"Luce! NO!"
The soldier paused, then his dark gaze swung to meet mine. Pasqual started to struggle, but then froze, eyes wide, when she felt the icy edge of Lucifer's blade begin to slice into her neck. Nearby, Kaa'saht spun about, hissing in shock at what he saw, then began to drop into a crouch, tensing as if for a leap. Luce turned his head to look at the dragon, and whatever Kaa'saht read in the eerily calm face caused him to hesitate, then slowly back away.
"Luce, don't kill her. We need her."
He looked at me again. That small Buddha-like smile was once again tugging at his lips, but there was something missing from it, and the smile was as cold as the dark side of the moon. "I was too late," he said simply. "I was too far away. I could only follow. Follow, until I could deliver justice."
A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature ran through me. "Lucifer, there's no need--"
"No?" Luce looked down into Pasqual's pale, frightened face. Her nude body was already shivering in the brutal cold, and her hands were twitching, almost reaching for the blade, then shying away. Twice I thought I saw the ripple that presaged a shift to her true form, both times aborted as the Gerber Mark II bit deeper. A line of bright red suddenly ran down the length of the gleaming steel, dripping into the snow. "I heard the gunfire, smelled the smoke. Then I saw you. How many of our people did you kill?" he purred, his voice calm, cold, so utterly without mercy that for a moment he truly could have been Lucifer Morningstar.
"No one, Luce; nobody's dead." I lifted a foreleg, to perhaps take a half-step closer, but then those eyes swung up to meet mine again, and I found myself putting it back down. "Grease caught them by surprise, gave the rest of the team time to fort-up in the back room. He's pretty torn up, but we think he'll be okay." I paused, then, quietly, "No one needs to die today, Luce."
For a small eternity Luce considered this. Then, finally, his smile grew fractionally wider. He turned his head to look at Pasqual, then bent to whisper something into her ear. That whispering, too low for the rest of us to hear, went on for almost a full minute, during which what little color Pasqual had left in her face slowly drained away until she was as white as the snow about her.
Abruptly Lucifer flung her away. Pasqual stumbled, almost falling, then her form was changing, rapidly swelling into her true form even as she frantically scrambled to put more space between herself and the dark soldier. Kaa'saht immediately dropped into that hunting crouch again, his tail switching like an enraged cat's, eyes locked on the human who simply stood there, smiling at him as he wiped off his blade and smoothly slid it back into its sheath.
"Kaa'saht, I do not believe I gave you permission to move," I rumbled ominously. The blue-black dragon flinched, his head snapping around to look at me. Immediately he fell out of the crouch, his head held low as he looked first at me, then at Stefan's silently seething form. I gazed at him coldly for a moment, then turned my attention back to Pasqual and waited for her to stop staring at Lucifer the way a small bird stares at a snake. "Pasqual, there's one thing I do not understand," I began quietly. "Why, when we were safely away from Ahnkar's control, did you continue the masquerade? And why did you run?"
The dragoness, her eyes still more than a little wild, opened and closed her jaws twice before she could find her voice. "You ask me such a thing?" she choked out, then gestured to Luce. "You ask me such a thing, when you consort with-- with things like-- like this?"
I looked at Luce, who was standing in the midst of enormous carnivores just as calmly as if he were standing on a street corner waiting for the bus, then back to Pasqual. Slowly, she forced herself to calm down. "My Lord, I knew that one day you would come for me, come for our children. But I did not know that you would be so sorely pressed that you would be forced to ally yourself with-- with humans," she began at last. "I thought you had gone mad, not slaying them when their purpose was finished, and I knew I had to get our children away before the creatures turned on us. I remained concealed, planning our escape, and waited for the right time."
I sat there for several long moments after the dragoness had finished speaking, a dull ember of anger burning within my breast at her words. I lifted my gaze to look at the now-crystalline sky, the tallest of the peaks about us flaring into golden brilliance at the touch of the first rays of the rising sun. My daughter-- I closed my eyes, clamping down on that resurgence of grief. Then I lowered my head, my eyes scanning the tree line before returning to Pasqual. "You forget Pasqual, that there was a time when I thought myself human," I rumbled at last. "These creatures, as you put it, are not my allies, they are my friends. Friends who were willing to head into that deathtrap of a warehouse for no other reason than I needed their help. They risked their lives, and one of them lost that gamble, to bring our children out from beneath Ahnkar's shadow. They are my friends, dragon; from now until the grave, and, perhaps beyond even that. You will remember this, even if you remember nothing else."
The steel-scaled dragoness blinked, her eyes widening at my tone. Then my words began to sink in. She hesitated, then her gaze dropped, her face pensive as she looked away. I watched her for a silent moment, reminding myself that Pasqual had been brought up as a dragon, and doubtlessly fed nothing but propaganda throughout her life. Even Stefan, with his extensive experience with humans had had a rough time shaking off his draconic prejudices, and quite often found himself backsliding into those old, comfortable assumptions. "We will finish this conversation back at the house," I stated.
Pasqual's head came up at that, her mane jangling softly from the abrupt movement. "My Lord, I will not-- We cannot--"
"And where would you go, Pasqual?" I asked, that sullen anger flaring again as I felt one corner of my hard mouth curling up sardonically. "Your storm is gone, and I will not allow you another. You can no longer slip away undetected, and now they know we are here."