Page 25

25

DEAL

T ense silence fills the Jarl of Copenhagen’s hall as Emil Beck steps into our standoff. Because that’s what it is, a three-way fuckstorm, as we all regard each other like snakes and mongooses now.

But I’m not sure who the biggest snake is, as Emil Beck smiles his fellow-well-met smile at Jarl Christensen, darkly odious. If we were in the American old west, this would be a shootout about to combust. We’re dragons, though—and it’s a whole helluva lot worse, as I wonder what in the actual fuck Emil Beck wants.

And what he’s about to use as a bargaining chip to get it.

“Jarl Christensen. I would like to do a deal.” Emil Beck pins Mikkel and L?rke with his gaze, then flicks it back to the Jarl.

“I’m listening.” It’s clear Jarl Alexander Christensen has no problems dealing with the devil, as he juts his chin at Emil Beck. “Continue.”

The most horrid smile devours Emil’s face.

A face I want to punch repeatedly until it caves the fuck in from my wrath.

“As I said before, I would like to do a deal.” Emil continues as he waves nonchalantly at my drakes and me. “The Thorsen twins and their entire empire, including their dragons captured here in your hall, in exchange for a truce between your bloodline and the Bloodwalkers and their mates here in Denmark. You take these gifts now and all the money the Thorsen’s empire can bring you, doing whatever you like with them… then permit me to do all dealings I need to here in Denmark and in Copenhagen. You’ll ask no questions and turn a blind eye to everything I do with my Bloodwalker and her other mates here in the city. Indefinitely. Oh, and you can have this particular Bloodwalker and all her drakes here. Consider it a goodwill gift… since I know you’re working so hard to bring down the entire Blood Dragon monarchy right now. Of which our Hog Skjaldm?r is most definitely a part.”

As Emil speaks, Jarl Christensen’s grey-black brows scowl. His jaw is set, his bloody red gaze flinty as Emil stops speaking. For a moment, nothing happens, as the Jarl evaluates this clearly mega-fuck-ton powerful drake, who has just admitted precisely what he is.

The bound mate of a Bloodwalker.

But though Emil has stated clear terms, he hasn’t told the Jarl just exactly what he wants to do in Copenhagen with his unknown Bloodwalker mate.

Nor how much it might cost this city and Jarldom.

“You protect Bloodwalkers and their mates, you always have, in that ungodly establishment of yours. Now you have openly admitted you are the mate of one.” The Jarl is intense now as he stares Emil down, waving a hand at me and my drakes. “Why give up these? It’s anathema to your agenda.”

“I would see all Bloodwalkers and their mates come into a far more glorious time, like when we were a dominant power in the world, and all of Blood Dragondom bowed to us,” Emil says now as he smiles genially at the Jarl. “For there was such a time, long ago. And these six here are openly trying to oppose my Bloodwalker’s efforts to revive it.”

As Emil pins me with his serpentine black gaze now, a terrible death-knell goes off all inside me. Because I realize what he’s referring to; that his Bloodwalker is the person central to liberating the Black Dragon from its ancient resting place, and that he is one of the renegade Bone Mages we seek.

As an icy feeling fills me to my very marrow, I dive into my inner Bone Magic. I have no goodness or remorse left in me as I stare Emil Beck down and know he’s a Bloodmate of our enemy Bone Mage drakaina Litha, who liberated the Black Dragon.

Who we now know is a Bloodwalker like me.

“Litha. You’re her Bloodmate. But I thought you told us at your hotel that you were a Bloodwalker?” I say now, snarling to my very core as a wave of power thunders all around me. It’s not just me that’s snarling all through my dragon now; all my drakes are, and none so hard as Mikkel, as his and L?rke’s wrathful fury hammers through me.

I can’t contain it, though in our exhausted state, it’s not enough energy to trigger retaliation from the Jarl or his rune-cursed hall yet. The seal beneath me and my mates flares hot, however, with a seething red, black, and gold fire.

Ready to kill us if need be.

“Yes. I am Litha’s Bloodmate, and I am also a Bloodwalker. Two of a kind can bond, you know—or perhaps you didn’t know.” Emil’s gaze pierces mine as a slow, nasty smile spreads over his face. He puts a strange emphasis on our enemy’s name, making me understand that’s not her real name, only a moniker she uses. “Though I have taken many mates over the years, Litha is the most recent, and my bond with her is the most important. For she is someone I have waited for, for a very long time… though I’ve had many whelps over the centuries with lesser drakainas. I believe Mikkel and L?rke’s mother was descended from one of those lesser lovers of mine, one I never bothered to Bloodbond. Too bad she went rogue against her family and life-mated with their lowborn father, who didn’t have a drop of Bloodwalker lineage anywhere in him.” Emil’s gaze pins the twins. “Or did you not know your mother was my great-great-granddaughter? ”

Mikkel and L?rke Thorsen gape at Emil Beck in shock now, as that terrible smile devours his face. “Where do you think you two get all your mercenary tendencies from, anyway?” Emil asks. “Or did you believe my charade as your do-good stepfather, Emil Beck ?”

