I’m still doing the mindful-breathing thing when the phone rings—the old landline. I flip the handset into my palmand bark, “Connor.”
“Why aren’t you answering your cell?” Seb’s voice comes down the line, skating between anger and annoyance. He’s my best friend and a dragon warrior like me. A Taurus.
“Because I’m busy running a restaurant. The phone’s a distraction. I turn the ringer off while I’m working.” I reach for it now, noticing the screen is filled with missed calls from the Zodiac Brotherhood, the group of warrior dragons like me who’ve taken an oath to defend our kind.
“Right now you need to be distracted. Way distracted. Distract yourself immediately, feel me?”
“What’s going on?”
“Check CNN. News coming out of Paris. You’re not going to like it, bro.”
Deep dread rises like bile as I scroll to the news app on my cell. This is the worst time for something to happen that involves the brotherhood. Our Pisces brother, Solomon, has to step down for personal reasons, and my nephew Mason is taking his place. Only the transition isn’t complete because removing Solomon from his position while the wheel of the celestial year was in Pisces would have put us all at risk. We’ve scheduled an ascension ceremony to take place in one month, at the end of my alignment. The timing gives Solomon plenty of time to train his replacement and gives Mason a year to get up to speed before he’s put in a leadership position. Only problem is, the transition to my leadership literarily happened tonight at midnight. And for the next four weeks, we’ll be down a dragon in the brotherhood. Solomon is gone, but Mason hasn’t ascended. And I’m inthe throes of adjusting to an influx of power that feels like it might snap me in two.
It’s a fucking terrible time to have an incident.
A story labeledBreaking News: Photographer Lucy Vale Found Murderedis at the top of my news app. I tap on the included video.
“Horror in Paris,” the news anchor announces. “Award-winning photographer Lucy Vale was found dead in front of the Fontaine Saint-Michel in the early-morning hours by a passing tourist, her body brutally mutilated. Police suspect cult activity as sections of her back were flayed and stretched to look like wings. Amateur video shows an inscription, ‘Astra inclinant, sed non obligant,’ written in her blood at the crime scene. Experts tell us it’s Latin forthe stars incline us, they do not bind us. French police are seeking any eyewitnesses to this very public murder.”
“Astra inclinant, sed non obligant.”Every dragon knows that phrase. It’s the motto of the Saint’s Order, the organization of wealthy humans who are sworn to kill us. They all have it engraved on their rings, a historical slap to dragonkind who come from the stars and are guided by celestial energy. It’s basically the Order’s way of saying fuck direction from the universe and the connection between all living creatures; we are the gods here and we’ll take what we want when we want it.
“Yeah,” Seb growls. “If an Order member didn’t do this, it’s a great fucking copycat.”
“Her wings weren’t even developed. She wasn’t a dragon.” My inner beast rages.
“Her dad is half. I met the man once. He couldn’t shift, which means Lucy was a dormant.”
“Did she even know about her heritage? The Order?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Why the fuck would they do this?”
“I’ll tell you why. It’s an act of war, that’s what it is! Carving up one of our civilians on public soil? It’s egregious.” The smoky timbre of Seb’s dragon rises with his anger. There’s a reason the sign for Taurus is a bull. He’s as hardheaded as they come. Once he places the blame, no one can convince him otherwise. Honestly, in this case I agree with him.
I brace myself on the desk, everything in me wanting to avenge Lucy’s death.Bite. Shred. Kill,my dragon growls from inside, wanting control. “Someone’s got to pay for this.”
Rustling comes down the line, and I picture Seb smoothing the arms of his suit jacket. I know that sound. He’s wrangling his dragon into submission. “As much as I’d love to get behind immediate retaliation, you know we can’t do anything rash. We’ll have our day, but we need to be patient. Follow the process. The sun is in Aries, Connor.”
“You think I don’t know where the wheel is?” I snap. “For fuck’s sake, I almost took off a customer’s head today so I could fuck his girlfriend in a pool of his blood. Believe me, I know it’s on me.” Normally Solomon would gradually transition the reins to me acting as a consultant as the wheel turned from Pisces to Aries, but because the Oracle directed him to step down immediatelyand focus on training Mason, he’s unreachable. I’m going to have to jump into this headfirst.
“Okay, then you know it’s your duty to summon the four.”
Bythe four, Seb’s referring to the next three Zodiac Brothers in the wheel as well as me. It’s been a long-standing tradition in the brotherhood. We’re at our strongest during our alignment. The brotherhood is composed of one warrior dragon born in each of the twelve sun signs so that we always have one brother with exceptional power to lead. But because that power wanes with the passage of time, the Oracle requires the next three positions in the wheel to be in agreement on any major decisions. That means that while I am technically calling the shots at the moment, Seb as our Taurus, Remus as our Gemini, and Ellison as our Cancer have to agree for me to pull the trigger on any major response. Seb and I are close. Remus is easily swayed. But Ellison?
“Fuck. I know technically I’m supposed to, but you know Ellison will drag his feet. That asshole has never met a risk he’s willing to take.”
Seb grunts in agreement. “He only gets one vote. As long as we can sway Remus, we’re good. But that would be easier if we had additional evidence. Do you think you can reach Donovan?”
Donovan is the reason we have the peace accord to begin with. Fifty years ago, the Libra brother sacrificed himself in exchange for the Order’s promise to stop hunting and trapping dragons on land that isn’t owned by the Order. Now he serves as the grandmaster’s personal good-luck charm, the Order’s own dragonprisoner, and the source of the blood used in the spell to make their weapons. He communicates with us rarely and only under great risk to himself.
“I’ll try his burner. He was able to get a message through a few weeks ago. He might know what’s going on.”
“It’s a start. We need confirmation that the Order is behind the murder before we retaliate, or we could be throwing the peace accord and everything Donovan has worked for out the window.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious. I’m on it.”
“Only trying to help. Believe me, all I want to do is track the killer down and show him what happens to Order members who touch our civilians. I recommend starting at his toes and seeing how many parts we can tear off before he dies.”
