Ash Bringer (A Storm of Fire: Paranormal Dragonshifter Romance Book 1)

by Courtney Leigh

  “Yeah, but they didn’t kill them all, right? I’ve heard of a few Draak from the first wave.”

  “Some survived,” Draven said. “But they went into hiding for a long time. They were a minority in a world of men. Nowadays, it wouldn’t be smart to start a war with us.”

  “But we have more advanced weapons now. You don’t think we’d have a chance?” I joked, though the idea had crossed my mind many times in the past.

  “Do you think asking me that question is going to get you on my good side?”

  “Do you think I care about your good side?”

  “You should. You haven’t even seen my bad side yet,” Draven smirked.

  I felt a line of chills tingle along the surface of my skin when he gave me that look, the sound of his voice when he spoke reaching deep inside me.

  “Every generation of Draak that breeds with another race is altered slightly, taking on traits from their mothers as well as their fathers. The type of Draak we are depends on our mothers, though. Reds mothered by Zephyre. Blues by Kumirians, Terrans by humans. And then there are the mutts in between. But no matter what, Draak genetics are dominant. We are all full-blooded Draak.”

  “Seems unfair,” I sighed.

  “In one regard, yes. The Zephyre created us to be an army. Not an independent race. It’s unfair. Everything they did to create us was also intended to possess us, but they failed to take into account that we didn’t want to be ruled.”

  “And that all started with you.”

  Draven nodded. “The Zephyre bred with the Leviathan, which resulted in Ash Bringers. We’re known for two things. Our—”

  “Your rage and your destructiveness?” I cocked my head.

  Again, Draven’s mouth quirked into a soft smile as he stared at me. “Our hotheadedness,” he corrected, his eyes moving down my body before he finished. “And our passion.”

  I felt hot hearing the word slip from his lips and held my breath, turning away.

  “The Zephyre were a powerful race and they created powerful children,” Draven continued. “Your people would say that what they did was magic. To us, science and magic are the same. Magic is just something you can’t explain yet. The Zephyre were geneticists. They were biological marvels. They had abilities that could tear your mind to shreds in seconds and they tore down the minds of our fathers until they were practically slaves. We know nothing about whether or not they had their own males before the Leviathan, but either way, they had none when they discovered what they could do with us.

  “Reds, however, were born more powerful than our forefathers and the Zephyre saw that. They intended to control us in the same way they did the Leviathan, but we’d been born with the same abilities as our mothers. Our inheritance protected us when we finally figured out how to use it, and that’s when our uprising started.

  “It didn’t take long before our world was ash and soot and somehow, in the middle of it all, the portals that brought Zephyre to Draakon in the first place reopened. We dove through them to escape it all, knowing they could take us anywhere in the multi-dimensional world. Some of us ended up here. Others on Kumir. No one knows where the rest went. They could be anywhere.”

  “So your world was burned and you ended up on Kumir, but you left Kumir and came here. Taurus told me it was because that world burned, too.”

  Draven took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “Kumir was destroyed,” he said with a sigh. “Like all great worlds eventually are. It was the people of Kumir that gave the first generation its name, Ash Bringers. Where we go, ash follows.”

  There was a hesitation after he spoke. Draven’s usual sharpness was dull on his expression and instead his brows were furrowed and his eyes were heavy. Almost sorrowful. The moment was fleeting, however, and he thrust it aside quickly.

  “The Draak and the population on Kumir lived much like humans and Draak exist here,” he continued. “But there was much more understanding.”

  “What? They just let you settle on their world and mate with their women?” I scoffed.

  “No,” he chuckled. “There was a war. There is always war, but in the end there was peace and our races built a society together. Draak like Lukan and Ares are among the ones who were born on Kumir to Kumirian mothers. Ares is young, though. He remembers nothing of his birth place.

