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

31. Lost

As we stand in the gusting sea wind upon the Danish beach, I am reminded of the iron talon-hold the Black Dragon Knights Council still has on all our lives. Their representative, Mikka Halsbrand, stands before us, here to bring me some dire pronouncement on my mission for them, tasked to me by Maryse when she was still alive.

But something is clearly wrong with the Council, and Mikka isn’t happy about it. Her moment of wrath from whatever they just said to her is gone now, however, as she faces us soberly.

Pinning me with her dark gaze.

“Hog Skjaldm?r Rikyava Andersen,” she begins as she watches me. “The Black Dragon Knight’s Council has heard your words. They have deemed that your description of what you believe to be the leader Bone Mage drakaina, along with her self-given name, is not enough to exonerate you from the Council’s decree. You were tasked with giving them a true name—and not just of one dragon, but the full identity of all the culprits who caused the blast, in thirty days’ time. You have failed. The punishment for this failure… is excommunication from the Blood Dragons of Norway and Sweden. ”

“Wait, what?!” I step forward, punching a finger in Mikka’s chest. “I gave you what I knew! I found out good intel for you, with that Bone Mage drakaina’s description and moniker, an evaluation of her powers, and details on what she was doing these past hundred years and who she was doing it with! That’s pure gold, if the Council knows what to do with it. They have the resources and manpower to hunt her down… fuck you if you think I didn’t deliver!”

“The Council is firm on their judgement,” Mikka says, stony, though I see something in her eyes thaw for my predicament. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do. If you wish to petition them to repeal or change their excommunication judgement?—”

“No. Fuck them. ” I’m seething with the darkest wrath I think I’ve ever felt now. As a terrible dark Bloodwind goes roaring around me, powered only by my Bone Magic now, Strom puts a hand on my wrist.

He doesn’t haul me back from Mikka, though, as I get right up in her face.

“You can tell the Black Dragon Knight’s Council to go fuck themselves. Tell them I did my job; I got answers about that blast and the most likely person who orchestrated it. If they want to sit around with their dicks up their asses and not act on that information, that’s their problem. I did my job—case closed. If they want to excommunicate me, go right the fuck ahead. I don’t care anymore. And I’m sure as hell not going to grovel.”

“So be it.” Mikka’s words are soft, as she makes her pronouncement. I feel her words travel back to the Black Dragon Knight’s Council on the other end of their telepathy, but I see a sudden, deep approval in her eyes for me.

It comes with intense sadness, however, at what the Knights will now do to me. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ve never even heard about an excommunication being done before, but like hell am I going to be their whipping girl.

That’s way the fuck done .

As I feel the strangest sensation now, like a black wind whirling all around me, I know it isn’t mine. It’s something the Council is doing to me by their deepest, most dire magic.

As Strom steps in and Bjorn cinches close, even Mikkel taking a step towards me now to protect me, I know this is nothing they can affect. Whatever the Council is doing, it’s happening inside me, as that black wind whirls in.

It’s deeper than any mind-magic Alfhild could have ever done, as I feel something strike at the most fundamental part of me, like a bite. It’s as if that awful magic just reached right in and took an enormous chunk out of me. I cry out, spasming and falling to my knees on the sand.

As it leaves, I feel something missing inside me now, as I grip my solar plexus and chest. Aesa’s Truthstone sings sadly as a terrible instinct fills me.

Telling me of something precious I’ve lost.

“The Excommunication is finished.” Mikka’s voice is quiet as she gazes upon me. “You are no longer a clan member of the Blood Dragons of Norway and Sweden, Rikyava Andersen. Your clan title of Hog Skjaldm?r is no more. Go your way, but your clan’s doors are now closed to you. Farewell… I hope, with all my heart, that you may.”

It’s the strangest leave-taking, as Mikka turns to go. But even as she does, she seems to think twice. I feel her suddenly swaddle us all in a far stronger shield to prevent eavesdropping.

Restricting all psychic contact, along with physical listening now.

“Rikyava,” she says quickly as she pins me with her gaze. “The Council has turned against you.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” I say with a bite, struggling up to my feet with Bjorn’s help as I rub my chest.

But Mikka grabs my wrist, her gaze intense as she forestalls me. “No, listen to me! They are headed up by Ruta now… and she is not your ally. Something is wrong with her, something I cannot yet puzzle out. But she is far from the woman who was once my old mentor’s friend. She is di fferent, changed… I fear she has been this way for some time, though I am only just now seeing it. For the pronouncements she has been passing down through the Knight’s Council have been harsh. She says it is all in the name of the Ancestors … but I feel in my deepest heart something else is going on. Some dark force is manipulating her… and perhaps Ruta isn’t even the drakaina we expect.”

“Say what?” I blink as Mikka gives us this warning—a tremendous thing, since she’s cut herself off from all Council telepathy to say this to us right now. As Aesa’s silver stone blazes upon my chest, singing brimstone red all through me, I know Mikka’s spoken true.

Though her words are something I did not expect.

