The Dragon Legion Collection(16)

“Where is the boy?” the stranger demanded in his strangely accented speech. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten our bargain?”

There was something about the merchant’s voice that made Cetos want to respond, something that compelled him to try. It was an enchanting voice, so melodious and musical. He looked up and saw once more the flames dancing in the other man’s blue eyes.

He’d seen those flames before when he’d talked to this very same merchant, although he hadn’t wanted to remember them. They were unnatural and wrong, but as soon as Cetos looked at them, he couldn’t even blink, much less look away.


“The boy,” reminded the merchant, his voice low and insistent.

“Gone,” Cetos managed to whisper.

“Gone?”

Cetos heard the displeasure in the merchant’s voice, but the pain of his burns was overwhelming him. The merchant glanced away. Freed from his commanding gaze, Cetos felt his own eyes close.

Then something sharp locked around his neck, like a claw.

He gasped and his eyes flew open. A dragon held him by the throat, those same strange flames dancing in the pupils of its eyes. It wasn’t the same dragon as had burned him. This one was enormous and brilliant yellow, the hue of topaz trimmed with gold.

A second dragon. If anything, it was more terrifying than the first one. It seemed cold and merciless, while the other had been passionate.

Where was the merchant? He couldn’t look for him, not when the flames in those eyes danced so brightly that they fascinated him.

“Where have they gone?” the dragon demanded.

Its voice was identical to that of the merchant. Cetos was shocked. Was he in the clutch of Zeus? That god dearly loved to change forms, to toy with mortal men, and to inflict punishment for no reason beyond his own amusement.

“Where?” demanded the dragon again, giving Cetos a little squeeze of encouragement.

Cetos realized a little bit late that this exchange was about more than the gold coins he’d coveted.

“Sparta,” he confessed, then choked as the talons dug more deeply into his skin.

“Are you sure?” The dragon’s voice was low and silky, inescapable.

Cetos started to agree, then had a realization. Katina had left his house. He knew she would pursue the boy to retrieve him. He knew he’d introduced doubt into her mind about her decision to send the boy to Sparta, and he knew what she would do as a result of that doubt.

He shook his head, then tried to draw breath to correct his answer. The dragon loosed its grip slightly and Cetos inhaled shakily. “Maybe Delphi,” he managed to say.

“Delphi,” the dragon repeated with a low hiss. It took a deep breath, its nostrils almost pinching shut with it and its mailed chest swelling. It turned, his eyes glittering, then abandoned Cetos.

Cetos dared to take a breath in relief. When he opened his eyes, the dragon was holding something in its talons. It looked like the scales that covered the dragon’s hide, but it was a purple so dark that it was almost black. Was it from the other dragon?

“You’ve had a guest,” the yellow dragon said, then bared its teeth in a vicious parody of a smile.

Cetos wondered what had pleased him so much, but the dragon returned to his side and he didn’t dare to ask. The dragon removed Cetos’ purse, spilled its contents into its claw and counted the gold coins. It kept the coins, tossing the empty purse at Cetos.

The gold. It had taken back the gold. Cetos moaned in disappointment.

He had no chance to argue, because the dragon opened its mouth. Cetos saw down the great dark gullet of the beast, then screamed as he was engulfed in flames for the second time. This blaze was hotter and brighter. He was dimly aware of the dragon laughing as it spewed more fire, clearly delighting in burning Cetos to a crisp.

Cetos knew he wouldn’t survive this assault.

A boy cried out in dismay, then the dragon set the entire house ablaze. Cetos heard the slaves scream as the dragon hunted them down.

There were more screams, then an eerie silence—punctuated only by the sobbing of a boy. The slaves were dead, Cetos knew it, and he soon would be as well. On every side, there was fire and heat, brilliant light and smoke. He heard the house creak before collapsing around him and becoming an inferno that would never be extinguished.

Cetos rolled to his back in agony and opened his eyes. The last thing he saw was a dragon taking flight into the night sky, something Cetos couldn’t identify clutched to its side.

The boy.

The one the dragon claimed was his son.

It was too late for regrets, but Cetos had more than one.





Chapter Three



There was something soothing about the rhythm of the dragon’s flight. Katina managed to slow the racing of her heart as the dragon carried her into the hills. Her face still hurt and the backs of her elbows stung where the skin had been scraped away, but she didn’t care. She was away from that horrific situation, one she had never expected. Cetos had never been violent before, and it made no sense that he’d been so distressed by not being able to surrender Lysander for some apprenticeship, even if the other man was wealthy.

It was as if a different man had come home from his routine journey.

Was he dead? Katina wasn’t sure and she didn’t want to think about it. Not yet. She could still smell burning flesh and it made her bile rise.