by Leela Ash
A critical secret – tossed out casually, as if it was of no worth. Casey fought to keep his shock off his face. That was the path his Flight should investigate. Surely, the People who made this Aegis would remember it.
Donnelly continued to frown, tapping a finger against his lips. “Why would a Native spirit use a Greek word?”
“For the same reason it calls itself Nemagorix. That’s not a Native name either.” As the Forgetful man’s confusion deepened, Casey shook his head. “Nemagorix is a spirit. It’s not ‘of’ this world or any of the world’s people. It uses words it thinks mortals will understand.”
“Then the person that spoke to it was smarter than me!” A fact that did not surprise Casey.
Words ceased, leaving nothing but the mutterings of Brother Wind. Each Dragon sat, lost in his own thoughts, until Donnelly stretched. “Well, thank you. I’ve learned a lot. Is there any information or help I can give your Flight?”
Oh yes, there was.
How?!? How did you find your Mate? Tell me everything about the Rite of Claiming! What does it feel like when your soul finds what it lost, the spirit that will make you whole again?
Not one of those questions passed his lips. Inconceivable that he should abase himself, show weakness, before a member of that arrogant ‘First’ Flight.
“No. Thank you,” was all he said.
“Well, if you find out anything about Nemagorix or this Aegis, please let me know. We’ve had our differences in the past, but I think we can agree that neither of our Flights wants to see the world destroyed.”
Casey made a noncommittal grunt. The Flight of the Snows didn’t need Forgetful’s ‘help’ to protect their lands.
Donnelly rose stiffly to his feet, brushing sand and gravel from his jeans. “I didn’t see your car. Can I offer you a lift back to town?”
“No.” As if a Dragon, a Prince of the Air, needed cars! “I am not finished here.”
The outsider scanned the land about them. No doubt, he saw nothing except emptiness. “What needs doing? Can I lend a hand?”
“No.” The very thought was amusing. “I need to thank the spirits of this stone for helping us hold a productive conversation. I should also honor the memories of those who’ve gone before us.”
Of course, He Who Had Forgotten Himself didn’t understand. “Sure. Uh, I’ll leave you to settle up with your rock then. I’m gonna head back and get something cool to drink.”
With that, he left, stomping away like some wingless animal. Agitation and confusion departed with him. Casey sighed with relief as peace settled over him once more.
The outsider had given him a great deal to think about. There was much to do.
And his Flight, not some ‘First’ Flight, would do it.
First, though, the day’s second task awaited. One of far greater importance than the words of a strange Dragon.
Chapter 2.
Any lost tourist who blundered into Ringo’s Spread immediately turned tail and fled back to the safety of Route 491. Honestly, the place looked like the Trailer Park from Hell. Three dozen decrepit single-wides lay scattered about. Scores of dusty motorcycles and junked cars littered the scrub. Music – usually heavy metal – wafted through the air at all hours while a crowd of leather-clad men and women lounged, drinking beers.
To any civilized person, the whole place screamed ‘DANGER!’ Whoever those people were, whether drug dealers, smugglers, or plain old criminals, they were clearly up to no good.
But Lily King wasn’t a civilized person. When she looked at Ringo’s, she saw home. The Den of the Sand Pack, one of the great Wolf Packs of the Four Corners region.
She strode through a sea of familiar faces. Bone-Dog, Deadbeat, the White-Tail sisters. Even Ghost, shaded by a huge umbrella, glanced up from her computer and waved. The sight of her hunched over in her wheelchair, typing furiously, brought a grin to Lily’s face. The girl was one of her favorite Packmates. Once, some lone Wolf had called her a ‘gimp’ and said she ought to be ‘put out of her misery.’ “What good is a Wolf that can’t run?” he laughed.
Well, they’d made him run, driving him into the desert with bared fangs. Maybe Ghost wasn’t like other Wolves. She ran through virtual fields and hunted electronic prey. But she was still a Wolf and the Sand Pack honored her. And that lone Wolf? He never showed his tail in these lands again.
“Hey, Lily! What’s up?” Ghost called.
