Serpent's Kiss: A Dragonfire Novel (2 page)

That had been exactly what had happened. Erik had checked and checked again just the day before.

But now Thorolf was gone. There was no glowing conduit to him from Erik’s mind. There was no link to his spirit, either. He wasn’t dead, just missing.

Erik shifted back to human form, impatient with his own failing in this. He should have kept a closer eye upon Thorolf, and he knew it. His frustration with Thorolf had driven his choices, and that had been a mistake.

He turned on the lights, intent upon checking the apartment, on the outside chance that Chen or JP had left some clue.

Chen had. There was a spiral burned into the hardwood floor, a spiral exactly like the mark branded on JP’s neck. It was about fifteen feet across and had been the source of that smell. Erik stepped into it and knew too late that he shouldn’t have done so. The spiral drew him forward with relentless force. He was pulled against his will to the very core of the spiral, fighting it even as he saw it begin to burn again. First the mark glowed, like embers, then it was coaxed to a small fire by a wind Erik couldn’t feel. In a heartbeat, the flames were burning as high as his knees. He couldn’t stop himself from moving closer, even when he heard Chen’s laughter echo through the empty apartment.

“I could take you now,”
Chen whispered in old-speak. His claim echoed in Erik’s mind and fed his fear. It was terrifying because it was true. Erik couldn’t break free of the spiral.
“All I need, after all, is the element of air.”

Erik had an affinity to the element of air, which wasn’t the most reassuring realization he could have had in that moment. The last thing he wanted to do was provide the final key to Chen’s spell, giving that
Slayer
the ability to triumph over the
Pyr
and destroy the
Pyr
forever.

It didn’t seem he had a lot of choice, though. Erik fought hard against the invisible force that was pulling him closer to the center of the burning spiral, but his efforts made no difference. He refused to summon anyone to help him, because he wouldn’t lead another
Pyr
into such danger.

“I could snatch you from your own lair and make my spell complete,”
Chen continued, a trace of amusement in his voice.

There was a sudden crack like lightning.

The fire disappeared. The spiral on the floor was black for a heartbeat, and then it disappeared completely.

Erik was standing in an empty apartment, one tinged with the frost of his own dragonsmoke barrier. His heart was pounding and there was a trickle of sweat running down the middle of his back. He blinked and looked around, startled by the change.

There was a red salamander in the farthest corner, its tongue flicking.

Chen, in another guise.

Erik didn’t know what he could do to stop the
Slayer
, but he had to do something.

As soon as he took a step, the salamander began to shimmer with a pale blue light.

“But I’d rather let you watch,”
Chen murmured in old-speak, the darkness of his threat making Erik shiver. The blue light brightened, then the salamander disappeared.

Erik was completely alone.

He stood for a moment and listened, knowing in his heart that the
Slayer
wouldn’t be back. Chen’s plans had been defeated several times by the
Pyr
, yet he was so confident this time of his success that he’d let Erik go.

That couldn’t be a good sign.

But without knowing Chen’s plan, Erik didn’t know what he could do to stop him. Thorolf was gone. JP had been collected. Pieces were moving into place.

Chen needed the element of air to complete his spell. Unfortunately, Erik and Thorolf shared the same affinity. Would Thorolf’s disappearance make Chen’s spell complete?

Erik felt sick at his own unwitting involvement. There had to be something he could do to save Thorolf.

Erik owed Thorolf’s father no less.

* * *

Thorolf awakened with a familiar sense of having over-indulged the night before. His head was pounding and his tongue was thick. Although he knew he’d been sleeping hard, he was as exhausted as if he’d run a marathon.

Never mind how sore he was. His entire body ached. In fact, he hurt in places he hadn’t felt in years. What had he done the night before?

What exactly had he drunk?

He had a vague memory of taking a dare from Viv to drink some combination of the bartender’s own devising. It was the kind of dare he always took, laughing, when he was drunk enough. His constitution was sufficiently strong that he could sleep off pretty much anything.

But that drink had been fierce. He knew he’d only had a sip, and he didn’t remember one thing after that. Maybe he was getting old. After nine and a half centuries, he supposed it was reasonable to expect some loss of vigor. He was starving, too, hungry enough to eat at least three big steaks.

Or pie. He’d kill for an apple pie.

Not a slice: the whole damn thing.

With ice cream.

He really hoped he didn’t have any new tattoos. The ones he chose when he was wasted were never the right ones, and he didn’t have Rox protecting him from his impulsiveness with ink anymore.

Thorolf wondered when he’d see Rox and Niall, and all the other
Pyr
again, and felt even worse. He’d never succeeded in his self-appointed quest to destroy Chen, because he’d never done more than get to Bangkok. He hadn’t hunted Chen down and fought the old
Slayer
to the death, because he’d gotten involved with Viv.

How had Viv gotten him back to their apartment? For a small woman, she really got things done. He was impressed by her resourcefulness all over again.

It was more reason to make a fresh start on this day. He owed her better than what he’d been, and he owed more to the
Pyr
than he’d delivered. If he wasn’t going to be a fuck-up forever, the time to change was now.

Thorolf braced himself for the worst and opened one eye warily.

Evidently he wasn’t really ready for the worst, because the sight shocked him wide awake. There was a huge green snake curled up on the bed beside him, its eyes glittering and its tail flicking. It seemed to be waiting for him to show signs of wakefulness because as soon as his eyes opened, it reared up and bared its fangs.

It was huge, the biggest snake he’d ever seen. It might have weighed as much as Thorolf did, which was impressive. As its eyes glinted with malice, he knew he’d seen a snake this big only once before.

In this very apartment.

When Chen had attacked him.

