Caress of Fire (Dawn of Dragons Book 2)

by Mary Auclair

  Marielle stared at him, her eyes glistening. She shook her head in negation but he saw her lips press together in understanding. She turned away from him, exhaling forcefully. Her hands came to her arms and she hugged herself hard, bending slightly forward like her chest hurt, her head bent down in resignation.

  “One life.” Marielle chuckled and her voice broke. The sound resonated against Fedryc’s bones, tearing him apart at the seams. “What is one life against a thousand? Ten thousand?”

  “That life is precious to you.” Fedryc reached for her shoulder but his hand stopped when Marielle stiffened and he brought it back to his side. “I wouldn’t trade yours for a million others.”

  “Then you understand me.”

  She wouldn’t defy his order.

  Then why do I feel like I’m the one who’s lost?

  Marielle turned her face to him and he felt a bit of his soul tear away. The pain and fear that were painted on her features made her look terribly young and fragile. There was a resignation in her storm-colored eyes that pierced through his armor and right to his heart.

  “What will come of Devan?” It wasn’t the first time she asked that question, but this time, her voice had a desperation that left him void and raw. “Will I keep receiving pieces of him? Will I get him back one parcel at a time?”

  Anger flashed inside him at the despair, the helplessness in her face, in the way her body crumpled in on itself. At the way she refused to let him touch her.

  Because she was right. He wouldn’t trade her life for her brother’s and she could end up hating him for it.

  “The Knat-Kanassis won’t kill him if they think they can use him to get to you.” Fedryc folded his hands into fists at his sides. “I will save your brother and kill every last one of them.”

  “But how?” The edge of despair in her voice was a taut line that threatened to break. “When?”

  It was that edge that did it. His decision was made when Marielle turned to him, her face open and her heart obviously in her throat.

  She was her brother’s mother in every way that counted and her heart ached as such.

  He couldn’t live with this.

  “I will go to the meeting, make him think he got what he wanted by blackmailing you.” Fedryc stared at her until he saw his words had reached her, had penetrated the fog of fear that surrounded her very soul. “That is his ultimate goal. He won’t be able to resist killing me and Nyra. Only we’re not that easy a target.”

  “It will be dangerous.” Her voice shook, but there was a trust there, a vote of confidence that tore at his heart. “You and Nyra will be targets.”

  “Nyra and I are the most dangerous things out there.” He smiled at the worry in her eyes. Worry for him and Nyra. “You should save your worry for those under the thumbs of the Knat-Kanassis. There will be no mercy for them.”

  He promised it with all his heart. He would spare none of the Knat-Kanassis acolytes, wipe clean his kingdom of the dangerous fanatics.

  Marielle’s dark, storm-laden eyes became fierce and her lovely mouth curved with a cruel anger. When Fedryc reached for her, she didn’t pull away this time. His hands closed around her shoulders, and he traced the line of her collarbone. He lifted her chin and stared into the eyes of his Draekarra.

  “You are my life, Marielle Jansen.” The words left him before he could think, and he let them flow. “If anything happened to you, I would lose the will to live.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise, but she didn’t pull away. A tiny pull at the corners of her mouth made him bend down. Her lips were firm and soft under his, and the salty taste of her tears made him wild. His arm came around her slim waist and he pulled her against him. Fedryc lost himself in the kiss, in the feel of Marielle’s body against him.

  He could never lose her. He needed her like he needed air.

  A faint coughing sound reminded him that they were not alone.

  Silva’s distaste was clear on her features for a moment, then disappeared. Fedryc frowned, then glanced down at Marielle to see the embarrassed look on her face and he smiled. The teenager was an innocent, and it wasn’t surprising that she viewed what was a simple kiss with disbelieving awe.

  Marielle pushed against his chest with both hands, her cheeks flaming red as she turned to Silva, who stood frozen to the side.

  “I’m sorry, Silva.” Marielle smiled at the teenage girl in apology. “I hope I didn’t upset you. You did the right thing sending for Fedryc.”

