Then he turned, looked up at his sister, already aloft, and folded his arms across his chest. His scaled armor stretched, becoming the armor of the dragon. Bones stretched and grew with cracking noises, but Corban closed his eyes and remained calm and quiet. The blue leather of his wings unfurled from his shoulder blades, stretching outward to either side. Claws jutted from his gloved fingertips, wicked, icy talons a foot long. He grew to ten times his former size, then twenty, his new weight crunching the ice and snow beneath him.
When he was fully transformed, he felt the power surge through him, the ripple of reptilian muscle and the icy core at the base of his neck, ready to unleash a storm of freezing breath. His mind worked differently in dragon form as well, less concerned with the politics and pressures of ruling a kingdom, and more with the needs of the flesh. He was ravished, his thoughts now only focused on the elk his sister had spoken of.
She had already reached the top of the trees, heading north, her great wings beating against the cold sky. But Corban was bigger than her, so that when he launched skyward, the ground shook. The trees trembled, snow falling from their branches. He vaulted upwards, feeling the cold air across his snout and the leather of his wings. For a moment, his worldly cares were whisked away.
He flapped his mighty wings, turning north to follow Astra. He was faster than her as well, so he caught up with her with little effort, falling in to glide alongside her.
Within minutes, he saw the swarm of black dots below, like ants moving along in a line. But these were no ants. They were giant elk, their legs as tall as a man.
Astra moved low, swooping above the herd, and Corban overtook her. The weakest and slowest animals were in the back. He wanted the strongest and fastest. He set his keen eyes on a male at the head of the stampede. The elk were running full out now, already having been attacked from above by dozens of other dragons.
Corban’s prey had a massive rack of antlers, and its body was huge, larger than any of its brothers. Corban flapped his wings, his shadow falling over the terrified herd below. Their hooves threw up snow as they charged ahead, but there was nowhere else for them to run.
He flattened his wings alongside his body and dove for the big one, his claws sinking into the meat of the elk’s shoulders as he struck. The elk bellowed as Corban hauled it aloft, beating his wings hard. The elk was heavy and strong, thrusting his head backward in an attempt to gorge Corban with his antlers.
But it was no use. Corban flew high, carrying his prey up to the top of an ice-capped peak, tilting its head downward to avoid the swing of its head. Twice he almost lost his grip. He had almost been too greedy in choosing the strongest of the herd, but with the clan watching, he had to make a statement.
Near the top of the mountain, the elk’s strength began to flag. Corban flapped his wings hard, eyeing an outcropping with a nice, flat place to land. He flew high above it, dropping the elk so that it broke its neck as it landed.
Then he descended on his prey, his claws slamming down onto the body. He craned his neck down, opened his jaws, and began to feed.
Hunting again felt good. But something in the back of his mind nagged at him. Something told him that dragons were actually the ones being hunted.
3: Miranda
She had lied to the trucker from the night before. She didn’t need to get up early. Her next shift didn’t start until two the next afternoon. So she slept in, then woke, showered, and made herself some toast and coffee.
Miranda sat at her tiny kitchen table, sipping at her cup and looking down at her cum-stained uniform on the floor. She sighed. Was this really what her life had become?
Her dad had skipped out on her and her mom when she was five, leaving her mom to raise her. Except, it was actually the other way around. Since her mom had been a drunk, Miranda actually had to take care of her most of the time. Miranda had cleaned the house, bought the groceries, cooked the food, and damn near everything else all the way up until two years ago, when her mom had died. Ironically, it wasn’t the drinking that had done her in, or even the smoking. She had a tumor at the base of her spine. It was whatever stage was the worst by the time they caught it.
Miranda had missed out on college, even though her grades and her test scores were good enough. She’d missed out on her childhood. Hell, she’d missed out on life.
And now she was a twenty-six year old waitress at the truck stop Benny’s just outside of Norman, Oklahoma, and she felt like the whole world had just passed her by.
