Dragonsworn

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Medea had to bite back a sarcastic laugh at that. Azura and Noir were two of the most lethal and dangerous gods the universe had ever spat out. It said a lot about his mother that she'd ever think to take them on--it was something her own mother might have done in her youth.

  Lilith was either extremely brave or radically stupid. Yet honestly, Medea couldn't imagine anyone being enough of either to ever try to take on one primal power.

  Never mind two ...

  His mother's reputation in history was starting to make sense.

  "How did she hope to defeat them?"

  "She and her sisters began to breed a race of dragons to take down all the pantheons. If they were cursed to only birth monsters, they decided they were going to make the most of it and use us to battle them."

  "No wonder your childhood was bleak."

  Fire lit his eyes, turning them a vibrant orange. "You have no idea."

  Was he serious?

  "No idea what it means to be cursed? To bleed for the actions of others over something I had no part in? Oh, yeah. I have no concept whatsoever of what that's like. At all."

  Falcyn winced as he realized how stupid he must have sounded to make such a complaint to her. An Apollite. Of all the creatures, in all the worlds, she was the only one who understood him. Who knew exactly his pain. "Sorry. Forgot my audience."

  She shrugged with a nonchalance he was sure she didn't really feel. "It's fine. I learned long ago that no one is immune from misery. And some of us, it stalks like its favorite bitch in heat."

  He paused to cup her cheek. "I'm sorry for all you've lost. Innocents should never be forced to pay for the acts of others. Each drop of blood shed by them is an indictment against the entire world for its heartlessness."

  She placed her hand over his as her eyes burned him with the depth of her pain and courage. His gut tightened as she met his gaze and he saw the truth inside her. Saw the horrors she didn't dare speak about because they hurt so much that to give voice to them only crippled you more. So the only way to survive was to bury the agony so deep that you could overlook it most days, and to pray to the gods that you never cracked open the door where they were kept.

  And still her gaze burned him deep inside his soul. "You were the first dragon made, weren't you?"

  He winced at a truth he never spoke of. Many suspected, but he'd never confirmed nor denied it. Not even Max knew for certain. A tiny, tiny handful of others knew, and they never breathed a word of it.

  There was no reason to keep it a secret, really, other than he felt somehow responsible for all his siblings born to their demonic mothers.

  As if he could have stopped it had he been a better killer for his mother and her sisters. A better dragon.

  Xyn had shared in that. She'd been born only a year after him. Together, they had tried to placate their mothers' wraths.

  And failed miserably.

  The gods made vicious enemies, and the two of them had been bonded by their efforts to rectify the hatred. Bonded by their scars.

  "Falcyn?"

  "Yes. I was first."

  Medea swallowed at those whispered words. Her poor dragon. She couldn't imagine the nightmare he'd been through. Her own was staggering enough. And here in this one moment, she felt closer to him than she'd ever felt to another.

  "We are the guinea pigs," she said with a sigh. "And as such, we're always fried from the experimentation."

  He laughed bitterly. "True."

  With a ragged sigh, she glanced about the forest. "Where do you think the others are?"

  "I don't know, and I don't like not knowing. I've never been without my powers in this manner. It's ... irritating. And it's not something I'm used to."

  She agreed. "We are such similar creatures, you and I."

  "For a Daimon and a dragon, you mean."

  "Both spawned by evil, to do evil. Like the Malachai."

  Falcyn considered that as they walked. The Malachai was one of the most evil demons out there. The king of them all, as it were. Luckily, there was only one of them left alive. The rest had been slaughtered long ago.

  "Have you ever met the Malachai?"

  Medea nodded. "The current Malachai served my father for a time. Killed my aunt. Have you met him?"

  He passed a guarded stare toward her before he answered in an insidious tone. "I've met all of them."

  Her jaw went slack at that knowledge. The current Malachai--Nick Gautier--was merely the latest in a line of thousands of them.

  And each one lived for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years.

