“Barely.” Mykal laughed, his breath a
wheezing rasp in his throat. “I dare not try to transform again. I threw it
away, as far and deep as I could.”
Cold water surged within her bond, her
eyes flashing with moonlight. “To hide your identity from me?”
“No, no, I knew you'd recognize me. You
always do. After you tried to drown me in Nurzhan, I couldn't come to you with
that thing on my hand.” Mykal reared up, eyes wild, and grabbed at her
shoulder. Dharman caught his hand to keep those blades from piercing her flesh.
“Don’t let that ring anywhere near you!”
“I won’t,” she soothed, settling her
hand on his chest to push him back down. “Where is it?”
“The bottom of a well in Nurzhan.” He
fell back, shivering. “This is my last life. Without that ring, I won’t be
given a new body. If the dragon takes me again, I won't be able to shift back.
Let your Reds kill me now, brightheart. I can die happy indeed.”
She leaned down and pressed her lips to
his forehead, his cheek, making her way toward his mouth, but he jerked his
face aside.
“No kiss from me. I would not taint you
with my Black Dragon any more than I already have.”
“Close your eyes,” she whispered,
kissing his cheek instead. “Open your bond.”
After giving Sal the command to take
over, Dharman did as she asked, too, determined to guard her bonds as much as
her body. The Keldari’s bond was a like a deep black tunnel in her mind which
housed a very irate dragon. The beast hissed at her, its red eyes full of
malice. Smoke billowed about it, thick and acidic with hatred.
Her bond blazed as bright as day,
flashing with white scales, moonlight and rainbows, and sweet clear water. The
White whuffed softly to the Black. Images tumbled through her mind of tight
dark spaces, two sinuous bodies entwined, sleeping, while the heat of the day
blazed outside.
Dharman opened his eyes and verified the
claws slowly retracted. She laid her head on the Keldari’s chest and his
breathing smoothed into sleep. Dharman wrapped himself about her back. While
her red-haired Blood stood at the foot of the bed looking as dejected as an
adolescent colt that had been driven from the herd by the head stallion.
Pillowing her head on the Keldari but
turning to lie on her back, she looked up at Sal. “There’s still room for you,
if you don’t mind lying in the middle.”
He flickered his gaze at the Keldari,
his lip curling in distaste. “The middle of him and you?”
Laughing softly, she spread her legs in
invitation. Sal pounced on the bed quicker than Dharman could draw breath. He
draped his upper body on her stomach and wrapped his arms around her. “Are you
sure you can sleep this way,
na’lanna
?”
She curled her arm back to Dharman’s
head, tangling her hand in his hair, while she stroked Sal’s head. “Absolutely,
if you’re very, very good and don’t move from that spot.”
The Keldari rolled onto his side,
shaking his head and muttering incoherently. His hair slipped down onto Sal’s
face. Spitting out a mouthful, he swiped the black hair off him with a
decidedly disgruntled look. “Dharman, forgive me. I begin to see why you weary
of my hair.”
“On occasion.” Dharman laughed and
wrapped her tighter against him. “I hope for your sake that he keeps his mouth
to himself.”
* * *
WAKING IN HER ARMS WAS something Mykal
had never dared dream. Especially since she now knew exactly who he’d been once
upon a time.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he felt
the sting of steel in his lower stomach. Carefully, he cast his gaze downward.
Draped over her lower body, the red-haired Blood flashed a hard smile, jabbed
the blade slightly harder, and withdrew it, but he didn’t relinquish his spot
between her thighs.
Ah. Mykal must have displaced the guard
from his normal sleeping position, although he surely wouldn’t have complained
in the man’s place. Of course her other big Red lay at her back, his gaze
steady but not challenging. Bewildered, Mykal searched his eyes, trying to
understand why they’d let him live.
She knew the
truth
.
She knew he’d once plotted with the
worst of her enemies to see her either dead or chained for Shadow. He’d killed
and manipulated threads for years. Wells and sands, he’d been the one to remove
her from the horse king’s protection in order to thrust her into the snake pit
of Theo’s Shanhasson.
