by Jaime Rush
“I wouldn’t tell them that.”
“I was kidding!”
Cyntag glanced at his watch. “You have a little time to grab the things you need. But not much.”
He put his hand at her back and guided her onward. She stepped into the cool, dark office. No one had been in to turn on the lights. She didn’t bother to do so either, finding the dimness more comfortable. This time they were in her territory, and she was in control.
He set a gun on the desk and walked over to the window to peer out.
She patted her back. Nothing. “How’d you do that?”
“One of the skills you learn at the Guard is to quickly disarm anyone who’s potentially dangerous.”
Did that mean he saw her as dangerous? Remembering their encounter earlier, she decided probably not. “You mean the National Guard?”
“No. Our Guard is the police force that governs Crescents. They report to a council called the Concilium, comprised of members of all three classes of Crescents.”
Cyn surveyed the yard outside again, seeing the three men he’d just met talking and glancing toward the office, no doubt discussing him. Two of them were young Crescents, full of the piss and fire he hadn’t possessed in decades. Crescents aged slowly, but one benefit of taking Dragon power was that it slowed the process even more.
Cyn turned back to find her pulling folders out of a filing cabinet drawer. “Do the three guys out there work here?”
“You’re interrogating me.”
He lifted a shoulder. “It’s my nature. I need to know who’s in your life.”
“Was that supposed to be an apology?”
“I don’t apologize.”
She stared at him, and he could tell by the spark in her eyes that she was considering defying him, or maybe making him wait for an answer to assert some sense of control. Fine, let her have it. It might be the last time she felt in control for quite some time.
Her muscles relaxed, the defiant spark dimmed. “Jack Aster works here after school and weekends.”
And he had a crush on Ruby.
Cyn glanced out the window. “He’s close to storming in. Wave at him, let him know you’re fine.”
She narrowed her eyes again, most likely at the order, but gave Jack the universal OK sign. She crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head at Cyn. “Happy?”
“Yes. I don’t want to have to kill him.”
“You’re kidding, I hope.”
“What about the other two?”
She paused, probably realizing he hadn’t answered her question. “Nevin is my business partner. He didn’t have that”—she wiggled her fingers in front of her eyes—“flicker. Leo said he wasn’t one of us.”
“He’s a Mundane, a regular human. And Leo’s the one who was manhandling you?” Cyn’s Dragon had bristled at the sight of the man’s arm around her waist, the rough way he was carrying her.
“I don’t know what that was about. Leo came in looking for a part yesterday, the first time I’ve seen him in eight years.”
“That seems odd, him showing up the day your uncle is murdered. He’s a Deuce, but not powerful enough to make a star orb. That’s the kind of orb that killed your uncle.”
She swallowed hard. “How can you tell what he is?”
“Deuces’ eyes swirl like fog.”
Her face paled as she shifted her gaze from the Yard to Cyn. “Your eyes had embers, and so did mine when I saw them in the mirror. Dragon eyes are like embers. No.” She shook her head hard, making her hair float out like a cloud. “Magick being real, I’m just beginning to grasp. Big ole lizards with talons and wings and scales, well, I saw that. But that I’m one, no friggin’ way.”
“What about the protected—or, rather, kidnapped—Garnet in Moncrief’s stories? Didn’t she turn into a Dragon?” Surely he would have accurately portrayed Ruby.
“The Dragon Prince put a spell on her that made her go Dragon. When they fought, they became savage beasts, with drool dripping out of their mouths. And they smelled like dirty socks. But in reality she was a Deuce.”
Something like a growl emanated from his throat. He swallowed it back. “Nice of him to portray us that way.” Moncrief not only hated Cyn, understandably, but also he disdained Dragons in general. Neither surprised Cyn, but the man should have kept his prejudices out of the stories. After all, Ruby was Dragon, too.
“We’re not lizards.” He gave a quick, disgusted flick of his head. “Or snakes with legs. Yes, we have scales, but we’re hot-blooded. Our eyes are more catlike, and so are our bodies.”