  “I’m not easily upset.” Silva’s slim mouth stretched in an icy smile and, not for the first time, Fedryc was reminded of his aunt. “I will leave you alone now that Marielle isn’t in danger.”

  Silva inclined her head to Fedryc and walked out the apartments with a slow dignity. Fedryc waited until after she was gone before turning to Marielle.

  “You have to promise to stay here as I go to meet with Ignio Marula.”

  Marielle hesitated, looking at the door with a doubtful expression. “Ignio Marula has people in the castle. They will know it’s a trap. Nowhere is safe, for either of us.”

  “You are right, my little firebrand.” Fedryc nodded, anger rising at the idea that he was unable to keep his mate safe. “But Ignio Marula also made a fatal mistake in threatening you in the castle.”

  “And what was that?” She gave him a puzzled look.

  “Whoever sent you this,” Fedryc said, glancing down at the bloody bag with disgust, “has to have been in contact with Ignio Marula not more than a few hours ago. A day at most. That means only one thing.”

  “He’s close.” Marielle breathed hard, understanding making her eyes fierce and a cold resolve replacing the hollow despair in her eyes. “He’s in the open.”

  “Yes, he is. And it will be his death.”

  Nyra flew high over the desert toward the remote point where Ignio Marula had instructed Marielle to meet with him. It was far, much too far for a woman to travel alone, and Fedryc’s blood boiled at the thought of her traveling by herself to meet with the thug. Nor did he have any doubt about what the man intended to do once he got his hands on Marielle.

  Fedryc would kill Ignio Marula slowly and painfully for what he’d done to his Draekarra and her brother.

  Nyra’s shadow finally covered the small canyon where Ignio Marula was supposed to be hiding with his men. Fedryc leaned on her neck, his hand flat on the scales of her back as he instructed her to land a bit farther away in the open land to make sure they weren’t flying right into an ambush.

  Of course, he knew this was one, but he had no idea of the scale of things. Henron had been beside himself with anger when Fedryc told him he intended to meet Ignio Marula alone. Still, Henron conceded that it was the only way to ensure Marielle’s brother wasn’t killed on the spot.

  Even then, Ignio Marula could very well have disposed of the boy as soon as he saw Nyra’s flying form, but somehow Fedryc thought he wouldn’t. The thug’s real target wasn’t Marielle, and he wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to get his hands on the High Lord of Aalstad. It was his own stupidity if he thought Fedryc would allow such a thing to happen.

  As Nyra touched the ground, a cloud of sand and dust lifted over the desert, wrapping them in precious cover. Wordlessly, he instructed Nyra to dart to the side of the cloud as they neared the entrance to the canyon, making the most of their concealment. Fedryc knew the Knat-Kanassis possessed Venemum Ardere and that the poison could easily be used as a projectile to kill Nyra or him in an instant.

  Not much could prove to be fatal to a dragon such as Nyra, or to him, for that matter, but the use of Venemum Ardere leveled the playing field in a terrifying way. A nick was all it would take.

  Fedryc walked, Nyra at his back, until they could make out the outline of the canyon through the cloud of dust. There was a two hundred foot wall on either side of a narrow path in which a brown stream lazily made its way into the dry open desert, and deep shadows blanketed the space in darkness.

  Wind bl
ew, clearing the cover of dust away.

  As they neared the entrance to the canyon, Fedryc frowned. The path curved about a hundred feet in, and he had no way to see what lay ahead.

  This place is perfect for an ambush.

  “Wait here.” Fedryc looked behind at Nyra. “Keep a lookout. They could come from above.”

  The dragoness hissed, her eyes flaming and her mouth open, releasing forbidding, dark smoke. She was as infuriated as he was and had a thirst for revenge that should leave their enemies running if they only knew the extent of her wrath. He already knew there would be no containing Nyra once she had her claws around Ignio Marula, and he didn’t intend to restrain the savagery of his friend. It would only serve as a warning to anyone who wanted to follow the precepts of the order in his kingdom. The Knat-Kanassis and all those who followed their evil teachings would find no mercy in Aalstad.

