Himalayas north of Nepal
Cathbad felt chilly air brush his skin as his teleportation ended on a cliff overlooking snowcapped mountains of the Himalayas.
Even in the middle of night with not a human light to be seen, snow glowed beneath a full moon shining across the spectacular landscape.
No sign of human life as far as the eye could see.
Some parts of the human world still held pleasure for him. He had always enjoyed his time in this remote area. With his body now properly outfitted with snow boots, thick clothing and a heavy fur cape, he turned from the vista.
Taking in the face of this peak that rose into the clouds, he moved his hand and kinetically forced a huge boulder to grind aside. The massive stone kept any unlikely human who showed up from discovering his secret cavern.
The ward he’d left in place discouraged his guest from leaving.
With the stone displaced far enough to allow him passage, he entered carefully and listened for any sign of life.
Nothing moved.
Strolling down the tunnel as it curved from side to side in its descent, he finally reached the last major arc before his path straightened, ending in a sparkling room fit for a queen, right down to royal seating. It was as though a mythical artist had gathered piles of brilliant sapphires, mixed them with ice to form one piece, then sculpted that into a throne. Elaborately decorated trunks overflowing with gold coins, goblets, furniture, jewelry, more than most people could imagine, stood in a glowing pile. He had to tilt his head back to view it.
A king’s treasure.
Or to be more accurate, he should say a queen’s.
He noted that everything appeared unharmed, which encouraged him. He’d expected the place to be demolished from a fit of rage.
Perhaps that would bode well for his visit.
Still, nothing made a sound.
He walked slowly toward the center of an area that stretched a hundred feet across and deep. The seventy-foot-wide, half-frozen pond in the very middle lay quiet, with a glass-smooth surface.
Beneath the surface, the water dropped three hundred feet.
The air stilled with a frozen tenseness.
As he lifted his head to peer at the soaring ceiling, fire lashed down from above.
Cathbad teleported away in a blink, before the blaze struck the empty spot he’d vacated. He reappeared on top of the thirty-foot-tall pile of precious metals and spectacular jewels.
Glowing red sparks sizzled where he had been standing.
Adjusting his position until he was comfortable, he sat with his elbows propped on his knees and looked up.
Diaphanous-blue and pearl-white scales covered the silvery skin of a dragon, now clearly evident where she had sucked up against the ceiling.
Cathbad asked, “You miss me, my sweet?”
With a massive flap of her wings, she lunged away from the top of the cavern and swooped down across the pond, dipping a wing to make a tight circle, and landing on the opposite side of the frozen water from him.
Rising fifteen feet tall, with wings open as if ready to attack, the dragon posed as a gigantic, elegant beast. One Cathbad had kept here for the past two thousand years.
She did have reason to take issue with him for locking her underneath the water all these centuries, but she was also alive today because of him.
Everything came with a price.
She would soon learn his.
Rumbling sounded deep inside the dragon before a puff of blue-gray smoke swirled from her nostrils. Diamond pupils in her serpent eyes speared him with anger yet to be released.
“Have you not tried to shift your shape yet?” Cathbad asked. He’d been hoping she’d figured out how to do that during his absence. He knew from reincarnating into a world unlike the one he’d left two millennia back that she would be disoriented.
Thankfully, her line of dragons had not possessed teleportation ability like Daegan of Treoir. Cathbad had found that flaw disconcerting when he first decided to keep a dragon for himself, but now he was glad for the power he held over her.
She needed to realize he was not her enemy.
Still no response beyond her steely death glare.
He said, “I have something interestin’ to tell you, but I wish to talk with you in human form.”
Hatred burned so vividly in her gaze, her eyes should be shooting flames.
He kept up the calm discourse. “Surely you must be ready to leave this cave.”
Finally, the hatred dropped a notch to mere disgust.
He chuckled. “I have waited as long as you have for this day. The difference is that I can teleport away and wait another thousand years.”
That struck home.
