Dragon Fall: Masters of the Flame 3 (Mating Fever) (2 page)

“Your reyex,” Bale needled. “Your liege lord.”

“
And
my brother. One who’s always had a softness for hard-luck cases.”

At the note of warmth in Rave’s voice, Bale closed his eyes. With the stone blight spreading through his body, slowly stealing his life, any heat or light was pain. And still, the petralys was nowhere near as bad as the grim reality they both knew.

“To be dragonkin is to know hard luck,” Bale noted.

Rave grunted noncommittally. “You’ve been stuck with her for a few nights now. I’m wondering if that might have something to do with the rock-hard thing.”

Bale choked on a laugh. Their sire would’ve roasted a dragon for such presumption. But the only reason the Nox Incendi clan—and Bale himself, for that matter—still existed was because of Rave Dorado and his determination to keep their treasure and their shapeshifting secrets hidden from the human world.

Now Rave had claimed his solarys mate, and his dragon thrived. No wonder he felt confident about challenging his liege.

Plus, as a younger brother, he’d always been a pain in the ass.

“We’re close to a treatment for the petralys,” Rave said, pacing again. “The cereus flowers we liberated during the raid on Ashcraft Antiquities are showing results. Piper purified the extract, and she’s searching for a way to synthesize it in bulk. Once we do that, we can dose everyone in the clan and keep the stone blight at bay until each dragon finds his true mate. No problem.”

Despite the ache in all his joints that worsened with each step, Bale slid around the back side of a stalagmite where he could see Esme. “I’ve found my mate.”

Rave scowled. “Not that one.”

Bristling at his brother’s vehement rejection, Bale snarled, “The Nox Incendi have only one solarys. One. Let me count that for you.
One
.”

“Then make sure,” Rave said with strained patience, “you don’t let the dragon claim this one.”

“Without a solarys mate, I’ll die.” Bale fought against the twist in his spine to lift his head, studying his brother. “Or is that what you want? To become reyex yourself?”

Rave snarled back, the guttering embers of the brazier blazing in his storm blue eyes. “Don’t even go there. I don’t want your treasure. I’ve got everything I want.”

“Ah, yes,” Bale drawled. “You have
your
solarys.”

“Piper.” At the sound of his mate’s name, the angry flames in Rave’s gaze dissipated with an iridescent burst, as if merely the thought of her ignited his ichor.

The ichor—the essence of the Nox Incendi that gave the dragonkin their light and flight and life—was a tarry sludge in Bale’s veins, pooling in his limbs, clogging his heart, slowing even his thoughts.

“I’ll be stone-bound soon,” he said softly.

“And likely you’ll still last longer than her.” Rave sent a pitying glance toward Esme. “We have Ashcraft on the run, and you broke the hold he had over her through that zombified engagement ring. But look at her—she’s still a wreck.” He shook his head. “And from what Piper has told me, Esme was never that strong. If your dragon tries to claim her as mate now, you will both die.”

The assessment—cruel but true—hit Bale harder than a dragonslayer’s spear. She’d already been wounded by Ashcraft’s alchemy, and the dragon’s charm was more primal yet, darker than lead and hotter than molten gold. He didn’t care so much for his own fate anymore, but in her current state, she wouldn’t survive the mating fever.

The beast in him writhed, leaving no room for him to inhale, and his breath rattled.

Rave stepped forward in alarm. “Bale. What—?”

As if the noise had roused her, Esme stirred. The flames in the brazier flickered higher, widening the circle of light.

Bale edged back, squinting. “Take her then,” he said through gritted teeth. “Ashcraft can’t reach her anymore.” And neither could he. “Get her out of here. Take her back to her friends.”

“Bale—”

“Now. Before she wakes again.”
Before she sees me
.

He didn’t say that aloud, praise all the stars in the night sky, but no doubt Rave knew what he was thinking. Though it had been a long time since he’d allowed anyone to see what the petralys toxin had done to him, Bale knew his brother was aware of the blight’s progression.

Responding to the sudden burst of his heartbeat, the fire reached higher yet as Esme pushed herself up onto one elbow, and Bale recoiled again. When she brushed back the pale blond strands of her hair, her dark eyes were hazy—but then she blinked and looked around, her gaze sharpening.

