by C. I. Black
“You check on her regularly?” Grey asked, curious, but not wanting to ask the second-most powerful drake at Court what that pause had meant.
Tobias’s expression hardened. “Every day.”
Grey dragged his attention from the chamber and tried to focus on Tobias, but the room had darkened and filled with mist, a collision of too many memories all swirling together and all out of focus.
“The Handmaiden returning won’t completely stabilize the political mess, but it’ll help,” Tobias said. “In the very least, the next time someone does something stupid, we can save more drake souls.”
“Only if a medallion is present.” And Hunter, the Prince’s ex-assassin, held the only mobile one. The other medallion was embedded in the heart of the arena here at Court.
“Don’t remind me.” Tobias’s phone rang. He checked the call display and swore. “I’ve got to go.”
“Looks like I have until lunch to clean this up.” Grey fought to see past the fog to the chaos he had to go through, but seeing didn’t matter. He’d glimpsed it already and the mess was there, seared into his memory like everything else. He could only pray that going through her room might reveal where she’d gone, and then he could go and beg, once again, for her to end everything that made him him.
CHAPTER 3
Ivy stood at the end of the hall leading to the Handmaiden’s chambers and clutched her locket. There wasn’t much stored there about the Handmaiden, only abstract knowledge from overheard conversations. Sure, the Handmaiden had been there when Ivy had been reborn. But that information came from a conversation with the only other drake Ivy could trust, Ophelia, shortly after they’d realized Ivy’s newest body had the one type of earth magic that could save her from a life of constant confusion. Before her magic had manifested, she’d lived for almost sixty years as a recluse, with Ophelia telling her every morning who she was and who Ivy was and that it would be all right. According to Ophelia, that had been Ivy’s life with all her other human vessels since the Great Scourge.
The bitter thought — that her earth magic ability to read the memories imprinted in objects was supposed to have freed her — kept whirling through her head.
She was supposed to be free. But she wasn’t.
And that was just the way it was. She had to think past that, get through the day, and do whatever was asked of her.
She squared her shoulders and resisted the urge to tell herself that if she did this one job, she’d be done. The prince’s chamberlain had told her that lie forty-five years ago when she’d offered to help him read the memories in a hall and identify all the conspirators plotting to overthrow the doyen of the Major Yellow Coterie.
That hadn’t been the last time she’d used her magic at his command, and this wouldn’t be the last time, either. At least this job didn’t involve roaming the halls looking for possible traitors like she’d been doing for the last few weeks. Sure, reading the memories of the halls temporarily eased the constant ache in her soul, that missing piece that she couldn’t permanently fill. But the fear of what might happen if she didn’t find proof of deceit had replaced the ache. It was there, right at the forefront of the locket’s memories. If she didn’t give Regis what he wanted, terrible things would happen to her.
For days on end with long, exhausting hours, Ivy had been trying not to just absorb two thousand years of memories imprinted in the walls of Court, but to concentrate on memories that were new and relevant. She couldn’t just revel in the memories like her soul and power wanted. She had to focus and find specific details. Regis wanted names, and if there weren’t any to tell, he suspected her of holding back and keeping secrets.
It didn’t matter that some of these halls hadn’t seen a drake for hundreds of years — since Court’s physical size hadn’t shrunk with the dragons’ diminishing numbers and chambers were just abandoned as the living population, for convenience, drew closer together. Regis wanted names.
And now—
She strode halfway down the hall to the Handmaiden’s chambers, the fear in her gut churning.
Now Regis would want yet another name, and she feared if she couldn’t give him someone, anyone, he’d send her to his torturer, Odyne.
A shiver rushed over Ivy. Ophelia had said the Handmaiden had banned King Constantine from using Odyne’s earth magic once it became clear the agony she inflicted with her touch could continue for days, months, and even years. But Constantine was soul sick, and Regis had brought the royal torturer back.
