Darkness Rising Read online

  “He’s an ancient like me and Mira. He was known as the Dragon of War many, many millennia ago. I thought he had died,” she added in English. “Mira will be quite happy he is alive.”

  She tore her gaze from the male and focused on Prima. The Dragon of War? Hmm. “Why is that?”

  The tall, beautiful female stood in the way most warriors did, at attention and ready for battle. Her long, jet-black hair was a hot mess though, all tangled and filled with…leaves? She’d probably been battling with someone in human form and, as usual, had forgotten to tie back her hair. “He is one of us. We had thought our kind had all died.” Her answer was as simple as that.

  Okay, then. “Will you keep an eye on him while I get Conall and Rhea? I need to let them know about this newcomer.”

  “I’m sure they know about his presence by now.”

  “All the same, it’s protocol. I found him, I need to let my Alpha know.”

  Prima grinned, her dragon in her gaze. “Ah, yes, protocol. So very important.”

  “Oh, and he wouldn’t get on my four-wheeler. I need to send someone back to grab it.”

  “I’ll have someone take care of it,” she said as Greer started walking away.

  Before Greer could blink, the big male was in front of her—still naked—and intentionally blocking her way.

  “Where are you going?” Though she only understood part of the question and inferred the rest, his tone was commanding and kind of obnoxious.

  She looked over at Prima instead of bothering to answer him. “Tell your friend I don’t answer to him.” As a healer she was used to a certain amount of respect and she didn’t appreciate him being all up in her personal space. Even if he was quite possibly the sexiest male she’d ever come across.

  “I go where you go,” he said, drawing her gaze back to those bright eyes. Again, she only understood part of the ancient Gaelic but it was enough.

  Before she could respond, one of the younger males walked up to them and held out a bundle of clothing to the stranger. “My man, you need to put some clothes on and cover your junk,” he said.

  Though she doubted the dragon understood the words, the male took the clothing and put it on.

  And for the first time since he’d burst up through the ground, she felt as if she could breathe again. Because that body needed to be covered for her sanity.

  Especially since a few of her female clanmates had been eyeing him hungrily.

  Not that she cared. I don’t. They could have him, for all she cared.

  She was a healer. She wasn’t going to get tangled up with a male who’d been known as the Dragon of War.

  Chapter 2

  Reaper watched as the tall, beautiful dragon shifter turned away from him, her copper-colored hair falling along her back in waves. He’d been asleep a very long time but he hadn’t been thinking of females or sex when he arose. No, he’d been thinking of fire—of war. Something deep in his bones had awoken him, telling him change was coming. Something cataclysmic on the horizon.

  And his dragon was ready for battle.

  Now, however…this female had his thoughts on a different trajectory. She was beautiful, yes, but her scent called to him on a primal level. It made him think of sweet summer rain and the vastness of the stars scattered across the sky. It made him think…mine.

  “Who is she? Other than a healer?” he asked Prima in a language he was fairly certain was understandable only to her. She was one of the fiercest warriors he had ever known before his Hibernation. Perhaps a bit unhinged during battles—but the best warriors were.

  “Healer is all you need to know. So show some respect.” Prima turned back to him as the female walked away.

  Oh, he would respect her. He would respect and worship her body if she allowed him. The thought both annoyed and intrigued him because he had been awakened with a purpose. For war. He did not have time for carnal pleasures. He had no time for the tall female with the perfect ass, deep green eyes and… No more.

  “What language do you speak with the healer?” he asked Prima in the language of his people. There were many other shifters—and not just dragons—watching them curiously and he wanted to keep as much of this conversation private as possible. “And what year is it?”

  She answered him even as she released one of her dragon claws and sliced her palm open. Then she grabbed his wrist roughly and did the same to him, scoring his palm.

  If it had been anyone else he would have attacked, but he knew how this female thought. She was long-lived like him. They had been ancient even back when they’d gone into Hibernation. She did not like explaining herself. Something he understood.

  As she put their palms together, she started chanting in a language that made the beautiful healer stop in her tracks and turn around.

  Her green eyes flared with curiosity, her head tilted slightly to the side as she stared at their palms. Good. He did not like the sight of her walking away.

  He wanted to order her to stay with him. His dragon half practically demanded it.

  When Prima was done, she drew her hand back, her palm already healed. His was the same. Then she spoke in her current language. “We speak English here. Well, it is one of the many, many languages. I have given you the gift of my clan. You should be able to understand most languages on the planet now. I have a feeling that is going to come in handy for you later.”

  “Thank you.” He nodded respectfully. Her gift was an incredible one, and something he would not forget. “You are the Alpha of this clan?” For dragons, the Alpha wasn’t always necessarily the strongest. Usually, yes, but dragons in general were all strong. The Alpha tended to be the best leader for the time period.

  She gave him a horrified look. “No. But my nephew is. Come.”

  She fell in step with Greer who gave them a sideways glance.

  “Greer, this is Reaper. It is a shortened version of his original name, which is too long and complex for most to say.”

