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

by Emma Hamm

  “Knights!” the King screamed. “To me!”

  Abraxas didn’t care if Zander called upon his tin soldiers. All he cared about was saving a single life today. A single life of a single elf who had changed everything.

  Chapter 28

  Lore

  Everything dissolved into chaos. Strangely, Lorelei remembered this. She remembered fighting to control her own fear and desire to run, even though she hadn’t been in battle herself for many years. Or had she ever? The souls of her ancestors filled her chest and whispered what to do, how to run, how to hide.

  But she couldn’t. Not when the dragon spread his wings even wider as more arrows sliced through windows and broke through the glass ceiling above them.

  Another bride screamed. Lorelei ran past a young woman who bled from a triangle-shaped shard of glass that had stuck straight through her skull. The woman stumbled to the side, let out a horrible death gurgle, and then fell onto her hands and knees.

  This would be a night the entire kingdom would never forget.

  Let the sun rise.

  Why hadn’t they told her they were attacking the King? Why hadn’t they let her prepare?

  Lore ducked behind a statue as more arrows rained down. Less this time. Perhaps the Umbral Knights had already moved in on the forces of archers who had thought they might have a chance. Regardless, had she taken too long? She knew nothing of Margaret’s plans or how quickly the rebellion had planned to move. She could only assume that this was all meant to be part of it.

  Perhaps they thought to drive all the brides and the King into a single room. Perhaps they were giving her an opportunity to kill him in close quarters, but... It didn’t feel like it. This felt sloppy. Uncompleted. More like a band of people who had branched off without Margaret’s permission.

  “Beauty,” she gasped. Where was her friend?

  She leaned around the statue but couldn’t find the lovely figure who had made this entire ordeal a little better. Hopefully Beauty had learned the talent of running from dangerous situations, rather than trying to get involved as much as she had before.

  Lore’s eyes locked on the King. He stood beneath the dragon’s wings, screaming at the Umbral Knights to do something. But there was something in his posture that made her fists curl with anger.

  He wasn’t trying to hide. There wasn’t an ounce of fear in his body or the set of his shoulders. The King confidently stood among a rain of arrows as though he knew not a single one would touch him. He didn’t care that there were dead women laying all around him, nor did he care all that much that the dragon was wounded.

  All he cared about was that this attack had ruined his fun. His moment. His shining achievement where he finally picked the last three of his brides. He’d wanted this to be a spectacle and now, it was that for a reason other than him.

  Lore wished she had her hands on a bow. She’d put an arrow through his throat now and hope that finally taught him a lesson.

  Ten Umbral Knights marched into the great hall, and the King turned on the dragon. “You’re supposed to do something!” he shouted, and then kicked Abraxas in the face. “Instead, you’re just lying over everything like a damned blanket!”

  She heard the crackle before her mind remembered what it was. In any mortal battle, the ball would have been soaked in oil and tar. A flaming nightmare sent through the air to destroy whatever it could. But these weapons were made of magical creatures. The ball was dipped in poison and set aflame with elven magic. Old magic.

  She wanted to scream in rage. The rebellion knew what they were doing with a weapon like that. It wouldn’t hurt most of the people in the room because it wouldn’t touch them.

  It was a weapon targeted at a dragon.

  The ball of poison struck Abraxas in the center of his back, right between his wings. For a second, he looked back at it as though he were confused by the pain. He had felt little pain in his life. Dragons were notoriously strong and... and...

  Lore pressed her hands to her mouth as he sagged. Abraxas set his head back on the floor, his wings shuddering as he struggled to keep them raised so that he still protected the room and those still alive within it.

  “Get up!” the King shouted. “You’re a dragon, damn it! You shouldn’t be so weak!”

  The doors slammed open again and a wall of Umbral Knights rushed in. Some of them lifted shields above their heads and created a barrier for the King to step under. The evil, horrible, nasty man only sent one last glance back to his dragon before sighing in disappointment. Then he walked out of the room. He just left.

  The brides were ushered out of the room with the Umbral Knights as well, but not her. Lore was still hidden behind the statue and no one knew she had remained behind. They opened the doors, left the great hall, and all that remained was a dreadful silence.

  No more arrows came through the sky. Abraxas let his wings droop. They hung awkwardly off the walls, like a bat that had fallen out of the sky and landed hard on the ground. He let his giant eyes close and the long sigh that rippled through his sides was one of pain. So much pain.

  She skittered across the floor, still halfway concerned there would be another rain shower of pointed arrows that searched for her heart. But no more attacks came. She was safe. They had made it.

  But not without a few losses.

  A long time ago, the idea of standing next to the dragon who killed her mother would have made her stomach roll. She’d have been searching for the right way to kill him. A way to plunge a dagger or a sword into that eye that was almost as large as her.

  How strange it was to realize things had changed. She had changed.

  Lore fell onto her knees beside his giant head and put her hand on his scaled cheek. “Abraxas? Please tell me you’re still alive. Open your eyes, darling. I know how to fix this.”

