Fire The Blood: Dragon Mage Series Book III (9 page)

Braedon shook his head as
the council lord went red.  Lux had always had a way with words.

"And you wonder why
I have my own protection.  You are dragon knights."  Rendal was
practically turning purple in his agitation.   He looked to General Solan. 
"You are sworn to the protection of the council.  You will either do what
needs to be done for the protection of the people or face disbanding."

General Solan's voice was
mild when it drifted down to them.  Braedon marveled at the man’s control when
he knew he was as angry at this abuse of power as the rest of them were. 
"The dragon knights are sworn first and foremost to the protection and
defense of the defenseless.  We are of the light.  We are not the Council’s
dogs of war, but its keepers.  Turning unjust actions into law does not make them
acceptable."  He shook his head wearily.  "We have stood by the
Council, too long it seems.  You accuse us of crimes to cover your own. 
Enough."  His words, though mild, were to the point and seemed to resonate
with power.  Then he threw down the gauntlet.  "If the Council continues
to abuse its power at the cost of the innocent and the just, then
we
will
take actions to disband
you
."

There was a ringing
silence across the field until Rendal broke it with an appalled hiss. 
"You threaten us?"

"I threaten anyone
who seeks to subjugate another people: claim a mate who is not their own, and
take what they want by force.  I threaten anyone who puts greed and paranoia
above the needs of the dragon or mage people."  He speared the Council
Lord with a look of molten quicksilver.  "Make of that what you will.  The
point today is that Lady Asha will make her own choices, and we will make sure
of it."

Lady Melisande spoke, and
Braedon turned his eyes to her.  With her head tilted and the wind whipping
around her skirts, she appeared to be looking directly at them.  "You
argue for nothing.  The lady will decide her own fate without the need for help
from any here."

"Melly?" Solan
asked.  "Is she well?"

"She is true mated
in the ways of dragon."  Those eyes never left them, and Braedon was
tempted to wave to see if she would respond.

"Can she see
us?" he asked Asha.

"She should not be
able to," his mate answered, her own brows furrowed.

Lady Laksee moved up
beside them.  "She is of the wind.  There are few places that wind cannot
blow, and she is dragon mate, which makes her even more a force to be reckoned
with.  She cannot see us, but she knows we can hear."

Melly went on as if she
did know.  "She is dream walking now, but it is almost time for the real
battle."

"Battle?"  Braedon
and Solan said at the same time.

"Between the two
halves of her soul: Fire and ice.  A battle that only she and her mate can win
together."  Melly turned from them and looked with worry up to her much
taller husband.  "The future is still unsure.  It may be more than she can
bear."

"What will?" 
Solan asked, running his hand down the side of his mate’s face.

"The pain," she
whispered, sinking into the comfort of his hand.

Then Braedon’s eyes
snapped open.  He looked around at the hot springs cave and wondered what had
awoken him.  He felt the waves of ice and fire swell in the body of his mate,
and then, in his head, the screaming started.

Asha's body twisted and
writhed as if she fought some excruciating internal battle.  Braedon held her
body, keeping her from harming herself, but her mind was like a slippery eel. 
Every time he was certain he had her thoughts, she would veer and twist until
he was left searching still.  Under his hands, he could feel the heat build and
boil just beneath her skin.  Then in seconds, a sheet of ice would coat her
body from the inside out, and he was holding a shivering block of ice, less
womanly softness and more diamond-like hardness.  As if she was dragon true. 
Then it would all start again: the heat and then the cold, again and again as
Asha's pain and fear grew beneath his hands.

Then it would begin again
as the magic built and swirled around them.  Mage and dragon magic seemed to
wage war across the two of them.  Frustrated by his lack of power and scared
out of his mind that he would not be enough to prevent her death, he finally
grabbed Asha and dropped them both into the swirling heat of the hot spring. 
He had no idea if it would help or hurt, but at that point he needed to do
something before he went insane himself from his own helplessness.

Dragon power flowed over
their heads in the form of water.  Braedon expected the ice to recede from the
dragon heat, but instead it grew.  It was so cold it burned, and unlike the
fire that was his element, the ice attacked him as if he were the enemy. 
Through it all, he held on, knowing as the pain built and his skin peeled away
that he would have permanent scars if he survived.  He held on anyway.

Throwing her head back
with a roar that he never thought he could hear from a human, Asha wrenched
herself out of his arms and sunk into the boiling magic of the springs. 
Ignoring the pain, Braedon dove in after her.  With a burst of dragon fire, he
felt her transform.  Sputtering under the tidal wave of water that attempted to
smash him into the rocks, he looked up and was met with the sight of his mate
in dragon form.  She was unlike any dragon he had yet seen, more exotic but
every bit as beautiful as they tended to be.  Her eyes, like the rest of her,
were like the inside facets of a diamond.  She glowed with pale power, all
shimmery crystal with a rainbow of colors that danced in each facet as the
light hit her.  She was quite simply breathtaking.