Her shoulders lowered and she tucked her wings around her body, but still she remained in dragon form.
He had one last idea that might force her to call up her power to shift.
“When last we met, Brynhild, you regained consciousness for only seconds, but long enough for you to accept my offer of livin’. You did so because you had one goal you wished to fulfill before you died.” That was as good a version of the actual events as she needed at the moment.
He continued, “I recently met with the dragon known as Daegan. Ya do recall the only son and dragon heir of King Gruffyn who ruled the Treoir power, don’t ya?”
Her eyes filled with interest.
About time. Cathbad explained, “Daegan lives in today’s world and rules as a mighty king over Treoir Island with an army of Beladors at his disposal, who jump to fulfill his every wish. Women fall to their knees in front of him. He ... ”
The dragon lifted her head and roared in fury. Fire spiked straight up and spread over the ceiling. Stalactites melted and dropped straight down, followed by water from melted ice.
Cathbad pointed his finger up to form an invisible shield over his body.
His patience was rewarded as the fit of anger passed and energy swirled around the glistening wings. She began to shrink. Muscles twisted shorter and bones popped with the first change she’d managed in thousands of years.
He flinched at the crack of one particularly noisy bone as it reshaped.
That had to be painful after so many years.
When it was all said and done, an exotic female beauty stood with silvery-white hair flowing long past her shoulders. Her hair acted much like a glass prism, changing to electric colors as the strands reflected light.
A god of lust had crafted that shapely body.
Cathbad suffered a rare moment of empathy when he realized she had yet to clothe herself. He flicked his fingers at her, though she could do it herself once she remembered. She hadn’t been known as the strongest of the ice dragons, but others in her bloodline had possessed the kind of majikal ability required to call up clothing.
A gown of spun gold covered her, hugging the tall shape and sliding erotically over her truly spectacular curves.
Not that he had any qualms about observing a beautiful naked female, but he had more in store for this one than a sexy interlude.
The sooner he managed to calm her, the sooner they could get started. He’d once thought having a dragon when he reincarnated would be of great value. Then he’d awoken to find himself in a modern world where dragons were myths.
He might not have brought Brynhild out of her deep sleep if Maeve had not shown signs of mental deterioration, which was dangerous with someone who possessed her level of power.
The last time Maeve had a meltdown in a Tribunal, he accepted that something would have to change soon.
Having a dragon shifter at his side would make that change smoother for him.
“Feeling better?” he asked Brynhild.
After a sweeping look down her body, she lifted her gaze to him but did not answer. Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she whipped them away with a broad stroke. Her hair immediately shifted into a mass of finger-thick braids that swirled in and out as they covered her head in an attractive pattern.
One long ponytail fell free and swooped over her shoulder, ending just short of her waist. The gown vanished, replaced by black armor with her family’s dragon emblem engraved in silver, finished off by silvery-blue and black metallic boots with matching arm gauntlets, no doubt of an impenetrable material.
Same as the rest of her armor.
Black kohl outlined her eyes and thick lashes hovered low, issuing a visual threat. Her lovely mouth remained pursed in a defiant shape.
Strings of silver chains with intermittent jewels of black onyx wrapped her throat in a choker.
Holding her left arm away from her body, she barked out an order in her native tongue.
A shield burst from the piles beneath Cathbad, dumping him sideways. The shield flew over to her, then paused in midair, allowing her to slide her hand and arm through the back side.
Righting himself, he waited for the inevitable.
Holding her right hand out, she spoke again, but as one would to a lover. “Come to me, Lann Saoirse.”
No sword arose from the pile.
She stared at her empty hand and snarled at Cathbad in a thick Nordic accent, “Where is Lann Saoirse?”
That was going to be a sticking point for them.
“I don’t have your sword, Brynhild. I managed to move as much of your hoard as I could find once you were safe, and I protected all of this. I’ve taken nothing of yours. I don’t need any of your treasures or your sword.”
