His Dragon Warrior

by Jill Haven

  “Wh-what?” He followed me nose-first as I stepped backward into the room, and I flailed my hands to swat him away but he sniffed at my hair, my shirt, and my neck. With another of those impressive reflexive moves, I pushed him off. The door jamb caught him, and he stared at me through a tangle of hair that flopped over his face.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  If I was dizzy before, I felt truly inebriated now. I stumbled back against the bed and clutched my belly as my heart stopped. Vince braced himself on the doorframe as his face blanched a ghostly white. And no wonder. This was the very room where my mother, his dear half-sister, had died during childbirth… The clan had always told me that it had been a most holy blood sacrifice, which positioned me as a true gift… but the look on Vince’s face now gave me insight into the horror he must have witnessed. Gift or not, he had lost something in the giving. Clearly, he was terrified it would happen again.

  My attempts to speak resulted in nothing but a strained whine.

  I was pregnant? To a dragon… Was I going to die like my mother? Surely, yes. But how soon? Was this nausea I’d mistaken as heartache the final writhings of my internal organs as they began to shut down?

  “He wanted to claim you as a mate, did he?” Vince asked quickly.

  “Mm.” I nodded.

  “Then he will. He must.”

  “Wh-what?”

  With shaky legs, my uncle lowered himself gently beside me and rested an oddly reassuring hand on my knee. “Evan. As you know, when you were born, you came out of your mother with a river of blood in your wake. She was too weak… She left us…” I stiffened. I squeezed my eyes shut to erase the image, and Vince sighed. “She wasn’t the only one who suffered that fate. Omegas have been dying all across the country when they give birth. No one knows why, but they have grown too weak to survive the physical and energetic demands of birth.”

  “But Haiden and Seth survived—”

  “The Divine Omegas, who were claimed by their true mates…”

  Though the room swam around me, the pieces began to fit together. “Bishop has to claim me as his mate…”

  “Yes. If there’s any hope of saving your life, he must.”

  Though I was now free to leave my room, the nausea worsened, and I was essentially bedridden—but more subdued and certainly willing to accept help in whatever form it came. My aunts doted on me even more so, clucked around like broody hens, and I accepted most of their ancient home remedies for morning sickness. Biting down on a chunk of spicy ginger root certainly cleared my sinuses, though it did little for my fatigue. Rubbing my belly with a pungent oil infused with petitgrain, neroli and, calendula was almost pleasurable but ultimately pale in comparison to the wooziness I suffered. But when Aunt Eve tried to strap half an onion to the underside of my left foot, I’d had enough of their therapies. I shooed them out, rolled over, and let a sob out. Worse than the nausea and more disorienting than the dizziness was how much I missed Bishop. I felt it from the tips of my fingers to the tops of my toes, and deep in my belly. It was a comfort that I had a part of him growing inside me, but I wanted him with me. There were no ancient clan nostrums for the yearning in my heart. Being by my mate’s side was the only cure.

  Vince assured me he would do whatever it took to find Bishop, and I naively assumed it would take merely hours for word to reach my mate that my uncle had approved our courting, and that he would immediately come running to claim me. But hours passed, and then days too. I became suspicious that my uncle wasn’t truly searching for my mate and all of his promises had been duplicity, until I overheard how he shouted at his guards in the dining hall. “The mercenary is the size of a house! How hard can it be to find him?”

  “Sir, his home is boarded up, no one has heard from him, not even the Princeps Draco. We’re widening our perimeter.”

  My uncle slumped forward and sighed with exhaustion. Anxiety joined my nausea. The emptiness behind my breastbone swelled and threatened to engulf me whole. I held my belly and crept back into the shadows, but his fast eyes caught me.

  “Evan. Join me in my office.” Not a request, but an order. A gentle one, though. He had softened.

  His office always put me on edge, full as it was of weaponry and armor. At the far end of the room was a glass cabinet containing a lance that was said to have belonged to St George himself. Rust tinged the tip—or was it blood? The story went that our ancestors had killed the dragon slayer, but it always struck me as a self-indulgent myth.

