Rogue (Relentless Book 3) (21 page)

“We need to get it back to the water,” I told them. I made a move toward the
drakon,
but Nikolas caught my hand.

“Nikolas, come with me if you’re worried, but we can’t let the poor thing die.”

“Poor thing?” He sighed and released my hand. “I can’t wait to see what Tristan thinks about your newest pet.”

“I didn’t say I was keeping it,” I muttered as the three of us approached the tiring drakon. Really, what the heck would I do with a water dragon, of all things? Although, the lake at Westhorne was much nicer than this puny one, so maybe he would be happier there. I wondered if water dragons and kelpies got along well together.

Nikolas laughed. “You’re already trying to figure out how to get that thing back to Idaho, aren’t you?”

“No,” I retorted halfheartedly.

Aine raised a hand and a breeze came up, lifting the drakon three feet off the ground. It was barely moving through the air now and we had no trouble catching it. Nikolas reached out to turn its body toward the lake, and the drakon twisted and snapped its fanged jaws at him.

“Stop that,” I scolded, and it swung its head in my direction, looking so much like a normal dragon that I expected flames to sprout from its mouth. Instead, it made a loud mewling sound and stared at me with large unblinking eyes.

I patted its scaly side and it didn’t try to eat me, so I figured I was safe. I moved in front of it and began walking backward toward the lake. “Come on, fellow. We’ll get you back home.”

The drakon switched direction and followed me, assisted by Aine’s breeze. Nikolas walked several feet out to my right, ready to come to my rescue in case Aine was wrong about the drakon not attacking me.

When I reached the water’s edge I took one step into the water, and the drakon followed me in. Aine released it and it immediately dove into the lake, rolling on the muddy bottom and making the water too murky to see it. A minute later, it reappeared, floating on the top of the water, half submerged like an alligator.

I crouched in the water. “I’m sorry I woke you up, and that the mean warrior cut you.” Behind me Nikolas snorted, and I smiled.

The drakon blinked at me but did not move.

“You can go back to sleep now. I’ll try not to bother you again,” I told him.

He answered by rolling over in the water and showing me his pale belly that sported a two-foot long gash created by Nikolas’s sword. Blood still seeped from the wound that looked painful and deep.

I felt my power stirring at the sight of the injury, but I was afraid to attempt to heal the drakon. What if I used too much and hurt him instead?

“What’s wrong, Sister?” Aine asked softly and I told her my fears. She came over to lay a hand on my shoulder. “You will not harm him.”

“How can you be sure?”

“It is not in you to harm an innocent creature.”

I looked at the drakon again. “Not intentionally, but I could hurt him by accident.”

“Aine is right,” Nikolas said, prompting me to face him. His gray eyes held mine. “Remember the day I made you use your power on me?”

How could I forget? For a long agonizing moment, I thought I’d killed him. I shivered at the memory of my power throwing him across the arena.

“Your power could have hurt me that day, but you wouldn’t let it. Your instincts kicked in because you didn’t want to hurt me, just like you don’t want to hurt this creature.”

My chest warmed at the unwavering faith I saw in his eyes, and I managed a small smile before I turned back to the drakon. It had drifted closer to me, and I reached for it tentatively. The scales covering its underside were softer than the ones on its back, and I was surprised to feel how warm it was. I ran my hand along its belly, and it wriggled closer to me until it was pressed against my side. I moved my hand closer to the wound, and my power pushed against the walls holding it back, trying to go to the injured creature. Nikolas and Aine had faith in me, but did I trust myself enough to release the power?

A shudder went through the
drakon
before a wave of pain assailed me. I couldn’t let it suffer.
Please, don’t let me hurt it.

“Nikolas, I need you to leave,” I said without looking at him. “I know you think I can do this, but I can’t... not with you here. I won’t risk it after what happened when I woke up.”

“Okay. I’ll see you back at the house.”

It surprised me when he didn’t argue. A month ago, he would have refused to leave me.

I waited until I could no longer sense him before I opened my power to let a trickle escape. As soon as I called on it, it tried to surge forward, and I pushed it back again. Before the
liannan
, my power had flowed through me like a warm, gentle current. Now it was hot and forceful like a river of lava. It didn’t really burn me, but sometimes it felt like it wanted to consume me – or the part of me that was not Fae.

There was a time when I would have been happy to get rid of the “beast” in my head, but I would do anything to protect my Mori now. When I’d first awakened from my long sleep, my Mori had been huddled, terrified, in the back of my mind. Even unconscious, my body had instinctively erected a wall around the demon to keep it safe from my out-of-control power. Still, it had taken me days to soothe my Mori and convince it I would never let it be harmed.

I fortified the protections around my Mori, and then I reached for my power again. This time I anticipated my power’s behavior, and I grasped it firmly as soon as I opened the gate. Instead of letting the power flow freely as I used to, I guided it through my body, down my arms, and into my hands. It tried to leap from me to the wound beneath my hands, but I maintained my hold on it. It took me a minute of deep breathing to gather my courage before I let my power trickle into the drakon.

As soon as I entered the creature’s body, it was like the last few weeks had never happened. No longer fighting my control, my power immediately went to work knitting together the severed tissue. The drakon shuddered beneath my hands as the healing fire closed up its wound and eased its pain. I closed my eyes as relief swept through me.
I did it!

