“Nothing. But I can say that, if she’s alive, chances are she’s not in Ayesrial. The last I met her, she desperately wanted to get away from the Dragon Mother. She should have figured out how to get out from here by now.”
“Jura… she said she knows you. She told me that your passes out of this place are limited.”
“Yes. Which is why I’m prioritizing you.”
“Why me?”
She flicked her gaze away, avoiding the question. “Word of advice—forget about Constance. You’re lucky enough to be freed from the shackles of the mate bond. Perhaps you can find another mate, or if not a mate, a woman to make passing your long dragon life easier. At some point, you’re going to have to start taking care of yourself.” She licked her lips. Her shoulders slumped, and she sank, clearly carrying a heavy burden. “I know how hard it is to let go.”
Intrigue for this woman trickled into him. “But that man earlier…”
She laughed. “Kien? He is like a brother to me.”
Strange relief flooded him. That meant that Catrina could still…
But no. He belonged to Constance. He couldn’t betray her like that.
But what if she really was gone?
“This place,” he said, “what is it?” He was trying to distract his mind from the lewd thoughts beginning to fill it. He assumed he wouldn’t feel lust and desire for a female who wasn’t Constance, but his body was rebelling against his conscience. He wanted Catrina, and how badly he was starting to long for this woman scared him.
“This place?” She turned her head upward. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes. “I don’t really have a name for it. It’s a small pocket of magic hidden from the Dragon Mother. I’m not sure how it came about, really. There was a group of Ayesrialians who needed help and to hide, and I created it for that reason. It wasn’t planned. It just happened.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Not long at all.”
His limbs had taken a life of their own, and without any conscious action on his part, he found himself standing close to her. He sat down on the stool, their hips almost touching. His mind drew a blank for a moment, before thoughts about kissing her rushed into him. Her hair was a smooth brown, and he imagined himself running his curious fingers through it, letting its silkiness tickle his skin.
It was entirely inappropriate.
“If somebody needs to leave first, you should let them go,” he said.
Catrina opened her eyes. “What?”
“I have no hurry to go back. I can help you. We can. Shen and I will be willing to offer our time, and we know how to fight. That, perhaps, could be of good use. And maybe, if you trust me enough, I can get a pass and go back to the city.”
She drew away from him. “No.”
“Why not?”
“No, you simply can’t stay. It’s too dangerous. Leaving is the only option.”
“You’re not making any sense. What difference does it make if I remain here or not? Why would you deprive someone more deserving of the chance at freedom for the sake of me?”
“You’ve had your say. I’m sorry I can’t help you. Please, don’t bother me. I am a very busy woman.” She stood up with haste and made for the doorway.
It was out of instinct. If he had a second longer to think, he would have stopped himself, but his rationality halted and emotions took over. He reached out for her hand and grabbed it. The touch filled him with warmth.
He would have let go, if not for the sudden loud bang that thrust her toward him. Catrina gasped as she crashed into him. The bang threw him off balance, and they collapsed onto the ground. He landed on his back, and found her on top of him.
His scapula ached from the impact, but all he could think about was the softness of her frame as it sank onto him. Her scent reminded her of a spring field of flowers. Of herbs. The same as Constance.
Catrina dressed as if she were old. Her clothing had given her a mature look at first. Now, with a close-up of her dainty, youthful features, lashes long and lips full and inviting, the force of her radiance smashed into him, sending his desire into turbulence.
Take her.
He stiffened at the sound of his dragon’s yearning within him. Constance’s near-death had silenced it years ago.
For a second, he could have sworn he saw Catrina’s eyes cloud. Did she want him too?
This is wrong, he reminded himself. He was already a bound man. He could never have this woman.
“What was that?” she said.
Her mouth was so close that he could feel her breath on his skin. He could taste those lips…
No. He brought his wandering thoughts back to reality. That loud crashing noise… Where had it come from?
She brushed her hair back and lifted herself from him. It happened too soon. And just like that, her warmth was gone, like a whisper in the wind. He bit back a groan at the emptiness the loss of her touch brought him.
Screaming ensued from downstairs.
Horror washed over her face, stealing the blush from her cheeks. “They’re here.”
“Who?” he asked, his mind still reeling.
“The drakin.”
The once-peaceful infirmary was now a mess. Flames that glowed with fury licked every corner. Echoes of patients either shrieking or moaning in pain pierced through the flapping sound of the burning flames.
Rayse rushed through the chaos, looking for Catrina. He didn’t know how she did it, but she was quick. He might have been able to catch up, but the frenzy of it all had distracted him.
They were under attack.
His chest thumped so hard with worry that it hurt. He needed to find her and make sure she didn’t come to any harm. Part of him realized that she could take care of herself, but the dragon in him took over and drove him to make sure she was safe.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shen wielding dual daggers. An assailant stalked behind Shen, ready to pounce. Rayse leapt toward the leather-clad drakin, drawing his sword. He raised the weapon and sliced his head clean off.
“Thanks,” Shen said, immobilizing the drakin by locking his arms around his shoulders. “But I could have managed him myself.”
