Chapter Fourteen

 

 

Darius stood like a statue as Ben stripped off his tuxedo jacket and slung it over a marble bench, followed by his holster and gun.

"As the challenger," Reive called up the steps, "I choose the weapon."

Weapons. Right. Too much to hope that they'd fight bare-handed. "I agree," Ben called down. "What do you choose?"

"Knives."

Ouch. But it was a good choice, the closest human alternative to the claws that were the natural weapon of both dragons and panthers.

Maddox looked toward Darius, who gave a slight nod, face like stone. The henchman drew two knives from somewhere under his jacket and tossed one toward each of the combatants.

Shifter-quick reflexes were more than enough to pluck a knife out of the air. Ben caught it easily and hefted it, feeling its weight and balance. It was a good knife, and a big one, the size of a kitchen butcher knife and razor-sharp along the gleaming edge. Down at the bottom of the stairs, Reive did a few test thrusts and tossed the knife from hand to hand.

"I have one question for you, Benedict," Darius said, turning toward him. "Can you win this?"

"I have to," Ben said. "For Tessa."

Darius scowled. "That's not the answer I was hoping for."

"Yeah, well, me not being a proper part of the clan is a sword that cuts both ways, isn't it? You can't order me to do anything."

Darius's dragon flashed in his eyes. "I could stop you."

"Yeah. You could. But you'll have to do it by force." Ben met his father's stony gaze. "Dad ... for once in your damn life, trust me. Trust me to be able to do this."

Darius looked away.

"Ready?" Reive called up the stairs.

"Yeah." Knife held loosely in one hand, Ben walked past his father and Maddox, down the stairs.

Up close, Reive looked troubled. He was younger than Ben had realized, probably only in his mid to late 20s—and that was likely his real age, too; the sharpness of feature that defined older dragons wasn't there in his face yet. "You don't have to do this," Reive said. "All you have to do is stand aside—"

"Or you could stand aside."

"I can't." Reive smiled slightly. "Honor."

"I know. I may not be a dragon, but as a man in love, I have my own kind of honor." Ben raised the knife in a salute. "I don't want to kill you, but you will not pass me."

"And I don't want to kill you, but if you won't stand aside, I must." Reive returned the salute, and they stood stock-still, both watching each other.

Ben hoped Tessa wasn't watching from the house. He didn't want her to see this.

"Begin," Darius called.

 

***

 

Melody unlocked the door to Darius's office with a large, old-fashioned brass key.

"I'm not in here very often," she said as she stepped inside and turned on the lights. "Occasionally he has me do some business stuff for him. I don't know if Ben told you, but Dad is ... well ... he's basically a mobster. He has some legitimate business interests, and some that are very much not. I mostly stay out of the illegal stuff if I can."

Tessa looked around, impressed despite the urgency and fear beating at the back of her brain. Darius's office was enormous, with high enough ceilings that he could probably have transformed in here, and tall windows looking down on the night-cloaked valley.

The office's furnishings were an interesting mix of old and new. The huge oak desk looked like an antique, as did the polished wooden cabinets and bookshelves along the walls. But there was also a large flatscreen monitor on the desk and all the usual home office equipment, a printer and fax machine and so forth, ergonomically arranged in cabinets near the desk.

Melody tapped a key to wake the computer up and typed in a password. "Most of his files are on paper. My dad doesn't quite trust computers. If he was really looking into the Corcorans, there should be a file on them around here somewhere. He might have already put it away. He's very organized."

No kidding. The top of the desk was almost painfully tidy; besides the computer, it contained nothing except a gold fountain pen in a polished cherry holder, a small desk calendar, and, adding a personal touch, a framed photo of a young Melody looking chubby and unhappy in a dress much too fancy for a small girl. No pictures of Ben as far as Tessa could see.

But right now Darius's lousy parenting wasn't her first concern. She pulled open all the unlocked filing cabinet drawers that she could find. Melody came behind her and unlocked the rest of them with a tiny key. The number of filing cabinets staggered and dismayed her. And those weren't even all the files; there were shelves full of leather binders too. Tessa pulled one down and opened it. The yellowed papers inside looked like they were from the middle of the previous century.

