Touched by a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 6) - Paranormal Fairy Tale Romance

by Alisa Woods

  Where was the totem?

  Fuck. Somehow he had lost track of the thing and forgotten all about it. Holy fucking… he couldn’t believe it. He hurriedly stomped out of the room, ignoring the startled stares of the witches.

  “Lucian!” he called.

  His brother whipped around from his conversation with Leksander. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need the bronze dragon totem.” His voice was all growl. Where was it?? “I can’t fucking remember what I did with it.”

  “What?” Leksander was incredulous, but it wasn’t like Leonidas wasn’t already furious with himself. “You lost it?”

  “I didn’t lose it!” he shouted. The couch. He started tearing off the cushions. “I just misplaced it.” Nothing. He pressed the heels of his hands to his temples. Think.

  “When did you have it last?” Lucian asked, voice rough with tension.

  Leksander was cursing in dragontongue and had started tearing up the place too.

  “I can’t remember…” Leonidas banged his fist against his head. Think. “Wait…” He pointed a finger at Lucian. “You gave it to me.”

  Lucian nodded. “Here in your lair. You put it—”

  “In my pocket.” Leonidas patted his pants, but they were conjured less than an hour ago when he got out of the shower. He pressed both fists to his head again. “You gave it to me right before Rosalyn returned. Right before we tried to heal her.”

  “So what did you do after that?”

  After that, he and Rosalyn had made love on the couch… and a hundred other places. But the couch first. He stared at the tossed cushions. “It has to be here. Somewhere around the couch.”

  All three were picking up cushions, crawling on hands and knees, and generally cursing like madmen when Rosalyn shuffled into the room. “What are you doing?” she asked, looking at them like they were crazy.

  “Just… looking for something…” Leonidas was crazed, still searching, peering under the couch. How could he possibly lose something that might mean life or death for his child and his mate?

  “Was it a little bronze dragon?” Rosalyn asked.

  All three froze. A heartbeat later, Leonidas leaped to his feet. “Do you know where it is?”

  She frowned, still looking at him like he was mad. “I found it on the floor. I put it upstairs on the shelf by the tub. I meant to ask you about it, but I—”

  “It’s fine!” Leonidas dropped a fast kiss on her cheek. “I’ll go get it.” He dashed across the receiving room and down the hall, toward the stairs up to the bedroom he shared with Rosalyn. He took the steps two at a time, relief warring with a crazy tension still in his chest. Even with the totem, he had no idea if it would help. It was something to soothe a crying baby. How could that possibly save their lives? Then again, it was fae magic. Who the hell knew? Even though he commanded that magic in his own blood, it wasn’t like he understood it, beyond how it enhanced his dragon capabilities and added a few extra abilities.

  By the time he reached the room, he could hear heavy footsteps pounding the stairwell behind him. He dashed over to the tub, looking all around it for a shelf. It was a claw-footed tub, very old-fashioned, and there was a small table next to it with soap and a hand towel, but no dragon.

  Leksander and Lucian tromped into the room.

  “Find it?” Lucian asked.

  “No,” Leonidas growled.

  “Maybe it fell?” Leksander was already on his belly on the floor, peering under the tub. “Nothing,” he called.

  “She said the shelf.”

  “I heard her.” Leonidas’s was ready to crawl out of his skin. “There’s no shelf!” The tub was near a wall and a chair and the tiny stand and… Fuck. “The other tub.”

  “What—”

  But Leonidas was already dashing to the small, modern bathroom Leksander had remodeled for their master bedroom. It used to be a water closet, but it had been refashioned into a modern tub/shower combination bathroom—tiny, but it definitely had a tub and a shelf next to it. Leonidas almost panicked again, but then he found it tucked between Rosalyn’s perfume bottle and a bronze vase that held tiny white flowers for décor. No wonder he hadn’t seen it all this time—it was hidden in plain sight.

  “Got it!” he called out.

  His brothers were crowding the door to the bathroom.

  “So the birthing spell didn’t work,” Leksander said, eyes pinched. “And you’re going to use this instead?”

  “I can’t think of anything else.” Leonidas waved them out of his way. “Why are you up here, anyway?” he asked as he headed for the door to the bedroom.

