by Kimber White
Marked by Fire
Dragonkeepers - Book Three
Kimber White
Nokay Press LLC
Copyright © 2018 by Kimber White/Nokay Press LLC
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law or for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Up Next from Kimber White
About the Author
Books by Kimber White
Chapter One
Finn
Trees, trees, and more trees. Loch would know them all. To me, they all looked the same. Pines spiraling up so high it looked like they touched the apex of Mount Shasta in the distance. It would be so much easier if I could just let my dragon loose and fly over them. Traipsing through the wilderness wasn’t my idea of a good time.
Avelina warned me though. She said she couldn’t be sure how well any cloaking spells I had would work way out here. I followed the riverbank, heading northwest, just like she’d told me to. The cool, crisp air filled my lungs, but I found myself longing for a jungle of a different kind. One made of asphalt.
This was wolf country. Or bears. I hadn’t sensed any other shifters in this wilderness, but I was so far away from my brothers and the lands we called home, I couldn’t be sure. There were coven lands to the east of me, abutting the Mount Shasta wilderness. Their magic had to be strong to keep other shifters out of prime hunting grounds like these. As I passed some of the older trees, I could feel the echo of strong fire magic.
I reached for one, letting my fingers run over the rough bark. If I closed my eyes, I could almost see through the layers, into the pine’s beating heart. It thrummed, not like my pulse, but this old pine tree had stories to tell. Deep in the center, I saw its blackened ring. Oh, yeah. This one had stood for hundreds of years. It had borne witness to something strong, powerful, dark.
A twig snapped ahead of me. I crouched low, baring my teeth. If anything big enough to cause me harm approached, one blast of fire and I’d incinerate it. Of course, there was just as good a chance I’d set off a wildfire. The trees were so damn dense through here.
“This is nuts,” I muttered for the thousandth time. After finally finding the source of the dragonstone hidden in Chicago, I thought we were done chasing ghosts. The fragment of fossilized dragon egg warmed in my pocket. My magic bounced off it. Somewhere, sometime ago, another dragon had hatched from this stone. Avelina sent me to find out more about it.
I’d known something was off that day after Gideon and Grace’s wedding. While everyone else enjoyed their food and drink at our favorite pub in Knoydart, Avelina had hung back watching. Waiting. When her eyes caught mine, I knew I was going to regret whatever she had to say.
She’d reached across the table when I came to join her. “One more,” she said, smiling. I didn’t need her to explain what she meant. One more mission. One more rumor to track down.
“The stone,” she’d later told me. “We need to know for sure.”
“We do know for sure,” I’d said. “It’s not one of ours. You didn’t hatch this egg.”
“But I don’t have the magic to tell you who it came from. No one does. But I do know someone who has the magic to tell us when it came from.”
“What good does that do? Every dragon but us is extinct. Who cares when they were born?”
“I know when you were born,” she said. “If this egg brought a dragon to life after that day, then it’s someone I’ve never seen. Someone who survived the purge. He or she might have gone into hiding like we did. We have to know.”
Then what? I wanted to ask her. What good could come of that? That dragon was probably long dead or in hiding like we were. Without a mate, he’d go mad just like the last of my unmated brothers and me.
So, here I was, five months later in the middle of this godforsaken forest in northern California, chasing more rumors and ghosts. Avelina couldn’t come herself. Grace was too close to delivering her baby. So, it fell to me. Kian couldn’t be alone; he was too unstable. Xander and Gideon had mates to protect. It could have been Loch, but Avelina had something else for him to do. She wouldn’t say what.
A rabbit darted across my path. She stopped for an instant, her nose twitching as she picked up my scent. Then, she skittered under a bush.
“There is no one out here,” I shouted to the sky. I was so far off any kind of beaten path. I’d left the no trespassing signs about a zillion miles back. I pulled my phone out. No service, of course. I’d memorized the coordinates she gave me and checked my compass. X didn’t mark the spot. She had to be wrong.
She said she had a contact out here. Someone connected to one of the Circean covens that guarded these lands. My mother had been vague about what the hell I was supposed to do if I found this witch. She told me I’d know when the time came. Typical. For decades, she’d been sending my brothers and me on missions aimed at hunting down long-dead dragons. Most of them had been dead ends. Then, my brother Xander found a mate, Shae. A fire mage had cast a spell on her, allowing her to survive my brother’s fire. They were married now. Xander’s mating sickness cured. And I had a niece, Cassia. My heart twisted with pangs of jealousy that brought me to shame. Not for Shae. I loved her as a sister. Still, with each passing day, I knew my chances of finding a mate of my own dwindled.
I went a few hundred more yards and came to the edge of the world. The river churned, dropping off to a steep waterfall. X marked the spot. Son of a bitch. X was right in the damn middle of it.