Ivy reached the Handmaiden’s door, but a rough, masculine voice saying something on the other side made her stop before pushing it open. Her pulse jumped and the ice in her gut surged into her chest. Someone was inside. Probably two or more someones, since a single person didn’t have reason to talk to himself… unless he was on the phone… or he’d succumbed to soul sickness and was crazy. Which could only make the encounter worse.
Mother of All, she didn’t like people. They expected her to remember them, and there was always that lure, teasing and taunting her, to read the memories imprinted in their clothes, their jewelry, heck, whatever they had on their person. Except that didn’t end well. It was an invasion of privacy, and every drake she’d read had reacted badly. Even her friend Ophelia — especially Ophelia — had responded with ferocious anger.
Frankly, it was safest — and easiest — to avoid everyone.
Ivy glanced back down the hall, every instinct screaming to return to her room and wait.
Except Tobias had made it clear that Regis had no patience. He wanted to know what had happened in the Handmaiden’s chambers, and he wanted to know now.
The door opened, revealing Tobias, with his wild black hair and dark searing eyes, standing in a stark chamber with a chair and table dead center — the only furniture and both lit with wild blue memory fire. He wore his usual heavy engraved cross from a human time period hundreds of years ago. And as always, the cross pulsed with blue flames only she could see, promising deep, strong memories. Something she’d never have for herself.
Her power word jumped into her mind, and she clenched her jaw against saying it or even subvocalizing it. The word squirmed within her, desperate to be said. More flames surged around the cross, and she wrenched her gaze to the room behind Tobias, determined to stay in control.
At the back of the chamber was another open door with another man standing in the entrance. Massive, even for human standards, his broad shoulders filled the doorway and his blond locks almost brushed the top of the frame. His pale blue gaze seized hers, as if he could see into her soul, and froze her in place. Except it wasn’t just her who was frozen. It was him, both of them, along with the air in the room. Even time itself. There was no present, no future, and no longed-for past. It was just them, only them, always them. Apart from everything and everyone.
Tobias cleared his throat and the drake across the room blinked, releasing her from his gaze. But that only made her attention jump to the writhing blue blaze swirling impossibly all around him, not just from pieces of jewelry or clothes. Even from this far away the pull of old, powerful memories clawed at her, sucking her toward him. Her knees trembled, and she gripped the doorframe to keep standing. A massive silver aura flickered through the blue, white lightning cutting through the blue fire, but even without that, she’d have known he was an ancient drake. As old as, even older than, the Great Scourge. Two thousand years of memories in his jewelry, his trophies—
Mother of All, she’d give anything to read his hoard. A collection that old would satisfy the ever-consuming ache in her soul for years.
Her pulse picked up. But at the thought of spending time with his hoard or spending time with him? She didn’t know.
“The Handmaiden’s man was just leaving,” Tobias growled.
“Yeah,” the silver drake said, but he didn’t move from the doorway.
A phone rang. Tobias drew his from his pocket and glanced at the screen. His expression darkened — Ivy hadn’t thought it could get any
darker — and he ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve got to go.”
“Is it this?” the silver drake asked.
“No.”
The silver drake shifted. “Is that good or bad?”
“Is anything good right now?” Tobias’s glare jumped to Ivy. “Do your job. Grey isn’t staying.” He stormed from the room, taking the seductive blue flames of his memories with him. A part of her wanted to chase after him and ask what was going on.
Except a bigger part didn’t want to ask. What she really wanted was to see the truth, the whole truth, for herself. Dragons lied. That knowledge was imprinted clear and strong in her locket. And Tobias had lied to her once before — probably more than once, if she wanted to go searching for the weaker memories in her locket. Dragons looked out for themselves and maybe their coterie members, but that was it. Ivy wasn’t a member of a coterie — no matter how much Tobias had insisted she was a part of the Royal Coterie. She belonged to, she wasn’t a part of, the Royal Coterie. She was an object to be used as it suited Regis. If she wanted to keep her locket, not to mention the body that allowed her to have any memory longer than a day, she had to obey.
