Darkest Flame (2 page)

Denae squeezed her eyes closed for a second to focus. When she opened them, she powered forward even as she caught a glimpse of Matt’s mask lights cutting through the water.

She let out another few bubbles of air and wondered if this was how Renee had felt when she drowned. It had been years since Denae had thought of that fateful day that changed her family’s life forever—and guilt remained her constant companion.

With her thoughts churning, it took her a moment to realize the roof of the tunnel was no longer above her. Denae pointed the glow stick upward and saw only water.

She kicked hard and propelled herself up. When she broke the surface, she gasped in air before she sank beneath the water again. Denae wasted no time swimming to the edge. She tossed the glow stick onto the floor of the cave and quickly jumped out of the water.

Matt was right behind her before she had time to kick off both her fins. His, she noticed as he stood glaring, had been removed in the water. They circled each other around the glow stick while she managed to kick off the last fin.

Matt’s smile was sinister as he shrugged off his tank. “I should’ve known you’d be a fast swimmer.”

“Was it always your plan to kill me in the water?”

“Not kill you, Denae, just wound you.”

She frowned. “Wound me. Why? So you get all the glory of this mission?”

“You are a stupid one.”

“Enlighten me then, or get on with the fight.”

Matt lunged, the knife in his hand aimed for her leg. Denae blocked his thrust with the side of her arm and punched him in the jaw with her other fist.

He spun and thrust his foot out, trying to trip her, but she jumped and kicked, landing a foot directly in his chest.

“You’re bait,” he said with a sneer as he stumbled a few steps back.

A fission of dread made her heart skip a beat. Bait. There was only one reason for bait, and it never ended well. “Since I’m such an idiot, explain it to me.”

The excitement in Matt’s eyes said it all. “Your mission in all of this was to die so we could reveal just who those at Dreagan really are.”

Just as she expected. “You’ll wound me because you suspect those at Dreagan will kill me once they discover me.”

“Something like that,” Matt said with a snort of laughter. “We need to catch those at Dreagan. Your death will ensure that. Those here at Dreagan will never know they killed an MI5 agent.”

“But my death will give MI5 the reason to investigate Dreagan,” she finished.

Denae was appalled. Not just because they wanted to kill her—and “they” meaning everyone in her division had planned this—but because those at Dreagan were being set up.

There was no need for her to reply. Matt had his mission, but Denae wasn’t going to go down easily. She feinted with a left jab and kicked Matt against the side of his head with her right foot.

He hissed and lunged for her again. This time she wasn’t able to block him and felt the sting of pain as the blade slid through her wetsuit and into her skin on her left side.

Denae hit Matt’s arm, which held the blade, so it pulled the weapon out of her. She then elbowed him in the throat as she was turning. He landed a foot at the back of her knee sending her to the ground.

She tucked and rolled, and when she came to her feet, she had her knife in her hand. No one liked to spar with her when it came to knives because she was so good. Now that she had her weapon, she had a chance.

“Know your death will free the world,” Matt said as he attacked once more.

CHAPTER TWO

Kellan kept utterly still in his corner. The sound of water sloshing against stone woke him instantly. He opened one eye to see the normally glass-like surface rippling violently as he caught sight of a human emerging from the water.

He barely had time to register it was a heavily breathing woman before a second joined her—this one male.

Kellan shifted his head to get a better look. It had been many centuries since he’d seen a human, and quite frankly, he could go through eternity without seeing another. How he despised them.

He didn’t like his sleep being disturbed either. Yet, he knew Constantine wouldn’t be happy if he made himself known in his dragon form and ate the two intruders … as tempting as that might be.

His only other option would be to shift into human form and confront them. And that was too distasteful to even consider.

Kellan stayed in his spot and watched as the two circled each other.
Nothing’s changed. Humans are always fighting.

No matter how many centuries passed, no matter what country he visited, they were all the same. Selfish, belligerent, arrogant, greedy bastards.

