The Twiceborn Queen (The Proving Book 2) (17 page)

I heard a growl, and a streak of silver shot from the rocking car. Mac? As she launched herself across the street shots rang out again. Someone was firing at her? I shook my dazed head. No. Thommo, staggering like a drunk but still miraculously on his feet, was firing at three figures in the shadows between two buildings opposite. Another wolf, a big black one, snarled and leapt on the nearest figure. Garth. I hadn’t even noticed him change. My dragon-enhanced night vision showed him savaging a tall willowy body that seemed to grow from the pavement.

Leshies.

Last time I’d encountered these wild forest shifters, they’d been on my side. Obviously no longer. It was their command of the earth that kept us thrown around like marbles in a bucket, unable to find our feet and fight back. The silver wolf leapt at one, and he met her with limbs suddenly turned to branches that sprouted vicious thorns half a metre long. The wolf yelped in pain, but her jaws still snapped for his throat.

Anger burned white hot inside me, constricting my throat and sending fire flushing through me. A fine plan, this—frighten us out onto the street, where the leshies waited to knock us down like skittles, then bring on the big guns to finish us off. Easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

Which meant the real assault was still to come.

The silver wolf fought hard, snapping and growling with the black wolf at her side, but she was slowing down. Even from across the street I could see a dark stain matting her bright fur. She fell back and Garth positioned himself in front of her, teeth bared in a savage snarl, fur bristling, ready to spring at the next leshy to attack.

No more! I threw back my head and roared, giving in to the primal urge inside me. The roar deepened, echoing off the blasted street, as I opened myself to oneness. The rest of my self surged back through the channel stone in an ecstatic rush. My body grew to its rightful shape, and I trumpeted defiance at the black sky above and spread my wings with a sound like a thunder clap.

The leshies shrank back into the alley, knowing their earth magic was useless against my fire, and the bleeding wolves dragged themselves out of the way. I leapt into the middle of the rocking street. Alarms sounded a discordant chorus as parked cars bumped into each other, bringing frightened faces to windows, but I didn’t care. There was already a price on my head; one more violation of Elizabeth’s laws wouldn’t make any difference.

I drew in a huge breath, feeling the pressure build deep in my gullet. One leshy still faced me, desperately trying to knock me down with increasing gyrations of the road beneath my clawed feet. It was a fool’s game, and his companions knew it. They fled down the alley, but too late.

I breathed out a mighty jet of flame. The leshy in front of me went up like a torch. Ignoring his screams, I thrust my head into the alley and blasted the other two. Dragonfire burned hotter than any other flame, and clung like napalm. It only went out when nothing remained to burn.

In this case, that didn’t take long.

Roasted leshy smelled so good I began to salivate. It had been a long time since I’d hunted in trueshape. But now was not the time. Lachie was still in danger.

Lachie!

Thinking of him triggered an involuntary change, as my body instinctively sought the form associated with him: a mother’s shape, with arms to hold and protect. Trueshape was too big, trapped in the canyons between buildings. Dragon form rushed away, dissolving back into that other space where it waited till called out again through the channel stone.

I stood naked in the ruined street, surrounded by the rags of my former clothes. Exposed, in every sense of the word. Sudden shifts were hell on wardrobes.

The lights were out in the whole block. The leshies’ games must have damaged cables underground. They’d sure as hell busted a few water pipes: a fountain gushed from a deep crack in the gutter, spilling a river across the broken road surface. But there was enough light to see Lachie huddled beside a pile of rubble, his eyes huge with fright.

Garth limped back across the street, supporting Mac, who was bent over like a little old lady. Neither of them had a stitch of clothing left. Dave and Thommo stood back to back, trying to cover every direction with their guns. Ben was on his feet too. All accounted for. I moved toward Lachie.

Before I’d taken three steps a figure leapt down the pile of rubble that had been the front steps and snatched him up. My blood ran cold. I should have known. Who else knew the weaknesses in our security so well?

“Don’t move,” said Luce. She wore her usual all-black ensemble, hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She was breathing hard but her face wore its usual impassive expression.

“Let him go.” I had trouble speaking. Fear clutched at my throat. Why hadn’t I kept trueshape? I knew what this woman was capable of.

