Dauntless

Luckless Series Book 2

Cari Z

Warning: this book contains adult language and themes, including graphic descriptions of violence.  It is intended for mature readers only, of legal age to possess such material in their area.

This book is a work of fiction. All characters, companies, events, and locations are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, or events is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher.

Dauntless

Copyright 2021 by Cari Z.

Cover Art by Vivid Covers

Editing by Leta Blake

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

About This Book

Evan Luck is a dragon rider who, after years of thinking he'd never form another bond, now has a dragon again. His empathic connection with the powerful silver dragon Ladon, known in his human form as Lee Caldwell, has made them the most valuable defenders of the city of Forge against monstrous invaders. The fact that they love each other and dote on Lee's ten-year-old son, Jason? Those are blessings Evan never saw coming. He knows life is good...even as the world becomes more dangerous by the day.

With monsters leaving the mountains of the Front Range to roam the plains for food, and the influx of refugees to Forge increasing by the day, Evan has his hands full defending the city and training new recruits to fight. When Jason, desperate to bond with a dragon of his own but continually refused by the dragons of Forge, begins to lose control of himself, Evan and Lee make plans to do the unthinkable: leave Forge to fend for itself and take their son to Chicago, the nearest human and dragon stronghold holding out against the monsters.

But Chicago has its own terrors to deal with, and their last hope for Jason's future might be lost before they can save it.

Chapter One

The sun hung like a ball of steaming sulphur in the sky, edged by a corona of sickly yellow and brown. The last dust storm was still making its presence felt by obscuring visibility in all directions. Evan Luck’s eyes stung from the particles, and even with the mask covering the lower half of his face, his lips and tongue felt coated with residue. He wanted to spit but forced himself to swallow instead, leaning forward so he could get a better look over Ladon’s shoulder.

They were the lowest unit to the ground, circling and hovering as close as they could to the caravan from Cheyenne while maintaining just enough distance to keep the livestock from spooking. It was a slow, tedious task, but vitally important. People from all over the Rocky Mountain region had been making the dangerous voyage to the fortress city of Forge, built out of Denver’s bones, over the past year. Word had spread that Forge wasn’t only surviving in this post-apocalyptic wasteland, it was thriving.

How did humans anywhere manage to thrive in a land filled with monsters who considered them nothing but food? The reason for that was the dragon that Evan was currently sitting astride, and Ladon—Lee Caldwell when he shifted into his human form, the rarest ability among dragonkind—had as strong a sense of responsibility as Evan did. One of the horses below bucked as Ladon’s shadow passed over it, and before Evan could say anything, the dragon was moving up again, letting the steady wind propel him higher into the air.

You were fine, Evan said to Ladon. As an empath, he was one of a select group of people who could communicate and bond with dragons. With his first dragon, Juree, it had been different—they hadn’t spoken in words so much as in feelings and impressions. When Lee was Ladon, though, words seemed to pass across their bond with ease. The rider got his mount under control again fast.

There’s no need to stress them if I don’t have to, Ladon replied. His voice was like a distant roll of thunder in Evan’s mind, booming and heavy but not overwhelming. It was completely different from how he sounded as Lee, which was good, because as much as Evan loved Ladon, his relationship with the dragon was completely different from the relationship he had with the man. Besides, we’re getting close. Only a few more miles to go.

Finally. Cheyenne was about a hundred miles north of Denver, and traveling by Highway I-25—which was still the best bet despite the broken bridges and chewed-up concrete—was slow going. They were on day five of escort duty, and Evan felt like he hadn’t slept for more than four hours at any one time since they’d started. He didn’t like being away from their home so long, and he hated leaving Jason under someone else’s care.

Especially right now.

Reflective worry flared across their bond from Ladon, and Evan reached out to soothe him with his mind even as he stroked a hand down the side of his neck. He’s all right, he said, almost believing it himself. You know he loves Charlie, and she’d never let anything bad happen to him. If things had gotten really rough, she’d have sent us a message. Forge now had a dragon to spare for that—its youngest working dragon, Merek, the slender, black-scaled beauty who had bonded with a sylph-like teenage girl named Vanessa two years ago. They weren’t built for aggression, but for speed, and had taken to their role with alacrity.

It was a blessing, a city with so many dragons, but also a burden. Dragons needed to be fed, and as monsters became scarcer in close proximity to Forge, the dragons had to feed on livestock instead. The cattle, sheep, and goats Forge already had wasn’t enough to sate the appetites of three huge adult dragons and the mated pair’s numerous hatchlings and fledglings. Even with Ladon taking most of his nourishment in human form, to spare the herds, it was still a lot of meat. That was where the trade with Cheyenne came in.

Cheyenne had lost its last dragon, an old, grizzled brawler named Friya, in a battle against a horde of rougarans this past winter. Without a dragon, the city was both too big and too small to survive on its own—packed with people who’d streamed in from the countryside as times got tougher, but without the massive fighting beasts or weaponry necessary to hold off the monsters who had made Earth their home and seemed to be steadily swallowing it still, mile by mile.

The rifts between dimensions, the rifts that had opened out of nowhere and released Armageddon on the world, had been closed for nearly a hundred years now. Humanity had been devastated, first by beasts and then by its own weapons as it turned its nukes on the biggest of the newcomers, ruining the climate. Without the bonds that had spontaneously formed between dragons and humans, they would all have been dead long ago. As it was, smaller outposts were still being overwhelmed, with not enough dragons around to defend them, or the dragons that were there unable to find a human empath to bond with and taking off, wild and dangerous, for new horizons.

Ladon sent a stream of warm, soothing affection through their bond. Don’t worry, Evan. I’ll never leave you.

Evan rested his head against Ladon’s warm, scaly skin for a moment. I know. He was grateful for it every day, for the dragon who had chosen him after Evan had thought he’d lost his chance at another bond forever. He’d wanted to die after Juree’s death. Ladon was his second chance at life, and he would do anything to keep him.

A sparking red flare shot up from one of the outriders on the ground, startling Evan out of his introspection. He looked down at the woman who’d fired it, sitting astride a steady gray mare who didn’t flinch even as Ladon’s shadow enveloped her.

“Bolters!” she shouted, and even though she was too far away for Evan to hear, he could read her lips just fine. She flung out the hand holding a pair of binoculars toward the mountains. “Bolters coming in from the west!”

Bolters. Shit.

Bolters were one of the strange, semi-historical cryptids that had flourished ever since the opening of the rifts. That some of them must have gotten through in the past was undoubtable—Rock Slide Bolters were mentioned in bestiaries from centuries ago. They had been treated like a joke back then, but they were very real and very dangerous now.

They were supposed to keep to the mountains, clinging to rocky clifftops and sliding down scree fields to catch their prey, but as more and more people and their animals had abandoned the higher elevations, the monsters followed the food. The bolters were bigger than the leeches that had attacked Forge two years ago, and had four-part jaws that split open like the petals of a flower, revealing rows of teeth capable of crushing both rock and bone. Luckily they weren’t as numerous as the leeches had been, and their tiny limbs meant they could be outmaneuvered fairly easily.

Their tails, though—up to thirty feet long, practically impenetrable, flexible and strong—were the real danger. If a bolter caught up to the caravan, it wouldn’t need to run into people with its immense jaws. It would just wrap them up with its tail and crush them to death, then feed at its leisure.

Bolters were a problem, but Evan and Ladon could deal with them. They had to—if the monsters reached the caravan, it would be a massacre. A bolter’s rocky hide was too thick for fire to stop them quickly, even dragonfire. That meant they’d have to get low and crush them.

Check their numbers. Ladon swung west, and Evan peered through the dust for any signs of the big but slow-moving carnivores.

There. One, two…three…four. That seemed like an awful lot for a supposedly solitary species. Shit, this was too many for just Evan and Ladon.

You want me to signal Gorot and Grenia? he thought to his dragon. Gorot and Kisthe were the mated pair of mature dragons housed in Forge. Kisthe and her rider Jack, however, had opted to stay home, protect the city, and prepare her next pair of mature hatchlings for the upcoming Choosing while Grenia, the largest of their growing brood, flew with them.

Please do. I’ll make the first pass. The wind is with us—a wall of flames will at least slow them down, and not inconvenience the caravan.

Got it. Evan pulled a blue flare out of his saddlebag even as Ladon went into a dive, tucking his wings back and blowing a long, white-hot line of flame across the bolters, searing the head of the one leading the way. It writhed, snapping its whiplike tail in a wide, twitching arc, but its scream was more angry than pained. Its tiny eyes, no larger than marbles, were practically vestigial—bolters hunted via scent, not sight. The dragonfire was nothing more than an inconvenience to it.

Pssshhhtt! Evan fired the flare as Ladon came out of the dive. In the distance, ponderous green Gorot and his strong, snakelike daughter Grenia changed direction. Their riders weren’t yet close enough for Evan to sign to, but it didn’t matter—dragons could communicate with each other the same way they could speak to their bonded empaths.

Gorot will take the one on the far left, Grenia the one on the right. Their riders will assist as they can. I will handle the middle pair. Those were the ones closest to the caravan. Ladon was half again bigger than Gorot, who was as tall as a lodgepole pine, so it made sense for him to handle the worst of it. Still…

Be careful. Tell me what I can do to help you.

He felt Ladon’s smile in his mind. Guard yourself carefully, beloved. Ladon turned again, banking hard so he could get a good approach for his landing.

Fighting on the ground was dangerous even for the biggest and most powerful dragons. So dangerous that Evan’s heart was in his throat as Ladon bared his claws, swooped in, and came down with a crunch right on top of the closest bolter’s head. He clenched it tightly in his forelegs, trying to rend it in two, but the bolter was too armored for the assault to break it. Its whippy tail snapped over its head, snap-crack!, striking at Ladon however it could.

Evan hunkered down against his dragon’s neck, doing his best to stay out of the path of that deadly tail. In many ways, dragons would be a more formidable force if they didn’t have to protect their human riders during a fight. Evan had already been the cause of one dragon’s death, and if his weakness brought harm to Ladon…

You aren’t weak.

Concentrate on the bolter, Evan chided him even as his chest filled with warmth at his dragon’s reassurance.

Our kind would be just as savage as the rest of these monsters without our connections to humans. We need you just as much as you need us.

Right now I need you to focus. The tail had gotten dangerously close to Ladon’s eyes several times. Fifty yards away, Evan could see the next one crawling steadily, relentlessly toward them. Bolters never ran from a fight—once they had scented their prey, they would go through whatever they had to in order to get it.

I…almost… Ladon roared and dug his claws in deep, finally penetrating the bolter’s hide and twisting his body so hard that he wrenched its head off. A gout of foul-smelling blood erupted from the bolter’s corpse, and its tail collapsed to the ground with finality.

Good job. Now they could focus on the one coming at them from due west, and then—

A high-pitched dragon’s scream erupted from their right. Evan stared in dismay at Grenia and her rider Tommy. The dragon had come down in front of the bolter instead of behind it, and before she could change position, it had clamped its immense jaws around one of her forelimbs. She screamed again and again in rage and agony, blowing her furious flames over the bolter, but it barely slowed the gnawing down. Blood poured down her limb, and as he watched in horror Evan could just make out her rider jumping from her back.

Oh, fuck. The pain must have driven their connection out of her mind, and Tommy didn’t have the training to force his way back in. Grenia had become wild, savage—she probably didn’t even remember that she had a rider right now, much less that she was endangering him with the heat of her flames and her thrashing body. If he died…if she killed him…

“Get over there!” he shouted, both mentally and out loud to Ladon. His dragon didn’t bother flying, not when the fight was so close. He simply gathered himself and leapt, away from their dead bolter and the one that followed it and into Grenia’s fight. Evan didn’t hesitate—he detached his safety line from Ladon’s saddle and slid off his back, getting away from Grenia’s wild flames as fast as he could. Ladon could handle the bolter and the other dragon, he was sure of it. Right now, he needed to make sure Tommy stayed alive.

Evan ran to where he’d seen the young man jump to, grimacing at the churned-up dust and rocks that the dragon had left behind. Where could the—

“Look out!”

He ducked just in time to miss a wild swipe of Grenia’s tail, and a second later had to dodge the fucking bolter’s too as it finally, finally disengaged from Grenia to attack the newer, bigger threat. Evan dashed toward the voice of his rescuer, which was Tommy about thirty feet away, sitting with his back against a rock and a pained expression on his face.

Evan got there as soon as he could, already doing mental triage as he reached for his bag of supplies. “Broken leg?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said tightly. “It’s pretty bad. Grenia, um, she stepped on me. She didn’t mean to,” he hastened to gasp between panting breaths. “But I can’t, I can’t walk, I can’t put any weight on it at all, I had to crawl over here, and—” He looked desperately at his dragon. “I can’t feel her. Is she—is she going to be all right?”

“Ladon’s helping her,” Evan said in lieu of possibly lying. He looked at Tommy’s leg and winced—thank god the man had put a rudimentary tourniquet on it already, because otherwise he would have bled out from the wound made by the fucking bone sticking through his skin. “We have to splint you, get you ready for one of the dragons to fly back to Forge before you go into shock.”

“Oh…great.”

Evan smiled. He got out his extendable splint, a device he’d made himself with thin rebar and locking joints, and set it around Tommy’s leg, then tied it firmly in place. The younger man screamed through gritted teeth. “I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Evan said. “There. That should hold you for a moment, and then—”

Evan!

He whirled toward Ladon, who had clearly finished with the bolter—it lay unmoving at his feet, its entire body ripped down one long side. The problem now was Grenia, who seemed unable to calm down. What’s wrong with her?

She’s gone into battle lust. She isn’t hearing my voice. As Evan watched, Grenia snapped her long jaws at Ladon’s closest wing. She was trying to maim him, main his dragon, his partner! Evan reached for his bow automatically, but Ladon spoke up again.

Gorot is coming, he’ll manage her better, but if I don’t keep her distracted, she could get to Tommy. Can you move him?

No, Evan replied grimly. He’s barely hanging on as is.

Then you have to try and slow down the other bolter before it reached the caravan.

Other bolter? Evan looked toward the caravan and—fuck, right, there had been four of the creatures, and they’d only handled three. “Well, shit,” he said, then quickly laid a thin but warm blanket over Tommy. “Try to stay out of sight until she comes out of it,” he shouted as he got up and began to run in the direction of the bolter.

It wasn’t moving quickly—that was the only saving grace of this entire debacle. Evan could actually sprint fast enough to pass it, but he needed to get so far beyond it that he could get a good bead on its mouth, and he wasn’t close enough for that. He raced, unslinging his bow and nocking an arrow as he went, firing anyway to see if he could get it to change course. The arrow simply bounced off its hide as the bolter continued, completely oblivious.

He ran, fired again, closer to the head. He could hear the bellowing of cattle now, goats and sheep belting out fearful cries that mixed into the cacophony of the screams of people, of children. There were over thirty children in this caravan. Evan couldn’t let them come to harm. He ran faster, leaping over the dry earth, over rocks and sagebrush and prairie grasses, desperate to get ahead of it.

Faster, faster, but he wasn’t going to be fast enough, he wasn’t—

Pounding hoofbeats rode in beside him, and a second later a leather-gloved hand extended down in front of him. “Come on!” the rider, a lean woman in leather gear, yelled. Evan grabbed her hand and jumped, letting her pull him into the saddle behind her. They raced back toward the caravan, leaving the bolter behind—still coming, but well behind.

“We’ve been firing at it for the past three minutes with no effect!” the rider said.

“Bullets won’t hurt it until it opens its mouth!” Evan shouted back.

“Well, when the hell is it gonna do that?”

“When it gets close enough to bite!”

“Fuck!” she shouted, and—yeah, that seemed to sum it up quite nicely. They halted a few yards from the side of the caravan, which was being rustled along as fast as its drivers could manage. At least the people were inside armored carriers, which would help somewhat, but the livestock would be massacred.

“When should we—” the rider began, but Evan cut them off, jumping down and facing all the outriders, who had clustered on their horses in a defensive line in front of the livestock.

“We won’t make a dent in it until those jaws open,” he shouted to them.

“By the time the jaws are open, the tail’ll have us,” the woman who’d escorted him there shouted back.

Evan nodded. “We have to turn it aside, and it’s going to have to follow us willingly.”

“How the hell are we supposed to do that?” a burly, gray-bearded man asked from the back of the most enormous mule Evan had ever seen.

“We have to give it a closer target than the herds.” He pointed at them. “That’s you.”

He was met with stares either blank or disbelieving. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” his rescuer demanded.

“The horses carry the same scent that’s drawing it here. You need to ride in front of it, close enough that your mounts are all it knows. Then lure it north, away from the caravan, until one of the dragons can come and finish it off for us.”

“Why hasn’t a dragon done that already?” another rider, this one with just one eye, asked. “That’s what you’re here to do, isn’t it?”

“Shut the hell up,” the leather-garbed rider snapped before Evan could reply. “We have to move now if we’re going to have room to do this. You.” She pointed at Evan. “Are you good with that bow?” He nodded. “Then we hang back, give cover to the others as they ride ahead. Anyone else with a gun who can hit the broad side of a barn, you do the same. We clear?”

The rest of the outriders nodded, grim-faced, clenching their reins tight. Evan swung back up behind his escort, and a second later they began to thunder across the plain toward the incoming bolter. It was less than fifty yards away now, moving faster as the scent of prey strengthened. Evan nocked an arrow, and when they were twenty yards out, he fired.

It was an incredibly lucky shot, hitting the bolter right in its tiny eye. That was enough to make the monster slow down, shaking its head from side to side in an effort to dislodge the arrow. Eventually it broke the shaft off, seeming little the worse for wear despite the line of gore running down its face, but in the time it took to recover itself, the rest of the outriders arrived. They ran their mounts back and forth in front of the bolter, whooping and hollering and churning up the dusty dirt. The bolter stopped completely, its mouth cracked as it took in the new smells. It twisted its head this way and that, scenting the air. A second later, Evan saw its tail begin to stir.

“Go!” he shouted, but the tail had already come down, whipping across the man on the mule. It took him right across the face, throwing him clear out of the saddle. He came down ten feet away, head-first, and Evan could hear the disgusting crunch of his neck snapping. The mule reared away, then took off at a run—back toward the caravan.

The bolter moved forward and, before anyone could react, sucked the fallen man into its jaws and devoured him. Then it began its steady crawl again, in the direction of the running mule.

“Oh, Harry,” Evan’s escort murmured, still staring at the red spot on the ground where the man had been just seconds ago. The rest of the outriders were in complete disarray, horrified by the grisly death and barely maintaining control of their mounts as they tried to twist away from the carnage.

Shit, they didn’t have time for this. Evan thumped his escort on the shoulder. “Head for the mule!” he yelled, breaking through the rider’s paralysis. She kicked her horse into action, riding out well in front of the bolter to catch the mule, which had slowed to a canter as it neared the caravan. As soon as they were close enough to it, Evan grabbed the mule’s trailing reins, pulling it even closer before he jumped from the horse’s back to its own empty saddle.

Riding a mule was nothing like riding a dragon. Evan hadn’t been on horseback for well over a decade, since before he started riding Juree back in his hometown of Marble, but necessity was the quickest teacher. He steadied the mule, then turned to look at the bolter.

The outriders were still scattered, and now the lumbering beast was close enough to the livestock that likely no amount of horse-smell would distract it. Evan nocked another arrow and fired, aiming for the other eye, but the bolter had learned, and kept its head twisted just far enough to the side that the arrow skimmed off the ridge of rock-like flesh just in front of the murky orb. It was fifty feet away and closing…forty-five…forty…Evan fired again, right at the tiny slit left open in its mouth, but it caught the arrow in its teeth and ground it to splinters. Thirty-five feet…thirty…

The rider who’d rescued him rode out, just ten feet in front of the bolter, but it ignored her completely. Twenty-five feet…twenty… Evan was within range of the monster’s tail now, but he couldn’t leave. He aimed his next arrow for the bloody hole where he’d destroyed the monster’s other eye, and silently prayed it would be enough to distract it until—

Evan!

A second later, the dusty sun was blotted out completely as Ladon’s vast shape fell straight out of the sky, all four sets of claws digging into the monster at once. The bolter never got a chance to whip its tail around, never even got the chance to do more than open its jagged, petal-like jaws in a nascent roar before Ladon ripped it completely apart.

The livestock handlers had their hands full keeping the animals under control, and it got worse when Ladon let out a bellow so loud it echoed off the distant mountains. Everyone clapped their hands over their ears…everyone except Evan, who let the sound vibrate through him, the tempo of it exactly matching the beat of his heart.

I love you so much.

Ladon lowered his long, powerful head, as big as the body of the largest horse there, and met Evan’s dark brown eyes with his own glowing gold ones. I love you too. He twitched his tail in the direction of the other battles. We need to check in with the others. Tommy isn’t doing well.

“Oh, no.” Evan slid down from the mule, handing its reins to the other rider before jumping back up onto Ladon’s saddle, which was smeared with bolter gore. Ladon didn’t take off again, just leapt and took a few strides in the dragonish lope that ate up the distance, but was hard to sit with for long. Luckily, it didn’t take more than a few seconds to get back to Gorot and his rider Susan.

Grenia was still bleeding, but she didn’t even seem to notice it the way she had practically melted into the ground a few yards away from Tommy, making odd, whining coos that Evan had never heard from a dragon before. Susan was down on the ground beside Tommy, and Evan joined her as soon as Ladon came to a stop.

