Breath of Fire (Rena Drake)

by Liliana Hart

  “My, my, someone has some new powers. Even your mate hasn’t been able to detect the strength I keep buried deep within. Though he did follow the trail across the Realms I set up for him just as I’d planned. I couldn’t approach you if he was hanging around here, now could I?”

  “Erik, we’re family. Don’t do this.”

  His laugh was cruel and slithered across my skin. This was not the brother I’d known, and even though the truth was staring me in the face, reality was sometimes hard to accept.

  Then I had a moment of panic. I was standing in front of the Destroyer. Alone. I’d never actually expected to have to fight him by myself.

  “I can smell your fear, Rena. It makes me hungry. Tell me you aren’t afraid of your own brother.”

  “You are not my brother.”

  “Sure I am. As much as we both hate it, Alasdair is our father.” Erik spat on the floor at the mention of his name.

  “You’re insane.”

  “Tsk, tsk. Insults will not get you into my good graces. I was hoping you’d come with me of your own free will. No one could ever match the power of the two of us together. I’ve known since your birth that you would be special. Your Drakán powers are average, but you’re carrying a little something extra, aren’t you? And I want them badly. I hope you don’t struggle when I rip them from your body. Who was your mother, Rena? I still haven’t been able to get Alasdair to tell me, and I’ve thought of several rather inventive means of torture.”

  “I don’t know who she was!” I yelled. I was getting a little tired of being asked the question. Erik had brought up a good point though. I was going to have to find out who she was if I lived long enough. These new powers obviously had everything to do with her.

  “Pity.”

  “It was you who killed Jillian and the other Drakán, wasn’t it? You who sent those bastards to attack me, while you watched from the safety of the house.”

  “Guilty.” He shrugged sheepishly and smiled. “If Calista hadn’t shown up and had one of her damned visions, I’d already have you under my control, and you’d have never bonded with your lifemate.”

  My dragon writhed with anger, and I was past the point of trying to coddle Erik’s unstable emotions. “The pieces of silver were a little overly dramatic, don’t you think?”

  “I thought they made things more interesting. You certainly got the point I was trying to make before you betrayed your own clan.”

  “I’d hardly call any Drakán who refused to follow you guilty of betrayal. I’d call them courageous. If anything, I’d call you the betrayer. Our race is sacred, and you are making us extinct.”

  “I’m making us stronger. We deserve to have a Realm of our own. This one is as good as any, and the humans are unnecessary. The Drakán can make this land thrive and we can gain back what we once had. I’m the only one who knows the way it can be done. All you have to do is follow me.”

  “I’ll never follow you. The Promised Child is our future.”

  “I knew Judas. Did I ever tell you that?” he asked, changing the subject while at the same time reminding me what I was to him.

  “I’m sure you were good friends. You have so much in common.”

  “Sarcasm seems inappropriate, considering your life rests in my hands.”

  “Go ahead and kill me,” I said, calling his bluff. He’d already told me he wanted my power. There was no way he’d kill me without taking it first. And that would take time.

  His expression had been full of mocking humor, but his composure began to crack at my taunts. He snarled and his face became that of a monster—but not Drakán at all. His eyes became soulless orbs and the green of his irises glowed with insanity.

  “Where’s Alasdair?” I asked. “Where are the others you’ve taken? We’ve only found the ashes of a few. Have the others joined your army?”

  “Yes, most of them were more than happy to join my army once I promised them I could give them a new Realm of the Drakán. The ones who chose not to follow me have become part of a little experiment. I’m more powerful now than I’ve ever been since I’ve found a way to steal others’ Drakán powers. Most of my experiments are still alive. Alasdair too. You’ve already found the ashes of the ones I’ve finished with.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “I told you I was a scientist, Rena. You always looked at me with pity whenever I said it. But I’m a genius. And modern technology is a marvel. I’ve built a machine that steals others’ powers and makes them my own. I just drain their powers away until all that is left is an empty husk of what they used to be. No better than a human. It’s very painful, I’m told.