"Keep in mind," Melody said, kneeling to pull out a long row of files from the bottom shelf of a cabinet, "Dad's been running the clan for over a hundred years, and his business interests for longer than that. There is a lot of information here. We can't possibly get through all of it in time. Just look for something in the C's that looks like it was recently opened."

"Did you say a hundred years? How long do dragons live?" Tessa asked. She shoved the binder back onto its shelf and went back to pawing through filing cabinets.

"Several hundred years, if we don't find a mate. Or so I hear. Dad doesn't believe most dragons have mates. He wasn't mated to either my mother or Ben's mom, and they're not still together."

"What happens if they—if you find a mate?"

Melody pulled down a stack of binders, coughing as dust settled on her dark hair. Her black gloves were dusted with it, as if she'd dipped her hands in flour. "Our lifespan adjusts itself to match our mate's. They get a little longer lived, and we get a little shorter lived. At least that's what I've been told—Aha!"

She triumphantly held out a file folder toward Tessa. "Here we go. And it's been recently updated. Look, he's got Heikon Corcoran's email address and phone number. C'mon, let's see if we can Skype him."

"We're going to Skype with a dragon?" Tessa asked in disbelief as Melody hustled them both back to the computer and dropped into the big, padded leather chair.

"Dragons, the older ones, love Skype. I think the really traditional ones, like my dad, never quite got used to talking to people on the telephone. Being able to talk face-to-face over long distances is perfect for them. Just like how things were in the old days, except better." She brought up the program. "Okay, let's see if this just gets us a secretary or something, or—"

The window expanded to fill the screen, and suddenly they were looking at a man sitting at a desk very like Darius's, but more cluttered and less organized.

Tessa, standing behind Melody's chair and slightly out of the camera's main field of view, thought she could see the resemblance to Reive very clearly. This man had the same high cheekbones and clear dark eyes. He was old enough for his hair to be iron-gray rather than glossy black like Reive's. Given what Melody had said about how long dragons lived, Tessa wondered how long one of them had to live in order to visibly begin showing signs of age. Darius had a sort of ageless quality about him; he looked somewhere in his 40s, but could have been well-kept 50s or very well-kept 60s. Since he was Ben's father, Tessa had automatically assumed that he was somewhere on the higher end of the age scale. Now she wondered how many more years he would go on looking like he was 45. A century? Two?

But she realized as this stranger turned toward the camera that it wasn't just the resemblance to Reive that made him look familiar. A memory surged out of the murky darkness at the back of her head, where her dim, fragmentary early-childhood memories of her parents lived. She'd seen this man before. She thought he might have held her in his lap, once, a long time ago ...

"Darius Keegan? How unexpected. It's been some time—" Heikon broke off. "Who are you?"

"I'm Melody Keegan, Darius's daughter. But I'm not the person who wants to talk to you." Melody rolled the chair to the side, so Tessa could move into the camera's field of view.

Heikon jerked back as if he'd been struck. "Harriet," he breathed.

Hearing that voice was like a cool wind from the past blowing across her soul. "No," Tessa said. "I'm Tessa. Harriet was my mother."

"Yes," Heikon said quietly. "Yes, of course ... she would be so much older now. I forget how short-lived humans are. That's right, Harriet and Peter had a child, didn't they? I had forgotten. It's amazing; you are her very image. You could be your mother, child."

"Oh," Tessa whispered. "I didn't know."

Beyond some dim childhood recollections, she had seen pictures of her mother for the first time in the family photos from her parents' box of things. But she had never connected her mother's face with the one she saw in the mirror. Her mother was beautiful, with smooth brown skin and laughing eyes.

But before she could open her mouth to ask more questions, Heikon's face hardened. "As you're calling me from Darius Keegan's account, I assume your family has sought sanctuary with him. From all I've heard of him, I'm surprised he's granted it—"

"My brother, Darius's son, is her mate," Melody said.

"Really? Well," he sighed, "that's certainly a complication I didn't need."

"And that's why I'm calling you!" Tessa said. "My mate is holding off Reive right now. You have to call Reive off."

"And why should I do that, child?" Heikon sounded, in that moment, old and inutterably weary.

"Because Reive is going to kill him!"

"From what you're telling me, the only reason why Darius's son is in danger is because he put himself there."

