Twiceborn Endgame (The Proving Book 3) (16 page)

“Stay here with him,” I told Corinne. “I won’t be far. Call out if there’s any change.”

She nodded, her face almost as pale as Garth’s, but determined.

I took the guard’s gun and slipped out into the corridor. Shouts rose through the hole in the floor, but no one was stirring yet on this floor. Garth had probably been the only one to rate an actual live guard because of his use as leverage against me. A locked door would be enough to contain the others.

I chose a door at random and extended my claws. Leandra might have shot the lock, but she’d been comfortable with guns and I wasn’t. They made it look simple in the movies, but where exactly were you supposed to aim? Claws were more reliable. I knew what I was doing with them.

Which was peeling the metal door like an apple, a strip bending back like skin. Luce’s face appeared in the gap.

“Good. I was hoping it was you.” I handed her the gun. “Do your thing.”

She immediately took aim and blasted the lock. The noise reverberated in the concrete corridor. Luce could always be relied upon for violence in any flavour. The door swung open at a touch.

Wordlessly she held out her cuffed hands, and I freed her as I’d freed Corinne.

“Find the others.”

She nodded and turned to the next door. I headed back to Garth, hope warring with terror inside me. Would I find the dreaded black lines creeping across his tortured body?

Corinne looked up as I entered. “The bleeding’s stopped.”

“Let me see.”

Heart in my mouth, I dropped to the floor next to the still-unconscious werewolf and peeled away the blood-soaked jacket with shaking hands. It was still a nasty wound … but that was all. No black twisting veins, no hideous swelling.

I sat back on my heels and breathed a silent prayer of thanks, feeling warmth flood my heart like sunshine after a storm. The knot of dread in my gut began to unwind. In this new light his unconsciousness looked like a good sign—he’d fallen into the healing sleep his body needed to repair itself.

Now all I had to do was get him to safety. I could hear voices in the corridor, but it sounded like shifters calling to each other, voices raised in fear and anger. I thought I recognised Hope’s brittle tones. For a police headquarters, or whatever this place was, there seemed to be a remarkable shortage of policemen.

Luce appeared in the doorway. “Shit, what happened to Garth?”

“Silver bullet. But it’s okay,” I added as she drew in a horrified breath. “He’s fine.”

Well, not fine exactly. He still had a hole in his head. But the fact that he’d stopped bleeding meant that his shifter healing had kicked in. Within twenty-four hours there’d be little to show how close he’d come to a gruesome death.

“How the hell—? Never mind, you can tell me later. We need to get moving.”

I dragged Garth out of the cage, being careful not to let the broken silver bars brush against his skin.

“Did you find everyone?”

“Nearly. Don’t know where Faith is. Her people said she was taken away a few hours ago. No sign of Blue, either.”

I sighed. “Keep looking, we need to find Blue. But I don’t think Faith will be coming with us.”

An angry young man pushed his way past Luce. “Why not? Do you know where she is?”

He was built like a New Zealand rugby player, dark-skinned and massive. I didn’t even need to see his aura to know that he was a troll. Luce looked like a child standing next to him.

“You’re one of Faith’s people?”

He folded arms that were thicker round than my thigh and scowled as if I were personally responsible for her disappearance. “That’s right. Where is she?”

I pointed at the gaping hole in the corridor floor just beyond them. “Two floors down. They were doing some kind of experiments on her.”

No need to mention the channel stone. A low-level shifter like him wouldn’t know what it was anyway.

His dark face paled. “Is she alive?”

“Last I saw she was. Giving them hell, too.”

He turned without a word and strode into the corridor, bellowing for his friends. Luce helped me carry Garth out of the room in time to see the troll and three equally massive friends leap into the hole.

“Where are they going?” Hope asked. Her wine-red gown was almost black now it was wet, and clung to her legs in a way that looked very uncomfortable. She and my other sisters were milling in the corridor with their followers like a herd of sheep. Yarrow waited by the door. Everyone looked at me, some with suspicion, others with hope. Valiant seemed more friendly towards me, but Hope looked as if she hadn’t made up her mind yet.

“Looking for Faith. I saw her down there.” She didn’t need to know more than that. She had no more love for Faith than she did for me.