“Liar!” L?rke spits at him, as I feel her inner drakaina power up with everything she’s got left, for a fight. “Our mother was never one of your kin!”

“Check your genealogies.” Emil Beck examines his perfectly buffed nails before slamming the twins with his black gaze again. “In any case, I had to betray her to the Jarl’s people when she would not give your father up. Though she served me in my agenda to protect Bloodwalkers, I have no trouble pruning certain branches from our ancient family if they do not fall in line. Your mother deserved what she got, and so do you two ungrateful whelps.”

“We’ll never go down without a fight!” Mikkel snarls now, as I feel him power up with his drake’s wrath, though he’s still fatigued and it only produces a roiling black energy in the air.

“Fight me, please.” Emil’s black eyes flash a pure, sparkling diamond-white now as he smiles. “You ragtag miscreants will never prevail against Litha or me. She Who Speaks In Dreams has told me of Litha’s incalculable power; that she shall never be bested. She will lead us to glory, all dragons everywhere bowing down to the world us new Bloodbonded will create. All thanks to something the dreamspeaker built long ago… a dragon of infinite power that my Bloodwalker already has the ability to wield. Which will shake the earth—to its core.”

“Dreams?” Strom’s picked up on something, as he suddenly snarls at Emil. “Who’s been coming to you in dreams, telling you to resurrect the Black Dragon and wield it so Bloodwalkers can conquer the earth?”

“She Who Speaks In Dreams is a mysterious creature,” Emil pins Strom with his gaze. “She has spoken to me all my life, telling me to wait for the one who would come to me—Litha. She does not reveal to me her voice, nor her name, nor her face. Only her towering dragon-energy, infinite in the Void from whence she speaks. A Void so vast, there is room there for all dragondom. Everyone, if they oppose us.”

As Emil speaks, I see him reach to one hand, touching a black ring on his left index finger. I had missed it before whenever we had spoken.

I see it now, since it’s the only thing left upon his naked body, when we dragons usually shed everything as we shift. That ring has a familiar design; with a shock, I realize it’s almost an exact copy of the ring I have on my own finger right now, despite all my travels and shifts.

Because Maryse’s ring, the ring of my Bloodwalker ancestor who created the Black Dragon, has a magic of its own. It comes with me wherever I go—and I’m shocked to see a vastly similar ring upon Emil’s finger now.

Rather than my ring’s six distinct stones, however, Emil’s has only one massive, black onyx stone at its center, like his eyes. A ring designed for a man rather than a woman, he holds up his hand, showing it to me.

“A family heirloom.” Emil smiles indulgently as he shows it. “Ever since I battled my father and took this from his finger in death, my dreams have been with me—just as this ring is, always. Something we share… though your ring will never hold the power of these originals. A sad facsimile.”

I want to press Emil Beck on what he means, that my silver ring with its snarling silver dragon coiled around a red garnet and four fire opals, plus an amethyst in its jaws, is a copy of his and not an original.

But then Baldur speaks up. “You’ve been masquerading as one of the True Black Dragon Knights for centuries. All so you could learn about the Black Dragon, and figure out if you could resurrect it, when the time came.”

“When I at last met Litha, yes. Just like you waited for your Bloodwalker.” Emil’s triumphant smile turns on Baldur. “Like you, I was not idle during those eons, however. I befriended and infiltrated the True Knights, learning everything about the Black Dragon—all the better to undermine them when the time finally came. ”

“Snake,” Baldur snarls at him now, though Emil Beck ignores it.

“I admit, I didn’t know who you and your drakes were when you first came to my hotel, though it didn’t take me long to figure out.” Emil’s gaze flicks at me now. “I did not sequester that lockbox of precious items you got from Unhaemmerten the first time it was within my grasp. The second time you came to my hotel, I knew better. My Litha will be grateful for your gifts to help her control the Black Dragon, by the way—which she manipulated you into getting from Unhaemmerten by pretending to be others speaking to you in the Void. Oh yes, and you also released the five soul-energies of the Black Dragon’s ancient creator and her drakes at Unhaemmerten , which are needed to restore the beast. Thanks for that. I assure you; we will make good use of them. Especially since I have what it takes to control the soul of the mate I am descended from—which all of you most decidedly, do not.”

Even though I’ve gone frigid to my very core as Emil speaks, I realize it’s not just me; the hall has gone terribly cold all around me. As I realize it’s the massive sigil-warding all over the timbers, the roof, and floor that are scalding us, ice-cold now rather than scorching and bright, an ungodly sensation comes off Jarl Alexander Christensen, like a hurricane of bitter high-north winds.

Because Jarl Christensen is the epicenter of the hall’s incredible power, as he stares down Emil Beck, impossibly vampiric.

With the coldest look I’ve ever seen—like hell freezing over.

“Your agenda that you would bargain for,” Jarl Christensen says now, “is for me to turn a blind eye while you and your Bloodwalker drakaina unleash the Black Dragon of the Usurper upon us? From my very own city? The demon of ancient times, which was created by Bloodwalkers and unleashed hell on earth, nearly destroying us all?”

