Touch of Ice (Dawn of Dragons Book 1)

by Mary Auclair

  “They lied to you.” Endora shook her head. She had to make him understand. “They have no intention of letting us go. Lord Misrael wants to prevent all human and Delradon mixing, and especially the Draekon. He wants to kill all the humans who carry the genes for Draekon compatibility. That means he’s not going to let me live, and he’s not going to let Tallie live either.”

  Wilmer faced her, incredulity and doubt fighting in equal measure on his features. Finally, he walked up to the window and stared at the mountain outside.

  “No. They already paid me half of what they owed. They have no beef with you, or me. It’s just Draekon power play.”

  “Oh, really? Then why did they meet you here? Why not drop me off at a larger town? Did you think Aldric wouldn’t go after us?”

  “He’s going to be too busy fighting off Lord Misrael to run after you.” Wilmer turned a resolved, convinced face her way. “He’s going to think you ran off with your lover, and get over you.”

  “And the baby? You think he’s going to abandon that too?”

  When Wilmer’s eyes turned wide, she realized he’d had no idea. Of course they hadn’t provided him with the information that Endora was already pregnant with the Draekon Lord’s child.

  “We’ll figure it out.” But his voice betrayed his fear. “It’s too late to turn back now.”

  “No, it’s not.” Endora walked closer. She needed to make him see sense. “Come with us. Go back to the castle and Aldric will forgive you.”

  Wilmer’s mouth twisted, indecision clear on his face. He had never been a brave man, and now the prospect of being hunted down by a dragon and his Draekon wasn’t appealing in the least.

  “Maman is right, you know.” Tallie startled them both, and they turned to see her standing, all alone in the bare room. She looked tiny and strong at the same time. “Mistress Hael hates us. She used to love to make us cry, when she taught Shari and me. She’s not going to let us leave.”

  Wilmer blinked furiously, then swallowed as he stared at the child. Endora saw it the moment the truth made him flinch. In the end, it wasn’t Endora’s long arguments that made him see sense, it was Tallie.

  “Oh my Gods, what have I done?” Wilmer braced his hands on the windowsill, his eyes far away and his mouth hanging open.

  Endora was about to speak, to urge him to accompany them back to Whispering Castle, but a dark shadow attracted her attention. Outside, Hael was back with Raeg and four other men, all wearing the gray of the Knat-Kanassis.

  “Go.” Wilmer turned to Endora, grasping her wrist so hard it hurt. “Take Tallie and run. I’ll hold them off for as long as I can.”

  “No.” Endora shook her head. “Come with us. Like you said, we’ll figure it out.”

  Wilmer smiled, and this time, it wasn’t the practiced grin of the con man. It was the vulnerable, seductive smile of the boy she’d fallen in love with when they were both children.

  “I always thought there would be more time, enough to make it up to you.” Wilmer pulled Endora closer, and placed a single kiss on her closed lips. “I always imagined I would make just one last big score, then come back and sweep you off your feet, keep you in luxury for the rest of our lives. I’m a fool, but I was a lucky fool to have loved you.”

  Endora gasped, not knowing what to say. There was nothing to say. For ten years she’d thought she’d been abandoned, and all that time, he was just being the same silly boy he had always been.

  “Maman!” Tallie called, her voice full of fear.

  With one last look at Wilmer, Endora turned and ran, taking Tallie’s hand in hers.

  His feet hit the stone floor even before Rhyl folded his wings on the landing. The sound of men running, calling his name, reached his brain, but couldn’t stop him.

  Only one thing mattered.

  Nobody matters like you.

  Endora’s old words, the ones he once mistook for a lover’s promise, came to his mind. He understood now; the meaning of those words. How one person could matter so much that nothing else was above them.

  As he ran down the long, empty hallways leading to Endora’s apartments, he saw it again: the look in his mate’s eyes as he pulled her close to his body, her laugh, easy and true when she was happy. If he ever lost her, he would lose that part of himself she’d awoken all those years ago in the fields surrounding her home. That part of himself that made him uncharacteristically selfless, that part that hadn’t been destroyed by Dierno Darragon’s cold, unfeeling heart. That part of himself without which life wasn’t worth living anymore.