Throat tight, he whispered, “How can you
forgive me?”
He didn’t expect an answer, but she
nestled closer, cupped his face in her palms, and smiled. When she opened her
eyes, they glowed with a soft light that made his heart stutter in his chest.
“Because I love Mykal, I can forgive Stephan. We do have a problem, though.”
“Tell me and I will kill it.”
She snorted and looked down at the guard
lying on her. “Sal, do you mind?”
“Aye, I do.” He licked her stomach and
shot another glare up at Mykal. “But for you,
na’lanna
, I shall do as you ask.”
“I’ll make it up to you.”
The guard’s eyes lit up and he nipped
her belly, slithering lower.
“Sal,” she said warningly. “Later.”
He pressed a kiss on her mound and then
slipped out of bed without another word.
Mykal didn’t fail to note that she kept
the other guard at her back. “What problem have I caused you, brightheart?”
“You’re holding something back from me.”
It took the millennia of his lives to
keep his gaze steady on hers. “I seek only to protect you.”
She stroked her fingers over his face.
“I’m Our Blessed Lady’s Last Daughter, and I need no such protection from
love.”
“I’m Shadowed.” He fought to keep his
voice flat and devoid of the anguish tearing his soul. “You want no part of
Shadow.”
“I argued much the very same thing once.
A barbarian warlord conquered my army and professed a love like no other. I
thought he was a fool for loving me, an even greater fool for trusting me. I’d
killed dozens of men without thought or hesitation. I’d lie and cheat, plot and
bargain with my greatest enemies, all to gain the High Throne.”
She smiled, taking some of the sting
from her words; he knew very well that Stephan, the Duke of Pella, had been one
of her greatest enemies she’d gone to for help, only to be stabbed in the back.
“Even once I began to feel love for my
horse king, I was afraid. I tried to protect him. I locked down my heart and
guarded my emotions, sure that if he knew the darkness I carried inside me, he
would turn away in horror.”
Sympathy made his heart ache. He knew
very well what she must have felt, agonizing whether the one she loved against
all hope would despise her and turn away in horror. “What Shadow could you
possibly have carried, brightheart? No one shines as brightly as you.”
“I craved his blood. Still do.” Her eyes
fell shut. Through the bond, Mykal swore he felt something brush her chin, but
he saw nothing. “I was afraid I would kill him. I was afraid that his love
would make him vulnerable to Shadow, that he’d be slowly corrupted until he
tried to kill me. I’d never known a man—even a lover—who could resist Shadow’s
call to murder me.”
Mykal dropped his gaze to the old
puncture wound on her left breast. The man who’d wormed his way into her heart
and bed hadn’t been his, and for that, he was sincerely grateful.
“My reluctance to let him have my heart,
as flawed and stained as I believed myself to be, nearly killed me. I nearly
lost everything, the least of which was the High Throne. I almost lost his
love, and that, my Keldari dragon, would have been the greatest loss of my
life.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “What
are you asking of me?”
“I want you to give me everything.”
Involuntarily, he tensed. The dragon
inside him crouched, tail lashing, teeth bared in a vicious smile of victory.
“I cannot. The dragon will eat you alive.”
She tugged on his hair sharply, jerking
his head back. “Am I Our Blessed Lady’s Daughter? Have I not walked as the
White Dragon in your dreams?”
“I know you have, brightheart, but those
were only Dreams. So you told me yourself.”
“That was before I very nearly slit your
throat with talons on my hands. If you hold this back from me, you’re leaving a
weakness in our bond that Shadow will exploit.” Her bond swelled in his mind,
shining moonlight and crystal waters that birthed the White Dragon, luminous
with scales and bright wings. “I’m strong enough, Mykal. I can take whatever
you give. If I am to save you, you must let my Light fully embrace your
Shadow.”