“Safe?” she shouted, moving around the pond that quivered from the force of her anger. “You captured me and locked me in that watery grave!”
Cathbad stood and his power curled around him like a protective armor.
After Brynhild emerged from the pond, he’d allowed her a month to come to her senses and put the past behind them. As he picked his way down the jangling pile of treasure, he reminded her, “I did save you. Your father lost his castle and his army in the great Dragani War. Your sisters were trapped and beheaded, or have you forgotten that?”
She stopped, shock riding her gaze. “No, this could not happen.”
“It could and did. Your father was a good king, which was not in his favor when fightin’ ruthless enemies.” Good equaled weak in Cathbad’s world. “Thankfully, your mother was already long dead before the war started.”
Lowering her shield until it hung against her side, she shook her head and stared down, muttering to herself. “We were a mighty force. Five dragon children. The most powerful of all!”
“I’m sure ya recall life as such, but allow me to refresh your memory. Yes, you and your siblings were born of dragon blood, but there were other powerful dragon families.”
Lifting her head, she asked in a thick voice, “What happened to my brothers?”
Could the woman not stay on topic any longer than that?
Cathbad explained, “I don’t know for sure, but based on how your sisters died I am inclined to think both men went that way as well, since all was lost when I arrived. That brings me back to savin’ you.”
“What happened? Why do I not know these things?”
Probably because I used so much power to put you under deep enough to sleep for centuries that I almost didn’t recover. He had to be careful how he explained this, especially since most of it he’d have to fabricate as he spoke. “I came to aid your father, but I was too late.”
Her words raced out in a long snarl. “Why would a king with five dragon children require anything from a druid?”
“We’re going to spend another millennia just gettin’ this explained if you don’t let me finish,” he admonished a little more sternly this time.
She waved her hand in an arc. “Talk. Explain.”
Beautiful, powerful and deadly. If Cathbad didn’t have plans for her, she’d make an excellent diversion for many centuries.
He continued. “Your father sent word that your family had been betrayed. He offered me a daughter to wed if I helped him save his family and people.”
She paled at that, but Cathbad said, “I had no use for a wife. I came, thinking I’d have a powerful ally if we were successful. That’s it, plain and simple.” Sticking as close to the truth as he could gave his words a ring of sincerity.
Not that it changed her stern demeanor.
Shaking his head a moment, he said, “By the time I arrived, your brothers were off with the army and word began tricklin’ in of their imminent defeat. Your father was already ... a bloody corpse, but he’d clearly fought to the end. As I mentioned, your sisters met a sad demise. When I realized I could be of no help, I was about to leave when a woman named Thea ran to me, begging me to save you.”
“Thea? My nursemaid?” Pain ruptured the last of Brynhild’s anger. She was finally listening.
Nodding, he said, “Yes, a sweet woman. I managed to get her away and find a place for her to live out her days.” Those days ended up being a week, but he technically spoke the truth since the woman did live longer. “You were in bad shape. You’d been cut from the throat to the chest in human form. I don’t think the warriors you fought realized you were the king’s daughter or you would have lost your head.”
She stared ahead, looking beyond him. “Why did I not shift into my dragon?”
Good question, and he had prepared for it. “You had been tasked with remaining human to protect the nursery. When the soldiers reached the level before the nursery, you ran out to draw their attention. Thea said you were racing for the battlements so that you could shift and kill the soldiers that followed you, but they had sent someone ahead who surprised you and slashed his sword across your body. You did manage to save the children,” he offered as a consolation.
She said nothing.
Continuing to weave truth with his own details, he said, “By the time I arrived, I could help no one but you. You had lost so much blood, I doubted I could save you, but I decided to try. It took a considerable amount of energy to cloak you while doing my best to keep you breathin’. I teleported in short bursts, which cost me a great deal of time, to deliver you here.”
“What is this place? It smells of another dragon.”
No softening yet in her face, but he would not have wanted a wallflower.
