The Ruby Blade Read online

  The mage sprinted into the clearing, looking behind them. I chuffed a bit, and the belch of smoke that accompanied my dragony laugh turned the mage’s attention to me. She was tall, spare, and clad head-to-toe in black spandex. Her eyes widened in surprise and she said in an accent I couldn’t place, “You really are a dragon!”

  I bobbed my head in acknowledgment.

  “And you understand me?”

  I nodded again, then grinned. She screamed and flung ball after ball of fire towards me. A mage more in tune with ice and cold magic would’ve been a much better opponent for me if I’d wanted a fair fight. I didn’t, though. I hopped up and caught one of her fireballs in my mouth then belched it back at her. She paled and started to back out of the clearing. I moved forward, hoping to get close enough to swipe her with a claw or wing and capture rather than kill, but before I could make my move, she pulled a short sword from a scabbard on her back that I’d overlooked, darted forward, and tried to stab me.

  Her sword glanced off my scales, not affecting me any more than her magic had. I roared in surprise and anger, and fire shot from my mouth. Her bodysuit might’ve been there to keep her warm and leave her agile, but for a fire witch, she hadn’t done a good job of fire-proofing it. She went up in flames, and rather than stop, drop, and roll in the snow that would’ve put it out in seconds, she stood there, screaming, until I knocked her out with my clawed fist and rolled her over. I couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead at this point, but she wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.

  It took a few clumsy attempts to get back in the air with my cargo, but I managed it. I dropped her off near the parking lot and resumed my surveillance. The fight was winding down and I didn’t see anyone else trying to flee.

  About twenty-five minutes after we started, Raj called me back. I flew towards the clearing. “Do you want me to stay scaly for now?” I asked.

  “Until we finish interrogating the prisoners,” he replied aloud.

  I landed with a whump in the snow and said to him, “I can’t do this for long if you want me to stay still and in the snow.”

  “They don’t know that, though,” he replied; silently this time.

  “Okay, anyone who doesn’t allow us to cuff you,” Florence held up silver cuffs for the vamps and some other kind of cuffs that I assumed were magic deadening for the witches, “will be escorted back to town by our dragon.”

  I grinned. Or tried to. It was hard with my toothy, reptile face. A lot of the survivors paled, and one impressionable youth fainted. Petrina cuffed him with the witch-cuffs while he was out. I counted the survivors. It looked like five of the mages were there and fifteen vampires. Almost two-thirds had surrendered? That seemed odd for a group that wouldn’t leave when the Pack asked nicely. And how big was this pack if they couldn’t get rid of three dozen only mildly aggressive interlopers? The rat I’d started to smell when I met with Bruce was definitely becoming more fragrant.

  I narrowed my eyes at the remaining group and thought at Raj, “Did that seem too easy to you? Why did they all surrender to us and not to the Pack? The pack has to number a couple dozen at least and they’re mostly immune to magic, so the coven couldn’t hurt them too much. I am deeply suspicious.”

  “As I am,” he replied.

  “Can you knock them all out at the same time?”

  “Yes,” Raj said. And he did.

  Now that we had twenty prisoners, I began to worry about transportation. Once I realized that Emma wasn’t in the vicinity, I decided to worry about her, too.

  “Emma is doing one final sweep of the park,” Raj said. “She’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

  “How are we going to get all these people back to town?” I projected my thoughts as loud as I could—this really wasn’t my strong suit—and hoped that everyone could hear.

  Florence answered, “The Alpha said he’d have transportation here by seven o’clock, as per your demands.” She glanced down at her wrist. “My watch has stopped. Again.”