“But that’s how Chinese Dragons are portrayed. Or is it Japanese?”
“That’s just a reflection of a particular culture. Every ancient culture seems to have seen an actual Dragon. Pictures, carvings, and descriptions go back millennia. I’m guessing that the Dragon gods showed themselves to early peoples in different ways.”
Ruby raked her long hair back, holding it away from her face. Her thick bangs came halfway down her forehead, just above that burn. “I’m not a Dragon. I’d know a thing like that.”
“You do know, Ruby. You’ve felt the power, the violence. You just didn’t know why.”
She shivered, her eyes wide as she stared at nothing in particular. “Those times I wanted to tear someone’s head off…”
He felt an odd urge to pull her into his arms and smooth her hair back, clearly imagining the strands sliding against his skin, remembering the heat of her body against his. Bad idea to let those kinds of thoughts curl through him like a stream of smoke.
He gentled his voice instead of giving into his urge, much safer. “Ruby, you change into a Dragon. A powerful, gorgeous—”
“Stop.” She slapped her hand on his chest. “Stop telling me that, and stop saying my name like…”
“Like what?”
“It sounds so…intimate.”
Her hand felt warm on his chest, even through his shirt.
“I don’t mean to say it like that.” Relief crossed her face but disappeared at his next words. “But we are going to be intimate in the next couple of days.” He clarified. “I have to give you a crash course on being Dragon.”
He saw the toll this was taking on her, the twine of grief, fear, and confusion in her eyes. For a moment, he got caught up in all the different hues of greens and browns in them. Her eyelashes were long, and because she wore no makeup, he doubted she used one of those torturous-looking devices to curl them.
She appeared surprised at the sight of her hand on his chest, as though just realizing it was there. He pressed his hand over hers before she could pull it back. “I’m sorry about Moncrief, sorry that you’re being thrown into all this.” And most of all, sorry that he’d taken so much from her.
No apologies, remember?
He’d never thought about the families of those he’d been ordered to take out. His superiors at the Guard had bad or dangerous people killed. Or so he’d thought until he’d seen that girl in the dinghy.
This girl.
Her chin trembled as she stared at his hand over hers. “Don’t say that,” she whispered.
“Don’t say ‘I’m sorry’?”
Her body leaned toward him, and he had the urge to pull her the rest of the way. She needed comfort, probably needed to feel safe, even for a moment. He wasn’t good at comforting, but he could improvise just this once. She leaned closer yet, as though he were a magnet pulling her toward him.
He brushed a stray hair from her cheek. “It’s okay to break down, scream, cry, whatever. You’ve been through a lot.” He couldn’t imagine having to assimilate this all at once. “You’re an innocent.”
The protective side of his Dragon pushed against his hard exterior again. She was innocent, but she wasn’t a child. That interesting mouth of hers, the swell of her breasts, reminded him of that. Much better to think of her as the untrained Dragon that she was. His responsibility, nothing more. He took a step back.
So did she. “That
demon in the library, was it there to kill me?”
“Yes. Deuces can summon them to do their bidding.”
“Could Brom summon one? Just before Mon died, he told me it was dangerous to see him.”
“Brom is a powerful Deuce, and yes, he probably could, but he wouldn’t harm you. Moncrief’s warning means Brom is somehow involved in this.”
Her eyes widened. “He killed Mon.”
“I don’t think so. They’re best friends, have been for centuries. I’ll find him.”
“But Mon said—”
“I can deal with dangerous. What we don’t know is whether you’re a target because you were a witness to Moncrief’s death or if there’s another reason.” He saw the fear on her face. Good. She needed to be afraid. But she also needed to be strong and ready to fight. He changed tack. “I can stash you away in a safe house and find out who’s behind this.”
He saw his words prickle at her. The little girl vanished, and the woman who’d held the gun to his chest stepped into her place. Perfect.