“Come any closer and I’ll put a bullet through him.” She had him over her shoulder in a fireman’s lift, and now she held a gun to his side. He kept still but the whimper that escaped him tore at my heart. I didn’t doubt she’d do as she said. Trueshape wouldn’t have helped. I could hardly blast her with dragonfire while she held my son.

Nobody moved.

“Why are you doing this?”

Her lip curled with something like self-loathing, and her tone was bitter. “Because my lady says I must. You were there; you know I have no choice.”

Alicia had bound Luce to her with an ancient ritual that made it physically impossible for Luce to disobey her mistress, or do anything that went against her interests.

“I know that! But he’s a child. Leave him out of it. Alicia’s problem is with me, not him.”

The gun wavered, then shifted to point at me. Garth muttered a protest and stepped forward. She whipped the gun around to cover him.

“I said don’t move.”

Two men emerged from the house behind her. One carried the crossbow that had killed Rob. What were the chances that Eric had escaped somehow, and was still out the back getting ready to charge them?

I had more chance of winning the lottery. Damn it all. I’d liked Eric, and we could have done with some of his crack shooting right now.

“I’m sorry, Kate,” said Luce. I could tell she truly meant it, but that didn’t help. She had my son. “I wouldn’t choose to do it this way, but Alicia needs you to suffer.”

“What the hell for? The crime of saving her sorry ass from Valeria?”

More likely for being a better dragon than her even though I was a half-human hybrid. Bitch. I’d never liked her.

Luce didn’t answer. My mind raced, even as my heart pounded in fear.
Lachie
. How to stop her? I couldn’t let her take him. But even if I could have compelled a shifter of her power, her binding to Alicia protected her. From the corner of my eye I could see Dave and Thommo looking to me for instruction. They both still held their guns. Could I trust them to shoot Luce and not Lachie? And do it before Luce shot my son?

Not bloody likely. It was too risky. Besides, I didn’t want Luce hurt either if I could help it.

But I had to do something fast. Flanked by her two companions, she backed away down the broken street while we stood helpless.
Come on, Kate. Think of something
.

But I couldn’t. Frozen in panic, I watched her retreat.

And then I watched the sky fall on her.

At least, that’s how it seemed, for one confused moment. Something hurtled from the rooftops, bowling Luce over and knocking her into the crossbow guy. Garth darted forward and snatched Lachie up from the pavement, his big arms cradling my son protectively.

The whirlwind that had dropped from above knocked down the last guy standing with a quick tap to the head, then turned to face Luce and Crossbow Guy, who’d scrambled up. I stared for a moment, amazed at her skill as she disarmed them both with a rapid succession of kicks, always keeping herself between them and us.

Luce shook her head to clear it and squared up to face her new opponent. The woman stood a little taller than Luce herself—most people did; Luce was no giant. Like Luce, she was Asian, but Luce was Chinese and this woman was Japanese, with red streaks through her dark hair. She wore black leathers, as if she’d been riding a motorbike before she decided to jump off a rooftop into the middle of our disagreement.

Luce was a mean martial artist herself, but I soon saw that this woman’s skill far exceeded hers. Even the addition of Crossbow Guy to the fight hardly seemed to stretch her.

I suddenly realised I was still standing there gawking.

“Let’s go!” I waved everyone toward the cars. Just as well they were four-wheel drives. The new road surface offered a better challenge than any off-road track.

Dave hesitated. “What about them? We just going to leave? I could shoot her.”

“Who, Luce? Don’t you dare.” One day I hoped to free Luce from her bondage to Alicia and welcome her back into the fold. Maybe that was sentimental of me. At the moment she was an enemy, and a dangerous one. But I couldn’t bring myself to order her death. “It looks like our new friend has everything under control. Let’s get out while we can.” Without killing anyone. God, what a mess.

I slid into the back seat of the nearest car and accepted Lachie from Garth. He was crying, little hiccupping sobs that he tried to hold in.

“Shh. It’s all right,” I soothed, brushing his hair back from his face. Thank God he’d survived. When I’d seen him stretched out on the pavement, so still, it had sent a wave of dread and remembered agony through me. I felt his head for lumps. “Where does it hurt?”

He whimpered and pointed above his right ear. I couldn’t find any swelling, though he flinched when I touched the area.

