10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

F or over a century and a half, Ariadne believed herself to be capable of many physical feats. She could run as swiftly as any vampire, much faster than a human or mage, and her strength outmatched many her size. The only time she had doubted herself had been at the hands of Ehrun. Though vampires were exceptionally strong, they could not compare to the horned fae.

There had been a reason Keon created dhemons to protect his mortal love, Anwen, long before the vampiric curse.

There had also been a reason the dhemons thrived for millennia and continued to outmaneuver vampires in the war-torn Keonis Valley. Their training regiment would drive any vampire soldier mad, as Kall proved again and again.

The first time Kall had called on her to begin her training two nights earlier, he had woken her from a deep sleep. A mistake he had not made since, nor would he ever again.

Ariadne's screams had ripped through the manor after she opened her eyes to find the dhemon hovering over her bed. His silhouette the only thing she could see, it had been akin to waking up in the dhemon keep once again. Though he tried to explain himself, his words had reverted to the dhemon language in his alarm, serving to frighten her more.

When Madan had hurtled into the room half dressed, Whelan hot on his heels, he scolded Kall and collected her into his arms where she cried on his shoulder. The shoulder of the one who had saved her from that hell. She had not seen Kall . Could not discern his face from those of her waking terrors.

Rather, she had seen Ehrun. Lhev. Mikhal. Every dhemon who tormented her in the dark underbelly of their keep. The last time she had awoken to the silhouette of curling horns leering over her, the dhemon they had been attached to had dragged her across the stone floor as she shrieked, his hands roaming her body before—

Ariadne slammed her fist into Kall's open hand, shoving the memories down deep. He called numbers in his language. She responded with a different strike. Punch. Jab. Hook. Jab. Knee. Switch stance. Knee. Hook. Elbow. Any time she forgot to bring her hands back into place on either side of her head, he swatted at what she left exposed. Sometimes, she ducked or slid back a step in time to avoid it. Other times, his fingers slapped her temple or ear or cheek. Each time he struck, he reported the possible outcome.

"Sleep." He flicked her jaw.

She groaned and lifted her hands higher. No wonder Azriel always grunted his acknowledgments to things. They did not need words when a simple sound did the trick.

Jab. Hook.

Kall tapped her temple. "No see."

Gritting her teeth, she kept swinging. Kept forgetting to bring her hands back up. Kept moving despite it all. Likewise, Kall blocked with expertise even on his blind side.

Any discomfort she felt faded quickly—a vampire blessing—and allowed her to train longer, harder, and more often than Kall could keep up. When they were not practicing striking, they grappled or ran or strength trained. No practice blades. Not yet. Not until he was certain she could wield a sword and not gut him by accident. That required coordination she had not yet gained. With her history in dance, she doubted it would come easily. Striking was hard enough.

When at last Kall lowered his hands and stepped back to get a drink of water, Ariadne let her fists drop and shook out her arms. They ached, and sweat ran down her face and back at an alarming rate.

If she were to leave for Algorath soon, she would need to be able to hold her own. She therefore spent every waking moment doing something—anything—to strengthen her body, mind, and spirit. For learning those new skills would either make her better…or break her completely.

Kall leaned against the tree beside him, watching her with a wary eye. "Rest also good."

Ariadne shook her head and drank. "I can keep going."

"I rest, then." He nodded to her. "You run."

So she ran. Her breathing rasped in and out with each stride, heart thundering in her chest as she pushed her legs to carry her farther and farther. Faster and faster.

She hated running. Not because she was bad at it. In fact, she outran Kall every time. Her body could keep up with every command she gave it. It moved when she told it to, stopped when she needed, and while her movements were sloppy, her reaction time was impeccable.

No, she hated running because her mind did not need to think about it. Did not need to strategize or listen for Kall's next instruction. Did not need to recall how to break an arm or off-balance an opponent.

Instead, it wandered. She thought of her sister, entrapped in an engagement with the nefarious Alek Nightingale, and of her friends to whom she never got to say goodbye. She thought of her husband, wrongfully imprisoned and fighting for his life in the Pits. She thought of her brother, now shouldering the responsibilities of Lord Governor and too often gone from the estate thanks to his duties around Eastwood Province. She thought of how she had most recently been forced to partake from a vein that was not her husband's but a willing Rusan servant's.

Most thoughts, however, led her back into the dark recesses of her mind. She recalled the sound of the guards' dead bodies as she and Azriel shoved them down the guardhouse cellar steps. They had disappeared into the darkness that had entrapped Madan for too long—the same darkness she once endured.

