61. Bree

61

Bree

I sat in the garden at the base of the cliffs and watched a butterfly flit past me to land on Riggs's chest. It rose and fell with his breathing, but he did not stir.

Caliel sat on the damp moss beside the cot that Cara had brought. He didn't seem to care that his butt might get wet. He'd just spent another twenty minutes trying to rouse the Dragon that had lain in a coma for three solid days.

I had no way to measure the despair that filled my heart. For us to have come so far, and end up almost where we began…

A part of me had known this would happen. But when I'd needed my vision to be crystal clear, it had, instead, been obscure as hell. It seemed almost deliberate.

My gaze fell to the sword, lying beside him, unsheathed.

That damned sword. We'd had a fading hope that it would help guide him back to us. It seemed determined, instead, to demand the price it had for all its bearers. He remained unresponsive.

The male who was now Finn had escaped, along with his female counterpart. We hadn't expected Finn to create another gateway, and return to attack Riggs. Before the bastard had vanished again.

It was a precision strike, designed to kill.

By using the sword's power, we'd stopped it from doing that. Just. But despite being healed, Riggs hadn't woken up.

Of the three of us, Tez was the one who put his pain into action. He refused to admit it, but I knew he blamed himself, because he was the one who encouraged Riggs to fight Daize in the first place. While Caliel and the Watchers fought to save our Dragon, Tez had joined Tyrez's relentless pursuit of the enemy fleeing in the mountains. Those that had accompanied him spoke in hushed tones of the ruthlessness with which he'd dispatched those he'd found.

Deep within the rocks that Dani and Riggs had thrown at the coven, they discovered the body of the one male Trinity member. Of the coven, only one had survived, and she lay in a state of unconsciousness. The Watchers weren't sure she'd ever wake up.

They'd corralled most of the escaping army in the mountains. Far too many simply vanished. Cara felt gates open and close several times to whisk them away.

Even after Riggs had been healed, and lay in a coma, Tez continued to assist with the post-battle cleanup, including piling the bodies of Finn's army into pyres.

Once all the work was completed, Tez finally returned to the island, and to us. But he refused to speak a single word to either Caliel or me as he restlessly prowled the garden. The last rays of the dying sun lit the planes of his face as he skipped a stone across the pool. His pain beat at me through the link, to merge with that of Caliel and myself.

The butterfly took off, flitting past me, and then away, no doubt to find a place to roost for the night. When Tez stiffened and glanced toward the entrance, I looked up to see a figure there.

"Mykal," I said, surprised.

He approached, trailing the two Bellati guards that were now a part of his life. He was almost at us when he stumbled and had to catch himself on a tree trunk. His lips twitched as he met my eyes.

"Stupid ground has it in for me," he said with a shrug. "Or maybe it's my feet. I don't like these big stompers."

I could well imagine it was hard to adjust to becoming adult sized almost overnight.

"You are looking better." Caliel said.

"I'm okay," he admitted, but when he looked at me, his eyes changed color almost as fast as he breathed. "Sort of."

When he stopped near us, my own eyes skipped over the livid burn scar across one cheek, to trace the runes that danced over his skin. Along his jaw and throat—and down both arms. He likely had them elsewhere, too. The Watchers had used them to trap all the Drakes within him, along with his Dragon. Until Aphostra could heal his fractured mind, his beasts would be locked away.

Noticing the direction of my gaze, Mykal shrugged uncomfortably. "They're kinda like tatts. Dad would be proud." He gestured to his father. "How is he?"

I shook my head. "About the same. We can't seem to wake him up."

"Maybe he doesn't want to," Mykal said.

A frisson of ice drifted up my spine. "Why wouldn't he want to?"

Mykal shrugged again. "He's been through a helluva lot. Maybe it's messed with him." He stared down at his father. "I don't want to, but I have to leave."

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Aphostra is taking me back to her home—the Gryphons can keep my beasts from breaking through the runes. She says if I stay here, it could be bad, if they do." He looked around us. "But I want to stay, and train with the Talons."

"There are no better healers than Gryphons," Caliel stated as he rose. "And you'll make a great Talon, when you are ready."

