Water jetted out of wrenched pipe, arcing at an angle that allowed it to hit the wall behind me, splashing everything—Jim and me included—within a ten-foot radius.
“Fires of Abaddon!” Jim exclaimed, looking with big eyes at the damage.
“Later. Just go do what I asked.” I put both hands on Jim’s furry derriere and shoved it through the opening. The rip made an obscene sucking noise, closing up as the last of Jim disappeared into its maw.
“Aisling?” The doorknob rattled. “Is everything all right?”
I made an abortive attempt to shove some wadded-up paper towels in the pipe, but it was hopeless. I’d simply have to make restitution with the fencing people for the damage my rip in space had caused. “Yeah, fine. I’m coming.”
The front of my curtain toga was soaked with water, but I figured that was the least of my worries. I unlocked and hurriedly slipped out the door, quickly closing it behind me.
Drake, Fiat, and Gabriel all looked at my sodden front.
“I had…er…a little accident washing up.”
“If you are through with these games,” Fiat said, his eyes as chilly as his flesh. He waved toward a double door at the end of the hall. “We can proceed.”
“Right. Sorry.”
I started after Gabriel but paused when Drake asked, “Where is Jim?”
“It’s…uh…cleaning up the water I spilled. It’ll be back as soon as possible.” Or as soon as I had another moment of privacy to yank it back through time and space. I hurried after Gabriel, praying he was telling me the truth about everything.
It didn’t explain why he didn’t try to rescue me in Paris, but at least I’d feel a whole lot better about Fiat if I knew that Gabriel wasn’t secretly siding with him.
22
“By rights, I could call the challenge as a default.” Dmitri’s voice rang out strong with self-confidence as we took our seats in the raised dais of what Gabriel told me was a training room.
That gave me a moment of thought. Why wasn’t Dmitri a bit more concerned about battling Drake? Was he really so good at swords that he thought he didn’t have anything to worry about? Or was something else going on?
Something nudged at the edge of my awareness, but I ignored it to focus my attention on Drake as he picked up his sword, testing its blade before walking to the far end of the room. “That would be foolish. You know the rules governing a challenge as well as I do. The challenge resumes once an interruption has been dealt with.”
“You assume running off to see your woman is a valid interruption. I feel differently, but do not fear!” Dmitri held up his hand, an unpleasant smile on his lips. “I don’t want to give you any grounds for crying foul. I am satisfied to have the challenge continue.”
Drake nodded and stood waiting, his stance relaxed, but his eyes were at their most dragonish. I knew that every muscle in his body was poised to attack.
“Sit here, cara.” Fiat’s voice made the back of my neck twitch with irritation. He pressed me into one of the few chairs on the dais. “You will be able to see well from this spot.”
The something nudged at my consciousness again. I frowned at Fiat, distracted enough by it to keep silent.
“En garde!” Dmitri lunged forward, his blade slashing through the air at Drake. My breath caught in my throat for a moment as Drake stood still, not moving to counter the attack, but when the blade was a hairsbreadth away, he swung around to the side, parrying the attack, sending Dmitri forward onto his knees.
“This challenge is to be fought, not to the death, but until the vanquished agrees to yield,” Drake said, addressing me as Dmitri snarled an oath, leaping to his feet. “Normally a challenge is to the death unless it is agreed otherwise.”
“I will kill you regardless,” Dmitri spat, doing a couple of those big leaping fencing moves forward, his blade dancing through the air.
Drake seemed to have no problem parrying him, however. His sword, identical to Dmitri’s, flashed silver in the blue-white lights. “My sept has lost too many members to the sword, however, and I am loath to lose another, even one who seeks to destroy me.”
“Bah. You are weak, Drake. I would never tolerate a challenger to live after he had tried to take over as wyvern.” Fiat’s cool finger trailed down my bare arm. I snatched it away, giving him a glare. “Then again, you have much to fight for.”
“I believe Drake’s thinking to be magnanimous and humane,” Gabriel said, secret laughter lurking in his silver eyes. “Only a man secure in his power would allow dissenters to remain within his protection.”
