Reaper (Dragon Prophecies Book 1)

by Hickory Mack

  “That sounds terrible.”

  “It was. And it continues to be.”

  Elsie took her hand, and she let her. Wren softened and leaned against her, letting the reaper take some of her weight.

  “It pays to watch the right people,” she said. “We cannot allow the hunters to take away the Earth’s last chance of a magical revival. You and the Key must be kept safe, and here we are, at their mercy. You have no idea how deeply I wish to rid the world of them.”

  “I do,” Elsie contradicted her. “And as soon as I’ve gotten Frost freed and we have a way to circumnavigate this curse, it’ll be a race to see which one of us can destroy them first. Don’t expect a head start just because you’re prettier than me.”

  Wren snorted and sat up, locking her bright blue eyes on Elsie’s pale lavender. She cupped her face and kissed her lips. “I understand that you don’t see things the way that I do, but don’t ever say anything like that again. You are the world to me, the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”

  Elsie grinned and kissed her again, savoring her taste. “I feel the same about you.”

  “It’s okay to be wrong. I’m assuming you’ve seen a mirror at some point in your life. You’d have to be a proficient liar to convince yourself that what you saw wasn’t straight up divinity. Gods, reaper, your eyes, your hair, your skin? You’re perfect.” The look in her eyes was dangerous, like she’d strip Elsie down right there in front of everyone.

  “Same.”

  “How long do you think it will be before we arrive at our destination?” Wren called into the truck. Cross glanced their way then looked at his watch.

  “About two and a half hours,” he answered. She nodded, then stood and walked over to grab Frida. The cat chirped and butted her head against the spirit’s cheek affectionately. Taking Elsie’s hand, she looked at Cross one more time.

  “We will return in time.”

  Before he could respond, Wren’s magic wrapped around them and they stood in some woods with no one around. It wasn’t as magical as the last place Wren had brought them, but it was private. Wren released her, then set Frida on the ground, instructing the cat to behave herself. Elsie grinned and backed away as her lover pursued her.

  “What do you think you’re doing? We should be getting ready for the fight ahead,” she said, startled when she ran into a tree. Wren looked confused, setting her hand on the tree next to Elsie’s head.

  “You promised me every day.”

  Elsie blinked as she tried to figure out what the spirit was talking about. Wren leaned in, and she understood, stammering, “Yeah, but, I didn’t think that meant today.”

  Wren’s warm breath tickled her ear, sending chills down her spine. Her hand trailed down her neck to cup one of her breasts as Elsie’s eyes widened. “Elspeth, every day means every day.”

  Chapter 28

  “Thank fuck,” Cross muttered when Wren returned them to the tailgate of their truck with plenty of time to spare. “Could you please stop doing that? They’re never going to grant my request if I can’t keep track of a single woman with a team of four men to help me.”

  “No,” Wren answered simply.

  “They should have given you a bigger team,” Elsie said, looking up at him innocently and taking a crispy bite out of a big juicy apple Wren had found for her. “This is really good.”

  “Nature didn’t create them,” Wren told her. “The humans that lived here before the collapse of their civilization did.”

  “They created an apple?” Elsie snorted.

  “Yes.”

  “Humans are weird.”

  Wren laughed at her. “You have no idea. There used to be grapes that tasted like cotton candy. Some people liked them, but I thought they were disgusting.”

  “What’s cotton candy?”

  Cross and the others waited for an answer as well, and Wren tapped her chin thoughtfully. “It’s a sugar floss. They would color it in all sorts of colors, and sometimes they would flavor it,” she described. “I don’t think I can recreate it for you since they had machines to make it for them. Though maybe someone out there knows how. I’ll find them for you if you want.”

  “That’s okay.” Elsie patted her knee. “I’d rather you stay right here than run off to find some treat I’ve never even heard of before.”

