Chapter 21

MY GAZE LANDS ON A faintly familiar face across the street. A tall male with sharp angular features stands next to a narrow alley, his entire focus trained on me and the guards.

Disquiet whispers a warning in my ear, and foreboding wraps a heavy arm across my shoulders and pulls me closer. A rush of light wind tries to ease the olfactory assault, but I can already taste the taint on my tongue.

The male across the way lifts his arm, and the flashing lights from a nearby sign glint off the weapon he has clutched in his hand.

“Gun!” I scream in warning, diving for the drake that’s closest to me.

I wrap my arms around Tove and, with surprising strength, force us both to the ground.

“What the fuck?” she grunts as our bodies kiss the pavement. She growls something else, but I can’t hear it over the shouts and snarls now filling the street.

I look up to see the Tainted male making a run for it down the alleyway, but the guards around me are approaching a sky craft that I recognize from earlier and not paying attention to the fleeing man. Realization collides with fury, and I’m up and sprinting toward the alleyway after the male. He was in the car that I thought was following us on our way here, and now I know that’s exactly what they were doing.

“Frills, no!” someone barks at my back, but I’m already pounding down the tight lane that’s barely wide enough for me to fit down.

“That’s not my fucking name,” I grumble as I pick up speed.

The Tainted fuck in front of me looks back over his shoulder, his face flashing fear when he sees me barreling after him. He trips over his feet as he faces forward and tries to run faster. He stumbles but catches himself, just barely managing not to fall. I quickly close the distance between us from forty feet to twenty.

The alley we’re in meets up with another street, and he darts left and then right, trying to lose me, but I’m right there with him. I don’t recognize the male from anywhere other than the flyway this morning, but that doesn’t mean fuck all. Too many times, I was out of it after being bled and tortured. I couldn’t even lift my head to see who was dumping food or water in my cell, carrying me to another location, or kicking my bucket of piss and shit all over. Even if I didn’t have direct contact with this asshole, he’s part of the Tainted’s network, which means he’s a dead man. I’ll hunt each and every one of them down if it’s the last thing I do.

My days of running from the enemy are over.

Now, they’re going to run from me.

“Better move faster, motherfucker,” I taunt the panicking male, leaping past the edge of a food stall and slicing through a small cluster of people queued up for an afternoon snack.

A vicious smile stretches wide across my face as the male looks back again and sees me gaining on him with every stride. He whimpers, and sweat dots his brow. His chest heaves with exertion, and I know he doesn’t have much more flight in him. He’ll make a stand soon and try to fight.

I pull my butter knives from my boots and get ready to use them as we squeeze down another small vein of passage that connects one run-down lane to another.

“Please,” the male starts to beg. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have taken it if I knew,” he beseeches, but I ignore it. My prey, my kill is only a handful of feet away now.

I reach for him, but the fucker dekes to the other side of the widening throughway and dodges my grab. I push to get even closer, and he stumbles again. This time while he’s struggling to get his footing, I grab him by the back of his shirt and shove him into the opposite wall. A satisfying thud fills the alley as skin meets stone, and I have the bastard facing me with a knife to his throat before he’s even done screaming from the first face-breaking hit.

“Where the fuck is Wistan?” I snarl in the male’s face, pressing him into the rough rock of the building like I’m about to make him the mortar that holds it all together.

Someone drops into the alley behind me, and I whirl to address the unwelcome visitor with my other butter knife. A bright blond male rears back in surprise when I press the metal of my knife firmly against the bronze skin of his throat. He lifts his hands in silent surrender, but the gleam in his mossy green gaze screams trouble. So does the scale armor and the insignias on his arms marking him as yet another member of the Royal Wing.

Apparently, they’re everywhere these days, worse than sand fleas if you ask me.

The gloomy light of the alley makes the teal color of his scale armor lean more green than blue. A black bolt of lightning forks up the middle of his throat and chin, the dragon mark stopping just under his plump bottom lip. A lip that slowly curves up as I stand in the alley, arms out, dull knives pressed against two separate throats on each side of me.

“Who in the bloody fuck are you?” I snap at the drake.

