Chapter 8

Cool night air whispered over my skin as I stepped out of the elevator and ducked low behind the crowd of shifters. They weren’t paying me any attention, all of their gazes riveted to the three angry dragons swooping low over their heads. Vance, Calhoun, and Tavis were giving me a distraction all right, but I doubted they’d be able to keep it up before another shifter put an end to it. Or put an end to them.

I couldn’t let that happen. I pushed my lips together in a grim line of determination, swinging around and behind the same couple I’d followed into the building. Between their shoulders, I spotted a circular pond built into the rooftop, its dark surface an exact replica of the night sky. The stars glittered around the full moon that floated in the very middle, the wind peaking more craters over its reflective surface. The real moon hung right over the pond, so close I was sure I could reach out and touch it.

“You!” a male voice shouted at the dragons overhead. “You’re ruining Léas’s full-moon ritual.”

Vance shifted back into a man midair and landed on the rooftop in a graceful crouch. He stood, now gloriously naked, though without his earlier hard-on, and leveled the man with a withering glare. “Tell that to those who imprisoned us in a cage Léas’s magic wouldn’t have been able to penetrate. She has rules about that kind of thing. Let no harm come to those who worship her, else her magic will be tainted by her wrath, a dark and terrible thing.” His voice was powerful and seemed to shake down to the foundation of the Vivix building. He swept his gaze over the crowd. “Those who put us in the dungeon deserve her wrath, but not those who didn’t. Pray that she will show mercy. Otherwise, those few just doomed us all.”

A nervous murmur erupted from the dragon shifters. They shuffled from one foot to the other and darted their gazes around.

I crept along, sticking to the perimeter of the building, and when I cleared a raised part of the roof with a doorway marked Stairs, I saw him. Asa. He was inside the birdcage and watching the shifters with awe.  My heart skipped several beats and then seemed to make up for them all at once inside my throat, hard enough to water my eyes. 

“Who did it to you?” a female shifter asked. “Who locked you up?”

“The cowards tied us up with iron chains, their dragon forms masked by night and magic,” Vance said.

Keeping my gaze glued to my every step, I slunk forward on tiptoe, careful not to brush shoulders with anyone and draw their attention. The birdcage was tucked in behind a mass of people, all of whom were facing away. I doubted once someone on the other side of the pond saw the birdcage open that everyone would keep looking away. Unless I somehow created an escape at the back of the birdcage where no one could see...

“But we have a pretty good idea who it was,” Vance continued. “It was either Petra or Rio’s henchmen.” 

Gasps sounded around the rooftop, some of them a little too dramatic to be real.

“That’s quite an accusation,” a woman shot back.

“Is it, Rio?” Vance asked, his voice as smooth and dangerous as the devil’s. “You both know about the seer who had a vision about this night.”

“What seer?” someone asked.

“What vision?” another asked.

“One in which Léas chooses a new queen.” Vance paused for effect, and to buy me more time. “Tonight.”

Every kid inside the birdcage stared at the shifter causing all the commotion and the other two swooping across the silvery moon. Even Asa, his eyes full of wonder despite his predicament. Being so close to him kicked my determination into overdrive.  I sneaked up behind the cage and grabbed the bars. Solid, unmoving, and made of gold. A metal I could work with, no keys required.

“So a seer saw a vision,” a female voice called, her voice icy and shrill. “You pay anyone enough money, and they’ll say anything you want to hear.”

“Not this seer, Petra, and you know that,” Vance snapped. “Not with her level of accuracy.”

Petra and Rio, both women Oliver and the guy who’d shot him had talked about in the office downstairs. I flicked my gaze in the direction Vance was glaring, toward a woman with long dark hair and a gorgeous royal blue ball gown similar to mine. If I’d had nothing else to think about, I might’ve thought we were twins. But I had a birdcage to break into. I pulled my Titanosaur knife loose from my taped-up thighs and held it to one of the bars. Cutting into gold wouldn’t take long.

“So who is this queen?” a female that sounded like Rio demanded.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Just as Vance said it, the moon’s reflection in the pond darkened to nothingness, even blacker than black. 

