by Ann Gimpel
“He’s overreacting, right?” she asked her bondmate, and then remembered it was lost to her. Or it may as well be. Still, something soothing emanated from somewhere. Everything would be fine. If she’d just let go and trust to the future.
Muted and from a distance, she heard Johan shouting in Dutch. “Take me, instead.”
The panic she’d been holding in check bloomed into full-blown terror. What in the fuck was wrong with her? Konstantin’s assessment must have been spot on, just like all his appraisals. How could she have doubted her twin? Johan had just bade evil to join with him. Shifters weren’t like vampires. They didn’t require an invitation, but it made things so much easier with a willing victim.
She struggled against whatever had gained a toehold over her sanity, her will. It was uphill every step of the way. Steep. Rocky. Icy. She slid back several metaphorical steps for every one she managed. Meanwhile, had the serpent jumped ship? Was Johan’s invitation too appealing to turn down?
“Come on, you bastard. Stick with me,” she exhorted.
At the edges of her peripheral vision, Konstantin’s black dragon blasted into view. Around her, the other dragons were forming. At least she thought they were. Her ability to see anything was still truncated, wavering. Crap. If this was how serpents viewed the world, how did they ever get anything done?
The burning, tearing sensation amped into agony so searing it took center stage. She reached for her chest, wanting to do something, anything to make it stop. Images of water pounded through her. Water would fix everything. Water cooled burns. Water was life. Hope.
She would have crawled toward melting puddles of snow, but she was surrounded by dragons and Johan, still in his human body. He crouched next to her, put his face right up next to hers. “I love you, Katya. You have to fight through this. Kon says he can’t save you if the serpent completes the transformation.”
Johan grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Did you hear me?”
She tried to nod, may have managed it, but probably not because his next words were, “Blink once if you heard me.”
She shut her eyes. It was a hell of a struggle to open them again.
“Katya!” He sounded panic stricken, but then her ears stopped cooperating.
I am stronger than this.
She repeated the words, turning them into a mantra with no beginning and no end. Her dragon could read thoughts. We’re in this together, she reminded her bondmate. If I am lost, you are too. We must shift. Break through before the enchantment pushes us beyond salvation.
No wonder she felt compelled to find water. Sea-serpents shifted in water. It wasn’t life or hope for her. Water would seal her doom. Her muddled thoughts cleared slightly.
The pain raking her might have lessened a little. It was still so pervasive, she couldn’t be certain. Except now she recognized it. The goddess be damned serpent was trying to shift, using her body as a conduit out of its trapped one. She could not allow that to happen.
Gathering her will in tiny bits and shards and pieces, she cobbled it together, ignoring the inner humming meant to soothe her into insensibility. If she’d noticed that insidious droning earlier, she wouldn’t be stuck in her current predicament.
Anger flared. It helped beat back pain and hopelessness. When she reached for her dragon this time, she punched through the barrier. Furious bugling burst from her mouth, the first sound she’d made since this entire odyssey began. Katya plowed through layers of slime. Of muck. Of shit standing between her and her shift magic.
Power shot into her. Johan and Konstantin. Doing their damnedest to help. “We can do this,” she told her bondmate. Katya wanted to crow. She had a voice again.
“Yes,” the dragon answered. “We can.”
Ripping, stretching, tearing exchanged the pain she’d been living with for something far more familiar. Shifting hadn’t hurt since she was a very young girl, but it hurt like a bitch now. Gave her a whole new appreciation for what Johan and Erin had gone through.
Still frightened to her soul hers and her dragon’s combined efforts wouldn’t be enough, she ran wide open. Or as wide open as she could. She saw the serpent now. Felt its malevolent presence and booted it out of her body. One mighty heave, and she was free.
Free and flying. She’d never shifted so fast, nor been so relieved to see her beast’s golden scales. Below her, Konstantin and Nikolai closed on the serpent and hammered his human body with lethal force. The man who had housed the serpent formed a conical pyre, burning like only dragonfire could. Heat blasted upward.
