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My hands were slicked with blood and kept slipping off his skin as I tried to find something to grab on to. We rolled through puddles and mud, exchanging blows, until I finally wiggled around and embraced his middle with my legs. I tore him in two with the strength of my thighs and tossed the pieces aside.
I was covered in blood from head to toe as I stood and faced the last dragon. The female.
“Tell your Master I refuse his offer to join him. I don’t play with cowards. I kill them.”
She nodded her head in submission and shifted into her dragon form, her clothes tearing at the seams as her body elongated and her bones seemed to turn to liquid. The sapphires encrusted in her human skin glittered across her pale belly like beautiful chain mail. She was icy blue, fragile, like spun glass. But the brief glance of teeth and talons I got before she flew away were anything but delicate.
I walked over to the one called Bartolomé. The stake in his chest protruded grotesquely. His eyes were open and confused, but the fear was there. I barely spared him a glance. I snapped his neck and took his head before he could draw any more strength to heal himself. We’d have to burn them all.
Drakán blood dripped from my body, and I stood in the rain for a few more minutes, my face tilted up toward the sky to let some of the blood wash away. I closed my eyes and pushed my senses outward, making sure everything was as it should be. My internal injuries were already healing, but my breath still came in shallow pants. I was going to be sore for a couple of days.
A colorful streak flew from the trees and over my shoulder, landing in front of me. She was long and sleek in her dragon form—one powerful muscle—her scales luminescent and pale pink. And familiar. It had been a long time since I’d seen her. More than fifty years.
The dragon slowly transformed until a woman stood before me. Her nakedness went unashamed, and her body was the palest of marble, the blue of her veins visible beneath the delicate skin. Her face was smooth and unlined, her hair so blond it was almost white. But her eyes were those of an Ancient—dark blue and clear like a deep lake.
“Hello, Aunt Calista,” I said as the tension built between us.
“I thought you’d be dead by the time I got here,” she said. “Your fighting skills have always been less than adequate.”
“Apparently not this time,” I said, moving to walk past her.
I barely saw the blur of her body as it hit me hard, the healing muscles and bones inside my body breaking once more.
“Don’t speak to me that way. Rebellion does not become you, Rena. You disappoint me.”
I’d been a disappointment to everyone in my family for my entire life, so I let the insult pass as I pushed myself off the ground. To say that most of my immediate family hated me would be an understatement. Calista resented me because she’d been forced to raise me. My father hated me not only because I was a constant reminder of my mother, but because I possessed the powers of an Enforcer. He didn’t understand why I’d been blessed with such a gift, but not also been given the physical strength or other Drakán abilities to go along with it. He considered me weak, but at the same time he considered me a threat. And he was always watching me, afraid I’d take over his mind and claim his position as Archos.
An Ancient’s shields were impenetrable to anyone, including me, but if he ever let them slip enough that I could sneak past his guards, I wouldn’t hesitate to take control and free us all from his tyranny. So come to think of it, I guess he had a pretty good reason to want me dead. The only thing that was keeping me alive was my title as Enforcer. The gift was so rare that the Council had forbidden anyone from killing us.
There were only three who’d gained the power of Enforcer through the millennia since the human blood first tainted our race—Calista, me, and Cal. Alasdair was the Archos of our clan, a son of one of the original warriors, and the most powerful of our dwindling numbers, but the gift had passed him over.
Alasdair’s feelings toward me were mutual, but we were stuck with each other. I would have left long ago, and I’d tried on many occasions, but Alasdair always hunted me down and brought me back, usually broken and bloody. As Enforcer, I was a useful tool for Alasdair. When clan members became too powerful he liked for me to invade their minds and make them loyal to him, so they’d never try to challenge him for his position as Archos. I did it for him when I had no other choice, but I’d gotten pretty good over the last century or so of avoiding Alasdair whenever possible.
“Come inside,” I told her. “I’ll find you some clothes. Alasdair isn’t going to be pleased to see you.”
“He already knows I’m here. We’ve got trouble, Rena. I’ve seen it.” Her voice was strong and made the hairs on my arms stand up. Calista was the most powerful psychic I’d ever known, so if she said we had trouble I believed her.
“What kind of trouble?”
“We’re all going to die,” she said, and then turned her back and walked calmly into the house, leaving me in the rain with my mouth hanging open in shock.
ChapterFive
After the initial surprise of Calista’s bombshell, I disposed of the bodies on the front lawn. I didn’t think Special Agent Ford would appreciate the carnage lying in the gardens. I tossed everything I could find into our incinerator—one of Erik’s inventions whose temperature burned the same as a dragon’s fire—and I twisted the dial to the highest setting, taking no chances that they might survive.
The day was starting to catch up with me and it felt as if bags of sand had replaced my bones. I went to check on Calista, the numbness in my legs growing so it was a struggle to put one foot in front of the other. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was terrified of the vision she’d seen or because my body was more hurt than I’d thought. I looked down and saw the odd angle of my knee and figured that, at least, explained the numbness.
Calista lounged across the couch, the paleness of her naked body a drastic contrast to the blood red of the sofa. Her body was eerily still, a Drakán trait that only the most Ancient of our race could truly master, and the only sign of life I could see was the tumbler of whiskey she held in a white-knuckled grip.
I went to my quarters and showered quickly, turning the water to blisteringly hot so my aches and pains would heal faster. I dressed quickly in jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt and pulled my wet hair back in a clip, not taking the time to dry it. I then went in search of clothes for Calista. I knew from experience if I didn’t bring them to her she’d just walk around the house naked.
Calista used to live with us, and there was still a trunk of her things upstairs after her abrupt departure. She’d been the Enforcer for our clan before I took over the job. I’d been in the middle of my training when Alasdair had decided to propose a new law to the Council stating that as Archos and head of the family, he should receive a certain percentage of his clans’ hoards. Calista didn’t take the news well, because everyone knew that Calista’s hoard was one to be envied—filled with gold and jewels and priceless artifacts.
Calista confronted Alasdair with his treachery and the ensuing fight left our lair in shambles. Some of the walls had been completely destroyed and all of the furniture had been turned to smoldering piles of ash. The floors had been slicked with blood for days. But what sent Calista over the edge was when Alasdair tried to breach her magic and break through the shields that surrounded her hoard.
She’d renounced her pledge to serve Alasdair as her Archos, breathed one last impressive stream of fire in his direction, and then flown off into the night. It became obvious pretty quickly that she wasn’t ever coming back. Her hoard was suddenly gone the next day, and all that was left was a single trunk of her things. Erik and I were left to clean up the mess of our lair while Alasdair went on a hunting spree to quench his thirst for violence.
None of us knew where Calista had gone, and Alasdair and I couldn’t track her because she knew how to hide her scent and guard her mind against us. The only contact I’d had from her had been a formal letter, giving up her title as Enforcer and passing it on to me. She said she no longer cared to protect her people from being discovered. She only cared to protect herself and her hoard. So I grudgingly stepped into the role of Enforcer, even though I was far from being ready. Cal had still been a child at that point, and I was the only other choice. Drakán law stated that as long as another Enforcer was available to take their predecessor’s place, then an Enforcer could forfeit their position without punishment. And no one could find Calista to try to talk her into keeping the job.
