Plight of the Dragon (19 page)

Talia moved in front of her, studied her closely. Her lips twisted to the side and her nose twitched. “Did Sebastian get the tooth pendant from you?”

Kyra winced. “Marcus’s pendant? I haven’t seen that in…” Her eyes widened and her head jerked. “Why was Sebastian supposed to get it from me?”
 

Talia swayed her head to the side. “A while back I did some crystal ball gazing, attempting to get to the bottom of your condition. I saw the tooth pendant Marcus had given you. It felt significant to me. Like he was using it to control you.”

“But I’m not wearing it!” Kyra’s voice rose in pitch.

“Maybe. Maybe not. I saw it on you in the reading.”

“You could be wrong. I’ve never felt this nausea before. If he was somehow using the pendant on me the entire time, shouldn’t I have felt this misery before?” She raked her fingers through her hair, pulled hard as if she could pull the ugly situation out of her life with the simple motion.
 

An understanding smile wrapped Talia’s lips, yet her eyes remained somber. “I’m pretty sure I understood the viewing correctly. I think the change in your reaction is due to the change in you, and your memory or self-recovery.”

Kyra blinked, became numb. “All right. But like I said, I’m not wearing the pendant.”

Talia nodded, her lips drawing into a thin line of scrutiny. “I think the vile thing is on you somewhere. Would you trust me?”
 

“If the thing is on me and affecting my actions, by all means, find and destroy.” Kyra smiled—sort of. Her smile failed even before she’d finished the delivery.
 

Didn’t matter, Talia wasn’t paying attention. She was already pulling a stone from her pocket, wrapped between her thumb and palm. She placed her hands together, angled away from each other. “A somewhat unconventional witch in my coven showed me how to do this,” Talia said, and then silently moved her hands, shaped somewhat like a divining rod, around Kyra’s body.
 

Kyra fidgeted and stared at the crowd, caught a few people glance their way. She didn’t care. No one’s approval mattered to her. No one’s but Sebastian’s. And as long as none of them tried to stop Talia, or were Marcus, they could gawk all they wanted.

“Found it!” Talia said, clear triumph in her voice.
 

“Seriously?” Kyra tried to turn, see where Talia was talking about. She couldn’t. It was at her back, and Talia held her steady. “But I’m not wearing any pendant.” Her voice hitched an octave higher.

“Are you a sound sleeper?” Talia’s hands smoothed along a square on Kyra’s upper butt cheek.
 

Anxiety rose like a whirlwind in Kyra’s chest. “What’s going on?”
 

She didn’t need Talia’s answer. Since the carousel ride, her memories had slipped back into place. Sebastian had come to take her away from Marcus, she remembered, and for some inexplicable reason, he hadn’t come inside. That didn’t feel right to Kyra, and her mind wrapped tight around the thought. Maybe he
couldn’t
come in. Oh Raj
ũ
n, what had she done? Marcus had forced Sebastian to leave, and she’d done nothing to stop him. She’d even lain with Marcus, enjoyed every moment envisioning Sebastian in Marcus’s place.
 

But then…there was whiskey, lots of it. Fighting and hitting, too. Marcus had a propensity for firewater and a heavy hand when liquored up. A vague memory of blood. Blood on Marcus’s hands, blood on the sheets. She never saw those sheets again.
What happened that night?
In the morning she had been sore, so excruciatingly sore. She’d lain in bed for three days before feeling well enough to shuffle around the condo. Why hadn’t she questioned it more at the time?

Talia came around to face Kyra, her face drawn and absent of color. “The tooth pendant is embedded just above your right cheek.”
 

Until Talia’s confirmation, Kyra could have gone on convincing herself it was all a bad dream. No longer. Kyra’s mouth dropped open, and emotions pelted upon her like the raging storm. Anger, annoyance, shame for allowing herself to fall into this mess with Marcus. Disbelief and rage at his actions. Frustration and fear for her current situation. Strongest of all, hatred for the man who had caused this wreck.
 

