by Ann Gimpel
I understood without being introduced, this had to be Oberon, King of Faery. His classically handsome face was set in resolute lines. Nothing soft about him. Titania had said he was ill, but he seemed to have thrown off whatever was ailing him.
“Pair up, two Sidhe to one dragon,” he shouted at the faery horde before turning to Konstantin. “We must work quickly while our magic is at its zenith. My warriors will open the way with arrows, but your dragons must seed the gap with dragonfire as soon as it is exposed. Once that is done, move to the next serpent.”
“We shall fight alongside you as well,” Ylon said. “Dinosaur power is just as deadly, but we leverage earth rather than fire.”
I expected at least a small amount of pushback from Konstantin. Instead, he inclined his head. “Thank you for your aid, Oberon. Once this battle is concluded, we shall sit and talk.”
The king focused multihued eyes on Konstantin. “Agreed.”
Erin nudged me. “Wonder what was wrong with him?”
“Probably nothing Western medicine could have solved.”
Eager to offer the dragon shifter part of things, I half ran and half flew to the group of Sidhe still pouring through the gateway. Joining up with the next two faeries to emerge, I headed for the shoreline half a kilometer distant. Clumsy on the ground, I flew above them. My companions were both male, and both fair. Dressed in soft beige hunting leathers and calf-high lace-up boots, they reminded me of the elf in Lord of the Rings, minus the pointy ears. It took me a moment to resurrect his name. Legolas.
The Sidhe had an elegance and grace to them at odds with the vicious cast to their eyes.
Kon’s prediction about the serpents seemed accurate. There were more of them, and they’d packed up in groups of three and four. Some Sidhe had already reached them. The serpents roared a challenge, open jaws displaying double rows of teeth. The similarity to dragons was unnerving, but I didn’t let myself dwell on it.
The sour astringent reek of their poison thickened the air. I hoped the faeries knew to ward themselves. I didn’t want to risk irritating them by stating the obvious. My companions had nocked arrows and ran toward a cluster of serpents. Two grays and a red.
I wasn’t certain just how this would work. Could the arrows penetrate the serpents’ scaled hides? Or did they have to wait for a perfect shot right into the creatures’ mouths? I hovered, keeping up a steady stream of ash and smoke. Maybe it irritated the serpents, made it tougher for them to breathe. I hoped so. My beast was conserving fire until we needed it. I felt heat building within us as my bondmate made good and sure our contribution would be hot enough.
A faery jumped sideways and loosed an arrow into one of the gray serpents’ eyes in a single, fluid motion. The shaft didn’t remain with its feathered end sticking out like a normal arrow. Almost as soon as it connected with the serpent, it continued to sink until nothing visible was left.
The creature bellowed and roared as the scaly skin around its eye socket pulled back. The eyeball bubbled and liquified, running down the bastard’s snout.
“What are ye waiting for?” the Sidhe screeched at me.
I didn’t bother to answer. My jaws were open, and my beast poured a stream of flame into the ruined eye socket. I’d been expecting a long gash to open somewhere in the serpent. Good thing everyone else had this nailed down better than me.
The second of our three serpents was on his way out too. This time, I’d saturated a festering hole in his side with fire. It took the fuckers a while to burn even after my bondmate doused them with flames. I was starting to figure out that every serpent was different, and I couldn’t take anything for granted.
The air was dense with the stench of burning meat, and smoke was so thick it was tough to breathe. My Sidhe partners danced around the third serpent, but it must have been taking smarter pills because magic blasted outward from it, dark jagged shards that chopped through the faeries’ leather garments. When the grayish cloud of darts and poison cleared, the serpent was gone.
I landed, intent on checking on the Sidhe. One didn’t look good to me. Face contorted in pain, he clutched a long slit in his side where the leather had split. When he brought his fingers away, they dripped blood.
I scanned the shoreline. Not many serpents remained. Not alive, anyway. My guess was the word had gone out from Serpent Central to retreat.
