Legacy of Flames: Books 1-3 (Paperback)

The world ended on a cloudy Tuesday afternoon when Cori and I were haggling with a witch over the price of hair dye. If there’d been any precursors to the apocalypse whatsoever, neither of us noticed. We were too busy trying to convince Magic Avenue’s stingiest merchant to sell us enough dye to compensate for the fact that my bright-red curls were poking at the roots.

“C’mon, Twill, don’t be a dick,” I said to the sour-faced merchant. “You know for a fact that this was half the price two months ago.”

My sister and fellow dragon shifter, Coriander, propped her elbow up on the counter. “I remember, too. And the witch around the corner is offering it for a third less than that.”

Twill scowled. “You got proof of that, runt?”

“What did you just call my sister?” 

I might have got out my claws to make him back down fast, but that would be unwise. Sure, most people in Magic Avenue knew we weren’t regular old shifters, but that didn’t mean I needed to break the most basic rule of being one of us: don’t flaunt your power if you don’t want to end up dead in an alley. 

Besides, there was someone else in the shop, too. A man I was pretty sure I’d never seen before, maybe early twenties like me, from what I could see of his face. Tousled chestnut hair, clean-shaven, and hovering near the door with his hands in his pockets in a way that should have struck me as casual but somehow didn’t. The long coat he wore was an odd choice for a day as warm as this, but some of us were more cautious than others. Strangers showed up in Magic Avenue often enough, which was one reason Rhea didn’t like us coming here, but she’d given up the argument when I’d pointed out that it was one of the few places in London we could mingle in the open and stretch our wings. Metaphorically, not literally… yet.

Twill ground his teeth, yanking my attention back to my sister. She wasn’t amused at the term of endearment either. 

“Yeah, I’ll take an extra ten percent off for that comment, thanks. Oh, and I’d like a healing spell for free.”

The merchant scoffed. “You have some cheek, runt. Why don’t you and your sister piss off and go bother someone else?”

“Language,” Cori said in a singsong voice, which caused him to unleash a further stream of expletives in response. I might have laughed—our ongoing joke was the result of a failed attempt to keep a swear jar in the kitchen, much to Rhea’s exasperation—but honestly, who the hell talked to a fourteen-year-old like that?

“You gonna walk back that comment, or would you like us to give you a reason to need a healing spell for yourself?” I said. “It’s hair dye, Twill, not the elixir of life. Be reasonable.”

Twill’s jaw set. “Pay full price or walk out with nothing. Final offer.”

It was then that I noticed the stranger was walking towards us. As was habit, I tried to pin down his supernatural type. Shifters were typically taller, bulkier, and he was an inch or so taller than I was, if that. The coat he wore wasn’t the fancy sort the mages favoured, and they never came here, besides. Neither did the necromancers. Witch, then, and not a bad-looking one either. My dragon side stirred with interest. 

“Is there a problem here?” He fixed Twill with an unblinking stare that actually made the merchant back off a little. Normally I preferred to fight my own battles, but the stranger added a third to our number, and Twill apparently decided it wasn’t worth pursuing the issue.

“A third off,” he said, “and that’s my final offer.” 

“Deal.” Cori dug in her pocket for the cash while I surveyed the stranger out of the corner of my eye. He’d turned away, seemingly absorbed in the contents of the shelves.

“What’re you looking for?” I peered over his shoulder and read the label. “Gargoyle scale rot?”

He swivelled to me, confirming that he’d been paying zero attention to what he’d been looking at. “Is that often a problem?” 

“You’d be surprised.” In a few words he’d confirmed he was no shifter, but I’d suspected as much already. Might be for the best. Most cat or wolf shifters were wary of us, as something primitive in their nature reacted to being too close to a larger predator. As for gargoyles, Rhea was one of few I’d met who wasn’t a territorial nuisance. 

