by Eva Chase
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Dragon of Destiny
Legends Reborn #3
Eva Chase
Ink Spark Press
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter One
A frantic voice pierced through the blankness in my head. “Em? Em!”
Normally I wouldn’t have objected to waking up with my head cradled in the lap of the guy I’d been in love with for fifteen hundred years. It might actually have been a plus. The trouble was, as soon as I opened my eyes to Darton’s whitened face staring down at me, I remembered why I’d been knocked out in the first place.
The images rushed up: The ear-splitting crack. The shudder of breaking earth beneath my feet. The itchy pull of the binding spell tearing away from my body. The wave of darkness sweeping from the cave as the Darkest One charged forth.
I’d failed. Sodding hell. Despite all my efforts, the most powerful of the dark fae had broken free from the prison my half-fae magic had kept her trapped in for the last fifteen centuries. No doubt she was very peeved. And who was she going to want to inflict her rage on first? Me, the wizard who’d sealed her away, and the current incarnation of my king, whose soul she’d been determined to twist to her malicious purposes all those years ago.
I’d used the last bit of my exhausted magic to apparate us away from her, but I’d been too panicked to give the spell much focus. Where exactly had I gotten us to?
I pushed myself into a sitting position. My hands pressed down into soft, cool grass. Darton kept one hand by my elbow, as if he thought I might need further steadying. A reasonable concern. A rush of dizziness sent my thoughts spinning. I closed my eyes until the sensation subsided.
We were sitting in an open field. The breeze that licked past us smelled like autumn, damp and earthy. Across the field, the sunlight glimmered off the surface of a small pond. Weeping willow trees lined its bank. I blinked.
Oh. Not exactly the place I’d have chosen if I’d been thinking straight, but I guessed this was fitting.
“Do you know where we are?” Darton asked. The rising wind ruffled his gold-blond hair.
I nodded as I heaved myself onto my feet. “This is a park not too far from my parents’ house. I played here a lot when I was a kid. We’re just outside Boston.” Apparently I still associated my most recent childhood home with safety. At least it was plenty far from Britain and the Darkest One. For the time being.
Darton stood up too. He bent to grasp the hilt of his sword. He’d been clutching Excalibur when I’d grabbed him to whisk us away. At least we still had that enchanted weapon, after all the trouble we’d gone through to retrieve it.
“Boston?” he said. “What do we do now? What exactly happened back there?”
I winced. Right. He didn’t know yet. The knowledge sat heavy in my chest. I’d failed a lot of people by not stopping the Darkest One, but no one more than my king.
“Rhedyn offered herself up to the lightning at the last second,” I said. “She sacrificed herself. To free her master. The Darkest One snapped my spell, the one that was keeping her bound. She’s out now.”
Darton went still. “Out? Then...”
“Then she’ll be coming after you. Which is why I got us out of there.” I rubbed my hand over my face. I’d lost my purse and my bag of supplies in the chaos. I had no phone, no wallet. Nothing but the now rather muddy sweater and jeans I was wearing. I glanced at Darton. “What do you have on you?”
He shook himself out of his daze and reached for his pockets. His phone’s screen stayed dark when he tapped the buttons. He grimaced. “It had a little power an hour ago.”
“Lightning plus magic might not have been a good combo for the battery. If we’re lucky, it’s not completely fried.”
He patted his other pocket, and his frown deepened. “My wallet’s gone. It must have fallen out—maybe during that landslide. Damn.”
“So we’ve got no money and no means of communication. Perfect!” I reached my awareness out into the air, testing my magical sensitivity. Every nerve in my body ached in protest. No way was I hopping us to the other side of the country, to our house and all the supplies I had stashed nearby, by my power alone.
Which meant there was only one reasonable course of action, as much as I balked at it. “I guess we’d better drop in on my parents. Their place is about a twenty minute walk from here.”
Darton looked down at himself. In the middle of the battle, Rhedyn had sent a landslide over us. It had left as much dirt smeared all over his sweatshirt and jeans as I had on my clothes. “This isn’t exactly how I’d have wanted to meet your mom and dad for the first time, but it sounds like we don’t have much choice.”
“Yeah.” I wanted to say they’d seen worse, but for all my childhood weirdness, I was pretty sure showing up out of the blue and caked with mud—as a grown adult of twenty, no less—was going to make the top of the list. “Come on, Art.”
Little shivers traveled up my legs as we started walking. My breath started to catch in my lungs before we’d made it to the road that ran alongside the park. That last apparating spell had really drained me, and my brief “sleep” had hardly left me recovered. All I wanted was to curl up in a bed and really sleep, for at least a week.
