Smoke and Mirrors (22 page)

Viper must have planned to bring her here from the moment he heard she was in the market for an earthbound familiar.

Hyperventilating in panic, she sneezed again, then gasped for air. She knew it was useless, but she rolled to her feet and placed her palms against the wall of the circle, ignoring the burn and ripples of energy as she cast out her Sight in search of any cracks in her prison she might use to escape. Or at the very least slow down the inevitable.

The reality of what she had planned to subject a dragon to was now all too real.

“This will be much easier on you if you simply submit,” purred the deep but familiar voice. He sounded strangely human despite that the words came from the mouth of a giant reptile. “There will only be pain if you resist, ducks.”

“Please, don’t do this! Let me out of here!”

“You may come out when I am done. Be a love and don’t fight it. We’ve a great many things that need doing, and I can’t get them done with you in that circle.”

Kimberly increased her efforts, pressing harder against the wall of energy, hunting for the tiniest chink in its armor that she could pry open. It was like a giant, rock-solid soap bubble, the surface oily and slick with a thousand iridescent colors and stronger than any circle she had ever drawn.

Panting in terror, she yanked her burning hands back and hugged herself, staring at the wyvern curled around the outer edge of her prison. He wasn’t speaking the words of binding aloud, but their power coiled around her will like a snake, constricting her thoughts.

Frantic to save herself, she did the only thing she could think of. She yanked her invisibility spell around her like a shield, praying it would work to hide her from the binding spell the way it had shrugged off his tracking and stunning spells before. She couldn’t be sure since she had never tried to cast inside someone else’s circle.

It took longer than she was used to, and it was harder to maintain than usual, but the invisibility spell snapped into place. The pressure of the binding spell lifted from her thoughts.

Viper hissed in displeasure, the sound making her quiver. His rear talons flexed, digging deep furrows in the dirt as he reared up, wings cupping the circle as though he feared she might somehow escape his trap.

“Stop this foolishness,” he said, his voice deeper than before. “Do you think this little trick of yours will keep you safe? You can’t maintain it forever.”

He was right. But as long as she wasn’t moving, she could cling to it a lot longer than if she was running.

His growl might have made her bones rattle, and the spell might have been taxing, but she stayed where she was, clinging to the thought that this was the only thing keeping her from becoming his puppet. Though she did test a theory by reaching for the edge of the circle. It still singed her fingers and kept her trapped, but at least she could hold him off for a little while.

He slid around to where her fingers had caused a ripple in the surface, head cocked to one side as he peered down with one glowing eye. She sneezed again, then slapped her hand over her mouth and nose. As if things weren’t dire enough already, there must have been something in the air she was allergic to.

Satisfied that she had not slid beyond his circle, the wyvern settled to the ground once more. He folded his wings and sprawled comfortably in the mulch, watching with cold, unblinking eyes. Biding his time with the patience of a skilled carnivore knowing it has only to out-wait its prey for her strength to flag and spell to fail.

“I do not understand,” he said, “why you choose to make this much harder than it has to be. No one knows you are here. No one will come to your aid. You must know the outcome is inevitable.”

Kimberly swiped a hand under her nose and turned her back on the monster, even though he couldn’t see her tears. She knew that as well as he did, but that didn’t mean she was ready to sit back and let him have her without a fight.

With every passing moment, the magic of the circle pried away bits and pieces of her power, slipping past her defenses. Even with her aura disguised, he’d be inside her head again before long. If she wasn’t so stressed and tired, she might have been able to maintain the illusion for hours. Now, between her fear and exhaustion, and the power of the binding spell, she was afraid she only had a matter of minutes before she lost her grip on her invisibility.

She closed her eyes and cleared her head of everything but the need to remain unseen.

Until the ground shuddered under her feet, causing her concentration to fail. Viper reared up, his head whipping to one side even as a gigantic, shadowy blur cut through the trees, smashing them aside with all the power of a freight train. Whatever it was, it was huge and coming right at them.

The wyvern roared and leapt straight up, exploding through the canopy of leaves overhead, his wings snapping out to drive him into the sky as rapidly as possible. The monstrous thing charging toward them with ground-shaking strides—so much bigger than Viper that it was snapping fully grown pitch pines like twigs—darted into the air after the wyvern like a hawk chasing a sparrow.

And Kimberly cried out as her fear overcame her ability to cling to her own senses, the wyvern’s will washing over her in a wave of fierce possession.

The binding snapped into place before she had a chance to muster any defenses against it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Cormac gave chase to the wyvern, his scaly lips peeled back from his clenched fangs so far that they were visible all the way to the gums. As he burst beyond the canopy in a flurry of broken twigs and leaves, the sun shone on his deep blue hide. The base of his scales ranged from a vibrant indigo to a midnight color so dark in places it was nearly black, each scale limned with shining silver. His wing membranes were a paler steel blue, casting heavy shadows on the treetops. Ivory talons, horns and spines were threaded through with the same silver that lined his scales, as if some master metalworker had taken the time to dip each individual scale and claw to ensure some part of him would shine even in the darkest shadows.

A living, breathing jewel, he was both terrifying and magnificent in his raw, primal beauty, arching across the sky in pursuit of the wyvern like a shooting star.

The only reason he had not laid waste to the area with a swath of fire was because of Kimberly. Even in the deepest throes of bestial rage, he knew better than to risk her life like that.

Now that they were clear of the trees, he had free rein. The wyvern may have been a large and formidable foe to anyone else, but Viper was dwarfed by the massive dragon on every physical and magical level.

Pulling on the nearby ley line, he hurled a ball of compressed white-hot energy as big as the wyvern’s head straight at the golden serpent’s torso. With a dip of his wings, Viper narrowly avoided the magic missile, swirling into an aerial spin to throw a similar projectile, his threaded with and trailing black sparks, back at his assailant.

