Chapter Thirty-Three

Fiona

The warm breeze ruffledmy hair as I stared out my bedroom window. Moonlight shone from behind billowing clouds that crowded the night sky. I worried Safina wouldn't be able to find her way back to me without the stars guiding her. If she planned on returning at all.

Safina, my precious child, where are you?

My heart thundered when a slim woman wearing a hooded cloak rushed down the sidewalk, then hurried up the porch stairs.

Safina!

I took the stairs two at a time, racing to the front door and throwing it open before Safina had time to knock.

"My darling girl!" I wailed, throwing my arms wide. Then my chest fell when the hood of the girl's cloak fell back. This person wasn't my darling daughter but a haggard woman nearing middle age. This woman could've pierced my heart with a blade, and it would've had the same effect. I fought back tears and scowled at the stranger. "What do you want?"

"I'm sorry for bothering you." The woman's voice shook, and her eyes shone with worry. "I need help with a man."

I slumped against the doorframe with a sigh. "I'm a healer, not a charmer."

"I know." She solemnly nodded, the dark circles beneath her eyes seeming to deepen. "Two nights ago I was attacked in an alleyway by a horrible man. Then a stranger came to my rescue, but my attacker stabbed him in the gut. I sewed him up as best I could. He's delirious and feverish. Madam says the infection is fatal, but I heard how you healed Pedro Cortez after that shark attacked him. This man saved my life. I don't want him to die on account of me." She placed her hands together in a prayer pose. "Please."

The woman offered no form of payment. I suspected my only recompense would be a long night of healing followed by another day of sleeping. I already knew I would heal the man. It was not in my nature to deny someone aid, though mortals had never shown dragonkind the same respect. But what choice did I have? My empathy wouldn't allow me to sleep, knowing I'd denied help to this woman's rescuer. Besides, if I stayed in this house much longer, obsessing over my daughter, surely I'd drive myself mad.

I swung open the door, clutching the handle so tightly, I could feel the metal straining beneath my skin. "Take me to him."

* * *

Fiona

I WAS NOT SURPRISEDto learn it was Dr. Straw who had stabbed Bess's rescuer, for Bess had done nothing but prattle on about the attack during our interminable walk to the brothel. I only listened with half an ear; my sense of reason had seemed to flee after the prostitute described her rescuer, a man named Duncan, with the palest blue eyes she'd ever seen.

"But I got the doctor's cane," Bess boasted with a smile in her voice. "He won't be using it on no one no more. I can't wait to show the chief of police. He visits our establishment at least once a week. Sometimes he calls on me, but usually he wants one of the younger girls."

By the time we'd reached the downtown brothel, my ears and feet were tired, and my brain had been reduced to mush. After Bess told me of the daring way Duncan had come to her rescue, my throat constricted with the memory of the fateful night he had saved me from the drunken knights with no regard for his own safety. And now I would be face-to-face with him for the first time in almost five centuries.

How many times I'd wanted to turn back and leave Duncan to his fate, for what other Duncan could have been in the prostitute's bed but my former mate? Duncan may have been a murderous dragonslayer, but when it came to defenseless mortal women, he wasn't lacking in chivalry. No matter how badly my desire for justice for the murder of my mother, I couldn't leave him to die.

And that's when I realized my sad state. Though the bond had been severed like a feather let loose in the wind, I was still very much in love with Duncan MacQuoid. I ascended the stairs with heavy feet and an even heavier heart, ignoring the glares from the women in thick face paints as they danced for their male companions.

I shouldn't have been surprised when I walked into Bess's room and saw him lying there, his face ashen and his body as lifeless as a corpse. It was my fault he was dying. If I hadn't broken the bond....

I mentally chided myself for my regrets. It was what I'd wanted, to be free of the torment of being attached to a mate I was forbidden to love.

Like a moth drawn to a flame, I gravitated toward Duncan's bed, the numbness in my hands and feet spreading throughout me. I pulled back the sheets and grimaced when I saw the ooze pouring out of the sloppy stitching.

He tossed his head to the side and moaned.

Fool that I was, my heart broke for him.

"Is it that bad?" Bess whispered as she stood beside me.

I was momentarily stunned, having forgotten Bess was in the room. "Aye, it is bad," I growled. As I eyed the sewing needle and bandages on Bess's small, dusty armoire, I realized Bess had probably stitched him up, most likely causing him more harm than good with a dirty needle and a shaky hand.

Bess turned pleading brown eyes to me as she struck a prayer pose. "Please tell me. Can you heal him or not?"

"I-I don't know." I looked at Duncan again. My shock was slowly subsiding, replaced by fear and doubt. What if he tried to kill me after I healed him? He was a dragonslayer, after all.

You're lying to yourself, Fiona. You know he would never harm you.

I cringed. The voice echoing in my conscience sounded too much like my mother. For too many years, I'd tried to convince myself Duncan was a threat, but deep in my soul, I knew the real reason I'd run from him. It was because of my traitorous heart, not Duncan. I'd fled because fool that I was, I continued to love the man who'd murdered my mother.

