by C. I. Black
“Good. Tell him I’m coming.”
“Nero—”
He hung up before Capri could argue and summoned a gate underneath him, so he wouldn’t have to stand. His power swelled, burning with mental agony, and enveloped him. God, even with Becca unconscious, his head still hurt. He straightened, using the woolly black weightlessness to help him stand, and staggered into the communal living room of the North American Clean Team headquarters.
Gig, a drake in a vessel barely twenty years old, the youngest vessel the Handmaiden would ever put a drake’s soul into, stood on the other side of the room. He wore a black, blue, and silver T-shirt with the depiction of a dangerous-looking dragon curled on a bed of human skulls, and his eyes were wide, as if he hadn’t expected a gate to materialize in the middle of the living room wall. Capri stood beside him glaring at Nero, her phone still in her hand.
“Less than two minutes, and I’ll return him.”
Gig flashed a goofy grin and strode toward Nero. “Cool.”
“He’s not some tool you can borrow from your neighbor.” Capri’s expression darkened. As team leader, she was responsible for him, and while she might be caught up in Nero’s puzur because her inamorato was human, Gig had nothing to do with this mess. A mess that was surely going to get them all on the prince’s wanted list sooner rather than later — especially if Nero couldn’t figure out what to do about Becca.
“Less than two minutes. I promise.” Nero summoned another gate without waiting for confirmation of Capri’s permission, Becca’s pain straining his ability to control his unanchored magic. Now he knew how Grey must have felt when he’d staggered into Nero’s living room yesterday, barely having survived a grenade explosion… God, had that only been yesterday?
They lurched back into the safe house. Raven was propping Becca into a sitting position against the foot of the cot and had handcuffed her to one of the lowered guardrails. The knife lay forgotten on the cot beside the young man’s knee. Here was hoping everything was mostly dealt with and the cuffs were removed by the time she gained consciousness. There’d be no way he could convince her he wanted to help her if she woke while still cuffed.
Mother, it hurt to just look at her. Unconscious, the woman looked even more vulnerable and fragile than before. The ferocious adrenalin that had to have been keeping her upright during the fight outside the facility was gone, and now the horrors of what she’d experienced were clear in her gaunt features and matted hair. He ached at the idea of how much she’d suffered and boiled with the need to fix this, protect her, bring her meat, so she was strong enough to properly rage her defiance against those who’d wronged her.
Gig shifted away from Nero, his attention sweeping over the room. “What is this place?”
Nothing anymore. Nero was going to have to destroy this safe house as well as the other one, to keep his activities secure. Even if he thought he could mostly trust Gig, he couldn’t risk the young drake accidentally saying something to the wrong dragon.
“Over here.” Nero strode to Becca and knelt. The aura on the new intake flared, and Gig’s eyes widened. “Watch the yellow drake. Don’t touch him. He’s… sick and having trouble with his earth magic.”
“And the red drake you’ve got handcuffed to the bed?”
“None of your business,” Raven growled.
Gig raised his hands. “Hey, no need to get all angry. You invited me.”
“The red drake is the job.” Nero knelt beside Becca and fought the urge to brush her hair back from her face. Any sign of tenderness could expose his unwanted condition. It was bad enough Raven had probably already figured out Becca was the source of the convulsions he’d been suffering the last few days. It could only get worse if she knew not all options to deal with a soul-sick human mage were on the table. “She has a GPS tracker implanted somewhere on her body, and I need it disabled.”
“Who the hell would implant a tracker on a drake—?” Realization flashed across Gig’s expression, and for a second he looked more like the ancient drake Nero had known before the Handmaiden had rebirthed him and unexpectedly shoved his soul back into the same human vessel. “I knew it’d come to this. Hunter has—” Another flash of realization and Gig snapped his mouth shut before he could utter treasonous words in front of the prince’s favorite dragon.
Nero cocked an eyebrow, testing Gig’s recovery of the situation.
The color drained from Gig’s face. “Well, you know… Hunter has created a real problem. Yes, he has.”
