CHAPTER 17

Each of the arrows was tipped with black feathers, which wavered with the force of the impact, and they came from her left. Lis' senses screamed at her to face this new danger; the Lords did immediately, and the Shifters that had been trailing them emerged from wherever they had been stalking, but she couldn't draw her eyes from the new wounds. Not a single drop of blood welled up. A black substance, thick and oily looking, oozed around the arrow shafts, but even that was not enough to supply a body with its wants.

Perhaps that was why the poison was only partially successful: it congealed blood, but if the creature did not have blood...

Again, Lis tried to wrap her mind around how that was possible.

“Come away from the body,” a woman's voice commanded.

“Illaise,” Cillumn muttered, and it sounded like a warning, so Lis straightened from her inspection.

Shifters melted from the woods to the south, their scent betraying them as a new pack. A dangerous pack. A woman strode in the lead, dressed in leathers and laden with weapons. A long bow lay across her back and a quiver with several arrows stuck up above her shoulders. Arrows with black feathered fletchings. Her stance, even while walking, was aggressive and intimidating. Lis immediately had to squash the urge to either run and escape or cower before her pitifully. She did neither, with great effort, but she could not meet her eyes. She tried to focus on the fact that the woman had murdered the creature before she had discovered the answer to her question. She still didn't know if they would recover from the poison she was to create.

This was the type of Alpha Lis was used to. Dominant. No room for questions or opinions.

“What are you doing here, Illaise?” Cillumn demanded. Whatever Lis' instincts were, it seemed he did not share them.

“I was summoned,” the woman half-snarled, “like some pup on a leash.”

Lis swallowed. This was the pack Alpha Gayriel had been talking about, the one that mothered Dynarys', half Dragon Lord and half Shifter. Looking at her, Lis couldn't see how that had come to be. She was fierce, with a hardness in her expressions and postures that hinted at an underlying bitterness. And Lis was to convince her to help.

Her eyes passed over the two Lords, and barely skimmed the Amber Aerie Shifters that had approached protectively, then landed on Lis.

“Another rogue,” she announced, sniffing audibly. “Check her.”

Wait...what?

The Amber Aerie Shifters growled as two of the Alpha's pack jumped to do her bidding. There was a moment of standoff, where the two sets didn't seem to know what to do with each other.

Illaise raised a hand, a dismissive gesture, though a flash of anger crossed her face. Frustration at having to explain herself?

“They will not harm her,” the woman announced. “Unless she has been bitten, in which case you should thank me to end her life.”

“Bitten? By what? Your teeth are the only ones that are bared here, Shifter?” Strale demanded.

Illaise stiffened and the rest of the Shifters hesitated, waiting to see the outcome of the standoff. As much as Lis wanted to rail against the woman, to oppose all the control it felt like the woman might suffocate her with, she remembered her sister, and the fact that this Alpha might well have information she needed to save her.

“It is alright,” she told the Lords, and the Amber Aerie Shifters. She nodded to the two that approached at the Alpha's direction. “I will submit to their search.”

Cillumn turned to her, his brows reaching for his hairline. “You will?”

Lis nodded again, and then turned to the Alpha. She had cocked a hip and was busy tapping the hilt of a sword at her side impatiently.

“What exactly do you search for? What do you mean bitten?” Lis demanded.

The Alpha studied her for a long moment, her face unreadable.

“We search for a wound, one that festers and will not heal,” she answered at last. “You would not be the first rogue we have found with one.”

Lis narrowed her eyes at her, sensing a partial truth. There was more to her search. Beside her, Cillumn growled. The Shifter's had not only approached, but were running their hands along her limbs as though searching for weapons hidden beneath her clothes, a common act for a rogue that entered a new pack's territory, if they were not killed on sight. That this woman had come into this territory didn't seem to have an effect on her expectations. Lis shook her head at Cillumn, she was used to the Shifter's behavior.

