Master of Dragons

by Angela Knight

  “Exactly. Fortunately, that’s easier said than done. Grim isn’t really a physical object. He’s a magical construct, and he draws his power from the ley lines.”

  Kel frowned. “So how the hell did the rebels manage to steal him?”

  “Gwen thinks they’re somehow interfering with Grim’s connection to the ley lines. It would be like pulling the plug on a computer.”

  “Can they break the connection altogether?” Nineva asked, working through the implications. “Because if they did…”

  “…That would destroy Grim.” A muscle jerked in Arthur’s square jaw. “Theoretically, it’s possible, but Gwen thinks it would take one hell of a spell.”

  “Using, say, the Sword of Semira?” Kel suggested.

  “There’s not enough power in the sword to power a spell like that,” Nineva protested. “Semira’s just not strong enough. Not right now.”

  “Depends on the spell,” Arthur pointed out.

  “Maybe they’re going to supplement the sword with something else.” Kel rubbed his chin. “A human sacrifice, maybe?”

  “I don’t think even that would give them enough charge to overcome the planet’s ley lines,” Nineva said, absently tracing a finger through a carving of the Grail set in the Round Table’s gleaming surface. “You’re talking about a hell of a lot of power.”

  “Whatever they’re planning, we’re going to have to figure it out—and fast,” Arthur said. “Because if we don’t, we don’t have a prayer of stopping it—and we’re going to be up to our necks in Dark Ones.”

  The sun was rising as Nineva straddled Kel’s powerful body, acutely aware of the play of massive muscle under smooth, scaled skin and the thunderous beat of his wings. He’d conjured a harness around her to make sure she didn’t fall during any aerial maneuvers he might have to do. Bound so securely to him, she felt safe. She tilted her face into the cold wind and let herself enjoy the ride.

  It was strange to think that just a couple of hours ago, she’d been making love to this huge, magnificent being. Stranger still to think this was his true form. He seemed so thoroughly human most of the time. As if he were nothing more than a man.

  A deliciously sexy, courageous, occasionally maddening man. A man who fought for her, held her tenderly in the aftermath of nightmares. Made the sweetest love she’d ever experienced.

  They’d only been together for such a short time, yet she couldn’t recall ever feeling so strongly about a lover. But then, they’d spent those days making love and fighting Sidhe rebels to the death. You learned a lot about a guy when he was willing to risk his life for you.

  Kel had even managed to banish her fear of him. Nineva wasn’t entirely sure when it had happened, but somehow he’d simply eroded her distrust out of existence. Now she found it impossible to believe he would hurt her, regardless of the provocation. Nightmares and prophecies notwithstanding, he simply wasn’t capable of it.

  Look at the harness he’d created. It had to be humiliating for him to wear a set of straps like some kind of horse. Yet to assure her comfort and safety, he’d done just that.

  Kel was right—she’d misinterpreted the prophecy. Semira’s predictions must be a metaphor for something else, some union of power they’d share. As for her dreams, they were nothing more than nightmares, inspired by too many years of listening to her father’s grim stories.

  Nineva lifted her head to watch the sun sliding over the horizon, spilling crimson and gold over the purpling sky. Below Kel’s beating wings, the trees of Mageverse Earth looked like exotic toys, while rivers were silver ribbons snaking along the green ground.

  Ahead of them lay the mountains of the Dragon Lands, their tree-clad lower slopes yielding to high, rocky cliffs painted orange by the rising sun.

  “It’s beautiful!” Nineva shouted over the wind.

  “Yes,” Kel rumbled back. “It does look that way.” His voice sounded surprisingly grim.

  Kel sensed them coming long before his eyes picked out the distant specks of their forms. He recognized the psychic impression of their magic, though it had been centuries since he’d seen them.

  The welcome wagon, Kel thought. Or rather, the unwelcome wagon.

  Good thing he’d harnessed Nineva in. He’d never bothered with such a rig for Gawain, knowing the vampire had more than enough strength to hold on. Besides, he refused to rig himself out like a pack animal.

  For Nineva, though, he was willing to do it, even knowing he was going to catch hell. Those approaching would be only the first to mock him.

