Fire Heart: A Dragon Fantasy Romance (The Dragon of Umbra Book 1)

by Emma Hamm

  He sank down onto it with no small amount of anger.

  Lorelei watched him move with a look of pure disgust on her face. He deserved that, he supposed. He did work for the man who had locked her up and he had done nothing to prevent it from happening. Not that she likely even thought he was there during the entire... situation.

  He’d left, hadn’t he? She wouldn’t blame him for a situation where he’d been missing.

  Damn it, now he had to lie again. How was he going to make it sound as though he hadn’t been there, but that he’d seen everything in exact detail?

  Lorelei saved him, thankfully. Her voice filled the silence like a cool drink of water after a long hunt. “When I was little, my mother used to say that the only thing I had to fear were those who were more powerful than me. She said sometimes, it’s up to people like you and I to make a difference when those with power refuse to do so.”

  “Your mother sounds like a wise woman.”

  “She was.” But she didn’t smile, and he already knew this story wouldn’t end well. “She gave her life for that belief. To the very end, she believed everyone should have a chance to live, no matter where they came from or who they were.”

  The prisoner in the cell next to her stirred. The man had seen better days. His horned head was covered in moss and the flesh on his body had sagged with age and malnutrition. But he lifted his head and directed his attention to the young woman speaking in her cage. As if Lorelei’s words were important.

  Abraxas nodded. “What your mother wanted was honorable, but I don’t think you’re ever going to see such a life with a king like this.”

  Her expression fierce, Lorelei nodded. “That’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?”

  “You can’t confess that you are part of the rebellion to me,” he begged. A cold sweat broke out over his entire body, and he knew this moment would change his life forever. “I will have to tell the King and he will have you killed in front of all the other brides.”

  “What if you didn’t tell him?” She met his gaze with a ferocity of a warrior who had seen many battles. A warrior of old. “What if you listened to what I had to say? What if you heard from the other side? From the magical creatures who have bent the knee and swayed their back while hoping people would leave them alone?”

  The moss covered prisoner dragged himself closer to her cell. Abraxas watched with no small mixture of horror as the man reached through the bars, hand limp on the floor with his palm facing up. His nails were thick, like the roots of a tree.

  “Why tell me any of this?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion. “You must know this is a risk.”

  She met his gaze head on. “I cannot be alone anymore, Abraxas. I have realized that this task I have been given will be impossible unless I have someone who will help me. And I believe you are not as cold as everyone seems to think.”

  He wasn’t.

  He burned. His entire soul was set aflame because she saw him as a person rather than a nightmare or a weapon. She’d taken the time to get to know the man underneath the scales, and he had suddenly been reminded of what it was like to live and not just to serve.

  “You’re asking me to go against everything I have ever known.” It was a lie. He would only risk his entire lineage, but she didn’t know that. Not yet.

  “I’m not asking you to do anything other than let me out, Abraxas. I’m asking you to see that there are forces in effect that are greater than you or I.” She smiled softly and reached behind her.

  Somehow, through all her struggles against the Umbral Knights, the rose he had given her survived. She twirled it in her fingers and a single petal fell into her lap. The blood red drop was too close to her reality if he didn’t listen to her. If he didn’t lie for her.

  “I hadn’t planned on ever letting him kill you,” he whispered.

  “Then listen to me. Don’t judge what I’m about to say, and hear my words.” Lorelei watched his every move, calculating as always. “Can you do that?”

  He nodded.

  She opened her mouth, closed it, licked her lips, and obviously fought against herself. She didn’t want to tell him what was in her head, but she knew that she had to. If he could have taken this battle for her, then he would have. But some part of his soul shouted that he needed to stay silent. That he needed to listen for the sake of them all.

  “I am not Lorelei of Tenebrous,” she began. “My true name is Lorelei of Silverfell. I am half elf.”

  The words struck him to the very core. He remembered the Silverfell elves. He had seen them dancing in the moonlight when he was but a child, nothing more than a dragonling with soft scales and a head he struggled to keep up. But he had never forgotten their lithe bodies running through the beams of silver light as they gathered their magic from the moon and stars.

  “My mother was in the rebellion. She lost her life in an attempt to bring about a new age where magical creatures and mortals could live side by side. We aren’t asking for the King to fall in line, nor do we wish to enslave the humans. The rebellion wants to live beside them. Equals.” She shook her head. “It sounds like I was part of it too, but I wasn’t. They blackmailed me into coming here and killing the King.”

  “Kill the King?” he repeated. The words echoed through the dungeon as each prisoner repeated the sound. More of them stood and reached for the bars, listening intently to the conversation now.

  “Yes.” She straightened her spine and suddenly, he saw a hero in front of him. A woman who would become immortal, as stories about her were told throughout the centuries. “The only way to free Umbra from this tyranny is to start over again. I am no assassin. But I intend to kill him. And if you want to stop that from happening, then you should give me up to him now.”

  He should.

  He had no choice.

  Abraxas couldn’t threaten the livelihood of his entire kind for some half thought out plan with a woman who had never assassinated anyone in her life. He needed to tell the King, eat this woman alive, and then move on with his life.

