Immortal Coil (24 page)

It warms up.

Swell.

He chuckled again and warmth eased over her bare skin.
The cloak resembles what we were. And we were also naked and fragile under our scales.

Before you bec
a
me spirits
?

Yes.

She shifted, uncertain what to say next. She was dying to know what had happened. What could possibly turn all the dragons in the world into spirits? But just the thought seemed to fill Hunter with such pain.
It must have been terrible.

It happened a long time ago
.
But the weight of his emotion told her it still hurt.

And everything your people do is somehow connected to it.

That kind of attack isn’t something easily forgotten.
But now I’m not sure if I can blame those humans. They were afraid.

Fear makes people do stupid things.

It certainly makes dragons do stupid things.
A
few
Greek
sorcerers
just before
the first century
were
terrified
the Romans would enslave dragon-kind and
use us to
conquer
them
. Because of them,
we lost everything.
Our bodies, our families, our sense of safety.
Even our goddess.
She gave up everything she was and had
,
and diminished into another dimension so our spirits could survive.
I remember her flying among us, a great shimmering dragon
,
and now she’s gone. W
e hide in this inter-dimensional sphere
and make laws that restrict what we can do and how we can live, because we’re
afraid that you
’ll
discover our meager existence
and
try to finish what your ancestors started.

The ache of that betrayal brought tears to her eyes. She could only imagine how devastated she’d feel if everyone and everything she knew was destroyed. Dragon-kind wasn’t living, they were barely surviving.

Hunter growled and the pain radiating from him was muted.
Come on, we’ve got a ceremony to complete.

That they did. She dropped the sheet and pulled on the cloak. Cold red silk lined the inside. It slid against her skin, setting her nerves on high alert.

A low rumble filled her, vibrating through her head. Was that another growl? No. Not a growl. There was nothing angry about it. It was a purr, a heated, sensual purr. As soon as she realized it, Hunter stopped.

What was that?

Nothing.

She could sense his lie, but had no idea why he’d said it, or what it meant.

Pull up the hood.

She shoved the too-long sleeves back to free her hands and snagged the hood, pulling it forward. It hung low, obscuring her vision save for a few feet before her.
I feel like I’m a little kid in my father’s shirt.

It is a little big.

Hope looking ridiculous will work for this ceremony.

Hunter snorted.
You couldn’t look ridiculous in anything. Besides, we’re just there to present the medallion and take it back when everything is done.

That I think I can handle.

And then we’ll gate out of here and meet up with Grey.

Yeah.
A sparkly new body for you.
And then all of this would be over and she could go back to the business of dying. She didn’t know how she felt about that. In a way it would be a relief to have Hunter out of her head, to not have to kill anyone else. On the other hand—

At least she’d have her dream. The one she really wasn’t going to think about right now.

* * *

The memory of their shared dream flashed through
Anaea’s
mind. Hunter fought the urge to start purring again, but had to admit it was a better feeling than remembering the pain of the Great Scourge. If he wasn’t already a spirit, he’d swear she was going to be the death of him.
Death by sensual thought.
Not necessarily a bad way to go.

Thankfully she clamped down on the memories and focused on closing the many clasps down the front of the cloak. He was in deep trouble if that simple dream, the one he’d guided within her mind to keep her soul from becoming sick, was affecting him as well.
Although the feel of the silk lining sliding over her skin wasn’t a dream and so much more enticing.

It was a good thing they’d have separate bodies within a couple of hours.

And then he’d be free to explore her for real, all of her, not just her lips. He had no idea how he was going to make it work, but there would be something between them. If he hadn’t been certain of that before, he was now. The panic that had threatened her sanity earlier when she’d discovered what he was had eased and she hadn’t lost her mind. In fact, she seemed more comfortable with him now than she had before. Of course, that didn’t mean the next little thing couldn’t send her spiraling into insanity while he remained within her. But once he was out, surely there was a way to keep her safe from Regis.

Mother of All, who was he kidding? Once a mage was discovered, Regis and the
Asar
Nergal
were relentless in pursuing them. Or at least so he’d thought. Those mages who had attacked him in the hospital were the first he’d seen in three hundred years. Still, he had to sever all ties with her. And yet he couldn’t deny his attraction to her.

For goodness’ sake, he’d purred. Dragons only purred with their inamoratas.
Which meant no matter how ridiculous it seemed, his spirit had made a decision.
One that in no way was fair for
Anaea
. Dragons didn’t mate often, making them rare even before the Great Scourge, but like swans and wolves once
inamorated
they mated for life. And as much as they’d taken on some human traits with their human bodies, like promiscuity, the compulsion to take a permanent mate still compelled some dragons.