“Mother of All.” Raven rolled her eyes. “That was pathetic.” A hint of wind flickered around her hand. “I think he should never return to Court.”
“I think Capri and Tobias would have something to say about that,” Nero said.
“And Capri knows you took me. She—” Another flash of realization across Gig’s face that turned to horror. “She let you take me.”
“Just deal with the tracker, and I’ll get you back to the Clean Team’s headquarters.” Nero would deal with the fallout from Gig later. Hopefully much later, although he had a sinking suspicion that everything was going to come to a head soon. “Can you fry the tracker or something? I don’t want it to work again, not even accidentally.”
“Pinpointing where it is would be nice, too.” Raven tipped Becca’s head back and brushed her hair from her face — the move Nero yearned to make. “Even if it’s broken, I’d want it out.”
“Well…” Gig crouched beside Nero and placed a hand on Becca’s ankle. His gaze grew unfocused, and he tilted his head to one side. “The implant is in the back of her right shoulder, just under the skin. Nasty place to put it. Hard to see and get out by yourself. And—” His attention jumped to the door on the other side of the cot. “It’s talking to a smart phone that’s approaching fast.”
11
Shit. Nero glanced at the monitor. Men rushed to the outside of both doors, moving with the efficiency of an experienced combat team. These men had breached buildings before, and more than half of them carried sidearms and not Tasers.
Nero stood and faced the front door. “I can’t gate us out of here until that tracker is disabled.”
He hissed his power word and summoned his wind. Raven stood, woke her magic, and turned to the back door.
“Sure.” Gig said. “Just—”
Agony sliced through Nero’s head and someone— no, Becca gasped behind him, awake.
Raven’s wind stuttered and vanished — she still needed to concentrate to hold it at the ready. “How the hell did she burn through even a half dose of midazolam?”
“Gig, that tracker,” Nero growled.
A crack erupted from the back door. It crashed off its hinges, and four men stormed into the tiny room. Another crack from farther away, the other team breaching the front of the warehouse, and on the monitor, they stormed into the empty main room of the building and headed toward the smaller safe house room.
“Let me go.” Becca wrenched against the handcuff, making the cot jerk forward, the feet squealing against the floor.
Raven barked her power word, reviving her wind, but the men in the doorway had already raised their sidearms to fire.
Nero shot his wind into the first two, but a slash of pain from Becca made the gust sputter, and it only shoved them back into the doorway. “The tracker?”
“Working on—”
Becca kicked Gig in the chest. He fell back and cracked his head on the floor.
“He’s trying to help.” Raven slammed another blast at the men at the door, pushing the first two farther than Nero had managed and into the two behind them.
Becca yanked harder against the handcuff, her expression wild. “I said I’d never go back. And I’m not.”
One of the men in the doorway fired at Raven. Nero swept his wind up, but the bullet skimmed her shoulder. With a roar, she lassoed the guy with her wind and tossed him against the far wall.
The front door crashed open and more men rushed inside. Nero strained again
st the agony and roar of voices in his head and sent another gust into the guys at the back door.
Gig groaned and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Get up and deal with that tracker,” Nero yelled.
“Dealing with it, and I’m staying the hell away from her.”
Two of the guys at the front heaved themselves out of the doorway to make way for the other two, and the biggest guy managed to wrench his Glock up and fire. Two bangs erupted, and blood sprayed from the back of Raven’s shoulder. She screamed and her wind vanished, but she remained standing — thank the Mother her healing was fast enough that it would take more than a bullet to the shoulder to incapacitate her.
Nero tore his wind in half and sent blasts at both doors. Becca’s agony flared and the muscles in his chest seized. His knees buckled and he dropped to the floor. Mother of All. He had to gate them out of there, but he couldn’t risk moving them until the tracker was disabled.
“Tell me it’s dead.”
“Almost,” Gig said.
Get out! Becca screamed. Just get out. Please, get out. Please, God, please.
