Legacy of Flames- The Complete Trilogy, page 3
part #1 of Legacy of Flames Series
A faint smell tingled in my nostrils, and a growl rumbled in my chest. I trusted my instincts. Something was off. The weird scent persisted, like smoke lingering after a fire. Familiar, yet not something I could name. I paused beside a bush behind the garden wall, and climbed over.
“Ember?” Cori came over to me.
“I can smell something different, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from,” I said. Dragons didn’t have as clear a sense of smell as say, wolves, but it bugged me that I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
“I smell, it too.” She pushed branches aside, and I helped, revealing metal. A lid covering…
“A secret tunnel?”
Curiosity stirred. My dragon was entirely too interested at finding out what someone had wanted to hide in an underground chamber. Rationally, I knew the dragon wasn’t a different person—just a more impulsive side to me. Most other shifters slipped between forms like changing outfits. Will spent hours hanging out with other gargoyle shifters. Becks made friends with all the local cats. But dragons were unusual enough to be a security risk even in normal circumstances. Or a fire hazard, at least.
I hesitated before lifting the lid. Sure, a lot of shifters survived by hiding in tunnels, but my dragon brain was hard-wired for open skies and vast spaces, not stifling air and darkness. The drop wasn’t steep, but I’d need to walk at a crouch to make room for the others.
Becks leaned over my shoulder, peering into the dark.
“Whatever made those footprints can’t be hiding down there. The gap’s too small,” I said.
“Maybe,” said Becks, “but if it’s a shifter and they’ve turned human again… they might be. It’s worth a look. I can’t see at all, though. If I go down there, I might not be able to get out again.”
“I don’t like the looks of it,” said Cori. “Ember, are you sure?”
Not really. I didn’t like the look of the cramped space, either, but if there was a frightened shifter stuck down there in the dark, I needed to be sure. No scents warned me of danger. I’d be able to sense if there were faeries around. I carefully lowered myself into the hole, then let go with both hands. It was around five and a half feet deep, so I had to duck my head to properly see.
“Can’t hear anyone,” I said.
“Ember, this isn’t your best idea,” said Becks.
“Maybe not, but it’s all we’ve got. We’ve checked every other hiding place. Can you look for other tunnel entrances like this? If our target’s hiding underground, we might be able to corner them that way.”
I didn’t like the word. Targets. Like we were to the hunters—menaces to be shot down and hung on the walls as trophies.
I’d walked—crouching—for a few metres before footsteps came from behind. Cori had followed me. I indicated she be quiet and walked on.
My night vision picked out an odd shape ahead in the dark. I trod on damp brick as I made my way closer, grimacing as filthy water swirled high enough to cover my boots. The odd scent grew stronger. Like incense burning. Like…
Moonbeam leaves.
Aka, shifter catnip.
A rustling sounded ahead, and my first glimpse of a black-clad figure in the dark sent me scrambling back several steps.
“Cori,” I whispered, cursing inwardly when the sound carried further than I’d have liked. “Out. Now.”
Panic flashed in her eyes when she realised I was serious, and we swiftly retraced our steps to the ladder. I let Cori climb ahead of me. The scent of the hunters washed over me—the smell of metal and copper, a nauseating mix. They were here, in the tunnel? They didn’t travel underground. That was our domain. The rumble of fire in my chest mingled with a too-familiar sense of alarm—the hunters hadn’t seen what they were hunting yet, but they must have guessed there were shifters in the area. Otherwise they wouldn’t have left the bait. As soon as I transformed, they’d go for the kill. Regular shifters were no prize. The hunter who brought back the head of a dragon would be showered with riches for the rest of their life.
But they shouldn’t know what we were. I hadn’t fully shifted since that awful day two years ago.
Cori pulled herself out of the ground and I followed. Sure, these guys were trained assassins, but shifters moved quicker. That’s the reason so many of us are still alive. Whatever the hunters were doing underground, I wasn’t about to stick around and find out.
Cori and I ran from the garden. Becks had turned into cat form again and led the way, full-out sprinting down the road.
That’s when the second group of hunters ran around the corner.
