But it couldn’t last long.
Wouldn’t.
He’d have to leave, and this reality would end. It might as well have been a dream.
Rayse let the bliss color his life.
He lay next to Constance, basking in the afterglow of their mating. The twilight sun poured in through her window, lighting her hair in a perfect gold that made her seem like an angel.
“I love you,” he said, smiling. He couldn’t stop grinning like a fool.
She pried his arms away and stood up. He watched her as her back faced him. Her curves were glorious. He reached out, wanting to place his hand on her waist.
A choked groan sounded from her lips, and she collapsed to the floor.
He leapt to his feet. “Fuck.”
What had he done to her?
She was on her side, hair covering part of her face.
He brushed her locks away. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong, little fire? Tell me how to help you.” His panic soared. He’d almost killed her once. Was he about to do it again?
“I can’t…”
“Can’t what? Do I need to fetch someone? Another witch, perhaps?”
She shook her head. “I can’t hold on to this form. Not with you around.”
“Then don’t. If it hurts, then don’t.” Catrina was beautiful, but he also wanted to see Constance’s true form—the one that’d been his mate. He wanted to see how she looked like now, after sixty years. Not the false abomination that was Jura.
“You don’t understand…” Magic smoked over her figure. He reached into it, but it cooled over his skin, feeling like mere mist. Constance was gone.
He couldn’t think.
His dragon thrashed mentally. He felt himself breaking into pieces. He couldn’t lose her. No no no.
But then his panic settled, and moments later, another female lay where the mist had been. He calmed, briefly, until he saw the scars.
He hovered her arm above her still body, flabbergasted. That’s not…
His breath hitched in his throat.
A pattern of burns crisscrossed her skin. He blinked. What had done this to her? Who? His mouth went dry. No one could survive this. No human, at least. He could barely recognize her body like this.
She stirred. He bent down and helped her up.
“Don’t look at me,” she said, resisting his help. She covered herself with her hands.
“You’re…”
“Hideous. I know.” Her gaze was fixated on the ground.
“No, I didn’t mean to say that.” She was just as gorgeous as she’d been when they first met. He imagined himself being repulsed by Constance, and that thought was as fictional to him as a flying bush mouse—he could never see her as anything but beautiful. “Look at me, little fire.”
“No.”
“Please.” He turned her face toward him. Red, wrinkled scars speckled her skin, running from her back of her ear, down her neck, across her left arm, and down to her thighs. He brushed the tips of his fingers down the trail of her marks. She quivered under him. “I still think you’re the most magnificent woman in Gaia.”
“Lies,” she said.
“Who did this to you?”
She still couldn’t meet his gaze. The fear she’d met him with all those years ago had reappeared. His blood boiled.
She bit her tongue. “The Dragon Mother.”
“Why?”
“Because she hates me. I deserve this.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I do.” She balled her hands into fists, her nails digging into her flesh. “We’re linked. The three of us have been trapped in our fates for thousands of years, and all because of what I did to her.”
“What?” He frowned. She wasn’t making any sense. He’d only known one life—this one, the one of Rayse Everstone.
She crawled into the bed and covered herself with her blanket, obviously ashamed of her scars. She didn’t have to be. “We were sisters, the Dragon Mother and I. She was called Aesryn, me, Adriana.”
She went into the story of Aesryn, Adriana, and Edrienne, and how their souls were tied together.
“We’ve met many lives after,” Constance said. “She needs our souls to continue living, because we were the final element in her fully forming into the Dragon Mother. She was the first dragon, and since then, nature has been imbalanced. Aesryn hates me, and tortures me every lifetime, as Adriana did her. These burns… I placed them on her, in my first life. And so she inflicts the same wounds on me.”
He stared at her like she was a madwoman. She expected him to believe he’d lived thousands of past lives, each time ending with him being harvested as magic? That he had been the love interest of the Dragon Mother herself? It was a tale too exaggerated to be true.
Constance made a sour expression. “Stop gaping at me like that. I’m telling the truth.”
He leaned back against the windowsill. “Sorry, I just can’t get my head around this.”
“I’m not a good person, Rayse. You… you didn’t know anything. You were caught in the crossfire between Adriana and Aesryn. But me…” She peered up at the ceiling. “I started all this.”
“Adriana isn’t you.”
“This soul I have, it was hers. Reincarnated.”
“Our experiences shape who we are, little fire.” He walked to her and pulled her blanket away. She shouldn’t have to hide from him. He kissed the side of her cheek, hoping she could feel the love he harbored for her. He didn’t care that she was broken or scarred. He’d accept her, regardless of how she looked. “You don’t share experiences with Adriana. You are you. Your own person.” He cradled her in an embrace.
She accepted his touch and rested her head on his chest. “Even then. What have I been doing?” She felt so small in his arms. “Harvesting the innocent just to keep hiding? The Mother wasn’t so evil after all. She was justified in her actions, and the dark magic shaped her into what she is today. I’m finding justifications for mine, too—to help the sick, to create a haven.” She pointed to her temple. “But it’s messing with my thoughts, too.”
