A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania Book 2) Page 5

  “I don’t know if I did,” he said, teeth scraping against my neck. “In fact, I’m pretty sure we were standing right about here when it happened. And you squeaked a little bit, just like—”

  His grip tightened, and the noise that came from my mouth was something I would never be proud of.

  “—that,” he finished, sounding unbearably smug. “Now, I remember it.”

  He laughed as I turned around and shoved him away, but he grabbed on to my hand and wouldn’t let me go.

  “You’re an ass,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Probably. But then, you are too. It’s why we go so well together.”

  “I’ve obviously made a very big mistake. You should go and see if Justin will take you back and I will find someone who isn’t a cock tease and who is also vascular and has nicer nipples.”

  He rolled his eyes as he tugged me forward. “Because that’s going to happen. You’re stuck with me and my average nipples. I mean, who else is going to be my own personal Foxy Lady?”

  He kissed me, and I bit his lip just this side of too hard. He didn’t seem to mind, if his tongue had anything to say about it. I let him mack on my face (because I was a nice person) for a little bit, before he pulled away, eyes crinkling in the corners. Somehow, my hands had found their way to his chest and were curled into the leather jerkin he wore. He smelled like sun and sweat and grass. He had a smudge of dirt on his cheek and a thin, clotted cut on his bicep that I’d have to look at to make sure it didn’t need stitching.

  “Training went well, then?” I asked.

  He nodded. “For the most part.”

  “Still getting shit?”

  “Daily.” Which, really, I should have felt bad about, what with the Castle Guard firmly planted in my corner and their rah-rah Go Sam mentality. They hadn’t been too happy with him for waiting until the last (and worst) possible second to finally own up to his feelings for me. Don’t get me wrong, knights were strong and hardworking and some of the fiercest people I had ever known. But they could also be the bitchiest, especially when they or someone they cared about had been wronged. How I’d come to foster that level of devotion, I had no idea, but I wasn’t going to question it.

  Honestly, though, I felt bad. I really did. I grinned at him. “Shouldn’t have fucked up, then, huh?”

  “Or maybe,” he said, arching an eyebrow, “you could go and tell them they no longer need to defend your honor, given that I realized the error of my ways over a year ago.”

  “Nah,” I said, poking him in the chest. “You chose not to jerk me off. I choose to let them jerk you around.”

  “I don’t know that the punishment fits the crime,” he said.

  “You’re welcome. Not that I mind, but what’re you doing here? I thought we were supposed to meet for dinner.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “We were. About an hour ago.”

  I winced. “Shit. My bad, dude. I got caught up in… uh. Working. On stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Magic stuff. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “That’s odd, because I already got stopped by Morgan on my way down here,” he said, looking smug again. “He said something entirely different. And he wouldn’t stop looking at my crotch with a rather fearful expression on his face.”

  “Godsdammit,” I muttered.

  “You couldn’t have gotten to fifty stanzas?”

  I laughed and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Bastard.”

  He leaned forward, lips trailing along my cheek until he reached my ear. “Bring it with you,” he whispered. “You can read it to me later.”

  Hell fucking yeah I was going to do that. I was going to read it the fuck all over him.

  WE WERE up the stairs, laughing quietly to ourselves, shoulders bumping, hands clasped between us. It was easy, this thing between us, easier than it had any right to be given all the shit we’d gone through to get to this point. It’d hurt when I thought I could never have it. When we’d danced the night he was promoted to Knight Commander and became engaged to the Prince, I’d told myself that that was all I was going to have. That was all I was going to let myself have. It’d been too much to pine away in silent misery wanting something that I could never call my own. I wallowed, sure, but I knew the difference between the fantasy in my head and the reality in front of me.

  But it’s a funny thing, life is. No matter what you have planned, there’s always going to be that one thing that comes along and says, ha ha, fuck you, this is what’s going to happen now.

  I could admit to being worried that, after all was said and done, if it’d be the same between us. That without being chased by Darks or cults or rabid fangirls, if we could just be Ryan and Sam without any of the bullshit.

  Turns out we could.

  Quite well in fact.

  Sure, I grated on his nerves every now and then, and he really needed to learn not to be a douchebag all the time, but it was working for us. Mom and Dad had been hinting that they’d like to see something come of it before long, but I’d made sure to shut that shit down right away before Ryan could hear anything and before the idea could take root in my head. I had too much on my plate already as it was. Besides, we had time for all of that later.

  Aside from an overzealous manticore that thought I would look better if my skin had been burnt to a crisp, everything had been quiet.

  The Darks stayed away after their ill-advised attack on the castle.

  Verania was safe.

  People were happy.

  Eventually, I just stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. And even if it had, I was surrounded by people who would do everything for me, much like I’d do anything for them.

  So there we were, jostling each other back and forth, only paying attention to each other, the way it should have been. We were young and in love and stupid, but we were allowed to be. After everything we’d been through, this was our happy ending.

  I didn’t see the woman in front of us. Didn’t see her until I crashed into her.

