Feral Ice Read online

  Feral Ice

  Paranormal Fantasy

  Ann Gimpel

  Contents

  Feral Ice

  Book Description, Feral Ice

  Books in the Ice Dragons Series

  Author’s Note

  Beginnings

  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

  About the Author

  Cursed Ice, Chapter One

  Feral Ice

  Ice Dragons Series, Book One

  Paranormal Fantasy

  * * *

  By

  Ann Gimpel

  * * *

  Tumble off reality’s edge into myth, magic, ice, and dragons

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © February 2019, Ann Gimpel

  Cover Art Copyright © March 2019, Fantasia Cover Designs

  Edited by: Kate Richards

  Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or people living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, e-mail, or web posting without written permission from the author.

  Book Description, Feral Ice

  Scientists don’t believe in dragons.

  Dragons never think much about humans at all.

  Maybe it’s time for their worlds to collide amidst the dangerous beauty of Antarctica.

  * * *

  Doctor and biochemist, Erin signed up for six months aboard an Antarctic research ship to escape her stifling surgery practice. Jerked from her cozy cabin, she’s dumped in an ice cave by men who assume she’s dead.

  Konstantin and Katya, twins and dragon shifters, have lived miles beneath the polar ice cap for hundreds of years. Other dragons left, but they stuck it out. When several humans—all but two of them dead—end up not far from their lair, the opportunity is too good to pass up.

  If the lore is to be believed, humans can become dragon shifters. Delighted by a simple solution to their enforced isolation, the dragons lure the humans to their home. Surely, they’ll be thrilled by the prospect of becoming magical.

  Or not.

  Too bad no one shared the script with the humans. Science be damned, they’re horrorstruck in the face of fire-breathing dragons. All they want is to escape, but home is thousands of miles away.

  Books in the Ice Dragons Series

  Feral Ice, Book One

  Cursed Ice, Book Two

  Primal Ice, Book Three

  Author’s Note

  Ice Dragons is a trilogy, so a long tale split into three books that need to be read in order. I was fascinated by Antarctica long before I visited there, and my two trips were so incredible, I still stumble over words to describe the awe I felt at the vista of ice-crusted ocean, hardy mosses and lichens, and the proliferation of wildlife. Tame critters who are as likely to peck at you or sit on your lap as they are to put on an amazing show—as if you weren’t even there.

  A story about ice dragons has been percolating for a few years now. It was time to breathe life into it.

  Beginnings

  “They’re closing in on us. Bastards.” Konstantin trotted restlessly from one end of a grand hall inlaid with crystals and rich veins of gold and uranium to the other. His dragon wanted out, but he couldn’t risk flying. Not today.

  Not yesterday or last month or last annum, either. The once mostly empty seas at the southern end of Earth teemed with stupid ships. Once they’d limited themselves to remote whaling stations. Not anymore. The whaling stations had mostly fallen into ruins, and ships sailed everywhere. Even during the long winters where Sol never showed his face to brighten perpetually dark skies.

  “We have always been here. We were here before humans’ distant ancestors crawled out of the sea,” Katya said, her tone soothing. It should have calmed him, but it had the opposite effect.

  “You’re exaggerating. We haven’t been here nearly that long.”

  She shrugged. “Time means nothing to us.”

  Fire slithered from his mouth and nostrils. “I say we kill them. That will slow them down.”

  Katya, his twin sister, hooked a hand beneath his arm and swung him to face her. “I don’t wish my next annums to be naught but bloodshed. If we start murdering humans, thousands of them will converge on our tiny retreat. They will find us and lay waste to everything we hold dear.”

  “They can’t kill us,” he growled.

  “No, but they can make our lives miserable.”

  “So? We’d leave.”

  “Finding a place to settle has always posed huge problems,” she retorted. “It’s how we ended up here, or have you forgotten?”

  More fire, this batch mixed with ash, spewed from his mouth. He averted his head, and flames bounced harmlessly off the stone walls.

  Katya tightened her grip on his arm. Of a height with him, copper tresses shot with golden highlights fell to her waist. Like all dragon shifters, her eyes were a swirl of gold with deep-green centers. Neither of them bothered with clothing unless they went outside, and sometimes even then they relied on magic rather than fabric to do the trick. Their underground lair was warm. Beyond their home, a labyrinth of sapphire-blue lakes extended for many kilometers.

  Konstantin swallowed smoke and fire. No point getting even more riled up than he was. He offered his sister a half-hearted smile. “What we have here is scarcely a retreat. Not anymore.”

  “Pfft. The rest of our kin were cowards. They left.”

  He pushed his shoulders straighter until bones cracked. “Let us hope they found safe harbor.”

  “We never received a single message—from any of them.” Katya bowed her head for a moment, closing her eyes and murmuring a prayer to Y Ddraigh Goch, one of many dragon gods, and the deity closest to their people. When she opened her eyes, she sank to a crouch on a floor inlaid with green-veined tumbled marble.

