She tilted her wings and let the last thermals of the day carry her higher. Soon she left the barrenlands behind and soared over Zakaron.
The city spread below her in all its gloomy menace—a place of darkness, its soul reflected by the dimly lit streets.
Despite her flight, Aria’s uneasiness returned with a vengeance. What was it about this meet tonight that had her so on edge? Her tail twitched. She took a deep breath and tried to let her angst bleed away with the vapor trailing off her wingtips.
She tilted her wings and rolled through a cloud. Tonight resembled any other—a simple exchange of goods for currency. Like all underlords, Udo sold only to the distributors. Udo was repulsive, but better than her last three employers. He paid her well, respected her “hands off” policy, and didn’t sell slaves.
Danao had drilled his own brand of moral fortitude into her, and it hadn’t done her any favors now that she didn’t have him looming over every interaction. In fact, integrity was discouraged in a bodyguard, but Dragon shifters were so rare in this job that it bought Aria a bit of leeway.
Never mind that she was female on top of it. Many considered her a rare commodity, and the thought elicited her usual flare of temper. She gritted her Dragon teeth—her mentors had often warned her that her emotions were her worst weakness.
Her general state of agitation remained despite her nap. She needed to shelve her hostility in order to be calm and cool for tonight. The drug trade disgusted her on a fundamental level, but if it was Udo himself and his unsavory business causing her angst, she’d better give herself a right and proper slap up the side of the head. If her warrior’s instinct caused it, however, she needed to listen.
A bit of a conundrum. One that didn’t seem to be solvable by soaring through clouds.
The clarity a rested mind provided finally coughed up a vital clue. What brought it all down on the side of warrior instincts, and not her usual fit of pique, was that this customer had not been vetted before being permitted into Udo’s display room.
Aria cursed her slow brain. Mervok would have pegged that immediately. Her heart ached, so she shoved the memories away, and banked, her golden wing membranes catching the light of the rising moon. She folded them and dropped lower over the city. Udo’s stronghold, housed in one of the area’s taller buildings, encased six stories filled with his lowlife employees.
She had to remind herself that she was one of them.
Dragons had some of the keenest eyes of any species across the realms. Movement coming in low over the buildings caught her attention—a small group of Dragons with heavy packs dangling from their talons. Another shipment of intact crystals and ground dust arriving from the Dragonlords who ran the seedbeds in the nearby volcanic mountain ranges.
She fell in behind them. Instantly aware of her, they shot her dark looks over their shoulders. The ones on the fringes weren’t laden with goods, but rather guarding them, and they watched her closely.
Aria kept enough distance to not aggravate, but tailed them as they zeroed in on Udo’s building. The guards awaiting the shipment didn’t need her help, but she’d hover anyway. Just in case.
She owed her job, and her life, to what those sacks carried. The dust within them may be a recreational drug to some species, but for Dragons it was a vital dietary supplement.
As she tailed the delivery group in, she came in low and slow to give the roof guards plenty of time to see her approaching. The alert guards watched both the incoming group and her with raised weapons. Not that much could be done if the Dragons decided to slice and dice.
The delivery squad dropped into the roof’s center, but she backwinged and landed on the neighboring one, and waited until the guards relaxed and signaled her before gliding across to Udo’s building.
She embraced her human form, aware of both the guards and Dragons’ lurid stares as she grew her scale bodysuit. Some female bodyguards used exposed skin to distract, but Aria covered as much as she could. Her appearance caused enough issues without adding expanses of smooth, naked skin to the equation.
The three guards on the roof ogled her appreciatively until Aria swept her glare over them. They proved they did possess brain cells by looking away as she bent to retrieve her tail spike. She hefted the razor-edged blade. With her crystal reserves at a decent level, she’d managed to grow it a solid two feet this time.
She slipped it through a scale she’d modified to extend past her hip with a large loop in the center. It held the tail spike within easy reach of her hand.
The Dragons watched her with their glowing metallic eyes as they handed off the sacks filled with crystals and dust. Aria pretended to ignore them, but in reality she was hyperaware of their presence. She’d run afoul of two underworld Dragons—gang members—as a teenager. Cocky and arrogant, she’d narrowly escaped ending up with a collar on her neck, kneeling to the ruthless bastards. Before the day was done, Mervok and Danao’s swords had run red with Dragon blood. But it had given her an up close and personal look at what many female underworld Dragons endured.
So as the Dragons all stared, her teeth ground and her fingers itched to slice them with her talons.
The largest of the group stepped closer. “Whys ares yous working fors Udo, when yous coulds have sso much more funs with us?”
“The last thing I need is to hang out with you cretins,” she retorted.
“Heards yous were a wilds one. Bets I coulds tame yous,” another said.
Aria matched gazes with the speaker, her hands loose at her sides. “Like to see you try.”
The Dragon held the stare for only a few seconds before snorting and clacking his jaws. “Yous nots worth its,” he judged, and launched into the sky. The rest took off with him, vanishing into the night.
So much for Dragon relations. She felt a pang for Danao, and their mutual love of soaring through the clouds. But better to be seen as a bitch than to end up as a slave or mistress.
The Trog guards backed away as she walked through them. She noted their respectful expressions with satisfaction. Trogs tended to be as mentally thick as their skin.
So unlike Mervok, who had never been a fool. He would have supported her holding to her principles.