"I have a history lesson for you tonight," Ehrun had said one night as he led her from her cell. She had not struggled against him. Not that night. Instead, she followed like an obedient dog too frightened to disobey. She had even held out her hands to him so he could fasten the shackles to her wrists before hauling them above her head. Pain lanced through her shoulders as they dislocated again.

She had stared at the door, her head leaning listless against her arm. She had given up hope that anyone was coming for her. Not after so many nights missing. Not after Darien had died just inside that threshold.

"There once lived a dhemon who knew the ancient ways of our people," Ehrun started, sliding a knife along a whetting stone. The steady sound of sharpening metal had become the symphony of her suffering. "A priestess for Keon. She and her disciples kept us all connected to our patron god…and to the Underworld."

That had been the moment he began cutting his name into her skin. He brushed her hair off her shoulders in that familiar combination of gentle and rough. His fingers had slid so softly across her skin as though not wanting to touch her more than necessary. It had always been that way. Sweet caresses accompanied by pain.

Most nights, she stopped listening to his words. Gods, she could not hear him above her own cries. That night, however, she had been too tired to scream.

Ehrun took advantage of her quiet sobs and continued, "One by one, the disciples were hunted across the Valley. They tried to run—to escape into the mountains—but none survived."

The blade moved slowly, precisely, across her back. Each stroke had tried to heal, but he smeared salt into each wound as he created it, forcing it to slow.

"When they found the priestess," Ehrun said, his breath sweeping across her skin, "they strung her up before bloodthirsty masses on our own sacred tree and tore her apart, limb by limb."

Each word etched itself into her back as surely as the knife. They sounded so far away, like someone entirely different heard them and experienced the agony.

"Do you know who they were, princess?" he had paused to whisper in her ear as he stroked her hair back from her face. Her own warm blood smeared across her cheek. When she did not respond right away, he grabbed her face and forced her to look at him. "Tell me."

"Vampires," she had gasped, cheeks smarting from the firm pressure.

"Good girl." He patted her cheek, then returned to cutting.

Ariadne had never spoken about Ehrun's history lessons to anyone. She never learned more about the dhemon priestess or what happened after her death. Until recently, she had been so blinded by hate, she did not care.

Now, as she ran through the trees of the estate, shame washed over her. For over one hundred and fifty years, she was fed the same horrible rhetoric that dhemons were the enemy. They were the killers. The greedy ones who had begun the war with the vampires upon their arrival in the Keonis Valley to keep the resources to themselves. She had been told that when the Caldwells first made Monsumbra their home, they had done so peacefully. Until the dhemons began attacking.

She was not so certain of that anymore. Not if what Ehrun had told her had even an ounce of truth to it. And though she shuddered to think that anything that terrible man had said was honest, she had to consider the possibility.

A shadow passed overhead, blotting out the moonlight streaming between the overlapping tree canopy. Ariadne slowed to a halt to watch the dark silhouette drift away. She had seen something similar during her ride back from Camilla's estate months ago. At the time, she had thought it to be a bird, but now…now she realized it to be something different and far too large to be an owl.

Checking over her shoulder for Kall, Ariadne's pulse quickened. Whatever it had been was circling in to land nearby. Surely everyone would have seen it.

She started after the shadow, the possibilities running rampant through her mind. Perhaps the mages had bred a new creature for travel. Or maybe the avians had flying mounts she had not heard of before.

Ariadne cursed herself for not paying closer attention to her governess's lessons as a child. Her sister would know, certainly. Ariadne had had the tendency to hide romance novels behind her history books to read about faraway princes saving their true loves from imminent danger.

Voices rose in a clearing ahead of her, and Ariadne slowed to a creeping pace. The trees thinned enough to get a look at who stood beyond: dhemons she recognized from her first night at the Caldwell Estate, including Whelan.

They did not give her pause, however, the same way the creatures with them did.

Two massive, scaled beasts stood behind the group of dhemons. One with blue scales so dark, she mistook them for black at first and large eyes the color of honey. A row of black spikes ran from the top of its head, down the length of its back, and to the spaded tip of its tail. Four thick legs ended in claws large enough to pick up a horse bent to bring the huge body closer to the ground. From behind its shoulders, membranous wings tucked in tight as though it was overly conscientious of its size.