Bess dipped a cloth in ice water and draped it across Duncan's forehead. "You have to do something. He risked his life to save me."

I had no reason to be jealous of the wistful look in the prostitute's eyes as she looked down at the father of my child. Duncan was no longer my mate and free to love whom he pleased, but Bess's attentiveness was disconcerting. I wondered if Bess and Duncan had been sharing intimacy when the doctor found them. Just the thought of it threatened to split my skull in two.

Duncan tossed his head to the other side, mumbling incoherently. Then he uttered one word that pierced my heart like an arrow. "Safina!" he cried before kicking the sheets.

I clutched my throat. "Safina?"

Bess wiped his brow again. "His daughter. He keeps calling her name. He says she's in trouble."

Tension coiled around my spine and stiffened my shoulders. "Leave us."

Bess gaped at me. "Can you heal him?"

"Go!" I bellowed with a dark dragon's rumble.

The prostitute picked up her skirts and ran.

* * *

Fiona

I SLUMPED IN A CHAIRbeside Duncan, drained from the powerful energy I'd needed to heal him. I heaved a sigh and pushed myself up. As fatigued as I was, now was not the time for rest. Duncan had told Bess Safina was in trouble. Why? Was it the effect of the drug Bess had given him? Or did Duncan know something else? Could he see our daughter? Were their lives entwined? If so, then perhaps he was the key to finding Safina.

"Duncan, wake up." I shook his shoulders. I gasped when he opened his eyes—twin diamonds bathed in moonlight, just like Safina's.

"Fiona?"

I clutched the corner of the bedspread and slowly lowered myself onto the chair, unable to trust my trembling limbs a moment longer. "Aye, it's me."

He sat up, his vacant gaze sweeping the room as if he were in a daze. "Am I dead?"

I flashed a half-hearted smile. "No." I was not prepared for his smile in return.

He beamed while clasping my small hand in his warm grip. "I thought you were lost to me forever."

I jerked away from him. "I am lost to you, Duncan. I've cut the cord that bound us."

His face fell, the pain in his eyes nearly enough to shatter my heart.

"Why?"

I averted my gaze, angry with myself for hurting him and even angrier for taking pity on the man who'd murdered my mother. "Must you ask why?"

"Lass, I've served five centuries of penance for what I have done." His voice cracked and splintered like burning timber. "Don't tell me you haven't seen into my heart. That you haven't felt how sorry I am."

I risked another look at Duncan. He held my gaze firm and steady, the sincerity in his eyes more than I could bear. Loathe though I was to admit, there were times when he had drawn too near that I had seen into his heart, and what I saw both unnerved and frightened me. Though Duncan had been a dragonslayer, I sensed his love and longing and knew he would not harm me. Yet I still ran from him. How could I not? No matter how much he loved me, or how much I loved him, he was still the knight who'd murdered my dear mother.

But now was not the time for digging up the past and reliving regrets. More important was the fate of our daughter. I held out a staying hand. "Save your apologies. I take it you know of Safina. You have been calling out her name. Why?"

Though we were no longer bound, my empathetic senses felt the current of fear that radiated off his skin. "She's in trouble."

I leaned forward, gripping my knees. "How do you know this?"

His jaw hardened. "Because my bond with her is not broken."

My heartbeat quickened. "Are you sure?" I remembered Josef had said the spell might not work without Duncan there. Now I realized what he'd meant. The spell had half-worked, severing only me from my family.

"I'm sure." His pale eyes darkened. "Why? Did you try to sever that bond, too? You would deny your child the right to know her father?"

I slowly rose, fisted hands by my sides. "Her father, the dragonslayer? Aye, I would deny her that right, knowing her father could kill her." I doubted my words were true, but I couldn't help but twist the barb inside his heart.

Duncan tossed back the covers and came to his knees. "I am a dragonslayer no more." His voice shook, though his gaze was unwavering. "I love my child, just as I love her mother."

I flinched as if burned. "Do not speak of love to me, Duncan. Our hearts are no longer entwined."

He climbed off the bed, hovering above me. Fool that I was, I looked up into his eyes and saw the same tenderness as the night we'd made love. I trembled, my knees weakened.

"You might have cut my heart loose, but it still beats for you, Fiona." He grasped my hand, pressing it against his pounding chest. "No amount of magic can make me stop loving you."

All moisture in my mouth dried as my heart pounded a wild staccato in my ears. "Where is she?"

The hand clasping mine began to quiver. "In the ocean, struggling to swim as a mortal girl because she can no longer transform into a dragon."

"Oh, Almighty Mother!"

My knees buckled. Had it not been for Duncan's strong arm encircling my waist, I would've crumpled to the floor.

"Fiona, the waves are violent." His warning was a thunderclap in my ears. "She's running out of time."

Panic threatened to split open my heart. I grasped his shoulder with a plea in my voice. "Lead me to her."