“I’m not hiding. I want to find out who killed my uncle.” She curled her hand into a fist. “I want them to die.”
He tried to stifle his smile and the pride it would reveal. “Then you’ll need to be Awakened.”
“Into a Dragon.” Her bravado wilted. “I’ll become what you did at the library?”
“Yes. The next time you face a demon, you’ll be prepared. You’ll at least know what you’re dealing with.”
“And see it. The only thing scarier than seeing you as a Dragon was not seeing that thing.”
She was getting it. “But know that Awakening will be intense and painful. Training will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.” Before he thought better of it, he reached out and brushed his finger against her cheek. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
She stiffened at his touch. “Why does that not comfort me?”
He pulled back, irritated that he’d let himself go soft. “Then here’s something else for you to focus on: when we Catalyze to Dragon…we do it naked.”
The Book of the Hidden
Garnet faced the Dragon Prince on the immense lawn behind the castle, the sun glistening on the dewy grass. Her gaze darted all around, looking for a way to escape despite the guards positioned all around them.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said.
He drew his hands up, and in unison with his movements, the force of the beast rose within her.
“No!”
The rush of wind in her ears drowned out the word. No, not wind, but a change in her body, her very essence. She fought, her soul scratching and clawing against it. But when the mist cleared and the deafening sound quieted, she stood on four legs, not two. She took herself in, seeing the long snout growing out from her face, the talons on her hands, the red scales shimmering in the sun just as the dew had.
No, no, no! Her soul cried out at the ugly armor, and she closed her eyes and looked upward, pleading for the gods to kill her.
Something cool rubbed against her neck, startling her. A Dragon with scales black and blue like the heart of midnight, eyes holding the flicker of a flame within. The Dragon Prince.
He rubbed his head against her cheek. “You will get used to it.”
“And what of the smell?”
He shrugged, or she thought he did. “You’ll get used to that, too. And the drooling. Yes, we are ugly, horrid beasts, but we are the strongest of all.” He nipped her, though she barely felt it through the scales. “Show me that spirit, love. Fight me with all you have so I know where to start.”
He dared call her ‘love’! She spun around and knocked him to the ground with her tail.
Chapter 8
Ruby sat in the passenger seat of Cyntag’s T-bird, The Book of the Hidden on her lap. “I don’t remember anything in Mon’s stories about them being naked.” She absently scratched at her rash.
“As you know, he took some liberties with the truth. For instance, was I drooling? Did I smell like”—his nose twitched—“dirty socks?”
“No.”
He was gorgeous as a Dragon, if you were into that sort of thing.
She blinked. God, she was. She remembered feeling a powerful draw to him, or at least some part of her did.
Her Dragon.
God.
She ran her hands across the pages, forcing those thoughts away. “There were beautiful illustrations here. Since the fire, they’re gone.”
“Moncrief probably created them with magick. Just like the spell he put over you, the stories disappeared, too.”
No, she didn’t want to think about never seeing the illustrations or his beautiful writing again. She tried to remember the main story line: the Dragon Prince kidnapping Garnet, but saving her as well, imprisoning her, casting the Dragon spell, training her. There were similarities in the story and what had happened so far.
Think. Think about the rest of it.
Something bad was coming. Something they had to fight together.
She turned to Cyntag, trying not to get caught up in his profile, the natural pout of his lower lip, the bump on his nose that spoke of a break in the past. He looked aristocratic, regal. Even as Dragon, actually. His eyelashes were thick but not feminine. Yeah, he was total hotness.
Uh, not getting caught up in his profile, remember? “You said Brom can tell the future?”
“Yes.”
“Could Moncrief?”
“Not that I know of. His skills ran toward creating illusions, like the pictures in the book and his magic tricks.”
So the parallels with the story were a coincidence and not a foretelling of the future.
While Cyntag drove, he kept watching the rearview mirror as well as their surroundings. She knew he wasn’t watching for traffic but for horrid creatures.