“You’re nothing like her. She’s a product of jealousy and vengeance. You’re trying what you can to help others.”
“Then why do I hear screams in my head?”
“They’ll go away.”
“No, they won’t. I’m tainted. And we can’t be together.”
He pressed his lips on her forehead. “I’ll forever love you, regardless of how you are.”
She placed a hand on his chest and looked at him with those moon-like eyes of hers. “It’s not just that, Rayse. Ayesrial is in political strife right now. Mistreatment is abundant and too many are dying each day. The farmers are dying of starvation while the Favored get to eat and waste lavishly. Do you know that the Dragon Mother harvests a couple from each district every month to fuel her powers? We can’t let that continue. That’s why so many are hiding here.”
“But that’s Ayesrial—”
“We have the ability to stop this. There’s only one way I know for Aesryn to be killed, and that’s if we die, too.”
“What?”
“If we die before she gets our souls, then she’ll eventually run out of the essence that has kept her alive all these years.”
He ran his hand through her hair. “That’s…”
“We can’t be bonded. It’s too risky. If she gets us after we bond, then she’ll be able to continue the cycle. Rayse, you have to leave. I’ll turn into Catrina again, and that would make the Dragon Mother incapable of winning.”
He brushed her hair aside and inspected her arm. She flinched. His mark wasn’t there anymore. It had disappeared despite their recent foray.
“You were mating with Catrina,” Constance explained. “I reconfigured my soul with a spell and essentially changed its essence. But now, if you mate with me again, it’ll be with Constance, and the bond will form. If the Mother gets to us like that, she’ll have the souls she needs to continue living,
and these people will have to suffer another thousand years under her, until we’re reborn again.”
“Constance, you don’t even know if this is true.”
“I know it.”
The grimness of her words was punctuated by the hard, resolved look she shot him.
He clasped her dainty fingers in his. “I can’t live without you, little fire. I don’t want to go back to that hell. Being with you isn’t just a want, it’s a need. And I’d rather die than return to that darkness. If we’re not around anymore, then the Mother can’t win, right?” His dragon snarled at the prospect of his mate dying, but he couldn’t come up with a better option. What else could they do against an all-powerful goddess? “If I’m gone…”
“I won’t let you do it alone, Rayse. I can’t… can’t imagine you…”
“We’ll both be in it then, together.” His dragon struggled in his mind. He had to force that part of him down.
“These people, here, in this infirmary…”
“They’ll be fine if the Mother is gone, right?”
“If the drakin come and take over, and I won’t be here to take care of them—”
“They’ll be able to fight for freedom once the goddess dies. The drakin are a force to deal with, but without the Mother to back them up with her powerful magic, they’re just another army to defeat.”
She was shaking. Her eyes were wet. “I don’t want to die, Rayse. I don’t want to see you die, either.”
“If that’s the only option, then I’ll take it. These sixty years were the most painful years I’ve ever felt, love.” He thought back to the destruction he’d caused. “The world’s probably better without me anyway.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do. With all my heart. But not you. You’re a light upon us all.” He brushed his lips over her temple and smiled at her. The ridges of her burned skin prickled his lips. His blood simmered, knowing that he’d allowed this, and now, he was sending the both of them to certain death. He was a useless mate, and perhaps that was why he deserved this fate.
“We don’t have to do this,” he said. “You don’t. I can do this alone.”
“The Dragon Mother might be able to sustain herself if she had just one of us. If we’re going to do this, why take chances? And you can’t torture me by leaving me like this, Rayse. You can’t let me live on knowing I’ve let you die by yourself. That pain would be worse than death.”
She would rather be a martyr than risk the whole of Ayesrial. He hated and loved her selflessness. Hated it because she kept putting herself into danger, but it was a trait he couldn’t help but admire.
He tipped her chin toward him and captured her lips. She was sobbing in his arms.
He loved this woman to death, and he supposed that was what they had to face in the coming days.
14
She had promised him just one day.
One short day to try and experience an eternity of bliss. After that, Constance would cast a spell to take both their lives. It would be painless, and they’d have their hands in each other’s. She wouldn’t have to perish alone. She could find peace in that.
It’d been a lifetime since she’d sat on her dragon’s back. She hummed a soft melody as they traveled through the skies. She breathed in the air of Ayesrial as the winds flew past her. The air always carried a stench of death and chaos, but she tried to ignore that. The goddess’s city was a faded shadow in the horizon, the spire of her palace sending a warning to the landscape. Constance had positioned her barrier far enough from the city to not be easily found.
Rayse, in dragon form, landed next to a barren oak tree. She slipped down from his wings and onto the cracked ground. She strode around to his front and caressed his snout.
“I forgot how nice it felt to be up there with you,” she said, sighing a breath of satisfaction.
Smoke wisped from his nostrils. She stepped back as Rayse shifted into his human form. His body shrank, until she was standing in front of his naked self. She brushed her fingers over his skin.
“You know,” he said, “it’s a lot to take in when you do that.”
