Reap the Shadows (Steel & Stone Book 4) by Annette Marie
Her eyes flew open, unnoticed tears clinging to her eyelashes. Perched on the top of the brick wall, head tilted to one side, a dragonet was appraising her.
“Zwi?” she whispered.
Zwi chirped again. Her unblinking golden stare was intense, analyzing Piper with no sign of her usual playfulness. After a long moment, her tail lashed side to side and she let out a long chitter.
“You should be with Ash,” she mumbled. “He needs you to watch his back.”
Zwi gave her another penetrating look and Piper braced herself to watch her small friend fly away, vanishing just like Ash and Kiev had, gone forever from her life. Instead, Zwi jumped to the ground. Black fire burst over her body, rapidly expanding until a dragon stood before her. Zwi turned to present her side to Piper and lifted her wing out of the way.
Swallowing hard, Piper stepped closer to the dragon.
“You—you want me to come with you?”
Zwi turned her head and gave Piper a look.
Piper swallowed again, hesitating. Zwi wanted Piper to come with her—to Ash. She was sure of it. But she’d finally broken the ties that had been driving Ash to throw himself in harm’s way to protect her. If she followed him now ... But what if he needed her help? What if he couldn’t save Lyre and Seiya on his own?
Hands shaking with adrenaline, she grabbed Zwi’s mane and pulled herself onto the dragon’s back. The moment she was settled, Zwi bounded forward, stretching into a full-out run as her wings spread wide and beat down hard, lifting them into the air.
Piper glanced down as Zwi carried them higher into the sky and angled her flight toward the dark shapes of skyscrapers on the horizon. Below, on the shadowy sidewalk, Quinn, Calder, and Lexa stood, necks craned back and faces white in the harsh light coming from the church’s open front door as they watched the dragon sweep away through the sky.
CHAPTER 8
THE HORIZON was dark with no hint of the coming dawn. To the west, the red haze of a fire emanated like a sickly stain on the sky, silhouetting buildings against its crimson glow.
Piper clung to Zwi’s back as she flew above the abandoned streets, keeping between buildings and out of sight of the ominous shape of the Ra embassy rising above the others. Scattered windows in the massive structure were lit with golden light that glowed like watchful eyes. The dragon glided on silent wings, then started to ascend, closing in on a nearby building a couple blocks from the embassy. She grabbed the edge of the rooftop and jumped onto it, immediately ducking behind the waist-high lip that ran around the edge.
Piper slid off her back and the dragon returned to her dragonet form in a burst of black fire. Crouching beside Zwi to stay hidden from any watching eyes, she looked across the empty rooftop.
“Piper?”
She jumped half a foot and almost fell over. Kiev appeared a few feet away as he dropped whatever cloaking spell he’d been using to hide his presence. He crouched beside her.
“What are you doing here?” He gave Zwi a quizzical look. “Ash was wondering what was taking you so long. I don’t think he’ll be happy that you brought her.”
Zwi rustled her wings in a dragon-esque shrug.
“I came in case you two need help,” she said, scanning the rooftop again. “Where’s Ash?”
“Scouting for that secret entrance. No offense, Piper, but we really don’t need your help.” His eyes narrowed. “Unless your help means more mysteriously exploding jeeps or something like that.”
She shifted uncomfortably. “It’s my fault Seiya and Lyre are prisoners. I want to—need to help, to make sure they’re okay.”
He tilted his head. “Ash is really angry with you.”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “It’s complicated. It seems like all I do is screw up lately, even though I’m trying harder than I ever have before not to do exactly that.”
He huffed a little. “Well, at least your screw up didn’t earn you a death sentence.”
She grimaced but didn’t point out that lots of people wanted her dead. Her gaze travelled over the rooftop, searching again for any sign of Ash while at the same time dreading his return. Behind her, the Ra embassy towered over the surrounding buildings like a proud queen surrounded by prostrating peasants. There were no signs of life nearby but that didn’t mean anything. She pressed into the shadows of the half-wall behind her and focused on Kiev, keen for a distraction.
