by Tasha Black
The female was shy, but Aurora was patient.
At long last, the slender necked bird took the treat and lifted her head back quickly so as not to be tricked.
“Good girl,” Aurora murmured. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”
Lyra let out a string of cheerful nonsense syllables and Aurora turned to her and nodded.
“Yes, Lyra, exactly,” she said. “We’re all going to be good friends.”
He was amazed once again at the natural confidence of his mate, even if he wasn’t always thrilled with how she chose to express it.
She eyed the coach, and then him, her unspoken question clear.
“I was going to practice my sharpshooting,” he told her.
It was the last thing he wanted to be doing, with all of the other work that surely needed to be done to help them all settle in. But Aurora had gotten him involved in this silly challenge, and now it was his duty to see it through. And according to the poster, sharpshooting was the first leg of the Sheriff’s Cup.
“Then we’re going too,” she said, her tone making it clear that it wasn’t up for debate.
Kade shook his head and offered her a hand up into the coach.
She took it and he felt the familiar ache of pleasure at her soft touch.
He swung himself into the seat next to her and whistled to the wing-steeds. They traveled in silence, as if a cold curtain had been created by the unspoken words that hung between them.
“They were drawing their weapons,” Aurora said suddenly. “You were going to wind up dead or having to kill someone.”
Her words struck his heart.
“You insulted my honor,” he told her.
“What good is your honor when you’re dead, or a murderer?” she asked, her beautiful cheeks flushing with emotion. “There is no honor for Lyra if she has to watch her father kill or be killed.”
Her father…
“I am not her father,” he said automatically. It was the truth, no matter how appealing it sounded. “She is a pod baby, grown from the DNA of her fallen ancestors, born to accept their glory.”
“Like hell you aren’t,” Aurora retorted. “Listen to yourself. You sound like an overblown quote from the news feed. Who takes care of her? Who protects her?”
“It is my job to protect and care for her,” he said quietly.
“Is it your job to love her?” Aurora demanded.
He opened his mouth and closed it again.
Even empty words of denial would feel like a betrayal to the small one who had such a big place in his heart.
Hot tears prickled in his eyes and he turned away so as not to share his weakness of emotion.
“You are her father, and she deserves to keep you in her life,” Aurora said calmly. “Please do not mistake foolishness for honor again. She needs you. We both need you.”
We both need you.
They rode on in silence for a bit longer, but the cold between them had been blown away by the heat of Aurora’s words.
“How did you know they were going to kill me?” he asked at last.
“Where I come from, that kind of thing is all too common,” she said, her voice tight. “Any form of rebellion, any act that could be construed as disrespectful, usually brings swift and blinding punishment. As soon as you spoke up to that guard, I was terrified for you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
She didn’t reply.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She wore a surprised and pleased expression.
“Please don’t do it again,” she murmured after a moment.
“I won’t,” he told her.
The dragon fluttered its wings inside him and then went still.
For all its fury and sense of duty and honor, it had already rearranged its priorities. Mate and whelp came first, anything else was a distant second, at best.
Half an hour later, they had tied off the wing-steeds at a rocky outcropping and hiked down to a wooded cove below.
Aurora pulled something out of her rucksack. It looked like an assortment of tools and plumbing supplies. She fiddled with it for a moment, snapping one piece into another until it began to take on a very different shape.
Kade was surprised when she handed him a small, lightweight rifle.
“Have you had that the whole time?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said. “You can’t be too safe.”
“This is old-fashioned,” he said, examining it. “Blast-powder and projectiles.”
“The design is old-fashioned,” she agreed. “But I made it myself.”
Impressive.
He turned the weapon over in his hands.
It was light-weight and cool to the touch, though he was fairly certain it wasn’t metal.
“High grade polymer,” she said, as if anticipating his question. “Makes it easier to carry without detection, and easier to break down. I can put this in three different bags and it basically looks like spare plumbing supplies.”
She wasn’t wrong about that. Even he hadn’t spotted its true purpose when he first laid eyes on it.
“This is incredible,” he told her.
“It was quite a project,” she said fondly. “Took some time to get the design right, but I’m proud of it.”
“Well, I’ll be using my blaster for the competition,” he said, holding her creation out to her again.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said.
“Of course I will,” he retorted.
“Look,” she said, pulling out a folded piece of paper from her bag.
It whipped around a little as she unfolded it and Lyra grabbed the corner.
“Ha,” Lyra chirped.
“No, no, baby, we need that,” Aurora said.
But when she tried to get it back the baby squawked at her.
“This is how we do it,” Kade said, with a smile, turning his attention to the whelp. “Where’s your belly, Lyra?”
Lyra’s little face broke into a sunny smile.
“Where’s your belly?” he asked again.
She chuckled and wiggled in Aurora’s arms.
“I found your belly,” he cried and leaned down to nuzzle her round belly with his scratchy jaw.
