by Ophelia Bell
“I think you know as well as I do, Rohan,” Willem said. “Not all the members of the bloodline were human to start with.”
Our gazes held for a moment longer, then I swallowed and turned away. I’d never told anyone what I’d experienced on the Equinox three weeks ago. I’d woken up that morning particularly energized as though the sex Keagan and I had had the night before had given me a double-dose of magic. But the strange thing was that it hadn’t faded, even after shifting and flying or using my powers for the next few weeks. And it still clung to me.
The warning we’d received a couple days prior to that night seemed connected. It’d been delivered on the Wind in turul fashion, warning us to stay scarce until after Equinox. Then the message had arrived shortly after. It’d sounded like it was meant for humans, not dragons like me. If our leaders had planned a ritual to somehow control the bloodline, this dark beauty’s unexpected appearance in the store had to be the reason.
“Rohan, you really need to pay more attention, kid,” Sandor said, shaking his head. “Willem’s been waiting for you to get it.”
I shot a glare at him over the diminutive, but let it fade into a smile and shrugged. “I don’t like to overthink things. So what if I’m part of the bloodline too?”
“It was your mother, wasn’t it?” Keagan asked gently. “You said she was an Ultiori defector. That’s how you wound up with some of the Lamia’s blood; All the Ultiori were infused with it.”
I returned my attention to the woman across the store, offering only a half-shrug to my big ursa friend. So I had a darkish ancestry, but that was the past. Suddenly what Willem and Sandor had both said hit me and I turned to stare at Willem. “You too?”
Sandor chuckled and muttered something about dumb blondes that I chose to ignore.
Willem nodded solemnly. “The first ascension there were quite a bit more defectors. My great-great grandmother chose a former Ultiori soldier for a mate. He’d served under Nikhil himself.”
“So you and I are both part of the bloodline too . . . even though we’re dragons.”
“You heard the message, didn’t you?” Willem said.
Keagan stood up straighter, at least three inches taller than me at full height. “You two got a message? From who?”
I shrugged. “From the Council or whatever they’re calling themselves now that all our leaders have hooked up. The Quantum? I can’t fucking keep track. But it was meant for the humans who carry the blood. Like we were all copied on the same email or something.”
Keagan snorted, probably because I’d only just grasped how email worked after nearly two years of him trying to teach me. As an ursa on his pilgrimage, he’d spent a lot more time in the human world than I had. I’d spent the bulk of the last five centuries in hibernation.
“From the leaders of the higher races,” Willem supplied. “Otherwise known as The Quorum. The two of you weren’t involved in the war, but Sandor and I were in the Haven at the end. Dionysus sacrificed his power to subvert the Lamia’s hold on her victims, and to facilitate her death at Nikhil’s hand. It’s the god’s blood that runs through the bloodline now, instead of our enemy’s, and god blood comes with some side effects. Not the least of which is that the bloodline now has the ability to recognize the higher races for what we are.”
“Hence the message,” I said, finally catching on.
“Hence the message,” Willem agreed. He tilted his chin at the woman. “So either she is bloodline or she’s one of us, but I can’t for the life of me decide which.”
“She has a human aura,” I said, shifting my sight to be able to view the cloud of energy that surrounded every sentient being. It shifted in a crisp, clear glow around her curvy shape, the perfectly textbook example of an aura, which honestly made no sense. Humans were messy, complicated creatures. Their auras were never so . . . unadulterated. “Except it’s missing something. Besides, she’s too fucking beautiful to be human.” I tilted my head, enthralled by both her beauty and her aura, then she set the guitar down and reached for a different one hanging on a higher rack. Her shirt slid up, revealing a tight expanse of burnished skin and I completely forgot to care about her aura.
She wore black leather pants that molded perfectly to her curvy ass, and a thick, metal-studded belt to accent her narrow waist. Sweet Mother, this girl could not be human, looking like that. When she let out a frustrated noise, I jumped to action, ignoring Willem’s reminder that I didn’t work here and it was his job to help the customers. Fuck that.
“Here, I’ve got that,” I said, slipping up beside her and casually gripping the guitar by the neck. The magic in the instrument hummed beneath my touch, making my fingers ache to hang onto it and play. But she wanted it, and I desperately wanted to know pretty much anything I could learn about her.
With a sharp intake of breath she turned and stared up at me. My own breath left my lungs entirely. Her eyes were the oddest combination of colors I’d ever seen. Not a single color but a variegated rainbow, darkest black in the center, then a deep green, then blue fading into purple followed by red at the outer edge, with a final searing silver ring of light.
“Are you going to let me have it?” she asked.
I shook off the trance her eyes had put me in and laughed. “You sure you can play? These instruments are for pros. Hand-crafted by two master musicians right over there.” I turned and nodded toward Willem and Sandor who both gave me dubious looks in return. Keagan looked downright irritated that I’d even talk to her. Maybe because I’d beaten him to the punch.
She laughed, the melodic sound almost melting my ears. “I’ve had some practice. If you’ll allow me I can demonstrate.” She waggled her fingers at the guitar.