  Too bad. They’d lost the right to influence him when they’d stood by and let his mother die.

  At the moment, though, he had a more immediate problem. Just ahead lay the magical wards designed to protect the Dragon Lands from invaders. They’d been strengthened since his last visit. Not surprising, considering what had happened with his uncle.

  Kel sent out the spell that would act as a password, opening the wards for his entry. The shield stayed stubbornly solid.

  “Well.” He spread his wings to avoid slamming into the barrier, and veered off, snaking his head around to study the shield as he flew.

  “What’s wrong?” Nineva shouted over the wind.

  “Apparently I’m not welcome,” Kel told her. “They’ve changed the magical combination on the Dragon Lands’ wards.”

  THIRTEEN

  Nineva swore at the news. “What are we going to do?”

  “Don’t panic, sweet.” Kel sent a tendril of magic toward the shield, probed it delicately. “As usual, they underestimate me.”

  His years among the Magekind had taught him subtleties of spellcraft his own people didn’t know. Dragon magic tended toward raw power rather than intricacy. If you could only pair the two, you ended up with the best of both worlds.

  And Kel had learned to do just that.

  He analyzed the patterns in the spell shield as Morgana Le Fay had taught him centuries ago, looking for weaknesses. It was so strong, he suspected the entire council of Dragon Lords had created it.

  The trouble with that trick was that so many sources of magic could never blend smoothly. There were always seams, places where the spell wasn’t quite…

  There.

  Kel found the fissure he was looking for and sent a jolt of power into it, forcing it wider, then wider still. Until, with a triumphant flick of his tail, he winged right through. He paused only long enough to seal the fissure again, then flew onward toward the cliffs. “We’re in, Nineva.”

  He felt her weight shift, as if she was sitting back against the harness. “Thank Semira!” A moment later she shouted, “That was a nice bit of magic, Kel, the way you read that shield and pulled it apart. Do you think you could teach me?”

  “I don’t see why not. You’ve got the intelligence and will for it, and Cachamwri knows you’ve got the power. Not quite to dragon standards, maybe, but you’ve got more juice than many of the Majae I know.”

  She smiled, visibly pleased. “Thanks. That’s high praise, coming from you.”

  Though he would have liked to reply to that compliment, Kel realized they’d just run out of time for pleasantries. Up ahead, their formerly invisible welcome wagon had become winged specks that were growing larger with every second. They’d picked up the pace, as if sensing that Kel had penetrated the wards.

  “Brace yourself, Nineva,” Kel called back. “Things are about to get a little lively.”

  “I was afraid those weren’t birds, not with that kind of power. Are we about to have a fight on our hands?”

  “Looks that way. Keep your head down and hang on.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “Yes. It’s my brothers.”

  Kel refused to run, so the two dragons caught up easily enough. They swooped and circled around him like a pair of territorial crows, eyeing Nineva with a malicious intensity that made her shift uneasily in her harness.

  The blue was the bolder of the two, circling so recklessly close, Ke
l had to veer to avoid tangling their wings.

  “So you’re back again, bringing dishonor on the Bloodstone Clan.” Irial sneered, his hatred as familiar and galling as a pair of old, too-tight shoes. Their mother had favored firstborn Kel, and Irial had always resented it. It seemed centuries of separation hadn’t made his heart any fonder.

  “Tegid is the one who dishonored the clan, not me,” Kel growled, aware of Nineva’s death grip on his harness. He dared a glance back at her and found her sitting pale and hunched. Her opalescent eyes were far too wide. Brave as she normally was, the dragons triggered all her worst fears. “He’s the one who engineered our mother’s murder and allied himself with the spawn of the Dark Ones. I simply challenged the bastard and killed him. Which is what you should have done, if you’d been any kind of son at all.”

  “You drove him to his crimes with your unnatural acts,” Gruagh whined, circling well clear of them both, green wings flashing. Kel wasn’t surprised to see him; he’d always been Irial’s tagalong, following their brother’s bullying lead. “If you’d stayed away from the humans, none of this would have happened. Everyone says so.”