Oooh. Touché. Fiat’s face darkened, but he restrained himself from saying anything. He turned to watch the two men doing the peculiar fencing dance of back and forth, but I wasn’t fooled. He had to make an effort to sit back in the chair and appear only marginally interested.
I turned back to watch Drake, admiring both the power and the grace of his movements, his attacks controlled, his defenses swift and sure. I had a feeling that he was playing with Dmitri, who had started to sweat. Drake’s moves were still easy and clean, but Dmitri was starting to labor. His breathing was heavier, his movements slower, and twice more Drake knocked him to his knees.
“Do you yield?” Drake asked a few minutes later, after Dmitri had thrown himself forward into a particularly uncoordinated attack.
“Never,” was the snarled reply.
Back and forth they went again, moving up and down the floor, Drake continuing to be sure-footed and fast in his strikes, Dmitri starting to make mistakes. Twin streaks of blood snaked down his left arm, his right shoulder stained red from another cut.
It was clear that Drake was drawing blood deliberately—not enough to endanger Dmitri, but enough to disorient and distract him.
“Enough,” Fiat shouted, getting to his feet after a particularly clumsy block by Dmitri that ended with the younger dragon bleeding from the chest. “I grow weary of this. End it now, Dmitri.”
A roar of frustration filled the room as Dmitri, sweating, bleeding, and clearly at the end of his strength, made a last-ditch run toward Drake. Drake did no more than parry the awkward attack, but it was enough to send Dmitri slipping on the floor, sliding a few feet on his back. Drake held the sword tip to his throat again.
“Do you yield?”
Before I had time to even think, Fiat hauled me to my feet, a sharp pain accompanying the prick of something sharp against my neck.
“I believe that question is to be asked of you, Drake.”
I rolled my eyes over to look at Fiat, careful not to turn my head.
“Fiat, do not be ridiculous.” Gabriel’s voice floated over my head. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear the dismay in his voice. “Release Aisling. We will talk this over.”
“The time for talk is long past,” Fiat said loudly.
Drake still held a sword to Dmitri’s neck as he looked across at Fiat. His eyes were dark green, almost glowing with an inner light. “What the hell do you think you are doing?”
“I am ensuring the future of the weyr.” Fiat’s voice was silky, rife with satisfaction. “I am doing something that should have been done long ago—eliminating the obstacle to peace, true peace, as enforced by one who holds the power to keep the septs in line, not that mindless democratic drivel you’ve been feeding us for the last century.”
“Fiat”—Gabriel took a step in his direction—“please, do not do this. We will discuss your concerns for the future of the weyr—”
“Stay back! That’s all you and Drake know how to do—talk. Now is the time for action, not endless discussions about how we should live in peace. You’re both nothing more than politicians, your blood so diluted that you’re more human than dragon. Well, I do not suffer from such weakness! In this syringe I have fugu venom, the most poisonous of venoms in the world, drawn from the ovaries of the fugu puffer fish. One step in Aisling’s direction, and I will inject it directly into her bloodstream.”
“What the heck is f
ugu venom?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“A venom so toxic, there is no antidote to it. It causes paralysis which is lethal one hundred percent of the time when injected into the blood. Shall I describe to you the effects? The paralysis begins as a tingling of the skin, moving quickly to vomiting, dizziness, and weakness. The muscles in your lungs are locked rigid, making it impossible for you to breathe. Humans die of asphyxiation anywhere from five to twenty minutes later.”
“I’m not human anymore,” I pointed out, wishing like hell Jim was here to help me. I expected it to arrive with help at any moment. Surely Jim would have told Nora what was going on. She would probably call Rene, and the three of them would come bursting in at the exact moment I needed them.
Or so the scene went in my mind. Reality, unfortunately, had different ideas.
“No, you are not human. But what do you think will happen to your brain without oxygen?” Fiat leaned close, his breath brushing my face. “The fugu poisoning will strip your body of the ability to provide you with oxygen, leaving you in a coma after ten minutes without air. I believe an hour is all it will take to ensure that you spend the rest of eternity brain-dead, your being trapped in a living tomb from which there is no escape, unable to move, speak, even think.”
