Chasing Legends

by Pippa Amberwine

  “Morning!” he said, grinning madly as he looked at me. “You two have a good night, did you? You both look worn out, so I guess you did, eh, Jevyn, you sly old dog.” He nudged me with an elbow, and I would have snapped his arm off if he hadn’t been accompanied by the two heavies who had been with him in the saloon the night before.

  “Hey. What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Katie snapped angrily from behind my shoulder.

  Nindock’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward over my shoulder to look directly at Katie. “Oh, I think you know, Katie. Spending the night alone with the prince. It must be your lucky day.”

  “What the—”

  I raised my hand to interrupt Katie and stepped in front of her to break the eye contact I assumed she had with Nindock.

  “Look, Nindock. Enough with the juvenile behavior. Whatever you want to show us, get it over with so we can be on our way.”

  Nindock finally took a step back when I stared at him without blinking for a few moments.

  “You’re right. The sooner we get you two off-site, the quicker we can get back to doing what we do best. Right, fellas?”

  One of the henchmen standing behind Nindock nodded his head once. The other let out a goofy laugh “That’s right, boss.” He half-giggled, half-gurgled the words, but he stopped when Nindock raised a hand.

  “So, why not just take us off-site now?” I asked.

  “Because, my dear princely one, I want to show you exactly what we have here and why going back is never going to happen.”

  He waved his hand for us to follow once he turned away, so we did as he walked along the main thoroughfare we had taken the day before. I couldn’t see anything that looked remarkable that we hadn’t seen already, and I said as much to Nindock.

  “Patience. Rather than being in such a hurry to downplay what is here, you might be better off keeping tabs on your lady friend back there. She doesn’t look at all well to me. Whatever have you been doing to her?”

  I ignored the jibe and stopped, waiting for Katie to catch up. She had her hands on her hips and was blowing hard like she’d just run a marathon.

  “Katie, are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. I just need—”

  “Come on, we need to keep up with Nindock.” I dragged her forward by the arm and slowly managed to catch up to Nindock when he stopped in front of two large buildings.

  “So, what have you got to show us, Nindock?” I asked.

  “This,” he said and proceeded to walk the narrow path between the two buildings. I followed, holding on to Katie’s hand as she kept trying to talk to me, but I was intrigued by whatever Nindock was so evidently pleased to show me. As long as I kept a grip on Katie, I could find out what was troubling her later.

  What appeared once we got past the buildings was something I had never considered. Row upon row of huts and shacks stretched as far as the eye could see. A shanty town, for want of a better word, and it was huge. And there were people. Lots and lots of people.

  Many of them were human, I could see that, but at least some of them were dragon shifters. How long had Nindock been planning this—running this? We knew that some dragons were disappearing from Dracos, but the scale of numbers that were here was astounding, even to me, and my trips back and forth through tears and rips in the veil had led to me seeing a lot of astounding things. But this was one of the most surprising.

  “Welcome to Nindock’s town,” the mad dragon said, barely able to hide his mirth at my reaction.

  “Where . . . who . . .” I couldn’t put into words what was going through my head.

  “Who are they?” he supplied.

  “Yes.”

  “Disaffected, that’s who they are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, come on, you know how dragon society works, Jevyn. Of all people, you know what it’s like. You sit there in your fancy palace, looking down on people like these. Don’t you ever wonder what life must be like for them?”

  “Well, of course.”

  “Really? While you sit there having your meals served to you by staff wearing uniforms, you look down from your palace and see what terrible lives people have to live?”

  “Well—”

  “No, I thought not. You’re lucky, see. You have powers and magic. Your mother attained the highest place in dragon society. You can grant favors. You have something to barter and trade with. Much of dragon society has none of those things. These people scrape by, day in, day out, never really knowing if they will have enough food to feed their children at the end of each day.”

  “But we are developing—”

  “Yes, I know, technology. But ask yourself, who does that technology help? Not the ones at the bottom of the pile, that’s for sure. Your friend Famil. What will the work she does benefit those who have nothing? Truth is, it won’t.”

  “So why are they all here?”

  “Well, the dragons are all here because they realized that struggling through their lives day by day wasn’t what they wanted. So, I brought them here.”

  “What for?”

  “To build something better.”

  I was starting to get past the shock of seeing all of the shacks, and my mind, experienced as it was with dealing with Nindock, suddenly clicked into action.

  “Better for whom, Nindock?”

  “For them.” He hesitated for a while and then turned away from surveying his little kingdom. “And for me of course.” His face broke into a grin.

  “So, you brought them over here; that’s why half of them have bits missing, isn’t it?” I asked, watching a dragon with one arm as he walked past, his sleeve on his shirt pinned up neatly.

  Nindock sighed gently. “Yeah. No matter how hard I try, I can never quite get a stable tear. Shame really. What is telling though, my dear prince, is that even knowing they might die, or lose an arm or a leg, they are still willing to try and get here because they know that in Dracos they are worthless. Here, they, and I of course, are free. Free from the grasp of dragon society and from those who rule us. That would be you and families like yours, Jevyn. How does that make you feel?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know how it made me feel. It was all too much to take in and give a considered response to in that moment.

