Up In Smoke (34 page)

The voice chuckled, the sound seemingly coming from everywhere at once. “And this is your mate? How did you get around the curse, I wonder. It is of little matter. She is no longer yours.”

A wordless roar met that statement, one not of pain, but of absolute, unadulterated rage.

I paused for a second, startled by the depth of emotion in the sound.

“Find somewhere to hide,” Gabriel yelled suddenly. “I will find you, little bird. Hide yourself and wait for me.”

I wanted to point out the obvious, that even if he did find me, there was little he could do to help me since he had no physical presence in this world, but there seemed little use in that. I concentrated on controlling my breathing as I dashed around the shadow version of Bael's palace, seeking a place well away from the mysterious dragon where I could hide, or a passage out to the real world.

Time seemed to blur as I searched. It had been hard enough to find an exit in Bael's palace, but here in the shadow world, where the fabric of being had been warped by association with Abaddon, it was a nightmare of endless onyx archways leading to nowhere, pits that opened at my feet, broken columns and walls, and twisted black metal that clawed at me as I raced past.

A faint lightening in the distance heralded what might be a passage out of Abaddon. I stood for a moment, catching my breath before making my cautious way toward it, struggling to control the emotions the dragon shard had stirred in my flight. The hand gripping the demon's sword was stiff and aching. I relaxed my fingers, flexing them to restore the blood flow as I listened intently for sounds the dragon was near. For the previous fifteen or so minutes I hadn't heard anything but the normal muted sounds of the shadow world. Perhaps I'd given him the slip.

I looked at the promising light on the horizon, weighing my need to save myself with Gabriel's request that I find a hiding spot and wait for him. I shook my head as I considered the latter. “There's no time,” I argued to myself. “Even if he got someone to come into the shadow world to help me, it would take that person too long to find me. I have to get out of Abaddon.”

“I agree. Abaddon is no place for you,” a voice said behind me. I snatched up the sword, whirling around to face the man who emerged from the shadow of a half-tumbled wall. He glanced at the weapon held in front of me, one eyebrow rising lazily. “You have nothing to fear from me, mate.”

“I'm not even going to point out how ludicrous that statement is,” I said, both of my hands holding the sword so it pointed at his heart. Dragons might be hard to kill, but even they wouldn't run headlong into a sword. “I will warn you that I have no intention of being taken away from Gabriel, nor will I allow you to take the dragon shard.”

The dragon ignored both the threat and the sword as he circled around me, eyeballing me from the top of my head to the toes of my boots. I kept the sword between him and me, turning as he made his objectionable examination. “You are not as finely made as my mate was.” A slow smile made his lips quirk. “On the other hand, there is much pleasure to be had in taking the mate of a silver dragon again.”

“I'm not Ysolde,” I said, wondering if my stab in the dark was going to find its mark. “And Gabriel is not Constantine Norka.”

He lunged at me, snarling out something I didn't understand. I slashed at him with the sword, amazed as the air in front of me gathered into a blue light that formed itself in a sword. “Do not think that because I will take you as mate means you will be anything but a pale comparison to her. You are merely a female, a means to an end, a lesser dragon and nothing more.”

“I'm not a dragon,” I growled, the tip of my sword cutting through the air as I waved it in warning.

He looked at my hands. My fingers were long, covered in silver scales, and tipped with red.

“Not normally,” I added, moving slightly to the side. If I could get around him, I might be able to race toward the spot that I thought might be an exit.

The blade of light flashed in an arc directly at me. I swung my sword upward, intercepting it, bracing myself for the inevitable blow. I was no stranger to swordplay, having had years of fencing lessons at Magoth's behest, but there was a great difference between learning the style of fencing used by actors, and fighting for your life with a maniac dragon who apparently had powers well beyond what anyone thought. The impact of his sword on mine sent me to my knees, sparks flying from the blades as they screamed with the impact. I held on to the demon blade with all my might as Baltic—there was no doubt in my mind that the dragon before me was him—stood above me, his eyes dark and unfathomable as he crushed me into the ground.