  “Then everyone lacks the sense of an eggshell,” Kel snapped back. “Tegid was vile and power-hungry from the day he was hatched.”

  “And you’re a toady to humans.” Irial sneered. “Look at you, harnessed like one of their burden beasts. Is that ape on your back this Gewin of yours?”

  Kel laughed in genuine amusement. “His name is Gawain, and no. This is a woman, you ignorant egg-sucker. Princess Nineva of the Morven Sidhe. Cachamwri sent me to protect her.”

  Irial’s red eyes narrowed in jealousy and suspicion. “You lie! Why would the Dragon God appear to the likes of you?”

  “Because he knows he can trust me not to make a botch of things. Now get out of my air. We have words of importance for the Dragon Lords.”

  Gruagh hissed in contempt, looping around Kel and Nineva as Irial circled in the opposite direction. It was, Kel knew, a potential attack pattern. “They’ll not allow some filthy ape to sully their presence. You might as well go back where you came from.”

  Kel growled in frustration. He was wasting his time arguing with them, but he strongly suspected he wasn’t going to get past them without a fight. “Nineva, armor up,” he said in English. “We’re going to have to make a run for it.”

  “What’s their problem?” Her voice was just slightly too high as her weight increased. He knew without looking around that she’d conjured her armor and weapons.

  “Basically, they’re assholes.” Seeing an opening in the pattern they’d created, Kel darted forward, pouring on the speed with a burst of magic. He shot between the startled dragons, who roared and beat after him.

  Over the thunder of the wind, he heard Irial bellow, “Kill the human! We can at least keep him from trying to foist more of his perversion on the Dragon Lords.”

  Her heart in her throat, Nineva crouched against Kel’s neck, trying to make herself as small a target as possible as the blue dragon roared toward them from behind. Oh, God, she thought as her belly knotted, was this what I saw in my vision? Have I been afraid of the wrong dragon?

  Staring over her shoulder, she watched their foe beating his wings furiously as he fought to catch up. He gaped his jaws wide in the movement she’d seen so many times in her nightmares. A gout of flame shot out, right toward her horrified face…

  Only to splash harmlessly away as it hit Kel’s shield. The dragon roared, crimson eyes wild with rage. Eyes so like Kel’s, but missing the kindness that filled her lover’s gaze even in dragon form.

  His brother shot closer, stretching out his talons, obviously meaning to shred her where she sat. Kel’s shield might stop a magical attack, but it wouldn’t do a damn thing against claws that would put Excalibur to shame.

  Every drop of spit left Nineva’s mouth as those huge talons drew closer. She conjured a spear and crouched low over Kel’s back as she considered possible targets. One of those big red eyes might do. Punch the spear through into his brain, and…

  Jaws gaped wide again, revealing jagged teeth the length of her forearm, barely a yard from her head. “Now, you little ape,” the dragon hissed, its tone triumphant, “let’s see how you taste…”

  The world spun around her. She screamed in terror and clung desperately to her spear.

  And realized she was hanging upside down from her harness. Kel had rolled like a jet fighter. Draconian voices roared, accompanied by the thunder of flame. There was a horrible grating sound of claws on scale. One of them shrieked, she couldn’t tell which. Blood arced overhead, then fell to the ground in a rain of scarlet drops.

  “She is mine!” Kel snarled, her spell translating his words. He rolled upright again, and Nineva clung to the harness as the blood left her head. “You touch her, Irial, and you’ll die for it!”

  The blue dragon hissed in pain from somewhere below them. “Perverted, unnatural thing!”

  “At least I didn’t stand by and let our mother die in a duel she had no business fighting. You could have stood for her, you coward!”

  Cautiously, Nineva looked down. Blood ribboned from Irial’s wing as he half-flapped, half-fell to the ground below like a huge, wounded bird. The green dragon spiraled after him to land anxiously by his side.

  “Irial talks a good game, but fortunately he’s never had the skill or the balls for a real fight,” Kel told her. “I knew he’d try for you, the gutless little bully. And the minute he did, I had him.”

