CHAPTER 11
Loke wasn’t sure what was wrong with Anais or why her mood had changed so abruptly, but he wanted to know. He kept glancing at her, but she refused to look at him, her eyes constantly fixed on the fire in the middle of his cave, a distant and unfocused quality to them. Was she unwell? Her cheeks were flushed, but he had thought it was from their lovemaking. Perhaps he was wrong and she had caught a fever.
The thought of his little mortal ailing made ice form in his veins and he barely held himself back as desire to go to her where she sat on the pile of furs and demand to know whether she was sick rushed through him. Only his other desire to keep his attraction to her from Taryn kept him in place near the female dragon.
He willed Anais to at least look at him and let him know she was well without words but her eyes didn’t leave the flames.
Taryn glanced down at Anais too, an inquisitive edge to her violet-to-white gaze that had him drawing his focus away from Anais in order to protect her from the dragon’s curiosity. It had been a while since Taryn had visited him, and she was much changed from the last time they had seen each other. There were dark arcs beneath Taryn’s eyes and she was far thinner, a greyness to her skin that worried him.
“What happened?” he said in the dragon tongue and she drew her eyes away from Anais and fixed him with the same curious look.
“She is pretty.”
“She is mortal,” he countered and Taryn’s eyes grew concerned. “I took her from a battle in the Third Realm.”
“A spoil of war? That isn’t like you, Loke.”
He shook his head. “I saw her future and I wanted to change it.”
He wasn’t sure he had changed it though. He still kept seeing her die.
Loke pushed his own problems out of his mind and focused on his old friend. “What happened, Taryn? I have not seen you in years and now you show up looking as you do.”
She diverted her gaze off to her left and the fire there and rubbed her arms, a faint but uneasy smile on her lips. “Slavers caught me… I was repeatedly sold on the black market.”
Fury raced through his veins, making him burn with a need to track down the vile monsters who had captured and sold her into slavery and butcher them all.
He closed the gap between them and took hold of her shoulders, and she slowly lifted her eyes to meet his. Pain shone in them, terror that he struggled to comprehend. Slavers rarely caught dragons. When they did, they were sold for a high price as an exotic slave. He had heard horror stories about the things dragons in captivity were forced to do by their masters, but they had only been stories. No dragon had ever escaped the slavers or their master. Those who were taken never returned.
But Taryn had.
Somehow, she had survived everything and had returned. Scarred and broken. A piece of herself dead and gone. He could see it in her eyes as she looked at him.
Her life had been difficult enough before she had been taken by slavers.
He smoothed his palm across her pale cheek and wished she had better fortune, a better life than the one she had been born into and forced to endure.
She shied away from his touch, slipping beyond his reach as she stepped back, gaining some distance from him. He sighed and then frowned as he felt Anais’s gaze boring into his back and smelled the dark taint of anger in her scent.
He looked over his shoulder at her, wanting to see why she was upset with him, but she pinned her gaze back on the fire and refused to look at him.
“The female is jealous,” Taryn whispered in the dragon tongue. “She is more than a ward to you, is she not, Loke?”
He forced his eyes away from Anais and looked at Taryn. Her hard expression demanded an answer from him. He had wanted to avoid such questions, because he wasn’t sure how she would react to the news he had developed feelings for a mortal and one under his protection. He didn’t want her thinking less of him, placing him with the other males who took spoils of war. He needed her to understand that it had never been his intention to fall for the little Amazon.
But fall for her he had, and he had fallen hard.
He nodded but left it at that as he tried to pull her attention back to herself and away from his private life. “Are you running from slavers?”
Taryn’s expression shifted, turning troubled again. “No.”
But she was on the run from someone. There was fear in the depths of her eyes and lacing her scent. She was afraid of whoever was after her. If it wasn’t slavers, who was it? Who had Taryn running scared?
He wanted to know.
“Who then, Taryn?”
She heaved a sigh and looked down at her bare feet. “He is no one… of no consequence to you.”
But he was someone. This unknown male had rattled Taryn, so much so that she clearly didn’t even feel safe here in the realm of dragons. She feared the male would find her.
Loke growled and couldn’t suppress his need to know what awaited Taryn. It was born from a need to protect her, one that had run deep in him for thousands of years. He had always tried to shield her, because she had always felt like a sister to him, even when she already had a brother.
He closed the distance between them with a single stride, caught her chin before she could protest and raised her eyes up to meet his. He stared hard into them and tapped into his magic, using it to force a vision. Sharp pain pierced his skull and his eyes ached, but he pushed through it all, weathering it until his magic triggered his natural ability of foresight.
Darkness swirled, filling the cave and blotting everything out, and then abated, revealing a green land. He lifted his eyes and saw Taryn laying on the grass, bloodied and beaten, her violet-to-white hair spilling around her and stained crimson in places. Three males stood in the distance, dressed in black skin-tight armour.
He snarled at them but they didn’t respond. They remained with their purple eyes narrowed on Taryn.
A male stepped past Loke, coming to loom over her broken form. His pointed ears flared back through overlong blue-black hair and his violet eyes fixed on Taryn, merciless and cold as he stared down at her. His fingers flexed around the shaft of a black spear and he raised it.