“He’s in shock,” she said as Evan knelt down, her mouth pursed grimly. “Blood loss. We need to get him back to Forge right now if a transfusion’s going to have any hope of taking effect. You and Ladon are the fastest fliers, and Ladon’s carried people in his claws before.”

It made sense, but part of Evan felt bad about leaving the caravan behind when he’d just watched one of their number get eaten in front of them. “What about her?” Evan asked, nodding toward Grenia. “Does she need a med evac too? Should we send Kisthe to assist?”

“No,” Susan said, shaking her head. “Leave her to her father for now. She can fly, or at the very least she can walk alongside the caravan while Gorot provides air assistance.” She lowered her voice. “And getting her some space from Tommy in the short term isn’t a bad idea, in case he doesn’t make it. We don’t want her to lose control inside Forge.”

“We don’t want her to do it next to a caravan full of children and elders, either,” Evan pointed out.

“We’ll keep her a ways out, and Gorot will have his eye on her. Right now, you need to be taking care of him,” she said, nodding at Tommy. His lips had a bluish tinge, and he was barely able to keep his eyes open.

“Yeah.” There was no time to waste. Evan made sure the splint was secure, then stood up and made room for Ladon. The enormous dragon crept forward and carefully scooped Tommy up. Tommy was a tall, broad young man, bigger than Evan by several inches through the chest and shoulders, but he looked small in Ladon’s claws. Evan climbed up onto Ladon’s back and stroked down his neck.

We have to get him back to Forge.

Hold on tight. Ladon pushed off with his hind legs, flapping hard enough to create a localized dust storm of his own on the ground beneath them as he worked to make more space for his wings. Once they were about a hundred feet in the air, he turned toward Forge and began to fly as hard and fast as he could toward the city in the distance.

Ladon landed in the middle of the dragons’ den, what used to be Denver’s Mile High Stadium. Kisthe was there in the middle, watching over the rest of her brood, but she pulled back and made space as soon as she saw them. Her rider, Jack Marvle, came toward them at a run.

“What happened?” he shouted, his doctor’s training already coming to the fore. Every dragon rider was trained in field medicine, but Jack had actually gone all the way through formal physician’s training before Kisthe chose him as her rider forty years ago. He was in his sixties now, and had gratefully changed his focus from fighting to training as the younger dragons and their youthful riders spent more time in the air. “Where’s Grenia?”

“She’s back with Gorot.” Evan slid over Ladon’s warm, smooth scales to land on the ground, where he helped Ladon settle Tommy on the cool sand. A second later, Ladon vanished. In his place was a tall, broad-shouldered man with long blond hair and cerulean eyes, wearing a black suit with a white shirt beneath the jacket, and a pair of black leather shoes. He was unusually beautiful, the sort of man people paid attention to, but he looked nothing like the dragon he’d been a moment ago.

Rare. Special. A being unto himself. There were a lot of ways Evan could have described Lee Caldwell, but the one he liked best was “partner,” in every sense of the word.

“He was injured in a fight with a bolter,” Lee explained, his usually serene expression marred with worry lines. “Grenia got into a bad an altercation with one of them, and she lost herself to the battle. Tommy was a casualty of that confrontation.”

Jack shook his head. “Sorry business. I take it her father has her in claw?”

“He does.”

“Then we’ll leave it to him to handle her, for now. Meric!” he shouted toward one of his assistants. “Bring the stretcher! We have to get a transfusion started.” Jack glanced up at the pair of them. “I’ll handle things from here,” he said, not unkindly, but in a way that told them all they could do at this point was be in the way.

Lee nodded and stepped back, bringing Evan with him. They stood by while Tommy was taken away for healing, and Evan leaned in a little bit tighter toward Lee.

“I would never do that to you.”

Evan glanced at Lee, who was looking down at him, troubled. “Lose myself and hurt you like that. I never could. No dragon should.”

“I know that,” Evan said quickly, more than willing to reassure. “Grenia will definitely need more training, but she’s young. She hasn’t seen many battles yet, not up close. She’ll learn.”

“She will,” Lee agreed. “But how many riders might she go through in the meantime?”

Evan’s first thought was a morbid one: how many riders will a dragon go through in their lifetime? Even the tightest of bonds would strain and break eventually. In the heat of battle, a dragon might sacrifice themselves when their bonded rider died—he had seen it before, here in Forge. Hell, he had experienced his own dragon, Juree, dying so that he could live. But if the normal course of things was allowed to happen, if the dragon’s rider simply grew old and died—as had happened with Evan’s own father and grandfather, who had also bonded to Juree—then, after a mourning period, they would move on. Like most people who survived losing their partner, they would eventually recover. Perhaps they would find another rider quickly, or perhaps they would live on their own for a time, but…it was inevitable.

“As many as she needs to,” Evan said at last. “As many as she must, I suppose.”

It was harder to sense each other’s thoughts and emotions when they were both in human form, none of the lightning-strike clarity that Evan got when Lee was Ladon, but he sensed his lover’s melancholy, and beneath it a strange sense of…guilt?

“Come on,” Lee said, taking Evan’s hand and turning him toward the stadium’s exit. “We should go and talk to Governor Townsend about the state of the caravan.”

Evan didn’t disagree. But he would be revisiting the strangeness they’d experienced between them just now. He was done with secrets between him and Lee—had been done ever since he found out the big one that Lee had hidden for months before they bonded, that he was a dragon shifter.

Surely no other secrets he had could be as enormous as that…could they?

Chapter Two

Everything became more complicated the moment talking was involved. Evan had never been a fan of politicking in particular. He was action-oriented: a good fighter, an excellent archer, and a decent blacksmith. That had been more than enough back in his little mountain town—while that mountain town had existed.

Marble had been wiped off the map half a decade ago, and Evan was the only survivor to make it to Forge. For years after that he had lived a small, confined life, one where he was an object of curiosity and spite to the people around him—a dragonrider who had lost his dragon, an empath who was broken. He hadn’t been liked, but at least he’d been left alone for the most part.

When Evan bonded with Lee after surviving what should have been a suicide mission, his social status had rocketed. He went from “guy I see and talk about behind his back occasionally” to “Important Person I Must Get To Know.” People who had never bothered with him before tried to talk to him now, all the time. People who had disliked him learned to keep their mouths shut after Evan and Ladon singlehandedly saved the city a few times. And the governor, who had sent him on that suicide mission in the first place in an effort to detach Evan from Lee and introduce the dragon shifter to a more “suitable” empath?

Well, Governor Townsend still hated Evan’s guts, but he was unfailingly polite to him even when Lee wasn’t there. That said, he wasn’t pleased to hear about the disruption of the caravan, or the casualties.

“You two went along to make sure this kind of thing didn’t happen,” he said, a frown marring his handsome face as he stared at them from behind his desk. “In fact, I assured the Mayor of Cheyenne that this wouldn’t happen with dragons guarding the caravan.”

“Well, that was dumb of you.”

Lee laid his hand over Evan’s. “We did our best,” he said calmly. “Our efforts weren’t quite enough. One man died, yes. One of our dragons was also wounded, and one of our riders might not live to see tomorrow.” The governor blanched at the reminder. “There are no guarantees in this world, something I believe you understand better than most. Yes, they will be upset. It’s your responsibility to welcome them regardless, and emphasize to them that we did all that we could.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who’ll have to deal with three hundred angry new residents.” Townsend was very good at getting his way, but his arguments tended to fall apart with Lee. Maybe it was because the man had never won an argument with Evan’s lover.

“No,” Lee agreed. “But I had to deal with three very powerful bolters on my own, one of whom almost attacked Evan before I was able to reach him. I think that of the three of us, your load is the easiest.”

Governor Townsend sat back in his chair, running a hand through his long, salt-and-pepper hair. “Tomorrow is a Choosing,” he said at last. “I’m told there are several likely empaths in this group of newcomers. If one of them is Chosen, that would undoubtedly ease some of their anger.”

“Choosings can’t be dictated,” Lee reminded him.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Townsend groused, glancing at Evan. Evan stared, unblinking, right back at him. Townsend had wanted someone more likeable for his secret weapon, someone more controllable.

Fuck him and his wants. Evan wouldn’t give Lee up for anything.

“Well, I suppose it is what it is,” Townsend said at last, turning his gaze on Lee. “Will your son be at the Choosing tomorrow?”

Lee stiffened, almost imperceptibly, but Evan felt him tense beneath his hand. He squeezed his partner gently. “He will,” Lee said.

“Good. I know Jason is young, but we’re all hoping he finds a suitable match with a dragon here in Forge.”

It was half encouragement, half command. After Lee’s former rider—Jason’s mother—died, he’d left Chicago for Forge because he already knew that no one in Chicago was compatible with him. Lee had abandoned everything he’d known for decades to seek out someone who would complete his family, someone who was not only a good empathic match but who would love Jason as their own son.

If Jason didn’t find a match here…what did that mean for the three of them?

Lee stood before Evan could chase that question too far, and after a moment he stood with him. “If you don’t mind, we’ve been away from Jason for long enough,” Lee said. He sounded gracious, elegant, but his grip on Evan’s hand was almost punishing. “We’ll be on hand if you need us.”

“Good, because actually—"

“I’ll be on hand,” Evan amended. “Lee will be with Jason.” Townsend’s mouth closed, and Evan fought to hold back a smirk. Didn’t think you wanted me making nice with the newcomers. In fact, it was probably for the best that he have little to do with any of them while they got settled. He was the one who’d put their outriders in danger, after all. They might be baying for his blood by the time they got here.

“Have a good evening,” Lee said, firmly wrapping things up before he turned and led the way out of the governor’s office. They walked in silence together until they reached the stairs leading up a level to the hall that housed their rooms—originally just Lee’s and Jason’s, but Evan had moved in with them shortly after they bonded—and then Lee said quietly, “You joust with him on purpose. It surprises him every time.”

“I’m no diplomat,” Evan replied. “Never have been.”

“But you go out of your way to challenge him.” Lee turned bright eyes and a small but genuine smile his way as they climbed the stairs. “I enjoy being there for those moments.”

“Townsend already got one free pass from me.” And he’d used it to convince Evan to give up his life for the greater good without telling him he was counting on him being killed so that Lee would Choose someone else. “No more.” He shrugged. “I can try to be nicer if you want me to, though.”

“I want you to be yourself, always.”

Just a few words, none of them typical words of love, and Evan’s heart melted in his chest every damn time. Would he ever get used to this man? Ever stop appreciating his love, ever start taking it for granted?

God, he hoped not.

They made it to their hallway, and barely had time to take more than two steps before Jason burst through their door. He always seemed to know when they were close—improved hearing from his dragon side? A special sense of connection he shared with his father? Evan could ask and find out, but he liked a little bit of mystery in his life.

“Dad! Evan!” He ran toward them and jumped into Lee’s arms. “You’re back!”

Lee was tall enough that his son still seemed small when he held him, but Jason was growing by leaps and bounds. That was evident when he got his feet under him and hugged Evan—lord, the boy’s head was up to his chest now. He had just turned ten a month ago. How had he grown so much in just a few short years?

Jason had his father’s pale hair and long nose, which he was slowly growing into, but his eyes were hazel—“Like Mama’s”—and there was nothing elegant or timeless about his mannerisms, which honestly helped Evan remember to treat him like the child he was sometimes, and not the potentially immortal dragon and/or dragon shifter he might become.

“You’re back!” he repeated. “Finally! Charlie took me up to the wall to watch the caravan come in, but you weren’t with them, and I didn’t know why, and—”

“We flew ahead,” Lee said, a bit somberly. “There was a fight along the way, and one of the other riders was injured.”

“Not Susan?” Jason asked, worrying his lower lip. After Charlie, Susan was his favorite babysitter, and volunteered to watch him whenever Evan and Lee went on patrol.

“No. Tommy.”

“Oh no!” Jason’s ebullient mood switched to worried in a heartbeat. He’d always worn his heart on his sleeve, ever since Evan had met him, but that openness had become more intense lately, swinging from laughter to tears in no time. “Is he going to be all right?”

“We don’t know,” Evan said, taking over for Lee. He knew his partner didn’t like to think about the potential for losing a rider. It took him too close to his own loss. “Hopefully. Your father flew as fast as he could to get him back to the medics in time.”

“That’s a damn shame,” a new voice called from the door. That was Charlie, the fiftyish, white-haired blacksmith Evan had once shared a corner of the city’s forge with. She’d taken over his arrow-making business when he turned into a full-time defender, and was doing so well she had brought two new apprentices on in the past year. Apart from Lee and Jason, she’d been Evan’s only friend in this whole damn city before he became a rider again. “But it looks like the caravan made it all right, so at least all’s well that ends well there. Word is that there was trouble on the road.”

Her arched eyebrow made it clear she was expecting to find out what that trouble had been. “Bolters,” Evan told her. Her mouth dropped open.

“So far out onto the plains?” she breathed. “That’s a hell of a thing.”

“Even more unusual when you consider there were four of them,” Evan said, then shook his head as he felt Jason shiver against his chest.  “But we managed them. Your father took out three himself,” he added with a smile at Jason.

“That’s a lot,” Jason said, tentatively smiling back.

“It really is.”

“The other dragons need to get better at pulling their weight,” Charlie groused, slinging her leather bag over her shoulder.

“Grenia is young,” Lee said, but his tone wasn’t exactly one of disagreement.

“I expect she’ll grow up real fast after this,” Charlie replied. “I’ve got to check in at the forges before I sleep, make sure those young’uns didn’t dull all my iron and burn all my coal since I’ve been gone.”

“Thank you for staying with Jason,” Evan said.

Charlie smiled, wrinkles carving paths across her face like riverbeds. “It was my pleasure. C’mere, kid.” Jason left Evan to give Charlie a quick hug before ducking back into their apartment. Lee followed, but Charlie waved Evan over before he could join them.

“That boy’s talked about nothing but tomorrow’s Choosing for the past two days,” she murmured. “And my god, he’s worked up about being picked as a rider.”

Evan grimaced. “I know.” It’s becoming an obsession, he wanted to say, just for a chance to share and get some of his own anxiety off his chest, but with the door still open, Jason might hear. He didn’t want the boy to think he disapproved of the idea.

Jason had the background to be an incredible dragonrider—he was powerfully empathic, he was well-trained and getting better all the time, and he might one day develop an ability to shift into a dragon himself. His mother, Valorie, had been human, but if the dragon genes bred true…

Then that might be why he hadn’t attracted a dragon to bond with at the last two Choosings. Instead of seeing that opportunity as something exciting, though, Jason loathed the thought of not being a rider himself one day.

“Just thought you ought to know,” Charlie said, snapping Evan out of his musings.

“Thank you.” He gave her a quick hug. “Goodnight, Charlie.”

“Get some rest, won’t you? You look…” She stared him up and down for a long moment. “Terrible. Really terrible. Hell, you look like you barely escaped being skinned alive.”

If only you knew. Evan just nodded, then headed into the apartment to join his family.

The smell of the kitchen’s beef and barley stew filled his nose, and there was fresh cheese as well for spreading on the thin, tasteless crackers that had become common as the ingredients for bread became scarcer. Lee had already set out a serving for him, and Evan tucked into it with gusto. He’d never had food so good, before coming here. And even once he got here, he’d never eaten anything so hearty and wholesome before he bonded with Ladon. He, and most of Forge, hadn’t been able to afford it. Hopefully good ingredients would become more common with the herds the caravan was bringing in, not to mention more gardeners to tend to it all.

Jason talked almost nonstop, to the point where Lee had to remind him more than once to swallow before speaking. “—can’t wait to go to the Choosing for the two dragons tomorrow!” he said after devouring a piece of bread. “It’s Rusi and Feron, do you remember what they look like? Rusi is red, and she’s got, um, white accents around her feet and eyes, and she’s the kind you call a glider, Dad, with the really long wings. And Feron is all green, and his wings are shorter and his body is thicker, and he’s a…what do you call them, Evan?”

“A tank,” Evan supplied after he’d swallowed his own bite. “He’s built like a tank.”

“Right, that.” Jason suddenly laughed. “Why do we say dragons look like things that hold water and fuel? It’s so weird.”

“I think the comparison has a different source,” Lee replied with a smile. “Tanks were machines used in warfare, big and heavy and well-armed. They were made of metal, and very hard to stop. People sat inside of them and drove them into battle.”

“That sounds so cool.” Jason’s eyes were wide. “That must have taken so much fuel, though! Where did people back then find so much fuel?”

“It was a lot more plentiful back then,” Evan said, thinking of the little town of Marble. It had been built next to an immense quarry, a whole mountain that had been carved down by machines layer by layer in the pursuit of rare, toxic metals. Humanity had had the ability to destroy mountains once, for good or for ill, and yet they’d become barely a presence on their own world. They had been capable of so much more than they could do now…capable of saving each other, of saving themselves. And now they were beset by monsters and low on food, and Forge was still one of the most secure places that Evan knew of, next to Chicago.

His appetite vanished, but Evan made himself finish every bite of dinner regardless. Food wasn’t something to be wasted. Lee looked at him intently, no doubt sensing his lowering mood, but Evan dredged up a smile for him. “I need to wash,” he said, and it was very true. “I’ll be done fast.”

“I’ll get Jason ready for bed,” Lee replied, pushing back from the table and picking up the bowls. Evan retreated to the bathroom, where heated—well, at least not icy cold—water was pumped through the walls and out a spigot. He filled a bucket with it, then rubbed himself down, heaping on the powdery soap and scrubbing every inch of himself until his skin begged for mercy. He rinsed, refilled the bucket, and rinsed again. The last bucket he left his dirty clothes in to soak, then dried off and pulled on the robe that Lee had commissioned for him for his birthday a year ago. It was plain, undyed cotton, but it had been stitched with silver-colored thread around the collar and sleeves, and Evan loved it.

Lee had just finished settling Jason in bed, the last notes of a song still ringing in the air around them. It was a ritual that Evan wondered when Jason would get too old for—the way he’d been clinging lately, it seemed like never. Lee brushed his son’s pale hair off his forehead, then kissed him there tenderly. “Good night.”

“Good night, Dad.” Jason looked over at Evan, standing in the door. “Good night, Evan.”

“Sleep sweet, Jason,” Evan replied with a smile. Lee left, keeping a crack in the door the way Jason liked, before turning and taking Evan’s hand.

“Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” Evan asked bemusedly as his partner led him over to their bedroom. “Ah, of course, you must be exhausted. I—”

Lee closed their door, then wrapped Evan up in both arms and leaned into him, pressing a hot, slick kiss against his mouth. Oh, yes. Evan was so close to Lee already that he sometimes forgot there was more to love than a union of mind and spirit. Lee was happy to remind him that his body could have more than just riding and fighting, though, and Evan loved being reminded.

“I like it when you wear this,” Lee said, sliding one hand down the V at the top of Evan’s robe and across his chest. He lightened his touch whenever he encountered a bruise or a scrape, drifting down, down, down until he reached Evan’s trim waist, then his hip. Evan’s cock leapt to attention, and he pulled Lee closer to his body, trapping his hand between them.

“It makes touching you so much easier,” Lee continued, his fingertips creeping ever farther down, beneath the belt and into the wiry hair at Evan’s groin. Lee didn’t have hair there—some part of his shifter heritage or pure magic, Evan wasn’t sure which—but he appreciated Evan’s. He slid further down, and Evan’s breath hitched as Lee’s thumb stroked across the head of Evan’s cock. “And I love to touch you, Evan.”

“Touch me more,” Evan said, wrapping his arms around Lee’s neck and urging him into another kiss. He had to rise up onto his toes a bit to reach his lover’s mouth, until Lee used his free hand to simply hold him in place. “Touch me however you want.” He wanted everything Lee offered, anything he could get, and he wanted to give it all back again out of the sheer pleasure of being together, of surviving another day and having each other at the end of it.

“I want…” Faster than changing from one form to the next, Lee had Evan off the wall and on the bed, flat on his back. He pulled Evan’s robe open and stared at him for a long moment, his eyes bright with an internal fire that spilled blue light wherever his gaze fell. Right now, it was fixed firmly on Evan’s nude body, enraptured.

Evan had never thought he was attractive before Lee. He was thin and strong, like most men who lived to adulthood in this day and age. He had dark brown hair that he rarely remembered to cut, now with strands of gray here and there, and a beard that was in permanent need of a trim. He’d been missing an incisor ever since a battle when he took a crix’s thorax to the face, and if he’d rarely smiled before that, he never smiled after it. His eyes were the color of the dust that blew perpetually across the plains below the Rocky Mountains. He was ordinary, one more sparrow in a flock of sparrows, and even the rest of the flock hadn’t wanted much to do with him before.

He’d fumbled around a few times with people back in Marble when they had nothing better to do, but it had never been serious. With Lee, things had been serious from almost the moment they met, even before they had admitted their attraction. Being around him just felt different to Evan. He felt…loved, adored in a way he never had before, not even when he’d had a bond with another dragon.

“I want you in my mouth,” Lee said at last, resting both his hands on Evan’s knees. “Let me?”

Oh, fuck yes. “Anything,” Evan murmured. “Please, please just…” He couldn’t keep his eyes open as warm heat enveloped his dick—warmer than it would be if Lee were human. This was a dragon’s heat and a lover’s warmth, and Evan was helpless to it. And it was all right to be, because Lee was his. He would never hurt him.

