CHAPTER THREE

The smallest dragon landed first before he raised his fat head, a head that was an exact tiny replica of one she recognized. Not hard since the form he was emulating was right behind him in adult form, with a beautiful healer on his back. Most dragons were stunning in one way or another, some so shiny and beautiful it stung the eyes. Furee's dragon form made you want to look away for a different reason entirely. He was fire and black ash and glowing ember. Her mind continually told her if she got too close she would be burned. No matter that she knew firsthand that was not the case; her mind insisted that she keep her distance.

Obviously, he was not hot to the touch, no matter how much he looked like a fire that had been recently banked and still glowed with heat, because the mage on his back slid off easily enough and stood close.  Her hand rested against the side of the fearsome dragon even as he transformed to the warrior form known as Furee. Clare had been close to Furee a time or two and knew he did not burn. One memorable flight he had forced her back to Dracon when she wanted to stay and fight the invading horde at Seatown. She had made it hard on him, but he had not burned her.

Remembering the day of her attack Clare turned and looked at the other dragon that had accompanied Furee, Riva and Rhune. Adair had already shifted to his own warrior form. His frosty grey eyes the only things about him that were not shiny and golden in his entire six feet-five-inch hard warrior frame. He had been there that day. One of the House of Earth dragons sent to claim the mage females that Furee had stood for. Only Adair had turned on his house to defend her and Riva with Furee, challenging his father’s dragons and nearly getting himself killed in the process.

Riva had been the only thing that saved him that day. Studying him, Clare saw much had changed since then. Adair had joined the dragon knights and seemed to have hardened and grown. His eyes, she noted had changed from a smoky grey to a cold frost. He was daunting, like most of the knights, barring Lux. Still, she would never forget what he had done for her.

"Hello Adair."

"Lady Clare," he said in a deep voice with a slight inclination of his head. That seemed to have changed too. She did not remember his voice being quite so compelling. "I am happy to see you are well."

Rhune spoke loudly then, his eyes on everything around them. "I can't believe you came to Seatown without me."

Clare wanted to roll her eyes at his single-minded seven-year-old reaction but as much as he drove her crazy, she had to admit she had missed him.

"Melisande assured Morgan you would be safe, otherwise she might have tried to pack up the twins and come after you," Riva said, her soft voice coming from beside Furee.

Rhune had shifted and was looking around with little boy curiosity and glee on his face. He had been to Seatown before, but it had been in a time of war, and things had changed since then. His eyes caught on all the mage that clustered around just at the edge of the beach watching the newcomers with barely concealed curiosity. He waved with obvious enthusiasm and a few of them chuckled and waved back. The rest still looked mesmerized by the happenings on their beach.

Before she could say anything to anyone, reassuring or otherwise, a black stallion with a wicked-looking horn in the center of his forehead rode up and transformed into Cree. Rhune, who had caught the approach with widening eyes, practically glowed watching this and Clare had no doubt a baby unicorn would be seen in Seatown, and soon.

Cree bowed his head to the visitors, his eyes lingering on the lady Riva with appreciation before catching Furee's cinder-filled eyes. He spoke, meeting that uncomfortable gaze with seeming ease. "Welcome dragon knights, Lady Riva." He turned his head to touch her with his eyes again, then immediately turned to Rhune with another head bow. "Lord Rhune."

"We did not wish to interrupt your work here with our presence," Riva said, looking back at the gathering crowd, since no one else seemed to want to speak. "We have come to check on the lady Clare and to bring a missive from the dragon seer for her brother Lord Theron."

"And you came with two healers?" he asked mildly. "Does the seer see something we should know?"

"If she does it is only for her brother’s eyes," she answered, pulling out a sealed envelope. "She has warned us that this must be opened only by her brother Theron, as soon as possible. She did, however, ask that Rhune and I stay for a bit at Seatown; she did not say why. It may be in the note, but she was adamant that only her brother receives the information."

"Lord Theron is not presently at Seatown," Cree said, his eyes very carefully not going to Clare.