“Are you all right?” I asked the Sidhe.
“Do I look all right?” His words held a breathy quality, and blood bubbled from his mouth. Crap. Even I knew he had a punctured lung. What I didn’t know was if he had enough magic to fix it.
“Katya!” I bugled.
Her golden-scaled form materialized fast, and she landed next to me. The other Sidhe had his arm around the injured one, and the two of them had begun walking slowly up the headland.
“Wait,” Katya bugled. “We can fly you.”
The faeries turned, and the one with blood staining his leathers gasped out, “Thank you, but ye canna fly us to the Dreaming.”
Oberon shimmered out of nothing. He was just there. Placing his hands on the wounded man’s shoulders, he hummed a few notes and followed them with Gaelic so old, it even took my bondmate a moment to understand his meaning.
Oberon was sending his warrior to the faery equivalent of Valhalla. Guilt arrowed into me. This was my fault, somehow. I hadn’t been quick enough to corral the serpent and his sorcerous magic. Or to anticipate what he was about. Worse, I hadn’t told the Sidhe to ward themselves. My silence had cost a life.
“Can we not save him?” I asked.
Oberon kept on chanting. I was afraid I was trampling on something sacred, so I shut up. Katya dropped a foreleg on my shoulder, and I bowed my head. A golden glow started at ground level and gradually grew, surrounding the man. The strained expression left his face and he shook off the other faery who’d been holding him upright.
The glistening shroud pulsed with hope. I may have misinterpreted, but it promised the Sidhe he would resurrect himself and live again after he’d healed in the Dreaming.
When the shiny veil cleared, the man was gone. Oberon’s shoulders sagged, and his hands fell to his sides. His face had lost most of its color. I could only guess what the outpouring of magic had cost him.
Konstantin’s bugle was followed by instructions to teleport to their lair.
“I assume ye know where that is.” Oberon’s voice was raspy.
“We will take you there,” Katya said.
I turned in a full circle, surveying the shore. Smoke from numerous pyres stained the sky. We hadn’t killed all of them, so the others must have left in much the same way our target had. I wondered if there’d been more casualties.
I’d always found the Southern Ocean awe-inspiring, but as I gazed at the gray water and gray sky and chunks of ice bobbing on the waves, protectiveness surged. Hot, vicious, lethal. Evil would not gain the upper hand here. Earth would not turn into a breeding ground for hybrids like the third and ninth worlds in the Fleisher system. Or into a command post for serpents to finetune their plans to chivvy everything good and decent out of the universe.
Outraged bugles rang from me. A challenge to anyone who might be listening. I might be young. I might be untried, but goddammit I would not stand by and allow wickedness to win.
A very old truism from Edmund Burke ran through my mind. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Surely, it applied to good dragons as well as good men.
“Johan?” Katya prodded me.
“Sorry. I am ready to—”
Above me, a green wing poked through the thick gunmetal cloud cover. My beast wrenched control and spread his wings, intent on taking flight and challenging the intruder—who could only be another dragon—to aerial combat.
“No!” Katya screeched.
When I twisted my head to look at her, I saw Oberon swaying on his feet. The other Sidhe attempted to support his liege, but Oberon shook him off.
�
��Get control of your bondmate,” she yelled.
“Leave,” I told her. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“I’ll hold you to it.” Magic built around her. She lumbered next to the two Sidhe and snapped them into her spell.
My beast was still trying to move us into the air. The green wing had expanded to include a neck and another wing. This had to be one of the dragon traitors. I recalled all too well what had happened on the ninth world. I’d nearly died. It was all the incentive I needed.
“We are following Katya,” I told my beast, leaving spaces between each word. “Our mate. I made her a promise.”
“But I know him. He doesn’t deserve to live.” Fire shot from my beast but fell short of the bastard in the sky by a kilometer.
I tried to open a teleport channel, but my bondmate blocked me. He was still intent on destruction. “We are alone here,” I told him. “Alone.”