  “Rosalyn said you weren’t tremendously skilled in finding things,” Lucian said dryly. “How does she know you so well?”

  Leonidas snorted a mirthless laugh as he hurried toward the stairs. By loving him? By saving him? By being everything he wanted out of life? And she was right about the inability to see what was plain in front of his face. He didn’t know how long the dragon totem had been there, but he had never noticed it.

  When he reached the receiving room, his brothers on his heels, Rosalyn was no longer there. Leonidas strode toward the small guest room in back. He hoped they were waiting for him and not already moving ahead with magically inducing the birth—

  Isadora and Alora were alone in the room.

  Leonidas glanced at the small toilet room. “Is she all right?” Concern cinched down on his chest.

  They exchanged a look. “I suppose,” Isadora said. “Wasn’t she just with you?”

  Leonidas’s eyes went wide. “She’s not here?” he asked, raking the room again quickly with his gaze. He dashed to the bathroom and threw open the door.

  She was gone.

  “Where did she go?” he demanded.

  But all four of them—Rosalyn’s mother and aunt, his two brothers—all had mystified looks on their faces. Leonidas flung out his fae senses and quickly scanned his lair. The wards were up so he couldn’t go any further…

  But Rosalyn was definitely gone.

  Rosalyn ran like her life depended on it.

  Only she was running toward her death, not away from it. Maybe.

  The keep’s slate floors were cold on her bare feet, and the thin nightgown didn’t give her much warmth either. But she didn’t have time to worry about any of that. She was racing toward the “closet,” and she just prayed that Erelah would remember their pact and be there. Or get there before Leonidas discovered she had slipped away—she knew he would let none of this happen.

  She figured she had at most a minute or two.

  Gasping for air, she reached the room and shoved open the door—Erelah stood in the center. Her blond hair was flying, and her blue eyes were fierce… and an angel blade was gripped in her hand, singing a high-pitched hum.

  The demon inside Rosalyn reacted immediately—her whole body seized up, hands and legs cramping. She barely limped inside and had to lean on the door to close it.

  “Does this lock?” she ground out between clenched teeth.

  Erelah stared at her, unmoving. “Would not matter, if it did. Your mate will break it down.”

  Rosalyn nodded shakily, then plastered her back against the door, legs bracing her against it. “Go quick,” she panted. “The demon…”

  “It knows me.” Her eyes blazed even more, but still, she didn’t move. “Are you certain, princess of the House of Smoke?”

  “Yes!” Rosalyn’s shout could probably be heard halfway down the hall outside. The demon was rising up, convulsing both her and her baby. If this damn angeling didn’t do something quick—

  Erelah cried out—a sound that was victory and power and ear-splitting energy—and lifted on white wings that had suddenly sprouted from her back. Then she sprang, clear across the room, blade raised.

  Rosalyn couldn’t help the shriek that came out of her mouth. Her arms reflexively went up as the demon surged—

  Erelah’s blade sank into her chest as she landed. Her other
hand was at Rosalyn’s neck, pinning her to the wall, but all Rosalyn could feel was the screaming pain of the blade. It was no earthly pain, not as simple as a steel weapon, no matter how piercing or deep. No, this blade was cleaving her soul… and holy fuck that hurt like nothing Rosalyn had ever experienced in her life. She screamed and screamed, and then her screams went dark and hoarse, and her arms flailed at the avenging warrior angel killing her. But her blows were weak, and Erelah’s power hummed straight through her blade down deep into Rosalyn’s magic.

  Her dragon magic.

  Her witch magic.

  Even that small bit of fae she had from Leonidas’s blood.

  All of it screamed and screamed… and died.

  Erelah yanked back, taking her blade with her, but there was no pain or agony as the humming magic of the angel’s weapon left Rosalyn’s body. Because everything was dead. The blade was made of magic, and there was no magic left in Rosalyn to kill.

  She felt empty. Hollow in a way that felt broken.

  But she was still very much alive, plastered up against the door, breath heaving. The angel blade left no wound—not even her nightgown was damaged. Erelah took another step back and examined her, mostly staring at Rosalyn’s belly. Rosalyn’s hand instinctively went there, and even without her core witch magic, she could sense the baby’s magic inside her.

