Soul of Smoke (4 page)

Flat on her back, she could only stare at the car-sized head that hovered above her, luminous silver eyes filling her vision. Black lips curled back in a snarl, revealing a gaping maw full of pointed white teeth as long as her forearm and covered in slimy, yellow spittle.

Something
pushed
against her mind, the pressure growing until her brain felt it would burst like a smashed grape. She screamed, her fingers clawing into the dirt as if she could use the earth to anchor her sanity.

“
That’s right
,
ape.
Scream.
” A voice oozed through her brain, dirty and wrong. It forced its way into her mind, prying her open. Almost idly, it began flipping through memories. Her vision doubled as her true eyes watched silver ones loom closer while random images from her past flashed through her mind. She squirmed and gagged, bile climbing into her throat.

“
Kai Monahan.
” Its mental voice was oddly flat against her brain. Black nostrils flared. ”
You smell crunchable.
”

The pressure in her head doubled. Kai thought she screamed again, but wasn’t sure. The black head darted toward her, jaws gaping wide.

A groan. A man’s voice, rough with pain, but strong. “
Go back to Cadarnle
,
Kavar.
Now.
”

An ear-splitting roar. Voices that bounced around inside her head.

Everything went blessedly dark.

* * *

Kai was cold. Her head throbbed. She rolled, the earth hard and uneven beneath her. The movement triggered a sensation like a knife twisting in her brain.

Holy hell.
Where am I?

Vision blurring, she lifted her head. She was on a shallow slope surrounded by dark, narrow pines and carpeted with their prickly castoffs. The dim, gray light of dawn filtered through the forest. Ten feet away, several people huddled around a figure on the ground, speaking in the mystery language.

Images flashed through her brain. Finding Deryn. Trekking through the weird fog. Deryn’s brother, Rhys, and his fire-blue eyes.

The battle came flooding back, and her stomach lurched.
Dragons.
Freaking dragons!
The last thing she remembered was Kavar popping her mind open like an oyster. Had he brought her here?

Kai jumped to her feet but immediately fell forward on hands and knees, dead pine needles digging into her palms. Her heart drummed against the back of her ribs. Black hair fell in sheets on either side of her face. She closed her eyes and froze, wishing she hadn’t moved. It would only draw their attention.

Taking short, shallow breaths, Kai hooked her hair behind one ear and turned to look at the dragons. She blinked, trying to force her eyes into focus. Her vision cleared enough to show her five figures bent over something on the ground.

“I couldn’t put out the fire.”

Kai nearly fainted in relief when she recognized Deryn’s voice. The tall girl separated from the group, led by the tiny woman who had offered to walk Kai to the ravine before the dragon attack. As they moved, Kai caught a glimpse of the prone figure at the center of the circle.

Red hair. Rhys.

Deryn’s hands were curled into tight, white-knuckled fists. “I couldn’t put out the fire, Ffion. He’s dying and it’s my fault.”

Kai’s stomach lurched again and she swallowed bitter bile. She’d tried to save him. Had she risked her life for nothing?

“You were injured,” said the tiny woman, Ffion. “We all did our best.” She pushed Deryn gently forward, a look of calm surety on her face. “Come on,
bach
.” Her voice was chirping and bird-like, “We’ll get to the waystation and Ashem will make the anti-venom. Rhys is strong. He’ll make it.” Though Ffion’s face was composed, her voice wavered on the last sentence.

Through the awful headache and her own terrified confusion, Kai felt something in her chest unknot. For the moment, Rhys was alive, though his skin was ashen and he lay utterly still. If Ffion hadn’t said otherwise, Kai would’ve thought him dead.

Cadoc leaned hard on Rhys’s shredded shoulder with a blood-soaked rag, his hands stained red to the wrists. Kai swallowed hard at the sight. The rag was probably Cadoc’s shirt, because he wasn’t wearing one. A red-orange tattoo swirled over his shoulder and down his right arm, reminding Kai of flames. Foreign words fell from his lips, fast and angry and apparently directed at Rhys. A shockingly beautiful woman with sleek chestnut hair knelt by Rhys’s head, stroking his cheek. A vision of the same woman turning into a slender red-black dragon flashed through Kai’s mind, and her stomach clenched.

“Leave off, Cadoc.” A huge man with rich brown skin and tightly curled black hair pushed Cadoc gently aside and took his place. His right sleeve had been torn, revealing that he also had a tattoo, though his was reminiscent of vines, the twining green tendrils edged with bronze.

