Chapter Six
Ember
I spent the entire drive back to Casa Infernum with my head back, staring up through the sunroof, going over every calming breathing exercise I could dredge up.
None of them helped. By the time the Fire Clan’s estate came into view, my cock was still harder than steel and the fire in my blood burned white with intense need.
Whoever that woman was, she was dangerous.
My attraction to her—the lust, the ardor, the fiery hot arousal—was distracting. I could not waste time focusing on her.
Not then, at least. I had to return to Fire Castle, the fortress and ruling seat of my clan. Casa Infernum was our manor and vast grounds on Earth, but the source of our power resided at the heart of the Fire Realm, in the castle of hardened stone where I’d grown up.
“We have arrived, sir,” my driver said.
Snorting smoke from my nose, I rolled my eyes. “You can drop the act now, Pyre,” I said to my youngest cousin.
“Are you sure, sir? I wouldn’t want to be a bother. Truly, it is not an issue.”
“Obnoxious runt.”
Pyre chuckled, his demeanor changing. “You know I’ll do whatever is necessary for the Fire Clan,” he said solemnly. “Even if it means playing your servant.”
“I know,” I said. “And I appreciate it. It’s too risky to hire a human, but I always feel dirty having one of my kin drive me around.”
“Anything for the princedom. Besides, driving isn’t so bad.”
I shuddered. Humans were maniacs, and I hated being behind the wheel in a city full of them. They had no respect for one another and certainly no respect for their betters. If Pyre was content to drive, then I would be a fool not to take advantage of that.
“Since you’re so loyal,” I said. “Perhaps you could get me some food before we go?”
“I shall have to decline, sir,” he added after a beat.
“What happened to ‘anything for the princedom,’ hmm?” I teased.
“For the Throne,” Pyre said. “But you aren’t on the throne, cousin.”
I laughed. From Pyre, I could take that sort of good-natured teasing. From anyone else, I would have torn them a new one. But not Pyre. He had remained loyal to me when others of our family had not, and that meant something. Even if he wouldn’t get me a sandwich.
“Besides,” he added, pulling into the garage at the side of the sprawling manor built from orangey-red bricks, its square walls rising high and firm into the sky.
The rust-red metal roofing only added to the look I enjoyed.
“We probably shouldn’t dawdle, don’t you think?
We should get going back to Fire Castle as soon as we can. ”
“I want to make sure we’ve got energy for the flight,” I said. “We might need it.”
Pyre put the car in park and looked back. “You think Albright will try to intercept us?”
“If he were smart, he would,” I said, getting out of the vehicle. “It’s what I would do if I were as much of a bastard as he is. Strike before we expect it. Overwhelming force, go for the head.”
We took the stairs, neither of us patient enough to wait for the elevator. The kitchens weren’t directly on our way to our destination, but they weren’t that far. I figured ten minutes to fuel up would be worth the risk. Neither of us wanted to get caught low on energy.
“It’s really come to this, has it?” Pyre asked. “It’s been centuries since we had any infighting.”
“Our uncle doesn’t want to respect the line of succession,” I said with a shrug, swallowing the last of a protein bar. “We didn’t do anything.”
“We didn’t secure the Throne when we had the chance,” Pyre pointed out.
“Blaze was supposed to,” I said. “He was ready when my father departed for the God-King ritual. Just as others have done every hundred years for as long as we’ve been around. You know how it goes. It’s not like we could know that Blaze would fail the Test.”
I tried to keep the heat from my voice, but talking about my brother’s demise was never easy. It had thrown the entire princedom into disarray, and now, Albright was threatening fire-on-fire violence. More possibility of death, just when we needed it the least.
“If you can find a mate, it could change things,” Pyre suggested tentatively.
I shot him a look. “We’ve been over this.
None of the Fire women of age have any connection with me.
There’s nothing there, Pyre. I wish there were, but there isn’t.
I will talk to each one who comes of age as it happens, and as soon as I find a mate, I will take her to the God-King to undergo the Test. In the meantime, we must not devolve into internal warfare.
One of the other princedoms might see it as a chance to get opportunistic about our lands. ”
Pyre nodded, his mouth full of food. None of us wanted to encourage that. Fire was the strongest, but only when we were united.
“Come on, let’s go. I didn’t like the sound of Ashe’s warning. I don’t trust Albright. We need to get home.”
