Hoarding Secrets

by C. I. Black

  “What about the gate?” He marched into the shadows of the passage.

  Yes, what about the gate? She pulled her phone from her purse, turned on her flashlight app, and followed him inside. “You said we can’t go directly to the ekas because of a gatelock. How close can we get?”

  He glanced back at her, his pale gaze making her pulse jump. “If I’d been to Seville within the last fifty years, I’d know what was around the ekas and free gate us, but it’s been—” He jerked his attention away from her and strode out of the passage to the cliff’s edge. “Let’s just say it’s been a while. It’s safest to gate to the Seville anchor and walk the twenty minutes to the ekas.”

  “Because you’re afraid the gate will dump us in a wall or something?”

  “You can gate, right?” Grey’s frown deepened. “You know gates don’t work that way. They always form in a location where you can step out.”

  “Right.” Except she didn’t know. She knew nothing about gates, only that she could make one if she had an anchor.

  “I’m afraid of the gate dumping us into a busy public square.” He hissed his power word and a black vortex formed beside his feet. “I’m already on the prince’s bad side. I’d hate to piss off the head of the European Clean Team, too.”

  What the heck was a European Clean Team? She brushed her locket. Nothing there. “Yeah.”

  “You don’t think Viridian wouldn’t lose his shit?” His vortex whipped up the snow, whirling it around them, and he held out his hand to her.

  She stared at it, everything within telling her to take hold and not let go, and all logic and self-preservation telling her not to. They didn’t need to hold hands to use the same gate, and yet it was all she wanted.

  “I know he doesn’t go to Court often, but I’d guess that you’re at least fifty. You must have run into him in Tobias’s office.” His gaze dipped to his still-empty hand and uncertainty flickered across his expression.

  With a blink, determination replaced the uncertainty, and he started to withdraw his hand. Her heart skipped a beat and she grabbed it before the offer was gone. Heat swept through her chest, and she fought the urge to flash her teeth at him in a sexual challenge. A growl rumbled in her throat, the reminder that, weak and young as she was, she was still a dragon.

  And she was God damned going to remember that.

  She tightened her grip on Grey’s hand, his memory fire licking her skin and making her shiver, and stepped into the gate. The woolly blackness clogged her senses, up and down vanished, and for a heartbeat she was suspended in the black nothing that lay between interdimensional spaces.

  Then her foot hit something hard. The impact jarred up her leg and swept through her body, wrenching her back to earth. She stood in a small courtyard, surrounded by three-story buildings, all flickering with moderate memory fire promising centuries of memories. A single tree stood in the center — likely the only place the poor plant could get sunlight — and a heavy wrought iron gate stood to her left. Compared to the frozen cliffside in the Himalayas, the air was mild, although she suspected that humans — and slow healers like Grey, whose soul magic didn’t protect them as much against feeling the effects of the climate — would still wear a coat to keep warm.

  “First order of business, a new coat.” He released her hand and strode to a worn wooden door opposite the gate.

  A chill raced over her at the loss of contact, and a mix of emotions — none of which she wanted to deal with — flooded her.

  He eased the door open a crack and peered in. “Stay here.”

  “Sure.” Except stepping through that door could teach her about the human world, and if she was never going back to Court, she needed all the information she could get, and fast.

  The memory fire around Grey flared. He gasped and seized the doorframe with his free hand. The muscles in his neck strained for a moment, then he drew in a ragged breath. “Better yet, join me and watch my back.”

  He stepped inside without waiting for an answer and she followed. If she asked, would he tell her why he’d changed his mind? And did it really matter?

  Inside lay a narrow hall made more narrow by wire racks and metal barrels stacked along the right side. At the end stood an unobstructed arched entrance where the roar of many voices, talking and laughing, mixed with music. Between them and the entrance were doorways on the left. A woman in a black T-shirt and jeans, carrying a tray laden with plates of food, stepped out of the farthest doorway.

  Grey grabbed Ivy’s hand and jerked her into the nearest doorway. She stumbled against him, pressing her hands against his thick biceps to catch her balance. More heat swelled within her and more of his memory fire tickled over her hands.

