Chapter 5
Wynn sighed. She hadn’t meant to insult him. At least not that time. But she was struggling to think clearly.
She’d found this empty house after fleeing Hexx’s apartment.
It was small, nondescript, and tucked into a human neighborhood far from the nearest demon lair.
The perfect place to disappear. After creating a protective barrier, she managed to fall into a deep sleep for the first time in forever.
She didn’t know how long it’d lasted, but night had obviously fallen again, so at least twelve hours.
Was it any wonder she was fuzzy when Azh had woken her?
Then, just when she managed to clear her brain of the cobwebs, she’d gotten her first good look at the aggravating creature.
It had felt like an earthquake was ripping the ground from beneath her feet, dropping her into a void of stunned bewilderment.
Her first encounter with Azh had been unnerving. He was without a doubt the most obscenely gorgeous, ruthlessly sexy male she’d ever met. But now...
But now he was earthshattering.
Wynn’s mouth felt weirdly dry and her heart pounded as she took in the blazing, devastatingly flawless beauty of the male standing in front of her.
The thin blade of a nose. The sharp cheekbones and the lush lips.
It was as if he’d removed a dampening spell to reveal the pure precision of his lean features and the smoky gray eyes that burned with a tumultuous power.
His skin was smooth, but it shimmered with a silvery hint of unseen scales.
And his aura...it raged around him like a fiery tornado.
Solar flares of magic brighter than anything she’d ever seen.
It was spectacular.
This was the real Azh. Even if he was in human form.
Wynn cleared the lump from her throat, struggling to follow the conversation. She sensed it was important.
“I never really thought about dragons or their schooling,” she admitted. “I thought you were a myth.”
The magic of the Gyre pulsed beneath her feet, as if reacting to his annoyance. “Can I continue?”
She instinctively wrapped her arms around her waist, struggling to stand her ground against the raw blast of his male presence.
“Go for it.”
He took a moment, as if gathering his composure.
Then, with a twist of his hand, he gestured toward the hole he’d created in the air.
A thick leatherbound book on the highest shelf floated forward, moving through the opening and floating in front of Azh.
With a casual motion he grabbed the heavy tome and bent down to lay it on the floor, as if indifferent to the years of filth embedded in the shag carpeting.
Curious in spite of herself, Wynn watched in silence as he flipped open the book and stepped back, the heat of his magic swirling through the air.
Pleasure sizzled down her spine as the magic washed over her like a caress. Had it been on purpose? Or had she got caught in a rogue wave of power? Not that it mattered, she sternly warned herself. The only reason she wasn’t trying to escape was because he promised her answers.
Once she knew what the magic was and how to get rid of it, she was going to take a tip from the dragons and find herself a hidden lair and hibernate for the next month. Maybe the next year.
Thankfully unaware of her intense reaction, Azh released his magic with a sharp motion. A mist swirled over the book and the detailed illustrations that were painted onto the yellowed pages began to glow. Almost as if they were coming to life.
Wynn instinctively froze as the image of a silver dragon suddenly hovered in midair.
She was a breathtaking creature with delicate wings spread wide and a solid body that narrowed to a long, elegantly curved neck.
Slowly the mist widened, allowing Wynn to view the illustration behind the dragon.
She was soaring through an open sky with her head tilted toward the two reddish suns and her mouth open to reveal her rows of lethal fangs.
As if she were screeching a challenge to the gods.
“There is endless speculation on how we arrived in this world, but all historians agree that we were led here by Gabriela, our most fierce warrior.” Azh broke the silence.
“Awesome. She sounds like a kickass female. My favorite. But what does it have to do with me?”
“There’s also a universal agreement that we were fleeing an unknown evil,” he continued, ignoring her interruption. “Most books refer to it as some sort of corruption.”
Wynn frowned. “And?”
He waved his hand and the mist swirled to reveal a different engraving of the silver dragon. She was no longer soaring through air. Instead, she was wedged into a large cave with her head bent low as fire bellowed from her parted mouth.
“Gabriela created the rift to bring us into this world and then sacrificed herself to block the opening so we couldn’t be followed by the mysterious enemy that was chasing us.”
“Wait.” A knot twisted Wynn’s gut as the mist cleared to reveal a bright green slime, oozing over the floor of the cave. It was horrifyingly familiar. “That’s the corruption?”
