Within the Dragon's Jaw (The Dragon Thief Book 2) Read online

  Within the Dragon’s Jaw

  The Dragon Thief Book 2

  D.K. Holmberg

  Copyright © 2021 by D.K. Holmberg

  Cover art by Damonza.com

  All rights reserved.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Author’s Note

  Series by D.K. Holmberg

  Chapter One

  The merchant’s home near the eastern edge of the city rose taller than most of the others in Zarinth. Ty approached it carefully, slowly, skirting along nearby buildings so that he could remain hidden in the shadows. There was no need to move quickly at this time of night. This was when he was most comfortable.

  “Which one are we targeting?”

  Ty glanced over to Olivia. They were of a similar age and had worked together on a job before, but he still struggled with the relationship they shared and whether he could trust her.

  Perhaps that wasn’t even true. Ty knew exactly how much he could trust her, which was not at all. Still, he couldn’t shake the attraction he felt toward her. He had felt it from the moment that he had first met her, though she had played him. Even helping him deal with the danger of Ishantil and finding the dragon egg had left him thinking that she might still be playing him.

  “The largest of them. This job can’t go the way the last one did.”

  Olivia glowered at him, pressing her full lips together. She had her bright red hair bundled beneath a scarf, keeping it from being overly noticeable, though she wasn’t above using her looks to help her complete the job.

  “Are you sure we can get in there?”

  Ty looked along the street. A pair of leather-clad soldiers wearing the dragon emblem of the ghost king marched in the distance, as they often did in this part of the city. There was far too much wealth and power situated here.

  “If we do the job the right way, there won’t be any difficulty getting in. You have to make sure you are doing your part and not trying to sneak past. Do you think you can do that?”

  She continued to stare at him, the irritation that lingered on her face almost amusing, or it would’ve been if they didn’t need to work together.

  “I can do the job,” she said.

  “Good. I don’t want you to—”

  “I know what you don’t want me to do. You’ve made that abundantly clear, Ty. And I think I’ve explained myself to you enough that I don’t have to keep doing it.”

  Ty wasn’t about to argue with her about that, not when they were about ready to pull a job. If he hadn’t needed help, he would’ve done this on his own. Even knowing that he needed help, there was a part of him that had been tempted to ask Eastley, though he hadn’t seen nearly as much of Eastley lately. It was almost as if Eastley had avoided them since the issue with the Dragon Touched.

  “We work together on this,” he said.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Just because you are here doesn’t mean that I can…” Ty shook his head. He shouldn’t keep pushing the issue. She was here, and he needed to keep that in mind. “Follow me, and we take only what we agreed to. Can you do that much, at least?”

  She shifted her scarf so that it fit around her hair better. “Honestly, Ty, you have become awfully jumpy since the Dragon Touched left.”

  “They haven’t left,” Ty said, sweeping his gaze along the street. In this section of the city, the Dragon Touched were less common, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be found. They often made their way through the city, as if wanting to make their presence known. “Just Roson James.”

  “And he has your brother.”

  Ty nodded slowly. He had Ty’s brother. There wasn’t much to do about it that than to take the job and do what he could so that he could appeal to the king. At least, that was what he continued to tell himself.

  “Are you ready?”

  Olivia had a little pout to her chin as she nodded, which was effective for pulling specific jobs, though on this one a cute face wasn’t going to get her past any soldiers. This one was more about stealth. Olivia could move stealthily. He had seen her do so, but her skills were less about stealth and more about seduction.

  “We need to walk down the street and double-check that there aren’t any lights inside. Then we will loop around to the back. Nothing more,” he said.

  She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something. When she closed her mouth again, Ty breathed out. He shouldn’t be frustrated with her. She had made her peace, and he had as well. But her description of what had happened between them kept coming back to him.

  A business transaction.

  That was all he was.

  Wasn’t it the same for him, though? Wouldn’t he do anything to help his parents, at least if he could discover anything about them?

  And now it was about getting to Albion. Somehow.

  The soldiers had moved off, leaving an empty street in front of them. Shadows formed in the darkness where the lantern lights situated along the street didn’t quite reach. In this part of the city, there were quite a few lanterns staggered along the street, illuminating almost everything.

  Ty darted forward, sliding through one of the pools of light before emerging on the far side in the darkness. Olivia chased after him, making too much noise. If he was alone, he would have weaved along the street, avoiding the light, but it was easier to hurry along in this way and drag her with him. Easier—and perhaps safer.

