by Ophelia Bell
Confused, he simply nodded and listened, his chest warm with the confession she’d just given him.
“I didn’t just Ascend. This generation’s brood ascended over ten months ago, but I wasn’t one of those dragons. I have never been one of those dragons, not in my entire life. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“You were Unbound,” he said, hoping like hell that was the true explanation, but he heard the truth in her voice without her having to explain it. He used to think simply putting words together was a kind of composing, and that the tunes he composed paralleled the emotions he wished to convey if he were speaking to a lover. He also knew that while words could be untrue, the music never lied to him, and the nuances behind the words never lied, either. The Wind could reveal the truth behind a lie if he chose to listen.
For the first time in his life, he wanted so badly for the words he heard to be untrue, for the Wind to be wrong. The warm glow in his chest turned brutally cold and he jerked back as the realization of her words struck him. She wasn’t one of the Unbound dragons—the ones who broke their laws and were forced into servitude by the Council. She was one of the fucking Council.
“Which one are you,” he said, his voice deep and treacherous thanks to the way his chest had tightened up. “Are you her? Please, Belah. Please don’t be her.” He reached out to her, cupping her cheek in his palm and sending a fervent wish to the North Wind that this beautiful, perfect woman who’d already wrapped herself around his heart wasn’t really the person he dreaded she was. He’d openly cursed the Dragon Council in front of her already. Had hated them ever since he learned the lengths they’d gone to to hide the truth—that one of their number had been the cause of their mortal enemy’s existence.
Now, he only wished that she wasn’t the one who’d done it. He would gladly forgive her for simply being one of the six, unless she was that one.
The tears that spilled from her eyes betrayed the truth. And the words that followed burned like ice-cold spikes sliding into his ears.
“He was my consort, a very long time ago. We enjoyed some of what you and I did tonight, only I let it go too far. He betrayed me and I’ve … we have all been paying for it since. Lukas, I’ve lived with this regret for thousands of years. I left the Glade to find a mate so I can help the others set things right. You can help me. Please.”
His vision tunneled and he found himself launching away from her. His wings spread in a split second and held him hovering on the other side of the room, as far as he could get from her. “Help you? You destroyed our lives, Belah! My sister is dead because of you!” He let out an anguished cry, trying to expel the burning tightness in his chest, but it wouldn’t leave. How the hell could he have loved her? What the fuck was Fate doing to him, sending this monster to him and letting her worm her way into his heart so swiftly?
“Get out!” He yelled, as much at her tear-streaked face as at the heart-wrenching sense of loss at the idea of her leaving when he’d only just found her. “Get the fuck out of my life!”
Chapter Seven
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
Belah’s heart was seared by a rending pain at the look in Lukas’s eyes. Like she was indeed the monster she’d believed herself to be for the last three thousand years.
This was why she’d stayed hidden for so long. Why she should never have left the Glade at all, in spite of her siblings’ insistence. He’d been too good to be true, but of course Fate wanted to punish her for her mistake.
She stood and nodded. “I meant what I said about how I feel, Lukas, for what it’s worth.” Ignoring the tears still streaming down her cheeks, she rushed to his bedroom door and out, not even caring about her lack of clothing.
Her eyes were too blurry to see, but she’d rather not have to think about her surroundings. She was a disgrace to her race. Let them all see her laid bare. She deserved no less than the humiliation she’d brought on herself, the pain of losing him mere hours after discovering the magic they could create together.
Oblivious to the direction she was going, she simply aimed for a door.
And smacked face-first into a wall of hard, warm muscle.
“Whoa, honey.” The voice was as rich and deep as Lukas’s, but with a rougher edge. She staggered back and wiped her eyes, staring up into a face so similar to his she shook her head trying to get her bearings.
“Who …?”
“He must’ve really fucked up if you’re running from him so fast. Most girls he brings home aren’t in such a hurry to leave.” The sexy smirk was the same as Lukas’s, too, but there was something harder and more dangerous in those deep-set gray eyes. They raked over her naked body, taking in the remnants of hardened wax still clinging to her in places. “But you’re not just any girl, are you?” he said, his eyebrows going up a notch, a gleam of something more than mere curiosity appearing in his eyes. His thoughts also shifted from curiosity to confused longing that made her gasp for how abruptly it came over him.
“Let me go,” she said through gritted teeth, but the man held her tightly by the upper arms, refusing to release her or to even remove his gaze from hers. An unwanted spark of arousal grew in her in response to his touch. No, she was unwanted here, it was not time to want another man.
“No, I think I want to know why you’re running, first.”
“Iszak,” Lukas’s still anguished voice spoke from the open doorway behind her. She clenched her eyes shut wishing she hadn’t been the cause of the pain clear in his tone. “Allow me to introduce Belah. The Bloody Dragon Whore who ruined our lives.”
She flinched at the venom in his words, and half expected Iszak to recoil from her the way Lukas had. When he didn’t release her, she opened her eyes to look at him again.
Iszak’s head tilted slightly and he studied her with a curious expression. “I thought you’d be taller,” he said. “At least meaner looking after all the blood that was spilled because of you.” His voice held no malice—only pure reverence laced with deep desire.