Loke launched himself at the male on instinct, even when he knew he couldn’t affect the outcome of the vision. He ghosted through the male and the darkness closed in again, evaporating a heartbeat later to reveal the black mountains of the dragon realm and the deep grey sky.
Taryn flew through it, her wings beating heavily, rhythmically. She swooped and spread those wings, a blaze of violet across the tops of the trees before she gave another hard beat and launched upwards to somersault in the air. A carefree and joy-filled cry left her, speaking to him of her happiness.
The inky black closed in on him once more and when it parted, he was standing in the middle of the cave and staring down into Taryn’s eyes.
“What did you see?” Those words were quiet and edged with fear and trepidation.
He lowered his hand from her face. “Your future is undecided. One path is dark… the other light. Something you are destined to do will cause one or the other to happen. You must be careful and choose your steps wisely, Taryn.”
She nodded. “I will keep running. I must speak with my brother. Where is he?”
Loke shook his head and she faltered, the certainty that had been in her eyes fading as she looked up at him, replaced with concern.
“Do not.” The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, but he refused to send her marching into her grave. If he had to hurt her to keep her from dying, he would do it. Her brother meant the world to her, but she was blinded by her love for him, and Loke feared it would get her killed one day. “Stay away from him, Taryn. Your brother has grown more dangerous. His lust for power has tainted him. Please? I fear that if you go to him, the first glimpse of your future I saw will be the one that comes to pass. You will die.”
Her cheeks paled and her dark violet eyebrows furrowed as she went to shake her head, but only managed to move it mere millimetres. “I must see him. He is my brother.”
Loke closed his eyes and sighed. The bond between sibling dragons was always strong, but Taryn’s bond with Tenak was stronger than usual because he was her twin. It was rare among dragons. Loke hadn’t heard of twins being born since Taryn and her brother, and that had happened thousands of years ago.
“Loke?” Taryn whispered and he sensed her need for him to look at her and reassure her.
He forced a smile and opened his eyes, fixing them straight on hers. He wanted to lie and say something that would lighten her heart and destroy her fears, but the words wouldn’t line up on his tongue. Others replaced them, and he couldn’t hold them back.
“Be careful.” He brushed his fingers across her cheek and shook his head as he looked down into her eyes, his heart aching at the thought of her being swallowed by the madness and violence that surrounded her brother. “Tenak is worse… the tales coming from where he resides say that he is insane. He kills any who draw too close to him. What if he does not recognise you, Taryn? What if he turns his vile craving for violence towards you?”
Taryn lowered her head, drew in a deep breath, and then lifted her chin and pinned him with eyes that were calm and soft, filled with hope and light. No trace of fear.
“I still must see him.” She smiled softly and he realised that there was no changing her mind. She was set on going to her brother and risking her life. “He needs me, Loke.”
He wished he could believe that. Her brother needed no one. He lusted after power and would stop at nothing to achieve his grand vision of being lord of all dragons and the ruler of Hell.
Her brother had gone to war with many of the realms, leading legions of dragons to their deaths. Fools. They had thought they would achieve power and wealth if they followed him. They had been seduced by his words and promises. Those who had survived had returned to tell their clans that Tenak had used them as shields, sending them to their graves so he could weaken the forces of his enemy before setting foot on the battlefield to claim victory.
Loke could see the resolve in her eyes though and he knew she would keep pressing him until he told her where her brother resided or she would go to the clan village to ask one of the dragons there.
Those dragons were liable to attack her, pinning her brother’s crimes on her and seeking to avenge their fallen kin. He had no choice but to tell her, if only to spare her from the wrath of the other dragons.
He sighed and reluctantly nodded. “Go then. He has moved to the borderlands with the Devil’s domain, at the furthest reaches of our realm. He has taken the Valley of the Dark Edge as his own kingdom.”
“I am come for the blade too.”
He had known that the moment she had landed.
She had given him the elven blade before disappearing, entrusting him with it.
“It may not make your brother recognise you. He may kill you for it.” Loke looked into her eyes, making sure she knew what she was getting herself into, because once she set foot in the valley, there would be no turning back for her.
Either Tenak would kill her, or he would recognise her as his sister.
Even then, there was a chance that Tenak might choose to kill her. Loke doubted that her brother’s love for her reached the depths that her love for him did. When Tenak saw the blade she had stolen from him, he would want it back. His dragon need to reclaim his property, his prized possession, would rule him.
She nodded. “I accept whatever fate awaits me.”
He wanted to mention that he had seen elves in his vision and now she asked for a blade of their making, a weapon capable of piercing dragon armour and killing them.
He had seen her bloodied and broken.
He prayed to the dragon gods that taking this blade wasn’t what would set her on the path to her death. If elves found her with it, they would kill her just as he had seen. The blade was sacred to them.
“I hope you know what you are doing.” He turned away from her and made haste to his treasure room, taking the right-hand tunnel at the back of the cave and following it down into a lower chamber.
The black blade lay on a stone altar where he had placed it many years ago. Markings carved into the obsidian stone shielded the weapon, making it impossible to detect. When he removed it, those linked to it would feel its presence in the world again. They would know it hadn’t been lost.
