Instead, one after another, each mechanical lined up and attempted to attack the female shifter who had so recently slipped through the enemy dragons’ grasp.
Chapter 13
Nicholas adjusted his grip, but Steph remained stiff as a board in his arms. Nonetheless, he continued lowering them both toward the rooftop, steering clear of the mechanical pigeons that battered themselves against Sabrina’s defenses in the air above.
Only after their feet crunched on gravel and a solid yard of empty space separated their bodies did his companion speak at last. “I need to explain. The ocean....”
Before she could finish her sentence, though, a pigeon darted beneath the ship and Nicholas surged forward to burn the robot out the air. This is neither the time nor the place for secrets, he thought grimly. Nonetheless, he grabbed the female’s hand and drew her into the shadows behind the air-conditioning condenser. Hopefully the small amount of cover would give Steph space to spit out whatever needed to be said.
To his surprise, the female shifter didn’t jerk away as she might have done the day before. Instead, she accepted Nicholas’s proximity, kneeling in the shelter created by his broader body even while cringed away from the shouts and pops of miniature explosions emerging from the far side of the roof.
“I thought I’d have a little more time...” Steph began again, then paused as yet another robotic bird winged its way around the corner of the condenser toward them.
This time, Nicholas was a moment too late. His back had been turned toward the outside world when the pigeon first appeared, his attention riveted upon his sister. So he could only watch in horror as a nearly inaudible click marked the release of smelly gasoline to cascade over the female shifter’s clothing. And his hands batted out too slowly to extinguish the spark falling from the pigeon’s beak and catching the fuel alight.
Immediately, flames flared to life along Steph’s side, over one arm, and up the curve of her jaw. Still, the gasoline-fueled burning shouldn’t have been a big deal. Not with a dragon on hand, able to call fire—or extinguish it—through a force of will alone.
But, the vivid image of a fire-ruined face rose in front of Nicholas’s mind’s eye. Then Sam’s sodden countenance overlaid Steph’s, the teenager’s eyes bulging and skin ashen from long submersion in unforgiving river water.
Instantly, Nicholas’s affinity with fire skittered out of his grasp and the pyre of flames before him grew rather than faded. He ripped the jacket off his back in a non-magical approach to firefighting, attempting to smother the flames by cutting off all access to air.
Instead of screaming, though, Steph merely laughed. And for the first time ever, she met Nicholas’s eyes head on. “I’m still a dragon, don’t forget,” she told him, leaning into the flames as if she were a cat stroking herself against an offered palm. Nicholas almost thought he heard his companion purr.
And sure enough, when the flames receded, Steph’s clothes were pitted and darkened but her skin was as smooth and clear as ever. Her hands trembled, though, as they reached across to tug at Nicholas’s sleeve and return his attention to her emerging secret. “I need you to listen,” she told him.
“I’m listening,” Nicholas acknowledged for what felt like the thousandth time. But the pit of his stomach sank even lower than it had when the pigeon struck, past history suggesting he didn’t particularly want to hear whatever Steph had to say.
Because if he’d failed his foster brother after accepting Sam’s ill-thought-out secrets, who was to say he’d do any better for this new sister who was already wiggling her way into his heart?
“I was waiting to tell you tomorrow,” the secret keeper confided. “Because for the last three years the egg has always come at the full moon.”
The egg. Nicholas blinked, swallowed, stayed silent with an effort. Suddenly, Steph’s strange loss of clothing during her shifts made perfect sense. After all, if she was carrying a large object inside her own body, that might be all the extra mass she was able to bring along for the ride.
“They never hatch, you know,” Steph continued, her face sad as she gazed off into the distance. “A baker’s dozen eggs, and none has ever turned into a baby dragon....”
In reaction, Nicholas released Steph’s hand before he could grind her slender bones to powder. Because his mathematician’s mind had done that arithmetic far too easily.
