Dragon's Heart (2 page)

“O
h no! Not
again.” Maya rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. “Arrgh!”

For
the third night in a row she'd had the same dream.
Dragons!
Well, one dragon. A black dragon with emeralds for eyes.
Consuming her, drawing her into their fiery depths. A fire, while dreaming, in
which she gladly and willingly burned. After the first dream, she’d awakened in
a cold sweat and checked her skin for burn marks only to find her body
unblemished.

For
the hundredth time she wondered, why had she taken the tour of the dragon
stones? It had sounded so exciting when the hiking guide told her and a few
other people in the lounge about it. Something different and not on the listed
hiking tours of the Sperrin Mountains but, he’d claimed, more interesting.
   

In
truth the hike itself was quite amazing and the stones magnificent. According
to the guide who described them, the stones were not as tall as Stonehenge and
only about half their size but older and all preserved in a perfect circle.
These stones had also been polished by the elements until they not only looked
like marble, but appeared as smooth.
 

The
guide didn’t know how they had gotten there or who put them there. He told some
local story to the group about druids and the harvest, most of which Maya
ignored. She was too busy rubbing one of the stones and getting an electric
shock for her efforts.
 

“Ouch!”
she cried, rubbing her fingers and glancing at some of her fellow hikers. “I
could swear there was an etching of a dragon carved into one of the stones a
second ago.”

The
guide, James, came over to where she stood and looked. He brushed his hand over
the unblemished, once again smooth, surface. “Nothing but dirt,” James assured
her.

“Why
are they called the dragon stones anyway?” Maya asked.

James
shrugged. “Not sure.”

Her
dreams had started later that night. It’s strange she’d never heard of the
standing stones before. No one had warned her for days after her visit she'd
have nightmares about being burned by a dragon.
 
And aching for the feel
of his fire on her skin.

Oh
why hadn’t she just gone to Paris on her vacation like originally planned? She
had no idea what possessed her in the first place to come to Ireland. Her
grandfather on her mother’s side was Scottish not Irish, and the rest of the
family consisted of African descent. She should have gone to Africa or
Scotland. No, she should have gone to Paris.
 
Maybe it wasn’t too late. She had eight days of vacation
left; she could still go.
 

That's
it! Just what she needed, a change of scenery. All this green—the land of
leprechauns, dragons, and fairy princesses—made her loopy. No need to go
looking for problems. Enough sat on her plate so she didn't need any more
restless nights because of weird dreams. Her conscious mind held enough to keep
her awake at night. She didn’t need her subconscious interrupting her when she
did get to sleep. Feeling better after making up her mind to cut her trip to
Ireland short, she went back to sleep.

The
shrill ringing of her telephone jarred her awake. “This had better be
important,” she said groggily into the receiver. Funny, she could see emerald
eyes in the still place between sleep and wake. Someone spoke, but she couldn't
seem to focus her mind away from those mesmerizing eyes.
 

“Hello.
Who is this? What did you say?”

A
gruff voice she hadn't expected to hear for at least another couple of weeks
spoke into her ear. “I'm sorry, hon, but I missed you so I took a chance.”

Not
a voice she wanted to hear. “Justin? Is that you? I thought we agreed you would
wait for me to call you.”
 

“I
know. But I just missed you so much. I couldn't help myself. Do you miss me? I
could be on the next plane out.”

She
must still be dreaming. The trip had given her time to think and to put a
little— well, all right, a lot—of distance between herself and
Justin. For the past three years everyone had been expecting them to get
married. In truth, they’d never really gotten past the ‘dating friends’ stage.
She’d never been intimate with any man. Never been tempted. Her relationship with
Justin had simply been convenient—for her. Probably because he never
pushed for anything more physical than kissing and touching, making him the
perfect boyfriend. A sure date whenever she needed one and good eye candy. But,
when he’d finally asked her to marry him, she couldn't say yes. Instead, she
faced the truth about her feelings for him.

Justin
continued to speak into the tense silence. “I know it’s still too soon after
your grandmother’s accident for you to go off by yourself. Let me help you get
through this.”
 

At
first she’d blamed postponing her decision about Justin on the death of her
beloved grandmother. She couldn't think about marriage so soon after Nana's
death. It had only been six months since she’d stood by her grandmother’s
graveside. The woman who helped raised her. Who meant as much to her as her
mother did. She’d needed to get away by herself for a while. Take a much needed
break from running the marketing firm her grandmother had started over ten
years ago at the age of seventy.
 

Never
one to let a little thing like age slow her down, it took a drunk driver to
take her life. Before Nana died, she swam every morning and wore a perfect size
six. Nana would still be alive but for a harsh quirk of fate or a shortage of
angels in heaven.

Maya
forced her attention back on the conversation. “I'm sorry, Justin. I didn’t
sleep well. And no, you can't join me. I need to be by myself. Anyway, I'm not
sure where I'll be.”

     
“What do you
mean, you're not sure where you'll be?” Justin asked, with the slightest hint
of desperation in his voice.

“Just
what I said. I've had it with the Emerald Isle. As soon as I can get an
internet connection, I’ll be making arrangements to leave. Don't expect me back
home until the tenth.”

“What?
But where are you going? How will I be able to get in touch with you?”

