Breath of Fire (23 page)

“These are Eunice’s rooms,” he said. “She will treat your burns, and then you and I must talk.” He turned his back and left me standing alone in the middle of the unfamiliar room. I guessed Julian wasn’t very knowledgeable about morning-after etiquette.

A throat cleared behind me and I turned to see Eunice giving me a steady, serious look. It wasn’t one I’d seen before on her good-humored face.

I almost didn’t recognize her. She wasn’t dressed as a gypsy today. Instead, she wore black leather pants and a matching halter-top that showed a surprising amount of cleavage for a woman so small. Her red hair curled riotously around her pixie-like face, and large gold hoops hung from her pointed ears. She looked like Bondage Barbie.

“Come,” Eunice said. “Let me treat your burns. They must be stinging.”

“They’re not too bad. Just a little tender.”

“Have a seat and take off your blouse. This won’t take long. Julian is quite anxious to speak with you.”

“I noticed,” I said dryly. There was something unfamiliar inside of me. The feelings bombarded me—anticipation, rage, sadness. I knew they were Julian’s emotions, now a part of me forever.

I took a seat on a small chair and unbuttoned the blue silk blouse. I slipped it from my shoulders and draped it over the back of the chair before unsnapping the front clasp of the black bra Julian had dressed me in. Eunice removed a small silver dish from the mantel of her fireplace. It was octagonal in shape, and the engravings around it were beautiful. It looked incredibly old, but the silver wasn’t tarnished.

“It belonged to the Fae side of my family. It was my grandmother’s. She was a great healer.”

We were both silent as she lifted the silver lid and touched her finger at each point of the octagon. Her lips moved and her eyes were closed, and the sheen of the silver grew brighter. I couldn’t help but let my thoughts wander to Julian. I hated being apart from him now, and I needed the reassurance of his touch.

I shook my head, hoping some common sense would rattle loose. I didn’t like the neediness that had come over me since we’d become lifemates. The worst part of it was that Julian obviously wasn’t as affected. He’d been able to walk away without any problems at all.

“You should be more understanding,” Eunice said. “His path is a hard one, filled with obstacles and tragedy. You could be a light to his darkness. Rule beside him as an equal. But your own demons are swallowing you whole.”

“What demons?”

“Everyone’s are different. But we all have them. You know what you struggle with. And though you and Julian have mated, your path is not forged yet. There are forks in your road that lead in many directions. You’ll have choices to make.”

I looked down at the tattoo that was supposed to represent everything Julian and I meant to each other. I couldn’t decipher the writings without looking in a mirror, though the gods had outdone themselves with the artistry. The scrollwork truly was a masterpiece.

“It is, isn’t it?” Eunice pulled up a padded footstool and sat across from me. “This is the first time I’ve seen the writing of the old lands outside of the ancient Drakán scrolls.”

“Do you think it is written the same for everyone?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but I would think so. These are the sacred vows of our people, much like the vows in a human marriage ceremony. But these vows are more precious because they are bound by magic, not just words. It is tradition for mated Drakán to read the inscription to each other on their first mating anniversary, or the
Yiun
.”

I wasn’t sure that Julian and I would be together in a year. Or if we were I wasn’t sure we’d have anything to celebrate. We’d had a pretty rocky beginning so far. Not to mention I wasn’t sure I’d be alive in a year if the Destroyer had his way.

Eunice rubbed the salve between her fingers, and the sharp scent of eucalyptus leaves and something else permeated the air.

“This is also magic,” she said. “When you heat the salve with your dragon fire it releases the magic, and the healing can begin. When I enchant it with the words of Faerie, it will also help prevent future injury. I find being a half-breed, Fae Drakán has its uses every now and then.”

I smiled and then hissed between my teeth as the salve touched the burn. It seemed to get hotter, and the tattoo came to life. The scrolls undulated and moved like waves down the entire left side of my body. The scrolls glowed from beneath the skin with golden light.

“The sting will only last for a moment,” Eunice soothed. “It’s drawing the heat out of your skin.”

The scrolls stopped moving and the glow dimmed. The heat of the salve dissipated and left my skin cool to the touch. It was over. The pain was gone. Not only from the burns, but also the bite mark on my neck and all the aches, pains and bruises I’d suffered from making love on ceilings and hard floors all night.

I put my shirt back on and thanked Eunice for the salve. “Do you know where I can find Julian?”

“I do not. But you are his lifemate. Your souls are tied together. If you open yourself to him, you will always be able to find one another.”

“Keeping myself open to anyone seems like a good way to get hurt.”

“Perhaps,” she said, smiling. “Good luck with your demons, Rena.” She turned around and went through a door I assumed led to her bedroom and left me standing there alone.

I didn’t have a choice but to do as she suggested. I lowered my walls, and the thread I’d used to put out Julian’s fire the night before was even stronger, no longer a thread but a rope. I closed my eyes and my dragon came into view. She was always happy when I thought of Julian, and she rubbed against me approvingly. I pushed her back and followed my instincts.

I could see him clearly in my mind. He sat behind a massive black desk, carved with Drakán images. His face was serious, and at first I thought he must be terribly sad, but the clenching of his fists made me rethink my assessment. Angry fire burned just beneath his skin.

I followed my vision and our invisible link down the stairs, all the way to the bottom floor of the chateau. I ignored the guards and their curious stares, my focus absolute, as if I were in a trance.

When I walked through the double doors of the great room, I had no idea what had led me there. It had been cleared of the tables from the night before. The blood had been cleaned from the floor. There was nothing in the room. It was completely empty. Yet I didn’t turn around and walk out. I dropped my shields all the way this time. His emotions were raw and hit me with a force that made me stagger. The tug between us grew stronger—the invisible rope thicker.