  “We call them Blue Breaths. Their flame is blue, unlike Ash Bringers. They’re also calmer and much more connected to the emotions of people around them, which is why most mated females in this world are connected to Blues. They’re romantics. Reds are not.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “Ash Bringers, on the other hand, can delve directly into the thoughts of others, especially their mates. Other species generations have the ability as well, but the Zephyre genes are watered down in generations after us. For us Reds, it’s...unpredictable. For those like Valerio and me, it’s hard to distinguish between thought and reality sometimes.”

  “What’s different with you two?”

  “Our father was an Ash Bringer. Leviathan were animals. Most believe their stupidity made the Zephyre traits more manageable in their offspring. For us, it’s different. We had even more of that Zephyre intelligence than our fathers. Hence, emotion is a much more intense and sometimes overwhelming factor, which makes us…”

  “Angry,” I finished for him. “So? What? Can you really read minds? As in you have psychic abilities?” I joked. “If you can do that, why can’t this whole situation with Taurus and your brother be simpler? If you can find the truth by reading people’s thoughts, why ask questions at all?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not? If it’s science, then explain it to me,” I said.

  “Our minds are frequencies. We can just pick up on things you can’t.” He smiled with amusement. “As for reading minds, you have no idea how indecisive, loud, and unorganized thoughts really are. Deciphering them is tiring and sometimes dangerous for both sides. Reds see what’s on the surface, if we even choose to look in the first place, but most don’t. If we didn’t learn to shut that part of ourselves off, we’d be much more unstable than we already are. The thoughts of others can drive you insane.”

  “So…” I paused. “You read Taurus? You saw what happened?”

  Draven was hesitant.

  “You did,” I said. “But you just admitted you can’t always decipher things correctly. So maybe you didn’t see what you think you did.”

  “I read the obvious parts,” he said softly, looking at me. “Even if there’s a chance he didn’t kill my brother, he wanted me to think he did.”

  I wanted to delve deeper, but the whole situation upset me, mostly because neither of us seemed to understand it and we’d both lost enough for that to drive us mad.

  “What about the compatibility thing?” I asked, changing the subject. “How the hell does that really work? Have there ever been Draak females or have you always had to use the bond?”

  “There have never been females. Not as long as I’ve been alive. As for the mark, our minds speak to every cell in our bodies. We command them in every way. It’s what allows us to change.” Draven’s eyes dropped down slowly to my wrist. “When we mark you, we’re essentially becoming a part of you. We can change your genetic structure by giving you some of ours to fill in the blanks. ”

  “The brand,” I said, glancing at my wrist. “It alters the DNA so…I’m part Draak.” I stared at the brand for a while, stroking it lightly with my thumb. “Fire’s been my enemy since I can remember.” I cleared my throat, turning my thoughts elsewhere.

  “So what happened to the others?” I asked softly. “What happened to Kumir?”

  Draven took another deep breath, his eyes staring down, but not at the table. I could tell he was seeing into the past, watching his own memories play out in front of him. His lips flattened, once more holding back any distinguishable expression, but I could sense what he was feeling. It was weighty on my conscience like
a bag of sand had been dumped on my thoughts.

  “Our creators caught up with us,” he said, running a finger down the spines of the book stack in front of him.

  He grabbed hold of one near the bottom and carefully pulled it out, placing it in an open spot on the table. As he opened it, the cracking of dried leather echoed through the room. Stiff, old pages strained as they flattened out. Looking down, the parchment was filled with ink writing in a language I didn’t recognize and images sketched out in tremendous detail.

  Draven turned a few pages and found one with an image stretched across the whole book. It was a violent picture that looked to have been drawn in a rage, but in the midst of the smoky smears was the shadow of something massive and dark, two purple eyes glowing in the blackness. Immense wings spread across the pages, hovering menacingly over a mountain range. Beneath it, a small, red figure from which root-like lines of crimson branched off like a disease into the darkness.

