Furee Born: The Dragon Mage Series Book IV (8 page)

The two mages, Cree and
Archer, had elected to also fight in their warrior form, and as usual when he
saw them fight, Braedon was impressed.  Both men moved with quick precision and
deadly accuracy.  The great beasts they hacked and flipped around never got
close to touching the two mage warriors.  And like the dragons they fought
alongside, they left a trail of destruction in their wake.

I do not think they
needed us here, even with Furee off with my sister somewhere.
 
His words were mild enough, but he gave the next attacking beast a particularly
viscous kick and then a burst of flame that incinerated what was left of him on
contact.  When his mate didn’t answer, just blasted the next beast that came at
his vulnerable side while he was distracted at his right, he felt even more
grim.  Asha knew something she was not saying, which meant the roiling feeling
in his gut was not wrong.  Riva was in trouble.

***

Before Riva could truly
panic, a mountain loomed before them, and then she saw the cave they were
aiming for.  They landed with a fast stumble and a thump that Riva was not used
to when flying with Furee.  Then she was on her own wobbly feet with Furee
transformed into his warrior form and moving away from her and deeper into the
cave.

Looking around her, Riva
realized they were in a hot spring cave much like the one at Forsaken.  Only
this one seemed to be older, and the magic saturating the room pressed down on
her from all sides.  Her lungs compressed and it was as if she was breathing
magic.  Most of the power emanated from the water found in the center of the
place.  Even knowing magic permeated the place, she was still surprised to see
not only a garden growing out of the rocks around her, but a huge bed that
looked untouched by either dirt or time with its soft white sheets that seemed
to blow with an invisible wind.

“What is this place?” she
whispered reverently, her eyes taking in the stalagmites that cast both light
and shadow across the stones and night blooming plants. You would never know it
was bright daylight outside when in here it seemed to be perpetual twilight.

When Furee didn’t answer
but stood with his back to her, hunched in on himself, Riva remembered the feel
of his heat hitting her and moved to touch his back.  Even through the black
leather of his knight armor he burned. 

She jerked her hand back
with a gasp.  “Furee, what is it?”

He whipped around before
she could touch him again and grew to his full height so that she stood in his
shadows.  Looking into the darkness that hid his face, all she saw were his
eyes.  She sucked in a breath at the fire raging there.  She had seen Furee’s
eyes look like every type of flame from the heart of a camp fire to the
smoldering ash of burning coal, but this was the heart of a blue flame and even
just that look in his eyes burned.

She took a step back
automatically and he growled.  The sound was more feral beast than dragon, and
it was at that second Riva saw his arm for the first time.  The small slash
from the beast had not healed but festered and looked black.  Red veins of
sickness ran from the wound to flow up his arm and down his hands.  Seeing the
telltale signs of poison, Riva knew they were in trouble.  Her mouth dried up
and she could swear her fingers tingled from the oxygen that was leaving her
extremities and heading for her panicked brain.

When she took another
careful step back, Furee grabbed her wrists and Riva cried out at the sear of
pain.  His touch burned her where it never had before, and rather than let go
and back away as Furee would have done, this feral creature that inhabited his
body pulled her closer and tightened his grip, causing the pain to go white
hot. 

Riva felt as if she was
inside one of her own nightmares, back in the heat of the bonfire, and this
time she was going to die there, sucking in the stench of her own burning
flesh.  She
screamed.

Riva forced herself to stop
screaming and think.  Fighting her own panic and the pain in her hands, she
fought to concentrate.  Finding her center and concentrating through the living
nightmare she was enduring was the hardest thing she had ever done.  The only
thing that made it possible was the niggling idea that this time she would not
be the only one who paid the price for her weakness.  If she could not find the
strength to cure Furee she would die here, and he would follow, succumbing to
whatever poison he had been injected with.  Already she knew it was different
than the one that she had found in Aarion’s wound because it was not just
retarding his ability to heal, it was attacking his mind.  Fully pressed all
along Furee’s length, her clothes had long since burned to ashes and her body
red and blistering even as her powers tried to heal the damage.  Somewhere in
the last few moments, Furee had lost his own clothes and every inch of skin
that touched between them seared pain through her nerves.  His hands were a
brutal force moving over her skin, holding her against the pain of his
claiming.  The Furee she knew would never hurt her like this and if she wanted
to save them both she was going to have to let go of her own pain and take care
of her mate.

It took longer than it should
have, but eventually she pushed it all away and like an anvil dropped into
Furee.  Normally, she would have used more finesse but she was less concerned
about scaring her patient and more with moving fast enough to stop the spread
of the poison.  When she finally made the leap and saw what she was up against,
she almost lost control all over again. 