  It was as simple as that. His life had meaning only if Endora was in it. The power, the struggle of a Draekon Lord, his honor and responsibilities… none of those would be enough now that he knew what it felt like to hold Endora close, hear her laugh and hold her children.

  Our children.

  That was the last coherent thought that went through his head as he stopped in front of the open door to Endora’s apartments. From inside, the sound of sobs chilled him, and Aldric walked in.

  “She’s gone.” Henriette lifted her old, kind eyes to his. Eyes so much like Endora’s that he felt the stab of pain coming from the old woman in his bones. “Find her. Find my granddaughter and great-granddaughter. Bring them back.”

  Shari twisted in Henriette’s arms, her small face red and streaked with tears. Aldric caught his niece’s eyes, then knelt in front of them.

  “I will bring them back, both of them.” He reached for a stray strand of Shari’s hair, tucking it behind her tiny, pointed ear. “I promise you.”

  As he got to his feet, Henriette locked gazes with him.

  “Tell me everything,” he said.

  “It was Mistress Hael. She came with a letter from Wilmer, saying he was going to listen to your orders and disappear but he wanted to meet Tallie first. Endora left with her guard but they didn’t come back.”

  “How long?”

  “Two hours ago.”

  Too long. Endora and Tallie could be far away by now. They could be dead.

  Aldric turned and ran back to the landing, to where Rhyl was waiting. He could almost feel the dragon’s anger pulsing like a drum beat through the stone of the mountain. Protective fury was coursing through the animal’s veins, and Aldric knew that if he looked at his reflection in the mirror, it would not be a man staring back.

  It would be the beast within, and the beast within was exactly what he needed.

  Tears burned her eyes, freezing on the numb skin of her cheeks, but there was no going back. Endora turned her face as the sturdy pony negotiated a turn on the snow-covered hill. In the distance, over the dense trees and jagged rocks, nothing remained of the log cabin. The sinuous line of almost white smoke still escaped from the chimney, placid and strangely peaceful, unconcerned by the horrors that must have taken place below.

  They must have reached him by now.

  Her heart clenched and her hand found Tallie’s head, her fingers sliding through the dark silk of her hair. What Wilmer had done for them… her mind couldn’t go there. She knew they would be merciless and that Wilmer had no chance against them, against any of them. And she could only hope that his sacrifice would buy them enough time to save Tallie.

  He loved me.

  The thought should be like a balm on the old wound, but it wasn’t. Not when there was so much to be said, so much to be redeemed. She could never love him again. Her heart, her soul, belonged to Aldric in more than just words. There was a link there, forged in flesh and passion, in the way her entire body craved his touch like he was a part of her own body, and she was whole only when they were together. No, her love for Aldric was a complete, all-encompassing state. Still, forgiving Wilmer had mended a torn part of her that had refused to allow a man to own her heart in the same way.

  Tallie will never have more than what he gave her in that cottage.

  Endora turned back around, not wanting to look at the smoke from the chimney anymore. There was nothing but death le
ft behind, and maybe also death ahead, if she wasn’t careful.

  A small hand reached up and slid along her cheek. “You’re crying.”

  She looked down to see Tallie staring up at her.

  “I know.” Endora kissed Tallie’s forehead. “You’re so cold! Tuck in closer to me before you get sick.”

  “I don’t think it’s me who’s cold, Maman.” Tallie’s face was quiet and drawn. Worried. “You’re hot. I think you have a fever.”

  Endora frowned and touched the girl’s neck, where the two layers of coats should be keeping the chill out. She still felt cold to the touch.

  “Maybe you’re right.” Endora tried to smile, but in the end, she couldn’t. She knew what that meant. Fever was the first sign that the pregnancy was turning toxic. “But don’t worry about it. We only need to find our way back, and everything will be all right.”

  As the pony took another turn, Endora glanced back one more to see the slow rise of the pale smoke from the cottage, like an omen of death.