Did he know what I was? Doubtful. At a glance, neither Cori nor I carried a trace of the reptilian beasts we’d one day be able to transform into whenever we wanted. Our auburn hair was more candle than furnace, and our eyes were grey. My claws would come out when I was angry or scared, but that was a rarity. I’d spent the last year in anticipation of my first shift, though Rhea had made it clear that we were supposed to stay hidden, not crave open spaces to spread our wings and rain terror down on unsuspecting humans. Okay, that last part’s a joke. Modern dragons don’t spread destruction and fire. We’re too civilised for that.

Twill was still giving us the evil eye, so I beckoned to my sister to follow me. Cori slid the extra spell into her bag and shot me a wink, gauging the level of interest between myself and our would-be rescuer. She could be annoying sometimes, but I was happy to deal with her teenage antics if it meant getting to leave the house for something that wasn’t my minimum-wage bar job. Even at twenty-one, Rhea still watched me almost as closely as she did Cori. I understood why, given how many people would happily hunt down a dragon to put their head on the wall as a trophy, but sometimes I wished I could just have a day to myself, a moment to breathe freely. This was the closest I got, so I let Cori overtake us and fell into step with the stranger as we approached the shop’s exit. 

“You didn’t need to intervene,” I said to him, “but thanks.”

He opened the door to let Cori through first. “I don’t much like people who bully young girls.”

“I hope you meant my sister.”

“Obviously.” His gaze raked over me, and heat stirred inside me as my dragon side took notice. All shifters experienced that strange duality in which the animal took over our human mind when our primal instincts were engaged, and mine had latched onto this guy. Probably because it’d been a long while since I’d got any action. “You’re here all day?”

“I could be.” Whoa there, dragon, settle down. “Though I’ve gotta drop off my sister at home first.”

“Like hell,” Cori said. “I’ll go torment Twill some more while you two ‘talk’.” She made quote marks with her fingers. 

Heat rushed to my cheeks. I didn’t get too many chances for casual hook-ups, and this was a screaming example of why. “You certainly won’t.”

“Then I’ll walk you both home,” he said easily, falling into pace with us as we followed the winding street.

“No, we live too far.” And I’d utterly lost control of the situation. “Tell you what, you go and buy whatever it is you were looking for at Twill’s place while you wait for me.”

“We won’t tell anyone if it’s something embarrassing,” Cori said, ever the helpful wingman. Or woman. “Like a spell to cure genital warts.”

Why, Cori? I suppressed a groan. 

His lips twitched in apparent amusement. “No, but given how that guy was acting, maybe that’s his problem.”

“Don’t make me think about Twill’s balls, thanks,” I muttered.

“Is that something you think about regularly?” said Cori, and I gave her a warning look. 

“Ignore her,” I said. “My sister is every stereotype you’ve heard about younger siblings. Do you have them yourself?”

“No… it’s just me.” He looked mildly discomfited for a moment, as if he hadn’t intended to answer. Kept his cards close to his chest, this one. “I’ll wait at Argyle’s.” He named the pub at Magic Avenue’s entrance.

“You can finish talking about Twill’s—ow,” said Cori, as I poked her in the arm. “Hey! Rhea said not to go off alone with strangers.”

“She told you that, not me.” Though she had a point. I didn’t know his name, nor what kind of supernatural he was, either. “We don’t have to be strangers. I’m Ember. You?”

“Astor.” Again, a moment of hesitation preceded his reply, as if chatting up someone in the street wasn’t something he did on a regular basis. A good sign, if anything. “I’ll wait.”

“Won’t miss it.” I all but dragged Cori away before she could embarrass me any further. “Seriously? Did you have to?”

“Yes.” Cori grinned, skipping ahead to the boundary of Magic Avenue and the shimmering wards that separated us from the regular humans on the other side. “I’m going to treasure the mental image of the look on your face for the rest of my life.”

“It’ll be five minutes long, at this rate.” I stepped through the wards first and emerged onto the busy London street near Charing Cross, experiencing the mild disorientation of walking straight into a throng of tourists with no clue that another world lay a few feet away. 

I didn’t notice the strange light in the sky until several people pointed upward or stopped in their tracks to stare up at a sky that now burned an angry red like the inside of a flame. 

Next to me, Cori came to a bewildered halt. “Red sky at two in the afternoon… is that a thing now?”

