Heart of a Dragon (Fallen Immortals #2)

Chapter Three

Lucian was so tired, his wings could barely carry him back to the keep.

Once he was inside the perimeter spells, the lights of home beckoned. He magically flicked open the rooftop entrance and dropped heavily into the main meeting room, landing as lightly as a sack of rocks. He had shifted on the way down, and his black boots shook the floor enough to rattle the table. The movement made the table’s dragon emblem shimmer with the reflected lights softly glowing on the walls. His landing had the grace of a lumbering ox—he was bone weary and ready to collapse in his lair. He’d been gone for days, and it showed most in his human form—three days worth of scraggly beard roughened his face. He needed a shave and a shower and a bed in which to fall—alone. And not in that order. He’d probably slit his own damn throat if he wielded a blade at the moment, even for shaving.

He only managed to drag himself halfway across the meeting room when Leonidas strolled through one of the side doors, picking up his pace when he saw Lucian.

“My brother, whatever it is, surely it can wait—” Lucian tried.

“I thought you might want to know your girlfriend is back.” His brother delivered the words with a cool arch of his eyebrow, but they slammed into Lucian like bullets.

“Back?” Lucian hadn’t used his fae senses to scan the keep—he’d just assumed Arabella was still in the guest apartment where he’d left her, days ago. “Back from where?” His heart was suddenly stuttering in his chest. He braced his hand against the wall, the fatigue making him unsteady.

Leonidas nodded in a knowing way like this was the reaction he expected. “Apparently, she had a little trouble at her office.”

Her office? Images flashed through his mind of that first night when he’d rescued Arabella from that half-demon in an alley near her office. “What the hell is Cinaed doing, taking her back there?” Lucian’s words were a slurred growl.

“Exactly what you asked him to do?” Leonidas’s eyes narrowed. “He took her away when she wanted to leave. Unfortunately, he also brought her back. And now—because of the attack—we have two of them.”

“Attack?” His vision was blurring.

“She’s fine.” Leonidas scowled. “Lucian, you should just send her away for good—”

But Lucian was already half-running his way out of the meeting room, leaving his brother’s rambling words behind. He rubbed the blurriness from his eyes, but he knew the keep well enough to find Arabella’s apartment blindfolded.

He wove his way through the corridors, slowly realizing that he hadn’t actually been to the guest apartment in ages—not since Cinaed joined them, bedraggled, barely escaping the House of Fyre. The young blue dragon was his best friend now, but back then he had been sequestered inside the guest apartment until the House of Smoke could decide whether to accept him. He’d fought a noble fight to escape the horrors of his own House, and he was a good and strong dragon—pure of heart in all things. He had won Lucian’s friendship early on, but now… now, Lucian’s fatigue and the irrational side of his brain teamed together to rage over the fact that Cinaed had actually let Arabella leave . Regardless of Lucian’s words, he couldn’t be sure it was safe yet. Cinaed should’ve known that.

When Lucian arrived at the door of the guest apartment and waved it open, Cinaed’s scent was all over it. A male dragon, marking his territory. With the woman who was supposed to be Lucian’s mate.

Lucian stormed in and found Cinaed standing next to the windows with Arabella and another woman. Lucian ignored the teasing scent of Arabella’s freshly-scrubbed skin floating across his snout and went straight for his best friend, grabbing him and slamming him against the glass, shaking it and rattling the panes two stories high. Fire leaked out with Lucian’s heaving breath, and suddenly he felt something foreign and wild crawling under his skin. The wyvern. Not just his normal dragon—the wyvern was a wild beast, the form his dragon would take once his time as a man had expired. The twitching feeling washed over him like panic. The rush of blood-pumping anger had summoned his wyvern. Holy mother of magic. Lucian desperately tried to hang on to his humanity, but his grip was slipping. His hand—the one shoving Cinaed up against the glass—shifted to razor-sharp talons, biting through his friend’s black jacket and into his skin. A wyvern’s tail sprouted from the small of Lucian’s back and swished behind him.

A red haze clouded his mind. He had to grunt out his words. “Why… did you take her… to that place…”

Cinaed’s eyes were wide—concern and horror holding them open. “She was never in any danger, Lucian. I swear.” But his gaze flicked past Lucian’s shoulders.

Lucian felt his wings spring loose. He was half wyvern now, breathing dragonfire on his best friend’s face. Losing his grip on rationality. Angry beyond measure. Fighting a beast form he had no way to control.

He swallowed and fought against the wyvern anyway, holding fast to what he was. I am a prince of the House of Smoke. He repeated the words like a mantra in his mind, a magical shield against the beast. His beast.

Cinaed’s sharp-eyed stare grew more concerned. “My liege,” he whispered, bringing his hands up to grasp hold of Lucian’s shoulders, hard. “Not yet. It’s not your time yet.”

Lucian gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, holding back the wild roar building inside him, but it wasn’t until he heard a soft whisper of feet on the luxurious white carpet and felt Arabella’s gentle hand landing on his scaly arm, that he had any chance at all. Dragonfire still curled from his mouth, but her nearness and her touch and her scent… it calmed him in a way that three days of scouring the streets for demons hadn’t. This effect she had on him… he knew the danger of it. But he also knew it was the thin thread pulling him back to his humanity.

His wyvern retreated.

Her hand slipped away, and she took a step back.