It was a simple word problem, really. If every dragon on earth is thirty years old and if a dragon can lay one egg per year, how old must Steph have been at first birthing if she’d already created thirteen potential dragonets with one bun currently in the oven?
Sixteen. A slip of a girl, presumably impregnated against her will by the same dragon who had burned Sabrina’s ship for no reason other than to pass along a message. Abruptly, a chess game that had been invigorating and entertaining a moment earlier turned far too personal, and Nicholas kicked himself for not following behind the gray dragon so he could rip out the evil being’s throat.
“Stop growling,” Steph admonished, laying her tiny hand atop Nicholas’s clenched fist. “That’s not what I need from you.”
Closing his eyes, Nicholas drew in a deep breath and squelched his own rage. “Tell me,” he said into the self-created darkness.
“I want this egg to hatch,” Steph answered, her voice containing none of the ambivalence a woman might be expected to feel in the face of repeated rape and a lifetime of imprisonment. “It’s coming earlier than expected. I can feel it. And even though I don’t know this for certain, my gut says I need to go east. That there’s something I’m missing if I want to hold a living baby in my arms. That’s why it’s so important than I travel to the ocean, and soon. Will you take me there?”
Opening his eyes at long last, Nicholas noted that the rooftop had quieted, the scent of smoke now hanging less heavily on the air. Sabrina had managed to protect both Plaza and airship from mechanical invaders all on her lonesome, not that he was surprised. Presumably the captain would be up to the task of ferrying one mother-dragon-to-be in the opposite direction from the one she’d recently committed to navigating as well.
If not, then Nicholas would tow Steph there himself. Opening his fist, he allowed his sister’s smaller fingers to twine between his own. “Of course,” he answered, affirming the promise he’d already made earlier in the day. “I’ll take you wherever you need to go. If I have anything to say about it, then fourteen will be your lucky number. This egg won’t be like the others. This egg will hatch.”
Chapter 14
“You’re all hired,” Sabrina proclaimed half an hour later, casting a judicious eye over the soot-streaked countenances of her newfound crew.
Because she’d spared a few brain cells while ridding the Intrepid of aerial attackers to mull over her previous snap judgment. And, in the end, she found her gut reaction sound. Eight sailors who’ve been tried by fire is vastly superior to a dozen willing to jump ship at the first sign of adversity, the captain had concluded.
The battle had been useful as more than just a mass job interview too. Because every single person now arrayed across her deck was grinning broadly, body language speaking to a cohesiveness that her old crew had definitively lacked.
Only the lone woman—Charlotte—appeared to be doing anything beyond exhilarating in their shared triumph. The chief culinary officer’s smile was every bit as honest as those of her compatriots, but she kept darting sidelong glances toward the dragon shifter currently carrying Steph back up onto the open deck. Perfectly understandable given the byplay that had gone before.
Nicholas, for his part, appeared less than enthused to find the young woman among Sabrina’s selected few. But his dark eyes were absent-minded, whatever gripe he had with Charlotte forgotten in the face of a newer problem that the captain would also have very much liked to ferret out.
Later, she promised herself. For now, she continued to address her crew. “We’ll be flying out at midnight, with aerial exercises beginning at ten
this evening. So I want you all in your bunks here on the Intrepid within the hour. Get your possessions and get some sleep. We have a long night ahead of us.”
Finally, as the celebrating airmen filtered away, Sabrina turned toward the sole man who had remained behind. “Well?” she asked Nicholas, eyebrows raised in question. “Does Steph still want to fly east to the ocean?”
She was rewarded by a subtle uplift appearing on the corners of her companion’s usually rigid lips. Nodding, Nicholas tossed unspoken conclusions back in her direction like a tennis ball across a net. “I take it you plan to lift off early just in case there’s an informer among your ranks.”
Stifling her own laughter with an effort, Sabrina nodded in easy acknowledgement. It was surprisingly pleasant to have the cards she held so close to her chest counted by an expert like her new first mate.
