Fire Rising (Dark Kings) (10 page)

But she wasn’t sure if it was nonsense. The mist moved, breathed as if it were a being. Sammi’s skin was covered in chills that had nothing to do with the dampness of the morning and everything to do with the eeriness of the mist.

She let out a shaky breath. In her heart she knew that there was something in the mist with her. Still, her blood turned to ice and her heart thudded like a bass drum.

Sammi fisted her hands to stop them from shaking and slowly turned around to return the way she had come, but the mist had swallowed the trail. The mist was so thick she couldn’t even see the tree she had just passed.

It coiled around her legs until she jumped back and got her legs tangled in the long leaves of a fern. Sammi hit the ground with a groan, her backside bruised. She rolled to her side, the mist scooting away so that she was able to see the thick layer of pine needles upon the ground.

She inwardly berated herself and took several deep breaths to calm her racing heart. Then she climbed to her feet. It took her a minute to figure out which way she needed to go by the slant of the mountain.

Then, she marched onward, determined not to be scared of something as trivial as the mist. Mist came down from the mountains every day. It wasn’t alive.

Yeah, right.

She ignored her conscience and kept walking. Without knowing what was ahead of her, she focused on what was immediately around her. She walked slower, and she didn’t trip nearly as much as she had the day before.

After three hours, Sammi stopped to rest atop a small rock. The mist hadn’t cleared, and she was beginning to doubt it would. It was too thick, too dense, even in the growing sunlight, which normally pushed it away.

Sammi ate a granola bar, the sound as loud as a gunshot in the unnerving silence of the mist. The moment she was finished eating, she stuffed the wrapper in her pocket and was on her feet again. She had to get out of the mist.

The farther up the mountain she walked, however, the fewer the trees until there were no more. Huge rocks and boulders took the place of the trees, and strangely enough, Sammi was happy the mist was there to hide her. She would feel exposed without the trees.

The smaller rocks were loose and moved under her feet whenever she walked. Twice she twisted her ankle as her foot slipped off a softball-sized rock.

It didn’t take long for the rocks on the ground to become a major problem. Suddenly there were boulders all around her so that she had to squeeze through them in order to continue. The path became more and more narrow until she had no choice but to go around a boulder.

Sammi didn’t think anything of it until the mist pulled back and she saw the four-inch ledge she was standing on. Fear stopped her cold before she tried to turn and retrace her steps. Inch by agonizing inch, Sammi tried to get off the ledge.

Even going slowly, she only succeeded in slipping. She grabbed the boulder and decided she’d have to shuffle around it. Moving slower than a snail, Sammi moved around the boulder.

The more ground she covered, the more confident she became. But that didn’t halt the terror. She knew what was behind her—absolutely nothing.

If she fell, she was dead.

Sammi was halfway around the boulder when one of her hands, sweaty from fear, slipped. Instead of stopping and wiping her hands, she decided to keep moving. She was so close to getting off the ledge that she thought she could make it.

It was a fatal mistake, as her foot slipped off the ledge and her hands couldn’t get ahold of the boulder.

A scream lodged in her throat as she felt herself falling backward, her arms cartwheeling as she looked for anything to hold onto. Air whooshed around her as the boulder grew smaller and smaller.

Sammi knew she was going to die a horrible death, but she couldn’t manage to release the scream. Instead, she squeezed her eyes closed, her mind drifting from Jane to the regret she had for not kissing Tristan as she’d wanted to.

Suddenly, something slammed into her, halting her fall. There was no pain, no bright white light calling her to Heaven. Yet it felt as if she were being lifted.

Hesitantly, Sammi opened her eyes to see a gigantic appendage covered in amber scales wrapped around her. Amber scales?

She lifted her head and spotted the colossal wings. She closed her eyes again and pinched her arm as her blood hammered in her ears. It hurt, which meant she wasn’t dead or dreaming.

