Legacy of Flames- The Complete Trilogy, page 7
part #1 of Legacy of Flames Series
“No, until my friends get here. Don’t get snippy with me. I saved your life.”
“By ‘saved my life’, you mean locked me in a basement and beat the shit out of me.”
“Dear god, you don’t half whine a lot.”
“Would you be civil if a bunch of freaks kidnapped you and turned the automatons against you?”
“Who flipped off some nixies and threw my knife at a half-faerie?”
He flashed me a glare. “I’m not going to apologise for your overactive conscience.”
“Don’t get concerned that I cared for your well-being. I was more worried your buddies would get my friends’ identities from you. If you weren’t in the Orion League, you’d be out there free. Don’t make this my problem.”
The harsh light painted a stripe on his battered face. “I’m not part of the League. You kidnapped the wrong guy.”
8
“Wait.” I stared at him. “You’re not with the League? What the hell were you doing following them, then?”
“Same as you. Spying.”
“You tried to kill us.”
“You jumped me,” he retaliated.
“Because you were wearing their uniform. What did you expect me to do?”
The generic black gear he wore was too well-tailored to belong to anyone but the League. As for the tattoos, nobody in their right mind would go through that much pain and walk away. Right?
He gave me a look that said plainly, are you stupid? “Obviously, I needed the uniform to get close to them.”
“If you aren’t one of them, then you’re a traitor, according to your rules. Right?”
“Right,” he said, through clenched teeth. I didn’t believe the lie. If you left the League, you died. The stories varied about exactly how and when, but it was supposed to be enough of a deterrent.
“I thought the first thing they did in your initiation is make you beat a traitor until they’re nearly dead and then set a pack of hunting dogs on them.”
He smirked. “Not quite. We use wolves instead.”
“Ugh. Shut up.”
His smirk grew more pronounced at my reaction. “You think the League orders us to kill one another?”
“Yes. Everyone knows it.”
“Everyone knows you aren’t supposed to exist.”
“Sorry I disrupted your peaceful life, then.”
He laughed shortly. “You’ve no idea.”
Great. I’d kidnapped someone who wasn’t even a hunter, and who’d decided not to actually tell me that until we were stuck together with an automaton on our tail. “You know what? I think you’re lying.”
He tilted his head. “What would I have to gain from lying to you now?”
“I was going to stab you at the time. You seriously didn’t think I wouldn’t remember you tried to shoot me two years ago?”
There—I’d brought it up this time. An unreadable expression passed over his face, like a pebble skimming the surface of a pond. It transformed his features from impassive to dangerous, in such a way that alerted my dragon side to a potential threat. My spine straightened, my skin warming as a tingling sensation passed over my skin. The first sign of a potential shift.
“You were on the enemy’s side,” Astor said, apparently unaware of the change which had awakened inside me.
“I was hiding.” My hands clenched, and my claws itched to break out. “Your people turned on us, as well as the enemy.”
“Excuse me? Your people did plenty of damage to us, too.”
“The faeries are not my people.”
“And the League aren’t mine,” he said.
“You have the evidence tattooed all over you.”
His mouth twisted in a mockery of a smirk. “I thought you were admiring my tattoos.”
His eyes remained flat and cold. He was playing a game, trying to get under my skin so I wouldn’t see the knife coming. Assassins didn’t give up their blades easily. And it was pretty clear that leaving the Orion League wasn’t a choice any sane person would make. My dragon side didn’t care how dangerous he was, though. One movement and my claws would be out, tearing into vulnerable human flesh. He’d die like anyone else, assassin or not.
That dangerous look didn’t vanish from his expression. If anything, it intensified, sending prickles down my spine. For a heartbeat—a chilling heartbeat—I wondered if he could hold his own against my claws, after all. I hadn’t dared fully shift since that day—the first time I’d seen him. Had he guessed? It was his job to get underneath people’s skin, and tease out their secrets without them even knowing. I was an open book compared to him. I couldn’t hide my emotions. God knew what he’d picked up from me already.
All I knew was that in that second, I felt closer to shifting than I had since that day two years ago. Because of him. Because I wanted to tear out his throat.
I took a step back, shaken by the thought that I’d managed to get so close to him without realising. If he’d wanted to, he might have attacked me at any time during that conversation and even my claws might not have caught him in time. Precisely the kind of oversight that’d get me killed.
“I’m trying to get my little sister back from your former family,” I said, taking another step back. “Wish I’d killed you instead. If you really aren’t with the League anymore, you’re useless to me.”
He took a step back, too, yet despite the distance between us, the air still felt charged as anger flashed in his eyes and tightened his jaw. “If I’m so bloody useless, why keep me around?”
“Why indeed.” I risked a look outside. What in hell was taking Becks so long? She’d been moving in animal form. She ought to have got here before I did.
Something’s wrong out there. Did the automatons catch her? Might she have got caught in their attack on the faeries? No—I’d have seen or heard her. I put my rucksack on again, not taking my eyes off Astor while I did so. Wondering what I’d do if he attacked. Could I intercept him if he moved as fast as he had when he’d hit those trees? Maybe. I was a shifter. I was supposed to be faster and stronger than humans were. Even assassins with freakishly quick reflexes and deadly eyes. Sure, he looked creepy, but that was part of the act, wasn’t it? I wasn’t scared of any human, whatever other skills he might have.
