“You’re relentless.” There was humor in her tone, though, and a sparkle in her eye, as if she found him amusing.
“I’m motivated.”
“You’re stalling.”
“I want to know about you. You’re my destined mate, after all.”
She spoke crisply then, closing the distance between them, the blade leading. It was a beautiful kesir and Hadrian openly ogled it. “I was shackled once. I’ll never forget it or forgive it.”
Hadrian met her gaze in astonishment. She’d spoken without inflection and her expression was impassive. He guessed this was important.
Really important.
He kept his tone casual. “Why didn’t you just vanish?”
“I couldn’t then. I was injured, and he pretended to help me, and then he trapped me.” She spoke coolly, her gaze averted.
“What happened? I mean, how were you injured?”
She frowned a little. “It was my first assignment. A polar bear shifter. He was bigger and stronger than I’d expected.”
“Impervious to the kiss of death?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t have that power then. He’s the reason I got it, actually, to make me more effective in future. The second time we met, he wasn’t nearly so lucky.” She shook her head. “But the first time, we fought and he ripped my gut before I escaped from him. I only managed that because he couldn’t fly.” She touched her stomach. “I still have a scar.”
Hadrian nodded because he’d noticed it.
“But I lost a lot of blood and ultimately passed out before reaching home. When I woke up, I was shackled by the ankle by some crazy loner on the tundra. He tended my injuries but intended to keep me captive forever. I remained in my swan form. He never knew I was a shifter.” She met his gaze. “People keep swans, you know. Trim their wing feathers so they can’t fly. Put metal bands on their ankles.” She shuddered and dropped her gaze again.
“But you escaped?”
She smiled a little and raised her hands. “Obviously. He wasn’t going to release me.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died tragically some time after my escape.” Her tone was hard and she held Hadrian’s gaze steadily. “Maeve gave me both the kiss of death and the ability to manifest elsewhere by will, to ensure I was never injured or trapped like that again. She took care of me.”
Hadrian was astonished by the story but had to keep her talking. “Because she’s kind of your foster mother.”
“No ‘kind of’ about it. She raised me.”
Hadrian wondered why. “Do you remember your mother?”
“I never knew her. She died right after I was born.”
“Your father?”
“I know Maeve,” his mate insisted. “She provided for me. She’s always been there.”
“But what about the brothers you’re trying to save?”
“I’m not trying to save them. I will save them. What about them?”
“Do you know their names?”
“Do I need to?”
“But once they’re free, you’ll get to know them?”
“Of course not. They’ll be mortals and I’ll be Fae.” His mate shook her head then rounded the table, weapon at the ready. He wished he could get a good look at it. He’d never had the chance to examine one of the Indonesian blades closely, though he knew the wave shape of the blade was created by alternating laminations of iron and nickelous iron. “Let’s get this done.”
Hadrian wasn’t quite as ready to finish his assassination. “You don’t have family then?”
“I don’t need one.”
“And I’ll guess you don’t have friends.”
“I don’t need them either.”
“No wonder you’re so ready to talk,” he teased, seeing that she was startled again. “You took this assassination job simply because Maeve asked you to,” he guessed. “You would have done whatever she asked you to do.”
“Why not? I owe her,” his mate insisted. “There was no reason for me to decline.”
“Except that you’re killing people.”
“Not people. Others. Shifters. Abominations and half-breeds.” She repeated Maeve’s accusations against shifters as if they were her own. She must have heard them hundreds of times. “And since she gave me the kiss of death, none of them have been particularly hard to exterminate.” Her eyes narrowed. “Trust a dragon to challenge expectation.”
“Abominations,” Hadrian echoed. “But you’re a shifter. That makes you one of the Others, just like me.”
“Not for long,” she replied. “I think that was why Maeve offered me the deal, so she could save me. It can’t be easy to turn someone Fae and immortal.” She fell silent for a moment and dropped her gaze. Her tone was wistful when she continued. “She must love me.”
But she wasn’t sure.
It was clear to Hadrian that Maeve had twisted the expectations of his mate, which was only possible because she’d spent all of her life—over a thousand years—isolated from anyone other than the Dark Queen. Whatever Maeve suggested to her would seem plausible. Her trust of her patroness was complete.
But it was also misplaced. Maeve was using her. The Dark Queen had turned his mate to her own purpose and Hadrian had no doubt that would continue.
The prophecy revealed that he was right to try to convince her otherwise. He had to succeed.
The future of the Pyr and the Others relied upon it.
Six
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s even possible to turn someone Fae or immortal,” Hadrian said, trying to keep the conversation flowing. “Let alone both.”
“What are you implying?”
“Just that the Dark Queen is lying to you, the same way she lies to everyone else.”
“She made a promise!”
“She makes promises all the time and breaks them. There’s going to be some technicality that allows her to keep from delivering what you’re owed.” He shrugged. “It might just be that your nature is your nature, and that can’t be changed.”
His mate stared at him, frowning slightly. “You mean that you’ll always be a dragon shifter, and no one can change that.”
“How could they? It’s my essence. Plus I’m mortal. A spell can restrict my ability to shift, maybe, but I am what I am. You’re as mortal as I am. I don’t think anyone with any amount of magick can change that.”
“Maeve has all the magick. She has the gem of the hoard. She can do anything.” It sounded as if she was repeating something she’d been told, maybe something she’d once believed, but Hadrian had to wonder whether his mate believed it now.
He really didn’t want to think about Maeve possessing the gem of the hoard. He still felt that it was partly his fault that she’d managed to reclaim it.
Alasdair had tricked him, driven to do so by Maeve, but he should have guessed that something was up.
He stuck to their line of discussion. “Throughout time there are thousands of stories of the Fae taking children because they can’t have their own, but in every tale I know, that child either dies or returns to the mortal realm. They don’t become Fae, because it can’t be done.”