Heart of a Dragon (Fallen Immortals #2)

Chapter Eleven

Lucian’s inner torment was interrupted by an ancient curse.

“Thanos-sut,” Leksander spat at him. “You’re a fucking idiot.” The first part was dragontongue, and it roughly meant balls for brains, and the second part was obvious. Both were probably true, but Lucian didn’t care.

“Go away.” He closed his eyes again, hoping against hope that Leksander would concede this fight before it even started. Lucian was still locked inside the wards placed around his tomb, so his brother couldn’t force him to do anything. If he wanted to flap his lips from his spot at the edge of the cave, where he precariously perched in his human form, he was welcome to it. Or he could fly back the way he came. Lucian would simply ignore him and stay where he was, sitting on the hard granite floor, the cold just beginning to seep through his clothes.

“Not until you get off your ass and do your duty.”

Lucian ignored him. But in spite of his best efforts to tune out his brother’s words, they wormed their way into his head. What Lucian was doing would bring dishonor to his House—and a whole lot worse—but he wasn’t going to risk Arabella’s life just to say he tried. Ultimately, he would fail, and that was all that mattered in the end. He didn’t need to take her down with him.

Leksander roared, and Lucian heard a whoosh of wings against air.

He waited two heartbeats, then another, but he couldn’t help looking… only to see a blue fireball soaring toward him. It hit the wards, crackled and splintered and splashed all around, but didn’t penetrate the protective magic he had set up.

Dammit. Leksander should have known that wouldn’t work. Then again. Leksander’s magic was stronger than his—Lucian had always known this, but Leksander’s recent curing of the vampire brought that into bold relief.

Too bad his brothers couldn’t fulfill the treaty for him. Both were better suited to it.

Lucian glared as Leksander winged his bronze dragon closer the cave. Lucian braced himself for another blast of dragonfire, praying the wards would hold as his mind raced— what would he do if his brother breached the barrier? —but Leksander just landed on the lip of the cave, nose up against the wards, his runes writhing across his now-human skin.

“What do I have to do to convince you to stop pouting like a child and come out and do your duty?” Leksander’s ice-blue eyes were alive with anger. “Because I’m not letting you fuck this up, brother.”

Lucian sighed. But Leksander had given up on magic, so that trickled relief through him. “It’s no use, Leksander. My dragon has already bonded with her.”

“So why are you here instead of sealing your mate?” His anger leaked small wisps of dragonfire from the corners of his mouth.

Lucian gritted his teeth. “You know why.”

“She’s not fated to be like Cara. That woman—”

Lucian was on his feet, flying at the ward barrier before he even blinked. “Don’t you even—”

“Or what?” Leksander challenged. They were inches apart, just the pulsing magic of the wards between them. “You’ll come out and dip your talons in my blood? Because I’d like to see you try, brother.”

Anger seethed across Lucian’s skin as his runes twitched to be used. Leksander was baiting him, but he couldn’t help responding. He was a raw nerve, and his brother had just raked claws across it.

“There’s only one way this ends,” Lucian said through his teeth. “And I’ll not have another woman’s blood on my hands before I meet my fate.”

“Your fate…” Leksander stopped, anger seeming to bind up his words. Then he pounded a fist on the barrier of the wards, which only sparked a flash of blue magic that threw his hand back. He roared—Lucian imagined the burn was intense—then he glared at Lucian once more. “Your fate is not to die in this cave. Not now. Not for hundreds of years, Lucian.”

But it was. Then a thought—a strange and horrible thought—came into his head and electrified it like the magic lighting up his ward-protected prison.

“Do you really want to help me, my brother?” Lucian asked.

Leksander frowned and pulled back.

“Don’t let me turn wyvern in this rocky grave,” Lucian added quickly. “Put me out of my misery. End my torment.”

Leksander snarled. “Shut up with that cowardice.”

But a small smile snuck out on Lucian’s face. Leksander looked at him like he had already lost his mind to his wyvern, but Lucian hurried on. “Not cowardice… a loophole, Leksander.”

“What nonsense are you speaking?” But he looked uncertain.

“The treaty requires the first surviving spawn of the House of Smoke to carry on the line.”

“I know it well enough—”

“So kill me, Leksander.” His smile grew. “It may be five hundred years after my birth, but a death is still a death. Then the treaty would have to fall to Leonidas to fulfill. There is no possibility the fae could argue otherwise. He is a spawn of the House of Smoke… and if he survives when I do not…”

Leksander’s face twisted with disgust. “You know Leonidas cannot fulfill the treaty—”

“I know he cannot fall in love.” Lucian tipped his head—his brother had to know this part was true. “But Leonidas has raised not falling in love to an Art Form. He could do it, Leksander. He will do it—he must; you must see to it—after I pass. But kill me now, and swiftly. Who knows how much time any of us have before our wyverns arrive. Mine has already made an appearance.”

“I will not kill you.” Leksander seemed horrified that Lucian would even speak it.

