by Cecilia Lane
Damien had even given them a name. One joke after the clan answered his call and the name stuck.
His Merry Men were going to help him steal a princess.
Damien craned his neck to view the sky above them, then raised his hood to cover his eyes. The three dragons in the back seat of the SUV did the same. “The fliers are in position.”
Adrien nodded and watched the checkpoint ahead. Security in the enclave had increased in the week since Rory was proclaimed dead. The wolves wanted to find her dragon murderer. Like the Solstice Ball itself, the funeral attendees were triple checked and pat down before being allowed to proceed to the clearing. They planned for that.
“Good,” he answered.
One more car of passengers made the cut and the line edged forward.
His SUV was the one that would near the checkpoint, but it wouldn’t be the one used in his escape. That vehicle was planted back down the road where mourners wouldn’t block it.
The car in front of them pulled through and then it was their turn. Adrien’s skin felt tight. His dragon pushed forward, ready to snap and burn with the rest of the Bloodwings.
One of the Conri enforcers motioned for everyone to unload. Damien kicked open his door, forcing the guard there to dodge quickly. Adrien moved out of his without any petty escalation. The fight would arrive soon enough.
He tensed and placed his hands on the hood. And waited.
One enforcer stuck his head into Damien’s door and spotted the three men still seated. The scent of fur hung heavy in the air. The wolf shifter raised his lips in a snarl. “What’s this?”
The three dragons leaped from the SUV, smashing guns and fists into noses and stomachs.
Above the line of cars, dragons appeared. They roared challenges to the tiny groundlings, then spewed jets of fire to declare their dominance.
Dragons were not easy to defeat, but the wolves were willing to try. From the forest, gunfire sounded and bullets plinked against hard scales.
Adrien threw himself back from the SUV just as the first blast of flame struck the vehicle. Fire spread and consumed the hastily constructed checkpoint and sent the enforcers scrambling.
By then, more guests of the Conri pack left their vehicles. Pointed fingers and gasps marked the line of mourners, but Adrien had no time for them. With the dragons still in the air and still burning warnings into the ground, he strode away from the road and toward the clearing.
The path was littered with running, panicked mourners and wolves already shifted. Bears dotted the crowd, as well as the crisp, innocent scent of those without an animal under their skin.
None tried to stop him. The confusion above and behind him drew away the Conri fighters and left the mourning crowd in a churning mess ready to keep him hidden.
Through the writhing crowd, Adrien spotted what he wanted. Rory’s pyre had been built, but he wouldn’t let it be lit. His dragon let off a stream of smoke in his head, ready to unleash death on any who stood between them and their mate.
A path opened to her and he approached.
The glass casket sat on a neat stack of wood. He could easily see her resting inside. They’d dressed her in a dark green gown. Her hands crossed over her chest and only the tips of her fingers were visible from the billowing cuffs. She clutched a thick, bronze key to help her unlock the door to the afterlife, he’d learned.
Adrien lowered his hood slowly and pressed a hand to the glass.
She looked peacefully asleep and blissfully unaware of the destruction of her pack.
No breath. No heartbeat.
She wasn’t dead.
The curse was right in one aspect. He would bring the House of Conri to its knees to keep his mate out of their clutches. They wanted to burn her and he wanted to love her.
“We need to go!” Damien urged from his side.
Adrien glanced at his twin. When had he appeared? How long had Adrien been standing there? Damien was right; they needed to move.
He grabbed one end of the casket while Damien grabbed the other. They planned to steal away the entire casket with her inside and move it on foot, figuring it would be easier to hide a long box than a woman who appeared dead. It would need to go on foot, they reasoned, so dragon claws or fired weapons didn’t shatter the glass.
That was the plan for the first leg of the journey. As soon as he had a bit of quiet, he’d shed the casket and take to the air with his prize in his claws. The wolves would be left with evidence of Rory’s abduction and no way to pursue the dragons.
A blast of gunfire whizzed right by his ear and slammed into a tree trunk near his head. Adrien ducked as another shot grazed his shoulder.
“Behind and to the left!” Damien called out.
The wolves moved on silent feet but exploded into the clearing with howls and snarls. The remaining mourners scattered into the forest or met the perceived threat with angry, animalistic noises of their own. Black clothing ripped and paws dropped to the ground to defend themselves.
Confusion was what they needed. While the enforcers busied themselves dodging the Conri guests, Adrien and Damien quickly moved between the trees and toward their waiting escape.
A wolf pounced onto the glass, with another right behind the first. Adrien bared his teeth as the casket slipped from his fingers. The bottom shattered and the sides cracked as the casket hit the earth.
They couldn’t take her from him. He couldn’t lose her again. She wasn’t dead!
“Go!” Damien yelled.
Adrien grabbed the top layer of glass and swung it hard at the nearest wolf. The beast yelped as shards dug into its fur.
Adrien already had hold of his mate, scooping her into his arms like he was about to carry her over the threshold of their home. There was no stiffness or smell of death to her. His heart nearly burst from his chest the moment his fingers closed around her. His dragon roared in triumph he had to ignore. They still needed to make their escape.
Adrien, clutching his princess, let his wings rip from his skin and took to the skies.