The redness slipped away, leaving the sky the same slate-grey colour it had been before. I blinked a couple of times. “You saw that, too, right?”

I turned back to Magic Avenue in case the light had come from there, but I didn’t see any unusual bright flashes or hear any signs that someone had screwed up a spell. The wards were as inscrutable as ever, and ordinary humans would only see a blank wall between a Thai restaurant and a shop selling souvenirs plastered with the Union Jack. 

Right. We’re going home. I nodded to Cori. “Better go, before we attract trouble.”

“Trouble other than Twill’s balls?”

“Oi.” I nudged her in the side. “Seriously, though. Someone has a death wish. That light was too bright to be anything but magical.”

And I didn’t want to be in the vicinity of the person responsible if I could help it.

As we joined the heaving crowd heading out of Trafalgar Square, my gaze snagged on a black-clad figure weaving amid the ordinary tourists and shoppers. Shit. A hunter.

It was by no means unusual to see a member of the Orion League walking out in broad daylight, but not near Magic Avenue. Not here. A trickle of fear ran down the back of my neck, and my heart began to beat faster as two more hunters joined the first, making their way purposefully through the crowd of ordinary humans. Cori and I didn’t stand out by any means, but their presence coupled with the strange red light set my nerves on edge.

Something’s wrong. I took Cori’s hand, as if we were little kids again, and she tugged herself free indignantly. 

“Ember, for god’s sake. I’m not five.”

“The hunters don’t assemble like that unless they have a target.” I spoke in an undertone as we continued through the busy street, my heart jackhammering against my ribs. Maybe Rhea’s paranoia was rubbing off on me, but it was hard-earned. The hunters were highly trained in one task: killing any supernatural who crossed their path. With a reputation matched only by their body count, the methods they used were effective enough that no supernatural, not even the mages, dared to challenge them openly.

“Yeah, whoever just caused that fireworks display.” She waved a hand at the sky. “Not us.”

True. Whatever fool had used that spell had painted a beacon on their heads that would draw every hunter for a mile around.

“Poor fuckers,” I murmured. 

“Language.”

I didn’t manage a smile. I’d only ever seen hunters alone or in pairs, and never this close. Certainly, I’d never had cause to find out if the rumours that they carried guns loaded with bullets that could kill even a dragon shifter in a single shot were true. Rhea said so, and I generally believed her, but her warnings could be a tad overblown sometimes. So could her training methods. I still had bruises all over my arms from our sparring session that morning, but she’d prepared us both the best she could to fight against an enemy that no shifter had ever bested.

Cori and I had trained for nearly a decade, ever since we’d first arrived in London with nothing but a note leading us to Rhea’s address. There hadn’t been much else to go on, as whoever had sent us here had also wiped our memories clean. They hadn’t said why, but we’d always assumed that it was a precaution, so that our enemies would never—no matter what level of torture they employed—be able to force us to lead them to our home.

The home of the dragon shifters.

I wasn’t sure I believed such a place even existed. Since the best efforts of a dozen witches had been unable to break the spell clouding my early memories, I’d been forced to concede defeat and accept that I’d find out when I was ready. According to Rhea, that moment would come when I’d fully shifted into a dragon and not a minute sooner. She’d flat-out refused to let us even start searching for the other dragons until then, but a cynical voice in the back of my head told me she was just trying to placate us. That she didn’t believe any other dragons existed either.

Some people would prefer it that way, I thought as I watched the last black-clad figure disappear around a corner. Nobody else gave them a second glance. The hunters were almost as accomplished at hiding themselves as the supernaturals they hunted. London, with its tall buildings, tangled streets, and communities old and new rubbing shoulders against one another, was the perfect cover. Hence our rule. Don’t flaunt your power, and don’t draw their attention. Simple.

Until that day.

As Cori and I emerged from the side street, reddish light split the sky in vibrant streaks, and ribbons of lightning arced over the rooftops in a mesmerising dance that made me momentarily forget that supernaturals weren’t the only ones who could see it. For a heartbeat, Cori and I stared, suspended, as though if neither of us moved, time would rewind and everything would make sense again.