  “We called them World Enders for a time. After the Zephyre enslaved the Leviathan, they created an army of them to migrate through worlds. They killed hundreds of us when they discovered they couldn’t control us. No matter how much we tried, they could wipe out a dozen lives in the blink of an eye. Leviathan fire is the only thing that can burn us, so we were overrun.

  “The Zephyre were thirsty for power and they used the Leviathan like war machines when we all split off. They came to Kumir hundreds of years after we’d made a home there and they destroyed it all. Everything. The Kumirians were a superstitious race. They’re the ones who called them the Red Witches. They thought it was all magic.”

  Draven turned a couple pages and came to a drawing of a woman. Her body was shaped with defined muscle. Her skin was a sharp gold. Her eyes were blood-red to match her hair and from her scalp came two horns that followed the graceful curve of her skull.

  “The Zephyre,” he said. “When they decided to exterminate us, our Ashlings,” he sighed heavily, “were the first to go. Without them, we already felt as if we’d lost. Each one of their deaths chipped away at us. Just like I felt you when you were in that camp, a Draak can feel his mate’s death. It leaves an open wound for the rest of his life. We were vulnerable and alone. For decades they slowly weakened us.”

  His gaze drifted toward my wrist once more. I saw the spark of regret pass through his eyes just before he turned and looked pointedly at another painting on the wall. It was covered in colors I couldn’t even name with a glisten to it that reflected the firelight like hundreds of tiny, glass shards. I took a couple slow steps toward it with fascination.

  In the midst of the oceanic shades of blue and green was a feminine figure in a graceful standing pose, her garments like water on her slender form. Her neck was long and her face an almost perfect oval. To my eyes, she was human at first glance, but the subtle shades of cyan and silver in her skin gave her away. The long, silver locks of her hair was like a waterfall down her back and two, ice-blue eyes reflected a starry night like twin pools of water.

  “Our women on Kumir were peaceful and so emotionally intelligent. So much so they could practically read your thoughts,” Draven said softly, his voice gentle in the silence. “Ash Bringers are impulsive and violent and they...they were like cool water on a burn. A race that barely needed to speak to communicate with us. The generation of Draak that came from them was almost the polar opposite of us. Cool-headed. Empathetic.”

  “Lukan,” I said, recalling the way our conversations always seemed to calm me down.

  “Kumirians directed us away from violence. Away from rage. Away from what our creators were. It didn’t matter, though. Our pasts followed us and everything was ripped apart.”

  “How did you know they wouldn’t follow you here and do the same thing?”

  “We didn’t,” Draven shook his head.

  I was quiet for a moment, feeling that heaviness growing inside me. I wanted to ask him a painful question, but wasn’t sure if he’d answer. Feeling bold and too curious to let it go, I spilled it.

  “Did you have someone on Kumir?” I asked, picking at a splinter on the edge of the wood table.

  Draven gave me a slow nod. “A wife.”

  “You were married?”

  “For all of three minutes,” he sighed. “Before another war took her and hundreds of others.”

  “Three minutes?”

  “The attack happened on our binding day,” he almost laughed.

  “What, were they targeting you?”

  Draven looked at me as if to say he wasn’t going to explain any further. I let it go, an unexpected sympathy dissolving any further questions on that particular subject. I tried to think of something else to talk about.

  “What exactly does ‘psychic abilities’ entail?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

  Draven gave me a glance that could have made any woman wet with desire. I pursed my lips defiantly at him, waiting for an answer, when suddenly a flood of erotic images poured into my consciousness. Draven’s bare, hot body was pressed against mine, so real I could almost feel his tongue in my mouth. Suddenly I was feeling hot. Sweat made the curve of my spine damp beneath my shirt. My heart fluttered into a high-speed beat and I gasped, blinking the arousing images away.

  “You…” I said, almost at a loss for words. “Stop that.”

  “Why?” Draven smiled.