She liked that she could make him flustered. He spoke to her with a lowered tone and eyes glazing over. She kissed the side of his cheek before pressing her body into his. She ran her hand down his back, exploring the ups and downs of his muscles as she used to do.
He hadn’t changed much, but she could sense more scars on his back.
The screaming of the voices pulsed in her mind. They’d never go away. But for just today, she had to let herself forget them.
“Is there anything you want to see? Do?” he said. He dug his bag for his clothes and started pulling them over his body.
She laughed. “There’s not much we can explore around Ayesrial, not without alerting ourselves to the Mother.”
“It is our last day…”
She pursed her lips, not enjoying being reminded of that fact.
She’d set a time limit for their bliss together. Just one day, for if she took more, their hesitance would lead to disaster. If they let themselves go on, then what was to stop them from taking three days over two, then four days over three? They would never take the plunge, and the Mother would come, dooming the rest of them.
She entwined her fingers with his. “There is one place.” She pulled him forward. “Come with me. It’s not too far from here.”
Rayse trailed behind her. She’d discovered the area a few days back, while trekking with Jaerhel and looking for resources nearby. She’d made a mental note to come back, but with all her errands and responsibilities, time was a problem.
She and Rayse found the entrance of a cave. She entered, dragging her mate behind her.
“Vines?” he asked. “They’re dead. There’s usually hardly any greenery out here.”
Excitement crawled through her. She tramped forward eagerly. “We’re lucky to have stumbled across this place.”
The sound of chirping played in the distance. They pushed aside the wilted vines, until the music of trickling water reached their ears. She inhaled the scent of freshness and life. Perhaps this was the only place in Ayesrial that flourished despite the Mother’s draining rule.
A bluish glow graced her skin as she stepped into the oasis. A waterfall stood in the distance, with greens of every shade sparkling before them. A flock of birds danced beneath the crystal rocks, singing a happy tune. She spotted a few of her nurses at the lakeside, gathering water for her people. They waved at her, and she did the same to them. But then they halted. They might not have recognized her. Not with her hideous scars.
She attempted to pay no mind to their hesitation, and walked forward with Rayse.
Rayse stopped in his tracks. “This is…”
“This is life.” She smiled at him. “Nature’s way to rebel against the darkness of the Mother. I’m not sure how many such places exist in Ayesrial. This is the first we’ve found. There always needs to be a balance in nature. Maybe pockets of such places exist, simply to counteract the pain the goddess has been spreading.”
“It’s amazing.” He pulled her closer and placed a kiss in the nook of her neck.
She circled her arms around his neck as wings spread from his back. He lifted into the sky. His onyx wings shone azure with the reflection of the crystals covering the oasis. The rocks in the place weren’t simply that. They had mineralized, and had morphed into spectacular shades of turquoise and green.
He found a quiet corner, where the nurses weren’t looking. A mini waterfall—a dwarf compared to the one that showered in front on the entrance—flowed before them. She slipped her frock off, sensing the gaze of Rayse burning into her back, and dipped a foot into the pool.
She wondered how deep it was. She’d never learned how to swim. She waded in, toward the waterfall, and was happy to find that she could touch the bottom of the pool. Rayse followed behind her, wings still spread out.
“Are you trying to make me lose my senses, d
oing this?” he said in a playful tone.
“Perhaps.” She brushed her hair back and smiled at him.
She tried not to think too much about the scars that had returned. Her followers had been shocked by her new form at first, but most accepted her after some explanation. And Rayse—he almost sounded like a parrot yesterday, constantly repeating how he still found her gorgeous. Repeat something enough, and maybe it would become true. She still didn’t believe him, or perhaps she couldn’t accept herself, but at least she could be slightly more comfortable with her body around him.
He circled his hands around her waist, then kissed her shoulder. “You are a dream, little fire.”
“This is a dream.” It felt like one. She ambled toward a shimmering crystal rock and laid her back on it. The jagged ridges pressed against her skin, but it was nothing too uncomfortable. Rayse rested his weight on her, careful not to hurt her.
He was magnificent with his wings revealed behind him. She wondered how she’d ever managed to find that image of him scary.
She lifted her hand and ran it through his damp hair.
“Are you certain that I cannot have you?” he asked.
She lowered her eyes. “We cannot let the bond form.”
“That’s too cruel.”
He tipped her chin up and took his lips with hers. She opened her mouth, inviting him in, and he entered her with his tongue. Her knees trembled with weakness. She couldn’t take the pressure of him. He’d always been too intense, and filled with the madness of love, she could never tire of coming back for more.
His back was slick with water, but she held on to him for dear life. This man had her heart so tightly in his grasp that it hurt.
Together—at least after today, they’d be one in both life and death.
Her breath hitched as Rayse’s hand found her folds. He played with her, making her unable to think straight. She wrapped her legs around his waist. More. Even if he were with her for a hundred, a thousand more years, she could never have enough of Rayse Everstone.
“I love you,” he said, as he drew back.
Her orgasm drew near. Tears fell from her eyes, mixing with the saltiness of the lake. She’d treasure this moment for as long as she could.
Fractured Souls (Soul of a Dragon Book 3) Page 13