  Chapter 23

  The dragon’s pulse under his palm was fast and steady, but there was no mistaking the fury underneath. Rhyl was flying low, his emotions filtering through the link as Aldric maintained the physical contact necessary for the exchange. He needed the dragon to calm down, not to succumb to his wild instincts and begin to savage the countryside in search for Endora.

  In his wrath, the beast could very well do the exact thing he feared: hurt Endora and the child she carried. A single touch of dragon fire and her delicate body would be burned beyond the Delradon doctors’ ability to help. Aldric had to restrain the beast’s rage as he fought its infectious spread inside his own mind.

  Whoever dared to take his mate and child away from him would pay the ultimate price.

  A vibration on his wrist made him look down at his commu-link. He sighed, then straightened, rupturing the link to Rhyl.

  “Found any evidence of where they might be?” he asked.

  “The south is clean of any trace,” Dalgo’s voice answered from somewhere far in the distance. “They didn’t fly, or we would have scanned them, and no dragon would enter the territory of a mated couple with an egg.”

  “That leaves the north.”

  This was not good news at all. The north of his territory was a vast wilderness, bordering on endless ice this far into winter. Searching for people who didn’t want to be found in this land was like searching for a single grain of rice in a field. He could soar high and low and still not find her in time.

  “Gather everything you have. All able-bodied men are to search for Lady Darragon.”

  “Fly like the wind, friend, to this world and the next.”

  Aldric heard his friend’s words, old words from the old world. Solemn words, heavy with a loyalty that ran as deep as the link through their dragons’ cells.

  “Soar high, my friend.”

  Aldric cut the communication. Dalgo was right, of course. This was a dangerous, unprecedented attack. Snatching a Draekarra from her mate’s home meant war. Whoever did this knew the implications. After the heir to House Fyr, the Darragon house had been attacked. Someone was making his move, and it was time he was stopped.

  Rhyl’s scales rippled and the dragon growled low in his belly, the sound like a tear in the fabric of the sky. Aldric put his hand on the beast’s neck.

  “You found her scent.” An icy focus overcame him, forged by years of training. That focus spread down his arm and penetrated the beast, bent its will to Aldric’s. Rhyl was a weapon, an extension of his own body, of his own mind. “No fire, my friend. No matter what, do not lose control.”

  Rhyl’s scales leached wrath like an acid fog around him, but slowly the message got through as the dragon leashed his feelings, sending back to Aldric his own resolve, his own control. Fast, the beast spiraled down closer to the mountain, barely above the tree tops. There, in the distance, Aldric could see it. A single column of smoke, pale gray against the pure night sky.

  “Rhyl, land on those rocks.” Aldric pointed to a high peak of rocks a mile away from the cabin. “If they see you, they will kill Endora before we have any real chance at reaching her.”

  The dragon grudgingly obeyed, landing on the snow-covered rock, all but invisible in the winter scenery. It was risky to leave the dragon behind but he had no choice. Rhyl’s size hardly made him inconspicuous, and he was certain that the Knat-Kanassis would rather kill Endora on the spot than risk her being rescued. His only chance was to approach the cabin and hope that Endora and Tallie were still alive in there.

  Aldric made the run to the cabin in record time, as silent and cold as the soul of winter itself. He finally crouched behind a massive pine tree, its trunk twice the size of a man. Smoke still rose from the cottage chimney, slow and steady, but the door was open, its hinges creaking in the wind while the windows stared back at him, black and cold like death.

  Nobody in there was alive.

  The certainty penetrated deep into his bones, and the part of him that belonged to Endora cried out in anguish. He got to his feet and ran, crouching low on the ground, remembering his training as he reached the front porch and made his way up the short flight of stairs.

  There, a little to one side, lay the body of a man. He was clad in Knat-Kanassis gray, and lay face-first in the snow, unmoving.

  There was an attack, but they left their dead behind. Maybe there is still hope.

  Aldric climbed the stairs, careful not to make any noise as he unsheathed his blade. He paused with his back to the side of the door, waiting. No noise came from inside.

