“What are you doing?” the king demanded.
“Kill his mother if you can. But the boy—you wait until he is old enough to wipe his own ass. That should be the way of things, Dwarf King.”
The king yanked his axe back. “Fine.”
The boy jumped to his feet, running back the way he’d come, screaming, “Muuummmm!”
“What are you waiting for?” Kachka asked him. “Go. Get your revenge on Thracius by killing his daughter.”
She watched the dwarves, led by their king, follow after the boy. Once she was sure they were gone, she turned and went the other way.
Gaius had Vateria on the ground and was strangling the life from her, enjoying the way her eyes were bulging from her head, and she was hitting at him, trying to get him off her, when he heard Brannie yell, “Gaius! Behind you!”
Annoyed, he looked over his shoulder. Dragons, former soldiers of Thracius’s army he was guessing, poured into the cavern from another entry point.
Brannie batted the She-dragon she’d been fighting out of her way to protect Gaius’s back. That’s when he realized that the other two dragons Aidan and Brannie had been fighting were also cousins of his.
A claw slapped across his face and he was tossed off when Vateria pressed her back claws against his chest and shoved.
Gaius flew back, watching Vateria get to her feet. She started to come toward him. That god she’d chosen had changed her, but he didn’t really have time to be disgusted. Not with the Dwarf King and his soldiers coming in from the other entrance.
Their war cry rang out, and although they were considerably smaller than the dragons, there were suddenly a lot of them . . . and they went for the weakest points on dragons’ bodies with the most deadly weapons.
The dwarves climbed over Vateria and her soldiers, chopping at them with their axes and swords.
A small group of Vateria’s soldiers attacked Gaius, old Praetorian Guards who recognized him on sight. He blocked several weapons with his sword and shoved them off. He wanted Vateria. He would have Vateria!
But when he turned around . . .
“Where is she?” Gaius bellowed at the Dwarf King.
Blood covered half the king’s head, face, and shoulder. He pointed with his sword toward the entrance they’d come through. That was also when he realized that Kachka was gone. He knew she was trying to get the eyes away from Vateria, and Vateria had gone after her.
“Marina! Zoya! With me!” he yelled, shifting to human and sprinting after his bitch cousin.
Kachka ran until she reached what she knew every dwarf city had access to . . . a mine.
There were signs that gave directions to each of the mines—gold, steel, iron, silver—but they were written in dwarvish and she had no idea how to read that.
So Kachka headed for the first functioning mine she saw. But someone grabbed her arm and pulled her toward a separate set of stairs.
“Gold is your friend, luv,” the woman said, pushing Kachka up the stairs. As Kachka ran, she glanced back at the woman. She wasn’t one of the dwarves. She was tall, lean, and brown-skinned. Like Izzy or her mother Talaith. She was also dressed as a warrior or soldier of fortune. She was even more out of place in the dwarf mines than . . . well, than Kachka was.
But without any other options, she had to take her chances this woman wasn’t trying to destroy her.
So she took the steps three at a time until she reached the top.
Kachka pulled the leather bag out of the top of her boot where she’d stashed it for her mad dash to the mines and pulled her arm back to toss it into the molten gold. That’s when she heard, “Down!”
She did as ordered, dropping down to the ground, and the dragon who had been about to grab her, sailed right over her. The dragon turned in midair, wings out, claws reaching for her.
Two arrows slammed into the dragon’s face and neck. A short spear hit it right in the chest, through the heart, killing it as its body fell from sight.
Hands grabbed Kachka again, only this time it was her comrades Zoya and Marina hauling her to her feet.
“Kachka—” Marina began, but then the dragon was back. It hadn’t been killed. Nor did its wings seem to work, hanging limply from its back, so that it floated to the ledge instead of flying.
The three of them scrambled back, watching the dragon carefully land. It pulled the arrows from its face and the spear from its chest and that’s when Kachka knew it was Vateria.
“Those of us,” Vateria said, “who have been truly blessed by our god, need more than these weak weapons to kill us.” She held out her claw. “Give it to me, barbarian, before I stomp you into the ground like the worthless trash you are.”
Kachka began to tell her to fuck off, but she and her comrades were forced farther back when there was suddenly a large dragon ass landing right in front of them.
Gaius snarled. “Get away from them, cunt.”