“You put it so succinctly, my Jarl.” Emil Beck smiles viciously, as his black eyes flash white again with the power of his dragon. “Join me now and receive amnesty for your people. Resist me… and be the first Jarldom to fall when my Litha and I restore the Usurper to its fullest power. ”

The hall goes so cold now, I can see our breaths puffing in the air. They fall in little ice crystals as the rune-wards on every timber and beam seethe with a terrifying power.

That same power blazing crimson, gold, and black from Jarl Christensen’s eyes.

“Not a single chance in hell.”

Jarl Alexander Christensen refuses Emil Beck’s bargain now, and a sudden commotion devours the far end of the hall. As a towering wall of Bloodwind from all the wards and curses in the hall goes hammering around the space, rattling every door in their hinges and shaking timbers in their vaults, the Jarl’s fierce retinue around us strides in, shifting up into a ready force.

I understand the Jarl’s statement, as he opposes Emil. Because Jarl Christensen’s family has opposed the resurgence of the Black Dragon in their own way for thousands of years.

I don’t know whether they did what they did as part of the Black Dragon Knights or not, but clearly, they took it upon themselves to kill all Bloodwalkers and their mates so no one would ever be left alive in Denmark who could resurrect or wield the Black Dragon.

It makes Emil Beck and his Bloodwalker Litha anathema in these halls. Though my mates and I have pissed Jarl Christensen off, thanks to Mikkel and L?rke being thorns in his side for decades, Emil has done far worse.

He’s admitted to being part of the plan to resurrect and restore the Black Dragon. Not just admitted it, but reveled in it, threatening Jarl Christensen as being the first to go if the Jarl opposes him.

It’s a bad move, as all the Jarl’s hundreds of guards around us suddenly become lost to the power of their Berserkers and Wraiths in the Jarl’s icy hall.

I feel all those ancient sigil-phrases now, pushing us to go ballistic. Because they aren’t only affecting the Jarl’s forces, as all that ice-cold power goes blistering through my veins and those of my drakes.

Whatever those curse-sigils are, they’re pushing my drakes and me to go insane in our power, as well. And the Jarl isn’t keeping that effect from my drakes and me, as his blistering, bloody gaze flicks to me. I understand then that myself and the rest of my Bloodbond are free to go.

If we do our worst with him against Emil Beck.

I’ve never felt such relief to see the dozens of guards, bouncers, and others from The Chartreuse be liberated from their containment now as they stride in. Dozens of them are here, backing up my drakes and the Thorsen twins, each of them blood-streaked and furious as they bristle for battle yet again.

Emil has just as many people, though, and I don’t know how many of them might be his Bloodmates, released from containment and backing him up. He smiles an eager, diabolical smile now. He doesn’t seem concerned that the three-way fight has become us and the Thorsen’s people fighting with the Jarl against him.

His closest dragons from the Forgyldt Bur hotel stand with him now as they shift up. Worse, in every set of eyes, I see nothing but readiness. As if they knew all along who Emil was and what he was doing, I see a vicious knot of people who were behind the Black Dragon’s release from its island prison.

A whole helluva lot more of them than I expected—and not all of them are Bone Mages.

It makes the situation with the Black Dragon far worse than I ever imagined, as I realize we’re up against more than just a handful of renegade Bone Mages acting with Litha. This goes a lot deeper than a simple plot of one drakaina and her mates to take down the world. This has spread, becoming an insurrection.

One that makes the Jarl’s revolt against King Huttr look like patty cake in comparison.

“Emil Beck. Try to wrest this hall from me and pay the price,” Jarl Alexander Christensen says now, as our standoff bristles like all hell rising.

“I don’t want your hall, latest Jarl of greater fathers.” Emil’s dark eyes shine like blazing starlight under the seething vaults. “I want all Jarldoms to fall, including yours, and the Blood Dragon Kingship, as my Litha and I rise to lead all dragons everywhere, with the powers our elevated Bloodwalker bloodlines have been given. Or annihilate them—whichever way they choose—like you. Stupid youngling.”

As Emil Beck’s forces bristle now, though they’re not receiving the benefit of the ancient curse-work woven into the very fabric of the Jarl’s Hall, I realize I have no clue just how old Emil is, nor what he’s capable of.

An ancient magic is in that group, however, as they seethe as their dragons for war. And I know some of those dragons in Emil’s group are old as fuck; a handful of them step to the front now beside Emil in a wide chevron, and I know they’re his own Bloodmates.

Backing up Emil Beck, and the agenda of his co-Bloodwalker mate Litha.

“Fight me,” the Jarl of Copenhagen says as he and his guards get ready to face Emil and his dragons. “But I warn you, Ancient One… I will hold this seat beyond your death. As I soon send you to an infernally darker Void than that of our Ancestors.”

As the Jarl of Copenhagen powers up with his guards, roaring up now into his own dragon, Emil Beck does the same. My mates and I are suddenly trapped in the middle of a dragon-battle as we shift up hard, as well.

Fighting on the side of a Jarl we decidedly hate.