Stormcaster (Shattered Realms #3)

“So.” Bosley took another step toward her. “Then you are actually working against the empress?”

“I am actually trying to survive, and protect my officers if I can,” Lyss said, unwilling to hand Bosley any kind of weapon. “Now. As I said. I came here to be alone. I did not come here to discuss strategy with a subordinate. You are dismissed.”

“You can’t have it both ways,” Bosley said. “If we are both soldiers, as you say, is that any way to treat a comrade? I would have expected a warmer welcome.”

Lyss’s always-brittle temper snapped. “What don’t you understand about go away?”

The arrogant expression dissolved into anger. “Let me make myself clear, Princess,” Bosley snarled. “You may be valuable to the empress as a capable commander, but you are even more valuable as the heir to the throne of the Fells—the only surviving heir, I might add. You are in no position to look down your nose at me. I would suggest that you think before you speak.”

“Is that a threat?” Lyss said, her voice a low growl. “Because that would be treason.”

“There need be no unpleasantness if you do as I say,” Bosley said. “In fact, you may come to enjoy collaborating with me.”

Bosley made collaborating sound like a filthy word. Lyss, speechless, stared at him.

Taking her silence as assent, Bosley moved in closer. “Don’t worry. We will maintain appearances in front of the others. In public, I will be as subordinate as any other soldier. But in private, I’ll be giving the orders. With any luck, I’ll plant a baby in your belly before we return to the Realms. Consort to the queen. I like the sound of that.”

Lyss couldn’t help herself. Despite her vow to play it smart and survive, the whole idea was so revolting that she burst out laughing. “Lieutenant, I’d rather be eaten alive by wolves,” she said.

Never underestimate the fury of an asshole when he’s crossed. Bosley barreled into her, pitching her to the ground. Her head struck a rock, the impact rendering her temporarily senseless. When she came to, Bosley was ripping at her clothing, muttering curses. Her sword was gone. She groped for her belt dagger, but that was gone, too.

She kneed him, hard, in the privates, causing him to howl and loosen his grip. She flipped him over her head and rolled to her feet, scanning the ground for her blades. Spotting the glitter of metal in the moonlight, she scrambled toward it and scooped up her dagger. Just in time, because Bosley was somehow up again and wrapping his arms around her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides so that she couldn’t reach anything vital.

“If this is the way you want it, I will drag you back to the empress and turn you in. No doubt she’ll reward me handsomely.”

“I doubt it,” Lyss said. “She’ll lose a capable commander and gain a scummery bumfiddle.” With that, she went limp, which threw Bosley off balance so that she fell forward with him on top. Squirming, she twisted enough to slash at him with her blade. It ripped open his shoulder, but that wasn’t enough. All it did was send him into a murderous rage.

Wrenching the knife from her hand, he pinned her to the ground, raised the blade, and spat, “You never know when you’re beaten, do you?”

It was one of those moments when time slows to a crawl. The knife seemed to pause at the top of its arc, Bosley’s twisted face hovering over her like a demonic death mask.

A shadow fell across the two of them as something massive came between them and the bright shield of the moon. She heard a harsh cry, like that of a raptor on the hunt, and a sudden wind ripped at her clothing and tore her hair from its braid. Bosley was just turning his head to look when something smashed into them, driving all of the air from her lungs.

Bosley screamed, his eyes widening in terror and pain. When Lyss looked past him, all she could see was a silhouette blotting out the stars. She smelled charred flesh, felt a searing heat, heard the rattle of claws on rock, and then Bosley’s weight was gone.

She propped up on her elbows in time to see Bosley rising into the night sky, silhouetted against the flaming beast that had him in its claws. The lieutenant’s arms and legs waved frantically so that he resembled a crawfish in the talons of an osprey. Her knife pinged onto the ledge next to her.

It was the dragon that had spooked the horses on the parade ground—or one very like it. As if called by her thoughts, it extended its head toward her on a long, sinuous neck. Flame and smoke boiled from between its massive teeth, searing her skin from several feet away until she thought it would blister and peel. It studied her with golden, reptilian eyes.

Abruptly, it turned away, the force of its wings scouring the ledge. It seemed to be having trouble gaining altitude with the weight of Bosley added to its own. Finally, it soared off the side of the mountain, circled out over the abyss, and dropped the lieutenant into space.

If it was possible to be relieved, grateful, and terrified at the same time, Lyss was there. Grabbing up her knife, she scrabbled crablike across the ledge, scooped up her sword, and made a run for the downhill trail. Before she’d gone more than a few paces, the dragon was ahead of her, driving her back with torrents of flame.

Lyss threw her knife, aiming for the creature’s eyes, but it glanced off its armored head. She dove to the side, rolling into a small ravine, where she hoped the underbrush would hide her from view. But the dragon’s breath set the foliage aflame, flushing her from her hiding place. Hugging the cliff face, she launched herself downhill, hoping to put enough distance between them that she could find another hiding place.

But it was foolish to think that a human on foot could escape a dragon in the air. It landed in the trail ahead of her, spreading its wings to block the way.

When it was clear she wasn’t going anywhere, Lyss put her back to a rock face and waited, sword in hand, for death.





45


A NEW ALLIANCE


The drama unfolded below them on the ledge—first a loud, hand-waving argument, then a clinch.

They are mating, Cas suggested. That’s how it begins—with fighting. Let them finish.

“Mating doesn’t begin with fighting,” Jenna said. “Anyway, when did you get to be an expert on mating?”

Not human. Have instinct.

“Humans have instinct, too.”

Maybe. Too much thinking, gets in way.

Right, Jenna thought. Too much thinking.

After months of communicating only with each other, they were beginning to share vocabulary, and Jenna was adopting Cas’s thrifty speech.

“Can we go lower? Without hitting the mountain, I mean?”

With an irritated snort, Cas circled lower, losing altitude gradually.

Ordinarily, that maneuver would have been child’s play for the young dragon, but the flight through the stormwall had badly damaged one of his wings, making straight flight difficult, fine aerobatics all but impossible. Gradually, he was growing stronger. Jenna hoped that by the time they came up with a plan, they would be able to execute it.

In order to make a plan, they needed more information. Hence their current mission—looking for one of the empress’s soldiers they could question.

As they closed in on the couple, Jenna could make out more of the conversation. The male wanted to mate. The female most definitely did not. Jenna caught the words princess and empress and treason.

Were there princesses on the Desert Coast as well as empresses?

The female didn’t look like a princess, from Jenna’s limited experience. Both parties were dressed in the garb of the empress’s soldiers, though neither had the smudgy glow she’d seen before.

All at once, the male charged at the female, knocking her backward. Pinning her to the ground, he began tearing at her clothing.

See? Mating.

“No,” Jenna said. “This is not how humans mate. This is wrong.”

The female sent the male flying and scooped up her knife. She managed to draw blood before the male had her down again. Then he had something in his hand—something that glittered in the moonlight. Her knife.