Cadoc rose and started pacing, then froze, staring at the blood on his hands. He stalked off through the trees in the direction Deryn and Ffion had gone, returning a moment later with his hands clean. Ffion followed close behind.

“Where’s Deryn?” The blond guy—Kai thought his name was Evan—leaned to one side as if he might be able to see past Ffion and Cadoc.

Ffion held up a hand. “Leave her for a moment, Evan. We need to bandage Rhys’s wounds while we can. Here, Griffith.” Ffion grasped her shirt and tore, handing strips of fabric to the huge man. The form-fitting gray top now ended jaggedly just below her ribcage, emphasizing her pin-up girl curves. Two blood-encrusted red lines extended down her abdomen. At the base of her left sleeve, Kai saw a glimmer of silver.

Evan gently shifted Rhys while the large man and tiny woman wrapped strips of shirt around Rhys’s wounded shoulder. When it was done, Evan handed Cadoc the bloody rags they’d used to stanch the wound. Cadoc took the rags in his hands, and they burst into flame.

The world darkened for a moment before Kai got a hold of herself. “Do not pass out,” she muttered. “Do
not
pass out.”
Dragons.
Magic.
Blood and maiming.

As if he’d heard her, Cadoc lifted his gaze, meeting hers for a long moment. He dusted ashes from his hands and came toward her. Kai’s throat went dry. She shoved herself backward through dead pine needles.
I
should have run.
I
should have gotten away before they noticed me.

Cadoc crouched a few feet away and offered his hand. This close, his eyes were the clear, startling color of amethyst. The pattern on his shoulder and arm she’d thought a tattoo was actually comprised of thousands of fine scales. They glimmered like iridescent lines of red-orange fire as the muscles of his forearm shifted beneath his skin.

“It’s all right,
brânwen
. We’ve met, remember? My name is Cadoc.”

Cadoc of the melted chocolate voice. “I remember.” Kai eyes darted from his hand to his astonishingly purple eyes, her fist pressed to her chest.

His mouth curved into a weary smile. “What’s your name? Or shall I call you Lady of the Lake for turning up with a sword when it was so badly needed?”

Kai’s mouth quirked. Against her will, the sharp edge of her fear dulled the tiniest bit. “Kai Monahan.”

Cadoc nodded gravely. “Kai Monahan, a few hours ago, you saved my best friend’s life.” He nodded in Rhys’s direction without breaking their gaze. “I swear by fire and by the blood of the Ancients, you are safe with us.”

His expression was so earnest that Kai reached up before she fully realized what she was doing. His fingers closed around hers, and she let him pull her to her feet. Dizzy, she put a hand out to catch herself, and it landed on his chest.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. Her head throbbed sharply, and she bit the inside of her mouth against the pain.

His serious expression flashed into a wicked grin. “I expect it took a massive effort to resist me as long as you did.”

“Leave her alone, Cadoc.”

Kai jumped as Ffion appeared on her other side. She took Kai’s arm, and Kai noticed a beautifully worked band of silver and jewels around the small woman’s biceps.

Ffion patted Kai’s shoulder and gave Cadoc a narrow-eyed glare, as if she suspected him of mischief. “She’s been through enough.”

Kai would have pulled away, but she wasn’t sure if she could stand on her own.

“We’ve all been through enough,” the beautiful woman hissed from her place at Rhys’s head. “Why should we treat her like glass?”

“She saved his
life
,” Cadoc snapped.

There was an earth-rattling
thump
from somewhere in the woods. Kai tensed, but next to her, Ffion relaxed. Ashem appeared from under the trees with Deryn close behind, walking with barely a limp. She moved to blond Evan and leaned against his side. He pressed a kiss to her temple and wrapped an arm around her waist.

Kai started a list of dragon traits in her mind.
Scale tattoos.
Superfast healing.
Weird eye colors.

Ashem’s gaze flicked around the group. “It appears that we’ve lost them. At least, I don’t sense Kavar. Transform and let’s get to the waystation. Rhys won’t survive if we fly to Eryri.” He jerked his head at Evan and the beautiful woman. “Evan, Morwenna, you two go back to Eryri. Get the Invisible and bring them back here. Kavar has gone back to Owain, but he won’t stay gone, and his vee is still around. We’ll need an escort home.”

