4. Chapter 4
Izzy stirred, her spirit flesh warm as if she slept by a fireplace. Wait—didn’t I die? No fierce winds slammed into her. No bright light blinded her. The pleasant heat was also different from the icy cold that other Fallen used to describe Limbo.
As she awakened, her energy illuminated the blue chamber surrounding her.
More blue lights branched off in different directions.
She was in a Spirit Cavity. Memories flooded back of the Archfiend and the bronze-eyed man who’d rescued her.
Her spirit heart raced, fearing she’d spent too long inside him.
None of his Spirit Cavity’s streams of light appeared frail or damaged, and where some hosts might burn her presence, his seemed welcoming. Her injury throbbed in her rib cage, but a thin layer of new spirit flesh covered the wound.
Hovering in the Cavity’s space, she stretched and brushed against something firm.
She turned, panicked breaths shaking her core. Shiny scales loomed, and she gaped at the creature she thought existed only in legends. Fully bronze, it stood in the space with eyes like medallions.
She couldn’t think of the creature as anything other than a relapse of her brainwaves, but she still backed away from it. Her light fluctuated with her breaths, illuminating the beast in a strobe effect.
The feathers of its winged front legs shifted in an overlay of metallic browns and golds, mocking her in their beauty. Her featherless wings would never compare. Long canines and sharp talons marked the creature as a predator. A spike of adrenaline gave her clarity.
Dragon.
An aura of blue wrapped around the dragon and snaked throughout the Spirit Cavity as if it were one with the human. No other Fallen had ever spoken of finding such a beast inside a person. The Spirit Cavity was supposed to hold only spirit energy.
How was this possible?
“You’re awake?” a rough voice thundered inside the Cavity.
Izzy’s heart climbed into her throat. She wrenched her gaze to the dragon’s sharp-toothed mouth. Warm air from its nostrils heated her face. Its eyes were the same color as those of the man who had saved her—Daxton. Was he the one speaking to her? If so, the creature was a part of him—was him.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said.
Logic dictated she should not incite the prey drive of a predator by running, but her body was already moving.
When she tried to flee, the dragon lunged.
It grabbed her with the claws at the tip of its wings.
Dragon spirit energy reached out and hers did the same—magnetically drawn until the tendrils of yellow and of blue touched.
Electricity wisped over her, trailing over the tips of her breasts and down her navel like a feather.
Arousal caught like wildfire, and she squirmed. What the hell?
Her body tingled. Tensed. Something inside her snapped, and she melded with the dragon.
Their spirit energy—blue aura and yellow light—intertwined irrevocably.
The combined energies prickled through her body and awoke a sense of nostalgia, as if she was returning to a home she’d forgotten until now.
A thin link of power formed between them. Even far from her body, a cacophony of emotions ravaged her being and swept away the last of the sensations.
“What just…happened?” His breathy speech made him sound as lost as she felt.
Had that happened to him, too? “I…that was…”
The dragon’s growl vibrated along her nerves.
Its feathered wings folded around her, shielding her in a cocoon-like embrace.
She pressed against the dragon, longing for a nearness that bordered an addiction to his presence.
This bewildering desire threatened to overwhelm her hard-won logic, a chaos she couldn’t abide as it contradicted everything she believed about self-preservation and the vulnerability that came with caring for someone.
Walls closed in her mind, suffocating her. Izzy wasn’t a damsel that needed anyone. She pushed against its wings. “Restrain yourself and release me.”
“It’s not that damn easy.”
“We will see about that.” She shot a warning flare of yellow power straight at the dragon’s eyes.
Its head jerked back, and she raced out of Daxton’s Spirit Cavity.
Outside his body, she transformed into a clothed humanoid and fell onto the carpet in a well-lit room.
Her cry of pain filled the studio apartment as she grabbed her stinging midsection.
The wound still glowed from her blood. To finish the healing process, she needed to stay in a host body.
As she thought of staying with Daxton, her stomach twisted.
She couldn’t allow a connection with him like that again.
The sensation of her spirit melding with his, the potent emotions it brought, was a distraction she couldn’t afford.
Her purpose, to collect her feathers and return to Heaven, required a clear, logical mind, free from such attachments.
Heavy steps behind her made her glance over her shoulder with a narrowed, hostile gaze. His intimidating size rose above her, clad in dark denim and a sweat-stained T-shirt.
He rubbed his temples as if in pain and stopped advancing. “What the hell did you attack me with?”
