Chapter Five
ChapteR
fiVe
THE CHAIN BURNED through my skin. I grabbed it with my free hand before it could drag me off my feet. The links were black metal edged in bronze, identical to the sword.
Thore hit the chain between us. His claws struck sparks, but the links held.
"Let go," he said.
"It's attached to me."
The chain snapped tight and jerked me toward the broken window. I dropped my weight, caught the bedpost with one knee, and bought myself half a second.
Thore wrapped both hands around the chain. Scales raced from his thighs to his throat. His shoulders widened with a series of low cracks, and bronze wings tore from his back.
The left wing demolished the velvet curtain.
I would have enjoyed that more if the chain hadn't been trying to remove my arm.
"Stay here," he ordered.
"Great plan."
Thore dove through the window. Moonlight caught him over the hedge maze. His wings spread wide, throwing bronze across the lawn. A tail uncoiled behind him and smashed through the remaining glass.
I ducked.
The chain pulled again. This time I went with it, dove across the bed, and looped two links around the iron headboard.
The frame shrieked across the floor.
Inside the bedside drawer, beside the condoms, lay cuffs, leather straps, and three locking carabiners rated for more weight than the decorative bondage furniture suggested.
I clipped one through the chain and the headboard.
The next pull lifted the foot of the bed, but it didn't take me with it.
Outside, Thore roared.
It wasn't a growl or a weird chest vibration. The roar struck the windows and punched straight through my bones.
Something answered from the maze seconds before the hedges exploded.
A man emerged, hit the lawn, and rolled. He wore a gray suit with one sleeve torn away. Black scales covered the exposed arm.
He twisted the chain around his fist.
The gold mark on my palm tightened like a wire beneath the skin.
I grabbed a leather cuff from the drawer and buckled it hard over the mark. The glow dimmed beneath the black strap.
The stranger's head snapped up.
I smiled through my teeth. "Problem?"
He yanked the chain.
The carabiner held. The headboard did not.
Iron ripped free and flew toward the window.
I rolled off the mattress before it took me along. The chain slackened when the frame wedged sideways in the opening. I dragged two loops around the heavy desk leg, clipped the second carabiner, and pulled until the line crossed the room at shin height.
Thore dropped from the dark.
The stranger rolled clear of his claws and charged the window.
He came through fast, focused on me, and never looked down.
His shins hit the chain. His body pitched forward.
I drove my knee into his face.
Cartilage crunched. He hit the floor, and I followed him down with his arms trapped between my legs. Black scales sliced my dress, but the joint under them still bent like an elbow.
I cranked it toward his spine.
"Release the mark," Thore said.
The stranger laughed against the carpet. Blood ran from his nose. "She carried my path through the wards."
"I brought myself," I said.
His head turned farther than it should have. His eyes were black from edge to edge. "The human speaks."
I bent his wrist until he hissed. "The human breaks things."
Thore no longer fit any definition of man. Bronze scales covered him from throat to feet. Wings arched behind his shoulders. Horns swept back through his blond hair, and claws curved from hands big enough to close around the stranger's skull.
He was terrifying and completely naked. I concentrated on the claws. Mostly.
"The blade," Thore said. "Where is the rest?"
"Safe from a guardian who misplaced it."
Thore's claws flexed.
The stranger smiled at him. "How many humans saw it? How many cameras? You failed before you ever found me."
The chain pulsed around my wrist.
I grabbed it and pulled.
The stranger's arm jerked backward. Thore cleared his throat.
"The mark," I said. "Get it off me."
"You think he can?" The stranger's smile widened. "It opened for her. It tasted her. Your little human belongs to the blade now."
Thore lifted him one-handed.
"No killing him until he fixes this," I said.
Thore looked at me. "Was killing him on the table?"
"I assumed, based on the way you're strangling him."
He lowered the stranger to the floor without releasing his throat.
Footsteps approached in the corridor. The door opened, and Julian entered with four people dressed in black.
He took in the broken windows, uprooted headboard, destroyed curtain, naked dragon, bleeding intruder, and me sitting on the intruder's back.
"The damage deposit will be substantial," he said.
"Send it to Thore," I told him.
"I expected as much."
Two guards hauled the stranger upright. A third unlocked the chain with a bronze key. The links dropped away from my wrist and dissolved into gray ash before they hit the carpet.
The gold mark remained.
"Why?" Thore asked.
The stranger spat blood at his feet. "A guardian who cannot protect one relic does not deserve the rest."
"You nearly killed me to embarrass him?" I asked. "That's your grand plan?"
"I planted it where human blood would wake it. You were convenient."
I punched him in the mouth.
One of Julian's guards made a choking sound.
"Sorry," I said. "Was he still using that?"
"No. We've heard enough." Julian gestured, and the guards dragged the stranger into the hall.
Thore started after them.
"Pants," I said.
Julian's mouth twitched. "I will see that your guest remains available for questioning."
"He's not my guest."
"He came through your window."
"So did Thore."
"Thore was invited." Julian looked at the state of the bed. "Enthusiastically."
Thore's scales receded as he crossed to his clothes. The wings folded into his back, the bronze surface sinking beneath skin until only a pair of broad shoulders remained. The horns disappeared last.
I watched the entire thing. There went projection mapping.
He pulled on his pants. "Are you injured?"
"You already asked me that tonight."
"Given recent events, the answer may have changed."
I checked myself. My wrist was red, my dress shredded at one thigh, and a shallow cut crossed my ribs where black scales had caught me. "Nothing worth an ambulance."
Thore came closer but didn't touch me. "May I see?"
I lifted the torn fabric.
His face changed when he saw the blood. The room heated.
"Don't burn the manor down," Julian said. "Arc in a bad mood isn't for the faint-hearted."
"He marked her." Thore looked at the gold line across my palm. "He used something entrusted to me."
"And now he's bleeding into an expensive carpet," I said. "We all had a night."
Thore kneeled to examine the cut on my ribs.
Julian retrieved a medical kit from the wardrobe. He handed it to Thore, then met my eyes.
"You have more questions."
"I'm gonna need a larger notebook."
"You also signed an agreement protecting every guest and event in this house."
I looked at the ash where the chain had vanished. "You think an NDA covers dragons?"
"Our attorneys are unusually thorough."
Thore cleaned the cut with a damp pad. His hands were steady. The red in his eyes wasn't.
"She leaves with me," he said.
"I decide where I leave and with whom."
"Yes." He taped gauze over my ribs. "Where would you like to go?"
The easy answer was home, where I could lock the door and blame the last hour on drugs, theater, or a psychotic break shared by several people with an excellent effects budget.
I looked at the gold mark on my palm, then at Thore kneeling in front of me.
"Do you still want me to leave?" I asked.
His thumb rested beside the bandage, warm against my skin. "I never did."