Lee didn’t suck Evan off, he worshiped him with his tongue and lips, his own breaths coming faster. Evan wound his long, calloused fingers through Lee’s long hair and tugged his mouth farther down. Lee swallowed, then again, and Evan moaned. “You’re—wait, stop, ah—”

Lee pulled off with a pop. “What is it, darling?” he asked, his voice so low it was nearly a growl. “You said I could have what I want.”

“Only if this is all you want,” Evan confessed. “I’m so close already.”

“Good.” Lee licked his lips. “Come for me, then, just like this.”

“I—but you, I want you to—” He fumbled for the side of the bed, but Lee caught his hand.

“I’ll get what I need,” Lee promised him with a smile, then leaned in and swallowed him down again.

Evan fought the urge to close his eyes this time, watching Lee pleasure him. He spread his thighs wider, pulled Lee in close again and began to thrust down his lover’s throat. God, it felt so good—how could this feel so good, every time, like he was burning from the core out, melting with how overwhelmingly good it could be.

He gripped Lee tight and came, pulsing down his throat until he had nothing left, and his body and mind were just a step above completely unmoored. Lee licked him clean, then licked some more until Evan was writhing. He pulled back long enough to shed his clothes, then crawled up Evan’s body, kissing him every step of the way. “I love how you taste,” he murmured against Evan’s lips.

“Mmm…you,” Evan said, his brain foggy with pleasure and fatigue. Still… “Let me—”

“Roll on your side, darling.”

Ah, this. Perfect, they both loved this. He rolled onto his side while Lee reached over next to the bed, and a moment later a slick hand slid between his thigh, rubbing oil against the tenderest parts of his body to ease the way. Then there was a pause as he removed his hand, and then…

Lee’s cock moved into place, and Evan groaned as the hot, blunt head pressed up against his balls. “Oh, god,” he whispered, knowing he needed to be quiet but unable to stop the words that flowed unasked for from his mouth. “Lee, oh my god, yes, yes…” He’d just come, but the pressure and the heat and the way Lee held him, so tight yet so tender, made him wish he could go again. He squeezed his thighs together harder, and Lee exhaled sharply against his ear. “Fuck me.”

“Evan…” Lee started to move, short thrusts to start that soon became longer, moving his thick, heavy member back and forth against Evan’s welcoming body. It felt amazing, almost as good as having Lee inside of him, but that took time and preparation that neither of them could dedicate tonight, not after the day they’d had. This, though, this intimacy, this fucking beautiful thing they could do together was just right tonight.

Evan licked his hand and moved it between his legs, just under his balls, so he could touch every time Lee’s cock came through. Lee made a desperate sound, then rolled them so that Evan was face down on the mattress and thrust hard enough to shake the bed. When he came, his breath rolled out in a serpentine hiss. Evan caught some of the hot splash of Lee’s come on his hand and smoothed it across the head of Lee’s cock, making him quiver with sensitivity.

“Cheeky thing,” Lee said with a chuckle, rolling them back onto their sides. He kissed Evan’s earlobe, then his neck and shoulder. “I’ll be back with a cloth in a moment.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Evan muzzily assured him, already feeling his exhaustion coming to the fore. He barely noticed Lee cleaning him and the bed up, and the moment after his lover curled up behind him again, Evan gratefully sank into sleep.

He startled back to consciousness two hours later, to the sound of a roar so loud, so primal and pained, that it must have woken everyone in Forge. Lee’s gentle, sleepy hold on him suddenly tightened, clutching Evan fast to his chest.

“He’s gone,” Lee murmured in saddened disbelief. “Tommy is dead.”

Chapter Three

The city was a somber place the next day. Evan was exhausted, not just from next to no sleep on top of a traumatic end to the caravan’s journey, but from the mood that had taken hold of the people here. Everyone was gloomy and depressed. No rider or dragon had been lost in the two years since Evan and Lee bonded, and despite the fact that they had both done all that they could yesterday, Evan couldn’t help but wish he’d done more. If he’d stayed with Tommy, if he’d worked harder to stabilize him before running off to protect the caravan…

Well, then they might have dozens of dead among the newcomers, or more, instead of the single loss the folks from Cheyenne had suffered. Evan tried to keep that at the forefront of his mind—he knew better than most the danger inherent in letting yourself dwell on the bad things for too long. He’d thought about ending his own life more than once after losing Juree. It was only the memory of her sacrifice for him that kept him from doing it before he got to a better place inside, and he was afraid it would be the same for Grenia.

“She’s hysterical, of course,” Susan said when Evan brought her a cup of tea. Her long black hair had been pulled into a braid, but it was only about half-together at this point. “Gorot actually had to physically subdue her to keep her from scratching her own eyes out. She’s already ripped one wing membrane.”

“Oh, no.” Wing membranes could heal, if the dragons were very careful about not moving them too much, but it sounded like Grenia was incapable of being careful right now.

“It’s been bound down tight to her side, and Gorot is staying with her while Kisthe and the older broodlings mind the little ones, but…” Susan pressed her thin lips together so hard they vanished altogether for a moment. “I’m not sure. I’m just not sure what will happen.” She closed her eyes. “Poor Tommy. I practiced scenario after scenario with him, but we never covered ‘what to do if your dragon suddenly forgets you exist and crushes you into the ground.’ Stupid, stupid…”

Evan shook his head. “It almost never happens. Why train for something with such a slim chance of occurrence? It was an accident. An awful accident.”

“Why did she come down right in front of the bolter?” Evan thought Susan was asking a rhetorical question before she turned her pained eyes on him. “That, at least, we had practiced. She came down practically on top of it, so of course it was going to bite her!”

“The dust, probably.” Evan had been thinking a lot about this. Grenia was a good flyer, and before yesterday he would have said that she and Tommy were perfectly attuned to each other. He had been a decent archer, and for the two years they’d trained together, Tommy had never so much as glanced his dragon with an arrow. She’d instinctively known how to move so he could fire safely, just like he had known when to let her take the lead. “The bolters blended in against the ground, and with all that dust flying around in the air I’m not surprised she missed her mark.”

“Hell.” Susan took a sip of the tea and grimaced. “Gorot nearly got bit himself when he heard Grenia start to scream, he was so desperate to go to her, but we had to finish ours first. It took longer than I thought it would.” She glanced toward the far side of the stadium, where Gorot was draped over his suffering daughter like a blanket, rumbling soothingly at her. “He’s starting to feel old, y’know. He was already an adult when he came through the rift. I’m his fifth rider since then.”

Evan didn’t quite know what to make of that. He settled on, “He’s still got lots of life in him.”

“I know he does, but…I wish he didn’t have to spend so much of it fighting. He and Kisthe could use a break.” To Evan’s surprise, she suddenly chuckled. “Listen to me, bitching to you about getting a break when you and Ladon took out three of those bolters. Three! I could barely believe it when I looked over. You’re doing most of the heavy lifting around here these days, and the dragons know it.” She reached out and briefly took Evan’s hand. “Thanks for that. I don’t know what would have happened to Forge if you two hadn’t bonded, but I’m pretty sure Gorot and I would be dead by now. And Grenia would have lost Tommy a long time ago, I think.”

Evan shook his head. “There’s no way to know for sure.”

“Oh, I think there is, but we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. We’ve still got the Choosing to get ready for. Plus…” She watched one of their youngest riders enter the stadium at a trot, heading their way. “I think Vanessa’s coming for you.”

“For me?” What could she possibly have to talk to him about? Vanessa was Forge’s official messenger, but she’d never had a message for Evan before. Plenty from him, never one for him.

“Hey,” Vanessa said quietly as she stopped in front of them. Usually so cheerful, now her round-faced, pleasant visage was subdued. “Um, I was told to tell you that the head of the outriders from Cheyenne wants to talk to you as soon as the Choosing is over.”

Oh, great. They probably wanted to talk about the loss of their man. Just what he needed right now, a debate over reparations. “Where do they want to meet?”

“They’re all still being processed in the Entrance Quarter, so you’ll be able to find her there, I think.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She hesitated for a moment, then turned and jogged away, heading over to where the other newer riders were coaxing the youngest hatchlings back into the creche. Only the oldest of Gorot and Kisthe’s offspring would be Choosing today.

“How many empaths will be in the group this time?” Evan asked.

“Five, I think. The usual suspects here, and the group from Cheyenne had one empath who’s of age. They’ve got several kids who they think have potential as well, after a few more years.” She glanced at him. “Is Lee bringing Jason again?”

“Yes.”

Something in Evan’s voice must have clued her in to how stressed he was about it, because she reached out and patted his arm. “He’s only ten,” she reminded him. “And this is only his fourth Choosing. It took me seven tries before I finally bonded with Gorot. Sometimes you just have to wait for the right moment, that’s all.”

Evan forced a smile. “I know.” He did know—that she was just trying to be kind, that she didn’t understand how it felt to wake up to her child crying because they said they felt empty inside, and where was their other half? Jason was unique in this world, and not even his father knew with perfect certainty what was best for him when it came to bonding. Both of them felt that the sooner it happened, the better. “Let’s help get things ready.”

There wasn’t all that much left for them to do, though. The other riders had already moved the young dragons away, and Rusi and Feron were sniffing at the gate they would walk through soon, eagerness evident in their crouching forelimbs and twitching tails. They looked as different on the outside as two dragons could, but their similarities were obvious when you saw how similarly they moved, how they played. They had just turned twenty recently and were deemed large enough to safely carry a rider.

Twenty years old, and they were eager at the equivalent of being told, “You’re big enough to fight now, so let’s get you ready to spill some blood!” Not even their older sister Grenia’s sad state could dim their enthusiasm for finally getting to participate in a Choosing of their own.

Let one of them Choose Jason. Or better yet, let them Choose each other. That would be ideal, and if Evan had been a religious man, he would have gotten down on his knees right there in the dirt and prayed for it.

Finally, one of the other riders opened the gate. The young dragons bounded through, playfully bumping each other as they headed for the humans standing in front of the far gate, right beneath what had once been a goal line. Or...touchdown line? Evan couldn’t remember the proper words for the game that had been played here once. Games. Played by grown men, for money. It was inconceivable.

There were the four adults, one of them a sharp-faced young man who was new to Evan, and there was Jason, with Lee right behind him. Evan could see the boy vibrating from here—with excitement? Fear? A bit of both?

Rusi, faster than her brother due to her longer legs, got to them first. Eyes bright, posture eager, she strutted up and down the line of people standing there, her first pass fast, the next one slower, so she could look each one of them in the eye. When she got to Jason, Evan held his breath. Would she…but then she moved on to the next person, and the next. For a minute, Evan thought she wasn’t going to Choose anyone this time at all, before she stopped squarely in front of the burly man in the middle, her tail twitching so hard now it could almost be called a wag.

“Ha!” Susan grinned and shook her head. “I should have seen that coming. Rusi wants a parent as much as she wants a rider, and Dalton’s a good choice for that.”

Personally, Evan saw plenty of issues on the horizon when Dalton, who up until now had been one of Forge’s farmers, found himself torn between his human family and his bonded dragon. Most dragons chose people who were single, someone who could dedicate all their time to their new partner and the life that was going to be required of them. All dragons and their riders were required to defend their home city—it was an easy job for dragons, instinctual—but for some people that meant weathering a big change in career. Dalton seemed pleased enough, though, reaching out and scratching Rusi along the white accents above her eyes before the pair of them moved away.

Well, she was a bad candidate for Jason anyway. Feron stumped up to the remaining empaths, and Evan saw Lee’s hands come to settle on Jason’s shoulders, as though he was trying to keep his son from flying right off the ground. Was this going to be the moment that Jason found his companion, the dragon that would bond to him for the rest of his life? Was this going to be the moment he found the “other half” he’d been longing for?

No.

Feron didn’t even pause in front of the boy, heading straight for the newcomer with a heavy, purposeful waddle. The young man blinked in surprise when the dragon stopped in front of him, then a small smile spread across his face.

“Me, huh?” He shrugged, going for casual and missing by a mile. “I guess I can do that.” As the newcomer reached out to touch Feron’s face, his smile becoming a grin as the bond settled within him for the first time, Evan looked urgently at Jason—

—who had turned around and buried his face against his father’s stomach, shoulders shaking as he wept. Evan caught Lee’s eyes, recognized the pain there, the resignation. Not yet. Again, no match for their Jason. And each time, it took longer and longer for him to get over the disappointment.

Next year, Evan thought at Lee as hard as he could, as hopefully as he could. Next year, there would be three dragons ready for the Choosing, and Jason would be eleven, more mature. Next year, for sure. Lee just sighed, then turned and walked Jason out of the stadium. Evan longed to go to them, but Jason tended to respond best to Lee when his emotions were so strong, and Evan had to go talk to an outrider from Cheyenne, apparently.

He wasn’t in the mood to be nice about it, that was for sure. Evan stalked out of the stadium and into the main city of Forge through the pens that contained the dragon’s next meals, who were ambling about contentedly—it looked like goat was on the menu tonight—and toward the Entrance Quarter. Newcomers, unless they had family already in Forge willing to put them up, were issued temporary housing in the Entrance Quarter. This was where the governor greeted them, the chief of police informed them of the rules and what would happen if they broke them, and the chief medical officer made sure they weren’t bringing any infectious diseases in along with their animals, their plants, or themselves. Then the skills assessments began, and once they were assigned a specialty, they would be directed to a more permanent living situation.

With over a hundred people coming in from Cheyenne, the Entrance Quarter was strained to the max. The entire city of Forge only held five thousand people, so an influx of a hundred more was a definite challenge to the infrastructure. Still, even with the whispers going through the crowds that made their way from job to market, home to job about the poor dead rider—such a sad thing, it was too bad he was gone but at least his dragon had survived—the general mood was a happy one. Newcomers meant new faces, new interests, more helping hands, more potential lovers. It was definitely not the place Evan wanted to be right now, especially as news broke of the successful Choosing.

Two new dragons, two new dragonriders. Neither of them Jason.

He’ll be all right, Evan told himself as he walked about the Entrance Quarter, being as conspicuous as he could so that whoever it was who was searching for him could find him. He’s got to be all right.

“Hey, you! Rider!”

Evan spun around and caught the hand reaching for him right before it could touch. The owner pulled back, putting both her gloved hands up in the air. “No offense meant,” she said lightly. “I was just trying to make sure I had your attention in this crowd.”

It was the woman who’d pulled Evan onto her horse, helping him get ahead of the bolter. He stayed silent for a moment, looking her over. She’d clearly had a bath since then, the grit and dust of the road gone from her skin and clothes, but other than that she looked just the same. Her hair was so short it just barely stood out from her scalp. She wore leather garments good for travel, if not comfort, and an ancient long-sleeved cotton shirt under her vest with a faded picture of colorful cartoon horses with horns, and words he could barely make out beneath them that read Unicorns of the Apocalypse. He snorted when he saw it. She smiled.

“Yeah, of all the things that I wouldn’t have minded coming through those rifts, of course we don’t get any damn unicorns. Anyway, I’m Nicky Ramirez,” she said, holding out a hand. Evan shook, taking in the bruises on her face and neck.

“Evan Luck. You okay after yesterday?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said with a shrug. “A little battered, but we all are.” She stared at him, hazel eyes speculative. “Heard you lost a rider.”

“We did,” Evan replied shortly. If that was all she wanted to talk to him about, he had better places to be than—

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Oh. That was friendlier than he’d expected. “Thanks. Sorry for yours, too.”

“Thank you.” She looked away. “Harry was an asshole, but he was one of us, you know? We have to mourn him even if we didn’t like him.”

Evan was ready to get to the point. It had been a long day already, and he was anxious to get back to Jason and Lee. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? Because ceremonies for the dead are handled by the chaplain, so—”

“No. It’s not that. C’mon.” She turned and began to walk out into the crowd. Evan debated going in the other direction—he didn’t have time for a random walk through the Entrance Quarter—but in the end, curiosity got the better of him. He headed after Nicky, catching up before she’d gone more than twenty feet.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Stables,” she replied.

Evan was silent for a second as he wondered what in the hell she could possibly have for him to do in the stables. “Why?”

Nicky looked at him with a crooked smile. “Not one for surprises, huh?”

“Not when I’ve got people waiting for me,” he replied.

“Family?”

Evan decided to just put it out there. “My partner and his son.” There was the occasional homophobe in Forge, but for the most part people just didn’t care. Life was hard enough to live as it was without someone coming after you for who you chose to love. The most hardcore and intolerant zealots who absolutely wouldn’t live with people loving in different ways had struck out on their own decades ago, and as far as Evan knew or cared, they were monster food now.

“Ah.” Nicky nodded. “I’m sure they’re happy to have you back safe. I won’t keep you long, promise.” She led the way through a few more twists and turns—she knew this place surprisingly well for someone who’d just arrived last night—and into the stables, then turned toward where they singled out the newest horses.

Despite how Forge was crammed for space, residents had learned quickly that with so many stallions in the mix, horses needed to be given their own stalls. There were dozens of them in here, and even with people shoveling horse shit daily, the place still smelled undeniably pungent.

“Here we are,” Nicky said, stopping in front of a battered stall. It was near the end of the row, the front gate nothing but a few lengths of chain. Inside it was a familiar face. “Say hello to your new mule.”

Evan didn’t quite drop his jaw—the less he had to open his mouth in here, the better—but he knew his eyes conveyed his surprise just fine when Nicky chuckled. “This is Kicker,” she said, her smile falling away. “He was Harry’s. The man didn’t have any family, and believe it or not, no one’s lining up to take on responsibility for another animal when we’ve just brought ten for every person into the place. So I talked it over with our mayor, and she agreed that Kicker should go to you.”

Now Evan was really confused. “Why?” he demanded. “Why would you give me something after I was responsible for after getting your man killed?”

Nicky frowned. “How were you responsible? Harry got too close, and that was on him. You did everything you could to make sure we were safe—you held your ground in front of a damn bolter for the sake of the caravan. You think we don’t appreciate that?” She sounded a little offended. “What kind of graceless hicks do you take us for?”

“I don’t…you’re not—” He stopped and tried again. “Thank you, but I have a dragon.”

“And do you ride him everywhere you go?” Nicky asked. She spoke triumphantly into the pause. “Didn’t think so. It’s never a bad idea to have a mount on hand, and I bet your boy would love him. Despite his name, Kicker is real good with kids.”

Hmm. She had a point there. It might be good to have something novel on hand to try and distract Jason with, given how today had worked out. Evan turned and looked at Kicker, who was standing contentedly, flipping his long, soft ears around. He was tall for a mule, strong—he’d have to be strong, to have carried a man as big as Harry—but he seemed friendly enough.

“Thank you for him,” Evan said at last. “I can’t help but think I didn’t do enough to merit it, though.”

Nicky sighed. “Our folks ain’t the type to hold a grudge. We’ve been dying by inches up in Cheyenne for years now, losing more ground to the monsters every season. We would never celebrate death, but we understand when it happens. It happened to Harry.” She shrugged. “He didn’t deserve it, but who ever does? Who’s the last person you knew to die of old age?”

Evan smiled despite himself. She had a point. “My grandfather.”

“A man from a different time,” Nicky said. “It was different back then, wasn’t it? Fewer of the worst beasts, once the initial rush was done. My folks used to keep house in a place called Thermopolis. It had hot springs, if you can believe that. They played in them when they were little kids. By the time they were teens, though, the whole place had been overrun with crix and cunningmen. They headed for Cheyenne, lost both sets of parents on the way. Thought they’d be safer in the big city, and they were. For a while. Then the monsters got bigger than the city could handle.”

She eyed Evan solemnly. “Now here we are, the remnants of the great city of Cheyenne, coming to Forge, an even bigger city. You’ve certainly got the most dragons for a thousand miles in any direction. How long do you think they’ll be enough?”

“For as long as we need them to be,” Evan said firmly. “I hear what you’re saying; I was driven out of a small town too. But it makes sense to come together for defense. It’s the best way to keep a lot of people safe.”

“I agree,” Nicky said. “I just hope we’re enough to stay safe, given how things have been working out lately. Bolters on the plains.” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen such a thing before, never thought I would.”

“Neither did I,” Evan confessed. “But here we are.”

“Down Harry, and down one of your riders.” She sighed, then seemed to shake herself out of it. “Anyway, hope your kid likes Kicker. I can keep an eye on him for you while you figure out what to do with him, if you want. I’ll be here all the time looking after Rain anyway.”

“I’d appreciate that.” They shook one last time, then Evan left, taking a moment to stop by the stablemaster’s office on the way out and take formal ownership of the mule. He signed the papers, paid for a week’s worth of feed and water, then left, wondering whether he actually knew what the hell he was doing by taking on an animal that he had no experience with. Weren’t mules supposed to be stubborn, more stubborn than horses? And Evan barely knew what to do with a horse.

Well, he’d figure it out, and he’d have Jason to help him. By the time he got back to their quarters, he’d almost forgotten the Choosing that had happened less than an hour ago.

Entering their rooms and finding Jason sobbing his heart out against his father’s chest was a fast and painful reminder.

Chapter Four

It was a week before Jason could wake up or fall asleep without crying, much longer before he could handle being with someone who wasn’t his father or Evan. They were lucky there weren’t any attacks on Forge during that time—as hard as he worked, Jason was much too young to put his archery skills to use on the field yet, and there was no way he could come along while Jason and Evan flew into combat.