  “It’s close to seven now,” Petrina said. I launched myself back into the air, flying around to locate Emma who was on her way back keeping an eye out for surprises. I was still certain that there was something very, very wrong; this had all been too easy. I heard a weird sound that I couldn’t identify, but before I could turn around to investigate, I figured out the source when an arrow tore through the delicate skin of my right wing. I tried to stay aloft with only one functional wing, and if I’d had a bit more time to figure out how, I might have done it, but as it was I was too low and too surprised and I crashed into the trees. I managed to broadcast my alarm before I saw a mixed group of Fae, vamps, and witches step out of the darkness where they’d been concealed and toss a net towards me. Just before the net hit me, I saw Finn’s smug face behind the group taking me out and then heard the sounds of battle from further away. He’d planned this. I opened my mouth and sent a jet of flame towards the group. The first row of people, who just happened to be vampires, caught fire immediately. A few of the witches were busy trying to stop, drop, and roll; a technique less effective with dragon fire than your everyday run-of-the-mill fires, but at least they were trying, unlike my earlier victim. The net also went up in flames, and although it didn’t burn the iron filaments that had been woven into the material, it disintegrated the binding wool enough that the iron floated harmlessly to the ground instead of containing me. I took a step forward, my right wing dragging on the ground, and let forth another belch of flame. Another group of four people proved to be fairly combustible. One more step, one more burst of fire, and a third group started burning. I looked around but didn’t see Finn. I walked to the middle of my new bonfire, tried to pretend it wasn’t made out of people and tried to decide what to do next.

  Battle sounds were coming from the clearing where I’d left the others, but it sounded like it was dying down. I wasn’t too worried about my people. Regardless of the easy-seeming surrender, my friends were pros and hadn’t let down their guards. It’s unlikely any surprise lasted long enough to do major damage. Emma was the one I was worried about. She wasn’t a pro, didn’t know we were worried about the situation, and I didn’t have a mental connection to check on her. I needed to get back to the main battle so I could help clear things out and send someone after Emma. Oh, and so I could have access to my clothes, shift back to human, and see if that took care of the hole in my wing.

  I tucked my wings as closely into my sides as possible —which was pretty close on the uninjured left side, but not very close on the side where an arrow had torn through the delicate membrane of my wing. I waddled gracelessly towards my party, having to take large detours from time to time when the trees grew too close together to accommodate my huge body and trailing wing.

  I was nearly back to where I’d left the others when I sensed someone behind me. I couldn’t whirl around and confront my stalker since I wasn’t particularly agile in the form, especially not on the ground. I took a couple shuffling steps to the right, hoping at least to get the person to my uninjured side. I turned my head and saw a glimpse of white. I shifted my body a bit more, but the glimpse was gone. I was hoping I’d seen a nervous Emma who was now hiding from the big scary dragon, and not another asshole who wanted to tear up my wings.

  Finally, I reached the clearing. It looked like the second round of fighting was over. Raj looked calm, Petrina looked like an ice princess surrounded by a bloody court, and Florence looked pissed. Of the twenty prisoners that had been in the clearing when I’d left, only one was left: the boy who’d fainted when I’d tried to smile earlier. My head whipped around as I heard a vehicle approaching.

  Raj laughed, “Sounds like the prisoner transport is arriving.”

  “They can do clean up instead of transport,” Florence said. “Although they’re welcome to this one,” she nudged the boy with her foot. He whimpered and his bladder released. The warm urine on the cold snow set up a tiny column of steam, and I laughed. Since I was a still a dragon,
my laughter was more grunts and smoke than a cheerful chortle, which really didn’t help the mental health of the prisoner.

  Petrina, Raj, and Florence looked towards me. “Thanks for the warning,” Petrina said. She had two short swords in her hands and was cleaning them in the snow. “It was timely.”

  “What happened to you?” Raj asked, walking towards me. Emma shot into the clearing and nearly bowled Florence over. Her white coat was bloodied and torn and she was panting and trembling. Everyone went on alert.

  “Finn,” I thought at Raj as I slowly turned myself around to face the direction Emma had come from. “He was here.”

  Raj must have told the others because the mildly curious look on Florence’s face turned into something grim and I wondered, not for the first time, what Finn had done to Emma. Petrina stalked forward to join us and looked towards the tree line questioningly.

  “If it is the elf,” Raj said, “we’re not supposed to kill him, although I do hope he knows that his potential future usefulness is the only thing that’s keeping him alive at this point.”

