Dragon Void (Immortal Dragons Book 2) (10 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Ked

Dragon Monastery, Sunda Islands

Present Day

E
vie lay limp in Ked’s arms. Soft didn’t begin to describe how she felt against his skin. But she wasn’t moving now, and his mind reeled as to why she might have checked out. She’d been alert for the entire trip. He hoped it was only exhaustion.

The thin, knit cotton pajamas she’d been wearing when he rescued her were stiff with her dried blood. Her wounds were healed now, thanks to Gavra’s breath during their long trip, but her dark hair was matted and stringy, her skin still streaked with the remnants of her injuries.

Sweet Mother, in spite of how utterly wrecked she looked, she was so beautiful. She would be even more beautiful once rested and awake. Instead of carrying her down to the secluded mountainside bungalow set aside for him, he turned and walked along a different path, heading for one of several private bath houses situated over the hot springs bubbling up from beneath the mountain.

He sensed Marcus’s consciousness in his mind now, heard his sister’s soft voice, as much through Marcus’s link to him as through Ked’s link to Belah. It betrayed the closeness of his connection to the man. Marcus likely didn’t understand what it meant yet, in spite of what Ked had told him when they started their trip. The unmistakable despair still flooded Marcus’s mind—his singular wish to leave this world, buried deep in decades of regret, but still filled with the ache of love for Evie that he never believed he deserved.

Looking down at Evie, he knew she would be the key to bringing Marcus back, even though she was the reason for the depth of his darkness.

Ked let his conjured clothing fade away as he entered the lantern-lit bath house and stepped into the fragrant, steaming pool of water. Once Evie’s body was submerged, floating on the support of one of his arms, Ked extended a sharp talon and sheared away her bloody clothes, pulled them carefully off her body, and tossed the scraps to the side of the pool.

Scented soaps and soft cloths were scattered around the edge of the pool, and he used them to wash her while he sat on one low bench and held her on his lap. Over and over, he brushed the cloth down her arms, over her chest, over her back, washing away the evidence of her torture. She was so strong. She had to be, to have withstood so much agony and still maintained consciousness for when he found her.

His own sister hadn’t managed as much so long ago, and carrying Evie away from that place had left Ked with the same dark anger he’d experienced that day he’d rescued Belah. Just after he and Gavra had landed and he silently requested that Belah see to Marcus, he shared a long look with her. Belah was his closest sibling, even without having shared that ordeal, and her expression had been filled with purest sympathy when he’d carried Evie away, as if to let him know she understood his pain.

He ventured a surge of dark breath now to check on Evie’s state, and was relieved to note that she was merely sleeping. The combination of Aodh and Gavra’s breaths could be potent, and healing could be an exhausting process when her body was urged to do it so quickly. Once her body was clean, he simply held her close.

“Now that I’ve found you, I will keep you safe. For the rest of our lives, you’ll want for nothing, and the enemy will never touch you again. That, I can promise.” He inhaled slowly, reveling in her closeness, but not allowing himself to become aroused by her soft, naked body against his. All that mattered was that she was here in his arms now. He could wait an eternity for everything that would come after.

“Are you sure you can promise that?” Evie groggily replied.

Ked tightened his embrace and looked down at her. “I don’t make idle promises. I also promise to destroy him the first chance I get.”

Evie only stared at him, her eyes wide and assessing. Ked held his breath, as though waiting for her judgment, for the first time worried about what another being thought of him. What must she think? He was probably terrifying her with his power, which he realized was nearly blocking out the sparse light in the dim room.

With a slow inhalation, he pulled the darkness back into his lungs and the lights brightened.

Evie’s expression grew only grimmer.

“Don’t hide yourself from me,” she said. She shifted around on his lap, pulling herself up into a sitting position and twisting to face him. “I know you are the one. My One. I want to know every part of you, even the darkest part.”

“I am nothing but the darkest part,” he said, though at least one part of him felt distinctly like it might start to glow a little bit of its own accord.

