Mortal Danger

THIRTY-FOUR

And blinked her eyes open.

It was Cullen’s face she saw first. His arm supported her. “God,” he whispered. “Lady above. Why? Why did she… and you. Are you—”

“Not… all right, no.” Her tongue was thick. She swallowed. “The gate will work now.”

Now would be good. They are in the pass, waiting for their lord to reach it and widen it. Xitil has grown somewhat stout recently. The dragon settled to the ground near the cliff’s edge, but he didn’t fully furl his wings.

Then came another voice, small, uncertain—Gan, standing at the edge of the cliff. “I’m alive. She died, and I’m alive. That’s not right, is it?” Then, even more softly, “I did like her. I did.”

Lily sat up. The toltoi was still clutched tight in her hand. She hadn’t lost it when she… fainted. “Sam, we accept your deal. And I agree. Now is good.”

Cynna finished tying the blue cloth around Rule’s wounds. “Has anyone seen Max?”

Max turned out to be lying on the ground not far from the ledge the red-eye had leaped from. He was unconscious, but alive—the red-eye had probably thought it killed him when it flung him from the rocks. But gnomes are notoriously difficult to kill.

Two dragons landed. Each took off with a rider and a patient. First Cullen, who held Rule in front of him, his blood soaking the indigo cloth that had been Lily’s sarong. Then Cynna, balancing Max’s unconscious body in front of her. Then…

“You have to take me!” Gan came running up. “I’ll die. Xitil will kill me slow. She’ll pull out my eyeballs and—” The demon stopped dead in front of her, eyes wide. “You—you’re-…” She looked down at her chest, rubbed it, and looked up at Lily again. “You’re Lily Yu,” she whispered. “I feel it. The bond. Only it’s not the same.”

She nodded. “Somehow I am. I’m… both. Yes,” she said suddenly. “I’ll take you. God help me, if even death isn’t enough to get rid of you, what good would it do to leave you behind?”

She and Gan climbed on Sam’s neck, settling behind his head. The frill that looked so delicate would serve as a windbreak of sorts and give her something to grip. This would be very different, she thought, from dangling from the talons—and then the thought wisped away, and the memory that went with it.

That kept happening. She wasn’t equally both. One of her had died… or mostly died.

But her Gift was back. Sam’s magic thrummed against her skin when she climbed onto his neck, powerful and ancient. It should have been totally alien, nothing she’d ever felt before, yet… that must be one of the other’s memories, she decided, holding tight to the bony frill.

They’re here. With one huge leap, Sam plunged off the cliff, stopping her heart—but he spread his wings. Instead of falling and falling, they soared.

Much smoother to ride here instead of in the talons.

Dragons circled in the air around them. A dozen? Two?

“How many of your kind are there, Sam?” she asked.

Twenty-three remain in Dis. The demons killed ten. Once… once we were a great deal more than that, but now we are now only twenty-three.

For the first time, real emotion came through with the mental voice. Sorrow, deep and untouchable—and old, very old.

Now, Lily Yu. Open your gate, and I will sing it wide.

She pulled a small pen knife from her pocket. No fancy ritual blades were needed this time. She grimaced and stroked the edge over the scab on her left palm, and she spoke the word of opening.

Those weird geometries shifted, coming awake inside her. The air shimmered in its small rectangle, hovering there, hundreds of feet over the ocean—and the dragon began his song.

Low and deep, the bass so strong she felt it much as she heard it, he sang. Like night had been given a voice, all that was dark and hidden thrummed through her—the cold between the stars and the stars themselves. The space inside her answered—growing, pushing out hard through her, a tumbled vertigo of space, so vast, too vast. The space inside her was bigger than the space outside, and that was impossible, it—

The song changed. Suddenly Sam was in it with her— in his song and in her head, but in her belly, too, where the geometries swelled ever larger, more complex, less real. But Sam’s voice swam between her and the madness of inverted space, and Rule’s necklace was in her pocket, and death was not quite the absolute she’d always thought.

Her hands held tight to Sam’s frill as the first dragon folded its wings and arrowed into the shimmering air. And disappeared.

Rule had crossed. And Cullen. The one bearing Cynna and Max went next, as Sam sang. He sang still while the other dragons aimed themselves into the shimmer, one after another, and still he sang, coating the mad space inside her until all had crossed.

