Guards to the Dragon Read online

  Not that he was going to say any of that out loud, of course. Nor was he going to let any of it show on his face. Tobiah was a seasoned warrior, and a big part of fighting was keeping a carefully schooled poker face. For some warriors, that skill didn’t translate to the rest of their lives. Tobiah had made a point of bringing it over. Precious little else of his combat aptitude was useful in the rest of his life, so he was damn well going to make the best of his neutral mask. So as the Elders droned on and on about their experience with the Oracle, all he let move across his face was a careful, neutral interest in what they were saying. Not too keen, of course—he didn’t want to encourage them to go into any more detail than they needed to—but he also didn’t want to appear rude. Appearing rude was a good way to get stuck with extra work. And at this point in his career (was it a career, really? Was that a word he could use without laughing himself sick?) Tobiah was very interested in avoiding extra work.

  “She’s alive,” Emmett was saying, his bright silver eyes glowing. The old wolf was thrilled to bits by this news, Tobiah realized. It was rare these days for him to be out of bed, let alone out and about—that was why this particular meeting was going on in the lavishly appointed conference room in his apartment. Why Emmett’s apartment had a conference room was anyone’s guess. There were even pastries, served in the middle of the table. Tobiah, of course, worried about who’d brought them, who’d made them, who’d talked to who along the way, and what kind of a trail would lead to today’s meeting of the four of them… but Emmett was prone to having little meetings like this. The Administration indulged him most of his whims, thinking them harmless.

  Little did they know.

  Emmett was one of the few remaining shifters who’d known the royal family before the Fall. There were maybe half a dozen, outside of the Administration, of course—the rest had either been killed, gone missing, or left abruptly. Tobiah, being a cynic, suspected that all three of those outcomes were the same. It was hard to overthrow a beloved monarchy without turning some people against you, and there had been no counter-attack that he could remember. Maybe there would have been if half the military (himself included) hadn’t been out on some wild goose chase at the time. Was that by design, he wondered? Or had the opportunity simply been seized when it arose? Impossible to get a straight answer out of anyone these days, not with the vast majority of the people in power actively working to obscure and distort history. Either way, the result was the same… a whole family of dragons, dead or fled, and a sinister bureaucracy of shifters installed in their place. Not family, these guys. The only thing the new government had in common with one another was a desire for power—and a ruthlessness that had allowed them to cold-bloodedly execute a whole family.

  The Administration hadn’t spent much time talking about exactly what had happened, over a century ago, when Tobiah had been only a child. It wasn’t a part of their history they had seemed particularly interested in fleshing out. Back then, there had been a lot of talk about moving forward, looking to the future, leaving the past where it belonged. A lot of restructuring, a lot of new plans, a lot of new jobs and new faces in them. Nobody stayed in one place long enough to figure out what they were doing—there were new housing assignments, new work assignments, whole families uprooted and moved north and south, east and west until nobody could even think about who used to be in charge. It was hard enough to keep track of where you and your family were living nowadays.

  All of this, it was claimed, was in the interest of fairness. There was some great democratic system in place—the Administration, however it was that it worked, represented the voices of the people somehow. Tobiah wasn’t exactly sure how that worked. Nobody had had any problem with the monarchy as far as he could recall… but then again, the way people talked these days you’d swear they’d all been whipped daily and tortured to sleep every night. And Tobiah talked the same talk. It was what you did if you wanted to avoid scrutiny—if you didn’t want a visit from the Administration in the night. Everyone did it—everyone was vocally and unswervingly in support of the new guys in charge. Hard to know who was telling the truth—and who, like the people in this room and who knew how many more, were lying.

  Tobiah spent a lot of time thinking about that old riddle—if you replace the handle of your father’s old axe one year, and the blade the next, are you still holding your father’s axe, or something new? If there were no members of their community left who remembered or cared about the royal family, were they really the rightful leaders still?