Evie’s aura brightened and her mouth twitched. “I beg to differ,” she said and reached between them to rest a hand against his stiffening cock.

“We don’t… you don’t have to…” Fuck, why was he stuttering over simply being touched by her? Ked gave up speech and let out a low groan when she stroked him, her hand slowly exploring his entire length beneath the warm water. His eyes never left hers, and what he saw in her gaze brought back another surge of his power. Just as dark this time, but not with the need for vengeance against his enemy. This time, it slid over him like midnight velvet, arousing all his senses and rendering the lantern light a sultry, intimate glow around them.
Privacy
was the thought that had gone through his mind, even though the residents of the monastery had a tendency to give him a wide berth when he was outside the Glade. He simply wanted to create a more intimate cocoon for himself and Evie if she had the urge to become so familiar with him so quickly.

Evie gasped. “I like that darkness,” she whispered. The dimmed quality of the light cast Evie in coppery gold highlights, the water glistening on her skin making her look gilded.

Ked’s eyebrow twitched. “Does it feel good to you?” In his entire existence, he’d never once heard a positive comment about this particular use of his power.

She leaned into him and let her lips brush his ear as she continued to stroke him. “I think anything that comes from you would feel good. That’s how it’s supposed to work when you find your true mate. Everything you are is beautiful, and the darkness suits my mood.”

“You said Marcus was your true mate before. I thought turul only ever had one,” he said.

Testing her this way wasn’t fair. It had occurred to him during the flight that her connection to the other man was only due to the change Marcus had undergone after being transfused with Ked’s blood. Evie’s prior connection could have been with anyone, as long as they’d had a measure of Ked’s blood inside them. Of course, it hadn’t been anyone. It had been Marcus—a Blessed. Ked distinctly sensed the hand of Fate involved in the situation.

“Marcus was, but I think you are, too. I can’t explain it other than to say I know how I feel, and that I think it was meant to be. He died in my arms, and then there you were. And I have never wanted to be with anyone as much as I want to be with you now. You’re going to mark me, aren’t you?”

Ked closed his eyes and released a soft hiss. He would love nothing more than to mark her now. To spin her around in the dark and lay her down on the thick velvet of night he’d conjured around them. To cover her body with his and fill her up with every single bit of him. But now was not the time, not so soon after her ordeal.

They may be entwined in the dark now, but he couldn’t keep her shrouded any longer. He wrapped his hand around hers and stilled her stroking. It was all he could do not to squeeze her around him and urge her onward.

“You need to know the truth before you commit to me, Evie. Marcus isn’t dead. Not truly. Before I can mark you, I need you to talk to him. Make him want to live.”

She struggled to pull away from his grip and he reluctantly released her. “Take me to him,” Evie said tightly, standing and hauling herself out of the pool. She glanced around and headed toward the towels stacked on shelves in one corner, robes hanging on hooks beside them. “I have to see him before I’ll believe you. His heart fucking
stopped
when we were making love. I knew it was crazy to even try it. He’d already bled almost to death. I was in the worst pain of my life, and thought I was dying, too, but I wanted that moment so much I would have died to have it. We hadn’t touched each other in so long… I craved it too much not to have you one last time.”

Ked closed his eyes and silently cursed at the word she just used. He didn’t even think she was aware she’d done it.
I craved it too much not to have
you
one last time.

Ked left the pool, absently clothing himself within the two long steps it took to reach her. She cast a sidelong glance at his conjured attire and muttered what he thought was
“fucking dragons”
while shrugging into a soft, woven robe. She winced as the fabric draped over her shoulders, as though her skin was still tender from the torture she’d endured.

As she closed the robe around her, she seemed to wobble, her face growing pale. She reached out a shaky hand to steady herself, but hit only air. Just as she started to topple, Ked caught her, picked her up, and cradled her in his arms.

“You shouldn’t be so weak now. Not after Gavra’s healing.”

