Obsidian Son (The Temple Chronicles Book 1) (35 page)

One of the green-eyed dancer’s hands found the book in my back pocket. “Hmm… a librarian. I have always wanted to play with a librarian. Do you like games, librarian? We know a game involving handcuffs…” Her eyes sparkled down at me as she withdrew a pair of handcuffs from out of nowhere. “I think this book is getting in the way. Perhaps we should remove it to reach what is underneath… Which one of us would you choose?” The green-eyed dancer moaned, her horizontal pupils dilating to a solid bar across her eyes. My haze evaporated in a blink, but I didn’t show it.

“I’ll have to flip a coin to decide…” I pulled the coin Asterion had given me from my pocket, hoping for the best, and flipped it up into the air. The coin instantly turned into a shield, slamming into the green-eyed dragon’s — because that is what she truly was — jaw. I felt blood spray across my face, and one of her teeth landed on my shirt as she flew across the dance floor. I drew my power, embracing it to it’s fullest, and felt the telltale signs of mind control that had been clouding us. I grabbed the blue-eyed dragon by the throat, carefully plucking the book from her fingers. Then I shoved with all my strength, fueled by a riptide of magic, and launched her into a wall. She struck the wall with a solid smack, immediately silencing the music in an explosive shower of sparks, and fell to the ground in a crumpled heap, spine broken.

Dead was good.

I heard the snap of metal and turned to see the dragons with Gunnar smiling as their handcuff clasped around his wrist. His eyes immediately changed — even behind the contacts — glazing over. He was no longer home. Tory was oblivious, making out with her red-haired dancer. I grabbed the bitch by the hair, yanked, and threw her a dozen feet behind me with an added boost of air. Her bare skin screeched in a horrendous wood burn as she skidded across the dance floor. Tory’s eyes widened as she saw me looming over her, her shirt tugged down over her stomach so that she was naked from the waist up. I saw the handcuff on her wrist, but thankfully it was unclasped. Feeling something on my own wrist, I glanced down and saw a similar handcuff dangling, unclasped. I shivered, flinging it off into the night out over the railing of the roof.

Tory bound to her feet, pulling her top back up into a semblance of decency. My own fly was unzipped. Damn. Aphrodite had
nothing
on them. I hadn’t even noticed their power. The dragons stood from various positions around the floor where I had thrown them, but the two with Gunnar continued smiling up at me, one holding a thin chain attached to the bracelet in their fingers. “Good, wolfie…” The blue-eyed, red haired dragon cooed in his ear. Gunnar’s shoulders relaxed at the praise.

“Gunnar, get away from them. Now.” I demanded.

“Don’t want to.” He said, struggling with the words. “I’m happy here. So happy. They love me…” I slammed my power into him, but it struck an invisible dome emanating from the handcuff, bouncing harmlessly away. Shit. One down. I had to kill these bitches now, or I had no idea what would happen to Gunnar.

The regulars around the dance floor watched drunkenly, several shooting angry glares my way as they had just seen me hurt three strippers. Good men, but they had no idea of the truth. I wouldn’t have time to differentiate between regulars and dragons if it came to a fight, and if a couple of these drunken men thought they were protecting an innocent woman, they might wake up in a hospital tomorrow morning.
Shit, shit, shit
.

A cop appeared out of nowhere, brandishing his pistol, and aiming it in my general direction, yelling at me to stop hurting the women, his eyes wide as his overweight frame sloshed back and forth at any sign of movement. The green-eyed dragon dancer strode up to him, blood dripping from her mouth, eyes innocent and afraid. “He hurt me. Do something, officer. Please! Help me!” She was holding his arm in mock fear. His eyes turned on me, rage blinding him.

“Don’t!” I yelled, as he began to raise his gun.

