Forged of Fire (26 page)

Stefen walked over and filled his own glass. “And was something amiss? You are powering through that drink like there was.”

“Yes, something was definitely wrong.”

“Care to tell me?” Stefen took a refined sip of the beverage that deserved more respect than Ash was currently paying it.

“No!” Ash took a seat in one of the rooms many leather chairs.

“Well I shall assume you would like to know that your gift to the trainees arrived and was just offering his vein to the first in line, all eager for a taste of course,” Stefen said without even a hint of judgement in his voice. “I hope you don’t mind, but since the Gilcolm did not come with instructions I gave a couple of my own. Only one ounce of his blood per participant and not a drop more.” He took a seat and swirled his contents of his glass. “Again, just assuming that you did not wish Christopher killed and raped.”

Ash reminded himself how good the fucker was at masking his emotions. “Thank you.” He supposed his earlier torture sentence was a bit much. Ash really needed to get control of this damn Dragon side before he torched the whole country of Italy. He should probably have someone tell Gilly she could get up off her chamber floors too. “Hamilton!” He called.

The astute butler was around the door within seconds. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Will you inform Gilly that she is encouraged to go to bed and that Christopher will be back shortly?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Hamilton turned to leave.

Damn it!
“Hamilton?” Ash needed to let Christopher also know he was not banished. Although that idea still had huge merit to it. The older man paused and turned back. “Perhaps you could also send a message to the trainee estate informing Christopher to return to his room when he is finished with his work there?”

Stefen did raise an eyebrow at that one but said nothing until Hamilton nodded and left to carry out his orders. “So the new Gilcolms pissed you off. That might explain the limp Christopher walked in with.”

Ash pinched the bridge of his nose. “You could say that.” A long pause dragged out. “What? What do you want to know? I came back to find Kielyn feeding off Gilly on her bedroom floor and Christopher pitching a fucking tent, eager to be involved,” Ash snapped. “You brought me two whores!”

Stefen studied him carefully. “What led up to that?”

Ash felt his mouth fall open. “Does it matter?”

“Having been on the receiving end of getting in trouble more times than I would care to share in my life, yes, it does,” Stefen said. “We left them alone all day. Something had to have occurred to end in that situation. What was their excuse?”

Ash growled and stood, stalking back to the side bar. “I did not ask. They should not have been groping at my mate like they were! That’s all I needed to know.”

“Do you think they were involved in other activities?” Stefen asked, concerned.

Had they been?
He would fucking kill Christopher! Ash filled the glass again and slammed it back. “They better not have been!”

Stefen sat his glass down. “You need to ask Kielyn what all went on. Did she look like…” He gently shook his head. “She was enjoying herself?”

“The hell if I…”
He did not know
. Ash had not looked past Christopher’s damn hand. The darkness had come on too quick. “Fuck!” He closed his eyes, trying to remember anything about Kielyn’s expression.
Shock!
She was as shocked as anyone would be having their doors busted down.
Her aura? What had it been?
Ash dredged the corners of his memory to remember it.
Blue!
She was in a state of calmness. There was zero red to symbolize passion. His mate was not riddled with lust, she was simply taking blood and the sensation was calming her down.
Calming her down?
From what?
How did he know that?
Ash dug deeper into that moment in time. There was another aura fading from the blue.
Yellow.
Ash tried to remember all of Marsala’s ramblings about what the different colors meant.
Fear! Yellow housed fear! Kielyn had been scared!

Bloody hell!
He had fucked up royally! Ash had to get to her now! “I have to go to her!”

Ash bolted from the room without explanation. He was such a bastard! He had to explain to her that he was not himself, that it was the beast inside him! He had to allow her to talk, explain what she had tried to tell him and pray to everything that she would forgive him. God he was a fool! He raced up the stairs, his heart rate hammering from his own fear. Ash reached her chambers and threw open the doors to her room. It was empty… The only signs of life were the curtains dancing on the open windows breeze.
No!

****

Doubt… What a sharp and powerful pain. What you fear the most intertwines around your hope and suffocates it with the determination of a constrictor. Once the darkness snuffs out the light, the fight for balance within the heart retreats and festers. All that was good and bright becomes dingy and lost. All that once was love, becomes hate. You alone planted the seeds that grew the monster. Now you must free yourself from your doubt. You must allow yourself to see with clear eyes what your true nature really is. Unworthy... But fear not, there is only one that can take on the beast of mythical renown. Come with me where I can protect you from yourself, from your shame. It is time to come home. Time to meet the Dragon slayer...

Zander had crossed over the threshold between earth and Hell with ease. He was not sure if he would be able to pass with the female, but apparently her fire blood made it so she could. He was almost giddy as he weaved through the sleeping castle’s lattice work of halls that led to his chambers. There was no way his father would make him fight his sister now that he had stolen the girl. Zander waved away the guard from his door with a curt nod of his head. He had paid off the Vampire earlier to keep any and every one away from his rooms. Zander closed the heavy wooden doors quietly behind himself with the toe of his boot then walked to his bed and laid Kielyn down.

Zander watched her delicate breathing as she continued to sleep under the spell he had cast. A simple incantation, to keep her in the dreamlike state in which he had found her. He knew his father really wanted Ash, but Zander would need more than himself for that one. Especially now that Zander knew with solid confirmation Ash was indeed, the Dragon. Just like
his mother. The old but familiar scent from Zander’s boyhood had practically led him straight to Kielyn’s chambers in the castle. It was the same smoky, hickory aroma that had risen out of the lava the night Ash’s mother was laid face down in the boiling pit. A distinctive smell akin to the fall ritual humans had of burning leaves and wood in large bonfires.

