Twiceborn Endgame (The Proving Book 3) (18 page)

Ben made a strangled sound, and I turned away from the poor man on the TV trying to convince himself that he’d done everything he could to try to save his neighbour.

“What?”

He was staring at the screen, a look of horror on his face.

“Did you know her?” I racked my brain. Should I have heard of Elise Woods? Or Geoff whatever-his-name-was?

“No.”

The TV news moved on to the now-familiar story of the demonstrators picketing Parliament House. Some thought the new anti-shifter laws were the first steps on the slippery slope to dictatorship; others thought they weren’t harsh enough and were agitating for the death penalty. There were a lot of angry faces on the TV.

“I didn’t know her,” said Ben, “but I know that house. I’m betting she hadn’t lived there very long.”

“Why?”

“Because it used to belong to a rusalka named Melina.”

“How do you know?”

“I was a herald for ten years. I’ve delivered to just about every shifter in Sydney.”

Right. It was hard sometimes to remember there’d ever been anything before our current bizarre existence, always running and fighting. I’d been an ordinary person myself, living in a house not much different from the one we’d just seen smouldering on the TV.

“Melina was one of Valeria’s people. I bet she did a runner when Valeria went down, and this poor woman moved in instead.”

“What are you saying? You think the attackers meant to kill Melina?”

“It makes more sense, doesn’t it? Why firebomb the house of some suburban mum? You heard the guy—she was
much nicer
than the last woman who lived there. Rusalkas don’t make the best neighbours.”

“But why would anyone be trying to kill Melina?” Steve objected. “No one’s going after Valeria’s supporters. She’s out of the game.”

“No
shifters
would be trying to kill her.” He gestured at the scene on the TV now, where people chanted and waved their hate-filled signs. “But what about them? There’s some nutjob frothing under every rock you turn over these days. I bet someone remembered the scary lady in Church Street and decided she was a witch or something.”

I sighed. “A werewolf, probably. They all seem to be obsessing over werewolves.”

Weren’t we all?

“Right. So they lob a Molotov cocktail through her window and go off congratulating themselves on a job well done. No more werewolf. Except they didn’t bother to check first if she still lived there.”

God. I closed my eyes. That poor woman. If he was right, she’d died for nothing. And I thought shifters were bad. Humans could be just as violent and hateful.

“Turn it off.”

Steve clicked off the TV, and we sat in silence for a moment. If people could do this on a mere suspicion, what might they do if they ever found proof? The old queens had been right to keep the shifter world hidden. Shifters were powerful, but there were so many more humans. They might be ants in comparison, but enough ants could pick clean even the corpse of an elephant.

And these ants came with pitchforks and torches. Welcome back to the Middle Ages. What next? Witch trials? Parliament seemed to be heading that way with their new laws. I’d say they were draconian but that wasn’t even funny.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,” I said, “except warn everyone to lay low.”

“Says the woman who just flew into Sydney in trueshape.” Ben gave me an exasperated look. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Déjà vu. Ben was mad with me again for taking trueshape. The way he was looking at me right now, you’d think he didn’t even like me. It was a slap in the face every time, reminding me how much he hated something that was a part of me.

“Maybe I was thinking that I needed to get Garth to safety.”

“That bonehead is indestructible. By tomorrow he’ll be bouncing around like nothing ever happened.” Back to that again. Shifter strength—particularly werewolf strength—was a bitter demon that gnawed at Ben’s soul.

“What is your problem? Are you
jealous
of Garth?” This was treading on dangerous ground. What was the matter with me? Was I
trying
to provoke him? The dragon side of me was tired of all this pussyfooting around.

“Of course I’m jealous of Garth! He’s a friggin
werewolf
.” He threw his arms up in frustration. “He goes everywhere with you. He protects you. He’s
useful
.”

And he doesn’t look at me as if he’d tasted something nasty every time I take trueshape.

“You should be worrying more about yourself,” he continued. “Don’t we have enough to deal with without you leading the foaming nutcases straight to our door?”

I shoved my chair back, swallowing an angry reply. I couldn’t deal with this now.

