The Forbidden Ground + Bonus Scenes from the Series Page 4

  If this crack had happened that long ago, the creatures had been out and on the prowl for a long time, but that might explain those silly batsquatch stories. And southern Oregon was lightly populated enough that strange animals could live out here for years without being spotted.

  “Animals?” My gaze drifted to the surgical table. “Or creations?”

  There were only two empty cabinets that smelled of them. Maybe that meant I’d succeeded at my mission and the only two that existed were dead now. That made me feel like a genocidal maniac, but I reminded myself they’d killed at least two tourists. And possibly other people who’d gone missing and never been found.

  I sensed Zav’s aura as he flew high over the trees and debated whether to tell him to come down or tell him he didn’t want to come down. I was still debating when he soared over the hole, his head tilted so that a violet eye was briefly visible peering down at me.

  You don’t want to come down here, I thought, realizing he couldn’t unless he changed form. The hole wasn’t large enough for a dragon. I’ve confirmed that we killed what should be the only two creatures. I’m waiting for Dimitri to bring some rope to get me out of here since I… I hated to admit I’d stumbled into here by accident instead of on purpose. I’ve seen everything I needed to see.

  A shadow fell over the hole. Zav floated into view in his human form, inadvertently confirming to me that he still didn’t wear underwear under his robe.

  He let gravity bring him down and landed in a crouch, as if a forty-foot fall was nothing to him. When he stood, looking around, his eyes glowed softly in the dim light.

  “Why did you not wish me to see this place?” His gaze skimmed over me and probed the dark equipment and storage areas.

  Once, he’d told me that when his eyes glowed, it either meant he was using his magic or issuing a warning. I hoped he wasn’t suspicious of me.

  “I think someone was experimenting with dragon parts. I thought it might piss you off.”

  “Yes.” His eyes flared brighter. “It would.”

  He strode toward the book open on the surgical table. Maybe he would be able to read the writing. I had a hunch it was dark elven, even if this place didn’t remind me aesthetically of their stark tunnels. There hadn’t been any fountains or plants in their lair under Seattle.

  Before Zav reached the book, the four orbs at the corners of the ceiling flared with green light and exploded with magical energy that flooded my senses. Zav jumped back, but one-foot-thick green beams slammed into him from all four points.

  I shouted, “Look out!” far too late to be useful.

  Surprise flashed across his face before he gritted his teeth and focused. I sensed him hurling an attack at one of the orbs with the same kind of power that he’d used to throw that creature across the forest, but the magical artifacts neither budged nor broke. The beams poured into him, hurting him—his clenched jaw and tight eyes couldn’t hide his pain—and holding him in place.

  “Hang on,” I blurted, running toward one of the beams with Chopper.

  It looked like a laser rather than some kind of attack I could stop with my blade, but I had to try.

  My magical sword passed through the beam as if it were air and did nothing to affect it.

  The orbs, Zav whispered into my mind, a mental order accompanying the words. He wanted me to use my sword to destroy them.

  My body spun around to obey so quickly that I almost lost my balance. Normally, I would fight any dragon’s attempt to compel me to do something, but this time, I wanted to help. I rushed toward the closest orb, jumping up on a workbench so I could reach it.

  Before I could swing, the orb pulsed twice and canisters I’d thought nothing of earlier flew open, lids clattering to the floor. Brown powder puffed out and swirled in the air, stirred as if by a breeze, but there was no breeze.

  Zav groaned and dropped to one knee. Cursed magical scientists, would those beams kill him? The only dragon I’d met who wasn’t an ass?

  “What the hell is this place?” I roared in frustration.

  Then wished I hadn’t, because the rapidly spreading powder coated my tongue and throat. I broke into a coughing fit. My nose and eyes watered, as if I’d walked into a gas chamber.

  Furious, with tears streaming from my eyes, I whirled toward the closest orb, swinging Chopper at it with all my power.

