NEVES STOOD ON THE DRUID SIDE of the Chasm, her hand painting the air, back and forth restlessly.
“Why do we always need dramatic names for such things?” Roran sighed. “Why couldn’t we just call it a passage or bridge? We have to call it the Chasm like some dramatist’s play heavy on foreboding.”
Rilen turned his head slowly toward his brother. “Roran?”
“Yes, brother?”
“Shut up.” Rilen turned back to the scene before us.
I leaned on the crutch and shook my head. “What is she doing?”
“Maintaining the shield,” Dorian answered. “We’ve all been taking turns keeping the vampires on their side. There have been skirmishes all up and down the Scar since the mountains fell.”
“This was not the way I envisioned this happening.” I sighed.
I certainly hadn’t envisioned being shot by the vampires within seconds of finishing a part of my destiny. Nor was standing here, holding a shield in place while the vampires occasionally took a random shot at it. And there was no way I wanted to be limping around on my leg.
Doctor Symi had taken nearly two hours to remove the bullet, clean the wound, and stitch my thigh. I had only been allowed out of bed the day before with a crutch, and mostly because I was complaining about being in bed for five days after losing eighteen before that.
“Why is this happening?” Jallina asked.
Dorian almost said something. For the fifth day in a row, when someone had asked the question, Dorian almost opened his mouth. I was pretty sure that no one else noticed it, but I did.
It was strange how in tune I was with Dorian now. Rilen and Roran had been my friends before my bedmates, so being in tune with them didn’t surprise me.
Dorian did.
I didn’t know if he felt comfortable with me yet. He had avoided the bed for so long, and then to crash into it like we did was… well, it was.
And it was also good. Really good.
I felt a heat climbing my cheeks remembering the sexcapade in the training room.
I wanted to do that again. This time, with Rilen and Roran there.
Sweet Savior, I was turning into a sex fiend.
I liked it.
More sex, more power, more ability to use my magic, to keep people safe, to help the city of S’Kir survive…this.
Whatever this was.
I straightened on the crutch. “I should take my rightful turn at the shield.”
“Oh, no,” Roran said. “No, no, no.”
“Not you,” Rilen agreed.
“But—”
“You’re injured and exhausted,” Rilen said.
“You’re exhausted too,” I snapped.
“That’s why we’re not on rotation yet,” Roran stated. “We have another week’s reprieve.”
Dorian nodded. “I called in a few of our more powerful magic wielders that we’ve identified. They are working in pairs, and the masters are working alone. We’re fine without you.”
“But—”
“Kimber, you just literally brought down a mountain,” Jallina snapped. “Let them handle it.”
The twins chuckled while Dorian had a pleased smirk on his face. I narrowed my eyes and turned back to the magical shield.
“We can’t keep this shield up forever,” Mistress Ophelia mumbled from the right. “We’re going to have to fight.”
“We are.” Vitas nodded.
I swallowed hard. “What do we know of fighting? Especially against their guns?”
“Better still,” Mistress Ophelia corrected me, “what do we know of them that is not just legend and hearsay?”
The group moved away from Neves to allow her to concentrate. There was a small tent not far from her where the masters would rest before and after their time at the shield.
Well, two tents, really. And some magical sound dispersal. No one need eavesdrop on a temple master having sex.
There was a table with cheese, fruit, and bread on it, as well as pitchers of wine, water, and fruit juice. Several other temple masters sat there looking haggard and exhausted.
Our group joined them, with Rilen and Roran flanking me at the table, helping me with the crutch and the chair as I sat.
Master Bebbenel snorted. “I see you found your bedmates, Mistress Breaker.”
I stared at him. I hated him more than I had ever hated Master Dorian. At least with Dorian, I could see him doing what was right—no matter how much I had hated him.
Master Bebbenel just continued his jackassery.
I decided I owed him no respect, only an answer. “Indeed I have, Master Bebbenel.”
He leaned forward, his head on his chin. “And what has Master Dorian to say about you borrowing his mates?”
I stared him dead in the eye. “Usually? Something like, ‘Oh, Gods, yes, Kimber. Ride that cock! Ride it!’”
Dead silence.
Lunella burst out laughing, and Jallina followed her into sidesplitting guffawing. The twins were red instantly, but their eyes were full of mirth and pride. Everyone else at the table alternated between humor and horror.
