Rake My Lust (Dragons of Blood and Bone #3)

18. Warn

18

WARN

B jorn is beside himself with fury as we discover his father was in league with our enemy drakaina, decades ago. As his vicious hate for his father careens inside him, Strom and I grip him, pouring everything we have into him to stop him from shifting.

We might lose Bjorn to his dragon right now in his rage, however; his blazing gold eyes are empty with his Berserker, something I haven’t seen from him in a long while. Bjorn is massive, and ridiculously strong, as he attempts to shake us off. It takes a walloping surge of magic from my Bloodwalker power, combined with Strom’s massive drake, to stop him.

As he heaves hard breaths—livid to the max.

“Bjorn? Are you back?” I gaze up into his searing gold eyes, seeing him returned.

Barely.

“I’m going to kill him! I’m going to kill him , Rikyava!” Bjorn roars so hard now he shakes the skies with his power, even still in human form, as his magic roils all around him.

“I know, and he deserves it.” I firmly grip Bjorn’s shoulders, massaging my hands down his biceps and using skin touch to calm him. “Now is not the time, though. We need to talk about this and figure out what it all means. We need to find out who these bones belong to… and why our enemy Bone Mage targeted this blue Icelandic drakaina. Just like she did all our families.”

“Oggi Magnussen will get his due. We’ll make sure of that.” Strom stands at Bjorn’s side. He grips Bjorn’s shoulder, supportive in a way I rarely see him with Bjorn, as he bolsters my First Drake’s desire for a fight.

While also calming him with his vast Bone Magic.

I feel Strom’s power flow into Bjorn now, easing him with its cool presence. As Strom helps Bjorn, I finally see my First Drake come home, back in his saner human mind, at last.

As he draws a deep breath, letting it out slowly, I know the risk of him shifting and going Berserk is over. It’s still there, however, lingering in him as he heaves hard breaths, glancing at the bones.

“That enemy Bone Mage drakaina killed my mother,” he snarls now, shivering with rage. “And my father was with her. He found a good excuse to off my mother and made that drakaina do it so he could seem like his hands were clean… and take power over our clan entirely.”

“We can’t prove anything right now, Bjorn.” I am cautious, because though I hate Jarl Oggi Magnussen, accusing him of something like this needs solid proof. “Though it seems logical that your father had our enemy Bone Mage kill your mother during the heat of battle to get her out of the way concerning you, to punish her for defending her daughter long ago, or to solidify his power in your clan, we have no proof. Not yet.”

“Either way, it’s a shit move from a dragon we already hate.” Strom spits to the ground in contempt. “I’m not sad we fucked up his plans when we were up in Magnussen territory. Wish we could have done more.”

“I will do more. I promise it.” Bjorn’s nostrils flare as he does his deep breathing through his nose.

Then he finally quiets—into stone-cold hate.

“Bjorn? What’s going on in there?” I ask now with a blink, as I see a side to him I’ve never seen before. I feel nothing through our bond but a diamond made of gold now, hard and impenetrable, as Bjorn calms.

Focused like a laser.

“You’re right, now’s not the time,” Bjorn says with far too much precision now as he glances at us, pinning me with his searing golden gaze. “But when the time becomes right, Rikyava, you will not hold me back. Not you or Strom… no matter what it may cost us.”

As I stare up into my First Drake’s eyes, I know what kind of agreement this is. This is a till-death-do-us-part agreement; as I set my hand to my heart and nod, Strom does the same.

We honor Bjorn’s vow and give him our unspoken promise to do as he asks when the time comes. Because he’s right; only he can punish his father for what that horrible drake has done over the years.

And we’ll support him—no matter what.

Our mates’ vow sealed, we turn back to the task at hand. As Strom glances at the blue drakaina’s remains, he hunkers again, reaching a hand out. “I’ll open my power again. See if I can dig further back into her memories, find out who she was.”

As he sets his hand to her bones again, Strom reopens his power. We get a sense of her last moments on the battlefield; since she was blue and white, the Blood Dragons cleaning up the battle thought she was an Ice Dragon and rolled her into a pit with the rest of them, shoveling it over in an enormous mound of dirt.

She’s been here ever since, desperate to tell her tale. Though Strom pushes his power into her harder, trying to get past her final moments into her deeper history, he gets nothing of where she came from, or who her family is.

He only gets a mountainous wall of darkness—then a searing tower of white from Aesa’s stone, as it suddenly prevents his digging. As my power and Strom’s twist together now, thanks to Aesa’s resonance inside us, we sear again like a lightning storm, deep into Strom’s brain.

