Fianna the Gold Read online

  Fianna looked startled. “Yes.” Her lips tilted in a mysterious smile. “Quite a few. Tell me about yours, Abbie.”

  “When I was dreaming, after all the anger and screaming and fire, I remember flying, somehow, high above the mountain. I had these huge wings, and a sense of enormous power and the world was like…like total ecstasy…” She reeled, silenced with overwhelming memories of fierce joy and soaring aerial hallucinations.

  Strong hands grabbed hers across the table. An electric shock charged up Abbie’s spine as her gaze met Fianna’s. “Don’t be afraid,” Fianna said in a husky tone. Her eyes shone with indefinable emotions.

  Abbie squeezed back, unable to resist the offered comfort. What did Fianna mean about being afraid? Afraid of what, exactly? Abbie withdrew her hands with the disturbing sense Fianna was inside her brain. Who else was talking to her in there? Because somebody, or something was, or else Abbie truly was on her way to a breakdown. It’s a secret, she thought, with a certainty she didn’t understand. Big, big secrets were going on, with voices in her head, and whispers that confused her. She stared down at her teacup and wondered about the tea loosening her tongue, or maybe her mind.

  “I don’t know how to feel,” Abbie said. “What I do know is, I’m an idiot. No breaking news there, believe me.” Her standard, go-to deflection—she was stupid and anxious, out of control. Didn’t know her limits. Made stuff up in her head.

  “No, Abbie.” Fianna scooted her chair closer and Abbie caught a whiff of smoke, as sweet as perfume. “That is not what’s happening here.”

  Oh, yeah? How did Fianna know that? More than a thief’s instincts told her these witchy, alluring, and somewhat terrifying women were connected to Abbie’s current crop of Weird Events. Especially Fianna. She’d practically admitted as much.

  She held Fianna’s intense stare across the table. In the silence, an entire universe of meaning seemed to be whirling between them. They both wanted answers, in a huge damn way. Abbie pressed her lips together to keep from revealing more. “What is exactly happening here? Why are you so interested?” she asked.

  Fianna answered Abbie’s abrupt question with a deflection tactic out of Abbie’s playbook. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, come on, Fianna. What’s going on? What are the three of you doing out here in the middle of nowhere, anyway?”

  “It’s complicated. I should probably wait for Guin and Orla to tell the tale.”

  Fianna was dodging her questions. Interesting. “Where are they, by the way?” Abbie asked, trying to puzzle out the change in Fianna’s vibes.

  “Oh, outside. They enjoy the woods at night.” She coughed and looked away. Tap, tap went her fingers again on the tabletop. “I’m concerned about the men. They threatened you and maybe they’ll come back. We need to know everything, for all of our sakes.” She rose suddenly and started fussing around the kitchen. “Do you remember what they looked like? Did they say anything to you?” She seemed remote and there was an inexplicable coolness, a shift in energy, which pushed Abbie back to full-tilt paranoia. The ease she’d felt only a few minutes ago disappeared.

  “I told you everything I remember.” Abbie’s need to share dissipated like smoke. No more, not until she understood what was going on.

  “All right, then. We can try again later, maybe memories will return after you’ve had some rest.” Dishes clanked in the sink as Fianna ran water and added soap.

  Abbie stared at her backside and thought what the fuck? The timeline of the day dropped into suspicious perspective. Twice, the women had managed clever distractions that kept her from leaving, a ruse any thief should have recognized.

  And they were still doing it. First, they relax her, encourage her to lose track of time. Then, they get her to spill her guts. Didn’t she already suspect she was being played? What was going on…am I growling?

  With a conscious effort, she reined in her anger. Whatever their game was, she was outta here. She’d forgotten for a second about her exit plan. Abbie kicked her chair back and stood, weak-kneed but determined. She fake yawned while she stretched. “I’m exhausted.” Maybe they were witches and she was a sacrifice. Maybe she’d been way too distracted by their sultry hotness, especially Fianna’s. Her own thief’s instincts should have sent her out the door hours ago. She hated to lose and hated the feeling she already had.

  “We’ll talk more in the morning,” Fianna said.

