Fire Rising

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sammi didn’t know if she was happy that someone else knew who Tristan was or not. “What color is he?”

“Amber,” Ian answered. “His dragon is amber.”

“You really know about him?”

Dani chuckled as she glanced at Ian. “Oh, yes. We know of them. We’ve had many interactions with those at Dreagan.”

Sammi swallowed and wished she had a drink. As if reading her mind, Charon walked to a sideboard and poured some whisky into a glass. He handed it to her with a nod.

She wasn’t normally a whisky drinker, but the burn of it sliding down her throat helped her focus. As the whisky settled in her stomach, a warmth enveloped her but it didn’t chase away the cold chill around her heart.

Despite taking a big gulp of the scotch, she knew it was possibly the best she had ever tasted. “It’s Dreagan, isn’t it?”

“Aye,” Laura said.

Sammi laughed. “Even now I can’t get away.” She squeezed her eyes closed. Would there ever come a time when she could look around and not think of Tristan, not long for his kisses—not wonder what a life with him could be like?

Ian sat on the coffee table in front of her. “How do you know Tristan?”

She opened her eyes and was struck again by how it appeared she was looking at Tristan. Sammi looked over Ian’s face. At first glance, he was a dead ringer for Tristan, but now that she searched there were subtle differences.

Their smiles—Ian’s was kind where Tristan’s had a devilish, teasing air. Their eyes—Ian’s held acceptance while Tristan’s seemed to … search for something.

There was also the way Ian held his head to the right when asking a question. Tristan tended to lean his to the left. Their hair, while both long and the exact shade of light brown with gold threaded through it, Ian’s was trimmed neatly while Tristan’s had an untidiness about it that she found appealing. Then of course there was the dragon tat.

Sammi leaned back and cradled the glass in her hand as she looked down at the goldish liquid. “It’s a rather long story. You see, I owned a pub myself. Unbeknownst to me, my business associate was laundering money for the Mob. He skimmed some for himself and they found out about it. They came calling one evening and killed him. I managed to escape out of my flat above the pub and into the water before they blew it up. I hid beneath the docks as they shot bullets into the water, and I got hit with one.”

“Shite,” Charon murmured.

Sammi licked her lips, the first vestiges of a grin pulling at her lips. With the four of them listening aptly, she imparted the rest of the story, although she omitted the night she and Tristan had spent together.

When she was finished, silence filled the room. She took a sip of whisky and looked between Charon and Ian, who wore matching expressions of apprehension.

“If this involves the Dark, we need Phelan,” Ian said.

“Not until you tell me how you know of the Kings, the Dark, and everything that’s going on,” Sammi demanded.

Dani sighed and looked to Ian before she turned her emerald eyes to Sammi. “Laura and I are Druids.”

Sammi started to laugh until she saw the seriousness of Dani’s expression. If there were dragons and Fae, who was to say that there really weren’t Druids?

“Druids?” she repeated.

Laura smiled and crossed her legs. “That’s right. We’re mies, which are Druids who use the magic they were born with. There are also droughs, who use black magic they get from giving their soul to the Devil.”

“You can do magic?”

Dani nodded to the dark stain on her shoulder. Sammi looked to where her wound was. She had pulled the stitches again.

“Lift your sleeve,” Dani urged.

Sammi dithered for just a second before she pulled up her sleeve. Laura winced as Dani’s face scrunched. “I know it looks bad.”

“It’s been stitched tightly, or was until you pulled them,” Charon said.

Sammi’s thoughts once more turned to Tristan. He had tended to her, his large hands on her skin. She pushed him out of her head and focused on Dani.

She motioned for Sammi to turn her arm more to her while Laura rose and moved to Sammi’s other side. The Druids raised their hands over her wound, palms down.

Sammi wasn’t sure if she was supposed to do anything. Her gaze lifted to Ian, who was watching her intently. She saw his eyes darken almost as soon as she felt something warm and bright move through her and settle in and around her wound.

Before her very eyes Sammi saw her flesh knit together, leaving the skin pink as if the wound had been stitched a month before instead of just days.

The threads of the stitches floated to the floor to land next to her feet. Sammi looked from them to her wound. “Your magic healed me?”

“Yes,” Dani said, her eyes shining brightly. “We can do more as well.”

Ian stalked to the sliding glass door and stared outside. “I want to know why they didna heal you at Dreagan.”

“They did,” Sammi said. “They got the bullet out and stitched me.”

“Con could’ve healed you that night. You wouldna have had to walk around with such a wound,” Charon said.

“Con.” Sammi tested the name. “I think I heard mention of him, but I didn’t meet him. There was Banan, Tristan, and Laith that I know of.”

Laura’s forehead furrowed. “Are they keeping her a secret from Con?”

Charon grunted. “That willna be for long.”

“What’s the problem?” Sammi was getting the distinct impression that she wasn’t going to like Con.

Dani patted her leg. “Con is the King of Kings, the CEO of Dreagan.”

“Their leader?” Sammi asked.

