Forbidden Honor (Dragon Royals #1)(101)

“I’m not,” I protested. “I just didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Did you have nightmares?” Branok asked me, his voice laden with mock sympathy.

“I was dreaming about fucking your mom,” I answered. “Really wasn’t too bad a nightmare though, until it ended with her giving birth to these two little assholes.”

Talisyn snorted a laugh that he tried to hide.

Branok scoffed as if he were sick of listening to us all, then took a few steps and dove off the side of the building. It looked like suicide, then suddenly he was a full-size dragon, sweeping through the air.

“Show off,” I accused because my skills weren’t that strong.

“You’ll catch up,” Talisyn promised.

I turned toward him about to say something, only to have his strong hands slam into my shoulders as he pushed me off the edge of the roof. This game again.

I transformed in midair, the ripple of pain almost unnoticed underneath the fear of splatting against the ground far below. Students beneath me scattered as my wings finally caught the air. My back legs scratched the training yard, then I was flying. When I looked back over my shoulder, I’d left a nasty muddy gash through the vivid green grass.

“That was really my fault,” Talisyn said, though he didn’t sound sorry.

The six of us soared over the city, then followed the curve of the brilliant ocean, almost blindingly bright blue under the sun, until we reached the forest.

Once again, we tracked their scent, always waiting to be attacked, but we never saw any of them.

Worst of all, we seemed to hit a dead end. It seemed as if the monsters had popped up out of nowhere.

“What if they are popping out of nowhere?” I asked.

Branok closed his eyes as if he was praying for patience, but that was obviously just an act. There was no way that man had ever asked the deities for the quality of patience.

“There are tunnels under the city. Why couldn’t there be tunnels out here?”

“Tunnels,” Branok repeated as if I were slow, “stretching for miles and miles. Under the forest, deep under the roots of the trees?”

“I suppose it might be possible with magic,” Lynx said thoughtfully.

Branok huffed as if his brother had just betrayed him.

But Lynx was interested in the problem, and didn’t even notice. “Or possibly, if someone had hired orcs to dig. The orcs would be quick and quiet—they’d never have a hint,” Lynx went on musing.

The rest of us had clearly faded out for him as he was invested in the problem.

“There might be signs on the earth above,” Lynx said suddenly. “It would be logical, if there were splits in the earth, when it dried. Now, it’s relatively rare but I do remember during the drought that there was a small earthquake that opened up a rift through a village.”

“I don’t suppose you remember the name of the village?” Branok asked.

“Of course I do,” Lynx responded.

I grinned. “It’s nice to have a smart friend. I’m so glad we have one, at least.”

Lynx must have forgotten for a moment just how much he hated me, and he didn’t even argue with me. I’d take it as a win.

We took to the skies again, heading toward the village that Lynx had mentioned. We landed there and tried once again to pick up the scent.

Some curious villagers came out to see what we were up to, although they kept a distance.

Jaik changed back into a human. “Come on.” He grabbed my snout to talk to me. “You come with me.”

“I don’t know why I’m being so favored.”

Just like every time I thought to myself, Lucien Finn Lucien Finn Lucien Finn, chanting to myself because I was so worried I’d slip and forget who I was supposed to be transforming into.

When I finished my transformation and picked myself up off the ground, brushing my sleeves, the five of them were regarding me skeptically.

“What?” I asked.

“Why do you chant your name?” Lynx raised his arms and pumped his fists. “Lucien Finn! Lucien Finn! Lucien Finn!”

Shit. “I’m just a big fan of myself. You can’t tell me that you all don’t understand that.”

Jaik rolled his eyes. “I don’t have time for your nonsense.”

I was pretty sure that was a lie. I was pretty sure he loved my nonsense.

At any rate, he gestured for me to come with him, and I really did feel an odd sense of pride at being the one that he’d chosen, even though it was probably because he assumed I was the closest to the peasants. Maybe I’d know some kind of special peasant dialect. Or maybe he just thought it was going to be dangerous, and he wanted someone to push into the path of danger to distract a rogue hybrid.

The villagers said they thought they’d heard strange monsters roaming around, but they all shut up their houses and barns tightly when nightfall came. And so the only potential evidence of hybrids was the occasional torn apart animal they found.

“The woods are full of predators,” Jaik said.

“They don’t kill like this though,” one of the villagers said, “as if they don’t even care about eating as much as they care about killing.”

That made me think of the thing that I’d run into in the tunnels, the one that had muttered about meat.