Chapter 17

Kit

The circular chamber is just as I remember it. Fresh earthy scent, flower beds and walls painted with a soft iridescent sheen. It's warm and well lit, the rays of sun spilling into it from the skylight in the high ceiling.

"Rutting stars." Cyril has his sword out, but his taut muscles are shaking. The way Ettienne is looking at him, with a mix of respect and too open concern, makes me worried. "A greenhouse in the middle of a cold stone stronghold?"

"Not a greenhouse," Ettienne surveys the room quickly, then bars the door from the inside. "A nursery."

He is right, I realize. Looking at the dark crate with the five eggs inside, I finally recognize this place for what it is—a perverted nursery designed to keep its charges in stasis. Trapped forever in that crate. Alive and feeling, but not living. Not growing.

I step forward toward the dark wooden crate with the dragon eggs. The lullaby in my head recedes in favor of the lub dub, lub dub heartbeats echoing from inside. If the connection to the eggs felt strong when I was here last in my human form, now it's magnified to a primal potency. Each synchronized beat of their little hearts feels like a gentle tap against my soul, drawing me closer. The air around the crate thrums.

"Do you feel it?" I ask the males. The dragon inside me screams with the need to protect and nurture the eggs' fragile little lives. Which, granted, is a little weird.

"If by it you mean a looming disaster, then yes." Ettienne stalks around the room, using his sword to move the flower vines aside and check behind them. "The magic in this room is unnatural."

"I do," Cyril's voice is soft but the emotions flowing through our mating bond are anything but quiet. "I can feel them now. They are afraid. They need us." He extends his hand toward the crate.

"Be careful," I warn. "You have to avoid?—"

Too late. Cyril has already touched one of the runes. He pulls back sharply, cradling his arm.

"- the symbols," I finish with a sympathetic wince. "I think some of the marks are a binding spell. Like the one that once held me in human form." I placed my hand on the polished wood, carefully avoiding the runes. "See, I told you I'd come back." I tell the eggs.

They seem to grab onto the connection between us with desperate little claws.

"Yes, congratulations on promises kept," Ettienne says. "Unless you wish to now die together, less cooing and more action please. Do your new charges happen to know a way out?"

"It doesn't work that way," I tell him.

"Pity."

I raise my face toward the skylight above. "Is this room large enough for you to shift and fly us out?"

Ettienne gives me a dirty look but surveys the chamber with an experienced eye. "No, not for me. A smaller dragon might be able to."

Smaller dragon meaning me. Except I can't shift. Or do much of anything.

"I can do it," says Cyril, his strong voice hiding the fatigue that I can see in the strain of his shoulders. The dust and grit of the passageways clings to his sweat slickened skin in large swaths, making him look like a spotted predator—especially when he moves.

"You can't," says Ettienne.

"I can shift and carry everyone up," Cyril continues, ignoring his father. His attention fixed on the ceiling, his gaze measuring. "We'll need to punch out the skylight glass. Ettienne will go through first, then Kit can hand up the eggs." He nods to himself. "It will be a trick for me to shift back and go through the opening without falling, but it's doable."

"The chamber is too small," Ettienne says. "The stones will break your wings at first shift. You can't fly up with broken wings, much less do it while carrying something."

"You'll be amazed what I can do with broken limbs," Cyril answers cooly. "It's our only option at this point."

My heart shatters a little, but I can't let myself grieve Cyril's past just now. "Alright. So that's the plan. We need to get the eggs out of the crate first though."

"Unpacking is a waste of time." Shouldering past Cyril, Ettienne grips the crate with both hands—only to pull away with a curse, his hands blistering. "Alright. We need to get the eggs out first."

I grab one of Cyril's daggers and aim at the largest of the protection runes branded into the crate's dark surface. Two interlocking circles. Just like the ones Quinton had sliced open on my forearm. With a quick motion, I run the blade through the locking mark.

An explosion of magic knocks me clear across the room at once, my head smashing into a flower bed that topples dirt and petals around me. I grunt from the impact and push myself up to my feet just as Cyril reaches me.

"I'm fine." I wince as he touches a lump forming on the back of my head. "Well, at least something happened."

I walk back to the crate, my heart speeding as I see a dark swath of smooth wood where the rune used to be. "More than something."

I brush my hand over the surface, feeling only the strange coolness of ancient wood. No stinging wards. A tentative torrent of hope and happiness trickles toward me from the eggs.

I pick up the dagger I dropped. "We just need to cut through a few more of the marks and then we can break through."

"I'll do it." Cyril plucks the weapon from my hand and makes the cut.

The explosion of magic comes again, only this time Cyril and the knife are thrown across the room with nothing to show for it. Cyril tries again with the same result, then Ettienne. Nothing. The males can't even touch the bit of wood that's already clear of the runes.

"Kitterny is the only one who can touch the crate," Ettienne says, pulling himself up to his feet after another unsuccessful attempt to neutralize the runes. His back is straight, his chin lifted as always, but there is a tightness around his eyes. Like he doesn't like what he is saying. "Just as she is the only one who can hear their song."

Cyril opens his mouth to argue but I shake my head. "He's right," I say softly and splay my palm on Cyril's broad chest. "It has to be me. I'm the only one who can get them out."