"For me!" Tessa cried. She took off the necklace and held it up, dangling the crystal in front of the computer's camera. "Look, if you want this, take it! I don't need it! None of it is worth any of this. Just take your stupid Heart of the Hoard or whatever it's called and go away—"

She stopped because Heikon was laughing, a soft laugh with a bitter edge.

"The Heart of the Hoard, you said?"

"Yes!" She shook the chain, making the crystal dance and catch the light. "This!"

"Ah, I regret to tell you, your parents did a poor job of explaining the situation to you. Put that bauble back on."

"I don't want it! I'll drop it in the mail right now if you'll tell me where to send it to. Or I'll give it to Reive to take back to you."

"You still don't understand," Heikon said, and his voice had become curiously gentle. "The Heart of the Corcoran Hoard is not a rock, child. The Heart of the Hoard is you."

 

***

 

At Darius's signal, Reive sprang into motion, leaping forward with the knife held low.

Ben wasn't there; he'd already sidestepped lightly, relying on his animal's speed and reflexes. He drove the knife in from behind, but Reive was already dodging out of reach.

Let me at him! Ben's panther snarled.

No. I need your speed, but this is a fight for humans. If we shift, he'll shift too, and we'll lose.

His panther snarled wordlessly. Such nuances were beyond its understanding. It only knew that its enemy, the man who threatened their mate, was right there. And it knew its claws and teeth were more than a match for his soft, human body.

He's a dragon, you feline fool. Ben had to devote precious concentration to holding his cat in check as he and Reive fought their way across the wide driveway and onto the lawn, ducking and dodging and, once, parrying in a clash of sparks and a shriek of metal on metal. You can't win against a dragon. We can't win. The only chance we've got is if he, and we, stay human-shaped.

He could tell by the look of intense concentration on Reive's face that his opponent was fighting a similar battle with his animal. Ben could only hope Reive's dragon wasn't even harder to control than his cat.

They seemed to be evenly matched. Reive was slightly faster and seemed to have more familiarity with the knife as an offensive weapon; Ben guessed that he'd trained with it, perhaps formally, which was probably why he'd requested it as a weapon. Ben's own knifework was a rudimentary smattering of tricks he'd picked up over the years. But he had the advantage of fighting experience in general. Reive was well trained, but relatively inexperienced. Through years of traveling in rough parts of the world, and then in his work as a cop, Ben had gotten in fistfights, knife fights, gunfights, and just about every other kind of fight. And they both were similar in size and reach.

When two combatants were this closely matched, it was going to be a battle of mistakes. Whoever slipped up first would lose. And this thought had just crossed Ben's mind when a moment's inattention sent his foot skidding out from under him on the dew-slick grass. He managed to thrust wildly upward and turn Reive's knife aside where it would have plunged into his chest, but it opened a long cut along Ben's arm.

Reive clearly hadn't been expecting it to go like that, and staggered off balance, stumbling backward just long enough for Ben to regain his feet. For a moment, they stood some ten feet apart, eyeing each other. Blood trickled down Ben's arm and dripped on the grass, making his grip on the knife slippery. He considered switching it to the other hand, but he wasn't left-handed; he would be at a severe disadvantage.

"Know that I regret this," Reive said.

"I haven't lost yet, asshole," Ben growled, and launched himself forward.

Reive moved to intercept, but met nothing but empty air; the attack had been a feint. Instead Ben dodged toward Reive's unguarded side. Rather than stabbing, he plunged his elbow into Reive's ribs, knocking the wind out of him, and followed it up with a punch to the side of the head. Reive managed to twist away so he only caught the edge of Ben's fist, but now he was the one breathing hard and reeling as they parted again.

The cut on Ben's arm stung and itched as his healing factor worked on it. The bleeding had already stopped. But his body was still recovering from his injuries earlier that day. His shoulder felt sticky; he guessed the healing cuts had been torn open by the exertion.

His panther was half frantic. Let me at him!

And then we'll die, cat. We have to do this together: my human hands and mind, your speed and reflexes.

I'd prefer claws and teeth, the panther sulked.

This is too important for your feline pride, Ben told his cat. We must win for our mate. For Tessa.

For Tessa, the cat echoed, and he could feel a settling in his chest, the panther no longer fighting him but working with him instead. Its speed was his speed; its strength was his strength. Despite the blood slicking his grip, Ben bared his teeth in a fierce smile. If Reive was still having to work against his dragon, fighting to keep the animal under control, Ben had the advantage now.