They would search for it.
The princes of the elves.
Both parties would want it returned to them, and would stop at nothing to attain it.
The blade was power.
The strongest of the elven metals and dragon blood forged into a single weapon that gave the one who wielded it control over ancient magic and all the powers of the elves and the miraculous ability of the metal. The power to cut through any armour or weapon combined with the ability to condense that power into an arc of pure light using magic.
That arc could slice through a horde of enemies in a single sweep of the blade.
Part of Loke wanted to leave it shielded and tell Taryn she couldn’t have it, but he had vowed to trust her with it when she asked for it back, and he had to do just that. If anyone had the strength to face her brother and live, it was Taryn.
He placed his hand on the hilt and it vibrated with power beneath his touch, warm against his skin.
A flash of the elves standing over Taryn’s body shot across his eyes and he frowned at the blade.
They were already after Taryn. They were the reason she was running scared.
He grabbed the blade and hurried back up to the cave with it. When he entered, she lifted her gaze away from Anais and her smile died.
“It is elves who chase you, Taryn, and do not lie to me.” He held the black sword up. “Or I will destroy this.”
Her eyes shot wide and she lurched forwards a step, her hands coming up in front of her. “Do not. Please, Loke? I know what I am doing.”
“Who are the elves after you?” He lowered the weapon back to his side and wondered if he actually could destroy it. Taryn seemed to think it possible. If he had known that, he might have burned it to ashes shortly after she had given it to him.
“He is no one. I can handle him.”
Just one male.
The one he had witnessed standing over her?
“This male wields a spear.” He made it a statement and the way her cheeks paled and her gaze darted to take in anything but him confirmed his suspicions. “Be careful, Taryn. It is he I see at your death.”
She closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and then resolutely raised her head and looked at him. “He is dangerous, but I will not let him outwit me. He has not outwitted me yet.”
Loke growled at that. “How long has he been after you?”
“Centuries.” She didn’t hesitate and he could see she was finally telling him the truth.
Loke frowned as it dawned on him. “Since the blade was stolen.”
She nodded and held her hand out for it. “He has not killed me yet and he will not kill me. I know it. Whatever you saw, it was wrong.”
Wrong? A vision was never wrong. He had seen her die. He had seen the male standing over her, merciless and cold. It was possible that the male hadn’t killed her though, but that didn’t change the outcome. She still died.
“I saw you dead. I saw that male present.” Loke looked down at the black blade he gripped. “Is this worth killing yourself over? Is your brother worth it?”
“I believe so. A life in slavery has more appeal, was better, than a life spent in constant fear. I must end this.”
He sighed and held the blade out to her. “Very well.”
She placed her hand over his on the hilt. “I will be careful, Loke. Please do not worry.”
Impossible. He felt he was sending her to her death by handing her this blade and telling her where to find her brother. He could only hope that she managed to pull off whatever she was planning. The thought of the elven blade in the hands of her brother disturbed him. It was the one thing guaranteed to give Tenak enough power to lay waste to every realm in Hell and set himself up as the ruler of them all.
Taryn took the blade and backed away from him. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her as she left the cave, fearing it would be the last time he saw her. Only when the steady beats of her wings drifted into the distance did he look at the cave mouth.
“What just happened?” Anais’s soft voice breaking the silence drew his gaze down to her where she sat near the fire.
Another female whose death he felt doomed to witness.
“Taryn has gone to face her brother. Either she will die or she will set herself free. Pray to the gods that she knows what she is doing, for if she fails, all Hell will be at her brother’s mercy.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“You seemed pretty close to this Taryn woman.” The sharp edge to her tone drew a frown from him and Taryn’s voice rang around his head.
She was jealous.
Loke’s heart soared as he realised that Taryn had been right and Anais was jealous of his closeness to her.
“Taryn is only my friend.” His words didn’t ease the darkness in her eyes or the fierceness of her expression.
“What about the others at the village? The bitch who took me?”
Loke’s mood darkened now and he folded his arms across his bare chest, pressing his short claws into his biceps as he thought about what Rayna had done. “I will deal with her, Little Amazon. She will pay for what she did.”
“She did it because she wants you.”
He couldn’t deny that, but he could set her mind at ease. “I do not want her. I grew tired of that traditional sort of behaviour many centuries ago. I am not looking for dalliances.”
Saying that stirred a deep need within him, a possessiveness that demanded he finish what he had started with Anais. It was born of more than an attraction to her. Born of more than his growing feelings for her.
It ran in his blood and burned in his soul.
It was an unshakable need, fierce in its strength, consuming in its hunger for her.
It owned him, controlled him, and commanded he obey it.
Ancient and powerful.
Impossible to resist.
His earlier fears came back full force. They settled in his heart and refused to shift from it, no matter how hard he tried to push them out.
One of the prince of elves and a king of demons had been given a mortal mate.
Had fate done the same to him?
He wanted to know whether she was more than merely a female he desired and had feelings for.
He needed to know the answer to the question beating within his heart.
Was Anais his fated mate?