Dragon's Heart (The DragonFate Novels Book 3)

by Deborah Cooke

  He breathed fire as he descended upon on the house, setting the roof aflame. He and Hadrian tore it off on one side, flinging the burning shingles and trusses into the barren backyard. Rhys was garnet and silver in his dragon form while Hadrian was emerald and silver. They were both large and deadly fighters, muscled and powerful, partly due to their shared affinity with earth. Rhys did not care who saw them or if their battle was documented.

  Lila might already be dead.

  Arach and Balthasar descended into the shadows of the house and smashed down the walls. Arach always looked like a precious treasure to Rhys, with his scales of glittering aquamarine edged in silver. His elegant grace made it easy to underestimate his fighting ability. Balthasar was citrine and gold in his dragon form, slender and sinuous but fierce. Alasdair, hematite and silver in his dragon form, followed them into the ruined house and breathed fire in every direction, trashing the walls and rooms as they sought Lila. Drake hovered above them, imposing and dark against the night, as he beat his massive wings and breathed a sanctuary of smoke. Rhys knew that the older Pyr would set the permissions on his dragonsmoke so that only their DragonFate team could cross its protective barrier.

  When the house was ripped open and the walls shredded, the doors hanging askew, Rhys couldn’t believe his eyes. There was no sign of habitation. There were no furnishings. No people. No dragon prince, no Fae queen, and no Lila. The house appeared to be deserted.

  Then he saw a quicksilver flash of light, illuminating the perimeter of a door. Rhys was reminded of the portal to Fae that Kade had created in the wall of Bones. The house had a basement! He ripped off the door, only to be greeted by a plume of dragonfire. A dark dragon, ancient and wily, a dragon that had to be Embron, erupted from the basement. He was so large that he broke the framing on the door, shattering the wood and part of the subfloor. He soared into the sky and breathed a torrent of fire at the clouds, his red eyes gleaming with malice, then he dove back amongst the Pyr to fight.

  “Leave him to us,” Hadrian commanded in old-speak and Rhys descended to the house. He shifted shape quickly as dragons battled overhead. He felt their collision and heard a roar of pain but continued downward.

  There was smoke in the basement, silvery smoke that obscured his vision and made Rhys wary. His heart pounded when he reached the concrete floor and he tried to survey the space. It looked like there were two rooms, just as empty as the house above.

  No. There was a bowl on the floor. The smoke rose from the bowl like a silvery snake, diffusing into the air. Rhys choked on the smell of burning skin and eased closer to the bowl, bracing himself for surprise.

  There was something in the bowl, something that could have been a length of fabric folded on itself, or a pelt. It had been burned but Rhys guessed it was skin, the skin of a seal. The flippers were burned and the length of it singed. His heart was heavy with the certainty of whose skin it was and he reached to retrieve what was left of Lila.

  The firestorm flared to sudden light as he touched the skin, the entire basement illuminated with its golden glow. He felt a presence behind him in the same moment that his feet began to ache again. Rhys seized the skin and spun to confront an ancient crone. She raised her hands to hex him, but no light came out of them. She swore then stumbled backward on her red heels, tripping over a fallen form in her haste to get to the stairs.

  Lila. He hadn’t even seen her.

  Rhys dropped to his knees beside his mate and hated how pale she was. She was unconscious, if not worse, which made Rhys’ heart stop then race. He bent close and relief flooded through him at the faint whisper of her breath. He gathered up his injured mate and raced up the broken stairs.

  “Rhys!”

  He looked up at Drake’s warning in old-speak, only to find the large dark dragon closing fast, talons raised and eyes glowing with rage. Embron looked ancient and formidable. Smoke rose from the old dragon’s nostrils and sirens sounded in the distance. He took a deep breath, an indication that he was going to breathe fire.

  Rhys surveyed the situation, noting that Alasdair was pursuing the hag down the street: her very high heels slowed her down and Alasdair would certainly catch her. Balthasar was wounded. He’d fallen in the backyard, his dragon form draped over the remnants of the broken roof. He was breathing, though, and Rhys could hear his heartbeat. Drake was still breathing smoke high above the house and Arach had joined him, the pair of them making a cocoon for Lila.