  “Bishop is missing.”

  I shifted in the oversized armchair and flicked my braid to the other side. “But you’ll find him.”

  “Eventually.” My uncle’s mouth was set in a thin, terse line. “Evan, if he fails to surface soon—”

  “He’ll come once he knows that I need him.”

  “We may not have the time.”

  “He’ll come—”

  “If Cane doesn’t appear soon, we’ll find you another alpha to give you the mating bite and hope for the best.”

  “No.”

  “Evan!” A startling slap cut across the surface of the desk where my uncle’s hand smacked it. “You could die.”

  I would rather die than mate with anyone but Bishop. I bit my tongue, held my uncle’s eye, and stood.

  “Where are you going? Sit down.”

  “I’ll find him myself.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I have an entire team looking for him, what makes you think you can do better than my men?”

  I tossed my hair and looked at him down my nose. “I’m his fated mate, am I not?” Fast steps took me out of his stifling office and back down the corridors to my room where I found my leather bag and began to stuff it with clothes. A quest! I was certain that I’d find Bishop, and quickly—all I had to do was follow the ribbon that entwined us. Then again, I had been certain that my uncle was going to approve our courtship and that had me locked up for weeks… Still, as I packed my supplies, the emptiness in my chest tingled at the edges, as though it were starting to fill in with hope.

  “You can’t talk me out of it, my lovely aunts,” I said in reply to a gentle knock on the door frame.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Uncle’s voice came soft and surprisingly resigned. Half packed, I turned to him and sized him up. Was he going to slam the door shut and lock me in again?

  “I won’t have my beloved nephew traipsing through the forest, pregnant and unguarded.”

  “I’m going—”

  “There’s a team of men downstairs. They’ll escort you wherever you want to go. What should I tell them?”

  I blinked in shock. Permission and resources? He must have been truly worried about losing me, and his concern would have troubled me if I weren’t so excited to leave. But to where? I’d intended to tumble out into the woods and trust my instincts to lead me to Bishop. With my eyes closed and a hand on my chest, I felt for the ribbon of energy. Visions and memories flashed in the darkness behind my eyes… A huge house. A baby’s cry. A kitchen full of cupcakes.

  I flicked my eyes open and smiled at my uncle. “Have them take me to Haiden’s house.”

  15

  Bishop

  “What brings you to Muscogee, stranger?” Jade poured tar-black coffee into my cup and I sank back into the cushy booth.

  “History lesson. Do you have a minute?”

  Her dark ponytail swung when she glanced back at the kitchen and scrunched her face up. “Not really, no. We’re down two servers today. I’m heading to Haiden’s tomorrow, can we talk there then?”

  The coffee was burnt and too sweet, just how I liked it. “I’ll wait.”

  “It’ll be at least two hours before I get off.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “Suit yourself. You want some pie?” She disappeared before I could say no and dropped a plate in front of me on her way past to serve another table. Apple and blueberry, with a gigantic scoop of ice cream. Maybe she was trying to sweeten me up.

 
By the time she took off her apron and slipped into the booth opposite me, my knee bounced so rapidly that I felt like Seth. There was more sugar in my blood than blood, and the three cups of coffee I’d downed didn’t help, either.

  “So, Mr. Cane, what’s so important that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” She cracked her neck and rubbed at her shoulders.

  “I need information about the death of Haiden’s grandmother.”

  “Ha!” She threw her head back and laughed at the ceiling. “Way to cut to the chase. You could work on your conversation skills, maybe warm people up a little before you dive into the death stuff.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and squinted at me. “What do you need to know?”

  “What have you been told about Seren’s death?”

  “What have you been told about it?” She raised her eyebrows aggressively.

  I cleared my throat and took a sip of coffee. “They say Vladimir killed her.”

