No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This couldn’t happen. Not here. I wasn’t going to let it. I chanted in my head, telling myself in a repetitive mantra to stop. I opened my mouth to scream at everyone to get out, to stop staring and to turn and run. Suddenly I was aware of nothing but heat and flames pulling up through my body from somewhere deep within the pit of my stomach, forcing themselves through my intestines and up past my heart and into my throat. Then, everything went dark.
When I came to, I was lying curled up in a foetal position. Someone had draped something over me, but I still felt cold, and there was an acrid taste of burnt cinders in my mouth. Angry voices floated from all around me. It felt oddly like someone had been calling my name, as if to get me to wake up or pay attention, but it must have been my imagination. I pulled myself up into a sitting position, clutching what I realised was actually some kind of velvet throw to my body and, terrified of what I might see, carefully opened my eyes.
The overhead lights were on, making the entire club seem less like an opulent den for Otherworld joy seekers and more like a garishly seedy dive. Solus and Tarn were arguing about something from just a few feet away, and it sounded as if there were some more people down below. A hand reached out to my face, smoothing away my hair, and I blinked my eyes into focus. Tom.
“Hey,” he said, gently. “How are you feeling?”
Tears swam into my eyes. “How many people?”
He looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“How many people did I just kill, Tom?”
He smiled at me. “None.”
“How many people are hurt?”
“None.” His thumb carefully stroked over the bruise on my cheek. “Well,” he amended, “I think the barman might be eyebrow-less for a few weeks, but other than that, everyone’s fine.” He gazed at me in all seriousness. “You brought it back, Red. You shifted and apparently breathed fire down at the bar, but you brought it back. You were in control.”
Control? That’s what he called control? I transformed myself into a dragon in a humiliatingly public manner. I couldn’t have chosen a worst spot to lose all of my senses than if I’d stood in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. Despite my overwhelming relief that I had managed to avoid hurting anyone, all I could think about was how in the fuck it had happened in the first place.
I staggered to my feet, doing everything that I could to avoid the sickening lurch of lightheadedness. The two faeries immediately quieted, and Solus came running over.
“Why?” I croaked. “Why did I shift?”
Solus looked stricken. “I don’t know, dragonlette. Maybe the loss of blood?”
“My eyes were doing the fucking spooky glowing thing before that. Why now? Why today?”
I turned to Tom for help. “You’re a shifter. Help me out here.”
My old friend looked worried. “I don’t know, Red. It happens when it’s a full moon, you know that. We can’t control the urges and so we just spontaneously…” he shrugged, “shift.”
“It’s not a full moon. And that’s never happened to me before anyway.” I smiled sourly, hugging the soft throw tighter to me. “I don’t think us Draco Wyr work like that.”
“It can happen in times of huge stress. You know like when you were at the mages’ academy and that wraith showed up.”
“I’m not stressed.” I ran my tongue over my lips. “Not like I was then anyway.”
“Sometime younger girls can’t control their shifts when they get their periods. Betsy was like that for a while. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
I vaguely remembered waking up in the middle of the night years ago in my old dormitory to the sound of snarls and Julia’s soothing tones. I wasn’t a young girl in the first bout of puberty though, and I didn’t have my fucking period. A flash of heat flared up uncomfortably in my lower stomach, then settled there, like a hot boulder. Bloody hell, I felt awful.
“So, pretty much, you don’t know. Nobody knows. I don’t know. Apparently now, not only is the whole world going to be in absolutely no doubt as to what I really am, but there’s the chance I might just spontaneously combust when I’m strolling down the road. Outfuckingstanding.”
I slammed my palm against the balcony railing, and stared down. There were a couple of ogres hovering around, and a few people mopping up the remnants of splashed drinks and broken glass. A vast scorch mark now travelled from one length of the bar to the other.
Tom touched my shoulder. “The Lord Alpha’s on his way.”
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
I turned to where Tarn was standing, another bout of dizziness attacking my senses. “You got what you wanted,” I snarled at him. “Now give me what I asked.”
“You destroyed my club,” he commented.
“Your fucking club is fine. Tell me where Endor is, Tarn or, so help me God, I’ll fry you on the spot.”
He leaned down, scooping up a delicate champagne glass and taking a small sip. “I don’t know where he is.”