But I wasn’t sure I could afford to sleep at all with the Darkest One on the loose. How long would it take her to figure out where we’d gone? What was she going to do to all the people who stood between her and us?
A sharper shiver raced down my back. We definitely weren’t going to stay at my parents’ house long enough to find out. I’d already gotten them into enough trouble. Just a few days ago, one of the Darkest One’s fae minions had gotten my mom into a minor car accident, meant as a threat to me.
Darton held the sword close at his side when a car cruised by. “I feel kind of conspicuous. How much do your parents know about... all of this, Merlin
and King Arthur and the rest?”
“Nothing,” I said. “And we’re going to keep it that way. All they know is their daughter Emmaline is a little odd and sometimes knows more about things than it totally makes sense that she should. It’s basically never a good time to tell your mom and dad that you’re not their kid but the reincarnation of a legendary wizard they probably don’t even believe really existed.”
“Ah. I can see how that would be tricky.” He gave me a wry smile that looked slightly pained. “So, just so I’m prepared, what’s our story?”
Good question. “Hmm... We can say it’s some kind of college club hazing ceremony. The ringleaders drop people off in pairs, and then we have to use our wits to get back to campus. As long as we sound like we’re fine with it, my parents won’t ask too many questions. We just won’t stick around too long.”
It might be good to stop by anyway, just to look for any lingering dark fae influence in the area. As far as I knew, the Darkest One’s minions had left our families alone after we’d ignored their threats and headed overseas. The fae hunter we’d gotten to know, Jagger, had called up a few of his colleagues to keep an eye on things here just in case. But I’d feel better checking with my own senses.
The road swerved to the left, meandering past a few blocks of well-spaced suburban houses. The yards and driveways grew steeper with the rising hill. I scanned the lawns ahead of us as we came up on my parents’ home, a two-story colonial in pale peach-toned brick. Thanks to the time difference between here and Britain, it was still early morning on this side of the ocean. Late enough that Mom and Dad should be up, but not so late that they’d have left for work yet.
A rental car was parked at the top of their steep driveway—theirs must not be back from getting repaired after Mom’s accident. No one stirred around the house. This late in the fall, there wasn’t much to do in the gardens anyway. I didn’t see any sign of the fae hunters either. Of course, they’d know better than to be totally obvious in their surveillance.
I showed Darton where he could stash Excalibur in the depths of the hedge, since I had no idea how we could explain why we were carrying around an ancient sword on top of everything else. Then I walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell. It felt strange, requesting entrance like a stranger. My keys had gotten lost with the rest of my stuff back in Britain.
Dad answered the door. His thinning hair, the same dark brown as mine, lay damp from his shower. His eyes widened at the sight of me.
“Emma! We weren’t expecting you. Are you all right?” He paused, the corners of his mouth creasing with worry as he took me in. “You look as if you’ve had a rough time.” His gaze slid farther, to Darton. “And who’s this?”
“Emmaline is here?” Mom’s voice carried from deeper in the house. She hustled over, bringing her cup of tea with her. A thick neck brace held her heart-shaped face stiffly straight. “My goodness, honey. I’d say this is a wonderful surprise, but if there’s been some sort of trouble—”
“No, no,” I said quickly, with a faked laugh and a casual wave of my hand. “We’re fine. Just a crazy club activity that got a little out of hand. You know how college adventures can end up. This is my friend Darton, who was my partner for the weekend. We’re kind of cheating by showing up here, but as long as you don’t tell anyone...”
As I’d expected, my lack of distress put my parents at ease. And they’d always fretted a bit about whether I was making friends. The idea of me being in some kind of adventurous college club would probably make their day. Yeah, Dad’s lips had already curled into a little smirk. He and Mom had gotten into way crazier escapades when they were my age.
“Come on in, then,” he said. “Do you need something to eat? We just finished breakfast.”
The tension wound around my stomach pinched too tight for the thought of eating to be appealing. But I wasn’t going to get my energy back by starving myself. “That would be great,” I said. “First I think we should get cleaned up, though. I wanted to grab a change of clothes and a few things from my old room. Dad, would you mind lending Darton a pair of pants and a shirt?” Dad was a little shorter and a little broader, but we couldn’t afford to be picky.
“We can put your things through the wash,” Mom offered. “I’m taking the day off, but even if I wasn’t, you could stay as long as you like.”
“Oh, no, we’ll have to get going to make sure we don’t get caught out.” I winked at her, burying my guilt over the lies. They were safer the sooner we were out of here.