  About half an hour later, Elsie noticed several of the trucks were pulled over to the side of the path, unloading the demons. Those who were already taken out stood in the straight lines of a military formation. She nearly jumped out of the truck when she realized her group hadn’t stopped moving.

  “Wait, where are we going? Isn’t this our stop?” she asked.

  “I guess not,” Cross answered. “They were pretty stingy with the details.”

  “Not the greatest way to instill confidence in the people carrying out missions for them,” Elsie muttered.

  The same thing happened several more times in evenly spaced increments. If the hunters were creating a battle formation, they were spreading it wide, which told her they weren’t one hundred percent certain they’d be able to lead the fox into their trap. Grant had claimed they were ready, but this mission was looking sloppier and sloppier the longer it went on.

  Their truck turned away once they passed the last of the cages, following the supplies and the trucks she assumed had Martin and Eustone on them. The men in charge were leaving the battlefield and taking her with them!

  “Fucking cowards,” she growled.

  “What?” Hasprey asked.

  “We aren’t going to be close enough to watch the battle, let alone step in, if we’re needed,” Elsie replied.

  “I think that’s for the best,” Wren said gently. “You could be hurt.”

  “I’ve never once asked my team to do anything I wasn’t willing to do myself. A good leader leads. They don’t hide behind a security detail and pretend like lives aren’t being lost on their orders. Those soldiers and those demons are not expendable, but that’s how this Martin guy is treating them,” she seethed.

  “It doesn’t sit right with me either,” Cross said, his voice lower than usual. The truck stopped, and Elsie jumped down from her perch immediately after instructing Frida to stay inside.

  She took stock of which trucks were still with them and frowned. Not one truck with hunter soldiers or demons remained. Even the humans were gone. Elsie stalked across the field they’d stopped in, looking at who was in each truck until she found Martin. He was talking with a few other men, a serious expression on his face.

  “Where are the humans?” she demanded, interrupting their conversation. They’d brought at least a hundred of them along, not that she’d kept an exact tally, but she knew there were a lot of them.

  “Commander Chantraine,” Martin said, his tone sounding like that of an adult speaking to an especially annoying toddler. “They are filling out our numbers on the front line. Each and every one of them was a volunteer; they know what they have signed up for.”

  “You’re using them as bait.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. Their job is to inhibit the fox demon’s movements as much as possible, so the demons’ attacks will be more substantial,” Martin said reasonably.

  “You’re sending them in before the demons? But they have no magic! You’ve sentenced those people to their deaths! What kind of monster are you that you’ll sacrifice not only the demons, but your own people for this?” Elsie’s hands shook with outrage, then she noticed the uncomfortable stares of the men with Martin, and she frowned. It was so very apparent that they hadn’t known this part of the plan until now either.

  “They were criminals anyway. They volunteered from the internment mines. Those who survive will be returned to their nest, and their sentences will be considered served,” Martin said.

  “Everything about this is despicable,” she accused. “You’ve given them hope for freedom, only to give them no option other than to die for you.”

  “Perhaps. But t
oday’s sacrifice of criminals will ensure tomorrow’s survival for the innocent,” Martin replied.

  “If this demon is really as terrible as you say, why haven’t you taken care of him before now? Why wait until decades after he started killing your people and hunting out of your nests?” Elsie prodded.

  “He’s too strong and too fast. It wasn’t until six years ago that we even knew what he was,” Martin replied. “He came into contact with a young girl and allowed her to return to us. She led us to the beast, and he killed a nine-man squad in less than fifteen minutes.”

  Elsie’s eyes narrowed, doing the math. “This fox is what wiped out Captain Grady’s squad? Maverick and Pax were among the elite,” she said with a shudder. The details of their deaths had been kept classified, but the loss of an entire squad had rocked the hunter community. It was all anyone had talked about for weeks.

  “The one and only. He’s pretty famous among our research groups. He’s been a sought after specimen since the day he allowed Eustone’s daughter to return to us. The effect of the mark that demon left on that child has never been seen before or since. It was simply remarkable,” Martin stated.