  I tried to apologize, but she slapped her hand over my mouth and dragged me into the shadows of the flickering torch on the wall. She was old, the lines and crags on her face pronounced, like a map to all her years. Her eyes shone darkly, her raven hair falling on her shoulders. Her wrinkled hand was warm against my face, her grip strong and sure for such an old thing. She had large metal bangles on her wrists that clanged together as she pressed me up against the wall.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Ryan demanded, taking a step toward us.

  The woman paid him no mind, like he wasn’t even there. And for all intents and purposes, maybe he wasn’t for her, because she only had eyes for me.

  For the briefest of moments, I thought she was a Dark and that they were trying to take me yet again. I almost wanted to laugh at her audacity if that was the case, given how thoroughly we’d beaten the Darks last time we faced them and how there was a pissed-off Knight Commander standing right behind her in Castle Lockes, of all places. But there was something familiar about her, something in the way she looked at me that told me I wasn’t quite right. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw flashes of green and gold as I pulled my magic toward me, ready to knock her on her ass, when her other hand came up in front of my face, her thumb and middle finger rubbing together briefly before she snapped.

  “Insolent,” she hissed. “Sneaking with your sneaks. Dilo. And here of all places. Like your dook could touch me, chava.”

  My eyes widened over her hand.

  Because I literally had no idea what she was talking about. Her voice was low and smoky, her accent thick and melodious, the words falling from her lips like musical notes to a song I swore I’d heard before. It was like she had felt my magic, which could only mean she had some kind of magic herself. Normal people could feel it if there was an extreme concentration of it, like the static in the air before a storm. But this had been subtle, low, just beginning to pull itself together. I was impressed.
I was going to kick her ass, sure, if she meant to do me and mine any harm, but still. Impressed.

  Ryan drew his sword. “Let him go. I won’t tell you again.”

  Her eye softened slightly, like the threat was something sweet to her. “You are not what I expected. I don’t know why I thought you would be. There may be hope for us all yet. But I am sorry for this. I hope you remember that. In the end.” She leaned forward and pressed a kiss against my cheek. It felt almost like it was scalding.

  And then she was just gone, like she hadn’t been there at all.

  One moment she was pressed up against me, and then she wasn’t.

  I stumbled forward, unable to catch myself before falling to my knees.

  Except the ground wasn’t made of stone, like all the floors in the castle were.

  No, my knees hit earth and leaves, wet and clumped together. The air was humid and thick, every breath I drew in harder than the one before it. From all around me came the sounds of wind blowing through trees, but that was impossible, because I wasn’t in the woods, I wasn’t in the—

  I opened my eyes.

  It was dark.

  And I was in the woods.

  “Well, fuck,” I muttered, pushing myself to my feet. I wiped my hands off on my trousers as I looked around, trying to get my bearings. The sky above was obscured by the canopy of the trees. I couldn’t see any landmark I was familiar with.

  It seemed as if an old lady had transported me into the middle of nowhere.

  “Oh my gods,” I growled to no one in particular. “I am so going to punch her in the godsdamned tit the next time I see her.”

  The only response I got was the calling of birds in the trees, the singing of crickets in the tall grass that swayed back and forth.

  There was a large hill in front of me, rising up and out of the forest floor, trees having grown around it. I thought it’d be best to climb it to get above the canopy and hopefully see the lights of the City, or at least some town or village where I could go to find out exactly where she’d sent me. Maybe I was closer than I thought I was. I hoped that was the case. The Dark Woods were an expansive thing right in the heart of Verania. I don’t know that any human had actually ever reached the true middle, though many had claimed to. And with those claims came stories of Dark creatures that caused insanity if one but laid eyes upon them. Bullshit, probably, but compelling bullshit nonetheless. Maybe I could ask Dimitri the next time he tried to make me marry him.

  The hill, though. I would get to the hill and find a way to get the hell out of here.

  If I hurried, it had absolutely nothing to do with being in some unknown part of the Dark Woods in the middle of the night. I just wanted to go home.

  The closer I got to the hill, the more the wind groaned through the trees.

  The more gooseflesh prickled along my skin.

  The more I had the uneasy feeling of being watched by something.

  The air felt lightning-struck, like electricity crackling unseen.

  Like magic was building.

  From the ground rose pinpricks of light, green and gold and white, and it felt like mine, it felt like it belonged to me. The lights flitted around me, slow and heavy like cumbersome fireflies late in summer. I raised my hand to them, and they brushed along my fingers, warm and weighted.

  But it was more than that. This was magic, purer than I’d ever felt before, and it wasn’t coming from just me. If it was my magic, it was reacting to something already there. If it wasn’t mine, I was reacting to it.

  I looked back behind me to see the lights trailing after me. Each footstep I’d left in the soft earth was illuminated and flickering, the little lights landing upon them one by one.

  I felt… safe, oddly enough.

  Like nothing here could hurt me.

  Like I had no reason to worry. These lights, whatever they were, wouldn’t allow any harm to come to me. I didn’t know how I knew that. I just did.

  And so of course, that’s when the little lights began to tremble and dim.

  The wind picked up until it sounded like it was growling through the trees, like the Dark Woods were a thing that was alive.

  Except… that didn’t sound like the wind.

  I turned back around.

