Waterfall (Dragon's Fate) (2 page)

This was what he was meant to be. His full elemental power at a glimpse. He tossed his hair back and then growled a dragon’s cry up to where the moon should hang in a radiant, colored vision. Yet only the ebony fog resided tonight. There was no moon to lighten this scene. His vision rippled with detailed clarity. Ah. Indeed. This was the power that years of existence without his mate had diminished. He wanted this power back. It had been too long. In a burst of speckled light, everything changed back to somber mist. Bloody hell. His throat closed off, and his eyes burned. No! He swallowed hard, and his shoulders sagged. This was a tease. A temptation.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. He would never know more of what the Zir were than this… Death and a glimpse of the exhilarating power they were destined to have.

He inhaled and smelled her metallic, sweet blood on his lips. His tongue traced his teeth and upper lip, gathering up the enslaving essence. Sweet orange blossoms and candied cherries. His made-up version of what she should taste like.
Remember her.
His jaw trembled as hot blood pounded through him to his groin. His soul wanted more of her. To mate. To love. To live a lifetime of companionship.

He clenched his teeth, and his fangs pierced his lower lip.
You have done enough to end her suffering. Quite enough. Let her be.
He opened his eyes once more.

A shadow shaped as Ferrous stood head down and arms straight out in the air at the rocks’ edge. “Make haste. I wait no more.”

Jordan placed her head softly back on the grass. “Will scant be a moment more of pain, beauty.” He trailed his hand down her broken arm to a heavy, thick bracelet looping her wrist. He unclasped the chain and slowly rubbed the metal between his fingers. His token of her death. He tucked the jewelry in his inner coat pocket, then rose to his full height. Turning to his left, he skulked into the inky woods.

He rubbed his tongue along the points rapidly retreating into the roof of his mouth. His throat tightened, and his ballocks blazed. One more death to add to his collection of struggles… One more loss for the Zir. A mate was the only key to their existence and to unlocking the mystery of how they came to be.
 

From behind him, Ferrous’s whispered voice gained tone on the breeze. “
Vind, jord, vand, og luft. Få denne strand til at fremstå klar
.”

The wind whistled through the leaves above Jordan’s head. Waves crashed against the shore in the distance, and the earth rumbled in a wave that pressed Jordan back two steps.

“Wind, earth, and water. Make this beach appear clear.”
Ferrous was one of the lucky few who still had all his original powers and could control all the elements.

Jordan could only control that one piece
:
water
.

Thankfully.

He did not want Ferrous’s skill. For with that skill came enormous responsibility. Immersing the shore was all Jordan could have done here tonight…if that. He frowned. His body still hummed in remembrance of the power from the bite, yet his active powers had waned the last five years and continued to dwindle. So had the last of the four brothers, Madoc’s. None of them knew why.

With the spell Ferrous cast, no one—including Jordan—would see the wreckage until Ferrous cleared the spell, and then everything would be left just as it had been. They could then take what was salvageable and bury at sea what was not.

The fair-haired beauty. Bitten and broken on the grass.

A chill raced across the bands on his elbows. He closed his eyes, and her image flashed before him. Golden hair swept up with pearls as she danced in a ballroom. His brow pinched. An odd vision, given that he was not near his element. He normally saw visions only when he was in water.

A residual effect of the bite?

It didn’t matter. She was dead, and he needed to be in London. He wished he could have seen her eyes. Were they blue? Green? Brown?

He should have buried her. She would rot there, a tangled mess in that pretty pearl dress. A beautiful woman so young and dressed so finely would be missed by someone. A father. A mother. A husband. If she were his, finding her that way would break his heart.

Footfalls fell hard and fast on the earth behind him.

Enough.

Ferrous came up from behind and wrapped his fingers over his shoulder. “It was kind of you. Your mouth and groin without a doubt are searing.” He huffed out a breath as they walked beside each other down the path toward the main road.

“It’s not so bad. Twenty years have passed. I forgot most of the thrill and all of the sadness that comes from the death.”

“Biting never affects me that way. Though I know you have said as such in the past.”

How could biting not be vexing for all of them? Jordan and his brothers killed in an attempt to find their mates. Yet in five hundred years, not one of the four Zir brothers had found theirs. The women died, and with each death, Jordan’s dream of
her, his mate,
floated farther from a reality. He swallowed hard as his feet picked up pace on the trail to the main Harwich road. At least this time he had not one prior hope pinned on the golden beauty that died by his Zir blood. She would have died anyway.

Chapter Two

Wedding cheer, and love and bliss for humankind.
Grrr.
Jordan rolled his eyes. He hated this sort of spectacle. If he only understood what finding a mate was like… That would make this ball interesting. As it was, he would stand in the corner and grumble. He cleared his throat, and the corner of his mouth twitched as he forced a smile. This was as hard as his bite two days past…almost. He strode into the Duke of Hudson’s blue-and-gray ballroom.

The scent of sweat and arousal clung to the room as the small gathering of London’s elite fluttered about this out-of-character evening wedding ball.

Scandalous was what the
Ton
called the odd time. If they only knew the true meaning of this hour: that the duke had interesting friends, friends like the Zir, and some could not face the light of day.

Jordan tugged on the bottom of his tight-fitting yellow-and-gray-embroidered waistcoat. His presence was needed here this night. For Ilmir. He frowned. Well, the truth was that Ferrous said Jordan needed to be here. That was the only reason he had come. He had no clue what Ilmir had done this time as Ilmir had gone missing since their return from the Isle three days past. Typical Ilmir. Cause a fuss and hide. This event would pull him out, however, as their brother never missed one of the Duke of Hudson’s events. When they found Ilmir, they would learn of his folly, and steps could be taken.