  Elf magic could only be undone by other elves, although she’d never tried to do it before. It would probably be difficult, and it might take whatever power she’d gathered from the moon, but... He was worth it.

  When had that happened? When had she looked at him and decided he was worth saving, not hating?

  Abraxas opened his eye, and she stared into the slitted golden orb. He didn’t look convinced she could do anything.

  Lore almost argued with him, but then she saw his wing shudder. Inch by agonizing inch, he dragged the leathery membrane across the floor until it shielded her from above. Just in case. Because he was always trying to make sure that someone wasn’t killing her, even when he had known little about her.

  She smoothed her hand in a wide arc over his cheek again. “You’re worth saving, Abraxas. But I can’t heal you like this. You’re too big. I know it will be worse when you change back. I know the pain will get worse, but let me heal you like you healed me.”

  His entire body trembled and the magic that shifted him from dragon to man was weak. She’d gotten used to the blast of power that should have shoved her back across the floor. Instead, this was a gentle breeze that blew her hair only slightly before a man lay on the cold stone floor in front of her.

  “There you are,” she whispered.

  He’d looked better. Naked as the day he was born, she should have been feasting her eyes on the wide swaths of muscles laid out before her. But all she saw were the marks on his arms, the bruises covering his chest and back, and the long legs that he curled in on himself as the poison made everything ten times worse in this form.

  Lore worked quickly. She couldn’t drag him. Abraxas was too large a man for that. But she could ease his head into her lap.

  Her fingers trailed through the long dark length of his hair, untangling knots as she went. Magic bubbled underneath her skin. It shimmered like a diamond, just like the night when they had first met in the forest. The night when she had let herself truly be an elf for the first time in centuries.

  Abraxas rolled his head in her lap, staring up at her with those golden eyes. “Ah, I missed you, Lady of Starlight.”

 
She couldn’t help the smile that eased over her lips. “You shouldn’t call me that.”

  “It’s what we called Silverfell elves ages ago,” he winced. The muscles of his chest rippled as pain must have danced from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. “It’s an honorable term, Lorelei.”

  She ghosted her fingers over his lips, letting magic spill from her fingers and onto his tongue. “My friends call me Lore.”

  “Lore,” he repeated, whispering the word against her fingertips. “Lore, that suits you far better.”

  He was hurt. In pain. She should focus on the healing, but the moon magic poured out of her body unbidden, as though it already knew what to do. And instead of focusing on that, she was staring at his lips. At those plush, lovely lips that she’d kissed already, but never because she truly wanted to.

  Until now.

  He must have felt that same electric pull. Even in as much pain as he was in, Abraxas still wore a darkened expression that made her entire body clench. He lifted a bloodied hand and pressed it to the side of her face. “It’s better already.”

  “Is it?”

  “Mhm.” He drew her down, just a bit lower. Not much, but enough that if she wanted to kiss him... she could.

  She could lean farther down. Already her hair fell like a curtain around them. She couldn’t see the arrows or the dead bodies on the floor. All she could see was him and the sharp angles of his face. The too long nose that somehow made him even more handsome. He had a faint scar above his right eyebrow, and his eyes weren’t entirely yellow. There were the tiniest freckles of dark among the light.

  “You tried to save us all,” she whispered. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because there was no one else to do it.”

  “I didn’t think I would come to this castle and find a good man underneath all those scales.” She trailed her fingers down his chin, tilting his head back into her lap. “I thought you would be some evil, dastardly beast who enjoyed hurting people.”

  “I am not.”

  “No, you are not.” Lore hated that he was different from what she’d expected. At this point, she almost wanted him to be a horrible person because that would be so much easier than admitting to herself that he was... Kind. Sweet. Interesting in a way that no other man had ever interested her.

  “Why did you have to be so sweet?” she asked, her lips a hair’s breadth away from his.

  His breath was metallic and the air around him tasted like poison. “I’m not, Lore. I promise you, I’m not.”

  Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was the nightmarish creature who stalked her home in the night and made children cry in their sleep. Maybe she should fear him and all that he had done. She should run, screaming from this room, and hide under the covers of her bed.

  Somehow, she didn’t think that was the truth.

  She closed the space between them and kissed him. Soft at first. She didn’t want to hurt him anymore than he was already hurting. But then Abraxas came alive in her grip. He wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck and pulled her into him until she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything but kiss him and hope that this never ended.

  They were two lost souls in this castle, and she couldn’t believe that she had found herself in him. And yet, here he was. The impossible man who had haunted her dreams.

  She should hate him. She should despise him for everything that he had done and more.

  But she didn’t.

  She couldn’t.

  When they finally drew back for breath, he squeezed her neck just slightly, as though he didn’t want her to draw away from him. “You are stunning,” Abraxas whispered. “And I’m sorry if anyone ever made it seem like you weren’t.”

  “You and I have suffered the same life, I believe.” She smoothed her thumb over his cheek. “How are you feeling?”

  “Almost entirely better.” Abraxas chuckled. “I think I can sit up now.”

  “Oh, right.”