Then, at last, still singing, Sam aimed himself at that shimmer. He dove for it, and she rippled along with it…

And they were flying over another ocean, this one inky dark, with moonlight fracturing in silver glints on its waves. The moon—nearly full, and the stars—oh God, how she’d missed them!

Quickly, she said the other word Cullen had taught her. The space inside her popped like a soap bubble, and she was alone in her insides once more.

Mostly.

THERE is no inconspicuous way to land a dragon.

Sam did his best. He gathered his—flock? What do you call a swarm of dragons?—and took them to the bluff Lily and the others had set out from. But they were miles out to sea. Before they reached the shore, some bright soul had scrambled two Air Force fighter jets to pursue them.

They didn’t fire, but it made for a tense welcome home.

They had to land one at a time. The bluff wasn’t big enough for two dragons to land at once. The one bearing Cullen and Rule went first. As soon as he was down, Cullen passed Rule to one of the lupi—a brave soul, to come running up the way he had—calling out instructions as he jumped from his perch.

Lily couldn’t hear him, of course, from so high up, but Sam relayed the gist of it. Cullen’s first orders had most of the lupi holstering their weapons. The next brought Nettie running. The last one had someone fumbling for a cell phone so Cullen could call the Air Force and ask them not to fire on the nice dragons.

Sam seemed amused by that.

Cullen was talking on the phone when the second dragon landed, and Cynna and Max climbed down.

Apparently, Max had regained consciousness while several hundred feet in the air. It hadn’t exactly sweetened his temper.

Then it was her turn. And Gan’s.

What in the world was she going to do with a tame demon? She sure hoped Gan was tame…

Send her to the gnomes. They’ll understand her, since they are descended from demons themselves. When a demon catches a soul—

“What?” Gan cried. “What did you say about a soul?”

Lily could have sworn Sam laughed, quietly, in his mind.

They swooped down and down. She had to close her eyes as the ground rushed at them. It was too much like…

Lily Yu.

“What?” she shouted over the wind, as if that would make him hear her better.

Say hello to your grandmother for me.

Her grandmother? How did he… but they hit the ground then—not hard, but firmly. And all she could think about was getting to Rule. “We’ll talk later,” she said, swinging her leg over and sliding down. Gan plopped down beside her, and then stood there, scowling around at everyone. “I’ve got questions.”

Why does that not surprise me ? Duck.

With no more warning than that, Sam launched himself back into the sky.

Lily looked around quickly, spotted a Nokolai man she knew slightly, grabbed Gan, and thrust her toward him. “Keep an eye on her. She’s mostly a demon, but not entirely. Don’t shoot her unless you absolutely can’t avoid it.”

She took off running.

They’d loaded Rule on a stretcher and were carrying him toward Nettie’s SUV. She reached him just as they opened the back of the vehicle and stopped, staring.

He was a man again. He’d Changed and was a man again. He was also naked and bloody, with a blood-soaked length of fabric that had once been blue wadded up against the deepest wound.

Of course, she thought. He had to try. The moon is nearly full and he had to see if he would be able to Change at all—but what a risk, with him so weak from his wounds!

She missed his fur, the lovely fur she’s stroked so often… Lily blinked, disoriented, and the memory wisp fled.

He opened his eyes. “Lily?”

“Here,” she said, coming up to take his hand. “I’m right here. We’re back. We made it back.” All the way back. He’d Changed. He hadn’t lost himself to the wolf.

“I need to put him in sleep,” Nettie said firmly. “And this time, he’s going to the hospital. He’s lost a lot of blood, and I am not performing surgery in the back of this SUV.”

“No, he’ll go to the hospital.” That’s what she’d asked. Get Rule back, get him to the hospital…

“In a minute, Nettie,” Rule said. His voice sounded wonderful. Not like he was dying, not at all. He searched her eyes. “I had the strangest dream. A terrible dream. I thought it was real. There were two of you, and one… one died.”

He’d been unconscious. She’d been sure he was unconscious. “It wasn’t a dream, but it wasn’t entirely true, either.”

“You’re…”

“Both. I think.”

“Enough,” Nettie said, and laid her hand on his forehead.

Slowly his expression eased, his eyes drooping. “Yes,” he murmured. “That’s right. You’re Lily.”

His hand relaxed, releasing hers, as he slipped into the healing sleep that was Nettie’s Gift. Finally, the knots of tension in her shoulders began to relax.

Maybe it was just that simple. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I am, aren’t I?”