Elven Doom (Death Before Dragons Book 4)

by Lindsay Buroker

  Another intense urge rushed into me, and like a marionette on strings, I spun toward Zav, my arms straight out and Fezzik pointing at him. Before my finger tightened on the trigger, I jerked my hands farther to the side. Against my will, my finger squeezed the trigger.

  Thankfully, I’d moved the gun enough. The bullet slammed into the chest of a dark elf rushing into the chamber. One coming behind him aimed a crossbow at me, but Sindari pounced on him, bearing him to the ground.

  These will be my prisoners, Zav spoke silently to me. Do not kill them.

  He had no idea about the struggle I was dealing with. I had to overcome this. What the hell was it? Who was coercing me?

  Kill him! Now’s your chance. Kill these dragons before the glacier collapses, and nobody will know you were responsible. I’ll help you get the female next.

  With sudden and startling certainty, I realized who was speaking to me. Lirena!

  How was she controlling me from Seattle? Or had she lied and she was here on the mountain?

  My gun jerked back toward Zav. It didn’t matter where she was, just that she was trying to get me to shoot my strongest ally, someone who’d just saved my life.

  Hands shaking, I forced the sights away from his back again. Sweat slithered down the sides of my face. My lungs struggled to find breathable air in the miasma of steam and gases.

  Zav, unaware of my struggle, had taken several steps away from me and closer to the dark elves. He was wrapping golden coils of energy around the two scientists, preparing to transport them back to his world.

  Do not defy your roots, Lirena snarled into my mind. Stop fighting this. Kill him. He’s a dragon!

  “He’s my ally!” I roared aloud, wanting to warn Zav of the problem, even though I was ashamed that I couldn’t simply flick the mind manipulation aside.

  This was an elf, not another dragon. I should be able to fight her off.

  Zav turned to face me as I struggled to shift my gun away from him again. Behind him, the two scientists were wrapped in those golden coils, forced back-to-back, bleeding and gasping in pain.

  “Someone is… manipulating me,” I gasped. “Take my weapons.”

  Once more, my finger threatened to pull the trigger.

  Zav stared at me. I couldn’t tell if he was stunned at this betrayal or trying to figure out who was controlling me.

  “Take them,” I panted, hoping he had his defenses up in case I couldn’t keep from shooting.

  Dizziness made the chamber seem to spin as the ground undulated under my feet.

  Someone shouted in the tunnel outside. “The other dragon is coming!”

  Take out the female if you won’t kill the male, Lirena ordered. You want to kill that one!

  My finger tightened on the trigger. With a heave of strength and willpower, I pointed Fezzik at the ceiling just before the gun went off.

  What are you doing? Sindari had finished off the other dark elves and was staring at me.

  That elf—Lirena—is controlling me. My shaking hands jerked back down, the gun aiming at Zav’s chest. Come tackle me. Sit on me. Please!

  Zav was the one to stride toward me, lifting a hand toward me. As Zondia sprang into the chamber in her human form, I lost the battle of wills and fired at Zav.

  “No!” I screamed.

  He incinerated the bullet before it struck. With a flick of his power, he tore the gun from my grip.

  I slumped, horrified but thankful he’d defended himself.

  Use the sword! Lirena cried.

  “Get out of my head!” I roared, locking my knees as some power tried to drive me to grab Chopper.

  What is she doing? Zondia demanded, the telepathic words booming painfully in my mind.

  Finish destroying the pipes, Zav ordered her, not looking away from me.

  He looked me up and down with greater intensity than he’d ever studied me before. His gaze locked on my thong of charms, and he seemed to study each one, but my oxygen-starved brain struggled to recognize the significance.

  When he reached for my neck, fear stampeded into my body. What if he didn’t realize I was being manipulated? What if he believed I’d been biding my time until I could turn on him? Would he choke me? Kill me?

  Zav grabbed my leather thong of charms, not my neck. Heat flashed as he incinerated the knot and pulled it off me.

  The compulsion to fight and kill the dragons disappeared, and I had to lock my knees again to keep from collapsing at the relief. Control of my muscles returned to me.

