Serpent's Kiss: A Dragonfire Novel (13 page)

Rafferty finished his coffee and put the cup aside. “But what about the firestorm?” he asked. “Thorolf can’t be
Slayer
if he’s having a firestorm.”

“It could be a feint or a spell,” Sloane suggested.

Rafferty shook his head. “I felt the heat and saw the sparks. I found him because of it. It’s as real as any firestorm.”

“Maybe Chen wasn’t counting on the firestorm and its healing power,” Eileen said, looking hopeful. “Maybe he miscalculated.”

“I’d like to believe that.” Erik got up to stare out the window. Rafferty thought he heard him mutter something but he didn’t understand it.

What was “
Fimbulvetr”
? Or had he heard wrong?

“But he’s with her and is lost to Erik again,” Rafferty said, unable to understand that.

Erik sighed. “There will be four total eclipses over the next year and a half. The one in September 2015 marks the end of the Dragon’s Tail. You understand what that means, don’t you? Either the
Slayers
will finally and irrevocably be defeated and destroyed…”

“Or we will be,” Sloane concluded.

“In a year and a half,” Eileen said softly.

“We’ve been winning!” Melissa insisted, but Erik shook his head.

“Which is why Chen would make such a bold play. Capture a
Pyr
, enchant him, turn him
Slayer
and release him to draw us close in a futile effort to save him. For all we know, he faked the firestorm.”

Rafferty winced.

Erik’s disgust was clear. “Chen knows we’ll support a firestorm at any cost.” He shook his head. “I can’t let this tactic succeed. I failed Thorolf, but failing the rest of you won’t fix anything.”

“Is he really
Slayer
?” Sloane demanded of Rafferty. “Has his scent changed?”

“It’s not consistent,” Rafferty replied. “It was darker when I arrived, more necrotic, but it changed while I was with him.”

“If Chen had Thorolf, could he have escaped?” Melissa asked.

Rafferty was dismayed to find himself wondering if Erik was right about Thorolf being deliberately released by Chen. “Maybe he needs us to be healed,” he suggested.

“Maybe we can’t risk that.” Erik shook his head wearily. “We’re besieged on every front,” he continued with quiet force. “These past two years, we have battled earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and flooding. We have tried to avert disaster all over the planet as Gaia avenges herself on mankind.”

“With the encouragement of Chen’s spells,” Eileen added.

“Yet we can’t find him because his scent is hidden,” Erik continued. “We certainly can’t rout him from his sanctuary, and that means we can’t defeat him.” He frowned. “We don’t know the old magic Chen has mastered, and even in their diminished numbers, the
Slayers
are doing much to imperil the survival of humans. Even with the addition of the Dragon Legion and the power of the elemental witches, we can’t be everywhere and solve everything.”

“I’ve got to find a way to stop that plague,” Sloane murmured. “If it’s the last thing I do and the only legacy of the
Pyr
.”

Rafferty was startled to find any
Pyr
talking as if their demise was near.

Melissa leaned forward. “Look, I’ve told you before that the door is open for another television special. That show with Rafferty had phenomenal ratings, so we’d have carte blanche. We could explain the
Pyr
’s role in society…”

“We will not reveal ourselves any more than we have!” Erik said, interrupting her. “I refuse to repeat the past!”

Rafferty cleared his throat and took Melissa’s hand in his own. “I think there’s merit in the idea.”

Erik looked at each of them, his eyes snapping with irritation. “I don’t want to risk any more
Pyr
.”

“Then what do we do for Thorolf?” Sloane asked.

“We stay away,” Erik said.

“We go to him,” Rafferty said simultaneously.

“It’s a trap,” Erik snapped. “I won’t risk it.”

“I will!” Rafferty retorted.

A pale blue light began to shimmer around Erik’s body. “You won’t defy me again!”

