“Miho says he seduced the Emperor’s daughter,” Chance said as they approached the cave high on the mountainside.
Kett pulled on the reins of her munta. “So they chucked him out?”
“She was supposed to be pure for marriage. It’s considered an act of treason.”
“Isn’t it usually a death sentence for treason?” Dark rumbled.
“Yeah, but he has friends in high places, Miho says.”
Kett gave her a sideways glance. “You don’t believe her?”
“Well…come on, do you? Bael? He looks like he just rolled out of prison.”
“So?”
“So, do jailbirds usually have friends in high-” Chance broke off as Kett raised an eyebrow. Dark hid a smile. “Oh all right. Well, that just means you two are perfect for each other.”
“Oh sure. Apart from the fact that he’s a lunatic.”
“Well, you’re a lunatic.”
Kett opened her mouth to protest, then briefly considered her life history and let it go. “And he buggered off without another word this morning.” The Curse of Kett strikes again.
“Because the proviso on his escaping the death sentence first time around was that they wouldn’t be so lenient if he ever came back.”
Kett made a face and grumbled under her breath. She didn’t know why she was complaining about it. It wasn’t as if she was bothered. Bael had been fun-in the sack, he’d been a lot of fun-but he was a nutball and she just didn’t need that.
It was better this way.
She dismounted outside the cave, which looked entirely unthreatening in the bright sunshine, and moved forward. The entrance was just high enough for a grown man to pass under without concussing himself, and inside the ceiling rose to maybe fifteen or sixteen feet at the highest point.
A broken chain still dangled from a hook wedged into the rock. Directly below it was a perfect circle, etched into the ground by some immense source of heat.
A sound of disgust came from the cave’s entrance, and Kett glanced around to see Dark looking like he could smell something bad. All Kett could smell was the scent of burned meat, but then she didn’t have the refined nose of a lion Nasc.
“Burned flesh,” he said to Kett.
“Human flesh,” Chance clarified. She too was making a face as she poked at the charred remains on the floor. Flakes of ash drifted away on the cool morning breeze.
“It was like that when I got here,” Kett said, which made her cousin smile.
“What are these?” Dark asked, examining the symbols burned into the wall. Now that the sunlight was filtering in, Kett could see the walls of the entire cavern were covered with them. “It looks like a language, but not one I recognize.”
“Thought you spoke everything going?” Kett asked.
“Exactly,” he said, frowning.
Chance moved closer to investigate but could offer no more clues. “It looks almost like kelfish, but…not,” she said.
“Helpful, thanks.”
Chance rolled her eyes and took out a notebook and pencil. “Here. Maybe someone at Koskwim will know.”
Kett pictured the vast library of the Order and nodded. If the answer was anywhere, it would be there.
She copied down as many of the symbols, in the correct order, as she could, and the three of them left the macabre place, riding down the mountain and turning north toward the Bridge compound near Tonshi. Chance handed Kett a few folded sheets of paper bearing the king of Peneggan’s signature and personal seal. Emergency travel documents.
Kett gave her cousin a sidelong look.
“He’s your uncle, not mine,” Chance said.
“Step-uncle,” Kett muttered. “How did you know I’d need them?”
“Darling, you always need them.”
The Wall shimmered before them, violet and beautiful. Mesmerizing, never still, and beautiful.
Beautiful and deadly.
Rather like a lot of people she knew.
The Bridge official waved them forward to be enchanted, and Kett prepared herself as she had a hundred times before. A grown human could pass through the Wall only under heavy enchantment. Children, animals and kelfs couldn’t pass through at all.
When she thought about it, the idea of being broken down into thousands of tiny pieces and reassembled on the other side made Kett feel vaguely sick. No wonder she was surrounded by green-faced travelers when she materialized on the Peneggan side of the Wall.
Dark came next, looking a little pale but otherwise healthy. Chance flowed into existence after him, looking no rockier than if she’d just stepped from a luxurious carriage ride.
“And yet we’re related,” Kett muttered in disgust, her hand on her queasy stomach. She followed her cousin out of the heavily fortified Bridge compound and up the hill, stepping around scorched areas of grass and breathing in deeply of the smoky air.
“Home scary home,” Chance said as they crested the rise, passed through a small wood and paused, looking down on the home of the Order.
“Really, I’m not sure I’m flattered that you keep bringing me here,” Dark said.
“I grew up here,” Chance protested mildly. “Most of the people here are lovely.”
“Darling, most of them could invent five new ways to kill a man before breakfast.”
“Only five? You haven’t been paying attention.”