  “Sit, Brother.”

  He knelt, facing her. Before she could say anything, he asked, “Do you believe we should leave too?”

  Her high forehead creased in worry. “I have tried to scry our future, but the mirror clouds. The harder I push, the worse it gets.”

  It was the first he’d heard about this, and it worried him. “How long have you sought knowledge? And why did you not tell me?”

  She screwed her face into a grimace. “I’m telling you now.”

  “Yes, but how long?”

  Katya shrugged. “Months. Annums. Centuries. So long I no longer expect answers from my glass.”

  “What does your dragon say?”

  She looked away from his direct stare, long dark lashes curling over her high cheekbones.

  “Well?” he prodded.

  “She who dwells within no longer speaks to me.” A single tear formed in the corner of one of Katya’s eyes. It took its time falling, but when it hit the ground a gemstone formed.

  Konstantin gentled his voice. “Do you know why?”

  Katya did look at him then, her eyes liquid with tears, and nodded. “She wishes to fly. After the hundredth time I explained why we couldn’t, she retreated, and I haven’t heard from her since.”

  “How long ago?” he prodded.

/>   She shrugged. “Why does it matter? I’m not even certain I can still shift.”

  Konstantin marshaled his thoughts. Pain for his beloved sister mingled with fury at her dragon. The beast had always been highhanded, but it wasn’t as if any of his kin had a choice. They were born with their dual natures, the dragon taking ascendency shortly after birth to establish its form. Depending on the dragon, maintaining the upper hand was sometimes very difficult.

  But he’d never heard of a dragon simply checking out. They forced shifts. Lay waste to countrysides. Mowed through entire herds of livestock. What they didn’t do was vanish.

  He weighed his words carefully. “If you’re uncertain about shifting, leaving isn’t an option. Not until you’re stronger.”

  “Oh, Kon.” She placed a hand on his thigh. “Escaping was never an option. How many times can we run away? We abandoned our home world because it was on the cusp of exploding into our Sol, leaving shards to sink beneath the sea.”

  “Yes, but there are many worlds,” he began before he caught himself. Dragon shifters from Mu had dispersed a short time before their world became known as a lost planet. Hundreds of them had set out to find new homes millennia ago. Their group of fifty had discovered a lush warren of caves and tunnels beneath an ice sheet coating the southernmost part of Earth.

  They’d worked hard, carving out a place for themselves. Buildings like the one rising around him were the result. Once they’d been full of dragons. Squabbling dragons. Happy dragons. Determined dragons.

  He and Katya were all that remained.

  Lakes, fields, and plentiful food stocks had nourished his kin for a long time. The lakes and fields remained. Seals, penguins, and fish provided rich variety, but the crops—grown from seeds they’d transported from Mu—withered on the bush or vine or stalk. No one could figure out why, and it was the reason the other shifters had left. They sought lands with a more temperate climate—and a growing season. The perpetual dark that lasted half the year had been quite a disincentive as well.

  Never mind their subterranean burrow had to be illuminated by an ongoing infusion of magic, or it would have been pitch dark all the time.

  He and Katya had bid farewell to their kinsmen and opted to remain, living on what they could capture from the sea with a combination of magic and physical means. It wasn’t ideal, but it was enough to sustain them. He’d expected to hear something from the other dragon shifters, but enough annums had come and gone, he assumed they’d left Earth for another world.

  “I see only two choices,” he said at length.

  Katya just sat, shoulders slumped, and didn’t say a word.

  “It isn’t like you to give up.” He squeezed the hand she hadn’t moved from his thigh.

  More gemstones clattered to the floor, joining the one glittering up at him. “What are the choices?”

  “We will have to leave here someday. Humans are killing Earth. If we left a bit sooner, it wouldn’t make much difference.”

  “But—”

  He shook his head. “We have to encourage your dragon, make certain she is willing to fly. We won’t be leaving soon, but we shall plan for a journey.”

  “And the second choice?”

  He pushed smoke through his mouth, grateful his sister wasn’t too despondent to ask questions. “It is intertwined with the first.” Fire joined the smoke; he waved both aside. “We grow our ranks.”

  Her eyes widened, and she jerked her hand away from his leg. “I am not mating with you, Brother. Such is forbidden to—”

  “I was not suggesting such a thing.”

  “What, then?”

  “Humans. If they share blood with us, we can create dragon shifters.”

  Katya shook her head. “That’s a myth. You have no idea if it’s even possible.”

  “How could I?” He agreed with her. “Our world was nothing but dragon shifters, yet the legends grew from something.”

  “Have you conferred with your dragon?” She narrowed her eyes. “I assume he’s still speaking with you.”

  “He is, and I have. He is honest and says he doesn’t know, but he encouraged me to try.”

