by N. D. Jones
In silence, Armstrong led her to the front porch. They sat in the two wicker chairs facing each other, Kya’s back to the house. Her frontal placement provided her with a full view of the street and sky. Until he’d given Kya that chair, she hadn’t realized how unsafe she would’ve felt if her back was to the street and people. But sensitive, intuitive Armstrong had known how important it was for Kya, after what had happened to her, to feel in control.
“Not that I’m unhappy to see you or that you need a reason to drop by, but I know this isn’t a social call. What does your visit have to do with those strange Kesins?”
Where to begin? Well, there was only one way to say it, so Kya did, without preamble.
“I have reason to believe our Kesin is alive.”
She thought her words would shock Armstrong, but he only cast his eyes downward and shook his head.
“I always wondered. I even prayed. Then I thought what it would mean for our child to be alive without our love and protection. My thoughts were the stuff of nightmares because I knew if our baby survived, the child would be in merciless hands.” Soulful dark-brown eyes rose. “Is that what you’re telling me? Our child has been with Dr. Westmore all this time?”
Kya didn’t know for sure, although it’s what she thought and why she sought out Armstrong.
“You’re right, Kesins cannot fly or possess a healing stone. Yet, I’ve fought, these past few months, many who can take to the air. They attack without true strategy and are wild and vicious in a way that Kesins are not. They smell wrong. They are Kesins to the eye only. The same way I’m human to the eye only. But this isn’t my true form, and the same is true for those Kesins.”
“I don’t understand. How can there be dragons who look like Kesins but aren’t? And where does our child fit in?”
Taking a pointless deep breath, Kya explained.
“Every creature in nature has a unique scent, Armstrong, including the two of us. I know your distinctive smell as well as I know my own and every member of my family.”
“It took us so long to find you because no Dracontias, not even your parents, could detect your scent. Your father said it was because you were underground.”
Kya had no idea whether the men who’d taken her to that awful place had known how well they’d selected her prison. If she’d been above ground and no dirt and metal to buffer her scent, her parents, no matter the distance, would’ve been able to track their offspring.
“I smelled traces of us on the Kesins.”
He slid to the end of his chair. “You what?”
“Traces of us and a scent I’d never smelled before. But the smell was similar to ours.”
“How is that possible?”
“It’s only possible if our young lives and dragon blood is being used to recreate Kesins.”
“That’s insane.”
“That human doctor who tried to steal my healing stone was insane.”
“You think that’s why he took our baby? That he hoped our child would have a healing stone?”
He left unsaid what they were both thinking about how the human would’ve retrieved the stone. But the anger that flickered in his eyes said it all.
“I’ve never known a Kesin to be born with a Dracontias stone or magical abilities.”
“Perhaps that’s only the case because there are so few Kesins born. You told me yourself, dragon-human matings are rare. Or maybe our DNA, when combined, is so amazing that we defy the norm.”
“Defy the norm?” Kya couldn’t help herself, she smiled.
“Yeah. I don’t know how, and I don’t care. The bottom line, based on what you’ve said, is that our child is alive and at the mercy of Westmore, who I will kill. And that the asshole has not only taken our child’s Dracontias stone but also used it somehow to create fake Kesins who can fly and have been attacking you.”
“That’s an accurate summary.”
“You do realize that fool sent those fake Kesins because he still wants your Bloodstone?”
“I do.”
“What do you want to do about it? How can I help?”
“I believed you when you said you would do all in your power to track down the men who were responsible for my kidnapping.”
Armstrong jumped to his feet. “I have every bit of information I was able to scrounge up on the Westmores and Caffertys. File cabinets and floppy discs. Anything public on those families, I have it back at the house.” He yanked Kya from her chair and hugged her tight. “Thank you for coming to me. Thank you for a chance at redemption.”
Kya couldn’t bring herself to return Armstrong’s embrace, but she also couldn’t force herself to withdraw from his hold. After so many years, being in his arms again felt perfect and all too right.
“We’re going to bring our child home, Kya. I promise you, I won’t let the two of you down again.”
He hadn’t let her down the first time. They’d both made mistakes. Kya may not have developed at the same rate as Armstrong, but she wasn’t the same naïve and arrogant Bloodstone Dragon she’d been all those years ago. Heartache and loss had a way of forging the strongest of psychological swords—hardness, balance, strength, and flexibility.
As if realizing he held her too long and without her permission, Armstrong released Kya and stepped back with a soft, “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. How much time do you require to review your records?”
“I’ll begin with the list of homes. For the Cafferty family, it’s quite a few of them if my memory is right. But not all of them would be suitable to hold and hide Kesins. From what you’ve said, Westmore probably has many of them, which means he must have a place big enough for the dragons and far enough away from people that no one will see or hear them. My lists aren’t exhaustive, though. It’ll only take me a few hours to go through the documents. If nothing jumps out, I may need a few days to add to my database.”
“Remote, large, and with an underground holding.”
“My search criteria. Yeah, that’s what I’ll look for. In the meantime, make yourself more visible and see if you can’t attract the Kesins.”