“If you kill me, you'll destroy the shard,” I told him, every muscle in my arms screaming as I fought to keep his sword from striking me.

“There's no one to stop me from taking it from your corpse,” he said, spinning around, the blade dancing in the air as it descended toward me again.

I rolled away, hoping to get to my feet, but as I was in the act of rising, Baltic's sword of light flashed, knocking mine from my hands. I watched in horror as it spun through the air, seemingly in slow motion, the dim light twinkling down the length of its blade as it tumbled handle over tip. It made a perfect arc upward, a graceful movement that I watched with despair. It hung in the air for a moment, then began its descent, just as graceful, but with each flash of its blade, my hope evaporated more, leaving nothing but resignation.

Just as the sword was about to strike the earth, a shadow tore itself through the webbing between worlds. A woman emerged, holding a staff of shining gold, which she slammed down into the ground, the reverberation from which knocked the demon's sword backwards through the air, coincidentally sending me reeling against the wall.

The woman looked at me for a moment, silent but magnificent, a glorious corona of golden light emanating from her before both it and her crumpled and dissolved into nothing. A figure flashed through the mist she left behind, flying through the air and falling to the ground only to spring up again, the demon's sword held in his hand.

“Gabriel,” I said, astonished.

Baltic froze for a moment, his gaze lingering on me for a second, and I feared for the space between heartbeats that he would kill me.

But as Gabriel stalked toward us, the demon's blade glowing brightly in his hand, Baltic turned from me and met him with a little salute with his sword.

“I forgot that your mother was a shaman,” Baltic said, glancing toward the space where Kaawa had stood. “It must have cost her much to bring you here.”

“Not as much as it will cost you,” Gabriel said, answering the salute with one of his own. “I have seen paintings of Baltic. You do not bear a resemblance to any of them.”

The dragon merely smiled. “Appearances, as the mortals are so fond of saying, can be deceptive. You intend to fight for your mate.”

It was a statement, not a question.

“She is mine. I will not let her go,” Gabriel said, his eyes lit from deep within.

My heart was overwhelmed with love and fear, not for him, but for myself. I knew that according to dragon dogma, a wyvern's mate could survive the loss of her dragon, but not the reverse. If Baltic killed Gabriel, though, the pain would just be too much to bear. I would live, but I would remain in the shadow world, hidden from life, bound to a love that would survive regardless of my wishes.

The dragon shard protested such a defeatist attitude, and for once, I welcomed the flow of emotions with which it filled me, easing the dagger from the sheath at my ankle, moving slowly and silently to a position behind Baltic.

“You make it all so easy,” Baltic said, shaking his head a split second before he lunged at Gabriel, his sword leaving a little contrail of blue light as it flashed in a complicated pattern above and around Gabriel.

My admiration for Gabriel, already pretty high, rose even more as he easily parried Baltic's attacks with the sword of light. I knew from experience the sort of power the former wielded, and yet Gabriel didn't seem to be affected by them at all. The two men moved in and out of the shadows, in an elegant if powerful dance of light and darkness, Baltic's blade slicing through the air in quick, sharp movements, while Gabriel's responses with the demon sword seemed slower and more deliberate, but no less deadly.

I watched for an opening where I could make my own attack, but just as Baltic spun around a broken bit of marble, leaping over Gabriel while slashing downward with his sword, a flash of red sprayed upward. Gabriel grunted and dropped into a roll, getting to his feet slowly, his shirt soaked with blood as his left arm hung at an odd angle. For a moment my eyes saw only the bone and tendons exposed by the blow Baltic had made, nearly slicing off Gabriel's arm, but then a red mist swept over my vision.

“May!” Gabriel yelled. “Get out of here. Find your way out to safety.”