“So? We don’t need anyone else.” A mighty surge nearly upset the death grip I had on our wings.
I reached deep. Dug for what power I could command. “We. Are. Leaving.” I have no idea what I did differently—or maybe my beast gave up—but the shoreline turned dark, replaced by the lake near Konstantin and Katya’s grotto.
So long as I had the upper hand, and a very pissed off bondmate, I followed the teleport spell with shift magic. I was afraid the dragon would make it hard, but I fairly catapulted out of his form and into my familiar human one.
When the magical dust cleared and I reached within, intent on making peace, he was gone. Crap! He said he knew the green dragon. I should’ve gotten his name. I did my best to seal up my passageway so the dragon traitor couldn’t follow.
Probably should have done that first, but this magic crap is still new to me. Hoping my sloppiness wouldn’t create problems, I hustled toward the house.
Katya
Katya had read about the Daoine Sidhes’ renewal casting, but she’d never seen it done before. The spell held a poignant beauty that made her long for Scotland’s lochs and Highlands. The reason the faeries were immortal was because of Oberon’s link to the land.
He’d managed to marshal and hold the magic for his spell, but it had cost him a shocking amount. When had the Sidhe grown so weak? It wasn’t exactly a question she could ask, but she bet it had something to do with the sulky, recalcitrant land. She hadn’t gotten the full story from her twin, but reading between the lines of what he had said, she guessed this world was tired, feeling disenfranchised and just didn’t care anymore—about the impact of her actions on anyone.
Her probable reasoning was easy enough to understand. No one gave a fuck about her, so why should she put herself out for anyone.
Mu had gone down fighting. That world hadn’t given up until there truly was no hope. Its core temperature had reached a point where destruction was imminent. Earth had centuries of life left but felt terminally sorry for herself. Katya understood the downsides of immortality as well an anyone. How the prospect of endless days drained you, sucked the joy out of everything.
She brought Oberon and the other Sidhe down gently very near her front doors and shifted. “You are welcome to bide within, Oberon, Faery King, and you as well,” she told his companion.
She was worried about Johan, but controlling his bondmate was the first and most critical lesson when it came to being a dragon shifter. She’d wanted to stick close until his dragon retreated, but Oberon was fading. If he sank too far, she had no idea what would happen. Could another Daoine Sidhe cast magic and send him back to the Dreaming. Perhaps Titania could manage it, but Katya wasn’t certain.
Oberon cast his multicolored eyes—gold, silver, and violet—about. “What is this place?”
She held up a hand with talons changing into fingers to let him know she’d answer him in a moment. Once her shift was mostly complete, she said, “A world within a world. A string of lakes extends for many kilometers, and there are terrain features that mirror this world’s surface, including high mountains.”
“Aye, but how did ye find it?”
She was getting used to his odd eyes. They were more green now, but a moment ago, they’d been pale lavender. “Konstantin located it. When we first came to this world, there were many more of us.”
“What happened to your kin?” the other Sidhe asked.
“They grew dissatisfied with living underground. Our crops failed, and we had no easy way to replenish them.”
“They left?” Oberon raised a dark brow. She nodded, and he went on, “Have you heard aught from any of them?”
“No. Nothing. Both Kon and I thought it odd.”
Johan’s distinctive energy bloomed not far away. She blew out a relieved breath. Good. He’d won the struggle with his bondmate.
Titania strode close and aimed her words at Oberon. “I felt your spell.”
“No choice. He was dying. I had to send him back.”
“But the cost—”
“I am recovering,” he cut her off.
The harsh cast to her face softened, and she tucked a hand beneath his arm. “Come. Walk with me. Everyone is gathered next to a lake. The waters hold renewal.”
Katya watched while the three Sidhe walked away, and then made her way to Johan’s side. “Was your beast upset?” she asked.
