CHAPTER ONE
“You and your brother are wasting your lives,” Stephan Sarkany told his eldest great-grandson. “You should already have sons.” He drew air into his wasted chest and let it out again with a cold and gusty sigh. His frail body was propped up in the ancient tester bed on a multitude of pillows, but nothing served to procure him a full lungful of air.
“I have not yet met my mate, Grandfather,” said Hugo Sarkany respectfully. “One day perhaps. But I have not yet had such good fortune.”
The sight of his great-grandson should have warmed Count Sarkany's heart. Hugo Sarkany was six foot eight, broad shouldered, and loose limbed. Intelligence and determination were written on his chiseled patrician features. But Stephan did not seem pleased by his handsome heir.
Fire burned briefly in the old man's faded golden eyes, and he snorted skeptically at Hugo's courteous rebuff. “You are lucky, Hugo. It's in our blood to be lucky. But you must not waste your luck—or your youth. You must marry and breed another generation of Sarkany firelings. You and your brother are the only two left of our ancient line.” Stephan drew in a ragged breath and fought for another.
“Be easy, Grandfather,” begged Hugo, placing his large, strong hands over Stephan's thin, frail one. The skin was almost translucent and in the bulging purple veins, the blood moved sluggishly. The Eldest of their House was dying. “I will marry when I find my mate.” The words were a vow.
Stephan inhaled shallowly into his ravaged lungs. “You are getting older,” he warned. “You do not have many years left in which to breed. And if you don't search, you will not find your mate. You will wind up an old, immortal dragon sitting on his hoard, longing for death.”
“Is immortality such a curse, Eldest?” asked Hugo.
“If you have no mate, it is the doom of eternal loneliness.” Stephan's breath rattled in his throat. “It's not true immortality if your body withers into solitary dust atop your treasure store, leaving your soul hungry. You must marry and beget heirs.”
“I promise, Grandfather.”
“Where is your brother? Why is Ivan not here?” the Eldest asked querulously.
“He only left for a few moments, Grandfather. He will return soon. Be easy. Look, here he comes.”
Another tall, masculine aristocrat came into the Count's bedroom. He too had inherited his dark hair, gold eyes, and bone structure from the Eldest of their House. At the sight of the listless body in the great four-poster, sorrow etched lines on his handsome face. He looked a question at his brother.
Hugo nodded. Ivan knelt beside the high bed and bowed his head over his grandfather's left hand. Hugo took the Count's cold right hand in his own warm clasp. Together they held onto the emaciated hands as the life fell out of the eighth Count Sarkany in the presence of his lieutenants.
* * *
“You need to marry, Hugo,” said Ivan Sarkany to his brother. He gazed uneasily at the portraits that looked down at them from the dark wood paneling of the library. The ancestors stared back haughty and unblinking. “It's your duty to make babies.”
Hugo looked gloomily at his younger brother. “We both should marry and procreate. I promised the Eldest at his death. He was full of dark forebodings of a lonely old age with nothing but gold to comfort us.”
Ivan assessed his brother over the rim of his wine glass. Both men were in the prime of their lives and towered over most mortals. They were muscular, strong limbed, flat bellied, broad of chest and thick of thigh. Their dark hair was glossy and nearly black. They were beloved by women. Old age seemed a long time away. Particularly for dragon shifters.
The room they were lounging in was richly appointed in the fashion of their great-great-grandparents, but they scarcely noticed the ornate draperies and intricately gilded furniture. They were used to this opulent, over-furnished library, as they were used to the rest of the Schloss Sarkany.
The Schloss had been built high in the Swiss Alps in the sixteenth century as a hunting lodge by the fourth Count. Since the abandonment of their twelfth century castle in Hungary, this sprawling castle had been home to the Sarkanys. They had other houses and apartments all around the globe. But this dark residence, overlooking the great stones the locals called The Dragon's Bones, was where they had been reared.
Ivan leaned back in his deep armchair, his dark clothes blending with the forest green of the thick velvet upholstery. “We should hold your ceremonies soon,” he said. “And you should announce a mate hunt right afterwards.”
