None of the men looked surprised to see him. They simply watched, smug looks on their faces, while the spell flowed through the room.
"Seth," Carol said, her eyes wide. Should we?
Seth wrapped his arms around her from behind and pressed his face to her shoulder. He felt her relax to him, then his fire flowed into her.
The exercises they'd done served her well. Seth closed his eyes and basked in Carol's warmth as a part of him became part of her.
His fire twined through her, turning the threads between them white-hot. He opened his mouth and pressed his teeth to her neck.
The fire magic swept through the room, popping the dark wards from every door and window. Seth saw through Carol's eyes the inky threads draw back, the men who'd cast them watching worriedly.
Carol raised her hand and let fire flow out of her fingertips. She was taking too much and Seth couldn't stop her, but the men of the Order cowered and shrank away.
The men in the hall reached for each other, joining hands to increase the spell. Darkness reared toward Carol, but she washed it with fire.
Seth grunted with the impact of it, fire and darkness fighting each other. Pain jarred up and down his spine, but under him, he felt Carol sparkle with fire, heard her laugh.
His head throbbed and every nerve flared with pain. He tasted blood, felt tears trickle from his eyes. She was reaching into him and taking the essence of him, draining him while he gasped for breath.
The men fell back, terrified. Idiots. They had no idea what they'd awakened, provoking a Dragon Master to wield a fire dragon's power, but Seth knew all too well.
He'd tried to hold back from Carol, fearing he'd hurt her, but he now realized the danger to himself. He was sweating and shaking, barely containing his agony.
When the fire rushed back into him, he cried out with it. The men of the Order were breathing hard, expressions of fear and pain on their faces, every single ward and dark magic thread in the house gone.
"We're leaving," Carol said in a clear voice. "Zhen, come down here."
Seth straightened, but he was clumsy and half fell against Carol.
Carol swung around. "Seth, are you all right?"
She sang with strength, her skin sparkling. She was beautiful and terrible at the same time�a Dragon Master alive with power.
"Seth," she whispered as everything went dark for him. She caught him around his waist as he collapsed.
* * *
Chapter Eighteen
"Help me with him." Carol shouted the words at Fai, who was sitting in the driver's seat like he could start her car by sheer willpower.
Reluctantly, Fai got out and opened the rear door as Carol staggered under Seth's weight down the driveway. Seth was still conscious, but barely. Zhen took hurried half-steps behind them, reaching with his wizened arms for the dragon-man who was easily three times his size.
When Carol had seen Seth's face drained of all color, with blood leaking from his mouth, it had terrified her. Blasting away the dark spell of the Order hadn't frightened her half as much as watching Seth crumple and fall.
She got Seth onto the back seat, where he collapsed full length. "Give him your coat," she said to Fai. When he hesitated, she slapped him with the residual of her fire magic, leaving a red crease across his face.
Fai gave her a shocked look, then peeled off his coat and laid it over Seth's inert body.
Zhen crawled into the back seat with Seth and cradled Seth's head on his lap. Fai got into the front passenger seat, uninvited, and sat with his hands folded, saying nothing.
"Give me your cell phone," Carol commanded as she started the car.
Fai silently unhooked it from the holder on his belt and handed it to her. Carol punched her grandmother's number and held the phone away from her ear when Ming Ue answered with her usual shout.
"Hello, this is Ming Ue's."
"Grandmother, you told me that black dragons were healers, right? Will you tell Malcolm to meet me at my apartment? I'm heading there with Seth."
"What's wrong with Seth?" Ming Ue screeched. "Where is Zhen?"
"I have them both. I don't have time to explain. Please call Malcolm."
"I'll send him, don't worry." Ming Ue clicked off the phone, and Carol peeled out of the driveway onto the steep street. It figured that the Order would take a house in Twin Peaks, she thought grumpily. The demon-god's power had manifested much material wealth.
"What about me?" Fai asked her. The wealthy businessman was pale and contrite, a view that the newspapers likely never saw.
