C h a p t e r T w e l v e
T w i l i g h t
Kotori stared at the forest. She didn't know what it was that was calling her to it. More than anything, she wanted to stay away from that line of coniferous trees. The sheer sight of them made her stomach shake with nervousness, and yet, that afternoon when class was done, she was feeling drawn to them.
She decided that maybe it was because she was afraid of them. Something in her subconscious was trying to get her inside the woods to prove to herself that there was nothing in them. Michael and his friends were not hiding around every tree, ready to hurt them. In fact, Michael hadn't even been seen since the incident, which was a little strange. As a vampire he should have recovered long ago.
Kotori knew that if she didn't go into the woods soon, she never would again, letting the fear become ingrained into her. She pursed her lips stubbornly, a faint crease appearing between her eyebrows. She wasn't going to let that happen. She wasn't about to let her fear have control over her life.
She walked into the woods. At first her feet shuffled along the ground, but soon she was walking along with her back straight and her chin up. The woods were calling to her other-self, and she wished, not for the first time, that she didn't have the cast on her arm.
It slowly dawned on her, however, that something wasn't right. It had nothing to do with the woods and everything to do with something inside of herself. She suddenly felt a little nauseous and displaced. She searched down deeper inside herself for a cause and was startled to feel the silver cord that linked her with her Soulmate was the source of the displacement. Something was wrong with Nick, but she couldn't discern any actual emotions from him, just a sickening sense of wrongness…
And he was closer; closer than he was supposed to be. Her heart leapt into her throat and she veered recklessly off the path, searching for her Soulmate. She was close enough that if she concentrated she could smell him. She pushed aside sticks and branches as she pressed deeper into the thicker tangling of trees. Slowly, concentrating on the cord, she could feel bubbles of thoughts slowly beginning to rise up from the depths of Nick's mind.
She found him kneeling on three limbs, one hand clutching his pounding head. Kotori managed to keep from throwing her arms around him to help him up first rather than attacking him. "Are you okay? What happened?"
"There was a girl in the street. I swerved to miss her. Ow." He winced when he stood up, rubbing a shoulder. Nick's face was neutral, but Kotori could see the anger welling up behind the blue-eyed mask he wore. It didn't help that she could feel their frustrations swirling together, fueling each other's anger and worry. "The next thing I knew, I had jumped out of my car to see if she was okay and she was standing there in my form… there was… this… roaring kind of sound... I remember thinking something about lightening… and then I woke up here."
"You never picked up Bethany?"
"No."
"Fala." Kotori's hands clenched. "Fala, that other dragon Beth had mentioned! She took your form!"
He placed his hands on her shoulders to keep her from bursting out of her own skin. Kotori's teeth were gritted and she looked ready to rip something to shreds. "Don't jump to conclusions, Kotori. How do you know it wasn't Cain? If they are Soulmates, then it's possible he'd go to all this trouble just to keep her safe and sound."
"If it were Cain, he would have let her tell us that she was okay before we worried!" She shook her head, exasperated, and her beautiful hair whirled behind her back like a living embodiment of her frustration. "Look, we've met Cain, okay? He may be our enemy because he's a dragon, but he's also a really decent guy! He wanted to defect to our side, Nick! He wanted to defect because he doesn't want to fight, and he doesn't want Beth as an enemy! He's never been anything but nice to us! Cain wouldn't do this!"
Nick didn't look convinced. Kotori clutched his hand with one of hers, holding them under her chin tightly and staring up with all the pleading her pride could let her muster. "Nick, please, you have to believe me! I'm not jumping to illogical conclusions! This wasn't a rescue attempt, it was a kidnapping!"
"Have you seen Gawaine?" Emile asked, coming down from the second level of the log house. Cain, sprawled along the couch with a pile of books scattered by him, glanced over the edge of the books to glance at Emile.
Stunningly beautiful, as most Night Worlders were, Cain thought that Emile was possibly one of the prettiest. He admired the way her curly golden hair tumbles around her neck or the way her make up allowed a human man to easily breeze over her face and mistake her painted features for a sign that she was in idiot, writing off the ruthlessness and brains behind her blue eyes as their imagination.
At the moment, her beautiful mouth was lined with worry-lines, and her eyebrows were knotted in an expression of concern. Cain made a sound of inquiry, not letting the book slide from his grip an inch further. She shrugged, standing on the last step of the stairs and crossing her arms. "I haven't heard him come home from school yet. Normally he's here by now."
"He's a young man," the dragon said, putting the book back in the middle of his field of vision. "He can take care of himself."