This time Reive was the one to make the first move. Ben's fierce grin widened as he recognized a variant of the same move he'd used moments ago. Reive learned fast, but he was still comparatively inexperienced, too much so to realize that Ben would recognize the move and know how to counter it. So when Reive feinted, Ben was there to meet him, not attacking but swiping his foot under Reive's and sending the humanform dragon tumbling to the ground.

Ben and his panther lunged to follow up the advantage, crashing onto Reive's chest to keep him down. Ben struck Reive's knife hand with the butt of his own knife, and as the knife fell from Reive's numb fingers, Ben pinned Reive's other arm and reversed his own knife.

It all happened in seconds and then he had the knife at Reive's throat, the shocked dark eyes looking up into his own.

He'd won their duel. All he had to do was thrust downward and the fight would be finished.

And he ... couldn't.

As he'd told Reive, he had his own brand of honor. He was, at heart, a cop, not a vigilante; he believed in justice and the rule of law. It simply wasn't in him to kill a helpless opponent. Especially an honorable opponent who was simply following orders and didn't want to be there any more than Ben did.

But even as these thoughts went through his mind, Reive's eyes flashed green and Ben realized he'd waited too long. Threatened, backed into a corner, faced with death, Reive's self-preservation instinct had overcome his human mind.

He'd lost his grip on his dragon.

 

***

 

Tessa stared at Heikon's face on the computer monitor. Beside her, Melody was still and silent with shock. Slowly, she slipped the chain back over her head. The crystal settled against her skin, feeling warm to the touch.

"What do you mean, I'm the Heart of the Hoard?" she asked. "How is that possible?"

"It was more common in the old days," Heikon said. "Few do it anymore. But it used to be common for that honor to be given to a living being—an animal or even a human. Not an object, but a friend. And your family have passed it down from generation to generation for what you would consider a long time. It's even been a long time for me, since I first made the arrangement with your great-grandsomething ... I don't know how many generations back, five or six at least. I was but a young dragon then. Your mother's family have served mine since then, even occasionally intermarrying with peripheral branches of the clan line."

"Wait, are you saying I have dragon blood in me?" No wonder Reive bore a slight resemblance to the face she saw every day in the mirror. They actually were relatives, albeit distant ones.

"Not enough to shift. But there is a kinship, yes." Heikon's face darkened, and Tessa was briefly glad that he was hundreds of miles away, not in the same room with her. "How have your parents neglected your education, telling you nothing of this? But what am I saying, what else should I expect of a pair of faithless traitors."

"Don't you dare talk about my parents that way," Tessa said coldly. "They haven't told me anything because they didn't get a chance. They're dead."

Heikon frowned. "Dead? So Reive has already accomplished his task. He didn't report it back to me. I'll have a word—"

"No, no." Tessa shook her head. "My parents died twenty years ago, when I was a small child. It's me that Reive is trying to kill."

"Then where did you get that stone you wear? From them?"

"I got it in a box of my parents' things, about two weeks ago."

"And that was when I became aware of the Heart again. Of course," Heikon murmured. "Tell me, child. What was the date of their death?"

Tessa steeled herself and told him.

"And where did they die? How?"

"Their car went off the road in the mountains in Colorado." She told him the location.

Heikon gazed at her, his face calm and thoughtful. He was like Darius in that way: she couldn't tell what he was thinking. Melody was like that a little bit, too. Maybe all dragons were.

"Which way were they driving?" he asked, finally.

"What do you mean?"

"Were they driving higher into the mountains, or driving back down?"

Tessa opened her mouth to say that she didn't know, but suddenly she did know. "They had just left me with a neighbor. It was night and I was sleepy. They told me they'd be back soon and put me down for a nap, and—" Her breath caught on a sob. She didn't have to finish. And they never came back.

"So they were driving to my lair," Heikon murmured. "They died on the road to my lair, not fleeing for the valley and leaving the mountains behind."

"Yes," Tessa said, wiping at her eyes. "The road where they died didn't go much of anywhere. Just deeper into the mountains." To a place like the one where Darius lived, she thought. Dragons must like high, lonely places.