“In which case,” the shifter continued, “you should rest just like your crew. If Amber’s magic is any indication, then you’ll be starting to feel weak-kneed just about now. Dizzy maybe?”
As if his dry words had made her infirmity a reality, the heady rush of adrenaline that had formerly added a bounce to her step now faded and her muscles began to quiver. The captain reached out to steady herself against the solidity of the metal rail and instead found treacherous fingers slipping into the crook of Nicholas’s muscular arm.
“I have to fill up the water barrels, maybe pack away extra perishables....” she started. But despite her businesslike words, Sabrina found her feet following Nicholas down the stairs into the passageway below.
“I can do that,” her companion offered quietly. “And I’ll bring Gleason aboard as well if that’s what you want.”
It wasn’t what Sabrina wanted, but it was what she needed to happen. Had she really nearly forgotten her blackmailer in the midst of plotting to outsmart Gunnar and his pigeons?
Shaking her head slowly in an attempt to drive fuzz away, the captain decided that perhaps a short nap would be in order after all.
“Is that a no?” Nicholas prodded, pausing just before the second hatch, where a ladder led down from passenger level to the territory of crew and stores.
“No...I mean yes.” Sabrina squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself against the wall in an effort to make her speech understandable. “Please bring Gleason on board if you can,” she said at last, formerly skittish words finally lining themselves up properly across her tired tongue. Then, rather than falling flat on her face while attempting the massive feat of physical dexterity that the ladder currently represented, she hummed up a breeze to carry her through the waiting hatch.
“Can you make it to your room alone?”
Something about the question purred further awareness through Sabrina’s veins. And when she glanced back up to the level above, Nicholas’s fiery wings draped across his shoulders as if the shifter’s initial impulse had been to fly after her and break a potential fall.
From any other man, the chivalry would have rubbed her the wrong way. Strangely, though, here and now, Sabrina was enticed by the shifter’s strength rather than repelled by it.
Would it be so very bad to let him walk her to her room, tuck her in, and kiss her brow before she fell asleep? Would it be so terrible to utilize Nicholas’s strength to buoy her failing energy up?
I must be groggier than I thought to assume any dragon shifter is a brow kisser, Sabrina chided herself. Best-case scenario, Nicholas wants to get into my pants. Worst...into my secrets.
And with that moment of sanity at the forefront of her mind, the captain bade her new first mate a tart farewell and descended alone into the belly of her ship.
***
Sabrina didn’t make it all the way to her bunk, though, before pausing in front of a door that had nearly rusted shut. Sliding a seldom-used key into the lock, she took a deep breath, then padded into a space that had once been like her second home.
Even years after his death, her father’s cabin reeked of cigarette smoke and old socks. Frank Fairweather’s books lined one wall, some knocked askew due to aerial maneuvers with no one bothering to declutter the space afterwards. Papers on the heavy mahogany desk were similarly dust-covered and out of order.
The air hung heavy with secrets.
As a child, Sabrina’s presence within this cabin had been by invitation only. As captain, she enjoyed free run of the ship but hadn’t set foot inside this space for months at a time. She’d considered ripping the entire cabin apart and turning it into a secondary cargo hold in fact. But, instead, Sabrina abandoned her father’s possessions—like his memories—to rot in peace.
Now, she skirted the large bed in the center of the room, flicking a switch as she passed it by. Immediately, the dull hum of an unused intercom met her ears, a screen on the wall flickering to colorful life.
The view was as expected. The primary cargo hold was cluttered with crates and barrels but was currently devoid of life. After all, Nicholas hadn’t yet found time to carry out his promised reprovisioning.
But if Sabrina fell asleep and allowed her secret-sniffing shifter to walk through the space unhindered, would he guess at Frank’s dark deeds the way new members of her crew had not? Would Nicholas judge Sabrina for her father’s sins, the flash of understanding that had darted between them after the pigeon battle never to be repeated?