“What happened to us?” her bondmate asked, sounding very subdued and not dragonlike at all.
“We were tricked,” Katya bugled in dragonspeak. “It will never happen again.”
She flew in tight circles, watching the serpent burn to a pile of blackened cinders. Once it was well and truly gone, she landed and summoned shift magic. Having her power back within her control felt damned good. She’d never take it for granted again.
Kon and the others hurried to her. As soon as she could talk, she asked, “Why didn’t you kill it before?”
Her twin nailed her with his gaze. “We couldn’t have while it was partially within you. Your immortality protected it.”
Shame gutted her. She’d misjudged. Because of her, they’d lost their chance to grill the serpent and maybe learn something. “I’m sorry. I never dreamed it had the kind of power to take over my body.”
Nikolai thinned his mouth into a grimace. “They might not be dragons anymore, but we underestimate them at our peril.”
“No kidding,” she muttered.
Johan ran to her. “Thank Christ, you are unharmed.”
Konstantin turned his whirling eyes, still dragon’s eyes, on Johan. “You will never invite wickedness into yourself again.”
“Got it. You already said as much. I do not require a reminder.”
“Just making certain I was clear,” Konstantin growled.
Johan’s earlier words returned in a rush. He’d said he loved her. Had he truly meant it? Or was he so distraught about the serpent, he was pulling out every trick in the book to draw her back from disaster?
“He is ours,” her dragon spoke up and puffed steam in Johan’s direction.
Katya hoped her bondmate was right. More than hoped. Her dragon nature needed to hold him to his word. Except humans didn’t operate like that, and Johan was still more human than dragon.
She wrenched her thoughts back from the man who’d been willing to trade his freedom for her own and stood tall. “Again. I am sorry I wasn’t more vigilant. Do we wait for the birds to return? Or do we all travel to the sixth world to make damned good and certain none of his”—she angled her chin at the still-smoking cinders—“relatives survived the birds’ attack?”
Chapter 11
A Short Time Earlier
When I understood the serpent was trying to seize Katya’s body to escape the hold we had on its own, I felt helpless. Incensed such a thing could have happened, and ill-prepared to fight back. I could have left it to the other dragon shifters—the ones who actually understood how to wield their power—but I didn’t have it in me to walk away.
Katya knelt on the ground, head down as if she were praying. Her hair fell around her in a cascade of copper curls, the golden highlights pronounced in the soft light of this world. I may have danced around my feelings before, but in that moment I understood I’d fallen in love with her. Maybe my dragon had something to do with it, but I’d been attracted to her from the moment I laid eyes on her.
A man would have to be dead to not be smitten by her charms, yet my feelings extended far beyond her curves and hair and eyes. I’d fallen in love with her spirit, the bedrock of what made Katya who she was. Determined. Sure of herself.
Because I was still linked to her magic, I felt the moment when the serpent made the leap and tapped into her. My dragon shut off our magical flow damned fast, before I even thought it might be the wisest move.
>
“That was selfish,” I told my bondmate. “Now we cannot help her. Not as easily as we might have.”
“We would do no good at all if the serpent nabbed us along with her,” he retorted.
His words gave me the idea to offer myself. I’d wait until the situation was truly desperate, of course. But surely one dragon shifter was as good as the next for the serpent’s purposes.
All around me, dragons were shifting and bugling. Some took to the skies, but Konstantin and Nikolai remained on the ground. Kon tried to pick Katya up, but the moment he released her, she collapsed in a nerveless heap. It was as if she’d been drained of the ability to do anything. Not so much as an eyelid quivered.
It may have been ill-advised, but I shouted at the goddamned, fucking serpent to take me instead. My dragon gave me nine kinds of grief. I waited for Armageddon to fall on my head, but nothing happened. Apparently, I wasn’t as appealing a vessel as Katya.