Gasping between words, she said, “Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.” At the lost look on his face, she continued, “Or, you know, a laser.”
“Why did you leave? You’re not healed yet.” The veins in his neck protruded as if something choked him from within.
The connection pulled taut, the dragon tugging her back. She dug her fingers into the black plush carpet below her, but she was too weak to solidify her light enough to grasp the fuzzy surface. He might win this spirit tug-of-war.
“Please stop.” She clenched her eyes shut. Would looking at him make it easier for him to drag her back?
“You need to heal,” he said, voice gentle yet stern even as his pull on her lessened.
A tapping knock filled the room.
“Daxton?” said a soft female voice from behind the wooden door in front of them.
“Not now, Sarah.”
Izzy struggled forward on the carpet and yelled, “Help me.”
The door flung open. A curvy woman dressed in scrubs barged into the room and jumped back, hand over her chest.
Izzy’s spirit flesh prickled from an inhuman, yet familiarly charged sensation. Sarah’s round, rosy cheeks glowed youthfully despite her midlength gray hair. Her mature gaze shot from Izzy to Daxton.
Sarah scowled in horror. “You’ve always been a troublemaker, but this—”
Daxton lifted his arms. “It’s not what it looks like.”
Izzy didn’t care if the same creature awaited inside Sarah. She wanted freedom from Daxton and the emotions he incited in her. She couldn’t afford to feel, let alone feel an attachment to someone. The last time had ended in madness.
His dragon pulled at her, leaving her mind in shambles. If she had to choose between the two, Sarah might be the better choice. She exhaled, condensed her spirit into a light orb, and flew into the backpedaling woman.
Another dragon lay within Sarah’s Spirit Cavity. It rose in a flourish of agile movement. Baring its sharp teeth, it emitted a low growl from its throat.
Izzy hesitated.
The dragon towered over her, but she couldn’t gauge how big it would be in a corporeal form.
Reflective silver scales covered its body except for its chest and spine where they appeared more like an alligator’s scutes with a thicker, hornlike appearance.
It stood hunched, the claws in the center of its wings resting against solid air.
Its steel-gray feathers matched Sarah’s eyes.
Daxton’s dragon released its spirit pull on her.
Did Sarah stop him, or did he believe Izzy was safe now?
She sighed in relief, her grounding logic and confidence returning.
She stood tall, staring at Sarah’s creature.
Nose flaring, it leaned forward to smell her.
Its gaze shifted from weariness to understanding, as if it recognized she wasn’t an enemy.
“Please, help me,” Izzy said and froze when the dragon used its snout to nudge her behind its back as if offering her protection.
Too curious not to listen to their conversation, Izzy concentrated and absorbed herself further into the Spirit Cavity to use Sarah’s senses and feel her emotions.
“What did you do to the poor child?” Sarah’s words resonated with heat inside Izzy.
Her protective instinct consumed Izzy, like a loving mother involuntarily required to care for an animal her child brought home.
That compassion explained why Sarah hadn’t immediately attacked when an unknown being had entered her.
“I didn’t do anything,” Daxton said. “She’s been with me healing and just woke up. But then I…I don’t know. We somehow connected—spirit-to-spirit.”
Sarah’s heart raced, creating an echo in Izzy’s chest.
“I need to return home,” Izzy said. The forced communication drained her. Still absorbed into Sarah’s Spirit Cavity, the woman would feel Izzy’s thoughts as if they were her own.
Sarah gasped. Izzy sensed Sarah’s hand covering her chest like she wanted to rip Izzy out.
“Daxton, what is this creature inside me?” she asked.
“You can ask her that yourself.”
“Where did you find her?”
He sighed. “I went to Acadia the other night and came across a Tattered One. It looked like it had attacked her and left her to die.”
Tattered One. That must be what they call an Archfiend.
Reminded of the monstrosity, a cold sweat rushed over Izzy. Her stomach protested, nausea burning her spirit throat. She had forgotten the Archfiend still lived, searching for her body. After destroying her spirit, he’d need to kill her body to absorb her power.
If he destroys my human form, I’ll have to start my life over again. I can’t wait more years to find my way back to Heaven.
She disengaged herself from Sarah’s external senses. “Sarah. There is no time to waste. I have to go home.”
“Do not fret, child. As soon as we know where to take you, we will.”
Izzy floated around the dragon to stare it down, trying to convey her seriousness. “You do not understand. My life is at risk. I must return at once.”