Chapter 1 #2
“Here,” she said, holding it out without coming too close.
He did not take it.
Human kindness often came with a hidden price. Dragon kindness did too. He trusted neither.
“Who sent you?” he asked.
“No one.”
“Liar.”
Her chin lifted. “Hungry servants do not send themselves into cursed forests for sport.”
That was true enough to irritate him.
The poison twisted.
Lucian’s breath caught before he could hide it.
The woman noticed. Of course she did. She moved closer.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“You have something in the wound.”
“Poison.”
Her eyes flicked to his hand. “Then keeping it there seems unwise.”
He almost smiled. Almost.
“You know poisons?”
“I know when a man is dying badly.”
“I am not dying.”
“You are doing a poor job of proving it.”
Another step.
The air changed.
Lucian felt it before she reached him. The fire in his blood, wild and tearing at its own walls, turned toward her like a starving thing scenting rain.
His dragon stirred.
Not in anger.
Recognition.
Lucian went still.
The woman saw the shift in him and hesitated. “What is it?”
“Go,” he said, and this time it was not command but effort. “Now.”
She should have obeyed.
Anyone with sense would have.
Instead, she knelt beside him and pressed both hands over his wound.
The world struck white.
Isolde expected heat.
She expected dragon skin to burn her palms. She expected Lucian Blackthorne to shove her away, curse her, perhaps end her with one furious breath.
She did not expect the forest to wake.
Ash lifted from the ground in a pale ring. The broken stones around the clearing lit from within, not bright enough to blind, but bright enough to show markings carved deep into their sides. Hands. Wings. A crown split in two.
Lucian made a sound low in his throat.
“Stop,” he said.
“I’m trying.”
“Take your hands off me.”
“I can’t.”
That was the truth.
Her palms had sealed to his blood as if the wound had called them there. Something under her skin opened. Not like a door. Like a memory.
The poison rose from him in thin black lines.
Isolde watched in horror as it crawled across her fingers.
Lucian caught her wrist. “Human, listen to me.”
“My name is not human.”
His amber eyes fixed on her.
Even in pain, even half-covered in mud and blood, he had the kind of face that made fear arrive late. Sharp cheekbones. A strong mouth. Wet black hair clinging to his forehead. A man made for command, brought low enough to hate the person seeing it.
“What is your name?” he asked.
Isolde almost gave it.
The mark at her spine burned so fiercely her breath broke.
Her grandmother’s warning returned.
Names bind faster than blood.
She shook her head. “No.”
Lucian’s grip tightened, then loosened at once when he realized he was hurting her. The restraint startled them both.
The black poison reached her wrist.
Lucian saw it. “Let go.”
“No.”
“It will enter your heart.”
“Then stop talking and help me.”
“Stubborn little fool.”
“Rude dying man.”
His mouth twitched.
It should not have mattered. It did.
Then his wound closed under her hands.
Not fully. Enough.
The black lines burned away. Lucian arched from the ground as gold light burst beneath his skin, rushing from his ribs to his chest. The force threw Isolde backward, but he caught her before her head struck stone.
For one second, they were too close.
His hand braced behind her shoulder. Her fingers clutched his arm. His face hovered above hers, harsh with pain, eyes bright as banked fire.
The forest hushed around them.
Lucian looked at her mouth.
Isolde forgot how to move.
Then a mark flared over his heart.
Not a wound. Not a scar.
A pale ash-shaped flame, curved like wings around a human hand.
Lucian looked down.
His face changed.
Isolde saw fear there.
Not for himself.
For her.
“Run,” he said.
“What did I do?”
“Run.”
A sound cracked through the forest.
Voices.
Men. Guards, perhaps. Or worse.
Lucian released her and pushed himself upright with brutal effort. “They cannot find you here.”
“Why?”
His gaze cut to her back as if he could see through cloth.
Isolde went cold.
Behind her, from beneath her dress, light spilled in thin lines.
Lucian saw it.
So did she, reflected in his eyes.
A dragon mark had woken on her skin.
Isolde ran because Lucian Blackthorne looked more afraid of her mark than of the poison that had nearly killed him.
Branches whipped her face. Mud grabbed at her boots. Her cloak was gone, left in the clearing with him. Cold air struck her throat, but the fire on her back was worse, spreading in sharp waves beneath her dress.
Behind her, the forest filled with voices.
“This way!”
“My lord!”
“Search the ruins!”
Isolde ducked behind a fallen tree and pressed both hands over her mouth.
Two guards passed close enough for her to see the black metal plates sewn into their coats. Dragon guard. Not village men. Not people who would listen if she cried or begged.
One stopped.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Breathing.”
Isolde held still.
A third voice cut through the trees. Calm. Male. Familiar already in a way that frightened her.
“Leave the lower brush.”
Lucian.
The guards turned at once.
“My lord, you’re wounded.”
“Did I ask for a report?”
“No, my lord.”
“Then find who attacked me.”
“There may be someone else here.”
“There is no one.”
The lie moved through the trees and found Isolde where she crouched in the mud.
He was protecting her.
Or protecting himself from what she meant.
The guards moved away.
Isolde waited until their steps faded before she crawled from behind the tree and forced herself onward. She did not stop until the village roofs appeared through the mist.
By then, her legs were shaking.
She entered the Fenwick house through the back door.
The kitchen was empty.
Good.
She climbed the narrow stairs to the attic room under the roof, shut the door, and dragged a chair beneath the handle. Only then did she pull the dress from her shoulders and twist toward the cracked mirror nailed to the wall.
At first, she saw only skin.
Then the mark appeared.
A dragon, black and gold, curled across the lower part of her back as if it had been sleeping there for years and had only now opened its eyes. Around it, ash-white lines formed a broken crown.
Isolde touched the mirror.
“No,” she whispered.
The mark warmed under her fingers.
A knock struck the door.
She spun, clutching the dress to her chest.
“Isolde?” Garran’s voice came through the wood. “Open.”
She did not answer.
Another knock. Softer.
“I know where you went.”
Her throat tightened.
“Open the door before Odette comes up.”
Isolde moved the chair aside with careful hands and opened the door a crack.
Her father stood in the dim hall. His servant coat was stained with mud at the hem. His face looked older than it had an hour ago.
He looked past her shoulder.
Saw the mirror.
Saw the glow.
The little strength in him seemed to drain away.
“Oh, child,” he said.
Isolde gripped the door. “What is happening to me?”
Garran reached into his coat and pulled out a folded piece of cloth. Inside lay an old pendant she had never seen before: a blackened silver hand wrapped in wings.
Her mark answered it with a pulse of light.
Garran shut his eyes. “Your mother wore this the night they came for her.”
Downstairs, Odette called, “Garran? The Blackthorne guards are at the door.”
Isolde stopped breathing.
Heavy boots entered the house below.
Then a guard’s voice rose through the floorboards.
“By order of Lord Lucian Blackthorne, every woman in this house is to be questioned.”