Not so blind that she wouldn’t see him for what he was.

The beast halfway out of his skin, and the stone halfway in.

Wingtip dragging over the rough rock, he retreated further into the black cavern, though the dragon raged, wanting to go to her. Wanting to claim her.

The congealing ichor in his body ravaged his bones like a pack of rabid wolves tearing him apart from the inside. He gasped, though the sound came out as a growl.

Rave stiffened, turning in his direction but unable to see past the fire. Just as well. After another moment’s hesitation, he splashed through the shallow pool and urged Esme to her feet. With a wary glance over his shoulder and another at the water beneath him, Rave lifted Esme and swung her from the shelfstone to dry ground.

Bale trusted his brother with every coin in the Nox Incendi treasury, but seeing those hands—two full hands—on Esme ripped through his guts and lungs until he felt eviscerated.

He would never carry her, not with his affliction.

As she stumbled toward the elevator, she lifted her head and stared back. Her gaze, too deep for her delicate coloring, seemed to reach Bale through the shadows.

Seemed to touch him when nothing else could.

Worse than the flames of the brazier, the feverish glaze in her eyes seared him. The part of his skin unprotected by scales or the creeping blight felt as if it was blistering, bubbles of pain sinking into his flesh.

He groaned, a low, tortured sound that rolled between the rocks and brought Rave to a halt. Esme cringed against his side, both hands fisted in his fine shirt as her wild gaze swept the darkness, searching for the monster she must sense.

“Leave,” Bale grated. “Before the dragon changes my mind.”

He knew her human eyes couldn’t pierce the shadows, but his voice must have been awful enough. Her already pale skin turned ashen at his words. What her half-dreaming self had been willing to accept, her waking mind identified as a threat.

Him.

The dragon yearned toward her, straining as if it could leave his body. Scales split from skin, weeping blackened ichor. He dropped to his knees, bone slamming against stone, just as the elevator door opened again, flooding the cavern with unforgiving light. The illumination engulfed Esme in an aura of white and gold, searing his gaze, forcing him to look away. And this time he couldn’t stop himself.

He roared. It was either that or demand her return. His failing ichor didn’t ignite. Instead, the embers in the brazier guttered out, and the glowing algae in the pool died, casting the cavern into oblivion.

Rave hustled Esme into the box, whisking her away, and in the last glimpse Bale had of her, she fell into his brother’s arms.

***

Esme swallowed back the scream clogging her throat, an echo to the horrible cry that even the closing of the heavy steel doors couldn’t silence.

“Dark,” she murmured. “Everything’s so dark.”

The man holding her upright put his hand under her chin and tilted her head upward to the ceiling light. He frowned down at her. “Pupils equal and reactive,” he muttered. “Maybe more damage from the link from Ashcraft—”

“Not Lars,” she rasped. “Not me.
Him
. Black and cold.”

His frown deepened. “My brother’s cavern was the only place to hide you from Ashcraft. The warlock’s magic couldn’t reach you there, not with Bale in the way.”

She wavered on her feet, her mind whirling.

For so long, the whirling had been like murk going down a drain, but now the swirl was reversed, a jumble of disjointed memories bubbling up from her half-sleep. The man beside her was Rave Dorado. A dragon shapeshifter who was mated to her college housemate Piper Ramirez. Their third housemate Anjali Herne had been tasked with trapping and killing a dragon-shifter, using Esme as bait. The warlock Lars Ashcraft had been the mastermind behind the plot, foiled by Anjali and her dragonmate Torch Dorado who had also helped break the alchemical/voodoo curse in the engagement ring Lars had given Esme.

Quite the unbelievable adventure.

And she’d slept through most of it.

She jerked her chin out of Rave’s hand and almost knocked herself over.

“Watch it.” He shifted the hand to her elbow and steadied her. “We’ve been blocking the worst of Ashcraft’s alchemy, but we don’t know how much it affected you.”

She stiffened. “You said I might die.”

Rather than look chagrined, which most people did when she called them out, he tilted his head. “You heard that? Faking it, were you?”