“All right, let’s see what kind of chops you’ve got.” I relinquished the instrument and she took it, her gaze traveling over the glossy ebony contours the way I’d just ogled her body moments ago. It was a beautiful instrument that I didn’t quite feel worthy to play. Sandor said he’d crafted it with a turul owner in mind, but the right one had yet to walk through the doors.
She hooked the strap over her neck and looked up at me again. Without blinking or looking at the strings, she began to play.
It was as though time stopped when the music filled the room. My heart had ceased beating, and when she added her voice to the chords she played, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I knew angels didn’t exist, but if they did, she’d qualify.
Her voice rang clear and strong and she closed her eyes as she plucked at the strings. Speechless, I glanced at the guys, wide-eyed. Keagan looked stunned, but Willem and Sandor both looked like they were about to leap for joy. Willem stabbed a finger toward the guitar on the wall next to me. At the same time, he blasted a message into my head, “She’s singing a goddamn duet, you dolt. Don’t let her down.”
In a flash I had the other guitar in my hands and picked up the rhythm of the familiar song. It was one the humans called a “classic,” but it was the perfect vehicle for her voice and mine to intermingle.
When we hit the chorus, the air grew charged enough for static to make the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Her eyes were still closed, her brows creased with the power of the emotions conveyed in the lyrics. I glanced down at her hands and nearly stopped playing. Tiny silver sparks danced between her fingertips and the guitar strings, and the fucking guitar glowed.
Then she opened her eyes and my entire world turned upside-down. I got lost inside her, as if every single word she sang called to me and me alone. Something in the very core of my being lit on fire and burned so hot my mouth went dry and I found it a challenge to belt out the last few words of the song.
There was no fucking way this girl was human, but she was like nothing I’d ever seen among the higher races either. Maybe angels really did exist. Either way, I knew to the core of my dragon soul that I had to have her.
I was breathless when the last verse ended, my fingertips tingling and my chest hot from the magic
I’d inadvertently pushed out of my lungs and into the words I’d sung. I ought to be more careful but a little joy smoke never hurt anyone.
My beautiful angel’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes blinking rapidly as though she were confused, but then her attention was suddenly grabbed by something behind me toward the store’s entrance. Her eyes went wide and she lurched toward me.
Then all hell broke loose.
5
Deva
They attacked out of thin air, too fast for me to warn my duet partner before they were on him. I had just enough time to stumble like an idiot flailing toward him with the guitar swinging under my arm and around to my back. I swung around in front of him just as he turned. I thought I’d made it in time to block the attack, but the hound jumped straight through me.
For a moment I wavered, disoriented from the cold, tingly invasion of my physical space. Then my vision cleared in time for me to see the man’s big frame topple over, his eyes wide and his arms flying up as though he could see the thing that had just sunk its teeth into the center of his abdomen.
He roared, the sound far from human. If I hadn’t seen his dragon nature in his aura, that would have given him away in an instant. Then a billowing torrent of flames erupted from his mouth and nose, straight at the beast on his chest and beyond it to encompass me as well.
I yelped in surprise, instinctively raising my hands to protect my face, even though my conjured clothing was dissolving in dragon flames around me. The hound howled and ran, charging through my flame-covered legs and back the way it had come.
From the other side of the store behind the counter came an unholy ruckus that mirrored what had just happened in front of me. Lightning shot out of the fingertips of the smaller, darker of the two men behind the counter and the second hound released his friend and ran off after the first.
The scruffy ursa who’d been at the counter when I came in ran to the side of the dragon.
“Rohan! What the fuck just happened?” He shot a menacing look at me. “What did you do to him?”
The dragon—Rohan, I guessed—wasn’t answering. He lay there inert, with his guitar smoking from where his fire had singed it.
“Gaia’s tears, Rohan!” The ursa crouched over his friend, shaking him by the shoulders, then darted a wild look around the store. “For fuck’s sake will someone tell me what just happened?”
“I . . . I think I can explain,” I stammered, my gut wrenching. They shouldn’t have come, not in daylight. And they hadn’t yet attacked any of the higher races . . . all their behavior so far pointed to them being after the bloodline. I fucking hoped I could explain. Reckless. I’d been reckless testing out such a powerful instrument knowing music could affect them. When they’d appeared just outside the window, the yellow blaze on the hound’s face had caught my eye just before it launched itself the rest of the way across the store. Its pale-pawed companion had followed suit on the opposite side. And now two more victims were bitten.
I couldn’t let myself think about the fact that Bodhi and his mother had hopefully been mercifully unlinked from the hounds now that they’d chosen two new victims. I shifted my vision to see the core of power in the center of Rohan’s chest and a hot lump formed in my throat. Four large puncture wounds marred the surface of his soul, and red-gold power gradually seeped out of it before my eyes, like molten metal.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I came here to fix it. I promise.”
The big, white-haired dragon who ran the store lay slumped against the wall behind the counter, unconscious. The turul stood and came over, regarding me with a dark look. “I’ll close up. Keagan, you get Ro upstairs and find the girl some clothes. I’ll be up with Willem in a few and we’ll sort this out.”