That wasn’t to say they didn’t fly together—Jason loved to fly with his father, cradled in Ladon’s enormous hands like the precious gift he was—but these days, it made Jason cry every time they went out, for reasons he couldn’t even articulate. “I don’t know why,” he sobbed against his father’s chest. “It makes me feel empty. Like I’ll have nothing waiting inside me forever.”

Lee fretted relentlessly as Jason bounced from his regular happy self to heartbreakingly sad in the space of moments, and Evan did his best to help both of them. When the stress was too much for Lee and Evan could feel his lover’s mind going in circles, he sent him off to patrol by himself and get some much-needed space. When Jason was in a good enough place to risk it, Evan brought him to the archery range, where he put in hours every day teaching the newest riders and a select cadre of city defenders how to shoot. He kept Jason close, but gave him space to shoot and talk to the others in the group.

It had been going so well, with Jason regaining his equilibrium and his good humor, until Feron’s new rider broke him.

Evan should have seen it coming. He didn’t know the younger man well yet, but he knew young men in general. He’d had his own cockiness beaten out of him when he lost Juree, but Wayde McClain was in the strange position of having come from a place that had fallen into ruin to the greatest human stronghold in the Rocky Mountains, then immediately being elevated to the top of the food chain, so to speak. He was suddenly more influential than his former mayor and more important than any of the experienced outriders who’d protected the caravan.

He was young and foolish, and he had a bond with a young and foolish dragon. Idiocy was bound to happen.

Feron was there at the range that day; so was Rusi. Their bonds with their riders were still so new that they needed to be together almost constantly, and they were still small enough to fit through most of the double doors in the active areas of Forge. Separation between a rider and their dragon before the bond settled meant headaches, gradually increasing into nausea and finally severe illness. It was better for everyone that they stay together, and better for the new partners in particular that they stay out of Grenia’s shadow for now.

Jason could finally look at the dragons without tears, with a hopeful light back in his eyes. Evan was more grateful for it than he could say, which was one of the reasons he didn’t call the boy back when he went to talk to Dalton and Wayde about their dragons. Everyone knew Jason, after all—his parentage wasn’t a secret anymore, and Ladon was the pride of Forge. Jason was welcomed everywhere.

Except, it seemed, with Wayde.

“What are you doing here anyhow?” the young man demanded after he and Dalton finished shooting. Jason had launched into another series of questions which Dalton fielded admirably—not surprising, with young children of his own—and which Wayde largely tried to ignore. Until he didn’t. “This time is supposed to be for experienced archers and riders, isn’t it?” He sneered down at Jason. “You’re neither of those things.”

Evan was already on his way over, but Dalton stepped in first. “Jason is always welcome here,” he said smoothly. Behind him, Rusi crooned an assent. “He’s Evan Luckless’s ward, and Luckless is our best rider. And he’s the son of—”

“Why should the son of a rider get preferential treatment?” Wayde demanded. “How is that fair? He should be learning with the other kids, not taking advantage of his dad’s station by hanging out with the adults who need to work on archery.” Feron whuffed in agreement.

Jason was already shrinking back by the time Evan got there, all the joy gone from his face. Evan held out an arm and Jason came to him immediately, turning his face into Evan’s side. Evan looked at Wayde as evenly as he could manage.

“Who teaches during this time?” he asked.

“It’s a time for—”

“Who. Teaches. During. This time,” Evan repeated, slower and more deliberately.

Wayde grimaced. “You do, but it’s not like you’ve been doing much teaching that I’ve seen.”

“You assured me you knew how to handle a bow,” Evan said. “Were you lying?”

“No,” Wayde replied sullenly. “But—”

“Then you have no reason to object to me paying more attention to the people who do need my help than the people like you, who presumably don’t. And who I choose to bring to my own class is my business, and no concern of yours.” He began to turn away, but Wayde grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back.

Evan tensed, every muscle ready to leap into action. The only thing that prevented him from putting this idiot on the ground immediately was the fact that he was still holding on to Jason. Dalton sighed heavily and put a hand briefly over his eyes as Wayde said, “It’s a waste of everyone’s time for you to bring him here, though. Isn’t it? He’s not a rider! He’s too young to be a rider—it was stupid for him to be at the Choosing anyway, and today all he’s done is talk the whole fucking time we’re supposed to be practicing!” His agitation seemed to be riling his dragon, Feron’s tail swooshing back and forth as he watched the altercation between Wayde and Evan.

“You aren’t incapable of being polite, are you?” Evan asked. “You can say something like ‘Sorry, I need to practice, can we talk later,’ can’t you? Or is that not the sort of thing they did in Cheyenne?”

Wayde’s expression became ugly. “You don’t get to talk to me about where I came from. My home is none of your business.”

“Well, this is your home now, and your training is my business, and so is your treatment of Jason,” Evan replied. “Next time try acting like a goddamn adult instead of lashing out like a fool before you speak.”

“You can’t talk to me like that!” Wayde shouted, his tenuous calm deserting him. “You need me! This whole city needs me now! I’ll talk how I like, and you’ll listen, or I’ll take my dragon and leave! How would you like that, huh? Another dragon down, and it would be your fault again!”

Evan held back the derisive snort that wanted to escape because he could feel Jason trembling against him, and he knew it wouldn’t help anything. Still, he wasn’t in the mood to just let it go. “You want to take a dragon,” he said slowly as he stroked Jason’s back, “a dragon only twenty years old, a dragon who isn’t big enough to carry you more than ten miles yet, out into the wild? Huh? You think you could make your own way? You think you could protect him against the beasts of the wilderness, the manticores and bolters and swarms of crix who can smell weakness? You want to tear him away from his parents, his siblings, and hope that he’s enough to protect you out there?

“You’re more than just a fool, you’re a dangerous fool,” Evan finished coldly. “And you’d better get over it, fast, because I guarantee you, if you fly out into the darkness alone, the only fate waiting for both of you there is death.”

Wayde stared at him for a long moment, certainty settling over his sharp features, and Evan groaned inside. He’d pushed too hard—he’d lost him. “We’ll see about that,” Wayde snapped, and he stalked over to Feron and jumped up onto his back. “Fly!” he shouted.

The young dragon hesitated, looking up at his rider, his bonded, then over at his sister Rusi. Rusi shook her head, chuffing low in her throat, but Wayde slapped his hand against the side of Feron’s neck. “Fly, I said!” he screamed, and finally Feron took off. The whole of the archery field was blinded for a moment from the wind, and when Evan was able to open his eyes again, the bright green dragon was flapping hard above Forge before turning toward the mountains, laboring under the weight of his rider.

“Fuck,” Evan said succinctly. The fallout from this wasn’t going to be pretty. First things first, though—he needed to get Jason to his father. Evan looked at Dalton. “Can you tell Jack and Susan about this?” he asked.

“Yes…yeah, sure,” Dalton said, looking dazed. Rusi nudged comfortingly at his back and he stroked her side in an unconscious bid to comfort her in return. “God, though, what do I even tell them? That Wayde lost his damn mind?”

“Tell them whatever will keep them from flying off after them first thing,” Evan said. “We don’t need to lose more than one dragon to a huff right now. I’ll be there to talk strategy as soon as I can.” It went without saying that there was no way they’d be leaving Feron and Wayde to cope in the wild by themselves, but running off without a plan was the worst way to proceed. Evan knew that from experience.

He looked down at Jason, whose smile was long gone now, replaced with a solemn expression and tearful eyes. “I’m sorry,” Jason whispered.

“It’s not your fault,” Evan assured him. “I promise it’s not your fault. Come on, let’s go find your father.”

Lee found them, actually, on the ground floor outside the governor’s office. He held his arms out to Jason and his son ran to him, leaving Evan to explain things to Governor Townsend. He did so, succinctly, finishing with “Then Wayde got a bee up his butt and decided to show everyone how important he was by running away, and now I’ve got to organize someone to go after him.”

“Go yourself,” Townsend said briskly, his voice calm but his eyes arctic. “You ran him off, after all. You should be responsible for returning him.”

“He ran himself off,” Evan replied. “By being an asshole. That’s not my job to fix. Feron followed his rider’s bad judgement; let his mother go and fetch him.”

Townsend shook his head. “Gorot is consumed with looking after his daughter, which leaves Susan grounded. I could send Kisthe after them, but do you really want to risk Jack running into trouble out there?”

He had a point; Jack really was slowing down lately, much faster than his dragon, but the bond between them was still so strong that there was no question of Kisthe working with another rider. She could defend Forge by herself if need be, but sending her out beyond view of the city without Jack would only make both of them needlessly anxious.

“And none of Feron’s siblings are dominant enough to frighten him or his rider home. No, it has to be you,” Townsend finished.

“After we’ve tended to Jason,” Evan allowed.

“What kind of tending does he need? He seems fine to me,” Townsend said dismissively. “And I don’t think I need to tell you how unfortunate it would be for this city to lose another rider so close to the last. Go and fix your mistake, then talk to me about wasting time nursemaiding a child of ten years old.”

“Listen, you—”

“Evan.” Lee spoke up at last, raising his head from where he had nestled in next to Jason. “Don’t waste your breath on him.” His eyes glowed with golden fire, and Evan could see the beginnings of scales manifesting around his eyes. Smoke poured off his edges, and his suit was flickering in and out of existence, replaced with silver armor.

This was not Lee Caldwell, the quiet, even-tempered man who helped out in the gardens when he had a spare moment and pointed out constellations to children whenever the skies were clear enough. This was the Lee who was one breath away from Ladon, Lee who was a warrior through and through, proud and powerful and vicious.

“We will go,” he said, then fixed his gaze on Townsend, who froze like a mouse trapped in the hypnotic gaze of a snake. “Don’t ever think that I’ve forgotten anything you’ve done to me,” he said, voice low and hard. “I remember every minute of my life here. I remember every moment of caring balanced against every act of deceit, and I’m sure you know where you fall on that scale. Do not ever think you can threaten or shame me into doing less than everything I can for my own son. Or you won’t like the result.” Then he looked at Evan, and the fierce, fiery aura faded, replaced by his normal appearance. “Let’s go see Charlie.”

“Let’s.” They walked toward the forges, Jason silent between them, holding onto their hands tightly. It wasn’t easy for him to go to Charlie, who handed everything off to an apprentice as soon as she saw them, but he managed it when she promised him they could make arrows together.

“Come back soon?” Jason asked over his shoulder as Charlie slowly walked him away.

Lee smiled. “Of course.”

“Evan?”

It still touched his heart whenever Jason singled Evan out for attention. “Quick as we can,” Evan promised.

As soon as they were alone, he turned to Lee. “I’m sorry about this,” he said. “I didn’t—”

“Don’t apologize, my heart.” Lee put his hands on the sides of Evan’s neck, stroking gently. The physical connection strengthened the bond between them, letting Evan feel Lee’s emotions like they were his own—frustration, irritation, anger, but none of it directed at Evan, who he loved, who took such good care of their son. “There’s no cure for stupidity but time.”

Evan chuckled despite himself. “Then let’s go make sure that young fool gets enough time for the cure to take effect.”

They left from the outer wall of Forge instead of the stadium. Ladon was enormous, even for a dragon, and when he changed in the stadium it tended to send the youngest dragons scurrying for the safety of their mother’s bulk. On the wall, though, there was no fear. The people who guarded it knew them—many of them knew Evan from before he and Ladon had bonded, and the years had made them friendlier.

“He went northwest!” Oliver shouted after them from his perch on the tall concrete turret, where he manned one of Forge’s two working machine guns. “Toward Long’s!”

Evan nodded his thanks as Ladon began to bank, raising great clouds of dust with his wingbeats as he turned them in the direction of Long’s Peak. It was one of the tallest mountains on the Front Range, a flat-topped icon and guidepost for travelers. It was also one of the stupidest places for a man and a dragon to think about trying to take shelter: a place with no decent protection from the elements, no significant sources of game, but plenty of crevices for a patient monster to hide in. Evan hoped for his sake that Wayde was easy to find, but if he found that pair of idiots on top of Long’s Peak he’d be hard pressed not to shout both of them deaf.

Ladon sent a thread of amusement through the bond to Evan, keeping his bright eyes trained below them for any sign of the missing rider and his dragon. Evan watched too, relieved that the worst of the dust had finally settled. Visibility was still poor, though—the sun had just begun to set behind the mountains, and as the shadow of the Rockies spread out across the plains, Evan resigned himself to settling in and waiting to be useful.

You’re always useful.

Evan chuckled. You’re the only one who thinks so.

Humanity sets too much importance on utilitarianism. Even in this difficult time, there should be a place for existence without justification, without having to meet arbitrary standards of necessity.

I wish it were that way.

Ladon was quiet for a moment before thinking So do I. Perhaps Jason would experience fewer difficulties then.

Oh, Jason. The reminder of what he’d gone through lately was enough to quiet Evan’s mirth, and they kept flying in silence, tension growing minute by minute as they still failed to find Wayde and Feron.

Fucking Wayde, who’d flown off in a huff without the barest supplies—no signal flares, a bow but no more than three arrows ready to fire, none of the cold-weather clothes he’d want if he got stuck out here overnight. Evan was going to give this guy a piece of his fucking mind when he—

Fire!

Ladon extended his head in the direction of the slopes a dozen or so miles south of Long’s where, sure enough, a flame was spreading. Spreading fast. Had Feron set the entire hillside ablaze? Dragons were taught to control their flame better than that from the time they were hatchlings.

Ladon banked down, and in the light of the fire Jason could see hulking black shapes darting back and forth along the edge of the flames, which spread out in a broken ring from a central spire of rock. Feron was perched on that rock, flapping his wings hard to fan the burn even as he breathed more fire. Crouched just below him was Wayde, holding his bow but—as expected—out of arrows.

Wayde looked like he was yelling something at Feron—maybe telling him to fly away, judging from the way he threw his arm toward the sky. The dragon didn’t seem wounded, so the likeliest reason he hadn’t taken off yet was because he was too tired to carry both himself and his rider somewhere safe. Because he was only twenty, and would likely double in size over the next ten years if he didn’t get killed off through sheer stupidity before then.

There’s too much fire already to add more, Evan thought at Ladon as he squinted down at the black shapes. Dog-like, but far bigger than any dog, yet with curved spines and hulking shoulders more like what you’d see on a hyena than a wolf…it was a pack of ringdocus. They were menaces in the foothills, fast and vicious pack hunters far cleverer than crix. The only good thing about facing off against ringdocus was that their packs didn’t get as large as crix—too much competition, too much of a need for meat. They reached a certain size, then began fighting amongst and cannibalizing themselves to sort out the hierarchy of needs.

Do you want to shoot them from the air or the ground?

Let’s do a few passes from the air, Evan decided, already freeing his bow and nocking an arrow. Then we try to go in and grab Wayde.

Ladon came down, fading light glinting off his scales like a thousand shooting stars, and Evan could see Wayde startle and stare even as Evan loosed his first arrow toward one of the biggest, boldest ringdocus. He took the beast through the back, just below the skull. It collapsed, convulsing and kicking for a moment before going still. Evan fired again, taking another through the side of the neck before he was out of range.

There were at least twelve of the monsters, perhaps as many as fifteen back in the shadows of the trees. Evan wanted to winnow them down before he and Ladon landed. His dragon might be big and strong and able to take on bolters by himself, but a pack of organized, vicious ringdocus was another kind of opponent, and Evan wasn’t going to take any chances. He took out another three and was about to shoot a fourth when several members of the pack found a gap in the flames surrounding Wayde and Feron and charged in, heading straight for Wayde.

Feron put himself between them and his rider, blowing another gout of flame their way. One of the beasts was singed and fell back, but the other one—bigger, almost as big as the first one Evan took out, dodged the flame and, lowering its head, rammed Feron right in the chest. The dragon stumbled and almost fell, needing to use its wings to keep itself upright. That was enough time for the ringdocus to get to Wayde.

“Down, now!” Evan shouted, and Ladon reared back, then came down feet first right onto the fiery ground, trees aflame on either side of them. The flames didn’t harm him, but he couldn’t do much here either, not with the fight as tight as it was. Wayde was brandishing a long knife and screaming at the black beast attacking him, but it would get through his feeble defense in another few seconds. If it got those massive jaws around him, he’d be dead.

We can’t lose another rider. We can’t.

Evan sighted from Ladon’s neck through the smoke and sparks and, as soon as he found a still moment, shot. The arrow struck the ringdocus in the hindquarters, painful but not fatal. He needed to get closer.

More of them were attacking now, bloodlust winning out as the flames died, even when confronted with such massive competition as dragons. You never had to wonder about the difference between a monster and a regular animal—the monsters had keener intelligence and a dramatically greater tolerance for danger. Feron was guarding Wayde’s back, but two ringdocus were circling around his front.

Part of Evan longed to jump down and get a better angle, but he and Ladon were safer together. He shot again, and one of them dropped, snarling and biting at its back legs after Evan’s arrow severed its spine. “We need to get them out of here!”

I can carry Wayde, if he’ll let me. Feron is exhausted, but he can still fly himself. We can—aaahh!

It was the sound that Evan had been dreading without consciously recognizing it—Ladon in pain. He was immense for a dragon, strong and powerful and well-armored, but even he wasn’t invulnerable, and being on the ground accentuated a dragon’s weaknesses. Evan swiveled, his arrow already nocked and ready to loose. Where?

It jumped for the base of my wing…I can’t shake it off!

Evan was running before Ladon even finished speaking, down his neck and along his back until he was between Ladon’s wings. The ringdocus was smart—it had latched on to a flexible, tender spot on the underside of the joint, and Evan almost couldn’t see it from this angle.

It didn’t matter. All he needed was an inch. He fired and took the creature through the eye, and it thudded to the ground a moment later, dead. The blood attracted more of them, though, focusing on the wound, and the next thing Evan knew it was all he could do to keep up with the creatures as they jumped and snapped for the wounded spot, hunger banishing all their subtler attacks.

In ten seconds, he was down to his last five arrows. In another ten seconds, he had fired his last one, and there were still three ringdocus focused on Ladon, who couldn’t move freely in the trees and had to avoid fire for Evan’s sake. He felt his dragon shudder with pain, and grimly grabbed his Bowie knife. He would—

The largest of the remaining three suddenly went down with a whimper, a vaguely familiar knife buried in its chest. Feron charged in then, quick on his feet, viciously fast jaw snapping. He killed the last two with bone-crushing bites, and stomped the wounded one into the dirt, slashing with his claws until the beast was little more than a mound of fur and blood and shards of bone.

All was silent for a moment, except for the crackle of the fire as it turned the nearest trees into torches.

Are you all right? How bad is it?

Not so bad, Ladon assured Evan. Not as bad as it looks.

Evan finally got close enough to inspect Ladon’s wing joint and winced. “Still very bad,” he murmured. “It’s like they were trying to chew it right off of you.”

Yes. Very surprising. The pack must have encountered another dragon in the past, perhaps a wild one, for them to even consider such a tactic.

That was disconcerting, but a thought to pursue another day. “Let me bind it,” Evan said, already going for his bandages. “Can you fly, or should we walk back?”

I can fly if I must, but… Ladon flexed his wing slightly and winced. Perhaps it would be better for me to walk. Healing will come quickly, though.

Aware that Wayde and Feron were close enough to listen in, Evan switched to his inside voice. Do you want to transform?

It’s better I stay in this body if we’re to trek through the wilderness for a time. Safer for you and Wayde. We won’t be out here long, he added soothingly. Feron can fly and bring back help.

“I know you’re talking to each other,” Wayde said sourly from below them. His annoyance might have carried more weight if his voice hadn’t been shaking. “Care to clue the rest of us in on the decisions you’re making for everyone?”

Fuck it.

Evan finished binding Ladon’s wing joint and jumped to the ground, landing just a few feet in front of Wayde. He didn’t know what the younger man saw in his face, but it was enough to get him backing away. “Hey,” Wayde said, hands up placatingly. “Hey, me and Feron just saved you two. You should be thanking us.”

“Thank you?” Evan demanded. Even Feron drew back at the sound of his rasping tone. “Thank you? Thank you for running off like a damn fool and falling into a pack of ringdocus and nearly getting yourselves killed before we could get here to even the fight? Thank you for endangering Ladon? Thank you for ensuring that Forge’s top dragon won’t be flying for at least a week, perhaps more, thanks to your stupidity?” He walked up to Wayde until they were chest to chest.

“Look me in the eyes right now and tell me you believe that what you accomplished here tonight is worth any of my thanks,” he growled.

Wayde was at least two inches taller than Evan, but in that moment he seemed to shrink in on himself. He didn’t apologize, but he didn’t say anything else either. He just stood there, Feron slinking up to press against his back. As soon as his dragon made contact, Wayde—

—began to cry. He turned and threw his arms around the dragon, who chuffed and rumbled comfortingly.

Evan sighed and tried not to sprain his eyes with the force of rolling them. He didn’t begrudge the younger man a good cry. Everyone needed them now and then, especially after a life-threatening situation like this one. But his tears, and any remorse that might come with them, were too late to be of much use. A simple apology earlier today, a willingness to listen instead of speaking about things he didn’t understand and hadn’t bothered to try to learn…those things would have made a difference. These tears were as well-timed as a fart in a locked room.

You’re always so eloquent.

Oh, hush. Evan turned away to give Wayde and Feron a moment without scrutiny, resting his forehead against Ladon’s massive jaw. His breath stank of flame. Next time, transform into your warrior self if it gets that bad. His warrior self, at least, was armored.

