The Dragon Legion Collection(59)

“Your father must have won that battle,” Petra said.

He met her gaze steadily. “She’d been giving him a potion for years. It was from the east and intended to weaken him. He was a slave to pleasure with no thoughts of his own. His defiance over my fate surprised her and angered her. He roused himself, what was left, and commanded me to run. It was the only order he’d ever given me and I didn’t dare to disobey.”

“Did she kill him?” Petra asked.

Damien nodded. “I prefer to think that he let her win.”

Petra stared at the ground, realizing why Damien had been afraid to trust her with his survival. She considered him now and feared that he too would be destroyed by a determination to save his son.

“Could you tell me the prophecy again?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t have a dragon’s memory.” Their gazes locked and held for a hot moment, then Damien spoke softly, reciting the verse.



“A lost child mourned for many years

A mother who will shed no tears

A dragon warrior turned to stone

A woman abandoned, all alone.

Firestorm’s promise will fade to naught

Until stone and fire pay death’s cost.

After a Pyr sacrifice is made

Destiny’s promise can be claimed.



He looked at her hard. “There’s a promise in it, a chance if its conditions are fulfilled. At the time, I heard only the warning.”

“And you were sure that I’d be the one who turned you to stone.”

Damien looked embarrassed. “I didn’t even know that such a thing was possible. I was surprised, Petra, and reacted badly.” He stood up and came to her, taking her hand in his. She didn’t dare meet his gaze, not when he ran his thumb across her hand and bent his attention on her as he did now. He was trying to convince her of something and Petra knew his task was half won. “I didn’t tell you what happened to my company of warriors, or where I’ve been.”

His words surprised her into looking up, and then she was snared by the intensity of his gaze.

“We went to hunt a viper, which is what we call one of our kind turned bad. This one was enchanting men in his vicinity, turning their thoughts to wickedness. He was inciting war and hardship. He turned his spell on us.”

Petra caught her breath. “He turned you to stone.”

“To teeth, actually. Warriors defeated by him were turned to dragon teeth, used by him in attacking others. But when he died and his remains became part of the earth, the teeth turned to stone.”

“That would have taken a long time.”

“Centuries.” Damien’s lips tightened and his thumb stilled against her skin. “We were enchanted for almost two thousand years, Petra, until another Pyr guessed how to break the spell.”

“By planting the teeth, sowing them like seeds,” Petra guessed.

Damien looked up in surprise.

“It’s in a story,” she explained with a smile and he shook his head. “But two thousand years?”

He nodded. “I have seen the future. I thought this world lost to us.” He sighed. “We all thought ourselves adrift, until the darkfire was released.”


“Released from what?”

“It was trapped in a stone by some sorcery. Actually, there are said to be three darkfire crystals, according to the Pyr of future times, and one of them was broken, setting the force of darkfire loose in the world.” He frowned. “Everything can change when the darkfire burns.”

Was everything changing for her and Damien? Petra wanted that to be true so badly that she didn’t want to say it aloud.

“The darkfire brought you here, then.”

Damien nodded. “Our commander, Drake, took possession of one of the crystals. He thought it ordered him to do so. Once he had it, it began to flare intermittently. Whenever it did that, we were flung through space and time, cast down in a strange place until the crystal lit again. We lost men along the way. It was before we came here that Thaddeus suggested the crystal was taking us to our firestorms. One of us, Alexander, was taken back to the village where he left Katina and his son.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. The crystal lit again, and Alexander ran from us, determined to be left behind.” He met her gaze steadily. “Then it took us to a place where Orion’s firestorm sparked. He pursued her and the crystal brought us here. As soon as I saw the River Acheron, I knew the darkfire was giving me the chance to save our son.” He squeezed her hand slightly. “What if the darkfire is giving us a second chance?”

The baby kicked just as his father spoke. Petra would have turned away, but Damien was too observant to miss her reaction. He was leaning over her in a heartbeat, her elbow in his hand. “What is it?”

She had trusted him from that first night, and even though he had disappointed her, Petra realized she still did trust Damien. He wasn’t the only one who had made a mistake, after all.

She took his hand and placed it over her ripe belly. He was momentarily confused, then the baby kicked hard.

“He’s alive!” Damien said with such delight that tears rose to Petra’s eyes. “Has he been doing this all along?”

“No.” Petra shook her head. “No. The labor didn’t start, Damien, and he went still. He’d been kicking and kicking, but suddenly stopped.” Her breath caught. “I felt that he had turned to stone and I was afraid.”