I am alive? 
He
heard it in his head and closed his eyes under the full brunt of his relief.

"We both seem to
be," he said, only then realizing that his voice was raw and damaged from
the ice, like much of the rest of him.

You are hurt.
 
He could feel her concern and then her anger. 
Who hurt you?

He shook his head. 
"It is nothing.  The ice just did not agree with this fire mage."  He
had more important questions.  "Can you change back?"

Within a blink of his
eye, Asha was standing before him in all her human glory, and the relief was so
great that he wanted to drop to his knees.  Braedon marveled that her skin and
hair had attained a shimmer that drew the eye with its otherworldliness, but
beyond that she was still Asha.  Then she was touching him, her hand just
beyond the grisly mess of his face.

She stuttered in a
breath.  "I hurt you."  She closed her eyes and shuddered, and he
could feel her remorse.

"Do not," he
said, taking her hand and kissing her fingertips with his unharmed lips. 
"Just looking at you, lady dragon, takes away what pain still
lingers."

"We will get you to
the healers now."  Her voice was such that most would not dare to argue,
but he was not just anyone.

 "What of the Council
lord and the others?"

Her eyes started to glow
with that pale diamond light, and just as fast, the rest of her followed.  The
diamond-bright dragon was back in the blink of an eye, and he was lifted by a
firm claw and carried out before he could catch his breath. 
Let them try
now
, her inner voice growled in his head.  Her implacable resolve beat
against him with purpose.  He supposed it might be considered un-masculine to
be carried around by his mate. It was something he would have to get used to if
the protective heat in her eyes was any indication.  She was alive, and had
made her transformation.  The rest was only details.

They flew out of the cave
as if she had been flying her whole life, and he could feel her marveling in
the power and freedom of it.  He had a feeling Lord Rendal was going to get
more than he bargained for, and if the adrenaline had not been wearing off and
he had not been in so much pain, he would have laughed at the thought of it.

***

Asha flew down the
mountain directly to Riva, ignoring the slack-jawed astonishment and
exclamations that came from the rest of the assemblage.  She also ignored the incredible
primal feeling of finally finding her dragon.  She had but one thought, and
that was to heal her mate.  She could feel his pain beating at her in time with
her own remorse that she had been the one to do this to him. She would worry
about the rest of it later.  For now, Braedon was the only important thing.

Riva was one of the few
who ignored the splendor of the newly formed dragon and focused instead on
Braedon.  Seeing her brother’s ravaged face and hands when he finally landed
beside her, she choked on a sob then got to work.  Moving her hands gently over
him, her power flared around them with a bright light.  After what seemed an
indeterminable time later, she stepped back and wobbled on her feet.  She had clearly
spent too much of herself on her brothers healing. 

In a blink, Furee was
behind her.  His hands steadied her, and he set her back on her own two feet
with a light brush across her shoulder.  Asha saw the hunger on his face and
the way he closed his eyes at the feel of her, then the way he shut down before
the healer turned to smile absently at him.  Asha knew Riva had not seen what
she had witnessed when Riva turned her attention back to her brother, the
exhaustion weighty on her shoulders.  But Asha had seen, and the raw feelings she
had caught so fleeting on Furee's face made her heart hurt for him.  She
understood even as she was turning back to her own mate that Riva belonged to
Furee, or at least he belonged to her, and she wondered why he had not staked
his claim in the way of dragon males.

She shook off the
thoughts for a later time when Braedon opened his eyes.  His face was once
again hale and whole, except for the scar on his lip from when he had first
saved her.  She purred at the sight and then blinked her dragon eyes when he
laughed at the sound.  Asha concentrated until she felt the transformation
sweep back over her.  Instinctively she covered herself in her favorite gown at
the same time.  She was not to know until later that such powers were supposed
to be learned and not automatic.  "You are well?"

"Good as new. 
You?"

"I am well,"
Braedon said, smiling at her and his sister.  Both of them sighed in relief at
the same time.  He sat up and looked Asha over, his hands pushing her hair back
so that he could see all of her face.  "What of you, lady dragon?  You are
well?"

"I feel… fine."

"I would be the
judge of that."  Shehar approached them, and it was Asha's turn to submit
to the healer’s touch.  She was still checking her over when she spoke. 
"It did not occur to me that the cold you felt was ice dragon in your
veins.  There has not been one born in eons."

Asha lifted her head and
looked the healer over, feeling the warmth of her healer’s power as it sank
through her skin and organs.  "Ice dragon?"