Then came the screaming. A chorus rose from the heart of the city, the sound of nightmares. The crowd began to panic in unison, a crush of bodies surrounding us on all sides.

“Shit.” I seized Cori’s wrist again, and this time she didn’t shake me off as I dragged her through the tide of terrified humans. “All right—back to Magic Avenue.” 

I didn’t know where else to go, and Magic Avenue was at least a known element. We’d find allies there. An explanation, maybe.

A familiar scent caught my nostrils, distinct amid the general stench of human panic. My heart lifted as I recognised Rhea, her broad-shouldered frame easily parting the crowd, her stern face set. She must have followed us here, and for once I didn’t mind her overprotective nature. I also owed her for all the times she’d insisted upon Cori and me each carrying an emergency pack with enough supplies to last us a few days every time we left the house, because it meant we already had what we needed to make a run for it.

Problem: all our usual escape routes were via the Underground, and none of our escape strategies had accounted for a public display of magic that would have the whole city in a frenzy. 

“What the hell is going on?” Cori asked Rhea. “What’s with the light display? Has a mage or witch gone rogue?”

“No, but it’s not the supernaturals we have to worry about,” Rhea said. “The Orion League will believe this is a sign of their prophesied war.”

“That was just their bullshit propaganda. It wasn’t real.” Cori gave me a pleading look as if she thought Rhea had a screw loose. “It’s not true. Is it?”

“No way.” I didn’t believe any of the ridiculous stories the hunters spread about us, including the more outlandish claim that they were destined to come out on top in some kind of Ragnarök-style all-out battle against the best of our kind. I mean, the hunters had to find some reason to justify their attempts to exterminate us. But we hadn’t caused this madness.

Someone did. A screeching cry drew my gaze upward, and my stomach lurched. The rainbow-bright streaks in the sky didn’t look like ribbons any longer, but cracks splitting the world at the seams.

And out of the cracks came… monsters.

The cry rang out again, and a winged shape the size of a small car descended over the rooftops. Formed like a cross between a person and a twisted mockery of a bird, it had a coating of reddish-black feathers, batlike wings, and a beaked face like a crow or raven.

“The fuck is that?” Cori’s hand gripped mine, nails digging in. “Ember, tell me you’re seeing what I am.”

“I wish I wasn’t.” A second winged shape joined the first, then another, until the air was thick with beating wings and cries that set my nerves afire.

It had a worse effect on the crowd. As we tried to shove our way forward, the fleeing humans went chillingly silent and stopped mid-run, their attention fixed on the descending monsters.

“What’s wrong with them?” Cori reached out and shook the arm of a young human who stared at the sky with the rest. “Snap out of it!”

“Whatever magic those creatures are using, we must be immune,” Rhea hissed. “We need to run.”

My stomach twisted, seeing those poor humans frozen into statues as nightmares descended upon them, but those claws were sharp enough to tear one of us apart as surely as a regular human. Adrenaline surging, I pulled Cori after me through the inert crowd. The sky above continued to darken, both with the beating wings of the monsters’ descent and with a peculiar fog that accompanied them, seeping downward until it seemed like the clouds were touching the rooftops.

The familiar O sign pointed me towards an Underground station, but the stairs had collapsed into rubble and a mass of humans tried to climb over one another to reach the surface. As they did so, tremors shook the pavement underneath our feet and cracks spread outward, wide enough to swallow a person whole.

A giant head emerged from within, shaking off shards of tarmac, followed by a pair of boulder-like fists. Shuddering quakes rattled my teeth as it pulled itself out, its body easily twice the size of a gargoyle’s and stark naked to boot. 

“Motherfucker,” Cori squeaked. “That’s a sight I didn’t need to see.”

“Cori.” I tugged at her hand, felt her sag against me as if her legs were in danger of giving out beneath her. “Come on.”

The giant looked blearily around, then its huge saucer-like eyes fixed on the dark haze of the sky. With a bellowing cry, it ran forward, cracks splitting the tarmac with every pounding step and its huge fists swinging at its sides. Each swing caught an unlucky human in its path, and the sickening crack of broken bones reached my sharp ears beneath the general clamour.

