Night's Blaze by Donna Grant
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I cannot thank my wonderful editor, Monique Patterson, enough. You’re the bomb! To everyone at SMP who was involved in getting this book ready. Y’all rock!
To my agent, Natanya Wheeler, thanks for loving dragons!
A special thanks to my family for the never-ending support.
And to my husband, Steve. I love you, Sexy!
CHAPTER ONE
Dreagan
September
“Lily.”
Rhys closed his eyes and stood atop the mountain listening to the wind whisper her name.
She walked in his dreams, teasing him with her black eyes and curtain of onyx hair. Awake, he never stopped thinking of her, longing for her.
Yearning for her.
Their all-too-brief kiss haunted him. He could still taste her, could still feel her in his arms weeks later. Lily had no idea of the feelings she stirred within him. She was gentle and shy. She lit up a room just by entering, and he ached to have her close.
He recalled the party weeks ago where he found her standing outside watching everyone through a window. She looked … lonely. And it prompted him out of the shadows as nothing else could.
Then, her closeness and the way her eyes lit up when she saw him took away the last of his defenses. He’d had to hold her, kiss her. Taste her.
Rhys took in a shuddering breath. That one simple kiss slayed him as nothing in his very, very long life had ever done. It physically hurt him to release her and turn his back to everything she offered, but it was for the best.
“Well … at least you picked a pretty spot.”
His eyes flew open when he heard Rhi’s voice beside him. He turned his head to the Light Fae to see her standing next to him surveying the land just as he had a moment before. Was it really her? Or was she a figment of his imagination? No one had seen Rhi since Ulrik carried her out of Balladyn’s dungeons weeks ago.
“Rhi? What are you doing here?”
She turned her head to him and raised a black brow. “I’m here for you, idiot.”
Rhys frowned. Perhaps it was Rhi’s smartass quips or her saucy attitude, but they had become friends quickly. She had been there whenever he had needed her, and he made sure to do the same for her. But there was nothing she could do now. Surely she knew that. “You’ve wasted your time then.”
“You’re still a Dragon King, handsome,” she said with a saucy wink.
Not even her teasing could break the hold of desolation that gripped him. Only Lily could do that. Nor could he hold back his sarcasm as he said, “Am I? I can no longer shift into a dragon. That puts a crimp on things.”
Her face softened as she put a hand on his arm. “You’re still a Dragon King, shifting or not. You have your dragon magic, right?”
“Aye, but for how long?” Rhys ran a hand down his face and let out a long breath. “Everything I am, everything I ever will be, is a dragon. Do you have any idea how it feels to watch the others from afar, wishing I could be with them?”
“Yes.”
Her reply was soft, barely above a whisper, and it held such sadness that he physically winced.
Rhys felt like the biggest ass. Of everyone, Rhi came the closest to knowing how he felt. She wasn’t a dragon, but a Light Fae who happened to be in love with a Dragon King. The love between her and her King had flared quick and strong, until the King ended it out of the blue. Now, eons later, Rhi still carried a torch for her King. Theirs was a love of the ages, a love that would never diminish.
If only the fool would realize it and claim Rhi as his own again. But the King wouldn’t.
“It’s not the same though,” Rhi said with a flip of her long hair over her shoulders as if she hadn’t delved into dark memories that scarred her soul. “Your wings were taken. Someone mixed dragon magic with that of the Dark to do this to you.”
“Ulrik.” As if Rhys had to guess who had condemned him to such a life. “To think I pitied that son of a bitch no’ so long ago. I would’ve thought he might do this to Con, no’ me.”
Rhi crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. For the first time Rhys noted Rhi’s attire. She wore a shirt that molded to her body in a black-and-white geometrical pattern. A white belt encircled the waist of her black pants, and black sandals with four-inch heels encased her feet.
His gaze lowered to her nails that were divided by a glittery gold line diagonally across the nail with one half white and the other black.
“Finished with your perusal?” she asked, no heat in her words as she wiggled her fingers before his face. “Unfortunately, the black is simply called Black Onyx. They could’ve done better, I think. The white, however, I couldn’t resist. It’s called Funny Bunny.”
Rhys met her silver Fae eyes. “You wear your mood on your nails.”