Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BALE
There must be something wrong with me. A life that had been on track for nearly six hundred years suddenly feels like it veered over a cliff.
And the cliff has a name.
I scrub a hand down my face, staring at the inn’s dark ceiling. My team occupies each of the rooms on this floor. Idallia is in the one right next to mine.
I groan, the sound a rasping mix of frustration and despair.
I’m supposed to be sleeping, but too many questions and a gut-deep worry plague me.
I’ve always managed to attribute Idallia’s flushed skin, pounding heartbeat, and sweet scent of arousal to something else.
Violence can cause it, and we engage in plenty of that.
But for the first time, I let myself believe it might be me.
And if it’s me, then everything just got harder.
At nightfall, I’ll find myself alone with her again, and if she makes me laugh one more time, I might break down and do something stupid.
Sunshine.
What the fuck was I thinking?
The way that slipped out wasn’t just telling. It was telling. And she’s so full of questions…
I force myself to breathe calmly and relax. I need to sleep now and be vigilant tonight. My efforts aren’t very effective, but I know I doze off at least once because my dreams are filled with black hair, golden eyes, Rannigan’s cold, angry stare, and hot blood everywhere.
We’re all subdued at dinner. I don’t know why.
Nothing is different except that I’ve turned inward to muse over my own thoughts, and that seems to keep everyone else from expressing theirs.
Wade doesn’t tell a single terrible joke.
Danica, Maia, and Arran eat quietly. Kellan furtively watches Idallia as much as I do.
And Idallia just pushes her food around her plate and gazes out the window.
She doesn’t look in the direction of where we were earlier or where we’ll go tonight.
She looks in the direction of her warbirds.
Sighing, I rise. “Let’s go get the phoenixes. Then it’s back to our posts.”
Everyone stands without grumbling, even though no one’s had a chance to order a second round of food yet.
I go straight to the clearing. Idallia retrieves Fyrestar and Rimblaze from the local barracks and then joins me in the woods.
As night falls, we begin patrolling. Conversation is slim.
She talks quietly with her birds, but unless I’m right there, Fyrestar and Rimblaze don’t include me in their thoughts, and I can only hear Idallia’s whispered replies snaking through the trees like a teasing thread I can barely grasp before it jumps away from me again.
Irritated, I move deeper into the woods.
I liked it better when I craved solitude and happily isolated myself.
No one to influence me. No one to try to please.
Individuals are distracting. I learned that a long time ago and kept them at a distance.
Then Idallia erupted into my life, and I had to figure out a way to keep her alive and train her for what comes next.
The Elite Wing was a great idea—to help her, me, and Torridaig.
But training them, flying with them, fighting alongside them…
It’s given me something I never expected—the urge to join instead of avoid.
Kellan was a bump in the road I didn’t expect, either, even though I should have.
Wade is interested in men, Arran is in love with Maia, and that left Kellan to see Idallia and get stars in his eyes.
I keep waiting for his feelings to fade, but we live with centuries as our reference point, not years or even decades.
And do feelings always fade? Sometimes they grow so slowly you don’t even see them coming until it’s too late.
My gut tightens uncomfortably. Everything seems uncomfortable these days.
Kellan’s persistent feelings are another good reason for his upcoming mission. He’s a protector, so I’ll give him someone who needs a lot more protection than Idallia. His knight-in-shining-armor syndrome will kick in, and maybe I’ll accomplish two goals in one.
Rolling my shoulders, I let my shadows seep out, reddish-black scales building over me and wings unfurling without substance. I could turn them solid in a heartbeat and still hold on to my common form—my gift from Cealastra, along with my wounds healing when I shift.
Half-letting my dragon out relieves some of the tension snapping inside me, but gives free rein to another source of conflict.
Dragons gather. We don’t relinquish. We don’t ignore.
We don’t do nothing. The dragon seeping from me immediately wants to collect Idallia, Fyrestar, and Rimblaze and keep them next to me, where I can see, protect, smell.
Know they’re here. Know they’re well. Know they’re mine.
My breath hisses through my teeth, and I force the thickening shadows back inside me.
I collected a very valuable girl a long time ago, and the dragon in me doesn’t understand the idea of letting her go—even if it’s to give her back to herself now that she’s a grown woman. The man in me wants to argue less and less now.