Rafferty wasn’t daunted. He was just as determined as Erik, and he, too, stood up. “I will serve the firestorm, as I always have served the firestorm.” He saw the blue shimmering light surrounding his own body, a hint that he was also hovering on the cusp of change. He knew this could devolve to a dragon fight but he didn’t care. He would even battle the leader of the
Pyr
over this, an issue he saw as fundamental, not only to Thorolf’s survival but to that of all the
Pyr
.

If they divided forces now, it could only lead to disaster. The air crackled between the two old dragons, each as convinced of his view as the other—and equally determined to hold his ground.

“It’s Thorolf’s only chance,” Rafferty insisted. “It might be ours.”

Erik shook his head, his eyes snapping. “No firestorm could destroy magic like this. No mortal woman could bring enough power…”

“She’s not a mortal woman,” Rafferty said, interrupting Erik in a breach of
Pyr
protocol. The others fell silent in astonishment. “I don’t know what she is, but she’s not human.”

“She could be a trick,” Erik said.

“She could be his salvation,” Rafferty replied, choosing to believe.

The two older
Pyr
eyed each other, then Erik’s lips tightened. Rafferty didn’t know whether to expect a command or a concession. Erik turned away and marched to the window, bracing his hands on the frame as he stared out into the flying snow.

“So, we vote,” the leader of the
Pyr
declared.

“No. It can’t be a binding vote,” Rafferty protested to the obvious surprise of the others. “I’ll go either way, even if I go to him alone.”

Erik turned to consider him coolly, dragon in his gaze. “You would defy me again,” he said softly.

“I believe that if we lose Thorolf, we will lose the Dragon’s Tail War,” Rafferty declared, his heart in his words. “And I’m not prepared to surrender everything as easily as that.”

Erik bowed his head for a moment and Rafferty saw there was more silver mingled in his dark hair than ever before. He felt a bit sorry for his old friend, given this unwelcome burden of responsibility, but that didn’t change his mind.

“So be it,” Erik said. “There will be no vote. The leadership is simply yours, Rafferty. Since my counsel and experience is not of interest, do as you will.”

Then the former leader of the
Pyr
strode from the room, leaving them all in astonished silence as he retreated to the sanctuary of his hoard.

Rafferty took a deep breath and squeezed Melissa’s hand. “Make the deal for the show,” he said softly. “We’re going public. I have a feeling we’re going to need all the positive publicity we can get.”

Chapter Five

Thorolf was surrounded by blood, bathing in blood, swimming in blood. He feared he would drown in blood. The scent of it filled his nostrils and blurred his vision. It was warm and wet, pulsing around him. He heard a sound like the beating of a drum, echoing all around him, pounding into his own body. He felt safe, which made no sense.

He’d been flung off his feet and onto his back. His grip loosened on the skull and it rolled away, disappearing into the heaving red that surrounded him. He might have been in a satin bag or some kind of red-walled funhouse, one that shifted and changed constantly. He tried to stand up again even as his bloody world heaved. A ripple slid through the surface beneath him and he was shoved forward.

He saw a light, a bright spot in the blood, and instinctively tried to swim toward it. He wasn’t sure his efforts made any difference, but the rippling walls pushed him closer to the light. The beating became faster and he realized it was a pulse, a heartbeat but not his own. His surroundings convulsed again, forcing him into the light.

Understanding dawned as the baby Thorolf had once been was shoved into the cold light of the world.

He could hear his mother panting, although he couldn’t feel her heartbeat anymore. The midwife cleaned off his face and he took his first choking breath. She blew into his mouth to make the second breath easier, and he saw her triumphant smile when he took another breath and hollered at the indignity of being shoved into a cold world. Then she laid him on his mother’s belly. He felt a hand cradle his head, his mother’s hand, and closed his eyes as the glorious familiar sound of her pulse resonated beneath his ear. It was too far away, but hearing it and feeling it reassured him.

His mother. Tears pricked Thorolf’s eyes.

She’d died too soon.

