I was sure of it.
We were within a hundred strides when the bad thing happened.
Lila was between Steve and the chameleon dragon. She had her back to Steve as he raised his gun. Not to point it at the chameleon, but at Lila. We were so close now that Maks was forced to slow the horses. Slowing would get Lila killed.
“No!” I shoved myself out of Maks’s shirt and bounded along Balder’s neck, leaping off the top of his head and racing across the ground as fast as I could. My leg didn’t hurt, but my body was fatigued, as if I’d been sick for a week. I struggled to breathe around the exhaustion.
Steve brought the gun up, every motion seemingly in slow motion, his finger on the trigger of the handgun. I had to be close enough to do this, to make my plan work. I couldn’t wait a second longer. I pushed off, leaping straight for his arm.
My claws sunk into his forearm a split second before my mouth clamped onto the flesh. My weight jerked his arm down enough that as the gun boomed, the bullet went low.
After that, pandemonium ensued. Darcy yelled at Steve, Steve screamed at me, and I let go, backing up to where Lila was. I put myself between her and the two lion shifters and squared my shoulders.
I knew where I stood, and it was not on the side of the shifters I’d been raised with, as much as that truth hurt.
My heart thumped hard as the reality I embraced settled on my shoulders. A nose pushed into my back, far bigger than Lila, rippled with hard scales and nodules. Hot breath washed over me as the chameleon dragon spoke softly for such a big creature.
“Why did you save her? She’s not one of yours to protect.”
I wasn’t sure I could safely turn my back on Steve, but Maks had slipped off Balder’s back and he gave me a nod.
I turned slowly to face the much larger dragon. I mean, if I’d been able to see him fully. All I could pick up on was this bare outline of a dragon. I lifted my chin. “Lila is part of my pride. And I protect my own.”
The words should have sounded stupid coming from the mouth of a six-pound house cat. But the chameleon dragon shimmered until he came fully into view, and he wasn’t laughing. He was a little bigger than the horses, and he didn’t have wings. His body was long, lean, and snake-like with six legs under him. His eyes were stunning, sparkling like a rainbow, the colors dancing this way and that.
“My name is Pret. I grew up with Lila.” He slowly shook his head. “What are you here for?”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but I was not going to lose the opportunity. “My brother came to Dragon’s Ground to find a fabled healer. I’m looking for him.”
Pret sat back and raised himself like a dog. If a dog had six legs and a snake body. “I have seen no one come through here. That does not mean he didn’t slip by during the whelping.” He tipped his head to one side. “You really mean what you say about Lila? That you will protect her?”
“With my life,” I said without hesitation. Lila dropped to the ground beside me.
“And I will do the same,” she said.
Oh, all the warm fuzzies that built up in my chest scattered with the words from the idiot behind us.
“Oh, fuck off the both of you. Neither of you could protect a fucking damn mouse,” Steve snarled. “And she,” he pointed to me as I turned my head to glare at him, “is not the leader of our pride.”
Pret lifted an eyebrow. “You are not the leader of the pride?”
He said it so simply, like he really was surprised. Like he thought I could be. “You are looking at me, the house cat, and asking how I am not the leader of a lion pride? Seriously?” Sweet baby goddess of the desert, it was like a weird comedy. How many times could we say I was not the leader of the lion pride in a single minute?
He shrugged. “Lila was supposed to take over for her father. I would have followed her.”
Lila ducked her head. “It was never meant to be, Pret. You know that.”
He grinned then and lowered his head to her. “You don’t know that, Lila. There were some here that would have stood for you.”
She snapped her tail through the air. “Not now, Pret.”
Now this was interesting. I wanted to ask her just what he meant because it sounded to me like she was indeed someone important. The daughter of the head dragon, maybe?
Steve took a swing at me with his boot and I dodged him easily.
“No matter the form, I would always be faster than you, asswipe.”