Shehar's eyes moved to
hers, and Asha was surprised to see awe there.  "It is said that the first
dragons were both ice and fire; then, over time, the dragons were born as
either one or the other.  Ice dragons were rare beings of great magic.  That an
ice dragon has come from a mage dragon hybrid is an astonishment.  That you are
of the seer line as well as ice dragon is incredible."  Her magic cut off
abruptly.  "You are fully healed and have successfully made the transition
of your first molt."  She turned to look at the rest of the assembly. 
"She is also true mated."

This statement seemed to
bring a reaction.  Lord Rendal practically roared his displeasure.  "It
cannot be!  An ice dragon and a seer wasted as a mate for a mage?"  He
spat the last word as if it were an expletive.

"She is half mage
and still bred dragon true.  Surely even you can see the error in your
bigotry."  That voice of disgust drew Asha's eye to Aarion.  Like Lord
Rendal, he was from the House of Earth and had the distinct gold coloring that
reminded her so much of her adopted father she could not look at either of them
long without anger coloring her thoughts, even if Aarion was one of the most
beautiful males she had ever beheld.

Rendal glared at Aarion,
daring him to speak.  "There are too many dragons in need of mates to
waste them on a mage" he said, as if that were the end of the matter.

"A true mate is not
something you can engineer.  It is fated to happen."

Stubbornly, the council
lord held on to his argument despite the many glares being fired his way. 
"It changes nothing.  The mating should never have occurred.  As head of
Lady Asha's house, I forbid it."

"You forbid
it?"  Asha's words contained carefully controlled menace.  She could feel
her eyes heating and knew that her fire did not like the man any more than her
dragon did.  "Are you actually still thinking you have some say in my
life?"

Rendal looked at her and
must have seen something new because he actually blanched.

"You know,"
Braedon said, standing up beside her, his shoulder half in front of her for protection
she did not need.  "I have met a great many dragons since I arrived in
Dracon, and I have to say, of them all you seem the most… human."  It was
a grave insult, and it was meant to be.  It seems her mate was not any happier
with the Council Lord then she was, but then she suspected Rendal had few
friends here.  Even the healer and her mate were glaring openly at the man now.

Rendal turned furious
eyes on Braedon, and Asha felt her own eyes go dragon cold.  In fact, her whole
body seemed to transform into cold hardness in a wave.  She knew her eyes were
diamond bright: the eyes of a predator ready to defend her mate.  The cold did
not quench the fire exactly; it was more like her mage and dragon had found a
way to work together inside her.  The fire receded before the cold without a
fight, and she no longer felt the temperature as a biting thing.  Instead of
shivering from the cold, she embraced it.  Later, she would have to ask her
mother why she was not dead.  She suspected it had something to do with her
mate, and once again, the Council Lord was taking his life in his hands by
laying angry eyes on him. 

He was not looking at
her, though, so he could not see his danger.  Instead, Rendal was focused
solely on her fire mage without a thought for the power he gained as her true
dragon mate.  

"You have already
struck me once, mage.  No matter your piddly fire, I am dragon.  Squashing you
like the bug you are would solve a great many problems."

Braedon actually laughed
at that.  His head dropped forward to give off a menacing stare.  "Dragon
or no, try me."  He thrust out his hands, and an impressive display of
fire roared from his fingers to his elbows.  "I could have handled you as a
mage.  As a dragon’s mate, you have no idea what power courses through my
veins."  He smiled at the Council Lord with a baring of his teeth. 
"But I can show you."

Asha stepped forward so
that she stood side by side with her mate.  "Enough of this.  Your laws
wish to take my mate and subjugate me to a dragon of your choice?  I refuse
your laws and the so-called protection of Dracon.  I warn you, Lord Rendal.  I
am not the creature of Light my mother was.  Come after me and mine, and I will
defend myself.  Or worse for you, I will let my mage mate have you."  Then
she transformed into an ice dragon as if she had been doing for it years rather
than minutes.

I am done here.  I would
leave this place.  Now.
  The message was pure dragon and
sent only to her mate.  It did not occur to Asha that he would want to stay
until he looked from her to his sister.  It made something clutch in her heart
for a brief moment before she felt the caress of his answer through her mind
even before he spoke the words.

"Wherever you go, I
go, lady dragon."
 
The feelings behind the words reassured her as
nothing else could have.

Her mate stepped to his
sister long enough to kiss her cheek.

"Go," Riva
whispered, pushing him toward Asha.  "I am well."

"You are
protected," he said.  "Or I would not leave you again."  He
looked beyond her to Furee, and the dragon male nodded once to acknowledge what
was unsaid.  Watching them, Asha knew that Braedon was aware that Furee was his
sister’s mate, and she wondered at them.  But those were questions for later. 
Braedon was already stepping away from Riva and turning to face her.  They both
ignored Rendal’s sputtering demands to stop.  She carefully wrapped a large
talon around Braedon as he raised a brow and smiled a crooked smile at her. 
"Do you know where we are going?"