  The Pyr couldn’t communicate in old-speak, not without Embron hearing. Rhys exchanged a quick glance with Hadrian, who was hovering behind him, hoping his old friend anticipated his choice.

  “Looking for something?” Rhys taunted Embron in old-speak, then passed Lila to Hadrian. That Pyr caught her and soared toward the sphere of Drake’s dragonsmoke. Drake carried her within its protective barrier, and Rhys had one less detail to worry about.

  Embron roared and took flight, pursuing Hadrian. Rhys shifted shape with a roar, snatched up her skin and tucked it beneath his scales for safekeeping, then leapt into the sky to lock talons with Embron. The force of impact sent them tumbling end over end, their claws locked in the traditional preclude to battle.

  “Too late for your mate,” Embron taunted. “I thought you would show more enthusiasm.”

  “I had to get what you wanted,” Rhys replied, thumping Embron hard with the weight of his tail. The older dragon grunted, but didn’t retaliate.

  His eyes glowed as he leaned close to Rhys. “Do you have it? Do you have the gem of the hoard?” His gaze roved over Rhys, as if he would be able to spot it that easily.

  “I won’t trade a treasure for a corpse,” Rhys scoffed. “You made a mistake, as the old and feeble are inclined to do.” He smiled slowly. “Too bad, Embron. Now I have the gem of the hoard.”

  “No!” the other dragon roared. “It belongs to me!” He tore his claw free with such astonishing power that Rhys couldn’t keep a grip on him. He was like a massive serpent in the sky, wily and strong beyond any opponent Rhys had faced before. He slashed at Rhys, but Rhys guessed his intention and ducked. He wasn’t quite quick enough. Embron’s claw cut through the air like a knife, with remarkable speed. He caught Rhys’ side, his talons digging deep, then leaned close to whisper. “Surrender it to me.”

  “You broke the deal,” Rhys managed to reply. “You injured my mate.”

  Embron chuckled. He shoved his claws deeper into the wound in Rhys’ side, a jab that stole Rhys’ breath away and made him falter in flight. He felt his own blood slide over his scales and the world spun around him. He saw people on the street below, watching the fight, and couldn’t summon the energy to care.

  He needed all the power he had to fight back.

  Rhys saw Hadrian approaching Embron from behind and let his eyes droop to slits. He took a ragged breath and deliberately lost the rhythm of flight. He felt himself fall and waited until Embron pulled his claw free. That was almost as painful as the blow had been.

  Rhys heard Hadrian hit Embron from behind and the old dragon roared. Rhys soared upward before he reached the ground, coming at Embron suddenly from the underside. He hit him hard enough to knock him across the sky. Hadrian dug in his claws and ripped the old dragon’s wings, which made him bellow and bleed. Embron pursued him and Hadrian retreated as quickly as he could. Embron flew a short distance, then Rhys whistled.

  “Looking for something?” Rhys had pulled the gem of the hoard from beneath his scales and tossed it in the air now, taunting Embron with a glimpse of it. The old dragon’s eyes shone and he shot toward him, his wings beating hard against the night.

  Rhys raced upward into the cloud of dragonsmoke. Embron followed him and snapped with his great mouth, obviously thinking he could just bite the gem out of the air. His mouth closed instead over dragonsmoke, dragonsmoke that had been breathed without granting him access, and he screamed as the dragonsmoke stung and burned the inside of his mouth. Rhys winced, knowing how much it could hurt. It had been a long
time since he’d been burned by dragonsmoke and he remembered it being a savage pain.

  When Embron raised his head, his eyes were orbs of fire. He flew around the haven of dragonsmoke in a tight circle, so big that his tail almost touched his nose. “She’s not dead,” he muttered in old-speak. “You owe me, Rhys Lewis, and I will collect.” He smiled then, a dangerous deadly smile. “I know exactly where to find you.”

  Rhys’ blood ran cold.