“Is that…are you threatening me with table cutlery?” he asks, his already raised eyebrows hiking even further up his forehead. “I don’t know if I’m impressed or offended. You’ve got quite the pair of balls on you to threaten a member of the scion’s Royal Wing, let alone do it with such substandard…weaponry.”

“Ovaries,” I correct slowly so he doesn’t miss a syllable. “I’ve got ovaries, not balls, and I guarantee they’re infinitely tougher than anything dangling between your legs. Now, Stormer, answer my question, or I’ll be happy to demonstrate exactly what I can do with my substandard weaponry.”

A delighted smile stretches wider across his face before he purses his lips with faux offense. “Stormer? Come now, dragoness, that’s so cold, so impersonal. Call me Herm, I insist. And feel free to press a little closer. I’ve never been buttered before; the sheer anticipation is doing all kinds of things for me.”

He shivers with exaggerated excitement, and I roll my eyes.

“Does no one in your bloody Wing take anything seriously?” I ask with a sigh.

“Oh, we do…from time to time, but I promise you don’t want to be on the receiving end of that seriousness. Better to stay on this side of things. Keep it light and breezy, ya know? Fewer people usually die that way. Well, with the exception of that one time in that one bar, but they started it.”

I hear the distinct sound of other bodies tromping into the narrow lane behind me, but judging by the way Herm doesn’t react to their presence, I gather it’s probably the rest of Aeson’s Wing.

“Who started it?” I ask, confused about what he’s rambling on about.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he admonishes. “I’ll only tell you if you drop the butter knife…correction, knives.” His playful gaze flicks to the second shitty weapon I have pressed against the other male’s throat.

The runner has silent tears streaming down his face, and his wide, terrified eyes bounce back and forth between me and Herm. The front of the runner’s pants suddenly grows dark and wet, and the sharp scent of urine fills the air.

Great.

“Come now, Biscuit, you’ve had your fun with the man. No point tormenting the poor…” Herm’s brow furrows, and he pulls in a deep contemplative breath. “Ah, the poor owl shifter.”

“Owl shifter?” I exclaim, shocked. That can’t be right. He’s sorcai, all the Tainted are sorcai.

I shove my face closer to scent the other male. He squeaks in fright and tries to lean away from me, but he’s still pressed against the side of the building, and there’s nowhere for him to go. Earthy notes fight against the strong smell of ammonia and the metallic tang of fear. I’ve never met an owl shifter before, so I don’t know exactly what they smell like, but what I realize is missing is the pernicious rotten fragrance of the Tainted. This male smells nothing like them. I have no idea who he is, but he’s not one of Wistan’s.

I went after the wrong person.

“Why the fuck did you try to shoot us?” I demand, even more outraged than I was before.

He starts crying even harder. “My team saw the scion’s guards. We were hoping to get pictures of him—they’re worth quite a lot—but then we saw you with his Wing, and we got curious. We didn’t know you were a dragoness, or we would have never taken pictures. We didn’t realize…you don’t smell…”

“Pictures?” I interrupt, completely bewildered. “You had a gun.”

“No! It was just a camera. I swear, I’m a paparazzo. I don’t even own a gun, just a camera. It’s in my pocket, you can see for yourself!”

I look down at the male’s wet pants and grimace. “Take the camera out and drop it on the ground,” I order, hoping one of Aeson’s Wing will take the initiative and sort the camera and its contents out so I don’t have to.

“I’ll delete the photos. I promise. I didn’t know what you were. Please don’t kill me. I have a family,” he pleads as he drops a small silver device on the ground.

“Have you lost your Scorch-addled mind? What in the fucking fates were you thinking, running off like that?” Tove snarls, stomping toward me from the end of the alley, an equally disgruntled Ogdan and Farrow tight on her heels.

“Oh good, you finally caught up,” I snark at the trio.

I dare a glance behind me to find Chastain, Karis, Jori, and another male in violet scale armor that I haven’t met before. I think back to all the names Aeson listed off when it came to his Wing. He mentioned I’d meet Herm and Sondar when they were done with an assignment. If Herm is here next to me…

“Sondar?” I ask the male with long straight blue-black hair, equally dark eyes, and a rich russet complexion.

