by Amelia Jade
Blaine’s sources said many of those things were neglected and rundown. That citizens did not wander freely in Fenris, but instead scurried from place to place, avoiding the packs of leopards and other shifters that ran almost wild. The Wards of Fenris, their equivalent to the Guardians, were often used as something close to terror squads, according to those he’d spoken to. Blaine thought that was exaggerated, but he knew the truth was buried in there somewhere.
The band began to play.
“Shall we?” he asked, setting his drink on a nearby table and taking hers as well.
“Lead on,” she said as Asher took Quinn’s hand, moving much more slowly for the inexperienced human.
They swirled out onto the dance floor and had just begun to fall into a rhythm when a finger tapped Blaine on the shoulder.
“May I step in?” a voice asked.
He saw Cassi’s eyes tighten almost immediately, and also noted the look of revulsion that crossed through them.
Who the hell would evoke such a reaction in her?
Still, it would be impolite to say no, though he did not wish to let her go at all. She was an adult, and Blaine didn’t recognize the voice, which meant it was likely someone from her own party. He could rescue her easily enough in a minute or two. The last thing he wanted was someone else in the party angry at him.
“I—”
“No, Taurin, you cannot,” she said, interrupting Blaine before he could say something else. “I promised Blaine I would dance with him in the interest of forming better Cadian-Fenris relations. If I were to back out now, it could do irreparable harm. You wouldn’t want to offend Blaine Wingstar, would you?”
She frowned, uncaring of the looks that crossed his face, as the other man was still behind him. Blaine detested it when others brought up his reputation. Yes, he was considered probably the fourth or fifth most talented and powerful dragon shifter in Cadia. But that didn’t mean he liked being known for that. He was proud of his own skills, but didn’t necessarily think it was necessary for everyone else to know how good he was.
“Ah, well, okay then,” the voice said, and he sensed the presence behind him fade, allowing him to resume moving with the music again.
As they twirled, he got a glimpse of a much older man with a greasy-looking black hair falling down almost to his shoulders. He had the broad musculature of a dragon shifter, but something about him just screamed…seedy, to Blaine. Perhaps it was his out-of-date but still expensive suit.
“Keep moving,” Cassi practically pleaded.
Blaine realized he’d stopped to evaluate the man. With a quick motion he spun them back up to speed and moved in the opposite direction. He continued to glance over at the man as he moved up next to Klara Nova and began to talk to her.
Eventually he tired of waiting for Cassi to explain who that was. “Are you going to tell me what that was about?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at her.
***
Cassian
“I suppose I owe you that, don’t I?” she said, heaving a reluctant sigh, though she didn’t stop him from moving her around the floor some more.
“Yeah, kinda,” he replied, a twinkle in his eyes.
“He’s a lecherous old wyrm,” she said bluntly. “I’m not particularly interested in having him touch me. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it.”
Blaine looked thoughtful for a moment, then spun Cassi out and twirled her back into his embrace. When she settled her hand back around his waist, her fingers only slightly touched his muscles through the material of his gray pinstriped suit.
Only slightly. I’m being proper. Right?
She was trying. The woodsy scent that was reaching up to tickle at her nostrils was making it harder by the moment. She just wanted to press herself into him, to feel his chest below her head.
There was a definite note of tension between them that thrummed constantly. They were both trying their best not to fan it, however, and so it stayed relatively…calm. Relatively.
“So he’s the head of your legal team?” Blaine asked.
Ice froze in her eyes as anger welled up and threatened to overwhelm her.
“No,” she ground out. “That’s the worst part. He’s not even here to participate in Garviel’s trial! He just saw an opportunity to gather more power for himself, and he took it! He’s just a useless appendage to the rest of us, but he acts like he’s king shit.”
Cassi hated politics and power plays with a mind-numbing passion. They were not her game, though she could play them if she so chose. But she didn’t, because they were inefficient. Bold, blunt, and efficient was her particular motto.
“Ah, the consummate politician,” Blaine said softly.
She couldn’t help but smile. “Exactly.”
“That would explain why he and Klara are getting along so well. They’re cut from the same cloth it would seem.”
“Well, if she keeps him busy, all the better for me. I’ll have to make sure I buy her a drink or something in thanks.”
Blaine smiled. “Oh, I’m sure they’ll ruin things for us somehow. Start a war or something when one of them uses the wrong phrase.”
Cassi laughed, and some of the tension that Taurin had brought on with his appearance began to fade as she was set at ease by Blaine’s lack of concern.
Part of her mind called out a warning at just how easily she was relaxed by him. He was a Cadian, just trying to get under her skin it wailed. He was using her, especially now that he knew who she was. He would get close to her, and get her to talk about things she shouldn’t, and then use that to further Cadia at the expense of Fenris.
Like now, when she’d revealed Taurin’s desires for her, and for more power. That was knowledge that—
That Blaine probably already had. You’re worrying too much.
But was she? What part of her was she thinking with just then, her brain, or something else? She was in—if not enemy territory—definitely dangerous ground. She needed to be on her guard constantly, not letting the suave dragon shifter seduce her.
