Dragon's Oath (Northbane Shifters Book 5) Read online

  I found it telling that it was over a nice meal and in the comfort of a nice house that Tiani’s shell began to crack. Out in the woods and even in the holding cell, she’d been unfazed.

  Give her a nice room, good food, and polite company? She went straight to pieces.

  I wondered if Tiani even knew how tightly she was holding herself right now. Not physically, exactly, where the only tell was the white dents by her nostrils and the nervous drum of her fingers on her crossed arms. No, it was more her voice and the flicker of her eyes.

  To be in so much constant motion, looking over your shoulder, and to slam abruptly into a wall that stops you—it was hard to taper off such furious adrenaline. Your body might be able to relax to an extent, but the mind would keep spinning, whispering to the body to keep running and looking. It had finally all caught up with her.

  The four walls didn’t keep out the darkness; rather, they kept Tiani in.

  Iris had said that Tiani’s impetus was always being on her toes, ready for anything and always pushing forward. Tiani could be a bit of a control freak and liked to have everything lined up. The stress of her capture, Orion’s return, her ignorance of Iris’s safety and heroics, the threat of Lind—she didn’t believe it was over. She was poised for this to fall apart, unwilling to relax and enjoy herself. Too afraid she’d lose it to let herself love Winfyre.

  In a way, I probably understood that better than anyone.

  However, what I didn’t know, at least not exactly, was where we went from here.

  Even though Iris hadn’t said as much, I didn’t think Tiani was exactly a go-with-the-flow person. At least, not like she was. Tiani’s tendency seemed to be to put her dukes up and throw down with anything, anyone, and every problem that came her way.

  Since I’d left Kal and Iris that afternoon, I’d been trying to figure out how to explain that to her. How to tell her I was as completely at sea as she was. That the claim was a paltry attempt to try to fix the unfixable. An easy way to pay the predator’s price.

  But at the same time, I had to walk a careful line of not revealing more of Winfyre’s or my own secrets, as well as still being the Alpha of the Northbane.

  Stalwart and stern were our secret bywords.

  Plus, deep down, I still wasn’t completely sure I could trust her.

  Unwittingly—or, even more scarily, perhaps not—Tiani had hit it on the head when she’d said we were secret roommates with dangerous secrets.

  I had to give her something. “Listen,” I said. “I’ve been trying to figure that out all day. I mean, technically, yes, we are roommates. But I don’t…” I dragged a hand down my face. Tiani looked worse than she had this morning. “What I want, in the end, is to take the burden of my secret off of you. For now, I’m going to have to settle for less. And even though this claim seems like it might be a fetter, in the long run, I hope it can help us come to a mutually agreeable solution.”

  “Were you a politician in a past life?” Tiani grumbled. “You’re good at spinning shit.”

  I cleared my throat before the angry sound could escape me. “What would you prefer? A holding cell in the mountains? I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t consider that.”

  “I’d like for you to stop pretending that I have a say in this,” Tiani said, and her chin lifted. “You’ve been calling the shots since I stepped into your territory, Bane.”

  “Dammit, Tiani. You snuck in and found out Winfyre’s biggest secret—that I’m a dragon shifter.” My voice was harsher than I intended. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Congratulate you? That secret was—” I swallowed hard, stopping myself. “You know what? You’re right.” She gave me a sharp look. “To an extent. Both our hands are tied, however. This is still Winfyre, and everyone has to pay the predator’s price. Sometimes they get to choose. You didn’t.”

  Tiani simply nodded.

  “I told you last night—I can’t let you go.” My voice had dropped into a softer, more persuasive note, and I thought I saw Tiani’s posture loosen a fraction. “I apologize. I don’t want any of this for you. But, like it or not, you’re now a threat to everything we’ve worked for. Years of work, mind you.” She flinched. “It’s not just on you, though. So, I’m trying to be courteous, trying to do the best I can for you, who wound up in this position by mistake, as I would do for anyone.”

  Tiani kept her gaze on the floor, and a lurch went through my gut. I'd said more than I meant to, but I thought I'd been fair and honest, at least. Couldn't deny I'd been a little reticent about my reasons, though.

