Her brother didn’t look convinced.
Taryn did the only thing she could to show him that she was telling him the truth.
“Three centuries ago, in the dragon realm, our paths crossed. He questioned me about you and the sword, and I struck the male, wounding him. My claws raked over the left side of his neck,” she said and Tenak still looked sceptical. “I will prove it to you.”
This time, when she pulled on the hand he had around the elf’s throat, he released the male and stepped back. Taryn let go of both of her brother’s hands as the elf slumped to the black ground, falling on his right side.
She waited until she was sure her brother was calm, and then turned and crouched beside the unconscious elf. His armour was still out. She wrestled with it, managing to wriggle her fingers beneath the collar after a few minutes’ fight, and then growled as she used all of her strength to pull the tiny metal scales down. Damned armour. She hadn’t thought it would be so troublesome.
Her brother shifted foot to foot, his agitation flowing over her, mingling with her own as she fought the armour. What was it made from? She had never really bothered to learn much about the elves. She wanted to find whoever had created it and give them as much hell as the armour was giving her.
She panted hard, heart labouring as she wrestled with the armour. It kept snapping back into place the moment she let up on the fight. If she couldn’t expose his throat and therefore that she was telling the truth about the elf, then her brother would probably kill him.
Her gaze fell to the male’s black clawed fingers.
She dimly recalled hearing once that elf armour was weak against its own material. The male dragon who had said it to another had been laughed out of the tavern. What if it was true though?
She glanced up at her brother, finding him standing close to her, eyes pinned on the male, filled with malice and dark intent.
It was worth a try.
She grabbed the elf’s hand, wrapped her fingers around his, and began sawing at the neck of his armour with his own claws, careful to keep them away from his skin.
Her eyes widened as the claws sliced through the scales.
If she ever saw that male dragon again, she would tell him that he had been right. Elf armour was vulnerable to its own material.
Taryn cut a line down from the side of his throat to his shoulder and released his hand, letting it drop to the ground again. She peeled the black metal scales away from his skin and slowed as they revealed not perfect skin but dark bruises, some of which had already changed colour to show they were healing. Her brother hadn’t caused these marks. Someone else had tried to strangle the elf recently. Who?
Her eyebrows knitted together and her heart pounded harder as she stared at the deep bruising, her hands shaking as a need to find whoever had hurt the male and make them suffer surged through her. It was little wonder the male had become panicked so quickly when her brother had caught hold of his throat.
Gods, what had she done?
She had asked her brother to render him unconscious but not harm him. She had known he would choose to suffocate the male, a sure fire way of sending him into the waiting arms of darkness without inflicting great injuries.
She looked down at the male where he lay at her side, his face slack and lips parted, strands of his blue-black hair brushing his brow. She wanted to sweep those strands away, ached to flutter her fingers over his sculpted cheek and apologise for what she had done. She hadn’t known what he had suffered recently. She had only thought of saving him.
She felt her brother’s eyes on her, sensed that she was taking too long and he was growing impatient, and suspicious of her. She forced herself to sit back so her brother could see the three jagged scars that ran over the elf’s neck.
She couldn’t resist touching them, placing the fingers she had used to create them against the start of each line and stroking down them to his collarbone.
She lifted her eyes away from the marks and up to her brother.
His eyes had turned cold. “Why did you not kill the male then?”
Taryn kneeled beside the elf, her fingers still against his bruised throat. His pulse beat steadily against their tips, reassuring her, and she silently swore to him that she would keep him safe and find a way to set him free.
“He had other elves with him then,” she said in a calm, detached tone, revealing none of her turbulent feelings to her brother, afraid Tenak would hurt the elf if she showed even an ounce of remorse or concern about his welfare. “A trio of warriors. There was no way I could have won against them, so I fled. Those elves will be with him again. I am sure of it. They will be hiding somewhere, lying in wait for their commander’s return. We must question him and find their locations so we might eradicate the threat completely.”
Tenak lowered his eyes to the elf and darkness filled them, infinite ice that warned he was thinking terrible things.
Horrible things.
Her instincts pressed her to bare her fangs at him and warn him away from her male, and it took every shred of her will to stop herself. She couldn’t obey that dark territorial urge that compelled her to attack her brother in order to protect what was hers. If she gave in to it, she would sign both hers and the elf’s death warrants.
Tenak shifted his gaze back to her and she knew she hadn’t won him over yet. He was still unconvinced. She had to do something more to make him do as she wanted, sparing the elf from death, and she knew what that something more was.
Cold crept over her exposed skin and she rubbed at it, running her palms and fingers up and down her arms. It didn’t stop the cold. It sank deeper. Grew colder. Became ice in her marrow and penetrated her heart and her soul.
“They might not be alone this time,” she whispered and stared off into the distance, falling into the white frigid abyss and unable to do anything but watch walls of sheer ice rise over her. She clawed at them, trying to gain a hold to stop herself, her nails digging in.
