Page 11 of Galadon
The pendragon nodded. “It will still take you nearly three days to ride down there, which may push him too much since he’s already undertaken a long journey.”
She saw where he was heading with that line of thought. “I suppose I could keep him here, and Titan could fly me.” She glanced at the shifter in question. “If that’s okay?”
“Of course.” He knitted his brows. “Though I will need to take care of a few things here first, so we won’t be able to leave until the day after tomorrow.”
Rayna would have to wait that long before riding Onyx again, and it would take triple the travel time with her horse. A couple more days wouldn’t kill her, though she would need to find somewhere else to sleep other than the castle.
“Is there any place in the village I could sleep for the next couple of nights?” she asked.
Bailey paused from eating a chicken leg. “There’s a room over the stables no one is using. One of the coalition slayers was in there until last week, but they found somewhere in town to stay.”
“Coalition slayers?” Rayna gave her a confused look. “I thought all except a handful left back in November, and those who stayed are out hunting Kandoran like me.”
The New American Coalition was what remained of the United States. It spanned North Carolina, South Carolina, and parts of Virginia, Tennessee, West Virginia and Georgia. They had an impressive military with modern warfare equipment that proved extremely useful during the war. Rayna had especiallyappreciated watching dragons get hit with missiles and rockets, blowing them to bits and pieces.
Bailey nodded. “The majority of them did, but most of the dragon clans bordering the NAC negotiated for peace after the war, which included keeping slayers from hunting on their land. It was too good an offer to pass up. Now, the only places they can hunt are on the east coast, where the water dragons live, and the small strip of neutral territory to the west. There are just too many of them now, and they can’t get enough kills each week to quell their urges to fight.”
“So a bunch left to hunt elsewhere,” Rayna surmised.
Bailey rubbed her stomach. “Yeah, which was fine with me since I’m not doing any fighting for a while. Conrad and a few former NAC slayers mostly cover the land just west of the border, so they live in the city area. At last count, another ten are wandering the open territory like you’ve been doing. Dozens more have chosen to hunt in other parts of America.”
So the organized nest stayed far away in an area where they’d least likely be hunted, but many strays were left to their own devices. Maybe with the extra slayers in the area, they’d get the Kandoran numbers down even faster. After that, she could eventually travel to Colorado or New Mexico, where they believed more of the enemy remained. Distance from Galadon would be good if she wanted to get over him.
“Is there a way to contact them and see if they’ll help with the nest, too?” Rayna asked.
Bailey chewed her lip. “If I get started now, we might be able to gather most of them by the time the shifters are ready to join. Oh, there’s another reason some of them are staying close to here.”
Rayna lifted a brow. “What’s that?”
“Javier finally came up with a prototype elixir to curb our dragon-killing instincts. A female slayer from the NAC volunteered to take it first, and she said it started working within an hour. So far, her main side effects have been a mild headache and muscle weakness. We won’t know for a while how long it lasts, and they’ll keep working to improve it.”
That was great news for those who hated being tied to hunting dragons all the time. Javier was Norman's lead sorcerer and kept a bunch of apprentices within his power circle. They’d figured out how to make potions that rendered humans fireproof from dragon flames and made other useful concoctions. Developing one for slayers had been on their to-do list after the war. Rayna couldn’t imagine foregoing hunting, but others had grown tired of it.
“So some of them are staying close to see if Javier makes a formula worth using?” she asked.
“Yep. Though they’re not all willing to try the early versions.”
Rayna scrunched her nose. “I don’t have any desire to try it at all.”
“I get that,” Bailey said, pausing to drink water. “There are some slayers in Texas who are very interested, so we promised to send samples that way if the first version works well enough. I’d try it myself if I wasn’t pregnant. Not for permanent use, of course, but at least during the winter months when it’s too cold to hunt or when I need a break.”
“Yeah, I suppose it would be useful sometimes,” Rayna agreed.
The last thing she wanted to do when the snow was deep was trek through it hunting for dragon dens. She nearly froze her butt off in January and February doing that, and at one point, she went over ten days without killing any beasts. Her only saving grace was the Kandoran humans she took out, which somehow eased her urges a bit. Still, she was nearly mindless by the time she found one. It was all she could do to control herself and make a clean kill.
Bailey patted her hand. “So you’ll stay here in the village for a couple of nights, and I believe tomorrow Conrad is taking out the two new slayer arrivals to hunt Kandoran. You can get a fix before you leave if you want.”
“Will there be any dragons this close?”
Titan cleared his throat, leaning forward in his seat to catch their gazes. “A couple of my guards spotted a group in the distance yesterday about eight miles northwest of here. I’m the one who requested the slayers investigate it.”
“That’s very efficient of you,” Rayna said, impressed he’d found a way to cooperate with Conrad, who tended to annoy most shifters with his wild and sarcastic personality.
He shrugged. “It keeps the slayers sated and the enemies away from our borders. There’s no reason not to embrace such an arrangement, though I prefer coordinating with his female companion whenever possible. She’s more reasonable than him.”
Pretty much everyone could agree Rosalie was the better half of that relationship.
“Okay, well, that sounds like a plan to me.”