  She gave him room to breathe. To sit back up and arrange himself in whatever was the most comfortable way for him. Although, now that she’d thought about it...

  “You usually seem to change back into your mortal form with clothes on.” She eyed him with a slightly unimpressed look. “What changed?”

  Abraxas scratched the back of his neck, a little sheepishly. “I can only imagine that it was the pain. The change is a bit more magic than most people recognize, and I just... well. I thought I was doing it right at the time, but I suppose I was not.”

  “Good,” she whispered. “I mean, not good. I suppose it’s good that you’re better now, though. I just... Well. You’re...”

  Now that she was looking at him, she didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t thought he would be so... so... Everything. His overly large body translated into wide shoulders, stunning pectorals, and a muscular “V” shape that drew her eyes where she shouldn’t look but wanted to.

  She could spend hours on that body. Hours enjoying every inch of his caramel skin and getting to know all the places he liked touched. That should have scared her far more than the kiss, but it didn’t. Not even remotely.

  “Lore...” His eyes had gotten dark again. The pupils were almost entirely blown out as he watched her every move.

  “Abraxas.”

  He chuckled at her tone. “If I had known that a half elf would walk into my life and turn everything upside down, I would never have left my cavern.”

  Another voice interrupted them, echoing through the chamber. “Elf?”

  Lorelei froze. She glanced over at the door, only to see the brunette who the King had picked first. The woman’s eyes went wide, then narrowed with glee. “Knights!” she screamed. “There’s an elf in the castle!”

  That was all it took.

  All it took for the thundering sound of metal boots to strike the ground and race toward her. Any second now, they would pick her up by the arms and toss her back into the dungeon she’d already seen.

  Abraxas snarled. She felt his power rolling in him so easily now. Like a blast of heat that warned he was about to return to his dragon form.

  “No,” she said, grabbing onto his arm. “Abraxas, you can’t.”

  “They will not lay a single finger on you.” He spat the words at her, and she already saw his fingers curling into claws.

  But that wouldn’t do. He couldn’t withstand more pain, more torment, simply because someone had heard them. Though Lore knew she was giving up everything, it was the only option here.

  “One of us has to stay,” she whispered. “One of us has to be here. Get a message to the rebellion, to someone. Okay? Stay alive for me.”

  He reached for her, pulling her tight against his side and pressing his mouth to her hair. His hand pressed against her ribcage as though he were trying to feel her breath. Her heartbeat. And her own breath caught at the size of his hands, so big. So comforting.

  “I can’t get you out of this one, Lore,” he breathed. “The best I can do is fly us both out of this place. Right here. Right now.”

  “And what would that do?” She smiled against his shoulder. “I knew this could be my fate. But I also know that you are still here. You can finish this, Abraxas.”

  He pressed one last kiss to her head before she felt metal hands tugging her out of his arms. And she knew, ah how horribly she knew, this would be the end of them.

  The last dragon stood in the middle of the Great Hall, hands clenched at his sides, and watched her get dragged away from him.

  Chapter 29

  Abraxas

  He could do nothing. His hands were tied. But as he watched the Umbral Knights drag Lorelei away, Abraxas realized two very important things.

  First, the King had to die. Yes, that meant Abraxas would lose the dragon eggs, and that he would have to spend the rest of his life searching for a magician or warlock who was strong enough to break the enchantment. That might never happen at all. But he couldn’t continue to selfishly choose hi
mself and his kind over the rest of the creatures in this kingdom.

  Second, losing that woman to the horrible treatment of the guards was like losing a part of himself. She had become an extension of his own body. A severed limb that he felt had always been there. Attached to him in some way, although he hadn’t found her until just recently.

  If he didn’t heal himself faster, then he would lose her. Forever.

  Abraxas had lied when he’d said he felt better. He could stand on his own and function, but there was something wrong with his dragon still. His back ached where the poison had hit him, and he recognized the magic from the old days.

  He needed time in his gold. He needed the opportunity to soak himself in fire and heat until his scales recovered from the wounds that flayed through his skin and back.

  If he couldn’t fly, then he couldn’t get them where they needed to go. And he intended to save her.

  The flames in his chest burned hotter again, glowing through his mortal skin like a light inside him. Whatever tin soldier touched her, he would crush them beneath his claws. That scheming bitch of a bride would crunch between his teeth while he chewed her bones. Savoring every bite. And lastly, he would make sure that the King died in the most dishonorable way possible.

  He wouldn’t even kill him as a dragon. He would give the man a slow, undeniable death with a sword and knives. And if Lore wanted her piece of him, then he would hold the villain down while she took her own pound of flesh off the King.

  It was the least he could do for the woman who had shown him out of the darkness and back into the light.

  He stalked from the Great Hall and down to the corridor that would lead into his cavern. If anyone saw him marching naked through the halls, then he didn’t notice. Instead, he thundered all the way to his only safe place in the castle and launched into his dragon form. The magic was weak. Weaker than it had ever been in his life, but he changed and crawled onto the nearest mound of gold.