  “You see, I’ve started my own kingdom, Rena. And there I get to be king. Do you know how easy it is to procreate when Drakán mate with each other instead of humans?”

  “No,” I answered. My mouth had gone dry at the thought of what Erik had been creating all these centuries.

  “The Drakán will soon outnumber all the other Realms put together, and when they do I’ll be Lord and Master over all. My machine should work on all the creatures of the Realms. No one will be able to come close to the powers I’ll have. Can you imagine a Drakán who has the combined strength of all the Realms in the palm of his hand?

  “My patience has paid off, and my kingdom is vast. I’m sick of hearing the prophecy of the Promised Child, and I’m tired of waiting for the gods to take us out of these forsaken lands and return us to where we belong. I have made my own deal with the gods, and I can feel their fear of me, just as I can feel yours. So I’ll ask you one last time, Rena. Will you come with me?”

  “Never.” I relaxed and let the power rush through my body—my other power. The snow that swirled around us changed direction and fell harder, faster, until it was almost impossible to see through the white wall it created.

  “Then I’m left with no choice but to take you by force,” he said. “You don’t think I’d allow such untapped potential to walk away freely when it could be mine, do you?”

  A flash of light cut through the snow and gathered in Erik’s hands, sparking yellow and orange and red and traveling back and forth between his palms like an electrical current. The fireball grew in his hands.

  I kept my power ready, waiting to see what he was going to do. Thunder roared through the sky and an explosion of light blinded me for just a moment. But even a moment was too long.

  Something hit me with the force of a Mack truck. My body slammed against the railing hard enough to bend the iron bars, and I collapsed to the ground in a heap. Erik’s insane laughter skittered across my skin. I had to think of something, or I was as good as dead.

  I looked down at my body and tried to evaluate the damage as best I could. I was half numb and silvery scales lay across my stomach. That wasn’t a good sign. I knew from reading the archives that when our human bodies sustained a mortal blow, we reverted to dragon form to heal the damage. I needed to shift completely, but I couldn’t hold my concentration long enough to do so. My dragon nudged me frantically, trying to get me to make the change. She was covered in blood.

  Erik gathered another bolt in his hands. I put the thought of my dragon away. She wasn’t the one who could win this fight. I steadied my breathing and drew in on my power, building it from the depths of my belly and pushing outward. I saw what I wanted in my mind, and then it happened. I disappeared. I was completely invisible. My body no longer whole, but instead tiny particles. I was the air, and I controlled it all.

  “That’s quite impressive, Rena. I think I’ll enjoy taking that power from you very much.”

  I gathered my energy and hovered just above the ground, so as not to leave tracks in the snow. I moved behind him and knew I’d have to act quickly, whatever I chose to do. The effort to hold myself invisible was taking its toll on my wounded body. The pain was overwhelming.

  “Reeeena. Come out, come out wherever you are.”

  I stayed perfectly still and tried to give my body a little longer to hea
l.

  “You know this moment was destined to happen, Rena. As soon as the goddess gave the Prophecy to our ancestors, our lives were all laid out before us. I was predestined.” He tossed the fire bolt up in one hand and caught it with the other, waiting for me to show myself. “I can wait you out, Rena. My patience is infinite. Let me tell you a little story about how cunning the gods are.”

  My body shook with the effort it took to maintain my invisibility, and the other elements were going crazy. Snow, wind and sleet flew in different directions and lightning crackled across the sky in horizontal streaks.

  “Did you know my mother knew she was supposed to give birth to the Destroyer?” Erik asked. “The goddess who delivered the Prophecy to the warriors came to her one night in a dream and told her this was her destiny. She was told by the goddess that the outcome of the Prophecy was not foretold, and that she must raise me not to be defeated, but to triumph.”