“Great.” I tucked my phone back into my pocket. I could head down the riverbank. There might be a cave or something beneath the falls. I had no doubt no man had ever gotten down those falls on purpose. He would have fallen to his death. But, I was no regular man. I scanned the tree line and listened hard. The rabbit a few yards back was the only creature who saw me.
I summoned enough of my dragon to go airborne then floated down the falls. Sure enough, I found a cave behind the rushing water. Beautiful. Dark. Untouched. It was also another damn dead end. There was nothing there. No magic portal. No clues as to where I might find this mysterious mage who Avelina swore would help us. And if I did find him...what the hell was I going to say? She never said how he’d help.
My mother could be so strange. Nearly a thousand years old, she’d lived most of those in solitude after my father’s murder by an Alpha tiger shifter. Hiding. Cloaking herself from other shifters and mages who might do her harm li
ke they’d done the rest of our kind. Protecting her five precious dragon eggs and waiting until she thought the time was right. Then, three hundred years ago, she breathed fire on those eggs and brought my brothers and me into the world.
I had a fierce love for her. We all did. She sacrificed so much to keep us safe until we were old enough and strong enough to do it for her. But, her years of loneliness and loss had done things to her. She could be cryptic. I knew it was her way of trying to protect us even now. We all knew she couldn’t forever. Those of us who hadn’t mated...myself, Loch, Kian...we were slowly sinking into madness. My dragon got harder to control.
I climbed back up to the riverbank and managed to stifle the urge to scream in frustration.
The air shifted up ahead of me. A wind had kicked up then gone suddenly still. The hairs pricked along the back of my spine and my dragon rumbled under my skin.
Someone was watching me. I don’t know for how long. I couldn’t sense where. Then something moved in the trees on the other side of the river. I crouched low, ready to shift at a moment’s notice. I felt fire gathering.
Then, she came out.
I was dumbstruck. She walked slowly out of the forest and stepped to the edge of the opposite bank. She was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen. Long, flowing blonde hair, eyes that changed with the light. First dark, almost black, shifting to gold, then settling to an amber glow. She had full, pouty lips that she parted in the hint of a smile.
I raised my hand above my head. Could this be Avelina’s contact? I felt the static crackle of her magic. She was undeniably powerful.
Her clothes made no sense. She wore a long, white gown that shimmered in the sunlight. It was made of something see-through. The light caught it and I saw her dark, round nipples beneath it. Lust shot through me. A vision came, quick as lightning. She was under me, smiling up, her dress fell away and she parted those strong, supple thighs. I felt the heat coming off her as she raised a finger and beckoned me. She reached for me, stroking me. Oh, God. She felt so good.
Then, a column of fire shot straight through my chest and forced the air from my lungs. It knocked me backward and I landed hard on my ass.
The girl was gone.
Son of a bitch! I tried to say it, but I couldn’t make the words come out. I couldn’t move. Tendrils of lightning wrapped around me, binding me to the ground.
Magic. Witch’s magic. Impressive. I could almost appreciate the power she must have summoned to catch me by surprise like that. My own magic surged, fueled by fire. The ground rumbled beneath me as I gathered strength.
“It wasn’t so hard,” she said. She was everywhere and nowhere. Her voice was smooth, deep, and it dripped down my spine like honey. “You might be strong, but you still think with your dick.”
She was right in front of me again. I summoned my fire, but my arms and legs were frozen. Holy hell, she was powerful! She was also stark naked as she strode toward me. She smiled, tilted her head to the side, and parted those luscious lips. She was right about one thing: she had me huge and hard; my eyes went right to her perfect, round breasts. They swayed a little as she came toward me.
She appeared as if through a kaleidoscope. A changeling. She was young, nubile with those strong legs and toned arms. Her blonde hair swirled around her. In a flash, she was someone else. I felt her connection to the source of her power. Elemental fire, hotter than the earth’s core. It burned through her, making her skin glow. Her hair turned white for an instant, then back to its shimmering gold. She may have been young, but her power was ancient.
She brought her hand up, cupping it under her chin as she pursed her lips together, about to blow me a kiss. A moan escaped from me. She had me strung like a bow. I wanted. Needed. Craved. Fire on fire. Like the birth of a star.
Then, she let loose the second column of fire that hit me right in the heart and made the sun explode into blackness.
Chapter Two
Gemma
“Holy crap! You’re real!” My fingers still trembled from the surge of fire and lightning that had gone through them. No. It was still going through them. I tried to draw a cleansing breath, but all I felt was heat. More fire. More power.