  Zav held up all of my charms, but only one caught my eye. I swore like a sailor being chased down by a hurricane. The diamond charm, the one Lirena had given to me. For luck, my ass. It let her control me.

  “This looks like an elven luck charm,” he said, “but another spell has been laid onto it. It now contains compulsion magic.”

  “I’m sorry, Zav,” I whispered, feeling like an idiot.

  He didn’t respond, but he looked disgusted. I could only guess that he felt disappointed or angry or betrayed. Or all of those things.

  Fire flared, driving all the shadows from the chamber. Zondia had transformed into the lilac dragon, her body squished even in the large chamber. She was breathing fire onto the two pipes, doing in ten seconds what I had struggled to do slowly and methodically with the blowtorch. The caps didn’t just melt; the entire visible portion of the pipes warped and slumped, turning to molten puddles and then hardening as the water raining from the ceiling funnels quenched the metal. Once they hardened, they sealed the access to the magma far below.

  While Zondia was doing that, Zav removed the diamond charm from my thong and handed the rest back to me.

  Who gave that to you? Zondia boomed into my mind.

  “An elf who claimed to be my cousin.” The ground was still shaking, boulders of ice dropping down, and I feared we’d be trapped in here. “Can we talk about it later? I sealed the first chamber, and that looks good for this one, but there are two more chambers like this.”

  More dark elves rushed into our chamber. They gaped as they spotted the huge lilac dragon. They looked like they would flee, but Zav smashed them to the ground with magical power and created more golden ropes of magic to bind them. Before he finished, two more elves, their auras as great as the scientists’ had been, charged in and attacked him.

  He grunted in surprise but recovered and returned the attack. He hadn’t given Fezzik back to me, so I grabbed Chopper in case I needed to help. We had to get out of here. The cracks and rumblings kept growing more intense.

  Zondia shifted back to human form—she wouldn’t have fit through the exit as a dragon.

  I expected her to help Zav, but she rushed up and grabbed my arm.

  Do not raise a weapon at him again, she snarled into my mind.

  I wasn’t going to. He took the charm that was controlling me. I’m going to help.

  I tried to pull out of her grasp using a move that would have worked on a normal human, but magic gave her grip more power. She growled and whipped her other hand up to my face. I thought she would strike me and ducked to avoid the blow, but more magic wrapped around me, holding me in place again.

  “They’ve got Yemeli-lor and Baklinor-ten,” one of the powerful dark-elf wizards shouted. “We have to free them!”

  Zondia’s hand came down on the top of my head, thumb pressed against my temple. Agony lanced into my mind as she once again tried to dig in and read my thoughts. She wished to see the elf who’d given me the charm, to learn everything I knew about her, and she wanted to know if I had truly been duped or if I’d wanted to help that faction of elves all along.

  I couldn’t stifle a pained gasp as Zondia tore thoughts from my mind.

  Sindari had been helping Zav with the dark elves, but he glanced back and saw my conundrum. Val!

  Growling, Sindari raced across the chamber toward Zondia.

  She flung a hand up, and he halted, a wall of magic stopping him as surely as a wall of bricks. Do not interfer
e, Zhinevarii, lest you be found guilty of being an accomplice.

  Sindari butted the invisible barrier, then snapped at it with his teeth. Val? What do you want me to do?

  So much pain bit into my mind at Zondia’s rough intrusions that I could barely form words. She’d been reasonable back in my apartment, trying not to hurt me, but now she was furious. After the beating I’d taken, my lungs still struggling to find breathable oxygen in the awful air, I doubted I could have fought her off even if her magic hadn’t been pinning me.

  Nothing, Sindari. Let her take what she wants.

  The sooner she finished the better. A stab of pain accompanied every thought of Lirena that Zondia sucked from my mind, and I was sure I would pass out soon.

  A surge of magic emanated from Zav, and the ceiling heaved as ice split. The dark elves trying to get to their allies shouted warnings. Too late. The ceiling collapsed, burying them.

