Stormcaster (Shattered Realms #3)(113)

As they closed in on the couple, Jenna could make out more of the conversation. The male wanted to mate. The female most definitely did not. Jenna caught the words princess and empress and treason.

Were there princesses on the Desert Coast as well as empresses?

The female didn’t look like a princess, from Jenna’s limited experience. Both parties were dressed in the garb of the empress’s soldiers, though neither had the smudgy glow she’d seen before.

All at once, the male charged at the female, knocking her backward. Pinning her to the ground, he began tearing at her clothing.

See? Mating.

“No,” Jenna said. “This is not how humans mate. This is wrong.”

The female sent the male flying and scooped up her knife. She managed to draw blood before the male had her down again. Then he had something in his hand—something that glittered in the moonlight. Her knife.

“Cas. Stop them. Hurry.”

The dragon folded his wings and plummeted earthward. Jenna knew from experience how that looked from below. They’d been flying so high, they were all but invisible to human eyes, especially at night. Now they descended so fast that they would be on their prey before the male and female knew what hit them.

Jenna scented blood as the dragon’s claws sank into the male’s back. He screeched, kicked, and flailed while Cas struggled to lift him into the air. Jenna could feel the dragon’s heart pounding against her chest, feel his blazing heat beneath the scales.

The female stared up at them, eyes wide, blood spattered across her face.

Jenna?

“Kill the male. Catch the female.”

With one final effort, Cas swooped off the mountain and let his cargo go. With that weight gone, they rocketed skyward.

By now, the female had retrieved her sword and was making a run for it. Cas circled around and drove her back with torrents of flame. She threw her knife, dove, rolled, scrambled, then, finally, made her stand like a warrior, feet slightly apart, sword at the ready.

Cas landed heavily on the ledge a short distance away, folding his wings as best he could. He swung his head toward the female—the girl—breathing in her scent. She raised her sword in warning.

Jenna slid to the ground, into the shelter of Cas’s wing. Then stepped out from behind it so that she could get a better look at their captive.

The empress’s warrior stared at Jenna as if she’d emerged from the dragon’s bunghole. The girl’s hair was the color of winter-seared wheat. It had been braided, but now was mostly hanging free around her battered face. She was tall, muscular, and fierce. Her curved blade was the kind carried by the empress’s bloodsworn.

“Drop the sword,” Jenna said in Common.

The soldier flinched, as if she hadn’t expected human speech. She swiped blood from her face with her sleeve, glanced to either side as if looking for options, then finally let her sword fall to the ground at her feet. Chin up and defiant, she met Jenna’s eyes.

There was something familiar about her that raised gooseflesh on the back of Jenna’s neck. A fist of memory squeezed her heart and drove the air from her lungs.

Wolf, Cas said, before Jenna could put it into words.

Yes. This girl had the same wolfish aspect as the healer Adam Wolf. While the healer had smoldered, this wolf burned hot. She was wilder, more savage.

Cornered wolf. And then, nudging her back into the shelter of his wing, added, Wolf pack.

Out of the darkness they came, silent as smoke, with their thick gray fur and brilliant, intelligent eyes. Their hot breath froze on their muzzles and ruffs and their massive paws barely dented the earth.

With her attention focused on Cas, the warrior did not seem to notice the wolves all around her.

The wolves gazed at Jenna and Cas for what seemed to be a long time, then turned as one and melted into the darkness. Jenna, awestruck, stared after them.

By now, the warrior was growing restless. “This is your meeting,” she snapped, in Common. “What do you want?”

“Who are you?” Jenna said, the words awkward in her mouth after the ease of communicating mind-to-mind with Cas.

“I’m Alyssa Gray,” the soldier said. “Captain.” She spoke in a clipped fashion, like a prisoner of war identifying herself.

“Who was that?” Jenna pointed toward the canyon with her chin.

“Quill Bosley. Lieutenant.”

“You both fight for the empress?”

With a flicker of hesitation, Gray said, “Yes. I am—was—his commanding officer.”

“Why was he attacking you, then?”

“Because he does not understand the chain of command,” the wolf girl said.

“What?”

Gray rolled her eyes. “Because he has the talent of a turd floating in an ego the size of the ocean.”

Jenna laughed, which took her by surprise. Stop it, she thought. This is the enemy. You must interrogate her, and then you must kill her, so that she doesn’t give you away.

Meanwhile, Gray had been studying Jenna with equal interest. “So—you were riding the . . . uh . . . dragon?” she said, as if choosing her words carefully.

Tell her my name is Cas.

“She doesn’t need to know that,” Jenna said, in their silent speech.

“Yes,” she said aloud.

“I didn’t know that the empress had . . . a flying army,” Gray said, clearly fishing for information. “How many dragons do you have?”