A chill gripped me, horror crawling up my arms. I was banking on my immortality to keep me from being seriously damaged, but I’d never considered being trapped in my own body.
“You are so incredibly insane—” The needle burned as it slid a little deeper into my neck. I shut up.
“Fiat, this is folly.”
“Stay back,” Fiat snapped at Gabriel.
“I merely want some answers, nothing more. What do you mean you do not suffer from the weakness of diluted blood? Your mother was human just as ours were.” Gabriel’s voice was soothing, his body language deliberately relaxed to present no threat. He took a step toward Fiat.
“Why do you assume so? Because there is an archaic and asinine rule stating that no wyvern can be born of two dragons?” Fiat laughed, the movement jostling the needle so it slipped in a little more. I held my breath, my attention on Drake.
His face was a mask of indifference, but his eyes, oh, his eyes said everything his expression didn’t. They burned with fury and deadly intention. Within him, dragon fire raged so greatly I could feel it across the room. His control of it was nothing short of miraculous.
Fiat laughed a cold, calculating laugh that made my stomach turn over. “Do not be so foolish, Gabriel. I am proof that the rule is just as outdated as your ideas of democratic peace. My uncle was born to be wyvern of the blue dragons, but he was too weak to stand up to me. I took his name, his fortune, his position within the sept, and when the time was right, I took the sept itself. And now I’m on the verge of ensuring that I will rule the weyr as was preordained. Dmitri, fulfill your destiny!”
Fiat really was insane. I knew that now, but being on the wrong end of a poisonous syringe meant I kept that thought to myself. As I watched, mute with horror and impotence, Dmitri shoved aside Drake’s sword, getting to his feet.
“Do you yield?” he asked Drake.
Drake was silent, his eyes burning on Fiat.
“You must choose,” Fiat told him, smiling. “Which do you value more? Your mate or your sept?”
“This is ridiculous,” I said, very careful not to move. “Even if you do turn me into a zombie, I won’t be dead, not technically. You won’t have destroyed Drake.”
“You think not?” Fiat looked back at Drake. “We will allow him to make the choice nonetheless. Do you yield the sept to Dmitri? Or will you sacrifice your mate?”
Dark power nudged at me, inviting me to use it again. I closed my eyes against the siren lure of it. There was something wrong with it, something that I instinctively knew was bad, something that would ultimately end in my destruction.
You are a prince of Abaddon now, the dark power sang to me. You do not have to suffer fools such as Fiat. Use the power you have gained to protect yourself. Use the power to right the wrongs. How can something be evil that is used for good?
I turned away from it, trying to pull Drake’s fire to give me strength. I was a professional, dammit! I was a Guardian, not a prince, no matter what fate insisted. I was inherently a good person, and I would not walk the path of evil!
“I’ve told you before, Fiat,” Drake said slowly, his voice deep and rough with emotion. “Both Aisling and the sept are mine. I do not give up what I hold.”
“No? Perhaps this will help change your mind.”
Before I could blink, before I could draw in a breath, Fiat shoved the needle into me. Burning warmth filled my neck as he pushed down the plunger, injecting the fugu poison into my blood.
“No!” Drake roared, a horrible noise that broke two of the nearest windows. He leaped forward, but Dmitri was evidently expecting Fiat’s attack on me, for he threw himself at Drake, knocking both of them down at my feet. The green dragons swarmed forward but stopped when Fiat’s men hauled Drake to his feet, their guns pointing directly at his heart.
Fiat released me. I staggered a step, then collapsed, my mind numb with terror.
Use me, the dark power suggested.
I was tempted. Oh, so tempted. I didn’t want to be a vegetable. I didn’t want to lose Drake and Jim and Nora and everything life had to offer me. But before I could make a decision that would damn my soul for eternity, Fiat jerked me upward again. Drake snarled and lunged forward, hauling Fiat’s three men and Dmitri with him.
“Stop! Gabriel can draw out the poison!” Fiat yelled above Drake’s continued roars of fury. “But he will not do so unless you yield.”
I turned slowly to look at Gabriel. He stood a few feet away, his arms crossed, his face guarded.
