The Power of Three.
Aria trailed fingers along it, and over the flesh that would never lift another sword. The engraving, and its meaning, tore through her heart. The men who had raised her were gone.
The rage rose, and she tilted her head back to roar her pain into the flames and smoke. Then she pushed away and scrambled to the metal beam. Scales erupted along her arms, and talons from her fingertips, as she poured everything she had into the swing of her sword.
The power behind it drove the weapon clear into the metal. The beam groaned as she ripped it free, and she swung again. And again.
On the final strike, the blade shattered, but it had done its work. Aria backed rapidly away as the structure crumpled at the tear. As it gave way, it brought the last of the building down around it.
From the refuge of the tunnel, she stared back into the dust and smoke. Her family lay buried beneath tons of rubble.
For two old warriors, perhaps it was a fitting grave.
The tunnel ended in another staircase that spat her out into a back alley. Standing in the pouring rain, Aria realized she still clutched the hilt of her shattered sword. She’d wandered away without scanning for Grievan’s mercs. Not the best survival strategy, if that was what she wished to do.
Mervok and Danao would expect better of her.
Aria hung the ornamental hilt from her belt. The rain cleansed all traces of her tears, and her heart felt as though it were hollow. Empty. Like everything she’d ever been had been burned away.
The future stretched before her.The Power of Threewas down to one. Aria swallowed, and took her first steps into a new life.
1
Aria strode along the dirt encrusted streets of Zakaron in the wake of her latest employer.
The city bustled at midday. As they traversed the street amid the crowd, Aria scanned for potential threats. Her job, after all, was to keep her unsavory boss from getting minced. Udo was well known in this region, and eyes followed them wherever they went.
There were rules to this place, like in the many other underworld cities. None of them were for the faint of heart, and matching stares in Zakaron could get you killed.
Yet some persisted in being suicidal. And some of those eyes weren’t planted on her boss. One set of them—whose tight pants did little to disguise another, obviously interested, body part—moved in for more than a look. Horny? Brave? Or just plain stupid?
He sidled close and purred, “Hello beautiful. Care to share a drink with me?”
Aria rapidly calculated the target area based on his species and scooped her taloned fingers in an arching motion that ended between his legs.
He froze as she squeezed. “Not today, Loverboy. Not ever.”
“My mistake,” he squeaked.
She released him, and he vanished into the crowd. Her boss, the underlord Udo, had paused to watch the exchange. His pink furred face appeared amused.
His towering overseer, Xolto, was less so. “If you walked less like a sex-starved female, they’d stop panting after you.”
“It’s how she walks.” Udo waved a hand and resumed his journey. “And I, for one, like it.”
Aria gritted her teeth and glared at Udo’s back, before matching Xolto’s narrow-eyed stare. Udo’s confirmation that he broke her “no looking” rule grated on her. He was a lowlife, but she needed this sharding job.
Xolto wasn’t done with her. He lifted a lip as he uttered three words, “Watch our backs.”
Unnecessary instruction, as she already did so. Before she could snarl a sarcastic response, Udo twisted back to give an imperceptible nod. So she stifled her resentment and dropped another step behind.
Like most everything in this realm, Zakaron was run by the underlords. Slaves, drugs, crystal dust—they dealt in anything that was worth something to someone else. Udo had brought her, his overseer Xolto, and another hulking bodyguard with him for his visit to his frontline dealer. Like Xolto, the other guard was a Trog. Their hulking, muscled bodies, thick, leathery skin, and pugnacious attitudes made them excellent bodyguards. They were paid to throw themselves between Udo and whatever sharp pointy things his would-be enemies wielded.
They may resemble Mervok, but they generally lacked his sense of honor. Although perhaps that had been Danao’s influence. The old Dragon shifter had always held the Trog and herself to a strict code.
She never spoke of them, but she missed them terribly. Danao’s gentle wisdom, and Mervok’s grim practicality—with everything except when he bought her gifts—had bound them together as a team. They’d had each other’s backs in this tough, dangerous game.
Now, she trusted no one.