“No idea. Dad wants to see me.” She paused, scooting under the edge of the other woman’s shade. The Old Man had told her to come ‘right away’… but it was good to make him wait a bit. Remind him that he might be an Alpha of this Pack, but his authority had limits. She was his equal, not his ‘little girl.’
“Bet it’s got something to do with his guest,” Ghost whispered. “Dragon flew in about a half-hour ago. One of the Snow Flight.”
“Flight of the Snows,” Lily corrected her. They were a prickly bunch, stuffed from their horns to the tips of their tails with pride, protocol, and etiquette. Insult one and they’d sulk for centuries. Any normal Shifter would die long before that grudge did!
On second thought, maybe it wasn’t so smart to make people sit around twiddling their thumbs. “Thanks for the heads up. I better get moving.”
And maybe she ought to clean up a bit. She tossed her helmet down by Ghost’s wheelchair and ran her fingers through her brown hair. Short curls crushed flat by the helmet’s weight fluffed under her touch, surrounding her delicate, fine-boned face. A few swats dusted the worst of the grime off her riding leathers. “How do I look?”
“Like you’ve been dragged behind a car for a couple of miles,” Ghost informed her.
“Bite me.”
With a laugh, Ghost snapped at her. Lily flipped her friend the bird and hustled over to her father’s trailer.
Air conditioning was for wimps, not Wolves, and so the trailer’s innards burned like a furnace in the midday sun. The cheap curtains drawn tight over the windows didn’t do anything to cool the place. They just made the furnace dark and gloomy.
As she adjusted to the shade, Aaron King spoke from somewhere in the shadows. “Lily. How nice of you to finally join us.”
“I’m a Wolf, not a dog. If you wanted me to ‘Heel!’, ‘Sit!’, or ‘Stay!’ you should have trained me better.”
Objects emerged from the darkness. Her father’s couch, desk, and table (significantly cleaner than normal). King himself, glaring, hands on his hips, his long salt and pepper hair pulled back in a neat pony tail. Hell, he’d even waxed his mustache.
Wow. Lily snorted. Things must be serious.
The last figure to emerge from the gloom took her breath away.
He sat in the corner, as still as an adder. Shirt and shoes as black as midnight, covered by a black suit despite the heat. Hair like a raven’s wings swept away from a narrow face. High cheek bones, full lips, a firm, pointed chin… his was the face of aristocracy. The fine-boned elegance that came from centuries of royal breeding. From his piercing gaze to the quiet, understated power of his lithe body, he radiated a simmering, fierce masculine aura. The edge of a tattoo peeked out beneath his cuffs. A hint that something wilder, more primal, lurked beneath his refinement.
Hot as hell – if you were into ominous and possibly malevolent Bad Boys.
Which Lily was.
Shimmering at the edge of her vision, she saw it.
His Dragon.
Shifters often saw the outlines of other Shifters’ spirt animals. It was like having a second pair of eyes, one that saw the spirit lands and not the mundane world of men. Those ‘eyes’ opened now to reveal a towering creature, far larger than the shabby trailer. A Dragon crouched beside the stranger, fierce and proud. Like him, it was a creature of midnight. Black scales glittered. Long and slender, its serpentine body coiled tight. On its head it bore the pair of slender, backward-curving horns that marked it as a Dragon of the Flight of the Snows.
“I remember you,” she told
him. “You were at the meeting Rex Fairburn called. I don’t remember your name though.”
Her dad supplied that missing information. “This is Casey Briggs, a representative of the Flight of the Snows. Mr. Briggs, this is my daughter Lily.”
He rose in one fluid, graceful motion and bowed his head in a formal greeting. “I bless the sun that shines upon our meeting, Ms. King, and pray that Brother Wind brings fortune to us both. The Sand Pack has been an ally of my Flight. May the day’s journey tie our Kinds closer together.”
Because ‘Hi, nice to meet you’ just isn’t good enough for the Stick-Up-the-Butt Flight…
Her own spirit, a shaggy brown Wolf, pranced with excitement.
Play! it urged her. Nip! Bite! Tease!
No. Insult = century-long grudge, remember?
Her Wolf didn’t see the problem with that.
But Lily did, and she held her tongue. “What’s the occasion?”
