Chapter Thirty-Three

 

So, that was how we ended up back in my tent, with Claire attempting a blood transfusion on a couple of dragons and cursing up a storm.

She and Louis-Cesare had snuck her patient out of the back of the tent while everyone was distracted, and hid him under the huge fur once they reached mine. Meanwhile, one of the guards had helped me to get Regin to the same spot, looking weirded out to see his commander so shaken. Which was good, because both of them followed my instructions meekly, like little baby lambs, despite me not acting remotely normal because it felt like I was about to come out of my skin.

“I’ll look after him until he’s better,” I’d told the man, and sent him back to help guard an empty tent. Which, if he bothered to so much as glance inside, meant that all of our asses would very definitely be grass, and damned fast.

Yet, amazingly, that was the least of our problems.

Because, after kissing his son’s unconscious face a dozen times once he discovered the truth, and hugging Louis-Cesare—which had my husband disappearing under a mountain of grateful dragon and staring at me helplessly from under one of the man’s gigantic arms—and kissing my and Claire’s hands repeatedly, which pissed her off as she was trying to help her patient, Regin had informed us that his old flame was fucking everything up.

Not only was she refusing to tell anybody anything, she was countering Rathen’s attempted alliance, many of the potential members of which liked the concept of staying out of war. And that was exactly what she was offering, selling the idea of this being a spat between two dragon lords that didn’t need to involve them. Or their blood.

And if Rathen lost the argument, there was a better than average chance that some of them might decide to take the off-worlders who were causing all this trouble to Lord Steen as a make-up gift, meaning that we needed to go. Now. But Claire wouldn’t leave her patient, who was not well enough to travel, I wouldn’t leave Claire, and Louis-Cesare wouldn’t leave me.

Not to mention that Antem hadn’t come around again, and I still didn’t know where the hell Dorina was!

“I thought you told your father that you were going back to Earth,” Louis-Cesare said, reading my thoughts while taking up a spot near the tent flap where he could see out.

Normally, having him on guard would have made me feel better, only around here . . .

Well, neither of us were looking all that butch.

“Dory!” Blue eyes flashed. “Are we staying or going? It matters if I am to make plans!”

“Staying.” I took the fur that Claire had just ripped off her patient and threw it on the other side of the tent. “At least until we find Dorina.”

“So, you lied to your father?”

“I didn’t lie. I said I promised to go and I will—as soon as we find her.”

Louis-Cesare raised an eyebrow at that.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. It is just . . . you remind me more of him every day.”

I stared back at him. “You don’t have to be rude.”

“I’m not being rude. Do you think he started out the way he is now? He had to learn diplomacy; it did not come naturally. Unlike cunning, daring, and guile—”

“You can stop talking,” I said, as Claire thrust some plastic tubing and an empty blood bag into my hands. “And you weren’t there to hear what Antem said. There’s something going on here, something bad involving Dorina, only I don’t know what.

“And I need to. He said that Steen was trying to kill her on Aeslinn’s command before she did something that would make Odin happy—”

“Odin?” Louis-Cesare repeated, frowning.

“Or Zeus, or whatever name he’s going by these days. The bastard running this show.”

“But aren’t he and the king on the same side?”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. Do I look like I know anything?”

“Shit,” Claire said, trying to tie a tourniquet onto Regin’s massive upper arm to increase blood pressure and make it easier to find a vein. But the little blue straps that had come with her transfusion kit didn’t fit. They were something like eighteen inches long, and Regin’s arms . . . were not.

“Shit!” she said again, staring around.

“Here,” I passed her the belt that Louis-Cesare whipped off, which worked—barely.

“You know how to do this, right?” I asked, because I’d never seen it. Claire was great with herbs, including the fey kind, and was better than average with first aide—on a number of different species. But this was not her usual bailiwick.

“In theory—”

“In theory?”

“Yes, Dory, in theory!” she said hotly, bending over the massive arm and focusing on the bend of the elbow. “I have the equipment, but I’ve never actually done it. You understand that, right?” she asked, looking up at Regin. “I’m not an expert, not to mention that you may not have the same blood type as your son, and I don’t have any way to test for that here. And even if I did, our tests don’t know the antigens for goddamned dragon blood!”

“It is alright,” he told her, considerably more placid than he’d been before. Hope had done wonders, it seemed.

