Caress of Fire (Dawn of Dragons Book 2)

by Mary Auclair

  Marielle stared at Fedryc as the importance of what he had just revealed sank in. This was an entirely new level of threat. “Nyra left you for this feral dragon?”

  Pain crossed Fedryc’s face and he looked down at the floor. Confusion reigned in Marielle’s mind as she processed the information. Nyra and Fedryc had a symbiotic relationship; one couldn’t live without the other. They drew on each other’s life-force, what Fedryc called vitalem. They were the closest beings she’d ever seen, sharing each other’s thoughts with a single touch. The dragoness, in all her wild, tempestuous personality, loved Fedryc just as he loved her.

  “Nyra will come back.” Marielle spoke with all the conviction she didn’t have. “She can never be far from you for long.”

  “She found a mate.” Fedryc shook his head, pain, anger and confusion clear on his face. “That it’s a feral beast changes everything. Dragons are like Draekons, they mate for life. And since I found my Draekarra, so did she find her mate.”

  He swallowed, then ran a hand through his dark hair again. He left Marielle’s side to walk over to the small bed where Rela lay, fast asleep. Marielle watched him, a lump in her throat.

  “Without a dragon, Aalstad is vulnerable to anyone who would wish us harm,” Fedryc stated coldly as he stared at Rela, then looked up to Dr. Ylco, whose face had turned ashen. “I was told she’d woken up.”

  “She did. And she spoke at length with the Lady Marielle.” Dr. Ylco glanced at Marielle, then looked back at Fedryc. “But after a while, I had to put her back under. She’s still very fragile.”

  “What information did she give you?” This time, it was the High Lord who spoke, turning to Marielle with his calm, assessing gray eyes.

  “She knows where Ignio Marula was holding Devan.” Marielle’s hands went to her chest and she crumpled the front of her dress in her fists. “And she knows he doesn’t have long.”

  Fedryc nodded, then glanced at Rela once more before turning to her. “It will be a trap.” He lifted his brows. “Going without Nyra will only reveal our weakness to the Knat-Kanassis.”

  “Then my brother will die.” The world faded away as Marielle looked at him. She didn’t need to beg, didn’t need to scream and cry. He knew she couldn’t live with knowing Devan had died when he could have been saved.

  “Aalstad doesn’t stand alone in her fight.” Fedryc turned a cold stare toward Dr. Ylco. “And as long as our allies don’t know the reason for Nyra’s absence then we stand a chance. Do you understand?”

  “Of course, my Lord.” Dr. Ylco inclined his head in deference, and when he looked back up, his eyes gleamed with resolve. “We will all stand with you for Aalstad, and against the order.”

  Fedryc held the doctor’s gaze for a long time, then nodded. He turned to Marielle and placed both hands on her shoulders.

  “I will need someone who knows the capital for this.” His eyes were dark and filled with anger. “You will come with me, but you cannot leave my side.”

  “I will spend the rest of my life right there.” She never looked away from his face. “I don’t want to go anywhere else.”

  “Good.” Fedryc held her close and, despite his attempt at humor, she felt every bit of the desperate resolve in his words. “Because I’ll never let you go.”

  “How much farther?” Fedryc turned his head sideways to Marielle as they made their way through the slum.

  “Not much,” Marielle answered in a hushed tone, although it was quite unnecessary with the two dozen Delradon elite guards flanking Fedryc, Henron and herself. This was not a stealth mission. “Three blocks and we’ll be at the butcher’s shop.”

  They were making good progress but they had to walk from the center of town to the slums where Ignio Marula’s cousin had his large butcher shop, the one that also held the Pits—the illegal fighting rings that were one of Ignio Marula’s most profitable businesses. Not that he could profit from anything anymore.

  They proceeded carefully as they stalked through the early morning streets mere minutes after sunrise, but they weren’t exactly inconspicuous either. As they went along the quiet, desert streets, faces peered through darkened windows, then retreated as fast as they had appeared. Even in death, Ignio Marula was still a threat. His vast network wasn’t erased just because the head had been cut from its body. Criminality was like a hydra, and another head would pop up soon enough to reap the profits of men’s misery and perversion.