Dorian cleared his throat, but there was no mistaking the smirk on his lip. “Now that we have established that Mistress Breaker is indeed having her sexual needs fulfilled nicely, perhaps we can turn to the pressing matter of the vampires with hand cannons and hate in their arsenal.”
Drez, across from me, fought for his composure and leaned forward. “Guns. Several of our researchers have been trying to recreate what they are using, and have come fairly far, but not near to what Doctor Symi dug out of Mistress Kimber’s thigh. What he pulled from there was a blunted teardrop shape, nothing like our hand cannons have. We’ve given them permission to study the tiny ball and see what they could do with it. It will lead to a breakthrough, but I highly doubt, given the lines of vampires and guns we’re holding at bay, that it will be in time to be of any use to us.”
“I agree,” Vitas said. He was the next on the shield. “Whatever we have now is all we have.”
“What do we have?” Mistress Sona’s voice was low and tired from her time on the shield. Her fingers entwined with Mistress Maurielle’s as Maurielle dusted her other hand up and down the woman’s arm, clearly a comforting touch.
Oh.
“Cannons, swords, and magic,” Vitas answered, pulling me out of the realization. “That’s about it.”
“What do we guess they have?” Mistress Sona asked.
“Guns, cannons, vampire magic,” Jallina answered.
Quirking an eyebrow, I looked around. “What’s the difference between their magic and ours?”
“We have the ability to…” Maurielle’s words started confidently but immediately dropped off. “…um, we can fight with it. Shield with it. We can call objects we’ve bound to ourselves. I, um…”
Everyone glanced around the room, sharing looks of confusion. There was no information on what the vampires could do. I wasn’t even sure they knew what we could do.
Dorian sat back in his chair and rolled his eyes. “We can do everything the vampires can do. Our magicks are equal.”
Bebbenel looked at him, the arrogance rolling out across the table. “The legends say they can move with incredible speed, Master Dorian. Their hearing is beyond compare. They can see in the dark and their marksmanship is perfect, so they don’t have to train at all.”
The entirety of the druid’s answer was contained in the quirk of his dark eyebrow.
The stories I had taught to the children had been full of the tales of the vampires. The way they could move, and the way they enjoyed their blood. Strong, fast, nearly death-proof, silent, and—though the books didn’t say it to young children—ruthless.
A picture of Elex’s dead body on the bed flashed through my mind.
We had ruthless covered.
Argo snorted. “You really think—Ow!” He slapped a hand on his ear and stared at Dorian. “What did you do?”
The sound of someone being slapped in the ear rang out again, and Argo tipped the other direction, covering that ear.
I didn’t even see Dorian move. No one did.
“What the hell, Master Dorian?!” Argo was really pissed he had become the test dummy.
“You can move as fast as any vampire. You’ve all just never tried.” He picked at a fingernail. “We’ve become lax and lazy in our lovely little pseudo-utopia, and that apparently needs to be resolved.”
“Are you going to take on the task of teaching all of us how to move with such speed?” Bebbenel asked.
Rilen was gone from my side and suddenly stood behind Bebbenel, mouth at ear level. “He’s not the only teacher. Do you think he would not teach his mates?”
And he was back and smiling at me.
Holy crap.
I leaned forward and stared down the tabletop at Dorian. “We can all do that?”
He gave a shrug. “If you care to learn.”
Drez nodded. “I sure as hell would. But that doesn’t change our current situation much right now. Even if we are as fast and resilient as they are, they have guns. Dangerous ones. We can’t teach all druids to dodge and duck like Master Dorian. And with those guns, every last person who isn’t highly trained or highly skilled is in serious danger.”
“But what can we do?” Sona asked. “We can’t hold the shield much longer. We’re all exhausted, and there are some of us who can’t rotate in to help.”
Her words were gentle, but I felt them pierce me. I couldn’t rotate in. And my leg wasn’t what was holding me back. Rilen grabbed my hand under the table and squeezed gently.
The civil patrol leader, Captain Staviz Panther, took a step toward the table. “Your honors, if I may?”
Mistress Maurielle nodded at him.
“Why don’t we just steal the guns?”
The temple masters around the table looked at each other, and I didn’t stop my little chuckle.
“That makes so much sense.” I rested my head on my fist.
“Steal?” Sona was appalled.
“Yes, steal,” the captain repeated. “With all due respect, they shot the Breaker by way of greeting after millennia of separation. I held out hope they would be as thrilled and delighted as we were to be reunited, but it’s clear”—he gestured to me—“they were not as pleased as we were.”