  He grabbed her shoulders and steadied her then turned to the room, a messy office / lounge / storage area with more metal racks filled with boxes and bags. A desk piled with papers sat in the back corner, reminding her of Tobias’s office, and in the middle was a sagging leather couch and coffee table. Just inside the door on both sides were hooks filled with coats, purses, and bags.

  Grey turned to the hooks. “Here’s hoping this works for me.”

  “What works for you?”

  “Finding a coat that will fit. Hunter says he always could and his human was almost as big as mine.” He grabbed the closest black coat and held it up. Too small. “You might have noticed most humans aren’t my size.”

  “I haven’t met many humans.” She hadn’t met any, actually, but given that all dragons now inhabited human vessels, she could figure out that Grey was taller and broader than normal.

  “Does this fit?” He grabbed a navy raincoat and handed it to her. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

  She put it on. It was a little big, but it wouldn’t hamper her movements. Grey sorted through a dozen more coats that were too small before finding a black thigh-length coat. He shrugged out of his bloody heavy winter coat and put on the light one. It strained across his shoulders and he wouldn’t be able to button up the front — so no hiding his blood-soaked dress shirt — but it was long enough to hide the sword sheathed at his hip.

  “Watch the door.” He slipped out of the coat, tossed it on the back of the couch, and headed to a stack of T-shirts on the wire rack. “This is going to take a minute.”

  With a quick search that started at the bottom of the pile, he pulled out a shirt and tossed it on the coat, then unbuttoned his ruined dress shirt, revealing a broad muscular chest. Even sticky with blood, she couldn’t help but wonder how it would feel to draw her hands across all that muscle, to have it pressed against her body, to dig her nails into his flesh.

  A red welt near his heart indicated where he’d been shot, as well as proved just how slow a healer he was. Maybe just some gentle nail digging. He shouldn’t have even had a scar by now and yet his flesh was still marked, which meant any organs damaged were still knitting back together.

  His gaze lifted to hers and captured her soul again. Time stopped, every breath, every heartbeat, every thought. It all froze, suspended on her desire and need for his memories, for him. The blue memory flames flickered around him, but they were at the edge of her vision. All she could see was the crystal clarity in his eyes and the weight and darkness of the memories trapped within him.

  What she wouldn’t give to take those memories from him. Not because it would ease the constant ache within her, but it would ease the pain lying within him clearly etched on his face. But her magic didn’t work that way. She didn’t take memories. She only experienced them.

  Except that didn’t ease the craving clawing within her, to say her power word and take that experience without his permission.

  She raised her hand, unable to stop herself, and cupped his cheek. Memory fire brushed over her skin, shivering across her wrist and down her arm. Strength swept into her soul and the ache vanished. For a second the weight trapped in his gaze vanished, too, then he closed his eyes and leaned into her touch, rubbing his jaw against her palm, his stub
ble rasping against her skin.

  Her pulse pounded. Need burned tight in her chest, through her whole body. He drew closer, his breath mingling with the sweep of memory fire against her cheeks, his lips close, taunting her, tempting her. She needed to feel them pressed against her in full, not just a whisper like before. She craved the feel of him, of his body and his fire, outside and in. If she didn’t pull herself together, she was going to whisper her power word and kiss him, diving into his soul while connecting their bodies.

  A metallic clang clattered behind her, and someone yelled. Grey’s gaze jerked to the doorway, freeing her. She wrenched her attention to the hall and turned her back on him, her pulse roaring, while praying she could hold back her power word and resist activating her magic.

  This was a mistake. A big mistake. She didn’t have permission. He’d know and she’d have ruined her chance of escape, all because she couldn’t hold herself together.

  Fabric rustled behind her and Grey drew close. His powerful aura, with a heavy mix of memory fire, slid against her aura, drawing a shiver and low rumble deep in her throat.

  Mother, please!