“And why would you end my life should I have one? Which I don't,” Lis insisted. The Shifters checking her stepped back and nodded sharply to Illaise, confirming her assertion.

“The results of the wound are not pretty. It is both a mercy to die and a factor of safety,” Illaise moved toward the dead creature. She halted near the thing's legs and nudged it with her toe. “It lives still,” she announced. “We will have to behead it as Scet said.”

She worked her way around the upper half of the body, Lis thought to complete the task herself, but she crouched instead, her head hanging slightly. The Shifters of her pack approached, as well, one warrior laid a hand on the Alpha's back.

“I knew this one,” Lis heard her mutter. She reached out a hand, as though to touch the beast, but then withdrew it. In a moment, she was standing, facing away from the body.

“Kill it,” she ordered, before striding through the forest toward the Aerie. She did not look back to see the deed done.

“Where do you think you are going?” Strale demanded. Until then, he had watched the proceedings in silence, but now he spoke.

“I told you that I have been summoned, and the reason had best be good. As you can clearly see, I have better things to attend to than some spoiled Dragon Lords and my Son's dramatic mate.”

Illaise did not stop at the inquiry, but kept walking, either expecting them to join her procession or not caring if they heard her reply.

“Best go with her,” Cillumn told Strale. “She cannot enter the Aerie unescorted with so many warriors. The Lords will see it as some sort of attack, and I doubt she will do anything diplomatic to quell that line of thought,” he scratched his temple. “I am also concerned she might find enemies within the Aerie that will not comply with the Archon's decree that she may come and go as she pleases.”

Strale raised a blond brow. “You think someone will break the Archon's command? After what happened with the delegation?”

Cillumn shifted, watching Illaise move farther into the distance. “There is not time, this moment, to explain, but Lis overheard something that leads me to believe the plot in the delegation might have been bigger than we thought.”

Strale frowned, his handsome face hardening. “We need to have a serious discussion, Cillumn, what happened at the Onyx Aerie cannot happen again.”

“I know, go, I will help Lis with her last ingredient. If there were more creatures nearby, I am sure Illaise's pack would have told us.”

Strale waved a hand in acknowledgment and trotted off after the group of Shifters disappearing northward. The Amber Aerie Shifters, though not ordered to do so, remained with Lis and Cillumn. She studied the men, wondering how they felt at the secondary pack's intrusion. If they were disturbed by the events, it did not show in their expressions. Maybe they were used to such things, given the new pack's Alpha was mother to their own.

“Let's find that vine,” Cillumn gestured the direction they had been heading, before the creature had appeared.

Lis looked back toward the Aerie for a long moment. Gayriel was right to worry. Was it even possible for two races so divided to face and conquer this threat?

***

Cillumn turned when he didn't hear Lis' footsteps behind him, his mind whirling with the recent events. What in the blazes was Illaise doing there? As if they needed more complications right then.

His thoughts evaporated quickly, however, when he realized she had been staring at his backside. A masculine satisfaction worked through him, and he grinned broadly at her to let her know she was caught.

She blinked at him, her mouth parted slightly, begging to be kissed right there...before her countenance closed with anger and she looked away.

“You aren't going to spring your dragon on me are you?” she grouched.

He nearly laughed at her attempt to divert his attention elsewhere.

“Now would not be a smart time to do so, not with creatures and Shifters roaming about in the forest.”

Relief filled her eyes, and then new suspicion. “Then why are you looking at me like you are plotting something?”

“I like looking at you, Lis. You're a stunningly beautiful woman, but you seem to have no idea that you are such.” She looked as though she might protest his words, or make excuses, so he quickly added, “and I was plotting. Exactly what I'd like to do to you. You've proven vastly responsive to my touch. I'd like to see what you look like in the midst of your pleasure. Like a goddess, I wager. I walk around aroused simply thinking of it.”