“Not ‘what.’ Who.” Her father waved at the couch. “Please, have a seat.”
Suspicious, she flopped down on the end farthest away from their visitor. More carefully, the Dragon settled back into his chair. “This about those Fangs of Apophis that have Fairburn so wound up?”
“In a way, yes.” Ignoring her, her father turned his chair toward Casey and leaned forward, grim and intent. “In the last six weeks, my daughter has been assaulted four times.”
The hackles on her Wolf’s neck rose and all thoughts of play evaporated. “What’s that got to do with anything?” Lily muttered.
“You think the Fangs are responsible for this?” said the Dragon.
Like anyone here was stupid enough to miss that hint! “So what? If they come for me, it saves me the trouble of hunting them down.”
She might as well have been talking to herself because both men ignored her. “I do, Mr. Briggs. The attacks are becoming more lethal too.”
“Lethal my ass!” Lily howled. “A couple of cracked ribs never killed anyone!”
“Last Wednesday, a truck pulled up beside her at an intersection and opened fire.”
Before driving off, too fast for her to follow. That attack was annoying, she had to admit. SOBs had ‘killed’ her favorite bike.
The Dragon leaned forward too, hands steepled together. “Why would the Fangs – if they exist – want your daughter dead?”
“I have no idea,” her father sighed. “We helped Fairburn destroy one of their safe houses. My first thought was that they wanted to punish me.”
Because, of course, everything was always about him, not her. Lily considered drawing the .357 hidden under her jacket. Maybe if she put a few slugs through the trailer’s roof the two men would remember she was here.
“Yet they haven’t struck at Fairburn, so I can’t believe that’s their true goal. It’s a mystery.”
Lily glowered at the two, arms folded across her chest. Furious that they discussed her like she wasn’t even in the room.
No one noticed. “You have a conundrum on your hands,” Casey admitted, leaning forward. “Why share it with me, though?”
“Because of this.”
From his pocket, her father drew a large golden coin. Thick and heavy, it oozed antiquity, like a Spanish doubloon. Strange letters had been clawed onto its surface, more like gouges than words.
A tremor rocked the Dragon. He rose, blood draining from his face. “Aaron King, son of Davis, son of Lawrence, son of Justice King, I stand before you.”
What the hell? Lily edged away from the raving lunatic. Why was he rattling off her dad’s family tree?
Her father held that coin up like a talisman and the Dragon continued his dazed speech. “I, Casey Briggs, Brother of the Flight of the Snows, thank you for the gift you gave the Marakeen. I will assume the debt and repay it, though it cost me my life’s blood.”
None of this made sense. Not the Coin of Dragon-Buying. Not the weird, formal speech. Heck, not even the words! What was a ‘Marakeen’, anyway?
Whatever it meant, that promise seemed to reassure her dad. “Thank you for honoring your Flight’s debt.” He placed the coin down gently on the coffee table.
Casey picked it up and held it, reverently, in his hands. “What would you have of us? Name this thing and I shall provide it, if it is within my power.”
“I want you to protect my daughter.”
Outrage coursed through her. Her Wolf scrambled to its feet, hackles rising.
But this was a ‘guy thing’, an agreement between the ‘boys’… and no one so much as glanced her way. That insufferable Dragon simply bowed his head and rumbled, “I will guard your daughter, for all my life if need be, until the day you deem this threat vanquished.”
“Like hell you will!” Lily barked.
Now they looked at her. Snow Snake seemed surprised by her fury – but her dad wasn’t the least bit surprised.
“I don’t need a babysitter, or a bodyguard, or whatever the hell you want to call this idiot.”
“Lily!” Her father jerked his head at the scowling Dragon. “Remember your manners!”
Oh, hell no she wouldn’t! Screw the Flight of the Snows and the threat of century-long pout-fests. “No. Veto. End of discussion. You don’t get to assign me a protector like I’m five years old.”
The insults were taking their toll on Casey’s patience. His lips pinched and, in the shadows, his Dragon lashed its tail like a furious cat. “Aaron King is not only you father, he is your Alpha. You owe him obedience.”
That was it. That was the last straw. Her Wolf exploded in sharp, furious barks as Lily rounded on him. “I’m an Alpha too and I do not obey anyone!”