Zander would never forget that haunting day for it was the day that sealed his fate. His father wanted a Dragon child and Ash’s mother was to give him one. Zander remembered everything leading up to that horrific memory. Ash and his brother Teakin had been separated from their mother so Dante could relentlessly question her in his attempts to see if she was indeed a Dragon. The stoic beauty had denied him at every angle, refusing to reveal her secret. It was then that his father devised the test. She would burn. If she were a real Dragon it was assumed she would survive, if she were not, she would just be another dead Fire-bender.

There was just one small flaw in his father’s plan. Dante had assumed that the woman he placed in the fire would be the one either rising from, or perishing in it.

Zander had been one of the fortunate few to take cover in time. He watched as the creature climbed from the lava pit, reaching for her child. Her wings unfolded, decapitating a dozen or more spectators too stupid to flee, as her blue and green scales glistened like glass against the fire’s dancing light. The beast stepped over and past Ash’s small form, her neck lowering to snake out and around as she protectively guarded her child. She roared a sound so disruptive that buildings began to break apart and crash to the ground. That was the only warning she gave before fire flew from her throat and across the arena, thick lassoing flames whipped and slashed, attaching like jagged hooks onto everything in their path. Hundreds of bodies screamed and flailed about as the inferno ate them alive.

Her golden slit eyes, like that of a cat, then fixated upwards, to Dante’s throne perched high upon the mountain of skulls. It was the first time Zander had ever seen fear in his father’s eyes. Dante retreated and scrambled to grab hold of something as the beast’s neck lengthened, stretching with her spine. “I will kill him!” Dante shouted and pulled another’s form in front of him. Zander had squinted to see through the heavy smoke. His father held in his hand a shiny steel blade and standing under its deadly forged steel, the dragon’s eldest son.

Zander watched in amazement as she retreated back, her head swiveling to look at the youngest, clear and honest pain in her golden orbs. It was the last thing Zander saw before he was yanked up and quickly carried off at a dead run by one of his father’s guards. The next day his father took Ash’s mother as his next mate. Zander never again saw the Dragon within her. The beautiful Queen was locked away like a caged pet and her two boys were encased in a sleeping spell, much like the one Zander had placed on Kielyn.

A year later Dante got the child he desired off of his bride and Ash’s mother died alone without ever being permitted to hold her newborn. Zander learned two things that day. He learned his father was indeed a monster and that it was possible to kill a Dragon, if you slayed them in their heart.

Zander looked down at Kielyn. She was his saving grace. He had worked too hard for this. Daily he tried to reclaim the beauty’s thoughts but the mating bond between her and Ash had been too strong. Whatever happened an hour ago must have changed something, for Zander made contact with hardly any effort. Doubt, he reminded himself. Her sudden unexplained doubt in either Ash or herself must have caused the riff. Zander had eased into her mind, fueled her tortured dreams with more fear and then flown straight through her chamber windows.

Once inside, he immediately smelled the fresh human blood on her breath, along with Ash’s recent claiming. The thought made Zander sick as he eyed the female dressed only in a white tee-shirt and panties. When she woke he would show her what a real fuck was like. He kicked off his muddy boots and grabbed a clean pair. It had been so easy. All the variables had lined up just right for him. Kielyn must have fed for the first time for the sleep she was in was typical of a newly made vampire after feeding. Zander chuckled. He knew his persistence would pay off and it had. In spades! Once doubt with its beautiful slicing sickle had entered the beauty’s head, the bond between her and her new mate weakened, making an easy path for telepathy to travel. After Zander made it into her room, the rest was a cake walk. She was sleeping so soundly a simple casting spell had kept her that way as he transferred realms.

Zander sat down on the bed and trailed his knuckles over Kielyn’s soft milky skin. “Wake up little dove,” he whispered. “It’s time to meet the Dragon slayer.” He grinned. “Yourself…”

****

Ash descended slowly from the morning sky onto the tallest hill. They had searched for hours. It was as if she had vanished from this realm entirely. The sick probability that had been gnawing at his gut since they spread out earlier was now a roaring absolution welding a double edged sword. At first he feared his actions caused her to flee, but now as the sun began to crest the horizon, the terrifying reality was that she had been taken. He could not feel her energy whatsoever which meant the connection they shared had been disturbed.
Badly…
There was only one other place which could create a dissolution so completely.
Hell…

Anger and fear, like none he had ever felt, sliced at him from all directions. Ash ran a dampening palm through his hair.
This is my fault!
He threw back his head and yelled into the peaceful calm of the morning. A covey of doves took flight from the meadow as he turned to face the sun. He had done this. He had let Kielyn down. He had failed, yet again. Stretching both arms wide, Ash dropped the protective barrier that shielded his skin from the day. He hissed as the flames took hold and his flesh began to burn and peel back on his forearms. With a morbid resolve Ash invited the sting that only the sun’s artful pleasure could take, becoming entranced by its strength as the blaze greedily fanned out atop his skin. Light and truthful in its unquenchable fire, its brilliant colors licking and seducing themselves to life on the breeze, an all-consuming wrath with graceful determination. Exquisite in its torture, Ash thought as he watched, with captive splendor, the destruction crawling up his arms.
It wants all of me
. Ash closed his eyes, lost in the pain of his failure. For a second, he considered giving into the flame…