“This
is just something that I feel I have to do. I need this time for myself. I
don’t know who I am anymore.”

“You
are my future wife, that’s who you are.”

“No,
Justin. I’m not your future anything.” She sighed, tired from the last few
nights of restless sleep and now having to deal with Justin. “I never told you
I’d marry you. I need to figure myself out.”
 

“I
don't understand you.”

At
twenty-eight she didn't understand herself, but she took pity on him. He cared
about her, even loved her, but he wasn’t
in
love with her or she with him. Friendship and convenience were no longer
enough. “Listen, if you need me, just send me an e-mail. I have my laptop and
cell with me and I'll check in with you after I get settled.” Before he could
voice any further protest, Maya said goodbye and hung up the phone.

     
She reminded
herself to call her parents after she got up to let them know her change of
plans. If she didn’t, Justin would call them and upset them needlessly. Ever
since Nana died everyone had been worried about her. They had been so close.
Her parents kept waiting for her to do something rash. Like take this trip
alone to Europe, the one they’d planned on taking together.

     
“We have no choice.
I am sorry, Your Majesties. I have done the scrying an unprecedented three
times. I have confirmation from my sister seers. If the dragon brethren are to
survive, we must renew the blood. Talon must go back.”

     
“No,” the Dark
Lord growled at his trusted advisor.

Three dragons stood on pebbled ground in the open arena
making up the heart of the palace, surrounded by the sacred circle of standing
stones. The circle of power. The runes cast within were cast true. Anyone else
would have backed down at the sound of the Dark Lord’s displeasure, but the
chief advisor held his ground and did not move as his Lord continued to rant.
“This makes no sense. I will not have it. I will not accept this.”

The
Lady Sierran placed a golden claw on her mate’s dark scaled shoulder. “Draakar,
we have no choice. Valour speaks true and you know this.”

Draakar,
the Dark Dragon Lord spread his wings, a span as long as a seven-foot man and
so thick and dark they appeared like black velvet. The air around him vibrated
from the draft. He raised his mighty head. A roar emerged from the depths of
his soul, bellowing out his rage. Crimson fire stretched toward a purple
heaven. No brethren in the land missed hearing the cry of pain and rage issuing
from the depths of their Lord's throat, and none existed who did not share in
his pain. Thousands of dragons answered with roars of their own and crimson,
green, gold, and blue fires blazed across the skies, turning it a kaleidoscope
of color.

“I
did not open that gate over a thousand years ago to condemn my only son to
death,” the Dragon Lord roared.

  
A dragon, with golden glittering
scales, stepped within the circle and faced his sire. The image of his mother,
thought not as large as his father, Draakar.

“Sire…Father.
I must go. I am ready and I will survive. With your help, I will do what I know
I was born to do.”

The
great dragon looked into eyes of emerald fire matching his own. “Oh my son,
would that it were not so. Do you really understand what is being asked of
you?”

“Yes,
Father, I do. I must relinquish my birthright, but only until I return. Make no
mistake, I will return. By the claw of the First Dragon Lord, I will find my
mate. I must.
 
We all know she is
not here. She is one of the Forgotten Ones. One left on Earth.”

The
Lady Sierran rubbed her head against her son’s shoulder. “Ah, Talon. We know
you must go, but it is so hard for us. Your father’s power is waning. The power
sustaining our life energy here is tied to his and is also weakening. We do not
quite understand why. We do know you must mate in order for you to come into
your full powers and become the Dragon Lord you were meant to be.”

“With
respect,” Valour spoke up. “No, Your Majesties, not just mate. He must find his
truemate. I am convinced she is the key to unlocking his full powers.
 

“Only
with a true mating could Talon hope to sire a Dark Dragon Lord. We must restore
the balance of this world,” Valour continued. “Too late we have come to
understand one of the reasons the brethren abandoned this world to begin with.
The power of a Dark Dragon Lord is required to sustain it. As we all know, the
temperature of this dimension fluctuates between extreme cold and extreme heat.
While we can survive in a form of hibernation in extreme cold, we dragons need
heat. As we’ve come to understand there must be a balance, the Dragon Lord
provides the balance, because too much heat is also our weakness.”

Talon
scoffed. “Too much heat means death. From fire we’re born, but by fire we die.”

Draakar
nodded. “Some of the old memories made more sense now. Akgon is a land of fire
and ice, but the temperature throughout the land since our return has gradually
changed, and affects our connection to the magicks of the land.”

Valour
bowed his head acknowledging his words. “All you say is truth, but the brethren
are weakening, Lord, along with you,” Valour stated as fact. “The periods of
extreme temperatures are getting longer and more intense. In time dragons will
start dying. Even though we’re long-lived, most of us are old.”

  
Yes, most of the brethren were
older than Sierran and Draakar. Some like himself, Valour thought, old even for
dragons. While dragons had been born in the thousand years since Draarkar
opened the gate to Akgon, the home world, they still only numbered a few
thousand. Not the hundreds of thousands they should have been.
 

“Talon
is one of the last born among us,” Valour continued, “and while at four hundred
years he is young for a dragon, he is also one among a rising number only
willing to mate with their truemates.” Most of the dragons were not mated to
truemates, including his Lord and Lady, but Valour kept those thoughts to
himself.