Dark Highland Fire

And so he did, flopping down beside her with a force that shook the abused and ancient piece of furniture. He dragged the blanket he'd used the night before down over the two of them, snuggling up behind her so that she fit perfectly into the curve of his body, and sighed contentedly into her hair. With what small amount of energy she had left, Rowan curved her lips upward into a lazy smile. There was only one word in her mind, and she decided to share it.



"Wow," she murmured, and heard Gabriel's soft chuckle in return.



"Wow," he agreed, nuzzling into her hair and inhaling deeply, as though he would breathe her instead of air if he could. It took her a moment, on the edge of sleep, to recognize the feeling that was trying to take hold inside, like the seed of some fragile flower trying to take root. But it was something she had once had, what felt like long ago. That, and better. It was peace. It was contentment.



"I love you, Rowan." Gabriel's voice, fading into sated sleep.



"I love you, Gabriel," she replied.



And for tonight, whatever else came, it was enough.



Chapter 14



"It is time."



Lucien jerked in surprise, then whirled, furious, as the daemon approached him. He hated to be startled, hated to be reminded that his back was not always protected. Especially now, when he was so close to truly having everything he wanted. Jagrin, pale and emaciated in a leather tunic of storm gray, seemed to know all of this, and gave him a smile that was very close to a sneer.



These are my allies, Lucien reminded himself. He meant to bolster himself. Instead, the thought left him slightly ill. May the Drak protect him if these creatures ever decided his rule was not in their best interest.



He stood in near-darkness, the only light the eerie silver of the sky above the borderlands between the Black Mountains and the Blighted Kingdom. He had flown here alone, against all better judgment, and at the risk of his father discovering his plans and flying into a rage that could conceivably end both his quest and his life. Mordred's mind might be consumed by the arukhin, but his temper was very much intact. Hearing that his only son had promised himself to the daemon in order to cross into a world that he himself was increasingly desperate to enter would hardly be well received.



Yet Lucien could do nothing else. Jagrin had at last summoned him to this place, where crumbling ruins dotted a flat and barely lit landscape that stretched, dusty and lifeless, to a blank horizon. What sun there was had sunk below it, leaving barely enough light by which to see the daemon king's trusted adviser. Soon, Lucien knew, there would be nothing but blackness and the creatures that prowled it, hunting for the unwary. It made his skin crawl, thinking of bloodless figures creeping through the darkness. The Black Mountains existed in a state of eternal twilight, it was true. But to him, that dusky half-light filled with lightning was beautiful, a fitting setting for the powerful creatures that inhabited it. The Blighted Kingdom, however, even in what light reached it, was a horror.



He did not want to be here. Not alone. But though he had taken to haunting the Cavern of the Tunnels, hoping that somehow they would again bend to his wishes, there had been nothing of the sort. Not even a whisper of Rowan. And Mordred had begun insinuating that old Ragnath's daughter, the only female dragon of child-hearing age, would do for a mate. Lucien clenched his law at the thought of touching Auriel, a shuffling and unkempt creature who was more than a little mad. He knew he must produce an heir, must further the dying Andrakkar line. But the price, in that case, would be far loo high.



He needed his witch, and now.



Jagrin beckoned him to a small, free-standing arch that had once been part of a magnificent gateway, back when the Blighted Kingdom had been a land of plenty and the gods had walked the world. Now it stood alone, weathered black stone inscribed with golden letters that had long since lost their meaning. Remaining, despite wars and curses that had robbed the kingdom of almost everything, a testament to a lost and glorious history that would never be recaptured.



Lucien strode quickly to meet the daemon, painfully conscious of how the last light was fading. His cassock swirled around his long legs in a sudden gust of wind that seemed like a warning. But it was too late. He had come, and there was no turning back.



"Your Dyim wench and her lover are surrounded, my lord Andrakkar," Jagrin said when Lucien reached him. "The moment to seize what we both want is upon you. Are you prepared?"



The words took a moment to fully register. But when they did, the rage had scales emerging briefly to shimmer across his skin, and the points of his wings threatening to burst from his clothes. Her lover. There must be some mistake, he told himself.



"Rowan an Morgaine has no lover," he growled, his tongue forking, smoke hissing from his mouth. The thought of her with her perfect body entwined with another's, her fiery hair spilling across another's chest as she rested in someone else's arms, was almost too much to bear. Jealousy, white hot and unfamiliar, surged through him. That, and the more familiar and even more distasteful fear that he was alone in this world, in all worlds. That the connection he felt to Rowan was nothing but a cruel figment of his solitary and twisted soul. Lover. He would kill the man if this were so. Rend him limb from limb as Rowan watched, to teach her that there could be none for her but Lucien Andrakkar.