  For Falcyn to have met them all would make him older than her grandfather Apollo.

  Make him older than she could truly conceive.

  Crap on a shingle ... literally.

  "Exactly when were you born?"

  He gave her an evil, cocky grin. "Let me put it this way, I fought in the Primus Bellum."

  The first war of the gods ...

  Her jaw dropping, Medea froze as that knowledge staggered her most of all. And with it came another startling realization as she recalled something Urian had told her about Falcyn's dragonstone and why it was so special.

  "Your stone isn't like the others, is it?"

  He didn't answer.

  And by that silence, he told her everything. If he were that old and the son of two gods--even one who was cursed--his stone would have to be older than the others, too. More powerful.

  Urian's voice whispered through her mind. "Can even bring the dead back to life."

  That power was reserved for very few, and out of the few able to do it ...

  "Holy shit," she breathed as all the pieces came together in a blinding realization. "You're the ancient war god Veles." That was why he could shapeshift when the others couldn't. He wasn't just a dragon.

  As he'd said, he was a god.

  "And that's not a dragonstone you carry, at all ... It's the effing dragonsworn. The world egg!"

  The birthstone of the original gods.

  Staring up at him, she saw the truth that he didn't bother to deny. "I'm right, aren't I?"

  Falcyn started to tell her she was insane. Since the dawn of time, he'd carried that secret. Told no one the truth about himself or his stone.

  No one.

  He had no reason whatsoever to trust her. And every reason to remain silent.

  And yet when he looked at her, he lost himself to the darkness of those eyes. The softness of her lips. Before he could think better of it, he nodded.

  Because he was the first, and because Noir was his father, he held more powers than any of his siblings. And it was because of his father and his mother's wrath that he'd been deemed and worshiped as the very first war god of the world.

  "But how can it be?"

  He shrugged at the simple, complicated truth of what he was. "When Chaos and Order spun together for the first time and joined to make life out of nothing, the egg came from the friction of their union. From that initial explosion, the north wind carried that first egg and set it down upon the earth to keep it from shattering. Out of the darkness sprang light that cracked it in two, and Shyamala emerged into existence first, followed by her other six siblings--though they often lie and mislead about who was born first and in what order. Never understood why, but apparently it's an issue between them. The order, however and regardless of what they claim, is simple. Braith. Cam. Rezar. Verlyn. Lilith. Kadar. Three born of order. Three of chaos. Three of light. Three of dark. When Lilith was born, they say she slipped or was possibly pushed, and was damaged in the fall, thus causing her powers to mix back together. She was neutral in the beginning. Willful. Insatiably curious, and in an effort to repair herself, she took the pieces of the egg and fused them back together with their conjoined DNA. But she never told the others what she'd done. It was her secret."

  "Then how did you get it?"

  "I was born from it, too, after Shyamala, or Azura as she's now known, forbid me to be born from my mother's womb. She made it

so that my mother would never be capable of a live birth--that we'd be born dead. Contrary as always and determined that Azura wouldn't get the best of her, my mother cut me from her womb and decided that I and my siblings would be egg-born creatures who could be hidden from Azura's wrath. That way, even if Azura or one of the other gods killed the lilit mothers my mother had created from her own blood for the bitch to get in on her good graces, the cursed egg-born babies would survive without their mothers."

  Medea frowned as she tried to understand Lilith's reasoning. "Why did your mother create the others, knowing the gods would try to kill them too?"

  Raking his hand through his hair, he sighed. "The lilit were her decoys to distract Azura and the others from me and my sister. But my mother lost her sanity in the process and with it became the very demon they'd dubbed her. We were quickly forgotten as her children and became tools to be used in her war against them all."

  "And your father?"

  "Is a worthless bastard who makes yours appear loving in comparison. All he ever wanted me for was vengeance against the other gods. I never meant anything to him, other than to be used as a tool. If there's anything or anyone Noir values, I don't know it. I doubt if he even cares for Azura. I don't think he's capable of caring about anything."