Morwenna’s dark, arched brows drew together over brown eyes. “Eryri is a five-day flight. Demba and the rest are still around and there won’t be food at the waystation. We should all—”

Ashem cut her off with gesture and a glare. “Our communicators and all of our things were left in the meadow. We have no way of contacting anyone. As soon as he reaches Owain’s stronghold—which won’t be more than another forty-eight hours, Kavar will tell Owain that Rhys is wounded and stranded, and that I was stupid enough to allow Deryn to come, as well. We need help.”

Morwenna opened her mouth to protest again, but Ashem cut her off. “Go!”

“We’ll be back soon.” Evan slid his arm from Deryn’s waist.

Morwenna tossed her chestnut hair, speaking through gritted teeth. “Get the communicators back and contact us if you can.” She stared at Rhys as if memorizing the sight of him. “Don’t let anything happen to him.”

Ashem nodded. “Fly. May the wind carry you well.”

“And you.” Evan put a hand on Morwenna’s arm and pulled her away. They walked beyond the nearest trees and out of Kai’s line of sight. A moment later, the pines rustled in a sudden, brief gust of wind. Two dragons, one midnight blue, one red-black, flashed across a patch of sky and were gone.

“Cadoc, Griffith, bring Rhys,” Ashem commanded. “We have to go now.”

Cadoc and Griffith hefted Rhys carefully between them and headed into the trees.

Ffion tugged Kai gently in the same direction. Kai dug her heels into the carpet of pine. If only her head didn’t hurt so much, she might be able to
think
. “Wait. I need to get back. My friends will be worried.”

Ffion glanced worriedly from Rhys back to Kai. “I’m sorry, Kai. You can’t go back right now. There’s no time.”

Kai leaned away from Ffion. “No time? Hey! I stabbed a
dragon
with a
sword
for you people! That doesn’t mean I want to be in your gang. You have to take me back!”

Ffion tugged again. Kai tried to wrench her arm free, but she might as well have tried to pull a building down with her bare hands.

Ashem noticed the commotion. He strode over, his scowl focused on Kai. “We don’t have time for this.”

Kai cringed. In her head there was a sickeningly familiar sensation, like someone cracking open her mind. Like Kavar, forcing his way into her head: mentally molested, violated. Different, but too close.

She tried to scream, but everything went black again.

Chapter Three

Thanks and You’re Welcome

Darkness. Warmth. The smell of stone. Soothing, mellow notes being plucked on a guitar.

Something was wrong in her head. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it felt like it might if she moved.

Kai opened her eyes.

Gray ceiling.

The thought drifted and bounced, not connecting.

She turned, careful not to move too fast. Little shocks of pain zinged through the base of her skull. Her vision blurred and sharpened like a camera that wouldn’t stay in focus.

A lean, beautiful man with disheveled black hair and amethyst eyes sat an arm’s length away, rocking a heavy wooden chair on its back legs like a bored kid at school. Long, artistic fingers flowed over the neck of an acoustic guitar, picking out an intricate, mournful melody.

A name drifted out of her brain. It attached itself to the man.

Cadoc.

In a gut-wrenching flash, she remembered.
Dragons.
The violence and violation of Kavar invading her mind.

Waking up in the pines.

Rhys bloody and unconscious.

Cadoc holding fire in his hands.

She bolted upright. Agony bloomed between her temples. She tried to scream but emitted a choked garble instead. Nausea burned in her stomach, and bile rose in her throat.

“Easy,
brânwen
.”

A ceramic bowl slid into her lap, and a cool hand gathered loose hair away from the base of her neck. She clutched the bowl as her stomach constricted and heaved. She didn’t have much to lose, which made it worse.

“Ow.” She whimpered, tears of pain streaming from her eyes.
Where am I?
I
have to get away.
I
have to get home.
She touched the pocket of her hoodie, but there was nothing there. She’d stuck her cell phone in her pack the night before. As far as she knew, that pack was still sitting next to the fire pit in the meadow. Kai bit back a whimper.

The bowl shifted, and a cool glass of water seemed to materialize in her hands.

“Rinse and spit.”

Fighting her rising panic, Kai swirled water in her mouth and spit into the bowl, which he whisked away. Black strands of hair fell around her face.

“Cadoc,” she croaked. Moving tentatively, she raised her head. If it had to be a dragon, at least it was the one who’d promised she’d be safe.

He took the bowl and rose. “At your service.” His voice was light; half teasing, half serious. His accent made it sound like music. Musical chocolate.