I remembered back to the first night—the night I had met Julian in his dream. He’d appeared from the shadows against the wall. But it hadn’t really been shadows. It had been a door.

I walked across the room, one foot in front of the other, and placed my hand against the cold wall. I didn’t know what compelled me to push my magic into the black marble. I just knew I had to get to Julian, and that he was on the other side of this wall.

The door opened soundlessly—seamlessly—and I walked through. It closed behind me, and I was left in darkness. I could see the faint glow of fire somewhere in front of me and I headed toward it.

The heat was intense inside the hidden room, and my dragon did lazy somersaults inside me, loving the feel of the warmth. I knew that this heat was created by Julian. I could sense his presence, his magic, everywhere around me. I also knew that anyone else who tried to find their way down these secret halls would be crushed under the force of his magic and reduced to ash where they stood.

But not me. I was his lifemate, and his fire was mine.

I followed the curve of a staircase deeper into the ground. It smelled of earth and dust, and I could feel the rush of water from somewhere nearby.

It also smelled of gold. My dragon began to move faster and faster, anticipating the treasure that surely awaited her.

I reached a point where I couldn’t go down any deeper. A metal door stood in front of me. It was warded by magic, and I automatically took a step back when I felt it strike out against my power.

But I stopped my retreat. It wasn’t striking out at me. It was trying to grab hold and pull me closer. With my shields down I was aware of Julian as I never had been before.

There was something wrong. I’d known it since we’d first spoken this morning. And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he needed me.

I breathed in his magic that warded the door. It tingled along my spine and caused my dragon to growl with pleasure. The tie between us was still strong and pulsing, so I pulled his magic into my body and absorbed it.

I touched my hand to the metal door and met no resistance. The metal was like liquid mercury beneath my fingertips, and I slid my hand through easily. I pulled back and stared at my hand. It looked just as it should have. And when I looked back at the door it was already whole again. Amazing.

“Are you going to stand out there all day?”
Julian asked.

I pushed my hand through the metal once again, but this time followed it with the rest of my body. I was blinded for a few short seconds, and then I was on the other side of the door. Julian stood close in front of me and looked rather pleased with himself.

“Very good, Rena. You are becoming more receptive to using your Drakán powers since the mating ritual.”

His voice caressed across my skin like a whisper, and chills raced along my skin. I became wet without his touch, my folds slick and already prepared to take him. My shields were still open, and my dragon responded to his call. She would always want him. She belonged to him now. As he belonged to her.

I slammed my shields tightly closed and breathed deeply. My dragon might be good at many things, but common sense was not one of them. Now was not the time to get distracted by sex.

I moved away from Julian and turned my back to him, trying to gain focus. I looked around the spacious cavern. It was larger than the great room above us, and to my amazement, it wasn’t filled with black marble. This room was old. Very old. And it held everything Julian valued most in his life.

“Oh, my,” I said.

My dragon was envious of his hoard. She wanted it fiercely, and if she could have gotten away with it, she’d have taken every last thing in the room for her own. Mounds of gold were piled into big, heaping hills. There were diamonds and sapphires and rubies. There were sculptures and paintings from every era of time. Rare books and artifacts lined shelf after shelf as far as the eye could see.

And at the center of his hoard was the big black bed I’d woken up in. Lust slammed into me like a wrecking ball. It consumed me. My breathing changed and my dragon fought to get free. She wanted to make love with Julian in the middle of such wonderful treasure. I wanted it too.

I turned to find him, to seek him out and claim him for my own. He was suddenly there in my sight and I rushed toward him with a speed I’d never possessed, hitting his body hard with my own. I clamped myself around him, but as I raised my mouth to his, I realized the hands that squeezed my waist were pushing me away. Not pulling me closer.

“Rena. Look at me.” His face was shuttered, and he was saying my name over and over again, trying to break through the lust that controlled me.

I didn’t want to be stopped, and anger replaced the lust, my fire igniting just beneath my skin. I roared, and sulfur and smoke escaped from my mouth and nose.

“Rena, stop!” he commanded.

But he no longer had the control over me he’d had before we were mated. I pushed against him hard, and we both ended up in a heap on the floor. We rolled over and over across the floor, arms and legs tangled, and I moaned at the feel of his shaft pressed hard against me. It was obvious his body wanted me, but he was still trying to stop me.

“Rena, you are the Enforcer. You must get yourself under control. Our people need you.”

His words slowly started to penetrate the fog of lust that had consumed me. I was the Enforcer. I had a duty to my people. Not just a duty to my own people, but to Julian’s now as well.

My eyes cleared and I looked up at Julian. His eyes were wild with need, but they also held caution and regret. His breath heaved in and out of his chest. There was blood on his cheek from where I’d clawed him, though the wound had already healed. His hardness still pressed against me, but my body belonged to me now.

“What the hell was that?” I asked. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t apologize for wanting me. This is what we are supposed to feel for each other. And if our people didn’t need us, I would have matched your desire with my own. Stopping you was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”

He meant it. His honesty rushed through me and joy filled my soul at his words. He leaned down and kissed me softly—with a gentleness I didn’t know either of us possessed.

“We will come back here later and finish what we started, no?” He shifted off of me and rose smoothly to his feet before helping me to stand. I stumbled against him and realized I was still a little unsteady on my feet.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“The remains of some of my people were found a little while ago.”

“The ones who went missing before the
sfara
last night?”