[Dragon's Gift 01.0 - 05.0] Complete Series

by Linsey Hall

  As I corralled the flame, the wolves bolted away, racing for the altar. I blasted fire at them. The jet of orange missed the wolf by an inch, crashing into the ground. In a flash of light, one wolf transformed back into a woman. She grabbed for something on the altar, then threw herself at the other wolf. A moment later, they disappeared in a cloud of glittering silver smoke.

  “Shit!”

  Aidan landed next to me, his huge leonine form dwarfing mine. Blood dripped down his massive beak. Gray light swirled around him and human Aidan once again stood before me, dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing before.

  “They had a transport charm,” he said.

  “Yeah.” The sound of Amara’s weeping hit me. The bad guys were gone. We could deal with that later. Right now, I had a real problem on my hands. “Go check the entrance. See if we can still get out. I’m going to get Amara. We’ll join you.”

  He nodded and loped off toward the exit.

  I limped over to Amara. Though my bones and muscles were uninjured, my strength was dwindling rapidly. I’d used more power today than I ever had in such a short time, and boy, was I feeling it. With a shaking hand, I dug into my jacket and pulled out the plush little bunny. Its worn fur felt good against my hands. Comforting.

  Amara was curled up against the wall, her dark hair hanging in her face. Her jeans were dirty and the thin sweater she wore not nearly warm enough in the cool temple. When I neared, the feel of her magic washed over me. It felt polluted…wrong. I could sense Shifter power the same way I could sense Magica power. But this was weird.

  She flinched back when I neared and I winced, pushing away my concern about her magic. Maybe it was just how fear manifested for her species.

  “Amara?” I lowered myself to my knees. “I’m here to help you. The Alpha Council sent me.”

  She shrank back. I could hardly see her face through her hair, but her breathing hitched. She was crying. My heart ached.

  I held out the bunny. “Look. They gave me your rabbit. We thought you’d want it.”

  Her gaze darted toward the rabbit and her black eyes glimmered through the curtain of dark hair. An image of Nix when she’d been young flashed in my mind. When we’d woken in that field at fifteen, Nix had looked just like this. Stringy dark hair and wary eyes.

  Anger heated my skin. Why did assholes keep using people like this? Tearing little girls away from their families and using them as pawns? I forced my fists to unclench and tried to smile. Anger wouldn’t help this situation.

  “I’m Cass,” I said. “I really am here to help you. I wouldn’t have your bunny otherwise.”

  She sniffled and reached out for the bunny. Quick as a snake, she snatched it to her chest. Instead of feeling better, she cried harder.

  Shit. I was floundering here.

  “What’s wrong, honey? You’re safe now. I’m going to get you out of here.”

  She shook her head. “The”—she hiccupped—“the Heartstone. They took it.”

  Right.

  Shit. Double shit. That’s what the woman had grabbed off the altar. Probably figured it’d be better to flee with something rather than nothing. And Amara was the keeper. Of course she’d be stressed that it was gone.

  “I’m gonna get it back,” I said. “I’m really good at finding things.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I found you, right? All the way in this Dawn Temple.”

  “Yeah, I guess you did.” She sniffled her tears back.

  The sound of footsteps echoed in the chamber. I turned my head to see Aidan entering. He shook his head, his expression grim, then picked up the backpacks and headed our way. I turned back to Amara.

  “You hungry?” I asked. “We brought sandwiches.”

  Amara nodded, then shoved her hair back from her face. She scrubbed the tears from her cheeks. She looked about ten, though it was hard for me to tell ages exactly since I didn’t see kids much.

  “Why’d you come to get me?” she demanded.

  I grinned at her tone. At least they hadn’t totally squished her sass. “Because I’m good at finding things and I wanted to find you.”

  She gave it a second, then nodded. “All right. And you’ll find the Heartstone?”

  I raised three fingers. “Scout’s honor. As soon as we get out of here, I’m after it.”

  “How’s it going over here?” Aidan asked as he knelt down. “Ready for some lunch?”

  Amara shot him a suspicious look. “Who’re you?”

