by Kell Amber
The days passed both fast and slow for Cebrus in a jerky uneven rhythm. He missed Silvan like a living ache until it twisted his stomach and burned his heart.
“Oh, for the sake of the holy flame, will you stop moping.” The dragon, which Cebrus nicknamed Flame since he refused to give his true name, paced back and forth before him.
“I’m not moping,” Cebrus denied, then he slumped back on the ground. “I thought he’d be back by now.”
“You do know that you are supposed to be leader of the dragons? We can’t have our leader sulking about.”
Cebrus sighed. “Why didn’t he come back?”
“Well, his father might have detained him. Or maybe they started a new war or something. Who knows? Why don’t you just transform and go fetch him?”
“What if he decided he doesn’t want me anymore?” Cebrus blurted his deepest fear.
Flame laughed. “You are mates. Even I could see that. No way would he abandon you. Why don’t we just fly over to his little kingdom and see what’s going on?”
He missed Silvan, but after three months of training with his dragon mentor, he couldn’t handle the separation any longer. Silvan had enough time to return after talking to his father.
“You think I should?”
“I think you’re never going to master your magic if you don’t get your love life straightened out.” The dragon scowled at Cebrus.
“True.” Cebrus couldn’t concentrate. He was too worried his mate had decided a dragon lover would be too much work and moved on to someone else. He weighed his options.
“Besides, you are ready to move on to the dragon palace. We’ve trained enough here. You can tell him you are only passing by while heading to your new home. See? Nothing clingy or less than manly there,” the dragon taunted.
Cebrus’s spirits lifted at the thought of seeing his mate again. “I could do that.”
After all, there wasn’t anything wrong with stopping by to say hello.
Silvan glared at his father while he considered the benefits of patricide.
“Don’t look at me like that. You have responsibilities. You can’t gallivant across the country searching for dragons.”
Gritting his teeth, Silvan clenched his fists to resist the urge to grab his sword.
“I promised Cebrus I would return to him. You know my cousin can take my place. Edriks has been dying to be the crown prince.”
The king waved away his protest. “He’s not worthy. You were born for the position. Besides you told me yourself Cebrus is doing some sort of dragon training. I doubt he needs you to hold his hand or his claw.” King Minr laughed at his own joke.
“I can’t abandon him, he’s my mate!” Silvan roared.
“He’ll return. In the meantime, you can learn about running the kingdom. I’m not going to live forever. Not to mention if you decide to keep this man as your mate, you’ll need to name a successor.”
Silvan stared at his father in shock. He’d thought his father would fight him on his choice of mates. “You’re not going to argue?”
The king laughed. “When has my opinion ever changed your mind? I know you aren’t willing to give up your little wandmaker, and with his abilities, I think he’ll be an excellent addition to the kingdom. Think about it. He can fix wands and protect the kingdom with his dragon skills. I can’t think of a better partner.”
“True.” Silvan had been thinking about Cebrus romantically and foolishly not considering him as an asset to the kingdom.
“I’ll have the steward assemble a list of names. I have a feeling your boy won’t want to share.”
Silvan didn’t even want to think about Cebrus’s reaction if he told his lover he needed a female to ensure the continuation of the kingdom.
“No, I’m certain he won’t want to share. I need to go back and get him. I need to keep my word. A man is only as good as his word.” A statement his own father had drilled into him.
The king shook his head. “I need you here. The Treivons are talking war. We can’t afford to have you exposed. You were lucky not to encounter any of our enemies the first time.”
Silvan stood up and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Apparently nowhere.”
Silvan marched out of the room. He might as well get some training in. He couldn’t argue with his father’s reasoning, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. He missed Cebrus like an ache in his heart. He might not be able to join him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t send him a note.
Cutting across the courtyard, he stopped at the sound of screaming. Reaching for his sword, he froze at the sight of two dragons landing. Joy raced through him as he ran to intercept the knights. The ones who’d accompanied Silvan rushed to intercept the knights who thought monsters had invaded the castle.