“So much for being a mediator, eh, Gabriel?” I asked him.
His gaze held mine for a moment, then dropped. “There are things you do not understand, Aisling. If it helps, I genuinely regret you are caught up in this.”
“How easily the lies slip off your tongue.” I turned away from him, my stomach roiling at the thought that I had ever considered him a friend. No doubt it was Gabriel who had tried to kill me in Paris. Or perhaps it was a plan worked up between him and Fiat.
My breath caught short in my chest as I realized the sickness I felt was more than just Gabriel’s betrayal. I was physically sick as well…. The poison was beginning to work.
“There is still time,” Fiat said calmly, glancing at his watch.
He held me back with one hand, while it took three of Fiat’s men and Dmitri to keep Drake subdued. I glanced beyond them to where the green dragons had stopped. They were huddled together, clearly unwilling to risk their wyvern’s life. Tears pricked in my eyes at the thought that I wouldn’t get to know them.
“Gabriel can save her. All you need do is yield.”
Nausea hit me in the gut with the subtleness of a mule kick. I fell to my knees, dry heaving as my body racked with the need to purge itself.
“See how she suffers. The paralysis will begin to take effect on her lungs soon. She will struggle to breathe, but it will be no use. Her muscles will not allow her to draw in the so desperately needed oxygen. You have”—Fiat looked at his watch again—“approximately fifteen seconds before even Gabriel’s skills as a healer will be useless.”
Another wave of nausea hit me. My stomach cramped so bad, I thought I would pass out from the pain. I wiped my mouth and looked up to where Drake was held, tears blurring my eyes. I was having difficulty breathing, my lungs not seeming to hold any oxygen. I panted, trying desperately to get some air.
Drake’s green-eyed gaze held mine for a second.
“I love you,” I told him, jerking with the attempt to bring air into my lungs. “I always will. Dead or alive or in a coma, I will continue to love you.”
Drake’s hands fisted, his jaw tight. Fire burst up in a ring around him, but it didn’t faze any of the dragons present. I willed Drake
to say the words I needed to hear, begged him with my eyes to acknowledge what was between us. He stared back at me, mute, and a little piece of my heart shattered.
I doubled over again, caught in an agony of vomiting, gasping painfully for air in between retches. This was it. My brain would die, but my body would go on, which meant Drake would continue to live.
Without me, my heart cried.
It doesn’t have to be that way, the dark power answered, and to my horror, I started to pull on it for strength.
“I yield.” Drake’s voice was hard and filled with agony of his own. “Gabriel, help her!”
Thick, fetid power flowed up from the ground, wrapping itself around my tortured form.
“Get her on her side. I will draw the poison before it disperses any further.” I was aware of Gabriel’s voice, of hands helping me, of the sharp sting on my neck and subsequent hot flow of blood, but it was the dark power that caught my attention and held it. I pulled harder on it, focusing it to push the poison back, keeping it from spreading. I knew there would be a price to pay for using it, but at that moment, closer to death than I ever had been, I was willing to take that chance.
My soul wept.
23
“She will survive. The poison hadn’t dissipated too much,” Gabriel’s voice said above my head.
I heard it but didn’t pay much attention to his words. I was too busy being stunned. There was no other word to describe my emotions but stunned, although stupefied, disbelieving, and flabbergasted weren’t far behind. As I lay on the ground, supported by Drake, my body gasping in great lungfuls of air, my brain stopped battling for a moment with the realization that I’d used dark power to save myself and pointed out the momentous event that had just happened.
Drake had given up his sept for me.
“Why?” The word croaked from my throat as I twisted my head to look up at him.
His eyes glittered hotly at me. “Why do you think?”
“Is this some sort of weird political move?” I couldn’t think of any other reason for Drake to willingly give up the sept. I knew he was attracted to me, I knew he would honor me as his mate for the rest of our lives together, and while I suspected his feelings for me were deeper than he was comfortable with, I was under no delusions as far as love went. I wasn’t absolutely certain Drake could love—as committed to the sept as he was, it was quite possible that it just wasn’t in his chemical makeup to be able to love both it and me.