I wanted to keep their focus off of you and Wayde.

It makes me ill to see you hurting like this.

I know. I’m sorry.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Evan murmured, kissing Ladon’s bumpy scales and stroking the very point of his chin. He waited until the crying had truly died down to turn back around. Wayde was facing him now, an expression of contrition on his face.

“Feron explained about your kid,” he said. “Sorry I was such a dick about it.”

“Good. I’ll forgive you after you apologize to him too,” Evan said as politely as he could manage. “The plan Ladon and I were discussing goes like this. You and I hitch a ride on Ladon and start walking back to Forge, and Feron flies ahead and brings back help as soon as he can.”

Feron’s grumble became just a few decibels under a roar. Ladon turned a quelling eye on him, and he subsided as Evan said, “Hey, do you want to get your rider back to safety as quickly as possible, or do you want to risk injuring him when you realize you’re too weak to fly him home right now?

“You are,” he added over the resurgence of noise, “because if you hadn’t been too tired to fly him back to Forge, we wouldn’t have found you surrounded by a pack of ringdocus and risking setting the entire mountain on fire.” Most of the flames were dying out pretty quickly, fortunately. The ground was so dry that brush was nonexistent, and the trees were far enough apart that the fire wasn’t leaping between them.

“They’re right,” Wayde said, surprising Evan with his agreement. “You have to go. I’ll be fine. Seriously.” He tilted his head at Ladon. “Who’s going to mess with that guy?”

Feron gave him a look that could only be interpreted as “not impressed.”

“Go on. It’s okay.” Wayde patted his dragon’s neck. “The faster you go, the sooner we’ll be together again.”

That did the trick. Feron extended his wings and flapped them a few times, then gathered himself and launched into the air. He had to work hard to avoid hitting trees, but then he was high enough to glide. His dark green coloring blended into the night sky after a minute, and they lost sight of him.

“Welp.” Evan looked at Wayde. “Need a hand up?”

“Oh…no, I’m fine. Let me just…” He walked over to grab his knife out of a ringdocus corpse, wiped it off on the monster’s mostly clean fur, then nodded. “Okay.”

Ladon lowered his head, and Evan and Wayde scrambled up onto the base of his neck, careful to stay away from his wounded wing. He tucked the injured limb close to his body, turned around, and began walking down the mountain, weaving between the trees like a snake slithering between stones.

They didn’t speak. Evan hadn’t really expected them to, not with Wayde’s personality being what it was, and he was more than happy to keep his own thoughts to himself. Most of them weren’t complimentary.

He did apologize.

He did, Evan acknowledged. But it’s stupid that he had to. So much trouble could be avoided if people bothered to take a moment to consider the consequences before acting.

That seems an apt description of youth in general, Ladon said with a mental laugh. Evan chuckled, then looked over his shoulder at Wayde, who—

—had fallen asleep upright, leaning against Ladon’s good wing. Good, that was one less person to worry about right now. Evan fished his canteen out of his pack and took a long drink of water. Are you thirsty? Should we try to find a stream?

I’d rather not divert, Ladon said. I’ll hold until we get back to Forge. It shouldn’t take more than a day.

A day with Jason missing us, Evan said, starting to feel guilty.

It can’t be helped. Ladon’s voice was so soft this time Evan barely made it out. But it can’t continue like this either.

That didn’t sound good. What do you mean? Evan asked, setting his canteen aside and laying both hands on Ladon’s neck, grounding himself in his dragon’s steadying presence.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about it lately—Jason’s youth, his development compared to his human peers. I think he might be heading into puberty. I can’t say for sure, since he’s the only half-dragon I know of, but for dragons, it’s imperative to bond to an empath before puberty hits, or the wildness takes you instead.

Evan shivered despite himself. He knew what wildness meant to a dragon—losing themselves to their most basic desires, becoming monsters out of nightmare instead of creature who coexisted peacefully with humanity. What would that look like in Jason?

I have no idea. It might remain as mild as it is right now, which is bad enough, or he might lose his sanity entirely. Ladon’s mental voice was level, but Evan felt his terrifying fear for his son just beneath the surface. There’s so much I simply don’t know, and I’m afraid for him. Every day, I’m more afraid. He needs a dragon; I can feel it. I’m not sure he can wait another year for a Choosing.

Gorot and Kisthe won’t let any of their offspring Choose early. It was one of their requirements for having all of their brood in the first place, that they be given the chance to grow toward adulthood with the best possible chance of survival. Once they Chose, they would begin training. It was that simple…or rather, it always had been before. Now nothing seemed simple. We could ask—

I did. Ladon’s voice sounded heavy, weighted down with anxiousness and despondency. I asked. They were not willing to consider it, not even after all of the children of theirs I’ve saved. They worry about one of them bonding with Jason, because he’s so different. They worry about the influence he might wield over a child of theirs.

Evan wanted to go and give Gorot and Kisthe a piece of his damn mind. That’s ridiculous. What could they be afraid of?

Jason is half-dragon. If he inherits the ability to shift, he could become half of a mated pair.

Oh, that…wasn’t something that Evan wanted to think about, not in any way, shape, or form. He saw where Ladon was leading with it, though. They don’t want the competition.

No, they don’t. Their young are already straining the ability of Forge to meet the needs of its dragons. The city isn’t big enough to provide for another breeding pair.

“Fuck,” Evan muttered. Ladon huffed in agreement.

It made sense, on a biological level, like a wolf pack only allowing the alpha pair to reproduce. It was a mercenary stance, though, and one where the dragons’ lack of compassion might lead to disaster. That they couldn’t see how yet was testament to their short-sightedness. We’ll have to leave, then.

Evan felt Ladon heave a sigh, like an immense weight had just been lifted off of him. I was wondering if you’d be willing to consider it.

Of course I’d consider it! There was no way in hell they’d stay in Forge if all they had to look forward to was Jason’s continued misery. We’ll go somewhere that won’t be so stuck up about Jason finding a match. Chicago has more than one mated pair of dragons, doesn’t it?

Three, the last I knew, Ladon said. And they were much less afraid of the unknown. I was able to marry Valorie with no interference, despite the…strangeness of my circumstances.

Then that’s where we’ll go. To start with, at least. The thought of relocating to another city was daunting to Evan, who had never been much farther than the mountains of Colorado and Forge itself. Still, it wasn’t a choice if it was a question between moving and harming Jason. Should we tell them we’re considering leaving? Let them have a chance to counter-offer? Townsend might actually help. Townsend would be fucking furious at losing Forge’s powerhouse dragon, but he’d just have to help or get out of the way.

I…don’t know. I would hate to leave them unprepared, and I know you would want to work harder at training up the riders to the best of their capabilities before we went away, but they were very decided when I spoke to them.

Nobody did stubborn like a dragon. What did their riders say?

I’m not sure they know what’s going on, but I think they would side with their dragons. The bonds of empathy would urge them in that direction anyway.

Well…that was that, then. When you’re healed, then. When you can fly us as far as Chicago without strain, we’ll leave.

Evan…thank you.

“Pfft, don’t thank me for that,” he muttered. What kind of person would he be if he didn’t stick with his partner and kid? They were his…everything. Forge had been nothing but a place to lay his head and risk his life before Lee and Jason changed his world. You two are more important to me than anything else.

Ladon didn’t think a specific reply at him, but his silence was warm and loving. They walked in peace through the night, beneath a yellow crescent moon, listening to the rustling of wind through the leaves, Wayde’s quiet snores, and in the distance, the howl of a lonely beast.

Half an hour later, Gorot and Susan flew into sight. They landed with a rush of air that had Wayde snorting awake.

“Whass’it?” he asked groggily. “S’it Feron?”

“No,” Evan replied, nodding to Susan as she slid off of Gorot’s back. “It’s his father.” A dragon that Evan would never be able to look at the same way again.

Susan strode over, a smile on her face, completely unaware of the turmoil brewing inside of Evan—of the growing urge to walk over to Gorot and curse him out. “Well, aren’t you all a raggedy group?” she teased, but there was an undercurrent of relief in her voice. “Feron flew in so exhausted he barely made any sense. I thought we’d be searching for you for hours, the way he gave directions.”

“Looks like you found us anyway,” Evan said.

Susan frowned. Shit, had he sounded off? “Any injuries?” she asked as Evan helped lower Wayde to the ground.

“Ladon won’t be flying for a while, but I assume Feron told you that.”

Her eyes widened. “He mentioned Ladon had been injured, but…how long are we talking?”

“A week at the earliest,” Evan said. Even with Ladon’s accelerated rate of healing, the fact that it was going to take more than a few days for him to recover spoke to the damage he’d endured.

“That bad?” She glared at Wayde, who was staring sheepishly at the ground. “What the hell! You don’t just fly off into the sky like you don’t have a care in the world on an undersized, undertrained dragon and get our best team hurt rescuing your ass!”

“It won’t happen again,” Wayde promised.

“It better damn well not!” Her hands flexed like she wanted to punch him, but she refrained. “You and Feron are going to be on scut duty the entire time Ladon is healing. Cleaning stalls, scrubbing toilets, helping the butchers. You get me?”

Wayde picked his head up and nodded firmly. “I get you.”

“Good.” She looked back at Evan. “You want company on the walk home? Gorot can take Wayde back without me if need be.”

Evan’s ire softened. Susan was good people. “Not necessary, but I’d take a full quiver if you have one.”

“Of course.” She handed up the arrows and took his empty kit. “There’s flares in there too, in case you get into a situation. We’ll have Vanessa and Safar watching you from the sky all the way home.”

“Thank you.” He watched her walk away with Wayde, guiding him onto Gorot and strapping both of them into the saddle before Gorot took off.

Susan was someone he would definitely miss once they left.

Chapter Five

They made it back to Forge by dawn the next day. It was easier to move down on the plains, but not without dangers—both areas had their share of monsters, and sighting a mass of silver, insectoid crix on the horizon had spurred Ladon to speed up to a lope, despite how it worsened his pain. Upon returning to Forge, they checked in with Jack; he knew the most about dragon medicine, and it might be dangerous for Ladon to shift back into Lee before getting an assessment of his wing.

“Damn foolishness,” Jack grumbled to himself as he unwound the bandage. Evan winced as the wound reemerged. He’d done his best, but the cuts wept blood and lymph, and the whole joint looked swollen. “Fighting from the ground—there’s no quicker way for a dragon to get himself into trouble.”

Evan bit his tongue and kept his silence long enough for Jack to guide Ladon through some easy movements, watching the wing base the whole time. “Mostly superficial,” Jack said at last, and Evan exhaled a sigh of pure relief. “The bites didn’t sever any of the tendons, but just like with humans, those heal more slowly than muscle and skin. Even with your magic,” he continued to Ladon, “I wouldn’t fly on this for another two weeks. If you can change back, that’ll probably help—the wound will be transferred inside the shoulder, which will be easier to immobilize than an entire wing.”

Ladon nodded, then shuddered. A moment later he was in his human form, wearing simple clothes and no shoes—a testament to his fatigue, Evan knew. Lee was somehow able to bring whatever he wore back and forth between shifts, but he was usually more put together than this. The bleeding was worse than ever, and Evan winced when he saw the mess of the wound gaping on Lee’s back, but Jack just nodded.

“Let’s clean and stitch this, and then you can get back to your boy.”

It felt like forever before they finally made it back to their rooms. They were both exhausted, dirty, and bloodstained, but Jason and Charlie were still asleep when they got back, and neither of them wanted to run water in the shower and risk waking them. They stumbled into their bedroom instead, and Evan eased Lee down so that he was lying on his stomach, his head resting in the dip between Evan’s shoulder and chest.

“Sleep,” he murmured. “You need it.”

“We both need it. But Jason…”

“We’ll wake up when he does.” They always did. “It’ll be all right.”

They fell asleep fast, and had a few hours of solid slumber before Jason ran into their room. Evan woke up at the first sound of footsteps, but Lee was still down hard. Evan smiled at Jason, but Jason didn’t smile back. Instead of his normal ebullient welcome, he stayed silent, tears glistening in his eyes as he crawled onto the bed next to Evan.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “About what happened with Wayde.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Evan whispered back. “It was his, and he knows it.”

“Dad got hurt looking for him?”

“A little,” Evan admitted, because he refused to lie to his kid. “But he’ll heal up in a few weeks. There’s plenty we can all do together in the meantime. Kisthe will have a new clutch soon, we can go and check on the eggs and—”

“Jack asked me not to visit the younger dragons anymore,” Jason said, and Evan’s heart shivered with a sudden bitter chill. He didn’t bother to mention that to me, that fuckhead. “He said I’m too distracting.”

Fuck him. Fuck Jack and Kisthe, fuck Gorot, fuck this whole fucking place, they can go to the Rift for all I care, those fucking—

“That’s their loss, and I think it’s a mistake,” Evan said as levelly as he could manage. “But there are other things we can do. We can spend more time with Kicker, for starters. He has to be getting bored spending so much time in his stall.” Evan visited the mule on a daily basis, made sure he was getting good feed and getting the time in the paddock, but a few days ago Nicky had taken him aside and informed him that he needed to do more for the mule, and fast, because otherwise it would make good on its name.

Maybe she’d like to take him when Lee and Jason and I leave.

Jason was looking at him with a real, if small, smile on his face now. “I’d like that,” he said, even sounding a little excited. “Can we go today?”

Shit. Maybe we can find a way to bring Kicker with us to Chicago. “Sure. Let’s do it.”

Evan eased out from under Lee, who was still fast asleep, and he and Jason went out into the main room. Charlie was sitting up on the couch, pulling her graying hair back from her face with a bandana. Evan shut the bedroom door behind him, then asked, “Care for some water?”

“Water would be good. Get some for yourself first.” She looked him up and down with a raised eyebrow. “You seem like you could use a lot of it.”

“I know. I’ll clean up soon.” There was no sense in making himself pretty for the stables, though. He reached out and squeezed Jason’s shoulder. “Get dressed and we’ll head out, okay? We’ll grab breakfast on the way.” Jason nodded and headed into his room, and Evan poured two cups of water and eased himself onto the couch next to Charlie, handing one to her with a sigh.

“How much of that blood is yours?” she asked quietly.

“None of it.”

“Hmm.” She sniffed him and grimaced. “Smells musky. Wendigos or ringdocas?”

“Ringdocas.” Wendigos would have been a lot more trouble.

“I heard Lee is injured.”

“It was a ground fight.” Charlie shook her head. “I know, but there was no way around it this time. We couldn’t defend them effectively from the air.”

“Defend them.” Her lips thinned. “That little shit and his dragonling?”

Evan stifled his smirk, just nodding.

“It’s all over Forge, what those two did. On top of Grenia losing it the other day, it’s making people wonder what Gorot and Kisthe are teaching that brood of theirs.”

Evan kind of wondered that himself, but… “Maybe they’re just letting them have more of a childhood,” he said. “And who could blame them for that? For a while there it didn’t look like any of their offspring would survive more than a single summer season, and now…well, things are better.”

“They could be better still, if their kids stopped behaving like brats,” Charlie said with a grunt. “We’ve all heard it a thousand times: a dragon’s first priority is its rider. A rider’s first priority is their dragon. Through pain, through fear, through excitement—they’re supposed to keep their heads.” She rolled her eyes. “Maybe we wouldn’t be listening to Grenia caterwauling night and day now if she’d done a better job with Tommy.”

That wasn’t entirely fair. “It wasn’t her fault. She’d never fought a bolter before.”

Charlie sighed. “Well then, maybe she should do more of it in the future. Maybe they all should, so Lee doesn’t end up doing twice the work for half the pay.”

He won’t be for long. Evan didn’t say that, of course, just thanked Charlie again for her help as Jason emerged from his room. He knew Lee would be able to sense what was going on through him, but left a note for him anyway. Then they all walked downstairs together, splitting up on the main level with Charlie headed to the smithy, Evan and Jason to the stables. Evan bought them some meat pies on the way there, and by the time they reached Kicker, Jason seemed much happier.

Kicker grumbled as they got close, as near to a welcome as you’d probably get from a mule. Jason pulled an apple core from his pocket and the big beast devoured it in a single snap. Jason patted the mule’s nose, then laughed. “He’s so soft!”

“He is, isn’t he?” He’d been brushed recently, too—far more recently than Evan had been here to take care of the task. Nicky Ramirez’s invisible helping hand, most likely.

“Does he have a saddle? Can we ride him?”

“He did come with a saddle,” Evan remarked. “As long as the watch says the grounds are clear, we can take him outside for a ride, I think.” Forge’s herds were large enough that they needed to be let out beyond the city’s walls during the day, to give them a chance to exercise and keep tempers and disease at a minimum. “Here, let me get his bridle…”

It took a while to get the tack onto Kicker—it had been years since Evan had been responsible for a four-legged creature who wasn’t a dragon, and dragons had very different gear. But he managed eventually, and let Jason lead the mule out of the barn and along the path leading to the paddock.

He wasn’t surprised to see Nicky there, riding a wide circle on one horse and guiding another one beside her on a lead. “Good to see you!” she called out to them as she adjusted her course and headed their way. She looked good—well-rested, and perfectly at ease on the back of a horse. Kicker surged forward as she got close, almost ripping his halter lead from Jason’s hands.

“Calm down, you menace,” she said to Kicker as she dismounted. She held her reins out to Evan, who took them while she went over to the mule and petted his nose. “He recognizes me, that’s all,” she said to Jason, who was looking a little wary. “He likes whoever likes him. He’ll warm up to you fast, I’m sure.”

“You know him?” Jason asked eagerly.

“Have for years. I knew his last owner,” Nicky added diplomatically, then turned to Evan. “I’ve been stretching him every day, but he could use a real workout. I take it you’re ready to ride, then?”

Evan sighed. “Lord, I hope so.”

“It’s not that bad!” Nicky said with a laugh. “Need a hand getting into the saddle?”

“I can manage that much.” He thought he could, at least. He handed the horse’s reins back, then got into position.

Getting up was fine, for him. Kicker didn’t seem too pleased with it—he immediately tried to rear, and it took all Evan’s mediocre riding skills to stay on.

“He’ll be all right once he gets a trot going,” Nicky promised him. “Walk him around a bit, then let him go and see what he can do. Mules aren’t as fast as horses, but they’re steady.”

“Fast is not something I’m interested in right now,” Jason assured her, and after she unclipped the bridle, he relaxed Kicker’s reins and clicked his tongue. The mule practically leapt forward, but Evan kept his seat and kept his mount down to a walk until the muscles beneath his legs weren’t shaking anymore, and the skittery gait eased into a smooth pace.

The second he tapped Kicker with his heels, the mule picked up his speed into something like a canter would be on a horse. It wasn’t terribly fast, but it was an easy ride. Kicker seemed happy, at least, and that was the important thing.

That, and Jason. This was supposed to be about him, not about Evan having a good time. Get your head together, he chided himself as he turned back toward the entry to the paddock.

Only Jason wasn’t even looking his way, stroking the nose of one of the horses instead as he kept up an enthusiastic conversation with Nicky. She was humoring him, answering his questions with a smile, and Evan felt something in his chest relax for the first time in weeks. One good encounter wasn’t enough to negate all the pain Jason had been through lately, but it wasn’t meaningless either. Their time here—what was left of it—didn’t have to be nothing but worry and strife. There could be pleasure in it for Jason, and Evan was determined that there would be.

“Your boy wants to learn to ride,” Nicky announced as Evan drew close, bouncing in the saddle a little as Kicker went from his lope back to a walk.

“Tell me you’re a teacher,” Evan replied, wincing a bit dramatically as he got down from the mule. “Because it’s been a long time since I sat on top of one of these creatures, and I don’t know how much more my rear can take.”

Jason laughed, and Nicky shot Evan a wink. “I’ve been known to teach the basics to promising pupils,” she said, and now Jason was looking eagerly at her. “If they really want to learn.”

“I do!” Jason insisted. “I really do, I promise! Evan, please, tell her I’m a good student.”

“He’s the best,” Evan replied, and he wasn’t even exaggerating. “I’m sure he’ll pick things up quickly.”

“Why don’t we work together for a few days and find out?” Nicky suggested. “I’m still waiting on a formal job assignment, and working out in the paddock’s better than sitting inside those stuffy walls any day.”

“We’ll make sure you’re paid for it,” Evan said, and her eyebrows rose a little. “You’re sharing your expertise with our son, after all.” Jason suddenly moved into his space, wrapping his arms tight around Evan’s waist. Evan gripped him back, wondering why for a moment, before—

Ah. He’d said Jason was his son. It was a term he’d been reluctant to use, not wanting to diminish either of Jason’s biological parents or overstate his own role in the young man’s life, but Jason clearly didn’t mind it. Evan hugged him back, and looked at Nicky, who was smiling. “Care to start now?”

“Now’s good.”

***

Jason was in an ebullient mood that evening as they washed up and settled in to eat, telling his father about everything they’d done with Kicker and Nicky’s two horses that day. Lee was pleased, sending Evan a surge of loving emotion before devoting himself to listening to their kid. Evan was quiet, fatigue finally catching up to him, and he excused himself early from dinner to shower off the grime left from their trip back from the mountains.

He scrubbed every square inch of his skin, worked soap through his hair twice, and finally scraped away the stubble that had built up over the past few frantic days. Changing into a set of Lee’s night clothes—they were a little long, but so soft—he felt like a new person, and settled in on the couch to listen to Lee and Jason read stories back and forth, as they usually did at night.