One of Strom’s missing memories flashes through us then, of that enemy Bone Mage drakaina—standing with a shadowy woman in black. The image is bright as day inside our minds, as we all share this memory together, thanks to our bonded resonance mixed with Aesa’s stone.

But the spot where our enemy drakaina and that woman stand is black with darkness on a no-moon night, clouds thick high above. The only light is coming from Blood Dragon ruby amulets both Strom and the woman in black wear.

The enemy Bone Mage drakaina is in her dragon form as they stand on a rocky promontory with the sea crashing below.

A lighthouse flashing in the distance, as it keeps safe the foggy coast.

Show me what you’ve found. The enemy drakaina’s voice is brisk and effortless as it penetrates into Strom’s brain and the woman in black. As Strom extends a mahogany wooden box, opening it, we catch a glimpse of objects inside.

Set on a green velvet lining, the objects range from a normal silver fountain pen to a small brass amulet with a pink topaz set in it, to a bizarre gyroscopic contraption, which looks like it has liquid mercury in its center. As the enemy drakaina peers into the box, her red eyes peruse what’s inside. At last, she snorts.

She glances at Strom, snarling her displeasure, before pinning the woman in black with her searing red eyes.

None of those are the items I seek. Keep looking. Our enemy Bone Mage drakaina rakes a taloned hand through the cliff-rock at her feet, effortlessly ripping it up.

“If we are to keep looking for what you’re after, then we come to the issue of an additional payment.” The woman in black coughs discreetly now, though I see her full, red lips smile beneath the shadowed cowl of her thieves’ hood. “Your previous retainer for our services has run out, I’m afraid.”

You shall have all the gold and silver you need to keep looking, and more. The enemy drakaina snorts, as her blazing red eyes pin the female thief. Until then, you will search the places I tell you. No matter who you have to kill to do it.

“Oh, don’t mind.” The thief woman in her shadowy gear smiles as she glances at Strom. “We have an ace in the hole where killing is concerned. We’ll find the items you need. Just give us time…. and money. Continued funds are what gets this all done. Agreed?”

The Bone Mage drakaina doesn’t even spare the thief woman a glance now, however, as her burning red eyes find Strom’s. I feel him shiver to his very bones as her power sweeps through him, as if searching for something in him, deep inside.

Your brother was supposed to be mine, you know. I feel her tell Strom directly now, as she stares him down. But he refused me when I came to take him as a Bloodmate. He was stubborn, as are you—he will pay the price for that, eventually. I feel how you will throw off your bonds to this unworthy drakaina soon. When you do, look for me. We could rule over the ashes of this world together… but not until I’m done with what I must accomplish.

With that, our enemy Bone Mage drakaina takes off, streaking fast up into the cloudy skies. As Strom blinks, freed from her sudden mind-sending, the thief woman turns to him, throwing down her shadowed cowl.

Now, for the first time in the memory, we see the thief woman’s face. Beautiful, she’s the woman every man stops for, and stares.

With regal poise and a renegade glint in her vibrant green eyes, her hair is wild and red, curling with abandon around her perfectly sculpted features and daring emerald eyes. She’s the picture of an ancient Viking shield-maiden, as she stands in her black thieves’ leathers in the sea wind. Her long cloak ruffles around her, her hair a luminous froth of wild waves as it tumbles around her by the meagre light of the red pendants she and Strom wear.

I feel Strom fall in love with her as she looks at him—all over again.

We lose the memory then, as she opens her lips to speak. It’s as if a terrible shroud of Bone Magic draws down over Strom’s mind tenfold, roaring through his entire body like ocean waves as he gasps .

I feel blitzing pain devour him now, from the Bone Magic curse upon his mind. As a tirade of ugly black-violet and charred crimson sigils pour from him, constricting in a halo around him, Strom is down, on his hands and knees as he falls to his side in the dirt.

He convulses into a ball, screaming in agony. As Strom twists tortuously onto his back, Bjorn and I rush to him. We pour our Blood Magic inside him until we blaze that terrible, cursed Bone Magic back.

Even Aesa’s stone joins us, as we use all the brightness inside us now to heave back whatever’s still inside Strom, cursing him and keeping him away from his own rightful memories. We’re finally able to calm it, though it’s taken the mickey out of Strom. He heaves heard breaths, sobbing, as tears roll from his eyes.

Bjorn and I take him into our arms—holding him until he quiets. I feel Strom’s emotions, then, and his memories as they cascade through him in a tumble.

Because along with an actual, useful memory of our enemy Bone Mage, he’s retrieved the first real impression of the Bone Mage thief who caught him and ensnared his mind so long ago in Denmark.

