Dragon in the Blood (Vale of Stars Book 2)

by Juliette Cross

  “Stupid man,” I whispered, sweeping his tousled hair from his forehead. “You should’ve told me.”

  But why would he? Since I’d pushed him away.

  “Stupid man,” I said again, for thinking I’d ever want anyone but him.

  Yes. I’d have to prove to him what he meant to me. If—no when—he came back to me.

  CHAPTER 25

  I stood within the open-air cloister of Morga’s Keep high upon the Carpian Range. So high, wispy clouds skirted the grounds of the priory—an ivory temple of slender columns and graceful lines. Dusk had settled, the sun leaving a shimmer of gold on the landscape.

  “Valla Moonring contemplates her place in the world,” said the voice behind me.

  I turned to find Brother Silvanus smiling as he approached, hands at his back.

  “I guess I am,” I said.

  “But it is more than that. You worry for your friend.”

  “I don’t understand why he won’t wake up.”

  Even with the wind blowing in a soft whoosh, this place was steeped in silence. One I felt to my bones.

  “He will when he is ready.”

  I heaved out a sigh. “I thought he would after Kera had given him the elixir to remove any poison from his blood. And after you and the brothers had…treated him.” For there was no other way to describe their meditative practice to reach Conn who’d retreated deep within himself.

  “Let me ask you this, Valla. Does he know that you love him?”

  I whipped sideways to face him. “Does he know that I…love him?”

  “There is no point in denying it. I know what your heart feels.”

  “Then I won’t deny it.”

  The grizzled man with wise eyes and an even wiser mind said, “Then go to him. And make sure he knows it.”

  Without argument, I walked across the stone cloister where the brothers meditated in prayer each sunrise. I crossed the border of fluted columns and down the enclosed corridor, then entered the small room where Conn had been resting since we’d arrived over a week ago.

  “Still no change?” I asked Kera as I closed the door and sat down on the stool next to her at Conn’s bedside.

  “No. None.”

  When Bastien had gone to the coven with Bowen to explain what had happened to Conn, she did not hesitate, but left the safety of Mother’s Temple with eagerness to do what she could. She’d injected the elixir directly into his bloodstream. But that was days ago. And still, he lay here unresponsive. Kera refused to return to the coven until she knew he was well again.

  “There is no sign of the poison taking root in his blood. Though I’m not sure whether his eyesight is clear or not. And yet, still…”

  “He won’t wake up,” I said. Disheartened didn’t even come close to the depth of my despair.

  The door creaked open. Kera stood and dropped her gaze to the floor as Kol and Bastien entered. The afternoon rays of sunlight shone through the skylight onto Conn’s bed. Though it seemed to do little good. Nothing would bring him out of his deep sleep.

  The sky darkened with yet another twilight where he remained quiet and unmoving. I wished so many times for him to sit up and taunt me with his charm and wit. But he didn’t. Day after day, nothing.

  Bastien carried a brown satchel of something leafy. I caught sight of a white bloom, the lunaflyr, sticking out of the top.

  “We brought some flora and herbs we thought might be useful…in exchange for your aid to our friend,” he said gently to Kera, like coaxing a newborn kitten from her cave.

  She lifted a tentative gaze and stepped forward to take the satchel from him. “Thank you.”

  Kol stepped around Kera toward me. “May I have a moment alone with my sister?”

  “Yes. Why, of course, Mr. Silverback, will you join me outside while they converse?”

  “I would like nothing more,” he said, holding the door open for her.

  The pitiful, smitten expression on the poor man’s face warned me that he was either in for a long wait or certain heartbreak if he planned on wooing Kera Bloodback.

  I snuffed out a laugh that was bubbling up. “Now that’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

  My brother sat on the stool, making it creak with his weight, and leaned forward on his elbows. He peered at me eye-level. “What are you doing, baby sister?”

  Frowning, I asked, “What do you mean? I’m watching out for Conn. I thought that was fairly obvious.”

  “Why are you watching out for him?”