  "Well, from what I hear, world domination."

  Falcyn snorted. "Yeah. That would be it. The gods know, it was never his children or sister-wife."

  That made sense. Medea was silent for a while as they made their way through the forest. Her head reeled with this new information about Falcyn and his family. There was so much she'd have never guessed at, and it made her wonder something else.

  "Why did you change your name from Veles to Falcyn?"

  He shrugged. "I grew bored with pantheon politics. Was never much of a team player anyway."

  "Yeah, I remember hearing those stories about Veles."

  A playful light sparked in his eyes. "Probably all true. Especially the gory parts."

  "And you're avoiding my question again. Why the name change?"

  The light went out in his eyes and pain replaced the spark. "After the destruction of my last temple, I went to live in seclusion. It was my sister who renamed me Falcyn for the reaping-hook-shaped claws I have and because it was always my weapon of choice in battle whenever I fought as a human. Once she was gone, I kept the name to remind me of her as if it was all I had left of Xyn."

  No wonder he'd avoided answering it. Now she felt terrible for having pressed the issue. "I like it, and it suits you better than Veles, I think."

  A twisted half smile curved his handsome lips. "I'm going to take that as a compliment."

  "Good, 'cause I meant it as one.... And tell me, Lord Falcyn, what does the dragon who has lived so long value?"

  She realized too late that was the wrong question, as his eyes flared to a deep, dark red and he slowed his walk. More than that, he clenched his fists and lowered his head.

  "Why would a Daimon leader want to know?"

  "I was only making conversation. But I see now the depths of your mistrust. Not that I blame you. You've lived long enough to know better than to open yourself to a stranger. So I won't fault you for that suspicion. You are a wise dragon, indeed."

  He pulled her to a stop. "Tell me what you value."

  "Nothing, really. Just my mother and Davyn. Some days my father and brother."

  "Only some days?"

  She let out a bitter laugh. "Sad, right? I still barely know them. I want to love my father, but it's hard to forgive him for what my mother went through. For all the centuries I watched her cry for him."

  "And what of Urian?"

  "I love my brother because he's my brother. But by the time I came to know him, he served Acheron--our worst enemy, who hunts us and who trains Artemis's army to kill us. How can I trust someone who's in service to my enemy? I understand his hatred of Stryker. I won't fault him for despising someone who cut his throat and murdered his wife. But at the same time, I'm not dumb enough to trust Urian with anything more than a sister's love. I carry no expectations of him beyond that."

  "Yet you sought him out in this matter?"

  "Only because I trust in his love of Davyn. While I might not be able to put Urian at my back, his history with Davyn is such that I doubt he'd betray his one, true brother. They've bled far too often for one another in the past and have too much history with each other. I trust Davyn and Davyn trusts Urian."

  Falcyn scoffed as they came to a jagged edge. He turned to help her up the small embankment. "That is some screwed-up logic, my lady. Sad that I understand it and can relate. As you said, we are similar creatures."

  Medea didn't speak as he lifted her effortlessly to stand by his side. He was a massive beast. Stronger than any man she'd been with in a long time. And she'd always been a sucker for great strength.

  Worse was how much she liked the scent of his skin. He was intoxicating.

  Even now, she could still taste his lips from the kiss he'd given her. And when he met her gaze, she knew that those thoughts were bare to his sage dragon sense.

  Before she even realized what she was doing, she leaned in to kiss him again.

  Falcyn closed his eyes as he tasted her and the sweetest passion he'd ever known. Unlike Tisiphone, she didn't judge him for a birth he couldn't help. Or think him unnecessarily harsh for the feelings and grudges he had against a brutal world.

  She understood. Especially since she now knew he was a war god. A secret he never let anyone else know.

  And he'd never been held by a similar creature before. Because dragons shared a common gene pool and history, he'd avoided sleeping with one, as he viewed all their females as his sisters.