  “Aidan,” he said.

  “What are you? I feel your power. You’re strong.”

  “I’m the Origin.”

  Amara shrank back again, her eyes wide. “I’ve heard of you. You hurt the Alpha Council.”

  Ouch.

  Aidan cursed quietly, then said, “That was my father. He wasn’t a good man.”

  Amara frowned. “How do I know you’re not like him?”

  Aidan’s brow creased and he scratched his chin. “Good question.”

  “You’re really big,” Amara accused.

  “What if I wasn’t?” A flash of gray light surrounded him. A second later, a small white mouse stood in his place. The mouse jumped up and did a flip, then an awkward mouse cartwheel.

  I laughed. I’d never seen him as anything other than a griffin, and certainly not as a jumping mouse.

  “Mice aren’t good at cartwheels,” Amara said.

  “They’re not. I think it’s the short legs.”

  She nodded sagely. The mouse looked at her, then at me, and a swirl of gray light surrounded it. A second later, Aidan knelt in its place.

  “I guess you’re all right,” Amara said. “If you’re willing to be a mouse.”

  “Thanks,” Aidan said. He reached into the bag and dragged out a blanket and a sandwich. “How about you wrap up and eat this while we find a way out of here.”

  Amara nodded and sat up straighter, reaching for the sandwich. Her hair swung away from her neck and a glint of sliver caught my eye.

  My stomach plummeted like I was on a rollercoaster.

  A thick metal collar wrapped around her neck. A big latch held it closed at the front.

  Fuck. That’s what the dark, sickly feel of her magic had been.

  Someone had put a slave collar on her.

  7

  “How’d you get the collar, Amara?” I tried to keep my voice from shaking.

  A haunted look crossed her face as she reached up to touch it. “One of the wolf women put it on me. I can’t get it off. And it makes me feel kinda sick.”

  I bit back a curse as my stomach did flips like the mouse had. “We’ll get it off.”

  “Now?”

  “Not yet, honey.” I clenched my fists. It’d kill her if we just yanked it off. “But soon, okay? Eat up while we go look for a way out of here. The main entrance is closed till tomorrow morning, but I don’t want to wait that long.”

  “You won’t leave me?”

  “No way.”

  She nodded and pulled the sandwich out of its bag. I stood and gestured for Aidan to follow me. We walked to the altar in the middle of the temple. It was covered with scattered playing cards and snack wrappers. Like a frat party gone real wrong.

  They’d been waiting here, probably to implement some kind of plan, but I didn’t want to be here if they came back to finish the job.

  My stomach was still lurching as I said, “We have a really big problem.”

  “The collar?”

  I glanced back at Amara, but she wasn’t paying attention. I kept my voice low. “Yeah. That’s a slave collar. It’s impossible for her to take it off herself. A precaution to keep slaves from killing themselves. We could take it off, but if we do, I think it’ll kill her. It looks like the same kind Aaron wore.”

  My heart ached at the thought of the young man who’d given me his Lightning Mage powers after I’d mistakenly killed him by removing the collar. I hadn’t realized what exactly it did. Could Amara’s collar really
be the same?

  “Do you think there’s any connection with the Monster who hunts you?” Aidan asked.

  I shuddered. “No idea. There were shadow demons here. They were his chosen species of minion. And that collar looks almost identical to the one Aaron wore.”

  “Two similarities is two too many.”

  Fear felt like ants crawling over my skin.

  Aidan gripped my shoulder, his touch comforting. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “We need to do it soon. Aaron said his collar was enchanted so that his master could find him. Hers might be too.”

  “Shit. So right now, the wolf girl is her master. And Amara is basically wearing a tracking beacon.”

  “Yeah. And wolf girl is going to want her back. She’s got the Heartstone, but she needs Amara to make it work.”

  “Now I get why she was so quick to run. She figures she can find Amara easily now.”

  “Yeah, true. But you were also looking at her with murder in your griffin eyes and your giant beak wide open, so I’m thinking that had something to do with her running.”

  He reached out and pulled me into a hug. My heart pounded as his warmth enveloped me.

