Dragon Hunter Book Two: A Dragon Shifter Serial (Dragon Hunter Chronicles 2) (2 page)

But the awful and simple truth was that it
did
concern her—in fact, the thought of him with someone else made her ache brutally. He was hers, damn it all.

And she was his.

And there was no denying it. Not for long.

S
he shook her head violently
, trying to force the thoughts and emotions away and to bring herself back to the present: the reality that she was currently imprisoned deep under Hampstead Heath with two men who could alter into Dragons at the drop of a hat. Not to mention that they could turn her into a pile of charcoal if they so chose.

“The Controllers,” she said, addressing both men. It was time to remember who she was: a Hunter, seeking answers, if not looking for her next victim. “I know from Lumen that they use the Lapsed for their own means, but what
are
they, exactly?”

Both men stopped, turned, and looked at her.

“They are everything and nothing at once,” said Minach. “And their presence here, in London, is disturbing. The Controllers are ancient yet ageless. Men who could have been great warriors, great shifters. But somewhere along the way, they became power hungry. Addicted to their déors, their shifted forms, choosing to remain in that state in order to take lives, to kill humans and other shifters, often for mere sport. Sometimes for years, decades at a time they roam in those forms: Dragons, Bears, Wolves. Choosing brute strength, rather than succumbing to the weakness of their human sides. They have a great disdain for emotion, for kindness. And so they’ve lost something of their humanity. More animal than person, more cruel than kind.”

“They’re like the Lapsed, then?” asked Neko. She recalled her client Umbra, sitting upright and stiff in her office. Neither entirely human nor anything else; he’d seemed to float somewhere in between, his flesh pale, his hands skeletal. Transparent and whole at once, somehow. She hadn’t known that there was a name for his kind; only that he was strange and otherwordly.

“Not entirely like the Lapsed,” said Lumen. “As you know, the Lapsed aren’t solid entities when in their human forms. Whereas the Controllers are—more or less. And of course
they
can speak, unlike the Lapsed; they’re capable of rational thought and of acting on their desires. But there’s so little human in them that they’re essentially psychopaths, unconcerned about the harm they do to those around them. Empathy isn’t exactly their forte.”

“Why do they want the Dragons dead?”

“That’s a very good question,” Lumen replied, his eyes turning to those of his fellow shifter. “And in all likelihood, they don’t. Not yet, at least. Not until they’ve gotten what they want from us.”

“
Want
from you? But Umbra—he hired me to kill you. He didn’t mention wanting me to steal anything. He said that he wanted you dead to help protect humans—though I still have no idea from what. I’ve been watching you Dragons, and it’s not as though you’re grilling people and eating them for breakfast.”

Lumen and Minach continued to make eye contact for a moment, their faces tense, even sorrowful.

“Umbra lied to you, Neko, as you know now,” said Lumen, turning her way. “About everything. I’m afraid that you are simply a pawn in a much larger game, as am I. As are we all. But we’ll need some information in order to sort through all of this. And I think I know where we’ll find some of it.”

As they began to walk again, Neko swallowed hard. In that moment all of Lumen’s lightheartedness had left his eyes and voice. It was difficult, somehow, to see him looking so deeply concerned; a man who seemed invincible shouldn’t even be capable of such an expression.

As for her, she was now part of something ancient, heavy and important, it seemed. A battle that had been raging for centuries, and she’d only begun to scratch its surface.

The question was, which side was she on?

“
A
ll the answers
we’re looking for will come in due course,” Lumen assured her as he and Minach marched, leading Neko along the luminous hallway towards an unseen destination. By now the passage had curved around so many times that she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to find her way out of the labyrinthine series of twists, even if she did find a chance to escape.

And a part of her didn’t want to flee, not anymore. Something in the place felt like home, dark and foreboding though it was. It was Lumen’s turf, anyhow—
his
home, the place where Dragons congregated in secret. And that was almost enough to lure her permanently into its depths.

“How do you intend to find these answers?” she asked, keeping pace behind the two men. “It’s not as though they’re going to drop out of the sky into your lap.”

