Dragon Fall: Masters of the Flame 3 (Mating Fever) (11 page)

***

Bale twisted awake, his dragon searching for the threat.

He was on his feet, across the room, and stabbing for the elevator button before he realized he’d dressed and was reaching out with his left hand.

A hand he hadn’t seen in longer than he remembered.

He twisted his hand in front of his face then made a fist. The muscle in his bicep quivered at the strain.

He knew what it meant, but he also knew he’d stolen it from his unwilling solarys.

Was that any better than what Ashcraft had wanted to steal from him?

He nodded to the security outside the Amber Suite. Torch must have warned them, because they ducked their heads and stepped aside without questioning him.

He might’ve been exasperated at their kow-towing, but he was too focused on getting to Esme.

She had cried out. He knew it like he knew his own hand. Again, finally.

The lights were all off, but she’d left the curtains open in the bedroom, and the reflected neon lights shined across the bed where she’d whipped the sheets into a tangled mess.

The dragon smelled her fear and anger, the astringent bite as sharp as broken glass, as he strode to her side.

“Esme?” He brushed his left hand over her head and closed his eyes for a moment at the sensation of silk gliding under his fingertips, like the most delicate wind.

He needed to fly, and soon, lest he lose this opportunity.

But she came first.

Despite his words and touch—or maybe because of it—she thrashed her head against the pillow, her features twisted.

He slid up onto the bed beside her, aware of the soft mattress, the fine thread count, the lingering of her body heat under his hand. She had made this possible for him, and he’d returned the favor with this nightmare.

Or had Ashcraft found a way back in?

He snarled soundlessly at the thought, dragon and man in perfect accord.

“You kicked out the king of dragons,” he murmured to her. “You can beat one out-of-bounds warlock.”

Her brow furrowed as if she heard him and disagreed with him even while locked with her subconscious.

But she was linked to him, too, if only inadvertently and impermanently. The new life she’d given his ichor had let him regain control of the dragon and push back the petralys, and ironically that would allow him to resist the dragon claiming her.

But if he didn’t take her as his solarys, beast and blight would surge over him again. Not that he would tell her that. A mate bond with one half unwilling was as crippled and useless as a one-winged dragon.

He should let her go, now, before he broke her. But first he had to wake her.

Calling to her gently and then louder, he roused her from the grip of the nightmare. When he eased her into a seated position, she stared at him uncomprehendingly for a long moment, the pure darkness of her eyes fogged with whatever had plagued her.

“You back now?” He rubbed both hands up and down her arms, chaffing warmth into her skin.

He couldn’t help but notice she’d been sleeping naked.

Did she always sleep like that? He didn’t think so, she didn’t seem the sort, but he didn’t know. Despite their encounters they’d never actually
slept
together.

He would have kept her warm, just as he should’ve kept the nightmares away.

She blinked at him then shifted her attention to one hand and the other. “Your wing…”

“Arm,” he said.

She bit at her upper lip. “Was that because…”

“Yes.” He wouldn’t play down what he’d taken from her, even accidentally. “I know it wasn’t your intent, but thank you.”

She looked away from him, her shoulders falling inward as if she could escape his grip even though there was nowhere for her to go. “I wish…I wish I could give you everything back,” she said in a low voice. “Before the petralys struck your clan. When dragons could fly free. But I can’t.”

Her rejection, even in the face of his new symmetry, stung. All he had—even his damn hand—and it wasn’t enough for her. “I didn’t ask for all that,” he said stiffly. “Did your friends tell you the legend of the stone blight?” When she shook her head mutely, he continued, “The Nox Incendi got our name for our ferocity, our quickness in burning down the night to take the treasures we wanted. Legend has it, the blight was a curse to teach us a lesson: without our solarys mates to bring a light to our darkness, we would become the cold, dead stones we so loved.” He looked at her steadily. “I hate what the petralys did to the dragonkin, but after seeing my brother and my cousin with their mates…” He shook his head and pitched his voice to neutral. “I didn’t come to give you a history lesson. I wanted to make sure you are all right.”

“Why…” Her lashes fluttered down then flared wide. “I was having a nightmare.”

