by Cara Bristol
A guard approached her cell and unlocked it. “Come with me.” He flicked his tail. In demiforma, he appeared more dragon than man, his brow horned, teeth jutting out of his snout.
Rhianna cowered on the bench. I don’t want to die. Her body shook. K’ev. Oh god, K’ev. Would he be there when they executed her?
“I said, come on,” he growled then strode in and hauled her off the bench.
Rhianna struck at him, windmilling punches. Her blows seemed to have little effect until the manacle around her wrist connected with his snout. He bellowed, his roar bouncing off the stone walls. She raised her fist to strike him, but he yanked the chain over her head, forcing her arms up. He jerked it down hard and, before she could react, wrapped the slack around her wrists.
Growling, he slung her over his scaly, hard shoulder and bounded up the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
K’ev strode past the guardians into the Temple of the Eternal Fyre. The hallowed place had brought him serenity in the past, and he’d never needed peace more than he did in this moment. Emotions were tearing him apart. Rhianna had tried to kill him, but he loved her. The facts testified to her complicity, but guilt gnawed at him as if he should have ignored the truth and believed her anyway. He’d told himself he was acceding to the dragon when he’d followed her as she was marched through the streets to the dungeon, but he knew it wasn’t so. Despite what she’d done, he couldn’t have stayed away.
Her terror had been real. Why did he want to comfort her, protect her? He should hate her.
He couldn’t. When she died, a part of him would die, too. His fyre, which burned for her, would diminish.
The urge to free her from the prison, to spare her life, rose within, adding to his torment.
Yesss…save our mate. Save her.
Fighting his instincts, he’d fled to the temple.
There can be no peace when our mate will die.
The Eternal Fyre danced high and bright, but the temple felt oddly vacant, almost abandoned, as if a life-force he’d associated with it was missing. He knelt on the stone floor and stared into the flame of immortality. In a few hours, it would dim by one small fyre. Rhianna’s.
The mate who’d betrayed him.
He ached every minute without her. How would he bear an eternity? K’ev threw back his head and bellowed. He’d never felt so alone. By now, the priestess should have appeared, but even she had deserted him. Her absence was the source of the emptiness he sensed in the temple. Her ancient fyre burned almost as strong as the Eternal Fyre itself. Without her presence, the power of the temple seemed lessened. Where could she have gone?
Perhaps that explained why the temple did little to fill the emptiness inside.
No, it is the loss of our mate. We must save her!
The penalty for attempted assassination was death.
Visions of Rhianna filled his mind: her fiery hair, her exotic blue eyes, her childlike giggle, her smile, the unity and completion they’d reached in mating. Two fyres becoming one. As if she knelt beside him, he could smell the fragrance of vanilla and desire, the sweetness of her joy, the rain of her tears, and the sourness of terror in her last moments.
“You can’t trust her,” the king had warned in his private chamber. “She is up to something. Did you smell how nervous she was?”
“She was anxious about meeting you.”
“As she should be.” The king had stomped back and forth, his cape flaring out behind him. “But I don’t think that’s it. She’ll betray you at the first opportunity. It is their nature. Humans never change.”
“Rhianna is different,” he’d argued.
His father had shaken his head. “She is the same. Why didn’t she tell you she could speak Dragonish?”
“She didn’t know.”
The king’s horns twitched as skepticism arched his brows. “She attempted to fool you into believing she was the president’s daughter.”
“She didn’t want to—and then she confessed. She hasn’t lied to me since.”
“How do you know?”
“I would smell it.”
“Bah!” His father had snorted. “Not while lust muddles your senses.”
“I feel it with every flicker of my fyre—and hers. Our fyres have merged. She is my mate. My dragon recognized it at the start.”
“All the more reason to be on your guard. She makes you vulnerable, weak. Had I known you would mate with a human, I never would have acceded to bringing one to Draco. I chose you because, of all my sons, you were the one least likely to be deceived.”
