by Black, C. I.
Grey pressed his massive weight against her, his muscled arm on her chest, his face close to hers. “Who the hell are you?” His voice was low, a hiss that wouldn’t carry.
She struggled to breathe. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not Hunter.”
CHAPTER 11
Hunter felt Anaea freeze, a deer caught in headlights. He couldn’t let her reveal herself. That would endangered both her and Grey and he needed to keep them safe.
Don’t let him know you’re not me. But as soon as he told her that, he knew Grey would have figured everything out during the fight. They’d fought side by side for hundreds of years. Hunter should have finished off Welkin without a scratch. The fact that he had to impale himself on Welkin’s sword was a sure giveaway. Hunter could only hope no one else, particularly Regis, had noticed.
“What are you talking about?” Anaea asked.
Good. Now shove him aside.
How am I supposed to manage that? He’s twice my size.
Before he could answer, she rammed her heel onto Grey’s foot and shoved him back. Grey stumbled but regained his balance. He grabbed her wrist and yanked her to his chest.
“I know you’re not Hunter. That was the most pathetic fight I’ve ever seen.” Grey grasped her chin with his free hand and forced her to look at him. “Is he in there?”
Anaea’s heart pounded and Hunter could feel her struggling with her answer.
Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
Suddenly she deflated and nodded.
Shit.
Grey released her and crossed his arms. He glanced at the arches to the arena and over at the stairwell. “Let me talk to him.”
“If I could do that do you think I would have dueled some guy to the death?”
What the hell are you doing?
You know he wouldn’t believe me, so I’m just cutting to the chase.
You don’t know how dangerous this is. It was bad enough he had put Anaea at risk, but now Grey could be accused of being an accomplice.
“This is one big mess,” Grey said.
She snorted. “You’re telling me.”
“But Hunter is in there? It’s the only way you’re managing to pull off his aura.”
“Yeah.”
It bothered Hunter that she didn’t sound happy at the thought. Of course, would he be happy if he had to share his body with some strange man?
Tell him it’s temporary.
“Hunter says it’s temporary,” Anaea said.
“I see. Why don’t you just let him out for a minute and we’ll fix things.”
She put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. Hunter was sure she looked the warrior that he thought she was: proud, strong, and covered in blood.
Grey ran a hand over his head. “Right. Yeah. What’s the exact problem with that?”
“I don’t know. We tried to switch earlier and couldn’t.”
Grey hissed a curse. Yep, he’d figured it out. Anaea had a stronger will than Hunter, which was almost unheard of in the dragon world. It meant it wasn’t just Anaea who would fall to the soul sickness, but Hunter as well, and, according to all he’d heard, her strength of will was terrifyingly similar to the Greek sorcerers who’d used Egyptian magic to cast the Great Scourge. The only thing he could do was hope that when her soul and earth magics fully awakened they would be at the usual human level. Regardless, any dragon who remembered that terrible day and discovered her would see her as a threat that had to be eliminated.
“This is not a problem,” Grey said, although Hunter could tell from the subtle undertones in his voice that he thought it was a disaster.
“Tell me another lie. Hunter knows you know something, I just haven’t figured out what that is.”
“Excuse me?”
There’s nothing wrong, Hunter said.
Bullshit. You were just thinking this was a disaster.
Aside from the fact that it is.
“All right. We have to get you out of Court.” Grey grabbed her wrist.
Not until after the rebirthing ceremony.
She jerked free from his grip. “Not until after some ceremony.”
“Damn. I’d forgotten about that. Okay, well, you just stay in Hunter’s room until the ceremony and I’ll—”
He might as well say it, Hunter said.
“Say what?”
“A new body. I need to arrange for a new body for Hunter.”
“And how do you go about doing that?” she asked.