  Fedryc walked in the shadow of the canyon, staying in the middle of the path, his riding boots making small splashing noises in the stream, his eyes on every crevice of the rock, his hand on the hilt of his dragon blade, ready to strike.

  A good seventy feet inside the canyon, just before the sharp turn that hid the rest of the path, Fedryc stopped. Behind him, Nyra’s furious breath came hotter against the searing heat of the desert, and he knew she sensed it as well.

  Something is here. Something is waiting.

  A scurrying sound came from just behind the bend in the path. Something or someone was crawling on the sand, rubbing against the rocks of the canyon.

  Fedryc drew his dragon blade as Nyra stood behind him at the entrance of the canyon, a hiss coming from her mouth and black, angry smoke rising in a thick fog over her head. All his senses were on high alert as he stalked toward the dark bend in the path.

  Then the noise stopped and a heavy silence filled the canyon.

  “Who is there?” Fedryc called in a loud challenging voice, his blade held high, his body vibrating with the power of the vitalem ready to explode and wipe this world clean of his enemies.

  He waited, all his years of training rippling down his nerves. Then he waited some more. Not a sound reached his fine hearing and his eyes didn’t detect any movement.

  Something was wrong, but he could detect no threat in what lay ahead. No group of thugs could be that silent in the lead up to a battle against a Draekon lord. Not even the Knat-Kanassis could maintain such cold-heartedness in the face of death.

  Fedryc lowered his sword but kept it at the ready as he covered the last few feet and stared ahead at the sharp bend in the path between the tall rock walls.

  He was there. Lifeless and bloated, with his throat slashed cleanly and lying in a pool of his own blood, Ignio Marula’s pale eyes were even paler under the cloud of death.

  Fedryc lowered his dragon blade, his guts twisting in angry knots. The thug was dead, there was nothing to be done about it.

  “You got off easy,” Fedryc spat his words at the corpse. “I would have made you suffer way more than that.”

  I had lots and lots of questions for you. You’re lucky I never got my hands on you.

  But there it was. Ignio Marula was dead and Fedryc was a lot further away from his goal of unearthing the traitor in his house. The thug had been a tool for someone else’s means all along.

  But who? Who knew?

  Fedryc turned away from the corpse of Ignio Marula. He wouldn’t dignify the cadaver with an honorable burial. He could rot and get eaten by the coyotes.

  Then Fedryc stopped and stared at the inanimate, limp body of a young woman. He approached carefully, looking and listening intently, but no other people were present. He knelt beside the young woman, then turned her over on the sand. The mane of dark, matted hair moved to reveal a soft set of features, pointed ears and pale skin.

  “Rela!”

  Fedryc slid his hand to the girl’s neck and was relieved to feel a weak heartbeat. She wasn’t dead, but she was seriously injured. He pushed the hair out of her face to get a better look at her. A wicked bruise covered most of her left cheekbone, and a deep cut ran the length of her temple to the right side. She had been beaten, and not by a light hand. His guts twisted in anger and his fists closed so tightly they dug into his palms until it hurt.

  “Don’t give up, Rela.” He picked her up, his heart squeezing at how little she weighed. Barely more than a child. “You’re not dying on me.”

  With the girl cradled against his chest, he walked back to Nyra, who looked at him with surprise in her jewel-blue eyes. He settled into the saddle with Rela in his arms as Nyra sent more questions down the link than his brain could handle.

  “This is the girl who was with Devan when I came for Ignio Marula in the capital,” Fedryc answered the first clear question Nyra shot at him. “There’s no one else here. It wasn’t a trap, it was a message. Death is all the Knat-Kanassis can send to me.”

  Nyra squinted her eyes, casting suspicious glances all around. The dragoness was wholly uninterested in Delradon and Draekon affairs, but not immune to the suffering of an innocent girl. She wanted to punish whoever had hurt Rela.

  Then a wave of suspicion came down the link to him.

  “Yes, you are right.” He pursed his lips and exhaled slowly in a controlled manner to help calm the beast’s feelings. “Someone warned Ignio Marula that Marielle wasn’t coming. This poor girl is nothing but a means to an end for him.”

