Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts) by Holly Lisle Read Free Book Online Page B

years—that had not been pillaged and plundered by a century’s treasure-seekers—a city like that could exist nowhere but in the Novtierras. This city had been visited by one ship alone. Even after the fire, it would house wonders; ruins that had survived the Wizards’ War and the Thousand Years of Darkness would survive fire.
    Hidden within those ruined buildings lay pieces of knowledge lost to humankind for the last thousand years, pieces of knowledge that had waited for him and his men. With such treasures in hand, he could return to Calimekka in triumph, reconcile with his Family and the Wolves, and reinstate his friends. He could force his Family to accept his Galweigh parata.
    Once he rescued Kait, he would have time to explore, but first he had to get her to safety. She waited somewhere within those burned hills. She was so near, he could almost smell her. The passion—the obsession—that had driven him to pursue her across half a world, through storm and disaster, across uncharted ocean to unmapped land, burned higher than ever. His blood, his bones, his very soul sang with her nearness.
    “Kait,” he whispered, “be safe. We’re almost together.”
    A hand dropped onto his shoulder and he jumped. “The men want to go ashore to search the ruins.” The captain stood behind him, and Ry hadn’t even heard the man approach. Ry didn’t think anyone had ever successfully approached him without his being aware of it before. His mind was too taken by Kait and too full of excitement. He needed to reach her, to have her—then he thought he would be able to concentrate again.
    “No. I go ashore alone first,” he said, and heard the growl in his voice. That growl worried him. He was near Shift, close to becoming the beast. The one time Kait had seen him, they had met Karnee to Karnee, in a back alley in Halles over the bodies of seven murderers. This time he wanted to be human. He wanted to be
with
her as human—to first taste her mouth in human form, to have the pleasure of undressing her, of hearing her whisper his name in the silken tones of her human voice. . . .
    He breathed deeply, and fought to find the peace that would calm his racing pulse. He didn’t try to cage his excitement by sheer force of will, for such an attempt would only set the Karnee part of him to beating wildly against the bars of its cage, and when it broke free, it would run out of control and take him with it. Instead, he acknowledged his desire, his hunger, the pumping of his lungs, and the shiver in his spine, and said to them,
Later.
Later, he would fulfill all his hopes and desires.
    “I’ll go ashore alone,” he repeated. “I don’t want to frighten Kait away—if I take men with me, she might flee.”
    “And if she isn’t alone?”
    Ry was staring back at that hideous burned shoreline again, at those blackened hills. “I can take care of anyone she might have with her.”
    As two sailors readied one of the longboats for him, Yanth strode up to him, for the first time in a long time wearing sailors’ roughspun rather than dramatic silk and leather. “The captain said you intended to go ashore alone.”
    “I’m going alone.”
    “You aren’t. I know you think you’ll find your true love there, but you have no idea what else you’ll find. And I won’t chance you getting yourself killed. I owe you better than that.”
    Ry glared at him. “You owe me the loyalty of respecting my wishes. I
wish
to go ashore alone.”
    “No.” Yanth rested a hand on the hilt of his sword and smiled, but the smile was without warmth. “Friends never owe each other complicity in suicide. Do you hear me? I’ll follow you ashore, and I’ll guard your back.”
    Ry turned away from Yanth and gripped the rail. “There’s only one first time,” he said. “This is it for us. The first time we’ll see each other as a man and a woman. The first time we’ll touch. The first time we’ll . . .” He closed his eyes, conjuring up