"And first they put the Heartstone ... where? You received it recently, so it wasn't with them when they died. Or was it?"

"No," Tessa said. "It was in a safe deposit box along with some of their other things. I never even knew about it until their lawyer sent it to me. They'd left instructions that I wasn't to have it until I turned 21 ..."

She trailed off because the implications had never really struck her before. It was Melody who gave voice to the thought.

"They knew," Melody said softly. "Or, I suppose they couldn't have known for certain, but they must have suspected they might die."

"But you didn't know," Tessa said to Heikon. "They were coming to warn you."

"I had no idea. I believed that they fled with the Heartstone, and found some way to sever it from me, weakening me. Instead, all they did was put it away. I wouldn't have been able to sense it if it wasn't with its keepers. And I did, most assuredly, feel its loss. It was how my brother was able to defeat me, driving me wounded into exile and taking my place." Heikon's hands curled into fists on his desk.

"I don't understand," Tessa said. "If I'm the Heart—if my parents were—why does the stone matter at all?"

"Because it's their connection to me, child. Your connection to me. Had my brother been able to possess the stone, and your mother along with it, he could have destroyed both of them. He might as well have murdered me. Instead—"

He stopped.

"Instead he killed my mother," Tessa whispered. New tears welled in her eyes. "And my father along with her. He thought she had the stone with her. He killed her, killed them, because he was trying to kill you."

Heikon smiled grimly. "And very shocked he must have been, when he and his fellow conspirators burst into my lair and found me not crawling on the floor in agony, but ready for a fight, weakened slightly but still fierce. No wonder they were unable to kill me. As long as the Heartstone existed somewhere, I would still be as difficult to kill as dragon lords always are."

"But you ordered Reive to kill me; wouldn't that be the same as—"

"Not as long as the Heartstone is undamaged," Heikon said sharply. "I ordered Reive to execute your mother and bring me the stone, so I could find another, less faithless keeper to pass it along to."

"My mother was faithful!" Tessa flared. "And Reive is out there, right now, trying to kill my boyfriend, because you thought she wasn't!"

"Yes," Heikon murmured. "We really should do something about that."

"Yes, thank you! Can you talk to Reive, tell him—"

"You will," Heikon said. "Touch the Heartstone, child."

Tessa closed her hand over the stone resting above her heart. It seemed to her that it was so warm she could feel its heat through the decorative lace of her glove.

"Now that we are able to finally speak in person," Heikon said, "the connection may be forged in full, so that I can use you as my mouth and eyes."

Tessa's eyes went very wide. "I don't think I want—"

"Be silent. After this, you need not continue to be the Heart of the Hoard if you do not so choose. We can find someone else to take the stone. But for now, your mate needs you to be not a human girl-child, but the living Heart of the Hoard. Are you willing?"

Put like that, it was no choice at all. "Yes," Tessa said firmly. "If it'll help Ben—and please, he can't hold out forever. Please hurry."

"Close your eyes and focus on the stone," Heikon said, "and I will tell you what to do."

 

***

 

Reive's dragon erupted from his human body, flinging Ben to the ground. The knife flew from his blood-slick hand and tumbled into the grass. It didn't matter; if bullets had little effect on a full-grown dragon, it wasn't as if a knife was going to do anything.

Reive lunged as he shifted, enormous jaws agape, jagged teeth flashing. Ben managed to turn his fall into a roll, tumbling out of the way a split second before he was crushed in those massive jaws. Reive snapped at dirt and grass instead.

Now? Ben's cat snarled, clawing to escape.

Now, he sighed, and let it come. Neither the human nor the panther had much of a chance, but he could last longer and run faster as a panther.

The borrowed tuxedo ripped off him, and Ben's panther landed four-footed on the grass, only to be met with a swipe from Reive's forepaw. Ben was knocked across the lawn, tumbling bruisingly into some ornamental bushes.

The dragon pursued him, pouncing like a cat. Reive's fighting style was very different now than it had been at the cabin, when he had been clearly in control, thinking and planning each move. This was pure hunting instinct. There was no human mind in charge here, just the hunting urges of a predatory animal.

Ben couldn't think how to snap him out of it. The only advantage he had now was his smaller size, enabling him to go places the dragon couldn't, and he took full advantage of it. Like a black streak he shot from the shrubbery toward the dark woods. Among the trees he might be able to get the drop on the dragon, or at least force Reive to hunt him until the human, rational mind regained control over the animal hindbrain.