  One thing I did know was there was no way I was ever going to be able to persuade these people to go back to Dracos. There were just too many. I was still deeply suspicious about Nindock’s motives. I knew him as a grasping, vindictive, sometimes vicious little creep, not some social justice leader.

  “What’s in it for you?”

  “Jevyn,” Katie said from behind me.

  “In a moment, Katie.” I let go of her hand as I felt her pull away.

  “For me?” Nindock asked.

  “Yes. You wouldn’t do something like this just to prove a point. You don’t care about anybody but yourself. You never have. Even when we were young together, you only ever were interested in doing something when there was a benefit for you.”

  I stepped up to him, looking down on him, deep into his eyes. In my peripheral vision, I saw one of the heavies take a step forward. Nindock held up a hand to stop him. Back on Dracos, he would never have confronted me like this, but here on his home soil, as it evidently was, he faced me with no hesitation.

  He spoke in a voice that was not much louder than a whisper. “Do you really think I would do this other than from my desire to stand up for the dispossessed of our society, Jevyn?”

  I stared at him, but he didn’t flinch once. “I know you, Nindock. I know there’s something more to this, some gain in it for you. If there wasn’t, you’d be off doing something else.”

  “Your lack of faith in me is distressing, Jevyn, but now I think you’ve seen enough. You have seen that I have power here. I have people willing to die to be here. I have humans who are happy to side with us and who don’t judge us for a lack of something we are born with . . . or without, in many cases. I will never retu
rn to Dracos, and there is nothing you can do to make me.”

  “Jevyn.” Katie yelled. I dared not look away from Nindock, but then I saw a flash of someone stumbling away across the rough track that ran between the shacks and the larger buildings. I turned, and Katie was running, or at least running as best she could. She was heading for a small group of humans who were standing around, and the closer she got, the higher pitched her screams of anguish became.

  I sprinted after her, grabbing her arm before she could get too close, and spun her around.

  What I saw took my breath away.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Katie

  Nindock’s town

  I COULDN’T HELP it. Really, I couldn’t. Standing there listening to the testosterone battle going on between Jevyn and Nindock finally tipped me over the edge. My mouth was sore when I woke up, and running my tongue around my mouth, I knew immediately why. Fangs. Sharp, pointy, and excellent for piercing skin to suck the lovely, scarlet, mouth-watering blood that oozed so unctuously out at just the right speed that not one precious life-giving drop of it was wasted.

  Oh, gods, I wanted blood so badly. It had been days since the last few drops had taken effect, and as we had walked along behind Nindock with his puffed-up, proud-as-a-peacock look on his face, I knew I was in trouble. When it got to the stage that fangs were through and showing, then it was a matter of minutes, maybe an hour before the bloodlust hit full on, and any VAMP2 without an implant was virtually uncontrollable.

  Problem was, even though I kept trying to tell Jevyn, I was too weak to make my situation known to him forcefully enough, and he was too tied up in Nindock’s nefarious plotting to take any notice anyway.

  I stood behind Jevyn, desperately trying to resist what my body was going to force me to do anyway, but in the end, I couldn’t. My fangs were so far out they were digging into my lips. I pulled my hand from Jevyn’s with what little strength I had and called his name in one last attempt to get him to help me. If I gave in to the lust, it would cause havoc, maybe even a riot.

  I cared not one iota.

  All I could see was the vein throbbing in the neck of the man my VAMP2 brain selected, and then I had no eyes for anything else. I could hear his heartbeat. I could smell the blood pounding its way around his body, and I wanted him, it, the blood. Nothing else. Tunnel vision. All I could see was his neck. All I could do was walk toward him and draw back my teeth in a snarl. I was out of control.

  A hand on my arm turned me, or at least my body, away from the man. My head stayed fixated on the plump artery in his neck, and I was unable, physically, to turn away.

  Then, I felt a hand on my face, turning my head around until I was finally facing Jevyn. I growled, snarled, my fangs clearly on show. I was so close, so near to the source of food, my whole body was craving like an alcoholic craves that first drink of the day. My body ached, it hurt to blink, to move, but I had to. I had no say in the matter. It was just a primal, animal instinct that my body had been infected with, and right then, that was my only concern.

  Other things flitted through my mind. The others. Lynnette and Derek. Nova back in Dracos. But they were like single frames in a movie, gone before I could give them any thought. Jevyn’s closeness, the masculine odor, the toned muscles, the careful way he wielded his power were all two cells, there for a split-second and then gone, cast aside for the elixir of life that blood had become to me, enough to send me into a frenzy of destruction to get it.

  Desperation was all I felt. And then anger.

  Jevyn’s face was a picture of surprise as he looked at my face, and as much as I believed I might be getting feelings for him, right then he was the only thing stopping me from getting what I desired, what I needed to survive.

  So, I kicked and struggled, trying to get myself out of his strong grip, his strong, manly grip—which while infuriating was also somehow comforting.

  “We have to go,” I heard him say.

  I could barely speak to reply, but from somewhere that sounded like it was in the distance, I heard Nindock say. “What, already? I haven’t finished showing you around.”