Her hand moved quicker than I had ever seen, tearing his throat completely from his neck to reveal a purplish white spine beneath the gore. Blood spurted into the air, painting the green-eyed dragon’s face. Then she shifted into her true form, her legs kicking out a couch that had been too close. She wasn’t as big as Misha or the silver dragon I had killed, but she was easily twice as long as a man from rump to snout, and green like a forest in summer.

Then mass chaos erupted. People ran, eyes wide, not even realizing where they were running, abandoning all ties with either their loved ones, dates, strippers, or friends. Screaming tore at my ears, making it hard to notice anything else, but I kept my eyes on the dragons, ready for the fight of my life. Four versus two. A sudden blast of fire ignited a nearby couch, and four more dragons emerged from the flames.

Okay. Now we were really screwed.

I realized I had the book in my pocket and groaned. The book they had been tearing up my city to find. If they turned Gunnar against us we were in serious trouble, because I couldn’t see myself hurting my best friend. He wouldn’t know what he was doing, but he was one of the most dangerous things I had ever seen when in werewolf form. It would also ruin his career if they made him shift.

Tory tugged at my arm, letting me know she was ready for battle. I waved a hand at the cop, but she shook her head, lifting up hands stained with blood. “He’s gone.” Crap, a dead cop. Kosage was going to be furious, and once again, I was present at the crime. What would that make him think? But I didn’t have time to worry about that now. The fire spread to the beams that held up the glass ceiling, thick dark smoke cloyed the air.

“Well then. I think it’s time for you to earn your own nickname.” I murmured, unleashing the same whips of fire and ice I had used at Alaric’s hotel room earlier. Another couch burst into flame as my whip licked it with the faintest brush. “Come on down, bitches. Let me show you what I did to your big sisters.” I grinned, flashing teeth, and then I began to cackle.

I think the non-masculine sound had to do with the suddenly power-drunk status of my body trying to figure out what to make of the new reservoir of magic I had been given earlier in the day. Regardless, it made the dragons hesitate.

Then they began to move, freaky fast, like, well… snakes.

I slung the liquid ice whip around the green dragon’s throat, and her eyes went wide enough that I was curious they would pop out. Then, as I tugged back, her neck simply shattered into fragments of frozen dragon-meat cubes. Her body crashed to the dance floor, twitching. I slung the fiery whip over Tory’s head as she darted low, and managed to latch onto the back legs of another dragon mid-shift. It knocked her completely off her feet, and sent her tearing through the protective railing bordering the roof, cloaked in flames, screaming as she fell.

“Stop!” A voice bellowed over the crowd, somehow penetrating the din of screams. I smelled that odd smell of cold rocks and snakes again, and froze. No, not snakes. Reptiles. How had I not recognized it earlier?

I realized that all the regulars were gone, except for the now terrified, wide-eyed bartender holding a broken bottle in one hand, looking like a very scary person — the kind of person whose actions are completely unpredictable; a potential spark for the powder keg around us. Everyone froze, except Tory. She sequentially broke a dragon’s forearm, her reptilian kneecap, and then a heel-kick sent her adversary screaming off into the black night, snapping out her wings as she fell off the side of the building, luckier than her sister who had fallen in a wash of flames. I turned, along with the remaining five dragons and Tory, to the new voice that emanated near a particularly dark part of the roof beside a dead fire pit.

A familiar figure stepped out of the shadows, and I blinked. My client.

“What are you doing here,
Rogue
?” The blue-eyed, red-haired dragon hissed, still clutching Gunnar’s makeshift leash in a possessive dragon claw.

“The name is Raego, despite its definition. You would be wise to remember it, Tatiana.” My client growled back, shadows shifting and eddying about him menacingly.

“The book is ours,
Raego
.” Tatiana spat. “You have no claim in this city. You forsake your titles long ago.”

He nodded, taking a step closer, and I swear the shadows moved with him. “I seek no claim, only the safety of the humans. I will not allow him to do this.” They obviously knew who
him
was, but not me.

So I raised my hand.

Raego turned to me, and blinked at my upraised hand. Then, not knowing what else to do, he nodded. “Thanks,” I said. “But who is this elusive
him
?”