“I’ve had enough of this shit,” she said out loud to herself. And she really meant it this time. Rhonda was coming in during the evening shift. Now that girl had her shit together. She was nearly finished with a business degree, and when she graduated she was getting out of this hellhole.
I’m going to talk to her tonight, Miranda thought. I’m going to ask her what I need to do to get enrolled in school. Because she had to do something. She couldn’t go on like this.
After breakfast she loaded up her beat-up red Honda and headed to the laundromat. There, she sat in a curved orange plastic chair and nearly finished her stupid thriller while kids ran screaming between the washing machines.
When she walked into Benny’s twenty minutes late, Benny gave her a dirty look.
“What?” she said. “There’s nobody here.”
“That’s beside the point,” Benny said. “And you know it.” He was a skinny black man who always wore that stupid white paper hat on his head while he cooked. He’d always been good to Miranda, though, and that was one of the reasons she’d stayed there. Other than that she had no marketable skills and nowhere else to go.
“Sorry, boss,” she said with no actual regret in her voice. Benny just sighed and shook his head from behind the kitchen shelf and went back to doing his crossword puzzle.
Miranda tied on her apron and took her place at the end of the counter, taking out her book and leaning against the chrome railing. She riffled the remaining pages with her thumb, then checked the number of the last page. She had thirty-two pages to go.
No sooner had she buried her nose back into the final pages of the book then she heard a loud whistle from the kitchen. She looked to see Bennie, eyes wide, staring out the front window of the restaurant. He pointed his metal spatula in that direction and said: “What in the hell?”
Miranda turned her head to look out the front, where a brand new black stretch limousine had pulled to a stop longwise across six or seven parking spaces. The driver got out. He was huge. He wore a dark suit, like a limo driver might, but no tie, the white shirt under his blazer open down to the middle of his bulky chest, showing a mat of dark, curly hair. His long black hair was woven into a thick braid that fell down his back. Black sideburns covered his jaws, and he peered out from beneath heavy eyebrows with sharp brown eyes, scanning the entire area.
For what? Miranda thought. What the hell is he looking for or worried about around here? The man looked like a cross between a monster and a secret service agent, and she half-expected some super-villain to step out of the back of the limo when the driver opened the door.
Instead, a woman swung a single bare leg out of the darkness, wearing a high red heel. The beast-driver held out his giant palm. a slender hand with long red nails emerged from the darkness to take his hand. Then she stepped out into the afternoon light, a raven-haired woman in a blood-orange mini-dress. Though the sun was bright, she didn’t wear sunglasses, and Miranda could see her dark eyes, not squinting despite the brightness of the sun. Her black hair was shoulder-length, and every inch of her looked perfect, as if she’d just walked out of a salon. Lipstick the same shade as her dress was perfectly applied.
The woman walked toward the restaurant as her driver closed the limo door and crossed his arms to stand by the car. The little bell over the front door jingled as the woman entered.
Miranda still leaned over the counter, the book clutched in both hands. She hadn’t moved a millimeter since she’d looked out the front windo
w. She was frozen. She’d never seen a woman so elegant, one that moved so gracefully and powerfully, at least in person. She was reminded of starlets from the thirties and forties, with perfectly-coifed hair and hourglass figures, moving like porcelain panthers across the golden screen.
The woman glanced around the empty restaurant, then chose a booth by the door. She carried a small purse, and she put it on the seat beside her as she slid onto the seat. She picked up a menu and began perusing it.
“Psst.”
Miranda turned her head, not wanting to look away from the woman. She saw Benny looking at her, nodding his head toward the woman. “Go take her order,” he whispered.
Oh, she thought. Right. For a minute there she almost forgot who she was, where she was. The car, the driver, and the woman all seemed like some kind of waking dream.
She put the book face down on the counter, though she would never finish it. She would never know that the serial killer was actually the lead detective’s partner, killing all those people and pulling out their teeth right under his nose.