Not that he cared how many humans killed each other. The more dead meant they were that much closer to the dragons returning home. It was because of the humans that dragons no longer ruled the realm.

It was humans who had begun the war.

But it had been dragons who ended it.

The humans were talking. Kellan listened to their exchange with interest. He thought back to the many times Con had visited him while he slept, and realized it had been many, many,
many
centuries since he last woke.

Con’s visits every few decades kept those dragons who wished to sleep away centuries—or millennia—up to date on the world so when they awoke they were more or less knowledgeable about the times. So it wasn’t difficult for Kellan to make out what the humans were saying.

The male disliked the female according to the way disdain dripped from his voice. Surprisingly, the female didn’t cower. She fought back, moving quickly—for a mortal—and striking the male deftly and accurately. None of her punches or kicks went astray.

Kellan smelled blood. It had been a long time since that scent assaulted him. It made him think of the last time he had walked among humans—and why he had chosen to sleep.

There was a grunt from the pair. The male had a broken nose and a cut lip, but the scent Kellan held was strong, too strong for such paltry wounds.

His dragon eyes locked on the female, and he caught sight of her left arm held protectively against her side. Blood ran thick and fast down her leg to drip upon the stones.

In a whirl, the female came up with a weapon of her own.

Kellan’s interest sharpened when the male said he wanted to wound the female. It wasn’t hard to guess she was to lure the dragons.

He inwardly snorted. Stupid humans. They all thought dragons base creatures who wanted to eat everything in sight or char it. How could he and the other Dragon Kings have fallen so far?

They used to rule the skies, the seas, and the earth. Every dragon of every color had called earth home. They had reigned supreme.

And for Kellan and the other Dragon Kings, it had been their right to rule their dragons, keeping everyone in line. That’s not to say there weren’t battles, but with one word from a Dragon King, all fighting would cease.

How Kellan longed for the days of old. He missed his dragons, and he missed being able to take to the skies whenever he wanted. It was one of the many reasons he decided to sleep away the time. He couldn’t look upon the earth and humans without wanting to kill them all.

Kellan was impressed with the female, even though he hated to admit it. She was a valiant fighter, and though she was wounded, she was winning.

She moved in a lightning-quick spin before she kicked her opponent to the ground. Then she landed on top of him and sunk her blade into his heart.

Just like that, the battle was over.

The female had lost too much blood, however. She couldn’t swim back out, and she didn’t know her way through the caves of the mountain to seek help.

The only one that could help her was Kellan. And that wasn’t going to happen. There would be hell to pay with Con, but Kellan had ceased to care long ago.

He wouldn’t return to sleep until she had breathed her last though. Kellan expected her to fall over and die, or try to find her way out.

Instead, she kicked the male away and leaned back against a boulder before pulling some sticks from a pocket on the leg of her skin-tight suit. She bent them, and with a slight
pop,
green light shone around her.

She set those aside and took another small pack from a pocket next to her ankle on her other leg. Her breathing was harsh, and sweat coated her skin.

“Shit,” she murmured and swallowed audibly.

Her accent wasn’t Scots or British. Kellan went through all the dialects Con had played for him over the centuries in his mind until he reached American.

Could that be why the Brit hadn’t cared for her? It was a silly reason, but then again, humans rarely made sense.

Kellan forgot about accents as the female reached behind her and grabbed something. There was a zipping noise before her black suit loosened.

With a grunt she pulled her right arm out of the black material before carefully extracting her left. She pushed the thick fabric down, giving Kellan a view of a small top that held her breasts. A bathing suit, he recalled.

Her chest heaved as she tried to breathe through the pain and her skin grew pale. Once more she took the small black parcel she pulled from the pocket of her leg and opened it. She grabbed a white packet and tore it open using her teeth. She briefly closed her eyes before pouring the tiny granules over her wound.