Then came the commotion. With his father’s warnings ringing in his ears, he’d rushed out of the chamber and discovered he had a bomb inside him. Everything the king had said had been proven true.
Fear for her safety had rolled off Rhianna in waves. Ordered to remain in the pavilion, she’d been forced to reveal the existence of the bomb or she’d be killed, too.
No wonder she’d been so nervous—had wanted to leave when he and his father had gone to speak privately. She’d been frantic to get out before the bomb exploded.
No, she is innocent!
He wanted to believe it. Desperately wanted to. Deep inside, his fyre flickered with a persistent tiny flame of faith. She wouldn’t betray me.
He couldn’t ignore the overwhelming evidence: her assumption of another’s identity when she’d first boarded, keeping the “communication device” a secret, forgetting to tell him about it, being able to understand Dragonish, her nervousness and the way she kept trying to leave the pavilion, and then so conveniently discovering a new message warning of the bomb. Or was the new unit an incendiary device, too? How many more might she have?
She wouldn’t betray me.
His father was no fool. Hotheaded, mercurial, yes, but keenly intelligent. He was completely convinced of Rhianna’s guilt. But would anything have convinced him otherwise? Didn’t he always start with the assumption of intended chicanery? No matter what a human did, his father would suspect ill will.
With a start, K’ev realized he’d smelled no deception, no malice from Rhianna. Fear and nervousness, yes. His heart seized and stopped beating. What if it had occurred the way she’d said? Influenced by his culture and father’s prejudices, hadn’t he assumed the worst? He hadn’t given Rhianna a chance to explain before condemning her.
The priestess believed in her. She’d foretold Rhianna would bear him many children. Nobody could fool the priestess. Nobody. If Rhianna had been playing them false, the priestess would have known.
As he gazed into the Eternal Fyre, the lies he’d told himself fell away like his clothing during a shift, exposing the truth.
I was wrong. Rhianna is innocent.
He leapt to his feet, pain slicing through him with the awareness he might have waited too long to come to his senses. Please let me be in time. Please…
Fly! Fly! We must hurry!
He would free her from the dungeon. His father would retaliate with decisive force. K’ev would have to steal a ship and flee, find a planet that would offer them asylum. They would never be able to return to Draco or Elementa or even Earth.
He’d worry about where they went after he rescued her.
Hurry! Hurry!
He rushed from the temple. The starset had begun, tinging the sky blood red.
He shifted into full dragon.
Three temple guardians converged, blocking his path.
He snarled. Let me pass. I must get to our mate.
The other dragons roared. Two more boxed him in. He snapped at them with razor teeth. They held their ground.
Desperate, K’ev shifted back to demiforma so he could speak. “I am Prince K’ev ulu K’rah Qatin. I order you to stand aside,” he commanded.
Two more joined the three and forced him back into the temple.
Chapter Thirty
Wrists bound, Rhianna tried to kick as the guard hauled her up the stairs, but his arm immobilized her. They emerged from th
e tower to a bleeding sunset. Her shackles clanked when he dumped her off his shoulders at the feet of a full-form dragon.
Rhianna forced her gaze from talons as long as her entire hand, up the armored body, the scales patinaed with age, to a face so hideous, her heart stopped beating. Heavy, ridged scars disfigured its leathery skin, its pebbled texture turned glossy from repeated burns. Deep, blackened gouges seared into its flesh ran from its yellow eyes. Tossing its head with an angry jerk, it roared, spitting out a fireball, missing the guard by a fraction.
The air stank with sulfur. Fury rolled off the dragon.
Ohmygodohmygod. Rhianna shook with terror. Was this the executioner?
The guard rushed at Rhianna. On her butt and weighted by the heavy chains, she tried to scramble away. “No! Let me go!”
“Hold still!” He produced a key ring, and undid the leg irons.
Why was he doing this? Was this an honor thing that they didn’t execute a defenseless victim? Were they giving her a running chance before they immolated her?