Miranda walked to where the woman sat, pulling out her order pad and taking a pencil from her uniform pocket as she did. She was nervous, which felt very strange. All sorts came in here, people who looked like they’d just got out of prison or were about to be headed there. She’d served tables full of bikers and booths full of truckers, and never once could she remember being nervous. But as she stepped up in front of the booth and looked down at the woman’s gorgeous face and the top of her ample cleavage, Miranda’s hands were shaking.
The woman looked her up and down, seeing her for the first time, then met her gaze once again. “Good afternoon,” she said.
“Uh,” Miranda said. “Good afternoon. Can I take your order?”
“Yes, I’d like your thickest cut of steak, as rare as possible.”
Okay, Miranda thought. “Any sides?”
“No, thank you.”
“Anything to drink?”
The woman furrowed her brow for a second. “I’ll have a cup of coffee.”
“I’ll put that right in for you,” Miranda said. The woman was still looking into her eyes, her gaze mesmerizing. Miranda found it hard to break off contact, but she did, turning to take the order to the kitchen.
She didn’t bother handing an order to Benny. She hadn’t written anything down. “T-bone. Still mooing,” she said.
“That’s it?” Benny whispered.
“That’s it,” she said.
Benny nodded and ran to the walk-in fridge to retrieve a steak. Seemed like the mere presence of this woman was making everyone act weird.
Miranda picked up a clean cup and the pot of coffee. She thought about brewing a fresh pot, but the woman wasn’t royalty. Or was she? Besides, if she’d stopped at Benny’s to eat, she couldn’t exactly expect fine dining, right?
The woman had her hands in her lap, looking down at something when Miranda brought her the coffee. Whatever it was, Miranda didn’t get a good look at it before the woman slid it further under the table.
She put the cup down and poured a steaming cup. The woman looked up at her again, locking her with that riveting gaze. She had a wry half-smile on her lips.
“Did you ever wonder if your life wasn’t meant for something else?” she asked.
Miranda paused with the cup filled halfway. Every damned day, lady, she wanted to say. But who was the woman talking about? Was she really asking about Miranda, or was she somehow talking about herself? If she was talking about herself, she had some nerve rolling up here in a brand new limo, whining about how hard she had it to a waitress in a roadside diner. But Miranda couldn’t tell.
“No,” Miranda said.
The woman’s half-smile turned into a full one, though her eyes weren’t smiling. Her eyes were saying she didn’t believe Miranda one bit. Her eyes said she thought Miranda was full of shit.
Miranda didn’t like that look, and increasingly she didn’t like this woman. She finished pouring the coffee.
“I’m just gonna go check on your food,” Miranda said.
“Yes,” the woman said, and now there was something else in her eyes. Sadness? “Thank you.”
Miranda put the pot back in the maker. A plate was waiting on the stainless steel shelf. She picked it up and looked at it, a sixteen ounce T-bone that Benny had lain across the grill for less than a minute on each side. The customer had wanted it as rare as she could get it, and Benny had complied. The meat sat in a pool of bloody juice. The customer’s always right, right?
She walked it back to the booth and slid the plate onto the table.
“That look all right?” she asked.
“Fine,” the woman said, not bothering to look down at the steak. She was staring straight ahead, just taking small sips every few seconds.
“Okay then,” Miranda said. “If there’s anything else I can get for you, just let me know.”
The woman did look up at her then. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
Miranda felt a little sorry for dismissing whatever problems this woman might have so casually earlier. Even rich and beautiful people had problems, too, she supposed. And this woman definitely had something going on. Miranda wasn’t her therapist, though, and her sympathy only stretched so far. She figured maybe she wouldn’t mind switching places with her for a few days, seeing if maybe she couldn’t handle whatever issues were going on.
After a second or two, the woman closed her mouth, then turned to keep looking straight ahead. She took another sip of her coffee.
Miranda stifled the impulse to shrug and just headed back to her perch at the counter.
