The Dragon Legion Collection(52)

Until Damien had kissed her.

Petra already doubted her recent impression. It couldn’t be possible. The baby was dead, just as she was.

And yet, and yet, Petra didn’t feel dead anymore. Her skin didn’t look as if she were dead. What if her son could be saved? The prospect was enticing. What if Damien could take him back to the world of the living? She couldn’t deny her son that chance, yet she had to somehow ensure that Damien could be relied upon not to abandon his infant son just as he’d once abandoned her.

She heard Damien following her, that familiar purpose in his step. The measured sound of his footfalls made her smile. He was relentless in pursuit of a goal. He had an agenda and he would stick to it. She liked his kind of determination, even if he did sometimes infuriate her enough that she called him stubborn.

In bed, she’d called him persistent. She bit back her widening smile before Damien saw it. He had been an amazing lover, but the last thing this dragon needed was encouragement or anything that would feed his confidence.

“Petra, we have to talk about this...”

He was right.

Maybe for the wrong reason, but he was still right.

Petra spun to face Damien, seeing his expression turn wary at her unexpected move. She lifted a hand and that blue-green spark flickered at the end of her fingertip, just as the brilliant orange light of the firestorm had once lit between them. She reached toward him, and the spark jumped, illuminating a brilliant arc of light before it exploded against his chest. He blinked and took a half-step back, as if startled by the impact, then kept walking toward her.

“What’s the light?” Petra asked.

He tried to dismiss the question. “What difference does it make? We need to talk about getting out of here...”

Petra was sure the spark was part of that. “This light is drawing us together. It led me to the gates and it’s awakening memories. I feel like it’s trying to remind us how good it was.”

“Before you tried to kill me,” Damien noted. He paused before her and smiled slightly as he looked down at the glow of blue-green becoming brighter between them. “Except you didn’t, really.”

Petra smiled at him and their gazes clung for a long hot moment.

“Is it part of your plan to win my compliance?”

“As if it could be so easy,” Damien murmured, his tone rueful, then smiled at her. He winked at her, clearly not disliking that they argued so much, and Petra’s pulse skipped. “Darkfire is beyond my control,” he said then and she believed him. “It seems to be mimicking the firestorm.”

“Does it usually?”

“No.”

“It’s a different color.” Petra had to admit that its effect upon her was similar. She felt edgy, excited, filled with a desire and even more aware of Damien than she had been before. She was watching the curve of his mouth, the glint in his eye, the way he moved and spoke. She ran her tongue over her lips without meaning to do so and tasted the sweetness of his kiss again, felt herself burn with wanting.


Damien’s gaze met hers and Petra couldn’t look away. She couldn’t swallow and she couldn’t breathe. Her heart was pounding and her skin was heating.

It was a wonderful feeling that left her yearning for more.

“What is darkfire?” she asked.

“It’s a force associated with the Pyr, but an unpredictable one.” Damien’s brows drew together as he tried to explain it. Yet again, Petra appreciated that he had never disguised the truth about himself or his kind from her, and had never compromised an explanation. “It’s said to create possibility where there was none and turn assumptions upside down.”

“Magic,” Petra whispered, watching the light grow, and feeling the answering desire within her multiply.

“Chaos,” Damien said.

“Second chances?” Petra guessed.

“Some think so.”

“And you?”

“I think it opens doors that were closed.” He shrugged. “For better or for worse.”

“Like the gates of the underworld.”

Damien nodded. Petra’s hand fell to her ripe belly as the baby moved.

When Damien watched her gesture, Petra surveyed him. He was changing somehow. The blood in the cloth he’d tied around his leg was darker. Where she’d struck him, the skin had bruised, but now looked oddly dark. Maybe it was that the rest of his complexion looked so pale. Maybe he was dying because he was in the underworld or maybe he’d given some of his life force to her. Either way, he didn’t look as vital anymore and she didn’t want him to be trapped here like her. She feared they were running out of time and didn’t want his quest to fail.

Not now that her son was moving again.

“If we have a second chance, that means we made a mistake,” she said. “That means we have an opportunity to choose differently.”

Damien folded his arms across his chest. “I believed I was right to leave you.”

He looked so self-assured that Petra could have decked him again. “I just explained to you why I did what I did, that I did it for you.”

“It wasn’t up to you to try to save me,” he replied, as stubborn as ever.

“We conceived a son together. We were partners.”

“No,” he insisted. “It was my task to protect you...”