well. It feeds from the source. Yes, I would ask you. How do I kill it?”
“You would ask me?” Vivienne repeated, in a voice gone cold. “You would ask me to give you the means to destroy myself? You offer cake and wine, offer a symbol of what I am, then ask me to reveal how you might kill me should you want what I have?”
“I’ve given you my oath. What’s yours is yours. Why would I wish to harm so valued a friend and ally?”
“There are others who might covet.”
“You are and always will be under my shield, as will and always will be your people. Help me end this, so your people and mine, so all people can have peace. The gods brought you to me, I believe that, so we could prove ourselves to each other. And having proven, I could ask you this question. You would search your heart and give me the answer.”
On a huff, Vivienne stood, stalked around the patio with her emerald gown swirling. “You ask me to put my life into your hands.”
“She lures children, young girls most usually, out of their beds, takes them into a wood where only death and dark remain. She rends them there, on an altar, to feed the beast. The dragon protects her, kills for her, burns for her. Should I show you?”
Vivienne threw out a hand. “No. I’ve seen enough of what this evil can do.”
“The last she disemboweled on that altar was just sixteen. Her name was Aileen.”
“Mes dieux, merde, ça pute!” When she ran out of curses—that took awhile—Vivienne turned to stare hard into Fallon’s eyes. “Who will you tell?”
“Duncan and Tonia, also my blood.”
“Like your whore of a cousin?”
“Nothing like her. You know that without me telling you. I’ll tell the man I’m pledged to, and his twin, who’s a sister to me. These two who, with me, wrapped Aileen’s body in a blanket and took her to her family. The two who will go with me to finish it so together we can destroy the one who turned the glory of his spirit animal to the dark.”
Vivienne sat again, poured more wine into her glass. She drank it all. “We are so few,” she murmured. “I had hoped there would be a way to turn this one back to the light. At least to the shadows, yes? But children, young girls, sacrificed? There is no forgiveness for this.”
She added more wine while Fallon waited, this time took only a sip. “In the stories, it’s often a sword through the heart of a dragon. Or perhaps used to cut off its great head. Mais non. It may be the dragons of old could be killed in such ways, but not those of us who shift. I hope there are more of us. I must hope. Perhaps they hide, perhaps they still sleep.”
On a long sigh, she took another sip of wine. “There is only one way to kill the dragon. It must be struck in the eye, pierced through. The left eye only,” she added, tapping beneath her own. “Only then will it fall, will its flame gutter out. Only then will a sword cleave through its armor to take the head. You must burn the head to destroy it. These three things you must do, or it will not die.”
“Thank you.”
“Kill him, end this. I will have another glass of wine. And will take the whole of the cake home.”
Fallon had to smile. “And welcome.” Then she gripped Vivienne’s hand, let the truth inside her flow. “When I kill it—him—I’ll do it in part for you, the flame from the north, to strike that blow for the beauty of what you are, and what he refused to be.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
She felt it moving on the air, stirring in her blood, whispering in her mind. In the weeks since she’d met with Vivienne, she and Duncan and Tonia had trained with the specific purpose of destroying a shifter dragon and its rider.
And still, she’d found no answers to when.
Yet she knew a storm gathered, dreamed of the lightning and the circle of stones. Of the spill of blood, and the throbbing heart of what waited in the murdered wood.
That throbbing heart whispered, too. She heard its alluring promises, its silky lies, saw the mask it wore that was handsome, seductive when it crept into her dreams.
It broke her sleep as she shoved her way out of fitful dreams to restlessness. Every night, she