Dragons and Princes - [COMPLETE]

24. Patreos

The Ajatar recoiled from Prince Laven as he stood over his sister, his yellow breken eyes burning with hate, holding her golden-edged red sword to her throat. Marquis Morganthe had taken Faeana from him. Marquis Morganthe had killed his frey cat Patre. Marquis Morganthe was responsible for his turning, and all he could feel was a possessive hate for Faeana, the Heartbreaker Queen, and a murderous hate for the Keisere, who had stolen his Love, who had stolen a black dragon. The Morganthes had murdered his father, and they had dragon blood.

Over and over the name rolled through him.

His hate consumed him until he couldn’t even see his sister before him. He was lost within the storm, but his dragon Everci had taken him into his consciousness, cradling his lost mind, protecting it. He and his dragon were one, and they would kill all who rose to stand in their way of killing Marquis Morganthe and his dragon. Faeana Dagur would pay for her love of the Freyja, for her betrayal.

Hate drove him until his love for Faeana was twisted by it– and yet, as his eyes locked onto the silhouette of a man whose blood-red eyes burned through the rising smoke, he could not move. He could not move, could not kill, could not scream, could not feel anything but the hate and the agony.

The Black One was trying to cripple Everci from the sky, and he felt Everci’s anger and pain, just as Everci felt his own. They were of one consciousness, a deeper bond than ever he had shared with his frey cat Patre. There were two bodies, one small and frail even if it was vicious, the other great and powerful and sky-bound.

"Freyja no longer," Laíhda trembled, staring up at her younger brother where he stood covered in blood, his blond braids red and singed from the dragon fire. Soot blackened his skin, but he stood like stone, a vicious, killing creature with only one emotion and one drive. "And yet breken no more . . ."

"Why has he stopped?" one of the Ajatar said cautiously. "Why has he frozen?"

"He is dragon beyond the blood," Laíhda rasped, her head tilted back as her chest heaved. If she moved even an inch, it might provoke him to kill her. None of the Ajatar saw the silhouette who stood in the shadows, whose red eyes held the dragon prince’s and commanded him to stillness. The being was not human, but neither was it dragon or beast. It was a shadow, and those burning red eyes bore into his and reached into the storm within him.

Suddenly the dragon prince jolted, and everything that he had become dimmed. A ghost of a smile touched his lips as the yellow of his eyes returned to golden. "Scultone . . ." The sword slipped from his hand as the word slipped from his mouth, and he collapsed.

Dead.

Dead, as surely as though he’d gazed into the eyes of a Scultone.

The shadow spoke, then, never moving into the light. "Leave the Freyja or be annihilated, Oathbreakers."