Kon was chanting over her. Nikolai picked up the refrain. They seemed to have whatever magic they’d selected well in hand, so I knelt next to her. I blurted that I loved her and told her what I’d gleaned from her twin, which was that once the serpent fully had its claws into her, we wouldn’t be able to pull her back from its clutches. Not easily, anyway. The difference with the dragons we’d found in the ice was there were no serpents physically here guarding them, merely remnants of sea-serpent magic.
Even those remnants had given us a merry chase as we defused them.
Kon had also chastised me soundly for offering myself in Katya’s place, but she didn’t need to know that part.
Katya didn’t respond at all to anything I said. Finally, in desperation, I told her to blink if she’d heard me. She did, but it took her forever to close and then open her eyes. Surely, that level of inertia didn’t bode well. I shook her. Told her to try harder, but then Konstantin pushed me aside and pretty much did the same thing.
Except he shook her far harder than I had.
Erin pulled me to my feet. She didn’t say anything, but her presence provided a small bit of comfort. “Believe in her,” she said.
I was trying, but the shell of a person kneeling in front of me didn’t feel like Katya anymore. If I’d been more vigilant, more savvy about magic, maybe I’d have noticed what was happening sooner than I did. The fucking serpent had been trying for stealth, but once Katya voiced her suspicions about what it was up to, it had jettisoned stealth in favor of expediency.
“You should shift,” Erin told me. “I’m going to. We’re all stronger as dragons.”
“Thank you for caring about her, but I shall remain as I am. For now.”
Erin nodded that she understood and moved back a few meters. When I next glanced toward her, the red dragon was spreading its wings. Kon and Nikolai were still chanting like madmen. The serpent’s human body wasn’t standing anymore. It’s posture mirrored Katya’s, and the similarity gave me the creeps. I had the oddest feeling it would crumple to dust, like a discarded prop, once the serpent severed its connection.
I wanted to be closer to Katya, but Nikolai and Konstantin blocked my way. Nikolai was gold, like Katya but with more copper shadings. I missed her, ached for her in a way that left a hole in my soul.
Erin had told me I had to believe Katya was resourceful enough to find her way back from wherever she wandered, but the six brood-farm dragons hadn’t been able to break free from serpent ensorcellment.
Not on their own.
I told myself to think positive. I knew the drill. Imagine what I wanted to happen. Visualize it, and make it so. But this wasn’t a metallurgical project. This was the woman I loved.
“Not so different, after all,” my bondmate said. “Imagine the outcome you want. Focus all our energy on it. You’re spinning your scales picturing the worst possible result.”
I glommed onto my dragon’s words. Carved them across my forehead as I imagined Katya breaking through the serpent’s hold on her. “Come on,” I urged. “You can do this.” I’m certain she didn’t hear me. Not with two dragons bugling over her, but I repeated my command several times.
I sensed a not-so-subtle shift in the magic flowing around me. I took it as a good sign. Between two breaths, Katya’s body exploded. At first, I feared all was lost. The serpent had destroyed her in a fit of pique. But then, I saw golden scales and copper wings and Katya flapping to gain altitude.
I whooped and cheered and fist-pumped the air. Dragons shifted back to humans all around me.
Some combination of our efforts had worked, but I bet Katya had a whole lot to do with her freedom. She wheeled above us, banking and flying in figure-eights. The second she broke free, Kon and Nikolai set upon the serpent and killed it by dousing it in dragonfire.
I was still whooping and doing a victory dance when she landed. Suddenly shy about blurting out how I felt, I merely told her I was grateful as hell she’d survived. I wasn’t expecting her to fall into my arms, and she didn’t. She apologized to everyone—something I should do too, at some point—and asked what would happen next.
Maybe she wouldn’t even acknowledge what I’d told her. Perhaps she hadn’t heard, which might be better for everyone concerned, now that I thought about it.
“We could go to the sixth world,” Konstantin answered her question about what our next moves would be, “but I’m not at all certain we’ll find any remnants of either the bird shifters or the serpents.”
“They offered their help to us,” Erin pointed out. “The least we can do is show up on their world.”
“Erin.” Kon angled a pointed look her way. “The likeliest scenario is the serpents killed the birds and left.”