Mykal grimaced and glanced to his escort. "Yeah, right. I figure I'm being locked up for a reason." He shot me an all-too-familiar lopsided smile. "Grandma used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, but it's happened bodaciously fast."

I reached out, and laid a hand on his arm. "You just need time to adjust. The Gryphons will help with that."

"That's what Grandma said too." The young man rubbed a hand over his head, a gesture so much like his father's that my heart constricted. "Trey's coming with me, but he can't stay for long." He looked again to Riggs. "Leaving dad like this stinks big time."

The escort stepped forward. "Sorry kid," one said. "But it's time to go."

Caliel extended his hand, and after a moment, Mykal took it. "We'll come to see you soon," he promised.

When Tez merely nodded to him, Mykal started to leave. But I embraced him.

"Be well, Mykal," I said huskily.

He pulled away, looked at his father, and his face spasmed. "Bring dad back," he whispered, before he turned and followed the Bellatis out of the garden.

When Mykal had gone, I turned to Caliel. "Could Riggs be afraid to wake up?"

"How many times can you almost die? He was traumatized enough to have locked his Dragon away," Caliel mused. "So we know it has affected him before."

"Can you put me into a trance?" I asked.

His brows rose, and then fell again. "Do you think you can reach him?"

"I have to try. He's in there, somewhere."

His vivid-blue eyes reflected his doubt, but he said, with the merest hint of hope, "Mykal might be right."

"Why would he not want to wake, and be with us?" Tez's frustration carried through every word.

"It's not us he is evading. It's life itself. He took quite the hit," Caliel said gently. "Only us, and the sword's power, stopped it from being as bad as the first time."

Tez made an impatient gesture. "You're not going to spout more of that ‘the body does not forget or forgive' shit, are you? Riggs is brave. He wouldn't run from this."

"Some things are beyond our conscious control," Caliel said.

Tez stared at him. "Control is about mind over matter."

Caliel sighed.

Tez's gaze locked on me. "What are you going to do?"

"I need to go and get him." I climbed onto the cot, and then stretched out alongside his big body. There wasn't much room. I had to lie right on top of him.

"Well, if that does not wake him, nothing will," Caliel said with a half-smile, and placed a hand on my arm. Warmth penetrated through the contact, and his next words drifted through my mind.

Fly, my little wind dancer. Find our wounded warrior, and bring him home.

The second Caliel put me under, I was flying.

Vapor trailed off the tips of my Dragon wings, gilded silver by moonlight. Below me were the jagged peaks of snowcapped mountains. The air was cold enough that my breath fogged, and then froze to ice as it drifted along my scales.

As I flapped into, and out of, a cloud, my keen eyes detected movement against the stars above. A large shadow drifted…

I banked toward it. A huge Dragon, with scales that reflected purple in the moonlight.

If he was aware of me, he didn't show it. Simply continued to cruise in near-perfect silence across the night sky.

That flying was a serene kind of thing. Almost as though he were in a trance. At times, I could see the stars clear through his ghostly form. And when I pushed for him along our link, there was no response.

Well, this was why I'd come. To find what was lost.

He might be simply cruising, but I flapped hard to come up alongside. When he didn't even so much as blink, I bumped my wing into him.

He was much larger than me, and he merely moved over. His wings barely altered their rhythm.

Desperate to break through, I swarmed over him, pushing and nipping at his body. He ignored it all completely and utterly, as if I were merely an errant and slightly annoying breeze.

Dammit. Why couldn't I reach him? No matter what I did, he never even looked at me. Instead of glimmering metallic, his Dragon eyes remained dark. As if he were dead.

Dead.

Was he truly dead inside? Or was he just afraid to live?

Not the same thing. Not at all.

I knew this man. Stubborn was a well-known Dragon trait, and that stubbornness resided in every cell of him. But Tez was also right about Riggs being brave. No personal threat would enter his consciousness, regardless of what it might be.

I would have to try something else. First, though, I had to get his attention.

Instead of harassing him, I started ducking within the arc of his wings and rubbing myself the full length of his side. Pushed my head up along his, curved my neck around him. Came up beneath him and bumped my hips invitingly into him. Tangled our tails together.

He flew on, but scales could not hide his body's reaction. My efforts were not going unnoticed.