  I wanted to ask why the goddess would plot against us, but the gods and goddesses had never had reasons for the things they did unless it somehow benefitted themselves. It didn’t sound like they wanted the Promised Child to be delivered, whatever their reasons were.

  “So my mother plotted secretly to get herself with child. Alasdair had shown great cunning and power when he’d manifested the ability to travel and saved his people. She knew he was strong and that his children would be as well. But she was the daughter of another clan, and she knew he’d rather kill her than bed her.

  “Alasdair had already ruled for several millennia by that time and he still hadn’t fathered a child. He fell in lust with Caesar’s wife, Claudia, and my mother’s spies told her Alasdair planned to take Claudia back to his lair and mate with her until she grew with his child. So my mother struck a bargain with the gods to be taken in Claudia’s place.

  “She disguised herself as Claudia and waited for Alasdair to come for her. Alasdair found her in the garden, and he kidnapped her, just as she’d planned. It only took a month before she conceived. She kept up the illusion and hid her true identity until I was born. Alasdair took me from her birthing bed and literally dropped her back in Rome. He never knew she was really Drakán—the gods had disguised her scent. My mother eventually found me and nurtured my powers. It was she who had the ability to hide my powers from Alasdair until I was old enough and strong enough to do it myself. The rest is pretty much history,” he said, his maniacal laughter growing more and more out of control.

  Erik circled the balcony, watching for any sign of movement. He inhaled deeply and the flames I’d cast in the fireplace and braziers burned out into plumes of smoke. My new powers were going out of control. I was too drained to keep a handle on the elements that raged around me. A blizzard was whipping snow around the mountain and it was accumulating at an alarming rate on the balcony floor.

  I’d held out as long as I could. My body began to rematerialize, and he waited patiently as snow flurries fell and collected around me.

  “Gotcha,” Erik said and lifted his arms to send another blast my way.

  My human body reappeared naked, so I quickly shifted into my dragon form. I moved with unimaginable speed and ripped my claws across Erik’s torso, dodging the ball of fire aimed in my direction. His blood sprayed across the cold ground in an arc of crimson drops. It glittered in the moonlight like wet rubies, and his flesh lay in tatters over muscle and bone. He roared with anguish. Fire spewed from his mouth, and his fist came straight at me. I didn’t have time to dodge.

  I knew I was hurt badly when there was no pain. I flickered back and forth between my human form and my dragon—finally ending up as human—naked and torn. Blood trickled down the corner of my mouth and dripped in a rhythmic pattern on the snowy white ground. I knew my jaw was broken because I couldn’t open my mouth to scream. I was choking on my own blood.

  I fought to stand up straight and confront my brother, my enemy. I wouldn’t die like a weakling on the ground.

  “I’m taking you with me, Rena,” he hissed. “You can’t defeat me. I am the Destroyer of Prophecy, and I will not be beaten.”

  “I will not let you take my powers for your own. I’ll die first.” I wasn’t able to speak because my face was too swollen. Blood pooled rapidly in my mouth. I couldn’t spit it out fast enough to keep from drowning. If this was my fate, so be it, but he would not use my powers against others as long as I had a breath in my body.

  He gathered the light between his hands once again, and I prepared myself for another blow. But instead of aiming his deadly hands in my direction, he pointed them toward the sky. An arc of light shot from his fingertips and cracked the night in two pieces.

  Time stopped. Snow flurries stood still in the air, and the drops of blood that dripped from my body and face were suspended between time and space. My body became sluggish—as if I were underwater—trapped inside some invisible hourglass looking out at the real world.

  The light from his hands spread across the night sky. And out of the darkness appeared a portal—a circle of undulating liquid silver that shone brighter than the sun. I would die, by his hand or my own, before I went through it with him.

  “Enough games, Rena,” he said and started toward me.

  I didn’t know what kind of games he was used to playing, but getting the shit beaten out of me wasn’t on my list of fun things to do. I backed away from him as far as I could go until I reached the balcony edge. I only had one option. I had to fly.