"Only because someone finally bothered to teach him how," she sighed. Cain heard her move into the kitchen and then return a moment later with menthol cigarettes in her hand and a wineglass in the other. She was going to go outside in the backyard and drink and smoke where the smell of neither would offend the shifter noses within the house—or so he thought. Instead she sat down in a chair opposite him, putting down the glass and the smokes and lifting her legs to her chest. Cain wondered at the stance, having seen Beth take it before as well. "Gawain is a remarkable boy."
"At fifteen, if he is able to conduct spells requiring as much power and concentration as the one he did to wake us up, I can sincerely believe that. The boy has potential."
"But we have no one here to train him."
Cain sighed and brought he book down again. Evidently Emile was set up talking. "Were he able to learn our magic, I would gladly teach him, but he lacks the proper vocal chords… among other things."
"But Daybreak would be able to teach him more."
Given the conversation he'd had with Bethany only two hours or so before, Cain automatically perceived suggestive hints in her tone—and dangerous hints. His head whipped around to stare at her and he slowly sat up, growling. His eyes scanned her face looking for any sign of trouble, forcing himself to not be fooled by the gentle, petite face and the mass of angelic blonde hair. "You're right," he finally said slowly, sensing no further threat. "Daybreak would have someone to teach him more magic."
She blinked innocently. "Would you hate us if we sent him there?"
"I'm not Fala."
Emile, bless her heart, blushed and stood up, picking her wine glass back up. "No, thank heavens, you're not." She paused and offered him a selective smile. "I thank the gods every day that we made a friend who understood the meaning of subtlety."
He felt himself blush with the unexpected praise before he could stop it. It was not the actual complement but the wording of it. She had not called him 'dragon' or 'comrade in arms' or 'partner', but friend. The only people he could recall having called him friend were Kotori and Nick, and they weren't aware of who he really was. They had offered the term for him because of his connection to Bethany and not because of his own self. Emile had called him friend for being himself, and not for pretending to be someone else.
"Thank you," he said, flattered.
Suddenly the ground fell out from beneath his feet. Cain had never blacked out before in his life, but suddenly he knew what it felt like. The world was going dark around him. He was having trouble breathing, and his whole body felt warm and tingly. He felt himself collapse into the couch, but he didn't really feel the impact.
At the inner most core of his being, the fragile area where his precious connection to his Soulmate was rooted, he suddenly felt the bounds of their connection sever. For one horrible, horrible moment Cain thought she was dead. It was the only thing that could explain the severing of their connection. Panic tried to swamp over his mind, and he could feel his blood boiling in his veins at the rage he felt, a scream strugglign to escape his lips. Struggling to contain it, he probed deeper and felt that it was still there; they were still connected. The world slowly began to swim back to place as he held the tattered ends of the wounded connection.
What had Beth done? How had Beth done this? He couldn't feel her, far away from him. He couldn't pick up any emotions. Even when she had shied away from that connection, he could tell when she had been happy or frightened or melancholy. When he probed deeper, she always had walls up to stop him, but now his mind hit nothing but darkness when he followed the cord.
And then, from within that still darkness, that disfiguring nothingness, rose a bubble. It seemed strange, moving so gently up to him. And then the bubble burst in his mind, exploding with all the force of a volcano, blinding his world white. Bethany's scream echoed in his mind, crying out his name in such terror and need that he found himself moving before his vision had even cleared.
"What?" Emile asked, following him. "What is it?"
"Bethany's in trouble," Cain said between grinding teeth. His jaw hurt from it. He wasn't even thinking properly. He didn't bother grabbing outdoor clothes. All he could feel was the need to get to Beth and ensure that their weak connection didn't sever completely. He flung open the doors to the porch, Emile hot on his trail.
His shirt began ripping as his shoulders cracked and extended. Emile grabbed his arm, wide-eyed in horror. "Flying? Do you want to get yourself killed? People will see you!"
His black eyes were snapping with fury. "I don't care. She needs me."
"You're no good to her dead!"
The vampire had such a point that for a moment the dragon stopped. Then he paused longer, lashing his temper under his own control. He gripped her shoulders. "Someone has Bethany and has knocked her out. I'm tired of people trying to hurt my Soulmate. You'd be acting the same way if it were Mackenzie in danger, Emile. I can get to her faster this way. I'm not going to direct a taxi around town trying to track her down!"
He released her and Emile did not protest again. She watched as he finished changing, yelling up to him to make her voice heard over the beat of his wings. "Contact us when you know where she is! We'll try to help!"