  The sword didn’t utterly shatter it, as I’d hoped it would, but the light flashed twice and a hairline crack appeared. I swung again and again, striking as hard as I could. My lungs, the biggest threat to my status as a badass assassin, tightened, and I worried the weird powder would close up my airways altogether. I had my inhaler, but I kept bashing the orb, worried for Zav and frustrated that I’d inadvertently led him down here.

  More cracks appeared. The beam flickered. One more huge swing and the surface shattered.

  My elbows and shoulders ached from all the blows to what had felt like a brick wall. A lesser blade would have broken, but Chopper flared brighter, ready for more.

  Coughing and wheezing, I jumped down. The three remaining beams continued to hold Zav in place—worse, he’d dropped a fist to the ground, as if he was losing the battle.

  I rushed to the second orb and clambered onto a table to reach it. My lungs heaved, struggling to get enough air in for the demands of my body, but I swung the blade with fury and determination. Again, it was like striking impenetrable stone, but hairline cracks appeared.

  Sweat ran down the sides of my face, and tears streamed from my eyes. That damn powder still floated in the air. Green glowing dots danced in my vision from looking at the orbs too long. But I kept hammering away. The light flashed several times before the beam succumbed and went out.

  Only two beams coming from the far side of the chamber remained. I jumped down and started to run past Zav to reach them, but as I drew close, the brown dust floating in the air swirled faster around the chamber, and a big cloud of it rushed toward me. I squinted my eyes shut as minuscule particles hammered my face and needled into my ears.

  What was this stuff?

  Images flooded into my mind. I didn’t know if they came from the dust or the orbs, but I saw Zav flying over a city, black and terrible, raining fire down and slaying people left and right. My progress across the room halted as my legs stopped of their own accord. My vision cleared, and I saw Zav before me, not in his human form but as a dragon, and some outside compulsion came over me to attack him with Chopper while the chamber held him helpless in place.

  His head had been bowed, but he lifted it, his gaze meeting mine.

  Logically, I knew he’d never razed cities—of all the dragons, he was faithful to a flaw about upholding their laws and protecting lesser beings—but the images wouldn’t relinquish their hold on my mind. Some foreign entity made me want to plunge my blade into his heart. Into the hearts of all dragons, starting with the one in front of me.

  In my hands, Chopper shifted toward him. One swing was all it would take. He was weakened.

  Zav squinted at me, and I longed to yell that I didn’t want to do this, that I would never choose to lift my blade toward him. He had to know that. I’d been trying to free him.

  My hands shook where they gripped Chopper’s hilt. I would not do this. Would not attack him, no matter what magic compelled me.

  My fingers were numb. My extremities weren’t getting enough oxygen. Maybe I would black out and then Zav wouldn’t be in danger. Should I hope for that? But how would he get free if I couldn’t stop the remaining beams?

  A surge of insistence rushed into me, forcing me to lift Chopper higher, to aim for his neck.

  “No!” I roared, and forced my fingers to open. If I wasn’t holding that blade, I couldn’t hurt Zav.

  Chopper fell from my grip, thudding to the ground near Zav’s hand. He grabbed the hilt.

  Fear slammed into me as I envisioned him using it to kill me.

  He managed to turn enough to throw the blade. It spun through the air and slammed point first into one of the remaining orbs.

  Unlike with my hacks, his strength was enough to break it with one blow. The sword lodged into it, and the light went out.

  “Get the last one,” he rasped, trying to rise but still held in place by one more beam.

  His eyes flared violet as he met my gaze again. Destroy it, he growled into my mind, again adding a magical compulsion to his words. You are my ally, not a pawn to some elf you’ve never met. Mine!

  My legs lurched into motion. I was everybody’s damn pawn today. Or puppet.

  I had to climb the vines on the wall to reach the broken orb, my sword still protruding from it. My wheezing breaths filled my ears as I wrestled to free it. My sweat-slick palms almost betrayed me twice, but I finally tore Chopper from the orb and dropped to the ground.

