Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
THORNE
“Thorne!”
My brother’s voice thundered inside my skull, cracking like a whip.
“Busy,” I shouted, then winced, pressing my fingers into my throbbing temples.
Beside me on a small table was the bottle of Ambrosia I’d discovered in the castle stores. With a grimace, I tipped it back and drained the last burning swallow.
“Flight deck. Now.” Alaric’s command hit harder this time. Daggers stabbed my skull, threatening to scramble my brain if I didn’t obey. Dammit. He knew I hated when he used his alpha flame to order me around.
“Flaming asshole.” I staggered to my feet, muttering as I rolled my shoulders, “I’m coming. I’m coming. Keep your scales on.”
We were camped near a village of Puritans who believed all things fun to be a sin. What in the seven hells could have riled the beast during his evening soak in the healing waters?
I cracked my jaw on a yawn, dragging my feet down the hallway and out onto the flight deck.
The massive platform jutted from the castle wall, levering out over the mountainside. Free of obstructions, it allowed those with wings clear access to the hidden stronghold. Wind whipped across the stone, hard enough to blow me off the edge, and I uttered a curse.
In the distance, a dark figure sliced through the clouds. Alaric’s massive wings pounded the air, his emerald-kissed scales catching the moonlight. A dragon in flight was a formidable image known to strike terror into the most courageous of hearts.
Only I would notice the way he favored his right wing, letting it dip in front. How his tail drooped. Lines of strain tightened the powerful muscles in his neck, causing them to be even more prominent.
He landed with a thunderous swoop, claws striking hard. Too hard. No finesse. His wings trembled before folding, his chest heaving great breaths as if he was winded by the short flight.
“What’s wrong?” I eyed the way his bulk shifted unevenly. “You collect a new injury while you were wallowing in the mud at the lake?” Goddess forbid he had something else to complain about.
“Here. Take her.” He extended his foreleg.
What tumbled from his claw looked like a drowned pastry—a heap of filthy lace and ruffles that hit the stone with a wet slap.
I recoiled. “I’m not touching that. Could be diseased for all you know.”
“Do it,” he roared, the scales along the sides of his neck rattling.
“Fine. Fine.” I took a knee beside the sodden pile of rags. “What is it?”
He puffed smoke from his nostrils. “You, of all creatures, should recognize a woman when you see one.”
“Really?” I cast a wary glance at the crumpled heap of fabric when something caught my eye. A hint of crimson poked through a pile of tattered lace. Curiosity prickled me as I hesitantly reached out, brushing aside a grimy ruffle.
Red curls spilled across high cheekbones, a violent contrast to skin gone ghostly pale. Thick lashes rested atop shadowed bruises, her rosebud mouth a gray slash in a heart-shaped face.
Flark me. I knew that face. And had no desire to ever see it again. The wench was an uncivilized brat. Not that I could share this with Alaric since she’d spotted me in my dragon form. Something he’d strictly forbidden.
“Is she dead?” A man could hope.
“She will be if you don’t get moving.” Alaric’s fury heated my exposed skin.
Still, I hesitated. “And we care about one ignorant peasant, why?”
“Just do it.” His smoky breath hit me in the face.
I coughed, waving my hand. “Okay, okay. No need to breathe your foul nerf breath on me.”
Scrunching my nose, I slid my arms beneath the girl and hefted her into my lap. Once I was on my feet, I carried her down the massive hallway and into the dining area.
Alaric’s massive form shadowed me all the way into the hall, hovering far too close. By the fates, what was going on here? He loomed like an anxious mother hen.
“Set her on the table.”
“Where I eat?”
“Thorne,” he warned, his voice like iron.
“Fine,” I huffed, setting her on the wooden surface. “Now what?”
As if in answer to my question, Myrna bustled in with two of her assistants, hot on her heels, arms overflowing with bandages and baskets of medical supplies. The girls looked like their elder—sharp-eyed and stern—but with darker hair and the same no-nonsense demeanor.
The elderly trogg climbed up on the bench beside the table to better reach her patient. “Poor child.” She clucked her tongue. “Girls, get this hideous dress off her so I may see her injuries.”
Scissors flashed, knives sliced, and layer after layer of filthy fabric hit the floor, until what must have been fifty stones of cloth rest in a heap.
Finally free from the suffocating mess, the girl lay exposed.
Unable to resist my burning curiosity, I leaned in, even as Alaric crowded closer behind Myrna’s shoulder.
The smell of blood, thick and metallic, hit me hard. It soaked through the girl’s ragged shift, pooling beneath her and dripping onto the stone floor. Three gaping wounds marred her stomach—angry, raw, and deep.