His pleased grin is all the answer I need.

“I see my reputation precedes me,” he jokes, further cementing my hypothesis that this Wing is off-the-rails crazy and serially unserious.

“Why in all of the stars do you have butter knives?” Ogdan demands, and I throw my head back and blow out a deep exasperated breath.

“Like I told you on the way here, I need weapons.” I drop said weapons from both Herm and the owl shifter’s throats and step away.

“No, what you need to do is stay put like you’re supposed to and let us handle things,” Ogdan argues, angrily pushing strands of his loose dark red hair out of his face.

“Like I’m supposed to?” I argue, fully fed up with the shit they’ve been dishing out all day.

“He’s got photos that need to be dealt with,” Herm calls to Sondar, nodding at the owl shifter, who looks as though he now might shit his pants.

I quickly move away from him toward Tove, just in case.

“Yes, like you’re supposed to , because we are the professionals here, not you. At what point is it going to sink in?” Tove snaps. “You could have been sprinting into a trap for all you know, running off like that. To say nothing of the fact that we’re not exactly in friendly territory, and you lack the vital fucking protections needed to survive any of the life-threatening things that could have happened to you here,” she adds, berating me like I’m some mischievous child.

I shrug, not even a little sorry. “That smell you thought was Chastain was the Tainted. They’re the ones who took me, who attacked your Wing in Lairwood. They were here. They were watching. The Horde doesn’t even know they exist. What the fuck was I supposed to do, just stand there?”

The sparks of annoyance in Tove’s brown eyes alight into a full-blown inferno of indignation. “If this is the kind of reckless shit you pull, no wonder you got yourself caught by blood brokers. Are you trying to get taken again? Hoping to add a few more scars to your extensive collection?”

Every ounce of humor drops from my face. “Watch it, Seeder. You have no clue who you’re fucking with,” I warn.

“Why don’t you show me then, Syphon.”

“Tove!” Ogdan barks in clear warning. “Stand down.”

Tove rounds on him. “She needs to be taught a lesson before she gets one of us killed. I don’t give a fuck who she is; she doesn’t get to put us in harm’s way like our lives mean nothing.”

“I said stand down ,” Ogdan bellows, and every drake in the alley freezes.

Tove’s face goes blank. After a moment, she steps away from me and adopts a stiff position with her hands behind her back, her feet shoulder width apart, and her stare empty and fixed on the redheaded Burner in black scale armor who just issued a direct order.

I wondered what the chain of command was within the Wing. They’ve been good at keeping it under wraps until now. Ogdan turns to me, body stiff with tension, jaw clenched tight with fury.

“Dragoness, if it’s quite alright with you, I suggest we head back to the keep.”

I study the Burner, no hint of the amiable, teasing drake I’ve encountered up until now. My attention jumps to a dead-eyed Tove and then to Farrow, who looks equally as pissed.

“Sir, yes, sir,” I grumble indignantly, pushing past the other two guards and following Ogdan back to Nixy’s.

No one says a word as we pile into the waiting lirocar and promptly take off. I watch Wyvern Den quickly fall away, wondering what happened to the owl shifter and the other Arcs that were with him in the vehicle that was following us this morning. I don’t ask anyone for answers, not willing to breach the silent line that was drawn in the sand between me and the drakes back in the alley.

Tove’s words ring loud in my mind. She’s a bitch, but she’s not completely wrong. My mistakes did cost me my freedom and Ren her life. But it wasn’t my instincts or rush to action that put me or my Flight in harm’s way; it was trust that fucked me over, and now I’m paying the price. The drakes can think whatever they want to think about me, but it’s obvious that their impressions are being filtered through a lens of condescending misjudgment. I don’t know what kind of females they’re used to dealing with, but none of the ones I know need a whole contingency of guards to keep them safe.

The Horde wants me to fit in a tidy little box that they can show off and pass around for their own benefit. They’ve forgotten who the Syphons are, what we’re capable of. But that’s okay—even without my dragon, I’ll be happy to remind them.

I’m a fucking Tenebrae after all.