Dragon's Blood (The Dragon's Gift Trilogy #2)

The door banged open, and Lucyan stormed in. Drystan sat up in alarm—his brother’s shirt was torn, his hair was disheveled, and his face and clothing were smudged with soot.

“What the hell happened to you?” Drystan demanded.

“Fucking Black Cloaks,” he fumed, his teeth bared and eyes blazing. “A group of them ambushed me on the way back here, and I was forced to char them all.” His fists clenched and unclenched as he made his way to the liquor cabinet. “We’re out of whiskey,” he snapped, pulling out a bottle of port.

“That’s because you keep drinking it all,” Drystan said as Lucyan brought the bottle over with two glasses. “Not that I have any room to talk, but with finances so tight, we should probably lay off the spirits.”

Lucyan snorted, eyeing the jewelry on the table as he poured a glass for each of them. “Is that why you have all your valuables out?” he asked. “You’re trying to replenish the alcohol fund?”

“More like I’m trying to figure out how to pay the staff wages,” Drystan said. They had spent a great deal of the petty cash fund on medical supplies to treat the wounded, and they needed to stretch their remaining funds until the taxes were brought in.

“You’re not going to do it by selling off your belongings,” Lucyan said. He knocked back his drink in one go, then swiftly poured another. “That will ruin the notion that we are not destitute and scrambling for cash. I have an emergency fund stored away—I’ll fetch it for you so you can pay the staff wages.”

“Thank you.” Drystan sighed in relief, then took a sip of port. “Now would you mind telling me where the bloody hell you’ve been all day? And why I should steer clear of the oracle?”

“Shadley has informed me that the oracle has been spreading rumors that Dareena’s status as the Dragon’s Gift is not legitimate.” Lucyan’s eyes flashed. “I decided to pay him a visit and see if there was any truth to that.”

“That’s absurd,” Drystan protested. “The oracle proclaimed her himself. Why would he go back on that now and risk damaging his own reputation?”

“That is exactly what he said to me,” Lucyan said, taking the seat to Alistair’s right. “He said that of course Dareena is the Dragon’s Gift, but that the prophecy she found is bollocks. According to him, the dragon god has decreed that Dareena must mate with the strongest of us, and that the three of us must fight each other to the death to win her hand.”

“To the death?” Drystan recoiled, his blood turning to ice. He couldn’t imagine trying to kill his brothers over anything, even Dareena. “That’s impossible. The dragon god could not have decreed such a thing.”

“He didn’t,” Lucyan said archly. “I went and spoke to him myself.”

“You what?”

“Apparently,” Lucyan went on, as if he hadn’t just dropped an anvil on Drystan’s head, “there is a sacred cave a half day’s journey from here that our ancestors used to commune with the dragon god. Our father knew about the cave, as did his father before him, but he never got around to telling us about it. Shadley discovered the information in an old tome in the library, and I followed the instructions and summoned the god.”

Drystan stared at Lucyan. “That’s…how was it?” he asked faintly. He tried to wrap his mind around actually speaking to the dragon god face to face. He had no idea such a thing was even possible! “Did you actually gaze upon him? Or was his brilliance too great to behold?”

“His brilliance was manageable,” Lucyan said dryly. “He seemed quite cross that nobody had come to visit him in so long. He also confirmed what I suspected—the oracle is an imposter. He said the man is really a warlock named Mathias Black, and that he killed the original oracle six years ago and took his position. He is a plant, and has been working to topple our kingdom from within.”

“Unbelievable.” Drystan scrubbed a hand over his face. “And he is sitting comfortably in the temple right now, free as a bird?”

“Yes,” Lucyan said darkly. “And that is not all. The dragon god said that Dareena is pregnant, and that we need to get her and Alistair out of Elvenhame before great danger befalls them. They are not safe there.”

“Pregnant?” Drystan cried. For a moment, he was giddy with happiness, but his mood plummeted as the rest of what Lucyan said caught up with him. “It seems that just when I think things can’t get any worse, they do.” Guilt swamped him at the thought of Dareena in harm’s way, and pregnant with their child… “Did the dragon god say anything about the babe?”

“He confirmed that the child, as well as the four of us, are the keys to breaking the curse,” Lucyan said, “which makes it even more important for us to get Dareena and Alistair back. The dragon god said we should focus on coming up with a plan to get them to safety rather than scramble to come up with funds for the ransom. He seemed to insinuate that if we play our cards right, everything would turn in our favor…though of course he didn’t say exactly which cards to play.”

Drystan sighed. “Of course not. That would be far too easy.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “It seems that we have two main tasks to focus on—eliminating the oracle, and rescuing our mate and brother.”

Lucyan nodded. “The oracle is a tricky one,” he said, his gaze turning pensive. “He is a favorite of the people, so if we kill or imprison him, that may make our political position even worse than it already is.”

“We cannot allow him to run amok and continue to make mischief,” Drystan protested. “He has murdered at least one man that we know of, and possibly more. And who knows how many state secrets he has fed the warlocks?”

“He’s probably managed to worm a great deal of information out of Father, in the guise of being his confidante,” Lucyan said darkly. “We will have to kidnap him under the cover of darkness, without alerting anyone that we have him or that he is in our dungeons.”

“Right. We’ll have to ensure only the most trusted guards watch him,” Drystan said. “We don’t have anyone else in the dungeons right now—that will make it easier. As far as the public is concerned, he will simply have disappeared in the middle of the night.”

“I’ll assign the task to Taldren and Catriona,” Lucyan decided. “Those two are well-trained and stealthy enough to make it happen. As for Dareena…” He trailed off, mulling over what few options they had. “I’ll go and break them out myself.”

“Are you mad?” Drystan said with a scowl. “You can’t go to Elvenhame. That anti-dragon spell the warlocks gave them will weaken you as soon as you go over the border.”