  Well. Emmett sure seemed to think so. More to the point, Wesley did—and Tobiah would trust Wesley with his life, and more. Wesley and Emmett were of a similar vintage, but where Emmett was—at least to some extent—actually the doddering old fool he seemed in public, Wesley was whip-smart and razor sharp under a completely batty exterior that he almost seemed to take pleasure in portraying. The old panther kept his black hair long and shaggy, disguising the knowing twinkle in his dark brown eyes. All panthers had those dark eyes, unremarkable until something caught their interest—then they’d light up amber, glowing like fireflies. It made it difficult—supremely difficult—to infiltrate human society. It was never long before a human being picked up on the eyes, and then it was only a matter of time until you had to get out of there. A wolf like Emmett could make it work, if he wanted to—their silver eyes were remarkable, it was true, but not completely unheard of among humans (thanks in part to how many wolves did live happily among them.) But panthers, they didn’t have that option.

  Tobiah had thought once or twice about what it would be like to live among humans. He had a pretty good poker face, after all… but he knew it wasn’t an option. Panther eyes. Besides… Wesley had told him a few stories about how humans reacted to panthers, stories that often had to wait until they were deep into a bottle or two of bourbon. It seemed humans had a certain… strong interest in panthers. Found them irresistible, in fact. Wesley had had his share of fun in his day, and Tobiah always enjoyed his stories… but the idea of being subject to that kind of attention himself was quietly distasteful to him. He preferred his own company to even the most pleasant woman’s. He always had. Panthers tended to wind up alone, and though a few bucked the stereotype, he’d long since resigned himself to not being one of them.

  “She’s alive?” Tobiah prompted now. Emmett had trailed off, staring into nothingness as his mind wandered. “Remind me who ‘she’ is?”

  “The Princess,” said Hannah. “The old King and Queen’s daughter.” Hannah was the oldest bear Tobiah knew. It was impossible to gauge her age, and he’d never be rude enough to ask, but she looked like a woman in her sixties… and Tobiah had never known exactly how bears aged. He hadn’t known many—and those he’d known hadn’t tended to live very long. Not in their line of work, with their particular genetic gifts. He often wondered if she’d known the King or Queen in her time—did she go back that far? It was possible. He himself looked like a man of maybe thirty-five, for all that he was a century and a half old. Perhaps the same was true of Hannah. He knew what Emmett and Wesley’s investment in this particular conspiracy was about, but not Hannah’s. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you asked outright. Hey, why is it that you want to overthrow our manipulative, sinister, murderous government instead of just playing along like a good little pawn and not putting yourself and your whole family in danger? Hannah had no family, not that she’d mentioned, anyway. Maybe that was it.

  “The royal family were all killed, weren’t they?” Tobiah prompted again, irritated. He’d been called here to discuss important news from the Oracle, something that had already set his teeth on edge, and now they were making him force the information out of them. That didn’t seem fair.

  “That’s what we thought.” Emmett’s silver eyes were glowing as he leaned across the table. “But it seems they were tipped off, somehow. Some kind of advance warning from a spy within the ranks… they knew dissent was brewing. So they sent their daughter a
way, just days before the rest of the family was killed, to live with a family member who’d abandoned the royal family years before.”

  “And all of this is coming from the Oracle?” It sounded like the plot of a terrible soap opera. Tobiah hesitated. He didn’t want to make the old wolf feel self-conscious, but at the same time, he didn’t want this conversation to get too far if the only information they had to go on came from the drug-addled rantings of those so-called fortune-telling dragons. Tobiah had never trusted dragons, and this particular clique was the worst of the bunch. They lived just outside of the colony’s home base in a big old house perched on the edge of a hill. Stories raged through town about what kind of things went on in that house—stories Tobiah tried not to listen to. Still, things crept in around the edges of even the most determined brick wall. Stories about violet-eyed dragons with translucent glass wings…

  “Some of it,” Hannah said mildly. The old bear seemed to sense his quiet concern at the veracity of news from the Oracle—something he appreciated. “From what I’ve pieced together of the events, though, it makes sense. The Administration certainly continued to divert a lot of resources and manpower, even after the King and Queen were killed. It would make sense that they were searching for what they’d missed. And they did have an infant daughter…”

  “So, a baby? A baby got taken away somehow, and the Oracle says she’s out there somewhere waiting to retake the throne? And she’d be an adult by now, well and truly ready to take power—”

  “Not in so many words,” Emmett said, shrugging. “The Oracle doesn’t exactly speak in a straight line… but that was the general sense of it.”