The second beast, much like the first in height, glinted emerald green in the low light. It varied from the first in that it appeared thinner and more agile. The solid black eyes gave it a menacing appearance and made it difficult to track where it held its attention. Its wings seemed to shimmer in the moonlight as it, too, tucked them in close and laid its head on a giant clawed foot.

Gods . What beasts did these dhemons have as pets? They could not be creatures of this plane but monsters from the Underworld. Keon must have had a hand in creating such imposing figures, just as he had with the dhemons.

And if Whelan stood amongst them, that meant he either hid them from Madan…or Madan, and therefore Azriel, knew of their existence and kept them from her.

The green beast shifted, dragging her attention to it again. Its nostrils flared as it unfurled its long, graceful neck to extend the massive, spiked head high above them. Those depthless black eyes narrowed, and a low, chittering growl quaked from it.

In an instant, the dhemons quieted, and all turned to look at her.

Ariadne froze. She held her breath as though it would keep them from her in the dark—as though she had not already been discovered by the green beast. Her heart thundered in her chest as one of the dhemons stepped forward, a hand on a knife at her side, but Whelan stepped before his comrade and said something she could not make out.

A heavy hand landed on Ariadne's shoulder. She gasped and twisted out from under the hold to aim a punch at the adversary.

Madan narrowly dodged the strike, Ariadne's fist clipping his ear as it whistled by. He pivoted aside, and she pulled her hand back into place beside her head as he'd seen Kall teaching her for hours on end the last few nights. Her long, dark braid swayed with her movement, brows low in concentration. He lifted his amputated arm high to cover the side of his face in case she came at him again.

Then recognition flooded her blue eyes, and Ariadne dropped her hands.

"Unconscious." He tapped her jaw, a grin spreading across his face. "You let your guard down too quickly."

Her fist slammed into his gut, and he doubled over as she said, "So did you."

"Well played," he wheezed, nodding, and straightened back up. "What are you doing out here?"

"I went for a run."

"Where's Kall?"

"Drinking water, last I saw."

Madan rolled his eyes. Of course he was. "Lazy bastard."

Ariadne glanced over her shoulder, then back to him, and whispered, "Madan…"

"I suppose you've discovered our secret," he said, looking over her head toward Whelan and the others. His partner turned to him with raised brows. "Why don't you come meet everyone? I'd planned to introduce you to our good friends soon, but…Kall's ineptitude has pushed that timeline forward a bit."

She grabbed his shortened arm as he stepped around her. "What are they?"

"Asking who they are would be a more appropriate question." Madan covered her hand with his. "The blue is Razer. The green is Anthoria, but Oria is fine."

Again, his sister checked the clearing before looking up at him again. She squeezed his arm a little more. "Okay. Razer and Oria. But—"

"Dragons."

Ariadne gaped at him. She searched his face as though looking for any glint of humor, then frowned. "Dragons are not real."

Madan sighed, his mouth slanting into a half-smile. "According to the history books of vampires, you are correct."

"I studied fae and mage history as well." Her cheeks turned bright red, and her voice raised to an airy tone.

"You're a terrible liar."

To make matters worse, she had the audacity to look affronted. "I read of dragons only in fae tales, and they did not have wings."

Now Madan snorted, trying hard to imagine Brutis without wings and, instead, the long slender bodies of those depicted in the old storybooks. Not only would it be completely bizarre, he couldn't help but think of how sick he'd feel riding on a beast that moved like a snake through the air.

"They've wanted to meet you for some time anyway." Madan held out his shortened arm to gesture toward the clearing.

Ariadne hesitated. "I do not think—"

"Razer and Azriel are bondhearts," Madan cut in, hoping the notion of the massive blue dragon being connected to her husband would quell her fears. "They won't harm you."

"Bondheart?" She blanched and looked back at the dragon.

"Not like a fae bond," he reassured her. Rather than try to encourage her to walk alone, he took her hand in his and squeezed once. She hesitated, then returned the gesture. They started for the clearing. "The vinculum to a dragon is much more…platonic in nature than a fae bond."

She turned round, ocean eyes up to him. "I would hope!"

The dhemons in the clearing laughed at that but stepped back as they broke through the treeline to give them both a complete view of the two massive dragons. Razer stilled, his golden gaze snapping to Ariadne. Oria, however, relaxed and laid her head back on her claw, watching them both with her onyx eyes.