Cyril reluctantly hands over the dagger. I grip it tightly, take a breath, then carefully align it with the next rune and brace myself to make the incision.

"Wait." Coming up behind me, Cyril braces my body with his own, his hands gripping me just over the shoulder blades. "I am right here, nymph," he whispers into my ear. "I'm with you."

I nod and make the cut. The moment the blade touches the wood, a jolt of energy surges through me, like lightning striking directly into my core. Searing pain shoots up my arm, a thousand knives ripping through my flesh. I'm shoved back into Cyril, my breaths labored and ragged as an involuntary whimper escapes my lips.

"You are doing good." Cyril presses his thumb into my back muscles, rubbing small soothing circles. "One more."

"It's not one more," I snarl through gritted teeth as I reclaim my stance in preparation to take on the next mark.

"No, but it's one more at a time."

I make the cut, my body convulsing from the ripping magic that comes with it. The next. The next. With each new rune I sever now, the crate creaks and groans, a sound akin to the breaking of ancient chains. The eggs inside pulse with a growing urgency, their heartbeats growing louder in my head, their fear and excitement more potent the closer they get to freedom.

Another slice. Another groan of protest from the thinning magic barrier that's standing between us. Another crescendo of pain that gets more intense with each attack.

"Breathe." Cyril orders and wipes something warm trickling from my nose down my cheek. Blood. "Breathe, and feel us all with you. The whole pack. Let us share the pain."

I do as he commands, shifting my focus to the bond with an effort of will. My muscles are tense, my breaths coming in short, sharp gasps. Letting Cyril support all my weight, I find that center, which I'd somehow forgotten was there. Lean into it.

The warm comfort of the mating bond surges through me, a set of woven strings each carrying the essence of my males. There is strength that tastes of Quinton, and gentle teasing wrapped with Hauck's earthy scent, and a fire-filled assurance in my victory that glows with Tavias's essence. Wherever my mates are now, they know something is happening. And they are here to help me through it.

"We have you," Cyril says again. "And you have this. Now finish it."

I do. Working non-stop until I make the final cut and the entire crate collapses to the floor in a pile of strangely shaped planks of wood. There are no nails. Nothing to suggest the pieces had ever been held together. Not that I spend too much time looking. Reaching in, I wrap my hands around a warm iridescent egg the size of a large watermelon, which slides into my arms and my soul all at the same time.

"Hello there," I say, I feel the hatchling's heartbeat echoing through the warm shell. Its need and love flood me, making everything else in the world feel small in comparison. I channel the sensations into the bond I share with my mates. For a few heartbeats, all I feel is silence in return. And then, then there is a response. Joy and laughter and protectiveness and sheer terror—the latter tasting distinctly of Quinton.

The egg in my arms jumps suddenly, as if a cat living inside it has awoken.

Cyril and I both scramble for a better hold. Our palms meet, both our breaths ragged. Cyril's blue eyes are bigger than I've ever seen them as his gaze latches to mine. "I've… I've never felt anything like this," he whispers. "I don't think anyone has. Not in our lifetime."

The egg vibrates, emitting a sound like a small purr as its shell shifts around from purple to turquoise to a deep emerald that ripples from its center in rhythmic waves.

Cyril laughs, but there is a hitch to his voice. It takes me a moment to realize his eyes are brighter than usual. No, not just brighter, but glistening with tears.

"Hey," I say softly.

Cyril swallows. "We have to keep them safe," he says. "We have to."

"We will."

The egg bounces again, this time nearly succeeding in ejecting itself from our hold and smashing into the ground. My heart skips a beat. Cyril mutters a curse.

"You've got to calm down before you fall," I tell the unhatched dragonling. Not that it cares. It jumps again, continuing in its suicidal quest until Ettienne, of all people, cradles it against his chest and softly hums the lullaby that had tugged me here. The egg settles. Cyril and I exchange baffled looks.

"You know the song?" I ask.

Ettienne says nothing but nods. All his attention is on the egg and his scales are a soft shade of lilac. He finished a stanza and swallows, his throat bobbing. The egg purrs and seems to nestle into him.

Ettienne smiles warmly at it—actually smiles—before starting to hum again.

The egg's iridescent shell turns the same lilac hue as Ettienne's scales, its wiggles reducing to small snoring shakes.

Well that's… not what I expected. Leaving the first egg in Ettienne's care, Cyril and I hastily pull down the flower bed and re-settle the next egg into the warm soil. It takes a lot of singing and agility on both our parts.

"Five of them," Cyril says. "How exactly are we going to move five of them from here if we can barely hold one between the two of us?"

Fair question.

"Do you think Tavias has a sense of where we are?" I ask. The intensity of the bond has settled now, and though I still feel my mates on the other side of it, I can no longer tell one apart from another. "If he knows our location?—"

"- it is of no matter at all." The voice I'd hoped never to hear again sounds through the chamber, its familiar cadence sending a rush of fear through me. There is a click of a latch engaging and then the head priest himself steps out from behind a curtain of flowering plants. He is alone, his robes billowing on a phantom breeze. Before any of us can react, the priest fires a crossbow bolt directly into Ettienne's chest.