  Marielle knew very well any of the people watching them could warn the thug’s men before they reached Devan, but they had no choice. If they came in guns blazing with the guard in a frontal assault, it would only result in her brother’s death. Their only chance was a sneak attack, and this was the sliver of hope she was holding on to.

  A good ten minutes later, they turned a corner and Marielle stopped. There it was, that ugly stone building where countless lives were lost amid pig and cow carcasses. The Pits.

  “There.” She pointed to the building. “It looks empty but it’s not. Ignio Marula never leaves it without surveillance.”

  “You stay out here,” Fedryc told her, and when she didn’t answer, he turned her around roughly. She met his eyes, which were already showing the beast inside, his pupils vertical and thin. “This isn’t going to be pretty. I can’t have you in the direct line of fire. I won’t be able to fight if you’re there, and I’m our best weapon.”

  “You don’t know where the Pits are,” Marielle protested, even though Fedryc’s face told her he wasn’t going to budge. “It’s like a maze in there.”

  “Then tell me.” His mouth curved in a thin, cruel line. “But you’re not stepping in there before my men clear it.”

  Frustration welled inside Marielle but she recognized the logic in Fedryc’s words. She wasn’t Draekon, didn’t even know how to use their Delradon weapons—long, stick-looking devices that sent pulsing energy shots that could kill on impact. She was useless in a fight.

  “The Pits are all the way down in the basement.” Her voice was even, even though she was brimming with terror. “Take the north corridor to the end, then make a right. You can’t miss the Pits. The well where they keep the fighters is in a back room. It’s not under lock and key, people like to come and poke the fighters who are still alive. Others take bets on who’s going to die of their injuries.”

  Fedryc locked gazes with her long enough for her to lose her defiance and she finally nodded. She didn’t like it, but it was best for everyone if she stayed behind.

  “Stay with her,” he addressed the guard on his left. “You and four others. Take care of her on your lives. Anything raises your alarm, you take my Draekarra out of here.”

  The guard’s grim eyes set on Marielle, then back to Fedryc. “My Lord.” He nodded once then motioned to four men close to him.

  Then Fedryc moved, the rest of the guards behind in a single line, all led by Henron. Before long, before she was ready for it, they had disappeared into the bowels of the butcher shop in a silent, highly trained death squad. Whoever stood in their way would lose their lives this morning.

  The early morning silence stretched and stretched until Marielle found herself holding her breath, leaning slightly on her feet toward the door. It was taking too long. Something was wrong.

  Tears bloomed in her eyes and Marielle let them. She was paralyzed with fear, with her growing, aching heart beating so hard it hurt. It hurt and it ached inside her ribs, and she found she couldn’t breathe.

  Then the guard moved behind her, his lips at the commu-link on his wrist. “Yes, I understand. We will wait here for the High Lord’s return.”

  His neutral voice, his carefully crafted words, entered Marielle’s brain. The only reason the guard would speak so carefully was because they had found Devan but it had been too late. Her fear crystallized in her veins like ice and she finally exhaled and gulped a scorching, hateful lungful of air.

  “No.” Her word was like a plea but her mind rebelled. Because it just couldn’t be.


  Her feet moved without her approval and the guard let out a sharp curse behind her. His feet battered the dirt ground of the street behind her and his long legs gave him an advantage, but she was light and fast where he was strong and weighed down by his equipment.

  Marielle didn’t pause as she rushed into the butcher shop, speeding past steel tables and hooks, carcasses left there from the previous day’s work, unattended even in the heat. Because they were intended for human customers, and humans couldn’t afford to complain.

  Her feet barely brushed the bloodstained concrete floor as she flew through the dark space, the guard on her tail like a shadow. Then she was at the staircase going down to the basement. She ran down the steps two at a time as the guard made progress in his chase.

