Chapter Nineteen
Read my Lips
Ciara picked a damned fine time to decide she was in love. Maybe she had known it all along, she was sure that was what she was denying herself when she left Jakob in the Czech Republic. But even that felt nothing like the joy shredding her from the inside out right now.
Jakob had come for her, he was here, and he was dying right in front of her eyes.
Fuck that.
No way, José.
Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen.
Read my lips. No new taxes.
Fire, wind, water, and white light swirled around her. The only element missing was earth. Jakob was her world, her connection to mother nature, herself. Without him she would never be whole.
He had given himself to her, mind, body, and soul, never questioning that they belonged together. She was the one who had been able to see it when the one thing she wanted more than anything in her whole life, real true love, had been given to her freely.
She'd been too scared to reach out and take it. She'd learned over the years that love offered meant that it came with obligation and compulsion. It wasn't free and what was owed in return for it was more than she had ever been able to give, even as hard as she had tried. Somewhere along the way, she'd given up, and sheltered her battered heart, cutting it off from all the motion. If she didn't have to feel, it wouldn't hurt.
She taught herself to be miserable and to pretend that it didn't matter. But it had, more than she had ever understood, or ever admitted. She wanted connection, she wanted love. It was what made her human.
The relic, the white which, and the magic of the mating had thrown them together. But it had been Jakob, who had shown her what love could be like.
It was rough around the edges, like an unpolished diamond, and she would not have it any other way.
It was too precious for her to lose it now.
Ciara gathered strength from her conviction, multiplying it by touching it with love. The magic gathered around her, sparking through the air.
She rose up off the ground and walked on the wind, her hair whipping all around her. Thunder and lightning crackled around her. She used the electricity in the air to fuel her fire, then she shot it toward the black beast still hulking over Jakob's body. Its skin, then the rest of it, burned so hot in a blue flame that not even ash or the telltale inky stain remained. She blocked Jakob from the burning with a bubble of cool mist around him.
Now that her enemy was vanquished, she moved toward her love. But, she was not yet allowed to reach him. An onslaught of demon dragons poured in through the side of the apartment building, like a stream of black scarabs focused on their next meal of human flesh. They disregarded Jakob and that spiked her fear that he was truly dead already. Instead, they angled toward her in a dark wall that threatened to suffocate her.
But, she was done with fear. Done with the powerlessness of being a victim. The innermost core of her being was naked for all the world to see, and she reveled in the sensation.
Everything she never thought she could do, all the hopes and dreams that had been dashed by self-doubt and recriminations, each failed attempt to be what she wasn’t burned up and washed away in the torrent of her true self.
These monsters could tear, bite, and try to harm her, but she would not be defeated.
Power flowed through her, wanting to burst out of her body.
One of the beasts with a much bigger body and wings shelved some of the others aside and reached for the soul shard Jakob had tossed across the room. She hadn't even tried to catch it, solely focused on him. Now, there was no fucking way she was letting any other being in the universe touch that last vestige of him.
She shoved the wall of demon dragons back with a storm of fire and ice. They screamed and screeched, fizzled and popped out of existence, blackening her room with their deaths.
She struck down the larger demon Dragon just as he grasped Jakob's soul shard by the cord. She threw him up against the wall and pinned them there.
Another wave of demon dragons crashed in through the hole in her wall and she had to divide her attention. With one hand she held the horde at bay and with the other dragged her prisoner across the ceiling and to her.
She prepared a sharp sword of ice to run him through. The bastard dangled from the ceiling above her and she looked into familiar jet black eyes. What the hell?
It startled her so bad that she lost control and dropped him to the floor. He landed with an umph and the shard skittered across the floor. The two glanced at each other, to the shard, and back.
They both scrambled for it. Ciara snagged it a millisecond before he got there.
Old black eyes frowned at her, if that's what she could call the grimace on his Dragon-like face. “You win this round, witch. I relinquished the prize to you. But I will be back, and you owe me one.”
He spread his wings and took three running steps across the room and out the window into the air, taking the mass of demon dragons she'd been holding at bay with him, swiping them up in his wings like dust in a pan. He caught an air current and flew up while the remainder of her enemy fell to the ground.
She followed him as far as her now rickety porch to ensure that no more would enter her domain. Snort laugh. Her destroyed apartment was far from a castle on a hill, but it contained a treasure far greater than any gold or silver.
Ciara glanced down to the yard and saw the other Dragons she had come to know, and another green, and a new red one battling on her front lawn. It looked like a scene out of a fantasy video game. All they needed were a few knights in shining armor with clanking swords to complete the look. There were still more demon dragons than warriors, but no more climbed up the walls of her building and their numbers were declining as she watched. The warriors seemed to have the horde under control for now.
With no new imminent danger, she rushed back and slid on her knees to Jakob’s side.