“Unless you’re thinking of another use for me.” His voice dropped to a low purr.
“Ugh. Stop doing that.” Despite those crucial steps between us, he still felt too damned close. My dragon side stirred again, fire warming my skin from underneath. Nope. This is not the place to fully shift, however much you want to rip out his throat.
“I’m not doing anything, darling. I’m nowhere near you.”
Anger rumbled through me. “You could be on the other side of the planet and you’d still piss me off.”
“Is that a challenge?” He scooted forward a step, somewhere between casual and carefully deliberate. Assassins calculated every single move they ever made.
Two could play at that game. Clearly, he wasn’t going to stop trying to get to me, but I wasn’t short on skills myself. I moved forward a step, to the same position I’d been in before. My skin tingled with static as claws pressed against my nails. Whoa. Calm down, dragon. You can’t use him to find Cori if he’s dead.
Problem was, dragons were pure instinct like most shifters, and when it came to any threat to my family, there was a real risk of me lunging at the nearest possible target and not stopping my attack until it was too late. I hadn’t shifted enough times to have run into as many sticky situations as other pure-blooded shifters, like Becks, but recklessly giving into impulses wasn’t what I needed right now. I remained as still as I could, inches away from the man who’d ruined my life. “Where the hell are you, Becks?” I growled.
“The cat shifter.”
My mouth pressed together. He knew too much. I’d fallen into one of his games when it was his job to lure me into a false sense of security. With my claws, I had more weapons, but he had the means to bring the entire League to me. Nothing was stopping him from turning me in. Nothing but the threat to his own life as a deserter, and I still wasn’t at all sure I believed it. Nobody but a coward would quit the League at the height of its power. Astor might be a lot of things, but I was sure that cowardly wasn’t one of them.
“Relax, darling. I’m not going to hurt your friends. They’re inconsequential.”
“Oh, that’s good news,” I said, my voice slightly shakier than I intended. “And I’m not?”
“Far from it.” His hand snagged my wrist, brushing the pulse beating frantically at the point where my claws were seconds from bursting free. “You’re something else entirely.”
“You’ll be minus one head if you don’t let go of me.”
He dropped my wrist, casually, not like it burned him—though that might well have been the case. Heat poured off my skin when I was stressed. But he didn’t comment, just tilted his head as though I was some peculiarity which had caught his attention. Not a predator watching her prey.
My hands rippled as claws replaced skin, leathery scales covering my wrists. The transformation happened in a heartbeat, leaving my left claw inches from his neck.
“Going to kill me, darling?” he whispered.
His flat, empty eyes contrasted with the easy smile curling his lip. Apparently he still got a kick out of winding me up this close to decapitation.
“This isn’t a joke, Astor,” I hissed. “Your people have been trying to kill me my whole life. Now I know you don’t have any information that might help me rescue Cori. I wouldn’t tempt me.”
“If your conscience bothers you about the likes of me, you won’t have the strength to go ahead with this ridiculous rescue mission. You sister’s life was over the second they put their hands on her, darling.”
Red literally flashed before my eyes as my claws moved—and he did, too, avoiding the claw point by a hair’s breadth. He did dodge it after all. My heart hammered against my ribs and heat continued to pour from my skin. I was surprised not to see smoke curling from my hands.
“Don’t call me that,” I said in a low growl more animal than human. “You don’t know what I wouldn’t do to get her out of there.”
“I think I have some idea.” His gaze drifted to my claws, where they remained at his throat.
I opened my mouth ready to ask about his so-called job as a security guard. Instead, I found myself asking, “Why did you quit?”
For most hunters, the League was their whole life, the closest they’d have to a family. With the invasion, they finally had their chance to openly destroy supernaturals of all kinds. It seemed a hell of a weird time to back out, even if he apparently wasn’t concerned about retaliation.
“Because everything they told us was a lie.”
His tone was flat, free of his usual sardonic humour, which drew my eyes to his face again. He was a closed book, though—unreadable.
“What do you mean? I thought your people predicted the invasion.”
“You really believe that?”
“No. So they lied about it.”
“The leaders of the Elites fled underground and turned their backs on the rest of us, leaving us to suffer alone at the faeries’ hands. The mage council took power, and the remainder of the hunters went into hiding. I quit while I had the chance.”
“But… why? I mean, wasn’t your mission a crusade against all supernaturals?”
He shook his head at me. “Would you fight a war against an enemy no humans can defeat? The hunters were finished. They should be finished.”
“Glad we agree on one thing.”
“I’m not going near them again,” he said. “You’re engaging in a suicide mission. They shot me three times and I used to be one of them. They’ll fill you with bullet holes designed to kill the likes of you in one shot.”
My claws dropped a little. “Wait, they shot you deliberately? They know who you are?”
“They know I’m a deserter. We’re even lower than supernaturals, in their eyes.” He gave me a knowing smile.