  As fast as she could, Marielle ran to the north hallway, darkness wrapping around her as she left daylight behind. Dampness and the stench of mold, mold and decay invaded her senses. She didn’t care. Devan was down here, that little boy she had shielded from the worst the slums had to offer since they became orphans.

  That boy who was as much her son as he was her brother.

  “Stop! Lady Marielle!” The guard’s voice, out of breath but still running, came from behind her.

  She pushed herself to go even faster. Turning the corner at the end of the hallway, she entered the Pits. Light came from above, from the hole in the ceiling that gave the fighting ring its name. At the corner of her vision, she saw the guard enter.

  She turned and ran for the back of the room, to where the fighters were held in a dark hole in the ground. To where Rela had told her Devan was being held.

  Then Marielle crashed into a hard chest and hands of steel closed around her arms.

  She screamed.

  “Let me go!” she shouted, struggling against Fedryc’s hold, but it was no use. He wasn’t letting her go.

  “I told you to keep her out!” Fedryc turned cold, raging eyes to the guard, who almost melted away on the spot. “Take her upstairs, now!”

  Marielle collapsed in Fedryc’s hold, despair and grief washing over her as her fear materialized in front of her eyes. “He’s dead!” Her voice broke and sobs shook her shoulders as Fedryc wrapped his arms protectively around her. “Devan is dead, isn’t he?”

  Fedryc patted her hair, holding her body tightly against his as she sobbed. “He lives,” he said against her hair. “For now.”

  Marielle stopped crying and twisted to meet his silver gaze but her joy died as soon as she saw the grim lines of his mouth.

  “I need to see him. Let me see him.” This was a desperate plea, and when Fedryc shook his head, she understood that horrors she couldn’t bear awaited her in that dark, damp hole.

  “You do not want to see Devan right now.” Fedryc spoke softly, his face grim and his eyes filled with something that made her bristle. “Henron and his men are taking care of him right now. I have a medical evac team on the way with a hover transport.”

  “I don’t care if he’s injured.” Marielle pushed away from Fedryc and he let her go. “He’s all alone there. He needs me.”

  Fedryc’s face closed off and his eyes turned cold. He wasn’t hearing her. “I can’t let you go down there, Marielle.”

  “No!” Marielle shouted again, this time without sobs in her voice. This made Fedryc look down at her, and when she saw pity in his eyes, she was filled with a rage that threatened to spill out. “Let me see him. I need to see him…”

  “It is a sight I wish I could unsee.” Fedryc’s voice was soft and low, and it flayed the skin on her face, on her arms, anywhere his damn pity touched her. “Please, my Draekarra, go wait outside. You will see your brother once the medical team has lifted him out.”

  He reached for her, his hand about to close on her arm and send her away. Send her away from the one who needed her the most.

  “Don’t touch me!” Marielle’s shout was filled with rage and pain and Fedryc let his hand drop by his side but still put his body between her and the door leading to the well. “You will let me go to my baby brother, Fedryc Haal, or I swear on my parents’ souls that I will never forgive you.”

  Time felt suspended as the Draekon Lord held her stare, their two wills colliding with each other. She was powerless, small and weak, but her strength came from that core of herself she had been building all those years. That protective streak that had been her entire existence until she met him. She was Devan’s sister and Devan’s mother, all in one, and right now, she would plow through anyone who stood in her way.

  “If I allow you to see this, I fear I might lose you.” Fedryc spoke with the truth in his voice, his face. “You are no stranger to the cruelty of the world, but you have never faced true evil before.”

  “If you don’t allow me to be with him, you will lose me.”

  Her words were final, and his face lost its expression of pity to be replaced by a sadness so deep, it tore at her soul.

  “Very well then.” He turned sideways, allowing her to pass through the door.

  Her entire body trembled but Marielle walked, her back stiff and her head held high as she entered the lair of an evil greater than she had ever imagined.