“Do you understand why I’m running now?” she spat, her voice quavering more than she’d have liked it to.
He shook his head. “Cowards run, honey,” he said, spinning her around and holding her against his chest. His strong arms slid around her and she gasped when they brushed the undersides of her breasts. “See what you’ve done? My poor brother’s a mess because of what you did.” He bent his head closer to her ear and in a harsh whisper said, “And I’m not talking about our sister, either. When a Turul falls for you, you don’t turn and run.”
“I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I fell for him, too. But he doesn’t want me—he told me to leave.”
“Fuck,” Iszak said and finally released her. “Well, I guess you’d better keep going if that’s what my idiot brother wants.” He stood back and gestured in two directions with his hands. “You can take the door … Or the window.”
Now that her eyes had finally dried enough to see clearly, the massive bank of tall windows was apparent, overlooking the water and the sparkling city skyline on the other side of the bay. Numb from the ordeal, she started walking, moving swifter the closer she got to the empty night beyond those glass panes. She closed her eyes as she passed by Lukas, whispering so softly, “I would have loved you forever,” before breaking into a run.
Heedless of the barrier, she launched herself through the window, grateful for the sharp spikes of glass that sliced her skin a split second before she caught the air outside and the imminent plummet awoke her instinct to shift and fly.
Chapter Eight
Lukas held tight to his door frame, fearing he’d collapse from grief if he weren’t holding on to something. Iszak moved up beside him and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Well, brother, you’ve royally fucked up. How many chances did you think you were going to get to find her?”
He gritted his teeth, hating his brother’s needling. “I don’t want her. Anyone but her.” He turned to glare a
t his brother. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were defending her. Have you forgotten what happened to Evie?”
Iszak’s eyes narrowed, his jaw spasming with the effort of holding back words Lukas was sure he didn’t really want to hear anyway. Iszak had taken their sister’s death even harder at first, acting out in an era when tempers were high among all the races, including humans. Lukas had disagreed with his brother’s methods, even though he’d went along. Volunteering to fight in a human war was the last thing they’d needed to do, but the distraction was something he’d needed, too. Their true enemy was too elusive for them to fight back against, so they lashed out at someone else’s enemy instead. It gave them the outlet they needed for their grief at the time, but it hadn’t been enough. The experience had only succeeded in adding more scars, but they’d managed to obscure the old ones somewhat in the process.
“I will never forget what that hunter bastard did to her,” Iszak said. His glare bored into Lukas and he pointed toward their broken window. “But that heartbroken woman who just destroyed our window is not our enemy. She’s your fucking destiny, brother. You know as well as I do that we don’t get a choice in this. Immortal dragon or not, she’s yours. So get your head out of your ass and figure this out, or I’ll do it for you.”
“She isn’t mine. She’s a fucking beast.” He spat the word out, hating himself for the age-old epithet humans used to use for the dragons. The same word the Ultiori used for all of them collectively. He turned back into his bedroom and slammed the door in his brother’s face, then just stood there, staring at his bed and wishing like hell that she’d never told him the truth.
Chapter Nine
Belah refused to move for two days, alternating between tears and simply staring out the window at the vista of Central Park in all its autumn-splendored glory. The beauty of it barely registered after Lukas’s rejection.
After Nik’s betrayal, she’d merely felt numb, so shocked at his actions she had been unable to process them.
But after Lukas all she could do was cry. For three thousand years she’d avoided any kind of emotional stretch at all. It was safer that way, after all. But what she hadn’t considered was that it wasn’t her life she’d been preserving the entire time, but her heart.
“Hey, sweetie,” Erika said softly behind her. Her friend came in several times a day just to check on her, as did Geva. They didn’t try to get her to talk, at least, and they had thankfully stopped coming in together when she burst into tears the first day after seeing them exchange the most casual of intimate touches. Just seeing the clutch of their hands together had set her off again. Seeing Erika’s telltale glow of motherhood made it even worse.
Lukas wasn’t the only one that haunted her, though. She’d only had the briefest contact with his brother, but now couldn’t for the life of her get either of them out of her head.
“Do you think I deserve another three thousand years of despair?” she asked.
Erika didn’t respond at first. She moved around to sit in the chair opposite the armchair Belah sat in. “No one deserves three thousand years of anything like that. You didn’t fuck up, Belah. You loved someone and that person screwed you over royally. It is not your fault. Lukas and his brother are fools.”
Belah blinked at her friend. “His brother?” It was the first time Erika had mentioned Iszak.
Erika raised an eyebrow. “You said his name in your sleep—at least I thought that’s who it was. Am I wrong?”
Belah shook her head, trying to recall the dream. She and her siblings shared dreams regularly, and the dreams often came to pass. This was the first prophetic dream she’d had since being out of the glade. It came back to her in such a rush that she gasped out loud. “They … they were both on fire, in my dream. And it was because of me. Oh no, I don’t want to hurt them. I never wanted to hurt anyone!”
Erika leaned in and pulled her into a tight embrace. “No, sweetie, you’re not hurting anyone. You’ve never hurt anyone. Someone hurt you and you’re still feeling the pain from it, that’s all. And I think that dream means something different than you believe it does.”