  The interior of the cabin was cast in darkness, the low light of the dying fire doing nothing to dispel the morbid cold of the interior. As soon as he stepped in, the coppery smell of blood assailed his nostrils. There were two more bodies on the floor. This time, two men looked up at the ceiling, their unseeing eyes shadowed by death. Arrows poked out of their chests, and a congealed pool of blood lay under their bodies. They wore the gray, and had the symbol of the Knat-Kanassis on their foreheads.

  Two more. Where is she?

  Aldric scanned the small, frugally furnished space, then saw another man, propped up against an upturned sofa. Approaching, he stared at the face of the man he’d almost killed in front of Endora.

  At first glance, Aldric knew he was going to die. Blood covered the man’s shirt and pants from a large gash in his abdomen. Pink flesh and coagulated blood showed almost black against the flesh. The man’s head lolled limply on his neck, and his hands lay flat at his sides. To his left was a crossbow and a quiver of arrows, the contents spilled on the floor.

  Aldric walked closer, then knelt. The man moved, lifting his head with a grimace of pain.

  “They’re gone.” Wilmer set his eyes on Aldric, already foggy with the loss of blood. “Endora and Tallie. I bought them all the time I could but I’m not sure it was enough.”

  Aldric scanned the room again. There, where he should have seen it: a piece of fabric from Endora’s dress, the clean green velvet. It was torn, stuck between the rough pine planks.

  Endora and Tallie were here.

  “Who’s after them?” Aldric stared at the dying man, his gaze unwavering. He’d looked death in the eyes before, he wasn’t about to look away now.

  “Hael is the only one that’s left. I got Raeg good.” Wilmer’s deathly white lips curved in a savage grin. “He’s not going to make it. But Hael has a Venenum Ardere blade.”

  Wilmer’s eyes suddenly rolled back in his head, and he was gone. Aldric’s hand closed on his shoulder and shook him without mercy. The pain made the man whimper, and he returned to the land of the living.

  “That was all? Four Knat-Kanassis men, a turncoat guard and a governess?” He frowned. The Knat-Kanassis had a powerful head, one who orchestrated a complex threading of evil across the lands. It was not the work of a few lunatics playing with old ideas.

  “The Draekon is coming with his dragon to take them.” Wilmer’s eyes g
lazed over and he stared far away into a world where neither Endora nor Tallie were following. “He will fly them away into the clouds and never come down.”

  “What Lord?” Aldric squeezed the dying man’s shoulder gently. “Who is going to take Endora and Tallie away?”

  “Lord Misrael.”

  Aldric stared at Wilmer, his face numb with the fury of an all-consuming wrath. Misrael, his cousin, the next in line to the throne of Katanie. The knowledge filled him with an acute kind of anger, all his focus going to the man who had taken his mate from him. He got to his feet, staring down at the man who had once loved Endora.

  “Where did they go?”

  “South, south-west. The easy trail down.” Wilmer coughed, and blood dripped unchecked down his chin. “Get them, get them before those monsters do. I never meant for them to get hurt. All I wanted was a second chance at my family.”

  Aldric stared down at the man who had dared claim his mate for his own. He bent down, picking him up as gently as he could, then sat him in front of the dying fire. There was nothing more he could do for him. Aldric brought his commu-link to his mouth.

  “I have a man injured in the cabin at the top of the observation mountain. Send medics as soon as possible. Endora is on a horse with Tallie, south-west of the mountain chain.”

  “Copy that,” Dalgo answered. “We’re a half-hour out.”

  “Take extreme precautions. We have a possible hostile dragon encounter. If Lord Misrael violates our borders, send word to the Council.”

  Dalgo replied with something but Aldric wasn’t listening anymore. He walked out of the cabin as Rhyl answered the unspoken call and landed across from him, crashing through the centuries old trees.

  “Find her, my friend,” Aldric whispered in the beast’s ear. “Find our family.”

  Rhyl raised his mighty head, inhaling the pure scents of the forest before opening his wings and taking to the sky, death on his mind and violence in his heart.

  The fatigue had settled into her bones, wrapped around their ivory surface like vines strangling a tree. Her fever grew until heat blazed off her skin in waves of sweat and agony. The pain laced around her frame, white-hot flashes of fire screaming each time the pony rocked its wide hips.