“Well, come on then, young man,” Dad said, clapping Darton on the back.
I hurried up to my childhood bedroom, which my parents had left intact for summers and holiday visits. The pickings in my dresser and closet were pretty sparse, but anything clean was better than the muddy stuff I currently had on. I grabbed an old, faded pair of jeans and a sweater that had developed a hole in the sleeve. After a quick stop in the bathroom, my bladder was relieved and the dirt streaks gone from my face. I shoved my messy hair into its usual ponytail. A shower would have been amazing, but I wasn’t sure we had time for that.
Back in my bedroom, I dug into a box I’d left tucked in the back of my closet. An emergency stash for circumstances like this—not that I’d ever really thought I’d be having a showdown with the Darkest One in this life. When you’ve gone through dozens without your biggest fear becoming a reality, it starts to feel a little less real.
I grabbed a purse I hadn’t used since high school and stuffed in the few wands and baggies of herbs and salt I’d left here, as well as my spare credit card. There. Now I wasn’t totally helpless.
As if a few handfuls of herbs and the wave of a wand would do much good against all the Darkest One’s coiled power.
The floor creaked as I was straightening up. Darton stopped in the doorway, looking a little comical in the baggy khakis that bared his ankles and the checkered button-up shirt he’d borrowed from my dad. But still handsome. You could deck that guy out in a garbage bag and he’d make my heart flutter anyway.
There definitely wasn’t time for thinking about that. Anyway, he knew how I felt now, how much I’d always felt, and I knew it wasn’t the same for him. Better that we’d put the whole subject to rest.
“So this is where you grew up,” he said.
“This time,” I couldn’t help saying.
He arched an eyebrow at me before taking a step inside. “It’s hard to imagine you being a kid. I guess I never knew you as one.”
His gaze swept through the room. I felt suddenly exposed, even though my king already knew me better than anyone else in the world.
My duvet had a deep green vine pattern that had appealed to the sensibilities of my light fae side. The books I’d left behind on my now-dusty shelves included a bunch of science-y nonfiction, which was odd for teen reading but not embarrassing, and several historical romances, which were definitely embarrassing. An herbal, slightly smoky smell still clung to the walls from all the incantations I’d cast over the years, hoping to provoke the vision that would lead me to my king. A black smear marked the floorboards where I’d once dropped a lit candle.
Darton nodded to one of the band posters tacked over my bed. “Justin Bieber fan, huh?”
I made a face at him. “Past tense. I was an actual teenager along with everything else, you know.”
He gave me a teasing smile, and sod it if my heart didn’t flutter all over again.
Enough nostalgia. We had bigger problems to tackle.
We walked downstairs to the smell of frying eggs and fresh toast. “Mom,” I said. “You really didn’t have to. Are you even feeling okay?”
“I’m perfectly all right!” she insisted, waving the spatula. “I’m not sure I even need the neck brace, but I wasn’t going to argue with the doctor. It’s not as if I was in some huge crash—I was barely out of the driveway.”
“Right,” I said skeptically, and paused. “You haven’t seen anyone suspicious around here since then
, have you? Dad said some weird guy made a strange comment to him.”
“Nothing suspicious at all,” she said. “And the mechanic told us it was a random system failure—unusual but not impossible.”
Definitely not impossible when magic was involved. But when she shoved the plate of eggs and buttered toast into my hands, I reached for the fork automatically. I’d barely eaten anything all day—and by British time we’d have been well past due for lunch now.
“This is wonderful,” Darton said to my mother. Mom beamed. Dramatic music and a serious news reporter voice trickled from the living room. I ambled over to find my Dad sitting in front of the TV.
He motioned to the screen. “Quite the storm.”
What appeared to be an atmospheric pressure display was showing on the TV, but I’d never seen colors quite that stark. The broadcast cut back to the reporter. “After several days of stormy weather all across England,” he said, staring solemnly at the camera, “winds are building to unprecedented levels. Some areas are already experiencing hurricane-like conditions. Residents have been advised to follow local alerts, but hospitals are already filling with injured civilians.”
My stomach dropped. I put down my plate on the side table. Darton had come in behind me. He lowered his fork, his face paling, and caught my eye. I gave him a slight nod.
The Darkest One was already making her presence felt. How many more people was she going to hurt along the way?
Chapter Two
A battle raged around us, but the heaving bodies were little more than a blur. The shouts and clatter bled together into a shapeless din. The taste of iron lay on my tongue, and a chill coated my skin. The blue sky darkened above us. And a figure shifted across the field like a traveling shadow.