Dragon's Ruin (Blood Prophecy #4)
Lili Zander & Rory Reynolds
The story so far
After a near-death encounter with a panther shifter guard, twenty-four-year-old Norm Aria Archer promises to give up her thieving ways and embrace the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, her resolve doesn’t last long. Silas, the wolf-shifter who took her in from the streets when she was fourteen, is gravely ill, and cannot pay for the treatment he needs to stay alive.
When the mysterious Drakkar Raedwulf offers Aria a million dollars to steal the Bloodstone from the five dragon princes, Aria has no choice other than to accept. Though everyone in her life warns her about the dangerous dragons, Aria is determined to help Silas.
But the five dragon princes are onto her, and the instant she opens the safe she’s been hired to empty, they appear around her…
…And claim that she’s their mate.
Rather understandably, Aria’s not inclined to trust the dragon princes. She waits until the dragons are asleep, robs the safe and sneaks out of their apartment to meet her client.
Unfortunately, Aria doesn’t have the Bloodstone. Enraged, Raedwulf almost kills her. In the nick of time, Bastian rescues her, though he’s wounded in the attack. Raedwulf and one of his wolf-shifter companions manage to escape, but the third wolf-shifter is taken prisoner by Bastian’s guards.
Aria has abilities that are far greater than any Norm, and the dragon princes try to uncover the mystery of her identity. Silas tells them that he’s been working on the same thing. He kept his findings in a diary that’s stored at his friend Pete’s house. Unfortunately, when Silas and dragon prince Erik Valder get to Pete’s apartment, they discover that the Norm had been killed by Drakkar Raedwulf, who’s also taken the diary.
Aria mourns Pete and decides to confront Raefwulf’s associate, who is being treated for concussion in a hospital. When she gets there, she’s taken prisoner by Dr. Brown, a one-time associate of Raedwulf. Aria’s able to harness Dragon Prince Mateo Valentini’s magic to free herself from the doctor, another sign that she’s not entirely Norm.
The dragon princes grow concerned at the danger Aria is in, and want to send her away, but Aria realizes she can’t leave. She’s part of a five-hundred-year-old prophecy, and she’s the dragons’ mate. She’s ready to break the curse that’s draining magic from the world.
Trust builds slowly between Aria and her five dragons. After an argument about her safety, Aria convinces the dragon princes to let her leave the apartment. The dragons decide to woo Aria; each of them takes her out on a date and gets to know her better.
Aided by the blood magic, the simmering attraction between the dragons and Aria flares to life.
Aria’s slowly getting used to her new life when Gideon Zyrian, the Dark Dragon responsible for the curse that’s draining magic from the world, invades her mind. He starts haunting her dreams, and in every one of them, he kills Silas Archer. Dragon Prince Mateo Valentini wards his mate, but he knows that Zyrian is far more powerful than he is. Any measure he can take to protect Aria is only temporary.
Meanwhile, the search continues to discover the secret of Aria’s missing identity. When Aria discovers that her CPS records are missing, she immediately realizes who’s responsible. Hagen Nygaard, the Arctic fox shifter crime lord who protected her on the streets when she was a runaway. She goes to see Nygaard along with Dragon Prince Erik Valder, and the two of them convince the crime lord to part with the missing records, which tells them that Aria’s first foster home was with a woman called Pauline Summers.
Aria and Silas go to meet Pauline in a nursing home, but the old woman is suffering from dementia. All she remembers is that Aria’s mother tried to kill her as a child.
While the dragons are uncovering Aria’s identity, Zyrian’s been testing the wards of protection around Aria. At a party for Bastian, he manages to break through. Aria draws magic from Mateo to fight back temporarily, but it leads them to realize the only way for Aria to stay safe is to go to Castle Jaeger, where the wards of Bastian’s dead mother, Maija Essen, will protect them.
Her first night in Castle Jaeger, Maija Essen comes to Aria in a vision. She reveals that a piece of the Bloodstone is in Aria, and she gets her magical abilities from it. Maija tells Aria that she’s all that’s standing between the dragons and utter ruin.
Which brings us to…
1
Aria
My first thought after my encounter with Dream-Maija is that I need to tell the dragons about it. I don’t know how finding out that I’m half-Norm, half-gemstone is going to help us break the curse and end Gideon Zyrian’s assault against magic, but the others might. Casius reads all the time. Mateo is a mage. Erik was born before the curse.
I’m hoping one of them has a clue because I sure don’t.
So I hurry back upstairs to the wing where the guest bedrooms are located.
Naturally, I get lost in Bastian’s cavernous castle.
I make my way back up the stairs from the underground room just fine—okay, fine, there’s some huffing and puffing, but in my defense, I’ve been too busy in the last three weeks to go to the gym—but when I get to the top, there are two long corridors in front of me, and I don’t have the slightest idea which one I came through. Both look equally dusty and unused. And dark.
Evidently, now that Maija Essen has met me, there’s no further need for light.
At random, I pick the corridor on the right and start groping my way down it, wishing I had the presence of mind to grab my cell phone before I set out on this adventure. “Hello?” I call out experimentally. There must have been at least thirty staff members who’d lined up to greet Bastian earlier this evening. With any luck, one of them will hear me. “Is anyone there?”
Dead silence greets me.
Damn it. Just once, I wish my sense of direction actually worked.
I walk for what seems like a good thirty minutes, getting colder and colder, pulling my fleece robe tighter around me. Though I’m freezing, my thoughts are not on finding my way back. I’m thinking of everything Maija Essen’s memory told me.
I’m part of the Bloodstone. I’m some kind of weird, twisted combination of ruby and person. Not just that, but I’m the last bit of pre-curse magic in the entire world.
You are all that’s standing between the dragons and utter ruin.
Brilliant. Just brilliant. That’s both ominous and annoyingly vague. Why the hell couldn’t she give me something useful? Step-by-step instructions for breaking the curse would have been nice. A How-to-destroy-the-Dark-Dragon guidebook would have been even better. If Maija Essen was powerful enough to preserve herself as a memory for five hundred years, why the hell couldn’t she tell me what to do?
I turn down another long, unfamiliar corridor. Where the hell am I? “Hello?” I shout out again, but once again, there’s no reply.
Great. It must be two in the morning. At the rate I’m going, I’ll be lost all night. This castle is huge, and nothing around me looks familiar.
Magic.
I almost smack my forehead when I think of it. Of course. Ever since the five dragons gave their blood to create a tattoo of protection for me, I can sense them if I need. I take a deep breath and close my eyes.
I see them. Five peaceful, sleeping glowing shapes of light. Rhys’ bedroom is closest, not too far left of me.