  Zav lowered his hands and turned toward Zondia and me. His glowing violet eyes widened with fury.

  What are you doing! It came out as an accusation, not a question.

  What you are too cowardly to do. Zondia glared back at him, not releasing me.

  A battering ram of power struck her in the chest, flinging her away from me. Somehow, that pinpoint power barely stirred a hair on my head. But I couldn’t keep from collapsing once her magic released me. I dropped to my hands and knees, nausea and fatigue almost making me puke.

  No longer held back, Sindari shambled toward me, blood matting his silver fur, his eyes glazed. I didn’t know if the air was affecting him, too, or if it was whatever poison the dark elves had shot him with.

  Zav put Fezzik in my holster and picked me up.

  Take the scientists and my other prisoners to the Justice Court, he ordered Zondia, who’d recovered from his blow and was glowering at him. I will take her back to her people.

  She should be taken to the Dragon Justice Court too. Zondia flung a hand toward me. She worked for one of the rebel elves from the faction that tried to kill you—that did kill our brother.

  Oh, hell. Lirena was one of those elves?

  She didn’t know, Zav replied.

  A crack opened up in the ground, the noise as thunderous as a grenade going off.

  We will discuss it later, Zav added. Open a portal, take the dark elves, and get out of here.

  The crack widened, heat and noxious fumes flowing out of it.

  We will discuss it later, Zondia said, but she didn’t argue further.

  She formed a portal, the silver circle filling the shaking chamber with its light. The dark elves that Zav had bound floated through it, and Zondia jumped through after them.

  The main exit leading out of the chamber had collapsed. Carrying me, Zav started toward the smaller tunnel that connected with the first chamber, but I wasn’t sure we would be able to get out that way either. I’d thrown that grenade to block the tunnel out of that one. Maybe the small one I’d crawled through was still open.

  Sindari padded weakly after us.

  Go home, my friend, I told him. I’ll call you again after you’ve rested.

  And after I found out if Zav and I would escape. And if Mount Rainier was doomed to explode. Had we done enough to stop the eruption? I didn’t know.

  Are you safe alone with him? Sindari asked. He saw you try to shoot him.

  Zav’s face was stony as he strode into the tunnel, still carrying me.

  I hope so.

  I was sure Zav would forgive me for being manipulated against my wishes. I wasn’t sure he would forgive me for welcoming one of the elves who’d worked to kill his brother into my home. What if Lirena had been the very assassin who’d killed him?

  I will go, then. I must recover. Silver mist formed, and Sindari faded from our world.

  I wanted to throw up. I didn’t know if it was from the bad air or just because I was sick that I’d been fooled and could have killed Zav.

  When we made it to the other chamber, most of the ceiling had collapsed, and there was no way out. We were trapped.

  34

  “We will have to go another way,” Zav said, the steamy gaseous air swirling about us. “The battle weakened the structure of these caves, and your people are even now bombing the main entrance, trying to close them off.”

  Willard was bombing the caves while I was in here? She must have received orders from a superior officer to do so. With all the rumbling and quaking, there was no way the entire state wasn’t aware that Mount Rainier might erupt at any moment.

  “What other way is there?” I croaked, my lungs heaving as they failed to filter the toxic air.

  Zav focused on an empty point past my shoulder, and shimmering silver light bathed his face, driving back the shadows. He strode toward the portal and sprang through before I could ask where we were going.

  My last thought was one of utter fear, as I envisioned landing on the cold marble floor of this Dragon Justice Court and having to explain to his mother and a hundred angry dragons that I’d let myself be a tool for the faction of elves who’d tried to dethrone them all.

  A dream-like state washed over me, stars seeming to bend and streak past, like the Enterprise zipping along at warp speed, and I had no sense of how much time passed.

  My awareness returned as we entered bright daylight, the contrast from the tunnels so brilliant that I had to squint my eyes shut against the intensity. A breeze heavy with the scent of growing things teased my nose, and I gasped in air, fresh air. Birdsong came from behind us, and leaves rustled in that breeze.

