Dragon's Lover, Part 2

by Carina Wilder

  Ashlyn nodded. Revealing a little of it wouldn’t hurt, and maybe if she and Aegis could somehow find the Relic together, they could find a way to bend whatever ridiculous rule said they were meant to stay apart. “Part of it goes like this: Remember who you are, My child of flame, Daughter of the ancient, Girl with the fiery name.” Ashlyn watched as he absorbed the words. “Does it tell you anything?” she asked.

  Aegis shook his head. “Who you are could mean the Seeker, I suppose. And Daughter of the ancient—maybe you’re from an old British family. Perhaps that’s why your lineage is a mystery—it’s possible that no one wants you to find out. As for your fiery name, well, you’re called Ashlyn. Ash…fire. It’s a logical progression. Perhaps you’re meant to seek out the Relic of Fire.”

  “But my adoptive parents always said they got the idea for my name from the blaze that I survived. They didn’t know about the contents of the note.”

  “True,” Aegis said. “Unless the note’s writer could somehow see into the future, as you said. There are some with that gift.”

  Ashlyn buried her face in her hands and moaned. “I’m so damned confused right now.”

  Aegis pulled her left hand to his mouth and kissed it, his lips lingering for several seconds before he pulled away to speak. “You and I will figure it out together. And if not, I have some very good friends who can help.” He laid her hand gently in her own lap and pulled free, then ran his fingers through his hair. A look of loss had settled on his features, as though something profoundly distressing had begun to sink in.

  “You look so sad,” Ashlyn said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Unfortunately, it seems as though one of those good friends could be your rightful mate.”

  Fever

  As the train surged towards its destination, snow began falling in earnest outside. Large, white drifts of the stuff coated the English countryside in a beautiful, quiet blanket of white. Something about it was very peaceful, a nice distraction from the thoughts that had been plaguing Ashlyn’s mind.

  Not only had Aegis told her that she was a Seeker, a title that was still winding its way through her thoughts, but he’d said that another shifter might be her rightful mate. The words would have been painful under any circumstance, but to top it all off, a wave of nauseated head-spins was overtaking her each time she let herself contemplate their meaning. It seemed that the very concept of being partnered with another man was stoking the strange sickness inside her.

  None of it made sense. She hadn’t come to London looking for a lover, much less an eternal life partner. Yet here she was, sitting next to a man with whom she had such an extraordinary connection that the very idea of severing it weakened her.

  This is crazy. Think about something else, for God’s sake, she told herself.

  “They say it was snowing when I was discovered as a baby,” she said, staring out at a distant farmhouse in an attempt to distract herself from the negative thoughts. “Steam was rising from the embers of the house as the snow melted around me. Like I was lying in a giant black cauldron.”

  “You don’t seem too horrified by the image,” Aegis said, puzzled.

  Ashlyn shook her head. “I always liked the idea of snow in England. People think of it as a rainy country, but I’m grateful to get to see this.”

  “I’m grateful that you’re here to see it.”

  Ashlyn turned his way and threw him a weak smile. “Tell me more about the Dragons and the Relics,” she said, holding onto the hope that she and Aegis could find a way to be together. If he was right—if she really was one of the Seekers that he’d mentioned—surely she had the power to choose her own fate.

  “Well, I can tell you that two women—Neko and Trix—did a hell of a job finding them. Both risked their lives for our Guild, for their mates. You’d like them, actually. Neko is a little aloof at times, but devoted to Lumen, and a hell of a fighter. You saw her mate at the pub last night. He was with me.”

  “Oh, he was one of the three…Dragon shifters.” She’d nearly said “the three orgasms,” recalling the title she’d silently bestowed on the impressive trio.

  “Yes,” Aegis said, an amused smile sealing his lips as though he’d read her mind. He always seemed to know what she was thinking. But she wondered if he could possibly understand the tapestry of tormented thoughts that were working their way through her stupid brain right now.

  “Wow, to think that was only last night,” she said. “It feels like so long ago now.”