If it was a legitimate request, Tobias, the Court’s Chamberlain, would call up the drakes positioned in the half-dozen Medical Examiner offices and hospitals scattered over the world, to see if someone had something appropriate—appropriate being the correct gender, with a fully matured body, that no human had claimed. This, however, wasn’t legitimate and would likely be a raid on a body bank for a learning hospital or a body farm. The farm was definitely less desirable since the state of the bodies usually required a lot more healing. Either way, Hunter could only pray Grey wouldn’t go into the gory details.
“Well—”
The Jester’s insane giggling echoed down the stairwell. Hunter was never so happy for the annoying human’s interruption. But the tread of half a dozen pairs of feet shattered his joy. Regis, and his entourage, were coming. Grey froze, his eyes wide.
Regis can’t know, Hunter said, hoping he’d infused his thoughts with enough urgency.
Anaea nodded. “He can’t know.”
“No. He can’t.” Grey’s eyes remained wide.
“Then stop looking terrified.”
Mother of All, she was fabulous. Why couldn’t he have met her sooner? And yet, if he had, in his other body, she would still be dying.
“What a fabulous wasu tahazu. You finally played one up to entertain me,” Regis said as he appeared around the curve of the stairwell. He stopped on the steps, towering above them, with his followers gathered behind him. How typical. Hunter had displayed his strength, yet again, and Regis was using petty tricks to remind him of his power. As if Hunter needed someone to stand at the top of a stairs and talk down to him to reinforce who was in control.
“We will feast in an hour. You better hurry up and report to Tobias.”
“Now?” Grey asked.
Regis pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow.
“He’s covered in blood.”
“Are you still sworn into the Handmaiden’s service, silver drake?”
Drake? Anaea asked. I thought his name was Grey? She froze, then started to tremble. Realization dawned on her. It billowed into a panic that threatened to envelope Hunter’s consciousness. He had to stop it, now.
It’s a term of endearment. Shit, of all the stupid things to say. But he had to say something. Perhaps she wouldn’t completely figure it out, but she was too smart for that and he’d let too much slip—like that dragon roar back in the hotel room.
Grey squared his shoulders. “I serve the Handmaiden until she releases me from duty.”
Baby, bunny, snuggle-umpkins. Those are terms of endearment. But drake—!
Not. Now. A growl escaped and Anaea’s heart pounded faster. Hunter forced calm into himself and his voice. Regis can’t know about you. Please.
Anaea shoved her fear back with a force of will that made Hunter shudder. If she could do that with her emotions, no wonder he couldn’t regain control of their body.
“Pity. When she tires of you it’ll be fun to see how long you last... in the arena, of course.” But Regis’s tone gave away his disappointment that Grey had to be reborn instead of permanently eliminated. “Fine. Dress for dinner then report.”
Anaea drew breath to speak. Even terrified of what Hunter had let slip he could feel her intention to stand up for Grey. Which would get them all reborn.
Don’t say a word. Just bow.
She hesitated for a heartbeat, thankfully not long enough for Regis to notice from his perch on the stairwell, then she dropped to one knee a
nd bowed her head.
The Jester giggled again. If Hunter had a body he’d shiver. That laugh was like nails on a chalkboard.
“I’ll send appropriate clothing to your suite,” Regis said over his shoulder as he left.
He can’t just make threats like that. The bastard thinks he’s in charge.
He is. Unfortunately. The Mother of All only knew why the Handmaiden continued to support his claim to the throne. But given that she was the most powerful dragon among them, no one was going to publicly oppose him. Privately, games Hunter didn’t want to know about or participate in were being played. Some to win Regis’s favor, others to undermine his tenuous control over dragon-kind.
But—
He could sense his distaste for Regis coloring Anaea’s opinion of the Prince. Not that Regis hadn’t been his usual malevolent self. Anyone who had a mind of his own quickly learned that Regis got off on games, particularly the painful kind. It’s complicated.
Nothing is ever that complicated.
But it was. And, regardless of politics, dragons still needed to protect themselves. Perhaps draconian-styled laws and leadership were necessary, although Hunter was loathe to agree with that. He sighed. He’s my Prince. I must obey.