“You have to cut it out,” Kyra said, feeling a storm of conviction she had not felt in a long while.
 

Talia blinked. “Um, right.” She glanced around the midway, searching for what, Kyra hadn’t a clue. “Not out here. Somewhere private.” Her gaze locked on a dark tent several feet away and Talia pointed. “Over there.”
 

Kyra didn’t need to be told twice. She needed the pendant extracted now. Grabbing Talia’s hand, she ran for the tent, bursting through the entrance as if there were fire on her tail. Inside, the tent was empty. Chairs circled a center stage in neat and orderly rows.
 

“This will do,” Talia said. “Take a seat. I just need to find a knife.”

Kyra reached down, lifted her skirt, and pulled the small blade from her boot. She held it up between them. “Use this.”

19

COMPASS

Sebastian

Crystals fell from
the sky like rain, yet Sebastian felt not a single one. His focus was solely on Davies and Chelsea. Because of Davies’s insensitive shove, the poor girl was battered, dropped to the ground like a pile of used rags. The harsh visual clawed deeper into his emotions than he had expected. No one should be handled with such severity. Especially a girl. A dying girl, at that. At the end of life’s impossible road, most people deserved better treatment, an earnest adieu. For Davies to take issue with Sebastian was understandable, but to take his fury out on others, unforgivable.
 

Heat flushed up his neck and face, and the lights flashed on in his mind’s eye. He knew. It was his job to see that Chelsea and others like her received the mercies due at the end of the path. His hybrid anomaly status was not a mistake, but rather served a purpose. Not only could he help them move to the other side as a Reaper, but as a Mara he could do so using their dreams and deepest desires to make the transition less traumatic. The dragon inside him roared once again. Or maybe it wasn’t the dragon, maybe it was something closer to home, something he didn’t want to admit to, something belonging to his true identity.
 

Clenching his hands into fists, talons cut into the skin of his palms, and he growled with deep-seated fury at Jon Davies. Davies lunged, and then was stopped cold, slammed in the chest by Bolsvck. Davies flew backwards out of sight.
 

“Calm yourself, boy,” Bolsvck said, burning a steady glare upon Sebastian. “Such theatrics are unnecessary.”
 

Guilt crashed upon Sebastian with the force of a tidal wave, yet he managed to bring his breath to a steady rhythm, allowing his heart to settle and blood to slow. Any regrets were his own to face, so he met the fiery dragon lord’s gaze and did not dignify him with a response. Instead, he swallowed against the thickness in his throat, the upset in his stomach. Focusing on the things he hoped he could control, he breathed in and out, in and out, in a controlled metered rhythm, and gradually the wings and talons receded.
 

He let out one last deep breath, pulled from deep within his core. “What’s going on? Why is the power out?”

“You tell me.” Bolsvck glanced at the dark tents beside them, then stared at the bits of crystal at their feet. “Trouble seems to circle you like buzzards around a dying cow,” he said, a new, curious appraisal in his eyes. “What species are you?”

Bolsvck’s question was a kick to Sebastian’s gut, and he found his sight blurring, turning to a haze. No longer did he see the man before him. Sebastian had no control over the lot he’d been dealt in this life. He was what he was, a Bringer of Death. He hated to think that meant bad luck in all things, not only for himself but for anyone close to him.
 

Queen Shui pushed through the crowd. “Where is my daughter?” She grabbed Sebastian by the arm and shook him, rattling his thoughts. “You still have her dragon. What have you been doing all this time?”

“Easy, woman.” Bolsvck ran a tender hand along her arm, pulling her into his. It appeared to soften her storm, if only mildly.
 

Sebastian straightened, his face lifting slightly. He had been under the impression Kyra’s parents stood on opposite sides of some unbreakable barrier, divided by clan and dragon rituals. And yet here they were, united. If only for a moment, Sebastian’s heart lightened, and he had hope for Kyra’s future relationship with her parents.
 