Unnatural worms of poison
saturated every part of Furee.  It was the ugliest blight she had ever seen. 
With one look she knew she could not be gentle.  She was fighting for both
their lives.  Then Furee bit her shoulder, passing his mating enzymes through
abused skin and making the nerves in her body twice as sensitive to every touch
and pain.  She screamed again, nearly blacking out and suddenly found herself back
in her own body.  Her skin bubbling up everywhere he touched her, the pain was worse
than anything she could imagine. 

Knowing she was running
out of time, she pressed it all away again with a cry of anguish, sending every
scrap of healing power out of herself and into Furee in one blast of light that
hit him with so much force he flew back four feet and slammed into the stone
wall behind him.

Riva dropped like a stone
to the edge of the hot spring and was more than willing to pass out.  Her last
thought was a prayer to the light that what she had given him would be enough
to save at least Furee.

***

Furee came to his senses
with his head half way buried in the stone of one of the ancient caves. 
Blinking himself awake and pulling out from beneath the falling rocks and dust
that covered him, he looked around with no idea how he had come to be there. 
These caves had been made with dragon dreams long ago and were used primarily
to cement a mating, or when a dragon was going through his molt and needed the
extra power that could be found in the waters.  But what was he doing here now?

He saw the crumpled
figure at the base of the hot spring and flashes started coming to him until he
put a face to that broken burned body with the dark flowing hair – and
everything came back to him. 

Riva!

In a second he was by her
side, reaching for her, and then he stopped, his hands hovering over her still
figure, unsure of where to touch that would not make it worse.  And if he were
honest, for the first time since he became a knight, fear held him in its
sweaty grip.  In his poisoned lunacy had he killed his mate?

After a sustained moment
of cowardice, he touched her back and felt her still warm skin.  He had no time
to react to the relief flooding his body.  He turned her as gently as he could
so that her head rested in his lap and got the first glance at her face.  He
had expected it to be worse, honestly.  He could see that her clothes had
burned away, but on her skin, all he saw were shadows of red and welts that
would scab over for days, until the skin healed leaving scars.  But it was not
the burns that he needed to worry about.  They were only a symbol of the damage
he had inflicted.  She was fading away, he could feel it.  She was a healer and
the power she had used had not only healed him but threw him across the cave. 
He knew as well as he knew he did not want to live without her that she had
used too much.  Riva was dying in his arms.  She had to have known she was
giving her life for his when she used so much power to save him, and he had no
idea what to do about it.

Wanting to roar and rage
at the pain the thought caused, Furee instead used everything he had to call
for a healer, hoping that one of the dragon knights was close enough to hear
his call.  Then he remembered where he was.  This place of dragon dreams was
drenched in healing magic, the kind that sustained them through molts.  Riva
was a healer, but she was also a dragon mate, and the caves were full of
magic.  Without another thought, Furee stepped into the water fully clothed and
pulled her along with him, so that they were both submerged.  He held her
cradled in his arms, her head resting on his shoulder while he pushed the hair
out of her face and watched it float out around them.  He ground his jaw and
willed her to suck in the magic, but as connected as he felt to her, they were
not truly mated.  What if she could not access the dragon power for her own
use?  Without another thought, he juggled Riva until he could bite down on his
wrist; then he fed her the blood that gushed from the harsh bite.  In the magic
of the cave, it did not stay open long and Furee thrashed about in his thoughts
for something else, something he missed.  He lifted her higher until he could
press his face into her neck and bit down drawing her blood.  The connection
did not flare between them, but the taste of her had desire shooting through
his body and hardening his cock against his leathers.  As if he did not despise
himself enough already.

He cursed and roared to
the light when she continued to do nothing but lay passive in his arms, her
luscious lips stained with his blood, her cheeks a hot red from burns he had
inflicted.  He fell as much as sat on the ledge low in the water. He pulled
Riva close so that they were cheek to damaged cheek and he wrapped his arms
around her, holding her as tight as he could – refusing to let her die.

“Heal yourself, Riva,” he
whispered raggedly against her hair.  “Please.”

She continued to fade. 
If she was his mate in full it might be different, but their connection was
tentative at best.  She was just too much mage to use the dragon magic. Then
Furee snapped his eyes open, hating the idea that had popped into his head. 
What’s more it would mean Riva hating him, but hating him somewhere in the
world was better than feeling her fade away inch by inch.  Knowing even as he
tore at his leathers and ripped the last of the burned cloth from Riva’s body,
that if he saved her like this, he also lost her.  But then, he had gone past
forgivable with the first burn on her body.   Before he could think any more about
what he was doing, he adjusted her in his arms so that she straddled his lap. He
held her hips tight and with a roar of rage and desolation he impaled her,
forcing himself deep into her senseless body.

She would never forgive
him.  Not for this.  Furee would add it to the many other things he would never
forgive himself for that he had done on this day.