The silver drake — Tobias had called him Grey — cleared his throat and drew her attention from the now empty hall back to him and the door to the inner chamber. The weight of time blazed around him, seductive and captivating. She’d never seen a drake with so much memory clinging to him, as if his remembrances were more than just him, a living entity unto itself.
She inched closer, unable to help herself. Maybe she could read just one. Something small so he wouldn’t notice. Except she’d never been able to get away with that before. She didn’t know what the other drake felt, but the memories in her locket made it clear they always felt something, always knew she was using her magic on them.
There was also no way she’d be able to stop with just one.
Mother of All. Just looking at him made her power word fill her mind and bubble at the back of her throat, as if it possessed a mind of its own.
She forced her attention to his eyes, unable to look away and desperate to see past the flames. But a great weight filled his gaze as if the flames of his memories were transformed there into an enormous pressure, the pull and weight of a dying sun collapsing into itself. It drew at her with a soul-deep ache similar to her own. She didn’t know why or how he suffered, but soul to soul, without a doubt he was a kindred spirit, the other side of her coin. She ached with a loss she couldn’t explain, an emptiness, a knowing she was missing pieces of herself, and he seemed too full, straining, almost bursting, and unable to release the pressure.
Against all common sense, she took another step closer and bumped the arm of the chair in the room’s center. Her attention jumped to the furniture, and the pressure of his memories vanished, but her heart pounded too fast. She stood more than just two steps from the door and hadn’t noticed moving.
The perpetual ice in her gut, that fear that she was always in danger, always at a disadvantage, churned faster. Even now, with her attention locked on the floor between her foot and the chair leg, she could feel his pull. It curled inside her, a craving she didn’t know how long she could refuse and one she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
A growl bubbled in her throat. Mother of All, she was a dragon, too. She lived her life in fear. One more terror — even if it was terror at her inability to control herself — shouldn’t stop her.
No. It wasn’t going to stop her.
“The chamberlain said you were leaving,” she said — still staring at the floor, but at least she’d managed to say something.
“Yes.”
It didn’t sound as if he was moving.
“I have a job to do.” The urge to look up, to say her power word, to satisfy the ache within her, made her muscles twitch. She fought to keep still and not hug herself to do so. That was a sign of weakness, and it was bad enough she was refusing to make eye contact. Anything else and she’d look like prey.
“What is your job?”
“I work for the chamberlain.”
“I know that. But he didn’t say what you do.”
“And neither will I.” Her power, her secret. Too many drakes knew about her earth magic already, and she was trapped in a coterie controlled by a madman. She wasn’t going to tell anyone else. “Please. I can’t keep the chamberlain waiting.”
“We’ve met, you know.”
What? Her gaze jumped up and the flames surged around him until he was lit with a blazing blue halo. Surely, she’d remember him. Surely, she’d have imprinted all that memory into her locket.
“It was brief. A few days ago. In the gateroom.”
She didn’t know why he was telling her this. Had she been rude to him? Had she stared at him like she was staring at him now, dumb, without any thought but the urge to feel the strength of his memories surging through her? The urge to feel other strong things—
Her heart skipped a beat, and she shoved that thought away before she could examine it. Focus on the job. Focus on surviving.
Except surviving wasn’t enough any more. That knowledge, like the truth that all drakes lied, was stored clear and sad in her locket as well.
She mentally grasped at her ache, her desire, and the yearning to succumb to his memories, and shoved it as deep inside her as she could, then she forced herself to march the remaining distance to the inner door. Now she stood on the edge of his flames, their essence licking over her skin, straining her willpower.
She gritted her teeth. “Do I need to call the chamberlain back?”
“No. I’ll go.” But he didn’t move from the doorway and his gaze stayed locked on hers, as if he was trapped in the same vortex, whirling, throbbing, captured.