  “Because he’s my…colleague. And my friend.”

  He shook his head with that distinctly paternal look he wore when he was about to chastise me for something. “No, Valla. That is not why you sit here.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Well, since you know so damn much, why don’t you tell me?”

  “Why won’t you just tell me that he’s your lover. And that is why you watch him day and night, never allowing one of us to keep vigil for you or even with you.”

  The fire of defiance ran hot straight through my blood, but I had to swallow my pride and admit now what I knew to be true after taking this mission with Conn. And for some reason, what I couldn’t deny with Brother Silvanus, I couldn’t admit to my own brother who was more like a father.

  “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Conn is my responsibility. Just as Bowen was my—”

  “Oh, cut the shit, Valla.” He stood up abruptly and walked behind Conn’s bed, examining his still form and quiet expression.

  I flinched at his sudden movement but didn’t speak.

  “I’m not sure if you’re lying to me or lying to yourself. Or both. The man here in this bed is your mate. And though I never thought to meet a man who would be up to the task of taking you on, or a man who was worthy of my only beloved sister, he is the one who will bring peace to your heart. Of that, I am sure. But only…only if you’re brave enough to go and get him. And bring him back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kol, my always-in-control brother, looked at me as if I were stupid. Perhaps I was, for it was dawning on me slowly what he meant.

  “You’re a dreamwalker, Valla. Go to him. Bring him back.”

  I swallowed the thick lump forming in my throat. “But…what if he doesn’t want me, I mean, want to come back?”

  “That’s a chance you’ll have to take. But we’ve lingered here for over a week. The majority of our troop has flown back to Drakos. The Huntergilds have returned home, along with Bowen and his sister.” He did not mention the body of their sister they carried home to bury. “Kera has confirmed that physically there is nothing keeping him from waking to this world. So there must be another reason. And I’m well aware of the emotional state the man was in when he went under.”

  “How would you know?” I asked quietly, feeling a tear slip.

  “I confronted him when he left your bedroom in Harrowmir.”

  Feeling the heated blush crawl up my neck, I swiped the tear and glanced away.

  “He’s pining for you, Valla.”

  “He was,” I corrected.

  Kol placed a palm on the man’s chest above his heart and seemed to be listening for something. With a shake of his head, he said, “No. Still is. Go to him.” He withdrew toward the door.

  Panic gripped me in her sharp talons. “But, what if I pushed him away one too many times?”

  Kol stood in the doorway, mouth ticking up on one side. “Like I said. That’s a chance you’ll have to take…if you’re brave enough.” Then he shut the door.

  If I’m brave enough. Damn, him! He knew just what to say to make me want to rebel and prove him wrong. I latched the door behind him, needing concentration and privacy for this. Standing next to his bed, I picked up Conn’s large hand in both of mine and squeezed, hoping for a return. I received none.

  “Fine then. I’m coming in there after you.”

  I crawled up on the small bed and lay my body along his, stretchin
g out my wings on my side. The truth was I’d thought of dreamwalking several times. Feeling so far away from him even as I sat so near, I’d started on two different occasions right here in this room. But I had stopped each time, convincing myself he wouldn’t let me in, that it wouldn’t work on someone in a comatose state.

  But of course, that wasn’t the reason. My brother was right, as he always was. I was afraid. Afraid I’d screwed it up for us too much already. Afraid I’d lost my mate before I’d even gotten him.

  The irony was that all I ever wanted was to be independent. To be free. But ever since Conn had been unconscious, I wanted nothing more than to chain myself, to bond myself to this man. Yes, I’d been furious that he’d hidden the fact we were mates. But that had diffused into wonder, then desire of my own for that special heartbond. With him.

  I’d seen my brother with his mate, Moira, and envied their love. The unbreakable kind that not even death could sever. That’s when Conn’s words hit me the hardest.

  Being alone does not make you stronger, Valla. Or more independent. It just means you’re alone.

  And he was right. Yet I’d never felt truly alone—the kind of loneliness that empties your heart of everything else but an aching void.