  On cue, Guin and Orla burst in, with red cheeks and sparkling faces. Orla looked like an adorable disheveled, windblown imp, and Guin’s eyes had a wicked glint, while her hair tangled in an artless mass down her back. They smelled of damp forest and mountain night air. What had they been doing out there? No one seemed inclined to tell her.

  “Hello!” They waved at Abbie, and after quick looks at Fianna, got busy around the cabin.

  The questions stopped and the room was quiet, save for their bedtime preparations. Soon, Guin appeared with a pile of blankets, and Orla popped up in the kitchen to help Fianna, nice and domestic-like.

  “Here you go, then,” Guin said and handed Abbie the blankets.

  The group dissolved into individual evening rituals, and the sounds of a household winding down for the night seemed at once comforting and creepy. Abbie crawled under a heavy quilt atop the comfy memory foam pullout. If nothing else, the sleeping accommodations were fantastic. She pushed the jacket she’d lifted under her pillow. How kind of them to leave such a nice, waterproof Pacific Northwest coat around. She’d stashed a pair of someone’s sneakers under towels in the bathroom cupboard. The course was set and she intended to plough along, just like she always did, despite the unsettling and compelling tsunami of attention from the three extraordinary women. Fianna rocked her every which way, and Abbie needed air, big time.

  Her mind made up, she lay stiff, resisting sleep, until the sounds around her turned into soft, sleepy breathing. They had, indeed, all gotten into the big bed together, no explanations offered or sought. Abbie tried not to hear the giggling and affectionate whispers as they settled. They did seem more like sisters than romantic partners. Even so, she quelled a ridiculous pang of jealousy. Maybe she’d been bewitched. She’d hardly asked any questions and had been shut down when she’d tried. Renewed determination rushed in. She didn’t care if she slept in the woods overnight. She wanted out—now. Not tomorrow. Tonight. Abbie remembered the window in the bathroom. Perfect.

  Chapter Four

  Dragon Revealed

  “Look at her,” Orla whispered. “Isn’t she adorable?”

  The three of them spooned, with Fianna in the middle. They loved sleeping piled together and no one ever considered separate beds. They stared across the room at Abbie’s still form.

  “Shush,” said Fianna. “Let the poor girl sleep. She’s been through quite an ordeal.”

  “But doesn’t she look lonely over there?”

  “No, she does not want to get into bed with us.” Fianna gave Orla an affectionate shove.

  “Does too.”

  “Why didn’t you tell her more, Fi?” Guin interrupted the play. Her hands tightened on Fianna’s hips, where she spooned from the back. “That’s the whole reason we left you two alone for a while.”

  “For starters, bad idea thinking I could do it by myself. Total hubris on my part. We three should all be there, to reassure and protect her. I suspect her Draca nature is trying to break through and can’t. What if she’d done a big freak out? I didn’t want my sister-self going all crazy on me in response. Abbie was getting suspicious of my questions and I choked.”

  “But she’s shifted before. She must have. What do you mean?”

  Fianna lowered her voice. “Her sister-self is stuck, like a car that’s stuck in third gear. Abbie doesn’t understand and there’s a lot of anger building. The two of them can’t clearly talk to each other, especially if Abbie doesn’t know what she’s hearing.”

  “Huh,” Guin said. The bed went quiet. “Then why waste time with poker?�
� She sounded exasperated.

  Fianna said, “I wanted to get a read on her sister-self. She was in there, but hidden. Didn’t you see her face when she started winning? Her thieving baby dragon lit up, which warned me to go slow. Remember how excited draclings can get.”

  This silenced the group as they remembered Fianna’s Great Disgrace. Draclings, the official moniker for anyone under the age of thirty, were at best an unruly, excitable horde, and Fianna’s mishandling of a dracling training flight had landed her in serious trouble. The situation she was in might as well be called Fianna’s Great Dracling Disaster, because that’s the term everyone used. She’d been the dracling trainer for years, until her own arrogance had put her young group in danger and landed her in the shit house with the mothers of Dracan. The mothers demanded punishment, and so the Council took her beloved job away.