She looked up at him. Her bed wasn’t truly a bed at all, but something like a futon mattress covered with thick blankets and a mound of pillows. Beyond Cadoc, half a dozen mattresses sat rolled up against the wall, each with its own set of bedding in a variety of neutral colors. A fire pit sat in the center of the room, smoke from its small fire twisting up toward a chimney-like hole in the roof. But instead of sky, the hole showed only darkness.
Oh
,
hell.
Was she in a cave? When she’d woken earlier, it had been dawn. What time was it now? Juli was going to kill her.

Kai tried to swallow the nasty taste in her mouth. “My head hurts.”

Cadoc pushed back the sleeves of his gray shirt—he had gotten a new one, somehow—and smiled. It eased Kai’s fear. “Are you going to be sick again?”

Kai grunted a negative. She rubbed her eyes. If she held still, the aching subsided, but her thoughts skittered out of reach. All but one.

Kavar.
He’d been in her head and left his name behind like a scar. For a moment, she thought she’d lied to Cadoc about not being sick again, but he was gone, walking around the fire pit toward an archway in the opposite wall. Voices came from inside, but distantly, as if from down a short tunnel. Cadoc didn’t go far, only leaned against the frame of the archway for a moment, calling for someone.

Kai put her head on her knees and breathed deeply. She was in a cave with a bunch of strangers, who were also dragons. She’d stabbed a dragon named Kavar with a sword. She couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but it had been dawn when they were in that clearing of pines. Juli and Charlotte were probably out of their minds with panic.

Oh
,
hell.
Juli probably called my parents.
If
they
found out that Kai had temporarily gone missing they would freak. Her heartbeat cranked and her throat closed. She was twenty, but they controlled her life because they paid rent and tuition. Her own problem, Kai knew, but making more money would’ve meant giving up her job at the Quarry, which would have meant less climbing. It had seemed like a bearable trade at the time. And as long as she’d worked at the Quarry, her mom hadn’t bothered her about teaching gymnastics.

Kai turned her face to the side, trying to breathe. The stone archway was empty—Cadoc had gone somewhere, probably to get rid of the nasty bowl. Tiny white fires bordered the opening, spreading in an organic pattern all around the walls. About a quarter of the way around the oval-shaped chamber, another, larger archway let in a breeze and a hint of natural sunlight, though all Kai could see through it from this angle was more cave. The skin on the back of her neck and arms prickled and a pit of hard, cold dread formed in her stomach. Again, she wondered where she was.

Cadoc appeared in the wider opening, his hands empty. He grinned at Kai and crossed to the archway again. “Ashem!”

Kai flinched, shrinking down into her blankets.
Ashem?
Isn’t he the one who—?

A deep, angry voice growled a response, and Ashem appeared: dark, built and scowling. Pushing past Cadoc, he sat rigidly in the chair next to Kai’s bed. “You’re awake.”

Kai cowered away from him, pressing her hands against either side of her head as if that might keep him out.

Ashem leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His eyes, though the color of molten gold, held none of Cadoc’s warmth. Everything about him, from his posture to the way he moved, screamed “military.” His brow creased in a clinical-looking frown, eyes dispassionately roving over her face and body.

Something other
brushed her mind. Kai yelped and pressed against the wall. Her pulse boomed in her ears and bile rose again in her throat. She fought it down, concentrating her entire will on keeping him out of her head.

“No! Get out!” The gray room wavered around the edges.

Ashem’s frown deepened from vague to annoyed. He turned to Cadoc. “Kavar nearly crushed her consciousness. Her brain is reacting to my presence instinctively. She’s putting up shields, but she can’t have any idea what she’s doing.”

Cadoc squatted next to Kai. “He’s trying to help.”

Kai pushed harder against the disturbance in her mind, teeth clenched. “I don’t want his help! Give me an ibuprofen and I’ll be fine!”

Ashem didn’t withdraw. His touch was soft and deft, not like Kavar’s, but close enough. The mental pressure grew, and her breath turned to sharp, ragged gasps.

“No!”

“Leave off, Commander,” Cadoc muttered, standing. “She’s whiter than snow.”

Ashem pinned Kai with his lion eyes. “Do you want this headache?”

“I’ll deal with it if it keeps you out of my head!”

Ashem glared. She glared back. Finally, his mental touch withdrew. “Deal with it, then.” He stood, addressing Cadoc as he stalked toward the archway. “Rhys should regain consciousness soon, if it worked.”

When Ashem was out of sight, Kai exhaled, sagging against the wall.

“Rhys is lucky he wasn’t killed,” Cadoc muttered to himself. “He and Deryn both, if not for you.”