  Elsie’s head whirled. Stanley Eustone’s daughter had been taken by this very demon, and she’d been returned, apparently unharmed. “Where is the girl now?”

  “That’s one of the big mysteries we’d like to solve. The girl was returned to her father, only to run away the same night to return to the creature who’d almost killed her. That poor child was covered from head to toe in cuts, bruises, and broken bones, but she wasted no time in going back to him. She betrayed us. The very next day, she was in the woods at his side, watching as he killed our squad,” Martin said. “She hasn’t been seen since.”

  Chills went down Elsie’s spine. Some demons could take control of a person’s mind, and foxes had a cunning sort of trickster magic that could easily allow him to manipulate a child. She’d never heard of a demon using a kid to lure hunters out of the nest like that, though.

  A table was set up with a radio, and both Martin and Eustone were called over. They sat in fold-out chairs on one side and wore headsets with background noise-canceling microphones. Elsie stood at the end of the table, Wren on one side, Cross on the other.

  “Alright, everybody this is it. We’re to have total silence from you if you want to hear what’s going on,” Martin said sternly. Elsie’s nerves tingled; she wanted to be there, among the chaos. Then at least she’d have an idea of what was happening and what kind of creature she was going to be responsible for.

  The helicopters droned in the distance, where the trees became an actual forest. The place was immense, and Elsie could see how the creature had built his empire here. For the first time, she wondered who’d been here first—the demon or the colony. Not that it mattered now, but for some reason it struck her as important. She shook her head to clear it of the thought, knowing she was being ridiculous. The knowledge wouldn’t make a difference.

  “The target is in position,” the radio crackled. Martin shared a look with Eustone and nodded.

  “Deploy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  For several seconds, there was nothing. Just a light breeze and the sweet song of native birds in the air. And then hell rained down on Earth. The first explosion was a good way off, and within seconds, Wren cried out in pain. Elsie grabbed the earth spirit and hugged her to her side, holding her up as the second explosion went off. The explosions continued one after another in quick succession, each one moving further across the forest until the final blast, directly in front of them.

  The ground shook as clouds of fire rose in the air above the treeline. Elsie’s shock was so complete all she could do was hold on to Wren, not even registering that Cross was doing the same for her. She couldn’t even think clearly enough to tell him off for touching her. Her heart beat so hard she could feel her pulse in her temple.

  And then another explosion rocked the world. Massive and flashing in a blinding bright blue, this was the power of the fox. The mushroom cloud rising hundreds of feet in the air put the hunters’ bombs to shame, showing them exactly how insignificant they were. The ground rippled, sending a shockwave through the Earth and knocking them off their feet. Fissures opened in the ground, tearing the land apart as massive tracts of trees fell.

  For a long moment, no one said a thing. Even Martin was shocked into silence by the violence of what they’d witnessed. Elsie couldn’t imagine anything anywhere near that final blast had survived.

  “Report,” Martin said in a choked voice.

  “The demons are in pursuit. The demon- It- It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

  Elsie’s brows furrowed until she remembered. They’d spaced them out. They must have known something like this was possible, and protected their assets by splitting them apart. Clever, and so despicably tactical, treating the soldiers and demons as pawns in this game.

  She looked down at Wren and gave her a little shake, realizing the earth elemental had passed out. “Wren? Wren!”

  Cross picked the spirit up and nodded at Elsie. “I’ve got her. The blast must have been too much for her to handle.”

  “Something else has joined the fox! It looks like a young boar demon. It moves like the devil himself. Our demons can’t keep up with it!”

  “We were ready for this. Deploy tanks,” Martin commanded.

  The concussive sound of the tanks firing hit Elsie’s chest. What if this was the legendary boar she’d heard about from all the way up in Alaska? Those soldiers were as good as dead. They couldn’t survive the fox and the boar. Wren stirred, wriggling until Cross put her down. Her pale eyes wide, she stared into the forest, her hands trembling.