  But another part of him whispered this might be the chance he was waiting for. This woman in front of him glowed with the magic of the moon under her skin. She was more than just a woman. More than a creature of light and shadow who had appeared out of nowhere to awaken the man inside of him.

  She had a purpose. And if she succeeded, then he would be free of the King. Free of this lineage that enslaved and conquered.

  Would the eggs remain locked in that box for eternity, though?

  It was a risk. Too much of a risk, really, and he shouldn’t even consider it. But he did.

  He considered it long and hard while watching her expression shift. She knew the thoughts in his head, and she must have understood his hesitation because she had the same hesitations when she’d been blackmailed into doing this.

  Lorelei shifted forward. She touched her hand to the moss covered man’s, and then held the rose out for Abraxas to take. “We have to try, Abraxas. If we sit and do nothing, then change will never come. We will be beaten. Broken. Used up until there is no magic left in this world. And I do not want to live in a world without magic.”

  He swallowed hard. The rose shuddered in the air in front of him, and then his gaze slid to the prisoner whose hand she held.

  The man lifted his head and smiled up at Lorelei. His expression was shaky at best, but it was one of happiness. “You look like your mother,” he said in a gravelly voice. “She would have been so proud. A Silverfell elf in the castle. This is the closest we’ve ever been.”

  Lorelei squeezed his hand, and her eyes glistened with tears. The drops sparkled like they contained the very stars in the sky. She whispered, “Let the sun rise, my friend.”

  She then looked at Abraxas, and every prisoner in their cells seemed to hold their breath.

  They were waiting for his decision. They all waited to know what their true fate would be, and she had no idea she was asking a dragon to help her.

 
; He shouldn’t. Abraxas could hear the words playing over and over in his head. He had more to worry about than this woman on her knees. His people cried out from their graves to do whatever it took to preserve the last lines of the dragons.

  But his heart... Oh, his heart wanted to be free again. His heart wanted to soar through the clouds without a chain around his neck and a king tugging at the end of it.

  Abraxas closed his eyes and let long buried memories play behind them. Of an age when dragons had filled the skies with a hundred colors and roars that sounded like thunder. An age when men hadn’t filled the air with arrows and spears that cut through wings.

  Unbidden, he heard himself say, “Let the sun rise.”

  As one, in a whisper so no one outside these walls would hear, all the prisoners in the dungeon repeated the words.

  “Let the sun rise.”

  And when he opened his eyes, Lorelei smiled at him. “Welcome to the rebellion,” she said. “It’s good to see you have a soul, after all.”

  Chapter 18

  Lore

  An Umbral Knight released Lorelei from her cell the next day. The creature didn’t talk or tell her why. It also didn’t let her say goodbye to the countless magical creatures that stood in their cells, watching her leave with hope in their eyes.

  She tried very hard not to cry when they dragged her out of the dungeon. Not in relief, but because she knew some of those prisoners wouldn’t make it to see themselves released from that place. They would spend the rest of their remaining days in the darkness, hoping that she would succeed.

  Lorelei had more reason than ever to kill the King.

  Margaret had no right to send her to this place without telling her what to expect. She hadn’t thought to find creatures like herself, or people who meant so much to her in such a short amount of time. Suddenly, it wasn’t just the hope that she would survive the Umbral Knights. Now, Lorelei had to free others. She had to protect the sole friend she’d made here. And worse, she now had the personal guard of the King working with her.

  Her mother would have been so proud. But Lorelei had never wanted to make her mother proud.

  The Umbral Knight stalked beside her all the way to her puke colored door. He stopped in front of it, arms crossed over his chest. The helmet on his head belayed zero emotion.

  She pointed at a few doors down the hall. “Why have some doors been painted white?”

  Predictably, the Umbral Knight didn’t respond. But it sent a shiver down Lorelei’s spine that some of the doors weren’t the same. She’d only been in the dungeon for a few days.

  She walked into her bedroom, hoping this wasn’t an afterthought to place her in the same room. Or worse, that the other women had suffered simply because they had stuck up for her.

  Lorelei snorted as she closed the door behind her. No one was going to stand up for her. The other women didn’t like her.

  She turned around, already pulling at her nasty dress and hoping to get some of the grime off her body. They hadn’t sent up a bath, so she could only hope that the water in a bowl on her vanity would suffice to clean herself.

  “Pixie?” she called out. “Are you still here?”

  The little creature didn’t respond, and she hoped that meant it had gone back to its family. Or found somewhere else to hide while the Umbral Knights decided what to do with her.

  A faint sound shushed in her closet. Almost as though someone had sneezed, or the fabric of a dress had moved on its own. Lorelei froze, hands behind her back, still clutching the ties of her dress.

  Pixie wasn’t big enough to make that noise. And that could only mean there was a person in her closet.

  Carefully, she walked over to the nightstand beside her bed and opened the drawer. No one had gone through her things. The knife she’d placed inside the drawer was still there, and that made this all much easier. She pulled it out and made her way to the closet.

  One, two, three. She wrenched the door open and brandished the knife over her head.

  “Wait! Wait, it’s me!” Beauty cowered against the back wall of her closet.

