Fate of Dragons Page 2

  Bre recoiled from it and pushed me inside the house. “That’s not a good sign.”

  I gestured for her to get behind me and looked out into the yard. Nothing.

  I choked down my worry and looked at her. “What do you mean not a good sign? What do you know about signs?”

  She pulled out her smartphone. “See this app? It’s the one we use. My coven.”

  Coven. For freak’s sake. Of course there was an app for that.

  She held up the screen to my face. It was like a Wikipedia for witches. Heat, see also, fire.

  I read the first line of the entry. Bunch of nonsense.

  “Heat’s not a bad thing, Bre.” That was not a denial. I searched for what to say. “Why are you afraid of heat?”

  “Duh. Haven’t you heard where there’s smoke, there’s fire?” She rolled her heavily lined eyes. “Big magic can give off a lot of heat.”

  “Is that so?”

  That bit of information was off. By a lot. Plenty of big magic didn’t even blip on a witch’s own radar, much less give off heat. What had she been studying?

  I didn’t bother to correct her. No use incriminating myself. And I had more to worry about. Heat like that did mean something. I didn’t know what though.

  Creak.

  Bre clutched my arm. Something was out there.

  I suddenly felt cocooned in warmth like a hug you didn’t want to end. It was more than heat. That feeling of comfort was at odds with the standing hairs on my neck. Like my magical radar had suddenly gone on the fritz.

  But I’d felt that way before. I clutched my necklace, my thoughts going to the past in jagged memories. I could feel him with me again like no time had passed. Then my senses tingled, cold pushing away that hug as if something insidious had wormed its way between me and my memories.

  A dark shape filled the doorway. Bre screamed. I felt like screaming too. But I couldn’t. I cast a spell on the door just as the handle jiggled. Then I saw his face through the glass.

  Wade.

  It was him. Part of me was simply relieved to know my gut wasn’t wrong. The other part wanted to know what had brought him to my door after all this time. I was at war with myself until I met his gaze. I reached for the doorknob just as Bre tried to stop me. I froze her in place for a few moments. My freezing never lasted long, but it was long enough to get the door open and have my childhood sweetheart collapse at my feet in the doorway.

  He seemed delirious. “Sienna, Sienna,” he mumbled over and over. His eyes darted about, never stopping, unable to focus. They fluttered, and he went still, staring straight at me.

  I knelt down, cradling his head between my bare thighs, the raincoat barely skimming them in my hunched position. “Wade, can you hear me?”

  His dark hair spilled over his eyes which rolled back in his head.

  “Wade!”

  Bre sprang to life and was kneeling with me. “I feel heat on him like a bonfire. Some big magic.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. His life force was struggling. Something had hurt him, bad. Something not human.

  “Help me get him to the bed.” I moved to lift him, gripping under his arms and waiting for her to lift his legs.

  Bre obeyed, and we scoot-carried him to my bedroom. My arms ached under the strain, but Bre looked unaffected. I was sure it was more than youth and good health helping her, but I couldn’t think of that now.

  We barely got Wade onto the bed before he was groaning, thrashing about. For a man of six feet or more with the bulk of a prizefighter, that thrashing meant considerable damage to anything in his path. The vase holding my favorite flowers crashed to the floor of my bedroom, scattering water and iris essence all over the floor.

  I just managed to save my ballerina music box before one muscular arm thrashed onto the nightstand again. It was an odd thing to grab instead of the Tiffany lamp, but my mom had bought it for me. It was all that I had left of her. Thankfully, the lamp survived his arm too.

  “Wade, it’s okay. I’m here.” I set the box and the lamp on the dresser, out of reach, and grabbed his hand.

  His eyes opened again, focused on me, then looked down into the shadows between the open rain jacket. He reached up and touched the ring. The one he’d given me in promise years ago. We locked eyes.

  Heat flamed my face. There was no denying I’d kept it, and kept it very close. I felt like a stupid fool. The ring had become a habit, a good luck charm. It was a talisman I just couldn’t take off—only now I wished it hadn’t become anything to me. I was exposed, so exposed.

