Ash Bringer (A Storm of Fire: Paranormal Dragonshifter Romance Book 1)

by Courtney Leigh

  I extended my hand to accept whatever it was she was offering and found myself holding a dirty-gold ring in my palm. Turning it, I saw something engraved on the inside. The fallen always rise.

  “Lukan got it from Raven Heights,” she explained. “Apparently it was one of the only things Taurus had when he was arrested. I thought you could give it to her.”

  “Thank you,” I inclined my head, slipping the ring onto my finger for temporary safekeeping.

  “So?” Keera continued. “What are your intentions with her now?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, still uncertain where things would lead once she woke. “I killed someone she loved. I abused her. I forced things on her. And then I told her I could remove the mark after the gala.”

  “You did?” Keera said, knitting her brows with concern.

  “When she wakes, if she still wants it, I won’t go back on another agreement.”

  Keera stood, taking a breath and raising her chin more confidently than I’d ever known her to be. “She won’t,” she said. “Whether or not she’s said it, she feels something for you. She denies it, yes,” she smiled. “But she is not blind. Trust me. Everly saw the worst parts of you at first. Now she’s starting to see the best parts.”

  * **

  Once Keera left, I turned, grabbing my stained pants off the floor with a bit of a groan. From the pocket, I fished out one of the bullets Everly had dug out of me and Valerio’s silver pendant. Slipping the bullet into the pocket of my current pants, I sat myself down on the sofa with the pendant in my hand, staring at it with regret and sorrow. I could feel Valerio in the fibers of the metal. His energy still lingered around it like an aura. Taking a deep breath, I closed the pendant in my palm and rested my head against my closed fists, shutting my eyes.

  “Alright, brother,” I whispered. “Talk to me.”

  Letting my mind open up to Valerio’s residual thoughts, I felt myself drifting into a consciousness that wasn’t mine. A trick I hadn’t performed in a very long time. I found myself soaring through a fiery concept of space, tumbling into the body that once wore the necklace that was in my hand.

  Opening my eyes, I was standing beside a jeep, leaning against the hood on a rural road that stretched on for miles in both directions. There was little scenery on either side save for some old buildings and a mountain range in the distance. The air was warm, blowing through my hair with a tickle that made me brush a palm across my scalp. Beside me stood a near mirror image of myself. Standing in a black shirt with copper hair shaved close to the scalp was my brother, Valerio. I paused on the image for a while, my heart aching to see him.

  From up the road, a black truck came rolling up and pulled beside the jeep. From it came a man, tall and burly with a silver beard. Scales and texture marred part of his features, but he held himself less like the Pike he was and more like a refined man from the sector. Taurus. I’d only ever seen the half-breed a couple times before I shot him in the head, but that face would be engraved in my mind forever. He nodded toward Valerio as he approached, a heavy, leather belt around his hips housing a pistol and a long knife.

  “So?” Valerio spoke, standing away from the jeep and letting his hands rest on his hips.

  “I don’t think you want to go ahead with this, Valerio,” Taurus advised. “Rikard tends to say things when he’s thinking something entirely different.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He agreed to meet, but I don’t trust him. You shouldn’t either. There’s a reason I kept Everly far away from him. He’s power hungry and I guarantee he sees you as a ticket to something bigger.”

  “I don’t plan to do trust falls with him. I need to talk to him about something else. Something that could threaten everything we’ve built.”

  “Well, whatever it is, is it worth dying for? Because I have a hunch that Rikard will kill you after you have your little discussion.”

  “If I find out what I need, it’s worth it.”

  “What exactly are you after?”

  “Confirmation.”

  “About what?”

  “About an enemy that might have followed us here from Kumir,” he sighed, watching Taurus’s face sink with concern.

  “What kind of enemy?” Taurus asked, his thoughts very obviously surrounding Everly.

  “The kind that can control an army if it wanted to.”

  “Zephyre? You think there’s one here? You know,” he laughed, “all the stories people hear, they don’t sound like a good time.”