“What now?” Luce asked.

“The lifts are that way.” Hope pointed. “Let’s go.”

“Seen any Jaeger men?” I asked Luce, ignoring Hope.

“None. Looks bad.”

I nodded.

“What do you mean?” Hope asked, glaring at each of us in turn.

Bloody teenagers. The girl didn’t have two brain cells to rub together. “It means that if they’re not here shooting at us, they must be setting up to shoot us somewhere else. Somewhere they think gives them a better chance of bringing us down.”

“Like when we get out of the lift,” Luce said pointedly.

That stopped her for a minute. But only for a minute.

“Then we’ll take the stairs.”

Luce rolled her eyes.

“Look after Garth,” I told her, and she nodded, slinging him over her shoulder as if he weighed nothing. She was so short his long legs nearly reached the ground.

“Better to take them by surprise,” I said to Hope, and opened myself to my essence.

She stepped back abruptly, suspicion turning to fear, and took trueshape herself, but I had no intention of attacking her. I turned my attention to the ceiling as the corridor filled with dragons, no one wanting to be the last one left in vulnerable human form. Hope was gold, like most of the others. Valiant was a reddish shade I’d never seen before, a beautiful coppery bronze.

Together we battered through the ceiling. I hurled blocks of concrete and pieces of twisted steel away, sheltering my friends with my body. The boom of exploding concrete shook the building, and I wondered if we might bring the whole thing down on our heads. Yarrow and Luce manhandled Garth up in our wake, though Yarrow could have done it on his own. He’d taken a form that looked like a walking tree, tall and strong.

I spared a glance to make sure Corinne was following too, then turned back to the task at hand. One or more of my sisters had used dragonfire to make the job easier, and bits of flaming debris fell past. The lights flickered and went out as we smashed our way higher, but there was plenty of light for dragon eyes.

Flame glowered below us in the pit we’d made, like a scene from Dante’s Inferno. Minus the naked writhing bodies, of course. Concrete dust hung in the air, adding to the otherworldly feel. Somewhere water gushed from a broken pipe, and I bared my teeth in a dragon smile. That would teach them to take on the shifters. Their little hidey-hole was destroyed. But where had the insects scurried to?

We smashed through into a bigger space with high ceilings. The roar of assault rifles greeted us, but their bullets glanced harmlessly off dragon scales. We were in the foyer of a large building, all massive pillars and high ceilings. Outside it was night, and I caught a glimpse of green through the glass walls, but the only interest I had in my surroundings now was to find and destroy the insects that buzzed at us. Their bullets could not be permitted to hurt the one I loved again. I roared, and the building shook with my displeasure. My body thrummed with power, and the joy of the hunt thrilled in my veins.

The insects were using the pillars as cover. I leapt forward and blasted the nearest group with dragonfire, burning out their little nest. The smell of scorched flesh filled my mouth with saliva and my heart with satisfaction. Around me my sisters were doing the same, and the roar of flame and the screams of terrified humans made sweet music together. The fools had chosen a bad place to make their stand. Here we had enough room to move. Perhaps they had thought our size would make us slow, but their lack of knowledge proved fatal.

The chatter of gunfire died away as we hunted through the flames and smoke. We were in our element, fast and unstoppable. Silver bullets meant nothing to us. Even grenades had little effect. This was joy; this was living. There was nothing like the taking of another life, the slash of claws and the spray of blood, to make one feel truly alive. We were death incarnate, sinuous, beautiful. None could stand before us.

One of my sisters took a blast at close quarters. Her scales still sparkled, stronger than steel, as she flowed forward to claim the life of the one who had opposed her. I watched with satisfaction as she tore off the man’s head, his blood running red from her jaws. There was a reason dragons were the most feared of all the shifters. In trueshape, the only thing that could damage us was another dragon. It was time the humans remembered us. Remembered us and feared us.

Gradually I became aware that the crackle of flame was the only sound I could hear. No more gunfire. Not even any screams or groans. I looked around the devastated foyer, eyeing the other dragons hulking through the smoke. My sisters gazed back, gold or silver bodies shining, their reptilian eyes unblinking. No one wanted to be first to resume human form.

