Hidden Dragons (27 page)

Ceallach opened his mouth, perhaps to stop her with an incantation. Judging that his attention was fully occupied, Rick rushed forward with all the speed he had. The fist with the gauntlet was drawn back beside his ear, his muscles coiled to release the instant he was close enough. He aimed the electrum spikes toward his target, where the faerie’s vertebrae met his skull, so focused he felt as if he were seeing
through
Ceallach’s sleek silver braid. He let out no battle cry, not wanting to give himself away. In truth, he barely let himself think one.

Two white glows flared to life on the back of Ceallach’s head.

Rick had a second to wonder why they looked like eyes. Then something hit him, a punch of invisible force as solid as a wall. The force knocked his breath from him, flinging his body like a toy high into the air. He braced himself for a crash, but none came. He’d stopped moving abruptly. The magic held him dangling among the barn’s rafters. In the process, it shredded Cass’s concealing cloak. Not that the faerie knew this.

He hadn’t bothered to turn around.

“Really,” he said, no more than mildly irritated. “Did you think I’d let a
puppy
sneak up on me?”

Cass wasn’t out of bullets, but she dropped her arms anyway. She didn’t say a word, just stood trembling with the useless gun hanging by her thigh.

“That’s better,” Ceallach said.

“Leave her alone,” said her chained-up father. “I’m the one who has what you want.”

Ceallach tipped his head to the side to consider him. “That’s the problem with torture,” he observed. “I’ve put you in so much pain you no longer mind the discomfort of lying.”

Cass’s father clenched his jaw, his irises beginning to kindle with anger. Seeming amused, Ceallach moved toward him. He didn’t look like he planned to hurt his captive, but Rick had already noticed he didn’t telegraph his intentions.

“Hey,” he called, deciding an interruption might be in order. “Let me down from here.”

Ceallach dropped him as easily as thinking.

Rick’s shifter reflexes allowed him to land on his fist and feet without breaking bones. His falling weight drove the gauntlet’s spikes into the ground. Grunting, he yanked them out and straightened.

Apparently unconcerned with him, Ceallach pointed at Cass. “Breathe the wrong way, and I’ll end them both.”

Only when he was sure she’d behave did the faerie turn to Rick. Before Ceallach, Rick had never met a pureblood who didn’t damp his looks in mixed company. Despite everything that had happened, Ceallach’s gazillion watt glittery beauty sent a mind-blanking stutter into Rick’s brain. Evidently, the anti-glamour charm on his medal wasn’t up to nulling power like this.

Rick needed all his concentration to blink and recover. As his mental functioning returned, he realized Ceallach had taken possession of his hand. Turning it this way and that, he examined the gauntlet.

“I wondered where this went,” he said. “You must have been the best replacement that female protector could summon on short notice. But I suppose that’s to be expected in a dimension for idiots and mongrels.”

Maybe Rick hadn’t returned to normal yet. He snatched his hand back belatedly. “You killed her.”

Ceallach shrugged as if to say,
What of it?

He had a point, considering Rick was currently in no position to arrest him.

“There is one advantage to you being a lowly wolf,” Ceallach mused. “I’ll have no trouble glamouring you into serving us.”

“Like hell,” Rick denied.

Ceallach smiled creamily at him. His electric eyes were eerie in the dimness, his confidence unnerving. Rick was at least an inch taller and more substantial by many pounds. Nonetheless, the faerie suddenly seemed bigger in every way. Understanding they were being threatened, Rick’s wolf trickled out a snarl.

“Pup,” Ceallach said silkily, “you can’t comprehend how easy compelling you would be. My queen would enjoy making a pet of you.”

“Your queen would fuck a dog if she were bored enough,” Cass’s dad contributed.

Rick didn’t think Roald le Beau was trying to insult him, only to ruffle his enemy’s smooth feathers. In this, he succeeded. Ceallach’s glowing blue eyes narrowed.

“Keeper,” he growled as if he were a wolf himself. “You speak of one whose slippers you’re not fit to lick.”

“Maybe we should talk about this,” Cass interrupted. “Work out a trade we can all live with.”

Ceallach let a portion of his tension go and laughed. “By all means, halfling. Tell me what you propose to trade.”

Cass didn’t tell him. He was a foot away from her and overconfident. She whipped up the hand that held Rick’s Smith & Wesson and shot him point-blank through the forehead.