  “So instead of killing humans, we lure them to our side? Do we tell them what we are ahead of time?”

  “Yes. We have to. Otherwise, the transformation will have no hope of success. A human must welcome the seeds of change or the new dragon will not come. Once they’ve embraced becoming like us, then we will mate and swell our ranks in more mundane ways.”

  “You’ve made many assumptions that may not bear out.” Katya angled her head to one side, listening.

  He did the same and sat straighter. Humans were closer than they’d ever been to their lair. Perhaps Y Ddraigh Goch had heard their desperation and was offering a gift.

  Or maybe it was simple coincidence. He jerked his chin upward and raised his eyebrows into question marks.

  “The disturbance we sense above began days ago. It’s ebbed and flowed, but I’ve been tracking it. First there were many, and a lot of dead, but two living remain.” She scrunched her face into a worried expression. “No. Wait. One is leaving. Or trying to.”

  Konstantin zeroed in on what Katya sensed. A small blast of magic cut off the human’s escape. He fashioned more magic into layers of thicker air to cushion her fall. If he killed her, he’d be back to square one.

  Breath whistled from Katya’s half-open mouth, accompanied by smoke and ash. “Now what?”

  “Now, we watch. I am curious to see how resourceful this human woman is.”

  Katya laughed. “I do love you, Brother mine. Always focused on the future. So if the woman is dumb as a pointed stick—?”

  “I shall return her to the cavern from whence she began,” he replied a bit stiffly.

  “Fair enough.” Katya paused a moment as power flashed from her upraised hands. “Hmm. The one remaining above is male, but he is wounded. I can fix his injury.”

  “Do it,” Konstantin urged. “And then we shall see.”

  Chapter 1

  Consciousness returned in a rush. I clapped my hands over my ears, but it barely made a dent in the incessant noise battering me. Water crashed over rocks. Far from soothing, the noise pushed me toward madness. I was screaming too. The ungodly racket blasting from my throat didn’t help anything. I could do something about that part, so I shut up. My fingers were cold. So cold, maybe I hadn’t felt them in a long time. Did I even still have fingers? In the world I remembered—the one apparently lost to me—extremities withered and died from frostbite.

  I know these things. I was a surgeon back in a distant universe. Dr. Erin Ryan. I muffled a snort that sounded more like a groan. At least I remembered my name. It was a start.

  Images of blackened fingers and toes flashed through my mind. Right along with men clipping off dead appendages with scissors, a bloodless proposition because bodies had a way of jettisoning their losses.

  I let go of my head, took my gloves off, and stuffed my hands into my pants right on top of my stomach. Maybe if they weren’t too far gone, I could save them.

  For what?

  The bitterness in that question pounded a whole lot home. Like how desperate my situation was. Maybe letting myself fade from the tips of my body inward wasn’t a bad thing. Dying from cold wasn’t painful. There were worse ways to go. Lots of them.

  Exquisite agony shot through two fingers as blood returned to them, coaxed by the heat of my belly. Soon the other fingers joined the party, screaming in protest. They’d liked being dead. Saved them a whole lot of trouble.

  I rolled to my knees, awkward without using my hands for balance. From there, I forced myself to my feet. They were just as numb as my fingers had been, but I hadn’t noticed them when I was crumpled in a heap on the ground.

  I hurried up and dragged my heavy, insulated overmitts back on. No point in allowing the subzero temperature of my prison to cancel the good work my stomach had begun.

  Where the fuck was I? I blinked
against the cave’s dimness, willing my eyes to bring me more details.

  It didn’t work, so I reached for the headlamp built into the hood of my suit. Clumsy with gloves, I finally located the switch. Nothing. It must have died hours ago. Or was it days? How long had I been here, anyway? I paced in a circle, trading the pins and needles return of sensation in my hands for similar misery in my feet.

  “I am not ready to lie down and die. Not yet.”

  I spoke out loud to steady myself. The words echoed off the walls of the cave that might well become my tomb, if I didn’t get moving and hunt for a way out. Stumbling to a ribbon of half-frozen water splashing down one wall—the same cascade that had forced me awake and maybe saved my life—I angled my head to drink. The liquid had a funny, metallic taste, but Antarctica was full of mineral wealth. Untapped riches. Icy chunks mixed with the water made my teeth hurt. I wrapped my arms around myself and started pacing again, trying to remember what had happened. How the hell I ended up here.

  The harder I pushed my sluggish brain to spit out something, anything, the more mulish it became. Bits and pieces of memories battered me like flashes of time-lapse photography, and got me nowhere.

  Before waking up here, I’d been part of a metallurgical research expedition. We’d been based on a ship, the Darya, but we’d spent time at many of the research stations dotting the Palmer Peninsula. Scientists liked to compare notes. It was a cheap and dirty way to replicate findings, without actually doing the work.