Evie let out a bitter laugh. “It’s never happened this quick before. Usually it takes a few more days. Now I really do wish I was dead.”

“What has happened, Evie? If I’m going to help you, I need to know.”

“I’m pregnant. Again.”

“Sweet Mother, Evie,” he said. “I’m not taking you to see him until you tell me everything.”
He’ll live,
Ked thought bitterly. In spite of the memories from both Marcus and Evie that he’d already experienced during the trip, he found it difficult to find sympathy for a man who would have turned against a woman as precious as Evie, especially if she was carrying his child.

She clung to him, twining her hands at the back of his neck and burying her face in his chest. Her hot tears seeped through his shirt, warming his skin as he carried her back down the path to the bungalow.

Lanterns lit the high-ceilinged bedroom in a comforting glow. The windows up here had no glass in them, thanks to a temperate climate and an utter absence of insects and other wildlife living within close proximity to the monastery. Evie gasped when she saw the view. Nothing but endless, starlit sky stretched for miles, only broken here and there by lush mountain peaks illuminated by a huge moon hanging low and full over the horizon.

“The last time I saw a view like that was fifty years ago,” Evie said. “It was the last time I saw the sky before you pulled me out of there.”

Chapter Eighteen

Evie

Canadian Rockies

Spring, 1966

T
he place Marcus took them to turned out to be a huge research compound hidden deep in the Canadian wilderness. Evie’s alarm bells went off when they rounded a bend in the curving, narrow road that led through the mountains to get to it. Marcus slowed on the rain-slick pavement and pulled up to a painted concrete guard station and a huge security gate. Beyond the gate, Evie saw more wet road winding up higher through the trees and foggy mist.

In spite of the trepidation that overtook her, she held her tongue. She’d never been so bombarded with conflicting signals in her life. The Wind’s messages one moment would carry a warning of danger ahead, but at another moment, would tell her that she was still headed in the right direction.

Finally, she just clenched her teeth tighter and twined her fingers through Marcus’s after he put the car in gear again and moved slowly through the now-open gate. She had to believe they were doing the right thing, and even if they were stepping into dangerous territory, at least they would be together.

Around a few more curves in the road, the landscape flattened and they headed downhill into a narrow valley. Along one bank of a raging, glacial river, the compound glimmered like a line of diamonds laid out in a row.

It took Evie a moment to register that what she saw were windows reflecting the sparse vestiges of sunlight that broke through the clouds above them. The facility seemed to be made entirely of glass, which was at odds with the image she’d had in her head of what they might be headed toward. Of course, in her irrational worry, she’d imagined being captured by the enemy and held in a dark dungeon built of impenetrable stone, with iron bars and no windows whatsoever.

The place couldn’t be that bad if it had such endless views from every room.

Once inside, she managed to relax. The facilities were comfortable, the people friendly. The entire procedure seemed more like checking into a luxury hotel than anything else. So much so that she could easily pretend that was precisely what they were doing. Not running away, but enjoying a romantic holiday together.

They were escorted to a luxurious suite of rooms on an upper floor with an entire wall of windows overlooking a steep, pine-covered slope and ravine where the white-waters of the river sliced through. The sun set at the end of the ravine in spectacular fashion, enough to steal Evie’s breath and make her want to sing at the same time. In the wake of the descending golden orb, an eerie mist built at the other end, stealing down from the mountains behind them and blanketing the lower reaches over the river. It was idyllic, to say the least, yet Evie’s skin prickled with a sense of dread.

“The director will join you shortly after dinner,” the young, pretty woman who had escorted them up told them before retreating back through the door and leaving them alone together.

Marcus stole up behind her and wrapped his strong arms around her shoulders, pressing his lips to her cheek.

“We made it,” he said. “It’s even better than I’d hoped, but you don’t seem sold yet. What is it?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. He’d always been particularly perceptive to her moods, thanks to the faint bond of magical energy they shared through his Blessing. It was an artificial bond, however—not the bond he should have with the dragon mate he was meant for. And not the bond she would hopefully someday have with her one true mate. Yet she couldn’t deny she loved him deeply and believed in her grandmother’s gifts enough to be here with Marcus in a place where she didn’t feel entirely comfortable. She simply had to have faith that she was, indeed, on the right path.

