Red Hot Dragons Steamy 10 Book Collection

by Lisa Daniels

  Chapter 6

  A Familiar Voice in the Darkness

  In the darkness of the world under the dungeon, there wasn’t much for me to think about. Not that I had full control over my mental faculties.

  I shivered as a chill passed through me.

  As I felt the arms pull me against the warmth, the voice murmured in my ear, “You must have taken in much of the stagnant water when you fell. Without food or water, I don’t know if I can save you. The illness is spreading, and I have no way to stop it down here.”

  My shoulders shook as I murmured, “I’m cold, Phinean.”

  “Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay. I will make sure that it doesn’t hurt, even if that is all that I can do.”

  “Why didn’t you look for me?”

  The question was met with silence, but in my mental state, I took this to be my answer. “You should have told me you didn’t love me. I could have accepted that.”

  “Shh, shh, shh. Rest now. We can talk later.” His hand stroked my head, stopping me from shivering.

  “Do you promise we will talk?”

  “You need to rest for now. You will do yourself no favors by trying to carry on a conversation. It will only do your mind more harm.”

  “Do you promise?” I began to feel panicked that he was not responding to my question. “Promise me, Phinean. I need to talk to you.”

  “Shh, shh, shh.” The warmth spread around me. “Go to sleep.”

  “Phinean, I need to know. I need to talk to you. I know I left, but—”

  “We will talk later. I promise. Please sleep now.”

  “Okay. But you promised.”

  “Yes. I did.” Then he began to sing again in that strange language that I didn’t understand.

  I have no idea how much time passed between the moment I feel asleep and when I heard a distant voice calling my name.

  Sitting bolt upright, my brain tried to process my situation. Somewhere high above me there was a dim light and a dark figure. “Falmen! Falmen!”

  I knew that voice. As soon as the name reached my brain, I shouted, “Braxton!”

  Everything seemed to go silent for a moment.

  “Thank the gods, you are alive. Hold on, I—”

  Another familiar voice spoke in the darkness, “Braxton?”

  The dark figure stopped moving, and then I could almost see how agitated he was. “Fisher? Good gods, Fisher! Is that you?”

  “Stay there, Braxton. It is not a fall you should take. Hold on and I will come to you.”

  “What in the hells are you doing down there?” Braxton’s voice echoed around me. If he had come across as calm and collected before, this completely broke that image. His voice was raw with emotion. “Is this what happened to you? Why in the hells didn’t you ever come home?”

  “Wait a few minutes and we will talk.”

  There was anger in his voice as Braxton said, “Bring Falmen up here and get the hells back home. Do you have any f—”

  “Braxton.” The voice near me was commanding and brooked no argument. The warning in it was clear.

  But Braxton wasn’t listening. “No, you don’t get to try to do that after all of this time. Do you have any idea what we have been through, how we have looked for you?”

  “Shut up, Braxton. Now is not the time for you to hiss and screech.”

  “I’ll show you—oh gods, but you had better have a good explanation for this.”

  Everything fell silent again, then I felt the air around me change, almost as if there was a breeze blowing through the pit.

  The light disappeared and then reappeared with two dark forms at it. Occasionally, I could hear Braxton’s raised voice, but never the man who had been keeping me company.

  With the shock of Braxton’s voice wearing off, I began to feel weak and tired again. Pulling the softness around me, I shivered as my mind was no longer able to focus on reality.

  Allowing myself to fall back into a state where my body didn’t hurt so badly, I lost myself. By the time the man returned, I was no longer conscious of the world around me.

  Chapter 7

  Memories and Regrets

  “Falmen,” the voice called my name as a pair of strong arms gently shook me. “You need to wake up and eat.”

  I tried to open my eyes, but immediately closed them as light filtered into them for the first time since I had been thrown down into the pit.

  “Take it slow. Your eyes are going to need a little time to adjust to the light after so long in the darkness.” A hand rested on my back. “Braxton seems to be quite concerned about you and went a little overboard making sure that you got everything you might need. If you want, I can feed you a little bit. Not too much, since it has been a while since you last ate. But you definitely need to eat something. I can help you.”

  I tried to open my eyes again.

  “He said you weren’t likely to listen,” there was a hint of amusement in the voice. “Curious to learn how you and Braxton know each other. He’s usually quite down on humans.”

  I blinked a few times, opening my eyes a little more each time. Turning my face away from the light, I soon realized that I was sitting close to a fire. By turning my face away from it, the light was far less intense, so I was able to fully open them.

  A few seconds later, I finally had a face to go with the voice as the man moved around. He was smiling at me. “Here you go.” He handed me something. I looked down at it, recognizing a small sandwich that I often made for myself when I would sneak down into the kitchens. My eyes looked back up at the man, and his smile widened. “He said it was something he saw you eating once.”

  I reached out and took the food, my stomach lurching as I did. Not certain how it would handle food, I waited to eat, opting instead to find out more. “Braxton?”

  The man nodded. “Are your eyes alright?”

  I closed them a couple of times as if to try them out. “A little tired, but they will be fine.”