  “You did good with your lightning and fire. You didn’t reach for your knives once.”

  “Thanks.” I squeezed him back, then pulled away. “You’re right. It’s time I embraced it. I could get caught by the Order of the Magica or the Alpha Council, but right now, there are worse threats. Ones I can only beat with my powers.” The image of the nearly undamaged wolves flashed into my mind. “But it takes so much magic to really damage a Shifter in animal form. I’ve really gotta practice my own shifting.”

  I needed to fight like them. Tooth and claw.

  “We’ll work on it,” Aidan said. “In the meantime, let’s see if we can blow the roof off this place. I really don’t want those wolves coming back with reinforcements.”

  “Blow the roof off?” I cringed. To damage a place as old as this? These places were one of a kind relics from our past. They should be protected, not destroyed.

  But Amara’s tiny figure caught my eye. The slave collar circled her small throat. It twisted my stomach to see. The beasts who’d put it on her could come back with reinforcements. Odds were slim they’d get through the protections before dawn, but if they did, Amara would be as good as dead. A slave, possibly to the Monster who hunted me.

  I’d get her out of here soon, one way or another.

  “Let’s get some light in this place,” I said, hoping to find another way. “Aidan, you think you can conjure one of those neat fireballs? I’d try it, but I’m running on empty.”

  “Sure.” He mimicked tossing a ball and a glowing orb of flame flew out of his hand toward the ceiling.

  It hovered just below the top of the dome, casting an orange glow over the entire room. It was a bit eerie, but it was better than the dark.

  Amara joined us, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders and the sandwich gripped in her hand.

  “Cool,” Amara said. “You’re a Magica too?”

  “Yeah. Got a couple skills,” Aidan said.

  I’ll say. Like kissing. He could medal in that.

  “Those carvings are cool,” Amara said.

  I glanced up at the decorations that covered every surface and wished I could understand them. Though they looked decorative, I’d bet my next PBR that they meant something. Recorded knowledge didn’t always come in book form.

  Discoloration in the stone caught my eye. Camhanaich. An idea tugged at my mind.

  “Hey, what time is it?”

  Aidan glanced at his watch. “Uh, eleven fifty.”

  “Good. I’ve got an idea. We couldn’t damage the temple by blowing the stones outward, but what about modifying them. Think that’s a loophole?”

  I made my living through magical loopholes, what with transferring ancient spells to modern replica artifacts, so why shouldn’t this work?

  “Could work,” Aidan said. “Especially since we gave the temple some of our power when we came in this morning.”

  That was a good point. All magic had a cost. It was ingenious to require temple entrants to give some of their power to make the protections stronger, but once we’d done that, we’d become a small part of the temple.

  “Okay, here’s my genius plan. Those colored stones spell out Dawn. When the dawn light hits them, the protection spell drops. What if they spelled out something different? Like Dusk, or Midday? Then, that type of sunlight would trigger the protection spells to fall. We have ten minutes until Midday.”

  “Nice,” Aidan said.

  “I thought so. Let’s try it.” I took stock of my power and realized I was as empty as a gas tank in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. I vowed to practice my magic more. I needed all the stamina I could get. “Actually, can you try it, Aidan?”

  “Sure. But it’s going to take a hell of a lot of magic. How about you two get back into the tunnel, just in case it collapses?”

  “Okay, but only if you join us and do it from there.” There was no way I’d let him get squashed like a bug.

  He glanced at me, as if annoyed that I didn’t have faith in his ability to leap out from beneath thousands of pounds of falling stone, but I just glared.

  “Fine,” he said.

  We walked single file back to the tunnel. Amara and I got behind Aidan. I loathed standing behind a guy and letting him do the cool stuff.

  “I swear to magic I’m going to practice more,” I muttered.

  Aidan raised his hands and directed them at the domed roof. His magic swelled.

  “Your magic tastes like chocolate,” Amara said.

  “Shhh, hon,” I said, but I grinned.

