by C. I. Black
“So. It. Be. Done,” the woman screamed.
Darkness slammed over him, taking the light but not the agony. His muscles trembled and he still couldn’t catch his breath. Every inhalation and exhalation sawed through his chest and throat.
“So it is done.” The woman chuckled, sending shivers racing over Nero, sparking a blast of pain that shuddered through him.
“And I can feel them in my head.” A hand grabbed his chin and jerked his head up. “There are more than I expected,” she said, her hot breath burning against his face. Even his clothes, set off by every shift and shiver, chafed against every sensitive nerve.
The darkness turned to a haze, and he could make out the woman’s face inches from his. He should attack her, somehow, fight to take back what she’d stolen, but just the thought of moving made agony roar through him. The only saving grace was that if she didn’t kill him, he had about an hour to figure out what he was going to do. The power wouldn’t fully lock with her soul. She’d know how many members there were of the Asar Nergal, but not who or where. At least until the hour was up.
She cocked her head to the side, her gaze turned inward. “No, they’re not all dragons.”
A flash of ice swept through the blaze.
“They’re humans. More than I expected.” Her focus returned to him. “Saving up your next victims for something special?”
Except they weren’t his next victims. There weren’t that many human mages out there that weren’t part of his puzur, and Mother, what would she do if she discovered his kids were a part of his family? What would she do if she thought that meant they were traitors to humankind?
35
Becca paced the barren white cell, her attention locked on the hall beyond the heavy Plexiglas front wall and the solid steel door. She couldn’t feel Nero in her head, or anyone else for that matter. There was only silence, and the sensation made her skin crawl. Funny how just a handful of hours ago, she would have given anything for pure silence. It made her realize the quiet she’d had before hadn’t been complete silence. It had merely been everyone at the dimmest setting she could get. She knew now that was the way it was supposed to be, not this unnerving emptiness.
“You know pacing like that won’t get you out of here faster,” Werner said from his perch on the slab protruding from the wall that was supposed to be a bed. He had a black eye and a nasty welt along the side of his neck. He also held himself a little too stiffly, as if he had cracked ribs.
“But it might make me feel better.” Even though the pacing wasn’t. She just couldn’t sit there and wait. She had no idea what she was waiting for and didn’t like any of the options she could imagine.
“If you don’t stop, you’re going to use up everything you have before we get our chance to escape.”
“A few laps around this cell isn’t going to exhaust me.” She had to find Nero and—
What? A part of her wanted to flee, along with everyone else held captive here. And even though the two cells across from her were empty, that didn’t mean there weren’t others here. There had been others before. Werner had said most of them hadn’t managed to escape, and she didn’t want to think about what would have happened to them if they weren’t here now.
But another part of her, a bigger part — the part that was the real her fully awakened and no longer terrified — wanted to take the fight to Stanbury. She wanted to toss the crazy doctor at the feet of the Newgate police or the FBI or whoever in this country Becca could get to arrest the bitch and ensure the safety of Nero and his family.
“Fine. Sit for me. I still don’t know how you’re standing. I saw you get shot. I saw the blood after that snake gated you away from the abandoned factory.” He ran a hand over his wild, unkempt locks. “You should be dead.”
She should be, but she wasn’t because of Nero. “That snake has a name.”
“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure it’s dugga. Does he also possess mind control like the one from the cave?”
“No.”
“Then why the hell were you running around with him?” Werner balled his hands into fists. “The only reason I can think of is that you were playing it up for him, waiting for the right moment to escape and had somehow managed to convince him not to kill you.”
Movement at the far end of the hall caught Becca’s eye, and she turned to face whoever was coming. Two men in tactical gear, each with a shoulder under Nero’s armpits, half-helped and half-dragged the semi-conscious dragon toward the cell, while two more men, one with a Taser and the other with an M4, followed behind.
The guy with the M4 entered a code into the digital lock and opened the door without taking his hand away from the trigger of his rifle. The guy with the Taser aimed inside and jerked his chin at Becca, indicating she should back up. She did, and the other two shoved Nero inside.
He stumbled and collapsed to his knees as the door was locked and the men marched away.
Becca dropped to the floor in front of him. “What did she do? Why aren’t you healing?” And why can’t I hear you in my head yet?
“I am healing, but this magic is harder to deal with than a gunshot,” he said, his voice gruff.
“Jeez. You can stop playing your game. We’re all captives. Pretending you care about him won’t help you now,” Werner growled. “We should kill the snake and use it as leverage to get out of here.”
“You honestly think Stanbury will release us if we kill Nero?”
“You mean the dugga?” Werner asked.
“I’m not right now,” Nero gasped. “And I’m still your best bet of getting out of here.”
Werner huffed and crossed his arms. “Oh, yeah, how?”
“What do you mean, you’re not right now?” Becca cupped his cheeks in her palms and drew a pained gasp. She yanked her hands back, afraid the contact would continue to hurt him. Talk to me. Hear me. If he’d just meet her gaze, surely their mental connection would come back. She needed it to come back— no, she didn’t need it, she wanted it. She could survive without him in her head, but she didn’t want to.