“My brother… there’s no hope for me.” He softened his voice, pleading. He would beg if he had to. “I’ve already poisoned Arabella’s mind with doubt. She would never survive the full term of carrying my dragonling. And her death would end me… for magic’s sake, Leksander, I’m halfway to wyvern as it is!” Lucian edged as close to the wards as he could without feeling their wrath. “Please, my brother.”

Torment twisted Leksander’s face. His lips pressed tight, holding back something.

Just as Lucian prepared to flat-out beg his brother, Leksander spoke. “This is all to save Arabella.”

“Yes, but—”

“Then I will kill her myself if nothing else will motivate you.” He flung his arms wide.

“What?” Lucian cried.

But Leksander had already leaped backward off the edge of the cliff, shifting and catching the wind with his dragon’s wings.

For a moment’s breath, Lucian stared in horror as Leksander swooped up into the air and away from the mountain. Then a roar boiled up from deep inside Lucian’s soul and erupted from his mouth. He shoved his hands forward, summoning all his runes in a rush to thrust aside the wards he had so carefully constructed. They were barely down before he leaped from the cave, shifting mid-air and pumping his wings to race after Leksander.

Stop! Lucian commanded, still a hundred yards from his brother.

But the mental demand reached him, and Leksander banked sharply left, coming back around toward him.

Take it back. Lucian was headed on a collision course for the bronze dragon.

Make her your mate, Lucian. Leksander was winging straight for him.

You cannot force this on me. He was nearly there.

Blue magic crackled along Leksander’s bronze-colored scales. The world needs you, Lucian—

Fuck the world! He whipped his talons forward, dipping a wing to bank right and catch Leksander by the neck. He screamed, and dragonfire singed Lucian’s tail, but they were grappled now… and falling. Spinning and flailing, a mass of wings and tails lashing, Lucian felt his brother’s blood run over his talons, his blades digging deep into Leksander’s neck and side. Lucian fought to catch the wind with his wings, and failing that, magic-boosted to slow their fall toward a rocky death a thousand feet below.

The slickness of Leksander’s blood made Lucian lose his grip. Another cry, more dragon fire, and a slash of talons across Lucian’s chest, but then Leksander was free of him, lofting himself up and backward to gain his freedom.

Lucian felt the hot spray of his brother’s blood falling from above—Leksander’s magic may be stronger, but Lucian was still a golden dragon. The most powerful dragon blood mixed with fae ancestry as well. It was possible that Leksander could grievously wound him in battle, but only if Lucian allowed it. Which he couldn’t do as long as Arabella was in danger…

Don’t make me kill you, Leksander, he begged. Leave her alone.

I had to knock some sense into you. His brother was slowly losing altitude.

It was then that Lucian could see the torn wing. Suddenly, his brother started dropping like a stone.

Goddammit, Leks. Lucian swooped down, catching up to his brother and ducking a golden wing under his tattered bronze one. Together—two dragons, scale to scale, limping through the air—they managed to gain some altitude again and stay aloft long enough to land back at Lucian’s tomb.

Lucian eased his brother against the rocky wall then stepped back.

Leksander shifted human, and the wounds were even more obvious. His arm was bent at an unnatural angle, and his body was smeared with blood, with a giant gash still ebbing blood.

“Thought you were going to kill me for a moment, there.” Leksander’s smile was painted with blood, and he slowly crumpled to the floor.

Lucian felt a black hole open inside him and swallow all feeling, all horror that he should rightly feel at this thing he had done. Leksander would survive—his wounds were horrible but not life-ending—but Lucian was clearly a danger to his brothers, not just Arabella.

“You threatened my mate.” The words were simple and true, but they didn’t fill the raging black hole inside him.

“Make her your mate, Lucian.” Leksander’s voice carried pain. “It’s the only way.”

Lucian blinked, fought against the blackness, then slowly shook his head. “No. There’s another.”

Then Lucian turned and took a running leap off the cave mouth ledge, hurtling himself into his dragon form before his brother could say something to stop him. Leksander couldn’t follow, and Lucian knew in his heart that he wouldn’t harm Arabella. Leksander had only been baiting him to get him out of the tomb.

But Lucian also knew his brother wouldn’t give up. Leksander was a dragon hopelessly in love with an angeling—his brother was nothing if not relentless in the face of impossible odds.

What Lucian needed was someone not quite so sentimental about killing him.

The fae prince, Zephan, would do, but he was bound by the treaty to not harm members of the House of Smoke. And dragons were well-nigh impossible to kill by anything short of fae magic or the fate of their own wyvern. An angel blade would manage it, but good luck getting any of the angelings to listen, much less do as one wished—

Then a singular idea invaded his mind—a horrible one, but Lucian wasn’t above stooping to any debasement to make this happen.

He turned north and flew further into Canada.

The only coven of vampires he knew in the area should be overjoyed to see him.

Lucian took solace from the fact that Leksander would be unable to follow him until he healed, and by then, it would be too late to witness his ignoble end at the hands—or rather fangs—of the bloodsuckers.