  Awe filled my chest as glowing light suffused the ceiling and the stones moved. Suddenly, I realized the extent of what I’d asked Aidan to do. I’d have needed a hell of a lot more practice to manage this. Not only was he moving the stone with his elemental mage powers, he was making them hover in the air as he moved the pieces around. Did he have a bit of Telekinetic in him as well as Elemental Mage?

  Finally, a new word was spelled in Scots Gaelic on the ceiling. I assumed it spelled Midday.

  Aidan lowered his hands. “Okay. I’m going to grab our packs, then let’s head to the gate and see if it worked. We’ve got three minutes until noon.”

  “We’ll get started.” I was so tired I probably needed about forty minutes to make the short walk and we only had three.

  Amara reached for my hand and I took it. We set off down the narrow passage, her jostling along in the narrow space at my side. My lightstone ring illuminated our path. Fortunately, the body of the shadow demon I’d lit up had disappeared back to its hell. Aidan caught up to us a minute later.

  “Right. It’s noon,” Aidan said when we reached the wall again.

  I chewed my lip as I watched it. Come on. Something needed to happen.

  A second later, a single stone in the middle of the wall glowed. Jackpot!

  I stepped forward and pressed my hand to it. The stone grinded together, shifting outward.

  “Hot damn,” I said. “Thank magic it’s easier to get out than in, because I’ve got no power left to give this place.”

  The sun shined brightly on the mountains as we stepped outside, and I gratefully sucked in a breath of fresh air.

  Aidan dug the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to me. I barely managed to snag them out of the air.

  “Get Amara to the car. I’m going to put the stones back the right way.”

  My heart jumped. He knew how much I hated to screw with the places I visited. “Thanks.”

  “Will we go home now?” Amara asked as we gingerly climbed our way down the mountain.

  My stomach pitched. Damn. I’d been so focused on getting out of there and the problems with the collar that I’d forgotten about returning to Glencarrough. When I’d agreed to the job, I’d figured I could just drop her off and run. Now that she was wearing this coll
ar, I couldn’t exactly leave her. But Glencarrough was the safest place for her.

  “Yeah, we’re going home,” I said. But I was going to need a way to get her out of this collar, and fast, because I didn’t want to be hanging out at Glencarrough longer than necessary. I wanted to be hunting the monsters who’d put it on her.

  Problem was, I didn’t know how to take it off.

  We reached the Range Rover, and I clicked the little unlock button on the keys. The car beeped and I pulled open the back door for Amara.

  “Hop on in. I’ve got a call to make and we’ll head out when Aidan gets back.”

  With her bunny squeezed between her arm and her body, she climbed into the car. I walked around to the front and leaned on the bumper, then reached up and pressed on the silver charm around my neck.

  “Nix? Del?” I asked.

  “Hey!” Nix said. “How’d it go? I’ve been so worried.”

  “She had it in the bag, Nix,” Del said.

  “Ah, sort of in the bag, sort of out,” I said. “I’ve got Amara, but I’ve got another problem.”

  I told them about the collar as I watched Aidan hike back down the mountain toward me.

  “So, I was thinking you could bring Dr. Garriso over here to look at it,” I said. Dr. Garriso was our contact at the local museum and a scholar of all things magical history. Anything I didn’t know, he usually did. “We need him right away, so I was hoping you could transport him, Del, if you have enough power. Nix, you can come as a bodyguard.”

  “You couldn’t just send a picture?” Nix asked.

  “I could, but I think he’s going to need to feel the magic on this thing to get a handle on it. I don’t want to be right about it, but I have a feeling I am.”

  “Sure, we can do it,” Del said. “I haven’t teleported in a while, so I’ve got enough juice to get to you right now.”

  My shoulders sagged in relief. Traveling long distances took more power for Del. She regenerated what she used, but it took time. I was grateful she had enough to get to us immediately. “Thanks.”

  “Where should we meet you?”

  “There’s a little village about ten miles outside of Glencarrough. Called Kintore. Let’s meet there. I don’t think we should all go into Glencarrough.” I thought of Amara’s father who’d sensed my weird power. “Too dangerous.”