By the time Jason was ready for bed, Evan was almost asleep. The hug he got from his kid, coupled with the “Goodnight, dad,” was enough to send a zing up and down his spine, though.

“Goodnight. I love you,” he said, hugging Jason back but looking at Lee…Lee who had an expression of perfect blankness on his face, unreadable even to Evan. He knew his partner wasn’t mad, he would have felt that, but he wasn’t sure what he was feeling.

“I love you too.” Jason hugged Lee, then went to his room. As soon as the door shut, Evan opened his mouth to explain.

Lee was on him before he could speak a single syllable, straddling his lap and cupping his face with his good hand as he pulled him into a kiss. It was a hell of a kiss, too, hard and sharp, almost vicious. Evan took it, took everything, wrapping his arms around Lee’s waist and pulling him in closer. He wanted the reassurance of having his lover in his arms.

“You called him your son?” Lee asked when he gave Evan a moment to catch his breath.

“Our son,” Evan said. “I mean—he’s the closest thing to a child I’ll ever have, and the best kid I could ever want.”

“He’s been wanting to hear that for months,” Lee confessed, and Evan’s eyes widened in surprise. “He didn’t want to say anything and make you feel obligated. I know you wouldn’t,” Lee added, “but Jason wanted to keep quiet about it, so I did.”

“I didn’t want to because—I’m not trying to take anyone’s place,” Evan tried to explain. “Yours or his mother’s. I could be nothing more than Evan to him and that would be fine, but when we were speaking to Nicky today it just came out, and I didn’t want to take it back.”

“You never have to. Never take anything back when it comes to us, not love or worry or anger,” Lee said before slanting his mouth across Evan’s. “I can take it,” he murmured against his lips. “I can take it, and I want to know everything. I want to know it all and have it all and learn how to please you best no matter what you’re feeling.”

Evan groaned and arched up underneath him. “Can you tell what would please me best right now?”

“I think we should continue this discussion in the bedroom.” Lee stood up in one smooth movement, pulling Evan up with him. “Come on.” They kissed their way into their room, shutting the door quietly behind them. “Tell me what you want,” Lee said, sliding his unbound hand beneath Evan’s shirt and below the back hem of his pants. “Anything you want.”

“Would…” Evan swallowed. “Would you fuck me?” It wasn’t something they did very often, because it was the sort of thing that took Evan a long time to relax into, and once he was that relaxed, he tended to get loud. They both loved it, though, and after they left Forge…who knew when they would have enough time and privacy again?

“Oh, darling.” Lee leaned down and kissed him again, open-mouthed and wet, moving him backward even as he tightened his grip on Evan’s bare skin. “Yes, please, yes, let me…” He laid Evan down and helped pull off his clothes, eyeing every newly revealed inch like it was precious.

“You are precious,” he insisted, and Evan blushed as he realized he’d been thinking very loudly again. “Everything about you is precious to me,” Lee went on, pulling back far enough to strip out of his clothes before he laid down on top of Evan like a heavy, wonderfully warm blanket, covering him so completely that he couldn’t think about anything except being where he was, right now.

“You’re so good,” Lee said, kissing him on the mouth again before trailing his lips down Evan’s neck. “Perfect.”

“Lee…” Evan loved hearing things like this, but they also embarrassed the hell out of him. “Please.”

“It’s all right,” Lee assured him, then reached out and stroked firmly down Evan’s cock, lingering at the bottom before switching directions. Evan hissed and lifted his hips, trying to shift into it, but Lee shook his head. “Don’t move, darling,” he said, then went back onto his knees and covered the head of Evan’s cock with his mouth.

It was easy not to move when Evan could barely think. He had never wanted sex so often before in his life, and even now his own desires surprised him sometimes. It had been three years…would he ever stop wanting so much of Lee? Or would he want him like this until the day he finally—

“No, stop.” Lee lifted his head up and pressed his face into Evan’s stomach, grip transferring to his hip and holding on tight enough that Evan knew he would bruise. “Stop, please, I can’t—it’s bad enough wondering whether or not I can keep my son happy and sane without having to wonder if I can stay sane, and if I lose you—Evan, I can’t—don’t—”

Shit, shit, shit. “I’m sorry,” Evan said, pulling Lee up until they were face to face again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to think that.” Lee couldn’t exactly read his mind, but he and Evan knew each other well enough to attach what they felt in each other to certain thoughts, and he’d considered his own mortality often enough that Lee was familiar with it.

“It’s your mind,” Lee pointed out, sounding morose. “I’m just the visitor, you should always be able to think what you like, I just—I’m sorry I can’t dissociate from it better, but I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. I almost did, before you even knew how much you meant to me, and that—” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m doing a terrible job of romancing you right now.”

“I’d be way more upset if you didn’t tell me how you felt,” Evan replied. “I swear I’ll always do everything in my power to be with you, whatever it takes.” He kissed Lee’s cheek, then his lips, then pecked the very tip of his nose. “Promise.”

“Thank you.” Lee kissed him back, soft at first, then more firmly as Evan opened up beneath him, telling him in every way he could how much he wanted him right now. “Should we try this again?” he asked with a smile.

“God, please.”

With Lee’s right shoulder out of commission, leaving him unable to lie on his back or support himself on his arms without pain, the best way ended up being on their sides, Lee tight to Jason’s back as he finally slid inside of him. Jason felt stretched, in every sense of the word—not just his body, but his heart was full to the brim with Lee, his mind was soaring with his lover’s emotions and feelings, with the knowledge of how good this was, how good he was, how wonderful it felt for both of them. They made love slowly, taking their time finding a rhythm to keep from hurting Lee, and when they finally did find it…

How could a body be made for so much pleasure? Sometimes it didn’t even feel real. Evan had never, ever thought he’d feel this way with anyone, and to have it be with Lee, to feel his lover’s pleasure as well as his own, wound his reaction time up so quickly that it might have been embarrassing if Lee wasn’t right there as well. Evan tensed and tilted his head back to solicit a kiss as he came, one hand stretched out against the bed for support as he stroked himself off with the other. Lee came a minute later with a groan, and the bright, fizzing feeling of it in Evan’s mind was like orgasming all over again.

They eventually separated, and Evan got up to fetch a clean, wet cloth and take care of his lover. Once he was done he settled in beside Lee, facing him, close enough to feel the heat of his body but not quite touching. He didn’t want to cling and make Lee’s wound any worse. “We’ll be all right,” Evan said, and Lee nodded.

“As long as we’re together,” he said. Evan gave in and took his hand, kissing the backs of his fingers.

“Exactly.”

Chapter Six

As good a distraction as learning to ride was for Jason, it was evident to his father—to both of them—that it wasn’t more than a temporary solution. After a week, Jason’s nightmares came back. He woke up crying, sometimes screaming, desperate for a balm against the loneliness that seemed to scour his soul. Lee was his best comfort on nights like that, but it fatigued even him, and that fatigue seemed to slow his rate of healing. Seven days after their dangerous retrieval of Wayde, Ladon still couldn’t extend his wing without pain. Ten days out, he could extend it, but there was no question of him being able to fly with it—it was impossible. The tendons simply hadn’t recovered enough.

“But we have to leave soon,” Lee fretted that night, morose after discovering he still couldn’t fly. “Jason is suffering, he needs to bond!”

“I know.” Evan saw with his own eyes how Jason was getting thinner, not that he had much flesh to spare in the first place. He was starting to look like a hollowed-out version of himself, a child Evan barely recognized. A child with a chronic illness that could become deadly if they didn’t act in time. “But we won’t make it to Chicago unless you can fly us. Even if we took Kicker and borrowed another horse, there are just too many monsters between here and there. We’d have to fight for every mile we gained once we were outside Forge’s radius.” And if the dragons of Forge had a chance to catch up to them…well, the reaction was unlikely to be anything good. Shouting was probably the best they could hope for.

“Then the moment I can fly,” Lee said, his lips tensed into a thin line, hands clenched so hard his nails had to be digging into his palms. “Whether I can make it there in a single shot or not. We can find protection for ourselves for a few breaks, if need be, but I will not watch my son suffer just so that I can escape a modicum of pain.”

What Lee was feeling was far beyond a modicum of pain, if the echoes Evan felt were any indicator, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good to argue with him about it. “As soon as you can fly,” he agreed.

As hopeful as he was about their trip to Chicago—as much hope as he had to have in it—it wouldn’t do to head there with nothing but the three of them and the shirts on their backs. If things worked out, they would be staying there for a long time, possibly the rest of Evan’s life, and it would be a point in his favor if he had the tools of his trade available to him in addition to his worth as a rider.

He packed his spare weapons, all their clothes, and the household items that belonged to them and hadn’t been donated by Townsend when Lee and Jason first arrived here. Then he went to retrieve some of his blacksmithing gear, which he’d largely handed over to Charlie more than a year ago.

He went late at night, two full weeks out from the incident. He expected the workshop to be empty, but Charlie was there, muttering to herself as she kept one of the smaller forges going, banging a piece of iron into a rough U shape. Evan considered retreating, but…who would understand better than Charlie? He stepped forward into the dim light of her forge instead, and the moment her gaze met his eyes, he knew that she knew. More than that, he could see that she understood.

“Here,” she said, handing over a thick leather apron and a pair of gloves. “Help me with this. We need a set of horseshoes to match this one here.”

Evan settled in next to her, picking up one of her less-worked pieces of metal in a pair of tongs and sticking it into the deep flames of the forge. Once it glowed like dragonfire, he withdrew it and picked up his old hammer—when had she put that there?—and began to tap, tap, tap out the forms that they needed.

It was quiet work, in spite of the hammering, just the two of them and the peaceful hum of the flames, the clear ring of metal striking metal. They worked in harmony, until there were matching shoes ready to be quenched. Only once the work was done did Charlie break the comfortable silence.

“I had a child once.”

In all the years he’d known her, Charlie had never volunteered any information so personal before. He wanted to speak, to encourage her to go on, but he couldn’t seem to marshal his tongue to move. Luckily, she didn’t seem to need him to say anything.

“A little girl,” she went on after a moment, frowning down at the hammer in her hands. “Her name was Angelica, but I called her Angel. Never got much help from her father when it came to minding her, but she was a sweet thing, so I didn’t need much help. Your Jason reminds me a lot of her, actually. She was a kind child. Curious. Careful.” Charlie put the hammer down on the anvil and removed her gloves.

“She died during an outbreak of the flu here in Forge when she was eight. She never was the healthiest, and everyone could see that the illness was spreading fast. I thought about taking her out of here, isolating us in the mountains until the sickness passed, but it was already so bad out there, more monsters all the time, so I took the chance, and…” She shook her head, curls falling across her face. “I made what I thought was the right decision in the moment, but when I look back, I see so many other things I could have done—should have done.

“It’s too late for me to change things for my little girl.” Charlie raised her head and looked Evan straight in the eyes. “Don’t let it get to be too late for you.”

“That’s…” Evan cleared his throat. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Good.” She turned away and looked through the tools, giving them both a chance to breathe without the specter of dying children haunting them. “You’re not getting your originals back, of course. They were such shitty quality, I don’t know how you turned out half the stuff you did with them. You need better gear than that if you’re gonna establish yourself in a new place. Let me see…”

She had just picked up a sturdy hammer when the warning bell began to ring. They both automatically stared in the direction of the wall before Evan began running. He needed to find out what was going on.

He was breathless by the time he reached the top of Forge’s wall and crowded in next to the others already gathered there. “What’s happening?” he asked.

“Can’t quite tell,” one of them said, squinting into the east. “Too dark, but whoever it is, they’re firing off flares right and left, so some kind of human transport. Leaving a trail behind themselves, too.” The man pointed at a twinkling line of orange light that vanished behind the remains of a building after a ways. “So they’ve got some firepower, ha.”

“Are the dragons flying out to help them?”

The man turned and looked at Evan, blinking as though he’d just recognized him. “You tell me. Aren’t you a rider?”

“Yes, but…” But he wouldn’t be able to ride right now, because Ladon couldn’t fly. He turned and sprinted toward the stadium. There had to still be something he could do—double up on another dragon, maybe.

By the time he got there, Gorot and Susan were already rising into the air. Lee was there as well, only this wasn’t the Lee that Evan was used to seeing. This was Lee in his warrior form, wearing the shape of a man in silver armor and wielding a sword as long as he was. His face was concealed by a silver dragon helm, and the only thing of it Evan could see were his glowing eyes.

“What’s going on?” Evan asked, coming to a stop a foot away from Lee and not quite—not quite—able to make himself step any closer.

“Something is coming,” Lee said. His voice sounded cold and hollow from behind the helm. “Many somethings. I can hear them shrieking, and there’s another sound…almost more of a feeling than a sound. I can’t place it, but it’s important. Gorot may not be enough to handle whatever’s out there, so I’m accompanying Jack on Kisthe.”

Ah. Lee had already thought of doubling up. “What should I do?”

“Stay here.” Lee removed the helm, and suddenly it wasn’t the intimidating silver warrior in front of him, it was his partner, his love. “Protect Jason,” he said, stepping in and nuzzling Evan’s temple. “Protect yourself.”

Protect Jason. Of course. “I can do that.” Evan turned and kissed Lee’s cheek. “Be careful. You’re still healing.”

“The sword can be wielded in one hand.”

“Still.”

Lee nodded. “I will.” He replaced his helm, then strode purposefully toward Kisthe, who looked like she was raring to go. Grenia was being sat on by two of her largest siblings, so hopefully she wouldn’t do anything rash while her parents were away.

Lee swung up onto the dragon’s back in front of Jack, and Kisthe flew up into the night, sending straw flying everywhere as she took off. Evan watched her go, then sighed. Whatever was happening out there, he wasn’t going to play a part in it. He needed to get back to Jason, who was sleeping right now, although the way he’d been tormented with dreams lately…

“Evan!”

He started at the sound of his name and turned toward the source of the shout. It was Nicky, weaving through the regular crowd within the dragon pens and looking frantic. “Evan,” she shouted again, “you have to come now! Jason’s gone!”

What?

No.

No, no. Evan blinked, unable to translate those words into something he could comprehend.

Nicky stopped in front of him, breathless, posting her hands on top of her thighs like they were all that kept her upright. “I saw him at the edge of the paddock,” she panted. “He’s on Daybreak.” Daybreak was one of Nicky’s horses, the one she’d been teaching him the basics of riding on. “I called his name, and he glanced my way, but he didn’t stop. His eyes were glowing silver!”

Glowing…silver? “Are you sure?” Evan asked through a suddenly rusty throat. “Are you absolutely sure it was him?”

She nodded miserably. “I’m positive. I’m sorry I didn’t ride him down, but I thought this might be a…a dragon thing. I didn’t know if I’d even be able to stop him without you around, so I came to get you. What should we do?”

“We go after him,” Evan said. “Now.” He grabbed the nearest set of training gear for a rider—none of his own weapons except for his knife, the rest of it was back in his room, god damn him—and ran for the stables. Nicky ran with him, yelling that Kicker and another mount had been saddled by a friend of hers, so they could run straight for the paddock.

Silver eyes…a dragon thing? It could be a dragon thing, but the only dragon who would know was Lee, and he was off inspecting what might be a monster attack at this very minute; he wasn’t around to ask. If he were in Ladon’s form it would be easier to reach out, but as it was, as long as Jason was still human Evan had to get him by himself. He couldn’t wait for Lee to return, not when their son was riding into god only knew what, and there was no way he could stay here and let his kid head toward danger on his own.

Evan practically vaulted onto Kicker’s back. The mule let him know he didn’t like it by dancing to the side, trying to fling him right off again, but Evan held on with grim determination and after a moment Kicker steadied, maybe recognizing the urgency of the rider he was bearing. Evan didn’t even have to use his heels before Kicker was running for the far end of the paddock, where the fence was open.

“Straight east!” a handler shouted as he saw Evan and Nicky coming. “The boy went straight east, followin’ Colfax!” Colfax was one of the longest streets in old Denver, and reputedly one of the wickedest as well before the rents between worlds redefined what wickedness really was. It was full of places for monsters to hide, but it was also a popular route scavs used when heading into the city, and remained more complete than many of the other city roads.

Flares fired in the distance, and a moment later there was a burst of dragonfire that caused a series of shrill screams to echo across the vast deadness of the city. Slender, leaping figures appeared, blazing white-hot in the inferno, but the fire didn’t stop the creatures. They shed the flames like they were no more bothersome than a layer of ash, then continued their pursuit of…whatever it was that lumbered along in front of them. Evan couldn’t make it out—there was something blocking his direct view of the object, something fast and...

“Jason!” he shouted, pushing Kicker to move faster. Jason didn’t even turn around. Could he just not hear him? Was he insensible with some dragonish trait that Evan couldn’t even put a name to? Evan’s lungs ached even though he wasn’t the one galloping.

Nicky came up beside him, one hand on the antique Colt that rested at her hip. “Tatzelwurms,” she shouted, pointing at the leaping creatures. They were probably about the size of one of the horses, longer but far more slender.  “Think wyverns, but only two front legs, and they don’t fly. They have heads like big cats—that’s why the scream is so godawful!”

Tatzelwurms? Evan had heard of them before, but never seen one. Tatzelwurms were supposedly a significant problem around the Great Lakes, especially in the ruins of cities, but Evan had never heard of them coming this far west. “What’s the best way to fight them?” he shouted back.

“From a damn distance,” Nicky replied. “Their breath is poisonous if you’re in it for too long, and even the smallest bite can kill you.”

Evan checked his quiver. He had fifteen arrows. There were at least five tatzelwurms out there, pursuing their prey with the singlemindedness of an apex predator. What he had wouldn’t be enough. They’d have to rely on the dragons to keep them safe, although the way Gorot and Kisthe kept blowing fire despite it not doing any good…

A bolt of vibrant silver lightning suddenly shot from Kisthe’s back, impacting the earth with a rumble and blowing one of the tatzelwurms in half. Its dying screams were hideous, and Evan was caught between impressed and horrified. That was Lee, using his power the only way he could from so high, but if Jason got close to whatever was being pursued, or worse, if he was mistaken for an enemy, there would be no coming back from a strike like that.

If Lee hurt his own child, he would never recover.

Evan grabbed one of the flares attached to his quiver and stuck it to the end of an arrow. He didn’t need his shot to be terribly accurate, he just needed it to be seen. He nocked the arrow, then shot it as high as he could into the sky. The rapid momentum triggered the flare’s firing mechanism, and a moment later a spray of green sparks drifted overhead. It wasn’t much, but if the riders were being alert, they’d know that a friendly was heading into the fight.

Now to get Jason before the tatzelwurms got him and whoever it was they were chasing first.

Evan readied another arrow against the prowling darkness and whatever was in it, but held it loosely—he needed a hand to guide Kicker in the right direction. Where, where, fucking where was Jason? Dragonfire flared again, which was strategically sound even if it made Evan’s heart clench—the fire illuminated Lee’s targets. Sure enough, a second later another bolt of silver lightning struck a tatzelwurm, and in the dying light of the flames Evan could just see Jason’s outline on Daybreaker’s back. Shit, they were almost to the wagon!

“Jason!” he shouted, urging Kicker as fast as the mule could go. A tatzelwurm had rounded the wagon and, seeing Jason, immediately honed in on him. It made a strident, skin-crawling sound somewhere between a cat’s yowl and a snake’s hiss, then leapt toward the boy.

Evan fired. The arrow narrowly missed the tatzelwurm, but it was close enough to get the monster’s attention. It turned its strange, feline face toward Evan and exhaled a glittering cloud that would be almost beautiful, if he didn’t know it was so deadly.

Evan pulled the bandana he always kept tied around his neck up over his nose and mouth and turned Kicker to avoid the cloud. The glittery effect was a nice touch—it made the poisonous breath glow in the fading light of the flames, and easy to avoid. They were within a hundred paces now, all they needed was—

Fuck! A smallish tatzelwurm, less than half the size of the one that had appeared around the dragon, bounded out of the darkness and under Kicker’s legs. Kicker, tangled and confused, reared and bucked in an effort to get the Tatzelwurm away from his vulnerable belly. Evan, who was at best an indifferent rider, held on okay for the first throw, but the second sent him flying through the air into the darkness.

He landed flat on his back on a crumbled old section of road. The pebbles had an odd, oily feel to them, almost an illusion of softness for anyone who wasn’t currently lying on the damn things. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Distantly, he felt Lee become distraught, but he couldn’t focus on that either because he couldn’t breathe! His lungs refused to cooperate, and his body was as stiff as a piece of rebar.

Breathe! Breathe, you son of a—

Suddenly the small tatzelwurm appeared just above his head. Its eyes glittered like a sky full of stars, a rare and beautiful sight. It opened its mouth, revealing jagged, needlelike teeth, and exhaled poison right into Evan’s face.

Despite not being able to breathe, Evan found the motivation to at least move at that point. He used his burst of adrenaline to free the dagger at his waist and drove it up straight into the tatzelwurm’s throat, thrusting deep. It pulled away with a screech, clawing pitifully at its neck, and Evan somehow found the will to roll over and crawl a few more feet away from the poison mist before his need for air finally caught up with him. He yanked the bandana off and gasped, expecting his throat and lungs to start burning from the poison any moment.