Across from her she’d noted that Blaine’s expression had darkened.
“What is it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Just thinking. If those two buffoons do manage to start a war, it’s never them who pay the price. It’s always the young ones.”
She followed his gaze to where the young man she’d met earlier, Asher, and his mate were standing with two other couples, all roughly the same age. She looked back at Blaine, noting the sadness that hung in his eyes.
“You speak from experience,” she said softly, realization hitting home.
His pupils widened slightly, the jade circles around them hardening as they focused on her, trying to decide whether to trust her or not. In the end, they seemed not to see anything bad, because he kept speaking.
“Yes. I was there for the last great shifter war,” he said. “I was one of those young, naïve people fighting on the front lines.”
His voice became brittle and angry as he spoke about his memories. “So much useless bloodshed, setting us back centuries at least. Hundreds of us were killed.”
Cassi knew he was talking about dragons, not shifters in general.
“Then one of the great ones of the time fell, and that caught everyone’s attention. There was a lull in the fighting between the groups—this was before the strongholds had truly been established you see—and people seemed to come to their senses, thankfully.” He snorted. “All it took was the death of one of the oldest of our kind, of the old blood.”
Cassi nodded. Most modern dragons lived for anywhere between ten and thirteen centuries. Some less, some more. But it hadn’t always been so. Nobody quite knew what had happened, but at some point approximately fifteen hundred years earlier, something had changed in their DNA. As best could be determined. it was some sort of mutation,.
Dragons born before then could and often did live to be over two thousand years old. There were a few such drag
ons still around, but most of them were recluses, or were hibernating for decades or even centuries at a time. They were commonly referred to as the Great Ones, or those of the old blood.
“Anyway,” Blaine said with a shake of his perfectly-shaped head, “that’s enough of that sort of talk. Want to go get something a little more powerful than a glass of water?”
“I thought you would never ask,” she said gratefully, taking off almost at a run for the nearest bar, craving a drink to help make the night go by faster.
“Wine?” she asked in surprise as Blaine slid up next to her and ordered, having made his way along after her in a more dignified manner.
“It helps to wash away the sour taste left in my mouth after having to deal with this,” he told her with a swirl of his hand meant to encompass the evening’s gathering.
“You really do hate the power-brokering and politics, don’t you?” she murmured, making it more of a statement than a question.
“I like to teach new minds, and to protect my homeland. I don’t need any of that. All it does is enrich the few while depriving the many of any number of things that could help their lives become better,” he said bitterly.
Cassi eyed him with renewed respect. There was much more to Blaine than she’d suspected. He was not the depraved, fanatical lunatic rife with hunger for battle that she’d been told to expect of all the Guardians of Cadia. Instead he was calm, smart, and longed for peace more than anything, by the sounds of it.
Was he an anomaly among the rest of the locals? Or had perhaps—
She stopped herself from going down that line of thought, not quite ready to face some facts just yet.
“For your sake then, I hope this winds down soon,” she told him, raising her own wine glass to his before doing her best to disguise her long gulp as something slightly more dignified and worthy of her station.
It didn’t help that her gulp drained the entire glass. There was no disguising that. Still, maybe it would help fortify her against the burning that ran up her leg every time Blaine touched her.
Or it’s going to make you think with something other than your brain…
She eyed him discreetly, watching the way his suit jacket pulled tight over his arm and shoulder as he turned to place his own glass back on the bar counter for a moment.
Cassi motioned to the bartender for another glass.
Chapter Four
Blaine
The reception went on for several more hours. Despite their comments about the company and the need for alcohol, neither of them consumed anywhere near enough to overwhelm their systems. It took specially brewed alcohol, or a lot of the human stuff, to get them inebriated.
“I think,” he said slowly with a glance around at one point near midnight, “I think we can actually get ourselves out of here now, if we do so discreetly.”
“Whatever needs to happen, I’m down,” Cassi said immediately, her arm still crooked through his.
They had danced much of the night away, preferring each other’s company to that of the other occupants of the Hall. Blaine had come to find that she was a more than adequate dance partner. As they had whirled and glided across the floor, her movements had become more sure and relaxed, as if old skills were coming back to her that she hadn’t used in a long time.
She’d always been content to let him lead, however, and at one point had simply laid her head on his chest and followed along, simply losing herself in the dance with him. It had been…intoxicating to his dragon, who was roaring with anger at him.
After all, it knew he had no intentions of trying anything with her after they escaped the hall and its cringeworthy atmosphere.
“Do we need a distraction?” Cassi asked. “I can arrange something, I’m sure.”
Blaine chuckled, the sound emanating from deep within his stomach, threatening to become a full-fledged roar, but he smothered it, lest he draw attention.
“No, I don’t think we’ll need to go quite that far, as much as I’m sure you’d prefer to freeze Taurin in a giant ball of ice.”
Her pale blue eyes twinkled, like snow reflecting the sun’s light, and the smile even reached the corners of her mouth, tugging it up slightly.