Ben darted across the street and came back with something clutched tight in his good hand. Then he got in the front seat, and Dave slid behind the wheel.

“Wait! Where’s Mac?” Lachie cried.

“She’s in the other car, mate,” said Ben. “With Garth and Thommo. Don’t worry.”

Fortunately he didn’t ask about Rob or Eric. I guess they hadn’t played Lego games with him. I swallowed a lump in my throat, dreading the moment when I had to explain what had happened to them. This was no life for a child.

Dave pulled out and we were thrown from side to side as the car bumped over the boulders and rubble that used to be a city street. I glanced back to where our mystery saviour still battled Luce. Crossbow Guy was down and out for the count, like his mate. Only the two women were still on their feet, though Luce was staggering.

The stranger caught my eye and gave me a curious nod, almost like a small bow. She seemed as fresh as when the fight had begun. I hoped she wouldn’t kill Luce. Who was she, and why had she come to our aid?

I settled back in the seat as we turned the corner and picked up speed. Thank God she had. I couldn’t bear to lose Lachie again. This fighting had to end—but now my situation was even worse than before, with the loss of two good men. I couldn’t keep playing by other people’s rules.

I had to shake up the game. But how?

“Was that her?” Ben asked. “The mystery woman from the ambush?”

“Yep.” Who the hell was this woman, and why was she following me around like my own personal white knight? None of our street patrols had seen any sign of her, so either she was very good at concealing herself, or she was psychic.

“Looks pretty fishy that she turns up in the nick of time again.” He swivelled in his seat to face me. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Trying to find some clothes, what do you think?” I hung over the back seat, scrabbling through the nearest suitcase in the dark. It turned out to be Mac’s, and I grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. “Stop looking at my butt.”

“You shouldn’t have taken trueshape.” His voice was unexpectedly sharp, and he didn’t smile at my attempted humour. “Then you’d still have your own clothes.”

“What else was I supposed to do?” I wriggled into the clothes with relief, then clipped my seatbelt on. Lachie snuggled against me gratefully. “Those leshies were crucifying us.”

“Are you
trying
to get caught? New Year’s Eve was one thing, but this!” He threw up his hands. “Nine o’clock at night in the middle of a city street, where anyone can see you. You’ve got people out there just itching to start a witch hunt, you’ve got Elizabeth riding you—plus you’ve got the police all over you already for Valeria’s death—and you think changing into a dragon again is the answer? If anyone got that on film, you are
screwed
. Detective Hartley can close the case. You might as well have signed a confession.”

Heat flushed my cheeks, and I had to bite back an angry retort. Lachie had stiffened against me as Ben’s voice rose. He was old enough to remember the arguments before Jason left us. No way were we going there again.

“Let’s discuss this later. This isn’t the time or the place.” I looked meaningfully at Lachie and Ben took the hint. He turned back to face front, his shoulders taut with repressed anger.

Well, I had some anger of my own to repress. I’d done the best I could to protect us all. Now I felt like he’d slapped me in the face, hurt and caught by surprise. And underneath that, a purely dragon rage simmered.
How dare he speak to me like that?
I could practically hear Leandra’s outraged tone. But I couldn’t give in to that feeling. My dragon side had driven a big enough wedge between us already.

And even further down, so deep I had a hard time admitting it even to myself, lurked a tiny worry: was he right? Could I have found a better way? Maybe the wolves had it under control already. Maybe I could have relied on them and Thommo’s sharp shooting.

Every time, it got easier, and the dragon called to me more strongly. Did I change because I needed to? Or because I wanted to?

Silence fell as we followed the tail lights of Garth’s car down roads that grew more rural the further we went. Handmade signs offering eggs or tomatoes for sale popped up in the headlights as we zoomed past long dusty driveways. Horses and even the occasional cow dreamed in the dark fields, heads nodding sleepily as the cars’ lights found them.

Arcadia wasn’t a truly rural area. Chicken farms and horse studs lay scattered among rich mansions, churches and the occasional conference centre or restaurant. The only constant was that the size of the properties increased the further we got from the city. Some were rich and some were rundown, but all lay quiet in the light of the waxing moon. Physically it was only an hour from the heart of the city, but culturally it was another world. The only nightlife here was the foxes sniffing around the chicken coops.