Belah nodded and relaxed back into her chair, fixing her eyes back on the flaming beauty of the world outside her. The sun was setting now, lending an even more vibrant glow to the trees in the park. She appreciated Erika’s comforting words, even though they were really only words. Erika’s thoughts were filled with concern, but her words lacked conviction—as though she were merely telling Belah what she thought she wanted to hear.
“Where is Geva?” she asked, suddenly missing the large, irreverent Red’s sense of humor. He would come and just talk to her sometimes—telling her stories of his ridiculous antics as a young dragon for a time before lapsing into elaborate monologues on how much he loved his mate or tirades about how he believed Lukas was a damn fool for not seeing how perfect Belah was. She loved him for it.
Erika glanced out the window, her posture growing tense. “He’s gone to run an errand, but should be back soon.”
They watched the sun set quietly together. Belah found some strength in Erika’s consistent presence. The other woman never pressed, and Belah was grateful for the company, even though they rarely spoke. All she could think about was the way Lukas had rejected her. And the way his brother had caught her in her escape, as though he’d set a net for her to fall into. Iszak’s look—his touch—still lingered as hotly in her memory as the searing wax Lukas had drizzled over her skin.
Their auras had been nearly identical. Maybe that’s why she’d felt so drawn to Iszak in the moment he’d touched her? She’d replayed the night over and over in her mind but hadn’t made any more sense of it since. They weren’t twins—that much she could tell from looking at them. Yet their energies were so similar she’d have been confused if one of them had approached her in the dark.
They’d had a sister, too. One who the Ultiori had taken. And likely drained to the point of near death before pampering her back to high health again—then repeated the process. That was their way.
Dead didn’t make sense. The Ultiori didn’t kill if they could help it. Living blood was what they needed. A slave was what they wanted most. She’d have been that to Nik if Ked hadn’t rescued her so long ago. She might have still been bound and bleeding now if it hadn’t been for her brother’s rescue. She would have gladly sacrificed herself now to spare all the others who had gone after her, especially Lukas’s sister.
“Sister, snap out of it.”
Belah jumped at the sound of Ked’s voice behind her. She stood up and gaped at the huge man standing only a few feet away from her. She hadn’t even heard him come in.
“Ked!” she snapped. “Why are you here? You should be in the Glade. Our arrangement …” A slight panic settled into her gut. Only one of them should leave the Glade at a time. Two of them was too risky.
“Fuck the arrangement. Apparently I have to be here to get your ass in gear. You’ve been languishing for a week, Geva says. Because some ridiculous Turul had a temper tantrum?”
She glanced behind him at Geva. The Red smiled. “I tell it how I see it. You needed a push.”
His infuriating smile continued in spite of the killing glare she leveled at him. “Lukas doesn’t want me.”
“He’s a Turul, of course he does. He just needs to learn how to trust you.”
“How the hell do you think he’s going to do that? I’m the Bloody Dragon Whore who killed his sister.”
Ked’s dark eyes narrowed and his entire body seemed to suck in the light for a second. It was an effect she never saw in the Glade, where their individual abilities were dampened. Now, it was disconcerting to see. Even more disconcerting to feel when the anguish inside her seemed to disappear for a second. It wasn’t a sense of ease, though, but a sense of absolute emptiness that left her hollow.
“Don’t do that, please,” she said, on the edge of panic from the cold feeling it gave her.
“You didn’t kill h
is sister,” Ked said. His eyes stayed pitch black, but his aura thankfully receded. Belah took a deep breath when the familiar self-hate returned to her gut. Now it seemed ridiculously tame compared to the void that her brother had given her for a moment. He was her polar opposite in that sense—while she could sense emotions and even enhance them in people, Ked could completely suck all light and emotion out of an entire room and anyone within.
“I made Nik a monster. He killed their sister. Or someone he recruited killed her, anyway. It all comes back to me.”
“Remind me, sister, what were you doing when Nik made this transition? Tell me exactly.”
Belah wished for more expletives to color her reaction to his question. Now all she could do was take a deep breath and answer. “You know very well what I was doing. You found me at the end of it. I was … crucified.”
“Did you object?”
She swallowed and nodded. Then shook her head. It was all too confusing.
“Which is it?” Ked asked. “I only found you at the very end of it, but in three thousand years, I never knew the full truth. It’s time, sister.”
“I didn’t object to the … the torture. I asked for it. But when the blood flowed, I told him to take care. He didn’t.”
The moment came back with a vivid clarity she hated. Nik had known how much pain she could endure and loved to test her. The cross was her idea. He had tied her to it and proceeded to torture her with slow cuts in patterns around her abdomen. She hated herself now for how much she’d loved the pain then—a craving that had never eased in all the time since. Candle wax would have been a safer option.
Now, she just wanted her brother to accept her excuse, yet his gaze darkened. Her brother’s moods were always dark, but when they had an actual reason to be dark, they were like an immense void that consumed everything. She sent her own powers back at him, hoping to bombard him with the truth of what she was feeling, distract him from his own little vendetta that might burn down the city with its black fire.