  “They’re not. Hence the urgency. My people don’t know anything yet. If word got out that the presence of a Zephyre is even a possibility, things could get ugly. I can only hope the rebels will see a Zephyre as more of a threat than the Draak and come to their senses. Maybe they could stop fighting us and we could see eye to eye for once.”

  I threw my mind forward, speeding through memories until I found myself in a chamber, much like the one Rikard had me in the prior night. Valerio was laying on the ground, body riddled with familiar holes that oozed red and black blood. He could barely move. I could feel the ache in his body like it was my own. I remembered the day it happened. The mild twinge of unease that spiraled down my spine was still there, even now. My thoughts jumped to that day when I could have gone after him and didn’t. When I felt something was wrong and didn’t spring to action. Exploring what Valerio felt made the memories sting tenfold. I could feel that his body throbbed with a kind of pain I’d never felt and I was cold in a way that paralyzed me. Slow. Dizzy and on the edge of consciousness. Every sensation was bleeding into me from Valerio’s memory.

  The chamber door opened and in walked Taurus and Rikard. Rikard approached Valerio like a tank, stomping furiously. When he reached him, he threw a punch that trembled down my spine like an aftershock from an earthquake. Valerio looked weak and broken. Something a Draak could only be under a certain influence.

  “Where are they!?” Rikard bellowed. Taurus stood by, neck muscles tight against reacting. “I will not ask again. Soon enough, I won’t have to ask, but if you give me what I need, I can convince Haera to let you live. Does that sound good to you? You want to live, don’t you? You’re the Archon. You have a responsibility to your people.”

  Valerio didn’t answer. I felt his iron will, hardened and stacked like a bank vault. Rikard crouched over him, nose twitching like a growling dog.

  “Where are the Leviathan?” he hissed, speaking close to my brother’s face. He reached down, sticking a thumb in one of his many wounds and twisting. The pain was tremendous, but at the same time held no sway over Valerio. Pain never did.

  “Sir,” a young man said from the doorway, his tone nervous and small. “She’s here.”

  “Great,” Rikard grunted, standing up and drying his bloodied hand on his sleeve. He stormed out of the room, eyeing Taurus on the way. “Watch him.”

  Taurus stood in the door, staring at the ground as if to avoid eye contact. Valerio raised himself to one elbow and mustered enough strength to sit up, conjuring whatever voice he had left in him to make one demand of the Pike.

  “Taurus,” he said. “Kill me.” The words were rolling off his tongue like discarded trash.

  “What?” Taurus furrowed his brows, his eyes darting toward him.

  “Haera is a Zephyre. In my state, she’ll tear my head apart and find everything she needs.”

  “Then I’ll break you out,” Taurus whispered sharply. “If you’re the Archon, you dying will make things worse. See? I told you this wouldn’t work. You have too much faith in humans.”

  Valerio shook his head, sweat beading on his forehead like he was a common, sickly human. “I’m not,” he said.

  “You’re not what?”

  “I’m not the Archon. Not completely. There’s another half of me. My brother.”

  “What? Draven?”

  “This weapon…” he took an exhausted breath. “These bullets. The knives. The substance is killing me.”

&nbs
p; “I can tell. What the hell is it?”

  “Phyre Glass. It’s toxic to Draak. The Zephyre engineered it after the Ash Bringers declared war. They can’t get in our heads like they can our fathers’, so they created a way to kill us instead. Haera is producing it for the Falcons. The Draakir needs to know.”

  “Ok. I can deliver a message, but I can’t kill you.”

  “You can. You’re a slayer. You have to. If you fear for Everly’s safety and anyone else’s, you’ll kill me and the secret I hold. You speak of Everly like a daughter. She’s everything to you. I know it.”

  “You’re giving me too much credit. I’m not a good man. The only reason I raised Ever is because I killed her family. I destroyed her life.”

  “It doesn’t matter. What I know could destroy everyone.”

  “Come on. A frozen population of dragons on earth? That sounds ridiculous. How can anyone really use them for war? How do you know they’re even alive down there in the ice?”