The crowd took a step away, not in surprise it seemed, but in reverence, and bowed their heads. A tremor shook through me. Was Léas really coming, or was this just a trick to make worshippers fall in line? I’d never met a goddess before, let alone a dragon goddess, but I’d always just assumed she wasn’t real, a false goddess used as an excuse for bloodshed of innocent children. Compared to some human religions’ traditions, it wouldn’t have shocked me if the whole full-moon ritual thing was just to make someone feel better about themselves.

But what did I know?

Not a whole lot, because something was happening inside the pond. A slight splashing but not a hint of noise from the dragon shifters.  I didn’t dare look though. I was just about through one of the bars.

There. One more cut and I could remove half a bar so someone small could squeeze through. I started in again, as quiet as I could.

Movement from the shifters, and then a collective sigh of fabric as they knelt down on their knees. All of them, even my three, I mean the three. Tavis and Calhoun had shifted back and now knelt next to Vance.

And there, in the middle, stood a woman on the surface of the black pond. My breath caught. She was beautiful. The moon crowned her and bathed her in silver and shadow, highlighting the extreme cut of her cheekbones and her bright eyes that shone like stars. Each individual strand of her long white hair waved around her head as if she were swimming underwater, and iridescent dragon scales decorated her curvy body in a sort of low-cut dress, the ends of which blended seamlessly with the dark water under her feet.

“Léas, we are humbled by your presence,” Petra said.

“Begging your forgiveness, Léas,” what sounded like Rio said. “Our full-moon ritual was interrupted by those who think they know better than y—.”

“Wrong,” Vance cut in. “We interrupted because we want exactly what Léas wants.”

“Where is she?” Léas asked, her voice spun through with gold and power.

She couldn’t be talking about me. Not right now. Not ever.

“Um. She’s....” Tavis started.

I cut through the last of the bar and tore it loose. 

“Yara Parmstone,” Léas said.

I stiffened. No. No. I just wanted my brother back. That was the only reason I was here, not to get caught up in another species’ religion and monarchy and bullshit.

A gasp came from inside the birdcage. My brother. It had to be him hearing my name and then realizing I’d come to save him.

The shifters looked around, waiting for this Yara Parmstone to reveal herself, their gazes cruel and their fists tight at their sides. They didn’t want this any more than I did.

One of the little boys inside the cage was looking at the gold bar in my hand with his jaw dangling to his knees, no more than six years old and with about that many teeth in his mouth. I brought my finger to my lips and tried to think of a way out of this. For all of us.

A flash of red lightning cut across the moon followed by a blast of thunder.

“Yara Parmstone, show yourself,” Léas announced, her voice radiating authority. “I wish to speak to you now.”

Vance caught my eye from the other side of the rooftop, then Tavis and Calhoun, all of whom gave the subtlest of nods.

A terrible sinking feeling ripped down my heart. I’d come so far, farther than any human ever had to rescue a kidnapped loved one from the dragon shifters, close enough to hear my brother, and here, right now was where I would fail to save him and myself.

I looked at the toothless boy, seeing Asa in him, seeing all humans in him. He was still very much alive. I made a circular motion with my finger at those around him and then pointed at the door marked with Stairs behind me, and then held my finger to my lips again, hoping he got all that.

He nodded, and I walked away from him with part of the birdcage bar still in my hand, leaving all of them to save themselves while I strode up to face the goddess in an attempt to save me.

The shifters parted out of my way, their fury torching the air at my back as I passed. I stopped at the edge of the pond with my chin held high, and a flying monkey circus in my stomach. The goddess exuded power and a touch of pure darkness, and she was even more beautiful up close.

“I’m Yara Parmstone,” I announced, my voice ringing clear through the night.

Léas stared at me with dark, almost black eyes, a glint of curiosity in them. “I’ve been waiting for you for quite some time.”

I opened my mouth to say something like a half-hearted apology, but then I realized she wasn’t just talking about tonight. “Why?”

The shifters gasped and hissed.

“How dare you question Léas,” one of them scolded.

But really though. Why? I had a right to know, and I hoped my unwavering stare at the goddess conveyed that.