As usual, Lyra found this hilarious. The piece of paper was forgotten and Aurora was able to retrieve it as Lyra knocked Kade on top of his head with her little arms.
When he pulled back Lyra wiggled her fingers at him.
He took her in his arms and they all looked down at the page Aurora was unfolding.
It was the poster for the Sheriff’s Cup, listing the three events, the location and topped off with a drawing of the cup itself.
“What am I looking at?” he asked.
“See, it says rifle sharpshooting,” she said. “No energy weapons.”
“Dammit,” he said.
How had he missed that?
“It’s fine, you can learn on this,” she told him.
He studied the page, wondering about the other two events.
“Can you ride?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said.
“Fair enough,” she said. “So you can ride, you can learn to sharpshoot with this today. What is Docking?”
“No idea,” he said, shaking his head.
“Do you think they mean like landing a space craft?” she asked. “Or a boat?”
“We’ll have to ask in town,” he said.
“We don’t have much time.” Her voice was worried.
“We’ve got this,” he told her with more bravado than he felt. “Really.”
She smiled up at him. “Okay, well let’s get started.”
“Can I just take a couple of shots with this thing? See how it handles?” he asked.
“That’s the idea,” she agreed.
He lifted it to his shoulder, wondering again at the light weight form of it. It hardly seemed like a weapon at all. He took aim at a tree across the clearing.
“I’m going to h
it the branch hanging down in front,” he decided out loud. “Want to move back with Lyra so she doesn’t get scared?”
Blast-powder weapons were notoriously loud, and in truth, he wasn’t a hundred percent convinced the contraption wasn’t going to just blow up when he tried to fire it.
He waited for Aurora to go all the way back to the tree line behind them.
He took aim, then pulled the trigger, and was rewarded with a loud bang.
The branch didn’t move.
“What the heck?” he said.
He tried again, still nothing.
It occurred to him that he was using a homemade gun. Though Aurora was tremendously gifted, it probably didn’t have the true aim he was accustomed to from a more refined weapon.
“Is there a trick to this?” he called back to her politely.
She jogged up to him with Lyra. “No,” she said. “Just shoot.”
“You could hit that lower branch?” he asked.
“Sure, hold the baby,” she said.
He held Lyra and took a few steps back.
As he watched, Aurora turned and lifted the weapon to her shoulder in one fluid motion, and then fired and hit the branch without any hesitation.
She lowered the weapon and turned back to him.
He jogged back to her side. “That was incredible.”
“Old-fashioned weapons are tricky,” she told him. “Want me to show you a few things?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Okay, settle it on your shoulder,” she told him, trading him for the baby.
He did as he was told.
“Before you take your shot, calm your heartbeat,” she said. “Try to slow it down.”
“This sounds like what we were taught by the Invicta,” he said.
“For shooting?”
“For restraining the shift,” he said.
The dragon stirred in his chest, but was not fully roused.
She nodded. “That makes sense.”
“What else?” he asked.
“Hold your breath when you aim,” she told him. “And when you shoot, squeeze the trigger, don’t just pull it.”
He nodded, picturing her instructions. “I’m ready to try again.”
A few hours later, he was able to hit nearly anything Aurora could point out. The weapon was a good one, even if it was different from what he was used to.
After hitting a falling leaf he lowered the weapon and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Nice,” Aurora said appreciatively.
He smiled back at her, wishing she didn’t have to cover her hair. He wondered what it would look like in the pink of twilight.
Twilight.
“No,” he gasped.
“What’s wrong?”
“We have to go,” he told Aurora. “We have to go right now. I lost track of time.”
“Okay,” she said, looking a little surprised.
“We’re going to run until we get back to rocky soil,” he told her, taking Lyra.
Aurora broke the weapon into pieces in about two seconds and packed them back into her rucksack.
He took her by the hand and they began to sprint for the trees.
He wanted to do calculations in his head but the best thing they could do was run.
He had forgotten they were no longer on safe ground.
Darkness would bring the night creatures out of the woods. Only places built on solid stone, like the village and rocky shore of the lake were safe from them.
“What are we running from?” Aurora panted.
“We’re not running from anything,” he told her. “We’re running for rocky ground. No more talking.”
The sky was turning deep blue, only the horizon was a fiery pink. At least they were close now. He could see the wing-steeds and the coach ahead of them, just up the next rise.
A high-pitched squeal behind them had Aurora slowing down to look.
Without a thought, he slung her over his shoulder.
She let out a squeak of surprise but didn’t struggle.
Now that he had a baby in one arm and a woman over his opposite shoulder he was moving slightly more slowly. Inside him, his dragon begged for release. He could easily take his dragon form, and the creatures would be no threat. But he’d have to release Aurora and Lyra first, and he wasn’t about to take that chance.
“Oh my God,” Aurora said. “What are they?”