Bolsvck returned his arduous glare upon Sebastian. “I, too, would like to know the answer to the question. Where is our daughter?”
 

Sebastian realized he had been ogling the pair. With a gasp, cheeks burning, he snapped back to the moment. Only, the moment brought voices, so many voices crowding his thoughts, his head. He couldn’t… He braced his head between his hands and pressed.
 

Need Talia’s tonic.
 

“What’s wrong with you, boy?” Bolsvck’s voice cracked through Sebastian’s skull like the hammer against the bell, ringing so loud it could yank the dead from their slumber.
 

“Sebastian.”
 

The sound of his name was a whisper among the utterings. Still, he fixed on the source and let all others fall away. He found only mild relief, at best. His eyes burned, felt bloodshot, and when he turned his gaze to the crowd, he realized he had yet to answer Bolsvck. Except, Bolsvck didn’t hold his attention. His gaze was drawn beyond Chelsea to the girl running directly for him. His heart leaped, thoughts of Kyra filling his mind, and then his gut dropped. It wasn’t Kyra, nor did he want it to be. Not with what he needed to do. To spare her the most pain, Kyra needed to hate him.
 

It was Valentina. Daughter of Destinations, or Vortex Girl, as Kyra liked to call her. Sebastian smiled inwardly at Kyra’s fun quirks. Wondered if she secretly called him Card Boy.
 

“No!” Another voice, unrecognizable. And yet, it pulled at him.

The word drowned out everything in his mind. He swiveled and saw Talia with another he didn’t recognize. A blonde, pressed against the tents beyond the crowd. The blonde stared at him with piercing green eyes, causing his insides to tingle. Odd. Something nagged him, like he should know the girl, but he had never seen her before.
 

Vortex
. The word swirled through his head. “Hell.” He spun back toward Valentina, throwing his hand up to stop her.
 

And then the volcanoes of Purgatory exploded at the carnival.
 

Or really, dragon fire fell from the sky, exploding like pyre bombs upon the ground. Murmurs distorted, transforming into shrieks and screams, wails of pain. The tent to Sebastian’s right erupted in flames. In the darkening sky, Fire Dragons took to battle, fighting Marcus’s incoming army with no concern for the carnival or her occupants.
 

“Told you Balidhug and his men were here,” Jon Davies yelled over the bedlam. He was crouched low to the ground.
 

Bolsvck grabbed the queen into a protective hold and shoved Sebastian to the ground. Sebastian’s elbow slammed into the hard-packed earth. “What the Hell—” he said, stopped short by a fireball whizzing right through the space he’d been standing moments before. Sebastian sat up on his elbows and stared at the clash commencing.
 

“Protect Kalrapura with your life,” Bolsvck commanded, yanking Sebastian back to his feet, then turned to Davies and his own clan. “End this now. Find Balidhug.”
 

Fighting in the air, falling to the ground. Fighting on the ground, crashing into tents. When Sebastian peered down the midway, conflict could be spotted in multiple locations. Dragons with wings. Dragons without wings. Beasts that weren’t dragons at all. Sebastian searched his memory for what these others were called. He was sure he’d seen them in his research, but right now in the midst of the chaos, the species name escaped him.
 

“Sebastian?” Valentina stood beside him now.

“Don’t touch him!” Chelsea yelped, and groped at the girl’s legs in an attempt to pull her away from Sebastian.
 

Although Valentina appeared scared, she showed no signs of being out of control of her gift. “It’s okay, Chelsea.” Sebastian reached down, taking her hand in his, and gave her a reassuring smile.
It’s time
, his mind chimed. Help her up, was what he should do, but then, what if she was safer on the ground? What did it matter? It was her time. Maybe she was more comfortable on the ground. He was making excuses, and he had no idea why. He needed to ease her suffering now. But first, before he reaped her soul he needed to deal with Valentina, move Vortex Girl along. Pulling away, he scratched his temple and focused on Valentina.
 

“Dragons. They still exist?” Valentina’s voice was full of wonder.