But where
was
he?

Jordan glanced to the right and tensed as his gaze touched on a group of finely dressed ladies and gentleman. Slowly, each one turned their heads to stare at him. Cold eyes. Colder thoughts. Chills washed his neck.

No warm haze of Zir likeness resided in that direction. Nothing resided that way but the prickly stress of humans. Not that he disliked humans. Some were tolerable. Some he called friends, though his friends did not reside here this night. Besides, he was part human himself, or so he liked to think. The truth was that the Zir knew little about themselves.

Each set of eyes settled on him. Thoughts slammed, same as always, into his mind.

“Gracious! Look at the white streak in his hair,”
one woman thought.

Jordan frowned.

“I bet he is equally wild as he looks in the act,”
thought another.

He paused, then turned his gaze back to the woman, whose stare had touched on him last. The tall, black-haired woman smiled at him with red full lips, then flipped open her fan and waved it vigorously.

The man to her right smiled and inclined his square, feathered hat in acknowledgement even as his mind sniped,
“Another one of the four. Do they not realize they simply do not belong here?”

Conceited bore. If he had an inkling of his wife’s thoughts or how many of the guests here in this room frequented Samgor’s Den…

Jordan’s back tingled. Did they believe their false smiles made him feel at ease? Oh, the look on their faces if they could see their thoughts about him slide, slick as butter, into his mind. Once their thoughts did, it was impossible to imagine he belonged here, no matter his fine clothes or polite manners.

Wait! He had not been able to read thoughts in a year. This elemental power had been the first of his to dwindle. He smiled a genuine smile. The surge in power had to be a residual effect from the bite. Maybe he had refrained from biting for too long.

He turned away from the couple, swallowed, and set his chin. He needed to tell Ferrous about this when they were together next.

If his bite caused this, it was a mixed blessing. His powers increased, but he’d killed a woman. Sorrow hung around his heart. He also now was once again aware just how out of place he and his brothers really were amongst the
Ton
. But then, socializing with anyone at this high a level in society had always grated on him.

He wiped the disapproving reactions of England’s elite from his conscious mind and concentrated on the task at hand: finding Ilmir.

He pushed through the cluster of gents to his right and past the musicians who played as young and old alike danced in the middle of the room. Several pretty women attended this night. One could very well be his mate. His lips turned down, and he grumbled. He would never bite one of them. When a peer’s daughter went missing, it was noticed by all. He narrowed his eyes. An entire class of women was untouchable because their eventual deaths caused complications for the Zir. Finding an enticing reaction from paupers and prostitutes had become tiring decades before.

A gasp came from beside him, and a round, short woman dressed in a grapefruit-colored gown that matched her cheeks shied away.
“Odd man… I thought the four stopped attending civilized events.”

Then again, maybe Jordan should bite one or two of them. The left side of his mouth curled up into a lopsided grin. He was starting to sound a bit like Ilmir. His brow pulled tight. He could not have that.

The music ceased, and everyone slowly turned toward the south end of the ballroom. Jordan lifted his head and gazed through the small crowd. Finding one of his unusually tall brothers here should be easy. He fidgeted with the cuff of his black evening coat and then focused his attention on the man at the head of the room who had captured the guests’ attention: the Duke of Hudson.

The chatter in the room dulled to a low hum. A man with golden hair and cold brown eyes called out from beside Jordan, “Hudson, get on with it. I have skirts to chase.”

A sinister smile flirted across the Duke of Hudson’s lips before altogether disappearing. “Indeed, Bedmond. And keep your old man away from this.” He turned to his left and held out his hand. A slender woman placed her white-gloved fingers into the duke’s open hand and stepped up beside him.

Jordan’s vision hazed and warped in a colorful wave, heightening details at the center of his focus. He shook his head and looked down to the highly polished wood floor. His sight returned to normal.

What just happened? His vision never colored except after he had bitten. He locked his jaw, and his chest labored. He slowly raised his gaze back up at the duke and the woman who stood the same height beside him. A rainbow of colors radiated out from her.

He choked.

The woman… He closed his eyes, and the image from the beach came back to him…

Golden hair lit up with the sun. The pearls of her aristocratic dress played against the tips of his fingers as he gently laid her on the grass for dead.

His throat tightened. He had bitten her three days past, and she…
lived.

Oh, bloody hell.

His body shook.

She was his mate.

Heat coursed through his flesh and burned through his cock, which swelled and pressed painfully against his trousers. His mate. He shifted his stance and placed his hand at an angle to disguise his engorged erection. Damn. He glanced about the room. This couldn’t be possible. His attention snapped back to her.

“Lords and ladies, I present to you my new wife, Her Grace, the Duchess of Hudson!” His Grace raised her fingers to his lips and kissed her gloved knuckles.

It was her. It really was the same woman. Jordan had touched that wrist. Had taken her bracelet. His treasure of her death. His fingers fisted, and he stumbled forward, seeing nothing but her golden hair, slender nose, full, angelic lips and noble cheekbones. All held the color of life. Not death.

She had wed Hudson.

He bumped into the gentleman who stood before him.

“Mind your step.”

How could she? He continued forward without pause. After five hundred years of frustration and loneliness, he had found his lifemate, and Cupid had poisoned the arrow.

She had married another, and tonight would bed her husband.

Not him.

His feet moved as if he glided, pulled by a rope to her. This was wretched! His vision streaked, danced and swirled in blue and gold ripples, making his stomach flip.

Yet he’d found her!

The room hummed and dropped away. He stepped in front of her, shaking. He stared down at eyes so green they reminded him of a serene, moss-covered pond. A shiver raced from the tip of his toes to the white streak in his hair.