A horrible noised echoed throughout the shadow world, half roar, half battle cry. My body filled with fire, too much fire, bursting from me in an explosion of anger, fury, and retribution, and I realized with abstracted interest that it was me making all that noise. My body changed, lengthened, sinews and muscles increasing as the fine silver scales swept up from my limbs. I could taste Gabriel's blood, hear his labored breathing as he continued to fend off Baltic's increasing attacks, slowly trying to lead him away from me, fighting to the end to save me when it was himself he should be saving.

“May, you must leave!” Gabriel yelled again. “If you shift completely, I don't know that you can come back!”

No one harmed my mate and lived.
That was the thought that consumed me as I lashed out at Baltic, striking him with bloodred claws and a razor-sharp whip of a tail, every atom of my being focused on the destruction of the dragon who hurt my mate.

The ground itself burst into flames as Baltic screamed in pain, his body shifting instantly into that of a dragon . . . but it was white, not black.

His eyes were the same, dark and menacing, filled with knowledge that went beyond that of even the oldest of dragons, and they held me in their grasp for a split second before his body twisted and I was sent flying, slamming backwards into a half-collapsed archway.

The blow left me dazed, watching with unfocused eyes as Gabriel's form shimmered for a second, then shifted into that of a powerful form that glittered as bright as his eyes. The dragons still held swords, one of Gabriel's arms limp and bloodied, but the wordless roar that was ripped from his throat promised more than retribution.

He drove the demon's sword deep into the chest of the white dragon, causing Baltic to shift back into human form. He staggered backwards a few steps, both hands on the hilt of the demon's sword, a look of amazement on his face. “A shadow sword?”

Gabriel looked startled for an instant as well, but that expression vanished when he returned to his human form. He snatched up the dagger I'd dropped when I transformed, stalking toward Baltic, his head down, one side of his body held higher than the other, his eyes burning with mercurial fire. “She . . . is . . . mine,” he growled, and Baltic, staggering slightly, shook his head as if in disbelief.

“How can you know? It cannot be, and yet, this shadow blade is real. This is not over.”

The roar that followed shook the shadow world. “She is mine!”

Baltic said nothing in response to that, just backed into the shadows and disappeared.

Gabriel stood for a moment, panting with the effort that I knew it took him merely to keep conscious, before turning toward me.

“Little bird,” he said, and dropped to his knees.

I crawled over to him, noting with the same abstracted interest that my hands were no longer silver, but the normal freckled beige I expected.

“He'll be back,” Gabriel said, gasping for air as I peeled back his shirt. “We have to get out of here.”

He held his left wrist with his right hand, pulling it close to his body to keep the limb from dropping off altogether. I gritted my teeth against the gruesome sight that was his shoulder, ripping off my shirt to bind his arm to his torso, ignoring the little sounds of pain that escaped him. “We must leave, mate.”

“We will,” I said, cradling him to me as the loss of blood caught up with him. His head lolled back against my shoulder. I held him tight, weeping hot, silent tears from the lingering emotions left by the dragon shard.

Chapter Twenty-five

“
H
ow's he feeling—good lord, May!”

A female voice pierced the haze that so often accompanies exhausted sleep. I pushed myself out of it, sitting upright, momentarily confused about where I was.

Aisling stood on the other side of the bed upon which I was lying, a startled expression on her face.

I followed her gaze to my hand, which had been resting on Gabriel's chest. It was covered in silver scales, the scarlet claws in stark relief against his skin.

“Wow. Half dragon, half girl. That's gotta be a moneymaker if you set up a webcam,” Jim said, peering over the bed at me.

Panic gripped me as I tried to force the dragon part of me back. If I was starting to shift while sleeping, could it be long before the dragon shard took me over completely?

“Do not distress yourself,” Gabriel said softly to me. “Relax, little bird. Take your time. Do not force the change.”

It was easy for him to say; he wasn't the one losing himself, I thought bitterly to myself as I nonetheless followed his advice. I took a deep breath and tried to relax my tense muscles, gently but firmly pushing out the volatile emotions that so persistently held me in their grip.