  He smiled, a flash of white teeth between lips that went sideways with wry humor. That was disarming enough, but his touch at my breasts stole my breath. Memory alone caused them to perk, but the heat of his fingertips blazed across my skin and sent tingles of sensation all over my body.

  It was hard to breathe.

  His smile waned, and his hand dropped away. The released claddagh bounced between my breasts.

  Wade fell back onto my lavender-sprayed sheets, and the herbal aroma wafted up, mingled with the scent of him—woodsmoke and spice, and something that caused my heart to skip a beat. The bitter scent of poison.

  He closed his eyes on a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

  His hand went slack in mine.

  “Wade!”

  No response. I felt his pulse. It bounded to my fingertips in fragmented beats. His skin was clammy, and his whole body was drenched in sweat. I felt his forehead. Fever.

  Bre sat down beside him on the other side of the bed. “Let me try drawing the fever.”

  She held her hands over him just as I had done for Leeroy and then chanted something in Latin. I almost rolled my eyes. New witches thought everything had to be pageantry and pomp. I couldn’t deny that the magic was working, though. I felt the fever roll off him. Even if her spell wasn’t hitting the core of the problem, it was powerful enough that he lay still for the first time, his body relaxed, his breathing and pulse even. She had skills.

  “I can’t hold it.” Bre looked at me. Beads of sweat were marching down her face. Her hands were darkening, the palms almost blood red. There was an orange glow around her. “Sienna!”

  The magic pulsed, real flames sparking toward me as she said my name again. She screamed in pain, and I realized that she could not deal with heat—and she had miscalculated her magic. Something had gone wrong for a fever to become a fire.

  I grabbed her burned hands, effectively releasing the spell. She was sobbing, her hands raw.

  “Close your eyes and think of cool water,” I instructed, drawing on my own power. The heat came to me like a lost dog finding home again. The only way I knew to describe it was that the heat and the flames were happy with me, sought me out and settled inside me somewhere. It was an endless place that took in the fire. It scared me, so I didn’t think of it often. But it was always there, waiting to be fed.

  I mouthed a healing spell over her hands, drew all the fire out, and shook her shoulder. Her tears had dried, and she looked at me with awe.

  “I told you I need you to teach me. I need to know how to do that.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what happened though. It was a simple fever draw.”

  “Sometimes magic just gets away from us.” Or morphs or disguises itself, or we miss what’s there altogether.

  On the bed, unmoving, Wade was breathing easier at least. Bre might be a powerful witch one day.

  I patted her arm awkwardly, not knowing what else to do. “Good job, Bre. Thank you.”

  She blushed and nodded. “I know it’s not gonna fix him, but it helped, right? And you can do more.”

  “Yes, it did. I’ll try. Would you go grab my basket? I need the laurel and bloodroot in there. I’ll be right back. I need some things from the pantry.”

  She nodded again and headed toward the front door.

  I cast a look at Wade. His tan skin was pale now, tinted green. He looked so sick, and my heart raged inside my chest. I had dreamed of him coming back, but
not like this. If he died now…

  I clutched the ring. He had promised me we would be together. It seemed another lifetime ago. Two stupid kids thinking they were cosmically connected and meant to be just because that was the romance we wanted, because we believed we could have it all before our two naïve hearts were torn apart by things we couldn’t control.

  “Mmhhh.” His chest rose on a groan, and he clutched the sheets.

  I needed cherry bark and something cooling. I headed to the kitchen, grabbed what was at hand, and hurried back.

  Bre met me with my basket clutched to her, her eyes searching mine. “Will you teach me? I’ve proven myself, haven’t I?”

  I glanced into my bedroom where Wade lay on sheets I’d just changed this morning after my own nightmares had me waking to sweat and shivers. I had enough problems without adding teaching a teenage witch. I wanted to tell her no, but she had helped, she knew my secret, and she reminded me of myself, an outcast just wanting to belong, wanting somewhere to be herself finally.