  “A cold ice blue. Quite a unique combination. It suggests that you come from one of the countries along the ocean.”

  “A small island country that was wiped out when I was four years old. I have never returned there.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” he murmured, and when I looked at him, he looked sorry for bringing it up.

  I moved my hand as if to indicate it didn’t matter. “I don’t really remember it.”

  “That doesn’t mean it is pleasant to talk about. So, Falmen from an island country, what is your first name?”

  I tilted my head and looked at the man. “Does it really matter?”

  He smiled again, “I suppose not. How are you feeling?”

  As soon as he asked, I began to feel tired, like my body was made of lead. “Exhausted. What happened? Since I got here?” I added the last sentence to keep him from talking about what had come before my arrival. I still remembered most of that.

  “Well, let’s see. They pushed you through that door over there,” he pointed to a dark part of the ceiling far from where we were. “There are several doors, each of them leading up to a different part of the dungeons. I suppose you could say it was fortunate that you were dropped through that one into the water. Two of the doors are above the rocky floor, and the fall would have killed you.” He pushed a strand of my hair out of my face as he talked. His movements were so natural that I felt he was doing it without thinking. Unaccustomed to someone being so close to me, I flinched a little. His eyes seemed to notice my movement and he sat back without acknowledging any of it. “You must have swallowed a lot of the water, which was really unhealthy. It’s stagnant water that is full of nasty stuff that could be as lethal as the drop in other places here. I pulled you out of the water and made sure to keep you alive until Braxton showed up. He’s given us—”

  “How did you keep me alive?”

  “Mostly by keeping you warm. I had to remove your clothes and—”

  As soon as he said that, I looked down and realized I w
as wearing a different set of clothing. My next thought was to note that I was actually wearing clothing, which had only been half true when I had arrived.

  “Braxton brought you some fresh clothing. Men’s clothing, as you can see. My apologies, but I do not know how to bind a woman, so your gender is quite apparent. Something that is actually being learned across the city above us.”

  I looked at the man, the sandwich still in my hand. “I’m sure they are. The king could only keep that a secret for a few days at best, and only because of the princess.”

  “You mean the princess escaping the palace with Leland?”

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to remember the prisoner’s name. “You mean the prisoner, right?”

  He looked at me, clearly not understanding my question.

  “The bear shifter who was our prisoner for a while.”

  “Leland’s other form is a bear, but I did not know he was a prisoner. Let alone your prisoner.”

  I laughed a little, then felt a pain in my head and my stomach lurched again. A groan escaped me, and immediately the man was sitting next to me, holding my hand to keep me from dropping the sandwich and his other hand was on my back, stroking it.

  “Be careful. Your body is a long way from healed. Here. If you can’t eat yet, at least have a little to drink.” He took the sandwich and set it down behind us. The next moment a flask was being offered to me. “It isn’t too potent, but again, don’t take in too much. Your body is weak right now.”

  I took the flask and tilted it up, a little wine trickling into my mouth. A warmth spread through me, and I felt slightly better as the liquid made its way through me. I shivered at the sensation.

  Satisfied that I was alright, the man moved away from me. “So, Leland finally decided it was his time to find a mate, huh? And was willing to look like a human prisoner to do that? He must have been very curious about the princess.” He flashed me a gorgeous smile, and for the first time since I opened my eyes, I was reminded that the man before me was not a man. He was a shifter. Everything about him made it clear that he wasn’t human. Everything about his body was too perfect, from the way his muscles bulged under a crisp outfit that looked like clothing that was made for a king of a much richer kingdom to his startling eyes. Even in the dimness outside of the firelight, I could see his deep green eyes with its strange pupils. I stared at him for a moment, taking in his appearance. I had seen three other shifters recently, and none of them had eyes like that. Losing track of the conversation he was trying to have, I said, “You have unique eyes. The pupils are more… they are more like a cat’s or a reptile’s.”

  He opened his mouth and took in a quick breath before nodding and saying, “Yes. That is indicative of my other form. It seems you are more observant than most humans.” His words made me lift an eyebrow. “It isn’t meant as an insult, but I think that it is easy to spot a shifter among humans. Think about Leland’s eyes, large and dark; they don’t really change when he becomes a bear. Nor do Braxton’s, though his are more similar to mine than most other shifters.”

  “Why?”

  “Because his other form is a tiger. His hair is the giveaway on that one, though. Most people are too distracted by his hair to notice his eyes.”

  I thought back to the times I had seen Braxton. He had usually been wearing a helmet as one of the guards, for however long he played that role. Then the only other time I could remember seeing him was in the dungeon with Leland, and I hadn’t even noticed his hair. Not that the lighting had been great. “I never noticed his hair. I think it was just his general demeanor of kindness and competence. That and how attractive he is.”

  The shifter gave me a strange look. “I would never have thought a human would call him compassionate. But I hope that you dwelling on his looks doesn’t mean that you are interested in him.”

  “I have only seen him show compassion. It was his idea to protect that poor woman who got herself in trouble when we captured that other shifter.”

  “What other shifter?”

