The Dragon Legion Collection(102)

“Maybe it’s taken Jorge and Tisiphone back to that time,” Petra suggested.

“Hera said we and our children and our children’s children would be safe from her, but that one day, the Pyr would have to pay the price,” Aura supplied.

“What happened to the rest of the Dragon Legion?” Alexander asked Thad. “Are they here, too?”

“I can’t smell them,” Damien contributed and Alexander nodded agreement.

“They’re scattered throughout time. The darkfire took each of us to our firestorm,” Thad explained. “Each warrior was left in the time and place of his destined mate.”

“The darkfire took care of us after all,” Damien murmured.

“It saw destiny fulfilled,” Petra said, taking her dragon’s hand.

“But what about Drake?” Thad asked. “He was with me at the end and the darkfire took him somewhere.”

“He can’t be here,” Alexander said. “Cassandra has died and Theo is in training with us at Delphi.”

“Maybe Drake is further in the past,” Katina suggested.

“Maybe he’s in the future,” Petra said.

“We’ll find out if he’s here,” Alexander said with resolve and the others nodded. “But I think the darkfire must have had other plans for him.”

Aura noticed that the three Pyr looked thoughtful then, as if they were remembering some experience they’d shared.

“That still leaves the Dragon’s Tail wars,” Alexander continued. “If the darkfire’s gone and we’re here, how can we help the Pyr in the future?”

“Wait! We already are!” Thad snapped his fingers.

“I don’t understand,” Damien said, shoving a hand through his hair. “It looks as if I’ve made things worse for the Pyr by being here.”

“No,” Thad said, pointing to the sleeping Orion. “You had a son, and he will have a son, and his son will have a son. Because we are here, two millennia before the Pyr we came to know, we can build an army for them.”

Aura gasped in understanding. “Thad’s right! We have time on our side.”

Alexander laughed. “It’s perfect! We can pass that prophecy along, from father to son, so Erik will learn of it in time.”

“And we can mark the flesh of our sons,” Damien said, indicating the black dragon mark on his arm.

“That’s why the darkfire marked them at Delphi,” Katina said with excitement. “It was showing you what to do.”

The Pyr nodded and Petra spoke. “They’ll carry the sign of the Dragon Legion, so that they can recognize each other.”

“And best of all, the darkfire didn’t abandon the Dragon Legion or the Pyr,” Thad concluded. “It put everything in motion so the Pyr can triumph.” The three of them were so pleased that Aura feared they’d missed the point.

There was a new threat against the dragon shifters. Even if she-who-should-not-be-named had been banished to another time and place, she wasn’t going to see Thad struck down like that ever again.

“First we have to fix Thad’s scale, and we have to fix it now,” Aura interrupted, holding up the scale. “Tell me what I need to do.”

* * *

Drake sat opposite Erik in that Pyr’s loft apartment. The kitchen was austerely black and white, the single yellow gerbera daisy in a vase on the table making a bold splash of color. The sunlight streaming through the windows and touching on the daisy was bright enough to make Drake think again of Greece. He had slept and eaten, and he had told Erik all that he knew. He was still exhausted and Drake feared that this weariness would persist.


His men were lost.

The darkfire crystal was extinguished.

He didn’t know what the point of anything was anymore.

For the moment, he was content to just sit, to just be. He was aware that Erik watched him closely and that the other Pyr saw far more than even most dragons. On some level, he hoped Erik would make a suggestion or give him an assignment. On a deeper level, he wanted this tranquil moment to continue undisturbed.

Erik, however, was not as tranquil as Drake. He got to his feet and paced to the window, moving with a deliberation that didn’t disguise the tension within him. Drake watched and appreciated that Erik was tempering his impatience. Dragons weren’t always so kind to each other.

“Partial eclipse today,” Erik murmured, recalling Drake to the moment.

“Is there a firestorm?”

Erik shook his head, not looking away from the window. Then he stilled, as if listening, then shook his head again. “It is so strange,” he murmured, then continued in old-speak. “I thought you would know more.”

They had been through this several times. Drake couldn’t explain the light Erik was seeing, or the sense of impending doom that apparently all the Pyr were experiencing.

Maybe it was time for dragons to fade from the world. Drake felt old at that thought and refused to say it aloud.

The silence embraced them again, just the faint tinkle of Erik’s dragonsmoke audible to Drake. He liked the sound of it, the comfort of it, the appearance of security it gave him. He knew that he couldn’t have slept anywhere else these past days.

The sound of a key turning in a lock made Drake jump. Erik turned as Eileen spoke to their daughter, Zo?. The little girl should be the next Wyvern, Drake remembered, for she was the only female child of one of their kind and the former Wyvern was dead. Drake knew that Erik was impatient for the child’s powers to develop, just as he knew that Erik expected no such development until Zo? came of age. Male Pyr came into the bulk of their powers at puberty, when their voices deepened and their bodies changed.