Kett said nothing, looking down at the twisted red pillars of stone, the gleaming white tower, the glint of sunshine on the courtyard’s fountains. She could see small figures leaping and playing in the water, younger students not yet burdened with the full understanding of what they’d come to learn from the Order.
Thirty years ago…
Unlike everyone else in the Realm of Peneggan, Kett had never heard the rumor that the Wallside island of Koskwim was inhabited by dangerous dragons.
Unlike everyone else on the island itself, she hadn’t therefore laughed when she discovered the truth.
Dragons did roam the island, making their nests among the weird volcanic columns of rock, flying screeching overhead, terrifying the inhabitants of the mainland city of Port Jaret, just across the water.
But they weren’t the dangerous ones.
Hidden from the Bridge compound by trees and belief, a tall white tower gleamed in the sunlight. Seamless, the pale marble seemed to have grown out of the earth. And the Dragons who lived in it were indeed deadly. They just didn’t have wings.
At least, very few of them did.
On being brought to the island, Kett was tattooed with a number. Eight years later, her training completed, a pair of crossed swords was added to the design. They denoted that she, like all the other graduates of the Order’s elite training program, had attained the rank of Dragon Knight.
While the other kids had been learning to change their sword hand, Kett had been learning to change her shape. While they learned to pilot the carefully trained dragons, she’d been turning herself into one. While they learned the main languages of the other four Realms, she taught herself to speak.
She’d had to teach herself a lot of things.
“Kett?” Chance asked. “You still with us?”
Kett shook herself and started down the hill toward the white tower. “Sure,” she said. “Just thinking.”
“About Bael?” Chance asked slyly.
“Only how I’ll clock him one next time I see him,” Kett muttered.
“Will you be staying on the island?” Dark asked, and she shook her head.
“No. I’m going to look in the library for those cave symbols and unless the answer immediately presents itself, I’m going home.”
“Elvyrn?”
“No,” Kett said patiently. “Home home. In the mountains, with the dragons. They don’t ask annoying questions,” she added in an undertone.
“They don’t speak at all,” Chance said, rolling her exquisite eyes.
“Thus the basis of their appeal.”
As they grew closer to the beautiful tower, to the still rocks, to the chattering water of the courtyard’s fountains, Kett heard the clash of steel, the thunder of hooves and the cries of unsuccessful opponents.
“You know, if you wanted us to track down Bael,” Chance began, and Kett shot her a venomous look.
“I’d honestly be quite happy never seeing him again. Besides, given his penchant for princesses, he’d probably go after Eithne or Beyla, and then Tyrnan would kill him. Actually…” She trailed off, considering.
“Have you considered that he might have something to do with why you were strung up in that cave?” Dark asked, and Kett shook her head.
“No. Well, I mean yes, I considered it, but I just don’t expect he’s got the brain power for it.”
“Harsh,” Chance said.
“Or the motivation. He don’t know me.”
“He could be an agent for someone else.”
“Someone else stupid,” Kett opined. “He was strung up with me too.” She chewed her lip, wishing she had a cigar handy. “The only starting point I’ve got is the Federación.”
Thunder crossed Dark’s face. Even Chance’s radiant countenance dimmed a little.
“And there ain’t a lot of information on them,” Kett said. “And frankly, right now I’ve half a mind to just forget about it.”
“You could have been killed,” Dark said, and Chance nodded vigorously.
“The Kett I used to know would never-”
“The Kett you used to know got herself whipped and beaten and divorced and jailed and killed,” Kett snapped.
Silence blew about them. Kett stomped ahead down the hill, her voice nearly lost in the wind.
“I just want a quiet life.”
“So what I want to know is, how good are your girls?”
It wasn’t a question Bael had ever figured he’d be asking. He’d never actually had to pay a woman to sleep with him before. Well, not with actual money. And yet here he sat, discussing terms with a woman who amounted to a pimp.
A very ladylike, elegant and well-spoken pimp, but a pimp nonetheless. Although she probably called herself a booking agent or something.
“I assure you, Monsieur Var, that each and every Associée is well schooled in the arts of pleasuring a man.”
“Right,” Bael said, not correcting her on his name. Var wasn’t his surname, it was his animal twin. But he really didn’t need to get into that with her now. “Well, so is BonBon LeSalle, and she could get an erection out of a stone. And yet…”
And yet busty, cute, giggly BonBon had been faced with a limp-dicked Bael. And it wasn’t just her, either. She was simply the latest in a long line of unsuccessful girls. After he’d gotten home from Nihon-narrowly avoiding the Emperor and his entourage-he’d gone for a quick pint or two at a local bar and, feeling a little crappy over stealing away from Kett with not so much as a goodbye, he’d tried to distract himself with some female company.