“You’re supposed to be injured,” Rayse said.
“That Catrina’s a miracle worker. I’m not in tiptop condition, but I can fight.”
Rayse drew his blade and thrust his sword through the man’s chest, silencing him before he could even beg for mercy. “What’s happening?” He slid out another dagger from its sheath. He preferred to fight like that—a dagger in one hand, sword in the other.
“As you can see, we’re under attack. There are other assailants in dragon form out there. The dragon warriors from this place are trying to ward them off. Some of them are trying to slip past as humans, so I’m here trying to help get the patients to safety.”
Rayse spotted Emilia, that tiny girl, blasting the head off a winged opponent, before scurrying to levitate a few patients off the ground. He couldn’t help but be impressed.
A few more drakin came at them—most were adept at the sword, and had wings spread behind their back. It took much effort to cut his way through them. Rayse didn’t have the ability to fight them off with ease. The old Rayse might have been able to, but he was out of practice and wasn’t as confident or deft with his sword as before.
His weakness was highlighted to him again as he saw some patients getting speared through the chest. He hadn’t been able to get to the poor souls in time. He said an apology in his heart as he blocked off another assault. With some tight maneuvering, he cut down the assailant. That drakin looked no more than seventeen.
From stories he’d heard, most people hated the Dragon Mother. Why, then, did these drakin fight for her with such madness and fervor in their eyes?
“I need to get to Catrina,” he told Shen.
Shen stood back to back with him, so that the drakin couldn’t flank them. “Why?”
To protect her. “S
he runs this place. She might have a plan. We need to help her.”
“Very well.”
They went from hallway to hallway, taking down another five men as they went.
Rayse’s moldy skills began to trickle back to him with each drakin he met, making each opponent easier than the last. His nerves strained as fear gripped him. What if it happened again? What if he failed once more, and Catrina died, like Constance…
He corrected his thoughts. Constance was still alive. He remembered her heartbeat, however frail it was.
A silhouette of a woman caught the corner of his eye. He stalked toward her, Shen lingering behind him. She could have been anyone, but that figure had drawn him. It was Catrina. She had her hand hovering over two bedridden females, muttering spells, trying to save them.
“Are you unharmed?” Rayse asked. She seemed fine to him, with no obvious signs of injuries, which calmed his panicking dragon.
“Don’t worry about me.” In an abrupt movement, her arm sprang out and a gush of magic spat past him. He whipped around and saw an assailant stumbling backward.
The drakin dropped to the ground and started groveling. “Stop! Stop!”
Rayse leapt to the drakin and ran his sword through his chest before he could recover.
“Thanks,” Catrina said.
Rayse frowned. Catrina had reminded him of Constance at first, but now he’d realized this woman was little like her. Constance used to have an air of innocence around her. She held little malice, and would have hesitated before throwing out such a deadly blow. Catrina reminded him of a sharpened blade—brutal and unforgiving.
But he shouldn’t have been comparing them in the first place. Catrina was not his mate, and apparently Constance wasn’t, either. He deserved neither of them.
“But no thanks. I can take care of myself,” Catrina said, lifting herself to her feet. She moved to the side of a man who was straining to breathe, and began to heal the patient. Darkness swirled between her fingers, the patient, and her soul beads.
Rayse walked toward her. “Help wouldn’t hurt.”
“I won’t reject it if you’re offering.” She stood up and moved to another set of beds to continue healing. “Bring as many patients as you can over here. I’m going to open a portal and create a new place of hiding. We’ll need to get out of here.”
Just then, Emilia walked in with a trail of injured floating behind her. The girl set them next to Catrina, then ran back out to continue with her errand.
Dragon’s dangling balls, a little girl’s doing better than me and Shen.
“The drakin are getting more numerous,” Catrina said. “Bring as many people as you can. I will be ready in five minutes.”
He couldn’t let his pride get battered by a child so miserably. Deciding to make himself useful, he rushed off to save as many people as he could. Still, the place was collapsing. The support beams had fallen, and the mansion was croaking beneath its own weight. The ferocity of the drakin’s fire meant that they didn’t have much time left. A falling piece of wood nearly crushed him, emphasizing that. No matter how hard they fought, more drakin flooded in.
“Save as many as you can,” Rayse told Shen. “We need to leave.”
Adrenaline pounded through him. He hefted as many patients as he could over his shoulder—three, perhaps—hoping he didn’t break too many bones, and scoured the area. Some of Catrina’s patients were wandering around the infirmary, glassy-eyed and frantic. To those who could walk, he shouted instructions.
The orders sounded strange on his tongue. Sixty years ago, he’d given them all the time. They were as foreign to him as Ayesrial was now. “If you can manage it,” he said to a young lad, “carry another with you. We need to get as many people out of here as possible. Hurry! Spread the word.”
The roof was rumbling violently by the time he returned to the meeting place. He didn’t have magic to buffer his efforts, but was surprised to find he’d gathered a sizable amount of people there through his instructions—more so than even Emilia’s spells.
A black portal swirled in the center of the room, lighting up uncertain faces with its ominous glow. This magic didn’t seem… natural.