  “I came here to find out if the Zephyre were here. It’s what I do. I find things others don’t. I found the Leviathan on a dig fifty years ago and since then I’ve kept that information hidden. They’re alive, Taurus. Don’t ask me how I know, but I do. Somehow, this witch has caught wind of it. They’ll burn everything if we let the Zephyre find them. I’ve seen two worlds fall. I won’t see this one follow. Believe me. I’ll die before then. Kill me and run.”

  “No.”

  “Kill me! They’ll do it anyways after Haera’s peeled me apart from the inside out.” He paused for a moment, taking a breath. “When I die, my brother will know. He’ll be out for blood. He’s an idiot, but he knows war. If the Falcons choose to make a move without the Leviathan, he can beat them. I know it.”

  “Hmf. I’ve heard of Draven. You have confidence that your brother won’t burn the whole world down if given all that power, huh?”

  “I do. I know what he can do and I know what he can become for his people. So kill me. I’m done, my friend. A millennia of life and war and death? Death doesn’t frighten me. What frightens me is what might happen if you don’t do this. You have to do it.”

  I opened my eyes, cutting the memories short before I had to witness my brother’s head get lopped off by a Pike. The rage returned like a stampede, making my fists tight enough to bend the pendant. I loosened them, pulling myself together before the necklace suffered, and leaned back on the couch, overwhelmed with information.

  Leviathan. Zephyre. Taurus’s guilt. A weapon that could kill Draak. One I hadn’t seen in centuries. My nostrils flared with disdain as the mere thought of the Falcons wrenched my gut. With Everly just a story below, recovering from almost fatal wounds, I felt a burning need to act.

  Standing, I made my way out to the hall and down the stairs toward the main dining room. At the table stood Lukan and Valentyne. I approached the two men, the pendant in one hand and the bullet in the other. Both their silvery gazes caught me as soon as I passed the doorway.

  “You’re up,” Lukan said, arms crossed over his broad chest.

  Valentyne inclined his head in greeting when I reached them.

  “Fill me in,” I said simply.

  Lukan and Valentyne shot each other a slow glance, their shoulders drooping almost unnoticeably with regret.

  “Fifteen casualties,” Lukan said heavily. “Two human council members. Four rebels. A few civilians and three Draak, one of them Draakir.”

  “And Ares?” I asked pointedly.

  Lukan’s posture shifted with tension. “He’s missing,” he said bitterly, his facial muscles growing rigid.

  “Rather shocking, isn’t it?” Valentyne said in his smooth accent. “A questionable gala was arranged by him, and after an explosion that had the ability to kill Draak, he’s gone.”

  In truth, I wasn’t surprised. I bit my teeth, trying to quell the anger that knotted inside me when I accepted the possibility that the snooty Blue Breath was working against his own kind.

  “He can’t be working with the Falcons, right?” Lukan said, desperately trying to give the man the benefit of the doubt. “They’re terrorists we now know have the ability to kill us. Fairly easily, actually. He’d be betraying his own people. Could he have been taken?”

  “I doubt it. If he’s in league with them, they’re just a means to an end,” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.

  “What end?” Valentyne asked.

  I opened my hand, showing the two men the silver necklace coiled atop my palm. “Rikard had this on him,” I said. “It was Valerio’s. He wanted me to read his memories to find out about something only he knew. Something he was trying to find before my brother died.”

  “And?” Lukan asked.

  “And there’s still more I want to look into, but so far a few disturbing things have come into the light that you’re going to want to be aware of. For one, there’s a Zephyre here and she’s working with the Falcons. Actually, she might be the one running their whole operation.”

  “You read that from the pendant?”

  I nodded, tossing the trinket on the table in front of me. “I felt her at the compound for a second. She had to be close. Even if I didn’t read a confirmation from Valerio’s memories, I’d know that intrusive kind of presence anywhere.”

  “Then why hasn’t she made a move?”

  “Because she doesn’t have an army. Not yet, anyways. Humans won’t do shit against us, but I think she’s the one providing or producing this stuff.” I held up the black, glassy bullet between my fingers.