It did burn, but not so badly he felt like he was going to die. He must have missed the worst of it. His head swam a little, and he had a hard time getting his feet under him, but he forced himself up eventually, looking around blearily as he coughed into his hand for any sign of—Jason! Jason and Daybreaker had reached the wagon, which was trundling along at such a rapid pace it seemed like it must be on the verge of falling apart. Jason had already launched himself onto it, leaving the horse to lash out with a harsh kick at the nearest tatzelwurm before running off into the darkness.

Evan looked around for his mule, but Kicker had disappeared as well, hopefully escaping the monsters intent on ripping him apart. At least his bow and arrows were nearby, although he’d probably never see the knife Charlie had made for him again. Evan picked his weapons up, then forced himself into a jog, ignoring the way his mouth was filling with lymph and blood. He must have inhaled more poison than he thought he had, but that didn’t matter. He could still protect Jason.

The wagon was coming straight at him now, the horses who pulled it frothing at the mouths. The driver, lit up by the next blast from Lee’s sword, was so swathed in fabric that it was impossible to tell anything about them. They cracked the whip they held in one hand and gripped the double reins tight in the other, and as the wagon thundered into range, Evan leapt for it, pulling himself up beside them.

“Get off!” the driver yelled, and Evan was surprised to hear the voice of a young woman beneath all the rags. “We’re too slow already!”

“The boy, where is he?” Evan demanded, spitting a gobbet of blood to the side.

The woman cursed and cracked her whip again. “Another fucking hitchhiker slowing me down. He’s back with the egg!”

Egg? Evan turned to look at the contents of the wagon and verified that Jason was there when another tatzelwurm, a tremendously large one this time, bounded toward the wagon. It opened its mouth and hissed, and Evan could see the poison spread from here. He couldn’t let it touch Jason.

He raised his bow and began to fire, hitting the monster twice before it diverted. He hadn’t struck a vital target, though, just annoyed the creature. It would be back.

He slid back into the wagon, looking for Jason. It was hard to see anything back there, given how dark it was, but now that he was looking, he could see the glossy surface of an immense egg, pebbled and hard—a dragon’s egg. Holy hells. Had this girl stolen a dragon’s egg?

And there was Jason crouched above it, running his hands along the surface and crooning under his breath. His eyes were indeed glowing, a faint, misty silver sheen fallen over them. He didn’t even notice when Evan knelt down next to him.

“Jason? We have to go.” The tatzelwurms wanted whatever was on this wagon, so they needed to be off of it. They’d be safer in the dark, something he’d never have said under normal circumstances.

“She’s calling me,” Jason said, not even looking at Evan. “I heard her all the way from Forge, asking for my help. I have to protect her.”

“Protect who?” He couldn’t be talking about the woman driving the wagon, since she’d seemed to be as confused as Evan as to why Jason was here.

“My dragon.”

Oh, fuck. It is a dragon thing. “In the egg?” Evan clarified, coughing onto his sleeve as he spoke. It came out wet and warm.

Jason nodded. Evan could only see it because of the motion of his eyes. “Her name is Rayan,” he murmured. “She’s coming.”

“She’s hatching? Now?”

“Very soon.” Even as Jason said it, the sound of a small but unmistakable crack filled the air between them.

The egg, the stolen dragon egg, the stolen dragon egg that was communicating telepathically with Evan’s son…was hatching. In the middle of a goddamn battle. He could hear the hiss, hiss of an incoming tatzelwurm now. The girl driving the wagon snapped the reins again, but the horses were starting to slow despite the peril they were all in. They’d been driven too hard—now, with less than a mile between them and the city, they were flagging badly.

Evan clenched his jaw and stood up, lifting his bow. He aimed straight at the incoming tatzelwurm, exhaled gently, and fired. This time his arrow struck it just below the jaw, the same vulnerable spot where he’d taken out the last one. It faltered and fell back, fatal hiss cut short, but there were still more out there.

Two came in on the right, one on the left. Dragonfire flamed nearby, and it looked like Kisthe was getting ready to set down, but none of that was important right now—what mattered was that they were outnumbered, and Evan needed to take at least one more out fast. The one on the left was bigger, but…

He aimed to the right, firing and hitting one of the smaller tatzelwurms in the front leg. It screeched like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on, turning its mouth on its own paw to rip at the arrow, and its companion slowed down alongside it. Evan swiveled to handle the one on the left next, but a second later the entire wagon rocked dangerously. He swore.

“Shoot the fucker!” the girl driving the wagon screamed.

“It’s too low, I can’t see it!” Evan shouted back. “Get some distance!”

“The horses are foundering, I can’t—”

Another brutal strike hit the wagon, and this time the fall was inexorable. The air was filled with screams and hisses, and Evan had just enough time to throw himself back and cover Jason as best he could when the wagon tipped over onto its side.

They skidded along the ground for a moment before it finally came to a stop. Blood oozed down from the side of Evan’s head over his eye, and his entire right side burned, but he was still breathing.

I am sick and goddamn tired of falling onto this road.

More importantly, Jason seemed all right—too all right, scrambling out of Evan’s grip to crawl over to the egg, which had slipped out of its box when they fell. It lay a few feet away in the middle of the road, and from the terrified way Jason cried out, Evan assumed something was wrong with it.

The girl who’d been driving the wagon was just ahead of him, unmoving. One of the horses had fallen down and the other was barely on its feet. A moment later, the tatzelwurm who had knocked them over slunk around the back end of the wagon, its mouth already gaping, eyes brilliant with delight at the prospect of such a fine meal. Hissing breaths filled the air, and Evan groped for his fallen bow as he forced himself to his knees. He couldn’t let Jason be hurt, but there was nothing he could do to stop it—he had no arrows, he could barely see and hardly breathe. He felt Lee’s panic in the back of his mind, felt him searching for them in the fiery flare of his silver lancejet, but Evan was afraid he was going to be too late.

He’d failed him. He’d failed both of them.

The tatzelwurm lunged toward Jason, and Evan screamed, knowing it would do nothing but unable to help himself. Jason looked up at the incoming menace, and—

A flash of silver fire burst forth from his hand. This fire, unlike the dragonfire, stuck to the tatzelwurm. It clung like burrs to the beast’s pebbly skin, which sparked like a coat made from magnesium. The tatzelwurm shrieked and writhed, twisting itself into a knotted ball of crisping skin and muscle that just got tighter and tighter as the fire burned hotter. The monster resembled nothing more than a gigantic ball of charcoal after a single minute, and then Jason slumped down over the egg, clearly exhausted.

Evan didn’t know what to think. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t even move. Every bit of his ability to react was gone, lost to adrenaline and pain. There were more tatzelwurms out there, he could hear them creeping closer, but what could he do about them? What could he do other than try to get his arms under him, get his legs moving again, and go to Jason?

A second later a wall of similar, sparking flame surrounded the wagon. It burned brightly, but Evan couldn’t even feel the heat of it. He saw Lee step through the flames, mighty in his armor and wielding his great sword.

Jason suddenly sat up and shouted, “Rayan!” Evan heard a sharp crack, and saw a wet, glistening snout appear against Jason’s shoulder.

The egg had hatched. The baby dragon was born, and Lee was here now. It was all right to pass out.

Evan was unconscious before his head hit the ground.

Chapter Seven

It was warm. That was the first thing Evan became aware of as he swam back to consciousness. It was warm, and something was moving rhythmically against his stomach.

Jason. Lee. The baby dragon… Evan’s recent memory replayed the last events he could remember in his head, something that should have left him feeling distressed and anxious, but even though so much of it was horrific, all he felt was peaceful. It was as though his body knew something his mind didn’t. But what?

Evan’s breathing deepened as he slid closer to fully awake, and after a few more seconds he was able to open his eyes. He was lying on his side—his less-bruised side, he could feel how the other one ached even now—and curled against his belly, no bigger than a lamb, was a copper-colored, blunt-nosed baby dragon. Its wings were curled up tight against its back, still far too small and delicate to be useful for flying, but every few seconds they trembled slightly, as though the tiny creature was dreaming of soaring through the sky.

As he watched, it slowly opened its own eyes and, after a big yawn and a moment of orienting itself, looked up at him. Its irises were dark red with copper flecks, fringed with thick, spiky lashes, and when it saw it had Evan’s attention it made a little squeak and tried to push up to onto its four legs.

“Easy,” Evan said, or tried to. His voice was…well, ruined wouldn’t have been too far off the mark. It hurt, although from the way he sounded it probably should have hurt a lot more. He looked around for some water—this was his bedroom, he realized after a moment, so there was a table behind him that he often left a glass of water on—but sitting up was harder than he expected. He made it as far as getting his back leaned against the headboard before Jason burst into the room, either drawn by his dragon’s cries or the bond they shared. Possibly both. He looked from the little creature to Evan, an uncertain expression on his face despite the baby’s squeaks of joy at seeing him.

Evan knew guilt when he saw it. He also knew that the chances of a child being able to fight off a dragonish compulsion, or whatever it was that had gripped Jason so tightly, was likely next to impossible. He held out his arm, not trusting his voice, and Jason joined him on the bed a moment later, curling against his good side but being careful not to touch any of his injuries.

The baby crawled into Jason’s lap, its entire body rumbling with the force of its happy purrs. The purr was a noise that dragons lost as they got older, probably a sound meant to help with bonding. It certainly worked on Jason, who stared at his coppery companion with stars in his eyes.

“This is Rayan,” he said after a moment, glancing up at Evan from under his eyelashes. “She’s my dragon.”

Evan nodded, to show he understood and that Jason should continue. Jason seemed to get it. “I know I shouldn’t have gone out after her alone,” he said in a rush, keeping his eyes on Rayan now. “But I was having a terrible dream, and when I woke up, I realized that the dream was still happening, and I could feel how afraid she was, even still in her egg. She was worried they were going to be captured and eaten, and she wanted me so much and I was so close, I had to go to her.”

Evan nodded again, then managed to whisper without too much cracking, “I know you did.”

Jason nodded, but he didn’t seem soothed. “Papa said that too.” He bit his lower lip. “He said he understood that I needed to be with my dragon, and he’s glad we found each other.” One tear spilled out, then another. “But we need you too,” Jason continued. “He needs you because he’s your dragon and I need you because you’re my dad, and you almost died.”

There was nothing Evan could really say to that. There was no denying he’d come close out there, but he was certain that Jason would have died if he hadn’t managed to intercede, minimal as his help had ended up being. Evan hugged Jason and kissed his hair, and Rayan curled across both their laps. For a moment, they forgot the pain in the pleasure of being together as a family.

Just for a moment, though. “Where’s…the girl…” Evan asked, then coughed. Jason reached over and grabbed his water for him, worry apparent on his young, thin face.

“She’s here.”

Evan blinked at Jason, then pointed toward the door.

“Yeah, with Papa.” Jason stroked his hand along Rayan’s back, and the little dragon purred for him again, bumping her snout against the bottom of his chin. He laughed. “She, um, she wanted to stay close to Rayan until we settled,” Jason said as he scratched the spot right above Rayan’s tail. “Rayan was her dragon’s last egg.”

All right, there was a huge story here that Evan was missing. He put both hands on the bed and prepared to try and turn so he could get his legs over the bed, but Lee came in a second later, followed by a girl Evan only recognized by the hunch of her shoulders. A girl, probably not even twenty, so young to be the rider for a dragon who was already bearing viable eggs…she had to have come from Chicago.

“Evan.” Lee clearly wasn’t untouched by the curiosity he could feel inside of Evan, but that curiosity was relegated to the rear as Lee hurried over to his side, eyes going silver for a moment as he surveyed him. “You should have a full recovery,” he said, unexpectedly solemn. “Your throat will heal in time, although you’re not to speak any more than you absolutely have to for the next few weeks.”

Evan nodded, then frowned and patted the bed beside himself. Lee nodded and sat, very gingerly, not close enough to touch him with the arm that wasn’t still in a sling. What was going on here?

“She looks good,” the girl said, her blue eyes fixed on Rayan. She had long brown hair that looked like it had just been washed, pulled back into a thick braid. Her clothes were ripped here and there, but fancy despite that—the fabric was a fine weave, and there was embroidery around the hem and cuffs of her red blouse. “I’m glad.”

“I did just like you said,” Jason piped up, clearly pleased by the newcomer’s appearance. “You’re right, she loves tail scratches.”

“Yeah, her mama did too.” The girl’s mouth went tight, and she wavered where she stood.

Lee got up and went over to offer his support, then looked at Jason and said, “Do you mind taking Rayan to play in the other room for a while?”

“All right, Dad.” Jason backed off the bed, then held his arms out to the little dragon. She bounded awkwardly over to him, and he picked her up with a grunt and carried her into the living room.

Lee shut the door behind them, then helped the young woman over to the edge of the bed. Once she was seated across from him, Evan looked at her with open curiosity, then at Lee.

“It’s a complicated story,” Lee said, reaching out and taking one of Evan’s hands with his good one. It was reassuring, even though he still wasn’t touching him anywhere else. “Winona, do you…”

“It’s not that complicated,” the girl—Winona—said caustically. Apart from the bandage on her head, she looked almost unscathed from their wild ride and sudden stop. “Chicago is coming apart at the seams. Dragons and their riders are being sacrificed to unwinnable battles for no reason, and no one in control is stepping in to stop the abuse. When the eggs of the dragons we’d lost started to go missing…” Winona bit her lip and looked away.

How? Evan wanted to demand, but the pain in his throat stopped him. Lee looked at him in sad understanding, squeezing his hand and communicating patience.

“Those eggs were their legacy,” Winona went on, her voice calm but her eyes hopeless. “They were all we had left of the ones who died, and so many of them died this past year. Their eggs should have been coveted like gold, and instead they were treated like trash. After Perran died, and his Laria already gone, I couldn’t…Rayan was their first egg. The egg was all that was left of him.

“So we took it.” She didn’t seem to notice the tears rolling down her cheeks. “Me and Zane, he was Laria’s rider. His brother came too—Danny was a scav, a really good one, he knew the area around Chicago really well. We were well beyond the city borders by the time they sent out patrols, and it wasn’t hard to hide from them. We didn’t…” Winona finally glanced at Evan. “Forge is big news out east. It’s the closest city large enough to explain away a new dragon, and the only one with any hope of standing up to Chicago if they come looking, even if it’s falling apart now. So we thought, okay, let’s head for Forge. And then…” Her cool expression suddenly crumpled, and she put her hands over her face.

“It took a month,” Lee said quietly, picking up the tale even as he reached out and laid a gentle hand on Winona’s shoulder. “The men were lost along the way.” Violently, he didn’t have to say, but Evan could read between the lines. “Winona picked up on the tatzelwurms pursuing her a week ago. They’re highly territorial creatures, for the most part, very homebound. They shouldn’t have been following her across the wasteland, but they did. Something was driving them to it.” Anxiety pulsed across their bond, so strong for a moment that Evan had to pull his hand away from Lee or cry out.

Lee looked at him apologetically, then took a deep breath, settling his emotions. When he took Evan’s hand again, their bond felt calmer. Lee inclined his head at Winona. “Please continue.”

“We could outpace them on good stretches of road, but those got harder to find the closer we got to Forge,” Winona said hoarsely, staring at their joined hands but not really seeming to see them. “The egg…I was worried it would hatch before we got here, and I’d have to try and wrangle a baby dragon and fight off a bunch of monsters. Then…” She waved a hand. “Everything you know about happened.”

It was…a lot. It was a hell of a lot to parse, but Evan’s biggest immediate takeaway was this: something had gone very wrong in Chicago. Anything that could break a city that powerful could break a place like Forge. But what could do such a thing? What could bring down the greatest human city left in the United States? The thought of it filled Evan with fear, but also with determination. They had to know.

Lee nodded, their emotions in perfect sync this time around. Anything that could threaten Forge had to be discovered and eliminated before it could get this far. They’d dodged a crix with Jason bonding with Rayan the way he did. Waiting for things to happen to them, and then reacting and hoping for the best, was not the way forward. Evan laid a hand on his throat, then forced himself to whisper, “We need to go there.”

Winona laughed. “Yeah, right,” she said. Evan didn’t blink, though, and neither did Lee. “Wait…you’re serious about that?”

Evan wanted to say yes, but his throat was absolutely killing him now. Lee spoke for him, feeling his emotions clearly. “He means it. We both do.”

“You’re insane.” She shook her head. “You can’t…it’s bad in Chicago, and only getting worse! This place is safe! Do you understand? It’s safe! You should stay here!”

“How long will it stay safe?” Lee asked gently. “You spoke of things getting worse, of monsters acting strangely, of dragons dying too early and too easily. We’ve already seen signs of such things here. We need to know what’s really happening. Only then will we know how to stop it.”

Winona stood up, her back stiff. “Then you leave me out of it,” she snapped. “I’m never going back to Chicago. And if you try to take Rayan and Jason with you, I’ll make you regret it.” She marched out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

Evan closed his eyes and just sat for a moment, absorbing the silence and his lover’s presence as he tried to ignore the pain of his poisoning. Lee handed him his glass of water, and a few soothing sips later Evan felt well enough to engage with him. He nodded his head toward the door.

“She’s partially right,” Lee said. “Jason and Rayan have to stay here, and the thought of leaving them doesn’t make me happy. Not with both of them so young, and us with comparatively few allies. But they’d have Charlie and Nicky—yes, she’s fine,” he added with a smile as Evan went lightheaded with relief. “Winona would certainly be on their side, given her connection with Rayan. He would be all right if we went to Chicago to investigate.”

He was all right. With Rayan, a dangerous future of pain and suffering for Jason had been diverted. How long would it stay there, though, if whatever had afflicted Chicago came to Forge and the monster attacks got worse and worse? Evan’s hometown, Marble, had been a safe place for almost three generations, until bigger and bigger monsters finally overwhelmed their defenses less than a decade ago. Cheyenne should have been large enough to hold its own, but it too had been overrun by beasts that would formerly never have tried to attack a large city like that.

Something was changing in the world, making the monsters more aggressive, driving them to kill and die without reason and taking human settlements down with them. The monsters themselves couldn’t take sole blame for their actions—most of them had an animal’s reflexes, none of the intellect of a creature like a dragon. Something was pushing them to do leave their territories, forcing them perhaps. And if Chicago really was on the brink of implosion, then Forge surely wouldn’t last much longer. Everything they’d worked so hard on would be lost if they didn’t figure this out.

But if they could find out why…if they could stop it…

“We have to try,” Lee said, and Jason nodded. Lee finally touched him, wrapping his good arm around Evan’s body and pulling him as close as he could without scraping against his road rash. “Once you’re well,” he amended before kissing right next to the stitched-up gash on Evan’s head, then the side of his throat. “Only once you’re well. You almost died out there.”

Lee’s voice was calm, but the storm of emotions roiling beneath his placid exterior was dizzying. “If things had gone just a little differently, that poison would have killed you. Or perhaps I might have killed you, and Jason too.”

You didn’t. We’re fine. Evan couldn’t say it right now, but he thought it as hard as he could. We’re all right, and I’m still with you, and I love you. The words might not have been clear, but the emotion surged through their bond like a tornado, and Lee smiled.

“I love you too.” They held each other in silence, listening to their son and his dragon play in the other room. Evan thought of everything he had, and everything he could lose. He thought of his near escape, and Lee’s desperation.

He refused to think on death. He’d come too close to that. Right now was about life, and the people he loved, and what he would do to keep them safe.

There was nothing Evan wouldn’t do for them, and nothing he and Lee couldn’t face together.

“Together,” Lee whispered, and kissed him again.

It felt like a promise, one that Evan was determined to keep.

Epilogue

Four months later

The snow fell like a veil across the top of Forge’s outer wall, shrouding it in dense, cold silence. None of the guards posted there spoke, but all of them watched the departure taking place beneath northeastern turret. They stirred uneasily, fearful despite the quiet of the early morning. Everyone in Forge knew that Evan Luck and his dragon Ladon were leaving, although most of them didn’t know why. That information was restricted to a select group of people, and had only been officially shared to them last week.

Nobody had liked it.

“This is ridiculous!” Governor Townsend had exclaimed, running a shaky hand through his graying hair. “You can’t fly off to Chicago right now, not when our newest dragons and their riders are only half-trained.”

“Grenia’s not at full capacity yet,” Jack had pointed out. “She still isn’t useful for much more than looking after the little ones. She won’t be able to help with defense.”

“Is this because of something she said to you?” Susan had demanded, nodding her head sharply at Winona, who stood behind Jason and little Rayan like a glowering shadow. “Because you don’t owe her anything. She might have brought Rayan here, but she didn’t do it for you.”

Lee had raised his hands placatingly. “It’s not that,” he assured them. “In all likelihood, Evan and I would be leaving right now whether Winona had come here or not.” They’d have left for an entirely different reason if she hadn’t come here, but none of these people needed to know that. “Things are happening right now that shouldn’t be. You know it, we all know it. The monsters we’ve seen on the move this year are creatures it would have been unheard of to see here a decade ago.”

They’d just repulsed a flock of Stymphalian birds, for the love of God. Evan had only heard of those as a genuine myth, but what else could he call a group of bronze-feathered, man-eating birds that launched poisonous darts at them before trying to pick their people off the wall?

“We need to try and find out what’s going on, and to do that we need to go to Chicago. They’re struggling there, but they’re also still standing.” Or at least they had been when Winona left. No word had come since then. “I know the city, and Evan will be able to blend in with the human population.”