  She must really hate me.

  “If you’re that uneasy or uncomfortable living here, with me,” I said, far more hesitant and not wanting to admit how much that would hurt if it were true, “I can secure lodging elsewhere. Maybe with one of the Vixens or—”

  “No, I—” Tiani glanced up, and her face was complicated. I couldn’t determine any one emotion, as they’d jumbled together into a knot of distress behind her eyes. “I’m not being fair to you.”

  Of all the things I’d thought she would say, that staggered me the most. “Excuse me?”

  “I was questioning your motives a little, but now I think I get it,” Tiani said. “You’re right—I am a liability. I didn’t want to admit that. And you were trying really hard not to make me feel worse, even though this is all my fault.” She gave me a shrewd glance as I stared at her. “Although, I’m also guessing that you were also in the wrong place at the right time.”

  “Like I said, it’s not all on you,” I sighed. “It’s on me, too.”

  “What a pair we make,” Tiani said, and I let out a soft chuckle. Her gaze became almost shy. “You’re not gonna kick me out, right, roomie?”

  “Tiani Elkhadi,” I drawled with a small grin. “Haven’t you realized yet you’ve had a place waiting for you all along? You’re not going anywhere, trespasser and secret-stealer or otherwise.”

  “A place, what, because of Iris?” she asked.

  “Well, yes,” I began to say and stopped, rubbing my fingers up the column of my neck into my damp hair. “But it’s more than that, too, of course.”

  “More?” Tiani asked, and I swore there was an unconscious flicker of mischief in her eyes. “Like what, my mouth?”

  Without meaning to, my eyes dropped to her lips, the fullness of the bottom one and her wide, defined cupid’s bow. The corner quirked up a bit, and I looked away, my neutral expression feeling like a poor slap of cement over the turmoil within. I’d have to work harder to keep the cracks from showing.

  “Certain people are Northbane,” I said, and my voice sounded rough to my ears as I stared out the window. The ocean sparkled with the setting sun, and the sky was almost violet. A fierce beauty, not unlike the woman standing in front of me. “I know. I always know. Sooner or later, you would’ve come here. So, yeah, you’ve always had a place, Tiani.”

  There was a conviction in my voice that startled me, a note that I hadn’t heard before and was meant only for Tiani. Something about it, too, stirred an instinct in the back of my head. Something muffled or just out of grasp.

  But then it was gone, sliding through my fingers, and dread bolted through me. My fingers tightened convulsively, and a hollow sensation rooted itself behind my heart.

  I was so distracted, I hadn’t realized Tiani’s aforementioned mouth hadn’t uttered a peep and glanced at her. Eyes cast down, dark lashes on her cheeks that were a few shades paler than usual, she rubbed her wrist. I reached for her without thinking, hand curling around her shoulder and the warmth of her skin coming through the material. Too warm.

  “Tiani, you’re burning up. Do you feel ill?” I asked, and she swayed a little. “Come on—”

  “You’re wrong,” Tiani said and stepped backward, pulling free with a strange slowness. My brain hadn’t quite caught on to the fact that I shouldn’t be manhandling her, so my fingers ghosted down the front of her arm and brushed soft, bare skin. Now her color was returning, although
her shaking had gotten worse, and she pushed back her hair impatiently. “I don’t think I should—”

  “About being sick?” I interrupted, puzzled. “Look at you, you’re pale and shaking—haven’t eaten a thing all day. Any moment, you’re goin’ to keel over on me, I bet.” I took a tentative step forward, worried she was going to try and do something drastic. Rogda had said Tiani needed to take it easy or she’d relapse. “Let me help you.”

  “You’re kind.” The words were a soft accusation. “A good person who cares. It’s not—” Her eyes closed, and Tiani hugged herself. “I’m so—so hot.”

  She sagged a bit, and I caught her without thinking. “Tiani!”

  Her skin was now burning against my hands, and, as I tried to steady her, she slumped towards the floor. The sudden heaviness of her inert body kicked my instincts into action, and I lifted her in my arms.

  Cradled against my chest, Tiani stirred and blinked open her eyes. Briefly, they focused on me, and the pupils dilated. A cool tingle played up and down my spine, disorienting me.