The Intrepid had always hosted so many secrets, and now the captain found herself getting lost in the memories. Sinking onto the padded window-ledge where she’d sometimes slept as a child, Sabrina reached beneath the pillow and pulled out a simple plastic recorder her father had given her two decades earlier.
“This is for you,” her tall, dapper parent had told her, cupping the gift in two hands as if it were precious. Frank had always possessed a knack for pageantry, so it was no surprise that the offering was enclosed in a purple velvet bag, yellow ribbon at one end tied into an intricate bow. No surprise that he knelt at her feet like a knight errant, a sparkle in his eyes the only suggestion that he was teasing his only child.
“For me?” Pampered princess that she was, Sabrina had snatched the present and pulled at the bow. Despite its complexity, the artful decoration slid apart with one easy tug, then a recorder tumbled out into her waiting hands. Drawn to the instrument like a bee to honey, Sabrina hadn’t been able to resist blowing a practice blast.
The shrill sound was untrained and far from melodic. Still, it created a breeze just like the ones that had been dancing around her head in recent weeks. “Good job!” Frank exclaimed, clapping three times before leveraging himself back to his feet. “Can you make it work for you?”
“Work for me?” Sabrina parroted. Her father had always chided her to keep her abilities secret, to play with her breezes in private. So the currents had become something of a stable of secret friends, always available to entertain the lone child aboard ship but invisible to adults passing around and through her life. Asking those breezes to do a job seemed not only counterproductive but also somehow disloyal.
“How about...” her father paused, oblivious to her discomfort. Then, pointing at the paper-strewn desk, he continued, “How about bringing me that map over in the corner?”
It took Sabrina over an hour to figure out the request. An hour to find the perfect way to mesh melody and intention to bend breezes to her will. But for that entire time period, her ultra-busy father had sat and watched, chin supported by one thoughtful hand. The attention alone had been enough to keep young Sabrina on a task that lost its luster five minutes in.
But the effort was all worthwhile. Because when she succeeded at last, Frank’s eyes had gleamed with pride. “That’s my girl,” he told her, and Sabrina’s small chest had swelled at the praise. “Just remember: No one outside this room can see you practice. Not yet.”
Now, as an adult, Sabrina fingered the cold plastic of the long-forgotten instrument and wondered about Frank’s long-forgotten game plan. Had he honed his daughter’s abilities as a weapon to be unveiled at hi
s whim? Or perhaps the secrecy had just been built into her father’s DNA, like his own alter-ego, so artfully buried that Sabrina hadn’t discovered the truth until after Frank’s premature death.
It had been years since the captain had allowed herself to remember Frank’s more charming side. Years since she’d asked the breezes to be anything more than her loyal companions.
Now that she’d exposed one secret to the world, though, she wondered whether it wouldn’t be just as freeing to expose another.
Pressing lips to long-forgotten plastic, Sabrina pondered whether familial secrets could be released as easily as notes trilled out of the instrument already warming in her hands. Would it have been so terrible to simply accept who she was at seven and seventeen rather than continuing to hide her magic away beneath tricks and tunes?
Would it be so horrible now to share Frank’s evil with the world and officially distance herself from his gut-wrenching trade?
But before she could come to any solid decision, heavy lids lowered and Sabrina fell sound asleep.
Chapter 15
It was more of a struggle than Nicholas had anticipated to explain to his family where he was going without revealing anyone’s closely guarded secrets. Luckily, his brothers were used to accepting Nicholas’s evasions and they supported him this time around just as they had in the past.
Sarah, on the other hand, appeared one step shy of stowing away aboard the Intrepid as she hugged her son’s bulkier body to her frail chest as if he was still a tiny child. “Be careful. Be honorable. Don’t let your brain win out over your heart,” the older woman admonished.
“Mom, of course I will.” Nicholas felt like a five-year-old dragonet evading tooth-brushing time, and it took effort to still his footsteps before they could send him scurrying up Intrepid’s ramp prematurely. Reaching out to tuck a curl behind his foster mother’s ear instead, he hesitated before caving. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
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