I feel how his body still leaps to her, to her impossible beauty that no other drakaina could ever match. No one I know is that incredibly beautiful, save perhaps my bestie Layla Price, though this woman was beautiful in a wild, Viking way rather than Layla’s polished charm.

It’s clear how Strom fell for her and got caught by her unfathomable charms, however. It’s all too clear how he got ensnared to her artifact thief ring in Copenhagen, as his body leaps to this woman yet again, with all her unmentionable charms.

His cock ramrod straight—despite his pain.

Strom snarls hard now, even as I feel what’s happening inside him. He’s furious that his love of women got him caught in the worst hell of his life, which continues to this day. His body isn’t shutting up; it still wants this drakaina, still desires her despite loving me now and everything she did to him, way back when. The curse on him is locked in place because of his libido, and his continued desire for her.

Something he never even knew until we saw this memory.

It seems opening this up inside him has brought all his old memories roaring back. I feel them hit him in a jumble now, as they crash around inside him—unintelligible, just like they were before.

Bjorn and I hold him, grip him tight both physically and metaphysically now from losing his shit and shifting up. He finally calms, but I hear the low groan that issues from his lips.

Of utter misery—unable to escape what his body wants.

“Fucking hells…!” Strom pushes up from the dirt and we help him. All of us stand inside the shallow hole now as we contemplate these new developments and their repercussions.

Bjorn vaults up out of the hole and offers down a hand to help Strom and me up. Exhausted from yet more magical shenanigans, we take what’s offered, allowing Bjorn to haul us up.

Bjorn’s energy suddenly wavers, however, deep inside. Yet again, he’s spent too much of his dragon’s power, keeping Strom and I steady from everything that’s going on between us.

Not to mention keeping himself back from his own shift—wanting to blaze off after his father and fight.

“I think I need a break,” Bjorn says now as we stand at the edge of the hole, shaking off all this crazy energy from what we’ve just experienced. “Uppsala’s not far. I say we head there and find a bar and a bed. Help us get connected to ourselves again and rest for the night before we head down to Copenhagen.”

“I’m in,” Strom says without hesitation. He gives a wry smile, planting exhausted hands on his hips. “I need a night to process everything I’ve seen. Because now, we have to go to Copenhagen, to find Mikkel and L?rke?—”

“We need to see if they can tell us anything about that thief woman you saw in your memories, not just the ciphers we have from Unhaemmerten .” I nod alertly.

“If we can find your thief, we might just find a good lead on the identity of our enemy Bone Mage.” Bjorn glances darkly at Strom. “The question is… if we go hunting that red-headed thief drakaina, can you handle it, Strom?”

“I think I may not want to go anywhere near her. Maybe even by a hundred miles,” Strom says with a dire darkness now, all wit dropped. His green eyes pin me, searing red from the power of his dragon. “But I think we have to go hunting her. Not just for information on our enemy Bone Mage, but to break me free of her spell. I’ll be damned if I’m going to tolerate her cursed shit inside me even one more night. Pulling on my balls and making them betray me—while keeping me wrapped around her fucking metaphysical talon and keeping my mind enslaved to her diabolical might.”

“We’ll find her—and we’ll make her fucking pay. Just as we’ll do for Bjorn’s father.” I draw close to Strom, putting my hands around his waist. “That bitch better be ready. Rikyava Andersen is going to fuck her shit up. And make her apologize to my Second Bloodmate. Copiously.”

“I would rather like to see that.” Strom grins now, a genuine smile. There’s still darkness there, however, as the ring of brimstone red doesn’t leave his irises. His dragon’s raging for a fight against this woman who betrayed him.

And bound him to her service—making him forget all about it for decades.

“Come on.” Bjorn claps Strom on the shoulder, taking my hand. “Let’s gather our things and head to Uppsala. Get a beer and a room for the night.”

“Ten beers.” Strom chuckles. “Better yet, make that twenty. I think I’ll get roaring drunk and start a fight just so I can bash some heads and feel better. You two in?”

Before we can say how ready we are for a drunken brawl, something streaks through the skies. It’s through our vision and past us so fast, I almost don’t believe what I saw until it’s gone, lost to the horizon.

But I know what I saw—what we all saw—as Bjorn, Strom, and I all jolt in shock.

The Black Dragon, far above in the vast blue skies.

“Fucking hells…!” Strom’s awed yet horrified expletive says it all, as that fearsome vision steaks past. If it saw us, it had other places to be, as it rushed past at ten times the speed a regular Blood Dragon flies.

Monstrous, it was fifty times larger than any of our kin, larger than any living dragon I’ve ever seen. Far bigger than even a Crystal Dragon, this thing was like a god as it barreled through the skies.