“Shift, damn you. I challenge you to a fight for the pride right now. You win, I’ll walk away. I win, you’ll be dead.”
Well, fuck, that was not what I’d wanted. Or was it? The last few years Steve and I had parried back and forth for the ruling of the pride. For the right to be alpha. Yes, I had the right attitude for the most part, but we both knew he was the powerhouse. The one who should have been ruling was Bryce as he blended my temper and Steve’s strength.
But that was impossible with his body the way it was.
“Don’t do it, Zam,” Maks said softly. “He won’t play fair.”
That hurt more than I wanted to admit that Maks thought I couldn’t win. “I accept, you bastard.”
“I’ll even give you the edge,” Steve said. “Two legs, not four.”
I nodded, then forced my body into a shift, and oh, fuck, it hurt. I had to bite down on the scream that rose along my throat as my body came back to two legs painstakingly slowly for me. I was on my hands and knees, panting hard. I would not be shifting back to my smaller form any time soon.
Darcy dropped beside me. “Zam, are you okay?”
I lifted my head to look her in the eye, the final splintering of our friendship happening right in front of me. “You sure you can handle me being your alpha?”
She pulled back a little, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t do this, Zam. You can’t beat him. You aren’t strong enough.” She believed it, but for the first time in my life, I didn’t.
I pushed away from Darcy and locked my knees so they wouldn’t shake. “Get back, Darcy.”
Lila swept up beside me as the others pulled back. Her jeweled eyes locked on mine. “They are wrong, Zam. You can do this. You’re going to kick his ass so hard, he’s going to feel the imprint of your foot for the rest of his life.”
I laughed, though it was soft and weak, and I knew exactly why Steve challenged me right then. He could smell it on me—I was in a low spot, my body hurting and fatigued from healing.
It would just be that much sweeter when I did exactly what Lila said I would. Everyone pulled back, Pret included. I noticed that Lila flew close to his head, whispering something to him. What was she up to?
I turned to face Steve as Maks called out a warning. Steve wasn’t waiting. He’d rushed me while my back was turned like the cheating fucker he’d always been.
I dropped to the ground and rolled out of his way, only just missing the swing of his hand. There was a sharp whistle through the air and I realized he was using knives. So be it. I jumped up and reached for my kukri blades. One had been left in a gorc, and where the other one went, I wasn’t sure.
They weren’t there.
“You can’t ask for a weapon now, Zam,” Steve snarled as he crouched, and stalked toward me. “You know the rules.”
And there was reason number two he was pushing for the fight now. Without my blades that would cut deeply into him, I was at a serious disadvantage and he knew it. I should have been flattered that he thought so highly of my fighting skills. As it was, pissed off was about all I felt in that moment.
“Come on then.” I beckoned him closer with more confidence than I should have. Despite Lila’s words of belief, the doubts weighed heavily on me.
Steve swung in fast and hard with his left hand holding the knife. I ducked under it and he caught me with a fist from the right. He hit me in the side of the head, ringing my bell with enough force that I went to one knee, swaying as he laughed. He wouldn’t go in for the kill, not fast. No, he was going to pla
y with me first.
Typical cat.
Darcy sucked in a sharp breath. She’d just realized the same thing I had. That this whole challenge was a setup to kill me. It had nothing to do with winning, but getting me out of the way once and for all.
Steve tackled me to the ground in a mockery of the love we’d once shared. His body was on top, pinning me against the hard earth as he put his face in mine, his very obvious hard-on shoved against me. “One last kiss, eh, love?”
He slammed his mouth over top of mine, forcing his tongue into my mouth, trying to make me want him again. I knew his style. I softened, letting him kiss me and I kissed him back. Not because I wanted him. Not for a fucking second. But he was dumb enough to think I would.
He let his guard down as he made a contented noise in the back of his throat. He pulled back a little. “I knew you still wanted me.”
I drove my knee up into his balls as hard as I could, and his eyes rolled back into his head. “Not so much, pig.”