"If Razer is Azriel's—"

The blue dragon chuffed in indignation and lowered his head to stare her in the face. Ariadne wisely snapped her jaw shut. The dragons didn't belong to anyone. Razer always hated it when someone referred to any of them in such a manner. Like pets.

"Razer chose Azriel," Madan explained. "That doesn't mean Razer belongs to Azriel."

Ariadne's already pale complexion turned a sickly green. She shifted as though to take a step away from Razer but thought better of it and stood stalk still. When she spoke next, her voice was quiet and shaky, "Alright. If Razer and Azriel are…a pair. Are you and Oria…?"

The green dragon gave a choppy rumble, like a laugh. Again, Ariadne froze and looked at her before glancing up at him with a questioning look.

"Oria is my bondheart," Whelan said and stepped in close to the green one. He laid a hand on her neck, and she purred with contentment.

"Oh!" Ariadne tried to smile, but it didn't stick.

"My bondheart, Brutis, is up north right now," Madan said and searched for the vinculum that mentally connected him to his dragon. The distance, however, made it too weak.

Razer shifted forward, bringing his nose a breath from Ariadne's hand, a single nostril the circumference of a dhemon's palm. She watched him as though uncertain what to do next. After a long, tense moment, she lifted her hand, palm down, and the blue dragon pushed his nose against it.

Ariadne sucked in a sharp breath, squeezing Madan's hand hard. Silver rimmed her eyes, and she whispered, "Can you speak to Azriel?"

He squeezed his sister's hand in return as Razer shifted his head back and forth in a silent no . Madan grimaced. "We have a telepathic link with our bondhearts, but he's too far away."

At last, Ariadne released his hand. Madan stepped back to watch as she moved closer to Razer and tentatively cupped the dragon's huge maw. The near-black scales glinted under her small hands, and Razer's vibrant eyes watched her with more tenderness than Madan had ever seen from the big brute. She slid her fingers over his broad, spiked cheek, then neck, and then leaned her face against him and said, voice breaking, "I miss him."

Razer closed his eyes and let out a long, hot breath. He curled his head around to her other side, pulling her in close in what Madan could only call a hug.

A dhemon behind him snorted and said in his language, "I wish Nix did that for me."

"You ruin every good moment," muttered the woman who had spotted Ariadne in the forest first.

Madan choked back a laugh but said nothing even as his sister stroked the dragon's neck. The motion mimicked how he'd seen her praise Astra time and again. That Razer allowed such similarities to a person's pet only underscored just how lost he was knowing where Azriel had gone.

"Why did Razer not go to Azriel?" Ariadne asked quietly, her voice cracking. "If you have dragons…why did none of you save him?"

The dhemons quietened. Madan's heart squeezed painfully. He shared a look with Whelan, then said, "Azriel told Razer to protect you."

Ariadne's lower lip thinned as she pulled it between her teeth and bit. The tears she had held back now slipped down her cheeks. "I did not need—"

"You know as well as I," he said quietly and stepped forward cautiously as Razer eyed him maliciously, "that's not true. Razer reported to Oria and then Whelan that he'd seen quite a few dhemons tracking you. His presence alone kept them away."

"Could no one else?"

"Not all of us have a bondheart," Madan explained with careful patience. She did not and could not understand all they had to do. "Many of the dragons aren't in the area. We tried, but Ehrun has greater numbers, and they…kept us from him. Believe me, Sister, I would've stopped this if I could."

Memories sent to him by other dhemons and their dragon counterparts flashed through his mind. A dragon named Mhorn had shared the vision of him interlocking claws with a foe as they tore into each other high in the air. Far below, Razer had paired the image with Ariadne galloping hard across a stream, oblivious to the battle high above her. Another, Bindhe, had been forced to turn back after locating Azriel in the Eastern Passage when three of Ehrun's cronies appeared to block her way to him. Yet another memory showed Razer himself slamming into the ground as a massive, violet dragon tore into his shoulder near the foothills.

Ariadne watched him for a long moment, unable to fully comprehend the extent to which they had tried , before nodding and turning back to Razer. Her next words to the dragon were lost to him. In response, Razer chuffed and settled low, curling around Ariadne with caution. He'd never seen either of them connect with a stranger so quickly. It was almost as though she and the dragon had their own understanding of one another.

Madan looked at Whelan. His partner shrugged.

Ariadne's fingers traced the missing scales on Razer's shoulder, her face twisting with unspoken pain, and Madan understood. The Caersan woman and the dragon had a different type of tether between their hearts: Azriel.