“We have to go,” I spoke up. “Erin is right. We owe them.”
Nikolai raked curved fingers through his messy hair. “You have a lot to learn about shifter hierarchy. We owe nothing to those below us.”
“Why are they below us?” Erin asked. She had a mulish expression I recognized from our days aboard the Darya. It meant something was important enough, she wasn’t about to back down.
“Their magic is inferior,” Boris answered.
“All the more reason to help them,” Katya insisted. “At the time we agreed they should return, we had no idea how sly the serpents were.” She stopped to blow out a tight breath. “It’s entirely possible while I was engaged in mortal combat with the monster, he was able to communicate telepathically. I underestimated him. And overestimated myself.”
Katya turned to me. “I feel terrible for involving you. How did you know to disengage?”
I winced. “It was not me, but my bondmate.”
“Well, thank the dragon god for your beast’s common sense.” She strode to her twin. “Come on. The sooner we take a look at the sixth world, the sooner we can figure out what to do next.”
“We were already there,” Erin reminded Kon, although I was certain he hadn’t forgotten. “There were hundreds of bird shifters, and a few other varieties too. We can’t just walk off and leave them to the sea-serpents’ whims.”
Konstantin let his gaze rest on each shifter briefly. “The sixth world it is. Any who don’t wish to accompany us, remain here. We’ll come back for you before we move on.”
In the end, everyone opted to join us. Guess they felt ashamed withholding aid. Our journey to the sixth world only took a few minutes. This place reminded me of eastern Colorado. Rolling and barren. Blue skies held a few fluffy clouds. Nowhere in Europe looks like this. It’s peppered with towns, hamlets, and villages sitting nearly on top of one another. Not much in the way of wide-open spaces until you get to the northern reaches of Scandinavia.
The various spells that transported us here frittered away. “We were in a different spot last time,” Erin noted.
“Of course, we were,” Kon replied. “No reason to bring us out in the middle of a battle. Or a field of dead shifters. Ward yourselves. Another small jump about two klicks due east, and we’ll be in the bird shifters’ primary vill
age.”
“Ready yourselves to kill,” Nikolai warned.
“The illusion shielding that serpent was sophisticated,” Katya said. “Be damn sure your target isn’t a shifter.”
“Easy enough,” Kon cut in. “We tell everyone to shift.”
“There were long minutes when I couldn’t have,” his twin noted bitterly.
“Point taken. Let’s get this over with.” Konstantin dropped a transport spell over us. When it cleared, I was glad the women had insisted we come. Fighting raged around us. There might only be three serpents, but each was ringed by at least a dozen shifters.
And they were barely holding their own.
The air ran thick with power. The sickly sweet rot of sea-serpent contamination mingled with the clean earthbound smells of shifter magic. I hustled to the farthest group, along with Nikolai, Melara, Boris, and Teena. Nikolai shifted, but the rest of us opened our mouths and let our dragons douse the serpent pinned in by the other shifters with dragonfire.
Once Nikolai was airborne, he hit the serpent from the air, coating it with still more flames. I’ve always been a bit of a pacifist. Not that there have been any wars I could have signed up for, but even if there had been, I doubt I would have volunteered without someone planting their boot in my behind.
This newfound bloodlust, where I welcomed opportunities to kick some serious ass, amused me on the one hand. And surprised me on the other. The transformation had truly changed me, and I liked the new me better than I had liked the old one.
He’s more primal. More tuned in to what’s truly important. And right now, ridding every world of sea-serpents had blasted to the very top of my list. The craven, sly fuckers didn’t deserve to waste the air they breathed.
Our serpent was reduced to an ash heap in short order. Nikolai clunked down heavily and shimmered back to being human. “I’m going to need a break,” he announced. “Food. Rest. All this shifting burns through magic like nothing else.”
When I glanced at the rest of the field, two more pyres crackled merrily. I dusted my hands together. End of this batch of serpents. Or was it? I eyed the group of shifters ranged around me.