“You’ll see soon enough. Right now all we have to go on is speculation, and
nothing
is certain, except that we need to stop this Umbra in his tracks. And for that, we’ll need to locate your friend Vail—the one who shot at us this morning.”

“Pfft. Hardly my friend,” Neko scoffed. “He’s a hateful bastard, and devoid of ethics. You’d do well to stay away from him.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible. A better suggestion is this: I find the hateful bastard and see how he likes the sensation of a blade or a fang at his throat, shall I?”

“He’s already experienced that particular sensation. And he doesn’t like it very much, believe me. He’s even less fond of a blade pressed against his
crotch.
”

Minach let out a chuckle. “I can see why you like this woman, Lumen,” he said as he continued to stride down the passageway. “She’s got bigger balls than most men I know.”

They came at last to a door on their right. Like the walls surrounding it, it was made of stone. A large, thick set of iron nails were imbedded in its surface, forming a crude pattern in the vague shape of a cross, surrounded by a large encompassing circle.

Warm orange light flooded through the door’s narrow outline, presumably shining from a room within. Signalling that the Kindred were lying in wait for them.

On the door’s massive frame, no knob or handle; just an engraving in a strange series of symbols that Neko didn’t recognize.

She felt for a moment as though she were about to step into a world stranger than any that she’d ever inhabited; a secret that had been masked by mythology and lore for centuries.

Minach stood to the side, gesturing to her to enter. She pushed the door, not expecting it to budge an inch. But it opened easily, swinging inward as she stepped forwards, almost welcoming her into the place beyond.

Protective and close, Lumen positioned himself behind her as though to shield her back, to remind her that he was there.

Inside she discovered a long, narrow room with a high arched ceiling that drew her eyes upwards at first before they began to explore the structure itself, taking in the beautiful space. Stone and wood surrounding her, warm and cold all at once. Crafted by expert hands and imaginative minds.

Embedded into its long walls were four gorgeous stained glass windows, each lit by the faint glow of a warm light coming from unseen sources beyond the room itself.

Each window’s colourful glass design depicted a Dragon in various scenarios: one, a sleek grey beast, surrounded by what looked like an enormous frozen cave. Another, a red Dragon, engulfed in flame and rising up, seemingly empowered by the fire itself. A third, a bronze-coloured Dragon, perched atop a giant stone outcropping. And the last was silver, flying over a vast, flowing river. This one reminded her of Lumen; of how he must have looked as she’d ridden to the Heath astride him.

Beautiful, graceful and miraculous.

Neko’s eyes were drawn to each of the designs in turn, admiring and curious. The craftsmanship was exquisite, and she wondered how on earth such creations had ended up in this strange subterranean lair.

But after a time she felt eyes on her, assessing and judgmental. Staring at inanimate objects was only her way of delaying the inevitable: her first encounter with the Guild of Dragons.

The room’s centerpiece was a long, ancient looking table made of one enormous slab of solid wood, accented by the occasional dark knot. On its two longest sides the table was flanked by several large men and one tall, slim woman, standing, quietly examining the stranger in their midst.

Each of the members of the Dragons’ Guild, of course, was beautiful, including the woman, whom Neko studied first. Flame-coloured hair swept away from her face in long undulating waves, flowing over her shoulders. Her eyes were bright and enticing, like Lumen’s and Minach’s, but quite a different colour; they seemed made of copper with flecks of silver, bright, intelligent and piercing.

And her face was so lovely that Neko instinctively wanted to cover her own in a brown paper bag. She’d seen beautiful women before, but none who felt quite so intimidating as this one did.

As the red-haired woman and the other Dragon shifters looked towards their guest, a combination of mesmerizing scents hit Neko. The bouquet reminded her of Lumen’s, though thankfully the combination was less sexually intoxicating. All of them at once created a dazzling aroma, sweeping her up among thoughts of the most delicious cooking, most exquisite flowers and most potent aphrodisiac, hitting all at once. A thoroughly pleasant, if unsolicited, assault.

The most sexual of the scents, of course, came at her directly from behind, from Lumen’s beautiful form. His aroma aroused her even now, in this frightening and dangerous place.

