Fire The Blood: Dragon Mage Series Book III (15 page)

"It's coming back to
me," she said with a smirk, then twirled like a dancer and engaged a beast
coming at her back.

He had to wonder if his
mouth was hanging open stupidly.  From the grace and power of her smooth
movements, he knew that it was indeed coming back to her, and she had clearly
had a master swordsman for a teacher.  She had never looked more beautiful, and
it was sexy as hell.  Braedon watched as she spun, ducked, and came up with a
slash through a black scaled belly.  Then Asha spun again and took off the
obscene tusked head.  Braedon felt a shifting in the air and flipped out of the
way, narrowly dodging a swipe of black claws.  He focused on the fight, sure in
his knowledge that his mate could hold her own. 
But I’m not going far
,
he thought as he slid under a second beast and sliced off his legs as he went
by.  Braedon jackknifed to a standing position and removed the arms with quick
slashes.  They started to grow back even as he was taking off the head.  He
shot a wave of fire over the beasts for good measure then turned to check on
his mate.  In his head he could feel that she was unharmed, but seeing the echo
of her flame not three feet away was more reassuring.  He just needed to be
able to get to her if she needed him.

I'm staying close.
 
He heard the exasperation in her voice even as he felt her adrenaline surge and
knew she was in the thick of battle. 
I wouldn't want to be too far away if
you needed anything, now would I? 
She teased him, but he could feel it was
also the truth, and it made him want to kiss her, which he would have done had
he not had other things to tend to.  He got back to slicing and dicing the foul
creatures while his mate continued to do the same.  Occasionally, he would feel
her power surge and a flame would incinerate something nearby.  It was
soothing.

The roar of a dragon had
them both running down the beach as the echo started up through the quickly
dissipating fog.  Asha ran because she knew that demented call, Braedon
sprinted because he knew she would go after her 'father.’  With the fog leaving
as swiftly as it had arrived, the sun broke through quickly, and they could see
what they were running to.

Lord Theron stood on the
beach alone; behind him at some distance, the dragons and mage warriors
descended upon what was left of the creatures, while all around them, the beach
was a blood-soaked battlefield.  Somehow Braedon, Asha, and Theron had been
separated from the battle, or maybe they had just finished sooner than the
rest.  Seeing Theron in his blood-striped Phoenix coat of arms holding two
swords and facing, the huge, gold, fire-breathing dragon off with a sneer,
Braedon could believe that the pile of dead carcasses surrounding the man had
been all his doing.  He looked like a warrior from legend facing down the
beast.  Then Theron began to glow with a dark light the likes of which Braedon
had never seen before.

Asha stopped beside him,
taking in the scene.  He was not comforted by her breathlessness and clearly
worried state as she exclaimed, "Oh, no!" or the fact that she was
looking at her glowing brother when she said it.  Then the dragon roared his
rage to the sky and attacked Theron.

Theron stood on the beach
among all the carnage; Asha knew what was going to happen next, and she hated
it.  But like her mother before her, she recognized what was at stake, and she
made her choice.  Stopping well back from the fight, she grabbed for Braedon to
prevent him from sprinting past.  He stopped, turning his confused eyes to her;
she shook her head sadly.  He opened his mouth to say something, but it was too
late.  The gold dragon lord hurled his fire at Theron, and while the whipping
wind should have been enough to send it to the side, even Theron's power was
not without its limits.  He had spent himself too much in the battle.  Most of
the flame took him at his chest and hit the dark shield that protected him.

What is that?
 
Braedon asked, shocked at the sight of dark power that seemed to seep from
Theron’s core to combat the dragon fire.

Dark magic.
 
She could not take her eyes off the train wreck in front of her.

Theron dabbles in the
black? 
He sounded disgusted, and well he should; even from
the distance they stood, it reeked of blood sacrifice.

"Not yet," she
answered aloud, knowing what would happen next.  She moved forward, and Braedon
followed, his eyes never leaving both fighting males.  "But he
will."  She could hear the tortured choices she made in her voice, but she
could not open their mate bond.  She did not want him to see the choices she
was making now. 

With a last rage-filled
roar, Graedon turned to his warrior form and spat at the wind mage's feet. 
"All this time I assumed her daughter had it, and it was you."  He
growled while Theron merely raised a bored brow.  He did not know what Graedon
was talking about, but he would, and Asha merely stood by and let it happen,
wondering if her mother had felt the same soul-eating feeling when she had made
these choices herself.  The big dragon lord bared his teeth at the younger but
taller man.  "I will rip it from your dead body no matter how long it
takes."

"For what you have
done to my sister and Laksee, you will be the one who dies this day," 
Theron smiled, his own version of a challenge on his cruelly beautiful face. 
"But you are welcome to come try, old man.  I relish the challenge."

