by Hati Bell
She smirked. “I like your newfound ‘us against the world’ attitude.”
“Us against the fucking universe,” he said with a grin. He angled his lips toward hers and licked across her bottom lip. She opened her mouth, inviting him in. His tongue darted out to taste her and that’s when their kiss was rudely interrupted by his ring tone. It was Diana Krall with “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”. Drake pulled back, cursing under his breath, and took his phone out of his pocket.
Amber felt her skin glow when he pressed his lips to her nape.
“I’ve got you under my skin,” he whispered into her ear. “I have got you deep in the heart of me. So deep in my heart, you’re really a part of me.”
“At Amber’s cabin,” she heard him say. “No, I wasn’t followed.” She could see his mood drop with every word. “Not my problem. Let Gregor deal with it. He’s good at that.” He put his phone back into his pocket.
“It?”
He produced a smile, pulling her back with him onto the blanket. The clouds covering the emotions behind his eyes, that part of him she couldn’t reach, had returned. “Just some dragon business. Nothing to worry about.”
She pulled herself up and leaned back on her elbows, giving him a glare. “Really? That’s all you have to share after what we just talked about? That’s not how this works, you know.” He left a trail of kisses down her neck, and mouthed her breastbone, giving her goosebumps. “You can’t distract me with…” Okay, so maybe he could.
He let her go with a deep sigh. “They say love is some form of sacrifice. All I know is that love is selfish. It made my father chase after foolish dreams no matter the cost to his child. It made Gaby Stark crawl into a bottle because of a man who enjoyed maiming his own son, and it makes me hold on to you even though my mind tells me to let you go. Until this afternoon, when I heard you almost drowned and I hadn’t been there, I thought I was capable of letting you go. Being unselfish for a change and all that crap, not exactly a dragon’s strong suit.” His voice dripped of cynicism as he continued. “Yet here I am, at your feet, embracing my selfishness. Even if this means your light being tainted with my darkness.”
“Your darkness?”
He laid a hand on his heart and then pointed at his head. “It’s here, and there. A family trait, ingrained into my DNA, which, judging by results in the past promises pain and misery for the future.”
She frowned, not sure where he was going with this. “Are you trying to chase me away by telling me you are going to hurt me?”
His eyes widened as if she’d hit him. “Never,” he swore. “Not purposely. I’d rather have someone spike me with iron all over than hurt you, but you have to know what you’re getting yourself into being with me. You know my background, more dragon than human. I want to be what you deserve, but the truth is I don’t really know how to lo-” He made a choking sound and clenched his jaw.
Amber gave him a stern look. “You’re not going to hurt me. From now on we’re a team, okay? Which by the way doesn’t mean I didn’t notice you not answering my question. What’s going on? I heard Logan’s voice. It sounded urgent.”
She could feel the tension return to his body. “Francesca Claw has sent people to Devon-there’s a goblin stronghold there-as a retaliation for the attack on her son,” Drake said. “I don’t know what possessed her to do something that impulsive and stupid. It was countered with another attack, this time on Kincaid’s car, when he left Somerset. He’s hospitalized.”
She stared at him when he just kept lying next to her, as if everything was just fine and dandy. “Oh my God, you have to go to the hospital!”
Drake folded his hands under his head. “I don’t think so, love. I’m not letting you out of my sight with goblins rummaging around. Let’s enjoy the sunset. Always wanted to do that with you.”
“But he’s your grandfather,” she protested. Family’s important, she wanted to yell, until she was reminded of her own family. She quickly pushed that thought away. Not tonight. Not now.
“Being in Kincaid’s presence is like standing in quicksand while juggling grenades,” Drake countered. “Being with you is so much better.”
“Nevertheless, I’d rather have you go.” She took a look around, searching for movement in hidden corners of the ruin or behind the trees. “I don’t like you being here out in the open while there’s a war going on. You are a target as well, after all.”
She’d barely finished speaking when he got up, pulling her with him. “You’re right.” He frowned, scanning the area as she had. “It’s not safe for you to be with me right now.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Amber grumbled, but he merely smiled. Being with him felt comforting, as if they’d known each other for years. She felt safe, cherished. Her eyes started to water again, when she thought about her father. He immediately noticed.
“You still haven’t told me why you were so upset,” he reminded her.
“Tomorrow,” she promised. “Tonight is ours, right? Nothing can touch us here.”
He didn’t push, just nodded and spun her around so she faced the path towards her house. “You should go.”
“I’m leaving Somerset to stay with my uncle in London for a while,” she said out of the blue. It was a spur of the moment thing, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. She had to get away, gather her thoughts before she confronted her father. It was as if Drake had turned into a statue. “I understand if you can’t come with me,” she hastily said, avoiding his eyes. She summed up a list of perfectly good reasons why he couldn’t join her on her trip.
His arms wrapped around her like steel bands, effectively ending her monologue. Suddenly she was staring into two fiery eyes.
“Ask me,” he said in a clipped tone.
“Ask you?”
“Yeah. Ask me,” he demanded.
Wasn’t this exactly the reaction she had hoped for, until she had chickened out to flat-out ask him? “Will you come with me?”
