Heart of the Dragon (The Lost Royals Saga Book 3) Read online

  She caught the look I gave and held my gaze when she asked a question. “How can you expect to feel whole when you don’t embrace your full self?”

  My brow tensed, and I was too tired to untangle riddles. “What do you mean?”

  Hilda sighed and answered my question with another. “How many times have you called forth your wolf?”

  My stomach sank, and I stammered a bit. “It … uh …”

  She stared at me so deeply I felt it, realizing she’d never believe me even if I tried to lie.

  “Never,” I admitted.

  A knowing glare passed my way, followed by a cynical, “Mmm-hmm.”

  “But it’s not my fault. I’m surrounded by dragons and no one’s ever taught me how to shift into—”

  She held a hand up. “I can’t help you.” The words were cold and unfeeling. “I can only help you see the problem. You’re immune to magic, which means I cannot fix the problem. This is something you’ll have to come to terms with on your own.”

  I sat. I thought. I hoped she’d eventually interject some sort of insight, but that wasn’t her way. She preferred I grasp things on my own; said experience was a far better teacher than she could ever be.

  Our study session went mostly like all the others, except I left feeling worse than usual. It was the realization that, despite all the progress I felt I’d made, I wasn’t even halfway done.

  Hilda was right. There was more to me than just Evie, more than just my dragon. There was the wolf I inherited from my father’s bloodline—an aspect of myself I had yet to meet.

  And, according to Hilda, it was time to change that.

  *****

  Nick

  The sun was setting, which meant Roz had been gone way longer than expected. She insisted on making the walk into town alone to call her father this time, and now that I was sitting here with no idea if something happened to her, I regretted agreeing to it.

  We’d been roughing it in the woods for a solid week now. Surviving off canned goods and water from a nearby stream. The large tent and used sleeping bags we snagged for next to nothing from the thrift store were our only luxuries here in the wilderness. For lack of a better term, we’d gone feral.

  Nothing lets you know you’ve hit rock bottom like washing your underwear in the same place you bathe. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why Roz hadn’t abandoned me yet. I was sure her offense would easily be forgiven by the Elders. All she’d done was break me out of my cell. I, on the other hand, had done far worse.

  A twig snapping in the distance had me on my feet, drawing my hands back from the fire that warmed them. To the human ear, the sound wouldn’t have even registered, but I heard it in stereo—all around me. Everywhere.

  I focused my eyes as far as I could, until I spotted what—or should I say who—caused the sound.

  Roz trudged back toward our camp with the same solemn expression she had every day. She was miserable just like I was. Her clothes were dingy, but not filthy. She made frequent trips to the stream to keep them as clean as possible. Her hair wasn’t its usual vibrant brown anymore either. The hints of bronze that used to glimmer in it had faded. It didn’t surprise me, though. We hadn’t eaten anything of substance for quite a while. And toiletries were a luxury we simply couldn’t afford.

  Easing back down onto the log where I sat before she startled me, I eyed the few cans of food we had left. Tonight’s choices were ravioli or beans again.

  It didn’t take me long to decide on the ravioli.

  She approached just as I took out the can opener, eyeing me as I dumped it into our only pot. Things between us were still tense following the discussion that took place just before leaving the motel, but at least we were on speaking terms. There wasn’t much I could do to restore the way she felt about me, but I wouldn’t give up trying.

  She once believed there was more good in me than bad. While I didn’t necessarily believe it myself … she made me want to try.

  “Did you get a hold of him?” I asked, referring to her father.

  That’d been the point of her journey. I wasn’t sure if she meant to beg for cash again, but I halfway hoped she wouldn’t even come back. I wouldn’t have been mad if she didn’t.

  She yawned, stretching her hands toward the flames. “I did. Just to check in,” she added, dashing my hopes that he may have finally talked some sense into her. However, it was comforting to know I wasn’t the only one she refused to listen to.

  “He’s doing okay? Things are good back home?”

  She nodded, but this time I could tell there was more, something that troubled her. “Everyone went back.”

  I paused after placing the pot on a contraption we rigged to hold it above the fire. “What do you mean they’re back?”

  “He just said the Elders ordered everyone home and they’ve been there a few days now.”

  My head spun—thinking of the reasons they would have made such a drastic move after making a big deal about bringing us to Louisiana in the first place. The answer hit me right in the gut.

  It was because of me.

  I stared at the flames and those words Roz overheard that night near my quarters before we ran away—reckoning, exile.

  “Everyone’s returning to school Monday,” she added. “And training’s gonna continue a few evenings a week.”

  “…Wow.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I’d caused so much trouble; had changed so many lives.

  Richie warned about making waves, warned about the consequences, but I’d done just that. If I had to guess, my name was on the lips of Elders and Council members around the world. It was bad enough that, as the Liberator, they were likely already watching my every move. Now, I’d done nothing but proved them right. Proved I couldn’t be trusted.

  I was drawn out of my thoughts when Roz placed a hand on her forehead. Her eyes squeezed shut right after and concern spread through me like wildfire.

  “You feeling okay?”

  It took her a moment to answer and, when she did, she shook her head. “Not really. Headache,” she explained. “It started on my way back. Now I’m kind of nauseous, too.”