As I enticed him, I pushed images along the blocked link. I had no idea if they even reached him, but I included images of the two of us. In the bathing ponds. Of us kissing and touching each other. And finally, of us joining.

The rhythm of his wingbeats hesitated and suspended into a glide. I saw the merest flare of color in his eyes.

That may be all I would ever get. My pulse pounded as I darted ahead of him, flying for all I was worth.

He didn't follow me, but he didn't turn away, either. I braked and hovered, and his dull gaze tracked me.

Then, I embraced my human.

"What are you doing?" Tez screamed along the link.

"Not a good idea," Caliel shouted.

The moment my wings stopped moving, I started to fall. By the time I was fully human, I was plummeting with heart-stopping speed.

Tez was screaming obscenities, and Caliel yelled, "Change back, now!"

Could dying in a dream lead to the real thing? But even if I tried, now, I knew I'd never manage it in time. I was neither Riggs nor Tyrez. I hadn't been born a Dragon.

The mountains came at me with frightening rapidity. Had I gambled, and lost? I sensed Caliel frantically trying to wrench me out of the trance, but I held him back.

Just a few more seconds ? —

And then, at the very moment when I admitted I'd waited too long, talons folded around my flailing arms. Riggs spread his wings, and his entire body vibrated as the wind screamed against them, threatening to snap tendon and bone. But they'd been designed to laugh in the face of such things, and although his mighty chest muscles trembled with strain, he managed to flatten us out amid the very peaks that could dash me to pieces. He banked toward a cliff and landed us there.

He set me down on my feet and towered over me. "Whats the hecks dids you thinks you were doing?" he bellowed.

I straightened and stared calmly back at him. "Saving you. And there is no need to yell."

He gnashed his teeth together and glowered at me. His eyes now blazed metallic purple, but I still couldn't feel anything from him along our link. Ice traveled through my veins as I searched that gaze for any signs of recognition. "Do you know who I am?"

He took a step back from me, his eyes narrowing. "Somes crazy lady Dragon withs a death wish," he said.

My heart twisted.

"He's forgotten us," Tez snarled.

"You have to make him remember," Caliel told me. "The memories should be there. This amnesia is an avoidance."

I took a step closer to the Dragon. "You took an energy bolt to the head, and it has made you forget," I said. "Am I truly a stranger to you?"

The luminescent eyes blinked as he arched his neck, dropping his chin to regard me more closely.

I reached out, and before he could pull away, I cupped one side of his bottom jaw in my fingers.

"Your name is Riggs," I said, testing him.

He stiffened, but didn't pull away. "My name is Razir."

"You own both names." I struggled to remain calm, even though the fingers that touched him trembled. "What is the last thing you remember?"

He grew very still. "I was on a mission, trying to get proof that the Emperor was colluding with the underworld. I got nailed by an energy blast. It must have done damage, because I blacked out."

"It was a trap. You almost died."

He blinked again. "The demon child killed Sanis."

I knew nothing of any Sanis, but I stuck with the important bit. "The healer that resided within me saved you. You couldn't remember your name, so we called you Riggs."

His eyes glowed, and I sensed the tiniest trickle of contact along the link.

I stepped right up to him and placed my hands on either side of his head. He closed his eyes, and I got the briefest pulse of the fear that was consuming him, and the conflict that it was causing.

He was a warrior—trained to conquer his fears. But he wasn't winning against this.

"Do you know me now?" I asked.

"Whos are yous?" he whispered.

"Let me in, and I will show you." I pushed just a little along our link, the mental equivalent of knocking on the door.

He sighed, an exhalation that rippled all the way through his body. And then, he offered a tentative cracking of the wall within his mind.

It opened to blackness. A void, where his mates should be.

I so desperately wanted to save him that I had to hold myself back. Instead of flooding him with images of our story, I offered teasing tidbits.

At first, he resisted. But then, he started taking them in, until he was eagerly wanting more.

Then I opened my own mind to him, and let him plunder at will. He dove in like a starving man attacks a feast, and at some point, he lost hold of his Dragon.

It was now Riggs who kneeled before me, his head in my hands, and his big fingers folded over mine. When he looked up, I read it all in his gaze.

"Breana," he breathed, and I kissed him.

Then Caliel wrapped his talent around us both, and brought us home.