That had an effect all right, all right. Ceallach toppled back, body stiff and eyes wide with shock. He lay like that on his sword—not a comfortable position, Rick expected.

“Fuck,” Roald exclaimed, not seeming pleased by his daughter’s bad-assness. “Cut off his head. Cut off his head
right now!
”

He was so desperate to do it he threw his broken body against the chains. Recovering from his shock at Cass’s actions, Rick leaped to behead the downed man with his spiked gauntlet. He didn’t get to the fae in time. Ceallach made a nasty growling noise and sat up. The grisly bullet wriggled from the hole in his brow and fell.

He spoke a guttural word that was not English.

Cass screamed and dropped the gun. Rick didn’t understand what had happened until he saw the semiautomatic had gone red-hot. Cass’s hand was blistered, the skin on it smoking. Roald whispered something soft, and the smoking stopped. Then Roald moaned. By healing Cass, he’d reopened a gash on his own temple.

“Dad!” Cass cried in alarm.

“Enough,” Ceallach said, struggling to his feet.
He
had plenty of juice to heal himself. The bullet’s entry wound was now nothing but a dent. With an ominous
zing
, he drew the blade that until then had been safely sheathed. “No more tricks. One of you tells me where the eggs are or I start removing body parts.”

“There are no eggs,” Cass declared truthfully.

“There are,” Ceallach shouted, losing all patience. “Damn you, we will have them!”

Great
, Rick thought. Now they had a crazy über-powerful fae to deal with.

Ceallach placed the tip of his sword over Roald’s heart.

Rick was the first to hear the approach. The sound was soft, like pillowcases flapping on a clothesline. For a single heartbeat, elation rose. Then he realized this couldn’t be a good development. Too little time had passed for his pack to have the brood in their protection.

Cass’s babies had come alone.

Ceallach’s head swiveled toward the door, listening. “Don’t move,” he ordered Cass, his blade continuing to press Roald’s breast.

Two shapes swooped through the building’s door, revealed by the hurricane lantern as one green and one red dragon. The dragons seemed bigger with their wings spread and their tails trailing. Maybe they were. They grew so fast it was possible.

Ceallach’s expression transformed to dazzled awe. “Two,” he breathed, turning to watch them circle between the rafters. “
Two
of them survived.”

Rick tried to clamp his brain down tight. Whatever advantage there might be in Ceallach believing only two dragons lived, Rick wanted to cling to. He glanced at Roald, who seemed similarly amazed. Rick wanted to say
really
? He’d entrusted the clutch to his daughter but hadn’t thought she’d hatch them successfully?

“Those eggs were ancient,” Roald murmured in wonder.

Cass exchanged a glance with Rick and shrugged. Like him, she was impressed the dragons were flying but also worried that they were here. Perversely, Auric’s absence annoyed Rick a tiny bit. Of the three, the gold dragon was Rick’s bestie. Did Auric lag that far behind the others in motor skills?

Verdi and Scarlet landed—only a little awkwardly—on one of the barn’s cross beams. Verdi lifted his wings and puffed out his crop in a victory squawk. No matter the danger he’d just flown into, Rick couldn’t repress a smile for the dragon’s pride. Scarlet cheeped and scrabbled closer to her brother. The dragons were breathing hard. The flight from the cave must have been an exertion.

Ceallach stepped away from Cass and her father to crane at them. The crushed-star glister of his skin brightened.

“Little darlings,” he crooned. “Fly down to me, sweethearts. I’ll take you to your new mother.”

Cass stifled a surprised gasp. Either the faerie didn’t hear it or didn’t consider it important. For his part, Rick was as stumped as Cass. She’d imprinted these dragons. As far as he knew, that only happened once. If this was true, how could the brood get a new mother?

“Come,” Ceallach coaxed. He tucked the sword underneath one arm, his fingers and his shining power beckoning. “I’ll protect you, darlings. I’ll bring you to the one queen who deserves you.”

The dragons sidled unsurely on the beam. Cass’s father let out a snort. “You . . . expect your whore . . . to ‘mother’ them? There isn’t . . . one drop of keeper blood . . . in Joscela’s veins.”

Ceallach shot him a hooded look. “You’d be surprised what magic my queen has amassed since you fled with our treasure to this pocket of pestilence.”

“They won’t come to you,” Cass predicted.

Ceallach simply smiled at her.