“Why am I here?” Kai reached down. Finding her carabiners still on her belt, she clicked one open and shut, open and shut.

Cadoc picked up his guitar, which he’d leaned against the wall nearby. She hadn’t even seen him put it down. “We couldn’t leave you to Kavar and his vee.”

The skin on the back of Kai’s neck prickled. “So, Rhys...he’s alive?”

Cadoc’s fingers rippled over the strings like water, but his voice had a hard edge. “Kavar didn’t have much venom left when he bit him. Rhys will survive.” He sounded sure, but threw a worried glance over his shoulder at the archway.

Kai leaned her head back against cool stone. “Am I kidnapped?”

Letting out a surprised laugh, Cadoc shrugged. “A little.”

Kai frowned, her unease growing. “A little?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Yes means yes,
brânwen
.” He plucked a complex tune on the guitar, his fingers a blur. “We brought you with us because you saved Deryn and Rhys last night. We owe you.”

Kai rubbed her head. “You owe me, so I’m kidnapped.”

“Would you rather we’d left you in the meadow?”

Kai blanched. “No. But I’m alive, and so are Deryn and Rhys, so thanks and you’re welcome. When can I leave?”

Cadoc smiled. “Not quite yet. Demba and the rest of Kavar’s vee are flying all over the Rockies looking for us. We have to lay low for a bit.”

Kai’s heart sped again, thinking of her parents. And Juli, who would tear the dragon-infested mountains apart looking for her. Would she be safe? “How long is ‘a bit’? And what’s a vee?”

“A day or so. We—that is, we dragons—will be here until Evan and Morwenna get back, but there’s no reason I can’t fly you home. It’s only a couple of hours south.”

Kai relaxed a fraction. “We can’t go now?”

Cadoc laughed again. “No such luck, I’m afraid. But soon.” He stood, pulling the strap of his guitar over one shoulder. “You’re all right?”

No.
“I’ll survive. At least tell me what ‘vee’ means.”

“A vee is a group of ten to fifteen dragons raised and trained together from childhood. It’s our basic military unit.” Concern for Rhys must have been overriding whatever it was that had brought Cadoc to her bedside in the first place, because he stood. “We’re all just over there.” He pointed to the archway from which he’d retrieved Ashem. “Feel free to look around. There’s rather a steep step out front, though. Mind you don’t fall.”

With a wink, he disappeared into the other room.

Kai threw off the blankets and scooted ungracefully from the mattress. She half-heartedly rolled her bedding, stacking it sort of haphazardly out of the way. She might have considered doing a better job—Juli would certainly have—but her head still hurt and she hadn’t eaten in who knew how long, so she did what she could and made her shaky way out through the larger opening. She had to figure out where she was.

The short, wide tunnel led from the sleeping room into a vast cavern with a ceiling that arched at least a hundred feet overhead. Kai gaped at the stalactites, the white lights of the ceiling so distant they looked like stars. The floor, smooth as glass, glittered with their reflection. She slid one bare foot across the mirror-like stone and whispered, “How?”

Across the cavern, the floor roughened into something more like a natural cave, sloping upward to a huge cave mouth that yawned into the sky.

She stood, hugging herself, and walked toward the light that spilled from the opening. Despite everything, she couldn’t help but eye the walls of the cavern. The stone looked nice and strong, broken up with just enough cracks and little ledges to make climbing a challenge.

“Yeah, Monahan. Now would be a
great
time for a climb.” She shook her head and scrambled up the incline, where the floor went from glass-like to normal stone. Outside, the sun so brilliant it momentarily washed out her vision. The air changed from pleasantly warm to biting cold as if she’d walked through a wall, and Kai stifled a squeak of surprise.

Her eyes adjusted, color slowly leeching into the haze of white. Her mouth fell open. She’d suspected the cave was underground. She hadn’t expected this.

A large, flat ledge about fifty feet wide extended out about thirty feet before disappearing into nothingness. Kai walked to the edge.

They
were
underground...and several hundred feet up a mountain. A sheer cliff face dropped over a hundred feet straight down before hitting a more gradual slope populated with pine and aspen. Mountains stretched away in front of her into the misty blue distance, snowy peaks rising and falling like frozen ocean waves in the endless wilderness.

She had no idea where she was.

Kai shivered beneath the cloudless dome of sky, then leaned over the edge again, assessing. A climb would be possible, but dangerous. She might have considered it, but without gear, there was just no way.

She had been kidnapped by dragons, and she was stuck.