Shrugging, Cathbad looked around, then came back to her. “I knew of this mountain and the deep, frigid pond inside. You are correct. It was once the lair of another dragon that lived and died many centuries before you were born.”
Stepping closer every few minutes, he pressed his point. “I spared your life so that you may live again.”
“For what reason?” Her eyes were wild with confusion. “How many years have passed since my family died?”
“Two thousand.”
That was the last fracture.
Anguish seeped into her face, but this woman was not one to fold in public. She straightened her back. “My family is gone. I wish to join them.”
Not today.
Cathbad calmly asked, “Why would you do that when I told you I just came from talkin’ to Daegan of King Gruffyn?”
Her eyes flared with life again. “Daegan?”
“Yes. Isn’t that what caused you to shift?”
“I thought you only spewed words to make me change.”
He admitted, “I was doing that, but they were all true.”
She whispered, “Daegan? He lives?”
“Oh yes. Maeve captured him before the great Dragani war. She turned him into her throne.” He waited for a reaction.
Sounding confused, Brynhild asked, “Yes. I did hear of that. He is free now and has not killed her?”
“I’m sure he’d like to, but it’s not so simple to kill a Medb goddess hidden inside her own realm.”
Angling her head in question, Brynhild said, “You speak the truth? This is not some ruse to manipulate me?”
He admitted, “I do have plans for the two of us, but I tell you the truth. Daegan lives. Doesn’t it matter that the man you were betrothed to has survived all these years?”
Standing straight, she smiled, “Yes, very much.”
Cathbad returned her smile. “Have I not done well by you?”
The pupils in her eyes turned into diamond slits when her gaze narrowed sharply. “You imprisoned me!”
Clearly she was not feeling appreciative yet. “That was yesterday. We’re living today. Are you not excited about the chance to see Daegan again?”
Her eyes lit with a renewed excitement. “Very much. I wish to have my hands on Daegan, the beautiful dragon son of the most powerful house. The man ... ” She paused on a slow release of breath, then her voice strengthened. “The man who could have saved my entire family by mating me and uniting our families as powerful allies, but he refused me.” Her voice took on more power. “I was not good enough for him.” She glared at Cathbad as if she saw the dragon she hated. “We fought two dragon houses alone in the war. Take me to Daegan right now! He. Will. Die!”
The cave trembled with her declaration.
Cathbad rubbed his hands together. “Now we’re talkin’, but you’re not ready to attack Daegan yet.”
“Yes! Now!”
“Listen, my sweet. Daegan has had the benefit of bein’ privy to changes in this world while he was trapped as Maeve’s throne for almost the same time you were sleepin’.”
“Imprisoned,” she corrected.
“Can we not get past that?”
She answered with a mulish expression.
This was going to take some work, but he had known that keeping a dragon for all these years would not be simple.
Cathbad said, “My point is that Daegan has had time on his own to better adapt to the changes you have yet to see, and even more so, he has the aid of his Belador army.”
“Beladors? His father’s army still lives?”
“The descendants live and they are loyal to Daegan. A lot has happened. Even if you could kill him with one stroke, which you can’t yet—”
She growled like the beast she could shift into.
“—would you really be satisfied with merely killin’ him?” Cathbad finished. “That seems far too humane for what he deserves.”
Her face relaxed into a thoughtful expression. “You make good points.”
“I have a lot of good information and I know all the players in this world we now live in. I am your guide through fittin’ into your new life and in gainin’ retribution.”
“What do you want, druid? What is your goal in all of this?”
It had taken her long enough to accept that there were terms to be discussed.
He said, “First I want to train you to be able to move fluidly through the human world, then I’ll explain my plan. In the meantime, I promise I will help you pay Daegan back for all he cost you once you do your part to help me gain what I want.”
She gave it a long consideration before saying, “I will think on this agreement. It has merit, but I will not wait forever to destroy my family’s enemy.”
