If only this wasn't his last hope, Lucien thought, the misery that had dogged him all his life rising up in a sudden wave, threatening to consume him. To pull him under, once and for all.

Though sometimes he wondered if that might not be a sort of blessing, too.

Jagrin took this in, seeming to savor it, before continuing. "Yes, yes, my lord Andrakkar. We daemon have known about the lost forest shifters almost from the time they escaped. You forget ... the dragon kings have not always been kind to my people. The Tunnels have swallowed many to assuage a serpent's anger. Why should you think that with our abilities we wouldn't be able to connect in some way to the realms that touch ours most closely? Your father has been clever with his charmed stones," Jagrin sneered, "but we are far more clever, our powers greater. And we have been watching our descendants on Earth since long before your house was strong enough to even dream of stealing the throne."

Lucien could only stare, his eyes burning with rage, thinking of the slave stones that dangled from the collars of the banished. They allowed his father to keep track of his victims, to communicate if he so desired ... just in case one might prove useful.

It was how Mordred's madness had begun, Lucien thought disgustedly. Now he thought of nothing but finding a way back to Earth, ignoring the continuous infighting of the various dragon houses, and dreaming of nothing but conquest and arukhin blood. And though those houses were now weakened enough from years of breeding with the weakest of the non-magic Orinn, there would, Lucien knew, eventually be a challenge.

He was the last of the Andrakkar. And if he did not mate and produce an acceptable dragon heir soon, he might one day soon be awakened as his own black blood was being spilled to make way for new rule. It wouldn't matter, except for the flame-haired witch who haunted his dreams. He had to have her. She would love him, even if he had to have her spellbound by the daemon.

And then he would have all.

"So," Lucien rasped, his normally deep and silken voice roughened by barely restrained violence, "you know ..."

"Everything," Jagrin chuckled, relaxing in the stone chair. "The traitors your father managed to recruit, the embarrassment that was your little skirmish with the Pack leaders. Mordred's foolish vision of a realm ruled by dragons." He shook his head, mocking. "Earth is a much larger realm than our own, you know. Full of endless delights and wondrous destruction. Trying to control it would be madness," he said, eyes flashing. "But partaking of its riches ... its flesh ... its pain ... now that might be a worthwhile pursuit."

"Do the daemon have a way of going there at will?" Lucien asked, hardly daring to believe it might be that easy. And it wasn't, he saw as Jagrin waved one long, pale hand dismissively.

"Sadly, no. We have no gateway stone, and as you know, there are no Drakkyn left who can control the Tunnels. It's said that it takes strong emotion, for one thing." He smirked. "Something that, fortunately, my people are not afflicted with. The traveling draughts work for such a short time that it's hardly worth it, as you saw. No," he said again, with a sigh that was almost wistful. "We have no interest in drifting about a world so large, where there is no respect for magic. And humans, though occasionally entertaining, are really only good for food. Our own Orinn make far better playthings."

"But you said you have descendants there," Lucien pressed, leaning forward across the table. It was so imperative that he know exactly what he was dealing with, what channels he would have to go through to get to his prize.

"Indeed," Jagrin replied. "Thanks to the last king of the House of Ragnath, who was most displeased to find his Dyadd lover consorting with a daemon on the side. Into the Tunnels they both went, naturally, as the Ragnath had roughly as much compassion as brains. And so were born the vampires of Earth, nightwalkers, blood drinkers. Wonderfully twisted, for the most part. And they do like to keep close to their roots, sharing tales of their little pleasures. As we do with them, of course."

"How? How is that possible?" Lucien bit out, his black claws lengthening as he gripped the table. It seemed impossible that the strange, weakling daemon should have had such knowledge for so long and kept it to themselves, that they had populated bits of the Earthly realm with their own seed when the dragons had only just learned such a place existed. But Jagrin's obvious pleasure in finally sharing the secret told him it was indeed so. And the dragons had badly underestimated those they grudgingly protected.

"It matters not. Not to you, at any rate," Jagrin said mildly. And Lucien could see that he had gotten all he was going to, unless he could get his claws on the daemon and try to extract the information in the way his kind was most talented at. All things considered, that seemed like a particularly bad idea. He would have to work with the scraps he had been thrown, and hope they were enough.

"But you will help me get to Rowan, provided I bring you one of the arukhin?"

