Fire Rising

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Tristan was laughing as he sat next to his brother. Ian made another joke that had everyone at the table in the great hall doubled over in laughter.

“See? I told you I’m funnier than you, Duncan,” Ian said as he elbowed him.

Tristan’s eyes snapped open. He stared at the ceiling as he pulled reality to him. He lay on his back with Sammi snuggled against him. Sweat beaded his skin as the memory floated through his mind like a leaf on the wind.

And it was a memory.

It hadn’t been a dream. He could still feel the wood of the table beneath his hands and how it was scraped and scratched from centuries of use.

He could still hear everyone’s laughter. Tristan touched his side where Ian’s elbow had connected with his rib. It tingled, as if it had just happened.

Tristan pulled his arm from beneath Sammi and sat up. He sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hands through his hair. It had seemed as real as the room around him.

The lights from the many candelabras and torches, the heat from the fire from the huge fireplace, the ale upon his lips.

What was going on? Why were these memories plaguing him now after two years? What did they want with him? And what was he going to do about it?

He stood and silently opened a drawer from the bureau and took out another pair of jeans. At the door he paused and looked at the bed. Sammi was sprawled out, a hand lying palm up as if she were reaching for him.

But who was she reaching for? Was he Tristan? Was he Duncan? Or was he someone else? His head began to pound as he tried to unravel the knots of his past.

Then he began to wonder if he should. Perhaps his past was knotted to keep him from learning something he’d rather not know.

Tristan briefly closed his eyes as he realized he couldn’t figure any of it out with Sammi around. She confused him even more, clouding his mind to anything but lust and complicating his decisions.

He’d known it was better to stay away from her. After having her in his arms, after marking her, he wouldn’t be able to keep from touching her. And right now with his past seeming to blur with lines of the present, he might just put her in danger.

Tristan walked out of the bedroom and then out of the house. He stopped once he was outside, his face lifted to the sky.

Life had been relatively uncomplicated a few days ago. He might have been dealing with Ian wanting to meet him, but there had been no memories of his past life, no confusion over what he was supposed to do or why he had become a Dragon King.

“Hey, handsome.”

He cringed when he heard Rhi’s voice. The Fae had a way of always being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She had helped save Kellan and Denae as well as Sammi.

Tristan shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Hi, yourself.”

“I expected you to look … content, happy even after your alone time with Sammi, not all mopey and depressed. You didn’t screw up, did you? Don’t all Kings make love perfectly?”

He heard the teasing in her voice, but he couldn’t manage to even crack a smile. “It was as near to perfect with her as I suspect it can get.”

Rhi came to stand in front of him, a deep frown marring her forehead when she looked at his face. “Damn, handsome. You look like hell.”

“At least I look how I feel.” He shook his head.

Every fiber of his being wanted him to return to Sammi, to crawl back in that bed and take her body again. To forget who he was or whatever he was supposed to be.

But protecting her required his mind be clear of everything. It was so muddied now he wasn’t sure which way was up. “What are you doing here?”

Rhi shrugged and walked back to her seat on the stone wall. “Thinking.”

“At Dreagan? I thought this would be the last place you wanted to be.”

There was a faint smile as she shifted her gaze to look at the mountains. “It is, and yet at one time it was my favorite place to be. You think you finally find something worth keeping, something that could never be taken from you, something that will keep your world steady. And then it’s yanked away, snatched right from your hands. The rightness, the completeness you felt seems like a distant memory as you drift through time.”

“You loved him deeply.”

There was a beat of silence, a sadness so profound that it weighted the air. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

Tristan knew it was a rare event for Rhi to talk about her Dragon King lover. He wanted to know who it was, but he knew better than to ask. Not now, at least. “How long ago did you lose him?”

“Hundreds of lifetimes ago. Sometimes it feels like yesterday.”

“Is that why you’re here? You want to be close to the memories you have?”

Her silver eyes caught the light of the moon, making them look metallic. “No. I’m here because I need quiet to think. And because it never hurts to have someone else help keep watch other than him,” she said and pointed to the sky as Laith flew overhead, the black of his dragon blending effortlessly with the night.

“What are you thinking about?”

Her smile was too wide, too bright as she focused on him. “Tell me what has driven you from your lover’s bed.”

Tristan withdrew into himself as he recalled the newest memory. She’d changed the subject, but he let it slide since he had a question of his own. “Do you know how Dragon Kings are made?”

“I don’t think anyone does. When we came to this realm the Dragon Kings were already here.”

“You never asked your lover how he came to be?”

She let out a soft sigh. “He was a dragon, Tristan. He was chosen to be a King because of his strength and the power of his magic. He was a natural born leader.”

“I fell from the sky,” Tristan said and looked to a distant mountain. “One minute there was nothing, and then there was the cold and snow and the howling wind.”