  Zav laid me down, and dry leaves crinkled under me. Unfortunately, the air didn’t instantly fix me, and I rolled onto my hands and knees and threw up. At least I hadn’t done it while he’d been holding me. Though he was standing close, his silver slippers in danger of being spattered. I tried to shift away from him as my stomach heaved, ridiculously worried about throwing up on his feet.

  He knelt beside me, pulled my braid onto my back so I wouldn’t hit it, then rested a hand on my shoulder.

  “Give me a minute to consider how to heal you,” he said. “You were poisoned by the air down there. This is more complicated for me to heal than a wound.”

  “Thank you.” I hoped I could recover, that my naturally robust ability to heal would extend to this, but I would take anything he could do for me. “I’m sorry about… everything.”

  “I know.”

  If only his sister did. Right now, she was probably tattling to his mother about how I’d worked with their enemies to try to kill Zav.

  “I am annoyed with myself,” he said, “for not noticing the trinket before. The compulsion spell was very subtly woven into the existing magic, and I thought little of the presence of a luck charm among the others. You have many charms, and when I look at you, it is not your neck that captures my attention.”

  Had I been less sick, I might have said I was disappointed by how little sexual allure my neck had, but I couldn’t muster the energy.

  I pushed leaves over my mess and sat back, hating that Zav was seeing me so weak and hating even more that I’d almost betrayed him, no matter what the reason. He’d just been getting to the point where he’d started trusting me. And now… I didn’t know what now. But I feared he would go back to being wary around me. If he wanted to continue working with me at all.

  We were on a cliff overlooking a vast forest filled with blue-green foliage that was at once alien and familiar to me, though if Zav had told me the truth about how portals worked, we couldn’t be on Earth. The sun setting on the horizon didn’t seem much different from my sun, and it painted the sky in richly layered oranges, pinks, and reds. Another time, I would have appreciated the beauty, but my mind was too busy worrying about what I’d done and what was happening back home.

  Zav sat next to me and again rested his hand on my shoulder. This time, magic flowed from his fingers, soothing me deep inside. Soon, my throat felt less raw, and I could finally breathe normally again. My chest ache
d from the strain of how hard my muscles and lungs had been working. I closed my eyes and slumped against Zav, letting him do whatever he could for me and grateful that he was trying. He’d caught his criminals. He didn’t need to be here worrying about me.

  I don’t know how much time passed, but the sun sank below the horizon, and the birdsong faded. Stars came out, the constellations unfamiliar. As much as I wanted to return to Earth and find out what had happened, my body was too weary to stir. I must have dozed off, for I woke with my mouth dangling open, drool threatening to spill. Zav was sure to be impressed by a mate who puked and drooled on him.

  “I have done what I can,” he said. “Let me return you to your world.”

  “Thank you.”

  Though I felt better, I was exhausted, and it was only my pride that kept me from asking for help to my feet. Zav stood nearby, his hands clasped behind his back, waiting until I was ready. The silver of another portal lit up the night. He’d helped me, but he was more distant than he had been before we’d gone into battle, and I couldn’t guess at the thoughts in his mind.

  That it had been a mistake to kiss me? To sit so close to me in Willard’s tent? What if that charm had activated then, and I’d plunged Chopper into his side before I’d had a chance to warn him?

  “I must go back to my world to ensure the criminals are properly processed,” Zav said. “I’m returning you to a place that will be safe.”

  “I understand. Thank you.”

  He inclined his head toward the portal, not making a move to touch me. It felt like a rejection, a silent statement that the relationship I’d only recently figured out I wanted had ended.

  Hurt, I took a step toward the portal. But I paused and looked back. I wanted to hug him one more time, even if it was platonic, but I didn’t want to see wariness in his eyes. Or for him to step back to avoid it.

  Remembering our conversation on high fives, I lifted my palm toward him. Would he remember the conversation? Or consider it an acceptable alternative to the too-intimate hug?

  It took him a moment to get what I was offering. He hesitated, then pressed a hand to mine. The warm tingle of his power enveloped me, as it always did when we were close. I stepped back before it could tempt me to do something he would reject.