That’s it. I was going to kill him. I took a step forward, then wavered slightly. Solus moved over, putting his arm round my body to steady me.
“Well,” Tarn continued, eyeing me with the nervy enmity of an old street cat, “I don’t know where he is right now. At this particular moment in time. But I do know where he’ll be.”
I watched him, unforgiving, waiting for something else. And because, right at this moment, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be able to take even a step without collapsing.
“In five days’ time, it’s Lughnasadh. The pagan first harvest of summer. He’s going to use it do a little harvesting of his own. I think he enjoys the symmetry.” Tarn shrugged.
Five days? Alex better damn well have found a way to get hold of some palladium before then.
I kept my eyes trained on the Fae. “Where?”
A shadow crossed his face. “In Scotland. Loch Ness.”
“He’s going after the kelpies,” breathed Solus in dawning comprehension. “And the element of water.”
Tarn nodded.
“And how the fuck do we know that you’re telling the truth? Given that you effectively already lied about knowing his current whereabouts?”
“Sol knows.”
I twisted my neck round to look at Solus, and he gave me a bob of unhappy affirmation.
“Endor was in here a couple of months ago,” Tarn explained. “He looked interesting so I called him up and we got drunk over a bottle of Glen Ord whisky. It’s distilled up in that area. He dropped enough hints to make it clear what he was intending.”
“It could be a trap,” murmured Tom.
“It’s not.” The Fae was adamant.
I knew that Tarn’s nature meant he’d be well versed enough in the lines between truth and lies to be sure of his assertion. I nodded.
He turned to leave, but I called out first. “I might not be able to stand up unassisted right now, but if you do anything with my blood that harms others, I will come after you.” I stared hard at him. “You know the truth of my words.”
He just looked at me, but there was a note of acknowledgement visible in his eyes, then he flicked his wrist, and two hulking bodyguards appeared out of nowhere to flank him. Together, they turned their backs on us and left.
Once I was sure that he’d gone, I spoke quietly to Solus. “I’d like to go home, now.”
“Of course, dragonlette. We need to go to the entrance first though. I can’t transport you from within here because Tarn has some kind of portal shield in place. It stops any riffraff from materialising in whenever they like.”
“I’ll carry you,” Tom interjected.
“No. I can walk.” I was damned if I was going to be treated like some kind of invalid.
Very, very carefully, with Tom and Solus on either side of me, I began to hobble forward. The heated lump inside my stomach didn’t appear to be abating, and neither was the dizziness. I gritted my teeth though, and tightly curled my nails into my palms. Bit by bit, we slowly edged our way forward until we were in front of the lift. I’d been mocking Tarn earlier for not having stairs, but now I was beyond grateful that he was a lazy wanker. The velvet throw was starting to fall down my shoulders, but I managed to hike it up around me. With any luck we’d be able to get out of this place before Corrigan showed up.
Unfortunately for me, when the lift doors opened smoothly back onto the ground floor, and the three of us stepped carefully out, the familiar figure of the Brethren Lord was already there, eyes examining the scar I’d left burned into the bar. He turned and watched our progress towards him, not offering any help. Thank fuck. He looked somewhat ruffled, as if he’d gotten dressed in a hurry. I tried very hard not to dwell on what he might have been doing when he’d received the midnight call about my latest shenanigans.
When we reached him, he ignored me and looked at Tom, who gave him a little dip of a bow. Fucking Brethren caste system.
“What happened?”
Tom began to outline what he’d learned upon his arrival. I’d have kept going, out towards the exit, but unfortunately I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it without both Tom and Solus’ shoulders to lean on. And there was no way I was going to let myself collapse. Not at this particular moment.
When Tom had finished, Corrigan turned towards me. “Did he leave anything out?”
I shook my head, pulling the throw further up around me as if for protection. A muscle jerked in the Lord Alpha’s cheek.
“It looks like you’ve missed all the action,” commented Solus merrily. “That’s okay though. Us faeries and dragons can take care of everything.”
“The council should have been informed before you came here,” Corrigan growled.
“How do you know they weren’t?” I shot back.
His green eyes flashed. “Because I’m taking Staines’ place as the highest ranking shifter representative. If you’d told anyone, I would have known.”