“They’re puppets. They won’t lead us back to the human doctor if captured. I use my magic to salvage the ones I can. Unfortunately, most resist and die.”
They were victims, just as Kya had been and just as her Kesin still was. She may not be able to return their humanity, but she could give them a peaceful death.
The front door opened, and Kya wasn’t surprised to see Armstrong’s mother, one hand on her hip, the other on the door.
“I hope you weren’t planning on flying away without coming in and saying hello to everyone.”
Kya had planned on doing just that. Rude, she knew, but the other option was an emotional quagmire she wasn’t ready to tackle.
Mrs. Knight opened her arms. “Come here, Kya, and give this old woman a hug.”
Unable to do anything other than submit, Kya moved to embrace the older human who smelled of myrrh.
“Oh, my sweet child, we Knights have missed you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? For needing time to heal?”
“For lying. For being a coward.”
“All nonsense.” Mrs. Knight held Kya’s face between her warm hands, lowered her forehead to her mouth and kissed. “I prayed for your safe return when you were taken. And I prayed you would, when the time was right, find your way back to your human family.”
Her human family? She’d thought she lost this human connection with the dissolution of her relationship with Armstrong.
“Will you come in? Spend time with the family?”
Kya shouldn’t. Self-preservation told her to reject the invitation and return to Buto until Armstrong contacted her with a location. But she found herself allowing Mrs. Knight to pull her into the house and close the door behind them.
In an instant, Kya was flooded with hugs, kisses and questions. Overwhelmed by so many Knights talking at once, she ne
arly missed when Armstrong, keys in hand, said, “I’m going home to check my files. I’ll call when I have something.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I COULD’VE FLOWN on your back.”
“True, but I would’ve had to fly lower and at a slow pace. The flight to Ireland would’ve been long and uncomfortable.”
“Ten hours and one stop are long.”
“Yes. Would you rather have spent that time on a dragon’s back with magical binds wrapped around your body?”
Armstrong peered out the window. He’d made sure to get a window seat so he could watch Kya. The dragon flew beside the plane, which made no damn sense. He’d flown with the Aragonite Star Dragon to London. He considered mentioning that fact to Kya when he remembered her father had encased him inside some mystical bubble during the flight that had permitted the dragon to fly at an accelerated speed, reaching Great Britain in record time. Armstrong had also fallen asleep on the flight from London to Buto.
He didn’t like Kya had a point. Armstrong never minded her being right, so that wasn’t his issue. His problem was that Kya was very good at putting distance between them, both physically and emotionally.
Once he’d begun his search, locating the files on homes owned by the Westmores and Caffertys, it hadn’t taken Armstrong long to narrow the list down to one obvious location. How rich did a family have to be to own a goddamn castle? The lower walls that would become the Cafferty Castle were laid in 1320. He’d wanted to laugh as much as he wanted to shoot Westmore and Cafferty when he held a printed copy of a picture taken of the castle. Armstrong even remembered when he’d added the image to the manila folder, thinking power and privilege rarely resulted in good, upright behavior. All too often, entitlement bred a sense of immunity to the societal and legal limitations of the average person.
When he’d stared at the picture of the castle, the irony of dragon stories, medieval warriors and castles weren’t lost on him. He’d known, with the same bone-deep certainty he’d always love Kya, they would find their stolen child at Cafferty Castle.
By the time he’d returned to his brother’s home, Kya had appeared nothing short of a woman who’d survived a hurricane. Besides his mother and Isaiah’s family, his sisters and their husbands and children were also there. Kya may have possessed a photographic memory, but dragons didn’t track day, months and years the way humans did. So she wouldn’t have known her reentry into his life coincided with Helen Knight’s seventy-seventh birthday. His mother, a woman of deep faith, had viewed Kya’s presence as a “sign from God.”
As Armstrong watched Kya and thought about the great possibility of finding a child he’d considered lost to him, he couldn’t help but agree with his mother. What he’d yet to figure out was what kind of sign from God it was.
“Do you have my guns?”
He knew she did. They’d argued about those too, with Armstrong claiming he needed to ride on her back because he wouldn’t be allowed to carry firearms onto the plane. Kya, in dragon form, had taken one look at the arsenal of weapons he had in his trunk, snorted, and then said something about her being the Bloodstone Dragon and him not needing guns.
He’d disagreed.
“Why do you insist on asking such annoying questions? You insult us both when you do.”
“That was the compromise. I’d take a plane, and you’d carry my guns.”
“You know I have your weapons, Knight. Perhaps you should ponder the irony of your name and our intended location.”
“I have, that’s why I want my guns.”
“A sword and shield make more sense.”
“I’m a modern knight. Guns are better.”
“Guns will not kill a crazed Kesin.”
“I know. But bullets will do the job just fine for a human.”
Kya’s head turned to him. Green jasper eyes with slashes of red took him in.
“True.”
For the rest of the flight, they didn’t speak. He’d once spared the life of Rudolph and the men under his command. It felt like the right decision at the time, and perhaps it was. After all that had happened, though, Armstrong found it difficult to not think of that choice as a mistake.