Sammi gripped the claw as she opened her eyes and looked up again. To find herself gazing at the underside of a dragon’s head. She looked from the dragon’s head all the way to the tip of its tail.

Dragons weren’t real. She must have hit her head or something, because there was no way a dragon had saved her from certain death.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the wings and how the sun glinted off the amber scales to make them look as if they were polished and gleaming. That’s when she noticed the scales beneath her hands were warm but hard.

Sammi bit her lip when the dragon suddenly stopped atop a mountain covered in mist and gently set her down upon the ground. Not once did its substantial talons graze her skin when the claw released her.

She stumbled backward as she looked up at it. Should she be terrified of such a creature, the same creature that had just saved her life? Sammi wasn’t sure what to feel for the dragon. Was she supposed to thank it?

The dragon’s apple-green eyes briefly looked at her before it leaned to the side and fell.

Sammi rushed to the edge of the mountain and saw the dragon spread its wings and soar up from the valley to disappear into the clouds.

When she was finally able to swallow, she found the mist once more around her. Her knees buckled and she collapsed into a heap upon the ground.

“What the hell just happened?”

She pinched herself repeatedly to make sure she was really awake. “This can’t be. Dragons don’t exist.”

*   *   *

Tristan let out a sigh when he was once more in the clouds. Terror and pure, complete dread had made his heart miss a beat when he saw Sammi fall. He had been afraid he wouldn’t reach her in time. He had already been on his way to her when he saw her try to get around the boulder, but then she had slipped.

The dread that had seized him had been awful. She hadn’t even screamed. She had simply fallen with her eyes shut. Even now he could feel his own heart pounding erratically against his ribs.

If he hadn’t been so concerned with the mist, he might have seen what she was about to do and prevented her from attempting to go around the boulder.

At least she was safe now. It hadn’t been the smartest move in letting her see him, but he hadn’t had much of a choice. There had been no time to do anything other than snatch her out of the air.

The way she had looked at him with a mixture of surprise, fear, and curiosity made him want to reassure her he wouldn’t harm her. In order to do that, he’d have to shift into human form, thereby showing her exactly what he was.

That wasn’t an option.

He circled above her now and moved inside a cloud so he could see her. It was easy enough to keep the clouds moving at whatever pace he wanted, and he did just that while he watched the mist grow thicker around Sammi again.

Something had called to the mist, and it hadn’t been him. If he wasn’t mistaken, it was shielding Sammi much like the forest had done. But it could also be the Dark Fae tricking her into trusting it.

Tristan wanted to roar his anger, but he didn’t dare. That was only allowed with a thunderstorm. It made him wish he had been a Dragon King when they ruled the land. To fly whenever they wanted, to roar when they chose.

He felt confined, trapped. Much as he had in the mountain. He didn’t know what mountain. All he knew was that he had been held prisoner deep inside a mountain by something evil.

Tristan growled as he pushed those thoughts aside. He could think of it later. Right now Sammi needed him.

How he wished he could talk to her and tell her to think more carefully. She didn’t think at all, just reacted to a problem.

In her defense, she had narrowly escaped being shot at and blown up. Her stitches had pulled, and her wound was bleeding again.

He wouldn’t be able to approach her at all now. She had seen him, in his dragon form no less. There was no way he could explain that.

All he could do now was watch her from above and let Banan know where she was to come get her. He would remain in the clouds and out of sight at all costs.

By the end of the ordeal she would believe she had imagined the entire thing. At least he hoped she would.

The way she had looked up at him with her powder blue eyes had pierced him to his very soul. Desire had been instant and urgent.

He groaned as he remembered the way she had stroked his scales. It was like she had been caressing his cock because the need had gone straight through his body to his rod. He had desired her before.

Now he craved her with a ferocity that set his blood afire.

CHAPTER TEN

Sammi looked to the sky often, searching for any sign of the dragon. For the next two hours there was nothing, and she was beginning to think she’d imagined the entire thing.