That caused her to shut her mouth in a quick motion, and he grinned inwardly. He was learning her. And the rosy color that stained her neck and cheeks promised she was affected by his words, as well.

Good.

But, as much as he'd like to continue pressing her reaction, they were in the middle of the forest, with dark tidings around. He wasn't so bewitched he couldn't garner control of himself.

“Tell me about your sister,” he offered. A gesture of peace. A neutral subject.

She relaxed with the question. He couldn't read her emotions, the Shifters seemed adept at concealing them, but her posture changed, becoming less stiff and more natural. Her blush was still present, however.

She moved forward, stepping over the remains of a fallen trunk grown completely over with mosses and several types of brightly colored mushrooms. Her blue-green eyes scanned the surroundings before glancing at him sidelong.

“Adda is my opposite in many ways,” she began, tilting her head and then giving a wave toward a tree a short distance from the place they stood. The poor sapling was fairly choked with a broad leaved vine, thorns protruded in every direction. They moved together toward it. “People often dislike me immediately,” she frowned. “Or at least they are uncomfortable around me. Not with Adda. Everyone loves her upon sight, it seems. And those that don't, she easily convinces. She is gifted at speaking with people, making them see her way of things, keeping peace between them even. Ever since we were pups, she just knew what to say to win people over. And she understood me, too. Probably the only person that ever has.” Here, she paused, looking at him strangely. He couldn't tell what she was thinking, but he was loath to stop her while she was confessing to him. She shook her head, a bemused expression coming over her face, then turned to the thorns, producing a sharp scalpel. Carefully, she sliced the flesh of the thorn, just where it grew from the vine. A weakness in the location had the spine dropping into her hand in moments, a tendril of clear slime all that connected it to its original place. Cillumn moved closer, opening a second sack that he had secured for the gathering mission. She dropped the thorn inside.

“She made the pack understand me.”

Her pained words bothered him, as if she felt she wasn't good enough just as she was. And there was a deeper loneliness lining her story, too, one that he understood perfectly.

“What about you?” she asked suddenly, as though she had just remembered it was polite to reciprocate in conversations. “Where is your family...or have I met them already?” She frowned.

“You haven't met them,” he assured her. “I do not have family. I was found in the Aerie at age six. The Lords raised me as an orphan of their kind.”

She peered up at him, eyes wide with surprise.

“Not what you expected of Dragon Lords?” he guessed. “Thought we were simple and single-minded, leading charmed lives with no deeper purpose except for carnal pleasures?”

She looked away, a gesture of guilt, and it goaded him. A Shifter...anyone who went so far against what was expected of them…should have a more open mind.

“It is what we are taught,” she admitted, “but I can see that it is wrong. At least in some cases.” She glanced back up at him, an apology of sorts, and it melted his frustration away. What more could he ask than for her to be willing to question the beliefs instilled in her by her people?

“Tell me about what happened to your parents?” she offered, taking the scalpel to another thorn. She seemed genuinely interested.

“No one knows. No one even knows who they were. Not even me. My first memory is waking inside the Aerie walls at six, not knowing where I was. Everything before that is just gone.”

Lis froze, scalpel raised and thorn in her hand and stared at him openly. “What do you mean just gone? At six, you should remember sights and smells, at the very least.”

“Nothing.” He tried hard not to drag up the old familiar frustration. Everyone asked the same questions, over and over since he was a child, as if reminding him that he should remember would make everything snap back into place. “As I said, my memory goes back to the day I awoke in the Aerie, nothing before then.”

“Huh.” A new light shone in her eyes, one he wasn't sure he liked. He was not a problem, a mystery to be solved. If she was going to look at him, he wanted it to be with another type of interest. In fact, his search, his desperation for answers, had run his entire life, and, in an odd turn, he wanted this...whatever it was with Lis…to be free of its influence.