  But Embron was finished with him, at least for the moment. The old dragon surveyed the people gathered below them and Rhys heard his low chuckle. He feared then what Embron would do and guessed just before he did it. Embron roared and flew directly at the gathered crowd of onlookers, breathing fire down upon them. He breathed a long hot plume of crackling fire. The adjoining houses caught fire, as did the trees in their yards, flames shooting into the sky just as the fire department trucks came around the corner.

  Embron smashed the fire trucks, tipping them over in the street as if they were toys, snatched up two fistfuls of people and laughed as they screamed. He then flung them down, breathed fire on Arach and Hadrian for racing to catch them. Embron then sailed into the sky. He flew high, until he disappeared through the clouds, and Rhys feared for a long time that he would return and make things worse.

  He was gone, though, at least for the moment.

  “We have work to do,” Drake said in old-speak as he surveyed the chaos beneath them. He surrendered Lila to Rhys again. “Take her home. Ensure she can’t be targeted again and we will do the rest.”

  Rhys would have been glad to help his fellows, but he saw the wisdom of Drake’s suggestion. He caught Lila close and flew back toward his parked truck. It would be easier to slip into his apartment in his human form and the Pyr had plenty of beguiling to do already on this night.

  At least Lila was alive and safe with him.

  He set her gently in the passenger seat, reassured by the crackle of the firestorm and the orange glow of its light.

  And that was when he saw the red string on her wrist.

  His heart stopped. The mark of a Fae curse was something he never wanted to have in common with anyone—and this one made him wonder anew whether the firestorm was genuine. But as he stared, torn between his choices, the red string twinkled and disappeared.

  He blinked, but he hadn’t imagined it. There was still a burn on Lila’s skin, a red line marking the flesh where the string had been bound. Had Maeve released her? Why?

  Rhys didn’t know. He no longer cared.

  Just as Drake had suggested, he had to take Lila to the safety of his lair.

  Five

  Lila dreamed.

  She was floating through the sea, powerless to affect her course. She was caught in an undercurrent, one that drew her down into the depths against her will as surely as if there was a rope bound around her waist. She battled against it, to no avail. The water was strong and the current relentless. She guessed that she was being summoned and surrendered to the sea.

  As she drifted ever deeper, she saw the pillars of the lost city rise before her. She was pulled to the square before the harbor, drawn through the gates of the submerged palace. It was impossible for her to be so deep in the ocean, so she knew she dreamed. Her heart ached to see the legendary murals on the walls of pale stone, but the dream gave her no opportunity to stop and examine them. She was pulled to a polished circle that gleamed like a mirror.

  The dark mirror. It was legendary on the Isle of the Blessed, an instrument of divination that showed something different to each viewer. The tale was that it showed each what he or she needed to see.

  Lila had never seen it with her own eyes. She had never been privileged to enter the treasury and had been only a child when the Isle of the Blessed had sunk beneath the waves. She didn’t want to look into it now.

  What would the dark mirror show her?

  Why had she been summoned to it, even in a dream?

  She had to look. It was only a dream.

  When Lila leaned closer to the smooth surface of the dark mirror, she saw a child. A little boy, with hair of brilliant orange and eyes the color of a summer sky. A little boy who smiled and laughed, his cheerful disposition never swayed by anything. A little boy with too many freckles to be counted. She smiled as she remembered them trying to do so, how he laughed when he was tickled, how his eyes sparkled with joy.

  She saw a little girl, hair as dark as a river, eyes as fathomless as Lila’s own. A little girl, quiet and shy and sweet. A little girl with a heart as big as the moon and a gift for knowing what would happen next, just before it did.

  Lila’s throat tightened as the little girl seized her hand and the mirror seemed to disappear. They walked on a beach together, the wind cold and sharp, the sea dark and smooth. The little boy ran down the pebbled beach ahead of them. She felt the prick of old tears as she looked out to sea and yearned for what was no longer her own.

  Trapped.

  Then the boy brought Lila a stone, a pebble with a fossil in it, and she was overcome with sadness. She sat down on the beach and cried, unable to stop her tears. She wept for the poor dead creature whose body had created the imprint in the stone, and she wept for herself, fearful of her own fate. She was dying inside and she knew it, denied her rightful due and powerless to change her situation.