3
Will took flight with a deafening shriek, drawing all attention to him. His stone gargoyle form was tough enough to take a fair few hits, but the bullets the hunters used were deadly to all supernaturals. They’d do a fair bit of damage to a human, too. Get out of here! I thought at him. There were five hunters in the second group. Too many for us to fight.
Did they know we were coming? How?
I motioned to Cori to run ahead of me, covering her back as we sprinted for safety. We’d made it ten feet before one of the hunters realised the gargoyle had distracted them on purpose. Bang. Cori gasped, and my heart stopped beating for a moment—but the shot had missed. We rounded the corner, hoping Becks had the sense to stay hidden or run away in shifter form. I tugged my hood up, but they’d all seen me already.
We’d been set up. Someone had tipped them off.
Paranoid theories ricocheted around my head. We can’t lead them home. A group this big would be tricky to shake off, especially here. We needed to make for a crowded place and lose them there. The League still relied on secrecy to stop supernaturals from finding them. They didn’t want to make a spectacle, in case the Mage Lords realised how much of a threat they presented. But the idea of the mages helping was absurd as the idea of rooting all the faeries out of town. The hunters were too widespread, impossible to track down, and had countless hiding places. Plus, those instant-kill bullets would take out even the most powerful supernatural.
As the hunters closed in, they spread out, one of them grabbing for me. I snarled and lashed out with my knives, narrowly avoiding another shot from the gun. Blood sprayed out from his arm as my knife connected. I kicked at him, struggling to reel in my dragon form—if I transformed, that was it. I’d blow our cover, and the whole city would know what Cori and I were. They’d hunt us down and hand us over to our enemies, or kill us to make an example. I didn’t want to find out which.
My heavy combat boot struck the hunter on the nose with a crunch, but he grabbed for my foot, trying to unbalance me. I twisted out of his grip and kicked his knee, knocking him down, then kicked him in the ribs. He had to be in a great deal of pain, but didn’t make a sound. Hunters had a freakishly high pain tolerance. Rumour said their initiation involved walking on hot coals in the dark.
“Shifter scum,” he growled as I wrestled the gun from his hands and turned it on him. His eyes dared me to shoot. My claw fumbled the trigger as part of me fought against killing by using their execution-style tactic used against shifters like me. But my claws were far too big and clumsy to pull the trigger anyway. I crushed the gun into powder and knocked him out with a hammer-like hit to the skull.
Leaping to my feet, I ran to help Cori, who fought another hunter alongside Becks. She’d made him drop his gun, and I quickly disposed of the weapon by crushing it in my claw. The assassin reached for a second weapon in his belt, but Becks dug her claws into his face and he yelped, hands flying up to pry her off him. I took the opportunity to kick at his shins. He went down, hard, Becks slashing at his face. He rolled to his front to avoid her, and Cori’s foot stamped down on his hand before he grabbed his weapon. He twisted around, trying to kick at us, but his leg was tangled in my claw. He screamed as I pierced through to the bone. He wouldn’t be walking again anytime soon.
Another had fallen to Becks’s claws. Two more assassins remained. I leaped at one of the remaining masked figures, stabbing them in the chest. No second chances. We couldn’t leave any of them alive—especially since they’d seen my distinctive claws. Now they were sheathed in blood, they might have belonged to any animal—but no wildcat had claws this long and sharp. Becks took the second hunter down, but a scream chilled my blood. Cori. Two more assassins had backed her up against the garden wall. A third group? No—the ones from underground. They’d climbed out of another tunnel exit further down the road.
Shit. We were outnumbered.
Bloodlust rang through me, a reminder that my ancestors survived by killing anything that strayed into their path. But I couldn’t kill this many, not without getting hit—or worse, losing Cori.
A growling noise came from my left. I caught a glimpse of claws, and then Becks was on them in a giant leap. I joined her, fighting the sense of futility—sooner or later, one of us would be hit. A bullet whistled past my head, and I ducked, my heart thudding.