But it was enough.  Magic
slammed into both of them following the line of blood connection Furee had
already started.  Magic filled them both until they were glowing with it from
their fingertips to their toes; he felt her power shift and fill, her skin healing
beneath his hands until not a scab or scar remained, only beautiful pristine skin. 

He knew she was back with
him when they were forced to relive Furee’s existence, cold and barren though
it had been, duty and his need for her the only light in a thousand years.  He
was amazed that his mate would be such a gentle creature of light while he felt
used up and made of shadows, believing that she would never forgive him. 

Furee opened his eyes
knowing what he would see – Riva with her glowing mage eyes open, her healing
light shining on him once again.  As the tears formed in her eyes, he saw her
life, felt her compassion for him.  Her life of service as a healer, facing the
people that she had tried to heal and being burned at the stake, his rescue and
her feelings for the knight who had rescued her, and that he continued to keep
her safe.  Her understanding of the sacrifice he made to give her the time she
needed to face her fear of the fire and of him.  Her compassion and her
understanding of what this day had cost him.

You think I would blame
you for saving me? 
He felt the soft thoughts in his head and
closed his eyes, savoring the mate speak and what it meant.  Riva’s hand went
to his cheek as her tears fell on his chest and burned where they touched. 
Again?

He wrapped his hands
around her naked hips and squeezed, bringing her attention to the fact that she
was still impaled – in case she had somehow missed it with the influx of power.
I mated you when you were dying in my arms.  I can think of nothing
forgivable about that.  You should be cursing me.
He thought back to her
grimly, even as the hands turned the touch into the caress he could not help. 
He waited for the feelings of anger and betrayal, yelling, weeping for what he
had taken from her.  “You should be running from me,” he said, his voice raw.

I should be thanking
you. 
Instead of doing any of the things he expected, his
mate leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips, her eyes shining into
his.  “Thank you, Furee,” she said simply.  “Even if I had not seen your
memories, felt your feelings, I would still know what saving me this way took
from you.”  She ran her hands back into his hair, watching as her fingers
sifted through his fiery locks as if she had no fear.  It was then Furee
realized that every part of him was ablaze with dragon flame and Riva was not
scared.  She seemed to be taking great delight in the flames dancing over her
unharmed skin.

“You are not afraid of
me?” he asked gruffly, hardly daring to believe it.

She turned her eyes back
to the flame he knew must be dancing in his.  “I cannot promise I will never
fear the flame again,” she finally said quietly, her eyes touching his face
like a caress.  “But right this moment, I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere
but safe in your arms.”  Then he saw the miracle of a true smile after
everything he had done.  “It’s not as if I could run far in my current position
anyway.”  If he had not loved her before, that soft teasing and true smile
would have won his heart irrevocably in that second.

Furee’s hands went to her
face to hold her firmly, wanting her to see what it meant to him.  The smile
slowly died from her lips as she absorbed the raw hunger and love in his.

“I hate that I hurt you.” 
He swept his thumb down the newly healed cheek. “I would die to keep you from
harm.”

“I know.”  And she did,
he thought, seeing the complete lack of doubt in her eyes.

Furee had to swallow
before he could say the rest, trying to say with his eyes and the clasp of his
hands how much she meant to him.  His voice dropped and his throat closed up
but he got the words out.  “You will never have cause to regret this mating I
forced on you.”  He willed her to see the truth of his words.

“Furee . . .”  She whispered
his name on a fresh wave of tears, her eyes closing as she dropped her head so
that her forehead rested on his cheek.  She swallowed before she could speak.  “I
know that, too.  I just hope you never have cause to regret it.”

Then she kissed him, and
it was as if a dam had broken in his soul. 

“Never,” he breathed out
like a benediction.  The passion and fire of the dragon mating swept over them
both in an instant, and he was kissing her back with all the stored up hunger
of his lonely existence.  “You are more than I ever dreamed you could be.”

She groaned into his
marauding mouth and took everything he had to give.  For Furee, there was no
more thought but to touch and taste all of her, and every movement forced sweet
friction between them until he was ravishing more than just her mouth.  He
grabbed her hips and lifted her, slamming her back down, and then again, until
he was pounding away at her body as if he could imprint himself there.  He took
with a fury born of need, and she gave everything.

He pounded into her, and
she gasped and writhed across his lap, seeking more.  Furee gave it, harder and
harder, touching every part of her, until he felt the pleasure ignite within
her, and Riva threw back her head as if the waves crashing over her were real
and not waves of pleasure. At the feel of her clamping down, Furee pulled her
hips up and slammed her back down harder and faster to finish it.  Then he held
her there as he poured fire into her with a roar of completion that shook the
cave around them. 
Mine!

***

“You should hate me,”
Furee said into the dark, his whispered gruff voice echoing strangely through
the cave, the fires of the dragon mating temporarily banked.  Furee was
thinking again, Riva could feel it.