Pyre followed me out of the kitchen, and we made our way to the center of the manor. There, we took the spiral steps down to the basement. I led us to another door and then down to the sub-basement, where I opened a false panel in the wall and pressed my thumb to the biometric scanner.
The steel door slid open, and we entered the small chamber beyond. Once the door hissed closed, another section retracted into the floor, revealing a large room beyond.
At the center was a raised circular section of floor over thirty feet across. A six-foot wide ring, on which we walked, surrounded it. Stairs halfway around brought us up onto the raised portion and the main reason for the room’s security.
A brilliant golden arch over ten feet high and twice that across occupied the platform. The air under the arch shimmered and rippled like silver water.
The Rift, one of four identical arches on Earth—one for each clan—linked to the master Rift at the heart of the dragon realm underneath Mount Drakonus.
Once upon a time, the rifts had held me in awe. The power behind them and what they were capable of was amazing. Now, however, I’d gone back and forth so many times I was numb to it. Pyre and I walked up to the Rift and strode through it without hesitation.
We emerged under a much larger arch, easily a hundred feet tall, in the center of a cavern far below Mount Drakonus. Four tunnels, each located at the minor cardinal points, led up at an angle.
I headed toward the one at our eleven o’clock. Pyre followed a step behind and a few steps to the left to put distance between us. Once we were spread apart, I closed my eyes and transformed.
Scales emerged along my skin, a deep crimson color, while I grew rapidly.
The change was effortless, the dragon magic ensuring I barely felt myself grow over fifty feet long.
My wings spread wide; dark red membranes stretched wider than I was long.
Four legs kept me upright while my tail and long, sinuous neck pulled away from my body.
Without waiting to see if Pyre was done, I spread my wings wide and launched into the air with a powerful explosion of muscle from my legs and a mighty downsweep of my wings. We worked hard, beating against gravity as we rose, ascending swiftly into the tunnel, heading for the surface.
There was no time to waste.
“Keep your eyes open,” I ordered as we burst free from the side of the mountain ten minutes later, moving at speed, our muscles warmed up and working hard.
Quickly, we rose into the sky, angling for the high ground. If I were Albright, I would attack then.
However, no other dragons rose to stop us, and the ground below moved past swiftly, the rocky landscape slowly giving way to the green- and gold-covered fields of the farmlands that supported the Fire Clan.
“I guess he wasn’t ready,” Pyre said, pulling alongside me.
“Apparently not,” I agreed, but I didn’t stop scanning the sky.
My efforts were unnecessary because we arrived at Fire Castle without issue. I landed on the top of the stone building, its walls sharply vertical, with towers at the four corners and a high square center building. I resumed my human form and moved into the castle, eager to reach my quarters.
Though I hadn’t said anything to Pyre, I had another reason for wanting to come home so quickly. A constant pull that I was having a hard time ignoring. Images of a blonde in a pink top, her curved figure, setting my skin on fire.
“Who are you?” I growled to myself, bypassing my personal quarters and heading instead to the royal chambers at the heart of the Fire Castle. No windows existed down there, only the light of fire and the cool, hard press of rock. Down there, below ground, I truly felt at home as a dragon.
I bypassed the door to the bedroom. In my mind, it still belonged to my parents, even if they were gone, never to be seen again. Nobody quite knew what happened every hundred years when the ruling prince and his Eternal Mate went to see the God-King because none of them ever returned.
Prepared for that day since I was a child, I did not weep, though there was an emptiness in my soul where they’d belonged. Now it was but full of memories, much like the place occupied by my brother.
“Enough,” I ordered, entering my father's study and pulling a thick, heavy garment from the standalone mirror. “Show me her.”
I couldn’t explain why I was doing it, but the Watching Mirror shimmered, and the glass faded, showing me an image of a—supermarket?
“What the hell am I looking at?” I growled.
It took me a long moment to realize I was staring through the pane of glass from inside a freezer door. Across the aisle from me were the frozen pizzas.
Then, suddenly, she was there. In front of the door. Staring through me to whatever lay beyond.
“Who are you?” I repeated to nobody in particular, watching her face.
She’d been crying again, and I fought the fury that came from knowing someone had hurt her.
Her eyes were alit on whatever was behind me, those strange orange-flecked irises drawing my attention.
Such an unusual color combination—amber and orange.
I couldn’t stop staring. My cock was hard again, and I tugged on it idly, adjusting it in my pants, knowing full well I was but one slip away from yanking it out and draining myself to her right then and there.
She reached for the freezer door, and the mirror burst into light without warning.