Except for the scrape on her palm where she had tried to hang onto the boulder.

It had happened. She had fallen and been saved by a dragon. She refused to even think she might be going crazy. If she allowed herself to travel along that path, she just might end up insane.

Instead, she recalled the feel of the wind as it had sped around her, whipping her hair into her face. She remembered being stopped midair as if cradled. And she had been—in the palm of a dragon’s hand.

His fingers—all five of them—had gently closed around her. How had she forgotten that? She wouldn’t ever forget the warmth of him, or the hardness of his scales. And his color.

Amber.

She couldn’t say how she knew it was a male, only that she did. His green eyes, as bright as apples, had looked at her with concern.

Sammi stopped walking. There was something about the dragon’s eyes, something she recognized, almost as if she had seen him before.

Which was impossible. She would definitely remember seeing a dragon. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew him. Was that why the fear she had first felt was fading—rapidly?

Just before she was about to continue her trek, she heard the booming beat that she recognized as that of the dragon’s wing as he flew.

She looked to the sky, but could see nothing but thick clouds for miles. The clouds were moving swiftly but showed no signs of thinning anytime soon.

Sammi adjusted her purse and started walking. The dragon was near. She knew it as surely as she knew her mother was in Heaven. Just as she knew that she would get another glimpse of the magnificent creature if she was patient.

The rest of the afternoon went by without another sound from the dragon. She decided to call it a day when she found some rocks protruding from the mountain. They’d shelter her in case it rained during the night, as it was wont to do in the mountains.

She ate the lone apple in her bag, and then discovered that she had managed to drink her last bottle of water throughout the day.

Sammi sighed and got to her feet. She had heard water as she walked. It couldn’t be that far. If the mist would clear she would probably be able to find it easily enough.

Not wanting to get turned around again, she dug into her large bag and pulled out the colored chalk she used to write on her board at the pub and made a big X on the rocks so she could find her way back.

She followed the sound of the water and surprisingly found it easy enough.

“If only everything was this easy,” she mumbled as she knelt beside the water.

Above her, cascading over dozens of rocks, was a waterfall that fell ten feet into the stream that then meandered down the mountain.

Sammi pulled out both of her empty bottles and filled them. She was putting the cap on the second when she glanced at the water and saw an image of a man as if he stood over her.

He had black hair shot with silver, but it was his red eyes that took her aback. She instantly recognized him as the man from the restaurant.

She whirled around, but no one was there. A glance in the water showed only her reflection.

“Maybe I am going crazy. Dragons and guys with red eyes. That’s just no possible.”

After going in two different directions and not finding the marks on the trees, Sammi began to get anxious. She let out a loud sigh when, on the third attempt, she found her marks that led her back to her camp.

Sammi settled back against the rocks and looked out over the mountains. It was hours before dark would descend in the Highlands, but her eyes were already getting heavy.

She was getting weaker, her shoulder ached, and the meager food she had bought wasn’t going to last her another two days, especially when she could eat it all right then.

After wiping away the blood from her stitches, Sammi settled on her side and used her purse as a pillow after taking out the water bottles.

In that place between waking and sleep, Sammi found herself thinking about Tristan and the dragon, until they became one and the same.

Tristan with his mysterious air about him, and the dragon, a creature of myth and legend come to life.

She thought of Tristan’s soulful dark eyes and the dragon’s alarm and concern—that same look had been in Tristan’s gaze when she had tried to leave Dreagan and he’d stopped her.

Sammi’s eyes flew open as realization hit her. She knew why the dragon’s gaze had looked so familiar. It reminded her of Tristan.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a flash of amber through the clouds. The sun had set behind a mountain peak casting the side of her mountain in shadows. She kept still as if asleep, and closed her eyes until they were slits but she could still see.

And then she waited.

Between dozing, she would wake, thinking she heard the dragon getting closer and closer. This last time was different. She cracked open her eyes to see the dragon glide effortlessly down from the clouds heading straight for her.