Just my name on Bale’s lips sends my insides into a heady spiral. But treating me like an equal? Listening to my advice and thoughts? Those might be the sexiest things I’ve ever known. Add in the affection he shows my birds, and I’m pretty sure my decades-long secret infatuation just got kicked aside by my own thrashing heart and catapulted into something worse.
Standing, Bale gently deposits Sol on my lap. He suddenly lifts a hand and touches my neck. The movement is controlled, just quick and unexpected, and I swallow as his fire-bright amber eyes meet mine, his fingers lightly pressing into my skin.
“If we’re going after blood thieves next, we have to make sure no vampire can get near this neck of yours.” His hand drops away, but I’ll feel his touch for hours. “I’ll ask Stuart what he can contrive.”
I nod, incapable of answering. My hammering pulse steals my breath, and there’s no way Bale doesn’t hear the blood storming through my veins. Abruptly, he turns and leaves without a backward glance.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IDALLIA
I’ve already been up and training again for three days when Bale tells us all to meet after lunch in the large field by Upper Drayke Lake. Fyrestar and I land in the already scorched meadow, and Rimblaze and Embersol perch in nearby trees. It’s our usual training venue, and the terrain reflects the abuse, the dirt churned up and the grass rough and burned. The autumn day is hotter than most, making the huge, meandering lake look tempting for a swim. If I didn’t know the clear, cold mountain water would freeze an instant scream out of me, I’d dive in.
Once we’ve gathered, the wing guards all watching from close by, Bale looks us over with a critical eye. We’ve been training hard with vampire tactics in mind, knowing the Porthwood stakeout approaches.
“Bloodwold raiders don’t burn and always attack in groups.” Bale’s amber eyes cut to me, assessing. I stare back at him, my chin high. Does he think I’m not ready for a hard workout? I can’t wait to prove him wrong. “As usual, today we train in skin instead of scales so that we’re skilled enough to beat them at their own game. It’ll be swords, knives, feet, and hands. Fight dirty if you have to. Fight to win.”
It was the same when I was at school. Students almost always trained in their common form—which definitely helped me—but the switch from scales to skin only happened a few years before I got there, just after the Vampire King’s human sorcerers accomplished the one thing that could even the odds between vampires and dragon shifters.
Rannigan Bloodthief’s sorcerers somehow created a magical shield against firebreath. That kind of magic is too taxing to maintain over long periods or cover too many people, so Rannigan limits it to protecting his raiders. In, out, then the magic wears off. In the meantime, dragon shifters have to get out of the air, or be picked off by arrows and spears. Fangs don’t even really help because dragon shifters can’t get close enough to bite before they’re riddled with holes or a sword is driven straight into their softer underbelly scales.
After the initial losses, Bale and his captains around Torridaig quickly understood they had to fight Bloodwold vampires differently—on two legs and without mercy.
“What are the teams?” Kellan asks. His blue eyes flick to me. I look away from him.
“You’re in pairs against Idallia.”
I pivot toward Bale so fast that wind whistles in my ears. “How is that fair?”
His eyes glint, seeming to answer my earlier, chin-lift challenge. “I didn’t say it was fair. I said we’re doing it. Besides…do you not think you can win?”
I snap my mouth shut. Maybe I can. It depends on how desperate the others make me. If I don’t feel a true sense of danger—or fury—I can’t always accelerate and focus like I should. I fight my best when I’m the underdog, especially when winning is the only way my birds and I can survive. It’s harder to unlock that blast of violence in training. Sometimes, I’m not sure I should.
Bale’s gaze returns to the rest of the team. “All of you are going to savagely attack Idallia like you are vampires who want to pierce her flesh and drink her blood until the husk of her lifeless body falls to the ground.”
“Thanks for the visual,” I mutter.
Bale’s lips almost seem to twitch, but I know he wants to push them into pushing me. “Just motivating them.”
Good. The more vicious my opponents, the better I fight. The dragon shifters of the Elite Wing are highly skilled, dangerous, and not afraid of drawing—or losing—blood. Training with them is brutal, just the way I like it.
Fyrestar hops to my side. His eyes brighten, and flames roll in his beak. “We’ll savagely attack back.” He sounds as eager as I am for some real sparring. Everyone’s been going easy on us for days.
Bale shakes his head. “Not you this time, Fyrestar. Idallia fights on her own.”
I glare at the Dragon King in outrage, and Fyrestar’s shrill squawk of protest attacks my ears. “That will never happen in a real fight,” my warbird heatedly chirps.
“It could,” Bale answers solemnly. “You might be eternal, but that doesn’t mean you can’t die and leave Idallia on a battlefield while your primal lifespark returns here to be reborn.”
Fyrestar almost argues, then claps his beak shut. Smoke coils from his nostrils, and he takes off to join the other wing guards without a word. His disgruntled sparking says it all.
I watch Fyrestar go, angry now that I’m truly alone. I recognize this as Bale’s second motivation attempt—direct and effective. I preferred the dead-husk visual to losing the help of my warbird, and I give Bale the side-eye, letting him know I’m not fooled. This time, his lips really do twitch.
“Wade and Danica—you team up first.” Bale turns to me, his expression hard. “And you—fight like you’re going to die. Then I know you’ll win.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Bale,” Wade tosses across the sparring field as he starts limbering up. His good-natured smile takes the sourness from his words, but I don’t let his affable nature fool me. He’s a beast in any form once the fighting starts.
Danica unsheathes lethally long daggers and twirls them in her hands. “It’s so much more fun fighting like this. It’s always over too fast when we’re in scales.”