“I’m going to get some sleep. Wake me when Luce and the others get back.”

I jolted awake as Ben laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“What time is it?” I’d pulled the blinds, but a thin streak of bright white light glared through the gap at the bottom. Still daytime, then. For a moment I’d been afraid I’d slept the day away.

“Just after eleven. Luce is back.”

“She’s just got back now? That was a long trip.”

“No, she’s been back a while, but I thought you needed the sleep.”

I frowned. I’d left orders to be woken as soon as she arrived. It wasn’t his place to decide something different. I shut my eyes again and drew a deep breath. Sometimes the rage caught me by surprise. It seemed to be always simmering just below the surface. Did all dragons feel this way, or was it just me, with my screwed-up head?

Take a chill pill, Kate. He’s not your thrall
. But there was so much to do. Had everyone but me forgotten about Lachie, still in the claws of that bitch Daiyu? I bet no one was fussing over how much sleep
he
needed. I didn’t have time to lie around.

“Everyone okay?” Firmly I shoved the rage back down into the dark recesses of Leandra’s dragon sense of entitlement.

“They’re fine. Luce stomped off to check on Garth, and pronounced herself satisfied with his condition. She’s off making Steve’s life miserable in the comms room now, trying to work out how she can beef up security.”

That would be my fault, I guess. She too was worried about what I might have led to our door with my flight home. Bet the radar operators at Sydney airport were still scratching their heads.

“A herald came while you were asleep, too. Kasumi—”

“Kasumi?” I bounced off the bed as if it were a trampoline, my fury returning. Kasumi had been here and he hadn’t thought to wake me? “She came again?”

“No, no. It wasn’t Kasumi. A real human herald with a
message
from Kasumi.”

That was almost as bad. “Where is it?”

He handed me an envelope. Already open. I glared at him. Not even another dragon would dare open the queen’s mail. Who did he think he was?

Geez, what was wrong with me? I must be more tired than I’d thought. Usually I had better control. I drew a shaky breath, struggling for calm, and lifted the flap of the envelope.

“Be careful,” he said. “There’s some hair in there.”

Hair? Gently I withdrew the paper. Three dark hairs lay within its fold. Kasumi’s? Why was she sending me her hairs? Quickly I scanned the note.

Daiyu’s pilots on standby at the Airport Hilton. Thralls. No contact until there are orders for them.

That was it. No mention of the hairs. The writing scrawled across the page, as if she’d been in a hurry. No signature. I frowned, chewing over the possibilities. Did she mean me to abduct them? But what good would that do if they were thralls? They’d only take orders from Daiyu, or someone she’d deputised.

“Why do we need Daiyu’s pilots anyway? And what’s with the hair?” Ben said. “I assume she means for us to steal Daiyu’s plane, but why would we risk that when we could catch a commercial flight, or take our own private jet?”

I sat down on the edge of the bed and read the note again. She certainly wasn’t big on detail. But if Kasumi had the authority to pass orders on to these pilots …

“The commercial flights are probably always monitored. If not, they certainly would be now, with Daiyu up to her traitorous neck in plots. That goes double for private jets. Probably the only way to get into Japan without being picked up is in Daiyu’s own plane, disguised as someone they would expect to be using it.”

“But what if Daiyu discovers it’s gone? All it would take would be one phone call and you’d be walking into a death trap the minute you landed.”

“True.”
No contact until there are orders for them.
“But the note basically says Daiyu only bothers with the plane and its pilots when she wants to use it. As long as she has things to amuse herself with in Sydney, she won’t even know it’s gone. You can stay here and cover for me. Ramp up the preparations for the coronation. She won’t be going anywhere while there’s still a chance she can get to me before I get that crown on my head.”

“Stay here?” You’d think I’d asked him to eat raw sewage. “While you go off to assault the Japanese queen’s stronghold singlehanded? I’m not letting you go alone.”

He wasn’t
letting
me? Rage boiled in my chest. “As if you have any choice.”

“
What
did you say?”

A terrible silence filled the room. Each of us stared at the other as if we were strangers. I had a sense of teetering on the brink of something momentous, something there was no going back from.