My gaze wrenched from the giant as Rhea grabbed my arm and dragged Cori and me down a side street. Then she pushed open a manhole cover and all but shoved me inside.

I fell, too startled to scream, but my feet hit the ground an instant later, and my sturdy shifter body easily absorbed the impact. When Cori came tumbling down, I caught her in my arms. Rhea descended to join us, landing softly and tugging the manhole cover back our heads.

“We can’t stay in here long,” she whispered. “Just enough to work out our next move.”

“I thought,” Cori gasped, clutching a stitch in her side, “you said to worry about the hunters. Not whatever that is.”

“Giants are fae.” And as far as I knew, none existed in this realm. Something had gone very, very wrong. “And I don’t know what the hell those birds were.”

“If the faeries have attacked this realm, it’s worse than anything we planned for,” Rhea said in a low voice.

“No shit.” My mouth went dry. “We can’t use any of our escape routes if we can’t access the Underground, can we? We’re screwed.”

Above, the manhole lid trembled. My senses flared with a warning.

“I can get us to safety,” Rhea said. “Ready?” 

I nodded, my throat as dry as tarmac in a heatwave, my palms curled into damp fists around my knives. My claws pressed against my fingertips, ready to burst out if anything threatened my sister or my mentor.

“Ready,” croaked Cori.

Rhea opened the lid, and we all leapt out into the alleyway. The grey haze had descended even lower in the short time since we’d ducked for cover, and within the fog, I made out human-like figures, faint and indistinct.

“Ghosts,” whispered Rhea. “The dead are restless. Be careful.”

“They can’t harm the living, can they?” Cori let out a yell as a cold, solid hand swiped at us both, his icy fingers snagging at my coat. 

I slapped his hand away, swearing. The man was undoubtedly dead, but he’d touched me, and the chill that swept up my arm was as cold as the grave.

“The faeries’ arrival has even disturbed the dead,” Rhea said grimly. “Climb on my back, both of you.”

Both of us stared at her. “What?”

“This isn’t the time for secrecy,” said Rhea. “Faerie’s attacking this realm. We’re at war.”

For once in my life, I did not think she was exaggerating. As Rhea shifted into her stone gargoyle form, she grew to seven feet tall, leathery wings sprouted from her shoulders and curved claws planted on the ground as she stooped down to let us climb onto her back. I helped Cori up first and then seated myself behind her. Rhea’s feathered wings spread wide, launching into flight.

I’d never even flown in a plane before, but a sense of familiarity seized me when the buildings and roads dropped away and a sense of rightness settled over me that momentarily dispelled my terror.

Until Cori screamed. Above, the sky was thick with black horses, fearsome beasts whose riders were wreathed in shadow. Encircling them were countless giant black hounds that cast a dense shadow that blanketed the rooftops.

Okay, escaping via the sky is impossible, too. I hung on with one hand and gripped Cori’s jacket with the other as Rhea dropped into a dive. My sister had buried her head in Rhea’s feathers, whimpering in terror. I’d never heard that sound from her before, and it set my protective instincts ablaze. 

We landed on the road, Rhea’s clawed feet tearing at the tarmac. She’d landed next to another Underground station with a collapsed roof. While everyone else gave the area a wide berth, we ran straight for the entrance. The glass doors had shattered, but we climbed through the ruin and continued past the broken-down cafes and shops. 

Rhea shifted back into her human form and came to a halt. A group of figures waited near the entrance to the Underground. All wore black, their faces were masked, and each was armed with an identical gleaming black gun. Hunters.

Rhea and I both snatched Cori’s arms and pulled her out of their line of sight, behind a collapsed roof beam. They hadn’t seen us, but it’d been a close call. Did the hunters know the supernaturals were trying to escape through the tunnels? Why the hell were they fighting us, and not the monsters out in the streets? 

The first bullet whistled past, striking another gargoyle shifter who’d tried to make a run for the ticket barriers square in the chest. The shifter crumpled in an instant, and the utter stillness that followed made Cori shrink against me, her body shaking with silent sobs.