“A boy,” the midwife announced, in a language Thorolf hadn’t heard in many centuries.

It was a language he’d never wanted to hear again. He stifled his resentment and his anger, knowing that this vision must have a purpose. He should just go with it.

For now.

It was strange that he was both observer and participant in this vision: his own distant memories were mingled with what he had learned since that day. The infant couldn’t have seen his surroundings as well as Thorolf did now. He recognized the hut, his mother, the midwife who had died when he was ten, the smell of the peat fire, the trunk against the wall where his mother had kept all of her treasures. He knew without looking that it was snowing outside. The feel inside the hut had always changed in the winter. He knew all of this, even as he felt the wonder of his own self in these first moments. He smelled the dead deer just before the door opened to admit his father.

His breath caught, his emotional reaction shaking him. He felt the old anger, and could have expected that and the burn of betrayal, but was surprised by the warm presence of love.

That was a lie. His father had never loved him. Thorolf had loved his father and believed himself loved, but he’d learned the truth of that when it counted. He’d gotten over it.

Still, it wasn’t all bad to see his father again.

Thorolf remembered his father as being large and powerful in both forms, a giant of a man with a resounding laugh and ferocious loyalty to those he called his own. He’d been a
Pyr
who didn’t mind making different choices from others: in his day, few dragon shifters had remained with their mates after the firestorm, but Thorvald had.

Thorvald had been a fierce and decisive judge, too.

Thorolf remembered that detail a bit too well.

His father was dressed in furs and leather, his shoulders covered with snow, his beard long and fair, his eyes as bright a blue as a summer sky. A deer was flung over his shoulder, his hunting knife jammed into his belt. He looked vital and male, a man providing for his family in the midst of winter. He also looked younger than Thorolf remembered him, but then, the day father and son parted was the memory that haunted him. That was decades away from this moment, and he wished with sudden force that they hadn’t disagreed.

That he hadn’t been judged and found wanting.

Thorolf felt his mother’s pulse skip at his father’s appearance and recognized that the firestorm had continued to light the days and nights of these two.

“A boy, Thorvald,” she whispered and Thorolf’s father grinned. He shut the door behind himself and slid the deer to another table.

The midwife stood and bowed deeply, even as Thorvald came to his wife’s side. He bent and kissed her cheek, pushing the damp hair back from her face. His smile was filled with such tenderness and affection that Thorolf’s heart clenched. He’d seldom seen this side of his father’s nature. “I knew it would be a son, Solveig,” he said with a confidence Thorolf recalled. “And I knew he would be strong. My fear was all for you.”

He bent and kissed her, and Thorolf watched as she closed her eyes in relief. A tear slid from the corner of one eye and Thorvald captured it with one roughened finger, lifting it to his own mouth as he watched her. “Nectar of the gods,” he said, as he always had when he’d removed Solveig’s tears.

As Thorolf remembered, it made her smile.

It was remarkable to witness this moment, this emotion in a man who had usually hidden all of his emotions from view.

Solveig smiled, then exhaled. Her features softened, her gaze locked upon her
Pyr
until her eyes closed. She slept and Thorvald watched her avidly, even as the midwife cut the cord, cleaned and wrapped the new baby.

“She will survive?” he asked, his fear clear.

“It was hard for her,” the midwife said softly. “He’s big, like his father. He was not easily brought to light.”

Concern lit Thorvald’s eyes and Thorolf saw his grip tighten on his mother’s hand. “She will be well, though?”

“Tomorrow I will tell you for sure. If she is well, you should wait a while before another,” she cautioned and Thorvald nodded, still watching his mate.

The midwife bit her lip, then decided to speak outright. “Maybe you should not have another, but be content with one.”

Thorvald smiled. “Who is ever content with one?” he joked and the midwife smiled. “The choice is Odin’s, in the end.”

The midwife’s lips tightened a little. “So all the men say,” she muttered.