  Forgiveness for a community-wide offense was bestowed much faster if the guilty party demonstrated a dragonly act of redemption. Fianna had jumped at the chance to claim the mission to Portland as her golden ticket to forgiveness. After all, she needed to accomplish something spectacular to win back her draclings and impress the Council. Marcus, the Council Leader, and not someone Fianna would have considered an ally, granted the final permission in record time, much to the consternation of the mothers on the Council, who wanted her to repent a little more.

  Nevertheless, she was gratified by his apparent belief in her, because what else accounted for his rapid acceptance of her volunteering? Marcus would want only the best Draca for a quest to rescue a dracling hybrid in the human realm, she told herself. This was the perfect opportunity for her and her skill set to shine. The mothers were just slow to forgive. The mission, if successful, would be her bid to win back grace from the community, especially the mothers, and in so doing, also win her job back.

  Agitated with the memories of her disgrace, Fianna snuggled closer to Orla and Guin and inhaled their familiar and comforting scents. She needed to give them the bad news before they dropped off to sleep.

  “I know it still hurts,” Guin murmured into the thick silence.

  “I’m trying to stay focused,” Fianna said quietly, and let it go at that. No need for the mission leader to indulge in useless fretting. They had problems to figure out.

  After a delicate pause, Guin switched to mind link. “If this is your Quest, Fianna, how could things be this easy? We’ve barely broken a sweat. I still say something is off about the whole situation.”

  “You’re just mad because she beat you at cards.” Orla’s words buzzed in their minds, and she gave Guin a poke with her toes.

  Guin ignored her. “Why did the gods deem us so worthy of such timely special delivery? We three are nothing, in terms of power or community standing.” She kissed Fianna’s shoulder. “Yet we barely had to work for the win. Doesn’t that make you suspicious?”

  Orla snickered and broke the mind link. “I like special delivery.”

  Guin started to argue and Fianna hushed the group. No more delay. She needed to fill them in. “Stop it, you two. And yes, Guin,” she whispered. “I agree. Something’s strange. I did think it was odd the way the Council hustled us out so fast, for one thing. Marcus gave the final approval for a trip out of Dracan in only two days. Why would I question him? I could have waited years for a chance like this. Besides, if there’s something else going on, wouldn’t the Council have told us?”

  “We barely had any time to study up on modern human culture,” Guin complained.

  Fianna said, “Well, let’s just be glad Abbie’s still here. I thought she was going to take off, and then we’d have a real mess.” She paused. “There’s something else though, which is partly why I waited for you to get here before I gave Abbie more facts about her nature. Strange men threatened her when she was camping. It sounds like it was planned.” The bed shook as furious telepathic whispers exploded.

  “They didn’t hurt her, according to what she remembers. Actually, she may have hurt them in a forced shape-shift.”

  They clung to each other in light of the momentous news. Men threatening their dracling meant the worst—an unwanted and forbidden reveal to the humans. The mission just became exponentially more dangerous.

  “You told her nothing?” Guin asked in an incredulous voice.

  “She’s not getting what’s happened to her,” Fianna said. “I didn’t have a clue how to begin, especially without you here for backup. And I haven’t heard her sister-self, either, even though she’s giving us peeks. I have to be careful. My instincts say we need to go slow before we encourage any further shape-shifting. She’s already had a big shock.”

  “Orla and I should go scouting for these men,” Guin said. “Rather urgently.”

  “I hate for you to leave, but you’re right. Abbie’s campsite might have clues as to who they were and what they were up to. I’ll try to sort Abbie better while you’re gone.”

  They sank into silence. Then, Orla said, “But…don’t you just want to pet her?” They dissolved into helpless giggles at the remark. Orla’s nature, as mercurial as she was, tended to soothe with humor, which made Orla a valuable companion. Dragons enjoyed humor and often played tricks on each other, the slyer and more intricate, the better.

  Abbie didn’t stir. Exhausted little half-dracling, Fianna thought with sympathy. She considered the big job ahead tomorrow. Keep Abbie here, somehow, and help reveal and demonstrate her true nature. Then, with luck and the gods’ favor, get the entire contingent back to Dracan. What if Abbie refused? She hadn’t even considered the possibility. Abbie was her ticket, her redemption jackpot—she had to go. Nothing could go wrong.