Chapter 7
Adrien paced in his cave. Three days, three fucking days, and his mate still hadn’t woken.
He half expected her eyes to lift the moment their skin touched. That’d been firmly disabused when the glass casket shattered and he was forced to lift her from the wreckage.
Then he thought if he just let her wake on her own, the nightmare would end. That, too, ended in disappointment when three days later she still hadn’t moved or drawn a breath.
One by one, the Bloodwings peeled away. Only Damien still remained, and even his twin grew impatient.
Damien wanted to move. He didn’t care if Rory woke or not. He saw danger in remaining inside the Wolfden territory. But some instinct kept Adrien tied there. He and Rory needed to stay.
It was madness. Folly. Courting death. No matter the words Damien threw at him Adrien stared down at his mate and refused to leave.
He couldn’t have been wrong. She wasn’t dead.
But the words were met with the silence of the grave.
“Maybe it’s time, brother,” Damien muttered from the edge of the room.
Adrien’s growl echoed off the stone of the chamber. “I can’t give up on her. I won’t give her back to them.”
“Then let’s leave,” his twin implored. “The others are already gone. We can keep her safe elsewhere. Every day, the Conri patrols get closer to finding us.”
“I know.” He wasn’t deaf or dumb. He listened to the same words and reports of the others before they left. He heard everything that fell from Damien’s lips. They were in danger if they remained.
They were in danger if he left. He was sure of it. Rory needed to stay within the enclave. His dragon wouldn’t allow her to move anywhere. Hell, the beast hardly allowed anyone near her. The possessiveness guaranteed no one would take her away from them again.
The answer wasn’t what his brother wanted. He passed a hand over his face and tried to find pati
ence in the stone ceiling above them. “Adrien, I know this is important to you. I never doubted you. I rallied the others and we took her back. But if we don’t leave now, it will all be for nothing.”
“I don’t believe that—”
His brother barreled onward. “She’s your mate. Nobody is denying that. But maybe this wasn’t the time for your lives to cross. Maybe she was always meant to die in this life. We live longer than the other shifters. Perhaps she’ll share her next lifetime with you.”
“You would have me abandon my mate?” He placed his fist over his heart. “For the first time in months, I feel complete. The beast inside me isn’t trying to burn my marrow to ash. We both know that she is alive. We’re not giving up.”
Damien blew out a harsh breath and surged to his feet. “I’m not asking you to give up. I’m asking you to save your own hide!”
“Then go!” Adrien roared. Pebbles on the cave floor rattled with the force. “No one kept the others here and no one is keeping you here. Leave!”
Anger flashed across Damien’s face. The emotion looked odd. He was made for smiling, not squabbling. Even with his stupidity of rousing the clan against their leader, he kept a permanent look of pleasantry on his face.
A growl leaked from Damien’s chest and he directed one final glower toward the room that held Adrien’s sleeping mate.
“You will die alone if you stay. Make it a good death.” Damien spun on his heel and the smell of smoke billowed around him. His wings burst from his back the moment he reached the ledge and he flung himself into the sky.
With his last ally gone, Adrien stumbled into the chamber reserved for his mate.
There was no change. Red hair fanned around her shoulders. Her hands were crossed over her chest where he positioned them. She didn’t blink or breathe. Her heart didn’t beat. Her flesh was cold. The others muttered darkly that he’d cracked and fell in love with a corpse.
He understood it. To an outside observer, he had gone mad. But they didn’t know what he felt on the balcony and they couldn’t feel the deep ache in his chest now.
She wasn’t dead.
His back slid against the cave wall as he sank to the floor. Three days on top of the seven she spent in the glass casket. He buried his face in his hands.
Thump.
Adrien lifted his head at the faint sound. One beat, that was all. Quick and faint enough to imagine it existed. Hell, he was crazy enough to conjure it. Desperate enough.
She wasn’t dead, he told himself. His dragon vibrated through him. The beast wouldn’t believe otherwise, either. Rory had to be alive and under some spell.
He crawled his way forward and knelt at her side. His fingers shook as he reached for her hands. They were still as cold as death.
His dragon roared in his head. Adrien didn’t have the will to hold the beast back. He wanted to let scales flow over his skin and fire stream from his mouth. Fangs and claws fit his state of mind better than a bag of flesh and bones.
“Come back to me,” he demanded of her and was greeted once again with silence.
The beast in his middle raged on and on. Fire coiled in his belly and his skin grew hot. His fingers left faint red marks where he touched Rory. It was enough to jerk back. He didn’t want to harm her.
But his dragon held him steady. The beast snatched away his control and stilled his body. He rose inside Adrien as much as he could, pushing away human emotion and thought and leaving baser instinct.
Mate.
His dragon crooned to Rory. It was a sorrowful song of love and loss. The wordless melody flowed from his lips until another beat thumped in her chest.
As faint as it was, the single beat of her heart was loud in Adrien’s ears. Joy filled him. He’d been right. She lived and he would get her back.
He tightened his grip on her hands again and leaned over her. “Come back to me,” he murmured again. “You must come back.”
Adrien pressed his lips to hers and willed her awake.