Speaking of…“When you were at the Yard, did you see any of those things you said were all over, like the one in your office?”
“A couple, yes. One stayed close to you. A fire Elemental, like Allander.”
So ironically, she wasn’t crazy because the monsters and creatures were real.
“I could see Leo’s and Jack’s Crescent eyes. Why couldn’t I see this Elemental?”
“Your ability to see the Hidden isn’t consistent because you haven’t been Awakened yet.” He pulled down the street on which his dojo resided, driving slowly. Odd, since he’d been driving fast the entire way.
“Get down,” he said.
“What?”
He placed his hand against her head and pulled her toward him. In that second before her cheek was on his hard thigh, she saw an old man sitting on a bench in front of the dojo.
“One thing we need to get straight right now, Ruby. When I tell you to do something, you do it. You don’t question or hesitate.” Tension vibrated in his voice. “You just do it.” He took a corner sharply. “Now you can get up,” he said in a very deliberate voice because the moment he’d lessened his pressure on her, she’d snapped upright.
“What the hell? You can’t just shove me around—”
He grasped her face with one hand, pulling her close. “I am the difference between whether you live or die. You don’t have to like me. In fact, disliking me would probably be better in the long run. But you have to obey me, which means trusting me.”
“You have to earn someone’s trust.”
“We don’t have time for that.” He released her. “Did you see the old man on the bench?”
She rubbed her cheeks where his fingers had dug in. “Yeah.”
“Not an old man. A harbinger demon. One of the few that can be seen by Mundanes, which is why they take a disguise. And they can take any disguise. But we can see the shadow around them that signals what they are.” He pressed a couple of buttons on his phone. “Dragon Arts,” the DJ-smooth voice said through the car speakers.
“Glesenda, there’s a harbinger outside the door.”
“Oh, shit. What are you involved in—it’s
that girl, isn’t it?”
He slid her a look. “It’s not her fault, but yes, it wants her.”
“Can I play with it?” Glesenda’s eagerness permeated her words. “I can draw it in. What’s the girl’s name?”
“Ruby Salazaar, and I’m not a girl.”
Glesenda laughed. “Ooh, baby, you are a baby. Cyn, you got your hands full with that one.”
He sighed. “Indeed. Go ahead, lure it into the Obsidian Room. Call if you need me. Have fun.” He disconnected.
“You’re going to let her fight that thing by herself?”
“Glesenda can hold her own. She’s a hundred and forty years old, so to her, you are a child.”
“You’re really…what’d you say, two hundred years old?”
“Two hundred fifty or sixty something. After a while you tend to lose track. Once you’re Awakened, the aging process slows down. You’ll look like you’re in your mid-twenties for decades.” His mouth stretched into a sort-of smile. “If I can keep you alive that long. That will depend on you.”
“On whether I obey your every command.”
“Exactly.”
She flopped back against the seat, arms crossed in front of her. “There’s a reason I’m my own boss. I never had a lot of rules to follow growing up. Dad was busy with his science stuff, and Mom was busy with the Yard. I don’t take orders well.” Ever since losing her parents so suddenly, being in control of her life was paramount. Now this arrogant man-Dragon was insisting she follow his every order without question. He was right though. She needed him. And when he’d held her face and harshly ordered her to obey, she thought she saw a speck of fear in his expression. Fear for her safety.
“Everything in your life is about to change,” he said, getting onto one of the interstates. “You’re about to change. I suggest you put aside your stubbornness and pride. Neither will serve you well right now.”
“This sucks, you know. Totally reeks of suckiness. The suckiest ever.”
Another twitch of his mouth. “Whining won’t serve you either.”
“Well, I deserve to whine. A little.”
The coil of edgy energy she felt coming off him when he’d driven past the dojo was gone. He leaned back in his seat, his left hand draped over the top of his steering wheel. On the underside of his arm was a scar that looked like an elongated V.