Cain didn't answer. Lifting up into the sky, he opened his mouth and roared so loudly that the panes of glass in the house below him shook from the sound. Then, turning his attention to the unwound cord, he began to follow it to Bethany.
Beth had passed out before. Then, coming back to consciousness had been like swimming through a hazy fog. It was gradual and some part of you had to push to actually wake back up. It was all too easy to let the haze claim you again and to fall asleep. This time, however, there was no hazy fog. Beth suddenly gasped, opened her eyes, and shot up, as if something had been pressing her down into the unconsciousness and as soon as it lifted her mind sprang back up into its proper place.
Gawain was near her. He was lighting candles, but paused in his work when he heard her wake. The young boys dark brown eyes stared at her, glittering with something Beth had never seen before: lust. Even as she recognized it, feeling his eyes linger on her body, she knew that it wasn't intentional. He was a normal boy and she, much to her horror, was completely naked.
Folding her arms around herself, she glanced around. Great lurking shapes surrounded them: dragons. She glanced overhead to see the shelf where they had first performed the ritual. Now they were on the actual ground. It was chilly down here. Beth stood up in the circle, rubbing her shoulder and keeping her small breasts hidden from Gawain. The nearest dragon, much to her horror, was a deep, red color. Fala's kin.
"Where's Fala?"
"She said she wanted to hunt before she did this. She said she needed a lot of energy to kill so many. She ordered me to get the ritual set up." He finished lighting the last candle and then put his lighter back into his pocket before he reached up and began undoing the buttons of his shirt. "If you're awake, she must be coming back. She wouldn't risk you escaping."
"We should run!"
The lust she had seen in his eyes was replaced by something else Beth had never seen before. In a flash those lively brown eyes had become dead and hollow. Fala had said or done something to him that had eaten at his mind. He wasn't even afraid of her anymore, just complacent.
"There's nowhere to go."
He was right; there wasn't. Beth didn't know of a way up and out of the mountains, and all they had to light their way was Gawain's little lighter. Besides, even if they could get out of the cavern, where could they hide in the woods that Fala wouldn't be able to track them down? There was no help coming…
Cain.
The thought passed through her heart like a pang. She reached down into herself to find that mental and emotional bond they shared together. Normally laying passive, it shook with barely restrained anger.
Cain?
Bethany! You're awake again! Gods above, I thought that I had nearly lost you!
The sound of his voice in her ears almost made her break down into tears. She'd worried him and she didn't like that. She didn't want Cain to lose her, nor she him. She sniffled loudly. You'll never lose me. I'm made to be the thorn at your side.
Where are you? The question was quick and urgent, but under it and the shaking rage Beth could feel warm thoughts circulating his mind. He was pleased by her response, if a little pained. She didn't understand why but she suspected that it was because he wanted her to be more than a pain in his side.
The cave where you were sleeping. Gawain's here too.
Kaneonuskatew swore in so many different languages Beth couldn't identify most of them. She wants to resurrect the other dragons. I'm already on my way, Bethany, but it's going to take me a little while longer to get to you. Emile warned me not to fly, but I didn't listen to her. I need to shake off the things flying after me before I can make it to you. Can you stall her?
Yes!
She was a little surprised at the force of her answer. Beth couldn't remember doing anything like this before. Where had this sense of defiance come from? Beth wasn't a good fighter, not like the other Night Worlders. All Fala would have to do is shoot her once and she'd be pushed back into unconsciousness! She was seriously going to try evading something like that?
For Cain? Knowing that he was on his way and the situation wasn't hopeless? For Kotori and Nick and Eliza? Even for Mac? Yes, she'd become foolish and reckless just this once if it meant that she could see them again.
Beth grabbed Gawain's hand and started pulling him into the mountain of sleeping dragon bodies that surrounded them. "Come on. Cain's on his way. We've got to buy time. We need a place to…"
"He is coming? Good." Fala's voice made her skid to a halt. Beth's ears twitched and her nose wrinkled as she sniffed, trying to pinpoint where the dragon was, but all she could smell were Fala's kin which surrounded them. Beth tightened her grip on Gawain's hand and pulled them slowly deeper amongst the dragons, trying to keep her feet from making a sound against the loose rocks. "I was rather worried that you were too proud to use your Soulmate connection to talk to one another. That would be such a disappointment, to know that he wasn't coming to arrive here to find your inert body."
Crunch!