A gasp passed her lips as she jerked from the contact. Kellan had never had much to say about humans, but he had to give the female credit. Her hands were coated with blood, her arms shook, she was weak, and it was dark, yet she never gave up.

His interest was piqued when he saw her pull out a curved needle and thread. With her wound on her left side, she had to twist to see it, yet she managed to get several stitches done before she slowly fell unconscious.

For long minutes, Kellan stared at her. The female was slumped to her side, her breathing low and irregular. He knew that a fever could soon overtake her.

If it were up to him, he would forget her. She’d die—as all mortals did. Then Kellan remembered why he had chosen to sleep. He had made a vow once, a promise he had broken because of his hatred of humans.

Con could have ended his life, but he had allowed Kellan his sleep. He seriously doubted Con would give him another pass. Constantine was the King of Dragon Kings. He was the ultimate law—though that never stopped any other Dragon King from doing what he had to do.

Con took their duty of protecting humans seriously. If it had been up to Kellan, he’d have wiped the world of mortals long ago. They were an infection that stained everything. Look what they had done to dragons.

Everything known about dragons was nothing more than a myth, feared and fantasized into something that wasn’t even close to resembling what life as a dragon really was.

Kellan vividly remembered standing after a battle with the humans to find his beloved Bronzes littered upon the ground. The bronze dragons were the Bringers of Justice.

While Kellan had ordered them to protect the humans, the humans had in turn killed them. A betrayal that even now, thousands of millennia later, Kellan couldn’t forgive.

Because even though dragons were supposed to defend mankind, mankind had never wanted their protection. The mortals had sought early on to betray the very beings that had ruled the land first.

But Kellan hadn’t been the only one betrayed. Ulrik, King of Silvers, had been deceived by a human female—and then by the rest of the Dragon Kings.

Kellan squeezed his eyes closed as he thought of that day. If he’d known what would become of his Bronzes, he’d have sided with Ulrik.

In the end, the dragons had been the ones to lose everything. Con had sent them to another realm.

And the Kings remained behind.

What good were they though? The few times Kellan woke from his sleep and faced the world, he found his brethren hidden away in plain sight, waiting until cover of darkness or a storm to dare to take to the skies.

Flying was their right, their privilege, and even that had been taken away. Because of humans.

Hours ticked by while he mused over his hatred of man, but still the female didn’t so much as twitch. Kellan would have no choice but to bring her to Con, because he didn’t trust himself to try and see to her wound.

Hatred didn’t so easily dissipate through the centuries.

He wasn’t ready to wake from his sleep, but with the two humans invading his mountain, Con would want to investigate. Kellan also found himself curious at the intrusion.

Using the telepathic ability between all Dragon Kings, Kellan called out Con’s name, knowing his friend would arrive quickly. With barely a thought, Kellan shifted into human form. He rotated his arms and shook out his legs. There were no clothes for him to don because he’d had no intention of waking for many more millennia.

He walked naked to the woman and squatted beside her. Kellan didn’t have the power to heal her as Con did. The bleeding had slowed, but it hadn’t stopped.

Kellan shifted the woman onto her back, noting how hot her skin was to the touch. His body, however, responded instantly to the softness of the female, and it infuriated him. His body needed release, but it wouldn’t be by this woman.

Promptly ignoring his thickening cock and the soft curves of the female’s breast, Kellan picked up the needle she had been using and finished stitching the wound.

The male had managed to miss any of her vital organs, but the wound was long and deep. As delicate as humans were, Kellan knew Con was needed if she was to live. The choice of whether she died or not would be Con’s.

Once Kellan finished, he bit the thread with his teeth and tied it off before lifting the woman into his arms. The feel of her curves reminded him of the yearning for a release clawing at him. He had to see to it. It wasn’t because of this particular female in his arms. It had just been too long.

Kellan told himself that once more for good measure before he strode from his cave.

Many of his fellow Dragon Kings had taken human females as lovers. Kellan had had several before his Bronzes were killed. Afterward, he took a female only when he could stand it no more.