“What happened with your mission?”
“Oh, well ...” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I’ve been carrying reports back and forth for years between Samael and a couple of undercover spies of his in some cities around here. Super simple stuff, anyone could do it, but Samael wanted someone who would never talk—so, me.
“I usually do all four stops in a row, starting in Fairglen. But on my last round, the Fairglen guy is in a huge frantic fit about his catastrophically urgent news and he insists I immediately take his report straight to Samael.”
“Fairglen?” she repeated. “What on earth could be so top secret in Fairglen?”
She’d been to Fairglen, most recently on her unwanted visit to the Gaians’ fancy-shmancy office building where they’d drugged her and unsealed her magic. The city was a dump.
“No idea. All I do is carry the messages.” He shrugged. “So I’m like, ‘Okay, well, you’re the boss,’ and I take his report straight back to Asphodel, and that’s all fine. Then I head for the second pickup location, but now I’m two days behind schedule.” He went silent for a moment, staring at nothing, then continued. “And this guy, he loses his shit at me the moment he sees me. Starts yelling about how I’m an inbred lizard freak, couldn’t think my way out of a box with four sides, stuff like that. I tell him off right back because I don’t have to listen to his garbage when Samael isn’t around, but I guess I went a little too far and he ...”
He took a deep breath, dropping his eyes. “My dragonet was on my shoulder. He’s always been too brave. The reaper grabbed Teva and ... hurt him.”
Horror constricted Piper’s throat as she imagined an adorable, helpless dragonet in the hands of a reaper. “Was Teva okay?”
Kiev looked up and his ice blue eyes were harder than steel. “Teva survived. The reaper didn’t.”
Piper swallowed, holding the boy’s gaze—showing submissiveness to a daemon was always a bad idea—and waited. After a moment, the intensity of his gaze lessened and he shrugged a little.
“That guy was important,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. “He’d been undercover on his mission for like six years. He was in deep with ... whatever he was doing. So Samael’s gonna be ready for murder just at that, but the guy was also a Hades family member. Samael’s second cousin or something. So Samael will have to kill me to send the message that draconians don’t get to kill reapers.”
He abruptly rolled his shoulders, straightening his spine.
“Well, you know, ‘kill’ isn’t the best word,” he said flippantly. “He’ll make an example of me for sure. Probably drag it out for weeks. That’s what he does.”
Piper’s heart squeezed. Kiev’s attempt at nonchalance wasn’t quite solid enough to fool her. Fear of what would happen if Samael got a hold of him shadowed his pale eyes.
“Where is Teva now?” she asked.
“Nearby. He doesn’t like strangers anywhere near him anymore. He hides a lot now.” Guilt slid across his face for allowing his dragonet to be injured.
“I’m glad Raum was nearby to help you and Teva,” she said, trying to direct his thoughts back to the positive. “Did you go straight to him?”
“Yeah, I knew where he was. Don’t know what I would have done otherwise.”
She frowned. “Why didn’t you run away before this, if you were on your own lots of times here?”
“Of course I couldn’t do that.” He looked at her as if she was a dimwit. “Do you know what he’d do to the others if I vanished? My mother has told me to run for it lots, but I won’t do that to her. Besides, where would I go
“Right,” Piper said weakly. “But what will happen if you disappear now?”
“Raum promised he would take care of it. He said he had a plan and no one would get in trouble.”
“That’s good.”
She remembered Raum in Asphodel, holding her down in her chair as Ash was tortured in front of them. It was hard to reconcile that daemon with the one doing what he could to save Kiev.
Zwi’s sudden warning chirp cut through her thoughts. She and Kiev turned quickly, staring in the direction of Zwi’s attention. At the other end of the roof, a tiny head appeared above the half-wall. The small dragonet let out a questioning chirp.
“Who—” Piper began.
“Zala!” Kiev exclaimed. “That’s Zala!”
Zwi chattered excitedly and Zala dashed across the rooftop. She stopped a few feet away, squirming with urgency and chittering at top speed. Zwi jumped to Zala’s side and together they ran back across the rooftop.