Beth lost her balance and landed on the rocks hard. The sound echoed through the cavern and she bit the inside of her lip to keep from crying out. The sharp edges had cut her skin. When she reached out to steady herself, she found cool rock wall instead of scaled, warm dragon hide. They had found one wall of the cavern. If there was a walking passage out of the cave, they could follow the wall to find it. Even a niche would be a large help! Besides, with the wall beside them, it ruled out one direction Fala could take to attack them.
"You can't hide, you know. I can smell your stench from anywhere. You're bleeding, Bethany." The half-human girl blushed when she recalled the incident in the car. "Bethany, Bethany, Beth… a… knee… Why fight it? Oh… I see. You're stalling. Cain's coming, of course. You're trying to bide time for him to come."
Beth could hear the crunch of bones and heard something heavy strike the ground in a wet splat. Then she heard nothing. She paused, Gawain breathing heavily beside her and his hand clammy in hers. She ignored it to concentrate on her surroundings. She couldn't see, but she'd never been able to see well. Beth let herself stare, concentrating on her other senses. She was pausing like a predator, she knew, waiting until her prey was unsuspecting to move again.
There!
The attack was so fast Beth was slow in reacting. She felt the wind change around her, her long black hair fanning up over shoulders as something came flying in quickly. Claws raked her shoulder, deep gashes, but nothing life threatening. Beth pulled Gawain along as she moved further down the wall. Fala was in an owl shape. She risked taking her hand off the wall to cover the flow of blood from her shoulder. Judging from the span of the clawed that had struck her, Fala was a large owl, too.
Out of nowhere, Gawain started to recite the spell. Bethany froze, turning back to look at him blindly. Between his words she could hear him sob and she could taste the salty hint of tears on her tongue. She tightened her grip on his hand. "Stop it! Come on! We can get through this!"
He shook his head and sobbed louder. "I'm sorry, Bethany." He pulled his hand free from hers and stepped back away from her out of fear. Beth felt like she had been slapped. What had Fala threatened to do to him…
She was so busy concentrating on Gawain that she hadn't felt the person coming up silently behind her until strong arms wrapped around her arms, pulling them back and shoving her to the ground. Beth glanced over shoulder as she struggled to stay up, shocked to see that it was a human male. Her gaze swept up to the hairline: the horns were still there.
"You humans," he laughed. "You've pathetic shields on your memories. Do you know what happened to Gawain? Someone abused him badly when he was younger; someone with this face. Now the poor boy will do anything to keep from feeling himself pinned to the ground with that drunkard's body over his, won't he, Sweetie?"
Beth glanced at Gawain. He was moving out of what she could make out in the dark cave, but she could see that his skin was ashen from fear, and his mouth shook. He had to struggle to remember the spell when he saw that face.
"Let me go, Fala!"
The woman laughed in the deep base of the man's voice. "Or what, little Bethany? Your boyfriend will kill me for touching you?"
"Cain's not my boyfriend."
"Could have fooled me!"
"I can't believe that you're doing all of this out of jealousy for some man! I thought that you were above that Fala!"
She clucked her tongue. "Psychology won't work on me, Beth. I can see your plots." Just to prove her point, she nudged Beth's thoughts with her mind. She never thought the telepathy would hurt, but it did. It felt like burning cinders were being wrapped into her mind and she hissed in pain. "Will this work without that ritual knife?" she asked Gawain.
He stammered blithely until she growled at him. "I honestly don't know."
"Better run and get it, then. Come on, Bethany. Be a good, docile girl."
"Bite me!" Beth struggled when she felt those large arms pick her up off the ground. She hated being small sometimes. Fala was carrying her without any problem at all and the kicks she was landing weren't hurting the dragon in the slightest. She growled in frustration and was surprised at the way it was rumbling in her chest. She had never growled like that before. She leaned back her head and bit at Fala's ear, feeling her teeth puncture skin. Fala's screech hurt her ears, and then the woman punched Beth so hard that she landed on the ground, the taste of Fala's blood staining her cheeks.
The light from the circle was close enough that it was throwing everything up into illumination. Beth could see blood running down from Fala's ear. Her—his?—face was contorted by the pain and anger into an ugly visage. Beth would never forget how her treacherous body froze when those eyes landed on her. There wasn't a lot of warning this time as the thunder rose and the lightning danced along Fala's skin. The spot next to Beth's head exploded, covering her dark hair in bits of debris and a fine layer of dust.
"Knife, Gawain."
"I cast the spells. If you want the knife, you can get it yourself. I'm a witch. I don't kill."
She growled at him and bent to retrieve the knife herself. Beth hadn't moved. She had heard the message loud and clear. The next shot wouldn't be aimed an inch over to the left. Beth would bleed just fine if she were missing her legs. Fala couldn't have made the point clearer.