  “You just about done?” she forced out, flashing her teeth at him, unable to help herself and struggling to make the expression fierce, not seductive. God, she’d bring him all the meat and shinies he wanted in exchange for an hour with his memories… and him. But she doubted he’d think that was a fair deal.

  He dropped his ruined dress shirt into the metal wastebasket beside the door. It hit with a wet thunk, and the image of all that blood pooled in the Handmaiden’s secret residence flashed through her mind’s eye.

  “Yeah.” He glanced into the hall then slipped past her, his body brushing against her, making her heart pound ever faster.

  Holy Mother! She needed more than just a brushing. That was all this drake did. A brush of bodies. A brush of lips. A brush of memory fire. That wasn’t what her dragon spirit wanted at all.

  But what she really wanted was to figure out how to escape Court and how best to use the favor Grey owed her to do that. Jeez. Nothing else was important—

  Which wasn’t true. Making sure Regis didn’t get the coin and control the full rebirth spell was also important. “What are the odds that we got here before Jet?”

  She followed Grey out the door and back into the small courtyard, as a black vortex whooshed into existence against the wall of the building beside them.

  Jet jumped out and her gaze snapped to Grey and Ivy.

  “Ah, shit,” Grey growled, and he drew his sword.

  CHAPTER 16

  Grey lunged at Jet, praying she still wasn’t fully aware of her surroundings after gating and that this was his chance to subdue her, but she jerked out of the way and drew her saber.

  Shit. That had been his best bet. His chest still burned from the gunshot wound, and his movements weren’t anywhere as fluid and strong as they should be to take on someone as skilled as Jet without killing her. As well, gloomy fog flickered at the edge of his vision, threatening to envelop him in memories even though he only stood six feet away from Ivy.

  He lunged in again, forcing his body to move faster than it wanted. Pain screamed through his torso, but if catching Jet unaware wasn’t an option, fast and furious was his only other choice. Finish the fight before it could get started.

  Jet leapt to the side. His blade caught her jacket, and she stumbled off balance for a second.

  With a growl, he grabbed for her sword arm, hoping to capture it in a joint lock like before. They still didn’t know who she worked for, and while Grey had a short list of suspects, there wasn’t any evidence pointing to any of them. As well, losing another dragon soul, Jet’s included, to the universal ether had to be a last resort.

  She swept her saber up toward his wrist and twisted out of the way. Her blade sliced up his forearm, drawing a fiery line from his elbow to his palm, but thankfully didn’t sever the nerves to his hand. She sneered, her weapon raised above her head, and swung at his neck, her blade a blur.

  Hazy fog flooded his vision and he leapt forward, blindly grabbing for her sword arm. He seized her bicep and plunged his sword into her gut. She screamed, but fire sliced into his side. She’d countered with the same attack, a dagger in her off hand.

  Darkness devoured his vision, and his muscles trembled, threatening his grip on her sword arm. She twisted to the side and rammed her foot into his hip, shoving him back.

  He staggered, his heel catching on an uneven cobblestone.

  Impossible sunlight flickered in water and a crowd roared. The reek of rotting food engulfed him, choking him. Water rattled against a window and someone laughed with malicious mirth. A bang exploded, and a woman howled.

  Another staggering step back, and the courtyard wrenched into crystalline focus. He’d stumbled close enough to Ivy for her presence to clear his vision. Jet grasped her chest with one hand, blood oozing between her fingers, her expression wild.

  Ivy held the gun in her hands, still pointed at Jet. “Shit, I thought that would at least drop her for a second.”

  And that was the problem. How the hell were they going to capture Jet if she healed too fast for even a gunshot to incapacitate her?

  No, their only solution was to get to the ekas before her and destroy the key to finding the coin pieces so no one could have them.

  Jet raised her saber and lunged at Grey as a black vortex whooshed over the wall behind her and a young orange dragon in a black suit stepped through.

  “Oh, Mother,” Ivy hissed. “It’s Bolo, the prince’s assassin.”

  “That’s not—” He was going to say that wasn’t the prince’s assassin, but Hunter no longer held that job and without a doubt, Regis was interviewing drakes to take the position.