“We…don’t steal…” Master Argo sputtered. “That’s amoral. That’s not—”
“Oh, please.” Dorian snorted, leaning forward. “Amoral? You have no qualms about bending morality at your whim like anyone else at this table. We all have skeletons in our closets.”
“And some in our beds,” Master Bebbenel snapped at him.
I schooled my features, just barely. I knew all three had taken extra precautions when Elex had been killed. Dorian hadn’t come to bed that night—but could Bebbenel know that Dorian…?
Dorian stared at him. Rilen squeezed my hand again. My lips were sealed.
After taking a deliberate sip from the water goblet, Dorian stared him down. “And some in our beds and in our gardens. Do you really want to play this game, Argo?” He sipped the water again. “Because you know I’ll win.”
Argo grunted and sat back.
“Your honors?” Captain Staviz interjected.
Maurielle nodded. “Yes, Captain. We’ll take your suggestion. But what do any of us know of war? Or raids? Or even of these guns?”
“We have to learn as we go,” Drez said.
Dorian pointed to Drez. “Your cover is blown, Mister Orvson. I want you to work with the captain.”
The captain nodded. “I need someone to handle intelligence gathering, and I don’t know that you’ve been exposed so much that I can’t use you in more clandestine ways. And your mate, if she doesn’t mind.”
Jallina nodded. I could see the pride in her eyes, and I gave her a smile.
“Who is next on the shield?” Dorian asked.
“I am,” Argo said.
“Then let’s let Captain Staniz head out and plan for this raid,” Sona said. “And we can see just how much Master Dorian can teach us about the vampire side of our powers.”
* * *
“I’m going.”
Dorian whirled and grabbed my arms. “You are not going.”
I stared up at him. “I am going.”
“You’re not going!” Dorian’s eyes glowed gold.
“Don’t pull your magic out on me, Dorian.”
“Kimber, please, be reasonable,” he said, calming down. “You’re the Breaker. You have to stay safe.”
“I’ve done my job.” I vaguely pointed toward a window, toward the scar in the middle of S’Kir. “Now what? I sit around being pampered? The three of you fucking me so you have power?”
“Kimber,” Rilen said.
I whirled on him. “You forget the power flows both ways?”
“No, no, that’s not it,” he said. “You are the Breaker. We don’t know what your destiny is.”
“So I sit around eating bonbons, hoping we can figure out what I’m supposed to do next before my ass melds with the couch?”
“You’re not going,” Dorian said again.
“I’m sure I am. You already won’t let me take the shield.”
“We haven’t needed you,” Roran said.
I could feel my anger raising my magic in my eyes. I was sure they were glowing gold as Dorian’s had. “You have needed me. It’s only been a week off my crutches, and I’ve seen how drained, how close to dead you all are when you come off the shield. And if you won’t let me take the shield, then I’m going on the raid.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Rilen traded a look with his twin.
“One or the other. Give me the shield, or I go on the raid.” I folded my arms and stared at the three of them.
Dorian stared back at me. “Neither.”
“Then why did you name me to the dais?” I picked up the bowl on the table and hurled it at the wall, smashing it. “What am I doing here? What is the point of having me wear the robes? If you wanted me in your bed, you could have just brought me here.”
They were silent again, all exchanging looks that were loaded with meaning, and meaning that they weren’t sharing with me.
I threw my hands in the air. “If you need me, or decide to talk to me and let me know what the hell is going on, I’ll be in the practice room!”
Banging the doors open and slamming them behind me, I marched through the halls down to the practice room where Lunella and Mistress Ophelia were sparring.
Both women looked up at me and smiled.
“Mistress Kimber, a delight,” Lunella smiled, but half a moment later, her grin slid away. “What’s wrong?”
“I want to spar,” I answered.
Lunella walked to the wall of swords. “Ophelia, I do believe there’s trouble in paradise.”
“One of the best ways to work out anger is either to hit your bedmate upside the head with a cast iron skillet,” Mistress Ophelia said, “or walk away and take it out on something else.”
I nodded and accepted the sword from Lunella. “Cast iron sounds tempting, Mistress Ophelia.”
“Drop the mistress,” she said, hefting her sword, “and I’ll lend you the pan for Dorian.”
I laughed. I was still steaming mad, but at least they had talked me off the ledge. With the two of them, I was able to burn off a lot of my angry energy.
There would still be a fight to deal with tonight, though. Apparently, my mates thought I was stupid—or still too naïve to talk about their issue with me.