  My heartrate picked up as I glanced around at the few belongings we managed to scrounge up out here. It was no wonder she was coming down with something.

  “If you want to lie down, I’ll bring your food to you when it warms up.”

  She didn’t put up a fight. Nodding, she headed for the tent. “Thanks.”

  My eyes followed her when she unzipped the flap and then eased down onto the red sleeping bag.

  I was failing her. On top of everyone else I disappointed, I failed Roz.

  My best friend.

  Dinner finished cooking and I ate alone, not bothering to wake her. Instead, I covered her portion with a cloth and set it aside for whenever she got up. Aside from our fire, it had gone completely dark. I reached for my backpack and internally thanked Roz for getting it to me before Dallas hauled me off to my cell. It held all my grandfather’s journals, where I packed them before heading back to the facility after break.

  I took one of the later installments, one I wasn’t as familiar with as the four I’d gone over at least ten times. These still held secrets within them, secrets I most likely missed the first time I skimmed. Then, I’d been in a rush to find out more about getting cured. Tonight, I had nothing but time.

  Thumbing through pages, I was taken on an adventure, reading of how he traveled from Italy across the Tyrrhenian and Mediterranean Seas on a whim, following a hunch that something he sought awaited him. It was described as an unquenchable thirst he could neither identify nor explain. He just knew the journey was necessary.

  He spoke of the day he spent aboard a large merchant vessel that took him from Italy to Tunisia. Then, crossing the desert of Egypt by camel with his mute guide, Samir. Apparently, the irony was entertainment enough, considering there was no conversation to pass the time.

  I read quickly, anxious to see wh
at was so urgent that he traveled all this way. What was it that ‘beckoned for him like a lighthouse to a drifting ship’?

  His exact words.

  I imagined myself walking in his shoes, passing through the Nile Valley of Sudan, the Libyan desert. The terrain was brutal, but still, he pushed on.

  Until he arrived in Ethiopia. Bahir Dar, to be specific.

  My eyes lifted from the page as the faint smile that’d been on my face the entire time I read disappeared altogether.

  Bahir Dar … it was familiar to me for a reason. We discussed it in class—the fallen kingdom of the other original lycan, Noah. My heart raced as sickness spread in my gut. I was naïve to hold out hope that what my grandfather had come all this way for wasn’t … that.

  To claim the life of a lycan princess.

  My mouth felt dry and I reached for the canteen I filled earlier at the stream. It was cool going down my throat, contrasting the heat that crept up my chest and neck.

  ‘… beckoned for him like a lighthouse to a drifting ship’. That’s how he described the sensation. ‘An unquenchable thirst he could neither identify or explain.’

  No matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise … there was no doubt in my mind he was on his way to Evie.

  To kill her.

  I had to read on, had to understand what triggered him. Maybe if I could figure it out, I could fight it. Maybe even stop it. I just … I had to know.

  I skimmed the pages quickly, passing over the brief adventures he had in route. It was unimportant that he spent a night with the Tigraway tribe; unimportant how beautiful he found Lake Tana. All I cared about was what drew him there despite the treacherous journey.

  And then … I found my answer.

  It was there, at Lake Tana, that his thoughts became linear. It was there that he felt it, felt her.

  Heard … her.

  Bathing in a pool at the foot of a waterfall he called Tis Abay; that’s where he first spotted her. He’d been wandering one afternoon when that feeling overtook him again, drawing him out of his camp. He described her, said she was as beautiful as the day is long, but something about her spread hatred within him. He referred to it as ‘the sickness’. He realized all the darkness that existed within him was because of her.

  And he knew the key to ending it was to stop her heart.

  ‘The sound nearly drove me mad—a drumming that beat within her twice as fast as it ought to, vibrating like the wings of a humming bird.’

  He experienced the same thing I had, hearing Evie’s heart, but … wasn’t there more? Wasn’t there something else that triggered him?

  I read on, scanning as fast as I could, right up to the moment he stalked the high walls of her father’s kingdom the night he gave in to the darkness.

  I pictured him scaling the walls of the short tower he described as the moonlight shined on his back, fueling him, strengthening him. He recalled the sound growing louder, those hummingbird wings inside her.

  She slept beside a dragon in the form of a man, one whose size alone would have ordinarily sent him scurrying to the shadows for safety, but tonight … tonight, nothing would stop him from seeing to it that she breathed her last breath.

  I skimmed faster, bypassing words like ‘hungry’ and ‘savage’, searching for answers, clues as to what, besides her heartbeat, made him snap. There had to be more.

  The moment he snatched her from the warmth of her bed, from the arms of the dragon I knew to be Liam, he leapt from the tower with her gathered beneath his arm, landing on the grass below as she cried out in the night. The next segment was vague, and I could only guess it was because, at the time of this writing, he was sober, no longer drunk with whatever venom flowed through him that night. Remorse had set in. He didn’t want to detail what it was like tearing her apart. Didn’t want to recall what her blood tasted like sliding down his throat.

  I slammed the cover shut and only now realized how rapidly my breaths came. There was nothing. Not a single clue as to what made him do it. Nothing I hadn’t already experienced—hearing her heart, the rage, the blackouts.