  Tobiah sighed, trying to mask as much of his annoyance as he could. Typical Oracle—the more vaguely they spoke, the more likely it was that their vague ‘prophecies’ would come true, of course. He had to hand it to them, it was a good system. But he’d appreciate it a lot more if it wasn’t ruining his life.

  “I’m getting the sense that I’m about to be sent on a mission,” he prompted testily, some of his patience wearing thin. Better get the full story out of them before he started grinding his teeth.

  “Well who else, Tobiah? You’re above reproach. A decorated warrior, a veteran of a hundred thousand wars—”

  “I’m not that old,” Tobiah said irritably. Panthers lived a lot longer than humans, on average, but still—he wasn’t the young man he’d been, and he didn’t like being reminded of it unless it was absolutely necessary. A man had his pride.

  “Protector of the realm, staunch advocate of the Administration. They won’t look twice if you happen to go on… a holiday.”

  “A holiday,” Tobiah repeated blankly. “What kind of holiday am I supposed to be taking?”

  “Camping. Mystical panther activities,” Wesley put in helpfully. “You know. All that stuff we’re so prone to do.”

  Tobiah heaved a sigh. “And how much of that mystical stuff everyone thinks we’re into is a direct result of you telling stories?”

  “The vast majority, I’d say,” Wesley grinned. The old panther was incorrigible. There weren’t many of them around, that was the truth. There had been more, once… but that was before the death of the royal family. And who knew what had happened to the rest of them? Not Tobiah, who’d spent precious little time with his mother and father—he’d been raised within the military of the shifter settlement, an organization that tried to keep itself out of politics as much as possible, so as a result he’d been sheltered from the worst of the news when the royal family had been killed, and the Administration took over.

  So Wesley had set about inventing their own mythology. It felt a little too close to the kind of crap the Oracles out west pulled, as far as Tobiah was concerned—Wesley’s shtick had always annoyed him a little, but as he’d never bothered to disprove it publicly, it seemed to have become common knowledge that panthers had a magical, mystical relationship with the land. It wasn’t true, of course, but neither were a lot of things that got thrown around these days. And if the other handful of panthers who lived in Unity had a problem with it, they hadn’t said anything. Panthers were like that… they tended to keep to themselves.

  “Alright. So I’m going on some … spirit quest, or whatever. Fine. And what am I actually searching for?”

  “Our lost Queen, of course,” Emmett said blankly. “The blue-eyed dragoness, the daughter of the old King and Queen. Find her, bring her back here, help her claim her rightful throne. Banish the Administration and restore the old way of life.”

  Tobiah debated with himself whether to ask any questions about that. The three Elders sitting around the table—they were so full of desperate hope, here. This was clearly the biggest light in the darkness that had shone for them for quite some time. Could Tobiah really bring himself to dash those hopes with doubts and questions? He’d known for a long time—ever since Wesley had brought him into this odd little conspiracy—that these guys were clinging onto straws, that this rebellion was as doomed as it was eccentric. A serious threat to the Administration would never have been allowed to persist this long. But if he said any of that to them… well, what else did they have to live for, these days? Emmett had lost most of his family, his pack, in the Fall. The pack was important to wolves. This ad-hoc little group, strange as it was, was clearly doing some serious work in replacing that for him. Wesley was clearly harboring some resentment about what had happened, and who knew what was motivating a bear like Hannah? Tobiah knew they’d be crushed if he pointed out the gaping holes in their plan. So he chose, as he so often chose, to keep his face neutral.