“You know me so well already,” she said, patting his chest lightly with her palm.
“One tries. No,” he continued. “I don’t think we’ll have to do anything elaborate at all, except, perhaps, to leave on our own.”
“Not one to spread rumors, are we?” she teased.
Blaine arched an eyebrow in her direction, holding her gaze for a long moment. Then with a shrug he held out his arm, inviting her to take it again.
Cassi eyed it, then gave him a baleful look. “All right, point made,” she told him. “See you outside then!”
Her sudden mood change caught him off guard, but before he could reply she had already swept by him and was on her way up the stairs.
What a woman. There was more to Cassian Karkasy than she was telling, of that he was sure. Yet Blaine was just as positive that none of it was sinister. That was the part that fooled him. Lately he’d come to expect that out of anyone from Fenris, but especially for a legal team appointed to defend someone with such incriminating evidence. How twisted must someone be to come all the way to Cadia thinking they could free him?
No, there was more to this story, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever get it. All that mattered to him, however, was that she wasn’t the Fenrisian boogeyman—or in this case boogeywoman—of legend. In fact, if he’d met her in the streets, besides her slight accent, Cassi would have blended right in within Cadia.
Maybe that’s the point? Could she be a spy of some sort? A new program Fenris has cooked up that we haven’t heard about yet?
Blaine dismissed that from his mind even as he pushed himself off from the bar, standing upright and heading for the stairs. No, whoever Cassi was, she was no spy. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but Blaine knew it.
His long legs carried him swiftly and easily up the stairs. Had Cassi waited for him, or had she just headed home? His hopes ran toward the former, but his expectations were more in line with the latter. They’d had a wonderful evening; there was no reason for her to stick around any longer, except perhaps to say official farewells. Not that either of them were formal enough to necessarily need to.
Still, as he pushed the doors open and strode out into the dark of night, a little part of him cheered gleefully at the sight of the shock of white hair atop the form just ahead of him.
“Didn’t think you were getting rid of me that easily, did you?” she asked as his boots clicked against the cobblestone, announcing his presence to her.
“Wishes rarely come true that easily,” he replied without pause.
Cassi’s jaw dropped.
“Well if that’s the case, mister, then you had better stay here!” she exclaimed, giving him a gentle shove and taking off for one of the stone circles nearby.
“Oh no you don’t,” he said with a grin.
His feet pounded across the courtyard to the other circle.
Cassi reached hers first, but she was at a disadvantage in this particular case. Being a Frost Dragon, her metamorphosis caused a rather profound change around her. She needed to be on the stones to even begin her shift.
Blaine, on the other hand, as a Fume Dragon, did not have to worry. There wasn’t grass underfoot like normal, but instead just the same cobblestones that covered many of the walkways through Cadia. Without anything living beneath him, he could begin his change right away.
Green fog began trail after him as he ran for his own circle, reaching inside of his mind to pull the cork on the tube he kept his dragon within, almost like a model ship in a bottle. Except in this case, the ship was an incredibly powerful dragon, and always trying to get out.
“Cheater!” Cassi yelled just before her change came on in full force.
He grinned, but didn’t reply. His mouth was firmly closed, preventing the fumes from making their way
into his own lungs. They wouldn’t hurt him, but it would send him into a coughing fit, which he could ill afford just then.
The fog became impenetrable even before he reached the center of his circle, a moving sphere of toxic nerve gas. His change happened swiftly, and he maintained enough control of his dragon that the excess fumes, instead of exploding outward at the end of his change and then dissipating into the air, were channeled straight upward in a spiraling helix.
“Ooh, pretty,” Cassi said, her tundra-colored dragon snout giving the words a slight sibilant hiss to them.
Blaine grinned and launched himself into the air first, his distraction having worked.
“What?” Cassi squawked and hurled herself upward after him. “Foul!”
He laughed, a big, booming animal laugh that sounded almost like thunder in the night sky as his jade form rose ever higher, powered by huge, sweeping strokes of his mighty wings.
Cassi was game though, and her smaller figure, a brilliant, glittering reflection of the moon’s light, came rocketing after him. He admired her sleek lines and the general size of her. She was large for a Frost Dragon, which made her animal form huge for a female. He doubted there were more than three or four female dragons her size in all of Cadia, even among the larger Fire and Electro species.
Blaine leveled off as he exited a nearby thermal, glad to have found one at such a late hour. It made flying so much easier.
Looking below he couldn’t spot Cassi.
What the?
“BOO!”
His head snapped around as she came gliding in over the top of him.
Inverted.
“Are you nuts?” he yelped, but her momentum carried her right over him from left to right, until she stuck one wing out and flipped herself right-side up again. Bone-white wings flapped mightily to help her regain the momentum she’d lost with such a maneuver, but in seconds she was cruising easily at his side.
“You need to get out more if that made you uncomfortable,” she teased.
Before he could say anything, she dipped lower and slid underneath him. This time her wings kept working, however, and she began to pull slightly ahead of him.