I stared, numb. The rumours were true. A single bullet could bring down a shifter no matter where it struck, and if every one of them carried the same guns, we’d never make it into the tunnels. We had to turn back.

Another bullet pierced through a pile of debris nearby, and three wolf shifters ran out of hiding. My stomach lurched. Two of the wolves were far smaller than the other. Children.

“Stop!” Cori’s cry was muffled when Rhea pressed a clawed hand over her mouth, and the third wolf—the mother—roared at the others to run.

Twin shots rang out, followed by a sickening thud as two small, furred bodies fell to the ground. A second roar echoed from the mother, cut off in a choked sound as she fell, too.

The hunters moved forward, fanning out as if they’d rehearsed the formation a thousand times. Locking onto their next opponent.

Us.

Rhea seized my shoulder, hissed in my ear. “Get Cori into the tunnel. Run.” 

Before her words sank in, she’d thrown herself out of hiding and launched into flight, shifting into her gargoyle form again. Her talons lashed out at the hunters, breaking their formation, ripping through flesh and bone.

One of them pointed a gun straight at Cori and me. I shoved her to the ground, throwing myself over her body. Protective rage exploded inside me; red scales spread from my elbows to my wrists, ending in curved claws sharp enough to rip out a hunter’s throat.

I lifted my head in time to see Rhea fall, the echo of bullets resounding in the empty station, and her last word reverberating in my head: run.

“Bastards!” Cori screamed and lunged forward, but I grabbed the back of her jacket, my claws snagging in the fabric.

“No. We have to run—we’re outnumbered.”

Tears tracked down my face as I pulled Cori through the gap Rhea had created when she’d drawn the hunters away from the Underground entrance. She’d died to give us a fighting chance, but the thunder of footsteps on the tunnel floor told me that the hunters wouldn’t easily give up the chase. When I reached the stairs down to the platforms, I lifted Cori in my arms and leapt. My legs absorbed the impact, and I placed Cori’s feet on the ground and launched into a run. The hunters might be trained to fight us, but they weren’t superhuman themselves.

We just had to make it to the hidden panel in the wall. 

I rounded a corner, pushing down the scream building in my chest like a fireball intent on being unleashed. My breath burned my lungs. My legs screamed. 

That was when a lone hunter appeared ahead of us. I skidded to a halt, snatching at the back of Cori’s jacket. Too late. He’d seen us—and unlike his buddies upstairs, he wasn’t wearing a mask over his face.

“You,” I whispered. It was the guy from the market. Astor. He’d shed the long coat he’d been wearing, revealing a uniform that matched the rest.

“Me.” His reply was emotionless, his hand reaching for the weapon at his waist.

Shock and revulsion froze me to the spot. He’s a hunter. He was hunting us all along. 

I moved in front of Cori as he lifted the gun. At least my death would win her a few seconds to escape.

Or not. The pounding footsteps in the tunnel halted, warning me that the other hunters had caught up. Trapped on both sides.

Time slowed. My ears picked up the snap of a bullet firing as the fireball building in my chest exploded. Wings burst into life behind my shoulder blades, and my body extended, scales rising to the surface of my skin as the bullet harmlessly skimmed beneath my wing.

A torrent of fire roared from my mouth, and the hunters fled in its wake. Flames licked at the walls, scorching hot, lapping at their heels. A second bullet snapped behind me, made me whip around to face the man who’d deceived me, but he’d vanished along with the rest. 

Bastard. I screamed, a wordless howl of pure anger and grief, but the space was too tight to fly in pursuit. Damn if I didn’t try. My wings spread from wall to wall, a stream of flame erupting from my lungs as if I breathed hard enough, I’d catch any hunters who remained and reduce them to cinders. 

A scream hit me like a slap. “Ember!”

Cori. She crouched behind my scaled legs, eyes wide with horror, ashes clinging to her face. Remnants of the hunters I’d killed.

My claws collapsed into human legs which gave way beneath me, and the fire inside me died to ashes.