“You’re… an Alpha?” He blinked at her father. “Is your daughter from another Pack?”
“No!” Lily howled. “I am one of the Alphas of the Sand Pack! This Pack.”
“‘One’ of the Alphas?” Like an affronted lord, the Dragon sneered at her. “What a foolish thing to say! There can only be one Alpha.”
Three steps, and she was right in his face. Casey backed up but hit the chair and nearly toppled over. Teeth bared in a snarl, eyes blazing, she stared him down. Letting him know that – Dragon or no – she wasn’t afraid of him.
“You don’t know anything about Wolves! Our Packs have two Alphas. One for the women, one for the men. Normally, they’re Mates, and they’re equals. Maybe Dragons beat each other up until there’s only one left standing, but we’re Wolves. We work together. We’re a Pack. And a Pack has two Alphas.”
“A fact my father,” she spat, “forgets.”
“I haven’t forgotten you’re my daughter,” he rumbled, anger simmering behind his words.
Lily rounded on him, abandoning the Dragon. “Well, you should! I am an Alpha – your equal! But you can’t see that. No, to you I’ll always be a ‘daughter’. A little girl. Your ‘princess.’”
“I never spoiled you!”
“You’ve never respected me either! You would never pull this on my mother!”
“YOUR MOTHER IS DEAD!” he roared, pushed to the breaking point by her rebellion. “And I will not lose you!”
Silence fell as the two Wolves glared at each other. Even the music outside had been turned off. The whole Pack listened, nervous, as their Alphas fought.
Lily was the first to turn away – but not in submission. “You lose a little bit of me every time you dishonor me. Today, you’ve lost a lot.”
“Lily…”
Elbowing her way past him, she stormed out the door. Staring Wolves startled and quickly tried to hide the fact that they’d been eavesdropping.
Lily ignored them. She stalked to her motorcycle and snatched up her helmet.
Her father, it seemed, was content to let her go.
Her new bodyguard, however, was a different matter. He banged out of the trailer behind her and stomped over. “Ms. King, we need to talk.”
“No, we don’t. You need to get lost. Fly back to your Lair in the Sierra Nevadas and sit on a pile of
gold… or whatever it is Dragons do for fun.”
In his spotless black suit and leather shoes, he was out of place in the shabby trailer park. Like a movie star wandering through a flea market. Yet he held onto the conversation with a tenacity that would impress any Wolf.
Or dog.
“My Flight owes your father a Blood Debt. Repaying it is the highest honor any Dragon could receive.”
“How nice for you,” she sneered, as she swung her leg over her Harley. “Too bad your ‘honor’ dishonors me.”
“You mustn’t think of it that way. I’m a Dragon, the strongest of Shifter Kinds. You are… well, just a Wolf.”
Just a Wolf? ‘Just’? Rage tinted the world red as the Harley came to life beneath her. “Oh, hey, that’s a great argument. ‘I’m not dishonoring you, you just suck!’”
“That isn’t what I meant!”
“Well, it’s what you said!” Damn, the sooner she escaped this pompous fool the better!
He suddenly seemed to notice the rumbling motorcycle. “Where are you going?”
“Away. I’ve got errands to run.”
“Where?”
“None of your business.” Ooh, it felt good to say that!
“Ms. King,” he huffed, drawing himself up in indignation, “I am your bodyguard. I cannot guard you properly unless you tell me where you’re going.”
“Sucks to be you, then,” she purred.
That felt even better. As did throwing the Harley in gear and leaving him standing in a cloud of dust.
Chapter 3.
This damned Wolf Princess was not making life easy!
Did she truly think that flight would make him abandon his duty! No, this was the greatest honor of his life. He summoned his Dragon, letting its power wash over him. Around him, the Wolves of the Sand Pack gaped, wide-eyed, as he Shifted. His body stretched into a sinuous, glittering serpent. Black wings like curtains of night burst from his shoulders. Gleaming ivory horns curled from his brow, the one bit of light in his Dragon’s somber hues. With not a single glance at his bedazzled spectators, Casey launched himself into the air. Returning to the element that Dragons ruled.