“It’s not alright! If I get it wrong, it will kill him!”

“And if you do nothing?”

Claire looked at him miserably. “It will kill him.”

“Then act. He wants to live, princess.”

“I’m not a princess, as you damned well know!” she snapped. And inserted a fat needle into Regin’s arm. It was connected to some tubing with a clamp on it, that in turn led to a blood collection bag that she placed on the floor. She then released the clamp and blood immediately started to flow into the bag.

I found myself letting out a nervous breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

“How long will this take?” Louis-Cesare asked.

“Five to ten minutes to fill the bag; then I have a rapid infuser to speed up delivery of the blood, so . . . half an hour?”

“Half an hour?”

Claire shot him a stressed look. “That is assuming that he doesn’t need a second transfusion—”

“You do realize that we can be discovered at any time?”

“And you realize that if I rush it, I risk damaging the red blood cells and all this is for nothing!”

“Then we can all die together,” my hubby snapped, because this place was getting to him, too.

“You can leave anytime,” Claire snapped back. “I’m not going without my patient.”

“Calm yourselves,” Regin murmured. “He does not need to recover fully or even mostly. Just enough to Change. It will do the rest.”

“Even this far gone?” Claire looked dubious.

“Even this far gone. You have much to learn about us, princess.”

“A smart man would stop calling me that while I have a needle in my hand,” Claire warned, and looked like she meant it.

He shut up.

Red ichor continued to flow through the tubing and we all watched it while I said a little prayer under my breath. It was all I could do now. Except to distract everyone, because the tension in here was suffocating.

“How did you end up with . . . what was her name?” I asked Regin.

“The lady Tova-Rae.” He grimaced, and I didn’t think it was because of the blood. “She wanted to seduce someone among my lord’s trusted advisors, to pick his brain for her master. We knew what she was doing, as several of her intended victims had come to us, but we did not know what to do about it. She is . . . not the sort of person one wishes to have as an enemy, and she had many friends at court who might not take her being ousted very well.

“Lord Rathen therefore suggested, if I was amenable, that I . . . allow her to succeed where I was concerned. And then do to her what she was attempting to do to us, whilst also feeding her and her master lies.

“It seemed a perfect solution to a thorny problem, and it was—for a while.

“Until she told me that she was with child.”

“I thought that was a rarity among fey,” I said. I couldn’t remember any children running about the castle, although I hadn’t exactly been there long.

“It is. Enough that I tried to make my relationship work with her. I failed, but I kept my son.” He looked at Antem, and then reached over to brush the hair off his forehead. “But she is poisonous, and somehow found a way to turn him, after all.”

“Tamris,” I said, and didn’t have to say more.

“Ah, yes.” He looked sad. “That would do it.”

“What could cause someone to kill her own child?” Claire said, looking bewildered. That was understandable, considering how many times she had risked her life to save her boy. “And to forfeit her own life in the process?”

“Forfeit?” Regin shook his head. “She is one of the rare dragonkind born with magic, considered a great gift to the clans, and has also born two children and may bear again. She will not die for this. That is likely why she was selected.”

“That’s outrageous!” Claire’s face flushed almost as red as the blood bag. “What kind of place is this? What kind of people?”

“Survivors,” Regin said simply. “Most do not remember, but I am older. I was but a child then, but I vividly recall when the gods decided that they did not need us anymore. We were a failed experiment, too powerful, too hard to control, too dangerous. They decided to wipe us out, and almost succeeded. Have you not noticed that most of the so-called dark fey who remain are the weak ones? Trolls, duergars, ogres?”

“I wouldn’t call those weak,” I protested.

He smiled slightly. “Compared to those who came before? I can assure you; they are. After us and a few other experiments became . . . troublesome . . . the gods switched tactics. To weaker armies who made up their lack of strength in numbers.

“They survived by being many; we by being . . . elsewhere. Those of us who survived their purge took to the skies, and for years we had no home. We could not stay anywhere for long, as whenever we were found, we were killed immediately. By the gods themselves, or by their favorite children, the so-called light fey.

“We only settled here once the gods were banished. But by then the habit of staying apart, of trusting only ourselves, of being wary . . . it was ingrained. Your father wants to change that; he sees this war as our best chance to banish the gods once and for all, and to be truly free.