“I’m not sure Ruta is who she says she is anymore,” Mikka hisses now with haste, as I feel something hammer against her privacy barrier, trying to get in. She and I both know it’s the Council trying to re-establish a connection.

As she gives her last effort—to block it.

“Trust no one on the Council.” Mikka squeezes my wrist. “It’s my job to Watch for them, and I do, but the ones I am watching now are inside the Council—and I know when to watch out. What I’ve seen with the web of deceit that’s weaving… let’s say it makes a Watcher’s blood run cold. I pray for the right ones to roar up and triumph in our darkest night. Something terrible is changing us… something coming from the inside, right at the very top. And the top is where Ruta sits, now. Beware of her?—”

Mikka cuts off as the Council’s power comes crashing in now. I feel them re-establish a mind-connection to her, and with a terrible last look, she turns.

Moving away.

Mikka’s gone up the hill, swaddled in the unique light-shifting magics that make her such a tremendous Head Watcher for the Council. Though it’s late afternoon, I can’t see her at all now, as she seems to disappear in the shadows and light cast by the coastal verge and the lighthouse .

As we all stand shocked, I know I have to call my uncle to tell him about this. I gesture to our nearest thief, re-clothed from fly-bags his people brought, asking for his phone. As he hands it to me, I hover with my thumb over the keypad. I know my uncle’s number by heart, but I can’t seem to dial it. Even as I hesitate, I feel that number wiped away inside my mind.

As Halfdir’s number, Trublut’s, and so many others, are erased from my mind, as well.

“Holy shit…!” Terror breathes through me now as I swipe to the map app on my borrowed phone. As I enlarge the map from our current position, seeing all the coastlines nearby, I can’t seem to locate Sweden.

I can’t find it, as I hover with my thumb over where I think Sweden must be, but which looks black to me now, dark. It’s like a hole opened up and swallowed that entire part of the world, with Norway vanished for me, too.

As I hold the phone out to Bjorn, swallowing hard.

“Sweden. Can you find it on the map?”

“Yes. It’s right there.” Bjorn looks at me with his brows furled. “What?—?”

“I can’t. I can’t find it.” I hastily turn to Strom. “You?”

“Rikyava, you’re being ridiculous. Sweden’s right there, like always—” But then, Strom stops. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” I ask him, as I feel his magic dive inside me through our bond.

“Your body, and mind…” He goes faraway, reading something about me with his power. “It’s like a thousand, a million holes have been cast through you now, disappearing parts of your mind and memories. My gods, I’ve seen nothing like it! Quick, tell me the names of your uncle and eldest cousin.”

“I have an uncle?” Befuddlement consumes me as I frown. “I know I have a cousin in France, Rhennic Erdhelm, King of the Storm Dragons, but I don’t have an uncle. Never did. ”

“Ohhhhh, shit…” Mikkel whistles softly, as even L?rke gives an exclamation of horror.

I don’t know why they’re all staring at me now, as something about it makes no sense. “Why are you all looking at me like that? What’s going on?” I ask, wondering what the fuck has them watching me like I’ve gone batshit crazy.

“Rikyava. Tell me where you were born. What dragon-clan do you belong to?” Bjorn rumbles, his golden eyes blazing with rage, though I don’t know about what.

“I was born in France,” I say with certainty, frowning at him. “Paris. I live there. I’m a Blood Dragon from an unlabeled clan—you know that. My cousin Rhennic is half Storm Dragon and also lives in France. He’s King of the Storm Dragons, thanks to his deceased Storm Dragon mother.”

“Rikyava, you know you have a cousin, but who is your uncle ?” Strom takes both my hands. “C’mon… think about it! If you have a cousin, he has to have a father… a Blood Dragon. Who is Rhennic’s father—your uncle, Rikyava?”

But even as Strom asks me, nothing about his words makes sense. I end up staring at him, scowling in frustration as I come up with only blanks for what should be a very reasonable request.

“I don’t know!” I growl now, as something shakes me to my very fundament. I know something is terribly wrong with me, but I don’t know what it is, as I gaze at Bjorn and Strom in frightened bewilderment. “What is wrong with me? Help me…”

“We will.” Bjorn surges in. Tucking me under his arm, he faces everyone. “I’m going to take Rikyava to the Storm King, Rhennic Erdhelm. If anyone can help her bring back her memories about our King, Sweden, and everything else we’re up against right now, it’s him.”

“I’m with you. All the way,” Strom says. He takes my hand—though for the life of me, I can’t seem to remember how he and I met, or even how I met Bjorn, for that matter. I only know that both are dear to me, life-mated to me in a way I cannot break and will never forget, as I feel their own memories strong and hale, surging in via our bond to bolster mine.

They try to touch me with their magics, sending me images of a homeland I don’t remember, and a people I now forget, and I know something truly is wrong with me. If it wasn’t for them, I would just fly home to the Red Letter Hotel Paris and forget the reason we’re standing on this beach.

Until Strom floods a particular memory into me—of the Black Dragon, sundering my mentor to pieces.