He refused to turn to her, keeping his eyes shut and focusing instead on making sure his wyvern was actually contained. The danger of that was incalculable. Once he lost control, there was no guarantee of coming back. Ever since his five-hundredth birthday came and went, he knew he was living on borrowed time. He may not know the day or the hour, but like a human passing their hundredth year, it was a clear, unavoidable fact that a limited number of days remained. Lucian had contemplated slipping into the wyvern state intentionally… but this was the first time it had taken hold of him by its own accord. The threat of death had never breathed so fiercely down his neck. Turning wyvern wasn’t explicitly death, but losing one’s mind to the animal, to the beast... it was death for the human side of him.

He felt the last of the dragon parts of him shift back into human form. When he opened his eyes, Cinaed’s face held relief. Lucian released him, then stepped back and shook his head. He was tired. So tired. How long had it been since he’d slept? He’d let it go on too long.

He was a fool.

He grimaced before turning to face the women. Both were wide-eyed. The one standing behind Arabella must be her friend, Rachel—Lucian tasted her anger and rough edges. She was especially horrified at what she’d seen. And rightly so.

Arabella eased toward him again. He shrunk back. Her touch had the power to bring him back from his wyvern form—he had no chance of resisting it in his human one. He was already enveloped in her scent, feeling it pull him in. Her friend Rachel rushed forward and grabbed hold of Arabella’s arm, tugging her back.

“What are you doing?” she hissed, eyeing Lucian like the wild beast he truly was. At least, for a moment.

Arabella’s beautiful green eyes never left him. “It’s all right, Rach. He’s not going to hurt me.” She shrugged off Rachel’s hold and took another step toward him, but then dropped her hand, not reaching for him any longer, just standing tall in front of him. “Are you?”

He didn’t bother answering. The man inside him had already vowed to give up everything before allowing anything to hurt her. But the wyvern… that wasn’t even him. He couldn’t make any guarantees.

Cinaed shuffled away from the window and toward Rachel. He slipped a hand onto the woman’s shoulder and bent his head close to her ear, whispering something. Rachel’s eyes grew a little wider.

Arabella’s gaze had followed them.

Cinaed must have talked Rachel into leaving them alone because the two of them quickly scurried out of the great room and toward the back, where the kitchen and eventually the bedroom lay.

Arabella watched them go.

He looked her over while he had freedom from her scrutiny. His eyes drank in every sweet curve of her face, every curl of her lashes, every soft fall of her reddish-tinted brown hair. She was so beautiful. And her scent was intoxicating him.

It was such a mistake for him to come here.

“You left,” he said, the strain in his voice still showing the struggle to keep control. He was shocked at how wild and hoarse it sounded. He had to look even worse.

She slowly turned to meet his gaze. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

It was like a physical dagger had been stabbed in his chest. His dragon—the human-type beast, not the wild one, not his wyvern —writhed under his skin, wanting out. Wanting to drag her back to his lair.

“Yes, I want you to leave!” The screech in his voice alarmed him, but her gaze stayed steady. Unnervingly so. Like she had a will of iron, stronger than magic, stronger than the forces that were tearing him up inside. His mind was screaming, it’s safer here, don’t let her leave! The truth, of course, was that he never truly wanted her to leave. In fact, he wanted her back in his lair—that was where his treasure should be. But those voices had to stay inside his head. He fought to make the words that came out of his mouth more sane. “But if you do leave, you shouldn’t take unnecessary risks. What is this I hear about a man attacking you? What happened?” His gaze roved over her body, this time not reveling in her soft beauty but searching for any harm done to her. He couldn’t see any obvious wounds, and he didn’t scent any blood.

But that didn’t mean anything. Some wounds weren’t visible. He knew that all too well.

“It was one of Rachel’s exes—he’s an asshole, and he nearly killed her. Cinaed saved her.” She had a pinched look now, concerned for her friend, but obviously not for herself.

How so like her. Lucian felt the dragonfire brand across his heart—the one that belonged to her—throb with the sensation of burning again. This woman… she was irresistible to him.

He cleared his throat. “So, the asshole wasn’t after you. This time.”

She frowned. “No.”

An awkward silence reigned as they stared at each other. He struggled to form the words that needed to be said. “Why did you come back?” The pain was stabbing through him again.

“Because you needed me.” She said this with a force of conviction that ripped right through him.

“I do not need you.” But even he could hear the weakness in it. “You should leave.” His breath was becoming labored with the effort of saying these words again. “Please leave.” Softer, this time. He could see the hurt in her eyes, and if the wyvern didn’t kill him, that look just might. “Just… when you do leave, make sure you’re safe. Listen to Cinaed. Do what he says. Don’t take unnecessary risks.”

She took a step toward him and then another. Suddenly, his back was up against the glass.

“You care about me, Lucian, I know you do.” She reached out to touch him. He cowered away from her, but she still managed to land one of those soft hands on his body, his bare skin….

He took a deliberate step back, breaking free. He was too tired. Too vulnerable for this. His wyvern… he couldn’t risk that with her. He had to put some distance between the softness of her skin and his aching need to touch her. It was bad enough when he was in his lair, and she was here—he could scent her across the stretch of the keep—but it was a hundred times worse in her presence.

And he was too tired to resist.

He cleared his throat. “Apologize to your friend for me—for losing control. It won’t happen again.”

She opened her mouth to say something more, but he turned his back quickly and strode across the great room toward the front door of her apartment.

He needed to find another woman. And soon.