  My weakened legs didn’t support me, and I pitched onto my side. But I focused on that single beam and pushed myself upright. I climbed the vines to reach the orb, glad they were well-anchored to the wall. Magical vines that grew in the dark.

  Elf, Zav had said. Not dark elf.

  Questions floated through my mind, but I only had the energy to focus on one thing. Breaking the final orb.

  As I hacked away, my back to him, I imagined Zav watching me, disappointed with how weak I was, how long this was taking. With a wheeze of frustration, I finally struck the orb hard enough to break it.

  I almost expected some backlash of energy to strike me, accidental or deliberate retaliation for freeing the dragon the chamber had captured. But the magic simply disappeared. I half climbed, half tumbled to the ground, falling to my hands and knees as weariness overtook me, my lungs raw from my exertions, from the powder scouring my trachea.

  Once freed, Zav rose to his fe
et and glared over at the surgical table. The open book burst into flame, instantly incinerated.

  He sprang the forty feet to the hole like a cat that had walked on a hot burner. He disappeared from my sight and I rolled onto my back, digging my inhaler out of my pocket. Next time, I vowed, I would use it earlier, whether a dragon was watching and judging me or not.

  Part V

  The dust finally settled, the odd wind that had stirred it gone.

  My senses told me that Zav was nearby but well away from the hole and the chamber. After that experience, I was surprised he hadn’t flown all the way back to Seattle—or opened a portal to his own world.

  Shaky, I walked toward the hole, the daylight coming through it much weaker now, as twilight descended on the forest above. I eyed the cabinets and cases, wondering if I should take anything back to Zoltan or Willard. Considering that several dragons significantly less friendly than Zav had visited Earth this year, it might not hurt to come up with—or copy—some weapons that could harm them. But Zav might object and torch anything I took out, and I couldn’t blame him.

  I stood under the hole to wait for Dimitri with the rope.

  Are you done? Zav asked into my mind.

  Yes.

  Are you injured?

  No. Unless my lungs aching and my throat being raw counted. Are you?

  He hesitated, which probably meant yes and that he was looking for a way to avoid admitting it without lying. I will recover.

  Invisible power wrapped around me and floated me into the air. Even though he’d levitated me before, my stomach dropped at the weird sensation, and I had to resist the urge not to flail. But there was no need. His magic settled me onto solid ground as gently as a songbird alighting on a branch.

  Zav stood in the shadows about twenty-five yards away, his face hard and difficult to read. Warily, I headed toward him, not sure if he would blame me for any of that. He’d rarely lost his temper with me, but he got snippy from time to time. I would be snippy if some ancient magic had ambushed me and almost killed me. With the help of a mongrel half-elf who was supposed to be on my side.

  I wished I could say it was the first time someone or something had tried to use me against him, but this was becoming a theme, and my inability to fight off these more powerful beings frustrated me to no end. This hadn’t even been a being. It’d been a bunch of dusty old artifacts.

  When I was halfway to him, brilliant orange light flared behind me. A jet of fire roared straight up out of the hole, and snaps and cracks of burning material came from the chamber. Zav’s eyes flared bright violet and his magic swirled past me, ripping several trees from their roots to fall precisely onto the hole, covering it up. The thuds shook the ground.

  I didn’t have to see inside the chamber to know that everything had been incinerated. Fortunately, the flames died down before lighting fire to the entire forest.

  “You seem irked,” I said, striving for casualness. Maybe we could pretend I hadn’t tried to kill him down there.

  “Yes.” He’d been looking toward the hole and focusing on his magic, but as it faded, his gaze settled on me.

  Even though I didn’t believe he would attack me or retaliate in any way—it was his disappointment I feared, or maybe the acknowledgment of my own weaknesses—an uneasy uncertainty made me pause several steps from him.

  Before I’d come out of the hole, I had sheathed my weapons, and I stuck my hands in my pockets now. He had never said it, but I suspected it bothered him that I carried a sword capable of hurting dragons. If things like this were going to keep happening, it might be better if I didn’t, but Chopper was too valuable for my work for me to set it aside.