  Suddenly his attitude toward his fellow dragons made a lot more sense. “Are they all like that?”

  “No. Some of them have the courage to back up their hate.” He sounded grim. “Those are the ones we’re going to have to watch out for.”

  They flew on in silence for several minutes while Nineva’s racing heart slowed. Despite her frequent backward glances, no blue dragon reappeared, ready to burn her from the saddle or snatch her up like a greedy boy grabbing a cupcake. Gradually her shaking hands stilled.

  “Why do they despise humans?” she asked, relaxing at last. And why didn’t Kel share that bigotry? “I know you said dragons and Sidhe used to hunt each other, but that was thousands of years ago.”

  “When you live as long as we do, ‘thousands of years ago’ was your grandfather’s time. Anyway, that was never the real issue.”

  “No?”

  “Like a lot of immortals, the Dragonkind fear any kind of change. When I befriended Gawain fifteen hundred years ago, some of the younger ones got interested in going to Avalon, too. Their elders were afraid I was going to corrupt them with alien ways. Tegid tried to bully me into renouncing the humans, but I was far too stubborn for that.”

  “So he turned you into a sword.”

  “Exactly. He structured the spell so that my only escape was to kill Gawain. He figured that would make sure Arthur and company would turn on me. But Gawain had once saved me from a pack of Hellhounds when I was wounded, and I was damned if I’d repay him with death.”

  “You’d rather remain a prisoner for fifteen centuries.”

  “Exactly. But when I got free, I punched Uncle Tegid’s ticket and sent him straight to hell.” His voice rang with satisfaction.

  Nineva winced. “We really are going to have our hands full convincing these lunatics to help us.”

  “Afraid so.”

  Anxiety knotted Nineva’s stomach into more tangles than a fishing line as Kel soared toward the Dragon Cliffs. They looked as though someone had sliced the face off the mountain—a sheer expanse of ruddy stone, jagged and pockmarked with caves. Huge boulders lay at the foot of the mountain, and a great river meandered around it, gleaming bright in the sunlight.

  Dragons were everywhere. Lazing in the sun like enormous sprawled cats, circling on vast spread wings, huge heads thrust from the mouths of caves. Their bodies shimmered like iridescent jewels as the sun gleamed on scales and horns and wings: gold, green, blue, red, and white.

&
nbsp; And every one of them grew tense with alarm and hostility when they got a good look at Kel and realized who he was. They swooped toward one another like birds, gathered in hissing little knots as they watched him sail past.

  Nineva crouched in her harness, her hand wet with sweat around her spear, and fought sick waves of fear. They could parboil her with fiery breath, snatch her from Kel’s back with huge claws, crunch her like a crouton between sword teeth.

  Kel turned his head to look at her. “I’m not going to let them hurt you.”

  “You’re a little outnumbered at the moment.” Yet the rock-solid certainty in his voice made Nineva feel a bit better. She knew he’d fight for her to his last breath. And a pissed-off Kel was nothing to sneeze at. Her fear abated slightly.

  A green dragon darted up at them, making her tighten her hold on the spear. The translation spell Nineva had cast on herself when Kel’s brothers attacked rendered his hissing into speech. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d thrown your lot in with the humans.”

  “Hey, Kel—you’re bleeding,” a red dragon called mockingly from one of the cliff’s jutting ledges. “Been fighting already?”

  “Yes, actually. And I won. Care to be next?” He actually sounded bored.

  The green dragon veered hastily off.

  They’re afraid of him, Nineva realized. The thought was comforting. If the dragons feared him even when the odds were so obviously in their favor, they must have reason for it.

  Then she frowned, processing what the red dragon had said. “You’re hurt?”

  “Irial caught me across the belly with his claws. It’s nothing. Don’t worry—I can still defend you.”

  Stung, she glowered at his horns, the only part of his face she could see. “I know you may not believe this, but I’m actually more worried about you. If you’ll land, I can heal the injury.”

  “I’m fine.” His voice was clipped.

  “Yeah, right.” She snorted. “Men.”

  He laughed, or perhaps it was a snort—it was hard to tell. “I’m not exactly a man.”