"I'll drop you off at a bus stop," Carol growled at him, and zipped on down the hill.
Seth lay across her bed like a dead man. Carol pressed her hands to her lips and studied the pasty pallor of his skin, the bruises under his eyes. She'd piled blankets on him, not liking the cold of his body, and he lay unmoving under them.
Malcolm stood on the other side of the bed, his mouth a grim line. "I can't do much for him here. I'd have to take him back to Dragonspace, where I can tap into all my healing powers."
"Would it hurt to move him?"
"Probably. On the other hand, it might help him if he could revert to his dragon form."
"And he can only do that in a place where everyone believes in dragons? That seems so fairy-tale-like to me."
"Where do you think fairy tales come from?" Malcolm asked. "They're stories about true things that have gotten twisted around through the centuries."
Carol's heart squeezed in fear. She could still feel some of Seth's fire in her, but she couldn't seem to give it back to him. "I just don't want him to die."
"Why not?" Malcolm said with his quiet sarcasm. "You're a Dragon Master, you can call any dragon you want. If you use one up, there's an entire world of them waiting."
Anger welled up inside her, and before she could stop it, she lashed a fiery thread at Malcolm. She caught his silver aura and the first notes of his name and wrapped them tight.
"Do you think I want anything to happen to Seth?" she demanded.
"I think you can't help yourself," Malcolm rasped.
"I don't ever, ever want to hurt him."
"So Seth is safe from you, but black dragons who are trying to help you aren't?"
Carol gave his name one last twist, then let go. "It's the same for me as if it were Saba for you."
Malcolm gave her a quiet nod, the only sign that he'd been in pain a slight sheen of perspiration on his lip. "I did hurt Saba. I almost killed her trying to force her to use her powers to help me. I believed in her, I knew my witch was strong, but she almost died because of me."
"Then you do understand."
"You're saying that you love him."
Carol smoothed Seth's hair back from his forehead. His eyes were open slightly, cracks of black against his pale face.
"I think I am," she said softly. "I've never fallen in love before, so I'm not sure."
Malcolm gave her the ghost of a smile. "Then we have something in common. I had never fallen in love until I met my Saba. Black dragons don't fall in love."
Carol thought of the way Malcolm's voice gentled when he talked about Saba, how his usual cynical expression dissolved when he looked at his daughter, Adara. Her heart gave a painful throb.
"Will you have to take him to Dragonspace?" she asked. "Can Lisa open a way anywhere, or do we have to take him to her apartment?"
Malcolm drew a small velvet bag out of his pocket and opened the drawstring. He poured a handful of amethysts across Seth's chest and pressed Seth's hands over them.
"You can help him right here, you know," Malcolm said. "You hold his true name."
"How can that save him?"
"That's the power of the true name, life and death. The essence of us. You can crush it, or you can nurture it."
"I'm glad you have so much confidence in me."
"You're much like my Saba. You have the power in you Carol, but you must draw it and use it."
"Is there a guideb
ook?" Carol asked, feeling slightly hysterical. "How to be a Dragon Master! You say you have everything in that Archive of yours."
"It's all here." Malcolm reached over and touched her temple. "Put your hands on mine. I'll walk you through it."
Carol drew a breath and placed her hands over Malcolm's. His were warm, but Seth's beneath his were ice-cold.
"Sing his name. Take that music and put it into the stones, and then I'll spread the healing through his body. Ready?"
Carol tried to steady herself, and then realized the effort was futile. She closed her eyes and reached for the firehued music of Seth's name.
He grunted when she started, everything in him resisting.
"Keep going," Malcolm said.
When Carol tried to deliberately make her mind repeat the notes, she realized she couldn't find them. She let her thoughts go blank, like she'd learned to when she took his fire, then she quietly reached for the notes again.
His name sang through her mind, a beautiful, powerful melody that twined around her heart.
Seth, I love you. Don't leave me.