"Yes. One will do. We saw what happened when the House of Andrakkar got greedy with them. Lost them all, and really, the gods were bound to notice you'd broken the laws about Drakkyn races and enslaving one another. Hotheaded, as always," he murmured, though he looked thoughtfully at Lucien. "Though you, I think, are a bit more like us. Cold. Ruthless, but cold. My king feels, and I agree, that your leadership would be fat preferable to any of the other available alternatives. So I am to help you."

"Cadmus knows about our meetings?" Lucien asked, surprised. He hadn't expected that the daemon king would bother to get involved with the Andrakkar heir's mating concerns. But then that backing would be useful, he supposed, when Mordred finally became insane enough that he would have to be removed. It was high time the dragons reclaimed their glory. But they needed an iron leader to do it. The daemon could watch these vampires all they liked, Lucien thought. But as far as he was concerned, the Drak's circle at the foot of the mountains could remain nothing but lifeless stone, and the arukhin could stay on Earth forever. All he wanted, all he needed was Rowan.

"I'll speak to my king," said Jagrin, standing. "And see what can be done. The witch and her brother were staying with a nest of vampires for some time, though we only recently realized that their guests had been Drakkyn. And that they hadn't simply been more casualties of your father's temper, of course." He paused, considering. "The brother, is he of any interest to you?"

Lucien shook his head, a sharp, jerky movement. All this time, she had been right under his nose. All this time ... but now he was close, he told himself. "No. A male Dyim, some obscene twist of nature. Useless."

It wasn't true, of course. But the look on Jagrin's face told him that there were some things that he, Lucien, still had to himself. Bargaining chips, he told himself. And Bastian was the largest one he had. It was the only reason why the surprisingly powerful Dyim was still alive.

"Good," Jagrin smiled, showing a mouthful of dagger-sharp teeth. "The vampires will wish to be rewarded for then help, of course, and he'll do nicely if he hasn't run off. And you will bring us the arukhin warrior. Quite a useful pet he'll make, I think. So many secrets to learn. And such fun to train."

"You will have a forest-shifter. I swear it," Lucien said softly.

Jagrin's red gaze was piercing. With a quick motion, he produced a tiny, glittering gold bottle from beneath his long cloak and held it toward Lucien.

"And if you fail," Jagrin hissed, his voice like sand across the bare stone floor, "you forfeit yourself to us, to do with as we please. Our slave in the arukhin's stead. Swear it now, and on your blood, Andrakkar. And you will have your chance to claim your woman, and your throne."

It was as he'd feared. The price, should he fail to meet his end of the bargain, was as high as it could possibly he; it would cost him nothing less than himself. Lucien stared at the bottle, a simple, stoppered thing of beautiful craftsmanship. So small it nestled into the palm of Jagrin's hand. So large it seemed to encompass his entire universe. The key, either to his future as king or to some eternal prison. But it was a key he needed. And at this point there was no turning back.

Slowly, deliberately, Lucien drew back the sleeve of his cassock, exposing the skin of his wrist. As he lengthened one nail into an ebony claw and sliced open the skin Jagrin removed the stopper and held it out to catch the black blood that welled to the surface.

"My promise," Lucien whispered, and it echoed around him while his blood flowed.

"Your blood," Jagrin responded with a solemn nod completing the ritual. When the wound began to heal itself, and the flow ebbed, the daemon placed the stopped back in the bottle, sealing the pact.

And though Lucien tried to think only of how it would feel to finally hold the beautiful sorceress who he felt he had been waiting for all his life, the air seemed to weigh on him, threatening to crush him beneath the weight of what he had just done. He no longer felt like a man in helpless, undeniable love.

He felt doomed.

♥ Scanned by Coral ♥

Chapter 6

Gabriel awoke surly, rumpled, and face-down in a thick carpet of grass.

Needs mowing, was his first thought. Then, as his mind crawled sluggishly into awareness, he had another.

Bloody hell.

He was an absolute mess. His legs ached. His head was pounding hard enough to split open. There was a persistent twinge in his side, and his mouth felt like it had recently been shellacked with something foul. Gabriel felt like he was just waking up at the end of a three-day bender, though he'd had nothing to drink.

And this was no less than he deserved for making such an absolute ass of himself, he thought, as the memories of his "heroics" where a certain malnourished redhead was concerned resurfaced with perfect clarity. His intentions had been good, he recalled, or as good as his intentions ever got, which was close enough.

As it turned out, the only part he'd gotten right was when he'd run out of the house like the hounds of hell were at his heels. Kept running, in fact, until he was senseless with exhaustion and his abused body had simply refused to go any farther. As a Wolf, he'd raced for miles over the Hunting Grounds, silent and swift as the Highland winds through the trees.