  “Reaper,” he said, testing the sound of it on his tongue. He liked it. And it had the same meaning as his given name. He was a reaper. A warrior. It was why he had been woken up. Though it made no sense that he was so attracted to a female like the one on the other side of Prima. A healer of all things.

  Greer. A beautiful female who had all the muscles in his body pulling taut as he imagined taking her…

  No! he ordered his most primal half. He would not be sidetracked by a female.

  Liar, his dragon whispered. She is ours.

  “Reaper?” She snorted softly and muttered something under her breath.

  “You mock my name?” What the hell was this?

  Greer didn’t even look at him but instead spoke to Prima. “If you’re okay taking him to see Conall, I have patients to see to. I think he’d be okay with me breaking protocol.”

  He could scent her lie. So it was likely she had no patients, but clearly she did not want to be around him and he did not understand why. When he’d been topside, he’d had his pick of lovers. He’d been greatly sought-after by females.

  Prima nodded and patted her cheek gently. “Of course. I’ll come see you later.”

  Smiling softly, Greer nodded once and then veered off on a side street—without giving him a backward glance.

  Go after her.

  He moved so quickly he had not been aware he even meant to. Moments later he was standing in front of the surprised healer. “You will come with us.” What was wrong with him? He knew that ordering her was stupid but his tongue was not listening to reason.

  She stared at him in shock. “Excuse me?”

  “You will come with us. I go where you go.” Stop talking, he ordered his damn dragon. But there was no listening to reason. Probably because he agreed with his dragon. He wanted to be wherever this female was.

  Greer turned around toward Prima. “Handle this, please. Or I will.”

  He felt Prima’s strong grip on his upper arm, tugging him with her as the healer sidestepped him and
continued on her path—damn, that ass was perfection.

  He rolled his shoulders, ignoring the obnoxious beast in his head telling him to run after her and make more demands. He would do no such thing.

  “Can you pretend to be civil?” Prima murmured so quietly only he could hear as she tugged him in the opposite direction. “That was insane, even for you.”

  “She should be with us,” he grumbled, but did not push it. Glancing around, he took in the square and rectangle-shaped homes. They were large enough for dragons but quite uniform. “What is this place?”

  “There is much you have to learn about,” Prima said. “This right here is a neighborhood of sorts. It is shifter-only and the humans in this time period don’t know about us.”

  That surprised him. “They do not?”

  “No. We are the thing of their nightmares. In fact, they think actual dragons are myths. Not just dragon shifters.”

  He snorted derisively. “Humans,” he muttered. When he’d been alive, they’d been afraid of everything. It seemed some things had not changed.

  “That attitude will not get you far around here,” Prima snapped, a spark of energy flaring in her eyes.

  “Apologies…” Though he was not really sorry. “Have humans changed since I lived topside?”

  She paused and shook her head. “No. There is goodness in a lot of the humans but they are destroying the planet. They argue over everything and seem to fear what they don’t know, what is different than them. I fear for us, and fear for where we live. Mira and I have talked about potentially retreating to a different realm. Some of the Hell realms are quite beautiful despite the name.”

  Interesting. Again, he saved this information for later. “I have many questions about this world, but first tell me about the healer. Is she spoken for?” Because right now, Greer was all he could seem to focus on.

  Now Prima gave him a pitying look. “She is single. But I do not believe you are her type. If you are looking for simple sex, I’m sure you will be able to find it. Plenty of it in fact.”

  He lifted a shoulder, and made a noncommittal grunt. He had always bedded female warriors. Females who liked sex as rough as he did. Yet he sensed the healer would be different. He did not know what to do with these strange new sensations inside him. So he ignored them.

  As they strode down the paved street, he asked, “How long have you been awake?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “A few months. A year. What does it matter?”

  “So not long, then.”

  “Not long at all. Truthfully I thought all of the ancients like us were gone.”

  “No, they are not. I feel it in my blood. We are all beginning to wake up.”

  Her expression turned serious then. “All of the ancients?”

  “I simply know what I feel in my blood.” And he needed to find a couple of very specific ancient dragon shifters. They needed to prepare for what was to come. His blood was telling him war was on the horizon so he needed to search out warriors he had fought with before.

  “This is our Alpha’s house.” Prima pulled out a small rectangular thing and pressed some of the buttons on it. “They are all out back sparring.”

  He wanted to ask what the rectangle thing was but held back. He had far too many questions and he’d been asleep for a very, very long time. Besides, the only answer he had truly cared about was whether the healer was spoken for. And she was not.

  Priorities.

  Prima opened the front door of the Alpha’s home and they strode through it, her steps filled with purpose. He glanced around at the interior, finding it interesting. It was all very…polished. Civilized. Framed images of things hanging on walls of different colors. Smooth furniture of wood and some stone. Interesting.

  He followed her down a spacious hallway into a large room that smelled of spices and food. Then she opened another door onto a wide-open outdoor space. He recognized little Arya and Dragos—who were not so little anymore. But their scents were the same. That did not change with age.

  Surprised, he glanced at Prima. “The Alpha is your brother’s child?”

  “Well he’s mine too,” Arya said, striding up to him. “Considering I carried him inside me.”