  “Oh no,” she murmured with a breathy laugh, and her eyes fell shut again.

  “Tiani?” I patted her cheek. She was out cold. “Well, this was not how I saw dinner going.”

  I ended up having dinner with Rogda and Luke that night. Luke had happened to be the closest to Rogda when I’d asked the pack for assistance. While I could have perhaps hopped Tiani over to the infirmary or gone to get Rogda, I tried to conserve how much I utilized that gift in a given day.

  For one thing, hopping took a huge amount of energy. And for another, it wasn’t always easy on the person who came with me. Kal and Tristan were often sick to their stomachs, while Rett would only go if he had no other choice. It did have an eeriness to it, that brief disconnection from time and space, an endless void pressing in around you, then the abrupt return. I didn't want to subject Rogda, who in spite of being spry, was pushing sixty, or Tiani, who was already sick, to all that.

  Still, those fifteen or so minutes of waiting for Luke and Rogda, listening to the soft, arrhythmic pattern of Tiani’s breathing, had been a special kind of hell. Hovering in the doorway, keeping one ear out for Rogda and Luke, I’d focused my eyes on the bed. Helpless to do a damn thing for her. My medic skills had afforded me no more than the ability to check her pulse and assess her symptoms as possible hypoglycemia or sheer exhaustion or simply a state of being overwhelmed.

  This post-Rift world brought with it a hell of a punch. I’d seen more strange illnesses and injuries in the last six years than I had as a Special Forces assistant medic on tour.

  Finally, Luke and Rogda had arrived. The latter had given Tiani a restorative while Luke and I talked. Then we’d gone downstairs to supper, with Rogda admonishing me to keep an eye on Tiani for the next few days.

  “You can’t leave her to her own devices, Alexander,” Rogda said. She was one of the few people who knew my full name and could use it. “I mean it. And she can have some fresh air, so long as someone is with her. Short, easy walks and lots of rest.”

  “Maybe serve her breakfast in bed,” Luke teased with a quick grin.

  “Yes,” Rogda retorted. “I’ve done the same for you and most of your brothers.”

  “And their mates,” Luke observed. “Wouldn’t be the first time a woman was astray in the woods and rescued by a gallant Northbane.”

  “This isn’t like that, Lukas,” I’d said patiently, faintly amused he was thinking along those lines. Then again, he’d been mated the longest, and Reagan was pregnant again. “How’s Rea?”

  “Fine so far,” he said. “No morning sickness like with Caleb. Although she has been a bit more emotional than usual for my mate.” His lips quirked. “She gets mad if I laugh.”

  “As she should, you ingrate of a wolf,” Rogda said and smacked his knuckles lightly with a spoon. Luke pulled back, laughing. “Leave Xander alone—he’s got enough to worry about.”

  “Thank you, Ro,” I said and poked at my food, wishing I’d seen Tiani was ill sooner.

  “That’s what I meant, though, darling Ro,” Luke said.

  I’d been glancing over my shoulder at the stairs and now swung my gaze to his. My friend shrugged, tilting his head, and the light caught the pale gleam of his hair. For a second, his sea-green eyes were both young and old. I remembered a winter's night some ten years ago when we were both soldiers and waiting for the return of our friends.

  He’d come up with the plan for it, with Tristan’s help—the two of them were so annoyingly clever—but part of it was that we’d had to wait behind with Rett. While Luke had been confident, he’d still been worried, and I still recalled how his shoulders had unknotted with tension when Brody’s grinning face had appeared out of the darkness, painted over with camouflage.

  You weren’t worried, were you, gents?

  Back then, Luke had been better at hiding it than I was. Something I’d never cared about or worried about. My friends used to say I couldn’t tell a lie to save my life.

  That much was true. But circumstances had forced me to learn how to guard my expressions, to keep my thoughts inward and so protect Winfyre. It wasn’t just the demands of leadership or coping with the weight of the Rift—it was the only way I knew how to protect Winfyre from myself to a certain extent.

