“You seem pretty confident for someone who’s still losing,” Justin said. “You need half the clan plus one to beat David, and J, I, and a handful of Hs isn’t half.”
“But it’s more than I had yesterday,” Ian said proudly. “It’s only going to grow, too, because I’m not asking them to vote for me. I’m asking them to vote for preserving their own shot at power, and that’s something everyone in the clan can get behind. Wait and see. They’ll come. By tomorrow, I should have the numbers I need.” He smiled at Julius. “You just have to make sure you stay alive that long. And speaking of, I’ve heard you’ve had some trouble in that department.”
“Not really,” Justin said cockily. “Few curses, couple of explosives, nothing I can’t handle.”
Ian looked thoroughly unconvinced of that. “Just make sure you keep your hand on that ace at your side,” he said, glancing pointedly at Julius’s sheathed Fang. “If you die, we’ll have to do this all over again.”
“Fate worse than death,” Julius agreed tiredly. “But what I don’t understand is why everyone’s trying to assassinateme.The contest is between you and David. With the way the Council’s set up right now, if I die, my seat will just go to another Fang, and they don’t even want it.”
“That’s actually part of the problem,” Ian said, taking a sip of the coffee a servant hurried to place in front of him. “As you just proved with that stirring speech, you’re the spearhead of this movement. If you go down, the dream of a Council goes down with you. It doesn’t hurt that you’re also the easiest target by far. You might have a sword that stops all attacks, butI’mthe White Witch’s consort.”
Justin snorted. “You really think Svena’s going to start a war over the loss of her boy toy?”
Julius winced at his brother’s word choice, but Ian didn’t look insulted in the least. “Absolutely,” he said without missing a beat. “Have you ever met a dragoness who tolerates others breaking her toys?” He chuckled. “Trust me, I’m the best-protected dragon in this mountain. But you’re looking at this all wrong, Julius. Assassination attempts aren’t a threat. They’re a compliment. They’re the final strike, the last desperate move when every other plot has failed.” Ian winked at him. “When they try to kill you,that’swhen you know you’re winning.”
Julius had never considered that angle of attempted murder. It didn’t make him feel better about the chance of finding more plastic explosives hidden under his seat, but it was nice to be able to see the attempts on his life as something other than dragons simply hating him.
“Well, I don’t care how desperate they are,” Justin said around a huge mouthful of the T-bone steak and eggs the servants set in front of him next. “Julius is under my protection. Anyone stupid enough to try and kill him knowing that deserves to lose their head, since they’re clearly not using it.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t let you,” Julius said as the waiter came over with his own breakfast plate. “The entire point of a democracy is that power can change and no one has to die. I don’t care if they’re trying to kill me, I just want this revolution to stay bloodless.”
“That will take a miracle,” Ian said. “Bloodless isn’t something dragons do well.”
“But wewill,” Julius said firmly. “We’re not animals.”
Neither of his brothers seemed to buy that, but Julius actually felt a lot better. In fact, this whole breakfast had been a revelation simply because it had happened. For the first time ever, he’d watched a room full of ruthless dragons who didn’t agree work something out on their own—withoutresorting to threats, trying to trap each other in debts, orbackstabbing each other into the floor. Granted, that was a low bar by human standards, but for Bethesda’s children, it was progress.Enormous progress, and Julius had never felt prouder. Even if it all came to nothing in the end, right now, right here, in this room, he’d watched a little piece of his clan change for the better, and it felt like the victory of a lifetime.
That plus the giant plate of food in front of him was enough to put Julius in the best mood he’d been in since this whole thing started. He fell on his breakfast with gusto, pausing only to ask the staff to set aside a box for Marci to make sure there’d be food left when she finally woke up. Once he’d made sure she’d be taken care of, he asked for a second plate for himself. When it came, he ate that, too, his eyes closing in pleasure as he devoured his first properly dragon-sized meal in months.
And outside in the hall, satisfied that the young idiot would be tied up for another hour at least, Gregory Heartstriker shoved his hands into his pockets and strolled toward the elevators to begin his hunt.
***
Meanwhile, multiple dozens of floors down in the roots of the mountain itself, Marci woke up feeling like death.
Technically, she knew that description was inaccurate. She’d felt death plenty of times since she’d bound Ghost, and it was much colder than this. It also involved way less nausea, an observation that led Marci to her final, inevitable conclusion.
Being hungover wasworsethan death.
“Never again,” she groaned, pressing her clammy hands against her face in a futile effort to make the room stop spinning. “Neverdrinking again.”
I told you to stop,Ghost reminded her, his disapproving voice echoing far too loudly inside her aching head.What made you think you could keep up with a dragon?
“The first three shots,” she replied grimly, rolling over to bury her head into…she wasn’t sure, actually.
Marci cracked her eyes open with a grimace, forcing herself to focus on the unknown surroundings. This didn’t actually tell her much since the room was very small with no identifying characteristics, but itlookedlike she was lying on a beaten-up couch in someone’s underground library. Probably still inside Heartstriker Mountain, given the ubiquitous reddish-brown stone. Whose library and where in the mountain, though, she had no idea. Her memories of last night were hazy after the fifth shot and gone completely to pieces by the tenth. In fact, the only thing she could remember from last night other than Amelia pushing shots into her hands was Julius taking her to his room.
That sent her right back down to the couch. Of all the vital, important things she’d lost from last night, like where she was or who’d brought her here, her drunken brain couldn’t do her the courtesy of also forgetting the most embarrassing moment of her life. No, she just had to remember every second of her failed seduction inperfect freaking detail. Including certain comments to Julius about dragon riding.
“Please,” she whispered into the cushions. “Pleasetell me I didn’t say that out loud.”
Oh, you said it,Ghost assured her.It was very amusing.
“You’re not supposed to take pleasure in my suffering,” Marci grumbled, sinking deeper into the couch. Really, though, she couldn’t blame him for laughing. From what little she remembered of last night, Marci was sure she’d beenhilarious.What other word was there for a drunken girl making a five-star idiot out of herself over a dragon? God, she was no better than the human groupies in the lounge. Worse, actually. At least the stuck-up beautiful people had managed tosuccessfullyseduce their dragons.
That thought nearly crushed her to the floor, but even in the wallow of her self-pity, Marci knew she was being ridiculous. She might not remember much from last night, but she was reasonably certain that Julius had turned down her advances because she was drunk and he was being a decent human being. Well, dragon being, but the point still stood. She couldn’t even be too angry at her drunken self for being so forward. She’d had a crush on Julius since forever, and while he’d always been super handsome in that way-out-of-your-league-adorable-boy-next-door sort of way, with the feathers and the armor and the sword, he’d looked like adragon. A big, handsome, dangerous, powerful dragon.
For a girl who’d always had a thing for that, the result was a knockout combo. Given how amazing even her hazy memories of him were, Marci was reasonably sure she still would have gone for it sober. She certainly would have done a better job. In fact, if her memories of how he’d kissed her back were right, it wasn’t a stretch to say she’d probably be sleeping next to him right now if things had been different, butnooooooooooooooo. Instead of moderating herself like a sensible freaking person, she’d gotten sloshed like a college freshman at her first party and ended up dragonless and alone on an unknown couch.