The guard exuded an odd odor, mostly sour, but with a tinge of spice—fear of the other dragon. If she wasn’t so scared herself, she might have enjoyed his fright. But, if he was afraid, then she ought to be terrified.
He freed the band around her neck then, last, released her wrists. Rhianna massaged her abraded skin, rubbed raw in places. The scarred dragon roared again. The guard bowed his head, as if paying homage then quickly disappeared into the tower.
The dragon tossed its head and bugled.
Rhianna leapt to her feet and ran.
A massive shadow spilled over her seconds before the dragon swooped down and snatched her up. She screamed and pried at the claws, but it had too firm a grip. Flapping its wings, it rose into the bloodied sky.
Rhianna stopped struggling, realizing she’d never survive the fall if she succeeded in getting free. Wind and the breath from the wings whipped at her face. She remembered the freedom of soaring with K’ev. This was nothing like that. This was terrifying. If it dropped her, she’d die. And she could only assume it was taking her to be executed.
From high in the sky, she recognized the palace compound, including the pavilion where K’ev had almost been killed and, looming ahead, the Temple of the Eternal Fyre.
The dragon landed atop the steps and released Rhianna.
Why had it brought her here? She didn’t know much about Draconian culture, but wouldn’t executing someone on temple grounds equate to a desecration?
There was no point in trying to flee. Surrounded by guardians, three of them seeming to be protecting the entrance, she wouldn’t get more than a couple of steps before they took her down. From inside, a thunderous roar of pain and rage shook the temple.
Rhianna’s knees trembled. What was going on in there?
The dragon nudged her with its head. Gathering her courage, Rhianna met its gaze. Yellow eyes no longer sparked with anger but had mellowed. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear it looked at her almost tenderly? She lifted a hand and rubbed her temple. That couldn’t be right.
“What am I supposed to do now?” she croaked, her throat raw from the smoke in the dungeon and from screaming.
The dragon jutted its snout at the temple as another roar from inside caused the ground to quake.
“You want me to go…in there?” She’d almost prefer to take her chances in the dungeon.
It whuffed and, for an instant, yellow eyes turned blue.
Blue?
Rhianna’s jaw dropped. “Priestess?”
Another flash of blue and a nod.
Had she been…rescued? Rhianna pressed a hand to her throat, sore inside and out. She glanced at the temple. Oh. My. God. “K’ev? Is that Prince K’ev in there?”
A whuff.
She spun and ran for the entrance. The guardians stepped aside to let her through. “K’ev!” she screamed, the pain in her throat mattering not at all.
“K’ev!” She burst into the temple.
Chapter Thirty-One
His dragon stormed in a blaze of fury and anguish. My mate! My mate! Self-hatred roiled within K’ev. Why hadn’t he believed her? He’d smelled no lies. His dragon had insisted she was innocent. He was never wrong. Never. Now he was imprisoned in the temple.
The night star had almost finished its descent, and only the flickering of his fyre reassured him Rhianna was still alive. But for how much longer? When she died, part of him would die with her. Why hadn’t he believed her? He could have stopped this! Searing tears of blood trickled from his eyes.
His dragon roared and spit out a fireball of rage. He’d already tried to slash and burn his way out of the temple to no avail. He was no match for all the guardians. Why wouldn’t they let him leave? They didn’t obey the king; their fealty belonged to the priestess.
The air shimmered, and the sacred flame flared hotter and brighter, signaling the priestess had returned. Maybe she would free him. Maybe there was still time to save Rhianna…
“K’ev!”
Sacred Fyre! Rhianna ran toward him. He let out a piercing bugle of relief. She threw herself at him and began to sob. He folded his wings around her and closed his eyes, squeezing back the tears that would burn and scar. He allowed the dragon a moment to hold her, and then K’ev gently pushed her away, stepped back, shifted into demiforma, and swept her into his arms again.
Their mouths met in a crushing kiss of need and relief. The tongues mated, claimed, beseeched. He should never have let her go. Never. He would spend eternity making it up to her. His essence spilled from his glands. She moaned and clung to him. He roved his hands over her body, checking she was unharmed, solidly real. He couldn’t believe it.