“I don’t want to swallow you.” The
dragon scraped claws through his soul, roaring with hunger. Blowing hard, he
shuddered and tried to control it. “The darkness…”
Pressing closer, she slid her thigh over
his hips and nibbled on his lips. “Trust me to shine with love.”
Desperate, Mykal looked to her First
Blood. “If my dragon tries to devour her, kill me.”
“I’ve pulled her back from death not
once but twice,” the Red replied evenly. His hand flashed and the bed dipped
behind Mykal. The knife point dug into his back again. Oddly, the second Red at
his back with a blade hovering at his kidney sent relief crashing through him.
“No Shadow will ever take her from us, not even you.”
“The only thing I haven’t given you,” he
whispered against her lips, “is my Kiss of Fire.”
“You have no Fire.”
“Exactly,” he sighed softly at the
velvet softness of her mouth, the lush oasis where he longed to linger. “My
Kiss is more poison than flame.”
Her Reds said nothing, but he felt their
rising tension. His skin prickled with their intensity. Blood trickled down his
back from the red-haired Blood’s knife. “Close your eyes, brightheart. Return
to the Well of Tears where you first met me as Mykal.”
Through her bond, he saw the glimmer of
moonlight dancing on water, her graceful sinuous scales sliding through his
mind.
“I gave you my heart. I gave you my
blood. I gave you my body. Now, brightest heart of the midnight sky, I give you
my Kiss.”
And pray to She Who Hung the
Moon that you survive.
She didn’t wait for him; she pressed her
open mouth to his on a low, rumbling invitation that cracked the bones in his
spine and sucked the very air from his lungs. Wings crashed inside him, talons
scoring his ribs. The Black Dragon rushed toward that shining water and
released a massive bellow of fumes.
Sands swallow him, he tried to stop it,
but her tongue stroked his and she took him inside her body, melding their flesh
together, and every chain he’d managed to throw on the beast melted away to
nothing. Unfettered, the Black shot through their bond, flowing through their
melded mouths. The White curved her neck over her shoulder enticingly, and he
pounced so hard that both dragons sank beneath the waters.
They rolled and tore at each other in
their frenzy.
Mykal screamed in her mind.
:Release me!:
:Never.:
With a feral roar through the bond that sent his heart thundering, the White
gripped the Black’s throat in her jaws and pinned him flat on his back. The
Black ceased his aggression as suddenly as though she’d yanked out his
still-beating heart.
At the same time, Shannari pushed him
flat in her bed despite the guard at his back, uncaring that the Red’s knife
scored his body. Or perhaps that was exactly as she intended, because she threw
her head back, breaking the kiss, and sucked in a loud breath.
“Lady, you smell so good when you
bleed.”
“Wound me, then, brightheart. Bleed me
until I’m as dry as Keldar.”
She settled on him, shifting her hips
and adjusting her legs until she was comfortable and he was in agony. Her
glossy hair sparked and floated about her shoulders as though she danced with
lightning, thick with Shadows yet still gleaming with her moonlight.
However, the marks on her forearm from
his dragon's bite sent a scimitar of regret slicing through his heart.
Those long raking teeth marks down her
arm and wrist sucked up her light like an endless night. She carried his power,
his dragon, his Fire. He traced those scrapes with a shaking finger, and she
shuddered. Her head fell back and she began to move on him, a slow, languorous
glide that made his eyes roll back in his head.
Wells
, he couldn’t
regret braiding the physical mark of his teeth with the magical power of his
Fire, not when she reacted so wondrously to his touch.
Afraid the talons might appear and wound
her, he fisted his hands in the bedding, gritted his teeth, and held on to his
control for dear life.
She dropped forward, rubbing her stomach
and breasts against him. Linen tore, but he kept his hands off her slender
back. The last thing he wanted was for her Blood to have a valid excuse to
interfere in this, the most beautiful, heart-rending moment of his life.
Nibbling on his lips, she whispered, “You’re still holding back on me.”