Beth glanced around, smelling blood not her own. She nearly screamed when she glanced up at saw the dead, black eyes of a deer staring back at her. The creature's body was punctuated by claw marks, causing blood to slowly stain the otherwise pure, white belly. Beth remembered the wet thud she had heard earlier and gulped.
"Snacks for the first of my kin to wake up," Fala said.
Fala changed back into her own shape—or at least the human shape in which she felt the most comfortable. Beth felt like a child next to Fala's curves. Something shifted behind them: a red dragon. With a grin, Fala picked up Beth's hand. "It seems that we don't need the knife. That wound on your shoulder is doing just fine. If we weren't under a time constraint, maybe I wouldn't need to even do this."
Beth knew this was going to hurt. She had done this before. She reached down into herself and erected walls around the Soulmate connection, guilt welling up inside her when she sensed Cain's panic. She didn't want him knowing that she was in pain. She only let the anger trickle into her from him, harnessing it to her will, gritting her teeth as she stared Fala in the eye. "I'm going to mount one of your pretty little horns on my wall as a trophy."
Fala's sensuous mouth was tight. She brought the knife down as hard as she could and felt triumphant when Beth looked away, closing her eyes and biting her lip to keep from crying out. "Nice to see that the kitten does have some claws… too bad it's far too late for you. You're going to die here, Bethany, just like the abomination you are."
Beth glared at Fala, watching the other woman lift the knife to her mouth and taste the red blood that coated it. She licked her lips. "Not a single taste of shifter blood in you. Had you been born into my family, I would have killed you in your cradle. I would not have allowed such a pathetic creature to live."
She kept her face locked into that stubborn glare, not hinting at the anger and pain she was feeling. Her blood dripped from her wrist to the ground in fat droplets, coating her fingers and making her hand feel fuzzy. Her other hand felt fine though. Beth curled her fingers and struck, scratching at Fala's face with such hatred behind her speed that the dragon didn't have time to move. Fala seemed shocked for a moment, and then the blood started welling up under the gouges Beth's fingernails had left on her cheek.
It was a stupid and dangerous thing to do. Beth had just wanted to lash out at Fala for saying those horrible things, and so she had. Then the surprised changed as Fala reached up to wipe the blood from her face and something dropped to the ground. Both women stared at it in horror:
It was a horn.
Fala found her fury before Bethany had a chance to even think about what she had done. Her hand lashed out to grab Beth by her neck, squeezing tightly. "You little bitch," she snarled. Between her clenched eyes Beth could see that Fala's form was shifting erratically, but in all of them, somehow, her grip never let go. Her gaze shifted to the red dragon that was still shifting, slowly waking up. "This death is too quick for you."
I knew that no Soulmate of mine would be weak¸ Cain said proudly, perching on the ledge above them. He snapped his jaws so loudly that Gawain ducked behind the nearest dragon to hide. Let her go, Fala. Your fight is with me.
"She took my horn!" Fala screeched like a perturbed child.
And you've been gorging on human blood. I think that it makes us a bit even in this fight, don't you? Don't make me repeat myself, Fala.
Sneering, Fala dropped Bethany. The shifted landed hard, pain shooting up through the injured side of her body. As her vision cleared she stared at her good hand, watching her nails slowly sink back into her skin and reform themselves into human-shaped nails. Beth wrote it off as damage to her brain from the onset of asphyxiation.
Above her Fala turned, lording over her and Gawain and roaring her triumph, but her eyes were dead. Beth almost pitied her—almost. She was going into the battle knowing that she was going to die and yet she did it anyway. The dragon shifted behind her, a large clawed hand squeezing and the back muscles rolled. Beth's hair whirled behind her as Fala flapped her wings and lifted into the air.
We should take this outside.
We should. Cain's head turned slightly to stare down at Bethany. She felt her face flush at that gaze, wondering how such an inhuman and alien face could actually look at her with warmth and fear. He switched from telepathy to the Soulmate link. You need to bind your bleeding and get away from those dragons now, Beth.
He spread his great, leathery wings and beat them only once to lift himself into the air, disappearing into the darkness above them. Beth found herself staring, her feet locked to the ground as she continued to marvel at Cain.
He was beautiful. This was the first time she had gotten to see him—all of him—in his natural form. He was stunning.
She was so spellbound by the grace and the raw power of his form that for a moment, all the pain went away… and so did the knowledge that behind her a dragon was opening his eyes.
To be continued... only a few more chapters to go!