She was striking in the forest light. The clothes Gayriel and Tharissa had chosen suited her immensely, and he was glad she hadn't changed from it. The sunlight did nothing but pay her compliment, but it was the combination of all her traits, her intelligence, and yet naivety, her hardness that covered a gentler and more curious aspect, that drove the spike of lust within him. Despite the events of the morning, just standing next to her he could feel himself becoming aroused once more.

He longed to reach out and caress her auburn hair, to pull her close and run his lips over hers, to test if the same spark would fly once more. For the first time in his life he, considered that maybe, just maybe, he was ready to let go of the past in favor of the present.

“It is not information I share often. Intimate knowledge, if you will,” he told her. She shuffled uncomfortably and looked away, dropping the matter, just as he had planned.

Within the Aerie, a gong sounded, announcing the arrival of guests. Unhappy guests.

“Come,” Cillumn said at last, “let's return before the Aerie comes down around us.”

***

The moment Lis unlocked her workspace, she knew instinctually something was wrong. She carried two leather sacks, one with the thorns from the Xiophal vine, and the other with the frogs.

The frogs kept hopping against the confines of their dark prison, the sack bulging and twitching as she walked. The sight caused a few odd looks as they had traveled through the various streets and alleys leading to the medical wing. She was used to such things, but Cillumn, who trailed her, alternately snickered and glowered at the passerbys.

Now, she stood at the threshold to the room unable to move herself forward. It was a small space, not large enough for danger to lurk...yet danger was there. She inhaled, attempting to catch a hint of scent that might lend reason for her hesitation.

“Lis?” Cillumn was at her back. He halted when she did, but after the first few moments, he had become uncertain, or maybe confused about the delay.

Lis did not answer, her mind still turning, trying to place what was wrong. The smell did not help her, there was nothing different or unusual, scent-wise, about the room. No telling odor that indicated that someone else had been there. Why, then, did she have the feeling someone had?

Finally, she stepped inside, setting the two sacks on the table. She studied the space critically, but everything appeared to be exactly how she left it. The clay bowls and vessels sat precisely where she remembered them being, and even her satchel remained on the side shelf, where she had left it in favor of being able to carry more weighty ingredients. A mistake she wouldn't make again.

“Is everything alright?” Cillumn prodded once more. He was standing in the doorway now, watching her progression into the room. Everything was alright, at least she could find nothing that would be cause for alarm.

“Yes, I am alright. Just having a reaction to the danger of what we faced in the forest, maybe,” the explanation didn't sit well with her, but already her initial concern faded. Having found everything in its place and undisturbed, she could see no reason to worry him with her suspicion, especially when there was no proof, just an odd feeling. Even she wouldn't believe herself. In fact, she was beginning to doubt what she had felt to begin with. The door had been locked, after all, and as far as she knew, other than the Archon, only Cillumn really knew of the workshop and her purpose within it.

Lis shuffled the containers on the shelf and chose a bowl that was big enough to fit a frog, but not large enough that it would have a lot of space to squirm. She placed her container on the table next to the sack before she noticed that Cillumn had removed his shirt. She had been so absorbed in what she was doing she hadn't noticed his bare torso, or wings, at first.

Her heart slammed against her ribs, and she scrambled away from him with all the speed she could muster. In the process, she tipped the bowl she had been preparing. It wobbled wildly, spinning a little and moving dangerously close to the edge of the table and a subsequent fall to the floor.

She managed to save it, using the hypnotic motion to divert her fear. Allow it, but don't focus on it. And it worked, sort of. She saved the bowl from its inevitable topple and then, focused on the shape and texture of the clay, she forced herself to remain beside the table instead of retreating to the back wall.

“Look at my face, Lis, it is still me,” Cillumn instructed. She couldn't, though. She couldn't force herself to look at him knowing that he was part dragon. She thought she was doing fairly well not hyperventilating and passing out as they stood nearby one another.

That was probably what the odd feeling had been about. She probably had simply remembered her last interaction with his dragon, in this very space, or maybe she had somehow sensed Cillumn's intentions.