“What if they try and keep you there?” Susan asked, the anxiety clear in her voice. “You say they’re in trouble. What if they want you to stay and fight for them?”

“I might give them some aid, but my allegiance rests in Forge,” Lee said smoothly, hugging Jason in close. The unspoken “because of my child” was as clear as day. Jason, for his part, looked nervous, but was trying to be strong for their sake. Evan reached out to take his hand, and Jason squeezed back tightly.

He had fresh callouses on his hand from the work he’d been doing shaping his silver fire into a physical weapon. Jason wasn’t as far along as Lee’s immense silver sword yet, but the dagger he could construct would be a terrible surprise to anyone dumb enough to mess with him. The thought of his son’s secret defenses made Evan breathe just a little bit easier.

“You know we’ll look after your family while you’re gone,” Townsend said, trying to regain some semblance of dignity. “They can stay with me and my—”

“They’ll stay with Charlie,” Evan cut in, pointing at the gray-haired woman standing by the door. It had been a fight to get her included in this meeting, but she was the one with the track record of actually giving a damn for their son. Winona might have dedicated her life to Rayan’s well-being, but that didn’t mean she was the proper person to care for Jason, and the governor and his family were an absolute no. “She can stay in our suite, so Jason doesn’t have to move.” Winona had already basically moved in, and there was no question about Rayan joining the other dragons in the stadium yet. She was too small, and far too precious.

“Is that really the safest thing for your son?” Townsend asked.

He’d probably meant it rhetorically, ready to follow up with some sort of quip about how he had the best security in the whole of Forge, but Evan was in no mood to be toyed with. He turned to face the governor and growled, “It had better be.”

Raising his voice made the damage his throat had suffered clear. It still ached, and he couldn’t speak above the softest tones without a break or crack, but Evan and Lee had agreed that they weren’t going to find a better time to investigate Chicago than this winter, when monster attacks were at their lowest ebb.

Townsend held up his hands. “Fine. I stand corrected. They’ll be safe, but what about you two? If you run into trouble in Chicago, no one will know about it. No one will be able to come to your assistance there, however much we might want to.”

That was true. Chicago was too far, even for fast flyers like Vanessa and Merek, to go to on a regular basis, and Evan wasn’t comfortable with them risking themselves like that anyway. “We’ll be back by spring,” he said, squeezing Jason’s hand again. “Hopefully much sooner than that. Back with answers.”

“And hopefully, with solutions,” Lee added. “If we haven’t returned by the first day of spring, send a scout. Aerial only.” Unspoken went the reality that if they hadn’t come back by then, it was probably because Chicago, and they, were royally screwed. “Your focus should be on securing Forge, though. Keep the riders and their dragons training through the winter and you’ll have a formidable force ready to protect you in the spring.”

“Not as formidable as you.”

“If one dragon is still all it takes to keep this city from falling, then you haven’t done much with my presence these past few years, have you?”

No one said anything else after that, and now, the only ones seeing Evan and Lee off were Jason, Winona, Charlie, and little Rayan. The baby dragon was tucked into a pouch on Jason’s chest to keep her warm, although with the way she put out heat, it was more like the other way around.

Jason’s eyes glistened wetly. “Do you really have to go?”

“I’m afraid if we don’t go now, we may not get the chance again,” Lee said, his brow furrowing in distress at his son’s tears. “I promise, we’ll do our utmost to come back to you as soon as we can.” He pulled Jason in close and hugged him, Rayan cooing between them. “Keep working with your power,” he murmured, so softly Evan could barely hear him from less than two feet away. “Only in your room, and only with Rayan there. The fewer people know about it, the better.”

“I will, Papa.” Jason turned in his father’s grip and extended a hand toward Evan, and he came into the embrace like he belonged there.

You belong. You’re ours. Mine. Always and forever, mine.

Evan bent and kissed the top of Jason’s head. “Be good for Charlie,” he said. “Don’t forget to visit Nicky and Kicker. And don’t let Winona boss you around too much.”

“I don’t boss,” the young woman snapped from where she stood with her hands stuck beneath her armpits. “I make excellent suggestions that everyone should listen to, but I never boss.”

“Whatever lets you sleep at night.” Winona was prickly and standoffish, far from Evan’s first pick for a companion for Jason, but Charlie and Nicky would soften her impact.

Evan held tight to Jason, and after a moment Lee wrapped them both up in his long arms. They stood quiet together in the snow, the only sound between them Rayan’s curious little mewls, before Lee finally let go. Evan could feel his pain, feel how he had to force himself to do it.

This journey had better be worth it. If they came back empty handed…or not at all…

No. They had set a goal and they’d see it through, and if Evan had to crawl back to Forge on his hands and knees after this was all over, dragging Lee every step of the way, he would return. Back to their son, back to their city.

Back home.

“Let’s go,” he said to Lee, taking his hands and physically turning him toward the edge of the parapet. “The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll be back.”

“Right.” Lee’s glazed look cleared, and his eyes began to glow with an orange fire. He stepped up onto the wall and leapt off a breath later, vanishing into the darkness and snow. A second after that, a tremendous billowing sound filled the air, and a million snowflakes suddenly beat back against the wind, driven by the force of Ladon’s enormous wings. He rose up in front of the wall, eyes glowing like twin moons, and held out his clawed front hands.

Evan took a deep breath, and gave their son one last smile. Then he turned and jumped, trusting Ladon to catch him.

I have you.

We have each other.

That would have to be enough for the journey ahead.

~*~*~*~

Ready for more danger, magic, and romance? Try Luckless, the first book in Cari Z’s epic M/M fantasy romance series! If you like dragons and people with the ability to bond with them going toe-to-toe against monsters in the wrecked and rebuilt remnants of human civilization, then this is a book you’re going to love!

Luckless is currently exclusive to KU, so purchase or borrow your copy and get ready to get caught up in a dangerously addicting fantasy series! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088WG8ZLQ/

Get more on Cari’s latest releases and exclusive content by subscribing to her newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/x1x1m4

~*~

Luckless: Chapter One

“Incoming, one thousand feet!”

The gunner manning the corner turret wielded his megaphone like a whip, waving toward the edge of the wall. “Archers, move forward! Pikemen, get your asses ready to back them up!” Evan stepped up to his position, close enough to the edge to shoot over it but far enough back that he wouldn’t be vulnerable to the first thing with claws to crawl up there.

He glanced down and frowned. The crix were still about eight hundred feet away, but there were a lot of them—more than he’d ever seen before during a winter attack on the city. The dragons and their riders were already battling the bigger beasts farther out in the ruins that used to be Denver, but there weren’t enough of them anymore to keep the city completely clear. That was where Evan and the people like him came in.

The man to his left—a boy, really, probably no more than sixteen—shivered as he took his own peek over the wall. His hands were shaking so badly they could barely hold on to his bow, much less nock an arrow when the crix got close enough to shoot. His fear struck a chord in Evan, who still remembered the brutal chaos of his first battle almost twenty years ago. He smiled sympathetically. “First time on the wall?”

The boy gulped and nodded. “Uh-huh.” His posture was so stiff it seemed his back might break. “I thought—I thought there would be fewer of them. That’s why my dad chose now to bring me up here, so I could—I could get used to fighting them before the big waves come in the spring. But this is . . .”

“Unusual,” Evan supplied. “Around double what we’d see during a normal winter attack. That probably means they’re being driven.”

“Driven?” The boy turned wide eyes on Evan. “By what?”

Evan shrugged. “Lack of food, a bad weather front closing in, or more likely in this case? A bigger monster. Crix are tough, but they’re too small to put up much of a fight against a really big monster, and they don’t have the temperament for swarming for long. Too prone to cannibalism.”

“Oh. Right.” His voice sounded so small, already close to defeat without even seeing battle.

Evan moved a little closer to him. “Remember, aim for their heads—if you can crack the carapace, you’ll stun them, and then the other crix will take care of them for us. If you shoot them through the eye socket, you’ll kill them fast. Don’t bother going for the legs, they’ve got too many backups. Just breathe, nock, draw, and loose.”

“Breathe, nock, draw, and loose,” the boy repeated, sounding better already. “Breathe, nock, draw, and loose. Aim for the head.”

“You’ve got it.”

“Right.”

Evan patted the boy on the shoulder, then dropped his hand when the man stationed on the kid’s other side stalked over to them, pointing an accusing finger at Evan.

“You leave my boy alone, Luckless!”

“Dad, calm down.” The kid seemed embarrassed, but whether for his dad’s words or for responding to Evan’s attempt to comfort him, Evan didn’t know. “He was just telling me about how to take down crix.”

“You take down crix like you do any other monster—you shoot it,” his father said stiffly. “That’s what the damn bow is for. You don’t need Luckless to tell you that.” He focused on Evan again. “Ollie doesn’t need advice on killing beasts from a failed rider who couldn’t even keep his own dragon alive. I’ll tell you one last time—leave my boy alone.” He grabbed Ollie by the arm and hauled him a few feet farther to the left, away from Evan.

The kid seemed confused, but Evan just looked away. He’d gone through this same encounter so many times since coming to the massive fortress that was the city of Forge that the accusations had almost stopped stinging. There wasn’t much about what the man had said that wasn’t true, after all. Evan had lost his dragon, as well as everyone else left in Marble after that hellish summer five years ago.

Evan watched as the gunner swung his .50 caliber M2 machine gun toward an incoming flock of harpies—carrion feeders who only banded together when there was bigger prey in the offing. The gunner fired a short burst and half of the monsters fell, losing feathers and blood and shrieking almost intelligibly. This machine gun was one of only four in the city, and one of the very few firearms that they still managed to produce ammunition for. Even so, its store of brass casings would wear out eventually, and then they’d have little more than muskets to fire along with their arrows.

Some of the defenders cheered, but Evan simply tuned them out and glanced over the edge again. The first wave of crix was almost within range, their leg blades singing over the whistle of the icy wind, their armored bellies nearly scraping the chunks of pitted concrete and rebar that were all that remained of southbound I-25. Their front legs were shaped for climbing, short and stubby and tipped with thick, sharp claws, while their hind legs were long and built for propulsion. When they rubbed those blades together, they made a sound almost too beautiful to possibly herald death.

They were no more than a hundred feet away now, the bigger ones starting to jump in anticipation of bounding up the wall. It was an ugly, patchwork thing, made from the bones of skyscrapers and museums, the city it surrounded packed to the brim with the survivors, their herds, and their dragons. In most places, it was too steep to jump straight over, and the crix had to climb, but sometimes a few of them got lucky—especially the bigger ones, closer to mule-sized than dog-sized.

The gunner lifted his megaphone again. “Archers, fire at will!”

Evan had an arrow nocked before the man finished speaking, and loosed it at the largest crix within range. It hit a glancing blow on the creature’s head—not quite enough to crack its shell, but it was still stunned, limbs waving dazedly as it rolled onto its side. Five or six smaller crix immediately diverted to attack it, and Evan smiled grimly. There was no better way to take out a monster than with another monster.

He fired again and again, striking true and winnowing down the oncoming horde as effectively as he could. Unfortunately, most of his fellow archers weren’t having the same success. Ollie in particular seemed to have forgotten Evan’s advice in the heat of the fight, firing almost blindly and with no thought to aiming, which meant most of his arrows skittered into the ground. Evan gritted his teeth over it until his last arrow was gone, then lowered his bow and ran to the boy’s side.

“Slow down!” he shouted.

Ollie turned to him, his expression blank with shock, hands so tight on the bow they were blanched bone white. “Wha-what?”

“You have to slow down if you’re going to have a hope of hitting anything.” Evan kept his voice loud even though they were face-to-face now, trying to break through Ollie’s fear and the rising sounds of the advancing crix. The gunner yelled something again, but Evan couldn’t make it out. “You’re just wasting arrows otherwise. Try to—”

“Luckless!” Ollie’s father marched back over, dodging around advancing pikemen with rage written in the craggy lines of his face. “What the hell did I just tell you? You leave my boy alone or I’ll—” A crix the size of a house cat leapt over the edge of the wall, dodged the pikeman who tried to impale it, and landed on Ollie’s father’s chest.

It was small, but heavy enough to knock him to the ground. He screamed as he fell back, the crix fastening its mandibles into the front of his shoulder and violently shaking its head.

“Dad!” Ollie dropped his bow and ran to his father, trying in vain to pry the crix off of him. The creature’s leg blades keened and the boy jumped back, cradling his lacerated hands to his chest with a dumbfounded expression.

“Son of a bitch,” Evan muttered. He unsheathed his bowie knife as he ran over, reversed his grip on it, and then stuck it straight down, right through the side of the crix’s neck. He put his other hand on the back of the creature’s head and drew the blade in a circle. The wound seeped dark-blue blood, staining his glove, and a second later the crix slumped over onto the parapet, its grip vanishing in death.

He glanced back at Ollie, who blinked at him uncomprehendingly. For fuck’s sake, what were they doing in training these days? “Get your father off the wall,” Evan said. “Take him to the medics.”

Ollie nodded but didn’t move.

“Now!” His volume finally mobilized the kid, who managed to get a grip on his moaning father despite his bloody hands and hoisted him to his feet. Evan plucked the rest of the arrows out of Ollie’s quiver before he could disappear, then shoved the pair of them toward the nearest stairwell. Their injuries didn’t look too bad. They’d probably both live to fight another day.

Although if this was their idea of fighting, everyone would be better off if they stayed at home.

Not nice, Evan thought as he fired a pilfered arrow at the next crix to make it past the pikemen, a larger specimen that hissed menacingly when he cracked its shell. It reeled like a drunk, though, and he was able to jam his knife into its brain with little danger. But there’s no place for nice when you’re fighting for your life. He’d offered to help train the archer corps before, but had been bluntly rebuffed. Might have to insist.

The sound of the machine gun rang in the air, ugly and beautiful all at once. Their gunner was a good shot, really good, but he was too busy taking out fliers to help with the horde coming over the wall, and over it they were. Evan fired his last arrow straight into the eye of a crix not ten feet away, partly on and partly over the wall. He ran to it and shoved the quivering carcass off the edge, diverting half a dozen others toward their next meal, but it wasn’t enough. The crix were still coming, four or five bodies deep as they crawled up the wall, mandibles clacking and leg blades singing a haunting chorus. The pikemen would be overwhelmed soon, and there weren’t enough archers left on this section of the wall to do much good. They needed a strafe.

“Hey!” he shouted at the gunner, hoping against hope that he’d be heard above the noise. “Flare!”

The man didn’t even glance his way, still focused on shooting down harpies. Their feminine faces contorted with agony as the bullets tore into their flesh, the girlish illusion ruined by the cluster of razor-like teeth framing every scream.

“Flare!” He started running toward the turret, dodging the pikemen engaged in direct combat. He could climb up there and—

Shing! Bright white pain shot through Evan’s left calf and emerged as a half-choked shout. He turned to face the raccoon-sized crix that had sliced into his leg even as he drew his right foot back. Too fast for the creature to counter, he kicked it just beneath its jaw. The beast flew onto its back, writhing and squirming, and Evan jammed his knife into its throat and twisted the blade before it could right itself. His glove was soaked with blue now, but he kept his grip—salamander skin didn’t slip. He pulled the knife free and kept running, forcing his gait to stay long and smooth. He didn’t have time to limp—they were going to be overwhelmed, and their idiot of a gunner wouldn’t even notice until a crix pulled him out of his perch.

The easiest way to get up the turret was to take the stairs, but those weren’t accessible from the outside, so Evan found purchase for his hands and began to climb.

It was only twenty feet. It felt like twenty miles, especially when a tiny crix, no bigger than the palm of his hand but no less deadly for it, jumped straight at his face. Evan saw it coming and managed to parry it with the knife, barely maintaining his hold on the wall with his other hand. The crix hit the ground, but it wasn’t hurt, and it gathered itself to jump again. This time Evan met it with his boot, and the steel in the toe impacted the beast’s head hard enough to crack the carapace. The crix fell again, twitching uncontrollably, and Evan turned back to the climb.

He hauled himself over the edge of the turret, then threw up his hands when he found the gun swinging around to point at him. “Whoa, easy, relax!”

“What the fuck are you doing up here?” the gunner demanded. His lank brown hair was held back from his face by a red kerchief, and his eyes blazed with indignation. “Get back down to your post!”

“We need a strafe! Or we’re going to lose this section of the wall and all the defenders on it.”

“I decide when we need a strafe, not you!” He swung the gun around and fired off a few shots at a distant cluster of harpies. “You’ll manage.”

“Look at our complement—it’s down by half with injured.” Injured or dead. “We don’t have the archers or the ammo to slow down the crix enough so the pikemen aren’t overwhelmed.”

“You bein’ up here isn’t helping! I can— Oh, shit.” The gunner pivoted again and continued to fire, winnowing through an incoming cluster of fliers in a spray of blood and feathers. “Yeah! Take that, you bitch-faced pigeon fuckers! Take— Hey!” He grabbed for the flare gun that Evan had just lifted from his belt, but too late—Evan aimed it into the sky and fired. A few moments later, a burst of red exploded above them. The defenders on the wall cheered.

In the distance, Evan could just make out one of Forge’s dragons—Gorot, such a dark green he was almost black—turning away from whatever he was fighting and flying ponderously toward the wall. The dragons and their riders were spread thin these days, only three of them left with the mass and strength to engage with whatever might come at them across the ruin of the old city.

Once Gorot and his rider, Susan, got close enough to flame, the gunner—still glaring at Evan—lifted his megaphone and shouted, “Cover!” Fighters all along the wall pulled back to the far edge, and eager crix followed them.

Hundreds of monsters died instantly as a dense spray of fire roasted them in place against the wall. The heat was brief but intense, the burning warmth clinging to cold concrete in the form of charred gore. The crix already on top of the wall lost their focus, scattering in panic at their confrontation with an immeasurably more powerful beast. Some leapt back down the wall; others were skewered as they scuttled about, either by defenders or their own frantic cousins. Gorot turned to make another pass, but a sudden rumbling roar sent him heading back the way he’d come, and stopped everyone else in their tracks out of pure shock.

“Oh god,” Evan breathed. “Manticore.” He hadn’t seen a manticore in the flesh since leaving Marble, but he’d never forget that roar. The sound echoed across the city, and in its wake came the creature itself. As tall as a dragon but thicker, stronger, this beast with a shockingly human face, a lion’s body, and a killing, quill-covered tail was one of the deadliest and most destructive monsters roaming what used to be the United States.

It wasn’t in and of itself so dangerous to a dragon—they were armored and could fly, after all, and enough fire would drive off even something like this. No, the greatest danger a manticore posed to a dragon was to his rider. The quills in its tail could be fired like darts, and they were poisonous on top of being wickedly sharp. If a dragon got too close, the odds of their rider escaping injury were . . . not good.

Evan and the rest of the defenders watched in anxious silence as the two dragons who were closest engaged the manticore. It leapt at them like a cat jumping for a bird, dodging their fire with the speed of a snake. Two on one should have favored the dragons, but they were already tired from the earlier battle, their flight slower than it should have been. One of them—Lyra, the oldest dragon, grizzled and gray and missing half her teeth—was glanced by a leaping paw as she banked around the beast.

The move destabilized her flight, tilting her dangerously toward the ground. That was when the manticore fired his quills. Evan couldn’t see them fly, but he saw their effects clearly enough. One second, Lyra was attempting to stabilize herself and then—

A dragon’s roar was different from a manticore’s, less of a growl and more like an instrument, a clarion trumpet. Usually clear and smooth, Lyra’s roar now was tortured, a sound of pure, animalistic grief and rage. Evan could just barely make out the silhouette of a tiny figure dangling limply from Lyra’s back. His heart spasmed in his chest, his withered empathy reaching out but still unable to connect to the dragon. He was broken, and with the loss of her rider, Bram, so was Lyra.

Lyra abandoned the skies, diving straight at the manticore and spewing flames from her maw. The manticore ducked low and darted forward, but Lyra caught his hindquarters with her claws as she crashed to the ground, and dragged the beast in tight before smashing hard into an old pile of rebar.

Evan winced as he heard a loud crack reverberate across the valley—she had likely broken a wing, and just as obviously didn’t care. The manticore bit and scratched, but Lyra wouldn’t let go, rending it as she fought to bring her fire to bear again. For a moment it seemed like she would prevail, but the manticore was more agile on the ground. It got beneath her long jaw and dug its fangs into her throat. Her scream was a death knell now, tapering off after several agonizing seconds of pain.

The manticore had no time to celebrate its victory. Gorot and Kisthe converged on it from opposite directions, fire blazing so hot it was nearly white as it poured from their throats. The beast, still tangled with Lyra’s corpse, couldn’t avoid both jets. Half its body caught fire, the long, dangerous tail shriveling and curling like a dead match. It swatted fruitlessly at the sky, enormous paws grasping greedily until the very end. When it died, it did so with an enormous shudder that even Evan could make out.

The dragons screamed with grief. The defenders watched with breathless dread. And the remaining crix reversed direction and scuttled, en masse, toward the carcasses.

About The Author

Cari Z. is a Colorado girl who loves snow and sunshine. She writes award-winning LGBTQ fiction featuring aliens, supervillains, soothsayers, and even normal people sometimes. Cari has published short stories, novellas and novels with numerous print and e-presses, and she also offers up a tremendous amount of free content on her blog and on AO3 as CariZee. Follow her blog, join her Patreon, or sign up for her newsletter to read her serial stories! New chapters post on a weekly/monthly basis.

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