She bit back a huff. You should really think about a democracy.
We tried a democracy. It didn’t work. Our culture is old. The strong lead and the weak follow. If you don’t like something, become strong enough to lead.
Why doesn’t that surprise me.
* * *
Anaea rose from the bow. Her gut ached and she really just wanted a hot shower and a long sleep. Why did she have to give a report and then go to some stupid dinner?
“We can manage this.” Grey brushed nonexistent dirt from his knees. “Hunter doesn’t say much. Tell Tobias you’ll write something up, then just sit and eat.”
Is that true?
She felt Hunter shrug. I’m usually not around Court enough. Not quite my place.
Gee, I wonder why. His welcome home hadn’t been overly welcoming, to say the least.
“I’ll go and make arrangements for... you know... after the rebirthing ceremony.”
“Which will be when?” She didn’t want to think about how Grey would go about finding a new body for Hunter. The image of bulging body bags being tossed into the back of a black van flashed into her head and she shoved it back. Nope, she really didn’t want to know.
“Dawn.”
She nodded and he scrambled up the stairs and out of sight. If her situation wasn’t so bizarre she’d have found it amusing. Instead, she just climbed after him, her pace slow and steady as she tried not to jar the hole in her. It should have felt worse. She should probably be bleeding to death. But she accepted she wasn’t as part of the insanity that had the presence of a strange man... spirit—or rather drake?—trapped in her head.
God, she didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about any of it. Just a flicker of thought on that topic made her heart race and her skin clammy with fear. Instead, she embraced the numbness seeping over her, making her limbs weak and filling her head with a strange buzzing.
She made her way to Hunter’s suite, thankfully without meeting anyone. Hunter didn’t say a word as she’d shuffled along the strange halls. Perhaps he felt it. She didn’t know why he wouldn’t. How was she going to go to some public event and calmly eat? She had just killed a man... a drake...
No. Stop. She couldn’t think that... couldn’t... She’d killed another per— thing. Burned him to a crisp after being doused in his blood. All that blood. Her hands had taken a life.
It didn’t matter that the man had tried to take hers and Hunter’s lives. It didn’t matter that the situation was beyond bizarre... No, she couldn’t start thinking about that again, either. She couldn’t stop thinking about anything no matter how hard she tried, couldn’t stop coming back to... oh, God.
She stumbled into Hunter’s suite, closed the door, and pressed her back against it, as if that would keep everyone and everything out. Her eyes burned with tears and her throat tightened. This was all just a bad dream. That was it. Just a bad dream. It had to be. Please, let it be a dream.
She began to shake and her knees buckled and she fell to an all-too-real floor. A sob escaped before she could stop it. She was stronger than this. She had to be. But she couldn’t make herself stop. Her body was wracked with tears and she fought to muffle them against her arm for fear someone was listening to her.
All she wanted was to scream and yell and cry. How had her life rocketed out of control? Of course, she didn’t really have a life. In a few months none of this would matter. She just never thought she’d die with someone else’s blood on her hands. But she hadn’t, no. This was a fantasy, a psychological meltdown, a hallucination, a... a...
She squeezed her eyes shut as if by blocking out her vision she could block out her thoughts as well.
Hunter remained silent. His presence hummed at the back of her head but he didn’t say anything, as if he knew the reminder of him would be too much for her to take.
* * *
Grey strode down the hall to his suite. This was a disaster. A complete and utter disaster. Hunter was body-sharing with some human and it looked like she had a stronger will than him. Human consciousnesses were supposed to be weak, easily contained, and always susceptible to soul sickness. Even after a dragon’s presence awakened whatever soul and earth magics the human possessed, that stress induced insanity.
It was even worse that the human had already established a connection to her body’s earth magic. Such a fast awakening of both magics had the possibility of creating a true human sorcerer.