“I said you have no choice. I am the queen and I decide.” My words were clipped; there was no disguising the anger simmering inside me.

“Spoken like a true dragon.” The way he said “dragon” made it sound like a swear word.

I took the step into the abyss.

“If you hate dragons so much, what are you doing here?”

He laughed, a brittle sound. “I’ve been wondering that myself. I thought I was here for Kate.” His mouth twisted. “But I don’t know where she’s gone.”

Falling, falling. I’d never seen that look in his dark eyes before.

“Every time you take trueshape, you change a little more. It’s like a drug, an addiction, isn’t it? You just can’t stop, whatever the consequences. You won’t be happy until you bring down the world on our heads. Go be a dragon, then. Play with your shifter friends. I’ve seen how you look at that werewolf.”

A shaft of guilt pierced my anger. “This is not about Garth. This is about us.”

“What us? There’s only you, running off, saving the world or damning it, while I wait here and wonder if you’re coming back. Do you even care about us?”

“I do care. I care about you.” But not enough. Not in the way he meant. I took a deep breath. “But I don’t think this is working.”

His shoulders sagged, and he turned away abruptly.

“I don’t think it is either.” His voice was so quiet I barely caught the words.

I stared at his rigid back, contemplating might-have-beens. If we’d found each other sooner, when I’d still been fully human. If I’d never gone on that courier job to Leandra’s house.

But then I would never have gotten Lachie back, and whatever this change meant for me personally, I couldn’t regret the circumstances that had brought Lachie back to me. After believing him dead for seven months, to hold him in my arms again had been one of the greatest moments of my life.

This relationship with Ben had been doomed before it even began. Once Leandra had forced me to swallow that channel stone, I’d been on a one-way ride that there was no getting off. The old Kate had been gradually slipping away even before we’d had our first kiss.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” he said at last. “I’ll go to ground somewhere so no one can use me against you.” When he turned around his face was a mask. “I hope you get Lachie back safely.”

“I hope so too.” I stared helplessly at him. What now? Did I kiss him goodbye? That closed-in face said no. But it didn’t seem right to just walk away.

He solved the problem by stalking into the walk-in wardrobe. I stood for a moment, listening to him rustling around taking clothes off hangers and out of drawers, then looked down at the note I still held.

Yes. Getting Lachie back was my first priority. What sort of mother thought about her stupid, messed-up love life when her son needed her? That one curly-headed little boy meant more to me than anyone else in the world.

I strode from the room, Kasumi’s letter and her hairs clutched in a tight fist, and went to find Blue.

He was in the comms room with Luce and Steve and the two thralls on duty. He had a mutinous look on his face and brightened when he saw me come in.

“Tell this stupid wyvern I can’t sow the whole property with dragon’s teeth,” he demanded. “Does she have any idea how much work that would be? And it would be a complete waste of time given the bindings we’ve done already.”

“He can’t sow the whole property with dragon’s teeth.” Blue flashed a triumphant grin at Luce. “Because I have another job that’s more important.”

The grin slipped a little, and Luce’s tight expression relaxed into the hint of a smile.

“What job is that?”

“You will make a seeming for me.”

Luce’s smile faded at my expressionless tone, but I ignored her.
Focus on what needs to be done. Lachie first
.

Blue took the envelope suspiciously. “Whose hairs are they?”

“Kasumi’s.”

“The kitsune?” He peeked into the envelope with more interest. “Only three. It won’t make much potion. Enough for maybe ten hours. What are you planning? Will that be long enough?”

The potion had to last me from the moment I arrived in Japan until I’d managed to free the kitsune hostages and steal their hoshi no tama back from wherever Daiyu had hidden them. Ten days might be enough. Ten hours was impossible.

“It will have to be.”

We got out of the car on the side of a dirt four-wheel-drive track high in the Blue Mountains. Gum trees crowded close to the road, and there was nothing to show that this spot was any different to anywhere else we’d passed on the long drive. This far from hot and muggy Sydney, the air had a chill to it; even in summer the mountains were high enough to stay relatively cool.