  “Please, Ms. Stevens—Sienna. Please.”

  “Okay, I’ll help you, but it’s my rules we follow, not your coven or an app, whatever that might be. Got it?”

  Her eyes lit up, and she hugged me. “Yes! Tell me what to do. Anything. I’ll do it.”

  “Go home.”

  She looked hurt. “Now?”

  We both glanced at the man in my bed.

  “Yes, now. You’ve done enough, and I appreciate it. But this is something I have to do alone. You go home, take care of Leeroy—”

  “We are just learning poison control.” She took out her phone. “Module four is about diverting it.”

  “Don’t believe everything you read.”

  She shut the app off. “Okay. But I already know a lot. I can be useful.”

  Her earnest face made me feel bad about sending her away, but I needed to be alone with Wade.

  She strained her neck to see around me. “Does he know about us? I mean you, being magic and all?”

  “No, and I’d like to keep it that way. So, go on. Be normal.” I winced at my own words. God, I couldn’t believe I’d just said that. “What I’m trying to say is that you only need to worry about school like the kid you are. We’ll start at the beginning, and I’ll teach you all I know. Just not today.”

  I held up a hand to ward off any protest she might make, but she didn’t voice any. I let my shoulders drop. They were heavy and tired.

  “You go home. I’ll see you soon.”

  She hesitated but handed me the basket of herbs before promising to be back. I watched her ride off on that ridiculous pink bike before resetting the wards in my yard. The work I had to do needed no interruptions.

  I hurried back to Wade and found him awake, looking greener than before, but alert, sitting on the side of the bed like he was about to take off. Relief flooded through me, and I couldn’t help the hand that stole to the ring at my neck.

  He smiled. You look good.

  I wish I could say the same.

  Wade’s gaze never left mine, only intensified like hard steel.

  “Touché, Sienna.” His voice wavered, and I realized that I’d only heard him in my mind before… and only replied the same. He saw it on my face, both of us reading the truth in each other’s gaze.

  “Wade?”

  Yes.

  The basket I was clutching fell to the floor, spilling bloodroot at my bare feet.

  Don’t panic, Sienna.

  I backed away, but he was in front of me, pulling me to that chest I’d admired, smoothing my hair, speaking to my mind.

  The heat came off him in waves, straight into me, swallowed up by my own magic. It couldn’t be denied. I looked up at him, into dark eyes flecked with gold that now glowed. It felt like fire between us, his feeding mine, the magic inside reaching for his heat, wanting it inside me more and more.

  I spoke to his mind, incredulous and disbelieving even as I said it. You’re a dragon.

  His smile did strange things to me, and I could only hold onto him as he lowered his lips to mine.

  And you are my mage.

  3

  “You knew and didn’t tell me?”

  He swept the lightest brush over my bottom lip, then flinched at my tone and pulled away from the almost-kiss. My heart was racing. Both from anger and that kiss we didn’t quite share.

  I touched my mouth, desiring more, but still pulling away from trouble. I knew I shouldn’t blame him when I had been the one to keep secrets. But he really did know them and let me go on ignorant when we could have shared so much.

  “You knew what I was, and you never told me what you were.” Tears were waiting to spill over. I needed to rein them in.

  “Be fair, Sienna. You never said you were a pyromancer, never shared your witchy secrets.” He spoke like I needed to be reminded of facts.

  It irked me even more.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but what came out was worse than the fight I wanted to pick.

  “I wanted to tell you.”

  Where had that come from? I hadn’t meant to tell the truth, but there it was.

  He pressed his lips together in a tight line before sighing. “Honestly, I didn’t know you were a witch or that I was a dragon. Not until after we moved. We were forced into hiding, and I knew nothing until that moment when Dad dragged us all into the Smokies, to the Eastern Dragon Hold. Plus, I literally just learned your secrets.”

  That close all this time, barely two counties away. What was a dragon hold?