A shudder swept through Nero. His jaw tightened on a groan, and her heart squeezed at his agony.
“There’s null magic in the cell but not the hall,” he said, lifting his gaze to her, and something in her soul steadied. Even though he wasn’t in her head, he was still hers, always hers, and she would take care of that responsibility.
“That’s why—?” She tapped her temple and glanced at Werner, not wanting to reveal she had a mental connection with Nero. She knew how Werner felt about dragons. She’d felt that way, too, until she’d met Nero. If she couldn’t convince him Nero wasn’t the monster they’d feared, she was going to have to get him away from Nero.
“Yes.” Nero gave a tight nod, and she knew it was also in answer to her unspoken request to keep their mental connection a secret.
“I already know that,” Werner said. “And thanks to your friends, I also know it means whatever magic you have won’t work in here, either.”
“Friends? Because all drakes know each other?” Nero rolled his eyes. “If you know anything about me, you know what my directive is regarding those friends.”
Werner jerked from the bed and shoved Becca aside. He grabbed the front of Nero’s shirt and heaved him to his feet. “Do you know how long they held me?” He slammed Nero against the Plexiglas wall.
Nero gasped, and his eyes rolled back.
“Put him down. He’s going to pass out.”
“No, he won’t.” Werner grabbed Nero’s chin, forcing him to look at him. “If you were following your directive, you should have stopped them. They would have never kidnapped Becca or Glenn or more than half of the others.”
“But I wouldn’t have caught the main drake responsible. She would have started again.”
“And you fucking would have stopped her again. Isn’t that what your magic does?” Werner leaned close and sneered. “Except you wanted the big fish. You didn’t care about how many
humans were tortured or for how long, so you waited.”
Becca grabbed Werner’s shoulder and yanked him back, but he held tight to the front of Nero’s shirt. “Werner, let him go.”
“Sure. When he’s dead.”
“Damage this vessel beyond repair, and I’ll just take yours,” Nero growled. He matched Werner’s sneer, but a feral menace filled his eyes, his true dragon nature revealed. “I haven’t been alive for over two thousand years because some infant managed to kill me.”
Werner’s eyes widened. “You’d break your own laws.”
“To survive—” Nero’s gaze jumped over Werner’s shoulder to Becca, and she didn’t need a mental connection to know he was thinking, and to protect my inamorata, “I’d do anything. So don’t press your luck, infant.” With a roar, Nero seized Werner’s hand holding his shirt, broke his grip, and shoved him back. “I haven’t ripped out your throat because Becca seems to care about you, but endanger her and you’ll wish all I did was kill you.”
“With what magic?” Werner squared his shoulders.
Nero’s sneer turned into a snarl, and a hint of wind shuddered through the room.
Werner’s eyes widened in surprise again. “But the null magic?”
“Not strong enough in this cell to completely stop an ancient drake about to lose his temper,” Nero said.
The two men glared at each other.
Becca’s heart pounded. Nero shuddered but kept standing, his expression ferocious, while Werner glared back, not looking nearly as intimidating.
Werner raised his chin.
Nero growled.
Jeez. Were they going to stare at each other all day? This wasn’t helping anything. She wanted answers, and she wanted the hell out of there.
“Good Lord! Have you figured out which is longer?” They both looked at her, and she rolled her eyes at them. “Even if you can summon wind, that doesn’t help us out of this cell.”
“Yeah,” Werner said. “This one has a keypad on it. It’s not like the previous ones we were in, with a deadbolt on the outside.”
Nero glanced back at Werner, snarled, then sagged to the floor, his expression pinched with pain. “I also made a point of watching the guard enter the code.” He settled his gaze on Becca, drawing a heated attraction fluttering in her chest. “I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”
“Oh, my God, are you flirting with her?” Werner stalked to the slab and sat. “Guess playing along with your captor also involved seducing him. I didn’t think you were the type.”
“There was no playing along.” And the seduction had been mutual and very satisfying. She sat beside Nero, her shoulder brushing his, needing to be near him and not caring what Werner thought of that.
Nero slid his hand down and intertwined his fingers between hers, out of Werner’s sight. Thank goodness he wasn’t going to continue the pissing contest and show off how close he and Becca had become. Just the feel of his skin against hers, a complete hold, not the gentle brush when she’d tried to cup his face, steadied her. She hadn’t realized how unsteady she’d been, and, after a few seconds, a hint of his thoughts fluttered into her, along with the whisper of searing agony. Guess the null magic also wasn’t strong enough to silence their mental connection when they were in physical contact for any length of time.
Thank the Mother she’s safe.
And so are you, she thought at him.
He squeezed her hand and tipped his head back, his expression still tight with the pain she now felt at the edge of her senses.
“Nero isn’t who we thought he was,” she said.
“He’s not the dugga?” Werner asked, his tone sarcastic.
Nero groaned. “Not right now.”
“What does that mean?” Becca tightened her grip on his hand. A sinking feeling filled her stomach, and she feared she did know what that meant.
“The dugga is a position, not a person,” Nero said.
“We know that,” Werner said.