She picked her book back up and opened it. She started to read, or at least thought she did, but by the time her eyes reached the bottom of the page she realized she didn’t remember any of what she had read. She couldn’t focus on the words at all. The woman’s question just kept playing itself over and over in her head. Did you ever wonder if your life wasn’t meant for something else?
“Hey!” Benny yelled from the kitchen. Miranda looked up and saw that the woman was no longer sitting in the booth. The hairy hulk of a limo driver was crouching to climb back into the driver’s seat.
“Did she pay her check?” Benny asked. The limo was now pulling out of the parking lot. If she hadn’t paid, they weren’t going to run her down, and they weren’t going to call the state police for a twelve dollar check.
Miranda didn’t even know if she’d finished the steak. “Maybe she left it on the table.”
“Maybe you should go check,” he said.
She rolled her eyes at him and got up, putting the book down once again. As she stood over the booth, the first thing she noticed was the smell, as if something had been burnt. The steak was half eaten, but the half that remained was charred black. That was weird.
There was no money on the table that she could see, but there was a small black velvet pouch next to the plate. She picked it up, tugging at the little gold drawstring that cinched it tight. She peered inside, shielding what she was holding from Benny’s view.
All she could see was the dark glint of something shiny. She turned the bag over and dumped the contents into her hand. A gold necklace spilled into her palm, with a red gemstone the size of a small egg affixed to it. She nearly let out a gasp.
“She leave anything?” Benny yelled from the kitchen.
Miranda rolled the thing over in the light streaming in from outside. No way this thing was real. If it were, why in the hell would she leave it here? She slipped it and the bag into her apron pocket.
“Yeah,” Miranda yelled back. “She left a twenty.”
“Whew,” Benny said, letting out a nervous laugh. “Okay then. I’ll be in my office if by some miracle we get another customer before dinner.”
“Sure,” Miranda said, opening her apron and taking one more quick peek at the necklace and its enormous red gem. Could that possibly be a ruby? Its oval, multifaceted face shimme
red up at her. No way it was a ruby and no way it was real. She didn’t even have a clue where to get something like this appraised. She sure as hell wasn’t hauling it down to Speedy Pete’s Pawn Shop.
She closed her apron and walked back to the kitchen to get a gray plastic bin so she could bus the table. As she cleared the dishes, she felt the weight of the necklace resting against her thighs. Maybe things were finally about to turn around for her. Maybe that woman saw something in Miranda, wanted to help her out. Or maybe it was just a piece of shitty costume jewelry. No matter what, at least today wasn't going to be boring.
4: Corban
Once he returned to Everfrost Keep, Corban made straight for Wygard’s tower in the east wing. As he walked the empty halls, his footsteps echoed in the cold air. Some, his sister included, thought the keep was a lonely place, dark, cold, and empty. But he liked it here. It was peaceful. It felt like home.
He reached the bottom of the winding staircase that led to the top of the tower. He sighed as he looked up the hundreds of steps that led to the top where Wygard dwelled. He could have summoned for the old owl. Instead, he put his foot on the first step and began to climb.
As he worked his way up the spiraling stairs, his stomach heavy with the morning’s kill, he thought of his father. Orric Everfrost used to sit upon the icy roost in dragonform, his blue wings tucked behind him, his silver eyes wisely surveying all. Corban still couldn’t see himself taking his father’s place. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t time.
And yet, Astra had said a broodmate had been called for, a Wildfire. The thought made the elk in his belly sour. He didn’t need such a distraction right now. On top of trying to find his father, he still needed to tend to the daily duties of running a kingdom. Everyone, it seemed, wanted something. No one was happy. Petty disputes about hunting grounds. Demands to deal with poachers along the southern border. Meanwhile, his spies were reporting growing distrust and unrest between the Nightshadows and Moonglows, perhaps the dawn of a new war between the clans. Was this what being a king was?
Dragon Blue: A Lie That's True (The Dragonlords of Xandakar, Book1) Page 2