“Don’t hurt them!” Silvan shouted, running toward the beasts. Unsure if he was speaking to the dragons or the men since both appeared ready for a battle. “Stop!”
The knights stepped back and away from the magnificent dragons seconds before they transformed into men. Silvan let out a sigh of relief. Cebrus was dressed similar to how he’d left him. He’d have had to kill a few knights if they’d seen his beloved naked.
Before he could take more than a few steps, Cebrus raced across the courtyard to throw himself into Silvan’s arms.
“I got you, my love,” Silvan murmured in his ear. Tension unfurled in his body as he clutched his mate tight.
“I missed you. Flame said I could come check on you.”
“Flame?” Silvan shot the dragon shifter a teasing look.
Flame shrugged. “I’m so ancient I never had a name.”
Silvan shuddered. He’d thought the Nameless were a story his nurse had made up to terrify a young prince into obedience. The scourge of the land, destroying those who went against them. Catching the cold eyes examining him, he clutched Cebrus tighter. Maybe he’d been wrong.
Cebrus pushed at his chest, making Silvan release his grip. “What’s wrong?”
“You didn’t come for me. You said you’d return.” Hurt glistened in Cebrus's eyes.
“Oh no, my sweet. I was going to return. My father stopped me. We have some problems with a neighboring kingdom. He was worried they might try to kidnap me.”
“What kingdom?” Fire burned in Cebrus’s eyes.
“Never mind. Once word spreads that we have a dragon on our side, I don’t think they will dare attack.”
“Don’t ignore the foolishness of mortals,” Flame said. “They do things that they claim are for honor, but are really for their personal glory. I was going to take Cebrus to the dragon palace, but maybe he should stay here. If he is going to lead us, he needs to have a stable home, and pulling you from this kingdom could cause more problems.”
“What about the dragons?” Cebrus asked, turning to face Flame. “Won’t they need me?”
Flame smiled and pointed behind the palace. “There is a nice mountain over there. We can resettle and watch over our king. Most of us don’t even remember when the dragon palace was last used.”
“I’d like to see it,” Cebrus said. “If only to know where I came from.”
“Do it later after you’ve married your prince. Better to let the word spread and stay here for a bit than leave him vulnerable,” Flame said.
Silvan nodded. “Listen to your advisor. He makes good sense.”
He never expected those words to come out of him when talking about the dragon.
“Will you return to the island?” Cebrus asked.
Flame shook his head. “No, my job is here. I’ll train you in your magic and in your duties. I only stayed at the island because I was waiting for you.”
Silvan had to struggle not to glare at Flame over that. He must not have hidden his thoughts as well as he thought because Flame laughed.
“Don’t be foolish. I’m not going to try and steal your bonded. I can see you both belong together. Only an idiot comes
between two mates.” A wistful expression crossed his face. “One day, I hope to find my other half, but fate is a fickle female and so far has refused my wishes.”
Silvan tightened his grip on Cebrus. “You never know when your mate will just walk into the castle and turn your world inside out. Trust me.”
He kissed his mate, letting all his love and longing pour through. Things would work out now. He had his home, his mate, and a wedding to plan.
The End
Stay tuned for Flame’s story, it will be written…eventually.
My Shining Star (Sample):
Chapter One
Augustus Griffin, known as Gus to his friends, sat on his bed and strummed his guitar. Arthritis inflamed his joints, making the song more difficult to play than it used to be. Despite the pain, he still enjoyed the feel of the strings moving beneath his fingers. Their reassuring vibrations reminded him of younger days when he used to draw small crowds in the park with his music.
At seventy-five, he would never be the great musician he once dreamed about, but those same hands had played lullabies for his children and later his grandchildren. Good times, sad memories. He’d outlived his family. Now he only had his bittersweet memories to bring them back to life.