  “Are you saying that you’re so sick of me that you feel like you’ve spent decades in my horrid presence?” Aegis teased.

  “Just the opposite. I feel like I’ve known you forever, and yet not long enough.” Ashlyn took his hand in hers again, seeking a little intimacy. But as soon as she touched him, a jolt of panic overtook her.

  His skin felt icy cold.

  It hardly seemed possible; he usually felt like the surface of a hot plate. She yanked her hand away, pressing her palm to her forehead.

  Oh, God. Her face had turned into an inferno.

  “Are you all right?” Aegis asked, laying a concerned hand on her thigh. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m…it’s nothing,” she said, attempting a smile. “I’m just feeling a little dizzy.”

  “Dizzy,” said Aegis. Dizziness was a common symptom of a Dragon shifter’s mate after their first time bonding, when his powers began to infiltrate his mate’s body. But that didn’t make sense in this case; they hadn’t made love, hadn’t fully bonded. Oral sex didn’t count in the world of Dragon intimacy, so this had to be the result of something else. “Put your head on my shoulder,” he told her. “Just rest a little bit. Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

  Ashlyn did as he’d suggested, leaning her temple gently on the massive roundness that was his muscular shoulder. Somewhere deep inside her she knew this wasn’t caused by a lack of sleep. Still, she shut her eyes, hoping against hope that he was right.

  It didn’t take long for the first vision to invade her mind’s eye, just as it had happened in her youth. Waking nightmares, coming to steal away her sanity.

  The first hallucination was of a massive beast darting through the sky. A Dragon, shining gold and enormous, far more frightening than Aegis’s shifted form. Explosive flame shot out of its mouth towards a house made of wood and stone, where an innocent family slept in peace. The beast was going to burn it down, but that was only the beginning. He intended to turn the whole world to ash. Ashlyn knew his malevolence, his intent, just from the look in his shining eyes. He wanted to destroy everything beautiful and take the charred remnants for himself.

  A loud gasp erupted from her chest as her eyes shot open and she lurched upright. The vision had been a vivid, nightmarish flashback to her childhood, confirming her worst fears. Oh, God, it was really happening. The fever was returning. There was no other explanation for this madness.

  But why now? Why would the sickness hit her again after so many years?

  “Are you all right?” Aegis asked again when he realized how hard she was breathing. “What is it?”

  “I…don’t know,” she said, trying her best to control her tone. “I suppose I fell asleep for a second. I must have been dreaming.” It was far easier to deny her symptoms than to confess just how fucked up she was. Aegis would worry, he’d try to protect her. But even his powerful Dragon couldn’t guard her from this.

  She set her head on his shoulder again, seeking comfort in his flesh. As the train forged ahead, her body sank deeper and deeper into a mire of heat and delusions as she fought a battle somewhere deep inside herself, trying to drive back the forces infiltrating her very cells.

  No, she told herself. I won’t give in to whatever is trying to steal my life.

  * * *

  By the time the train pulled into Marylebone Station, Ashlyn could barely lift herself to her feet and Aegis had to help her, a strong hand propping her up and squeezing her to his side.

 
; He pressed the back of his left hand to her cheek, only to find that her skin was blazing. Her eyes had altered, a shadow cast over them that threatened to steal her away.

  “You’re burning up,” he said. “You’re in no shape to head to your flat on your own, if that was your intention. Do you want a doctor?”

  She shook her head. By now her hair was plastered around her face in damp tendrils, her cheeks pale. “No doctors. But I do think I should lie down…” with that, she grabbed the seat in front of her to steady her careening body.

  “Of course,” Aegis said. “I’ll take you somewhere safe. But first we need to leave the train. Can you make it outside with my help?”

  Ashlyn nodded, trying hard to keep hold of her mind.

  “Okay. After that I’ll need you to get on my Dragon’s back again. We’re going to go to Lumen’s place. He and Neko will help us.”

  “Help us,” Ashlyn murmured, her eyelids drooping, head falling sideways under its own weight. “You said us. We’re an us.” She hardly knew what she was saying. “You’re half of me, and I’m half of you, and together we make a whole.”