  “Fine,” I mumbled, snuggling up to his side. “I wish you could make that pretty flame to put me to sleep.” I wrapped an arm tightly around his waist. “But then I wouldn’t need to dreamwalk, now would I?”

  With a deep breath, I focused on the hiss of the dying embers in the grate, letting the world slip away. I thought of flying, of our steady flights through the frosty air of Aria, of Conn at my side, checking on me when he didn’t think I would notice.

  “Stupid man,” I mumbled as I slipped deeper into sleep, picturing in my mind the rust-winged, auburn-haired, infuriatingly-charming, and dead-sexy man that I curled up against. I hoped with all my heart for so many things as I stepped into his dreams.

  I stood not on a beach this time but in a wooded glen, beautiful with bursts of spring blooms on the bushes and wildflowers waving in a gentle breeze. I followed the path to a clearing. My heart skipped a beat. There, sitting in the grass barefoot with jeans and a white T-shirt, his back against a giant evergold, his wings partially open at rest, was Conn, eyes shut and face angled toward the sun.

  “So this is where you’ve been hiding?”

  He opened his eyes, unsurprised it seemed.

  “I wondered if you’d ever visit.”

  “Visit? I’ve come to take you home.”

  “I like it here.”

  I eased closer, glancing down to find myself in my thermal suit, zipped to the top. Of course, he’d keep me in something that kept me at a distance. Sucking up my pride, I stopped before him. “No bikini this time?”

  He eyed me carefully. “My dream.”

  “And you prefer me in a thermal suit?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I prefer.” He closed his eyes. “This is better for me.”

  “Fine. Damn it!” I kneeled and sat on my haunches. “I want you to come back, to wake up.”

  “Why?” he asked, capturing my gaze.

  “Because you’re my friend.”

  He snorted. “I prefer it here.”

  “Look, you ass. Are you really going to make me say it?”

  “Say what? I didn’t ask you to come here at all.”

  I straddled him and cupped his jaw between my hands. That got his attention.

  “I’m in love with you! Okay? There, I said it. You can laugh all you want, but there it is. Plain and simple. And I need you to come back to me. Right now, damn it. Conn Rowanflame, you asinine man, I need you. Please.”

  Silence. Too silent for several seconds. He lifted his back away from the tree trunk. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “When have you ever known me to lie? Especially about something like this.”

  He cupped my cheek, and then his fingers wrapped my nape as he loved to do. “Not you. Your honesty is one of the things I love most about you.”

  “Love?” I asked, my voice cracking with the tender emotion blooming in my heart.

  “Yes,” he assured me with a sweep of his lips against mine. “Love.”

  For a moment, we did nothing but taste each other. Softly. Tenderly. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pressed my chest to his and kissed him hard, pouring all of my love into this one kiss.

  Yes. Love. That is what it was I felt. The yearning and emptiness faded to nothing from the second I saw him, even in this dream. Yet we were still here.

  “Come back to me, Conn. You can wake up now.”

  He pulled away slowly, tucking a loose lock of hair behind my ear, his shoulders tense.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s something wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I believe the witch’s poison blinded me.”

  “Blinded you? But how would you know? You seem fine to me now.”

  “We’re in the dreamworld, Valla. I can feel something is wrong.”

  I lifted off him and stood up. “Wake up, my love. We can face anything together.”

  “Valla, don’t go. Not yet.”

  I walked away, glancing over my shoulder.

  “If you want me, you’ll have to wake up.”

  CHAPTER 26

  When I awoke, the stars had just begun to peek through the indigo canvas of night through the skylight above. Conn did not awaken with me. I busied myself, stoking the fire and eating the warm soup that Kera brought to me before she went to bed. Then I changed into the white nightgown Kera had loaned me but I had never worn.

  It was a simple gown with a silk drawstring tie at the top, lacing it together down to the waist. Certainly not a delectable piece of lingerie to entice a lover, but its sheer fabric would certainly tempt mine. I unwound my braid, letting my hair fall in long waves to my waist.