Warmth bloomed beneath them, hot against her freezing fingertips.
“Taryn!” Tenak barked and the white walls shook, shattered and tumbled around her, revealing a black valley and her brother where he crouched before her. His hands were warm on her shoulders, his grip fierce. His eyes searched hers, a touch of fear in them, concern that had her following them as they fell to her arms.
Blood.
She stared at it. Blinked. How had it gotten there?
She frowned as she drew her hands away from her arms. Crimson coated her fingertips too. It stained beneath her nails.
“What were you seeing?” Tenak whispered and rubbed his thumbs across her shoulders.
Fingers touching.
Touching.
Caressing.
She jerked free, scooted backwards and bumped into something warm.
Something that soothed the pain that had engulfed her, making her brother’s touch feel like that of a terrible fiend bent on destroying her, not someone who loved her.
Taryn looked behind her at the elf male. His thighs pressed against her spine, the touch comforting. So comforting that it stripped her strength away and tears filled her eyes.
“Taryn?” Tenak reached for her and she whipped her head towards him and bared her fangs. He instantly moved back, giving her the space she needed, and she settled as the sense of comfort rolled over her again, sinking harder against the elf’s legs, seeking the reassurance of his touch. Tenak settled on his haunches and eyed her. “What were you seeing?”
She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. “The arena. The black market. A few lunar cycles ago… the elf was there. He had many more men with him that time.”
She swallowed hard, desperate to wet her dry throat and mouth, and rubbed her arms again as a chill went through her.
“There might be more this time. I did not see how many there were back then… the light from the stage… it… it made it…” Her throat closed and she shoved her hands into her hair, tugged it back from h
er face so hard that her scalp stung. “I cannot.”
But she had to.
The pain of her memories, she could handle. She could deal with it. She wasn’t sure she would be able to handle the pain of her brother killing the elf. Her fated male. His death would kill her too. She had to keep speaking, telling her brother about what she had seen. She had to convince him to go easy on the male. If she had to hurt herself to make that happen, she would do it.
She would bear any pain to spare her fated male.
Tenak eased forwards, recapturing her attention. Fear and agony collided inside her as she lifted her eyes to meet his, afraid of what she would find.
That fear abated when she found his eyes were soft and tender, and melted away when he spoke.
“We will take the male and question him. Do not think about your past anymore, Sister. I ache when I see you in pain.” For a moment, a heartbeat of time, he was the brother she had grown up with back at the village, but then his face darkened and his eyes turned cold. “Think about the future, my precious one, for it will be glorious.”
She suppressed the shudder that wracked her. Glorious? Bloodshed and violence wasn’t glorious. Slaughtering all who stood in the way of ruling an entire realm wasn’t glorious. It was madness.
The sort of insane thinking she had been exposed to and at the mercy of for three centuries.
Her brother shifted into his dragon form. When he reached for the elf male, every instinct she possessed roared at her and she sprang to her feet and launched into the path of his front paw. He halted and his huge eyes moved to her and narrowed.
“I will do it.” That didn’t seem to be explanation enough for her behaviour, because she could almost feel the suspicions taking root in her brother again. His eyes narrowed further. She rushed out, “You need not sully yourself with the elf. It is beneath you to carry such cargo back to our stronghold. I will do this for you. It is my place.”
That seemed to appease him. He pushed back, causing rocks to tumble down the mountainside, and twisted as he beat his wings. She watched him take flight and then looked down at the elf and cursed him, wishing he hadn’t been foolish enough to pursue her.
Tenak roared, a command that she felt all the way to her bones.
The shift was quick to come, transforming her swiftly into her dragon form. She skidded down the mountain until her huge paws found some purchase and she was able to claw her way back up to the elf, using a few flaps of her wings to assist her.
He lay where she had left him, the bruises on his throat exposed together with the scars she had given him.
Taryn carefully scooped him up into her right paw, cradled him gently and stared down at him.
Tiny dragon.
He had looked like one when he had been in full armour, his helmet flaring back into two horns and coming down into a point above his nose, and the slats covering the lower half of his face.
He was as fierce as one too. As determined.
Relentless in his pursuit of her.
She canted her head. Did he know why he pursued her so tirelessly?
Why he couldn’t let her go?
She wasn’t sure that he did. She wasn’t sure he knew that she was his mate.
As she stared down at his prone form, his quiet steady breathing loud in her ears, her strongest dragon instincts roared to the forefront, urging her to carry him far away, to a place where he would be safe.
She couldn’t.
She could feel Tenak’s steady gaze on her. He had stopped a few hundred metres away and was hovering in the air, watching her closely.
She sighed and her breath stirred the elf’s dark hair.
He had brought this upon himself, and all she could do was try to subtly control whatever awaited him, lessening the pain her brother would inflict on him and upon her without knowing it.
She curled her paw around her fated male and cradled him close to her. Her heart warmed behind the white plates of armour that spanned her chest as she felt him press against her, and she switched all of her focus to him as she kicked off.