  I took a deep breath and backed over the ledge of the balcony into a free fall down the side of the mountain. I watched in slow motion as Erik made a grab for me and yelled my name. But he was too late.

  I realized something on my way. I was able to scream after all.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Erik didn’t follow me down the side of the mountain. Instead he cursed my name and vanished inside the portal, closing it behind him with a thunderous reverberation that echoed through the sky.

  I shifted quickly, sighing in relief as my body had more room for my injuries in dragon form. I stretched out to my full length and roared as bones popped in and out of place. Panic consumed me. I still couldn’t fly, even drawing on Julian’s power. My mind raced, and I opened myself to my other power. My dragon didn’t like this magic because it didn’t come from her, and she tried to push it away. But I wouldn’t let her.

  The wind began to blow from the bottom of the mountain. I blanked my mind and put all my strength into focusing on the wind, so the air moved faster. I controlled the pressure as it swirled around me, and the air held me steady. I was flying. Sort of. The only problem was I didn’t know how the hell to land.

  I hovered just outside the bottom floor of Drummondsey Castle, and I floated in front of a large plate glass window and looked into a room with an eerie blue light. It took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at, but when I did I heaved a sigh of relief.

  I flew straight at the window, and the plate glass shattered into a million pieces. I didn’t even register the new cuts. I already had too many to count. I landed at the bottom of Julian’s Olympic-sized swimming pool like a ton of bricks. I was unconscious before I reached the bottom.

  I woke up throbbing from head to toe. The lights were out and total darkness filled the room. The kind of darkness that made you search deep within yourself to see what you were really made of. I didn’t like what I found, and I panicked at the black that came at me from every direction. It reminded me too much of the vision I’d had about Julian and Noah and the beautiful monster who’d devoured us all. I’d never been afraid of the dark before, but now I was terrified.

  I moaned, and several candles flickered on around the room. Eunice stood over me and held a cup up to my lips. I swallowed and sputtered as the foul-tasting brew went down.

  “What the hell?” I croaked, pushing it away. I didn’t need any more torture.

  “Don’t worry, dear, the taste won’t last for long,” Eunice said.

  “I need to see, J
ulian,” I rasped out. My throat was on fire and my jaw was still sore.

  “I know. He’s been pacing outside the door since he felt you beginning to stir. He’s been worried about you.”

  “Hmmph,” I said. “Worried I’ll take him down with me more than likely.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I think a man who stays by your side and barely sleeps for two days has to at least care a little.”

  “Two days!” I said. “Do you know what can happen in two days time? Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”

  I threw the covers back and swung my legs to the floor, but they were too weak to support me. Bile rose in my throat and I broke out in a clammy sweat. Black dots danced in front of my eyes as I fell to my knees.

  “I tried to wake you up. We all tried to wake you up, but no one could get through to you. I used all the Faerie medicine I had with me, and it still took you this long for you to wake up. I’ve never seen anyone have injuries bad enough that they couldn’t be healed by magic and our own physical healing capabilities. Your body caught fire twice and tried to burn itself to ash, but Julian linked with you and shared some of your pain. It’s a good thing I had the sudden urge to take a dip in the pool.”

  “I really need to see Julian,” I said again.

  I put my head between my knees since I was already on the floor, and I got the nausea under control. Eunice helped me up, and I crawled back under the cool sheets and closed my eyes. The door clicked open quietly, and I felt the pull between us as Julian’s footsteps got closer. I pushed my pillows up against the headboard and sat up. Slowly.

  “You have a way of keeping a dragon on his toes, Rena,” Julian said in a disapproving tone. The hollows of his cheeks were more pronounced than normal and dark circles ringed beneath his eyes. He wore black chinos and a black T-shirt, and I realized it was probably the most casual I’d ever seen him. He looked tired, and far underneath the gruffness of his voice was worry and relief.