And got nowhere. It had never happened to Bael before, but he’d shrugged it off as the result of too much alcohol or not really fancying the girl enough. But it nagged at his mind, and the next night he’d found himself with another girl. And the same problem. Then another and another. And no matter how much stroking, licking, stripteasing, breast-wanking or deep-throating they tried, his uncooperative penis hadn’t even twitched.
Bael was so alarmed he’d asked his father’s old friend, Albhar, a man with a library full of magical knowledge inside his head, if he could find any problems. But all Albhar had done was wave a few crystals at him, tell him he was fine and mutter on about Bael’s lack of magical ability.
“Your father could have done this for himself,” he said, and Bael, as he always did when his sainted father’s research was mentioned, stopped listening.
After that he visited a doctor, who gave him a totally clean bill of health.
Which meant there was really only one answer. And that terrified him even more than the thought of a useless penis.
“Do not worry, Monsieur. You have assured me there are no medical grounds for your,” the tiniest pause, “condition, and I am confident that any one of our girls can help you.”
“One? No no, I want two. Or three. At least. The more the merrier. The best you’ve got.”
“Monsieur, that will be quite an undertaking-”
“I can pay,” Bael said.
“Oh yes, I am sure of it. However, I mean that an assignation of this type will take time to coordinate.”
“No,” Bael said, desperation rising. “I don’t have time. I need to know now. I need to know.”
The lady took off her spectacles and regarded him. “Monsieur, have you considered that this could perhaps be the result of…anxiety?”
“I am not anxious,” Bael said through gritted teeth.
“Forgive me, but you seem a little…desperate.”
“Well, I am fucking desperate! I have to be able to fuck another woman.” His fingernails were digging into his palms. “It can’t be her.”
“Who?”
The last woman he’d slept with. His mate.
Kett.
He shoved that thought away. He couldn’t take a mate. Just couldn’t. What the hell was he supposed to say to his men? To his advisors? That he just felt like getting married?
Not for the first time, Bael cursed his heritage. All the secrets. All the conspiracies. All the fucking rituals and prophecies. He couldn’t bring a woman into that. Even a woman like Kett, who’d never be intimidated by a bunch of spooky old men with beards.
Especially a woman like Kett, who knew he was Nasc. Putting her together with the men who knew he was a Mage…well, hell, he trusted his men, he trusted Albhar and the other advisors, but news like that surely wouldn’t stay secret for long. If the Federación knew there was a Nasc Mage out there, they’d be on him like vultures on a carcass.
And he really would be a carcass.
Someone had already strung him up in a cave to die. It sounded like one of the Federación’s rituals to him. Which meant he needed to keep a really low profile, forget about the cave and try to live as normal a life as possible.
Which ought to involve sex at some point.
“Look,” he said in a quiet, desperate tone. “If all your girls are so damn skilled, there’s got to be one available who can help me. I just need to prove this. It’s not a psychological thing,” he held up his hand to stave off her protests, “it’s not performance anxiety or stage fright or whatever the fuck you’re going to politely call it. I need the best girl you’ve got, someone who makes men come in their pants just by breathing. I don’t even need to actually have sex with her. I just need to get a hard-on.”
The booking agent blinked at him, then put her spectacles back on. “Don’t need to actually have sex?”
“No. Not really.” He just needed to know if he was able to.
“Hmm.” She turned in her chair and extracted a file from the cupboard behind her. “Well, strictly speaking she is retired, but…”
“But?”
“But if you’re not actually going to…engage with her, then perhaps an arrangement can be made. Are you willing to travel?”
“Sure.” He felt a surge of hope.
“Excellent.” She read the file then smiled. “You will need to cross the Wall into Peneggan.”
“Great.” Bael found a smile for her. “No problem. Love Peneggan.” He frowned, trying to remember if he’d been thrown out of there any time recently. No, he didn’t think so.
“I will make the arrangements.”
Which was how he found himself in a plush hotel room, quivering like a nervous teenager, waiting for this avatar of sexuality to burst into his life and make him normal again. He even found himself praying, which was an interesting experience since he couldn’t remember the names of any gods.
Someone came along the hall, a woman, a young woman, and he concentrated on hearing her.
“…really, Dark, he’s not even going to touch me.”
Wait, she sounded familiar.
“I don’t care.” A male voice, deep and angry and…yes, horribly familiar.
Oh hell.
“It’s not like I’m cheating on you. Hello, you know I couldn’t do anything anyway.”
“I’m not finding that a comfort.”
“Dark, relax. I’ll be five minutes.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“The hell you are. This poor guy has enough problems without you scowling at him.”
“Remember me not caring?”