Surprisingly, the realization calmed her, even in the face of the wings she could view from the corner of her vision. Scales, too, had appeared on his arms and some of the skin that she could see. He had furthered the transformation from the last instance, but he didn't move any nearer to her.

“Look at me,” he insisted.

She didn't want to. She wanted to tell him that just standing there, frozen, was at the peak of what she could accomplish while he was in such a form. But she knew he didn't do it for the pleasure of frightening her. Her mission to save Adda would include Dragon Lords, and she would do more harm than good if she ran screaming at the sight of the beasts. It took all of her internal strength to raise her eyes from the bowl. She decided that, even though she wasn't looking at the vessel anymore, she could still concentrate on it. In her mind, she reconstructed the bowl's appearance paying close attention to the detail, a small little chip on the rim, a swirling strain of another, darker color that had somehow got itself formed into the basin.

“Good,” Cillumn smiled broadly.

Suddenly, all thoughts of the bowl fled, she couldn't have dragged the image forth if she had wanted. When the man smiled, truly smiled, he was beautiful. A dimple formed on his right cheek, and she found herself staring at it with fascination. Even the light in his amber eyes enhanced his appeal. And the focus of that look was her.

Her gaze wandered to his still smiling mouth and she remembered the feel of those lips upon hers. The declaration that he desired her, all of her. She didn't think it was possible, not with wings protruding from his back and scales lining portions of his skin, but her own desire responded to her thoughts.

She shook herself. A dangerous path her mind was on.

“Very good,” Cillumn sounded satisfied...or smug perhaps. Whatever he felt, his wings faded and his skin returned to normal, and Lis was still there, by the worktable, gripping the tabletop for reasons that had little to do with fear. “I do believe we can cure this phobia without too much complication.”

No complications. Right. Well, he didn't know where her mind had wandered in response to his grin. She suspected some of the intensity of the arousal she felt was due to the very fear he was trying to cure, but she wasn't sure that it was an improvement.

Ignoring her body and the stupid things it was doing, she reached into the sack with the frogs and pulled out a squirming, slimy creature. Already, it felt in danger enough to secrete the toxin filled mucus that protected it. Cillumn watched with barely veiled disgust.

“It is a long process,” she told him. “I must milk each frog separately and then place the mucus in an airtight jar before proceeding to the next.”

He received the hint easily enough. “I will post a guard outside the door, but I must see to Strale, and warn Dynarys that his mother has arrived.”

“I don't need a guard.” Nor did she want a Shifter she didn't know or trust lurking outside her door.

“Yes. You do,” Cillumn's tone made it clear he would not be relenting.

Lis debated her options. Time was wasting. The faster she got the poison ready, the quicker the Dragon Lords could help her save Adda. She didn't want to find her sister in the same condition as the possessed Shifter in the forest. Please don't let me be too late. She prayed to whichever of the Six would listen. She didn't sense the type of pain from her sister that those they had found so far must have endured, but Adda was scared. How long would it be until she joined them?

“Fine, but I don't want to be disturbed,” Lis assented at last.

“I'll see to it that you are not,” he agreed, before striding out the door and closing it behind him.

Hold on Adda. Lis tried to reassure her through the bond. She wasn't sure if it was doing any good, or if she could even read Lis' end of the link with all that she was facing.

Lis looked at the little green and red creature in her hand. It was time to get to work, but she had forgotten her scraping tool, a softly rounded bit of wood that scraped the mucus free without harming the frog. If she was lucky she would be able to keep the frogs and get a second milking before she was forced to release them.

With the squirming creature in her right hand, she turned back to her satchel, sliding open the leather ties and flipping the interior flap away.

She paused, her mind refusing to process what she saw for a long minute.

Someone had been in the workshop, and they had stolen half of her phials. A quick assessment confirmed her fears.

It was the poisons that were missing.