  “What happened?” It was easier to hear his story than to deal with the war inside me. I was shaking, hiding my hands in fists by my sides. “Why did you come now?”

  I knew I wanted him to say for me, that he’d come back for me, but it wasn’t the truth.

  “You are the only person I know who I could trust with my secrets and my life.”

  I didn’t relent. “So you only came to me because you needed something?”

  “It’s not like that, Sienna.” He growled low and clutched his side. “Let me finish.”

  “Fine.” I walked into my bedroom and sat on the bed he’d almost destroyed. “Finish.”

  He ran a hand through that gorgeous head of hair and across his jawline. “I’m not lying to you. I never knew. Not until after we got there, to the hold. I had to learn a lot of things awfully fast. Gage too.”

  Poor little Gage. Wade’s younger brother had worshipped us back then. He had been like a little brother to me too.

  “How is Gage?”

  Wade flinched. “Missing. Mom and Dad are too.”

  “Oh, my God, I’m sorry—”

  “That’s why I’m here. I needed you.” He looked pained. “And I had to come back for you too. Like I promised.”

  How was I supposed to process something like this? It was just too much.

  He looked down at my chest where the ring hung.

  I pulled the jacket closed. I needed clothes. “Turn your back.”

  He smirked. “Okay, but I’ve seen the promised land already. Don’t think I don’t remember you in a bikini in our hot tub. Though you have definitely filled out. In all the right places.” His gaze was dark and laced with desire.

  I blushed. “Just tell me what’s going on. While you face the wall.”

  He turned slowly, grinning the whole time. “Like I was saying, we trained, hard. Me, Gage, whole families of shifters suddenly triggered by magic gone wild when the old Guardian was killed. We think by this same dragon mage. My parents had hoped we’d be spared this life, that they would never have to tell us our story, that we’d just be a normal family. And we would have if the Guardian hadn’t been killed. The sway of power forced dragons everywhere in the East to shift, and chaos was king.” He heaved a deep sigh. “There was no going back to normal.”

  There was that word again. Normal.

  “I couldn’t control myself at first.” He straightened his shoulders, and his back muscles rippled with the
effort. His voice suddenly changed, lower, more measured. “I was so angry at having to leave, at leaving you. I shifted uncontrollably in my rage. I burned woods and almost got us caught. Would have gotten us killed. Dad reminded me I’d be a danger to you in the flux of shifting—and to your life in general if I’d told you the truth.”

  I waited for him to say something else, but he had gone quiet. The dresser drawer I had opened creaked in the silence which stretched between us as I reached inside for my clothes. I think he was waiting for me to speak, but I didn’t know what to say. The silence lingered longer, uncomfortable and taut like my mandolin strings when I was in a mood and over-tightened them.

  “I wanted to come back for you. But it wasn’t allowed.” He turned his head sideways. “You were never supposed to know. Because you were mortal, soft and vulnerable. Dragons couldn’t risk any more mortal lives involved in what was happening to us, what had happened to the balance of the gateways. Entire families have been broken apart, mortal spouses separated, some dead. And we were lost without a Guardian.”

  “I’m so sorry. Can you get a new Guardian?” I struggled into the cat pajamas that had seen better days and waited to hear his next words.

  “That’s not how it works. Guardians are chosen by the gateway itself. The dragon who can harness the power over the gateway stands as its Guardian. Many have tried, none have been successful in opening it and wielding the power. Right now, the imbalance of power leaves us unprotected and our magic on the fritz. And with the rogue mage killing dragons and breaking us to his will, we need help more than ever.”

  “When we first shifted, I learned about the magic wielders who could help us, fire witches, dragon mages that we weren’t even sure existed still, at least not here in the mountains. Every dragon bonds to a mate. It’s fate. Some bond to mortals, some to dragons, and some, they’re the stuff of myth and legend. Only a few dragons are mated to mages. They told us just how rare the bonds are, how powerful a mating like that would be. And I realized I was hoping that the connection we always shared was just that. Against all odds, you’d be the one. My mate, my mage.”

  I choked back tears.