As a Secret Service Agent, he’d never killed anyone, for which he’d been grateful. Now, as a father hellbent on rescuing his child and finally stopping the threat to his family, Armstrong was prepared to put an end to Hugh Cafferty and Dr. Kenneth Westmore.
“What do you hear and smell?”
From this height and at night, Armstrong couldn’t see much. After landing, he’d made it to his hotel and checked in. Despite wanting to set out right away for the castle, he’d agreed with Kya. After a long flight, he wasn’t at his best. He needed a decent meal and rest. While he’d slept, Kya had flown out to the castle and did a bit of reconnaissance.
Now, they were either minutes away from freeing their child or having their hopes crushed because they’d been wrong.
Wrong about their child being alive.
Wrong about this location.
Wrong about the source of the Kesins.
I smell several humans.
Kya’s angry hiss let Armstrong know she not only smelled humans but also the one who’d tried to steal her Bloodstone and subjected her to a non-consensual C-section.
I also smell Kesins.
“How many?”
From this distance, it’s difficult to know for sure. Ten, perhaps more.
Ten mind-controlled dragons were a hell of a lot. He didn’t doubt the Bloodstone Dragon could defeat them, but she couldn’t just destroy the castle with no thought to the one Kesin they wanted alive and unharmed.
Are you certain your plan will work?
“Not certain. We need to get the Kesins out of the castle, and your presence will make that happen. We also need someone who can slip inside and find our child. I can do that.”
He also needed to find the Dracontias stone. That wasn’t part of the plan. Kya wouldn’t want him endangering his life further. The lack of a healing stone, according to Kya, posed no health risk to their Kesin. The dragon could live fine without it. For Armstrong, that wasn’t the point. The stone was a birthright, a genetic gift from the Bloodstone Dragon to her progeny. Armstrong would be damned if he didn’t at least try to recover the gemstone for their child.
Kya flew closer to the estate, an ancient warlike structure on sprawling acres of grassland surrounded by high, full trees. Gliding on silent currents, the Bloodstone Dragon circled the castle until she reached the tower house.
The scent of Kesins is strongest here. The dungeon you seek should be beneath the tower house.
Landing then withdrawing her magic binds, Kya lowered her tail so Armstrong could jump off.
He sported a chestnut steel hide double gun shoulder holster with leather harness straps. Two loaded Rugers fit perfectly in each holster. The thumb-break snap and tension screw would allow for a quick draw.
I’m going to bring this castle down. I’ll begin at the far end and make as much noise as possible. That should be enough distraction to bring the humans and Kesins out.
Armstrong looked from the castle, ten feet thick walls and forty-foot high, and then back to Kya.
I’m insulted.
“I didn’t say anything,” he whispered.
That look of yours says much. I’m the Bloodstone Dragon, Armstrong Knight, do not doubt my might.
“Actually, I thought you may bring these stones down on my head before I had a chance to find our child.”
I’ll destroy the structure and the Kesins slowly. Remember, once you’ve found our Kesin, send me the image telepathically. When I have a visual of the dungeon, I’ll be able to transport the two of you out of there.
Kya had explained how her power to transport worked. She either had to have been to the location before, like when she’d transported Isaiah’s children to a home she’d visited many times, or if she had an accurate visual. The second method was less precise and more dangerou
s. Dragons also didn’t transport themselves because that kind of magic worked only on others, which was why Kya hadn’t joined his nieces in her fog that fateful day.
Armstrong would prefer to bring their Kesin out himself, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to without Kya’s help. Their baby dragon may not trust any human after being held captive by Westmore and Cafferty for eight long years. The dragon may even try to kill him if he got too close.
The formidable door to the tower house was built for defensive purposes. He tried the knob. Locked, of course.
“A little help before you lay siege to the castle, Bloodstone Dragon.”
Not that Kya had ever rolled her eyes when she was in human form, but the way she snorted red magic in his face felt equivalent to a DC girl’s eye roll.
Armstrong backed up.
With a flick of her gold tail, the door crumbled.
Make haste. I can prolong the battle but so long. Eventually, I’ll have to put the Kesins out of their misery.
He should’ve climbed over the broken door and entered the dark tower house. Instead, he watched the Bloodstone Dragon soar high above the castle, take a deep breath, open her mouth wide and release a stream of raging fire.
He’d never witnessed anything like it outside of a fantasy movie. The Dracontias never displayed this kind of deadly power in public, so moviemakers took liberty with their interpretation. But this, the real thing, was more frightening and majestic than any human manufactured pyrotechnic display.
He saw, for the first time, why the Aragonite Star Dragon had entrusted North America to his youngest Dracontias. The Bloodstone Dragon may have a heart and body of gold, but she also possessed a soul and belly of fire.
Bright red and longer than the dragon, fire shot from her mouth in an intense spray of heat and magic.
Go. Now!
He went, racing into the empty tower house and finding the stairs that led to the underground dungeon. He clicked on his waist-worn flashlight so he wouldn’t fall and break his neck on the winding stairs. When he reached the lit wall torches, he turned off the flashlight.
Armstrong heard voices coming from the tower house by the time he reached the last step. He couldn’t make out their words, but the sound of footsteps on the stairs had him finding a nook in a wall and hunching down.
