by Kiersten Fay
Please…please come back…please… Someone was chanting to her. Beckoning her. She realized that sound came from her dragon. Her soulmate. That was the sound of his own heart breaking. He was pleading with her, over and over, his face buried in her neck. Had she died?
When she sucked in a breath, he gasped and drew back. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. “Witch! You’re running out of time. Remember what I said. Your life depends on hers.”
The pain in June’s chest increased tenfold. She gagged and gasped and wheezed. A bit of warm liquid ran from the side of her mouth.
Despair twisted Tristan’s beautiful face. He looked…destroyed.
She hated to see that look on his face. She wanted to reach up and pull him into her embrace, but her limbs were too heavy, and she hadn’t the energy. “You’re…strong,” she choked out. “You will…be okay.” He could go on without her. He could be happy again.
He shook his head, his eyes glistening. “NO! Never will I be okay. Never! Not without you. Don’t do this. Don’t leave me. You fight, dammit.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Witch! Make haste!”
Movement in the corner of her eye. A glowing white orb. An otherworldly luminescence. It grew nearer and she realized a woman with snow-white hair held the light in her hands, an astounding, almost liquid ball of glowing brilliance, beautiful and pure, that ebbed and flowed as though it were a living thing.
“What is that?” Tristan demanded.
The woman’s voice was soft, yet confident. “A dragon’s soul.”
Horror swept over Tristan’s features. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out.
“The goddess has smiled down on us all,” the woman said. “One of the dragons had life in it still, else I don’t know what I’d have done. I must fuse this soul with hers to give her the strength of your people.”
Dumbfounded, Tristan gazed down at June with concern. Her vision blurred at the edges. She fought to keep him in her sights. She wanted him to be the last thing she saw before the end.
He seemed to glean her thoughts. Worry cut lines into his face. His hands shook as he pressed down harder on June’s wound. “Have you ever done this before?” he asked the witch.
“No. I have only heard tell. I know that it will not be easy, and it will not be pretty. She may cry out, but no matter what, you cannot interrupt me. If you do not think you can handle that, I must ask you to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he snarled.
“Then you mustn’t interfere.” The strange white-haired woman held the soul in one hand. In the other, she produced what looked like an ivory dagger, bent at a perfect arch and sharp at one end.
“Is that a dragon tooth?” Tristan asked.
“It is. I must open her chest with it.”
Say what now?
Baring his teeth, Tristan shook his head. “Fuck no. Are you mad?”
“You must trust me. You said you would kill me if she does not live. As I do not wish to die, she must live. This is the only way.” Without waiting for his response, the svelte witch moved closer and brought the dagger inches from June’s chest. “Keep the pressure on her wound. She must not bleed out before I can complete the task.”
At length, Tristan grated, “I’m trusting you, witch.”
This can’t be happening.
June watched that razor-sharp tip like a test subject about to get vivisected…
Which she was.
“You canna be serious!” Orik’s big frame filled the doorway. Apparently, he’d found the traitors because he was covered in blood. Yet he appeared horror-struck at the sight before him.
Blood loss was making June loopy because she wanted to laugh, seeing the scene from his perspective. She was pinned on the bed, covered in her own blood while a white-haired witch who held an honest-to-goodness dragon’s soul in her palm had declared she was about to impale June with a dragon-tooth-dagger in order to save her life.
The prospect of having her chest split open made dying a secondary concern. Adrenaline surged and her heart began to thunder in her chest, which made Tristan’s job of stanching the flow more difficult.
At Orik’s outburst, other curious faces peered around the door; the guards wanted to see what was going on. In a strained tone, Tristan ordered them to stay back. “Doona interfere.”
Orik protested, “This is madness. You canna trust this witch.”
“I must.” Tristan peered down at June. “You’ll be okay, love. You’ll be okay.” Again, he was trying to convince himself.
A chill ran over her body and she began shivering uncontrollably. She must have muttered something about being cold because Tristan demanded the heat be turned up. His expression was panic-stricken, his tone but a growl the turned to the witch. “Do it now, witch. Save her.”
Orik once again balked. “For fuck sake, Tristan! This witch could have been sent by our enemies.”
“Orik! Don’t come any closer!”
June stopped listening…because the witch raised that dagger and began muttering a chant. June couldn’t make out the words….
Orik made a move to snatch the witch away, and June perceived the loss of Tristan by her side. He’d launched himself at Orik—
Then the dagger plunged.
24
Something like acid poured into June’s veins. It spread out over her chest like liquid fire. Flames crawled along her chest, through her arms, down her legs, eating up her insides. Her fingers seized from the pain, forming claws. The muscles of her neck drew tight as a scream ripped out of her. That fire only grew…hotter…more intense…engulfing her in pure, undiluted agony.
This was hell and she had been damned.
A small part of her mind remained conscious. After tossing the dagger away, the witch brought the sphere of light—the dragon’s soul—between her palms, close to her face, and whispered something unintelligible. The soul’s light intensified to a blinding brilliance and gave off a stunning warmth. It was the most remarkable sight June had ever seen. All the while, the fire burned, eating her alive.