"Pour it into the stones," Malcolm said.
Carol pictured the pile of purple stones on Seth's chest and channeled the music into them. The stones resonated, picking up the name and doubling it, tripling it.
Malcolm's hands twitched, and she felt a blade of heat stab from the stones into Seth. Seth moaned.
Carol kept singing his name. She saw without opening her eyes the purple glow expand and cover Seth's chest then his neck and face. It spread down his limbs, bathing him in healing purple fire.
She felt his pain ease, his body reach for the magic. Malcolm muttered something under his breath, a whispered chant in a language she didn't know. The words grew louder as Seth grew stronger.
Suddenly, the crystals burst apart, shards of amethyst exploding into purple fragments. Sharp bits cut Carol's cheek until Malcolm shoved her out of the way.
Seth had opened his eyes. He glared at them weakly, but a flush stained his cheeks.
Carol sat down next to him, brushing the remains of the stones from his chest. "Are you all right?"
"No, I feel like shit."
Malcolm gathered up pieces of amethyst and rolled the larger stones back into his bag. "Snark is a good sign in a dragon."
"What happened?" Seth asked in a weak voice. "I remember you wiping out the spell in the big house on the hill, but nothing after that. Where is the incubus?"
"What incubus?" Malcolm growled.
"The one who led me to the house." Seth wet his lips and told Carol a tale of finding a dozen incubi who knelt to him and pledged their loyalty. "Not that I trust them."
Carol thought of the white-haired incubus who had called to her in her dream. He'd been beautifully handsome and repulsive at the same time.
"They led you to Zhen?"
"They might have led me there so the Order could take me, along with you." Seth squeezed Carol's hand. "What I don't understand is what you were doing there, with a member of the Order."
"Mr. Benedict Fai, well-known business leader of San Francisco. I think he wanted me to take his side against the rest of the Order. Why shouldn't he benefit from my anger at them?"
Malcolm's brows rose. "Fai? I've heard about him. I wonder how the city would feel if it were made known he was in the Order with Danny Lok and other criminals?"
"It's tempting to spread the word," Carol said. "But he has two daughters, and the scandal would ruin them. I'm not sure I could do that."
Malcolm shook his head. "Compassion. It can be a mistake."
"I'd like to think it's never a mistake. Fai is just a selfish man who wants everything no matter what the cost. Worshipping their demon-god certainly has benefited members of the Order."
"Not for long," Seth promised. "We can't let the Order release him."
"I agree." Malcolm stood up, shoving the bag of stones into his pocket. "But you're not ready to fight him yet. I'm a healer, and I advise that you rest for a few days before you and Carol attempt sharing any magic again." He gave Carol a pointed look. "Of any kind."
Carol flushed. "Thanks for being here, Malcolm."
"In Dragonspace, I might have let him die."
"That's brutal."
"That's the way of things among dragons. He consorted with a Dragon Master, endangering all of us. He'd have died. Caleb would agree."
"This isn't Dragonspace," Carol pointed out.
"Saba would say the same." Malcolm actually smiled, then he touched her on the shoulder and left the room.
"Black dragons," Seth rumbled from the bed. "Most arrogant bastards in the universe."
"I heard that." Malcolm's voice floated to them, then they heard the front door close behind him.
Carol stretched out on the bed beside Seth, laying her head on his pillow and resting her hand on his chest. "I was so scared."
"You shouldn't have gone in there. I was ready to snatch Zhen and take him back to your grandmother's, and then you came driving up in your car. You should have stayed safe in the restaurant."
"I meant to until Fai came in. I knew right then I could drive up to that house, get Zhen, and walk out again. They were afraid of me. I don't understand why, but they are."
"Because they know you could destroy them. And you have reason to, because of your mother. Their god is trapped for now, and they can't fight you."
Carol traced his cheek. "Is there any way we can destroy or bind the god without opening the column? You were there when it was made."