A deafening bang shook the whole area. Thanks, Will. His gargoyle form might be scary, but he was also half-witch and made a damn good defensive spell. The noise made the hunters turn their guns on him instead, as he flew around the rooftops. The average gargoyle was a fearsome sight to behold—around six feet long, grey, with leathery wings and a curved beak designed to tear at flesh. Will was as harmless as it was possible to be for something so frightening-looking, but he’d distracted the hunters enough that they wanted to take him out first.
A bullet clipped over Will’s head. While the hunter took aim again, I dived at him, my claws piercing his gun hand, forcing him to drop the weapon. When he’d stopped moving, I grabbed the gun and twisted it into a lump of metal.
A scream from behind me. Two hunters held Cori, their weapons pointed at her neck.
“Let her go!” My voice came out in a low growl, more animal than human. My control threatened to snap, but if I shifted—they’d kill her. No question.
“Come with us, shifter,” one of them said. “Or the little one dies.”
More climbed over the fence. Ten. Eleven. Too many for a patrol. They’d planned this. Someone betrayed us.
They would pay.
As the hunters closed in, hands tugged at me. Too many hands. They’d all converged on me at once, and I lost sight of the others in a frenzy of blood and desperation. My claws hit everything that moved, tearing through flesh and bone, my human instincts repressed entirely. Nothing mattered but finding my sister. By the time I shoved a hunter’s limp arm off me, I found I was alone.
They’d taken her. Cori was gone.
Becks pelted down the street with a yowl, ending beside the open cover of a hole in the ground. She pointed with one paw, hissing in anger, then jumped down into the dark. There they are.
With a snarl, I ran to join her. I fell several feet into the tunnel and landed on my feet only because of the tight space. Filthy water swirled around my ankles, but no sign of the hunters—not so much as a bloodstain—remained.
I ran several metres down the tunnel, but came to a dead end. Packed earth blocked my path, the sort that had been here a while. Not a hastily constructed barrier. There had never been a way out. They’d gone. Their scent remained, but they’d disappeared. Like they’d evaporated into thin air.
My clawed hands curled into fists as I struck the wall, again and again. A sob choked my throat, lodged in my chest, as tears burned my eyes. I’d sworn to protect Cori. Somehow, the League had got right into our network and hunted us down.
My claws dug gouges in the grimy wall as I hauled myself onto the road again. They might have run in any of ten directions. This area was a rabbit’s warren of streets, old houses juxtaposed with modern ones. The hunters knew the city better even than the taxi drivers did.
“Will?” I called out. My leg was bleeding pretty badly, and it hurt to bend forward. Broken ribs? Dragons were tough, but the only scales on my body were on my hands when I partially shifted. “Becks?”
She jumped down from the fence, turning human again. The filthy water from the tunnel had plastered her hair to her face, and she looked distraught. “I didn’t see where they took her. I—I swore they were underground again, but that water got in my eyes and—I panicked.”
“Where’s Will?”
A pterodactyl screech drew our attention to the sky. Will descended in more of a fall than a glide, collapsing into human form against the fence. Clumps of blond hair were matted to his forehead with blood, but it looked like a surface wound.
“Shit,” I said, running to him. “Are you okay? They didn’t shoot you, did they?”
“If they did, I’d be a permanent decoration on one of these fancy houses. No, they didn’t. But I saw them. That way. I can’t fly—you’ll have to run.”
He pointed north. I ran, pushing my bleeding leg to its limits. Becks transformed into a cat again, scurrying down the road as fast as she could.
Fury seared my veins. I’d never thought my mind would zero in so quickly on a single notion: kill them.
Kill them. Kill them. My nails bit into my palms, turning into claws. Scales had begun to cloak my hands. Keeping my other self contained was impossible at this point. Cori’s disappearance lifted the lid on the emotions I normally kept caged. I’d been so terrified to lose anyone else, I hadn’t dared fully shift since that day. In case it brought the hunters back.
I ran into a black-clad assassin, knocking both of us over. My claws smacked off the tarmac, inches from his neck. Gotcha.
A bullet shot over my head. One of the others had spotted me. Becks ran at them, yowling loudly. My captive took the opportunity to wriggle free from my grip and turn on me. A pair of green eyes glared into mine, and for a heartbeat, I stared at the man who’d shot at me two years ago.