“But not everyone agrees.”

“No, some would like to join them,” Claire said angrily.

“They think it to be the only way to survive. And we are survivors.” He shrugged. “It is just that some of us would prefer to die rather than to live in their chains again.”

Claire didn’t respond that time. She was too busy checking the blood bag, which she had been massaging for some reason until it got too fat for that, and she must have approved. Because she knotted the tubing in two places a few inches apart and cut between them to free the bag, then grabbed me to use as a human IV stand. “Hold this,” she gave me the warm, fat bag of blood, which I held as gingerly as if it had been a bomb.

“Hold it up, Dory! I need a gravity assist!”

I held it up. There were a lot more tubes now, and things attached to tubes, and a larger bag that she held out so that I could put the smaller blood bag inside. The second bag had more tubing that ended in a little squeeze ball.

“Pressure infuser,” she told me, as if I’d looked curious.

I didn’t feel curious. I felt antsy as hell, which wasn’t helped by Louis-Cesare tensing anytime someone came within eyesight. And vamps have damned good eyesight! We were all close to losing our shit, which gave me a sudden, much better glimpse into what regular old humans had to do when faced with danger.

It was easy to be brave when you were the biggest, baddest thing in the room, or so loaded for bear with weapons that you clinked when you walked. It was a lot harder like this, when you were outclassed and knew it, and your “weapons” were peashooters that I wasn’t even sure a dragon would notice. A lot harder.

I exchanged a glance with my Hubby, and saw the realization settling into him, too.

How’s it feel to be human again? I thought at him, and I guess he caught it.

Because he shook his head at me before going back on watch.

I looked back to find that Claire had gotten things set up to her satisfaction, because the blood was flowing again, this time downward into Antem’s arm. She had the little squeeze ball in hand and after a moment or so of intense scrutiny of the line, began using it. Only not as fast as any of us would have liked.

“Lord Rathen talked about something called Fortune’s Blade,” I said, less to clear tension and more to keep from jumping at every sound from outside. “You seemed to know what he meant?”

He inclined his head. “Ah, yes. The greatest experiment of them all. An old legend.”

“About Dorina?”

He shook his head, holding a little cotton bandage over the wound that the needle had left, even though I’d seen it close up already. But he wasn’t going to argue with Claire. He was no fool.

“About Tyche,” he said. “Also known as Fortuna, a minor goddess of luck who believed that the gods were harming the worlds they interacted with, and harming themselves in the process. They had become greedy, war like and cruel. Having unlimited power and the worship of millions was not enough. For them, nothing was ever enough.

“It is said that Fortuna wanted them to go back home, and dwell as they once had, in peace. But the greatest of them could not go, for they had grown so powerful that to return would be to starve. They were energy beings, and having unlimited power for so long had fundamentally altered them in a way that was not reversable. For her and the others, there was still time, but not for the rest.

“So, if any were to be saved, the greatest must die, or else all would eventually succumb to the lure of power, and shut the door behind them. Something that would ensure their doom, and ours. She therefore made, not an army like the greater gods were doing, but a single being, one that she hoped would be powerful enough to fight a god—and to kill him.”

“How?” I asked. “How do you kill a god? I thought it took another god to do that.”

“It does. And therein lay the beauty of her plan. She used a variety of strands in her creation, one of which was a rare demon trait to be able to take on the form of another, for a short while. It was fitting for her—she ruled fortune, the flip of a coin, an even chance for any contest. And that is what she gave her warrior.

“After all, if you are your opponent’s equal, then the odds will always be even.”

“Even doesn’t guarantee success,” I pointed out uncomfortably.

“No, but with a god, it’s as good as you are ever going to get.”

I thought about that, and about my mother, and couldn’t take it in. Had she really been just another fey experiment, another failure? Because Fortuna’s experiment hadn’t worked. Not until the supposed uber assassin hooked up with Mircea, and then birthed something that maybe, just maybe . . ..

But then what about Dorina? Was she the fullness of a goddess’ wish, as Nimue had seemed to think, Fortune’s Blade? And if she was, what did that mean for her, in the middle of a war against the gods?

Everyone would seek to use her, and few if any would care what price she paid for it. She would be merely another weapon, more powerful than the others, but just as disposable. And with that thought, everything in me rebelled, to the point that Claire had to speak to me sharply, as I had unconsciously lowered the bag.