  For a long second, nothing happened.

  Then the large hill in front of me moved up.

  Then down.

  Up and down. Up and down. Slowly and with great deliberation, like the very ground beneath my feet was taking in a lumbering breath and—

  A chill crawled down my spine like ice.

  “What is that?” I whispered as I took a step back.

  Because the earth wasn’t breathing. No. That wasn’t possible.

  But the gigantic thing in front of me was.

  And now that I was closer, I could see it wasn’t a hill at all. What rose from the ground wasn’t made up entirely of dirt and grass and brush. There was growth upon it, as if it’d lain where it had for centuries and the forest had continued on around it. But through the vegetation there was something else, something mottled white.

  Something scaled.

  The hill moved.

  Trees crashed down off it.

  The earth groaned beneath it as roots snapped and broke apart.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. All I could do was take in what was rising in front of me, larger than anything I’d ever seen before. There were brief flashes, impressions that broke through the haze that had fallen over my eyes and mind—claws and teeth and wing, oh my gods that was a wing—until a great eye turned toward me.

  It blinked, slow and unfocused. The eye was bigger than I was, the skin around it cracked deeply. The iris itself was heterochromous, shoots of red and green and blue. Even as I watched, the colors seemed to swirl together, moving around the iris like waves crashing.

  The eye itself moved left to right, and the little lights around me flew forward, running along the hardened skin.

  The creature groaned, a deep rumbling thing that I felt vibrate from the ground up through my legs and hips until it buried itself in my chest, wrapping around my heart and squeezing.

  The eye focused now, sharper, the gaze knowing.

  And it was centered on me.

  I took another step back.

  I opened my mouth once, twice, but no sound came out.

  Because I was at a loss. I had all the pieces to put together what I was seeing in front of me, but they were all jumbled in my head. I couldn’t find or sense the pattern in them.

  Finally, I did the only thing a person could do if they were in my position and faced with a gigantic hill monster after having been bad-touched by an old lady into the middle of the woods.

  I waved and said, “Heeeyyy there.”

  The eye blinked.

  “I’m just gonna back away slowly,” I told it. “We can pretend this never happened. You… you just go back to sleep. Or whatever you were doing. I didn’t mean to wake you up, and I promise it’ll never happen again. Don’t mind me at all.”

  It started to growl.

  “Okay, so you do mind me. That’s just swell. I’m going to get out of your hair. Not that you have any hair. No, you just have scales and teeth the size of Tiggy, and oh my gods, why are you moving toward me, you fucking psycho! I’m going to punch both her tits, I swear to—”

  The eye tilted away.

  Only to have a great gaping maw pointed at me instead.

  And even though I was whiting out in terror, I had a vague understanding of the shape of the head in front of me, the way the reptilian lips curled around teeth, the twin slits at the end of the snout that were its nostrils. A hard ridge rose on the top of its head, fanning out in a half-spherical protrusion, like a bony crown. Sharp, pointed juts of bone stuck out from the top of the crown, gleaming brightly in the starlight.

  I knew what this was.

  It was a dragon.

  Bigger than any other I’d seen before.

  In the D
ark Woods, which meant it was—

  It opened its jaws and—

  “Sam!”

  I jerked my head left. Ryan was there. I was in the castle, staring up at the ceiling. I was in the—

  I looked right. The dragon took a step toward me that caused the earth to quake under my feet. Its foot was gigantic, easily the size of a carriage, with wicked sharp claws digging into the ground.

  “Sam, wake up!”

  “I am,” I said in the castle.

  “I am,” I said in the woods.

  I said, “I am, I am, I am—”

  And then all the sounds in all the world fell away as the dragon spoke. His voice was a deep rumble, as if the words were heaving from the very depths of him. I felt every word vibrating down into my bones.

  The great dragon said, “I have awoken, O human child. In this forest deep, in the dark of the wild. And I have seen what is in your heart. Take heed of my warning: you are not ready.”

  And then everything was melting, the dragon, the forest, the colors bleeding together as I took in a gasping breath. The ground split apart beneath my feet and I was falling, I was falling, I was—

  A sharp crack across my face. My head rocked to the side.

  “Motherfucker,” I groaned.

  “Oh, now you wake up?” Ryan growled above me. “You asshole. Don’t you ever scare me like that again!”

  I opened my eyes as I clutched my cheek. I was on my back on the floor in Castle Lockes, in the same hallway we’d been in before… whatever had just happened. I glared up at Ryan, who was at my side, leaning over me, an annoyed look on his face.

  “You hit me!”

  “No shit,” he said. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do!”

  “So you hit me? Who does that?”

  “Your eyes were rolling back in your head, and you were shaking.”

  I pushed myself up as he fell back on his knees. There were a couple of guards standing a little farther down the hall, watching us warily, but I ignored them. “So the first thing you think of when you see me having a seizure is to hit me?”

  “I said your name first,” he said with a frown. “Like… three times.”

  “Oh, that makes it better. Sam, Sam, Sam, oh it’s not working. I should probably domestically violence my boyfriend by punching him in the mouth. For shame. We need couples therapy if we’re ever going to survive this.”