He opened his mouth, but his head shot up, focused on a point behind her. His arms around her dropped.
Her breath caught in her throat as she spun around and followed his gaze.
They were everywhere. The horizon was filled with goblins. She knew this time they didn’t stand a snowflake’s chance in hell against them. They were surrounded from the trail going into the forest to the path towards the blackened ruin. More than a dozen menacing heads popped up as poisonous mushrooms from the ground.
A jeep stormed up the path towards them and came to a halt with screeching tires. Zacharias stepped out, accompanied by a bodyguard and his cane, basking in confidence. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. Clearly the time for talking was over.
“Go,” Drake said, one eye on Zacharias. “They’re here for me. They’ll let you leave.”
Zacharias stepped aside, his men following his example. A path cleared between the goblins for her. The protest on her lips died when she saw the transformation in Drake.
His hands changed into razor-sharp claws and his body became bigger, sporting layers and layers of muscle with a scale pattern she had seen before. His shirt ripped, as well as his jeans. And then she saw his eyes: coal black. Cold and merciless, without a shred of humanity left in them.
His head turned slightly to the side, and there it was. The lopsided smile he only gave to her, mixed with-what?-regret?
“Go,” he said.
It was then that the hopelessness of their situation really penetrated her brain. They were standing in the middle of what was supposed to be her safe harbor, her little corner of heaven, but this could become his last resting place.
There will be no tomorrow for us.
Her body reacted violently to that thought by holding a small nuclear explosion inside her head. The simmering headache, which had started when she heard about her father’s betrayal, grew into a full-on attack as if a grenade had gone off. Her hands shot to her head, which felt heavy as a rock, and she hear
d a scream. It was too soon for a nightmare. She buckled over, while forcing herself to look up at the horizon. A point of focus was what she needed to not immediately succumb to a nightmare. Not while Drake was in trouble.
He spun around towards her. His eyes had widened and she realized that the scream had been hers. That second of distraction cost him, when he was blindsided by a triad of goblins.
Her hands started shaking and a familiar heat started in her palms, leaving scorch marks in the grass. When she lifted her head she witnessed Drake being thrown onto their picnic table. The rickety table collapsed and all that was left were wood splinters.
It felt as if her body would splinter and then burst apart, fueled by rage, fear, and despair. Her headache reached a tsunami level, pounding against her forehead, and she tried to rub the excruciating feeling away.
Something dripped onto her hands. Amber looked up to the purple sky, but it was cloud-free as it had been all day. A thick substance slid past her eyes, over her cheek, and into her mouth. She tasted blood. She lifted her hands only to find out the tips of her fingers were soaked with blood. A flame burst from her feet, scorching the grass she sat on. It spread to her calves, knees, and reached her thighs, destroying every piece of thread on her body in its wake. A scream caught in her throat, but her lungs, working profusely, didn’t allow it to pass her lips.
It took three goblins to push Drake against the lamp near the wooden remains of the table. He was a bloody mess of broken bones.
No one was paying her any attention. She stumbled forward, leaving a burning trail behind, while a pattern of blisters formed in her hands. Blisters that burst, making a sizzling sound like water dripping onto a hot plate. Blisters that turned grey, then purple, and finally into a crimson red when her flesh was exposed.
She had lost sight of Drake because of the wall of goblin bodies surrounding him. Mindless with fear, she grabbed the first thing she could reach: a goblin’s leg. The goblin shrieked and a shudder went through his body when his pants went up in fire. Blue flames licked his skin, and crept up from his legs, consuming him. It was like wildfire, spreading to the goblin next to him, one by one having a domino effect.
Zacharias was the first to notice her. Judging by his ashen face she must have looked even worse than she felt. The fire coursing through her veins had ceased to spread from her thighs up, but it was still pulsing-waiting-as if it had its own heartbeat.
The older dragon’s knuckles were white around his cane. He took a step backwards but buckled over when someone suddenly jumped him from behind.
Drake made use of the shrieking and burning goblins around him by kicking away the ones holding him down. One of them grabbed his neck and they crashed against Zacharias’ car. The goblin rammed Drake’s head into the windshield.
When Drake pulled himself free, Amber saw the cut in his eyebrow. It was the same scar she had seen in her vision right before she totally went up in flames. Her heart was in her throat when she realized her swan song had begun.
It’s time.
No! Not now. Not when they had just found each other. But of course it would be now, because when had Death ever arrived at a convenient time?
She suddenly heard Logan’s growl and a battle cry from Armand. More cars were coming their way, this time with Gregor in the lead. The brawl turned absolutely brutal, as it always did when a fight turned into a war.
Drake dropped next to her. She read fear in his eyes. “Who the fuck did this?” he yelled, frantically looking around. When his eyes found hers again the fear was replaced by a cold rage. “Doesn’t matter. He’s a dead man. We have to get you to the hospital…”
“It doesn’t hurt,” she lied, biting her lip in an effort to keep a scream inside. Her vision went blurry, as if someone had thrown a smoke bomb at her. Only when she realized Drake wasn’t affected by it did she realize the smoke was her tears turning into dew. The flames covering her were pulling the fluid from her body.