“No.” A flush of annoyance warmed her a little, enough to shake loose his grasp. “I wasn’t asleep. But I…wasn’t awake either. I was…” She gazed past him, catching a hazy glimpse of herself in the brushed steel of the elevator doors. The simple white shift dress was something she might’ve chosen for herself—she never had to worry about the message a white shift dress sent; people could write whatever intention they wanted on such a blank canvas—but the silky fabric hung on her like the lining of a very nice coffin.

“A ghost,” she finished after a moment.

“Not a ghost yet,” Rave said briskly. “With Ashcraft defeated, you can work on regaining your strength. Piper will be glad to see you…more yourself.”

Esme dragged her gaze back to him, sorting through her returning memories. “She’ll be the only one. Anjali is still ashamed of bringing me to Lars’ attention. And you. You think I’m a threat to your brother.”

“Not just him,” Rave clarified. “To all the Nox Incendi.”

She touched her temple. The snarls in her hair were as tangled as her impressions. “I like being thought of as a threat.”

He flashed a toothy grin at her. “Well, there’s something to you after all.”

She closed her eyes.

He might be the only one to ever think that.

Despite his unkind words, his grip on her arm was gentle when the elevator stopped and he led her through a twisting corridor to the double doors of a luxurious suite. She remembered all this, more or less, although in her mind’s eye, she was floating through most of it and a whispering voice had been telling her she was worthless and weak and the only way for her to save herself was to steal someone else’s power to live.

But she’d never wanted to be powerful.

That voice had belonged to Lars, when he’d held her helpless and touched her all over while reciting the places he would carve the dragon. Or maybe it was her grandmother’s voice. Grand-mère had never said anything about shapeshifters, but the company she’d taken over from her philandering, forgetful husband had carved up and swallowed other companies with the same lust Lars had reserved for dragons.

Esme wrapped her arms around herself as Rave guided her under the amber chandelier in the hallway toward the living area. As fabulous as the Keep was, it still felt to her like all the other posh, expensive hotels and resorts she’d ever stayed in: shiny as the finest crystal goblet, and every bit as brittle and hollow.

The cavern—dark and cold though it had been—pulsed with something she couldn’t name, couldn’t even see.

But she wanted it.

She wanted—

“Ezzie!” Piper jumped off the couch aligned near the floor-to-ceiling windows that framed a view of the Vegas skyline. Her high ponytail bounced with her enthusiasm.

They only called her Ezzie back in college when they were threatening to take her to the emergency room after another bad night. Most of the time, she’d been able to talk them out of it, but she must look pretty bad now to have Piper defaulting to the childish version of her already short name.

She wrapped her arms around herself, shocked at the sharp ends of her own bones. She’d gotten so good at covering those up…

Warmth enveloped her, and she snapped herself out of her drifting to catch the edges of the blanket Piper was tucking around her. “Thanks,” she murmured.

“Bale wouldn’t let me cover you,” Piper said fretfully. “He said the cold slowed the negative reactions in your body.”

“Maybe.” She sort of remembered that conversation. Esme gave Rave a thankful smile when he handed her a cup of tea. Steam curled up, wafting the delicate scent of jasmine to her nose. “I feel more awake than I have since…” She looked down into her cup, distracted by the reflection of the amber chandelier in the water, like the sun drowning in the sea.

“Since Lars gave you the engagement ring?” Piper suggested. “The hallucinogens seeping out of the ring must’ve been affecting you from the very start.”

Esme straightened. Ugh, that giant “diamond” engagement ring had actually been full of alchemically altered psychedelic spores. There’d been a time when the weirdest thing she’d ever encountered was at a charity event where all three ex-wives of a local business man had been wearing the same dress. Now she was surrounded by dragons and warlocks and magic mushroom rings.

When she shook her head, the movement seemed to knock more things into place, so she did it more vigorously. “Even before that. I think… I think I’ve been floating for a long time.”

Piper touched her hand through the blanket, compassion softening her dark brown eyes. “You’re coming down now. And we’re here to catch you.”

But coming down to what? The engagement of socialite heiress Esme Montenegro to industry scion Lars Ashcraft had been front page of the living
and
business sections in the Salt Lake City newspapers and websites. Now Ashcraft Antiquities was being investigated by federal watchdog groups, and she was technically missing.

Maybe she could just keeping sinking, until she was entirely out of sight.

No one would actually miss her. She wouldn’t even miss herself.