  Grey side-stepped Jet’s attack, fighting the pain consuming him, slammed his foot into the side of her knee, and swung his sword toward her chest. She staggered but didn’t fall, and swept her saber up to block Grey’s swing. Over her shoulder, the orange drake, Bolo, glanced across the courtyard and his eyes widened when he saw Ivy.

  His surprise turned into a sneer and all the color drained from her face. Behind her, the door to the restaurant flew open and two men, one on a cell phone, rushed out. Sirens wailed in the distance, without a doubt heading to the courtyard because someone had heard that gunshot, and now the guy on the phone was telling the police there were three maniacs fighting it out with swords and a woman with a gun.

  So much for not pissing off Viridian, and there wasn’t much hope of containing any of this. Not with someone having already called the police.

  Jet shifted, releasing her saber from his and letting Grey’s blade slice the bicep of her sword arm in order to free her weapon. With a hiss, she jabbed the weapon at his inner thigh. He leapt to the side, but she countered with another fast slice.

  More fog billowed over his vision. Three feet and he was out of range of Ivy’s aura.

  Another slice—

  Or was that a flicker of sunlight on water—

  No. It was metal reflecting streetlight. At gut height.

  He blocked. Steel clanged against steel, and he strained to stay focused on the courtyard and Jet. He had to figure out how to get out of there before the police arrived.

  The bigger of the two men who’d been in the doorway had stepped closer to Ivy and was yelling at them. Ivy had the gun hidden, and Bolo—

  Jet released her pressure against his sword. He shifted, using the sudden forward movement to lunge in. She sidestepped and kicked him in the ribs. He stumbled back. Metal flashed against streetlight again, but from behind.

  He wrenched around, bringing his sword up to block a swing at his neck from Bolo. Jet bared her teeth and bolted from the courtyard.

  Shit. God damn fucking shit.

  “The writ is to bring you in alive,” Bolo said, jerking Grey’s attention from Jet. The orange drake leaned closer, his sneer deepening. “But I’m pretty sure my prince won’t really ca
re.”

  “And I’m pretty sure you leaning in just put you off balance.” Grey grabbed the orange drake’s wrist and yanked him forward. Bolo stumbled, and Grey swept his blade through his abdomen. The drake howled. The human who’d been yelling at them from the doorway screamed, and the guy on the phone gasped.

  Bolo dropped his sword and fell to his knees, clutching his stomach.

  Ivy rushed to them and kicked Bolo’s katana out of his reach. “She’s getting away.”

  The orange drake struggled to draw the matching wakizashi at his hip, but Grey ran his sword through the drake’s chest, drawing another scream.

  “And that’s not going to keep him down. As much as I’d like to take his head, I don’t want to join the others responsible for our extinction.” Grey jerked his chin to the wrought iron gate. “Let’s go.”

  Ivy rushed out of the courtyard, and Grey followed, his body burning with fiery agony. Blood still trickled down his arm from the long slice and oozed from the hole in his gut.

  They ran into a narrow one-way street, with a dozen mopeds and scooters parked tight against the right-hand wall between garbage and recycling bins. Ahead lay a wider, brighter crossroad, but there was no way he was going to be able to run the mile to the ekas as injured as he was and certainly not fast enough to get there before Jet.

  “We need to gate,” he said, gasping to catch his breath.

  “But you said—” Her hands clenched and she stopped running. “Right. We won’t catch up to Jet in time.”

  Thankfully, she didn’t mention that he could barely run. A few feet away stood the entrance to a parking garage. A single orange light shone inside and he didn’t see any security cameras — not that there weren’t any inside, but he could hope. Gating from the garage was at least better than the street, where those guys from the restaurant, or worse the police, could see them.

  “In here.” He staggered inside — still no sight of cameras — hissed his power word and summoned a gate. Trying to ignore the agony within him or the annoying trickle of blood oozing down his leg, he concentrated on the courtyard around the corner from the ekas. It had been pretty much unkempt and abandoned five hundred and fifty years ago. Here was hoping it still was.