“Stop!” I yelled. I took a step back. The stream was just behind me. I went to it, stumbling over rocks and moss. The water didn’t cool me though. Instead, my heat made it sizzle. Little bubbles and steam swirled around my ankles.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t supposed to happen. No one came out here anymore. Everyone knew these were coven lands. The last bear shifter who tried ended up in a coma. But, that was decades ago. Before I was even born. The hikers heeded the no trespassing signs and the Mount Shasta park rangers did a pretty good job of keeping the borderlands clear.
So, who the hell was he?
He was tall and broad like a tiger shifter I’d met when I was twelve years old. He had sun-bleached blond hair and killer ripples over his chest. And his thighs. And his ass. And that strong, square jaw with honey-colored stubble framing it. Blue eyes, shimmering like ice. I swear, I felt fire in him too. My fire. So, he wasn’t real. I’d cast a dream spirit. It was just a game. It wasn’t the first time. Ever since I hit puberty, I’d seen visions like him walking the hidden trails by the waterfall.
Except this time, my fire knocked him flat. And my dream spirits didn’t look at me like that. He was pissed.
“It might help if you put your hands down,” he said. No. He gasped it. My fire had driven the air from his lungs. I looked down. He was right. I stood in a ready stance, my arms straight out, my palms facing him.
“Oh, crap! I’m so sorry!” I put my arms to my side and hiked up my dress as I splashed through the water toward him. He was moving. Thank God. Clutching his washboard abs, he rolled to his side and sat up.
I stepped out of the stream and went to him. “Are you okay? I’m so, so sorry.”
He coughed, turning his head to the side. A puff of smoke came out of his mouth as if he’d just drawn a drag from a cigarette. God. I could have killed him. Why didn’t I kill him?
I reached for him, intending to help him to his feet. He put a hand up, to stop me. “I’m fine,” he said. I touched him anyway, placing a hand on his shoulder.
My fire ricocheted through me, making me see white spots. My breath went out of me. Heat. Light. Desire. Magic. He was so strong. So warm. The vision swirled in my head. He was on me. Kissing me. Running his hands down my body. I arched my back, spread for him. Oh, God. It was as if a cord wrapped from me to him, pulling me from my very core, pulsing with need. He was here. He was in me. He was everywhere. I swirled inside a column of flame. No up. No down. I was inside out. One great eye opened. It was serpentine, a glittering orb of gold, blue, green, and black.
I fell backward, gasping for breath. Sparks skittered across the ground, gathering into a tiny explosion that bounced off the bottom of the nearest tree.
“What the hell are you?” he asked. He collected himself faster than I did. He rose tall and strong. My eyes went up and up. Oh, man, he was gorgeous. Like some kind of Nordic God with that white-blond hair, golden skin, sculpted muscles everywhere. He wore a pair of faded blue jeans and a black t-shirt that hugged him.
What the hell was I? Oh, shit. I was screwing everything up. If the council knew where I’d gone, what I’d done. Whoever he was, this guy had seen way too much. Dammit it all to hell. How had I let myself get so careless? It’s just...up until five minutes ago, I thought I was in control. For the first time in more months than I wanted to admit, I thought I owned my magic again.
That’s why I came out here all alone. I’d been doing it more and more, sneaking away from my apartment above the gift shop. I took the densest trails at the base of the mountain. I went deep into the forest where I knew no one could ever find me. No one ever came here. This was no man’s land. Some of the older members of the Council of Five said the place was haunted. Cursed. Centuries ago, witches and shifters had done battle her
e. Legend had it, their ghosts still lived in the trees.
But, I didn’t believe in ancient rumors. Part of me hoped there was truth to them, anyway. That I could somehow tap into that old magic and use it to control my own again. It seemed like a good theory at least. Except, now I’d nearly turned this stranger to ash.
“Hey!” His voice reached me through a fog of smoke. I don’t know if I lost consciousness. I don’t think so. Was it astral projection? I’d managed that a few times when I was younger, but not since...not since my powers started going haywire on my twentieth birthday. That was three weeks shy of a year ago.
His face appeared in front of mine. A deep line furrowed his brow. His gaze was intense, his eyes marked with blue fire. Was he a mage too? Usually I was good at sensing someone else’s magic. God. I’d been so good at so many things until eleven months ago. Now? Now, I was a jumble of nerves and sputtering fire that nearly burned the shop down last month.
“You okay?” he asked.
I came back into myself and forced a smile. I was sitting on the ground, my legs out in front of me in a wide vee. My dress was torn on one side and it hung low, exposing my shoulder and most of my left breast. I gathered it around me. I couldn’t even summon a tiny flame to melt the seam back together.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Are you okay?”
He smiled and it melted me. Straight white teeth. A deep cleft in his chin. He couldn’t be real. He was too damn good looking.