“These are too small to have been caused by your talons. Someone stabbed her.” Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who found her infuriating. I glanced over my shoulder at Alaric. “Where did you say you found her?”
“By the lake. The Puritans were attacked, their village under siege.”
“Puritans,” I grunted. “Magicless rodents. Good riddance.”
The girl’s chest rattled with shallow, wheezing breaths. Myrna worked quickly, stitching, applying poultices, mixing herbs, but the sound only grew weaker. Her assistants faltered, their frantic movements slowing until they froze altogether.
“Why have you stopped?” Alaric demanded, his voice thick with tension.
The elder turned on the bench to face him. She wrung her hands, her expression apologetic. “I’m sorry, Master Alaric, but I’ve done everything I can think of to help. The girl is beyond saving.”
“No,” Alaric snarled. “Keep working. There must be something you can do.”
“I am sorry.” Myrna hopped to the floor, her assistants following. “I’ve done all I can.”
Alaric’s roar shook the rafters, the sound primal and thick with defeat. Myrna’s girls fled in terror while the elder trogg held her ground, arms folded, unmoved by his theatrics.
“Bellow all you like. Changes nothing. Nothing short of a miracle will save her now.”
Alaric’s temper came as no surprise. His concern for someone other than himself, however... “Tell me what this is about. Why this desperation for a useless Puritan?”
Alaric’s green eyes rounded on me, burning with conviction. “Because she is the one. I can feel it in my bones.”
“The one to what?”
“To break my curse.”
I coughed a dry laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“She spoke to me at the lake.”
“So what? I speak to you all the time.”
“In Draconian.”
“Strange, but not unique. The trogg speak it as well.”
“And she bears the mark of Goddess Hathor. I spotted the brand on the back of her neck. See for yourself.”
Myrna sucked in a sharp sound of alarm, casting a wide-eyed glance back at the bleeding woman.
Loathed to cause her more discomfort, I waved a hand. “I believe you.” I wasn’t a complete bastard, after all. “Even so, how many of Hathor’s supposed symbols have we chased over the years? Not a single one of them led to a cure.”
“This one is real.” He pounded his tail against the tile. “You think I cannot tell the difference? When she touched me—”
“She touched you?” If so, she must truly be crazed. Meaning Alaric had brought a filthy, dying, potentially insane woman into our refuge. And yet he claimed I was the irresponsible one.
“Yes.” He bared his monstrous teeth. “I felt something. Some strange magic between us.”
“That’s impossible,” I scoffed. “The Puritans have no magic.”
“And yet she does. That is why it’s vital that she survives.”
Myrna harrumphed. “If Hathor marked this child, best to leave her life in the goddess’s hands. Only a fool would interfere in her plans.”
I nodded my agreement. “None are safe from her vengeance.”
Shadows darkened his brow, his steely gaze hardening. “You realize that Hathor, in all her divine wisdom, would let this girl die. Still, She is the deity they all worship,” Alaric said with a sneer. “While the goddess refuses to help, there is one solution that is within my power.”
The appraising glance he gave me set my teeth on edge. “I have a feeling I’m not going to like this.”
“You will give her your flame.”
My head snapped around. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s the only way. She must live.”
A cold, nauseating dread filled me, turning my blood to slurry. “No.” I refused to share a piece of my soul, of that unique part of me that made me exceptional, with a dung-flinging banshee.
“You dare to deny me?” His nostrils flared, thick brow furrowing.
“Flark, yes, I dare.” I flashed sharpened teeth, my spine prickling my back.
“You’d have me bind myself to a complete stranger?
With a stray you’ve dragged off the streets?
” My voice rose with each word. “Sharing one’s flame with another is a sacred rite.
An intimate bond only performed with a mate.
What you’re asking, what you’re demanding, is sacrilege. ”
Myrna’s grating voice interrupted. “It’s a sacrilege, alright. One I’ll not take part in. Hathor won’t take kindly to your meddling in this girl’s fate. I for one don’t want to be here when she strikes.” The trogg turned in a huff, thick sandals slapping the floor as she fled the room.
Alaric’s jaw clenched, frustration twisting his craggy features. “I’d do it myself if I didn’t think I would turn her to ash in the process.”
Proving the injured woman’s insanity was contagious. “You’d force a bond with an unconscious woman who isn’t even capable of choosing for herself?”
“If it means breaking my curse, then yes.” His gaze bore into mine, fierce and unyielding. “And so will you. Or must I remind you of the oath you swore to me?”