  He was still alive. She let out a low breath of relief.

  “I had hoped,” Erelah said in a powerful angelvoice that hummed with righteousness, “that the demon would flee once I destroyed your magic. But it still clings to your child.” Her wings flexed behind her. She raised the blade and stalked forward.

  Rosalyn’s body flinched, but she was no longer controlled by the demon. She wouldn’t reflexively fight Erelah this time. “Do it,” Rosalyn panted. “Before I change my mind.” And before Leonidas can stop them. But she left that part unspoken.

  Erelah nodded and came close enough to touch, but held back. This time, there was no flying leap, no savage attack, but the baby inside Rosalyn kicked and squirmed as if it were fighting for its life. The demon. It had to sense Erelah’s presence. Erelah still held the blade like it was a butcher knife, but she splayed a hand across Rosalyn’s belly and angled the dagger like it was a precision scalpel.

  “Hold still, little prince,” Erelah whispered. Then she sang a song without words, a soft melody that vibrated the air but in a soothing way. All the tension went out of Rosalyn’s body with that music, and the baby quieted. Then slowly, slowly, without ceasing her song, Erelah slipped the blade directly into Rosalyn’s belly. She watched, wide-eyed—if she hadn’t seen it go in, she wouldn’t know anything at all had happened. She didn’t feel a thing. But the baby did, and even as the demon inside her son fought against the searing point of Erelah’s blade, the angel’s song kept him from leaping about in her womb.

  Erelah’s focus was complete. Rosalyn didn’t think she even breathed. But a slow smile grew on her face, and when the baby suddenly quieted altogether, she looked up and grinned at Rosalyn.

  “The demon is no more!” she proclaimed softly.

  With the music stopped, the dull haze of it lifted from Rosalyn’s body.

  But the baby had stopped moving altogether.

  Rosalyn’s heart stuttered. “The baby,” she whispered, horror creeping up her back. “Is it…?”

  Erelah sheathed her blade somewhere in the diaphanous dress she wore then dropped to one knee in front of Rosalyn. Erelah pressed her mouth, open and wide, to Rosalyn’s belly, giving it a strange open-mouthed kiss through the thin, white fabric of her nightgown. Rosalyn felt it surge through her like one of Leonidas’s magical touches—only less sexual pleasure and more just a vast, vibrating energy that filled her from the inside out. This pumping of energy seemed to go on and on, producing a euphoria that blotted out time. It was hard to know how long it lasted, but when Erelah released her, Rosalyn figured it must only have been a few seconds.

  She felt radiant… and then a horrible pain wracked her. It started in her back and moved forward in a wave. It felt like it was splitting her in two.

  Erelah looked suddenly alarmed. “You must bear the child.”

  “What?” Rosalyn gasped. She doubled over as another wave of pain hit her.

  “You must… you must have the baby!” Erelah said, looking even more panicked. “You no longer have your dragon magic to hold him! To the couch!” She tried to grab hold of Rosalyn’s hand, but all of Rosalyn’s limbs were cramping up again.

  Then a sudden bang at the door shook the entire wall that held it.

  Rosalyn stumbled away from it just before it swung open. Leonidas flew in, panic alive on his face. He ran to Rosalyn and scooped her off the ground.

  “What have you done?” he demanded, but the words weren’t for Rosalyn. The heat of his anger was directed at Erelah.

  Rosalyn grabbed at his shirt. “She helped—” But she was cut off by her own scream. The pain wracked her, and she arched in Leonidas’s arms with it.

  Leonidas spat some kind of curse she didn’t recognize, then hurried over to the couch and gently lay her on it. The pain was so consuming, she could barely breathe. And this time, when the wave ended, another one started up right away.

  “The baby is coming!” Erelah cried out, the panic in her voice sending shock waves of fear through Rosalyn’s chest.

  “Yes, I know!” Leonidas shouted at her, angry. He shouldn’t be. Erelah just gave her and the baby their best possible chance of surviving... even if she was now fully mortal and trying to give birth to an immortal and ridiculously strong-in-magic child. But he didn’t know Erelah had saved them both, and Rosalyn was in no shape to explain.