He didn’t get off me, though, and I shoved at him, driving my elbow into the crook of his neck to encourage him to move, but he just lay there, shaking. “Kill him now, Zam!” Darcy screamed. “Do it!”
Kill him.
Shit, I wanted to. He would kill Bryce if he ever got close to him out here, away from the protection of Ish and the Stockyards.
My thoughts took too long. I should have acted instead of hesitating. Steve reared up and slammed his head into mine and bounced it off the rock below me. If I’d thought my head was spinning before, it couldn’t compare to the pain that rocketed through it now.
A knife pressed to my throat and there were gasps around us. I held a hand up. “Do not interfere.”
“You think your friends could stop me?”
I smiled up at him. “Yes. I do.”
He pressed harder. “Then why aren’t you letting them save you?”
“Because I don’t want you dead, Steve. Not today. If you’d not been such a fucker, I would have told you what happened to Kiara.” Maybe it was dirty pool to use her against him in this fight, but I didn’t want to die. And he would kill me.
He frowned. “Kiara is in the Stockyards.”
“No, she came with me to escape Ish’s threat that if you didn’t come back with the jewel, she would take the cub.”
Darcy started to cry. “Oh goddess, no. That is our first cub in twenty years.”
Steve stared hard into my eyes, looking for the lies. “Where is she?”
Maks stepped up. “The Jinn took her. They hit us with a horde of gorcs, covering our path back to Kiara.” Not quite the truth, but close enough.
Steve pressed the knife harder. “You bitch, you did this to kill her!”
“I did not!” I roared. “She’s like my little sister, you piece of shit, and you ruined her! You fucking well told her you loved her when you were fucking around on her and me both! I would have saved her from you if I could have! I would have cut your balls off if she so much as whispered the word rape to me! But you bent her to your will. You took her innocence, you sheep fucker!”
There it was, the truth finally. I cared more for Kiara than I’d ever cared for Steve. He pulled his head back but didn’t move the knife from my throat.
“Goddess, you’re telling me the truth.” He stared down at me, horror flickering on his face.
“You could still catch them,” Maks said. “They won’t have made it to the desert sands yet.”
“How do you know that, human?” Steve turned on him, the knife easing off my neck. I shoved his hand and rolled out from under him and I knew he’d let me go. He could have held me there, but the realization that his mate and cub were in danger had changed something in him.
Maybe this was what Steve needed to become a better man. Maybe he really did love Kiara.
But if we told him the truth about Maks, Steve would try to kill him, and I wasn’t sure who would end up surviving that fight.
“Because he was a slave to the Jinn, idiot. That’s how he knows,” I said.
Steve jerked as if I’d slapped him. “That’s why you ran out of the desert. Why you said you didn’t remember.”
Maks nodded.
Steve got to his feet and just stood there as if. . . as if he didn’t know what to do. He turned slowly to face me. “Swear to me on your brother’s life that you are telling me the truth.”
I locked eyes with him. “On my brother’s life, and the honor of my pride, I swear to you that Kiara was taken by the Jinn.”
He tipped his head back and roared, the guttural noise pulling at something deep in me. I wasn’t sure he ever would have been so upset had I been in Kiara’s shoes, kidnapped and held against my will, when we were together. And it didn’t bother me. There was no bitter regret that he hadn’t loved me better or well enough to want to rescue me.
I didn’t need him, and he knew it.
We were never the right fit, and that was even clearer to me now that I’d found the one I wanted in my life. Even if nothing ever happened between Maks and me, he’d shown me what kind of partner I wanted.
Steve strode to his horse and mounted up. “I’m going after her.”
“I know,” I said. “Darcy, you should go with him. He’s going to need help.”
Her golden eyes were full of sadness. “Zam, what about you?”
I looked at Lila and then Maks. “I’ve got all the help I need here. I’ve got my best friends with me.”