When Drake grabbed her arms, she knew he awaited the same fate. No matter that dragons were impervious to fire; this was something else. She was an inferno waiting to go off. There was no way she would allow him to suffer the same fate.
She understood now. It wasn’t about how long you’d lived, but about how you had lived and who you were prepared to give your life for. Despite the agonizing pain playing havoc on her body, she managed to muster a smile. It was important he saw that and understood. His future should be bright and beautiful like his moss-green eyes and not consist of coal-black onyx.
“A short life with you in it was worth more than a long one without you.” She meant every word. “I have no regrets and neither should you.”
The last part was a lie. She did have regrets. She regretted dying before having truly lived. She regretted not swallowing her pride and asking Meg for help when she’d had the chance. But above all she regretted that she’d never have the chance to experience sharing a life with him.
TWENTY-FOUR
Drake had never been religious, but right now, while he was desperately clutching Amber’s smoldering fingers, he prayed to God in every language he knew. Because if she died, a part of him would die with her.
She pushed something into his hands. It was her locket. “Live,” she whispered.
“This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. I just found you,” he said, anger coating his voice, because she was saying farewell.
“You have to let me go,” she said softly, her eyes filed with pain, yet had a hint of a smile.
How could she smile, while they were balancing on the edge of a sword? Then it hit him: she did it for him. Never before had he felt so unworthy of her. “No.”
“You have to let me go,” she repeated, glancing at a point over his shoulder.
Part of his brain registered there was a massive fight going on around them, but he couldn’t have cared less. “No! You made me want to be with you. You made me believe we stood a chance if we just went for it. Well, here I am. Don’t you dare give up now and leave me behind. Wherever you go, I go. Where you end, I end.” Her fingers, hot as coals, scorched his cheeks when she gently caressed him. He didn’t even flinch. Something inside of him, an evil cackle or the tears of an angel, told him that if he let her go now, he’d never be able to touch her again.
“Not in this life, Drake. Maybe in another one, where everything is different. I’m so sorry you have to see this. We will meet again, some day.”
He shook his head, refusing to hear the meaning behind her words. Behind her dragons and goblins were snarling, stabbing each other with iron bars or ripping each other’s heads off, but his brain hardly registered it. “Don’t leave me. If you give up, it’s over. Fight it, whatever it is that’s happening to you. Stay. With. Me,” he growled. Her skin was a glowing red now and felt crunchy underneath his fingertips.
“There’s no darkness in you,” she lisped, barely conscious anymore. “I love the man you are and worship the man you’re some day gonna be.”
Her lips trembled and her forehead sported a worrisome frown. He could see her searching for words, her last words, right before her light would fade away and she would leave him. It was as if she was waiting for a sign, something only he could give her. He didn’t know what he could do to keep her with him.
“Please don’t give up. Don’t leave me. I…” His tongue froze mid-sentence and his throat started burning.
Another searching look from her, hopeful, asking, and then she cast her eyes down, but not before he’d seen the disappointment in them.
Words are important. They tell you how someone thinks and feels. It was an echo from his past, words spoken at this very same place, which took his breath away. It numbed him and he felt a deep self-loathing when he realized he couldn’t give her the one thing she wanted to hear.
“Forgive me,” he whispered.
“Forgive yourself,” she said, closing her eyes, trying to scoot away from him.
She sounded exhausted, complete
ly drained. It sent him into panic mode. She had to hold on, give him a chance to make up for his mistake. “Don’t you dare give up,” he snarled. “If you give up, I’m done.” Her eyes opened, looking glazed and incoherent. She put a hand on his heart and his shirt burned away, getting replaced by her hand print. He welcomed the pain.
“It’s better to burn out, than to fade away,” she whispered, right before her eyes turned in their sockets and she started to scream.
It was a soul-wrecking cry like he’d never heard before. He was surrounded by the destructive flames of a fire goddess, but he couldn’t let her go. Something pressed on his shoulders, then around his middle, but he refused to budge, instead pulling her flaming body closer.
***
The grass, which had once been green, had turned black and smelled of death and decay. There were bodies lying everywhere-some still smoldering, others pierced with iron or ripped apart.
Drake’s frantic mind figured the doom of the cabin had spread further, like an oil stain on sea. Amber’s body which lay at his feet was scorched, looking as if the burned flesh could fall off the bone any second.
Logan and Benn held him in a headlock, but that wasn’t the reason why he couldn’t move. He was simply numb, in shock. He stared at Amber, his mind refusing to acknowledge what he was seeing.
They let him go when her body started to transform. It happened in a very gradual manner. The black scorched flesh turned a dark brown, then crimson. Third-degree burns changed into red spots, already fading until her flesh turned into its regular color, totally flawless.
He scrambled to his feet and stripped Logan’s shirt off of him. Then he dropped next to her, covering her naked body up as much as he could. He placed his ear above her mouth. She wasn’t breathing, so he started CPR but nothing happened. Life couldn’t be that cruel: for her to survive bursting into flames, miraculously recovering, and then still dying. Somehow they would wake up from this nightmare together. They had to.