"I remember little of it. I think the Dragon Master wiped my mind, so I wouldn't know how it was done. He didn't want it opened again."
Carol traced his cheek. "He needed your dragon fire to make the column."
"That's why I think it will take my dragon fire to unmake it." He kissed her lips, but the caress was weak, betraying his exhaustion. "But I don't think either one of us will survive it."
Carol blinked in shock. Seth could feel the flutter of the fire magic between them and the musical syllables of his name in her head.
"Why do you say that?" she asked.
"If I fill you entirely, I will lose my fire, and then my life. I was afraid of killing you, but I'm certain now that I'm the one who will be drained."
Carol stared at him with wide dark eyes, her panic welling through their thought threads. "Then we can't do it. Forget about trying to kill the demon-god. It's not worth it."
"The Order gets its power from him," Seth said.
"It's too big a risk." Carol rose up on her knees. "I've built my career understanding risk and reward. We don't know if we can banish or kill the demon-god, and I'm not going to lose you trying."
"We'd have two Dragon Masters and a fire dragon."
"One Dragon Master who was trapped for two thousand years, another Dragon Master who still can't control her powers, and a fire dragon convinced he'll die. I don't like those odds."
"If we do nothing, the Order continues to stalk you. You wouldn't let me kill them all, remember?"
Carol scraped her hand through her hair. "Does everything have to be about violence?"
"In the world of dragons it does."
"Can't we do something else? What about your idea of dropping the column into the ocean?"
He shook his head. "I'm sure now that the Order could retrieve it. They will keep at you until they find some way to make you do their bidding." He paused. "And eventually they will try to coerce your children if they don't succeed with you. The problem will only be passed down."
A sadness entered her eyes. "I probably will never have children. I doubt I'll get married."
"You might have my children."
Her gaze sharpened. "You're a dragon."
"Yes, but Saba and Malcolm successfully produced offspring. I am human here, and perhaps I can create children the human way."
He sensed her agitation grow. "I thought Saba could only have the children of a dragon because of Lisa's magic. My grandmot
her told me that�I thought she was crazy at the time."
"I am more magical than a black dragon. Maybe my seed can stay." Seth touched her abdomen, liking the idea of a child of his growing there.
"It's impossible."
"Not so impossible."
Carol went silent. She moved her hand across his on her stomach as though carrying a child was a new and strange idea, one that terrified her more than facing a demon-god did.
"Is this a bad thing?" Seth asked. He'd seen that humans doted on their offspring, but the idea seemed to dismay her.
"No." She said the word vehemently. "It's not a bad thing. But it's all the more reason I don't want anything to happen to you." She took her hand away. "Anyway, we don't know if you can give me children. Nothing's for certain."
Seth sent his threads through her, touching what he'd learned to touch while they shared his fire.
"It is possible," he said softly.
Carol closed her eyes. She liked to do that when faced with new and frightening information, and he waited until she processed it all.
"I can't be a mother," she said. "I never had a mother�I don't know how to be one." She opened her eyes and looked at him. "I don't even know what I have with you."
"You're a Dragon Master. You command the power of dragons."
"And you hate it."
Seth laced his arm behind his head. He was feeling better, Malcolm's cure having restored some of his dragon strength. "I hated when the other Dragon Master held me. It was cruel and degrading and I wanted to kill him."
"And this time?"
His voice softened. "This time, I want to be free and find out whether my need for you is true or part of the bond."
"So you never wanted to go to bed with the other Dragon Master?" she asked with a little smile.
"I was a dragon then, and you are a female. I thought that was the only explanation at first."
He didn't think so anymore, though there was still no certainty. But he knew that he loved to touch her and taste her and feel her body with his. He'd never wanted this with any living creature, and the pull to her was so strong.
"When I figure out how to break the bond, maybe you'll feel nothing," Carol said. "Maybe you'll want to rush back to Dragonspace, or maybe you'll try to kill me so it won't happen again."
The Dragon Master Page 19