  The stone also had a hole worn in it by the sea, a hole that her thumb rubbed, seemingly of its own volition. She had an empty space where her heart should have been, a hole worn in her body by the choice that had become a prison.

  Then the sea darkened in hue and swirled between Lila and the mirror, obliterating the children and the beach. There was only water, in a thousand hues of indigo.

  She felt a different hole in her heart, one caused by loss and grief.

  A glow of orange light sparked behind her, then burned with greater power, defying all she knew to be true. It lit the depths of the sea and warmed the cold waters, and Lila turned in surprise. An orb of fire burned red-hot, then turned orange as she reached for it. It turned yellow as she was drawn ever closer, and white when she swam ever closer.

  It emanated from a man, a man with dark eyes and a penetrating stare, a man with fire in his soul and a question in his gaze. She knew he was garnet and silver in his dragon form. She knew this fire burned between them with an intensity that could not be denied and that it did so for a reason.

  Destined mates.

  She wanted all he had to give.

  Lila shed her skin and shifted shape, unafraid to show him what she was, unafraid to risk sharing her truth. She watched the slow smile dawn on his lips, saw the admiration light his eyes, then she reached to frame his face in her hands.

  As she kissed him, the light flared to incendiary heat, making the sea boil around them and a swirl of bubbles rise toward the surface. It surrounded them like a radiant halo, searing the injuries of the past and giving her newfound hope for the future. As he deepened his kiss, catching her close, Lila felt a curious conviction that she had finally found a safe harbor, the one she hadn’t even known she’d been seeking.

  Alasdair chased Maeve down the street, amazed that she could make such good time in those heels. The portals to Fae were closed and the Dark Queen was without allies. She was visibly aging, right before his eyes. She stumbled a few times, but kept picking herself up and carrying on. Clearly, she wanted to reach someone or something. He guessed that Embron had given her just enough magick to keep her alive.

  She was driven by something and, even if it was just ambition, Alasdair wanted to know more. He could have snatched her up, but he trailed her instead, flying at a steady pace. Distance and the falling snow would obscure him somewhat, but he called to the fog and the mist that he commanded and tugged it around himself like a shroud.

  What was her goal?

  Maeve never glanced up. When she slowed down to a walk, Alasdair drew a little closer. Her heels clicked loudly as she walked, but there was no one on the streets to see
her. The town was sleeping as the snowflakes tumbled lazily out of the sky and melted on the pavement.

  Maeve turned down a street and then another, ducking under the awnings of shops and restaurants, heading steadily in the same direction. Alasdair thought of the people who had taken pictures of the dragonfight and knew he should go back to help his fellow Pyr with the beguiling—or to deal with Erik’s outrage.

  First he’d learn what Maeve had planned. She reached an intersection far below him just as the lights turned red. There were no cars coming and no people around. She didn’t hesitate, but walked right to the middle of the road and stopped.

  Was she taunting him?

  Alasdair hesitating, sensing a trap.

  Then he smelled a fellow Pyr.

  Kade!

  Now, he turned up! Alasdair was ready to give Kade a stern talk about playing for the team.

  A lime green Mustang lunged out of a side street, its tires squealing as it spun to a halt in front of Maeve. Kade bounded out of the car and left the driver’s side door open. He was shimmering blue, on the cusp of change, and looking up.

  Straight at Alasdair.

  Alasdair recognized that Kade intended to defend the Dark Queen. She really had him under her thumb, then. He lunged toward Maeve, intending to snatch her up, but Kade shifted shape. The shimmer of blue that accompanied his change was blinding in its intensity and he blew dragonfire as he launched himself at Alasdair. Kade was a lithe dragon with amber and gold scales and his hide glittered in the glow of the dragonfire. Alasdair was well aware that the other Pyr was younger and more agile than him.

  Maeve meanwhile flung herself into the car, then gunned the engine. The Mustang roared out of the intersection like a shot, fishtailing as it disappeared into the darkness.

  Alasdair breathed a plume of dragonfire at the departing car, but the tail lights were already disappearing. Kade leapt into the sky and raised his talons in the old challenge, his eyes shining with malice as he confronted Alasdair.