“It’s…” She was about to simply say
nothing
when a knock sounded at their door.

They opened it and a strikingly handsome, distinguished-looking man stood on the other side, wearing a lab coat and carrying a clipboard along with a doctor’s medical case.

Before entering, he reached out his hand and greeted them both warmly. “Marcus Calais and Evie North? It is a pleasure. I am Dr. Sayid St. George, director of the Alexandria Institute. We are so glad you chose our humble organization for your needs. Have you been briefed on how your stay here will work?”

“Yes,” Marcus said. “You’re a scientific research facility and you want to use us as test subjects in exchange for giving us sanctuary.”

Dr. St. George grimaced. “I wouldn’t use such harsh language. You are a far cry from lab rats. The entire reason I opened up this facility was to
save lives
. Lives that may otherwise be needlessly lost overseas. Right now war is an inevitability, but through the Alexandria Institute’s research, I hope we can find a way to help peace prevail. I choose to employ science to wage war
against
war.”

Evie listened closely and watched the man. There was something unusual about him, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Everything he said was true. Nothing about his mannerisms was at odds with his words. Yet she sensed something hidden beneath the surface of his seemingly honest exterior. Either he really was telling the truth, or he was so good at lying the Winds couldn’t even tell.

Marcus seemed perfectly comfortable with the man’s speech, however. He invited the man to sit and they talked for several more minutes, sharing their opinions about the war. Evie only listened, seeking out any hint of deception from the doctor.

“What do you need from us?” Marcus asked during a pause in conversation.

“That’s the easy part. Nothing more than a few blood samples to start with. Once we’ve analyzed them, we’ll have a better grasp on which of our testing programs you’re best suited for. I can take the samples now, and the two of you will be free to enjoy yourselves for the next few days until we get the results. In between testing programs, all our residents are expected to contribute to the upkeep and management of the facilities. Our facilities manager will set up an appointment with you both to determine your skillsets. I understand from the forms you filled out that you have Aeronautics training, is that correct, Marcus? That’s a valuable skill you kept away from the military. I’m impressed.”

“Flying was always my first love,” Marcus said and blindly reached for Evie’s hand.

She gripped it back, only then realizing her palms were coated in a sheen of clammy moisture. He wanted her
blood
. That was absolutely not something she was prepared to do.

“I can’t,” she whispered, yanking her hand from Marcus’s and staring at the syringe and collection of glass tubes the doctor had fished out of his bag. “Please, don’t ask me to do this.
Please
.”

In all the cautionary tales she’d heard growing up, the strongest theme was to never let your own blood be shed by another, and never give it willingly. That was what the enemy wanted. Their reasons were never entirely clear to her. In some tales, they instinctively fed on her kind like leeches or mosquitoes. In others they were monsters, willfully hunting down and draining any member of the higher races for sustenance.

“Evie? Are you all right?” Marcus immediately stood and went to her, pulling her into his arms and stroking a large, comforting palm over her hair. “You don’t have to. It’s okay.” Turning to the doctor he asked, “She doesn’t have to, does she? She’s terrified of needles, and we didn’t know this was part of the process.”

The doctor frowned and reached into his bag. “Blood samples are ideal, but no, we have other methods.”

Marcus sighed. “Good. I am happy to give you as much blood as you need to make up for it. Just please, don’t take hers.”

“Not to worry,” the doctor said, giving them both a warm smile. “A hair sample will do, provided we get a bit of the root.”

Evie closed her eyes, feeling like a fool for being so terrified. “No. It’s all right. It will be for a good cause right?” she asked, hopeful and trying to do her best to talk herself into enduring an unpleasant experience. She’d shared bodily fluids with Marcus for an entire year. If he could shed his blood for this, so could she.