“You remember nothing before then?”

Tristan closed his eyes and thought back. It was a place he hadn’t bothered to look closer at because it hadn’t mattered. Until now. “Blackness. I was … floating.”

“You could have been in that space between life and death. I heard one Fae describe it after we healed him. He had been far gone, and at one point he stopped breathing.”

Tristan opened his eyes and looked at her. “Where was this place?”

“It exists all around us,” she said with a wave of her hand. “It’s not a place you can find on a map, and I don’t know how some go there and some don’t.”

He faced her and asked, “What did the Fae describe it as?”

“He said it was as if he could see everything from the past to the present and even the future. He saw everyone, heard everything. He witnessed cities rise and cities fall. He beheld civilizations crumble into dust as new ones were born.”

“And he remembered all of it?”

Rhi flicked her long hair over a shoulder. “For all of a few minutes after we healed him. After he slept, he recalled nothing of the event.”

“So he could’ve made it up.”

“He could have, but he didn’t. I especially remember him talking about floating and the darkness before a timeline of life was displayed for him to see.”

Tristan snorted as he turned away. “I want to know why I was made into a Dragon King.”

“Isn’t it enough you came back, handsome? And so close to your twin?”

He speared her with a glacial look. “What do you know of my past?”

“Nothing more than anyone else, but there’s no doubt Ian is your brother right down to the way a vein ticks on the side of your forehead when you get angry.”

“I do no’,” he said even as he reached up and rubbed his left temple.

She twisted her mouth in a wry frown. “Is lying to yourself helping? Is that what’s keeping you from Sammi’s bed?”

“Nay. It’s the memories.” He wasn’t sure why he told Rhi. It could be because she didn’t have ties to Dreagan or MacLeod Castle.

For long minutes Rhi was quiet, the night broken only by the sound of Laith’s wings beating as he flew around them. “Memories of when you died?”

“Memories of a life when I was … Duncan.”

“I didn’t think you had those memories,” she said in confusion.

“I didn’t. Until I met Sammi.”

Rhi put her hands on either side of her hips and tapped her nails on the stones. “How?”

“When I touch her the memories come.”

“Every time you touch her?”

He gave a shake of his head. “Nay. It’s random. I doona know when they’ll come. I had one tonight. It woke me.”

“And you’re sure you were Duncan in this memory?”

“I was in a castle surrounded by men who I knew to be close friends. Ian was beside me, teasing me.”

Rhi listened raptly. “The men. Can you describe any of them to me?”

“Three wore gold torcs around their necks. They were brothers, I’m sure of it.”

“Any other memories?” she asked in a soft voice.

Tristan hesitated before he swallowed and said, “I saw my hands except my skin was pale blue and there were long blue claws extended from my fingers. My hands were covered in blood that I somehow know was from a battle.”

“Is that all so far?”

“There is a third.”

Rhi slid from the wall to her feet. “I’ve heard enough already.”

“I’m in a mountain,” he said over her. “I’m being held prisoner with Ian. It’s a bad place we’re in, Rhi.”

Her silver eyes met his. “Yes, it was. It still holds evil.”

“These really are memories then?”

“Yes.”

He let his chin drop to his chest. “So I really was Duncan Kerr?”

“Is that so bad?”

“I doona know. I’ve no’ remembered everything.”

Rhi came to stand beside him as they looked out over the valley below them. “Ian Kerr is a good man, and his wife, Danielle, is a powerful Druid. Ian, along with the other Warriors from MacLeod Castle have fought to keep evil Druids from harming the world.”

“Is that how I died? By fighting against evil?”

She was silent too long. Tristan knew whatever had happened to end his life hadn’t been good.

“Never mind,” he said. “I doona want to know.”

Rhi placed a hand on his arm. “I don’t know why you couldn’t remember your past life, or why you are here now. I also don’t know why you became a Dragon King, but I can say with all honesty that you are one of only a few Kings that I like. They are better because you are now one of them. You embraced your life as King just as all Dragon Kings from the beginning of time have welcomed their role. Your past doesn’t define you, Tristan. Your actions in the present do.”

With a smile of encouragement, she was gone.

Tristan liked Rhi. She had a way of livening up any situation with her constantly changing nail color, her sarcastic comments, and her beauty.

The fact Con couldn’t stand to have her around only made her needle him mercilessly when she did help them, which was more often than she should with the way Con treated her.

Tristan wondered if it had anything to do with her Dragon King lover.

He inhaled deeply and called out to Laith via their link. “I need to leave. Watch over Sammi.”

“Tristan? What’s wrong? You sound … strange.”

“It’s nothing. I just need to see about something.”

He removed his jeans and ran to the edge of the mountain where he jumped off and shifted into dragon form. It was time he paid MacLeod Castle a visit.