  On top of everything, Fianna had to contact the Council tomorrow with the bad news about the men who had seen Abbie shift. How could these wise elders have missed the ancient alarm signals? Blood speaks to blood. The only reason Abbie had been located in the first place was that she carried the Diamond House lineage, which must be why Marcus, as head of that House, was taking such a particular interest. He’d been the first to sense Abbie through their shared bloodline.

  The men who tried to capture Abbie were an unexpected problem, and roused suspicion about the bigger picture. She wondered again if her mission was being manipulated to contain extra difficulty, as a further test of her worthiness for redemption. After all, Abbie found the cabin all by herself, hardly challenging. Yet, there was a new element of danger being added to the mix, which caused a spike of excitement in Fianna’s dual nature. The predator side of her craved a little danger now and then. “More fun,” said her sleepy sister-self.

  “Just keep us out of trouble this time,” answered Fianna.

  Fianna sank into sleep only to be roused by her keen senses when a floorboard creaked. She lifted her head and checked the couch. Abbie was gone. The bathroom door was shut, so, okay, Abbie must be in there.

  She lay awake for a few minutes. Glanced at the closed door. Waited a few seconds for the sounds of water running or toilet flushing and heard nothing. Uneasy, she slid out of bed, careful not to disturb the other two who were sound asleep. She walked in silent steps and stopped in front of the door.

  Fianna rattled the doorknob. “Abbie? You doing okay?”

  No answer.

  “Abbie?” she said louder and knocked on the door. When silence continued, she turned the knob and found it locked. “Open the door,” she said, and thrust her hip against the wood a few times with no result. “Oh, blast it to the ninth hell,” she muttered. With a fierce grip of Draca strength, she tore the handle off and crashed through into the bathroom.

  The window swung wide open, curtains blowing in the cold breeze. “No!” Fianna rushed over and stared into the surrounding forest. Even with the moon, it was too dark. Abbie could easily be hiding close by. Her sister-self came roaring through her head and Fianna barely stopped a violent shift right there in the bathroom.

  Hearing Orla and Guin calling out questions, she yelled over her shoulder, “Abbie’s on
the run. She’s mine. Stay here. I mean it!” She dove out the window and rolled with little effort to her feet. “Chase!” her sister’s voice demanded. “Hunt!”

  Flooded with predator instincts, Fianna sniffed the air, caught the scent and took off. She still refused to shift. Instead, her feet took charge of the ground hunt for the prey, letting her fly down the path without a thought except to “catch.”

  She inhaled the earthy delicious traces of Abbie’s scent as she raced after her. Sure, she could easily find her as a dragon, but the dangers there were obvious. Fianna fought her most aggressive impulses and ran. Through the darkened, dense forest of spruce and pine, she dodged fallen logs and trampled through bushes of thorny blackberries. In the distance, the sounds of Abbie’s panicked breathing carried to her on an obliging breeze. Fianna ran like a deer, the moonlight guiding the way with light feet that bounded over any obstacles, nothing slowing her pace. Abbie’s gasps grew closer.

  “Abbie! Stop…please! We need to talk!”

  “I’m fine,” Abbie yelled. “Leave me alone. I’ll find my own way out!”

  Fianna picked up her speed. There—less than ten feet in front of her. Abbie threw a frightened glance over her shoulder, and then her foot hit a stump and she went flying, arms splayed out just as Fianna dove to tackle her.

  They went down hard. With a nimble twist, Fianna landed on top, spread-eagled over Abbie. She pinned her wrists to the ground and held firm while Abbie bucked and kicked.

  “Get the hell off me!” Abbie glared at her.

  “Calm down,” Fianna said. She couldn’t make herself move. “Please. I’m trying to help you, even though you may not think so right now.” She tried not to notice the riot of sensation caused by the soft womanly shape under her. Her sister-self’s excited cries increased in volume, drowning out common sense. They chased. They caught. Her sister demanded reward. “Kisskisskiss,” said a sly voice in her head.

  “Fine,” Abbie said. “Now get the fuck off.” She didn’t squirm. Instead, she lay still and offered no resistance. Puffs of white breath circled in the growing cold and Abbie’s eyes gleamed in a shaft of moonlight with anger…and something else.