"The Lady Asha did not think he would be," Furee finally spoke up, his usual low growl. "Her message to me included the directions that you could reach him and should do so within the hour of our arrival."  He looked at Lux and smiled. “I was also asked to let you know that your message is no longer of importance. You may stay in Seatown or return, as you wish.”

Lux grunted but gave no other indication of his intentions.

Clare did her best not to rub her hands in glee at Riva’s words. Letting them know she was planning on following them would be bad, but there was no way they would see her if she didn't want to be seen. Not when she could take the form of any animal. She would have to be careful though, and think this through carefully. They would be looking at anything in the sky following them and if she chose something small enough to go unseen she would not be fast enough to keep up with Archer’s massive eagle. But if they stayed over the water... her thoughts trailed off when Riva spoke again.

"Lady Asha also insisted that it would take two of you to get the job done. You and your brother."  Riva's voice was its usual soft cadence that managed to soothe no matter what she was talking about. Clare would have thought it was a healer thing but Rhune was a healer too. It was still a shock that he took after their mother, and he did not soothe at all when he spoke—the opposite, in fact, most of the time. Like now for instance.

"What she said was that if one of you went and not the other bad things would happen, or nothing at all, which would be worse."

With those ominous words Riva handed over the letter and stepped back into her mate’s waiting arms.

Cree grimaced a little, looking down at the missive. Obviously his thoughts about the task given him were not happy ones, but he recovered quickly. "Healers are always welcome here," he said, motioning toward the keep behind him. A keep with walls that were almost fully repaired from the last dragon visit they had. Not that it was the dragons that did the damage, but his carefully blank expression was not nearly as welcoming as his words when he looked at Adair and Furee. "And your dragons, of course."

***

They knew Theron would scent their approach on the wind, so it was not a surprise when he was on the beach waiting for them long before Archer landed in his giant hawk form with Cree on his back. Archer shifted as soon as his brother jumped down.

Theron spoke even as he was shifting.

"I told you to stay at Seatown," he growled, his eyes piercing them both with ire.

"And I would have, my lord, but for an urgent message from the dragon seer," Archer stated easily, not showing the least intimidation for his lord.

His words had Theron stilling and shifting just a bit, like a bird who had caught sight of prey. But he did not speak further, just offered out his hand to accept the missive he expected. Archer did not disappoint him, but retrieved a sealed envelope from his leathers and handed it over.

Theron opened it slowly, and Archer had the feeling he wanted to chuck it into the sea but restrained himself—barely. When Lord Theron finally read what was on the paper his jaw clenched, and he flashed angry eyes to his men. "My sister meddles. You may return to Seatown."

That had Archer raising a brow and looking to his brother, who shrugged and tipped his chin. Archer stifled the urge to growl at his brother but turned back to their lord and continued speaking. "There is one more thing, Lord…"

When he seemed uncharacteristically hesitant to broach the one more thing Theron skewered him with his eyes again. "Well?"

"The Lady Clare is at Seatown," he finally said and had to brace or fall when the power that surrounded his lord spiked, nearly pushing him to his knees in a wave, before it was immediately sucked back into its usual controlled boil. One of the many reasons their Lord was hiding out on his own. His new-found powers since he had removed the blood stone were erratic and difficult for him to control. His emotions were nearly as volatile. For a man who had mastered control of himself and his powers nearly from birth, because he had no other choice, abandoned as he had been to the humans, his loss of control was eating at him. And now Archer had to wonder if that was the only thing doing so. They had been around the dragons long enough to see how they reacted to their mates, and the separation from them.

None of them showed an outward reaction to the surge and Archer continued quickly, wanting to be gone from this place and his volatile dragon lord. And he really did not want to say what else he had to say, so he said it fast and braced for Theron's reaction. "She has claimed you are her mate before the people and taken her place as Lady of Seatown."

There was a long power-thumping silence before Theron spoke in a low growl. "She has done what?"

"This morning she moved into your rooms," Cree said, finally joining the conversation. "Even now she helps rebuild Seatown."