  When they’d somehow made their way out of the train Aegis propped her next to him on a bench and pulled his phone out of his pocket to dial a number. Ashlyn’s world was quickly turning into a blur of images and sounds, none of which made sense. Dark shadows crept over her thoughts, threatening her sanity and forcing her into a place that could quickly consume her. Helpless to do anything but keep her upright, Aegis kept a desperate arm around her shoulder. Each time her body tried to fall over he steadied her, unwilling to let her give in to whatever was so quickly dragging her away from him.

  Ashlyn was only vaguely aware of his touch. Her world spun and contracted at the same time as she disappeared into an alternate realm of bizarre, confusing images. Her lover was nearby and yet she was losing the ability to reach him, could only hear his voice somewhere in the distance.

  “All set,” Aegis said when he’d muttered a few words on the phone and hung up. “I need to get you to bed. Come.” But she was too far gone to understand; the words were nothing more than a wash of strange, faraway sounds.

  He hooked one arm under her legs and one behind her back and lifted her, carrying her through the station to the outdoors. There he wasted no time shifting into his dark Dragon form, in spite of the mass of people making their way along the street. They would soon forget they’d seen him, anyhow; the important thing was ensuring Ashlyn’s safety.

  “Climb on,” he said, his words piercing through the confusion that was taking over her mind. In a fleeting moment of clarity Ashlyn tried to focus on those two syllables, telling herself that they were real. He was real. The only thing that matters is Aegis.

  With the last of her strength, she pulled herself onto his back, lying forward to drape her arms around him, her scorching hot skin pressing into cool scale.

  She didn’t notice London’s landscape below them this time as they soared over it. Didn’t notice the icy blast of chill wind on her face. The only thing that came to her now was a quick succession of blazing visions of flames, menacing and threatening. So, so much heat, it would burn her alive. People cried out for help all around her, screaming that he had come, whoever he was. They were all going to die, and they knew it.

  Aegis’s Dragon had already begun to dip down towards a small lake at the middle of a large, snow-covered landscape—Hyde Park, perhaps? She threw a glance town to the thick layer of white. It was pretty. Perhaps the snow could extinguish the flames raging inside her. Ashlyn wanted nothing more than to slip down and roll in it, to put out the fire.

  When Aegis landed she slid off, drooping to the ground like a bag of sand. The cold of the snow felt good against her skin, but it was melting away, disappearing as soon as she came into contact with it. She was destroying the lovely layer of white. She would ruin everything with her weakness.

  Steam rose around her body just as it had on that fateful day so many years ago when she’d been an innocent baby in a crib, surrounded by embers.

  The girl with the fiery name.

  Now Aegis was picking her up, holding her in his arms, pressing her to himself. She could feel him shaking, or was that her? She thought she heard him say, “You’ll be all right,” but that may have been part of the dream. Maybe he was the dream. Maybe everything else was reality. The fire. The baby. The screaming.

  The next thing she knew, she was floating through a bright corridor with white walls and a ceiling of moving glass. Was it her imagination, or were they under ebbing water? Was she submerged now? A fish passed overhead. Yes, she was under a pond, or a lake, or something. She must be dead. Or maybe she’d turned into a mermaid, swimming effortlessly through the clear water.

  Ashlyn, snap out of it. A moment of clarity shot through her mind. The last time this happened it lasted two years. You don’t have two years to lie in bed with a killer fever. You have to get back to Aegis.

  Her head drooped to her chest.

  You have to find your shield.

  And with that, the world went dark.

  * * *

  “Who is that?” Neko asked as Aegis rushed down the long white hallway towards the master bedroom. In his arms was a young woman, her eyes glazed over and rolling back into her head as she breathed in hoarse gasps. To say that she looked like hell would have been charitable.

  “She’s…someone I met last night,” Aegis replied, disappearing through the doorway before adding, “Lumen said I could bring her by. You don’t mind if I steal your bed, I hope?”

  “By all means,” said Neko, following him in, Lumen just behind her. “Bring strange, sweaty women into our house and put them on our nice clean sheets.”