I certainly wasn’t ready to die yet, so I kept trueshape as I padded over broken concrete and shattered floor tiles toward the massive hole I’d come through. Dead bodies lay all around and the smell of roasting flesh made my mouth water. I peered through the smoke into the dark depths of the hole.

An improbable sight met my eyes: a grizzly bear holding an unconscious man, cradling him like a baby. Luce was at his side, still in human form. Other familiar faces crept into view, including Blue, thank God.

“It’s safe to come up now,” I said, my voice rumbling deep in my chest. Smoke huffed from my nostrils as I spoke. I hoped it was true—I didn’t think my sisters would attack my friends, with their own supporters equally vulnerable.

Luce nodded and leapt for the edge of the hole, spraying concrete dust and bits of debris on the people below as she hauled herself up. Then she turned and gestured to the grizzly, who passed Garth up to her. Despite her small size, she took his weight and laid him gently down.

Yarrow was next, still in grizzly form. A much more sensible choice than his previous treelike incarnation, given the fire all around. Trees and flames were not a good combination.

The pillar nearest the hole creaked ominously. Luce’s gaze flicked around the smoke-filled foyer, assessing the damage.

“Hurry up,” she called into the hole. “We’ll be lucky if the ceiling doesn’t come down on us.”

My sisters had been a little overeager with the dragonfire. Everything that could have burned, had. At one point during the battle I’d felt a few drops of water as the sprinkler system tried to come on, but someone had blasted that too and melted all the sprinkler heads out of existence. Water was cascading down the far wall from a broken—or more likely melted—pipe in the ceiling.

Now, as my temper cooled, I began to regret all the charred corpses. But I hadn’t been prepared to risk Garth anywhere near their silver bullets, and they’d shown no desire to stop firing until we’d made them. Had they known what they were signing on for when they joined Taskforce Jaeger? I didn’t want a war with the humans, but pacifism isn’t an option when your enemy is trying to take you down. Not unless your name’s Gandhi, and I would be first to admit that I wasn’t in his league.

Outside I could hear sirens wailing in the distance. Fire engines or police—probably both. It was still dark beyond the glass walls of the foyer, many of them shattered by gunfire or dragon tails, and there was no one on the street. Not that I could see, anyway. It would be just my luck if there was someone hidden, filming the whole thing on their damned mobile phone. I was getting mighty tired of starring in Internet videos.

“Let’s go,” I said when my team was all gathered around me. Corinne and Blue huddled close together. The selkie woman’s face was white beneath the heavy fall of her dark hair, and her evening gown certainly wasn’t improved by scrambling over broken concrete. It had been a rough night for everyone. Blue was swaying on his feet. Even Yarrow looked tired as he shimmered back into human form and started stripping the clothes from a dead body.

When he was dressed he hoisted Garth into his arms again. The werewolf was still unconscious, which worried me, but he was breathing and I saw no sign of silver poisoning. That would have to do until we could get him somewhere safer.

My sisters were all reunited with their followers. Faith’s people were still missing. I had no idea if they’d managed to free her, or what condition she was in, but I wasn’t waiting around to find out.

A golden dragon moved to intercept us as we headed for the nearest door. Hope, as imperious-looking in trueshape as she was in human form.

“Where are you going?”

It wasn’t quite a challenge. I was bigger than her, I was pleased to note, and I lashed my tail as I glared at her.

“Wherever I damn well please,” I growled. “Are you going to stop me?”

She glanced over her shoulder at her sisters, but none of them moved. Welcome to the proving, sweetheart. It was every dragon for herself. Together they might have been able to take me down, but none of them trusted the others enough to join forces.

The sirens were growing louder. “I suggest you follow my lead and get out of here before reinforcements arrive.” And cameras.

Hope didn’t appear to like the idea of following anyone’s lead, but the suggestion made such good sense she’d be a fool to ignore it. Valiant nodded her beautiful coppery head to me and shepherded her people out into the warm night without another word. Hope stepped aside, glowering, as we followed, but those sirens were close now, and she didn’t waste too much time glaring. The others began to disperse behind us as we headed off down a side street.