  “Come on,” he urged.

  He slipped forward along the street, not bothering to look back and see whether or not Olivia followed. He could hear her well enough.

  His gaze skimmed past nearby buildings. This section of the city had mostly merchant houses, although there were wealthier houses in other parts of the city. Ty hadn’t targeted this neighborhood very often. He’d avoided it, mostly because he hadn’t wanted the powerful merchant guild coming after him. If the merchant guild decided to push at trying to figure out who robbed them, then he would have a much harder time.

  One of the nearby buildings stood out amongst the others. It was smaller, though as far as Ty knew, the house was owned by one of the more influential merchants within the city. The style of the house fit the older part of the city, all stone block, black lava rock that had been dragged from Ishantil and stacked together and somehow fused to keep it in place. Lights glowed in the window, looking almost like f
laming dragon eyes.

  “What are you looking at?” Olivia whispered.

  Ty shook his head. “I always liked that house,” he said.

  Olivia snorted. “I always thought you preferred the more expensive places. That is almost—”

  “Comfortable.”

  He slipped forward, though he found his attention still drawn to the house. It didn’t tower over the others the same way so many of them did, and it didn’t have nearly as large of a lawn around it, none of the manicured gardens or the elaborate sculpted trees like many of the other merchant houses had. It was simpler. Almost as if the house had been lifted out of the jungle and set down in this part of the city, with the trees that grew up around it more similar to those within the jungle that surrounded the city.

  Ty had given some thought to exploring the house. Not because Bingham had offered him any sort of target within it, but more out of curiosity. He did want to know what was inside. There had to be incredible rarities, given the merchant who owned it, who spent most of his time in the capital, seldom coming all the way to Zarinth. Though when he did, he made a point of spending.

  But this place wasn’t Ty’s target.

  Finish the job and then move on.

  Ty kept moving cautiously, creeping along the street. It was difficult to balance the need to move quickly and to appear as if he belonged here with the need to keep others from seeing him. Olivia modeled his movements, and they navigated as quickly through the streets as he thought was safe to do, and it was only when they neared the merchant’s home that he quickened his step, sweeping his gaze along it and then hurrying past until they reached a nearby intersection.

  “What did you see?” Ty asked, looking along the intersecting street to check for any signs of soldiers or other movement.

  “I’m not here for you to train me,” Olivia said. “You don’t need to be testing me. Bingham did that often enough when I first started working with him. I think I have proven myself.”

  Ty breathed out, suppressing his frustration. He didn’t need to be testing her. She was right. It didn’t mean that he still felt as if he could trust her with all aspects of the job.

  He flicked his gaze back toward the house. From this angle, it was difficult to tell much, but he had caught sight of movement in the house. Not only that, but there was a single candle glowing. If they entered the house, they had to be careful and avoid whoever was still inside.

  “Fine,” he snapped. “How many guards did you encounter?”

  Guards were worse than any soldiers. Any soldier would give up chase fairly quickly, but guards were hired. They could be ruthless, but they also had more on the line. Their job depended upon succeeding.

  “I counted two.” She glanced over to him, as if checking to make sure that he had seen the same. “One I was supposed to see, and another I wasn’t.”

  He nodded to himself. She was well-trained. His count matched hers. Bingham had taught him to identify the way that guards tend to patrol, looking for trampled grass indicating others that he couldn’t necessarily see. Not only that, but there was the occasional ember from whatever the guard might’ve been smoking. In this part of the world, tobacco was rare, though it did come from Carn at times. Mostly, jasroot harvested out of the jungle was preferred, though it had a fairly pungent aroma, which made it easy to detect when guards were smoking it.

  Two guards. Bingham’s information was accurate.

  He hadn’t been sure. There had been other jobs since Albion had been captured, other pieces of information suggesting a dragon relic would be found, and Ty had ended up empty-handed. Each time, the house, temple, or shop had either been looted already or the items were simply moved. Considering how many Dragon Touched had been in the city prior to Ishantil erupting, he suspected the latter. It was too hard to keep anything within Zarinth from being detected by the Dragon Touched.

  “Are you going to do this, or are we going to stand here talking?” Olivia asked.

  Ty snorted and motioned for her to follow.

