Mikoto and the Reaver Village (Amaranthine Saga #4) - Forthright . Page 0,88
moved their entire household from one wing to the next with the turning of the seasons. And in more modest, modern harems, lords maintained four bedchambers, one for each bride—east, south, west, and north.
Sinder understood the pull. He kept his sanity by rearranging the furniture. Juuyu never minded. It gave him an excuse to clean. Maybe it was team building. Maybe it was group therapy.
Dragons were isolationists, obsessively secretive about their idiosyncrasies, now more than ever. Sinder understood that, too. Their traditions were already remarked upon, even criticized. The lords were reluctant to expose their culture, opening the way for mockery, speculation, psychoanalysis, or future attacks.
Which were a real possibility, thanks to the rogue.
Because that dragon wasn’t immune to the pull of instinct.
The women he stole were stashed in makeshift harems. Many profilers believed he was after progeny, a frustrated male who’d refined his techniques once he realized he could only impregnate females of reaver descent.
A noteworthy discovery, to be sure. Lapis Mossberne was especially interested in that particular point, but Sinder was skeptical. If the rogue wanted his children, wouldn’t he show more interest in gathering them up? Yes, some infants had gone missing, but those disappearances didn’t correlate with the reports of fresh kidnappings and killings.
Sinder thought it more likely that an even greedier instinct drove the rogue. He wanted to gain the sky.
The rogue was after wings, something that traditionally took a thousand years. But the truth was far less poetic. It went without saying that dragon lords had long been forming alliances with reavers and benefiting from their tending. What most left unsaid was that those who consumed the souls of reavers—even the undisciplined, unrefined souls of unregistered reavers—could gain those selfsame wings.
And damn the rest of them.
The lords had looked on in horror when mounting evidence pointed to a dragon as the perpetrator of heinous crimes against humanity. Immediately, they’d put the scholars of the heights to work. Registries were opened. Lineages traced. Eggs tallied. Identities confirmed. And to the mystification of all, every male was both found and found innocent.
Meaning the rogue dragon was an impossibility.
No male had sired him. No female had carried him.
And nobody would believe them.
Despite every protestation of peace, dragons would be vilified. So when Hisoka Twineshaft approached the lords, asking for any detail, no matter how small, that would give trackers an edge in the chase, the dragons pledged their cooperation.
And when the cat smiled and singled out the Graennturn enclave’s IT specialist, nobody questioned his choice in emissaries. Sinder was plucked from the heights of an urban high rise, thrown to the wolves, partnered to a phoenix, and trusted with more secrets than anyone should have to keep.
His musing were interrupted by the arrival of three reavers in the small clearing at the base of his hideaway. Had they managed to track him? That was promising.
No Kith in evidence. Should he trip a new trap? Just to see if they’d learned their lesson.
Earlier, the rookies had taken two hours to realize he’d compromised four of their members. If not for the Kith in their midst, they might never have realized that they’d begun trapping each other instead of him.
A low growl. A soft hiss.
Sinder glanced over his shoulder and winced as the twist pulled at his injuries. “He warded you? Smart.”
Timur’s feline partner crouched in the shadow of a bush, orange eyes burning with predatory zeal.
“Then again, he said you were the smart one.” Sinder did not like the twitch in Fend’s tail. “You going to let me off easy?”
The panther’s lips peeled back, baring fangs, and his growl escalated into a snarl.
Sinder swore and sprang away, barely evading Fend’s pounce. The animal’s scream alerted the battlers and spurred Sinder through the treetops. He’d have to add a line in his report about warding the Kith, which was terrifyingly effective. Hisoka would be pleased. Michaelson and Fend were exactly what Naroo-soh needed—invulnerable and innovative.
Teetering to a halt on the sagging limb of an old pine, he worked his way closer to the trunk and climbed to one of the hideaways he’d created back when the rookies were more gullible. The scent of tree sap wasn’t the best cover, but if he was lucky, he could catch his breath.
“Let me have a look.”
Sinder started violently enough to lose his balance, but strong hands grabbed his wrists. Which was a little too much like being held captive. But his captor turned him loose and raised both hands.