Then the witch shot to her feet and slammed the soul into June’s chest with both hands, like a seasoned ballplayer dunking the winning score.
Mind-splitting pain lacerated her every nerve, and she screamed until her lungs burned…like the rest of her burned. The blaze within her ignited into a staggering inferno. Her insides were being flayed by white-hot blades dipped in acid, scorching her from head to toe. The torment was never-ending. On and on it went, the firestorm growing impossibly hotter, devouring her in until she couldn’t remember a time when there was no pain.
Her suffering wasn’t just in the body. It was molecular. It was in her mind, in her bones, in her subconscious, in her essence. This was a pain that did not only exist in reality. It was supernatural. Preternatural. Celestial. Eternal. Cosmic. Divine. Infernal. It was wretched and wicked. It was seraphic and sublime. It was the work of gods and devils.
With one last searing breath, she fell into a world of absolute darkness.
Tiny flickers of sparkling light erupted around her. Radiant explosions of gold and white, there one second, gone the next. She sensed more than saw the web forming around her, binding together, like sentient neurons. A living nexus, reaching out and linking up to cast an intricate mesh of knots and tangles. As they did, the glowing eruptions drifted closer, latching on to each axon and riding the web like electrical currents.
As if fueled from within, the webwork began to glow, illuminating this dark world until she saw its true depths. It spanned in all directs, tangles reaching out as far as she could see. Was this her brain? Her body? Her soul?
Like tectonic plates crushing together, something was shifting within her. Something momentous. Something life changing. Something terrifying.
She didn’t know what was happening. She couldn’t understand the sensations assaulting her. She felt stuffed with energy yet exhausted. She felt pain yet contentment. She felt powerful
yet weak.
Then one of those glowing connections snapped, the sound thunderous. Then another one snapped…and another.
Fear made a home inside her. Something was wrong.
That web turned cannibalistic, tearing and shredding itself like gauze left in a damp wind. Each fracture felt like a gut-punch. Was she still screaming?
One by one, the broken ends turned black and withered. Her world was shattering apart. Her soul was devouring itself.
She began to feel light once more, the pain fading, her soul breaking away from its corporeal form. Sweet freedom.
That wrecked voice echoed around her, a tortured soul crying out. Come back to me. Please come back to me. That voice called to the remaining shreds of her existence.
Tristan.
For a man like him, love was a rarity. Yet somehow he had fallen in love with her. Plain, mortal, human June. A nobody from an inconsequential rock on the opposite side of the galaxy.
For some reason, after kicking her around for a bit, fate had finally given her a boon by bringing her to the one man she could not live without. A man who made her heart dance with joy.
Now, like a cruel child with a toy, fate wanted to take him away.
He’ll be so sad when I’m gone. He would be so alone. She couldn’t stand the idea. She wanted to stay with him. With everything in her being, she wanted to stay with him.
Fate could go fuck herself.
With the last of her waning strength, she mentally reached out to mend those broken connections, stabbing them together, forcing them to stick. Amazingly, they stayed put. But so many continued to snap apart. She rushed to repair them, jumping from one axon to the next, fighting to keep up, begging whatever force was at work here to have mercy and allow her to return to Tristan.
“Let me live!” she cried out.
An unimaginable power bloomed in her essence, vitality sweeping through her. As if her prayer had been heard, the connections stopped breaking and the axons lit up once more, energy flowing free. She felt strength return to her, reaching its zenith as the fire in her cells subsided…replaced by an unfathomable alien sensation, a potentiality she could not describe or explain. She was no longer June of Earth. She was something else.
One thing she was certain of…
Nothing would ever be the same again.
Tristan was on the edge of losing his mind. Draped over June’s lifeless body, he let the last of her warmth seep into him. Her blood barely trickled out now. She’d lost too much.
Orik sat against the wall, nursing a broken nose among other wounds. When he’d moved to stop the witch, madness had taken over, and Tristan had lashed out like a caged beast. He could have killed the man if June’s harrowing scream hadn’t distracted him. He’d glanced back in time to see the witch shoving what she had claimed to be a dragon’s soul into June’s abdomen.
Was he a fool to trust the witch? Had he cosigned June to a hellish death? June’s screams had sounded like she’d been flayed from the inside. Pure hope had kept him from snapping the witch’s neck himself, and ending June’s torture.
But now she was silent.
It had all been for nothing.
June lay dying, her skin cooling. His heart breaking. All he could do was lie next to June, hold her one last time, stroke her hair, take her scent into him so that he could lock it in his brain and remember it always.
Despair crawled through him like poisonous wriggling thing.
He couldn’t imagine life without June. The future seemed bleak and tiresome. A burden. With no reason to live, would his kingdom fall to ruin? His mother would never let that happen. His brother, Lear, would step in. Tristan wasn’t needed. He could fade away, like Gavin was trying to do. Maybe he would fly away and never return, stay in his dragon form forever. Things were simpler as a dragon, emotions less extreme. Maybe this gouge in his chest wouldn’t hurt so fucking bad. Maybe he would find a fierce coven and sacrifice himself so that he could be with June in the afterlife.
