The Dragon Legion Collection(5)

Home!

Maybe there was intelligence guiding the sorcery of the darkfire crystal. Alexander had yearned to return to this place almost since his departure, all those years before, and here it was before his very eyes.


He blinked and rubbed his eyes, but the sight before him didn’t change.

“We’re home,” Alexander said with awe, gesturing to the village. His voice rose higher in jubilation and his heart clenched with unexpected joy. Katina would be here! “We’re home!”

The rest of the men turned to look and Alexander saw wonder dawn in their expressions.

“It can’t be,” Iggy whispered.

“We should find out,” Orion declared.

Peter, predictably, was the first to doubt his eyes. “It must be a trick...”

Alexander didn’t care. He wasn’t waiting for any of them. This was his village. If he was home, there was only one detail of importance.

Katina.

His heart thundered at the prospect of the reunion   they would share. Their marriage had always been passionate, even after the spark of the firestorm had been satisfied.

Alexander started down the hill with purpose.

“Halt!” Drake shouted from behind him.

“I must know!” Alexander spun to declare with heat. “I must see her, regardless of the price. She’s my destined mate. We had a firestorm!”

“We mustn’t break rank!” Drake insisted. “It could be a trick, or a lure. I don’t want to lose another man, especially not my second in command.”

“Are you even sure she’s there?” Peter demanded. “Who knows how long we’ve been gone. She could have left.”

Alexander took a deep breath, focusing his attention on the house he knew so well. He inhaled slowly, dissecting and identifying the scents that were common to any village. When he identified his wife’s particular scent, the intoxicating mix of perfume and fired clay and her own body’s scent, his heart leapt. “She’s here!”

“No. I forbid you to break rank,” Drake commanded, his tone making Alexander pause. “All of you! Pledge!”

Drake put out his right hand, his fingers clenched in a fist and his palm down.

“The Dragon Legion stays together,” Damien said, placing his hand on top of Drake’s. The others followed suit, except for Alexander. He stood a dozen paces away and he felt a muscle tick in his jaw.

Everything he had ever desired was in that village.

He had left once to serve with his own kind.

Wasn’t his duty fulfilled?

“Together,” Drake repeated with force and Alexander felt his leader’s gaze upon him.

“I have served my obligation as a Pyr,” Alexander said with resolve. He held Drake’s gaze. “I left my wife and my destined mate to heed your summons, as I had pledged to do.” Alexander swallowed. “Don’t ask me to do as much again, I beg of you.”

Drake’s lips tightened even as his gaze filled with understanding.

“Maybe this is why we’re here,” Alexander suggested. “Maybe the crystal is letting us repair the wounds of the past. Maybe that’s the point.”

The others caught their breath and looked at Drake.

“No. You can’t know that,” Drake argued. “You can’t know what you’ll find in that village...”

“That’s why I have to go.”

The two men stared at each other.

Drake was the first to blink. “Go,” he commanded quietly. “But hurry back to tell us what you’ve found.”

Alexander laughed. He saluted Drake, then marched down the hill to the village.

“We will wait,” Drake called after him, his tone level.

This was a gift Alexander hadn’t anticipated. He surveyed the village, taking satisfaction in how similar it was to his memories. He found himself striding closer, anxious to be reunited with Katina again.

He hadn’t taken a dozen steps when Alexander smelled the stone heating again. He paused to glance back. He saw the dread in Drake’s expression as he opened his hand to display the stone. His commander’s features were illuminated by the flashing light of the darkfire crystal.

“Not again!” Peter said.

“Alexander!” Orion cried. “Come here!”

A new fear seized Alexander, a fear that this chance would be stolen from him forever. Maybe that was the trick of the stone. Maybe it would tantalize him with a possibility, then steal it away.

He wouldn’t be cheated. He had to see Katina, no matter what the price.

Alexander pivoted and ran down the hill, racing toward the village as quickly as he could. He had to be far enough away from the crystal to escape its pull.

He had to be left behind.

He heard his companions cry out, shouts of protest that had no hold over him. He felt rather than saw the bright light of the stone, as brilliant as an explosion behind him.

Alexander halted at the edge of the village and looked back, his chest heaving. He saw only a fading blue-green flash of light and no soldiers. His companions had disappeared, as surely as if they had never been.

Drake and the others were gone.

Alexander was shaken by his sense of solitude.

He was alone, for the first time in years. Only when it was too late did he realize how much he had come to rely upon the counsel and company of the other Dragon’s Tooth Warriors. They had shared the same strange experiences and understood each other. That camaraderie would no longer be part of his life.