  He found an alley running along the length of the street, and from here he knew he would only have to slip along the shadows and then disappear. Checking again to make sure there was no sign of movement, he hurried along the alley, guiding Olivia. He didn’t worry about concealing his presence quite as much. The alley was darker, anyway, which made it much easier to sneak along.

  “We’re going to make a single pass,” Ty said softly. “If we see anything—and I mean anything—that gives us pause, we get moving. The last few places Bingham has targeted have been useless, so we don’t need to break into any place that might not have anything.”

  “What about places that do have something?”

  “Then we get in there,” he said. “Still…”

  She waved her hand. “I’m not backing out. Something like what Bingham claimed was here will buy plenty of coin for my family.”

  “You already have plenty of coin for your family.”

  She stared at the house. “That’s to get them away. I’d like to help them get a start. A real start. A chance to thrive and not worry about the volcano erupting.” Her voice was soft, and there was a hitch to it, a note of real concern.

  He had heard that from her before, and he’d thought that he understood. She was worried about her family. It was the reason she had taken the jobs that she had. It was the reason she had betrayed him. It was the reason that he was a business transaction.

  That was if he could believe her.

  Ty wasn’t sure that he could.

  “Just stay with me. Like I said, if we see anything…”

  They drifted along the alley. Finding the merchant’s house was fairly easy even here. The alley ran along the backyards of each of the manor houses. Most of the yards were enormous, set away from the alley in such a way as to continue the garden around the house. The one they targeted stood up on a bit of a hill. No lights were visible as they passed the house, and Ty didn’t see any guards, which worried him.

  They reached the end of the alley, and he motioned for Olivia to crouch down alongside him. A stone wall pressed against his back, the surface of the river rock smooth, not at all like the cooled lava rock others used.

  “Did you see anything?” he asked Olivia.

  “Not much,” she said. “I didn’t see anything on the lawn, nothing along the wall, and no light in any windows from this angle. What about you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why do I get the sense that bothers you?”

  “It should bother you, too. We saw two soldiers in the front yard, so there has to be at least one in the back.” Probably more. The only way to know for sure would be to just go inside.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Tonight is as good a night as any,” Ty said. “We might as well just get the job over with.”

  “We’re here, aren’t we?”

  Olivia was far more practical than he had ever believed. Why had he ever thought that she was innocent? There might have been an innocence to her once, but it was long gone.

  Ty slipped along the wall until he had positioned himself so he could simply climb over and land in the yard. There was no movement along the alley, though he didn’t expect there to be.

  When Olivia crouched down alongside him, he held his hand out.

  “Wait until I give you a signal.”

  “What signal?”

  He couldn’t really whistle in the darkness of night without raising any alarm. This house was unlikely to be the only one guarded, and if any of the nearby houses heard a whistle, they’d know someone was acting nearby, and it would likely arouse more suspicion. That was the other danger of some of these house guards. All it took was for one or more to get alerted, and…

  An idea came to him.

  “Here’s what I need you to do,” he said to Olivia. “Head down three houses. The funny-looking black stone house. I want you to jump into the yard, make some noise, and hurry back here.”


  “If you think this is some way of getting rid of me so that I don’t get paid—”

  “I’m not trying to get rid of you. We just need to draw attention away from here. Besides, if something happens and you get caught, you are going to have a far easier time getting away from it than I am. Could you just do this without questioning everything that I ask?”

  She regarded him for a moment, and he worried that she wasn’t going to do it. If not, then he certainly could, but he wanted to observe the reaction.

  Olivia slipped away without further argument. When she reached the section of the wall in front of that house, she darted up and over the wall, disappearing. Ty didn’t have to wait long. A shout rang out, followed by a shrill whistle, and then a darkened form appeared over the wall again, racing toward him.

  Ty grabbed Olivia, pressing her up against the wall and raising a finger to his lips.

  In each yard along the alley, shouts began to ring out.

  He jumped, rolling up onto the wall, and then flattened himself down, looking into the target yard. Five guards were visible. Four of them headed toward the neighboring yard, while one stayed situated near the rear entrance of the merchant’s home.

  He motioned for her to join him, and they lay on top of the wall.

  “There are more here than I expected,” she whispered.

  He nodded slowly. Bingham had known, which didn’t surprise him, though his knowledge lately had been somewhat out of date. Maybe his resources were getting back up to speed again.

  “More than I expected, too. You don’t have to do this. I don’t want you to get captured.”