“I felt it.”

She canted her head to stare at him sidelong. “You felt it? How?”

“The link between us will linger for a bit,” he said diffidently. “It’s nothing. It will pass, so don’t let it worry you.”

She let out a soundless sigh. “I thought…I thought I was back with Ashcraft.”

“Was it alchemy or a spell? Or was it just a nightmare?”

“Just?” she mused softly.

“If he’s stirring up trouble again…”

She shook her head. “Just a nightmare,” she echoed. “It will pass, so don’t let it worry you.”

He scowled at her, the anger in his chest as twisted as his left wing had been. “I didn’t mean to fall for you, Esme. But the dragon did. The link will fade and die if we don’t feed it, but until then, I can no more turn off my awareness of you than I can cast the dragon from my body.”

She twisted her face away from him.

He pushed to his feet. Maybe it would’ve been less painful to just sever his arm than feel her withdrawing. “You called through the link, and I came,” he said formally. “If you’ve no further need of me…”

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t use that tone with me. Like you’re a servant.”

“In this I am, in service to the solarys bond.”

“I didn’t ask for it.” Her voice was almost shrill, and he winced.

“You’ve made that abundantly clear,” he said. “If the memories bother you again, I’ll come.”

“I didn’t ask for that either.” She huddled into the war zone of fine sheets.

He turned back to the door, muttering to himself, “Yeah, just salt that wound.”

“What?” The sharp change in her tone stopped him in the doorway.

He didn’t glance back. “Sleep well.”

“No, you said salt. That’s where I was.”

Hearing the fear in her voice, he pivoted slowly to face her. “You were with Ashcraft in Salt Lake City.”

“No. Well, yes, in Salt Lake, but in
the
Salt Lake.” She shoved herself upright, clutching the blankets to her chest although her gaze was unfocused, as if she wasn’t seeing him eyeing her but whatever had been in her dream. “That’s where he took me.”

Bale frowned, a faint stirring of excitement counteracting the chill in his skin that had seemed to transfer from her to him. “When Torch and Anjali confronted him, he chose to meet them at the lake.”

“His stronghold is there.”

“By the lake?”

“
In
the lake.” She scrambled out of the bed, dragging the sheets with her. “We have to go. I need to see…”

He strode back across the room and stopped her harried pacing with a foot on her trailing sheet.

She halted and glared at him. “Let me go.”

“
We
will go,” he said. “But not like this.”

She looked down at the sheet and his foot. Then she dropped the blanket and hustled toward the bathroom, giving him a fine view of her naked ass.

When she returned minutes later, she was dressed head to toe in black. The unrelieved darkness of the snug leggings and sleeveless mock turtleneck only served to emphasize the pale fall of her hair and her overall fragility.

He raised his eyebrows, and twin spots of red stained her cheeks. “I had to go shopping,” she said defensively. “I was tired of white.”

“I see that,” he said.

She stiffened. “Don’t mock me.”

“I’m not,” he said. “You look rightly dangerous.”

She spun away from him. “Ashcraft thinks he got away with what he did to me, what he wanted to do to a dragon.”

“He didn’t,” Bale reminded her. “We ruined his antiquities company and his name and sent him into hiding. He’s a wanted man.”

“He was already hiding what he was,” she said. “And he was always wanted.” A hard, flat glint turned her obsidian eyes to something darker and heavier: lead. “I want to take that away from him.”

Chapter 11

Revenge wasn’t a good look on anyone, but he’d make an exception for Esme Montenegro.

Bale sat across from her on the small chartered plane for the hop between Vegas and Salt Lake, studying her leaden eyes and the faint flush that let him know she knew he was watching her.

“I’ve never been on an airplane before,” he said conversationally.

She jerked her head up, as if she hadn’t expected him to engage her. The hard glint in her eyes softened a little. “Really? What do you think?”

“I like it better when I’m doing it myself.”

Her lips curved, and she angled her body toward him. “Yeah. Always a little nerve wracking to think we could just fall out of the sky.” Her smile slipped. “When we were in Ashcraft’s jet and Rave brought us down…” She shivered. “I was mostly out of it and still my stomach was in my throat.”