“That woman with the glasses—”
“Stanbury,” Becca said.
“She’s figured out a way, a rather painful way, to take the magic that comes with the dugga’s position.”
“How’d she do that?” The need to take the fight to Stanbury and see her arrested swarmed through Becca. To hell with even the idea of running. Someone had to stop her.
“Turns out she’s a pretty powerful sorcerer,” Nero said.
“Did you decide to wait and see with her as well?” Werner snorted. “You’re a pretty shitty dugga. Can’t even seem to do the most basic part of your job.”
“Trust me, he’s the drake you want as the dugga,” Becca said. Enough was enough. She couldn’t afford to have Werner and Nero at odds if they were even going to try escaping. “He’s been breaking the rules to keep human mages alive and hidden from the other dragons for centuries.”
“And now that Stanbury has the dugga’s magic, she can sense all of them.” Nero caught Becca’s gaze. “If she accidentally reveals them to another dragon—”
“All your kids will be in danger.” Becca’s pulse stuttered. She didn’t know those kids, but a part of her hoped one day she would. They meant everything to Nero. He risked his life every day to keep them safe, and if she hadn’t come into his life, they wouldn’t be in danger. “We have to stop her.”
“No. I’m getting you and Werner and anyone else we can find out of here, and then I’m stopping her,” he said.
“Don’t be an idiot.” There was no way Becca was letting him face Stanbury alone. “We’ve already established you can’t go after her alone. That’s how we ended up in this mess.”
“And you believe this load of crap?” Werner asked.
“I do, so either get with the program and agree to help or sit there and shut the hell up.”
Werner’s eyes narrowed.
“I have less than an hour to reclaim the dugga’s magic. I’m not willing to put you or anyone else in danger.”
“And you can’t make me leave without you.” Becca tightened her grip on his hand. “These are your kids we’re talking about.” You know about Afghanistan. You think I’d ever turn my back on a child?
But you’re my inamorata.
And a female drake is just as ferocious as a male.
You’re not a dragon. His heartache and terror at losing her flooded their mental link. He knew what it would feel like, and he didn’t want to lose another.
Like it or not, I’m a soldier. You can’t stop me from protecting those who can’t protect themselves. As hard as that truth was, she couldn’t deny it. Protecting the innocent was her core value. Just like it was Nero’s.
God damn it, he growled. “Fine. Werner is put in charge of evacuating any other mages who are here, and we deal with Stanbury.”
“Now all we need is a plan.”
36
Nero shifted and realized his butt had fallen asleep while sitting on the cell floor. The agony searing through his body had changed to a soul-deep ache in his chest that he knew was his spirit trying to adjust to the loss of the dugga’s magic. Soon the ache would be gone and so would any possibility of regaining his power.
The three of them had spent the last twenty minutes brainstorming ideas for a plan, and it had taken everything in Nero’s power to concentrate on coming up with something and not wrap his arms around Becca and hold her close. She was alive, and even though he’d known in his soul that she was, he’d still been terrified he was wrong. She was also unhurt, and he couldn’t thank the Mother enough for that.
Unfortunately, that probably wouldn’t last. With their limited time and resources, the best plan they could come up with was to move fast, strike hard, and hope like hell.
According to Werner, there was access to a stairwell at the end of the hall to the left, and a bank of elevators down the hall and around the corner to the right. He also said there was another stairwell on the other side of the building, but it would be hard to get to. Becca had been u
nconscious when they’d brought her in, so she couldn’t confirm anything, and Nero could only confirm the location of the elevators, which meant he was going to have to trust that Werner’s sense of self-preservation was stronger than his hate for all things dragon.
Nero also knew there were security cameras in the elevators and the halls, but a quick glance proved there were none in the cell. That suggested the security system might be tight, but it wasn’t over the top. There were also most likely cameras in the stairwell, and if Stanbury was smart — and he’d be smart to assume she was — her security probably had remote access to the elevator controls. So if they were going anywhere, they’d have to take the stairs.
He still didn’t like the idea of Becca coming with him, but he recognized a losing battle when he saw one. And really, as if his soul would pick some pushover. She might be human, but she still needed to be ferocious enough to stand up against his dragon spirit. There was no way she was going to leave the facility without him. Hell, she’d accidentally gated to him when he’d been ambushed — no doubt thanks to having all her earth magic awakened by the surge. That determination to get to him had to explain why she’d been able to rapid free gate before she even knew she could gate, and that spoke to a fierce determination.
The other thing he found shocking was Werner’s state of sanity. The human didn’t seem to be struggling with soul sickness, and if— no, when Nero got his dugga’s magic back and Becca to safety, he was going to look into the cause for Werner’s sanity. With luck, it was due to something Raven could use to help the remaining few of Zenobia’s victims he had yet to bring in.
“Okay.” He glanced at Becca, but he didn’t need to look at her to know she was ready. He could feel it in the re-established mental connection between them. It was faint, and when she spoke mind to mind with him she sounded like she was at the end of a long hall, but their mental connection was back. And thank the Mother! He never wanted to feel that kind of emptiness again.