  He vaguely remembered a little wisp of a female with pale hair, dark eyes and a fighter’s heart who had turned into quite the warrior if he had to guess judging by her faint scars, scent and attitude alone.

  “You are blessed to have a child.” It was not always easy for shifters to procreate, especially dragons.

  “We have three.”

  His eyes widened slightly as he looked between her and Dragos—who simply watched him with a warrior’s intent gaze. “Blessed indeed.”

  She sniffed once and gave Prima a look he couldn’t quite define. A bit challenging. “Want to spar with me next?”

  “Not today. But I will kick your ass tomorrow for certain,” Prima answered.

  Arya sniffed again and gave them her back but not before he saw a pleased grin. “Maybe think about running a brush through your hair,” she tossed over her shoulder. “You’ve got leaves and dirt in it.”

  Prima simply shrugged and held out a hand toward the two shifters battling against one another with blades. “That is my nephew and his mate.”

  They were both incredibly fast. The female was slender and quite small for a dragon. Her skin was a pale brown and her dark hair was braided into an intricate crown on her head. A scent lifted on the wind, strange yet familiar.

  “Quit sparring and come meet another ancient,” Prima finally said, impatience bleeding into her words. “Greer found him in the mountains, which I’m sure you’re already aware of.”

  At the female’s words the two Alphas stopped and turned toward him but did not drop their weapons. Instead they strode toward him as a cohesive unit. Yes, definitely an Alpha couple. They hadn’t stopped to greet him; they’d waited until they were ready, as Alphas would. He could respect that.

  “You are a wolf?” he said to the female. Surprise filtered through him so much that he asked such an obvious question when the truth was right in front of him.

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  He did not like her tone. “My name is Reaper, not Sherlock.”

  The female’s face split into a wide grin and she laughed. “Oh, this is going to be interesting.”

  “You have a problem with non-dragons?” The male Alpha’s voice was carefully neutral, but his dragon sparked in his gray eyes. As the son of two strong dragons, this one would be battle-hardened as well.

  “No. But in my time different shifter species did not mate.” Or it was rare. “I was simply surprised.”

  The male’s eyes glinted with silent warning. “Times are different.”

  “A warrior is a warrior.” Though he had always thought dragons superior to all shifters. “You are both quite young to be the Alpha couple.” Especially the female.

  “Man, this one really doesn’t censor himself,” the she-wolf said, grinning. She held out a hand. “I’m Rhea.”

  He took her hand, shook it once and was surprised at the power he felt flowing through her. She was quite young, maybe a few hundred years old at most, but would grow into her considerable powers fully in time. Even though he had already stated his name, he said, “Reaper.”

  “Conall, would he be able to speak to you privately?” Prima asked after he had also shaken the male’s hand. “He’s just woken on our land and this world is going to be a shock to him.”

  The male nodded at his aunt, then he and his mate headed toward the back door. “Follow me.”

  Reaper wasn’t exactly surprised when Prima came with him. Moments later they were inside a large room filled with many shelves and…things. No jewels or gold, however. His own hoard was buried far beneath the earth—and he’d stashed even more of it away in an icy cavern far from where any humans lived. Or at least, no humans had been there prior to his Hibernation. Considering how weak they were he couldn’t imagine they’
d gotten there in his years gone.

  “Who are your clanmates?” Conall asked, getting right to the point as he shut the door behind them.

  “I was never part of a clan. Not officially.” He’d led men, had fought in wars. After his parents died—also warriors—he had cut ties with his clan. They hadn’t been like him. Dragons were fighters by nature, but his clan hadn’t been full of warriors. They’d been…weak, in his mind. He recalled far too many petty arguments over clan meals. “I was a warrior.”

  “You were a fucking general.” Prima shook her head slightly. “We called him the Dragon of War.”

  “Jeez, no wonder you two are friends,” Rhea muttered, looking at one of those small rectangular things similar to the one Prima had.

  “But there are others I need to get in contact with,” Reaper said. “Ancients like myself. I believe they are awake. My blood tells me so anyway.”

  The Alpha nodded as the Alpha female started talking into the rectangle and walked away from them, going to stand by a window. “I can help you if I have names. And any information you have on them.”

  Reaper relayed the names of the warriors he needed to speak to. Ones he knew to be great fighters. “Brennus of the Zmey clan, Cynbel of the Patmos clan, and Cale of the Cearrach clan.”

  “It will take some time, but I believe we can find who you are searching for. If they are even awake.”

  He nodded once, curious as to how they would search for the other dragons. “How long will this take?”

  Conall lifted an eyebrow.

  “I am not pushing you.” Okay, that might be a lie. He wanted to know when. He sensed that war and destruction were coming, that he needed to be ready. But he would not tell them any of this. It was not their business and he wasn’t sure he trusted them even if they were related to Mira and Prima. In fact, maybe because of that.

  He adored the females—and wondered where Mira was because normally she was not far from her sister—but clan came first for the two females. Always. As much as they respected him, he was still an outsider to them. “I would just like a time frame.” He almost said please but it was not in his nature. He was used to giving orders.