“Two at a time!” Catrina yelled. “Don’t rush forward. But be quick!”
He couldn’t let the ceiling fall on them. He could stop this. He was a bloody dragon, for goddess’s sake. He called to his dragon form and jumped toward the sky, shifting as he went. The size of his wings spanned the whole group, lifting the roof with him. The roof slid off his scales and crumbled onto an empty patch of shriveled grass and dirt.
His efforts were hardly enough to award them safety. Only after exposing himself to the brown sky of Ayesrial did he realize just how many drakin they actually faced. The portal in front of them was huge, and through it he could see a horde of drakin coming at them.
And now that they had nothing to shelter them, Catrina and her patients were going to be easily attacked from all sides. He shouldn’t have been so brash. The other dragons outside had probably been fighting to keep the structure in one piece.
He spotted the Dragon Mother through the portal, with her long raven hair, and the same sadistic gaze he’d seen all those years ago. A chill ran through him. He was distracted momentarily, until a drakin in dragon form came at him. He dodged and ducked toward the dragon’s neck. This dragon wasn’t very large, and Rayse’s snapped his jaws, breaking the beast’s spine.
More drakin stormed toward him. He raged and fought with talons and teeth. The thrill had left him ages before, but now that he had someone and something to fight for, it came back.
He roared to the sky as he fought, encouraging Catrina to speed up her evacuation efforts.
He was thoroughly outnumbered by the time most of the evacuees had left. He frowned when he saw the people Catrina had healed earlier being left behind. Were they a hopeless cause? They had gray skin and looked no different to drained corpses. If they were such lost causes, why had Catrina struggled so hard to save them?
“Alric, now!” Catrina shouted at him.
Catrina’s dragons fighting alongside Rayse were getting overwhelmed. One of them was attacked, and had his throat ripped out. Increasingly, more of Catrina’s fighters were killed, and many were backing into the portal. He’d already seen Shen disappearing through it. He had to take his chance while he could.
He dived, shifting as he did so he could fit through the gateway. A drakin grabbed his left wing as he transformed, tearing off a part of his limb. Right before entering the portal, Rayse snatched Catrina into his arms—he wasn’t going to leave without her—and together, they fell through.
A familiar sickness like the one he’d experienced when entering Ayesrial hit him.
He was on the other side in a blink. Catrina flicked her wrist, calling the portal closed, but not before a drakin sprang from it. Shen dealt with the loose end swiftly and easily by slicing his dagger across the drakin’s throat.
“The patients,” Rayse said, gasping for air. The aftereffects of the dark portal made him want to retch. “The ones you healed. We left them.”
“I didn’t heal them.” She tore herself from him and got to her feet.
“But I saw you. Why didn’t you take them with you?” His stomach tightened as he thought about the slaughter of those left behind.
“I wasn’t healing them. They were already gone.” She grimaced. “Where do you think I got the magic to open this portal from? I had to do it while I could…” She bit her tongue.
He furrowed his brow, his mind slowly putting everything together. “Do… what?”
She shot him a pleading look. She didn’t want to elaborate.
It clicked. Catrina must have gotten her power from somewhere.
She was harvesting her patients.
6
Greta’s back ached. She was a dragon beyond her years. Her vitality had lasted a long time, but its pool was beginning to drain.
She sat over her table of
herbs and spices, sorting them out in a lazy fashion as she waited for time to pass by.
Time—it never went by fast enough. She wanted hers to end. Her son never visited anyway. He was too busy rearing her grandchildren and spending time with his dragon wife.
But then the promise of tomorrow always reared its ugly head. Perhaps she could throw herself off a cliff to end that dull ache. The pain throbbed in her heart every day. She missed him so much. She blamed herself. If only she hadn’t been so brash…
She didn’t want to miss him anymore.
People thought she was strange. Was she? Sometimes she did things without thinking. Half her mind was always somewhere back at that terrible day, when she’d lost her dear mate.
The blood. His last smile. Their final kiss.
She often lingered on the verge of tears, but she had become so good at hiding her pain that no one could tell. She could still see him whenever she closed her eyes, looking the same way he had the day he left. Some mornings, she’d wake up and he would be waiting for her in front of her window, bathing in the glow of the sunrise.
“I’m still here,” her mate said.
“Only in my mind.” She needed to hold him, touch him. “You’re not real.”
“Greta!” A woman’s voice sprang from the tent. Aryana rushed in. “Greta, you won’t believe who just arrived.”
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” Greta said. “These fisslire nuts aren’t going to peel themselves.”
“The nuts can wait.”
“I bet you say that to Diovan all the time. That’s why he’s always so easily riled up. Because his nuts can’t wait anymore.”
Aryana ignored the comment. “I don’t know if it’s her. The witches have her restrained. She claims she is, but most of us never met her before.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Constance.”
“Constance?” Greta’s mouth fell open. But… Rayse—he was in Ayesrial. She dropped the herbs she was holding, stood up, and brushed her hands clean. “Take me to her.”
Fractured Souls (Soul of a Dragon Book 3) Page 5