This particular song reminded him of his happy childhood in Louisiana and playing with his best friend Basilio Downs. His fingers stumbled across the chord as his past heartbreak threatened to tear away his moment of calm. With his dark hair and warm bedroom eyes, Bas had captured Gus’s heart at their first meeting. They attended high school together, became roommates in college, and were each other’s first sexual experience with men.
Except back then, men didn’t stay together.
One night, using the excuse of a beer run, Bas left and never returned. Even fifty years later, that one event remained the single most painful moment in Gus’s life. The death of his wife and the plane crash that killed his children and grandchildren were tough times, but Bas leaving had broken something inside Gus and he’d never recovered from.
A man’s scream, high and panicked, reached him through his open window and chilled him to the bone. Setting down his guitar, Gus walked over to check out the noise. Peering through the glass, he spotted three big guys ganging up on a smaller man in the narrow alley between Gus’s building and its neighbor.
Gus gritted his teeth, and his hands shook with anger. He marched over to his door and snatched the baseball bat from where he had it propped by the entrance.
Enough!
Over the past year, crime had increased on the streets near Gus’s apartment. Thugs had moved into the area, terrorizing the locals. He was sick of it all.
Anger fueled Gus as he left his apartment and shuffled down two flights as quickly as he could, hoping to reach the screaming man before it was too late. If he’d had any sense, he’d have called the police, but he was tired of punks roughing up people in his neighborhood. This time, he would do something about it. Fury kept him going to the ground floor. He stopped, winded, at the base of the stairwell to catch his breath before he could continue.
Straightening his shoulders as much as he still could, Gus pushed open the heavy door that exited out to the alley. The punks had already left, and a man lay still as death on the ground.
“Poor kid,” Gus muttered. The victim didn’t so much as twitch when Gus approached. Damn, Gus hoped he wasn’t dead! The young man couldn’t have been much older than his mid-twenties.
Using his bat to balance himself, Gus kneeled beside the battered male, his arthritic knees screaming with pain as they hit the rough asphalt and bits of stone dug into his skin through his thin cotton pants.
Damn, he wished he’d grabbed his phone. In his hurry to rescue the guy, he had foolishly left his cell phone on his coffee table. Gus brushed the victim’s hair back from his face. To his surprise, the young man’s eyelids snapped open, and dark, liquid, pain-filled eyes stared back at him.
“Hey, buddy, you all right? Do you think you can stand?” Gus asked in his gentlest tone. He didn’t know if the man should be moved or not, but he couldn’t abandon an injured person in the middle of a filthy alley. What if the assailants returned? Unfortunately, he also wasn’t strong enough to lift the guy up the stairs either. Being old sucked.
“Help me,” the man whispered.
“I’m trying to, but I need to get you upstairs. I don’t have my phone,” Gus explained.
When the young man didn’t speak again, Gus crouched down to slide his right arm beneath the stranger’s shoulders while using his left hand to balance himself with the bat.
The man struck like a viper. Sharp teeth pierced Gus’s skin and sank into his jugular. With a cry, Gus dropped the bat. It hit the ground with a hollow thud, then rolled away.
Why did it never pay to be a Good Samaritan these days?
As he futilely tried to pull the man off him, Gus’s heart stuttered in his chest and the world went black.
The world had become a brighter place while he slept. Gus blinked against the blinding sunlight blazing through his living room. His head pounded like a street full of marching bands, and he suspected someone had dumped the Sahara down his throat while he slept. Crap! He usually handled his alcohol better.
“What the hell?” he groaned. His head pulsed with each word.
Gus sat up, his body moving easily, as if someone had lifted an oppressive weight off his bones and joints.
Weird.
Rubbing his eyes, Gus tried to focus his vision against the glaring light. Everything still seemed too bright, but at least his sight had become clearer—much clearer. Touching his face, he jerked in surprise.
Where are my glasses?
Why was the world in focus without his lenses? He’d worn them since his twenties and had needed progressively stronger prescriptions. His current ones were almost the thickness of glass bottles.
