Heather looked at the streak of wet down Roken’s scaly face, disappearing in the heat that surrounded them, and she had to wonder, if he was so sorry, why had he done it? But in the end, it didn't really matter. She would never be able to forgive him.
Heather had never imagined she could hate someone so much, especially someone she’d loved. He had ruined everything.
“Go!” she ordered, pointing to the smoke-filled sky. “Get out of here, go!”
Roken nodded, then turned and took to the air with a few beats of his wings. Three more wingbeats and he had disappeared into the cloud of burning fumes. That was it then. Her life, everything she had known and lost, was burnt to nothing. She still had no clue about her past, and her new life was now just tatters and grief.
“Heather?” Oscar said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We need to go.”
She turned, collapsing into his chest, and sobbed. She sobbed for Roken and for Arlo, and she sobbed knowing how much harder the grief would be for her two remaining men.
Seb looked at Oscar and nodded at the gate. Then he turned to Arlo and gently lifted his limp body. Oscar tried to turn Heather's body so she could walk, but she resisted him. Two of her four men were gone, and while she could hear Seb and Oscar, she couldn’t bring herself to engage. It felt like her soul had been shattered, and her body was struggling to bear the weight of the day.
“Come on, honey, we don’t want to be here when the humans arrive.” Heather nodded and managed to put one foot in front of the other, but her body collapsed against Oscar’s, so he held her tight.
Seb walked ahead of them, carrying Arlo's limp canine form in his arms, and Heather could see his hind legs hanging down and his long, bushy tail swaying with Seb’s movements. His head hung over Seb's other arm, tongue hanging out of his half open jaws and drops of blood falling from his mouth and nose with each of Seb's steps. The rest of his body was hidden by Seb's back. The mangled, burnt body she was dreading the sight of.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
T he stolen blood of another vampire coursed through Oscar's veins, and his heart felt as heavy as his arms, struggling to keep Heather upright and moving. The limp body of a good friend hung in Seb's arms, and each step he took looked more exhausted than the last. Finally, they reached the safety of home, stumbling past the barrier that had protected and hidden them for almost a century—the protection field that hid the dragon from the world, and the world from the dragon.
Oscar opened the front door and bundled Heather inside. She hadn't stopped sobbing the whole way home, and she didn’t now, even as Oscar deposited her on the armchair. Seb laid Arlo across the sofa with Oscar's help, then he pulled a blanket across his friend, tucking it under his muzzle.
“I can't believe Roken was a dragon,” Heather muttered through her sobs.
Seb just nodded. It was a secret never meant to be told. The world had moved beyond dragons, and it was best they stayed an extinct species. By letting Heather into the house, Seb had released a dragon on the world. And not just any old dragon—if there was such a thing—but one that hunted his prey for fun rather than need. Roken enjoyed hunting vampires.
“I'm sorry you went through all of this,” Oscar said, smiling weakly at the girl.
Seb wondered whether they should go after Roken or let him free on the world. For Seb's part, he thought maybe he was ready to forgive and move on. He wondered what Oscar's thoughts were on the subject, but he didn't want to discuss it in front of Heather. Her emotional state was tenuous at best, and he didn't want to upset her anymore than she already was.
Oscar held her in his arms, and she clung to his wrist, but her eyes never left Arlo’s limp form where it lay on the sofa next to Seb. Seb caught the direction of her stare and sighed, placing his hand on the blanket covering Arlo’s torso.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Heather sobbed. She wanted to reach forward and put her hand on the wolf’s chest. She wanted to bury her head in his fur and cry until all the tears in the world dried out. He had died for her. It hurt enough to lose him. Knowing he had died because of her made it worse. It wasn’t right. It wasn't fair. He was a good, strong man, so caring and compassionate. How could he be gone?
“Give him time, he could decide to return,” Seb said, opening his arms to her.
She shook her head. Seb was thinking about Roken, and Roken could wait. Arlo was all that mattered now. Soon his body would be gone, and she would have nothing left of him.
“I meant Arlo,” she croaked, her voice barely making it across her lips.
“Arlo?” Seb frowned.
“You selfish shit! Can’t you mourn for him even for a minute?” She cried, her fist slamming into his chest. He didn’t try to stop her, but as she went to hit him again, he gently caught her wrists in his hands and held her there.
“Mourn?” he asked, understanding dawning on his puzzled face. “Heather, Arlo isn’t dead. He’ll recover, with time.”
Heather stopped trying to pull free and just looked at him. “I don't understand. He…” A small glimmer of hope swept across her face, but she had to see for herself. Seb released her from his grip, and she ran to look for herself. Arlo was limp, and his long tongue hung from the side of his mouth. His eyes were open, unfocused and unblinking. He looked dead. Then Heather saw his chest slowly rise and fall. He was alive.
The relief that washed over Heather was unimaginable, paralleling the grief she had felt when she thought him dead. “Oh Arlo!” She couldn't bring herself to hug him for fear of hurting him. The wound that lay beneath the blanket was unthinkable, but she wanted to hold him, so she made do with his foot.
“I thought Roken killed him,” she said, glancing across at Seb for answers. He walked to her and rested his hands on her shoulders, but it was Oscar who answered her question.
“Roken saved him,” Oscar said, lifting the blanket that covered him. The two deep wounds that had opened up his side were charred. The wound was black and rough, but the heat had seared his cut flesh and stopped the bleeding. It wasn't pretty, and the scars would always remind Arlo how close he’d come to his end, but he was alive.
“I thought he was killing him,” Heather sobbed. “I told him I hated him. I told him to leave.”
“You also told him he was welcome back any time,” Seb added, turning her to face him. “But now isn't the time to think of Roken. Now we help Arlo heal, improve the house protection, and recover.”
EPILOGUE
I t felt good to stretch his wings. It had been far too long, and he flapped erratically through the air, twisting and turning through the clouds just for the joy it brought. Freedom. His tail swished, mostly acting as a rudder to his flight but partly just because he had a tail again after a hundred years. Roken stretched his legs, His talons curling tight around the body in his grip. Occasionally, he stole a look down, but he couldn’t peek for long. He wasn’t so stream-lined, and he couldn’t see where he was going with his head between his legs, not that he would fly into anything so high up.
He would have to land soon, but he was in an unfamiliar land. All he had done was grab the woman and set off into the sky, but his natural sense of direction had led him to a highland area. High hills or mountains were where he felt most at home, so he dipped, closed his wings in and plummeted. The only sound louder than the rush of wind past his ears was the girl's scream. She would be ok. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He just needed to get below the cloud line.
He was right where he wanted to be. Tall peaks cut through the surrounding sky, some with bare rock, some covered with trees. Roken levelled off his flight and glided for a while, searching left and right for the perfect place to land.
His golden eyes narrowed as he spied a flattish area on an open hillside. It would be good for landing and taking off, and it wasn’t so close to the wooded area that he couldn’t follow if his captive should run. Three more flaps and he landed heavily on three feet, clutching the woman tightly i
n the fourth. Landing was going to take a bit of practice to perfect again, but the important thing was, the woman was still alive. Even better, she had passed out and stopped screaming. Now he just needed to keep her from running off.
He made a fizzing sound in the back of his throat and then licked the soles of her feet. Just a gentle lick but enough to make the act of walking unbearably painful.
Now to wait.
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Broken Dreams (Broken Promises Book 1) Page 17