  “No, we need to go now. Katie is sick.”

  “Sick?” He sounded worried.

  “Yes. Sick. I’ll take her to a hospital. Now, out of my way.”

  That was when the world all went very peculiar. Upside down.

  All I could see was the back of Jevyn’s jacket bouncing toward me and above my head, the ground sliding by as his feet strode along. He’d slung me over his shoulder.

  “Don’t come back, Jevyn. Just a friendly warning.” I heard Nindock, but he seemed to be getting farther away.

  I was frustrated, whacking my fists into Jevyn’s back as hard as I could, but it seemed to have no effect on him at all.

  After a few moments of being carried over Jevyn’s shoulder, I felt the fight drain away from me. My energy levels crashed, and instead of fighting, instead of getting what I needed, I lay across his shoulder like a sack of corn being taken out to feed the chickens.

  Everything became a blur, and time passed, but I had no idea how long.

  ***

  The next thing I remembered was being levered off his shoulder, gently lowered to the ground, and leaned up against the hood of a car. Our car. Well, not exactly ours.

  I wavered around, barely having the strength to keep myself upright.

  I felt two hands grab my shoulders and shake me gently. I lifted my eyes to where a blurred Jevyn stared down at me.

  “Bloodlust,” I said, like that explained everything.

  “What?” I couldn’t make out his face to say what his expression was. He sounded out of breath, which even in the state I was in, I didn’t find surprising.

  “Need blood.” I managed to squeak out the words as my vision began to swim and darken at the edges. If I didn’t get blood in the next few minutes, it would be curtains for me.

  I reached out, grabbing for Jevyn’s arm, feeling the need for comfort again, but he pulled away.

  “Please?” I begged as I felt myself slowly sinking into the whirling mire of unconsciousness again.

  As I lay back across the hot hood of the car, unable to keep myself upright anymore, I could just hear Jevyn moving.

  “Please?” I managed to whisper as everything slowly ebbed away.

  With my eyes closed, and my brain entering some kind of dreamlike state, I heard Jevyn take in a breath with a sharp hiss. Then, I felt something on my lips, something familiar, warm, comforting. I thought of my mom. I hadn’t thought about her for years. I licked my lips and felt something sticky there. I licked again, then again, and then more greedily again.

  Each time I swallowed, I could feel a building rush of energy, of life, shooting around my body, energizing my tired muscles, easing the aches in my joints and in my head. I opened my eyes.

  Jevyn was standing over me, holding his thumb over my mouth.

  I licked again and fought down the urge to take his thumb in my mouth and suck it dry of blood. I didn’t need that much. The few drops he had given me would keep me going for weeks. Slowly, I felt myself come back to normal. My fangs had withdrawn a little more with each drop. My brain had cleared from a muddy fog to absolute clarity. I knew what he had done. I could see in his face the distaste my actions and, in all likelihood his own, had generated in him, and I felt sad. Sad that he should ever have seen me like this. That he had been put into a position where he had to do something so utterly alien to him and his previous life.

  But I also felt grateful. Without him, I would have died, or somebody else would have died so I could live. It was a hideous choice for me to have to make, but self-preservation had kicked in, and I would have gladly killed the man back in Nindock’s town to ensure I survived.

  “Thank you,” I said, sitting back up on the hood, offering him a slight smile. “I owe you my life.”

  His face darkened.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Be
cause we talked. I promised not to use the blood we had before and left it behind.”

  “I didn’t mean for you to nearly die because of it.”

  I shrugged. Using blood meant life. Not using it meant death. The scales are balanced. I told him as much.

  “I hope to the gods that Nova and Famil find a cure or at least a way to replicate the implant. I don’t want to have to do that again.”

  “Me, either. But thank you anyway. I know how you feel about our taking dragon blood. Hopefully the blood you gave me will last a while.”

  I saw him gulp as though he was trying not to throw up. “Me too. That made me feel—"

  I shushed him and held up a hand. Other than the gentle hush of a breeze and the occasional call of a bird, the place was silent, but in the distance, my hearing freshly enhanced, I could hear something. A distant rumble. A large vehicle heading our way.

  I stood, turning, trying to get a grip on where the familiar sound was coming from.

  “Quick, Jevyn. Hide! In the car,” I yelled. No time for subtlety.

  I slid off the hood, ducked down, and then got in to the driver’s seat while Jevyn lay down in the back.

  “What is it?” Jevyn asked. “I couldn’t see or hear anything.”

  That was a sure sign that I was quickly getting back to normal. Just after I got fresh blood, my hearing was enhanced. I told Jevyn to wait for a moment. If what was coming was what I thought it was, then the last thing we needed was to be seen. I fiddled under the dash and got the wires ready to start the engine. If nothing else, in a car like the one we were in, we should be able to outrun the SCAR-armored vehicles that rumbled up to the junction beside us. I scrunched way down, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t see us.

  The engine of the first vehicle revved up, and it turned away from us, heading toward Nindock’s town. All three ended up going the same way, and I wondered if Nindock’s little camp had been spotted somehow.