  “He met her last night, as he said,” Lumen told her in an uncharacteristically sheepish tone.

  “Did he now?” Neko asked. “So this is what you lads get up to on your nights out, is it?”

  “To be fair, she was looking rather better then,” Lumen said, turning to Aegis. “It seems that you’ve had an interesting encounter over the last several hours. But you haven’t told us what’s wrong with her.”

  “That’s the trouble. I don’t know,” Aegis said. “Listen, Neko—do you have something I can put her in? A robe, a nightgown, anything?”

  Neko marched towards the dresser, opened a drawer and extracted a frumpy-looking flannel nightgown. “Here,” she said. “And don’t laugh. It may not be sexy, but it’s nice to wallow in on nights when my mate is out helping his Dragon friends to pick up feverish women in pubs.”

  “I wasn’t about to judge your taste in sleepwear,” Aegis said, stripping away Ashlyn’s wet clothing and pulling the gown over her limp form. It was like dressing a rag doll, and he was grateful when Neko raced over to help. “Lumen, get us a damp cloth, would you?” Without a word, his friend darted to the bathroom.

  “Really, Aegis, who is this woman?” Neko asked when they were alone. “This isn’t like you, bringing humans to our flat. Not exactly discreet or prudent. She must be someone special.”

  “Her name is Ashlyn. And yes, she is special, but it’s hard to explain. I think she might be…important,” Aegis replied as he laid her clothing aside. Neko raised an eyebrow when she saw the Dragon bone blade tucked into one of Ashlyn’s leather boots.

  “Wait—she’s one of us?” she asked.

  Aegis shook his head. “She’s American. It’s complicated.” He pulled the covers over Ashlyn. “For now all you need to know is that she’s got a fever, and a bad one at that. The only concern we should have in this moment is to keep her alive. Can you help us?” He looked up, his desperate stare meeting Neko’s eyes.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “Thank you, Neko.”

  * * *

  When Ashlyn cracked her eyelids open, she could see that she was lying in a bed in a bright room in a white nightgown. A strange woman was pressing something cold to her forehead, a frown on h
er face. Ashlyn tried to focus on the woman’s features, her mind attempting in vain to decipher where she was. It was unlike any place she’d ever seen.

  The woman wasn’t speaking; she seemed focused on pressing that cool cloth to her head, like that was somehow going to help her. Like it was going to make the monster inside her go away.

  It does feel good. She’s nice, whoever she is. And really pretty. Her eyes are bright, and she looks really strong. She reminds me of Aegis. Is she an Angel? Maybe this is Heaven. But where is he? Where’s my Dragon shifter?

  “Who are you?” Ashlyn muttered through parched lips. “Are we in Heaven?”

  “Not quite. This is my flat. My name is Neko,” the woman replied. “I’m a friend. Aegis has been with you this whole time, but he’s gone to get a glass of water in the kitchen. He’s with Lumen.”

  “Lumen…he’s a Dragon shifter, too. He’s one of the big muscle guys…”

  “Yes, he is.” The Angel cracked a smile.

  “Where am I?”

  “In our flat, under a lake in Hyde Park. You’re quite ill. Aegis brought you here so that we could help, and not a moment too soon. You’re burning up with fever, Ashlyn.”

  “I know. It came back. Damn it, I’ve ruined things,” Ashlyn mumbled as her eyes glazed over. “I broke everything.”

  “Not at all,” Neko replied. “But we’re going to help you to get better. You should try and get some sleep, let your body rest. Let it fight off this illness.”

  “Okay. I’ll try,” Ashlyn said, her eyes threatening to droop shut. “But could you get my shield for me? I need it.”

  “Your…shield? I…of course I can.” The Angel was so kind. She understood. She knew how important the shield was. It would protect Ashlyn from everything, if only she could figure out where it was. But why wasn’t the Angel looking for it yet?

  Fuck it. It didn’t matter. It was too late now; everything was ending. She was going to die soon. The fever had come to finish her off. It had failed when she was a child, but this time it would succeed.