Silently, Keagan obeyed, hoisting Rohan up and draping him over his shoulders as though he were merely a sack of grain. With barely a glance back at me, he turned and headed to the back of the store, through a heavy steel door, and stomped up a concrete stairwell.
My gut was an icy tangle of dread and confusion as I followed, and my eyes burned from the tears that threatened to fall. None of this made sense. Bodhi’s grandmother said the music was the only thing that helped. He had to have been playing for her before I got there, and yet the hounds hadn’t attacked them again. And now . . . they’d followed me out in daylight? And attacked two dragons?
As much as I hated the idea of reaching out to my family for help, now that things were progressing I was starting to wonder if I was in over my head. I had no useful powers—nothing like the fire Rohan had just breathed, or the lightning the turul man had shot from his fingertips, both of which had clearly sent the hounds running. My ears still rang with their yelps of pain.
We reached a landing and another metal door. The ursa opened it and then stared at it, glancing between the opening and the huge mass of unconscious dragon flesh slung over his shoulders.
“Let me help,” I said. Blinking to clear my vision, I climbed the last couple steps and stepped in front of him, my face warming at the awareness of how very naked I was. The apparently fire-resistant guitar was the only thing I still wore. Its strap just barely obscured one of my nipples, my hair draping over the other breast, and from the ursa’s height, the body of the instrument probably blocked my hips, but the dragon’s fire had succeeded in pretty much dissolving every stitch of conjured clothing I wore.
I pushed into the room and held the door open from the inside, carefully holding the guitar in place to protect what little dignity I had left. I half-heartedly tried conjuring a new outfit but could tell my well was completely dry. It was as though the hound’s passage through me had somehow sapped every last drop of power I had.
The ursa turned sideways and bent his knees, his brows scrunched with worry and concentration as he maneuvered the dragon’s big body through the door. His golden curls came first, his head lolling dangerously close to the jamb. I pressed back against the door and reached out, protectively covering his head with my hand as he passed through to keep him from knocking into it. His hair was soft as silk and my heart fluttered at the memory of his sweet, rough voice joining mine in the duet.
I knew dragons could sing. My stepmother Belah regularly sang with a band and occasionally she and her two turul mates would grace me with their music and we’d sing together. Her voice was a rich alto that complemented the saxophones my stepfathers both played. My dad—Belah’s first love, but her third mate—didn’t seem to have any musical inclination whatsoever, but adored the three of them and never missed a session when we sang together.
This dragon had a voice like honey, it had evoked an unmeasurable joy in me just to have him share that moment, for all the damage it had done him in the end.
The ursa twisted to lay him down and I let the door swing shut, jogging across the big living space to help. The guitar knocked against my elbow and I stopped to deposit it on the coffee table. I was dealing with one unconscious man and another who seemed more concerned about his friend than about the naked girl beside him. My abundance of exposed skin could take a backseat to the drama for now. I was a shifter, presumably, though I had yet to learn to shift, and my family generally didn’t give two shits about being naked in mixed company. It was a habit I was still learning to acclimate to.
I reached the sofa in time to help the ursa lower his friend to the cushions and had a pillow ready to support his head. The pair of us remained kneeling beside him in silence for a moment and the worry and tension in the ursa’s aura flared and pulsed intensely enough for the small hairs on my arms to stand on end. I frowned as it occurred to me that their relationship might be deeper than mere friendship, but the dragon’s song had been one of the more intimate interactions I’d had with a man—more so than the duet I’d sang with Bodhi the night before.
Not something I needed to sort out now, anyway. Not when I had another comatose victim of a creature I still wasn’t equipped to understand.
“Is he goin
g to die?” the ursa asked, his gruff voice cracking with emotion.
I winced, then cautiously answered. “Not if I can help it.” Magic bled from the punctures in his soul, evaporating into mist and floating away in the direction the hounds had gone. I pressed a hand in the center of his chest, as though I could somehow stanch the flow, but it only passed through my flesh, a barely perceptible warmth carrying pieces of his life away with it.
“Who the fuck are you?” the ursa asked, finally turning his head to look at me.
His sand-brown eyes flashed with accusation when I glanced at him, opening my mouth to answer. I was interrupted by the door flying open with a bang as the turul entered, pushing through with somewhat less grace than the ursa had, the big white dragon draped over his shoulders. He stomped wordlessly into another room and I heard a grunt and a soft thump as he deposited his friend onto a bed.
The ursa and I both stood up. Sunlight washed across my naked skin from the big windows and I stooped again, grabbing a blanket from the sofa and wrapping it around me.
The turul slipped back into the room, his gaze dark and sparking with telltale wind magic that he thankfully kept in check. An emotional turul could causes hurricanes if he were powerful enough and lacked self-control. He darted a look at the guitar on the coffee table, then looked at me again.
“You aren’t turul yet you played her like she was meant for you. Who the fuck are you?”
I blinked at him, then glanced between the unconscious dragon on the sofa and the room he’d just come out of. My mouth opened to ask why he cared about the damn guitar and not his friends. He cut me off with a swipe of his hand through the air, his fingers awash in pale silver electricity.