  In the military, you learned to take on the guise of a soldier. The uniform became an armor from within which to mitigate your flaws and mirror out your strengths. You were no less and no more than the man next to you. All brothers. It had been that way since the beginning of time.

  To do what needed to be done, sometimes your humanity had to be set aside.

  Sometimes you had to devour your own soul and become a figurehead, a guiding light, and a steady rock on which to cling in a raging storm.

  Winfyre had two, whether most people realized it or not.

  Those that did, though, and understood the cost, were the five men I'd spent childhood summers with in careless, joyous adventures, and became men with on the sea-soaked decks of our naval ship and later in the wide expanses of desert.

  We’d become something else here. And each of us had lost something.

  As well as one of our brothers.

  All four that were left, though, still thought I’d paid too high a price. It was a specific look that broke my heart and sometimes made me angry. That passing, frustrated glance or a steady, heartsick look. Something that came only from years of knowing someone, a friendship etched into your bones, one of affection, respect, and grief.

  Now, though, I didn’t see it in Luke’s eyes. Instead, there was a warm and joyous relief. He nodded at me and said with some satisfaction, “You’re worried.”

  And if I hadn’t been before, I was now.

  Chapter Nine

  Tiani

  It was a struggle to wake up. Blankets were smothering me, and I threw them off with enormous effort. I spun my legs to stand up, only to have my head spin. Sagging against the pillows, I looked down at them in bewilderment.

  Wait, blankets and pillows? Where was I?

  I knew where I was not. Not in a forgotten cleft in Kizin Mountain, listening to the drip of water through stone and the far-off wail of the wind. Not Shauna Lind’s pet prisoner and juicy bait.

  Crap. I was in Winfyre, and that had become its own kind of taunting, impossible hell.

  Pressing a hand to my head, I realized that it was slicked with sweat and that my hair was sticking to me. A shiver rushed over me, cold, then burning hot, and my breathing rasped through clenched teeth. Even though free of the blankets, I still felt like I was suffocating.

  With enormous effort, my knees protesting in both pain and weakness, I got to my feet and went to the window, managing to get it open. There was no screen, and I gratefully hung my head outside, letting the freezing air dry my skin.

  My sense of time was even more scrambled than before, and I stared up at the sky, an uncertain shade between violet and blue, wisps of clouds rushing past
and burning stars. The sun was either setting or rising. An in-between time, where, for a moment, I felt safe.

  To my surprise, a hot tear slid free, followed by another. Impatiently, I wiped at my face and gripped the sill, trying to stem the fire trying to break free.

  It’s getting worse.

  The thought was ugly with terror, and when I opened my eyes, my focus went to the bracelet on my left wrist. A hammered piece of flat, boring metal, slightly concave, and connected by a chain. Gold in some lights, silver in others, and a dull gray in between.

  I wanted nothing more than to wrap my fingers around the chain and pull until it broke free, the pieces raining down.

  I could, too. There was nothing stopping me.

  Nothing but cold pragmatism. So long as I wore it, I was guaranteed safety, as was Iris.

  Or so I’d been told.

  Freedom shouldn’t be in the shape of a fetter, I thought I could hear Iris saying if I ever broke down and told her the extent of it. Such a terrible price, one I didn’t think could be undone by simply removing it. However, I also knew I couldn’t stay in Winfyre and wear it.

  Not with Bane around.

  Even though he, ironically, was the one person who would understand.

  Certain people are Northbane.

  His voice had had a deeper, rougher quality to it than it usually did when he’d said that. Edges had caught under that smooth baritone, as though he’d wanted me to catch and remember every word.

  I know. I always know.

  Sooner or later, you would’ve come here.

  Heat speared my chest as cold terror snarled in my gut. Guilt warred with longing. Again, my eyes closed, and I almost wanted to laugh. Bitterness wrung my heart. Of all the things to say.

  I looked up at the sky, the trees, and the mountains, inhaling the sharp bite of snow, the earthy scent of pines, and the tang of the sea. Bane was right, though.

  I’d stepped one foot into Winfyre and been seized with a paralyzing longing so acute, I’d wasted precious time sitting on a rock under a giant old pine, looking around and pretending I could stay. Before I’d walked away, I’d carved my initials into the tree.