“Maryse,” Strom says, as his magic pummels that memory into me.

“Her name was Maryse Allbright. Never forget that. Nor how she died… and the demon that took her,” Bjorn snarls at me now, as he enhances Strom’s remembrance within me.

I remember it now, our near death before the Knight’s Council, and Maryse’s demise. I firm that remembrance inside me now, like a lance of the brightest, darkest steel inside my heart.

Bolstered by my twin powers roaring up and twisting into their Bloodwalker might within me, I feel that memory stay with me now as I fight to recall it. As Mikkel comes to me now, taking my other hand and gazing deep into my eyes, I feel his power thunder into the mix, as well.

It brightens my memory of Maryse, and that horrible time in the Council Hall of the Black Dragon Knights. Though Mikkel wasn’t there with us, his power is indomitable and makes clear every detail inside my mind.

As I snarl now, remembering who did this to me.

And why they did it.

“I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill them all…” I whisper, as the blackest wrath I’ve ever known fills me. I can’t even see anymore as that vast darkness takes my vision.

Until Mikkel squeezes my hand—pushing some of that darkness back.

“You will kill them all. And it will be justified.” Mikkel speaks quietly as he stares deep into my eyes. Lost to his dragon, his black eyes have a searing ring of copper around them.

Retribution in their depths.

“We’re with you, Rikyava. Whatever you need to do.” Strom joins him now as he squeezes my hand as well.

“Whoever you need to kill,” Bjorn says by my ear as he wraps me in his arms, his tremendous bulk solid behind me. “We’re with you, drakaina. All the way to hell and back.”

I feel the support of my three drakes, as they stand like a solid wall around me. But it’s L?rke who surprises me as she moves in.

Seizing my hand and decimating me with her furious gaze.

“Who the fuck do they think they are,” she snarls, “ruining you like this? I’ll kill them all myself, and then some, for taking away your righteousness, your fight, and your power this way, like cowards in the wind. Who you are is your homeland, Hog Skjaldm?r Rikyava Andersen, and the people you protect. Even though you do it now for the Red Letter Hotel Paris, you are who you were raised to be, by the people who love you. All that is up in Sweden. Like hell am I going to let you forget it, one of the ballsiest, most righteous drakainas I’ve ever known. We’re headed to France. Mikkel and I can manage our operations from afar—we do it when we visit our other clubs. Together, we will help reclaim your lost memories… even if we have to fuck up the entire Black Dragon Knights to do it.”

“Thank you,” I murmur to L?rke as tears fill my eyes. “You have no obligation to me. I bound your brother in a moment of dire need. I can figure out a way to set him free, I swear it?—”

“No.” L?rke’s lavender eyes are firm as she stares me down, something sad and beautiful in them. “He needs a mate like you; indeed, he’s been searching for a mate like you all his life. If I’m not part of your bond, so be it. But like hell am I going to abandon my brother to whatever your quest has in store for him, or the Council’s diabolical ways. You’ve got one twin bound to you—but where one goes, so goes the other. You and I may not always see eye-to-eye, Rikyava. But you’ve got me too, now, for what it’s worth. Don’t be a bitch about it.”

“Only as much a bitch as you are,” I say as a beaming smile takes me, suddenly so grateful for L?rke.

To my bones and back.

“True that.” She smiles at me, and it’s a beautiful smile, stunning. As Mikkel takes his sister’s hand, she smiles at him, too.

And then we’re ready to fly.

“To Rhennic,” I say, as I gaze around our group. “No stops, no hesitation. We get there tonight, and hope to all the gods he can help me with everything that’s messing with my mind right now, since the Council’s excommunication. I need to remember everything I’ve lost; why we’re on this hunt for the Black Dragon, everything we’ve learned about it, and who else needs us to complete this quest. Because I feel like it’s the most important hunt of my life, except I can’t remember who I’m hunting for.”

“You will remember.” Bjorn squeezes my waist. “We’ll make sure of that.”

“I hope so…”

As I kiss him, sweet and brief, the twins are shifting up. Strom shifts after them, then Bjorn and I, launching up into the late afternoon skies.

We head southwest to pick up our arcane items from The Chartreuse, then fly over Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium as we head down to Paris. Rhennic’s home at Chateau de Chambord is southwest of Paris, however, in the Loire valley. If we fly fast, we should be able to make it by nightfall.

I remember everything about Paris and France, Chambord and Rhennic, as we set off towards the lowering sun, flying fast through Copenhagen’s restricted airspace without a care for their Jarl’s orders so we can get to The Chartreuse, then the Gilded Cage, and claim our shit.

I can’t remember anything about my original home, however, as I finally recall I did have a home before France. It eludes me, as I fly with rage and wrath inside me, smelted into one terrible ball of bright-dark fury at what they did to me.

The Black Dragon Knight’s Council thrust their power in, ripping out my heart. But I’m going to rip out all their hearts, those who did this, as soon as I get my memories back.

Once I recall just who the fuck they are.

And just where the fuck I need to go, to kill them.