Wary of my own thoughts—and the increasing clarity of them—I move toward one of the deer tracks but remain off to one side.
My back against a tree, I listen and watch, keeping my focus where it should be—on the lookout for night raiders.
I stay fully in skin, not letting the shadow of my dragon back out to tempt me with primal instincts I barely want to deny anymore.
Kellan’s Featherspear suddenly caws above me. My head snaps up, my pulse accelerating. There’s only one phoenix. Grambolt must’ve gone to gather other team members.
“Mount up!” I call to Idallia, knowing she’ll hear. I shift and rise toward Featherspear. “What’s happening?” I demand just as Fyrestar and Idallia join us above the forest, Rimblaze on their wing.
“Alarm bells are ringing in Draywood. You can’t hear them from here.” I cock my head, listening. Even my dragon doesn’t hear. “Everyone else is already headed to Draywood. Wade and Danica warned us. They were closest and heard the bells. Kellan sent me to tell you,” Featherspear says.
Fire rolls between my fangs as I turn south and speed up. The information relay worked, but the attack happened leagues from here.
Catching up to us, Idallia calls out, “Wade and Danica might already be fighting? By themselves?”
“I don’t know.” Featherspear’s plumage burns with worry, fire trailing from his wings.
“Rim’s not supposed to go into battle yet,” Idallia shouts across the night sky to me.
I glance over, glad to see the torque Stuart made for her back around her neck. “Rimblaze will do what needs to be done. We’ll see what that is when we get there.”
She pales to starlight white and glares at me like she just might hate my royal guts. I don’t like it, but the condemnation in her cold stare isn’t enough to make me set aside an asset in a fight.
Rimblaze glows brighter, excitement sparking from him. I want him ready but cautious, and say, “Stay with Fyrestar and follow his lead. Don’t get in above your head.” I’d hoped my warning would appease Idallia, but she doesn’t look impressed.
Rim chirps his agreement. Fyrestar gives the younger bird a stern look, emphasizing the message.
Idallia’s jaw hardens. She turns away from me, looking straight ahead.
“If they raised the alarm in Draywood, the soldiers there must be fighting the vampires,” Fyrestar caws. “The local garrison didn’t know to alert us instead of engaging. We might not be able to take the prisoners we need.”
“We don’t even know if there are vampires,” I say. “It might be something else.”
“Like what?” Idallia’s acid-and-ice tone matches the cutting look she gives me, her golden eyes like chips of colored glass.
I let my inner fire heat mine—a warning. “We’ll know when we get there.”
“If it’s a raid, and it’s anything like usual,” Featherspear chirps over to us, “half the vampires will be dragging their catches straight for the border while the other half holds off the town’s soldiers.”
“If that’s the case, do we help the soldiers or try to cut off the traffickers?” Idallia asks.
I grind my fangs. Porthwood was an educated guess, and it angers me that I guessed wrong. “We cut off the traffickers. If they cross the border into Bloodwold, we lose them and the people they took.”
An enormous, bright glow illuminating the horizon comes into view before Draywood does.
“Great Cealastra.” Idallia stares in shock. “Half of Draywood is on fire.”
My heart seems to drop dead in my chest. Keen vision and our view from above allow me to see a large band of blood thieves racing toward the border, as well as the inferno engulfing my town.
“That’s a new tactic,” Fyrestar rattles angrily. Rimblaze squawks his shock.
“What do they hope to gain by that?” Idallia’s face scrunches up as the first hint of smoke bites our nostrils. “That’s not kidnapping. It’s destruction.”
“Maybe it wasn’t meant to happen,” Fyrestar says. “An accident.”
“I doubt it. That looks like a diversion—and an attempt to divide us,” I grate out.
We weren’t exactly discreet arriving in Porthwood, and I feared it might scare raiders off if they got wind of our presence.
Now I think it did the opposite. They’ve used the cover of the tunnels to quickly gather a significant force from up and down the border and organize a raid of unprecedented proportions.
Divide us? Or kill us? Something tells me the people they must’ve taken from Draywood aren’t even the real targets tonight.
Kellan’s Grambolt flies toward us along with Maia’s Cinderblaze and Arran’s Glimmerwing. All three of them glow, their heated bodies outlined by the light of the blaze consuming Draywood.