He didn’t even try to answer.
The coach was just a few yards away now. He could hear the wing-steeds clucking in alarm.
Something bit into his right ankle, needle-like teeth sinking into his flesh.
He shouted out his pain but kept running, hoping his legs would stay under him long enough to get them to safety.
Just few more steps.
Another little monster jumped onto the other one’s back and bit into his calf the way he would have bitten a leg of mug-stock.
Throwing caution to the wind, Kade pushed himself past his limit, landing on his knees on the rocky surface of the outcropping where they’d left the coach.
Once he was on the solid stone, the little creatures let go of him and scuttled back into the woods.
“Kade, are you okay?” Aurora asked, pulling herself off his shoulder and cupping his cheek in her hand.
The bites on his legs felt like they were on fire, but he had survived much worse.
Lyra was safe, unscathed and snug in his arm, but she began to cry anyway, as if in sympathy.
17
Aurora
Aurora stared at Kade, shaken.
He was calmly whistling at the wing-steeds to drive them home, in spite of the fact that there was flesh hanging off the back of his calf, the bleeding only stemmed after she tied her scarf tightly around it.
Now she was crouched at the foot of the coach, hoping no one would notice her in the dying light.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “You taught me to shoot and you managed to get me patched up enough to get home.”
“What were those things? You could have been killed,” she breathed.
“They’re called piranha pigs,” he said. “They skim the undergrowth at night, eating all the small prey they can find. And bigger prey too.”
“Like us,” she said.
“Like us,” he agreed. “It’s very good for the environment. But bad for tourism.”
“Are you making a joke?”
“I was trying to,” he said, with a half-smile. “Anyway, they’re not the worst thing that comes out at night.”
“There’s something worse than that?” Aurora asked.
“Under cats,” he said. “Like a furless, predatory rat-mole, but man-sized. They burst out of the ground at night and eat the piranha pigs, and whatever else they can find.”
Aurora shivered. “Why can’t they get us here?”
“Both species burrow in the earth,” he told her. “The town and lake are on a granite ledge with rocky soil. They avoid it at all costs, since they have no method of escape.”
Aurora thought of her friend, Luna, being led into the trees by the big blue warrior.
“Are you okay?” Kade asked.
“Sure,” she said. “I’m just… thinking about my friend.”
“The one who went to the lake or the one who went to the forest?” he asked.
“Forest,” she said, pleased that he had paid attention.
“She’ll be fine, Aurora,” he said solemnly. “She is with Noxx. He will never forget to beware the darkness. That will be their main challenge.”
Aurora nodded. Of course it would be. That was terrifying.
“They also have one hundred acres of forest land,” Kade said dreamily. “And they have a treehouse, so they can be safely above any danger.”
“That sounds nice,” Aurora admitted. “Maybe we can visit them sometime?”
“I would like that,” Kade told her.
They had just arrived at their own little cottage.
&n
bsp; “The fair is tomorrow, and we still don’t know what docking is,” Aurora said sadly.
“What do we do?” Kade asked.
“Let me run in and get another scarf,” Aurora said. “Then I’ll ask the neighbors if they know”
“I’ll come too,” Kade decided.
“You’re injured,” Aurora said, scandalized.
“It’s nothing,” he told her.
She swung out of the coach and ducked into the house, grabbing a scarf and wrapping it around her hair once more.
By the time she got back out, Kade had already released the wing-steeds and was holding Lyra, waiting for her.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re very efficient?” she asked.
He laughed and shook his head. “Come on, it’s late, and I’m hungry.”
They headed over to Franc and Ethel’s and knocked on the door.
After a moment, the door eased open and Franc grabbed Kade by the collar, yanking him inside with a strength Aurora could never have imagined.
“I know why you’re here, poking around, pretending to help us,” Franc hissed into Kade chest, since he couldn’t reach his face.
To his credit, Kade stood still, and his green eyes did not flash golden.
“Yes, we pulled off the heist, and yes, we did it to make a point,” Franc went on. “Great works of art are not for kings and queens, they are for the universe.”
Kade’s eyes went wide with surprise.
“But I’ll have you know, my boy,” Franc said. “We didn’t do it for profit. We turned the paintings in anonymously to the government of Regala to be displayed in the museums. And yes, we’re on the run, and no we’re not happy about it. But we would do it again. Do you hear me? I would steal back every piece of purloined artwork in the galaxy to get it back to its rightful place.”
Aurora wasn’t piecing together what was going on. It sounded like she wasn’t the only one who’d thought Clotho would be a good place to hide out. But she wasn’t sure what sparked this sudden outburst from her mild-mannered neighbors.
“I’ve been watching the news feed like mad for signs that we’ve been made,” Ethel added softly from where she stood in the doorway to the kitchen. “It sounds like an Intergalactic Recon Brigade is heading this way tonight. Did you already make a call?”
