Dark Storm (Dark #23)(15)
Author: Christine Feehan

Never once had Dax heard her complain. Oh, he’d seen her eyes grow dark with sorrow. Heard her weep softly in the day when she thought he was asleep. But she’d never complained. Just as she’d never blamed him for not killing Mitro when he had the chance.

Dax had always known Mitro was not right. He’d always stayed close by, waiting for the darkness growing in Mitro’s soul to spill over. But when Mitro’s soul recognized Arabejila as his lifemate, Dax had thought them safe, thought the power of that bond would keep Mitro from the brink, would heal what was broken inside him.

Instead, it had unleashed the monster. And Dax, who had been lured into a false sense of security, had not been watching as he should-as he would have had Arabejila not been Mitro’s lifemate. He’d thought her strong enough to heal him, as she so effortlessly healed all things and all people with just her presence.

She was of the earth. The dragon’s voice thundered in Dax’s head again, pounding at the edges of his skull.

"Yes," he confirmed. "Stronger in her gifts than any I ever knew."

She sent you to me.

"No, Old One. She is dead. She died long ago."

She is of the earth. She and her daughters. She sent you to me. She sends a daughter to you now.

It surprised him that the dragon knew about the approach of Arabejila’s descendent, but perhaps it should not. The dragon, after all, had been buried in this mountain much longer than Dax. It had become the mountain; its flesh had become the mountain’s stone; its fire had become the mountain’s fire.

"That daughter will not arrive in time. That is why, if you have strength to give, I ask that you give it to me now. If I cannot stop the vampire, he will destroy this world. So tell me, Old One, will you help or hinder me? There is no time left. Decide now." Dax drew a breath and dropped his defenses, baring his mind to the dragon’s consciousness, everything he and Arabejila had fought for all these years, everything he had loved and lost, everything he believed in, everything he fought for.

As the dragon’s mind had pillaged his mind, its power had tested his power, its strength, his strength, now its soul invaded his, peeling him down to the barest essence of his being and examining him with ruthless thoroughness.

Dax felt like he was drowning in the fires of hell. Before, when the lava had burned him, he’d managed to compartmentalize the pain, push it from the forefront of his mind and ignore it, but now there was nowhere that was not wide open and raw and throbbing with agony. Sweat poured down his body, turning to steam against his superheated skin. Dax hardly noticed. An inferno raged inside him.

Hoping to escape the indescribable agony, Dax transitioned into pure energy, a skill normally used to heal someone else, but even as his body became a white glow of light, he could not escape. The vast, fiery redness of the dragon’s soul was there, searing him. Body, mind and soul were invaded with burning heat and energy. A latticework of magic and energy led back to every particle of his being, connecting them. That latticework grew tighter, pulling Dax’s light form and the dragon’s shimmering red soul together, closer and closer until they touched.

In that instant, for a brief flash of time that seemed to stretch to eternity, the dragon’s memories sped through Dax’s mind. Eons of existence. Soaring flights. Fiery battles fought between winged behemoths dominating the skies. Dense, savagely beautiful jungles, a world that had existed long before the first footsteps of man. A mate, sleek and beautiful, with wide, wind-filled wings and sharp, curling talons. Then man with his steely spears, hunting the creatures he feared. The beautiful mate fallen to the spears of men. Rage. Fire. Blood and destruction raining from the sky. And finally, age and weariness … a wound draining ancient strength. A choice to sleep in the heart of the volcano until the world passed away.

The Old One was ancient indeed. A vast, primordial power. An ancient intelligence birthed when the world was still young. Red dragon. Fire dragon. No wonder it had chosen a volcano’s heart for its final resting place. The wonder was that it even considered sharing any part of itself with Dax at all.

And share it did. The dragon’s long life, each moment of thought or feeling, instinct and craving before this one became part of Dax’s memories, part of him. The two became one. Not two beings merged together, but two souls connected by a single body. They could feel each other, move with one another.

The magma pool rose to fill the chamber, and the crystallized remains of the dragon melted back into the liquid earth’s blood that had spawned him.

Centuries of living deep in the labyrinth of caves meant Dax had explored every inch possible. He knew the river of lava flowing beneath the earth, a long ribbon of bright orange and red magma and the long tubes that formed the underground subway. He knew every chamber, some with walls of crystalline beauty and others under steaming water. Mud pools bubbled and spat while pools of hot mineral water sent steam rising like fog through caverns.

The problem was that Mitro had had the same time to explore his environment as well. Dax could no longer separate the evil scent from the living abomination; the stench of the undead was everywhere, making it impossible to track him-unless you were a dragon.

Dax felt the Old One stretch, testing senses. Suddenly, like a stick puppet, Dax’s body whipped around awkwardly and began moving toward the lava tube on his left. He staggered, his body impossible to control, falling sideways into the wall. The sharp edges of rock scraped at his skin, peeling off the top layer. In the glare of the magma pool, his burnished arm appeared covered in overlapping ovals of red gold. He blinked down at the strange patterning and then touched them. The ovals felt hard, like armor. With his strange diamond-hard nails he tapped them tentatively.

Scales? Like a lizard?

At least it kept him from bleeding. That could come in handy in battle. He’d evolved there in the volcano, and clearly now there would be more changes. The enticing whispers of the earth hadn’t disclosed that his body would be altered on an elemental level if he allowed the Old One’s soul to share his physical form.

Before he could make a move, his body jerked again toward the lava tube, a large round tunnel he knew went for miles beneath the peaks. He felt like a marionette being jerked around by a drunken puppet master. He sensed the dragon’s impatience and realized that being without emotions was a double-edged sword. Carpathian males lived for so long that not feeling was a terrible burden, yet with that came an advantage when hunting.

The dragon was eager for the chase, believing Mitro to be no more than an irritation. He wanted to slumber, didn’t want to remain awakened, and once Mitro was disposed of, he planned on doing just that. Dax’s body jerked again, his foot lifting awkwardly and then setting down a large stride away, nearly throwing him off balance.