  “But you don’t believe that…” Jade sucked on her bottom lip and studied me, while I gave nothing away. She was right, I didn’t believe it. I’d started my work for the Enforcement Council by creating a map on the wall of the unit, right behind the jet ski. Ace had helped me pinpoint the locations and timelines of all the most mysterious and therefore suspicious deaths and disappearances that were recorded in the Elder Council’s records, combined with the data from Blodwen’s funeral book. When we stood back, the pattern was clear. A crisscrossing that interlinked through many territories, always in the same twenty to thirty-mile pattern. And the disappearance and presumed death of Haiden’s grandmother would fit perfectly.

  “I would appreciate any information you have. It could help us all…”

  Jade leaned close over the table so that only I could hear her lowered tone. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be; it was a long time ago. But everyone thought it was an inter-clan skirmish. A lot of other dragons were blamed before Vladimir. There were some bloody underground deals happening back then, lots of fighting over territory in this region. They said someone took her out because she was politically powerful and held a lot of sway over the region.”

  “Can you tell me anything about the humans in the area at the time? Any strange behavior?”

  “Humans? They come and go so quickly; I don’t know if I can really remember them. But I do recall that most of the fairy tales and ghost stories from when I was a girl were always about travelers, and I heard those stories being told again by the elders in the nineties. Maybe humans were coming and going more often back then.”

  “Hm.” Maybe they still were.

  I paid the bill, left a hefty tip for Jade, and spent the afternoon poking around the small town of Muscogee for any more information about Haiden’s grandmother. The locals weren’t keen to talk to an oversized lug. Not for the first time, I wished for a prettier face that would elicit some greater hospitality. As I wandered through the small public graveyard and scanned the epithets for anything odd, I imagined how good Evan would be at getting intel from clan leaders. No one could say no to that naive, open face, and welcoming smile.

  Damn, would my thoughts always weave back to him? I assumed that the habit would fade with time, but maybe that didn’t happen with true mates… Perhaps he would haunt me forever.

  “You lookin’ for someone?” a rusty voice grumbled from behind me.

  I turned slowly and sized up the old man before me. He smelled of age, deterioration, and the half-eaten pastrami sandwich he clutched in his hand. Definitely a human. How had he known I was thinking about Evan…?

  He frowned at me like I was a curiosity. “Well? You lookin’ for a grave?”

  “Yes. Seren Rees is the name. She disappeared in the 1990s… under suspicious circumstances.”

  He didn’t flinch. “Oh yeah. That one. I remember her… plenty of talk about her disappearance. Odd, it was. You won’t find no grave marker though. They never found a body.”

  “Odd? How was it odd?”

  “Happened when a carnival was in town. Never had no carnival here before that year, and never had one since. Lots of talk of her running off with the clowns, if you know what I mean. She was a mighty pretty woman.”

  “And what do you think happened?” He clearly didn’t buy the clown story.

  “Run off? Nah, she had roots in this town, investments in businesses, and talk of going up for mayor, even though she didn’t need that kind of office. She had all that power here already, and we liked her. Oh yeah, I liked her. Better than the new young idiots running the joint these days.” I waited for the nostalgic sheen to clear from his eye and he generously went on. “No way did Seren run off with no scruffy carny boy. Not run off, oh no. Taken off, though… Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. Like I said, a real pretty lady.”

  “But no one checked out the carnival after she was found missing?”

  The old man laughed with a wheeze that sounded like it came from the bottom of a tomb. “Oh, we checked alright! What carnival? Disappeared into thin air. No sign of it, no sign of the rides, even. Trail went cold, and by then there was enough talk goin’ around with other theories… Well, everyone let go of the carnival theory once we ran out of places to look for it. Easier to imagine her drowning in the river, than being whisked off by a carnival that doesn’t exist. Always bothered me, though… Still does. How the hell do you make a Ferris wheel and a big top disappear into thin air, huh?”

  I stayed silent, but I knew the answer. You can make anything appear and disappear fast enough if you have a detailed plan that’s executed with precision. And money. Lots of money.

  The old man peered at me, suddenly suspicious. Perhaps he wanted to hear an answer though, and my silence bothered him. Or maybe he’d just caught sight of my scar for the first time. “What’s it to you, anyway?”