He broke off the kiss to bury his face in her matted, dirty hair. She smelled of joy and relief, but also of residual fear. He’d never forgive himself. How could I have doubted her? Her skin, blackened with soot, scraped and bleeding in places from the chains, set off a wave of self-loathing. She had suffered because of him.
She pulled away. Rain fell from her eyes. “I didn’t do it, K’ev. I swear I didn’t do it. I didn’t know it was a bomb. I love you.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I love you, my mate. I swear I’ll never doubt you again.” He kissed her tears and then captured her mouth in tender kiss.
“How—what happened—why did my father release you?” he said in between kisses.
She sought his mouth again, her emotion spilling out in her scent, her taste. She dragged her lips from his to pepper his face with hot kisses. “He didn’t. The priestess did.”
“The priestess?”
Rhianna nodded. “She came to the dungeon and got me out.”
“Are you sure it was her?”
“Yes, it was I.” The priestess appeared in her woman form, her hands folded in front of her, the diamond around her throat, glowing as vividly as her eyes.
K’ev bowed his head. Emotion overwhelmed him; he didn’t know what to say, except, “Thank you.”
“I’m so grateful, but I don’t understand why you saved me,” Rhianna said.
“How could I do anything else, my child?” she replied. From her gown, she withdrew an inhaler and handed it to Rhianna.
His mate took several long drags.
The Eternal Fyre flared as the priestess approached, reaching out with tendrils of flame. “The machinations of men, of kings, do not concern me. Wars will be fought, won and lost; kings will come and go; worlds will be conquered, planets will die, people will die. Immortals, too, shall fall at another’s hand. Everything will be as it is meant to be, so what is the purpose of intervening in something transitory? The minds of men and circumstances will continue to change—but the Eternal Fyre does not. Through it we live. Through it we are.
“This has been my vow: to serve only the Eternal Fyre, for it is the all.” Her chest rose and fell with her breath, and the flame flared and subsided. “I broke that vow. Today, I served myself by righting the past. I hav
e waited ten thousand years for this moment, each second feeling like yesterday, each yesterday like an eternity.”
It was the longest speech he’d ever heard her make, but it was no less cryptic.
Her yellow eyes turned blue, reminding him of Rhianna’s. “Prepare yourselves. The king is on his way.”
Heat ignited in his gut. He would not let his father take Rhianna. Never again.
“Oh, K’ev.” Rhianna’s face was pinched with worry. He’d promised to protect her once before and failed. He’d let her down in the worst possible way. Abandoned her. He wouldn’t do it again.
He palmed her face and pressed his lips to hers, letting his kiss reveal his determination. “By the Eternal Fyre, I promise you I will allow no harm to come to you.”
An angry roar shook the dome, and K’ev stepped in front of her to shield her from the king’s wrath.
“Can’t the guardians keep him out?” he asked.
“That would not serve my purposes. It is time for the truth to be told.” The priestess folded her hands.
Moments later, accompanied by six guards, the king marched in, enveloped in an invisible cloud of sulfuric fury. He glowered at K’ev with undisguised ferocity. His gaze alighted on the priestess and morphed into sanguinity. But he couldn’t cover his scent—he reeked of rage. “My apologies for dragging a matter of the realm into the sacred temple, but extenuating, exigent circumstances have forced it upon me,” the king said. “I must reclaim the prisoner.”
“No!” K’ev said. Still in demiforma, he shifted closer to dragon, extending his claws, hardening his scales, jutting his jaw out, and lengthening his teeth, preparing to fight them all. He would do anything to save his mate. “She is innocent of her people’s crimes.”
His father looked at him. “The human continues to confuse your senses and has beguiled you again, but I must protect the kingdom. I cannot allow anyone to strike against the royal court or Draco.” The king motioned with a jut of his jaw. “Take her.”
“No! I won’t allow it.”
“Take them both, then,” his father ordered the guards.