  Lorelei quickly dropped her knife with a sigh. “What are you doing hiding in my closet?”

  The moment the danger had passed, Beauty dropped her arms. “I didn’t want the Knights to see me. They aren’t letting any of the brides see each other at all. It’s a horrible thing, but we’re all managing the best we can. Usually we can sneak into each other’s rooms and help.”

  “Help do what?” Lorelei reached past Beauty and grabbed a silk dressing gown.

  Borovoi had made even that a little too pretty for putting it on her dirty skin. The interior of the dressing gown had been hand painted with bright sun patterns. How lovely, and appropriate for the conversations she’d just had with Abraxas and the others.

  “Well, help you get settled back in. At least in this case. No one wanted to come other than me, but the Knights let us know you were returning.” Beauty maneuvered her way out of the closet, and she somehow managed not to knock a single thing down. “You look like you could use the help, so I suspect my instincts about you were correct.”

  Her instincts about Lorelei were entirely wrong. She was not a kind-hearted person who would help the other brides as Beauty was doing now. Lore planned to kill the man they all wanted to marry.

  Lore needed to clear her thoughts or Beauty would see what she was thinking. And the last thing she needed was yet another person knowing her plan. When had she gotten so chatty?

  “Help me out of this dress, then,” she said with a sharp inhalation. “I’d kill for a bath, but I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon. When do they provide us with a tub?”

  “Um.” Beauty tried her best not to smile, but didn’t manage to cover her grin. “You know what? Get yourself out of the dress and I’ll make all your wishes come true. How’s that?”

  Lore had no idea what the girl meant. Wishes come true? Had she lost her mind?

  No matter, Beauty wasn’t her servant. She had gotten herself into this dress and she supposed she could get herself out of it. Lore looked down at the lovely fabric and winced.

  “Sorry,” she muttered before she tore it straight down the middle.

  If he’d been here, Borovoi likely would have screamed. The fabric was only holding on by a thread anyway, and she didn’t think it was right to let it stay ruined. She might as well ruin it even more.

  “Don’t you touch that dressing gown!” Beauty shouted, although her voice was muffled. “You’re far too dirty and you’ll ruin the silk. I know you don’t care about that, but I think whoever designed the dress certainly would.”

  Was the girl working with Borovoi to make sure that Lore didn’t destroy any more of his creations?

  “Where are you?” she muttered, turning around and realizing that the girl had somehow opened up a door Lore hadn’t realized existed. Between her wardrobe and the wall, an opening now led into an enormous bathroom.

  Where had that come from?

  Lore wandered toward the room and stared in awe at the hand tiled floor made entirely out of opal chips. It shifted and changed colors when she looked at it from different angles. The walls were painted white and there were no windows, considering the room was in the center part of their wing. But glowing white flowers hung from the ceiling, an obvious enchantment, and cast a lovely gleam on the steaming bath set into the floor. The tub was so large that it could easily fit five people.

  Beauty stood beside it, glass bottles in her hand and a frown on her face. “Now are you more of a rose person or perhaps lemongrass?”

  “Neither,” she replied. “I don’t need a scent.”

  “Everyone needs a scent. And after all you’ve been through, I think you’ve earned yourself a bubble bath.” Beauty put them both to the side and picked up another bottle with bright green liquid in it. “I think mint is more your style. What do you think?”

  She really couldn’t care less. “I’ll leave it up to y
our expert opinion.”

  Lorelei sank into the warm water that filled the tub with a sigh. She leaned her head back on the edge and inhaled the steam that filled her lungs with a sense of warmth that she hadn’t had in days.

  What was it about a bath that immediately relaxed a person? It was like she could finally let go of all the stress in her body.

  The faint trickling sound of perfume filling the water let her know that Beauty had decided on the mint. No one could think it was anything else. But the bright scent helped clear her mind.

  “Was it terrible?” Beauty asked.

  Lorelei opened her eyes and watched as her new friend pulled up her own skirts and sank her feet into the warm water of the bath. Beauty sat on the lip of the tub, clearly not intending to rush Lore at all.

  When was the last time someone had cared enough to want her to be comfortable after a stressful day? Lore told herself not to cry, but it was damn hard when someone showed that they weren’t a monster like so many other people here.

  “It wasn’t so bad,” she whispered. “I’ve been in worse situations than a castle dungeon.”

  “Really?” All the color drained from Beauty’s face. “I don’t know if I could survive it. Not knowing what the King was going to do with you. Being in the cell with all those terrifying magical creatures.”

  “They aren’t so terrifying.” Lore didn’t want Beauty to think her kind was dangerous, but she also knew that so many mortals found magic to be the worst substance on earth. “How many of them have you met in your life?”

  “How many what?”

  “Magical creatures,” Lore chuckled. “You claim they are terrifying, but how would you know if you haven’t met any of them?”

  Thoughts danced behind Beauty’s eyes and across her face like an open book. Maybe she hadn’t ever thought of it like that, but so few humans had. They grew up being told that magical creatures were to be feared, and therefore, that meant they were dangerous. Most of them had never conceptualized that someone, at some point, had decided that creatures like Lore were bad. But that they had never decided to feel fear themselves.