The roaring inside him increased. Every nerve had ignited into an inferno. Now. He had to gate them away now, or it was never going to happen. Raven and Gig couldn’t free gate. Nero was the only one who could get them out of there.
More gunfire exploded. Pain ripped through Nero’s chest.
“Got it,” Gig said.
Nero yelled his power word, forcing his magic to form a gate past the agony and whirlwind in his head. Becca screamed, yanking on the handcuff, as if hoping she could break free. Raven dropped to one knee, another spray of blood exploding from her side. She grabbed Gig, his eyes wide, and shoved him to the side of the cot, while the young man still restrained in the cot started to howl. His aura blazed as Nero’s gate formed beneath all of them, the cot included, and the gate enveloped them.
Power surged through Nero, burning with agony and threatening to consume him. He grasped onto the one safe place he could send them that was close, and the gate shoved them up through another concrete floor into a dark room. With what little strength he had left, he snapped a tendril of wind to the light switch and turned on the overhead light.
Raven gasped. “You brought us home?”
He pressed his forehead to the concrete floor of the biggest room in his house’s transition suites, a series of underground rooms built two hundred feet from the main house, used to help those humans Raven believed were safe to join the puzur but who were having trouble controlling a dangerous earth magic. Both the door to the hall and the en suite bathroom stood open, and the cot sat beside a bed, crammed against a lounge chair and the bedside table.
“We can argue about this later,” Nero said.
The whoosh of air from a gate gusted behind him.
“What the hell?” Diablo growled.
“Hey, Diablo,” Gig said.
“Diablo?” Becca’s fear and agony jerked taut within Nero. With a roar, she heaved at the handcuff, wrenched the guardrail from the cot, grabbed the knife forgotten beside the young man on the bed, and leapt at Diablo.
12
Everything within Nero froze. Becca growled like a dragon while holding the guardrail in one hand and the knife in the other. Then she slashed at Diablo.
“If I’m going down, I’m taking the devil with me.” Her eyes were wild, as if her reality had fully shattered, and her thoughts were jagged shards slicing through Nero’s head in a whirlwind of a roaring crowd.
Diablo shifted to the side, letting the knife skim the front of his T-shirt, then seized Becca’s wrist and twisted, driving the blade toward her heart in one swift movement.
“Stop!” Nero snapped his wind at Diablo’s arm and yanked the knife off course. “Don’t kill her.” Please, Mother. Don’t.
The knife sliced across her bicep, drawing a howl, and she swung the guardrail, smashing it against Diablo’s side.
“What the hell—?” Diablo batted the railing aside, rapid free gated behind Becca with a whoosh, wrapped an arm around her neck, and captured her head.
“Full dose this time.” Raven snatched another preloaded syringe from the cot’s drawer, jammed it into Becca’s shoulder, and plunged in the entire contents.
Becca jerked against Diablo’s grip, clawing at his arm, and screaming gut-wrenching feral sounds. She rammed her heel on the arch of his foot, making him wince.
“Mother above, this one is soul sick,” Diablo said.
The whirl of her incoherent thoughts in Nero’s head faltered and a massive weight rushed over him. He sagged forward into his hands.
Raven crouched beside him.
“Are you okay?” he managed to ask, his gaze jumping to the blood on her shirt.
“Already healed. You?”
“Fine.” Except he wasn’t, and it was so hard to focus.
“I won’t go back. I won’t—” Becca slammed her head back and cracked it against the bridge of Diablo’s nose.
“Ah, fuck.” Blood oozed over his upper lip, but he held tight.
“I won’t. I—” Another swell of heavy darkness, she went limp, and the roar in Nero’s head vanished.
“One of—?” Diablo glanced at Gig. The silver drake didn’t know Nero was the dugga or that he rescued as many human mages as he could, instead of murdering them.
“Yes,” Nero said.
Diablo let her sag to the floor, grabbed his nose — his rapid healing already setting the bones in their broken state — broke it again, and reset it. “The one you mentioned earlier?”