  “Not the only thing, bloodsucker,” Finn said. “I have very powerful friends, as you experienced tonight. I see you were all bloodied.” He took our group in and I noticed that everyone had a nick or two, but also that the only serious injury was mine.

  “I bathe in the blood of my enemies,” Petrina said. “It keeps me young.”

  Well, she was scary.

  Finn just laughed. “This was just the opening act. Looks like your dragon is grounded for a while, though. Good luck at Imbolc!” He winked out of existence and I felt something change in the air.

  “I think it’s truly over now,” I thought to Raj.

  “Agreed. Now let’s see what happened here.”

  Florence led the trembling Emma back to our car and stayed with her while she shifted and changed clothes. Emma stayed in the car with the heat cranked and Florence brought back the several layers of clothing I wanted to put on. Petrina had started a pile of bodies from the clearing and with a casual backwards glance lit the pyre on fire.

  “Shit! Another one!”

  “I thought I mentioned pyrokinesis runs in my blood,” Raj said.

  “Does she know?”

  “Yes. She’s better at it than I am. Her gift showed up early and she’s had years to practice.”

  I moved closer to the pyre, doing my best to ignore the stink of burning flesh and telling myself that it was stink and not barbecue, and waiting while my friends examined my wing. “It’s a clean hole,” Florence said. “The edges aren’t too jagged and it should heal together again. I wish I had healing magic.”

  “I do,” Petrina said. “That was what I did before I became a vampire. I was a battlefield healer.”

  “Can you heal a dragon wing?” Florence asked.

  “I’ve never had occasion to before, but I can give it a try.” She had Raj stretch out my wing to its fullest expanse, something that hurt quite a bit, and then pulled something out of her pouch. “Spiderwebs,” she said. Florence held the membranous skin together while Petrina applied her sticky bandages to it. When it was all patched up, there was still a small hole where the arrowhead had ripped through, but it looked much better. Petrina laid her hands over the webs and muttered an incantation. The webs lit up blue, flared brightly, and then returned to their normal grayish color.

  “Can she shift?” Raj asked Petrina.

  Petrina spoke to me, “Yes, as long as you can shift yourself back to the dragon form every twenty-four hours or so for a healing so we can make sure that the wing heals without a hole in it.”

  I started the process, it was slower going with the cold and the injury, but as soon as I was human-shaped again, I started pulling on clothes. Panties, long underwear, jeans, socks times three, and shoes. While Raj was helping me into my lower torso clothing, Florence and Petrina checked out my right arm and my tattoo to make sure that nothing was amiss with either of those. I got the all clear and finished dressing: sports bra, t-shirt, long-sleeved shirt, hoodie, parka, hat, and gloves.

  I walked towards the parking lot and the warm car and saw the pack car idling next to mine. I’d forgotten about that.

  I turned to call to Florence, but she was already on the way. She knocked on the window and the driver got out. He looked terrified. He was the same one who’d come with Bruce and Jason, and I still couldn’t remember his name. Florence spoke to him briefly, then went back to the clearing. I figured I’d know what was up soon enough, so I continued to the car. I was too cold to try to intimidate him further. Emma was in the driver’s seat, her spine ramrod straight. She didn’t look at me when I climbed in the back seat and wrapped the blanket around me.

  “Are you injured?” I asked. I knew better than to ask if she was alright. I could clearly see the answer to that.

  “Not anymore,” she replied. “You?”

  “A bit, but fortunately we have a healing mage now, so she thinks I’ll get fixed up quick.”

  And that was the end of that conversation. I wanted to ask her to trust me, to open up, but we weren’t there yet and I knew I’d be rebuffed. A few minutes later, the others joined us. Florence got in front with Emma and Raj and Petrina climbed in the backseat with me. Raj wrapped an arm around me, and I leaned into him. “Okay?” he whispered.

  “I could eat an entire town of maidens,” I said.

  Everyone, even Emma, laughed.

  “Dinner should be waiting for us when we get back,” Florence said. “I doubt they sent maidens, but there will probably be steak.”

  I sighed dramatically. “I guess that’ll have to do.” I switched gears. “Is that one guy going to finish cleaning everything up? I left a rather large pile of bodies in the woods where I was shot.”