“All in good time, brother.” Hugo sipped his wine reflectively. “Great-grandfather told me that if we did not mate, we would turn to dust over our treasures. Do you think that's why we have no very old dragons hanging around our castle? Unless you believe those stones below are indeed the bones of our ancestors.”
“You're being flippant,” Ivan reproached him. “But great-grandfather always said that if we didn't mate we would just wither away. He was right—dragons do need strong mates to be happy and have a long life.”
Hugo snorted disdainfully and let flame flicker around his nostrils. “Well, he claimed to be two hundred and thirty years old when he died, if he was telling the truth. But in any case, I will defer my investiture until our period of mourning is up.”
“Believe, Hugo. Grandfather lived a very long life. Long enough to seem immortal to ordinary men. He swore to the truth of his great age on his wife's honor. You know nothing is more sacred. And he might have lived longer if he had found a real dragoness to wed.”
Ivan raised his glass to the portrait of a sternly visaged dowager in a tiara and satin draperies that hung opposite the fireplace. “To your great good health, Lady Sarkany,” he said solemnly.
“Do you really think that one was a dragon born?” asked Hugo eying the portrait of his great-great-great-grandmother with searching eyes. “I've never yet met a female dragon who hadn’t been turned. Not one. Great-grandmamma was mortal. So was grandmother. And Mom. I don't know that I believe that female dragons are naturally born.”
Ivan blinked his golden eyes. He chuckled. “I think that Amelia, Lady Sarkany looks fierce enough to have been a dragoness born. And that is what we were taught as boys. But it is equally true our entire race runs to sons. You get yourself a virgin and breed some little firelings to carry on the family name.”
Hugo stretched out his long legs and smiled sardonically. “Virgins are rarer than unicorns,” he objected. “Rarer than dragonesses.”
Ivan looked concerned. “Has to be a virgin if you want to turn her,” he said earnestly. “Otherwise, you won't have any young. No firelings at all.”
Hugo snorted rudely. “Maybe it's time to put an end to the Sarkany dynasty. I don't know if the modern world has room anymore for twenty-four-foot long, fire-breathing, flying reptiles. Not much call for armor plated monsters.
“We dragons have given up fighting the battles of mortal kings. We trade these days instead of pillaging. We seldom stretch our wings. Perhaps it's time we faded away.”
In the firelight, Ivan's hard face might have been carved from adamantine. He drew himself to his feet, a dragon roused. Flames leapt from his nostrils in his wrath. “You gave your word, Lord Sarkany. Don't bring a curse down on our line by breaking your vow to the Eldest. Seek a virgin. Woo her. Breed firelings.”
Hugo made a face. “Great-grandfather is dead, brother, and his world with him. My world is full of beautiful women. Why should I restrict myself to just one, and deprive all the others? You be careful, you'll set fire to the draperies.”
Ivan exhaled gustily and the tongues of flames went out. “You mock our heritage at your peril, Hugo. Don't joke about your destiny,” he urged his brother. “You are sneering what you should revere. You should begin your bride hunt as you promised. Do not doubt your fate.”
“I’ve yet to meet a woman who was not more in love with my hoard than with Hugo Sarkany. Do you think my fated virgin would be any different?” Cynicism dripped from his words.
“They say dragons love forever,” Ivan reminded his brother. “Your destined mate is out there waiting for you.”
Hugo reached for the bottle and refilled his glass. He gave Ivan another sardonic glance and shook his head as if amazed at his brother's naiveté. “Keeping her virginal legs crossed until I arrive.” He laughed bitterly. “What are the odds, that I'll meet a virgin, fall in love, and persuade her she wants to become a dragon—and have a fireling, or two or three?”
Ivan sat back down and restrained his temper. “It's traditional to deceive the virgin,” he reminded Hugo more calmly. “Once she's changed, there's not much she can do. She must accept that she herself is a dragon who is bonded forever to her lord.” He shrugged unconcerned.
“You know, that's the place the old stories always end. But I always thought that was where the trouble would begin.”