Watching over her from behind, he seemed to sense Neko’s discomfort and advanced to push himself instinctively between her and the others, shielding her a little from the force that seemed to have frozen her in her tracks. The result was that his scent enveloped her, a safe, dazzling cocoon protecting her mind from the invasion by the others—at least for the moment.

“
This
is Neko,” he said, addressing the room. “A Hunter who was assigned to kill me. Of course, needless to say, she has done no such thing.”

“And as a reward for her failure to do her job, Lumen, you decided to bring her here?” It was the woman’s voice that spoke the words. Sweet and lilting, if not a little bitter.

“I brought her here because I had no choice, Tryst. A Hash was after us both. He would have killed her if I hadn’t brought her with me.”

“You should have let her die, then. Those who are out to kill us are rarely allies, Dragon Lord, in case you’ve forgotten that simple truth.”

“This woman is the exception. She is not only an ally, but far more than that. I…
needed…
her to come with me.”

“I see.” The two words were full of a sort of sly understanding, as though Tryst grasped all the subtleties of Lumen’s meaning. Neko, on the other hand, was perplexed. What exactly was he saying?

Tryst spoke again. “Well, then, tell us why you’re both here.”

Lumen and Minach took their seats at the table, the signal that a meeting was about to occur. The others seated themselves as Lumen gestured to Neko to take an empty chair next to his.

“Neko was hired by a man—a Controller—named Umbra. He told her to take my life.”

“A hired assassin is a disturbing thought.” This time it was one of the other shifters who spoke; a tall, bronze-haired man with piercing eyes, very much like the woman Tryst’s. Neko looked at him for only a moment before averting her gaze, annoyed at herself for being temporarily mesmerized by his extraordinary bone structure.

“It is,” said Lumen. “And I’m afraid that it will become a more frequent occurrence.”

“It’s the second time I’ve heard of a Hash or Hunter being assigned to one our kind. Conlon was a good man, if not strong enough to fight off his assailant. If he’d had the blood of the Kindred…”

“I know. He’d still be alive,” said Lumen. “At first I thought the killing was random; the work of a rogue Hunter, or even of a thief. But I now have reason to believe that Conlon’s death wasn’t as straightforward as all that.”

“You think that whoever was responsible was seeking information.”

“Yes, possibly. And perhaps they got what they wanted.” Lumen’s tone was ominous. “Even though Conlon wasn’t of Kindred blood, he knew enough of our history to be a valuable asset to our enemies. It pains me to tell you this: I believe that the time for the Gathering might have come.”

The others let out a quiet gasp, sending a shiver up Neko’s spine. These were the most powerful beings she’d ever beheld. To see them thrown into a state of worry, even briefly, was a shock.

She looked toward Lumen, her expression questioning. In that moment she felt more like a small child than a powerful, independent woman. A stranger in the strangest of lands.

“The Four need to be assembled, I fear,” Lumen added, doing little to alleviate her confusion.

The Four? The four what?

“Are you serious?” asked Tryst. “I thought they’d become nothing more than legendary trinkets, ruined over time. Worthless, even if they still exist.”

“They are real—I’ve seen them in my mind’s eye,” said Lumen. “And I believe the Controllers want to gain access to them before we do. This man, Umbra—he knows something. Too much for his own good. He’ll be one step behind us, if we’re lucky. If we’re
unlucky
, he’ll find his way to them before we do.”

“But this is sudden,” said Tryst in response. “If you’re right, it will require a good deal of work—not to mention the bonds that need to be established.”

“I know. The search will be difficult, to say the very least.” Lumen looked about the table at the others. “Kabal. Kliev. Minach. You know what this means. We will need to do some hunting of our own. The search won’t be a simple matter.”

The three shifters he was addressing looked solemn. Minach, if possible, looked even more stern than before, his features hardening into a stony tension. The other two shared his expression, determination taking them over. Something told Neko that fear lay inside them, as well—fear of failure, or perhaps even of success. Whatever was happening, it involved a power even greater than that which existed within this room. Something all-encompassing. Exciting and dangerous at once.

The men’s eyes moved back and forth for several seconds, as though the four of them were communicating silently about the secret that everyone in the room knew about.

Everyone but Neko.