I held it back up, but all I could think of was: No. Not my sister. Not Dorina. Not now, not ever.

I had to find her.

And as if on cue, Antem woke up.

But the one thing we hadn’t counted on was that, after everything, he might be a little . . . disorientated. Okay, make that a lot disorientated, I thought, as he looked around at us wildly. There was no recognition in those eyes even for his father, assuming that he noticed him.

Because his gaze had quickly become fixed on the red line running into his arm, or as far as he was concerned, running out of it. I guessed that it could look like we were draining him, I realized belatedly. And that seemed to be where his mind had gone, because his eyes narrowed.

“Ah, shit,” I said, right before Claire went flying.

She’d been bending over him, trying to reassure her patient, but Antem didn’t need reassuring. Antem didn’t need anything, because the next moment, a massive black and yellow dragon had destroyed my tent. And, goddamnit, I somehow always forgot how huge these things were!

“Shit!” I said again, and couldn’t even hear myself, because I couldn’t hear anything. Not over the enraged bellow that the crazy bastard was giving off, which pierced my ears like an ice pick. And there was no way that anyone else was missing it, either.

“Dory!” I somehow heard Louis-Cesare yell my name, possibly because he was right beside me. And then we were both bending backwards almost to the floor to avoid the enormous tail slamming through the air where we’d just been.

A second later, the tail’s owner was airborne, taking off into the night sky. And I guessed that Regin had been right, because there was nothing wrong with his son now. But there was about to be.

But Regin had a head start on everybody else, and he scooped us up and deposited on his own broad, hoary old back, having changed in an instant. Before following Antem into the night sky, although why I didn’t know. Because Rathen and company could kill him there just as easily as on the ground.

And it wasn’t like anybody could miss us absconding with their prisoner.

I dared a glance behind, and saw the camp looking tiny and lost amid the vast forest, and a bunch of minuscule people streaming out of Lord Rathen’s tent. They were pointing and running about, but in a weird sort of way. Darting a few yards ahead and then stopping, before doing it again and again.

And even weirder, none of them were transforming and following us.

“Why aren’t they changing?” Louis-Cesare yelled.

I was about to say I didn’t know, but suddenly, I did. “Claire! She’s a null witch!”

“Can she stop all of them?”

“Guess so!”

But for how long, I didn’t know. Claire had a gift from her mother, who had been a human witch, that allowed her to suck all of the magic out of an area. And despite Regin claiming that magic was rare among dragons, he meant Claire’s kind. Because they were all magical beings who used their own version every single day.

Unless a null witch was clamping down on it, that was, and clamping hard.

Thank you, Claire, I thought fervently, and only hoped that she could keep it up long enough for us to get away and then follow us. Although the latter might be a problem. Because Antem had just noticed that he had someone on his tail and panicked, tearing across the sky like a shooting star.

I felt my eyes widen, my thighs clench and my throat dry out, because I damned well knew what came next—

And oh, fuuuuuuckkkkkk!

But Louis-Cesare had one arm around my waist, and Regin’s mane in the opposite fist—or Lar’s, I supposed, since his dragon was most definitely in charge now. And was headed after his son with the sinuous grace that I’d noted last night, which did nothing to make me feel less like I was clinging to the wing of a 747.

God, I hated flying!

But Louis-Cesare did not, and once he realized that no one was coming after us, he actually laughed. And started to make a whooping noise, which so help me God! I elbowed him in the stomach, and the joyful expression cut off to allow us to hear Regin’s transformed voice, which was cutting through the wind as easily as his wings.

“We will secure my son,” he told us. “And his information. Then, together we will go after your sister. Do you find this acceptable?”

I looked at Louis-Cesare, who looked back at me. And then we slowly grinned, although our lips were flapping back against our faces so much that you couldn’t really tell. But I felt the arm around my waist tighten, and the sparkle return to a pair of blue eyes, even before he spoke.

“Now that sounds like a plan!”

“Good, then hold on,” Regin said. “I am going to fly fast now.”

“Fast?” I said. “W-what have you been doing?”

I didn’t get an answer that time. I got a demonstration. And Louis-Cesare, goddamn him, was whooping up a storm the entire way.