Piper jumped up and sprinted after them, bent over at the waist to stay behind the cover of the half-wall. When she reached the end of the roof, she grabbed the edge and looked down. The dragonets landed on the street below.
Fear rushed over her and the back of her neck prickled. She spun around. Kiev grabbed her around the middle, the shimmers from his dropped glamour still fading, and jumped over the edge. She choked back a scream as they dropped three stories, his spread wings barely slowing their fall. He landed hard, bending at the knees to absorb their momentum, but the impact still rattled her bones.
He released her and took off running after the dragonets. Piper dashed after them as they wove through dark alleys. Kiev whipped around a corner and as she swung around after him, he kicked down the door of a long-abandoned office complex.
With Zala leading them, they charged up four flights of stairs. Piper tried to breathe through her mouth as the stench of old urine and mold assaulted her nose. Zala exited the stairwell and dashed down a dirty corridor toward an open door at the end. Piper ran after her and Kiev, her thoughts whirling and her heart racing. They rushed into a room and Kiev stopped, Piper almost crashing into him. Her gaze swept over the stained walls and scattered garbage before landing on the figure silhouetted in front of the broken window.
Seiya turned as they entered. She was out of glamour, her dark draconian clothing blending into the shadows, wings tight to her sides, and two horns on either side of her head sweeping menacingly back, framing her face and black eyes.
Piper froze, terror swimming through her head at the pure, frozen rage molding the girl’s expression.
Dim light suddenly bloomed as Kiev summoned a tiny ball of magic to illuminate the room. Seiya’s attention snapped to him, and the cold, beautiful fury on her face softened into bewildered surprise.
“Kiev?” she blurted, her draconian voice shivering along Piper’s nerves.
“Seiya!” He rushed to her side. “Shit, you’re hurt. What happened?”
Controlling her fear, Piper crossed the room and stopped a few feet away. She looked Seiya over in the additional light, spotting numerous cuts and lacerations from bladed weapons. Some had been crudely bandaged. Blood had soaked into the torn strips of material and dried to near black. In the faint light, the draconian girl looked like a wraith, her face white and cheeks sunken. Her long black hair, normally sleek and shining, was stringy and matted. A silver magic-dampening collar glinted around her neck.
Seiya turned back to the window and pointed. Half a block away, a low warehouse with stone walls had a large loading bay at ground level, and its heavy steel door looked glaringly new compared to everything else nearby. Someone had made an effort to dull the shiny metal with dirt, but the earlier rain had washed shiny streaks in the grime. The door had clearly been installed within the last few days.
“Three SUVs just went in,” Seiya said. “They’re there for Lyre. I know it.”
Piper’s eyes widened. “We need Ash,” she said quickly to Kiev. “Where is he?”
“Coming,” he said. “Zwi will have called him.”
“What happened to you?” Piper asked Seiya. “What happened when you went through the ley line?”
“They’d set a trap,” Seiya said grimly, her black eyes on the loading bay. “We were drugged and taken prisoner. We woke up in cells beneath the embassy.”
Piper’s jaw clenched. Damn Miysis for his betrayal.
Seiya put her hands on the windowsill, her tail lashing side to side. “Maasehet Ra came to visit us—Miysis’s older sister,” she added, noticing Piper’s frown. “She decided to sell us. They were going to trade me back to Samael.”
Tamping down on her disgust—sell them? Like livestock?—she too looked at the loading bay. “How did you escape?”
“Lyre,” Seiya said softly. “I couldn’t have done it without him. He was brilliant.” Her hands tightened on the sill. “I left him behind. He made me leave him.”
Hearing the catch in Seiya’s voice, Piper looked harder at the girl. Her brow had furrowed, black eyes intent on that new door. Piper had never seen Seiya look remotely concerned for Lyre before. She wondered what had happened while they’d been prisoners together.
Hesitating briefly, Piper lightly touched Seiya’s arm. “If you left him, I know it’s because you had no choice. We’re here now. We’ll save Lyre.”