Her wings beat at a slow pace to keep her flight smooth and avoid jostling him too much.
He was cool against her, weighed nothing in her palm, but she knew he was a male whose blood was fire and body was strong. She knew he could survive whatever awaited him, and she wouldn’t leave his side. She would protect him as best she could.
She would find a way to set him free.
CHAPTER 18
It stank.
Wherever he was, it reeked of fetid things. Stale water. Putrid blood. Rancid bile.
Bleu groaned and breathed slowly, fighting to get air into his lungs and not only because the foul odour robbed him of breath and made him want to retch. His already bruised and battered throat now felt as if someone had gone at it with a vice, squeezing it until his trachea had been close to breaking.
His wheezing breaths only served to stir the wretched pool of filth beneath him. He mustered all of his strength, planted his palms against the cold stone floor and pushed himself up, opening his eyes at the same time. The dim light from the wooden torch mounted on the stone wall opposite him was a mercy, giving his eyes time to adjust to being used again.
He slowly took in his surroundings. One wall of metal bars in front of him, and two more sets of bars on either side, those ones filling an arch. He looked behind him as much as he could without hurting his throat. That wall was solid black stone.
A cellblock. In the castle he had been scouting by the looks of things. No windows for him to check whether the outside world matched the valley though. Where else would the dragon have taken him?
He was surprised the male had taken him anywhere.
Bleu gingerly touched his throat and winced when even the slightest pressure hurt it. He needed blood to restore the strength his body was already devouring in order to speed his healing process, but he doubted he would get it here. His captor was unlikely to want to keep him strong. With every second that ticked past without him drinking blood, he grew weaker, and something told him that the male wanted that.
Why hadn’t the dragon killed him?
A flash of the female shot across his mind and he grimaced and clutched his head as it ached.
Had she stopped him?
He had caught the concern in her eyes, had felt her fear when her brother had been strangling him, and he had the feeling that he owed his life to her. She had somehow gained him a reprieve. He looked around the cell again. Although, he wasn’t sure his situation had improved at all.
He pushed his hands against the damp black flagstones and froze.
Bare hands.
Bare arms.
Bare wrists.
Panic lanced him and he looked himself over. Bare everything. He growled through his fangs and crawled around the cell, the rough stones biting into his knees as he scoured it for his armour bands. After an exhausting few minutes of searching, he slumped against the solid wall, breathing hard and shivering. Something wasn’t right.
It made sense that he would be weak from his body using his blood to speed the healing of his throat, but he shouldn’t have been this weak.
Bleu leaned the right side of his head against the cold stones and tried to focus. He dove deep into his body, calling his portal, willing his wristbands to appear.
Nothing.
Perhaps the dragon had them locked somewhere his power couldn’t reach. There were many ways of sealing away objects and stopping him from being able to call them.
He focused on his apartments in the castle in the elf kingdom instead and reached for something that held no power and was therefore less taxing. Trousers.
A hazy connection formed, wobbled. He focused harder on it, drawing on his limited strength to reinforce the bond between him and the item of clothing. Sweat beaded on his brow and rolled down his back, cold against his exposed skin. His breath came harder, scraping in his throat.
The link shattered and he slumped aga
inst the wall, his limbs like rubber.
Gods damn it.
Bleu looked himself over and his eyes halted on an innocuous red spot on his right forearm. He managed to lift his left hand and rub his thumb over it. The spot didn’t go away, no matter how hard he rubbed it, and the area around it was tender.
Drugged.
He twisted and sank with his back against the wall. His breathing evened out but his heart didn’t steady. It continued to race, driven by the fear slowly sinking its claws into him.
He drew down a shuddering deep breath.
The scent of blood hit him hard and his fangs itched.
He suppressed his hunger, forced his fangs away, and tried to focus. He could get out of this. Somehow.
He tipped his head back and looked up at the ceiling, and his senses stretched outwards, covering as much ground as he could manage while he was weak. Where was the female dragon?
Taryn.
She had saved him. He knew it. He had lived long enough to recognise when someone had put their life on the line for him, and she had definitely risked her neck for his sake. She had been afraid of her brother but she had somehow stopped that dangerous male from killing him.
He pulled down another deep breath through his nose and closed his eyes, reaching for her.
He could almost feel her moving around above him, and he could definitely smell her. He lifted his fingers to his nose and inhaled, taking the scent of her down into his lungs. She had touched him. Had she been the one to strip him?
Was she in possession of his armour?
He inhaled again, felt light as her scent filled his lungs, dominating the rank odour of the cells with the unique smell of her that was so out of place in this grim citadel that reeked of death.
She smelled like sunshine and blue skies, and he wasn’t sure how she could smell of such things when she was restricted to Hell and had probably never seen the mortal world.
Bleu sighed and willed her to come to him, to help him out of this mess he had gotten himself into, or at least let him see her again and drink in her beauty before he died.
Possessed by a Dark Warrior Page 17