There was an even longer silence at that news. "And you allowed this?"  Theron's tone suggested the answer had better be negative.

Cree shrugged in the face of his lord’s cold anger. "Last night I might have taken issue with it; after seeing what she is capable of today..."  He shook his head, his tone obviously admiring. "Frankly my lord, that female can sleep anywhere she has a mind to."

Hearing the admiration in his voice and misunderstanding his word choice, Theron turned slowly to pierce Cree with a look. The wind began to whip up the waves at their back and the hot tropical day seemed to dim all around them.

Archer spoke quickly, wanting to hit his brother in the face very badly. "What my idiot brother means to say is that she has chosen your bed, and we are not up to the challenge of removing her from it."

Cree shrugged again. "Though she didn't sleep there last night—probably off somewhere with that big blue dragon who follows her around everywhere."

Archer heard his brother’s words and wondered if he had a heretofore unknown death wish. Surely he was not this stupid.

The waves behind them whipped higher, and clouds congregated above them, blocking out more of the sun, while on the beach the boiling power that was Lord Theron of Seatown swelled like the angry tides all around them.

Without another word, and thankfully without taking the time to blast them into ash with his dragon fire, Lord Theron shifted with an angry roar to his dragon form and took flight.

Archer and Cree both pulled themselves off the ground where they had been blasted in the transformation, brushing sand off, and looked at each other. Cree had a look of satisfaction his brother wanted to shake his fist at. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Got him moving, didn't it?"

"And when he kills Lux and starts a war with the dragons for killing one of their knights?"

Cree considered this and shrugged his massive shoulders once again, a habit his brother was starting to detest. "I've seen Lux fight; he's not that easy to kill. Furee, the luscious Lady Riva, and the boy are there. Whatever the two dragons can't handle between them the healers can fix."

Archer swore viciously and shifted, taking off a moment later. Cree watched his brother’s flight and braced when without his usual finesse, he swooped down and painfully collected his brother by the shoulders, talons digging in deep. They were in the air before Cree could do anything more than his own cursing at the angry mode of travel his brother had chosen as punishment. It wasn't the first time he had made a journey this way, and he knew from experience the pain in his shoulders was only going to get worse, but at least he had not been stranded on the island like he half-expected. And once he made it back to Seatown he could find the luscious Lady Riva and take care of any permanent damage his brother inflicted. Remembering the lady Riva’s soft touch, he almost smiled through the pain. Might be worth it, at that.

Keep smirking in your thoughts and I'll drop you in the ocean to bob home. His brother’s angry mind speech speared into his happy thoughts of the Lady Riva in her clinging pants and soft skin. And what Furee will do to you for the thoughts you are having about his mate, no healer will be able to fix.

If Furee eviscerated every man who had lustful thoughts about his mate, there would be no men left at Seatown between the ages of 12 and 75.

His brother growled in his thoughts but could not argue with that. One thing he could say about the dragons, they had excellent taste in women.

That forced Cree's thoughts to the new Lady of Seatown with her flashing eyes and red hair, and those amazingly long legs of hers.

This time his brother did not bother with a warning. As soon as they were within sight of the island he dropped him into the ocean and flew away in disgust. The salt water stung like a bastard, and his wounds made swimming the mile or so back to shore more than a little painful, but he could not shift until he was closer to shore, as his other form was not built to handle the sea. It was a long, grueling swim and by the time he was done he was cursing his brother soundly, but it had accomplished one thing at least. He was no longer thinking about mated ladies or their attributes.

Hearing his brother cursing him with each mile he swam, Archer had to be satisfied with that. He lost that satisfaction when he began looking for the trouble he was expecting to find in Seatown.

What he found was nothing. All Cree's plotting had been for naught. Lord Theron had not returned as they thought. Worse, the Lady Clare had gone missing, and it had happened well before Theron could have shown up and carted her off. If he did show up, their lord was not going to be happy about this news, no matter how much he might wish to send her packing himself.