When June let out her final breath, Tristan roared in agony and let despair devour him.
Soon anger joined in and his furious gaze snapped to the witch. She watched him now, hopelessness etched in her features, her gray eyes glistening.
His anguish demanded vengeance.
Just as red coated his vision, a glimmer caught the corner of his eye. Slowly, an otherworldly glow seeped over June’s skin, warm and rich. Radiant. It spread from the tips of her toes to the top of her head and through each individual strand of her hair until she was but pure light.
Going to his knees, he scrubbed a hand down his face as he watched her wounds begin to knit together. Yes! Her body was healing…
But she still wasn’t breathing.
A glance at the witch told him she was in awe of this process, riveted. Had she done it? Had she truly saved his mate?
He leaned over June. “Breath, baby.”
Her skin grew lustrous, glittering like a diamond in the sun. He was entranced. Her wounds were almost healed now, the last stitch pulling together. But why wasn’t she breathing—
Her back bowed on a great gasp, her eyes flying open.
Everyone in the room gasped along with her, and Tristan realized many of the guards had slipped in to watch. They all appeared unable to believe their eyes. Tristan, too, was frozen in amazement.
As June took in another breath, her body relaxed back on the bed, her gaze searching. When her eyes found him, she let out a little sob. “Tristan?”
The room erupted with cheers. They seemed almost as relieved as him. Did they realize how close they had come to losing their king? Did they realize without June, he would not abide living?
Didn’t matter.
He pulled June into his arms for a desperate, tear-laced kiss. She threw her arms around him, returning the kiss with equal fervor. To have her in his arms again. To feel her passion once more. The most luminous joy erupted in his chest and he found himself babbling. “I am never letting you go, June. Understand that. You will stay with me forever. There is no life without you.”
She grinned. “I came back to you. I came back because there is no getting rid of me. So you’d better just get used to it, buddy. You’re stuck with me.”
He knew his smile must have looked ridiculously big, but he didn’t care.
But then June’s expression fell. A slow frown crept over her face and then her expression grew worried. “Something’s not right.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
She pushed him off her and moved to stand, stumbling a few steps. “Something feels weird.”
“Sit, love. You just came back from the dead. It’s bound to require adjustment.”
Instead, she moved toward the balcony, her path wobbly. “I need to be outside.”
Growing ever anxious, he followed her, holding his hands out in case she fell. He would catch her.
Clutching her stomach, she faced him, holding her palm up as she backed away, her face in agony. “Oh, God. What’s happening to me?”
“What is it, love? Talk to me.” His soldiers had followed him out, looking as if they wanted to help but were at a loss, same as him.
“I feel like… I feel like…” She doubled over and cried out. An instant later, her bones began to shift as her skin grew pale.
A part of Tristan knew what was happening then, but his brain couldn’t reconcile that it was happening to June. She wasn’t a dragon. She couldn’t shift.
An even as her body grew mass and her form took shape, his brain denied the sight before him. Framed against two pale moons, a gloriously beautiful silvery-white dragon stood before him, her snowy mane pouring down her delicate back and wrapping around her perfect cerulean-tinted chest. Her tail was a smooth extension of her body with a fluff of fur at the end. She stretched out elegant, gauzier wings. The twin full moons lit them from behind. Deeply teal-colored eyes flitted around, the dragon taking in its surroundings.
Tristan held up his hands
. “You’re okay, love. Stay calm.” Meanwhile, his mind was reeling. How the fuck did this happen? He glanced back at the witch, but she was gone.
June made a noise of distress, backing away. There was terror in her eyes. She didn’t know what was happening to her. She was too close to the ledge and her foot slipped. Her body jerked as if to catch herself, but there were four legs now to contend with instead of two, and her body went over the ledge. Without thought, Tristan ran and jumped after her, transforming midair.
Folding his wings in and streamlining his body, he easily caught up with her. “Wings!” he hollered in his guttural dragon voice. “Fly!”
With the ground rushing at them, June twisted around and opened her wings to catch the air. She slowed, but only slightly. Her wings weren’t fully erect. He could see the panic in her eyes.
“Fly. With Me.” Tristan kept his voice calm for her sake and then showed her how to spread her wings. Like great sails, he angled them to glide alongside her. She had seconds before she met the ground. He would catch her before then, soften the fall with his body.
Stretching her wings to their fullest, June seized a pocket of air and her descent began to arch away from the ground. At the last moment, she veered up, grazing the treetops before pitching higher.
Supreme relief puffed out of Tristan’s nostrils.
Though she was teetering, June was a swift learner. She rode the airstreams with less and less turbulence by the second.
Positively buoyant with joy, Tristan could not help but to celebrate by flying circles around her and showing off with a few barrel rolls. Her expression took on a mixture of amused annoyance as he marveled at her beauty. The moonlight glistening off her scaly back as if she was a living breathing glass sculpture, deceptively delicate. She was the most beautiful creature in living history.
And she is mine.
Now he just needed make that clear.
25
I am a motherfucking dragon!
