by Eva Chase
That was handy. I’d have to remember that trick. Nate had told me that eventually I’d be able to sense whenever he or the others were in pain, even across a long distance. Being able to give them a nudge in my direction must be part of that increased awareness.
The hall Kylie had explored took us around to the back corner of the house. She stopped in front of the door. And it was The Door. They were all the same moss green, but this one had that circle of dimples just above my line of sight. And no handle, no knob. But just like in my vision, I knew, looking at it, I could open it easily.
Heavier footsteps sounded down the hall. All four of my mates came into view. They must have caught up with each other on the way over.
“This is it?” Aaron asked, inspecting the door as they joined me.
I nodded. “I haven’t tried to open it yet.”
“Well, what are you waiting for, Sparks?” West said. His tone was more teasing than gruff. “This is what we came all this way for.”
Nate eased closer as if to offer his help, but I could feel down to my bones that this task was only mine. I drew in my breath and stepped up to the door. My hands rose as if summoned to rest on either side of the dimpled circle.
A shiver of energy raced down my arms. A burning sensation crept up my throat, as if I were kindling dragon fire in my human form. I paused, and then exhaled in a steady stream against the circle.
No fire burst from my lips, only a rush of air. But the door twitched and swung open, away from my hands.
On the other side, a straight, narrow staircase led down into a basement room. A soft glow crept into the space below as I watched. I hadn’t realized this house even had a basement. I stared at the staircase for a second, anticipation tingling over my skin.
“You’ve got this, princess,” Marco said.
I did. I moved forward, down one step and the next, my fingers trailing along the smooth wall. The tingling sensation washed over me even more deeply, with one very clear impression.
Whatever was waiting for me below, it was only for me.
“I don’t think you can come with me,” I said to the guys and Kylie behind me.
“Nope,” Marco agreed. “Couldn’t even if we tried. That place doesn’t want us at all.”
“I’ve never felt anything like that before,” Aaron murmured, mostly to himself, with awed curiosity.
“You just holler if you need us, then,” Kylie said.
I walked further, down into the room. The door clicked shut behind me. The air pressure thickened, as if to embrace me. My feet hit the tiled floor at the bottom, and a fresh breath rushed into my lungs with a cool, powdery smell.
I was here.
And where was here, exactly? I rotated slowly, taking in the whole room.
The space was lined with shelves, and each of them held a row of glinting slabs. I stepped closer. They were crystal tablets, like the one Mom had left for me in the abandoned subway tunnel that had led us to Sunridge—and to my new fiery power to get at the truth.
The room was packed with them, all of them etched with one or more symbols, many of which didn’t mean anything to me. The only other objects the room contained were an armchair with a high arched back and a small rosewood side table.
The place felt like a library, if you could read crystals instead of books. But then, Mom had managed to leave me a message in that first crystal. The truth-seeking flames and a vision of my mother’s murder had been contained in a larger crystal. Who knew what any of these might hold?
I had no idea where to start, so I grabbed one at random. A quiver of energy raced across my palms. The etching on this one showed what looked vaguely like a bear standing on its hind legs between a horse and a weasel. Interesting.
I sank into the chair. Instinct told me to press the crystal tablet to my chest. An odd warmth bled from its smooth surface into my skin. Then a clear, even voice started speaking in my head.
“Dragon shifter Matilde, May 2, 1876. I record this history of a conflict resolved among the disparate kin.”
As the long-gone dragon shifter’s words rolled into my mind, a vision formed before my eyes, like the glimpse I’d gotten of my mother’s death. But I got the sense this one was more symbolic than any literal event. A tall woman with sleek black hair stood with a burly man next to her, in a yard I vaguely recognized from the disparate estate. Several shifters in animal form prowled on either side of the pair.
“For five years, my alphas and I have seen a growing hostility between the meat-eating and plant-eating members of the disparate kin. Accusations of wrong-doing have been thrown from both sides. A few skirmishes have resulted in many injured and four dead. The primary point of contention appeared to be—”
I pulled the crystal away from my chest and set it on the side table, breaking the vision and the voice. With a couple of slow breaths, I settled back into the present. My gaze skimmed the shelves again.
So these were histories? Records committed to the crystals by the dragon shifters before me—reports they hoped later dragon shifters would find useful?
I hadn’t seen any conflicts among the disparate kin while I’d been there, and Nate hadn’t mentioned any. That record might be worthwhile to listen to later, but for now, it wasn’t what I needed.
I stood up, slid that crystal back onto its shelf, and considered the others. There were hundreds in this room. Which one would give me something I could use against the vampires?
No way to find out but through trial and error.
The tablets clinked softly as I flipped through several on the shelf at head height, peering at the images etched on them. Those clearly gave some idea as to the contents. How would you draw a vampire? A stick figure with little triangles jutting from its mouth?
An artist I was not. God, would I be recording the trials I’d experienced over the last few weeks on one of these crystals when all this trouble was over?