  “Sean is going to assess the situation. I’m sure if he needs assistance, he’ll get it.”

  “Sean! Why can’t I ever remember his name? Have we met the terms of our service?”

  The air temperature of the car dropped a couple degrees. “I believe we have more than honored the terms of the agreement. We are to have dinner with the Alpha soon to cement our new relationship and make sure that the arrangements he will make will protect Emma when she runs with the pack.”

  “Protect me how?” she asked.

  “From being taken as someone’s mate, unless you really, really want to,” I said.

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  “Was anyone else creeped out by Finn’s last words?”

  Emma stiffened again and I mentally kicked myself for bringing him up in front of her.

  “I’m sure he just means the surprise he planted for you at the gate site,” Florence said.

  “I’d rather not go forward assuming that’s the only surprise he has in store,” I said.

  “We won’t. But for tonight, let’s just concentrate on food, rest, and healing,” she said.

  It’d taken two days of sleep and food before I felt like myself again. Petrina had made me shift every few hours to check on my wing, although I thought she was doing that mostly to be spiteful. She’d asked me to meet her at the gym tonight, so we could spar. Again. I wasn’t sure she could legitimately call it sparring when she wielded a Viking-esque broadsword with terrifying ferocity against my slender and much less terrifying rapier. I was still sore from our last session, and I was dragging my feet hoping I’d be late and she’d change her mind.

  I was about to enter the main room with my usual flair—flair being my word for a loud entrance—when I heard my name. I paused, cracked the door open a bit, and shamelessly eavesdropped.

  “…please promise me you won’t tell her,” Emma said. She sounded congested, and I’d bet money she’d been crying.

  “I won’t tell her,” Florence replied, “but I think you should.”

  “She already despises me. I don’t want her to think I’m weak.”

  “She doesn’t despise you, and this is not weakness; it’s post-traumatic stress disorder.”


  “I don’t know what that means,” Emma hiccupped.

  “You underwent a horrific ordeal. It doesn’t matter that your physical injuries are healed now. The torture wasn’t merely physical and that kind of trauma has a lasting effect. You can’t just say poof and be better. It takes time and work to recover from what happened.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Talking about it can be a good start.”

  “I am not talking to the Fae bitch about this,” Emma said. Her PTSD default was to call me a bitch. I guess that made sense. It was the Fae who were at least partially responsible for this.

  “I wouldn’t ask you to talk to her,” Florence soothed. “Why don’t you talk to me?”

  There was a long silence, and I was beginning to think I should make some noise and walk in when Emma started to talk. Her voice was quiet, and I had to strain my senses to hear her.

  “The silver was bad, but it wasn’t the worst. Michelle usually kept me in a silver cage and had me loosely bound with silver chains. I could move around, but it burned my skin and kept me from shifting shape during the full moon. It was awful, and the pain of not shifting was excruciating.

  “She’d let me out, sometimes. I guess to give my silver burns time to heal. She said I was too pretty to permanently damage. There were always guards around who would throw a silver net over me whenever they thought I might be trying to shift. Sometimes, they’d “misinterpret” any movement as a shifting attempt on my part, so they’d spend hours tossing the net over me just for their own amusement. They’d wait until I was almost relaxed, and then toss it over me and leave it there until I screamed.”

  Emma’s voice was even; too even. She was detaching herself from the trauma, which might be the only way to get through this story. I knew Florence and Raj both knew what had happened—they’d plucked it from her mind. I also knew that they both had a great reticence to sharing someone else’s story, which was fair. I wanted them to keep the secrets they gleaned from my brain, too. I shouldn’t be listening. This was private. But beyond my intense personal curiosity and desire to know more about what had happened to Emma in an effort to understand what was happening to Isaac, I needed to know Finn’s role in this. Part of me still wanted to believe he was redeemable and that he’d merely been driven mad by jealousy and my refusal to be for him what he wanted. I was afraid that whatever his connection to Emma would prove that this madness wasn’t just about me and that he truly was as reprehensible as he’d been acting.