“It’s not your fault,” Kiev added, shifting his feet awkwardly as though he wanted to comfort her but didn’t quite know how. A light blush tinted his cheeks.
Seiya nodded, staring at that loading bay as though she could mentally pull Lyre to safety with nothing but her willpower. She seemed to have no space in her extreme focus to ask where Kiev had come from or why he was with Piper.
Zwi let out a short chirp. A second later, Ash strode through the doorway. Piper quickly backed out of the way as he marched straight to his sister, not appearing to notice anyone else. Seiya turned toward him and the intensity of the relief that contorted her face was heartbreaking. She stepped toward him and half fell into his arms. He held her tightly, anger and relief competing in his expression.
After a brief moment, he stepped back and looked her over.
“Fucking Ras,” he growled.
She shrugged. “I killed two of them for every one that cut me.”
He hooked two fingers through the collar around her neck. His lips moved with soundless words and magic sizzled the air. The stench of hot metal assaulted Piper’s nose and in the next moment, the collar disintegrated into dust. Seiya sighed in relief.
“You need healing,” Ash said, lowering his hand. “Kiev, are you up for it? You’re better than I am.”
“I’ll do my best, but I’m not that—”
“There’s no time,” Seiya interrupted. “Three SUVs just entered the building and I’m certain they’re there to pick up Lyre. We can’t let them leave with him.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Ash asked.
Her eyebrows drew together. “His family.”
Ash’s face went cold. “I see. I’ll take care of him.”
“But I—”
“You need to stay here and let Kiev heal you.”
“I’m coming,” she said flatly, crossing her arms.
“How long have you been waiting here with those injuries and no supplies?” he demanded.
“I—I’m not sure. A few days?”
“You will be more of a hindrance than a help right now.” His tone softened slightly. “There will be opportunities for payback later.”
She gave a reluctant nod. He took her arm, gentle but firm, and pushed her down to sit with her back against a pillar. Kiev hesitantly approached and kneeled beside her. Ash headed toward the door. Piper scrambled to follow him as he disappeared into the stairwell, Zwi trotting at his heels. He took the stairs two at a time, heading up rather than down. Piper hurried after him, rushing out the door at the top and onto the rooftop.
&
He stopped and faced her. His eyes were like black ice.
“What?”
“I want to help.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“But I have the Sahar. I could—”
“I don’t want your help.”
She gritted her teeth. “Lyre is my friend and I’m helping whether you like it or not.”
His gaze raked her. “Fine. But don’t get in the way.”
He turned toward the embassy two blocks away and dropped into a crouch at the edge of the building. Piper crouched beside him and Zwi hopped onto the ledge between them. Together, they watched the unmoving loading bay door.
She licked her lips nervously. “Do we have a plan?”
“When they leave, we follow until they’re a safe distance from the embassy. Then we stop the vehicles, lure them out, and kill them.”
Her eyes widened. “But Seiya said Lyre’s family is involved. What if they’re in the cars too?”
“The only one who matters is Lyre.”
“But ...”
Ash glanced at her. “He won’t be upset, I promise you.”
“Oh.”
Questions burned in her mind but she held them back. This wasn’t the time and she didn’t want to annoy Ash when he was already in a bad mood. She couldn’t imagine how Lyre’s familial relationships could be so poor that he wouldn’t care if Ash killed his relatives, but she didn’t know a thing about his family or his past.
She was still processing Seiya’s surprising reaction to Lyre’s imprisonment. Maybe Piper was biased, seeing as Seiya had most likely tried to kill her in the Overworld, but she had never noticed Seiya show much care for anyone’s life except her brother’s. But her intense focus on that loading door, the undertone of pain in her voice when she spoke of leaving Lyre behind, her insistence on helping even while injured ... suggested she cared more than Piper would have guessed. She had stayed in that filthy building, injured and helpless without magic in the vain hope that she could save Lyre. Piper couldn’t understand it, though she supposed that with a magic-dampening collar on her, Seiya hadn’t had many other options.