  So, was it random?

  Would I strike out of nowhere just because?

  The journal hit the ground with a thud when I tossed it away. Frustration spread throughout my limbs and I fought to quench it. Anger made me do things I wasn’t proud of. I couldn’t afford to let myself go there tonight. Roz would be on her own out here if I couldn’t keep it together.

  It was no longer just about me, about the consequences I’d face. It was about her, too.

  I breathed deep, swallowing the rage. The only thing that came of reading my grandfather’s account of that night was an escalated sense hopelessness. It was time to accept that my issue might be irreversible.

  Unavoidable.

  Would staying away even make a difference?

  Based on my grandfather’s journal, he traveled from Italy to Ethiopia to fulfill his duty. Who’s to say I wouldn’t black out one day, only to discover I’d traveled back to Seaton Falls and followed in his footsteps?

  The outlook was grim. Even more so than I already realized. The dark cloud that hung over my head just seemed to grow more and more every day.

  And now I was more certain than ever … there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  —Chapter Eight—

  Nick

  The sound of metal being stricken by another solid object startled me awake.

  I darted from our tent to find Roz plucking pieces of ravioli from the dirt. Glancing around, it was easy to see she’d accidentally dropped the pot with her dinner in it. It landed on the log we dragged over for seating. The food and pot were still steaming, so I guessed she might have burned herself and somehow knocked it over.

  “Sorry, I woke you,” she apologized. “I was heating it up when my stomach started churning again and, when I came back, it was smoking, and I wanted to catch it before it burned, but …”

  She stopped speaking as I stooped to help, eying the wasted food where it lie in the dirt. I guessed she had a similar thought to mine, that we couldn’t exactly afford to waste anything.

  “I’ll take it to the stream and rinse it. I don’t mind eating it without the sauce,” she mumbled.

  I looked her over, the weariness in her eyes, the way she held her stomach while she cleaned up her mess.

  “Still not feeling any better?”

  She shook her head. “Been up half the night tossing my cookies,” she scoffed. “I thought I was better, which was why I was trying to eat, but … the smell got to me and … long story short … there may or may not be vomit behind that tree.”

  I glanced that way, making a note not to venture in that direction.

  She grabbed the last of the ravioli and placed it in the pot with the rest. With a heavy sigh, she took a few steps away from camp.

  “Where are you going? Shouldn’t you be lying down?” I asked. She was so weak she could hardly walk upright.

  “I need to rinse this. We don’t have anything to waste.”

  She was right about that, but I wouldn’t let her walk all that way.

  “Here, I’ll do it. Just go back in the tent and get some rest. I think we still have a can of soup. When you’re ready, I’ll make it for you,” I offered, deciding the sauce-less, dirt-bathed ravioli would have to be mine. There was no way she’d keep down anything solid.

  Reluctantly, Roz nodded, handing over the pot.

  “Be back in a bit.”

  I trudged through the low brush and twigs that marked our path to the stream. I had no idea how to take care of a sick person, but would do my best to make Roz comfortable until it passed. Before now, I didn’t even realize a supernatural could get sick.

  Apparently, I was wrong.

  Dipping the stuffed noodles in the water, I covered the pot with my hand to strain it. Two more times and it was good enough for me. Back at camp, I’d reheat them and they’d be good as new.

  Well … ki
nd of.

  On the walk back, I had time to think, time to reflect on the discovery I made the night before. It was still unsettling that there were no answers, and that my only option was to accept it.

  Accept that I’d be a killer.

  Accept that who I was becoming—the thoughtless, selfish guy who’d willingly seek to end another life—was who I’d be from here on out.

  Once, my biggest gripe in life was that no one understood me, that my future in college football was mapped out for me. What I’d give to have it all be that simple now. What I’d give to go back to having petty, teenage problems that could be solved with a simple conversation.

  If I’d known then how easy I had it, you couldn’t have paid me to complain.

  Our tent came into view and I had a fleeting thought; that now would be a great time to go over Roz’s head to contact her father. She wasn’t doing well out here. It’d be easy to tell him where we were, and he could come for her. While I was sure it would take a while for her to forgive me, it’d be worth it to know she was safe.

  I dropped down onto the log again and stared at the trees because there was nothing else to stare at. If starvation didn’t kill us, boredom would. And now, with Roz down, I had no one to talk to either. Going back to my grandfather’s journals was out of the question, for a while anyway. Within them was reality—my reality—and I didn’t feel like facing that just yet. I needed a break from it all.

  I’d just gotten settled when the tent unzipped behind me. Roz came tearing out of it with a hand tightly clasped to her mouth. She made it to a tree a little further out than the last and I turned my head, not wanting to see whatever she barfed up.

  Seemed she was getting worse.

  And there was nothing I could do about it.

  I turned. The tree had her mostly hidden, but I saw enough to deduce she was weak, resting her weight against the massive trunk for support. She couldn’t keep going like this. Especially seeing as how she was only here because of me.

  I glanced around at our sparse supplies and breathed deep before turning toward her again. What we had, versus what we needed, simply didn’t add up.