This was really, really bad. Hunter had killed more than enough mages and even a few sorcerers in the early days to know better than to body-share. He certainly knew what he was doing was punishable by rebirth. Everyone did.
Now he had to attend dinner. And not just any dinner, one of the feasts of the pahar. Every doyen from every coterie and their seconds, possibly their thirds as well, would be in attendance. Sure, no one really knew Hunter as well as Grey did, but someone was going to notice he was acting weird and ask questions.
If only Hunter had control of the body and not the human. Although Grey had to admit, she’d handled herself well in the wasu tahazu as well as when she faced Regis. It was sort of a pity they’d have to kill her. They certainly couldn’t allow her to live. Even if Hunter hadn’t told her anything about dragon-kind, it was too great a risk. He wondered if Hunter had known that, or if he’d lied when he’d said he didn’t have magic. Regardless, it was a serious crime to body-share and create a human with earth magic, even if in the end she only fit Regis’s definition of sorcerer and not the real kind that endangered them all.
Mother of All, what was going to happen when Hunter went to the Handmaiden? She was certain to see the double souls crammed into that emaciated body. He needed a replacement before dawn. It was the only answer.
But if Hunter showed up at the rebirthing ceremony in a different body he’d be charged with body-hopping and that was a sentence of rebirth, too.
Shit.
Grey dragged his hands through his hair and glanced up. He’d walked right past the door to his suite.
Double shit.
Now he was acting the fool that human woman had warned him against. How could she keep her head when both hers and Hunter’s lives were on the line? He needed to keep it together. Besides, the human was probably in shock from killing Welkin. Humans were fragile like that. But once the shock wore off, she’d be a mess he’d have to deal with.
The hall darkened and pain raced across his neck. Crap, a flashback. The metallic tang of blood filled his mouth and every little detail of that terrible night from sixty-four years ago flooded his senses.
He fought to breathe. This wasn’t real, just his Mother-cursed memory making him relive it. But logic couldn’t combat the emotion.
“Hey, Grey.”
The darkness wavered.
The voice was female and without menace. It was so familiar, her name hung on the tip of his tongue.
“You okay?” This voice was male, young, a reedy tenor.
He knew that voice, too.
He blinked. The hall materialized out of the darkness. Capri stood a few feet away, petite, defiant, and beautiful. Her strawberry blond hair was tied back as usual, accentuating the fine lines of her cheeks and straight nose, and did little to age her youthful appearance. Although her perpetual shadow, Gig, looked even more like a teenager with his shaggy mop of black hair, even though his human body was at least twenty-five.
“Visiting the Handmaiden before dinner?” she asked, meeting his gaze and staying there. Her tone was neutral, but her blue eyes had narrowed. She knew something was wrong.
“Well, he’s not going to his suite,” Gig said.
Grey glanced back at his door. “Yeah.”
Capri’s perfect, pale eyebrows drew together ever so slightly.
Damn. He should have said something witty. But he couldn’t flirt with Capri like he did with everyone else. She mattered. The others were just a way of coping. Hope still sprung eternal, although after a couple hundred years he was pretty sure she didn’t feel the same way.
“Seeing if the Handmaiden needs anything.” Now he just looked like a loser. “Can I get you anything?”
Please say yes.
Maybe after so much time her feelings had changed. It happened all the time in the movies.
A smile pulled at her lips. It was only a hint of its full self, but his memory could fill the rest of it in. Every detail. Her dimple. How her eyes shone. The way sunlight would kiss her skin. Her impossibly long lashes.
“Did you see Hunter fight?” Gig said suddenly, looking every bit the part of the little cartoon dog bouncing excitedly around the big dog. “Amazing. And in an unfamiliar body, too.”
“I’m pretty sure he saw Hunter fight.” Capri’s smile deepened just a little bit more. Not with sexual overtones, but that didn’t matter. It still made Grey want to rush out and get her things. She hoarded the most amazing flowers, so definitely some of those. And definitely things that sparkled in the sunlight.