Slowly, softly, warmth rose under his mouth. Then, miracle of miracles, her lips parted. He slipped his tongue between her lips and groaned when she responded with a twist of her own.
Her taste flooded his senses. Apples and cinnamon and sweetness that curled down his spine and grabbed him by the balls. On and on, he kissed her. Each brush of his lips added to his silent worship and desperation and gratitude.
She wasn’t dead.
She was alive, warm, and in his arms.
So he gave her a promise with his kiss. Devotion. Love. Everything a mate should offer and more. He would burn her pack to the ground if that’s what it took to keep her. He’d challenged them before and he’d win again.
She was his future.
Adrien pulled back slowly and pressed his forehead to Rory’s. She gasped and he snapped straight.
Gold eyes stared back at him.
Chapter 8
Rory walked through the darkness with a wolf at her side. She had no power to see what was around her or the ability to lift her lids. She didn’t know if the darkness was due to the lack of eyesight or her cursed state of being.
But she could still hear and smell and feel every bump and jolt along her journey. Her parents knelt and asked for forgiveness. Her brother shed a tear and begged her to return. Other mourners passed by and offered her kind words and promises to track down her murderer. No amount of internal screaming convinced the others she still lived.
She held onto hope that her mate would arrive and save her. That hope faltered as days passed into one another and she was moved in the early hours to the clearing were all Conri royalty were burned.
Then her wildest dreams came true. The sounds of the battle raged on around her and finally, finally, her mate arrived. More bumps and jolts and threats and growls. If her heart could still beat, it would’ve thundered in her chest as one threat after another tried to keep her away from Adrien. Glass shattered around her and summer air finally breezed over her skin again.
She willed her body awake, but there was still something wrong. Even with Adrien’s whispered words in the coolness of his lair, she didn’t take a breath.
And the arguments raged on around her.
Rory’s wolf whined and shoved her nose into her hand.
Rory had long since given up trying to speak. She stroked a hand down her wolf’s back and lost herself in the one tangible feeling she had left. She couldn’t reach for her mate or offer him comfort. She couldn’t convince the others she was locked inside her body. All she could do was touch the inner wolf that’d been with her her entire lifetime, locked away just as Rory was kept from the world.
In her darkness, tears slid down her face. How unfair. All of it. Feeling her wolf. Finding her mate. How being trapped with one meant losing the other. She was well and truly cursed.
Heat blasted through her with Adrien’s touch. She tried to imagine turning into his palm and letting the heat spread through her.
Her wolf whined again when the deep rumbling of Adrien’s hum sang along her nerves.
Fire burned within her. There was no pain or discomfort. She was consumed from the inside out, rather than the outside in as if her pyre had been lit.
The darkness burned away. Everywhere she turned, the edges glowed orange. The color licked flames into the inky black until she was ringed by nothing but fire.
Rory stared at the flames. She thought she should feel fear, but there was none. No panic clawed her throat. She glanced down at the wolf next to her, and the beast met her eyes before plopping down on her haunches.
“Come back to me,” Adrien whispered.
The words urged her forward into the fire. Even her wolf nudged her to take a step closer to the flames.
“You must come back,” Adrien said.
Rory dug a hand into her wolf’s scruff. She didn’t want to step alone. Without hesitation, the beast rose up on all fours and followed her into the flames.
Darkness and fire both swirled in her hea
d. She held onto both as tight as she could. One was her wolf and one with her mate and neither were something she wanted to lose. She had a taste of both and wanted them to remain tied to her. They were the missing pieces that would make her complete.
With a gasp, her eyes snapped open.
Tan skin and dark hair filled her vision. She quickly took account of herself. All fingers and all toes seemed to work. Her inhale brought a host of new smells, the strongest of which originated from the man looming over her with a wild expression on his face. His scent was of fire and burning and black licorice and… and… It was divine. Her mouth watered for another taste.
“Rory, your eyes,” he choked. His nostrils flared with a sharp inhale and his dragon bled black into his irises. “Wolf.”
She dragged her hands up his forearms and over his shoulders. She couldn’t stop herself. She needed to touch. Around the back of his neck, into his hair, over his ears and cheeks. His eyes slid shut and he held her palm to his face. A low growl rumbled in his chest. That, just like his deep hum, whipped through her body and sparked nerve after nerve until every inch of her skin tingled.
“She’s always been there,” she heard herself say. How she managed the words, she didn’t know. She just wanted to get closer to the man who saved her.
He’d been there when no one else believed. He had faith she still lived. Adrien proclaimed her his and followed through with all his actions. He stole her away from certain death and brought her out of the darkness to the land of the living.
The only question in her mind was how soon she could accept her mate and claim him as her own.
She pulled him back down and kissed him, twining their tongues in a sensual dance. Desire grew within her, pulsing a little stronger with every beat of her heart. How she missed that steady sound! It’d been too quiet without the constant reminder of life.
Adrien matched her slow exploration. They memorized each other, tasting and touching the one who held their soul. Her wolf, that magnificent creature, howled away in pure joy. The beast was hungry for more and Rory couldn’t blame her. The dragon under her fingers was hot to the touch and drenched her with need.