Worse, I couldn’t help but note it was filling out with new ropes of flesh over its diseased white-black bones. It’s returning to its former might from everything we did at Unhaemmerten , unleashing the souls of the Black Dragon Five to return to the beast. It’s returning to its former wrath as a god of wind and darkness, which leaves ropes of black blood streaking after it now.

Darkening the sky.

“The Black Dragon. Where do you think it’s going?” I’m horrified as I watch that diseased blood trail leave oilslick-black runes coating the sky.

“Nowhere good,” Bjorn growls, as that black horror show shimmers down, searing trails of destruction in the earth now. Where it touches the meadow and the trees, it kills them instantly. Bjorn, Strom, and I quickly sidestep as one of those roped, bloody red-black trails comes right down where we were standing.

Charring the earth so dead, it shines gory and red now, like an open wound.

“Jesus.” Strom gives a soft whistle as we see horrid red-black Bloodrunes blister everywhere those bloody ropes landed, searing the earth. “Fucker kills the very earth it touches. We need to stop in Stockholm and warn the King about what’s going on. And what direction that thing was heading when it flew past.”

“Stockholm rather than Uppsala,” I say now as I glance at my mates. “You’re right; King Huttr needs to know right away what’s going on. Even though we have other leads now to help us figure out how to stop it.”

“Stockholm it is.” Bjorn’s low growl rumbles all the way through him. “And let us hope it wasn’t headed anywhere to cause further destruction, like it did at Jurggadden.”

“It’s got to be at least ten times stronger now with the power us freeing the souls of the Black Dragon Five gave it.” Strom nods, as he shields his eyes with a hand and gazes up at the skies. “Doesn’t seem like it’s returned to its fullest might, though… here’s hoping something is blocking it from all those souls returning to it. Though I wouldn’t count on it.”

“One night in Stockholm to warn the King and recuperate, then we have to get down to Copenhagen.” I am decisive as my mates look at me. “If this thing is getting stronger, we’re running out of time for an opportunity to fight it. Even now, it’s far faster than us—we can’t follow it through the skies, despite its caustic blood-trail. We have to learn about it, figure out who’s still controlling it and why, and where they might send it. Then get there, ahead of it. And give it everything we’ve got.”

As my mates nod, I know we all agree. But before we can get back to our things and head out, I feel something back down in the hole call to me. It’s the Icelandic drakaina, as I suddenly feel her Bone Magic reach out to mine again, the black dragon with starlight eyes inside me sitting up tall now.

Though I want to get going, to warn our King about the Black Dragon, some deep instinct inside me knows I can’t just yet. Not until old wounds here are laid to rest; vaulting back down inside the hole as Aesa’s Truthstone sings upon my breast, I crouch beside the Icelandic drakaina’s remains.

What do you need? I feel myself ask not the Void of Ancestors, but this drakaina through my fingertips now, as I feel her undying Bone Magic resonate with mine. How can I help you ?

I don’t hear any words in my head, but I suddenly feel compelled to reach down and take one of her vibrant blue scales, cut through with dark midnight and white lines. As I touch it, a flash of memory goes off inside me, of seeing that Icelandic artist, Baldur Siguresson, at Mikkel and L?rke’s club.

As I lock eyes with him again in the memory, I feel Aesa’s Truthstone blaze upon my chest. I feel the blue drakaina’s lingering spirit surge to me then, heaving up into the piece of scale in my hand.

Demanding that I deliver it, to the man now in my thoughts.

Frowning, I grip that beautiful blue scale in my fist. I will find him. And give him your message. I promise this unknown drakaina now, though I don’t know why I feel so compelled to do it.

But my promise seems to give her relief; as Aesa’s Truthstone flares upon my chest, I feel the Icelandic drakaina’s spirit finally freed from her remains, her last memories seen and her last needs met. As her soul flashes away to the Void of Ancestors, I feel it cross the veil in a whoosh of energy. And then there is nothing, only the blue scale sparkling in my hand, devoid of any part of her spirit now.

Her power, her soul, and her energy freed.

Gone.

Strom has vaulted back down into the hole with me, standing quiet beside me as I heave a deep breath. As he raises an eyebrow at me, able to feel her energy is gone now, too, I heave a sigh, then nod for us to go. Bjorn is still up top; offering a hand, he heaves both me and Strom up from the shallow hole, so we can get going.

Moving back to where we left our stuff, we gather our fly-bags as we carefully step around the diseased trails in the grass left by the Black Dragon, then shift up.

Launching into the skies, we head for Stockholm.

The blue drakaina’s scale stashed securely in my taloned fist.