. Of his body warming me after my fall into the river.

  Of him calling me back from the brink of death.

  “I need my boots first,” I said. Batman snorted as if he understood.

  I walked through the door and went directly to the fire and wiped my feet off on some of Kiara’s clothes while she spluttered and tried to snatch them away from me. Without a word, I pulled on the rest of my clothes, boots, cloak, and weapons. I was out of my mind. There was no other reason for me to do something like this—to attempt a rescue of one Jinn from his Jinn buddies. But that wasn’t stopping me.

  “Lila, you with me?” I turned to her as I settled the flail on my back.

  “Where are you going?” She flew up to my eye level, the wind from her wings blowing my hair back.

  “There’s someone stuck in the mud.”

  She grinned and nodded. “The course of true love never did run smooth. I’m with you.” She flew to my shoulder and settled, and I shifted my balance to accommodate her as if I’d been doing it my whole life.

  “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” I said. “And it’s not love.”

  I turned, and Kiara stood in my path. “No, you are not going after Maks, and you have the sapphire,” she said with her hands on her hips.

  Well, fuck a duck, I had half-forgotten about the jewel.

  “You are not in charge here, Kiara. And if he’s really being held against his will, he’s their enemy, the same as us, so he needs our help. I’m going to check it out. I won’t bring him back if he’s with them. And the sapphire is no different from the dragon’s gemstone. It will only make Ish meaner and give her more strength. We don’t need that right now.”

  She put an arm out as if to block me and a crackle of tension rolled between us, thick like the air before a lightning strike.

  I pushed into her arm. “This is not complicated,” I said softly. “I am the stronger shifter here. Not you.”

  She let out a long growl, and I locked eyes with her, knowing that to even look away for a split second would be considered a sign of submission. Instead, I pushed my body into hers until our noses touched. I might not have the low growl she did, but nobody outstared me.

  The seconds ticked, and I leaned into her farther. “I do not want to hurt you, but if you make me, I will put you in your place.”

  Her eyelashes fluttered, and her growl softened until it was nothing. She looked away and dropped her arm. “I had to try.”

  “Actually, no, you didn’t.” I pushed her gently out of my way. “I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”

  That’s what I said, but already I knew I wasn’t coming back for her or Marcel. They were dead weight and I needed to move fast. The gorcs would come for me. They were hunting my name, not Kiara’s. I stepped into the rain and made my way to where the horses had been tied. With all their gear on, and only water to drink.

  Anger snapped through me and I softly apologized to both Balder and Lacey, giving them each a couple of the camel fat balls of oats. It was the best I could do. I untied Balder and jumped onto the saddle.

  Lila clung to me. “You aren’t coming back for them, are you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not.”

  Dead weight. . . those words would come back to haunt me. I just didn’t know it in that moment.

  Chapter 10

  I held tightly to Batman’s reins so I didn’t lose him in the rain as we galloped through the splattering mud and wet. We were running out of night, and that did not work in our favor.

  Because if Maks did need a rescue, then we needed the cover of darkness to do it. I broke out in a cold sweat just thinking about facing Jinn.

  “What made you change your mind about the toad?” Lila asked, and I grinned. Toad, that was what she’d taken to calling him at one point after one of her favorite Shakespearean insults.

  “If he really is against them, we could use a Jinn on our side. Besides, the gorcs are on my ass, and my brother went into Dragon’s Ground to look for a healer.”

  “Oh.” Just that, nothing else. Because she knew better than I did just how fucking stupid and dangerous it was for anyone to trespass into the Dragon’s Ground. Even to find a legendary healer, there was no acceptable reason the dragons allowed for anyone to come into their territory.

  It seemed, though, that luck was not on our side, and the sun began to rise before Batman took us all the way to wherever he’d gotten loose. Assuming he was taking us back to Maks.

  Assuming Maks really was in trouble.

  The sky wasn’t bright exactly, but the jet-black of the night faded a little. I wished the rain would’ve faded with it.

  Lila hopped off my shoulder and made her way to the pommel of the saddle where she perched. “You mean to go into the Dragon’s Ground then, don’t you?”

  “If that’s where my brother is.” I nodded. “I’m hoping he hasn’t gotten that far.” But if he hadn’t, it could mean Steve had found him first. I clamped down on the growl that wanted to roll up my throat. Steve had better not have put his hands on Bryce.

  Lila’s jaw worked side to side and a deep frown creased her brows. “You want the dragon’s jewel too, don’t you?”

  I sighed and looked down at her. “Yes and no. Steve and Darcy are going in after it as we speak. I don’t want Ish to have it, Lila. She’s. . . not stable. I think that something within the giant’s stone that we brought back has made her mean. Like the giants are mean. I don’t understand why, but it is the only thing that makes sense to me.” I realized as I spoke that my thoughts had been circling around this conclusion for days.

  Lila’s eyelids fluttered. “Then the stone from the
dragons will not help that. It will make her more suspicious, meaner, quicker to anger and she will turn into a true hoarder. Like the dragons.”

  I just stared. “You know all this? How?”

  “I always knew. I just couldn’t really tell you before. But I’m free of my bindings now so I can explain a bit more. Or at least explain what I know. The stones and jewels that the emperor’s son handed out before the emperor was put to sleep, they carry some of the traits of the creatures who’ve owned them for so long. A weak heart could never carry a stone without feeling the effects.” She reached up and tapped the sapphire through my shirt. “You wear this with no effect that I’ve seen. You’ve got the true heart of a lion, Zam. Not that I’m surprised.”

  I would have blushed if I hadn’t been so fucking cold. “Thanks, Lila.”

  She shrugged. “It’s the truth. And I think the stones are partly what make the dragons such bastards, to be honest.” Her violet eyes caught the light from the sun and seemed to be jewels of their own. “Dragons weren’t always this bad, Zam. We were heroes once too. There are stories about the dragons of old. Of their great deeds and battles to save others.”

  I believed her. There were stories of dragons helping, healing other supes. But those stories were old, almost more like legends and fairy tales than truth.

  But they had been enough to draw Bryce in hopes he could gain his legs back.

  The sun rose at my back, but the rain didn’t slow a single drop from what I could tell. I grimaced. I was nearly soaked through, yet again, but at least my head had stopped hurting and my cracked ribs were healed.

  Batman tugged on the reins, nearly pulling them out of my stiff fingers. I clamped my hand closed at the last second and he instead jerked me halfway out of the saddle. I yelped and pushed Balder closer to the big horse.

  “Close, are we?” I asked softly.

  Batman blew out a big breath and pawed at the ground. He really loved Maks, that much had been obvious almost from the beginning. Something that didn’t fit with the Jinn.