  She didn’t want to scream, but the pain blotted everything else out. She barely noticed the shuffling of feet and bodies around her. A flood of something filled her. Magic, her brain told her. Hands were all over her body, seeking her bare arms and legs and cheeks… and they were giving her magic. She wasn’t a witch anymore, so the magic didn’t resonate the way it had before, every time Leonidas touched her… now it was just a dull tingle of something, like a hand that’s fallen asleep just now coming back to life. But it was giving her strength to endure this magical birth, although it did nothing for the pain. If anything, the crashing waves of it just grew. And deep inside, the baby felt still.

  Too still.

  Her heart started to slow with that thought. It was breaking. She could feel it literally tearing itself apart, as if the angel blade were still in her chest, cleaving it in two.

  Words shouted all around her, but they swam in and out of meaning—she heard them, in between her own high-pitched screams, but their form didn’t always register in her brain as actual things that meant something.

  “But I gave it a kiss!”

  “Did it take?”

  “…not enough!”

  “But the baby…”

  “We’ll save it, Leonidas.”

  “Rosalyn. Rosalyn, my love, can you hear me?”

  “Just use it!”

  Then something cool was pressed to her belly, and that coolness spread like a spill of water through her stomach and back and the rest of her body, straight up to the hairs on her head, which were now standing on end. It dulled the roaring pain, and suddenly, she could think.

  Magic. It was definitely more magic. But not the kind she was used to. Not witch or dragon or even demon… this magic tasted like a cool summer breeze, but with the stirring strength of a hurricane whispering behind it. But with this new magic, she could sense her baby was in trouble.

  His tiny heart, made of dragon and witch, his father and his mother’s love… was weak. So weak that it barely beat in his tiny chest. Rosalyn gathered up all the magic that was flooding her body and gave it to him. The coolness calmed his distress. The strength of it bolstered his heart. And he recognized it, welcomed it, she could tell… like a long-lost cousin he knew and loved and embraced. It was then that she recognized the mag
ic for what it was—fae. Not just any fae, but royal Summer fae. She’d felt it stirring in the baby all along. Her son had always been made of his mother’s witching magic, and unfortunately, the demon. But he’d also beat strong with his father’s dragon magic, with its sprinklings of summer fae magic as well. The two magics—mother and father—had always held together inside him with a bond as strong as the love between her and Leonidas. She understood now why her True Love for her dragon prince was so vitally important to the growing of their child—their love was literally the thing that held him together. And now, as she fed her baby the dose of summer fae magic with all the love she had in her heart, she could feel him grab hold of it like the lifeline it was. He grew stronger, his heart beating with all the love and magic from both his mother and his father… and whichever distant summer fae relative had given him this life-saving dose of magic to pull him through.

  But as she fed it to him, the anesthetizing effects of the magic dimmed… and the pain came roaring back. She moaned and then groaned, and then the pain worked deep down inside her. It felt like she might break in two with it, so the screams were coming out whether she wanted or not. Yet, her mind remained clear enough that she could tell Leonidas was losing his mind next to her.

  “Rosalyn, my love.” He was holding her head, cradling it, with another hand on her belly.

  “The baby,” she gasped. She had this sudden sense of tightness that went beyond the pain. Like the baby wanted out, and it didn’t mean later… it meant right now. Some of the magic she had fed to him seemed to bounce back to her, urging her on.

  “Yes, the baby.”

  Her hand was shaking, but she managed to bring it to Leonidas’s beautiful face. His cheeks were wet.

  “S-okay.” Her words were choppy. “The baby…”

  Leonidas’s face twisted. “I know. You gave your magic for him. You gave this magic to him.” He held up the tiny bronze dragon, the one he had apparently been holding to her belly. “Rosalyn, my love—”

  “The baby!” she gasped again. He wasn’t understanding her. But it didn’t matter… this baby was going to be born no matter if Leonidas understood or not. The urgent need to push overcame her, so she didn’t bother explaining anymore, she just curled up over the child who was ready to be born into the world and gave every ounce of strength she had to release him. It felt as though she was being turned inside out, or cracking in two, or somehow coming apart at the seams, but just when she thought she couldn’t bear the pressure anymore, there was a giant release as the baby slipped from her body and into the waiting hands of her mother.