There was a tremendous downdraft as Reive beat his wings and took to the air. Ben realized an instant later that the dragon wasn't flying, merely using his wings for a tremendous, assisted leap. Reive crashed to the ground between Ben and the woods, tearing great chunks out of the lawn. He lowered his head and hissed as Ben skidding to a stop.

Tail lashing, Ben crouched and then feinted right before jinking left. It was the exact same thing he'd done earlier (and that Reive had then tried on him) but he guessed correctly that Reive was too animalistic at the moment to recognize it. Reive snapped at empty air, and Ben shot past him, headed for the woods.

He almost made it. Almost. But the dragon was too huge and too fast. An enormous wing blocked Ben's path, and as he tried to veer around it, Reive caught Ben's panther in his great jaws.

It was almost over then and there, but Ben twisted wildly; he felt his fur and skin rake on the dragon's teeth and then he fell to the ground, bleeding—just in time for a slap of the dragon's forepaw to flatten him. He was pinned, as surely as ever a cat had pinned a mouse, and as Reive's jaws opened, the only thing Ben could think of was Tessa, her hands and her eyes and her brave, fighting spirit—

"Stop!"

The clear voice rang out through the night, and Ben, through blurred vision, saw a figure throw itself between him and the dragon's bloody jaws. For a dazed instant he thought he'd conjured up a hallucination of Tessa, but no, she was really there, standing defiantly over him. So small, so human—so fragile—

No! The cry rang out through his soul from the human inside him. He struggled to get up, fighting against the prison of Reive's claws. She was going to be killed.

Tiny and fragile and brave, she stood right between the dragon's front legs as Reive reared over her, jaws opening—

"Stop," Tessa said again, and this time it was not just her voice that spoke. There was something else under it, something deep and fierce and old.

Reive stopped.

For a long moment they remained like that, the dragon looking down at the woman, Ben sprawled on the ground with a great forepaw pinning him down. Then Reive rumbled, as sense began to come back into his eyes: "Heikon?"

"Stand down, boy," Tessa declared in that voice which had elements of her voice, but wasn't.

"This woman comes between me and my prey," Reive growled. "This woman is my prey."

"Not anymore," Tessa-Heikon commanded. "Stand down, Reive. Shift back and put your dragon away. Darius, are you there?"

"I am here," said the voice of Ben's father, not his human voice but the deep rumble of his dragon.

Ben turned his head, startled. He hadn't realized his father had shifted.

Darius's dragon was gunmetal gray, a darker version of Melody's silver, and so huge that even Reive's dragon looked comparatively small next to him. He was a clan leader at the height of his power, and the ground trembled slightly underfoot with each step he took as he came to stand beside Tessa. The tiny human woman barely came up to his shoulder.

Ben wondered dazedly how long his father had been watching the fight in dragon form, prepared to intervene if necessary. And how long would he have watched before stepping in?

Darius reached out one of his massive clawed forepaws to close over Reive's scaled wrist, above the claws holding Ben to the ground. The other dragon bowed his head and submitted, and Ben could suddenly breathe more easily as Reive's foot was lifted away in his father's firm grip.

"The hunt is over, child," Heikon said in Tessa's voice. "Honor is satisfied. You have done well. The conspirators are all gone now, and this woman is the loyal Heart of the—Oh come on, Heikon, you can talk to Reive on the computer right in the house there; do you really have to blather on about honor when no one is even helping my boyfriend who's bleeding to death?"

It was fascinating, Ben thought dizzily. He could hear the instant when her voice switched, the deep timbre of Heikon's rumble vanishing to leave only Tessa's familiar tones behind. And then she was kneeling beside him, gathering him into her lap, blood and dirt and all.

"Darius!" Tessa shouted. Ben's head was tipped back so all he could see was the night sky, no longer blocked by Reive's massive head. Had the dragon shifted back or simply moved? Ben couldn't tell, and it no longer seemed important anyway, because the threat was gone and his mate was holding him, and that was all that really mattered.

"Oh, Ben!" Melody's voice cried from not too far away, and Ben's last dazed thought was, I guess the gang's all here ...

And then, darkness.