“Remember me telling you to relax? Go wait in the lobby for me. Go on, go. Or I won’t have sex with you for a month.”
There was a moment’s silence then the male footsteps retreated. They sounded like they were stomping. Outside the door, the woman paused. Her scent wafted toward Bael.
He put his head in his hands. He was so screwed.
There was a gentle knock on the door. “Yeah,” he called dispiritedly, and the door opened and shut almost silently. He didn’t look up. He knew who he’d see. The most beautiful woman in all the Realms, no doubt wearing something stunningly elegant, moving like a goddess and smelling like an angel.
“Mr. Var?” she said in a soft, wonderful, melodic voice.
“Baelvar, your majesty,” he said, and looked up at her miserably.
Shock flashed across her perfect features. “Bael?”
“Yeah,” he said wretchedly, and flopped back on the bed.
Chance stared at him, her perfect elegance all gone. “Bael? I-I-I must have gotten the wrong room.”
“Nope.”
She stared some more. She gaped. “But-Bael?”
“Yep. Well, Baelvar if we’re being picky. Your majesty,” he added.
“I was told…you were having problems…” Slowly, it seemed to sink in. And when it did, her face changed. “Oh Bael,” she said, deep sympathy in her words. He wanted to cry. Especially since her perfect, lust-inducing presence had done absolutely nothing for his libido. “I suppose this means…who is she?”
He buried his head under the pillow with a moan.
Chance’s footsteps retreated from the bed. Bael stayed where he was. Well, now he was royally fucked. Except that he wasn’t. He’d have laughed if it wasn’t all so hideous.
A couple minutes later he heard the door open again, felt the strong, powerful presence of his king and lifted his head from the bed.
“Baelvar.” Dark stood there with his arm possessively around Chance. “I suppose I should offer congratulations.”
“I didn’t know it would be…” Bael gestured helplessly at Chance. As if things weren’t bad enough, he’d gone and hired the king’s mate as a fluffer. Well, maybe this could work to his advantage. The king would kill him and the whole mess would be over.
“You requested the most desirable woman in all the Realms,” Dark said, his quiet voice like a distant rumble of thunder.
“Yes, but I didn’t, uh…”
“Dark, stop torturing him,” Chance said. “I take it from this you’ve tried…er…being with other women?”
Bael nodded miserably.
“And I take it you’re not happy with this turn of events,” Dark said.
He was going to die. Who’d be happy with that?
“Who is she, Bael?” Chance asked. “Who was the last woman you were with?”
He closed his eyes. The last woman he’d been with-and the only woman he ever could be with again.
“Kett,” he said, and heard their combined intake of breath.
“Oh,” Dark said.
“You’re so screwed,” Chance said.
“No,” Bael flopped back down again, “that’s part of the problem.” He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Any tips on how to tell her?”
Chance and Dark were silent a moment. Then Dark wordlessly handed Chance her suitcase, from which she withdrew a piece of chainmail.
“You might need this,” she said.
The annoying thing, Kett thought as she adjusted her chinstrap, was the dreams. Damn fantasies, attacking her every night since she’d gotten home. She was amazed Jarven hadn’t said anything, because she’d woken herself once or twice with moaning and he was only upstairs.
One night, when she’d been dreaming most pleasantly of Bael stroking her clit with one hand and the inside of her pussy with the other, while his tongue dipped inside her ass, she’d actually been woken by the force of her own orgasm. An orgasm induced by a dream lover. It was insane.
Maybe she should get Chance to track Bael down. Her cousin could probably do it. After all, Kett had drawn a total blank on the cave symbols, and if the Koskwim library didn’t have the info, then no place would. She’d even asked the Order if anyone had taken out a contract on her or Bael, but the response had been negative.
Maybe Bael might know. Maybe he’d been off investigating what happened while she’d been trying to forget.
Or maybe he’d just been shagging around and he’d completely forgotten about it. And her.
She squeezed her eyes shut. No more Bael. He damaged her calm, and she’d only just settled into it. No more fights with tigers, no more psychopaths coming after her family, no more jail sentences.
I just want a quiet life.
She eyed up the dragon tethered in the paddock, a snowy valley at the foot of the mountains. The sensible thing to do would be to get Jarven to help her drug it, but Kett felt the need for a punishing physical workout. Again. Since she was still entirely unable to change her shape and just fly up there and pop the pill in Fira’s mouth, she’d have to resort to ropes, chains and her own physical skill.
A fleeting thought of Bael, some ropes, chains and physical skill came to mind, but she pushed it firmly away and prepared to exhaust herself.
Again.