Asha, what in the hell is
happening? 
Braedon shook her arm to get her to look
at him, which she did briefly before looking away. 
Why does your brother’s
power reek of death?

Because it is death
,
she finally said, still looking anywhere but at her mate.  The older dragon
threw himself, claws, teeth, and all, at the young lord of Seatown.  He hit an
impenetrable dark wall and bounced back with an ineffectual roar.  At any other
time, Theron would have questioned what this power was, but right now he was
focused on revenge.  His hatred poured out of his cold eyes as the man who had
destroyed his family fumed, seemingly helpless before him. 

My mother stole something
from Graedon and hid it in Theron. 
She finally turned her
tortured eyes to her mate and saw confusion and worry, but no disgust yet. 
It
is an ancient blood stone.  To kill with it in your possession allows you to
draw on the power of your enemy’s blood.  It is a dragon relic of the old
days. 
She took a deep breath and finished. 
It fell into mage hands
long ago: it was what began the days of the Blood Rights.

She watched the
understanding cross his face, and then the horror she expected chased after
it. 
Are you saying the stone your mother gave Theron, turns a mage into a
blood mage?

She swallowed, aware as
she did that the tears had started to fall as she spoke and her unsuspecting
brother battled on. 
He has no idea that when he strikes the blow to kill
Graedon, he will change something within himself.  Even if he finds the
strength to battle the urges that come, he will never know peace.

"We have to stop
him!"  Braedon started forward, and Asha threw up a wall of fire, making
him turn back to her in anger.

"We can't," she
said simply, her tears falling freely now.  "This has to happen, or
all
else
will
be lost."

"And if he can't
fight the urges that come?"  Braedon asked, his frustration giving his
words bite.

Asha sucked in a
shuddering breath and felt her lips quiver as the words left them.  "Then
he will be lost to the blood, and darkness and death will be all that remains
of our world when he is finished with it."

"That's a hell of a
chance to take." 

Asha turned bleak eyes to
the battle in the distance.  "It is the only one we have." 

Whatever he heard in her
voice had him cursing and pulling her into his arms.  This time, even he did
not have enough warmth to chase out the cold.  She looked to the battle.  They
had switched from powers to swords.  With the eerie black light surrounding him
and his bloody sword in a deadly dance, he looked like justice embodied. 
However, Asha knew that there would be nothing fair or good about this
outcome.  Graedon fell before the younger, supposedly weaker man, his rage and
hate blasting them all even as Theron plunged his sword into his chest.  She
saw the power move from Graedon to her brother.  Even as the old dragon lord
fell before him, Theron staggered back, his sword falling from his fingers and
the dawning horror filling his eyes as he focused on his bloody hands.  Then he
fell to his knees and screamed with such raw pain and rage that even the
heavens could not help but weep. 

Asha collapsed into her
mate’s arms and wished she was a stone.

***

Braedon knelt in the
bloody sand and held his mate.  The storm and sheets of rain pelting them had
nothing on the storm ripping across her insides.  He did not know how long he
held her soaking in her pain before he felt the dragons and the warrior mages
at his back.  All of them were looking at Theron as he raged against the
tides.  Braedon had lost track of time long enough that he had missed whatever
had happened to Graedon after the death blow.  He doubted the old dragon had
turned to ash as the rest of his creatures seemed to be doing all around them,
so chances were good that Theron was searching blindly through the water
because he had somehow escaped into the sea.

"Lord
Graedon?"  Aarion asked.

"Out there,"
Braedon said grimly, motioning to the churning ocean.

Lux cursed, and Braedon
had to agree with the grim cast of both their faces.  This was not over yet.

Asha finally pushed
herself up in his arms.  "Theron!"  she gasped out.  Braedon had time
to turn his head and watch Theron shift to a great bronze dragon and fly away. 
He was not the only one blinking at the sudden sight, but he had no time to
dwell as Asha was kicking her way free.  "Hurry, we have to get to Clare
and Theron."

"Clare is in
Dracon," Aarion said still watching the dragon become a speck in the
distance.  "And no way are we catching a dragon who is also a wind mage. 
He will outdistance us by a league."

"He goes for Clare.
The wind brings news of her danger, and he flies to help."  Before anyone
could argue further, she was shifting into dragon form and lifting him with a
taloned claw.  Lux and Aarion followed because they had no choice.

We sent Clare away from
the danger,
Braedon said, confused.

No, we sent Clare away
from certain death.  She would have perished on the beach when she came to
help, but they have trouble to face in Dracon.

You did not warn them.
He knew it sounded like an accusation, but he needed to understand.

