Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [75]
He didn’t appreciate my joke, which was fine, as I didn’t appreciate his kidnapping us.
“Let us see if you are still laughing tomorrow,” was all he said before leaving the room.
“Tomorrow? You never answered me about what you have planned for us. Baltic! Damn him.” I called after him, moving toward the door to follow him. His men blocked my way, both of them large enough that it gave me pause. I eyed them for a second, trying to decide if I could take them both on in dragon form, and what repercussions such an act might have, when Fiat exploded.
“Che cazzo stai dicendo?” he snarled, making me glad for a moment I didn’t speak the language. He pushed past me to fling open the side door that Baltic had just used to leave, and screamed after the other dragon, “Nessuno me lo ficca in culo!”
Jim looked shocked.
“On a profanity scale of one to ten, how bad was what Fiat just said?” I asked the demon softly.
“Fifteen.”
“Ouch.” I grabbed Cyrene and pulled her out of the way when Fiat spun around, his face black with anger as he stormed past us. Only he didn’t pass us—he veered off and grabbed me by the arm, instead.
“I will not tolerate this! You are my prize, not his! If he thinks he can treat me as a minion, he will soon see just what a force I am,” he growled as he half dragged me across the room.
“Ack!” Cyrene yelled, ducking behind me despite the fact that Fiat wasn’t even touching her. “It’s started! He’s trying to steal me! He thinks you are me!”
“Fanculo,” Fiat spat at her, backhanding her at the same time, sending her reeling backwards into the wall.
The dragon shard would have burst into action, but my own temper won out. Before Cyrene even hit the wall, I had my dagger out and was pressing the tip of it into his throat, right where his jugular vein pulsed. “No one,” I said in a voice hoarse with anger, “no one hurts my twin.”
Fiat shifted, the flesh beneath my blade going from beige to blue in an instant. He swung a heavy scaled arm at my head, but I ducked, instinctively shadowing. The room was well lit, but not so bright that I was entirely obvious when shadowed. “Jim, protect Cy,” I ordered, flattening myself on the floor for a few seconds when Fiat spun around searching for me, his tail whipping over my head by the barest of inches.
With identical shouts of anger, Fiat’s two bodyguards dropped Magoth’s unconscious body and shifted into dragon form, as well. I scurried out of their way, trying to stick to the less-lit areas of the room, but that idea went to hell in a handbasket when Baltic’s two attendants, who had been ordered to take us downstairs, also shifted. I made a mental note that they were black in color, not white like Baltic.
“It’s a dragonpalooza,” Jim said, standing guard over Cyrene as she pushed herself up into a sitting position, shaking her head.
“Mayling?” she called, searching for me, squeaking in horror when one of the black dragon guards lunged toward her. He was heading for Fiat’s men, however, leaping on the back of the one named Renaldo. The two of them went down in a flurry of scales, claws, dragon fire, and screams that echoed down the length of the long hall. The second black dragon tackled the other blue bodyguard when he went to save his buddy, the former yelling something in what I assumed was Zilant.
The dragon shard demanded I shift and confront Fiat, who was standing in the center of the room, peering around for me. I pressed myself deeper into the shadow cast by a huge sideboard, knowing that he would see me if he spent any time examining the area.
“Come out here, cara,” he called, his voice almost normal—almost. “I told you what would happen if you were to hide from me.”
The lights in the room suddenly dimmed. Cyrene stood at a panel near the entrance, punching off a row of lights as fast as she could. Jim was at one of the huge windows, hauling closed heavy dark blue draperies. Bless them, they were trying to give me an even playing ground.
“And let you take out on me the fact that you’re pissed at your boss?” I called to Fiat as