Her eyes closed. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t.” I tipped my chin up a little, holding the emotions back. I was losing my best friend. Or maybe I’d lost her a long time ago and just hadn’t realized it. “Just go, save Kiara and I’ll save Bryce.”
They didn’t wait for any other directions.
The two shifters tore off, back the way they’d come, heading south before I could warn them about the gorcs, or the possibility of more Jinn coming as Maks had said they would.
Pret gave a funny chuffing sound. “Clever. I see why you are an alpha.”
I glanced up at him. “I was telling the truth.”
“Yes, but not until you had to. Clever.” He bobbed his head. “I’m a shitty guard, Alpha.” He spoke the title to me and I felt it settle over my shoulders. “Which means I regularly let other creatures slip past our boundaries.” He winked one of those big jeweled eyes at me. “That and I’m hoping one day Lila will come back to us.”
Lila swept upward and planted a kiss on his snout. “That will never happen, Pret. But thank you. You’re a good friend.”
He rumbled, and I had the impression it was the dragon equivalent of purring. “Lila, I will never forget you looking out for me after my parents were killed by the White Raven.”
She ducked her head and flew back to me, landing on my shoulder. “You should go now, Pret. I don’t want you to get caught being nice to interlopers.”
He bobbed his head, turned, and made his way north along the boundary line. “Good luck finding that which you seek.”
I watched him go, his body blending into the forest, and only because I knew where he’d been could I pick out the shifting in the scene.
“Lila, what did you tell him?”
Her claws tightened on my shoulder. “That we were going to take the jewel from my father. That we were going to take dragons back to the noble and honorable creatures we once were.”
“Lila, we’re here for Bryce,” I whispered. “With Steve gone, we don’t need to get the stone.”
“And we’re here to make the world better, aren’t we?” She swiveled around. “Otherwise, what’s the point of saving anyone if we can’t make it better?”
The weight of all those lives, of all those who depended on us, was heavier than I wanted to acknowledge.
“Okay. We find Bryce. Then we find the stone.”
Why did I get the feeling those words were going to come back to haunt me?
Chapter 18
The first hundred feet or so of
walking into the forest of Dragon’s Ground was damn near peaceful, which should have been warning enough. I walked next to Balder, one hand on his saddle to help keep myself upright.
“Why are you not letting him carry you?” Lila asked.
“Because my legs need to get their shit together,” I said. “I’m no good if I’m falling down.”
Maks snorted. “Then let yourself rest.”
I knew where he was coming from, but I also knew my body. The more I got the blood flowing, the better. Much as I would have liked to ride along inside his coat again.
I smiled to myself and Lila caught the edge of it. “What are you grinning about?”
“I’m alive, and my leg is still attached. That is enough to be happy about, isn’t it?”
Maks slid off Batman and moved to walk beside me. “Maybe. But you seem—”
“Do you regret it now that Ish isn’t hanging onto you, manipulating you?” I asked before I could stop myself. I had to know how he felt because the longer he was near me, the more I wanted him to stay at my side.
If I had to let him go, then I had to do it now before my heart got any more tangled up in this mess with him.
Lila squeaked and clapped her wings together. “Yes, I want to know the answer to that question too.”
Maks cleared his throat. “This is going to be complicated, Zam. You can’t possibly think that it’s as simple an answer as yes I regret, or no I don’t.”
I pursed my lips and nodded. “Actually yes, I do think it’s that simple.”
He grabbed both my arms and dragged me close, catching me off guard. “I am a Jinn, Zam. This, whatever it is between us, can never be, no matter what either of us wants. Do I regret? No. But I wish nothing had ever happened because what is between us is growing with each passing minute, and I know there will come a point when we’ll have to choose.”
I stared up at him, feeling the truth of his words and hating every syllable. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. You would be used against me, Zam. They will kill you just because. . . because I care about you,” he said, and the sadness in those pretty blue eyes tugged me closer.
Dragon's Ground (The Desert Cursed Series Book 2) Page 15