“Very. In fact, he is missing. He said he knew the other dragon, and—”
Anger ran hot, courtesy of her beast, who was outraged. “Who is he?”
“That is just it. I did not get a chance to ask before he went off in a snit.”
“He’ll return.” Katya wrapped an arm around Johan’s back. His skin, silk stretched taut over muscle, felt tantalizing beneath her fingertips. “I’m glad you’re all right. I felt torn up there on the shoreline, but Oberon needed to leave more than you needed me to stay.”
“I understand, and I appreciate your vote of confidence more than I can say.”
“I’m sure your bondmate does too, or he will once he gets over himself.” Katya smiled.
Johan hesitated. “Do you suppose dragons were behind today’s attack?”
She nodded slowly and made a face. “It pains me to admit it, but yeah. Kon said the serpents seemed lethargic. It might have been because they were caught up in a spell.”
“But why would we not have sensed dragon magic if it was in play?”
“One of the things I love about you is all your questions. They mean you’re always pondering.”
Johan angled an indulgent look her way and threaded an arm around her shoulders. “That would be me. The Thinker. You did not answer my last query, though.”
“With all the dragon magic floating about, do you think we would’ve noticed a wee bit extra?”
“Probably not. I am just beginning to recognize the differences in magic among the various shifter types.” He cast a questioning look at the double stone doors leading inside and dropped a hand to cup her ass.
“Uh-uh. I’d like nothing more than to vanish inside with you, but we need to join the others. Sooner rather than later too.”
“You have the finest ass, woman.” He squeezed it again and nuzzled her neck. “I love you, darling.”
“I love you right back.” She spared a glance at his thickening cock. “You have a whole lot of prime real estate too, but it might be a long time before we get even five minutes to ourselves.” Wriggling out of his grip, she set a quick pace for the lake.
Most of the shifters seemed to already be there, and she hoped to hell Konstantin wasn’t waiting on her and Johan. The Sidhe sat on the ground, except for Oberon and Titania. They swam in the lake. Oberon’s color had returned, and she risked a subtle scan with magic to test her assumption about him being better.
Surprisingly, his power had rebounded from when he stood on the shores of the Southern Ocean. Of course, it had nowhere to go except up, but something about either this location or the lake were helping.
Titania had said the waters held “renewal.” Katya hadn’t paid
much attention to her at the time, but maybe she hadn’t fully appreciated the lake’s potential. Or perhaps it was synergistic with the faeries’ brand of magic. She and Johan went to stand with the other dragon shifters. Katya did a quick nose count to ascertain if they’d lost anyone beyond the one faery.
One raven shifter appeared to be missing.
Konstantin strode to a small knoll. “We fought well, but we must do better. Losses are unacceptable, and today we lost a bird shifter and a Sidhe.”
Gustaf, a thick-bodied bird shifter with flyaway brown hair and green eyes took a step forward. “He is not lost. He’s been captured. We must do everything we can to get him back.”
“Can you still sense him?” Konstantin asked.
“No,” Gustaf admitted. He looked as if he wanted to say more. If Katya read his expression right, it cost him to be part of this conclave when what he wanted to be doing was helping his companion.
“If we can rescue him, we shall,” Kon promised and turned his attention to the Sidhe. “How is your magic holding up?”
“Better down here,” Titania said.
“Aye, we are closer to the core of this world.” Oberon climbed out of the lake and shrugged into his golden robes. Titania remained in the water.
“A dragon showed up just as we were leaving,” Katya said. She aimed for a neutral tone, one where she simply imparted information.
Every set of eyes skewered her along with many variations of, “Do you know who it was?”
Katya glanced at Johan, who nodded. “Bennet. The name of his human side is Bennet. My beast just told me.”
Katya had known his bondmate would return, but not quite so soon. She understood she was focused on that to avoid what felt like an inescapable conclusion. She’d ignored Loran and his brothers—traitors one and all—because only one of them had been part of their flight. But Bennet had been another.