She smiled, but it was much too toothy to be friendly. “Because you’re here.”

Something small blurred across the rooftop. Running footsteps pounded toward me, and then Asa was flinging himself at me. I didn’t allow myself to feel relief at having my brother back. Not yet. I pushed him behind me, and I could sense the heat from my dragon shifters closing in behind him, forming our own kind of birdcage around him.

A growl swept over the crowd as they searched behind me, then at the empty birdcage, at the open stairwell door, and back again. Some rushed toward it, and I hoped to hell those kids were faster than adult-sized dragon shifters. Others pressed in around me, flashing half-shifted fangs, talons, and yellow eyes. I’d pissed every last one of them off. So, this should go really well.

“What the hell is this?” Petra demanded. Curls of smoke lifted off her arms as if she were going to blow any minute. “Why is there a human hiding behind this Yara Parmstone? Did she free the children?”

A woman stepped up the pond’s edge, opposite Petra, loose, blonde curls framing very large breasts barely contained underneath a red silk gown. Rio, if I had to guess.

Several heartbeats passed as realization seemed to strike her like a bolt of Léas’s red lightning, and she pointed right at me. “Is she human?”

Anger crackled through the shifters, hot enough I could feel it spiking through my veins like lava. They stared at their goddess and hung on her next words before they made the decision to snap or not.

Léas looked out at her worshippers and then swept a graceful arm toward me. “A human will lead you all to greatness. Yara Parmstone is your next queen.”

Shocked silence, thick as the air siphoning into my lungs.  I couldn’t breathe, wasn’t quite sure I wanted to.

“Your Holiness—” Petra started, the shrillness in her voice multiplying with each syllable.

Léas cut her off with a single, hard look that rattled up even my spine, and then she returned her gaze to me. ”Your coronation is a week from today. Your throne is in a castle outside Mission Hill where you’ll have everything you need.  The Queen’s Cross is there should you need to communicate directly with me. This is the way of it.”

Her tone made no room to argue, but I sure thought about doing it anyway. What was she thinking putting a human thief on a throne in a castle to rule over dragon shifters who had no interest in being ruled, let alone by me? But if I questioned her in front of everyone, I would be fueling their doubts in me, making myself look like I had no idea what was going on—even though I didn’t—and letting them have some kind of power over me because of it. I had absolutely no interest in a power trip, but they didn’t need to know that. Best to play smart and keep everything close to my heart, specifically Asa.

“My bro—”

“You may keep him,” Léas said with a nod.

Keep him...like an object? In exchange for becoming queen? I’d made worse deals before, but if it saved Asa’s life, it would be worth it. Right? I had no idea since I’d never been a queen before, but because everything I did was to keep a roof over Asa’s head and his belly from caving in on itself, he came first. Always. We’d be living in a castle, and the goddess had said I would have everything I need. No more stealing? No more considering selling my body just so I could put enough food on the table?

“And the other kids?” I asked.

Léas’s gaze fell to the golden bar still in my hand. “If that’s your desire…they’re free to go.” Fiery magic lit up around her fingertips and then faded. “The rest of them have been returned to their homes.”

The crowd stirred, and an angry tension hardened their stares and tightened their fists even more.

Rio’s eyes widened. “Your Holiness, the children are for your appeasement. It’s your full-moon ritual—”

“The children have been spared. I really don’t care who dies, but I’ve already had my blood offering this night,” Léas said. “All of you will get your power.”

Mixed reactions rumbled through the shifters, some smug and others confused.

“Whose blood was offered?” someone whispered.

Léas looked to me expectantly. “What say you, Yara? Will you be the dragon shifter queen or not?”

Vance touched my waist, a comfort, a reminder. I would have the three of them, too, for counsel, protection, and yes, copious amounts of the best sex I’d ever had.

It sounded fucking amazing, but there was a darkness seething underneath all of it, as black as the pond under the goddess’s feet, as depthless as the rage curling off the other shifters. Being queen would not be easy.

Still, though, I had to do what was best for Asa and his future.

The back of my throat soured at the taste of the words I was about to say. “Okay. I’ll be the dragon shifter queen.”

That sure sounded like a death sentence.