“The time frame depends upon you. I’ve waited for you to reach the point you’re prepared to train and learn what you need to know.”
“Open this cave.”
He paused at her order. “We are in a remote area, but to go outside you need to realize this is not a world that knows about dragons. Things have changed greatly.”
“You said this was once a dragon’s lair. Is there no room to fly?”
“There is.”
“I have no desire to be seen until I am ready to reveal myself. I will not engage an enemy ill prepared.”
That was the attitude he’d been hoping to see emerge.
Cathbad considered cloaking her with a short-range concealment. That would keep her on a tight leash. “I will open the cave, but I want an agreement first. I have told you the truth. You do need me to find Daegan and to succeed in killin’ him, but that will happen only as long as my goals are met as well. I want your oath on your family’s honor that you agree to stay with me and do as I ask.”
She bristled. “I will not stay as your mate.”
“No, my dear. You’re far too special for mere sex. Besides, even if I wished to mate with you, I do not possess the dragon blood required for a true mating.”
“It is good to fear my blood. If a man forced himself on me and was not of dragon blood, I could burn him inside me. I don’t know about a druid body, but it would not be wise to challenge me.”
Internally, he shuddered to think about getting involved with someone who showed the potential of being more dangerous than Maeve. “You have no issue with me and I believe that ability to injure a man was the very thing that saved your sisters from being raped.”
She flinched at the painful reminder of what the war had taken from her, then stared down as if studying the ground. When she lifted her head, she’d made a decision. “Yes, I swear on my family’s honor that we have an agreement. You have my word as the first born and last living child of Eógan, the ice dragon king.” Then she paused with a strained look. “Am I the last one?”
“As far as I know, but I was not in this world for almost as many years as you. I continue to learn things that surprise me.”
“Why were you gone so long?”
“I’ll explain how I only recently returned once you’ve completed your exercise.” Looking to keep something of value of hers, he asked, “Will you give me your shield to hold while you fly?”
Rolling her eyes, she handed him the shield. “Yes. Do not be a nagging old woman. We have come to agreement.”
Ignoring her, he accepted the shield and walked to the entrance, which was still open. He cleared the ward that had prevented any preternatural being from passing through except him, and moved the boulder further to the side.
Behind him, power pushed out from where she shifted again.
She stepped up to him in her dragon form and nudged him with a flick of her wing. When he didn’t step away, she opened her huge jaws and spoke in a deep version of her voice.
“Move, druid.”
“First, I need to cloak you, but keep in mind it’s only effective for maybe two miles, then you’ll have to come back.”
The serpent-like eyes that had stared at him in hatred before, now smirked. She lowered her head to eye level with him. “I need no cloaking, druid.”
“You don’t want to be discovered too soon by accident and let Daegan know you live,” he argued.
She stepped to the opening and stood there with her head up in the wind. In the next moment, she became translucent.
She called out, “We inherited my father’s dragon blood, but I also received the gift of my mother’s blood. She was part dragon, part Jinn. I am the only child with her special gift.”
As she’d spoken, her body had completely disappeared.
Flapping sounds followed, then launched away from the mountain. Her laughter rippled through the skies.
How had he never known of her mother’s bloodline and that those two women could turn invisible? Because he believed dragon kings would wed only those with pure dragon blood.
Evidently her father had chosen a woman who carried genie blood.
Cathbad cursed to himself. His currency had been information that he could wield faster than kinetics.
For all the money he’d spent researching her family long ago, no one had known any of those dragons possessed that gift.
The king had wisely hidden that secret.
He thought on it for a bit, then realized what bothered him about her cloaking. Why hadn’t she used invisibility to escape those who had cut her down?
He grinned. Unlike him, she had a flaw to her gift and he would discover what hampered her turning invisible.
An hour later, he lost all pleasure from this visit.
The dragon had not shown herself.
Brynhild had sworn on her family’s honor that she would return ... but not when. If she ran from him, she would face his fury.