He just never anticipated an inamorata would ever be in his future, let alone a human one. Humans’ lives were so fleeting, even those few who had soul magic.
Which made his spirit’s choice all the more complicated.
Humans thought the secret to healthy old age was green tea, but in truth those centenarians had a hint of soul magic slowing nature’s course. Hunter could only hope that
Anaea
was the very rare human with strong soul magic and lived an unnaturally long life, like Methuselah. But that went hand in hand with sorcery which hadn’t been seen since the Great Scourge and, again, he was back to it being complicated.

Regardless, Hunter faced a shattered heart. Either his human inamorata lived a normal human life, forcing him to face the rest of an eternity of emptiness after her passing, or she was that which dragon-kind feared the most and dragon law demanded be destroyed: a sorcerer.

And none of that mattered. He was compelled to put her needs before his, protect her, even if that meant protecting her from
himself
. Regis would never accept her as a Court sorcerer and she didn’t belong in his world. Heck. He didn’t even belong in his world. The only way for him to be with her would be to leave his job and the only way to do that was through rebirth, which would mean losing his memories of
Anaea
. The only honorable solution to this mess was to let her go.

It burned to think the best thing for her was to cut her free, but he could do it.
Really.
He had to. They hadn’t known each other for that long. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt that much. But inamoratas didn’t work that way.

The rebirth chamber lay deep within the
Dragon Court
, accessible only through a maze of passages and unused chambers. Hunter had no idea why, when the magic sphere had been discovered, that a chamber so removed from the rest of Court had been selected. But it had. The Handmaiden’s prerogative, he supposed.

She was the only true dragon sorcerer and all that power probably made her feel separate from dragon-kind. It certainly gave her an air of mystery. Not that she’d particularly made an effort to fit in. With the rebirth chamber distanced from Court, she could
enspell
the area so no one could gate in or out without permission and
scrying
inside was impossible, ensuring the privacy she craved.

For as long as Hunter had known her, her only dragon contact had been brief audiences with Regis, time with Tobias dealing with replacement bodies, Hunter, those she
rebirthed
, and, of course, Grey—who for reasons Hunter didn’t understand had sworn himself into her service even though he still belonged to the Silver Coterie. He’d never seen her at any royal functions or at the
pahar
. She was the sole means of survival for their dying race and yet completely apart from it.

So she’s powerful,
Anaea
said.

To say the least.
She’s a true sorcerer.

And that is?

Dangerous, in a word.
But he didn’t think
Anaea
would be satisfied with such a simple answer.
A true sorcerer
c
an cast spells
. T
hey don’t just have one o
r
two abilities
, they can do anything and most don’t even need words or gestures.
The sorcerers who
tried to destroy us weren’t all that powerful, but when they joined their magic
together
they had enough collective strength to cast a devastating spell
. A true sorcerer is terrifying.
They just think
about
whatever they
want
to cast
, draw on their connection to the earth’s magic, and it happens
.

When we were with Jade you thought about her sorcerer ability.

I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that.

Hunter felt a blush creep over
Anaea’s
cheeks.
With the memories you have of her, it’s kind of hard to forget.
That and the crazy hair thing.

Yeah, well. She has a hint of sorcerer ability, just enough to change her appearance with a thought
, but she’s nothing like the Handmaiden. I don’t think anyone knows how powerful she is
. The Handmaiden made Court, she found this inter-dimensional space, will
ed
all the rooms and halls and galleries into existence with her thoughts. She used her magic to create the air, the light, everything.

So why isn’t she in charge?

I don’t know
.
She
’s an enigma. She
keeps herself apart from our society. She
doesn’t belong to a coterie
,
doesn’t need to
, and doesn’t seem to want to
.

Anaea
stopped at the threshold to the chamber, a narrow arch with dragons carved in the stone to create a doorframe. She traced the wings of one with a fingertip.
I got the impression last night that everyone was in a coterie.

Dragons without a coterie don’t last long. Or at least they didn’t in the early days.
Unless, of course, you’re the Handmaiden.
My coterie didn’t survive the transition from physical to spirit and I had to cho
o
se. I chose the most powerful coterie I could
,
Regis’s
.
But now most of that power is because the Handmaiden
support
s
Constantine and Regis
. It’s probably the only
reason they still rule.

Even though it seems everyone hates their rules.

Many believe that those rules have kept our people, what little we have left, alive.

And you?

He didn’t know. In the beginning he’d believed it, believed the only way to stay safe was to remain hidden. But they weren’t really dragons any more, they were something else, and clinging to the old ways no longer seemed to work.
I think at one time the rules were important and change is hard.

Which is why you’re still in feudal clan groupings.

For all their negatives, the coteries are the closest we can get to families now. We’re a race of spirits. There are no more of us.

You can’t have children?