“Oh, you woke up. I was starting to think I’d done the conversion wrong. You’re my first, you know. Well, I guess you don’t know, but I couldn’t let you die, not after you came to my rescue. That was really brave. I mean, considering how old you were. Kind of stupid, but mostly brave.” The stranger kept babbling as if Gus would regain his equilibrium if his visitor talked enough.
Gus never had guests. After the death of his family, it had become easier to keep to himself. It hurt less when you didn’t know anyone who might die. He’d already lost everyone important to him.
“You’re a bit of a magpie, aren’t you?” Gus asked. He froze at the unfamiliar sound of his voice. Instead of rough and raspy with age, it held the smooth, stronger tones he’d had as a young man. Touching his throat, he encountered smooth skin instead of the loose folds he’d had before. Maybe he was still dreaming?
The pretty stranger blinked at him with wide dark eyes. He must’ve been in his early twenties. He had a smooth Asian look to his features, possibly Japanese. Gus had never been good at figuring out ethnicity, and it would probably be rude to ask.
Recognition hit him. “Y-you’re the guy from the alley.” Upon lifting his hand to point, Gus gasped. His age spots and wrinkles had vanished. Instead, his fingers were smooth and flawless. His arthritic hands no longer had swollen knobs for joints, but flowed into elegant tapered lines.
They were the hands he’d had as a young man. Gus hoped this dream didn’t end soon. He couldn’t remember a time in the past twenty years when his hands hadn’t ached.
“What happened to me?” Fear made his beautifully smooth hands shake. Stupid, because this was no doubt a dream.
“Um, I sort of made you into a vampire like me.” The kid sounded nervous, as if Gus could get mad over such a ridiculous statement.
Gus laughed. He swung his legs to the side of the couch so he could sit up properly and face the nutcase who’d wandered into his apartment. The lack of aches and pains distracted him for a moment. Nice. He tilted his head back and forth, but the usual cartilage cracking didn’t occur.
“A va
mpire, huh?” Might as well humor his dream companion.
“Yep. I’m really sorry if you didn’t want to be converted, but if I didn’t act, you could’ve died.” His apologetic expression tugged at Gus’s sympathy.
“I’m sure you did what you had to,” Gus reassured him.
The vampire wannabe nodded. “I did. I’m sorry I lost control, but for an old guy, you have amazing blood, like a great Shiraz. I had an amazing bottle the other night.”
Gus wondered if the kid had fake identification. He had judged the youth to be about eighteen or nineteen, but he’d never been that great at figuring out ages.
“Thanks…I think.” Gus interrupted the kid’s babbling. He didn’t know what else to say to the obviously insane young man sitting on his coffee table and comparing his blood to wine. It took him a minute to realize the problem niggling at his subconscious. “You aren’t hurt anymore.”
He received a wry smile. “Yes. Thanks for that, man. I mean, thanks for saving me. Even a vampire can only do so much against three other vampires, especially when they’re stronger than me. The prince will be furious with them when I give my report. I’ll need you to come with me as a witness. Besides, now that you’re a vampire, you’ll have to report to the prince so he knows you’re in his territory. He’s going to be pissed I transformed you.”
Gus sighed. As fun as this dream had been, he needed to return to reality. Hopefully he hadn’t fallen in that damn alley and would wake up in a hospital bed. Morphine could explain this dream quite well.
“I think it’s time for you to go.”
The ease with which Gus got to his feet startled him for a moment. His joints didn’t creak or groan, and no pain accompanied his movement. He paused for a moment, enjoying the pain-free sensation. Too bad he knew it wouldn’t last.
The self-proclaimed vampire stood along with Gus, but made no motion toward the door. “No, I need to take you to the prince and let him know what happened. I can’t abandon you to fend for yourself. It’s against our laws. By the way, my name is Akeno, and I’m a member of the northwest coven. The three who attacked me are older members. They’re going to be in tons of trouble when I report them to the prince. I just moved here a few months ago, and the prince had assigned them to be my mentors.”