The Dragon Legion Collection(105)

Ready for more Dragonfire?

Read on for an excerpt from



Serpent’s Kiss

The Tenth Dragonfire Novel



Copyright ? 2013 by Deborah A. Cooke



* * *



Erik checked the perimeter of his lair, ensuring that his dragonsmoke barrier was woven thick and deep. It was late at night, or early in the morning, depending upon how he looked at it. Zo? had been put to bed hours before and even Eileen had fallen asleep. Drake had departed with the new Pyr a week before, revitalized by the opportunity to train a new company of dragon shifters.

Erik had spent the week trying to avoid a sense of pending doom. He couldn’t scry the future or see anything beyond the present moment, but he’d had a sense of trouble brewing.

Maybe it was that footage of Jorge appearing, then disappearing, in Seattle. What had the Slayer been carrying? It had looked like a severed arm, one that was still bleeding. Erik hadn’t thought much of Jorge shaking blood over the gathering crowd, not then, but today’s news had changed that.

People were becoming sick in Seattle. Very sick. There was a hum of panic building in Seattle as doctors and hospitals noticed the connections between sudden illnesses and deaths. They hadn’t used the word epidemic yet, but the first hospital had put itself into quarantine. They’d already realized that most of the victims had been at the scene of Jorge’s appearance.

It was only a matter of time before dragons were blamed.

Erik shivered, remembering the old hunts that had driven his kind into hiding and claimed so many Pyr he’d known and loved. Surely it couldn’t happen again.

Surely his suspicions were unfounded.

The loft was still, despite Erik’s restlessness. He stood at the window and watched the moon ride high overhead, listening to the pulses and breathing of his partner and child. He heard the resonance of his dragonsmoke and felt its icy glitter. The blaze in his mind had quieted, perhaps because he no longer feared it.

The numbers of the Pyr had swollen, virtually overnight, thanks to the darkfire crystal and its ability to make reality out of possibilities. The stone remained dark—he had checked it again after Drake’s departure—and he sensed that it would always be so. Its task was completed.

His, unfortunately, was not.


Erik knew he should feel optimistic instead of worried. What could he do? If Jorge had a plan, was it possible that the other Slayers knew of it? He had never been able to determine how much they communicated with each other, and their alliances shifted like the wind.

Confident that his barriers were robust and his family safe, Erik left the loft and went to the apartment he’d acquired directly below. There the Slayer JP was imprisoned, confined by a barrier of dragonsmoke breathed by Erik and buttressed by every Pyr who had come to visit since JP’s capture.

Erik felt a little bit sorry for the other dragon shifter. JP had been branded by Chen, claimed by that old Slayer and held captive by his more ancient magic. He had raved and fought when he’d first been captured by the Pyr, venting about injustice and plots. Erik had hoped to learn something about Chen from JP, but he was too incoherent to provide any information of use. Then he’d collapsed into a deep slumber, dozing in his dragon form and seldom awakening.

Chen’s sorcery seemed to be killing him. JP’s scales became thinner each time Erik visited him. He wasn’t sure when the other dragon shifter ate, but he didn’t eat much. JP’s breathing was becoming shallower and his pulse slower. Worse, the fight had gone out of him. It was such an unnatural state for a dragon shifter that Erik assumed JP would soon die.

It was such a waste. He could never understand why a Pyr would turn Slayer in the first place, never mind why Chen would enchant another Slayer just to let him fade away.

Erik unlocked the door to the apartment, fearing as he did each time that he would make a gruesome discovery. He passed through the cold shimmer of the dragonsmoke, only to find the apartment in darkness. The drapes were drawn but the apartment was unnaturally dark, given the light of the full moon. It should have stolen into the room somehow, as well as the lights of the city itself.

Erik smelled brimstone.

He slammed the door and shifted shape immediately, but even at his fastest speed, he was too slow. A plume of flame illuminated the middle of the main room. It was breathed by a young Asian man dressed in leather, a man with malice and violence in his eyes.

Chen, in one of his human guises.

Erik leapt at him, talons bared, but Chen laughed. He grabbed the inert JP by the scruff of his neck, waved to Erik, then they both disappeared.

Erik landed hard on the bare floor, but his prey was gone. Chen had used his powers to spontaneously manifest in other locations to bypass the dragonsmoke barrier and collect his prey.

Why did he want JP?

What would he do to him?

What else had the darkfire changed? Erik closed his eyes and checked the connections in his mind, following each conduit to one of the Pyr. It took him longer, with the influx of new dragon shifters, but he soon realized that one was missing.

Thorolf.

Erik had been angry with Thorolf for revealing himself to humans. There was even a YouTube video of Thorolf shifting shape in Washington, one that was impressive in its popularity. Thorolf was all impulse and powerful energy, but he spent himself in indulgence. That he made such foolish choices was in direct contrast to his impressive lineage. If Thorolf focused, or even tried to hone his skills, he could have become one of Erik’s most reliable Pyr. He could have replaced Erik as leader. But he didn’t try and he didn’t seem to care, and when he had vowed to go to Asia to hunt down Chen, Erik had let him go. He’d been sure nothing would come of it, that Thorolf would find a woman somewhere and spend a few months exploring her charms.