Tousled chestnut hair, longer and more tangled than last time, framed his narrow face. Pure anger suffused his expression. We both moved at the same time. His wrist grabbed mine, hard, and I kicked at him. He missed. I didn’t. The momentum sent me crashing down on top of him. I punched, and he dodged my clawed blow, rolling to the side to try and buck me off. On a normal human, that’d probably have worked, but my claws dug into the tarmac, keeping him pinned. We were equally matched. He’d most likely had more training, but I’d struck first, and it gave me the advantage.
“You bitch,” he growled.
“Nice to see you, too,” I said, and went for the throat.
He moved suddenly, and pain exploded in my leg. He’d knocked into the stab wound. The assassin cursed and shoved me off him, but my claw’s grip still held. I swiped at his face, blood spurting from his jaw, but I’d missed hitting anything vital.
A bullet whistled over our heads. He swore under his breath and rolled free of me as I was forced to move my claw to avoid being hit.
Don’t you dare.
I tackled him around the waist, unintentionally saving both of us from another bullet. The hunters apparently didn’t care about hitting their ally. He was swearing, trying to wriggle free of me, but my claws dug into the back of his jacket. He twisted, fury burning in his eyes, fighting against my grip with more tenacity than I’d expect from a human. Shifters were supposed to be stronger. Fire burned inside my throat. I gritted my teeth, trying to fight it off. His foot connected with my leg. I gasped, eyes watering. Blood soaked my jeans where I’d been stabbed. This was it. He’d pull out his magic gun and then—
No. I kicked upwards, viciously, and caught him in the fork of his legs. His breath escaped in a gasp, and then I was on him again. My foot smashed into his ribs, and I heard a cracking sound, though he didn’t scream. But the blood loss made my vision swim and slowed my instincts down.
He lunged at me, blood dripping down his face, and knocked me down onto my injured leg. My vision blacked out for a second, and the next, Becks had landed in front of me, transforming back into human form.
“Ember! They shot you?”
“No,” I mumbled. “Don’t let him get away. He’s—one of them.”
Blackness descended like a sweeping wing.
4
Consciousness returned piece by piece. My whole body felt like I’d been dragged around by an elephant. A fragrant smell filled my nostrils. Healing spell. Nobody was supposed to use those. They were for emergencies only.
Shit.
Cori’s disappearance hit me like a claw to the heart. I failed her. I pressed my hands to my eyes, stifling a sob, then sat up, wincing at the pain. The healing spell had taken care of the stab wound, but not the rest of my injuries. Blood plastered my jeans to my leg. The others must have brought me back here. But it was dark outside now, a thick fog rolling through the street. Like the day of the invasion. My breath caught in my throat. Calm, Ember. You can’t help Cori while you’re panicking. I grabbed some clean clothes and limped to the bathroom. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking as I fumbled to turn the shower on. Bruises covered my body, but I was lucky it wasn’t worse. We were well practised at avoiding hunters’ bullets by now. Too bad it hadn’t helped.
I showered quickly, going through the motions as I tried to figure out what the hell to do. The hunters operated all over the city, and they might have taken Cori anywhere. They wouldn’t have killed her, not yet. Unless she’d shifted.
I clenched my fists and squeezed my eyes shut, a few tears escaping and mingling with the water. Not now. My baby sister needed me. I’d bring her back, and rain hell down on the hunters who’d taken her from me.
That plan went against everything Cori and I had practised over the last—well, forever. There were no second chances when one of the League shot you. If I dragged anyone else along on the rescue mission, they’d be fair game as well.
Anger churned inside me. Giving up was out of the question. Even though they might not necessarily know Cori was a dragon shifter yet—it’d hardly be their first assumption—the moment she broke and told them the truth, she’d be dead.
I swallowed, tasting bile. Cori had never shifted before. The first transformation was the most painful and exhausting, and if not for her being there the day I transformed in the Underground, I’d have died when I fell unconscious. If they… if they forced her to shift…