He leaned back in his seat. “I was flying when the petralys struck me the first time, so I know crash landings.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh no.”

“Being half a man in midair with one wing is definitely an oh-no moment.” He made a downward spiraling gesture with his hand. “I’d felt the signs, but I thought I could fight it off. I flew and fought hard every day, hoping to keep my ichor flowing. I fucked my way through hundreds of women, looking for my solarys.” He met her gaze unflinchingly, though he wouldn’t blame her for judging him. “Bad enough to be dying, worse to know my death could spell the end of the clan too.”

“Even then you wanted to protect your people more than yourself,” she said softly.

“I was desperate. I thought I’d flown too high, where the air was too thin to hold me. But when I dropped, the air still didn’t catch me. That had never…” He looked at his right hand and clenched it into a fist. “My dragon had never failed me before.”

Esme watched him, rapt. “How did you stop it?”

“While I was incapacitated, the elders of my cousin’s line sought to overthrow me.” He gave her a wry smile. “Tried to burn me alive on my death bed. It was very motivating.”

“I guess,” she murmured.

“I still had one wing.” He raised his left arm like a shield. “Dragonhide is very resistant to flame, obviously. I survived, I fought them off and fought back the petralys for awhile.” He lowered his arm. “But the wing never changed back. Until you.”

She shrank back in her seat, looking stricken. “Bale—”

“I’m not compelling you,” he said. “I’m telling you I understand why I don’t seem like a good bet to you. I’m not. Even my cousins decided I had to go, and the dragonkin since…” He let out a slow breath. “They suffer me to live because I’m dying anyway, and more than that, they don’t need a reyex anymore. This world has moved on while I’ve been all but locked away. Of my own volition, admittedly. I guess even I agree I’ve no place left with the Nox Incendi.”

“That’s not why…” She bit her lip. “You’re wrong. You’re a fine bet. But…I don’t have the credit to cover it. You have a place, and I just don’t belong there.” She angled her face to look out the small portal window. “I’m still trying to figure out where I belong, and just when I thought I was sort of making some progress, Lars came along. He and Anjali were at a gallery opening, and I thought they were just friends because at the end of the night, she was gone and he asked me to be his date for a charity event. I should’ve talked to her first, then maybe we would’ve realized he was using us both. But it was too late. He was blackmailing Anj and her uncle, and he had me believing everything he said. My grandmother loved the idea of adding our fortune to Ashcraft Amalgamated since Lars was set to take over when his father retires. And he seemed nice enough”—she laughed once harshly—“so I went along with it. Before I realized what was happening, there was a diamond on my finger.” She stretched out her hands in front of her: the obsidian cabochon on her right thumb, her left fingers bare. “Except it wasn’t a diamond. It was a damn
fungus
breathing make-Esme-stupid spores at me.”

He reached across the space between them and took both her hands in his. Now that he
had
both his hands.

Rubbing his thumbs across her knuckles, he said, “You weren’t stupid. He took advantage of you.”

“And I let him,” she said miserably. “I thought it was real, but it was all an illusion.”

“Which is why you can’t trust me,” he finished. “You can’t believe in this thing between us.”

She started to tug her hands back but then slumped. “None of that matters when I can’t trust myself.” She looked up at him and suddenly tightened her grip on his hands. “Which is why I have to go back to his place. I feel like he took something from me, and I want it back.”

At the fierceness of her tone, he inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Torch has had his contacts looking for Ashcraft. Just to keep an eye on him. There’s no indication he’s still in Salt Lake, and his last known location was New Orleans when he tried to intercept his antiquities shipment and the feds almost had him.”

She shot him a small smile. “Trying to make sure I don’t get my hopes up?”

“I would give you everything your heart desires,” he said quietly. “Within my power. But my power isn’t what it was either.”

Though she held on a moment longer, he let her go and settled into his chair.

“As for what we’ll find in Salt Lake, I don’t know,” he said. “But I hope it will give you the peace you want.”

The look she gave him was haunted but determined, and it spoke to something even deeper inside him than the dragon. “I’ve never had the guts to follow my dreams,” she said. “So I’ll follow the nightmare instead.”