Azh sent her a curious glance. “It’s an artistic representation. I’m not sure how accurate it is. Why?”
Wynn licked her dry lips. “I don’t want that nasty crap coming here.”
“Neither do I. Which is why I’ve been following you.”
“Are you suggesting I’ve been corrupted?”
He narrowed his smoky gray gaze. “No, but your reaction is interesting.”
Wynn snapped her lips together. Her shock at seeing the glowing green had made her reckless. She was giving away too much. With an effort she folded her arms over her stomach and heaved a resigned sigh.
“Well, I’m glad I’m interesting, because you’re not. In fact, you’re starting to bore the hell out of me.”
“You don’t want to hear the story?”
She hunched a shoulder. “Fine, yes. Just get it over with.”
His lips twitched. He wasn’t fooled. “After Gabriela closed the rift and sealed out the evil, she transformed herself into a statue that was left to stand guard at the rift,” he said.
“There are some who believe it was left as an early warning in case the corruption attempted to follow us. There are others who claimed that Gabriela had foreseen the day the evil would enter this world and that she left her magic to battle against it.”
Wynn returned her attention to the image in the swirling mist, her heart missing a beat.
A statue. That might very well be what had been the start of her misery.
She waited, expecting the image to change.
When it remained on the dragon, she sent Azh an impatient glare.
The spurting fire thing was impressive, but it didn’t give her the answers she needed.
“What did the statue look like?”
“No one is certain.” The mist abruptly evaporated and the book slammed shut, the scent of brimstone wafting through the air.
“There are some who swear it was shaped like a small dragon, and another one claimed it was a tall woman with a sword over her head, and there’s those who were certain it looked like a plain stone so no one could find it. ”
“Seriously?” Wynn felt a pang of annoyance. “No one knows for sure?”
Azh shrugged, bending down to pick up the book. “The dragons were still traumatized and in a hurry to flee from the rift in case their enemy attempted to follow them. They didn’t bother to sketch the statue.”
“So go back and find it. Surely you’ll know what it’s intended to do once you hold it?”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
Azh gestured toward the small opening into the dragon lair. Moments later a long leather coat appeared. Shrugging into the well-worn jacket that reached past his knees, he tucked the book in a pocket. Then, with a wave of his hand, he shut the opening.
“Because the location of the rift was erased from the minds of the dragons,” he at last admitted, as if he’d been deciding how much to reveal.
Fair enough. It was dangerous to divulge that his people had a secret kryptonite.
“All they could recall was running through a deep cave and at last finding a tunnel leading to the sunshine.”
Wynn’s frustration deepened. “Why was it erased?”
“Those who were fleeing said that it was a last act of magic by Gabriela. I presume it was to make sure that no one was foolish enough to try to open the rift and return to Kazak.”
And that was that, Wynn acknowledged with a burst of disappointment. Even if she had somehow stumbled across the mysterious statue, she had no way of knowing where or even what it looked like.
She was back to square one. Only now she had an aggravating dragon pestering her every move.
“A fascinating story, but I still don’t know why you’ve been stalking me.”
“I sensed the dragon magic beginning to stir a few months ago. At first it was nothing more than a brush across my mind. Like a caress. It woke me from my slumbers.”
Wynn rolled her eyes. Her luck really had gone south if she’d managed to wake this male from his hibernation just by walking around. What else had she woken? The question doubled the size of the knot in her stomach.
“What makes you think the magic has anything to do with the...” She bit off the word corruption. She didn’t want to explain why she was obsessed with the green goo. “Gabriela?”
“I didn’t at first. I assumed a dragon had escaped from hibernation.”
“Escaped like you?” she taunted.
“It’s my duty to protect my people.” There was an edge in his voice that hinted he didn’t like the direction of the conversation.
As if he had something to hide. “Once I caught sight of you I realized that you weren’t a dragon.
Which meant the power must have come from somewhere else.
The most logical answer is that the magic was hidden in a relic that you possess. ”
“Even if I did have a magical relic, it doesn’t mean it’s linked to Gabriela,” she insisted.
He shook his head. “The magic resonating inside you is old. The oldest I’ve ever felt.” He stepped forward. “Where is it?”