  “As soon as I saw the book, I knew it was the work of the elven scientist Yerrani Sunglade,” Zav said. “He was an ally to the old elven rulers, the faction that attempted to assassinate several key dragons to wrest control of the Cosmic Realms from my kind.”

  Several key dragons, including him. He’d told that story before.

  “I hadn’t realized he’d done experiments—” Zav’s mouth twisted on the unpalatable word, “—on this world. But it makes sense. Until I came this year, there had not been a dragon presence here for a long time. He would have been able to work without worry of being discovered.”

  “Do you think he’s responsible for the weirdness of this place?” I waved toward the leaning trees and in the direction of the crooked cabin.

  “Something he did may have caused it. Or he may have chosen this place because people of the time were avoiding it.”

  The Forbidden Ground, right.

  “I didn’t realize it was elven. I couldn’t read the book.” I bit my lip, knowing I was making excuses for why I hadn’t warned him more seriously not to come down there.

  If anything, he’d come down because of my warning, believing I’d been hiding things. Which I had been. Disturbing vials of blood in a refrigerator, not elven booby traps, but it had amounted to the same.

  Zav gazed into my eyes again. The violet glow had faded, but some of it lingered, a reminder that even when he was in human form, he wasn’t entirely human.

  Zav spread an arm. It took me a moment to realize he was offering a hug. He so rarely did.

  Relieved he wasn’t angry, at least not with me, I came forward and stepped into the one-armed embrace. The electrical tingle of his power washed over me, stirring all of my nerves to life with intense awareness of him.

  Usually, I wasn’t much for hugs, but I’d given up on trying to pretend I wasn’t attracted to him. Of course I would never admit that to him, nor would I stop reminding him that I was my own person and hated it when he magically compelled me to do things. This time, I couldn’t blame him for that. He must have doubted that I would successfully stave off the elven magic and keep from attacking him.

  “You freed me,” he murmured, leaning his forehead against mine and lifting his hand to the back of my neck, massaging it with strong fingers.

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice coming out raspy. I looked at his nose instead of his eyes, afraid I’d do something stupid like kiss him if I didn’t.

  The last time he’d touched his forehead to mine, he’d said it was something my father’s people did, an elven gesture of a bond between warriors. It wasn’t a sexual pass. But he also hadn’t rubbed my neck last time, sending shivers of pleasure through my entire body, and I didn’t know what to make of that.

  In the past, we’d agreed that it was safer if we worked together without any romantic entanglements, especially since dragons were into claiming and mating and not real romance anyway. At least this seemed to mean he wasn’t irked with or disappointed in me, even if I couldn’t help but feel that way about myself every time I failed to resist magical power being exerted over me. Someday, I vowed, I would learn to do that.

  And if he didn’t stop rubbing my neck in the next three seconds, I would end up wrapping my arms and legs around him and melding my lips to his.

  “Who else would go out to barbecue with me if I let some elven artifacts kill you?” I stepped back out of his embrace.

  His eyes narrowed, glowing slightly, a reminder that if he wanted me to stay in his arms, he could use his magic to force me to—to even make me want to. I wasn’t sure he was human enough to understand why I would hate him if he did, but he didn’t compel me back into his arms.

  Zav smoothed his features and clasped his hands behind his back. “Do your sidekicks not accompany you?”

  “Sindari doesn’t eat in this realm, and Dimitri, despite being a big guy, can only eat one rack of ribs.”

  “Only one?” His eyebrows rose. “That is why he is a sidekick. Not a legend.”

  Zav thought he was a legend? Amazing how nearly being killed by elven magic couldn’t put a dent in his ego.

  “Maybe so,” I said, “but he’s a much cheaper date.”

  Especially since dragons didn’t have money and I had to pay for Zav’s rib fest.

  His chin came up. “But I am a superior date.”

  “You certainly have a superior ego.”

  “In all ways, I am superior.”