  I shrugged like it didn’t really matter and turned back to the graves. “So no headstone for Seren Rees?”

  “No, sir. No grave marker, and no headstone. She’s not forgotten though…”

  I left the old man to eat his pastrami sandwich in the peace of the cemetery and called Ace on my way back to the Jeep. “We were right. I’m almost certain that Haiden’s grandmother was killed by dragon hunters. Meet me at Carlisle’s.”

  The drive from Muscogee to Charleston took me through a densely forested National Park that meandered down a mountainside. When I didn’t pass another car for at least half an hour, my dragon began to itch. I cracked my neck and heard the crinkle of scales breaking out at my nape. My tongue skated over the fangs itching to break out in my mouth.

  I needed to stretch. It was risky, but keeping my dragon pent up with all of this stress was worse. A ticking time bomb bubbled away under the surface. I’d been this worked up only a few times before, and each had ended badly with sudden explosions of anger and almost fatal shifts in near-public places. I had to take care of it as soon as possible, blow off some literal steam, and this seemed as safe a place as any.

  I turned off at the next unmarked road and headed as deep into the forest as it would take me. The road petered out into a dirt track, which came to an abrupt end at a thicket of saplings that looked like they’d outgrown the woods and were making a break for the city. Clearly no one had been here recently, so I shut off the Jeep and stepped out into the cool spring weather, not bothering with my jacket. I took in a lung full of the clean, forest air and took off on foot into the woods.

  Ten minutes into the walk, I was struck by a comforting feeling of isolation. Honey locust trees, black willows, and birches reached overhead with new growth, and the thick trunks of white pines hugged me on all sides. Nothing but the rustling of leaves in the wind and the warble of eastern bluebirds could be heard, and there was no scent of human nor dragon for miles.

  Perfect. I undressed in a hurry and left my clothes scattered on the moist leaf-littered floor near a patch of bright orange mushrooms, then took off at a run into the trees
. I loved to shift at a sprint; I could pretend to outrun the sound of my bones cracking and sinew stretching, the only part of shifting that I was not fond of. I bounded through low, ferny undergrowth and leaped over a hollow, rotted-out log and, once airborne, bones lengthened at speed, skin wove into denser tissue, and my skull elongated. Dragon, but not a full size, not by a long shot. Still, it was enough of a shift to burn through the tension.

  My trajectory changed with my new center of gravity and I landed straight down with a heavy thud. The log below me cracked and splintered with a satisfying crunch under my heavy weight, and I scratched at the remains with my feet until I basically pulverized the wood into dust. With pleasure, I stretched my wings to their full span, lifted my snout to the sky, and roared with all of the fury boiling in my belly. A spray of fire shot straight up and scorched the tops of the trees, but the wet forest took it and snuffed it out with satisfying hiss.

  I trampled through a thicket of spindly pines and careened down an incline with increasing speed, smashing through winter-dead plants and rotten roots, and roaring as I went. My tail thudded against trees and bent them in my wake. With my feet thudding deeply into the earth, I picked up velocity and then at a small clearing, I allowed myself a short and delicious buoying into the air. Wings spread, feet lifted and tail swaying as a rudder, I flew a short distance above the tree line, back the way I’d come, and quickly descended back into the woods. Just long enough to move some tension and feel a sense of wild freedom; but not long enough that anyone would believe their eyes if they saw me from a distance.

  I careened back up the incline through the trampled mess I’d made of the deep woods until I found the patch of orange mushrooms and my waiting clothes. Reluctantly, I shifted back with slow, patient movements. Trying to temper the shift was meant to make the come-down easier, but I still found myself face-down in the leaf litter, gasping for breath and aching deep in my bones. Every joint in my body sparked with pain and inflammation, and my insides felt like they were still rearranging themselves. They said that it got easier with age, but perhaps I’d passed a threshold whereby it became harder again. Or maybe my heartache had more systemic effects than I’d predicted.