  “Marshall!” the voice from the radio screamed. “There’s something else! A huge stag! I think we pissed off the forest spirit!”

  Elsie heard gasps around the table, along with muttering from both Jonah Martin and Stanley Eustone. She slammed her hand on the table. “You’re telling me there’s a forest spirit here, and you just bombed the fuck out of its forest? Are you trying to get everyone killed?!”

  “Deploy the lords! Get this under control!” Martin spat into his mic, glaring at Elsie. Covering it with one hand, he growled. “If you can’t shut up, go back to your fucking truck.”

  “What lords? You managed to convince a Demon Lord to fight for you?” Elsie demanded, refusing to give in to his temper tantrum. She was too busy having one of her own.

  Wren’s hands fluttered up to her chest as she closed her eyes, her lips moving silently. She took several steps toward the forest, tears streaming down her face.

  “Site three has one hundred percent mortality. The stag destroyed them all,” the radio squawked. “Lord Kern is dead!”

  Elsie almost stumbled. With all those demons, humans, hunters, the bombs, the tanks, and Demon Lords, the fox was still winning.

  “Deploy the dampening agent. Continue firing until the specimen cannot move,” Eustone said, his voice unnervingly calm. Elsie squinted at him, wondering what the hell the dampening agent was, but another distraction took her mind off of it.

  Wren’s skin started to glow. Her antlers, too, taking on a bright golden shine. “Come to me,” she whispered. Elsie took her hand, but Wren’s eyes were unfocused, seeing things the reaper couldn’t.

  “Wren?”

  “He needs me. Frida, take care of our girl,” Wren said in a voice no louder than a breeze. Then she changed into her deer form and began to grow larger. No longer a dainty, sweet-looking creature, she looked formidable. Green markings stained her white fur, glowing with earth magic, and Elsie remembered that the Key was nearby. Wren would be especially strong, but so would the forest spirit.

  A stag stepped out of the woods, his orange eyes clouded with pain and grief. He bellowed a challenge and charged forward, attacking the hunters for their part in all of this. Wren stood silently, and when he came close, she intervened, stepping between the rushing stag
and Elsie.

  “Wren, be careful!” she shouted, running forward, but her wrist was caught by Cross.

  “Don’t get in the middle of this!” he said, then the sound of a giant cat screaming filled the air, sending chills up Elsie’s spine. At the same time, the stag crashed into Wren, his antlers tangling with hers. He was bigger than she was, and his mind was lost in rage and pain, giving him the advantage.

  Wren lifted her muzzle to the sky, and both creatures vanished. “No!” Elsie screamed. “Wren!”

  She yanked away, and Cross let her go, her hand brushing against his. Time stopped. That one tiny touch changed everything. A pressure built in the crown of her head as a bond formed, tethering her to the fucking brujo standing next to her. Elsie watched a look of amazement grow on his face as he realized what had just happened. Horror bloomed and deepened in her stomach.

  “Fuck you!” she yelled in his face, shoving him back and not regretting the hurt in his eyes for even a second. He’d taken her choice away from her, even after she’d explained herself to him. She didn’t have time for a third fucking mate. They were in the middle of a battle for gods’ sake! Frida materialized at her side in her full alebrije form, sliding in between her mistress and the man who stared at her like she was his dream come true.

  “Frost! Get your ass out here!” Elsie yelled some more, not caring if she looked like an overgrown child acting like this. The smoke came thick and fast as the wolf materialized with a stretch and a big yawn. “Seriously, you were sleeping?!”

  His mind touched hers with bewilderment. He clearly had no idea what was happening in this world. “Please, take me to Wren!”

  “You are not going anywhere! You are needed to confine the fox! We have him, and now it’s time for you to do your part.” Martin pointed at her, fury on his face. “I don’t care what drama you people are in the middle of. You came here to do a job, now go do it!”