  “You can...have you been…” I stuttered, recalling the last time I had similar, intimate thoughts about him that felt beyond my control. “The shower a few days ago. How many times have you done that to me?”

  “Shower?” Draven cocked his head, his lips still curled with amusement. “That’s the first time I’ve ever done that. The shower must have been all you.” He stopped for a moment, his gaze caressing every part of my body from head to toe. “So what were you thinking about in the shower?”

  “Nothing,” I said, my ears hot with embarrassment. “So you’ve never messed with me? You’ve never planted any ideas or urges?”

  “No, and I never will,” he said, his tone layered in truth as he pivoted his body to face me straight on. “We discovered the strength of our ability a long time ago. We vowed never to use it on anything but the witches. Well,” he shrugged. “And for the occasional emergency. Besides, humans are weak. We don’t need to use it.”

  “How so?”

  “Humans are complicated,” he said, tilting his head curiously to watch me as he spoke. “Rugged. Physical. They think with everything but their brains as if there are three minds in one body all saying something different, so they never actually know what they’re thinking. They believe in such nonsense and they’re quick to worship without reason. Quick to condemn without cause. ”

  Draven pinned me with his eyes, leaning in a bit closer. “Survival is the most basic function and it is the only one you humans value over all else, whether you admit it or not. Things like attachment are entirely different from what you perceive as love and yet you often mistake one for the other because you’re afraid to be alone. Afraid to die alone. Yet I’ve seen countless humans allow their companions to die in order to stay alive themselves. None of you have any idea what you want and so you just want everything. It’s frustrating.”

  He paused. “But you’re interesting.” His tone was a gentle, velvet hum. “Your basic instinct is something entirely different from most humans.”

  “You think you know what my basic instinct is?” I rolled my eyes.

  “Protecting,” he said. “While others value survival, you value living with honor.”

  “That’s funny,” I said, trying to shrug off the comment.

  Draven stepped toward me until he was standing in front of me, trapping me between him and the table, which was pressed against the back of my thighs. My heart skipped a beat, caught off guard when the heat of his body slid over my skin.

  “You almost died for Taurus,” he said. “You nearly killed yourself protecting your sanity or whatever it was you were trying to keep
from me your first night here. You almost bled to death in that camp and, without having to read your mind, I could tell you would have risked your life for those prisoners. You keep pushing. Every time you’ve struck me.”

  Draven’s eyes moved slowly down my face to my lips and further to my chest as he stepped closer, his body almost touching mine. My breath shuttered from my lips, unsteady as my pulse started to flutter. I could feel a warmth in my cheeks that I hoped Draven wouldn’t notice, but with his keen senses, that was just wishful thinking.

  “You’ve been protecting your will and what you stand for,” he continued. “Testing your commitment to your beliefs. You’re hard to break, Everly.” He raised his increasingly bright eyes to mine and leaned in closer. “I’m rather enjoying the idea of never breaking you at all. You’re quite perfect the way you are in some annoying, confusing way.”

  His lips touched mine so softly that I wondered if it was even a kiss. I closed my eyes, savoring the gentle caress of his mouth on mine and then stretched my posture straight, pressing my body to his to make the sweet gesture into the kiss I wanted. It wasn’t aggressive, but tender and slow. Something I hadn’t yet experienced with him.

  What was he telling me? What was I thinking? This was not just physical. It wasn’t rational or explainable. It wasn’t even just emotional. What I was feeling had come on so fast and in so many ways I questioned if my own sanity was at risk. Perhaps I had already cracked.

  I pulled away, looking at Draven’s ember-colored eyes, and prepared to resist with everything I had. I couldn’t allow myself to be pulled in like that. He was everything I’d feared as a child. Everything I’d grown up to despise. Now here I was, fully ready to surrender. Dangerously close to letting go of everything I believed in just to be closer to him.

  Horrified, I drew back and turned my head down to the floor in denial. He was right on one thing. Humans had absolutely no idea what they wanted.