Rick didn’t know why she’d challenged him until he noticed her edging closer to the fallen gun. His heart sank at least a foot. He gave her points for bravery but maybe not for sense. The dragons were here. Ceallach might want a spare swordsman for his queen, but he no longer had an incentive to keep Cass alive. If they failed to kill him again, Rick doubted the fae would bother reining in his temper.

He tried to catch Cass’s eye to tell her
no
. Before he could, something tugged at his jeans’ leg. Every hair on his scalp stood up. Fortunately, his wolf’s instincts stopped him from turning to see what it was. The tug came again, right around the level of his knee.

Auric
, he thought. The gold dragon must have crawled between the loose boards at the building’s rear, using his siblings’ showier entrance as cover. Not sure what Auric wanted but willing to find out, Rick shifted his position so that his back angled more fully away from Ceallach. The tugging was replaced by the pricks of Auric’s claws as he swiftly climbed Rick’s pants leg. When he reached Rick’s waist, he butted him with his head. Sincerely hoping this was more than a game, Rick bent the arm with the gauntlet and stuck it behind him. Auric crawled onto it.

Scarlet chose that moment to flap down from the beam to land on Ceallach’s shoulder.

Looking utterly enchanted and slightly smug, Ceallach petted her. “That’s a girl,” he praised. “You know who you belong with.”

Auric wasn’t gnawing at the gauntlet the way he usually did. Wrapping his tail around Rick’s upper arm for balance, he’d crouched down to hum to it. The sound was so low it was barely more than a vibration. Low or not, it was powerful. Rick’s arm bones began to resonate. The glove took up the vibration next, tingles touching the skin under it. Rick felt an almost silent click-click-click as the clever plates that encased his fingers peeled back one by one from their tips.

He tried to keep his face impassive, but Cass glanced over. He guessed she could see Auric from where she stood, because her eyebrows went up.

Verdi cawed, drawing attention to himself. Ceallach was trying to lure the green dragon down from his perch. The dragons’ behavior reminded Rick of a pack coordinating to hunt prey. One wolf would dart in and distract their target while the others crept closer. Even as the thought arose, more plates unpeeled from his glove. The segments were folding together, forming an uneven sphere in his palm. Rick’s hand felt oddly cold without the covering. His job apparently done, Auric scrambled down his leg to the ground where he hid behind Rick’s ankles.

Okay, what was Rick supposed to do now? Obviously, the dragons expected a contribution. They’d consider him part of their pack too. He rolled the electrum ball in his hand. Should he throw it at Ceallach’s head? It felt unfinished, but would it do some special magical damage?

Before he could decide, Verdi darted down from the beam to land on Ceallach’s other shoulder. The faerie’s sword was tucked beneath the same arm. Verdi stretched his neck to nibble the glinting hilt.

Ah
, Rick thought, finally getting it. That’s what the gauntlet was supposed to turn into. He wanted it to do that like he’d never wanted anything before. How could he protect Cass without it? How could he protect their dragons?

The overwhelming desire to defend them was a catalyst. The metal ball blazed within his hand. Rick didn’t drop it. He knew by now its transformations wouldn’t harm him.

Ceallach was too busy chuckling at Verdi’s antics to see Rick’s sword stretch full length. Scarlet shifted on the fae’s other shoulder, her toothy mouth gaping by his ear. Cass must have guessed what was coming. She stooped to grab the fallen gun. That Ceallach noticed. He spun toward her.

Scarlet breathed a blistering fireball at him.

It didn’t set him alight, but the faerie cried out and swatted her. At the same time, he tried to regain a fighting grip on his sword. Cass aimed but couldn’t shoot with the dragons flapping and squawking so nearby.

They were in Rick’s way too. Unable to swing at the faerie’s head, he went low, sliding across the dirt on his knees to him. From there he thrust upward, impaling Ceallach through the belly and out his ribs. Blood gushed, but it wasn’t a killing blow—possibly because Rick wasn’t used to wielding a blade that big. Ceallach coughed and spat blood. Rick knew he needed to strike again, through his heart preferably, but discovered the sword was stuck. Though he pulled as hard as he could, he couldn’t wrench it free.

The idea that the faerie’s flesh was healing around it didn’t make him happy.

With a bloody grin, Ceallach brought his own weapon up.

“Fuck,” Rick cursed, tugging harder.

He was about to let go and roll out of reach when a gold shape zoomed by. Auric crashed into Ceallach’s arm, knocking the sword away. Seizing his opening, Rick put all his strength into one massive heave.