“Close thy lips, wizard. This is none of your concern, and neither is the book. Hand it over, and we will give you back your wolf. If not, you and everyone you care about dies.”

Raego was silent, watching me. “Can I kill her without offending you?” I asked.

He laughed, a deep, calming sound. “It wouldn’t offend me, but it might not be wise to attempt it. We’re kind of outnumbered, if you hadn’t noticed.”

I wanted to ask so many questions, but there were too many people present, and I knew that knowledge was strength. If anyone thought I had no clue what was going on, I was screwed. So I put on my mask. “Later then. I guess I’ll just have to kill her later then.”

She took a step towards me, but Raego’s voice boomed again. “Do not even think it, Tatiana. You may already have a master, but you don’t want to tempt me into breaking you here and now. I can do it without breaking a sweat, and you know it. It’s why I was banished. Competition doesn’t work well in our family.” Tatiana took another step forward, and then Raego shifted. One moment he was the tall unobtrusive kid I had seen in the alley, and the next he was a black dragon, easily over nine feet long. He was heavily muscled, and he slammed a claw down onto the ground, making everyone freeze.

“I dare you…” The voice was lower now, throatier, and full of a raw power I had never heard from him before. The fire continued to spread, and I could hear sirens in the distance.

Tatiana immediately turned to the roof entrance, eyes angry as she sniffed the air. Then she leapt off the roof, her ocean-blue wings unfurling with a loud snap. Her heavily muscled reptilian forearms cradled Gunnar like a toy as the remaining dragons followed suit. I caught myself absently humming the song from
Monty Python
about Brave Sir Robin bravely running away, so stopped. Tory chuckled lightly.

Raego was still in dragon form, staring off into the night. “They have gone back to roost.” He looked at me then, his huge black eyes showing no horizontal bar since they were so dark. “We’ll get your friend back. But first, I assume you brought the book with you?” I nodded. “Good. Hold onto it. Everything depends on keeping it out of their hands.”

My patience snapped. “You know what?” I began to yell, stalking towards him near the edge of the roof. “God Damnit. I am sick, and fucking tired of this book.”

“You do know that God’s last name is not
Damnit
, right?” I flipped him off.

“I risked my life to get it, not even knowing it was the same one those bitches were razing my city for, and now you want me to just
hold onto it
? I could have left it with-” I wisely kept myself from uttering the Minotaur’s name. “With the person I obtained it from if you just wanted it kept safe.” Raego took a step away from me, holding up his massive claws as if he didn’t want to get one step closer to either the book or me. “I don’t know what is so fucking important about this book, or why so many people want it, but the one person who has it wants nothing to fucking do with it. Me. I am not holding onto this thing one second longe-”

Something suddenly punched into my kidneys, knocking my breath away as my entire back clenched up in unbelievable pain. I tripped, stumbling over the railing as I heard a familiar man’s voice yell behind me. “Not him, you idiot!” The book flew out of my fingers as I fell. I saw an orange blur leap off the building opposite us, snatching the book in her talons before the dragon sped off into the night, her rusty wings pummeling the air as she increased her speed.

As I neared the beautiful street below, I felt something suddenly latch around my stomach, painfully halting my descent, and then I was flying. I glanced up to see Raego holding me tightly against his warm scaly, stomach, his wings beating in wide thumps like helicopter blades starting up. Flames were flicking all over the roof of the club now, and I saw a group of people staring at us as we escaped. One was Tory. I hoped she would be okay. The pain from the initial blow made me curl up in his grip. I wondered if I had broken my back as I struggled for breath.

I knew I would have the always-pleasant experience of pissing blood in the morning, if I was still alive that is.

Chapter 35

A
s it turns out, I didn’t even have to wait until morning to piss blood.

I barely had time to make it to Raego’s bathroom after we touched down from our flight. Instant gratification. It’s the little things that make the world a joyous place, folks.