  Chapter 21

  Decomposition hit her nostrils at once. Not the vague smell of decay from upstairs. No, this was a rotting flesh stench, so strong she couldn’t breathe completely, nausea hitting her like a slap in the face. Her eyes took a long time to adjust to the near total darkness, and Marielle walked with slow, careful steps. She could discern the faint outlines of men, all turning to see her enter the room. They all stood around a waist-high stone wall, lining what she knew to be the pit where Devan was being held.

  From somewhere behind her, Fedryc ordered a man to turn on a glowing, floating orb, and the space was bathed in a faint purplish light. Marielle immediately wished he hadn’t.

  Bodies lined the walls, left there like garbage by Ignio Marula’s men at least a month ago. Rotting, falling flesh made their faces unrecognizable but Marielle could see from their clothes and size that the victims were male and female, maybe even children, from the size of some.

  A horror she knew Fedryc had tried to shield her from.

  As she neared the stone wall, she saw the pit was round and deep. This was the dry well where the next poor souls sentenced to die in the Pits were held. As she walked, a hand closed on her arm and Marielle met Fedryc’s stare. She didn’t push him away but closed her own hand around his.

  Then she was at the wall and she peered down to see Henron staring back at her. At his feet was a tangle of bones and corpses, and between them, a slumped form that had nothing human about it.

  “You let her come down here?” Henron’s voice was disbelieving and harsh. “She can’t see her brother like this.”

  “Marielle made her choice.” Fedryc’s simple answer made Henron shake his head and Marielle got the distinct feeling that the man wished he himself wasn’t the one who had climbed down the well and seen her brother.

  It made her all the more desperate to come to Devan’s side.

  “I need to go down.” She turned hard eyes to Fedryc. If she showed even a hint of her distress to him, she knew he would send her away in a flash.

  Fedryc nodded to her, then after a quick gesture to a guard, a gurney was brought to her, attached to a thick rope. Fedryc fastened her to the gurney, going over each clamp twice, then locked gazes with her again.

  “One last time. Wait outside, see your brother after the medical crew have gone over him.”

  This was the first time his voice had held any kind of plea, any begging note, and it made her almost think about it. Almost.

  Marielle couldn’t speak so she shook her head. Fedryc’s shoulders slumped and he turned to the guards and gave them the okay. As she was lowered into the bowels of the well, more smells assailed her nostrils and she had to bend over the gurney, holding her nose and closing her eyes.

  The gurney finally stopped. It took Marielle a few secon
ds to gather the courage to open her eyes. When she finally did, she found herself surrounded by horrors that would engrave themselves on her brain for the rest of her life. Bodies, old and more recent, were strewn across the ground. Body parts lay scattered carelessly as cadavers stared out of empty eye sockets.

  Henron came to her, wordlessly working to free her of the gurney. Fedryc’s Captain of the guard finally lifted his silver eyes to meet hers. There was an unspoken support there, not exactly pity, but an understanding that she just had to come and be there.

  Marielle moved, then yelled as a rat, fat and hostile, jumped out of a corpse’s chest and skittered across her feet.

  Up on the wall above her head, Fedryc shouted a question, but Marielle heard it without understanding the words. Henron spoke to her, his hand closing around her upper arm, but she pushed it away despite his superior strength.

  Her vision was a tunnel. Gone were the bodies and the stench. All she could see was the slightly human form on the ground. “Devan.” She whispered the name like a prayer as she knelt beside her brother. “I found you.”

  Devan lay on his stomach, his head turned to the side, obviously unconscious. Her voice broke as she stared down the ruined remains of her brother’s face. Deep bruises covered his once pale, freckled skin. His cheekbones had exploded into a mangle of red flesh, pus oozing from the wounds, and his eyes were swollen shut. If it wasn’t for the shock of red hair on his head, she wouldn’t be sure it was the same boy she had looked at every day since his birth.

  Her fingers trembled as she ran them lightly over Devan’s back, or what was left of it. Long, deep gashes ran across his skin, crisscrossing over and over. A familiar word came to her mind, one that bore the weight of the worst pain she could think of.