Almost contemptuously, Cormac snapped it out of the air with his jaws, ignoring the sting to his throat and forked tongue.

And then Viper disappeared.

One moment he was there, dead ahead and as panicked as Cormac had ever seen him, and the next—gone. Even to his Sight.

His wing beats faltered. That could only mean one thing. He had failed. Kimberly was bound, and now Viper was using her powers to augment his own abilities.

Claws scraped along his back in an attempt to tear the base of his wing membranes or disable the thick shoulder muscles that controlled his flight. He twisted and snapped at the golden claws before they could dig in too deep, but Viper blinked out of sight before he could land a blow and latch on.

He slowed down, struggling to maintain a glide to listen or detect the slightest change in air pressure that might give him a hint as to where his adversary had gone. Though his senses were acute, he couldn’t hear or feel or smell a damned thing to tell him where Viper was hiding.

Then a powerful blow struck his side, the illusion hiding Viper from his senses faltering as the smaller Other used fang and claw to rip at his throat and belly scales. Cormac’s thick hide protected him from the worst of the attack, but red-hot blood was spilling down his long, thick neck from where several fangs had pierced his scales, and the poisonous bite was so painful he couldn’t help but voice a thunderous roar of protest.

Before he could reach out a claw to snag Viper and return the favor, the smaller serpent was gone.

Whirling with a snarl, he opened his jaw wide and breathed a swath of flame that singed nearby treetops, head whipping in every direction in hopes of catching the little coward before he could slip too far away. He maintained just enough presence of mind to aim the flames no higher than the treetops, wanting to avoid starting a forest fire or catching Kimberly in the conflagration. Though he was momentarily satisfied at the shriek of pain and locked onto the hint of the wyvern’s outline in the smoke and fire, diving forward, he was distracted by the very human cry of pain and terror coming from the trees below him.

Kimberly. Viper must have been drawing from the ley line through her to heal himself. Of course she’d be in pain, seeing as she had no experience in using that kind of power. If he didn’t end this quick, Viper could burn out her spark, destroying her ability to use magic forever.

Viper took advantage of his momentary hesitation to swing around and latch onto his throat again, his smaller wings beating furiously to keep himself out of range of the flailing claws of the dragon.

He wasn’t counting on Cormac twisting his entire body, snake-like, to coil around him, wings clapping inward to trap the wyvern and yank him close. He sank every one of the five splayed talons tipping each of his four paws deep into Viper’s ribs, stomach and thighs. They tumbled together toward the ground, the wyvern shrieking in high counterpoint to Cormac’s earth-shattering roar.

At the last possible moment, Cormac shoved Viper away from him, adding momentum to his fall into the trees below. Though the dragon’s wing beats staggered from a deep tear one of the wyvern’s spines had made in the membrane between his third and fourth finger, he was able to gain a little height, hovering above long enough to ensure that Viper would remain where he had fallen.

His scales had given him a modicum of protection, but Viper’s wings had been shredded in the fall and by Cormac’s claws. A few boughs had punctured his hide, golden scales splashed with crimson, and several bones had been broken. He lay gasping on the ground, hind legs weakly clawing for purchase in the dirt and broken branches.

Cormac spread his wings wide and tilted them back to let the air spill free so he could control his landing, extending his hind legs to settle lightly in the underbrush. He took such care that the ground barely shuddered under his weight as he came to rest upon it.

He set his forepaws on either side of the fallen wyvern, looming over him. Though Viper made an attempt to arch his neck up to snap at Cormac, the dragon voiced a deep, threatening growl that set small stones and shattered trees to shiver in response. The defeated wyvern subsided.

“Release her,” Cormac rumbled, “and live. Do it now or I will kill you.”

“Tired words, old friend,” wheezed the wyvern.

It struggled to lift its head; failed. Golden eyes drifted shut.

Cormac growled again, his head dipping down to sink his fangs into the scruff of the wyvern’s neck, lifting the much smaller Other like a mother cat transporting a kitten. Viper hissed a soft protest, but he was too hurt and weak to fight back.

Cormac dragged him like that nearly half a mile, returning to the place where they had originally taken off. It didn’t take very long, but every precious moment counted. Every time Viper resumed his struggles, a slight shake was enough to make him stop. Once they reached the small clearing, the dragon couldn’t fit his great bulk between the trees without risking sending several of them toppling down onto Kimberly’s prone form.

With a snarl, he flung the wyvern across the clearing, far from Kimberly.

“Fix it,” he hissed.

Viper didn’t move—but Kimberly did. His raptor’s gaze was sharply drawn to the scuttling form withdrawing from him.

A sound of displeasure rumbled in his throat, the spines around his head and neck flaring. She cried out and flung her hands up over her head, curled into a shivering ball in a nest of pine needles at the base of a tree.

Cursing himself a thousand times over for frightening her, he concentrated on forcing his scales and spines to settle back into place. He inched forward, dipping his head to sniff for any clues to how much damage Viper had done to her.

Under the stink of the wyvern, she reeked of fear. Unsurprising, given the circumstances. Worse, under that, the ozone of heavy casting. Her pulse was rapid and weak, breathing sharp and short. Her skin was too cold when he lightly nosed her. The pained, terrified sound she made at the touch made his heart ache for her—and curse himself once more for being the cause.

Then she slapped at his jaw, the blow carrying with it an extra oomph of illusory pain to drive him back. As badly as he wanted to hiss and bare his teeth, he managed to clamp down on the urge, instead pulling back just enough to give her some breathing room. She had been frightened badly enough already.