  His hatred for his mother had kept him away from demons. So most of his lovers had come from humans and the fey. Never had he been with an Apollite or Daimon. Since they were Greek in origin and he despised the Greeks for what they'd done to his race and his brethren, he considered them disgusting creatures.

  Yet there was no scorn inside him for this woman. Not even a tiny morsel of it.

  She fisted her hands in his shirt, pressing him closer against her body. Breathless, he deepened their kiss, wanting her more than he'd ever wanted anything.

  Terrified of where those feelings might lead him, he tore away from her lips.

  "Push me away, Medea," Falcyn said raggedly. "Tell me how much I repulse you and that you don't want anything to do with a sullen, self-pitying bastard who has no use for this world or any other."

  Medea frowned at his unexpected words. Who had said such to him?

  "I don't find you repulsive, dragonfly. Far from it."

  He cupped her face and stared at her. His eyes were dark and filled with a soul-deep torment she didn't quite understand.

  "Say it, Medea," he insisted. "Because right now, all I want is to be inside you out here in the woods like the animal I am. And I know how very wrong it is to crave you when there's nothing for either one of us. I know you deserve better and that we don't have time for it. But honestly, I don't give a shit about that or anything else. All I can think about right now is you and how much I want you."

  His words shocked her as much for his sincerity as for the ragged desperation she heard in his voice.

  Worse, it made her body hot and shivery. Needful. Things she hadn't felt in so long that she'd almost forgotten what it was like to be this way with another. This wasn't just a biological itch. There was more to her feelings for him.

  Something scary and demanding.

  Something she didn't want to deny.

  She'd felt it since the moment she'd walked into Sanctuary and first seen him in the crowd.

  Strange, she'd always wondered what it would be like to lay with one of the other species--either a man or Were. In her wildest fantasies, she'd sometimes imagined how they would take a woman. If they'd be violent or tender. Or as gentle as her own husband, who'd won her heart when she'd been nothing more than an innocent girl so long ago in their ancient world.

  But it was this fearsome dragon who called out to her now. A fierce, harsh beast who held tolerance for none. His anger was so evident, it was practically tangible.

  Don't.

  The word hovered in her mind like a breathless phantom. It would be all kinds of foolish to sleep with him. He was the son of two of the most powerful ancient bloodlines and she was the daughter of a cursed race and a god at war with his pantheon.

  A race he hated. They had no future together at all. How could they?

  She might even conceive his child. And then where would they be?

  But instead of horrifying her as it'd always done in the past, the thought actually made her heart leap. The fear of having another child was no longer there. Because she knew that Falcyn would protect their baby with the same insanity that he used to keep Blaise safe.

  That he used so that he could shield her.

  How much more determination would Falcyn show for his own?

  No ...

  This dragon wouldn't allow a mere human to harm their baby. Ever. He would give his life before he saw it skin its knee. He'd be the kind of father she'd dreamed of. Unlike her own, he would never leave. Never allow his child to be alone or be harmed.

  And for the first time in centuries, she saw a future for herself where she wasn't alone. One that wasn't bitter.

  Stop it, Medea!

  It was too late. The floodgate was open and all those repressed dreams rushed over her. All she'd ever wanted was a baby to love. A life to share with someone else.

  Her mother had always said her reckless heart would lead her astray.

  Today it had led her straight to Falcyn Drakos. And even though she knew this was complete and utter insanity, she refused to back down.

  "Make love to me, Falcyn."

  9

  Falcyn was completely stunned by her words. Medea was supposed to curse him and shove him away from her. Slap his face or cut out his heart.

  She wasn't supposed to want him.

  A decent man would pull away from her. But he wasn't decent. Nor was he a man. He was feral to the core of his dragon being and harder than hell. A dragon who took what he wanted, consequences be damned.

  It was what had gotten him into trouble with Igraine. Drugged and reeling, he'd acted out with her in the heat of passion, and then paid dearly for it.

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