  I reached into my pack and pulled out the dried lunaflyr, the flower Conn had handed me at the bottom of the mountain that day. The petals had curled and lost their luster, but I’d kept it anyway. I should’ve known my silly notion to keep a flower from him was a sign I couldn’t let him go. And I refused to.

  Kera had assured me there was nothing wrong with his physical body. Though he’d lost some weight, they’d managed to get some water and vitamin-rich soup into him, even while in his coma. The fact that he swallowed on instinct was another sign to Kera and the brothers that his body was healing. It was just his mind, she feared. But I knew now it was his heart. And I could mend that.

  Removing his shirt and then his pants, I gulped at the size of him. All of him. Then I crawled back into bed and whispered in his ear.

  “Come back to me, Conn. I want you inside me…”

  I continued to whisper all the things I wanted him to do to me, stroking his chest lightly with my fingernails. And though all of this was to wake him up, I was still shocked when he blinked his eyes open for the first time. I sat up on one arm, my long hair cascading over his bare chest. “Conn?”

  I gasped when he looked directly at me.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, voice groggy. “I can only see out of my left eye.”

  Licking my lips and barely able to stop staring at his right eye, I hopped off the bed and grabbed my comm, then punched in the command to reverse the camera so he could see himself.

  He held the device and stared as I had. His eye was deep crimson with the slit pupil of the dragon, a fixed and permanent reminder of her. A scar from the Bloodback poison.

  He laughed, then it turned into a cough. I fetched a glass of water and helped him drink, taking the comm away and tossing it on the table. When he finished gulping the entire glass down, I set it aside and returned to him.

  With a shake of the head, he said, “The Bloodback witch marked me good, didn’t she?”

  Anger welled inside my chest. That bitch sure had, and my own dragon didn’t like it one bit. She was a bit dominant herself, and her hackles rose a
t someone hurting her mate.

  “Maybe so,” I said, crawling on all fours over him, pulling the covers down then straddling him. “But I plan to mark you as well.”

  His eyes widened then roamed over my body before landing on the silken ribbon between my breasts. A hard bulge stiffened against my bum. Yeah, he was awake now. He lifted a hand and pulled the tiny bow. Rather than leave it at that, he pulled the ribbon all the way out of its lacing. It pulled free and the bodice fell wide open.

  “Oh, Valla.” He used the voice that wound its way straight to my heart and soul, making me needy and greedy for him.

  I lifted my hips and stroked my sex along his hard shaft. I was more than ready. He growled and narrowed his gaze, his dragon eye making him look more beast than man.

  “You were right,” I said, slipping my arms out of the gown so that it fell open to my waist. Leaning forward with my hands above his head, I angled my body so that the head of his cock pushed at my entrance. “Big wings definitely equals a big heart. Among other things.”

  Then I sank down onto him, feeling the glory of every solid inch. He grabbed my hips and leaned forward, taking my nipple into his mouth and sucking, rolling the taut nub with his tongue. I ground faster, but he took control, even from underneath, holding my hips as he pumped inside me, hard and fast the way he liked it. The way I liked it, I’d discovered.

  He moved to my other breast, teasing the nipple with his tongue.

  “Oh, Conn, please…more.” I clenched one fist in his hair and made him look at me. “I want soulfire.”

  He stilled, which wasn’t the reaction I’d wanted. I tried to undulate my hips but, hands tightening, he kept me immobile.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “No doubt. I want you to be mine”—I traced my tongue across his beautiful bottom lip—“in every way.” Then I imagined what that mouth could do to me for eternity. “Forever.”

  I was suddenly on my back with Conn over me—all his power and strength and dominance a delicious tangible beast ready to take me. And I was ready for him. He crooked my left leg and hooked it over his shoulder, opening me wide, my toe touching the underside of his wing. I smiled…until I felt how swollen he was for me. He growled low and deep as he penetrated nice and slow. I arched my neck with a gasp as the enormity of the man—in size and beauty and strength—sucked the breath out of me.