His blood was everywhere and his skin was ashen. “No, no, no. Please don't be dead.” She shook his shoulder and placed one hand on his cheek. She knew nothing about death and had no idea if it should still feel warm like it did or not. “Jakob, if you're still in there. Hold on. Please.”
She choked the words out but didn't know what else she could do to save him. Was there such a thing as a Dragon doctor or a Dragon emergency room?
She pressed a soft kiss to his lips and then turned her head to see if she could feel any breath on her cheek. A small moan and breath of air passed over his lips. It was the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard. He scrunched one eye like he had nothing more than a headache and the other blinked open. “Am I dead? Are you my angel come to take me to the afterlife?”
Ciara pressed her lips to his again, wanting to feel his breath for herself. “No, my beautiful dumbass. You're not dead and you better not even think about dying on me now.”
“No promises,” he croaked out.
He might be conscious, but he wasn’t out of danger. She’d heard dying people needed something to live for. “What if I make you one?”
He closed his eyes and grimaced. “Hit me with it, but not too hard. I might break.”
“I, Ciara Mosley-Willingham, take you, Jakob Zeleny, as my lawfully wedded husband. I do promise to love you for richer or for poorer, through sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.”
Jakob didn't say anything and his eyes remained close.
Ciara's heart stopped, waiting, waiting. Her lungs burned, her skin tingled, and her eyes filled with tears.
He sighed softly. “Aren't I supposed to give you a ring and a kiss now?”
She laughed and cried at the same time, choking over her own words. “You already did.”
A ring and a kiss that she’d denied, almost lost, and wanted more than anything now.
His breath came out ragged. “I wasn't sure you wanted to keep them.”
“I do. There mine, just like you are.” She was never letting any of them go, ever again.
“About time you figure that out.” He coughed, blood coming out of his mouth.
“Oh, Jakob. You’re hurt really bad. I don't know what to do to help. The other dragons are all still fighting the demon dragons.” All she'd ever had was basic babysitter’s first-aid. She had never had to use it on anything more than her own scraped knee.
He groaned trying to get words out. He coughed again and rasped his request. “My soul shard. Do you have it?”
She plucked the shard up from where she had dropped it when she knelt beside him. “Yes, right here. Should I put it back on you, will that help?”
Jakob slowly opened his eyes again, the light there fading so rapidly. He lifted his hand, she didn't know how, and she pressed the shard to his palm. He wrapped his hand around both it and her fingers.
“Put it on.”
She moved their hands toward his neck, but he resisted. “No. You put it on. Wear it. It belongs to you. My soul belongs to you.”
His hand dropped and his eyes fluttered shut. Ciara scrambled to tie the cord around her neck so that he could see his last wish fulfilled. She grabbed his hand back up and pressed it against her chest.
“I have it, Jakob. I have it. Your soul is mine. Forever.”
But, he was gone.
The shard burned against her skin, the green light igniting her, him, and the entire world.
Fear and anxiety, lust and need, sadness, contentment, and dare she say happiness all flowed over, around, and through her. She wanted to cry and laugh and throw up and dance all at the same time.
Gah. It was too much, it wasn’t enough.
The dam she’d put up long ago to hold back all of her emotions broke and the world exploded.
The light reached inside of Ciara and sparked and flickered into red flame, blue mist, golden whisps of wind, and the green spark of life itself. It flickered across her body, pooling in her heart and combining the colors into the purest of white hot love.
She arched her back, letting the power flow through her, over her, and out, into Jakob. Everywhere the white magic swirled his body was knit back together. Fire cauterized his wounds, water and ice cooled them. The wind whipped the magic across his body and the lush green life force inside of him grew and grew until he sucked in a great breath. The magic of love surrounded him, mixing with Ciara’s until they both overflowed with it.
Jakob’s eyes flew open and he caught Ciara’s hand in his. Their eyes met and they gazed at each other in wonder and awe.
The light around them slowly faded, some into Jakob’s chest and the rest into Ciara’s womb.
She wrapped her arms around him and swore she’d never let go.
“Uh, are we interrupting something. Want us to come back later, lovebirds?” Cage landed in the hole in the wall, shifted into his cocky ass human form and sauntered into her disaster of a living room.
Match and another red dragon followed, doing the same, and then Kai and a green dragon. Kai looked around at the overturned furniture, the black stains all over the room, and at the dried blood covering Jakob. “Bro, she’s not much of a house keeper. You should think about getting a maid to help out around here, Wahine.”
Ciara squirted him in the face with water. He laughed and winked at her.
“Jakob, are you injured. Do you need Dragon’s breath?”
“Umm. Ew.” The warriors all assumed fighting stances again and turned toward the door on the side of the room. Wesley stood in the doorway.
“Whoa, guys. This is my friend Wes. Wes, welcome to DragonCon.”