Page 2 of Fortune's Blade

She’d changed while leaping off of our small wagon, leaving us rocking precariously in her wake, and immediately plowed into the giant red creature who’d been buzzing us.

They went boiling off into the sky, wings flapping, throats screeching and giant maws agape, and I stood up reflexively, as if I was going to do something. And then just stayed there, feeling like a fool and completely outclassed. And unsure who to be more terrified for—her or us.

“She’ll be all right,” Louis-Cesare said, and strangely, he sounded sure.

I looked over at my hubby, to see the wind blowing strands of his auburn hair around as he watched the battling duo. “How do you know?”

The blue eyes narrowed on the latest impossible scene. “Look closer. There is no blood spurting, and both sets of claws are sheathed.”

I squinted, but the sun was behind the battling duo. “They’re playing?”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is some strange, ritualistic greeting.” He looked as frustrated as I felt. “I am out of my depth here.”

I sat back down. That made two of us. And while the sight on the horizon would be one that I’d carry for years, just from the sheer breathtaking awe of it, right now I had other concerns. Namely my sister Dorina, who had been missing for weeks.

That was why we were here, trying to get her back. But so far, we’d only gotten maybe fifty miles from the portal where we’d come in and half of that uphill. And the rest through a less than forgiving countryside where the trees got grabby and the fey got nasty and even a spring of water where we’d stopped to fill our canteens had had it out for us.

The water hadn’t been poisonous, but it had made the posse we’d assembled, most of whom were master level vampires, drunk off their asses. Probably courtesy of the herbs that grew by the water source and seemed to have leeched something into it, but the delay had cost us days. As a result, we were almost two weeks into this supposed rescue attempt and no closer to finding Dorina than when we’d started.

Only for Claire to finally locate a few of her scaley relatives and be informed that the posse wasn’t wanted. We could proceed alone, we were told, just her, Louis-Cesare and I, on foot or as good as considering the state of our nag. Or we could stay the hell out of their territory. Or stay for dinner as the main course, only that part hadn’t been vocalized. But by the way one of them had been looking at Louis-Cesare, as if he’d make a fine Sunday roast, it might as well have been. The rapier had hardly left my husband’s hand for two days, and I didn’t blame him one bit.

But the fact that we were being let into their territory at all was apparently a minor miracle, and nobody ever gets anywhere arguing with a dragon. So, we’d parked the posse at a village, bought the cart and nag to carry supplies, and headed uphill. I assumed the delay was to give the dragons time to decide what to do with us, but it had heaped bruises onto my bruises, since finding a comfortable spot on the damned bench seat had proven impossible.

And now what was Claire doing?

I couldn’t tell, other than getting entirely too far away. Damn it, we’d talked about this! If I ended up as something’s lunch, I was never going to—

Our horse stopped.

It frequently did, being geriatric, overweight, and more interested in nibbling the weeds along the roadside than actually getting us anywhere. But this time, it had cause. This time, there was an absolutely massive dragon sitting in the middle of the road, picking its teeth with a sword-sized claw and regarding us narrowly.

Only, no, it was not sitting in the road, as that would have implied that it could fit. It was actually clinging to the side of the mountain, with great claws gouging huge fissures into the already crumbly stone, and part of one massive thigh and tail blocking the path. Whether that was deliberate or not, I had no idea.

I had never felt so out of place in all my life.

After hundreds of years fighting pretty much everything there is to fight, you get cocky. You may not realize it, but you do. Not to the degree of being careless or failing to keep the weapons’ stash up to date, but in an I-can-handle-anything-because-I’ve-seen-it-all kind of way.

I had not seen this.

I could not handle this.

And based on how still Louis-Cesare had suddenly gone, neither could he.

Claire, this would be a damned good time to get your purple ass back here, I thought fervently.

In the meantime, I grabbed my backpack off the floorboard and started rooting around in my supposedly well-stocked arsenal for something that might help. And rooted and rooted, while the dragon patiently waited and waited. It didn’t look like it thought it had much to worry about.

Frankly, that was a compelling argument.

I knew a lot of war mages, some of whom made weapons for sale to desperate types like me on the side, but dragon fighting wasn’t on their list of offerings. And even the fearsome Vampire Senate, whose stocks I had been known to raid since becoming a senator, fell short. Magical snare? Sure; that’d hold him for about a second. Potion bomb? Uh huh. Like it was getting through that damned hide. Personal shield? Probably just make me extra crunchy—

“Excuse me,” someone said.

“Hang on a sec,” I replied, and pulled out a nifty little portable portal, only where was I going to send him? New York? Assuming the damned thing even worked in Faerie, which I’d been told was highly . . . problematic . . .

I paused, belatedly realizing who had spoken, and slowly lifted my eyes.

“You are Claire’s friends?” the dragon asked politely.

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