  “Alright. So I’m looking for a dragon with blue eyes. Easy enough.” The Oracles were violet-eyed, every one—a strange, vibrant shade that made it difficult for them to mingle with humans even in their human shapes. They had that in common with the panthers, in fact—not that Tobiah had let it endear them to him. But he hadn’t met many dragons beyond the Oracles. The rest might be okay. He tried not to let their bad impression prejudice him against this so-called future Queen he was being sent to find.

  “One other thing,” Emmett said softly, and this time there was worry in his voice. “We weren’t the only ones present at the Oracle that night.”

  Tobiah had a sinking feeling that he knew where this was going. “What do you mean?”

  “Some members of the Administration. They were present… and they gleaned the same lesson that we did from the Oracles. That an heir to the throne remains alive… and as you can imagine, their interest in her is not as benevolent as ours.”

  “They want her dead,” Hannah translated bluntly. “Dead as a doornail.”

  “And anyone who’s seen to be helping her, I’d imagine,” Tobiah said, frowning. There was more to this than he thought. That was assuming that the Administration actually had believed the Oracle’s claptrap, and were actually going to dedicate manpower to tracking down this heir. There were a lot of moving parts, and he never had quite figured out how much store the Administration set by the Oracle. They certainly gave it lip service, but they did that for a lot of things, didn’t they?

  “Yes. It’ll be dangerous. Which is why…” Emmett hesitated, but this time he was looking at Hannah and Wesley, not Tobiah. A prickle of interest at that. These three were usually thick as thieves—what could this be? “Forgive me, dear friends, but I’ve asked for help.”

  Tobiah’s hackles raised instinctively. As little of a threat as this little conspiracy was, he didn’t want information about it spreading. Seemed like a good way to get yourself killed.

  “I may have done the same,” Hannah said, frowning as her eyes flicked to Wesley. He shrugged.

  “I know a guy too, thought he might be able to help.”

  “What do you mean?” Tobiah demanded. This was beginning to get away from him. Being sent on some dead-end mission to find a woman who may or may not exist, that was one thing. But going on that quest with help?

  “I asked Cole to join us,” Emmett said
, and Tobiah frowned. It was a name he’d heard before, though he couldn’t put a face to it.

  “Oh,” Hannah said. “I asked Luke—”

  “And I asked Beckett. Well. Great minds think alike, don’t they?” Wesley was chuckling, leaning back on his chair as though all of this was a humorous coincidence and not an incredibly dangerous breach of the conditions of secrecy that ruled this group. Tobiah could feel a growl rising in his throat and suppressed it.

  “You mean you’ve formed a little search party? Without telling me, or clearing the other members with me? How am I supposed to take charge of men I don’t know?”

  “Who says you’re in charge?”

  An unfamiliar voice behind him. Tobiah rocketed to his feet, startled and annoyed—to find three men standing in the doorway behind him, clearly dressed for a long journey. The man who’d spoken was a wolf—much younger than Emmett, and stronger, too, bright silver eyes and a shock of black hair. The man beside him had to be a bear—no other shifter would be so tall and broad. Sure enough, Hannah rose to embrace him, both of them clapping each other hard enough on the back to make Tobiah wince. He had a mop of unruly, curly blonde hair and—like most bears—Tobiah could see a few scars only half-hidden by his clothing. He didn’t doubt there were more. Bears tended to get into fights a lot—though, from the understated way this Luke guy was carrying himself, that seemed surprising. Quick temper, maybe. He’d keep a watchful eye.

  The third guy stood back, keen eyes on the group and an unreadable expression on his face. He was hyper-alert, this guy—Tobiah could read his posture from here, knew the look of a scout when he saw one. Quick, nervous motions of his shoulder, the way his eyes kept flicking rhythmically past all the entrances to the room then settling on each occupant in turn. Interesting eyes. They were hazel, but there was something about the pupils that was strange—he couldn’t quite get a proper look, though, with the way the auburn-haired man kept avoiding his eyes in favor of staring around the room.