I pushed that thought aside and bent to look through the next shelf. My hand stilled over a tablet with a few sketchy human-ish figures on left and a wolf, lion, and eagle on the right. Those first figures could be vampires, maybe?
Worth a try. I picked it up and got comfy on the armchair again.
The voice that spilled into my head when I held this tablet close was huskier, more abrupt. “Dragon shifter Geraldine, November 14, 1937. I chronicle the current state of shifter-human interactions. I’ve been watching this problem get worse since I was a little girl. The humans keep breeding, and more of them keep pouring in from across the ocean. Their cities are expanding. They set down new roots anywhere they please. Sometimes far too close to our shifter territories than is really comfortable.”
The image that swam up before my eyes showed a group of shifters watching houses being erected up the hillside from their village. It morphed into a scene of the same shifters loading up cars with boxes from their houses, then driving off down a winding road, deeper into the wilderness.
“We have preserved the lands around our estates for centuries, but those who want to live elsewhere are finding their options increasingly limited by the number and distribution of human communities. I’ll now go into detail about some of the strategies we’ve used to limit exposure between—”
I removed the tablet and gave my head a quick shake to clear it. The information my ancestor had been relating there was stuff I’d definitely want to come back to—but not right now, when vampires were causing us a hell of a lot more trouble than any humans.
A couple of the shelves were empty, I guessed to make room for future contributions. I left the human occupation tablet on one of those so I could find it again easily when I had time to really pay attention.
A glance into a closed cabinet revealed stacks of blank crystals that must have been for my or later dragon shifter’s use. Hopefully there was an instruction manual around here somewhere. I returned to pawing through the other records.
Partway through the next row, an etching caught my eye w
ith a pang of recognition. I pulled out that tablet.
On closer examination, the image wasn’t exactly the same as the one I’d remembered. It showed dragons and humanoid figures a little too tall and slim to be really human. The fae. I’d seen carvings like this on the pedestal in the mountain caves, where I’d found the truth-seeking flames that fae and shifter magic had created together.
Dragons and fae stood together in the picture on the tablet too. One fae figure had its hand resting on the shoulder of the dragon beside it. Two others stood with their heads bent toward each other, a shape like a flame between them.
It didn’t look like this one would say anything about vampires, but then, maybe our relations with the other dominant paranormal community would give me some insight. And I couldn’t deny I was curious how we and those wispy, shimmering beings had ever gotten along.
I took my spot on the chair again and clasped the tablet to my chest.
“Dragon shifter Charlotte, 1842. I would like to record a joint project I’ve embarked on with our fae companions, and to detail the current state of our alliance.”
An alliance, huh? That had obviously fallen apart a long time ago.
I managed not to tense up as this tablet’s vision spilled out before my eyes. Tall, slim, shining fae were flitting through an open forest amid a pack of wolves. A dragon, emerald green, soared by overhead.
The fae weren’t fleeing the shifters or chasing them. I could tell from the flashes of smiles and the way they wove between each other’s groups that they were… enjoying sharing the woods. Not an image I’d ever expected to see.
But then, the only time I’d seen more than one fae at a time was in the vision that had showed a bunch of them killing my mother with their magic.
“I suppose it makes sense that we shifters and the fae can understand each other better than either of us relates to the vampires,” the former dragon shifter’s sweet voice continued. “Unlike them, we are both drawn to life more so than death. While some of us may enjoy a night-time run, every shifter I’ve ever met enjoys a good lie-about in the sun, which the fae worship. And my dragon fire has so much in common with fae magic, they assure me we can link the two together, their power sharing mine. I’m excited by the possibilities.”
The image whirled around to show the emerald dragon breathing fire toward a fae woman—who was encompassing it in a stream of her own blue-ish magic. My breath caught, watching it. I eased the tablet away from me to get my bearings.
Blue and red, mingling together. To create the violet of my truth-seeking flames? Had this dragon shifter been the one to create the power I’d stumbled on nearly two centuries later?
If we’d managed to create that power with the fae, what else might we be capable of together?
As soon as the question passed through my head, my throat tightened. Maybe the dragon shifters had been able to work alongside the fae in the distant past, but a lot had changed since then. How had we come to the point where the fae monarch would look the other way while her people slaughtered my mother?
How the hell could we ever trust them again?
I didn’t know what had gone wrong, but I couldn’t answer any of those questions without knowing more. Inhaling deeply, I brought the tablet back to my chest to see what else my long-ago ancestor could tell me.
Chapter 14
Ren
My name reached me as if from a huge distance away, across an ocean maybe. At first I almost didn’t hear it. Then it penetrated my focus even more insistently.
“Ren! Princess, if you don’t say something soon, I’m going to have to start clanging the sirens.”
I jerked the tablet I’d been clutching away from my chest. My head spun. My stomach pinched, deep into the hollow it had formed in my belly.
How long had I been down here in the basement archive? I rubbed my forehead as if that would clear the mugginess around my thoughts and finally found the wherewithal to answer Marco. “I’m here! Sorry. I just got… really absorbed.”