Last night Nero had tried to communicate with Diablo using their mental connection, but Becca’s powers had hijacked it. “Yes.”
“She’s not coming back from that. She’s hanging on by a thread,” Diablo said.
“She’ll have to come back from it.” The quiet in Nero’s head made him shiver. He hadn’t realized how loud she’d been — and constantly, for hours… maybe even the last few days.
Gig’s gaze jumped from Nero to Diablo, surprisingly without adding a comment. Maybe the silver drake could be discreet. He hadn’t revealed much about Hunter other than his hero-worship of the red drake, and Gig had had that before Hunter had broken dragon law.
“Gig.” He needed to get the silver drake out of his house before he learned anything else. It was bad enough Raven had let their location slip. “I appreciate your help. Time to go.”
“That’s it?” Gig asked.
Nero glanced at Diablo. “If you would be so kind. Clean Team living quarters.”
“Sure.” Diablo grabbed Gig’s arm, summoned a gate under their feet, and they vanished with a whoosh of air.
Raven sagged onto the edge of the bed, the young man unconscious again, not having fully wakened during the fight and his aura still bright, but no longer blinding. Her gaze slid from Nero to Becca and back to him, as if trying and failing to figure out what had just happened. Nero wasn’t even certain he knew. A few days ago, everything had been fine. Now—?
A black gate formed against the wall, and Diablo returned.
Raven drew in a breath, but Nero wasn’t sure if it was to gather her thoughts or steady her nerves. “I know you want to—” Her expression tightened. Ah, not to steady her nerves. It was to tell him a hard truth she didn’t think he’d want to hear. “You can’t save all of them.”
So far, they hadn’t been able to save any of Zenobia’s victims, and he knew that hurt her more than it hurt him.
“When have I ever made you think I believe they can all be saved?” Except this one, he had to save. Every cell in his body screamed at him to protect her, bring her shinies, kill her enemies, return with meat. The compulsion was a hundred times stronger than the first time he’d been inamorated… but maybe that was time having weakened the memories. Surely, there wasn’t anything more powerful about this soul bond than his previous one. Being inamorated was the most powerful connection a dragon could form with another. There weren’t degrees. It
was once, all in, and forever.
But God damn it, this was again. Mother, he couldn’t lose another one. He’d die with her. His heart would just stop when hers did. And that terrified him.
Diablo’s expression darkened, but he crouched and picked up Becca before Nero could fully read what the change meant.
“Let’s get her to a room.” He carried her into the room across the hall, flicked on the light, laid her on the bed, and reached for the restraints.
Nero staggered to his feet and followed. “No restraints.”
“I’m not sure that’s wise,” Raven said from the doorway of the first room.
“She was a prisoner when Zenobia had her, and I recovered her from a facility where she was being held against her will. It’s dangerous for her if she leaves, but if she wants to, I won’t stop her. I won’t be what she fears the most.” Even if he already was.
Raven frowned. “Are you okay?”
Shit. That was too much. He should be focusing on protecting his puzur, not one soul-sick human mage.
“I’m fine. How’s the new intake?”
Raven glanced over her shoulder at the young man in the bed. His dark hair was tousled and his brow furrowed, as if even in sleep he was unsettled. Which, given the continued pulsing of his aura, was probably true.
“Do we know what his earth magic is yet?” Do we know what he hit Becca with — and without uttering a power word or using a gesture? When she’d touched him, the roar of voices in Nero’s head had exploded into a raging storm, but he had no idea if that had been because of the man’s power or Becca’s.
“I don’t even know his name.” She glared at Diablo. “D knocked him out, and he hasn’t woken. I’m just glad he didn’t turn her into ash or something when she grabbed him.” She jerked her chin at Becca.
“Her name is Rebecca Scott.” Victim, mage, soldier.
Diablo cocked an eyebrow. “When the hell did she tell you her name?”
“It’s complicated.” Nero rubbed his temples. Yeah, the silence in his head was deafening, but hints of her pain still remained and all he wanted to do was take that pain away.