Ian kept his gaze focused outside. “In a manner. He keeps the Kings together, but he could no more tell them what to do than someone could tell me or Charon what to do.”

“And why is that?”

Charon took her empty glass. “Well, lass, that’s because we’re Warriors. We’ve primeval gods inside us brought up by Druids when Rome attacked.”

Holy shit balls. What else was walking around that she didn’t know about?

Sammi wasn’t shocked by his declaration. Anyone looking at Ian and Charon would know they weren’t men to be messed with, but she hadn’t expected this. “Are you immortal as well?”

“Aye. We’ve just no’ been around nearly as long as the Kings,” Ian said.

She frowned then as she stared at Ian. “If Tristan is your twin, how are you a Warrior and he a King?”

Ian turned to face her and she saw the haggard expression he had been hiding. “Because four hundred years ago while we were fighting a drough, Duncan was killed. That was his name. Duncan Kerr. We survived being imprisoned by the drough and tortured for decades. And in one instant he was killed.”

Sammi could physically feel Ian’s pain at losing his brother.

“At that exact moment, another drough in this century pulled Deirdre to the present. Since she was next to Duncan, I was yanked forward in time because of our link as twins.”

“He died?” she asked. “Are you sure?”

Ian’s smile was sad. “Aye, lass. I was miles away, but I felt it. We got confirmation from another Warrior who was with Duncan who witnessed it all.”

“I don’t understand. How could Tris … Duncan have been killed but be here now?”

Charon walked to the back of the couch and leaned a hip against it next to Laura. “That’s what we’re all trying to figure out. Duncan returned two years ago as a Dragon King, literally dropping out of the sky, but he returned with no memories of who he was.”

Sammi couldn’t sit any longer. She rose and began to walk around the open space of the office. “He doesn’t remember you?”

“Nay.” The grief, the desolation in Ian’s voice was difficult to listen to.

“Hasn’t he seen you?”

Dani stood and went to Ian. She wrapped her arms around him as she looked at Sammi. “Tristan refuses to see him.”

“This makes no sense. You all said you knew of the Kings, that you had been there. How did you go to Dreagan and not see Tristan?”

“He was always in dragon form,” Charon said.

“Oh.”

Ian held Dani tightly. “Phelan has gone to Tristan on my behalf. I get the feeling Tristan doesna want to know of our life before.”

“He’s scared,” Sammi said. “At least that’s my guess. I wanted no part of Jane when she came claiming we were half-sisters. She didn’t give up on me though. And when I was in trouble, I knew the only person I could go to was her. Have any of you thought what he might be going through?”

Ian’s face fell into lines of worry. “All he has to do is meet me.”

“If he became a King two years ago with no idea of who he was before, he would do what anyone would, he would cling to those around him. He would embrace being a Dragon King and finding a place within their ranks.”

Ian turned away from Dani and raked a hand through his hair. “The Kings kept Tristan away from me. They kept him in dragon form so I wouldna see him.”

“I’m guessing to protect him,” Sammi said.

“I want my brother back,” Ian declared.

“You want Tristan to accept a past he can’t remember. He’s found a place with the Kings, but if he does accept you as his twin, where does he belong? Is he a King or is he a Warrior?”

Charon said, “He was a Warrior first.”

“And now he’s a Dragon King. I’ve only been around the Kings for a short time, but they are loyal to each other. They protect Dreagan and each other more fiercely than anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Then why did you leave?” Dani asked.

Sammi should have seen that one coming. She wanted to wake up and discover this was all a dream. She wanted her pub back, to have her days be consistent and normal, like they used to be.

But if it was a dream, then that meant so was Tristan.

“The Kings have an enemy,” Charon said. “He’s set out to expose them, and it began several years ago. He’s grown bolder by aligning with MI5 and the Dark Fae.”

“So Tristan didn’t make up the attack to get me back to Dreagan?”

Laura’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “That we can’t say for sure.”

“The Dark Fae are dangerous,” Dani said. “I’ve not encountered them, but Phelan has.”

They had mentioned that name several times. Sammi was curious as to who this Phelan was. “What has he to do with the Dark?”

“He’s part Fae,” Ian explained. “Light Fae.”

Charon pulled out his mobile and sent a text. “He was with Tristan recently in Ireland as they went in search of Kellan and Denae after the Dark took them.”

“I’ve heard them mention Kellan and Denae,” Sammi said as her mind whirled with the stories Tristan could probably tell. Had he been in danger with the Dark? Had they tried to capture him? At least she knew he had come out of it in one piece.

Laura briefly looked up at Charon. “The Dark want a Dragon King, and they managed to get their hands on Kellan. Denae was an MI5 agent who had been betrayed by her people. The Dark Ones, well, they wanted her.”

That’s all she had to say. Sammi knew exactly what Laura meant. “Why do they want a King?”

“That we doona know. But it can no’ be for good,” Ian said.

Sammi thought of Tristan, of running from Dreagan. He had said the mountain was the safest place for her. Would he come after her when he found she was gone?

Worse, had she just put him and every other King in danger by leaving?