Bring the Heat

Brannie took on the two interlopers while Aidan rushed to Gaius’s aid. Something Kachka was eternally glad to see since Gaius was not just fighting that She-dragon . . . he was also fighting her multiple tentacles, which had only grown larger and more disgusting when she’d shifted.

Zoya helped Kachka to her feet.

Gripping the leather bag in her hand, Kachka pointed to a high spot on the cave wall that was like a small balcony. “Marina! Go!”

She pulled out her own sword and backed up. “Zoya . . . move mountains, comrade.”

Zoya grinned and ran to the other side of the cave, where she grabbed large boulders and began flinging them directly at the She-dragon’s head.

Kachka stepped back, looking for a way out. She didn’t want to leave her friends, fighting to protect her, but her main concern was this thing that Vateria wanted. From the little Kachka knew about the She-dragon, she understood that the last being in the world who should get her claws on anything with this much power was Vateria Domitus.

As she kept backing up, kept searching, Kachka walked into something small. She turned around, expecting to see the currently unhelpful dwarves, but found a little boy standing behind her.

“Hello,” he said.

Kachka just stared at him.

“Mommy says a Rider would never hurt a child.” He pulled his hand from behind his back, a steel dagger held tightly in his fist. “Let’s find out if Mommy’s right.”

Kachka growled in pain as the child’s blade sank into her leg and she stumbled back. The boy raised the weapon again and Kachka made a mad, wounded dash for the entrance she’d come in from.

Gaius heard Kachka’s muffled grunt and turned to see her being attacked by a small boy.

Vateria wrapped one of her tentacles around Gaius’s throat and squeezed. “Isn’t the boy beautiful? Exquisite, really.”

She ducked as Zoya threw another boulder at Vateria’s head.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she babbled on as several of her tentacles battered poor Aidan across the chamber. “That what I have done with Duke Salebiri is exactly what my god is fighting against. But you see, I will be what defeats Annwyl the Unholy Whore. Me. And my children. We will defeat her and her Abominations and then, our sweet god will honor us all. How do you feel about that, cousin?”

Gaius, unclear on what Vateria was talking about, closed his eyes, reached out past the cave walls, and called to his sister.

Aggie.

Gaius.

I need you, sister.

It was something they’d only done once before. By accident. When Thracius had torn out Gaius’s eye. The pain. The pain had been so unbearable that Gaius hadn’t realized he’d silently called out to his sister until he felt her inside his head. She removed the pain while, at the same time, giving him the strength to run as she used her own body to shield him from their uncle. Preventing Thracius from removing the other eye as he was about to do.

This time, however, Gaius had no intention of running.

Gaius gripped the thing around his neck and yanked it off. Squeezing it between his talons, he gazed directly into Vateria’s shocked face as he said, “Cousin . . . my dear sister sends you greetings,” before flinging her and her gods-damn tentacles across the cavern and into the opposite wall.

Kachka shot through the opening and found the dwarves standing around, looking incredibly uncomfortable about what was going on. Uncomfortable and confused. But not helping without their king’s say.

“What did she promise you, Dwarf King?” Kachka asked while turning and kicking the little boy chasing her back into the cavern.

“That Duke Salebiri will leave my people alone,” he replied.

Kachka stared at him. “Who do you think that female is?”

“Ageltrude. Wife of Duke Salebiri.”

“No, Dwarf King. That is not who she is.” She kicked the boy, who charged her again. “She is Vateria. Daughter of Overlord Thracius.”

“You’re lying.”

“I do many things. Lying is not one of them.”

The boy burst out of the crevice and charged Kachka again. She wasn’t about to start killing children, but she was more than happy to slap one around. But as she pulled her hand back to knock the weapon away from him, the Dwarf King let out a deafening scream and swung his axe.

The boy, quicker than she expected, stumbled back, falling on his ass, and Kachka caught the king’s weapon before it split the boy in two.

“What are you doing?” the king demanded.

“Kill his mother if you can. But the boy—you wait until he is old enough to wipe his own ass. That should be the way of things, Dwarf King.”

The king yanked his axe back. “Fine.”

The boy jumped to his feet, running back the way he’d come, screaming, “Muuummmm!”

“What are you waiting for?” Kachka asked him. “Go. Get your revenge on Thracius by killing his daughter.”

She watched the dwarves, led by their king, follow after the boy. Once she was sure they were gone, she turned and went the other way.

Gaius had Vateria on the ground and was strangling the life from her, enjoying the way her eyes were bulging from her head, and she was hitting at him, trying to get him off her, when he heard Brannie yell, “Gaius! Behind you!”

Annoyed, he looked over his shoulder. Dragons, former soldiers of Thracius’s army he was guessing, poured into the cavern from another entry point.

Brannie batted the She-dragon she’d been fighting out of her way to protect Gaius’s back. That’s when he realized that the other two dragons Aidan and Brannie had been fighting were also cousins of his.

A claw slapped across his face and he was tossed off when Vateria pressed her back claws against his chest and shoved.

Gaius flew back, watching Vateria get to her feet. She started to come toward him. That god she’d chosen had changed her, but he didn’t really have time to be disgusted. Not with the Dwarf King and his soldiers coming in from the other entrance.

Their war cry rang out, and although they were considerably smaller than the dragons, there were suddenly a lot of them . . . and they went for the weakest points on dragons’ bodies with the most deadly weapons.

The dwarves climbed over Vateria and her soldiers, chopping at them with their axes and swords.

A small group of Vateria’s soldiers attacked Gaius, old Praetorian Guards who recognized him on sight. He blocked several weapons with his sword and shoved them off. He wanted Vateria. He would have Vateria!

But when he turned around . . .

“Where is she?” Gaius bellowed at the Dwarf King.

Blood covered half the king’s head, face, and shoulder. He pointed with his sword toward the entrance they’d come through. That was also when he realized that Kachka was gone. He knew she was trying to get the eyes away from Vateria, and Vateria had gone after her.

“Marina! Zoya! With me!” he yelled, shifting to human and sprinting after his bitch cousin.

Kachka ran until she reached what she knew every dwarf city had access to . . . a mine.

There were signs that gave directions to each of the mines—gold, steel, iron, silver—but they were written in dwarvish and she had no idea how to read that.

So Kachka headed for the first functioning mine she saw. But someone grabbed her arm and pulled her toward a separate set of stairs.