  Valentyne cocked his head and immediately took interest, grasping the bullet to examine the strange material.

  “Hmm,” he said, turning the bullet in the light. It glistened like obsidian, sharp edges creating an odd, chiseled appearance. “Phyre Glass. Haven’t seen this since Kumir. How the hell would she have enough to equip the rebels? Back in the day, it took dozens of Zephyre to make enough to take into battle.”

  “I don’t know. They have explosives,” I explained. “Guns. Blades. Who knows what else, but it’s all there in preparation.”

  “Is a Zephyre really going to use a human army to try and gain control?” Lukan said, gesturing toward the bullet. “Even armed with this stuff, they couldn’t do it.”

  “I’m fairly certain that whatever Valerio knew is what she’s really after.” I stopped for a moment, letting loose another breath. “It’s the reason he asked Taurus to kill him before the Zephyre could work her mind tricks on him. The Phyre Glass made him weak enough to be susceptible to her abilities, so he died to protect what they were looking for. The pendant was Valerio’s, but even a Zephyre wouldn’t be able to read something like that. I was his twin. She had to know I would be the only one that could decipher any energy connected to it.”

  “Must be a weighty secret,” Valentyne said.

  I took a moment to gather myself, preparing to feel the next bit of the conversation cut across my tongue.

  “Leviathan,” I said, sensing both men growing rigid with the idea. “There’s a large number of them frozen somewhere on this world and Valerio knew where .”

  “How in the world is there an army of Leviathan that we don’t know about?” Valentyne asked. “They would have to pre-date our arrival.”

  “By thousands and thousands of years, I’m sure,” I added. “Maybe millions. Even the Zephyre never knew where they really came from. They could have come from Earth for all we know.”

  “So this Zephyre wants something she can control,” Lukan deduced.

  I nodded.

  “Might I add that Leviathan fire is the only thing that can burn a Draak?” Valentyne reminded us, holding up his finger to make his point. “So, if she found this army, she’d have two very deadly weapons at her disposal.”

  “I’m aware,” I said. “So was Valerio. Telling Taurus to kill him at least protected one secret from the wrong hands. That,” I sighed, “and he knew I’d be much stronger with him dead.”

  “Guess it
’s lucky the two of you were twins,” Valentyne quipped. “I suppose it’s also good that you were never in the spotlight like Valerio. Plenty of people forgot you existed for a while. And if I may, you haven’t lost your touch, my friend. When you flipped that switch, you were quite loud. I’m surprised the entire sector didn’t come to your aid.”

  “I didn’t want them to,” I shook my head. “I’d like to keep things as quiet as possible. Let the public think the attack at the gala was just a common rebel attack from the outer territories. If word gets out about the bigger picture, things could get very messy.”

  “Are you saying you’re going to take on Ares’ role now that he’s MIA?” Lukan asked.

  “No. That’s not my area of expertise, but whoever does step up should know the importance of silence. At the moment, anyway.”

  “Alright,” Lukan sighed. “So keep things quiet, find out what the rebels’ next move is, and look out for Ares. If the man is actually a snake, he’s doing all this for power.”

  “He was young during the warring years on Kumir,” I pointed out. “He’s sharp with his words, but war isn’t something he knows a lot about. He’ll get himself in trouble soon enough. Especially if he decides to associate with this Zephyre. He was a close friend to Valerio as well. I’m inclined to believe Valerio might have told Ares what he’d discovered, but not where. I think he’s the one who told Rikard what Valerio knew.”

  “Like you said,” Lukan added. “He was young. He still is young. The idea of power is tempting for creatures like him. If he is on their side, are there any damning secrets or weaknesses Ares might be relaying to the Zephyre as we speak?”

  Weakness wasn’t something that found its way into my immediate thoughts often. I was about to deny the idea before I remembered Everly still unconscious nearby. Despite everything that made me what I was, I did have a weakness. Something I absolutely felt could destroy me if ever used against me again.