I didn’t find anything funny about it. Not only was Astor not a hunter, they wanted him dead. In other words, we wouldn’t be able to use him to get close to the hunters. But the League cast a wide net, and he might still turn us in. Who’d forfeit the pay from catching a dragon shifter?
I opened my mouth to speak, and the front of the shop burst apart in a shower of glass. A mechanical whirring sounded, mingling with noises like steel on steel colliding, and floors crumpling.
Holy crap.
The automaton’s thick metal feet tore up the floor while its swinging arms were thick enough to bash someone’s skull in accidentally. They trampled everything in their paths, making up for their lack of speed with brutality alone.
Another hideout bites the dust.
I ducked into the back storeroom, with Astor behind me. So he’d assumed I knew a way out. Sensible thinking. The fire door at the back hung from its hinges, but was actually the safest way out.
I gestured at him to be quiet. He gave me another smile. Yeah, okay, I know you’re a master of stealth. Never mind that I’d come so close to killing him. I still needed him, like it or not.
The exit led into an alley, and I hurried down it, around the back of the shop. A faint meowing drew my attention to a nearby fence. About bloody time, Becks. Relieved, I followed Becks until we passed by the broken red sign which indicated the station. Our door was hidden behind the rubble where the entrance had collapsed.
“The Underground?” he said. “You’re going into the Underground?”
The trains were closed until further notice—or rather, until the Mage Lords managed to get rid of the faeries and undead currently infesting the tunnels and stations. It was good news for shifters, because half our network had always operated underground. You could walk from one side of London to another without going aboveground, if you knew where to go.
Astor raised an eyebrow as I took off ahead towards the grey stone stairs, lit by a single intermittently flickering light. The smooth wall panels were smeared with blood and other questionable substances, but nobody aside from shifters had ever discovered the hidden door. Yet. The entrances used to be hidden with wards, but nobody had updated them since the faeries arrived.
I rested my hand against two smooth white panels and pushed. A tunnel opened up with an echoing groan which carried down the stairs into the darkness of the old station. Becks’s cat-form sprang ahead. I didn’t relax until the three of us were in the dark tunnel, the way back closed behind us.
“There you are. The automatons blocked our way to the shelter.” Becks had turned back into a human, regarding Astor with a distrustful expression.
I grimaced. “I know. They nearly got us. Where’re we going?”
“Where else?”
“Will’s place.” I cast a look at Astor. I hadn’t wanted to give away our other hideouts. Then again, the way things were going, they’d be compromised by the week’s end. “He’s there?”
“Yeah. He was spotted in gargoyle form, so he caused a diversion and sent one of the automatons walking into the Thames.”
“Good. Another one killed the dryads’ forest and tore up our old coffee shop.”
Becks winced. “I didn’t realise you were there. I saw an automaton heading that way, but I didn’t see you leave the park. Guess I didn’t look close enough.”
“We used a shortcut. I’ve never been so close to that damned troll’s nest before. I hope it slowed the automatons down.”
“It’d serve them right if the local Summer faeries turn them into bees, but I doubt we’ll be that lucky.” She took off into the tunnel, and I followed. At least, until it hit me that Astor had stopped.
“What?” I asked.
“Not all of us can see in the dark.”
“You stuck with our little assassin friend?” called Becks from ahead.
“More like he stuck with me. Followed me all the way down here.”
“You know, some of us have a sense of self-preservation,” he said dryly.
“Excuse me?” I shot him a glare. “I wouldn’t be alive without one. Your people kidnapping my little sister wasn’t on my plan.”
“How many times do I have to tell you they’re not my people?”
“What?” Becks appeared from the dark and looked from me to him, one eyebrow raised. “Is there something I’m missing?”
“Apparently, he dropped out of the League after the invasion. When he found out they lied and didn’t have a plan. Not because he didn’t want to carry on killing us. That’s giving him too much credit.”
“I don’t have to put up with your crap,” he said.
“Then don’t. By the way, there’s also a troll living in this station. If you run back that way, you’ll either run into him or the automatons. God knows you’ll take the dilemma off my hands.”
“If you people hadn’t kidnapped me, none of this would have happened.”
“Guys!” said Becks. “Will flew right to the safe house. He’s going to think we’re dead.”
“Shit. Okay.” I dug in my rucksack for a torch, and held it out to Astor. He took it after a moment’s hesitation.
“Why’s your hair wet, anyway?” asked Becks, leading the way.
“Our ingenious friend here decided to insult some nixies in the park. He also provoked a dryad and a bunch of winged half-bloods.”
“Seriously? Remind me why we’re letting him tag along?”
“Because we’re not like those sadistic animals?”
I was in too deep to back out now. To dragons, you’re on our side or against us. While he hadn’t proved he wasn’t in league with the hunters, I doubted he’d have gone to this much trouble if he had another option.
Unless he’d lied, to get close to me…
I doubt it. It couldn’t be clearer he wanted me gone.
“Sadistic animals?” he said. “Your people kill one another for fun.”
“I really wouldn’t,” I said, as Becks growled. “Will and I might forgive you for taking jabs at shifters. Becks won’t.”