  “Oh, I don’t know his name. B something or another. Even better-looking than Braxton. And what do you mean you hope I’m not expressing an interest in Braxton?” I was still trying to mentally catch up with everything the shifter had said before.

  “Ah, you must mean Bryce. Yes, he is definitely the most attractive of us, and that has kept him single for far longer than is healthy.”

  “Well, I don’t know about any of that. And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “You are quite taken with Braxton, it would seem.” He gave me a sly smile.

  “I think he is the best of the shifters I’ve encountered. He was kind and caring, putting himself—oh, that’s what the prisoner… or Leland, whatever… I think I get that one better now.”

  “I think I’ve lost the thread of this conversation.”

  “Leland said that he was trying to get himself killed.”

  “Leland? Why was he trying to get himself killed?”

  “No, no, not Leland. Braxton.”

  “There is no chance that Braxton would do that. That lucky bastard found himself a mate before he was even of age.”

  “You mean his wife?”

  “We don’t have husbands and wives. We have mates. And yes.”

  “She died.”

  The words seemed to hit the shifter hard and he sat still, looking at me as the smile slid from his face. “Reagan died?” The pain in his voice was clear.

  “Yes. The first time I spoke to Braxton, he brought it up to convince me to let him save the woman in the dungeon. The other woman in the dungeon, I should say. He offered to get her out safely, and he was so sincere and compassionate that I—are you alright?”

  He didn’t seem to be listening anymore. Instead, he had put his head in his hands and was muttering something.

  His head snapped up. “Gods, I have to apologize to him. I had no idea and said some things that I now regret.” He ran a hand over his mouth. “No wonder he is so angry with me. She was always weak.” He turned to look at me, his eyes a little shinier than before. “What happened?”

  “He didn’t say. In fact, he never came out and said she was dead, but he talked about her in the past tense. It wasn’t a large jump to realize she had died. Leland confirmed it because he was so angry that Braxton had come in the first place. Furious is actually a better way to describe it.”

  The shifter leaned his head forward and rubbed the back of it. “How much has gone wrong since I left.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “It was my time to find a mate. I could not return without one, so I simply never returned.”

  “I suppose getting chucked down here didn’t give you much choice.”

  “Yes, one might think that.”

  “If you could get out, I can’t imagine why you would stay here,” I looked around the darkness.

  “I would never ask you to imagine either. However, I did make you a promise, and I cannot compound my sins by neglecting to try to fulfill it.”

  “Promise? What promise?”

  “When you were fevered, you made me promise to talk to you when you woke. Despite the fact that you thought I was Phinean, I did make a promise, and I will fulfill it.”

  My cheeks flushed red as vague memories began to emerge. I mumbled, “It’s alright.”

  “I made a promise. You were quite adamant about it.”

  “It’s not like you can answer in his place.”

  “This is true. But the fact that you were so agitated and so insistent on the promise lets me know that you have buried the problem for far too long. You need to talk about it, and I am here.”

  “I would rather not.” My voice sounded a little petulant even to my ears. Thinking about that time in my life made me feel like I was that same confused young woman all over again. It was uncomfortable, if not entirely pathetic.

  A hand took mine, transmitting the same warmth that had kept me alive since I had been thrown into the pit
. “I will not tell a soul. And if it will help,” the shifter took a deep breath, “I will tell you my story as well.”

  Chapter 8

  Unhealed Wounds

  Deciding that I needed more information before diving into my shame, I asked, “What is your name?”

  “The same question I asked of you.”

  “You at least know—” I stopped myself from arguing with him. If I was going to talk, I was going to be honest. “No, that is not actually my name. I don’t honestly know my last name. When I was a child, my parents called me Rayne. I… chose the name Falmen.”

  The shifter smiled at me. “It is a lovely name. I’m Fisher.”

  I looked at him for a moment. “Are you trying to be funny?”

  He gave me quizzical look in response. “Is there something funny about my name?”

  “Rayne and Fisher.”

  “Oh,” he chuckled. “Quite odd. But no. You can ask Braxton the next time he returns.”

  A memory flashed in my mind, and I thought I heard Braxton’s voice yelling that name into the darkness. “No, I believe you. Well, Fisher, it’s not a happy discussion. Are you sure you want to hear the misfortunes of a mere human?”

  The corners of his mouth twitched a little. “I have heard many such tales, and if you ask anyone, everyone has misfortunes in their lives. You ended up the Captain of the Guard, so it seems to have worked out all right for you.”

  “If it had ended there, perhaps. But you seem to be forgetting my current predicament as a dweller under the city who relies on the pity of shifters to help me survive.”

  “First, I have a fair idea of what has happened to you since your gender was discovered, so I wouldn’t expect that to be part of the tale. The story would end happily as long as you stop at that point. Second, is it so bad to rely on shifters to help you?”

  “I would say that it is bad to rely on anyone. It has never ended well for me.”

  “Ah. And I take it that your name, Falmen, is tied to your past instead of to your family.”

  “Yes.” I took a deep breath and launched into the story that I had buried from so long ago. During the entire tale, Fisher listened. When I had trouble talking, he held my hand, his warmth giving me the strength to keep talking.