He’d never been able to find it later, much less ensure it was evicted or dead. Viv had said that Thailand’s jungles were thick with snakes and told him not to worry about it. Thorolf hadn’t liked that reasoning one bit, and now he liked it less. The snake was back, or maybe it had never left.

And it was after him.

He cast a quick glance over the apartment and was somewhat relieved. There was no sign of Viv, which was good. Thorolf would have a hard enough time defending himself in his current state.

He scrambled backward, only realizing then that the snake had already wrapped itself around his leg. The snake’s coils tightened, squeezing his calf and holding him captive. It opened its mouth, as if to laugh at him.

Thorolf tumbled out of the bed and fell on his butt, knocking over Viv’s cute little nightstand from the flea market. The table and lamp crashed to the floor, and he dreaded that she’d cry. He hated when she cried. The snake dove for him even as Thorolf tried to crawl away and its weight landed on his chest.

It was incredibly heavy, heavy enough to knock the breath out of him. Thorolf grabbed it and flung its head against the wall. The snake hit the plaster and hissed in fury. Thorolf reached to free himself from the snake’s coils with both hands, blood running from one. He caught one coil and ripped it away, but the snake launched itself toward him again.

Its weight knocked him off balance, but Thorolf kept fighting against its grip on his leg. Looking away was his mistake: the snake struck in that instant. He winced as its fangs sank deeply into his arm. He saw the cold glitter of its eyes but reached for its head again, determined to get it off him.

No sooner had his hand closed over its cold skin than he felt a strange languor steal through his body. A chill was emanating from the bite, spreading over his skin, so he knew the serpent’s toxin was paralyzing him. Even the bite looked wrong, because it was turning his skin dark. Thorolf had time to open his mouth, but he never made a scream. Numbness claimed his body and began to seep into his thoughts. He only managed to make a choking sound before he couldn’t make any noise at all. His eyes closed despite his efforts and he felt himself fall limply to the floor. The snake’s weight left him, its coils releasing his leg, but it was impossible to escape.

Chen’s familiar laugh echoed in Thorolf’s ears, a sound of triumph that didn’t bode well. It would have been bad enough if the old
Slayer
had killed him, but Thorolf knew Chen would have more devious plans for him than that. He remembered the brand that Chen had burned against the neck of the shadow dragons he’d enslaved, remembered how the old
Slayer
had tried to brand him, too, and felt sick with dread. It wasn’t as if he could defend himself, not like the last time, not when he was like this. The brand had been shattered, but Thorolf wouldn’t have put it past Chen to have forged it new.

He was in very deep trouble, and outcast from his fellow
Pyr
, the only ones who could have helped him.

It appeared that Thorolf had made his last mistake.

* * *

That night, Niall Talbot, the Dreamwalker of the
Pyr
, dreamed. He was in the dream of another
Pyr
, he had to be, because the scene was completely unfamiliar to him. Niall glimpsed pine trees and mountains, an icy length of water—and a village consumed by flames. He was flying toward the devastation, seeing what another
Pyr
had once seen. He felt the
Pyr
’s horror and his fear of what he’d discover. His heart was thundering, and he flew with reckless power. He descended toward the flames and caught a scent that he knew better than his own heart.

Astrid was alive.

That was his thought, filled with relief and hope. The
Pyr
followed the scent and found her, outside the village, bound to a large rock like an offering to the gods. Niall was shocked but the
Pyr
was not. He’d expected worse.

Worse? The woman was burned badly, bruised and muddy. Niall saw that she’d had stones thrown at her, because they were around her feet, stained with her blood. Her body had been broken before the attack that had left her burned.

Niall wondered where he was, and what this woman had done. The
Pyr
whose dream he shared saw only the woman’s beauty and kindness, his heart aching that she had paid this price. Niall could glimpse how pretty she had been, even though the mud, blood and the burns. She caught her breath at the
Pyr
’s arrival, her fear tangible, but he shifted shape in a shimmer of brilliant blue.

Why did the scene smell like
Pyr
as well as
Slayer
? Niall had a bad feeling. What was left of the village and the woman’s clothing looked primitive, maybe medieval, and there was certainly no industry in the valley. In what era was he? Before the late middle ages, there had been no
Slayers
, per se, Niall knew that, but he didn’t doubt his keen sense of smell.

He supposed there had always been those of his kind with darkness in their blood, even if they hadn’t been given a name yet.

The
Pyr
fell to his knees before the woman, pushed her hair back from her ravaged face with a shaking hand, and bowed his head, overwhelmed to find her like this.

My Astrid.

“All I did was love you,” she whispered, the words barely audible. Her lips were cracked and it had to be painful for her to speak. She coughed then, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. “Who would have guessed that would cost so much,” she murmured before her eyes closed. A tear leaked from her eye and meandered down her cheek, even as she stilled forever.

She was dead. A fury filled the other
Pyr
as he realized as much, then he tipped back his head to roar. He shifted shape at the same time, taking flight with power. Niall felt his pain and his betrayal, and his conviction that his own kind had done this, to teach him a lesson.

It was one he would never forget.

Niall awakened with a start, shaking, horrified and sickened by the stench of burned flesh. He could have been in that village still, the air filled with smoke, the dead woman bound and burned before him. “Astrid,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with another
Pyr
’s pain.

“Who?” his partner Rox demanded, bracing herself on her elbow to look down at him in the darkness. She spoke softly, probably not wanting to awaken their twin sons. Kyle and Nolan were just over a year old and finally sleeping with some predictability.

Niall realized that he was in New York, safe in bed with Rox in their apartment over her tattoo shop. The familiar lights and sounds of the city outside the window reassured him. He could hear his sons sleeping in the next room, but couldn’t keep from pulling Rox close. His heart was racing and his mouth dry.