  Nyra blew a long breath and smoke rose from her nostrils as Fedryc and the beast shared their suspicions and understood that the traitor, the one who had also murdered Lord Aymond, was much closer than they thought.

  “Let’s get back to Marielle,” Fedryc told Nyra. “I don’t want to leave her alone in the castle with the traitor loose.”

  Nyra stretched her neck and a long screech filled with wrath rippled across the desert.

  Chapter 18

  Fedryc jumped down from Nyra’s back with the still unconscious Rela, then lost no time running toward the door to the castle, ignoring the stunned guards who ran to meet him. He made his way through the maze of hallways of Aalstad castle all the way to the medical room. A Delradon doctor he didn’t know got to his feet as he stepped inside, leaving his patient, one of the guards, unattended. The doctor’s crimson eyes went to the limp woman in his arms, then back to Fedryc’s face.

  “My Lord Haal,” the doctor said as he went down on one knee. “It is an honor to have you here.”

  “Get to your feet,” Fedryc growled at the man. “This woman was beaten and left behind in the desert. Do everything you can to save her.”

  The doctor nodded, then walked to an examination table and waited expectantly. Fedryc put Rela down with care, and his heart constricted anew when he saw how little she looked on the metal table. The girl had probably never had a full meal in her life.

  If she lived, her suffering would end. He would take her—and any child like her—under his wing and make sure none of them suffered unjustly in Aalstad ever again.

  “What is your name?” Fedryc looked at the middle-aged man with sharp assessment.

  “I am Dr. Ylco,” the doctor answered with a curt nod, but his eyes were already on the girl with a professional intensity. As he pushed her hair away, his face twisted with worry and anger. “You said the girl was beaten, my Lord?”

  The doctor then lifted sharp eyes to Fedryc, full of a suspicion that made him growl in response.

  “She is the mixed blood niece of the man named Ignio Marula,” Fedryc answered, not bothering to hide his displeasure at the implication in his question. “The idiot tried to lure my Draekarra into the desert. His deceptiveness served him well. He’s dead.”

  “It’s a good thing, then. Ignio Marula’s reputation runs deep and foul. But this girl wasn’t only beaten.”

  The doctor shook his head as he pushed the shoulder of the girl’s dress aside, revealing a gruesome burn mark. Dr. Ylco let the fabric fall and took a fast step backward, his face twisted in horror.

 
“Sordied sangui.” Fedryc shook his head against the horrible sight of the mark, the circle and the cross burned into the girl’s flesh with a hot iron. Like cattle, marked for slaughter.

  “Sordied sangui, mors abomina.” The doctor echoed Fedryc’s words, and his entire body shivered. “This cannot be, my Lord. The order was eradicated.”

  “You know as well as everyone else that the order came back,” Fedryc said. “They came back, and we will have to fight them, or perish under the circle and the cross.”

  The doctor eyed the poor girl and his mouth curved with an outrage that echoed in Fedryc’s heart. He knew the man had sworn his life to science and the service of the sick and injured. The intentional infliction of pain was against Dr. Ylco’s entire existence. The man’s fingers traced the girl’s cheek and he bent his head.

  “My own daughter married a human man three summers ago.” Dr. Ylco’s voice shook with anger, but also with fear. “Three grandchildren were born of the union. This could be my family’s fate.”

  “All you can do now is save that girl.” Fedryc put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “She can tell us where the Knat-Kanassis are hiding, who leads them. I will wipe them clean out of existence.”

  Dr. Ylco held Fedryc’s stare, then nodded. He knew his role in the fight against the Knat-Kanassis was to heal the girl enough so that she could give Fedryc and his army the information he needed to strike at the heart of the order and wipe them out.

  Fedryc turned away, intent on finding Henron to send men to scour every inch of the capital to look for Devan, as Ignio Marula was now out of the picture. Wherever Ignio had stashed the boy, Devan was sure to be left for dead from now on.

  Then the door of the medical room flew open and Henron walked inside, closely followed by Marielle, her flaming red hair flowing behind her. Her gray eyes, pale and wide, slid from Fedryc to the table where the girl, Rela, lay unconscious.