What is happening here
must happen.
  Across their link, he could feel her
trepidation and guilt.  She did what had to be done, but she doubted herself
the entire time.  In a way that assured him as no amount of surety could have,
she went on with more verve across their link. 
If we can get this right, we
can finish this today.

Finish what?

Lord Graedon's hold on
the dragons.

What they saw when they
arrived was Furee fighting off three House of Earth dragons while Riva healed
another on the ground beyond them.  Aarion and Lux flew down to help end the
battle fast, but Asha headed away and found a second battle.  They were just in
time to watch Lord Theron of Seatown take the head off a dragon Braedon
recognized from his own dealings with the House of Earth.  It was only after
Brax fell to the ground in pieces, his power seeping into the hands of his
executioner, that Braedon noticed a horrified Clare watching from the
sidelines.  Even as Theron shuddered and turned his blazing black eyes her way,
the dragon knights descended.  Some of them Braedon recognized, but most he did
not.

"No, Theron!" 
Asha was screaming as Braedon tumbled through the air after she shifted in
flight.  He was close enough to the ground to somersault into the roll and
avoid damage, if not bruises.  However, he had more important matters.  His
mate was standing between an army of dragon knights and her soon-to-be blood
mage brother.  It was not a sight he was comfortable with.

"Theron, you can't
fight them."

Her brother growled, and
Braedon picked up speed to his mate’s side.  He needn’t have bothered; the next
words she spoke changed everything.  "Clare will be hurt if you fight
these dragons," she said, and Theron looked from the approaching dragons
to the very young-looking Clare with her disheveled hair and ripped clothes. 
She looked as though she was in shock, but Braedon noticed she was holding a
bloody rock in her hands and was steady on her feet.   "Whatever happens
next," Asha said, "We need to see it through without further
bloodshed.  Clare's life and mine depend on it."

Theron threw down his
sword and stepped back, his hands going up.  His eyes, though, looked half
feral in that cold face.  Braedon did not blame the knights for being leery of
the mage, especially when the wind continued to whip up a storm all around them,
and Theron kept a constant eye on Clare and Asha and growled whenever any of
the males drew near.

"We will have to
take you before the council," Balin, dragon knight said, eying them all as
Furee, Aarion, Lux, and Riva joined the rest of them.  "You can state your
case to them."  He looked from Theron to Clare, who was huddled at his
back, hiding from the rest of the dragon males.  "Does the girl need her
healer?"

"She needs her
sisters more," Asha said quietly and pointedly.

Balin nodded.  "I
will send a message to the House of Fire and Water.  Her sisters will be
brought."

And their mates as well,
Braedon thought, reading the message in the knight’s eyes. 
Even better. 
They
could use all the help they could get.

***

After spending weeks at
Forsaken Mountain, Braedon was immune to the ostentatious display that was the
Council Chamber.  Most dragons decorated their surroundings with gems and
gold-veined marble.  They seemed drawn to acquire anything shiny.  But then,
they were of the Earth more than any other creature he had seen in his
travels. 

As a mage, he had a connection
to the elements, so he understood some of the draw.  Still, the glare was a bit
much, especially when you factored in the well-dressed and shiny council lords
who resided here. 

Since this was an
emergency call to council, only one had beat them there when they arrived. 
Because dragons tended to congregate quickly when the call went out, it was not
long before the hall filled with all manner of dragons from every house, even
before the other council lords began to arrive.  Ladon would have been a better
choice; he had descended from the line of Kings and mated to a mage, who would
have been a firm ally in their corner, but at least it was Lord Topa rather
than Fahlion or, light help them, Rendal, who walked in first.  Topa appeared
wise, though Braedon would admit he had seen no proof of that for himself.

Topa, as usual, favored
the clear sparkle of diamonds; the white wispy hair on his head was almost as
pale as the silver fog of his eyes.  Despite his glitter and wispy demeanor, he
always felt as sharp as the diamonds he favored, unlike some of the others.

Lord Rendal made his
entrance with the languid Fahlion, who could always be counted to fall asleep
as much as not.  From the glee-filled look on Rendal's face, he had heard what
the particulars were and was more thrilled with the death of his houseman than
upset about it.  It offered even more proof that his greed outdistanced his
good sense by a fair distance, not to mention that he clearly had no feelings
of loyalty for his people.  Getting Asha and retiring to Seatown was looking
more and more tempting.  Of course, now they would have to deal with a half
dragon lord who may or may not succumb to the call of blood.  As he watched the
dragon lords take their seats in all their arrogant splendor, Braedon decided it
was better he and Asha took their chances with a crazy, blood-thirsty dragon
mage, than the alternative.