Jagrin's look was entirely unsympathetic. "The Dyadd have many lovers, my lord. You know as well as I it is their way. Just be pleased she has chosen an arukhin to dally with this time. It makes your promise that much easier to fulfill. You get what you want. I get what I want. If, that is, you can set aside this ridiculous anger to do the job correctly. You won't have much time." He smirked knowingly. "And you really don't want to be here once the light has gone entirely, dragon or no."



Lucien had to fight to get his anger under control, but managed to push it back just beneath the surface. Still, the knowledge that Rowan had spurned him, only to take the wretched MacInnes as her lover, cut him deeply. More deeply than he had ever thought possible. The pain it caused threatened to spill over as a rage unlike any he'd ever known. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to taste the blood of the arukhin who had taken what was not his to take. But the daemon had a point, he told himself, breathing deeply, drawing into himself, focusing. Several, actually. So he would focus on the task at hand. And perhaps if the daemon were willing, he could watch some of Gabriel's "training." He would venture into the bowels of the Blighted Kingdom for that, Lucien thought. The daemon would be incredibly cruel masters. The shifter who had crossed his path one too many times would have his mind and body broken long before he was allowed the repose of death.



The idea gave him some small amount of peace. He had felt the shifter's teeth, after all. It was time to return the favor ... but later. Once he had made Rowan his, again and again, until she had no doubts as to who she truly belonged to. She would heal him. She would love him. All would be well.



Lucien inhaled once more, deeply, and this time his exhalation was more air than smoke. Jagrin nodded approvingly.



"You are ready. Good. Because when the time comes, there will only be minutes to do what must be done. And your anger will not open the door."



Lucien tracked the tiny, glittering vial of his own blood that hung around Jagrin's neck, a reminder of the consequences should he fail to live up to his end of their bargain. Now that he was so close, the worry grew. His promise had been rash, he saw that now. There was no way he would ever consent to being enslaved by Jagrin and his kind. But he also had no doubt that the vial was enchanted with dark magic. So he would have to be clever, and careful, and be sure he himself could never be claimed.



So close. And as though it knew he was ready, the letters set into the archway began to glow with golden fire, increasing in intensity until they were hard to look at. White lightning erupted from the gray dust beneath it and snaked around the stones, charging the air with power that was so solid Lucien felt he could almost reach out and grab it.



"It senses your need," Jagrin murmured, as pale as the dust as the sky darkened. "It wakes." He looked as though this were a sight he had never before witnessed. Lucien wondered whether it might not actually be.



"If anger will not open it, then what will?" he asked, unable to tear his eyes from the wonder of the thing that would save him.



"Passion. Lust. Love. Even," Jagrin said with a pointed look, "the most desperate sort of impotent longing. Emotions, feelings that are lost and useless to my kind, but some of which you, my lord, seem to have retained. And how fortunate for you, for this is the undent gateway of the Balan Nalath, goddesses of pleasure, rulers of the City of Urum. With this gate they summoned their lovers from all the corners of the universe, and through this gate came their destruction when men's devotion turned to obsession and madness." Jagrin's red eyes were cold as he spoke, and Lucien had a sudden but intense impression that the daemon thought history would, in a way, be repeating itself tonight.



"I would open this door, Jagrin," Lucien snarled, feeling the pull of that empty archway as though the Upper Kingdom itself were just on the other side of it. He didn't care what the daemon thought. He cared for nothing but getting what the gods and goddesses had so long denied him.



Jagrin's smirk was knowing. "Lay hands on it then, and focus on nothing but your desire for the witch. When the door opens, step through. There will be others there who have been instructed to help if need be. But be quick, dragon. Only the Balan themselves could hold the way open for long, and they were lust incarnate. If the door shuts, there will be no opening it. Your Dyim will escape. And you will be held until I can personally come for you." His grin was full of teeth that were made for nothing but pain. "A deal is, after all, a deal."



"How ... ?" Lucien wanted to know how there could possibly be these vampires waiting at the ready, how such instructions had been given. He wondered, too, what specific instructions had been given regarding himself. Again he felt exactly how unwise it had been to have come alone. If he simply vanished into some unimagined torment, would anyone ever suspect the ones who were responsible?