His chuckled carried, muted, down the stairs. “You might want to consider getting unabsorbed for a bit. I’m thinking it’s about time you ate something. And while I have full confidence in your ability to look after yourself, some of your other mates may be wearing holes in the carpet with their pacing up here.”
I had been down here longer than I realized, then. That pinching in my stomach was a reminder that yes, at some point I should have dinner.
I pushed myself off the armchair. The muscles in my back twanged from so much time spent sitting. Sitting and gazing into visions of times past.
But I still hadn’t found what I was looking for. Not the reason we’d fallen out with the fae. Not a reason to think we could ever count on them again. I bit my lip, nibbling at it in my frustration, as I climbed back up to the main floor.
Marco had stepped back from the doorway to let me through. “There’s my dragon shifter,” he said lightly. “Did you find anything useful?”
“I don’t know,” I said. The climb had left me dizzy. This belly needed food ASAP. “It’d probably be better if I talk about it with all of you at once.”
“I can summon a little patience.”
He paused, giving me a once-over. I guess I looked about as rough as I felt. The feline alpha’s expression softened. He cupped my face, cradling my jaw, and pressed a butterfly of a kiss to the middle of my forehead. “If you’re not there yet, you will be soon, princess. I’m sure of that.”
Good. Someone really should be, and it sure as hell wasn’t me.
The hearty smell of freshly grilled steaks reached my nose. By the time we arrived at the dining room, my mouth was full of saliva.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Marco announced with a smirk as the other alphas glanced up where they were standing around the table.
Kylie was there too. She bounded over first. “So what’s the big secret? Can you even tell us what’s down there? What have you been doing all afternoon?”
Everyone’s eyes trained on me. Waiting to hear that this trip had been worthwhile. My gut knotted. “It’s… kind of hard to explain.”
Marco rested his hands on my shoulder. “I think our Princess of Flames needs to get some nourishment into her. Where’s that dinner?”
As if on cue, a couple of the kin emerged from the kitchen then, carrying plates. Nate motioned for them to give the first one to me. I dropped into the nearest chair and grabbed the waiting cutlery.
It only took a couple of bites before my head started to clear. I gulped water from the glass someone had brought me and looked around the table. My alphas and Kylie were all eating, the rest of the kin having left us some privacy.
But their attention was still on me. As soon as my hands stilled, West looked up, catching my gaze with a question in his. Aaron raised his head, his own eyes glinting with enthusiasm. He must have been dying to know what dragon shifter secrets I’d discovered.
Nothing down in that archive felt all that top secret. I had the feeling no one except the dragon shifters was meant to go down there and handle the tablets directly, but nothing about them told me I shouldn’t share the information I’d learned.
The hard part was figuring out how to explain all that information without the helpful murmur of a voice in my ear and mental images for illustration.
“I haven’t found out anything specific about the vampires,” I said slowly. “There’s—it’s basically a records room. Pieces of history past dragon shifters saved for the ones who came later, about what happened in the past. I ended up spending most of the time on records about the fae.”
West’s eyes narrowed. “How do they fit in? Do you think they’re helping the vampires?”
“No, not at all,” I said, waving my hand as if that gesture would dispel any wrong impressions I’d given. “One thing I know from what I’ve heard is there’s no way the fae would ever ally with the vampires. They’re pretty much opposites. But I guess you all already know that.”
>
I rubbed my face. In so many areas, I was still just catching up to basic paranormal knowledge. There was one thing they didn’t know much about, though. “I was more interested in the ways they used to work with the shifters.”
“So the records talked more about that association?” Aaron leaned forward. “I don’t know why our own histories are so sparse on that subject.”
“It seems like the fae leaders mostly preferred to deal with the dragon shifters,” I said. “Something about… feeling the closest kinship with us, because they’re all about light and energy, and that’s kind of the same as our fire? So I don’t get the impression they interacted with the other shifters a whole lot even back then.”
“And better for us that they didn’t,” West muttered.
I hesitated. I knew better than maybe anyone here what a sensitive subject this was for him. “They were good allies, at least in some ways, back then,” I had to say. “It’s thanks to them and one of the past dragon shifters that I’ve been able to draw the truth out of our enemies. They created that power so it would be ready when there was a time of great need… It took them years to perfect it and contain it. The fae didn’t get anything out of that effort except knowing they’d given us a new strength.”
“That and a handy way to tempt shifters up the mountain where they could pick us off,” Marco pointed out.
I glowered at him. “That obviously wasn’t the original plan.”
“What was the plan?” Nate asked in his low baritone. “Why did they think someone would need that power? Why not give it to the dragon shifter already there?”
“I guess that dragon shifter didn’t need it. The impression I get is that it was, like, an ace for us to have up our sleeve. Seeing how quickly the world was starting to change, how much territory humans were claiming here… Little did they know it’d be partly our own people causing the chaos.” I grimaced. “But that’s not the point.”