Kett brushed a few flakes of snow from her face and sighed. This whole thing would be a lot easier if she could just change her damn shape and fly up there. But no matter how hard she tried, she was stuck as a bloody human. She’d have to ask Striker about it when she saw him, which didn’t add to her general store of happiness. Being indebted to anyone made her furious.
Being indebted to Striker made her very afraid.
Fira was tethered to five steel pegs set in concrete deep into the snowy ground. The tethers were chains as thick as Kett’s biceps, and they were linked to the dragon’s metal collar and harness. It had taken Kett all morning to tie the beast down-how in hell Jarven used to do this before she turned up, able to fly, she’d no idea-and now all she had to do was attach the sixth chain to the ground, lasso Fira’s head, get out of firing range and aim the tablet into her mouth.
Fira needed to have her wing mended, but that wasn’t something Kett was likely to try while the dragon was still moving around. Not anymore. So a huge dose of tranquillizer was needed.
She approached the sixth chain, snowflakes blowing idly around as she went. Fira was usually a fairly placid dragon, but most creatures tended to get kind of cranky when people started trying to force things down their throats.
“Now then, girl. Be good, stay nice and still, and we’ll get this done in no time. There’s a good girl. There’s a good girl now.”
She kept up the mindless patter, trying to distract Fira. It had worked for the last five chains, and this one seemed to be going the same way.
“Good dragon. Good, scaly fire-breather. You behave, I’ll give you a villager for tea.”
“Is that why they’re all scared of you then?”
Kett was so startled she stumbled as she turned, tripping and yanking hard on the chain to keep her balance. That sounded like Bael’s voice! Great, now she was hallucinating as well as horny.
Then she looked up, and there he was, coming over the rise with his eyes sparkling and his cheeks pink from the cold. Kett lost her balance and fell flat on her ass into the snow, and the chain went taut.
Fira, not happy at having her collar yanked sideways around her neck, gave a bellow-and when a dragon bellowed, fire usually followed.
It followed.
“Get down!” Kett screamed, scrambling to her feet and launching herself at Bael just as Fira sent a huge jet of fire over their heads. His body was hard beneath the layers of winter clothing he wore, and as he thudded to the ground she was pushed heavily against him by the force of the fall.
The heat of the dragon flame burned through her protective clothing. The stuff would stop her from turning into a crispy-fried Kett, but it didn’t stop her from feeling as if she’d been roasted alive. She curled into Bael’s body, tense and breathless until the dragon reared back with a cry.
Then she raised her head, and Bael was grinning at her.
“You fucking idiot!” she yelped. “You could have gotten us both killed!”
“It’s nice to see you too,” he said, cupping the back of her neck.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?”
“You look really great in armor.” His fingers wiggled into the gap between her helmet and jerkin, and just for a second she shuddered at the feel of being touched by someone else.
Then she remembered who was doing the touching, and what a twat he’d just been. She catapulted to her feet, her skin so hot it felt sunburned, and clenched her fists to keep from kicking him.
Then she kicked him anyway.
“Ow! Look, we’re both okay, so what does it matter?”
Kett glanced back at the dragon, steaming with fury. He was right, her rational brain told her. He hadn’t done anything inherently dangerous-aside from walking into a freaking dragon paddock unprotected-and they were both okay. Although she’d kill for a roll in the snow right now.
It was just that she’d barely gotten over being mad at him for buggering off like that in the middle of the night, and then he turns up looking far cuter than any grown man in a bobble hat had a right to, and her hormones surged to the surface screaming more, more!
And that made her angry.
She focused on Fira, who was thrashing around, excited and heavy, arching her long, scaly neck and roaring fire at the sky.
Wait. Arching her neck? She wasn’t supposed to be able to move that much. The short chains on the collar should have-
Oh holy fuck.
“I already knew you were mildly insane,” Bael said, standing beside her and regarding the extremely large and only half-tethered dragon. “But I have to say, major respect for the dragon-working.” He frowned. “You know, if you wanted to keep it on the ground, you should have put, like, a collar on it or something.”
“I did,” Kett said, staring in mounting horror at the piece of broken metal and leather on the ground.
Bael followed her gaze. “Oh,” he said.
Slowly, methodically, Kett picked up the rope she’d had coiled over her shoulder. “You see that mountain?” she asked, jerking her head to the frozen peaks in the distance.
“Which one?”
“Pick one.”
“Uh, okay.”
“I am going to tranquilize this dragon. And then I’m going to go to the high paddock and saddle up another one. And then I’m going to put you on its back, fly it to the top of that mountain you just picked out and kick you off.”
Bael swallowed. “I’ll, er, I’ll just, uh-”
“Fuck off?”
“Yeah,” he said, and backed away.