He leaned closer, forcing her to tip her head back to maintain eye contact. And yet she couldn’t look away. His flames slid across her cheeks and down her neck, drawing a shiver. His gaze dipped to her lips, and the shiver grew stronger, filled with a new desire.
Her pulse pounded, thrumming to every cell of her body, as if somehow being this close to him changed the primal resonance in the core of her being.
He dipped closer, his lips brushing hers and skimming across her cheek to her ear. His jaw, rough with stubble, slid against her skin, jaw to jaw, in a whisper of dragon courtship.
The thrum exploded with desire and fiery memory, and shock snapped through her. She yanked back and hit the back of her head on the doorframe. The world tilted and froze. The fire of his memories seared her. No clear images arose, but the power swept into her, and for a moment, no longer than one quick pound of her heart, the ache in her soul was gone. Glorious strength filled her. She was complete, whole, powerful, on the verge of bursting from the memory filling her.
She drew breath and his fire within her vanished. The world wrenched again, the loss of everything, of self, of a complete essence, it all crushed her, and she pressed her back against the doorframe to keep standing.
He reached for her arm — likely to steady her — but she jerked away. She couldn’t let him touch her again. She’d succumb and let her earth magic read everything he remembered, whether he wanted her to or not. She’d see everything, good and bad. But it was the bad no one wanted her to see. She’d see it all. Every deep dark secret, every hurt, every mistake he was trying to forget and even those he might think he’d forgotten.
God. It had just been one touch, and she hadn’t even used her power word. She hadn’t even experienced his memories in full, just skimmed the outside edge.
She slipped past him into the Handmaiden’s inner chamber, somehow fighting the urge to brush against him and experience that surge of memory again, while clinging to the door to keep standing.
“Get out.” She clutched the door handle, certain if she let go the world would topple and toss her to the ground.
His eyes were too wide, filled with shock. He knew she’d done something, knew she’d violated him and had no way of knowing that she hadn’t don
e it on purpose. It hurt to see him look at her like that, and yet it was for the best. The temptation was too much. She could never, never see him again.
CHAPTER 4
She shut the door in Grey’s face. He could have stopped her by shoving his foot in the jamb, but the idea didn’t hit him until the door was closed. That, and she looked just as stunned as he felt. More so, since she’d almost fallen over. He’d just brushed his jaw against hers. He hadn’t been able to do anything else. The stillness she’d radiated made it impossible to focus on anything else. He’d needed to get close, closer, have her pressed against him, anything to ease the memories raging through him. Before he’d realized what he was doing, he’d kissed her.
He pressed his forehead to the door but didn’t open it. With the barrier between them, it was easier to focus. And jeez, kissing Tobias’s agent had been stupid. Beyond stupid. It was bad enough she’d seen him here — Tobias had warned him to leave, he’d just been five minutes too late for Grey to get out of the Handmaiden’s gatelocked chambers and gate out of Court — but if there was even a suggestion that Tobias’s agent was aligned with Grey, both her and Tobias could face Regis’s wrath. Anything could set the prince off, and Tobias’s position was tenuous at best.
The urge to open the door and brush his jaw against hers again — not just a whisper of a caress but with the dragon ferocity curled tight within him — surged through him. He ground his teeth and clenched his hands behind his back. She was trouble with a capital T. One he couldn’t afford to have. He had more than enough on his plate. He’d managed to get most of the Handmaiden’s room back to the way he remembered — Tobias had assured him cleaning up wouldn’t affect his agent’s ability to do her job.
His heart skipped a beat. Just a touch. That was all he needed from her.
Her.
He didn’t even know her name. All he knew was that she didn’t make hundreds of memories flare within him. Only one, from a few days ago, when Capri and her human had been caught up in the mess around the attempted assassination of the doyen of the Major Brown Coterie. Grey had been in the human world again, his life in danger, again. His gate had jumped to the anchor at Court and she’d been standing there, shocked, a beacon of calm in the sea of memories raging through him.