I ran my hand along the drakon’s belly where the cut had been. “I think you and I are both going to be okay,” I crooned softly as I pulled the power back into me. It didn’t come as easily as it should have, but I was too happy about my success to care. I finally had a feel for this new power and a better understanding of how to handle it. I remembered being six years old and having to learn how to use my strange new power. It was like that all over again, only this time I wasn’t doing it alone.

“Okay, buddy, you are as good as new.”

I stepped back and the drakon rolled until he was right side up. He stared at me for a few seconds, and then he leaned in and licked my face with a long forked tongue. Before I could react, he spun around with amazing speed and headed toward the center of the lake. He leapt into the air and dove into the water without making a splash.

I wiped my face with a wet sleeve. “Ugh, dragon spit.”

“You did it, Sister. You healed him.”

My face split in a wide smile as I trudged out of the lake. Aine rushed over to hug me despite my wet clothes, and we laughed together.

I pulled away. “I can’t believe it. After all the times I lost control of my power this week, I think I finally get it.”

She nodded happily. “I don’t know why I did not see this sooner. Healing is second nature for you because you have been doing it since you were a young child. Water magic is still quite new to you, which explains why you have been struggling with it. We should have started with what you knew best.”

“How can we do that? We don’t exactly have any injured animals around here.”

“No, but we can go find some that need your help.”

Go out and help sick creatures? “Can we go now?’

Aine laughed and shook her head. “I think you’ve done enough for today. Plus, you are starting your other training this afternoon.”

I grimaced at the reminder that I was resuming my Mohiri training today. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work with Nikolas. Who was I kidding? He was going to push me until I collapsed or begged for mercy – maybe both. Jordan had trained with him yesterday, and she’d nodded off during dinner last night. That did not bode well for me.

“Tomorrow when I return, we will go find something you can heal,” Aine promised. Even though the estate was surrounded by faerie protections, Aine did not like to stay here long. After our training she always returned to Faerie until our next session. Eldeorin, on the other hand, loved the human world. Now that I no longer needed his constant presence, he liked to go off on his “pleasure excursions” as he put them. I didn’t ask and I hoped he never felt the need to share them with me.

“Okay,” I conceded. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She hugged me goodbye and did her disappearing thing. I’d asked her yesterday if I would ever be able to do that and she’d said only time would tell.

Nikolas was waiting for me when I walked out of the woods. “I told you that you could do it.”

“You were supposed to leave,” I accused mildly.

He smiled as he fell into step beside me. “I did leave. I know it worked because you have that look.”

“What look?”

“The one I like seeing on your face. You look happy.”

“I’ll be even happier if you tell me I don’t have to train this afternoon,” I suggested hopefully as we neared the house.

He chuckled and opened the door for me. “Nice try. Get cleaned up, and I’ll see you after lunch. Oh, and you might want to eat light.”

I groaned and tried to ignore the laughter that followed me as I climbed the stairs to my room. I should probably skip lunch altogether and take a nap instead. Something told me I was going to need it.

After a very light lunch, I joined Nikolas in the gym they had set up on the first floor of the huge house. When I walked in, I saw it was laid out like the training rooms at Westhorne. I bit back a groan when I saw the bag in the corner, and I think my muscles actually ached at the memory of the workouts Nikolas had put me through back then.

Nikolas was waiting for me, and he smiled as if he was remembering, too. He immediately got down to business and gave me some stretching exercises to do. Once I had warmed up, he waved me over to the center of the room.

“The first thing we’re going to do is see what you remember from our training.” He held up his hands. “Show me a straight punch.”

I positioned my body like he’d taught me and struck his palm with my right fist. Then I shifted slightly and did a strike with my left one.

“Palm heel strike,” he ordered and I executed it as I’d been taught. I was surprised at how easily it came back to me after all these weeks. The endless drills he’d put me through had worked.

“Good,” he said after I’d done a number of strikes. “Now go to the bag and show me the kicks I taught you.”

I demonstrated the front kick, back kick, and round kick several times. Then he began calling out strikes and kicks, forcing me to change positions quickly to perform each one. A fine sheen of sweat covered my body by the time we stopped twenty minutes later.

“Very good. You remembered everything.”

“I had a good teacher,” I said, absurdly happy that he was pleased.

His trainer expression slipped and a small smile appeared. “All right, I think you are ready to learn a new strike. This one is called an elbow strike.” He proceeded to demonstrate it for me then had me try it. We worked on it for ten minutes before he switched to a vertical front kick. Once I had that technique down, he made me alternate between the two. I was panting by the time he was satisfied I had them down.

Dread filled me when he said we were done with the bag, because I knew what came next. This was when he would work me with the weights and skipping rope until I could barely stand. He called it conditioning. I called it torture.

He surprised me by heading for the door instead of the weights.

“We’re done?”

“No, we’re going to add something new to your training.” He opened the door and waved me through it.

I couldn’t imagine what it could be, but if it got me out of weight training, I was all for it.

We went outdoors and around the side of the house where three wooden targets had been set up. On the grass near them was an assortment of knives, crossbows, and swords. I chewed my lip nervously at the sight of the swords, hoping he wasn’t going to ask me to use one. The deadliest weapon I’d held was a knife, and I didn’t think I was ready for anything bigger than that.

“What would you like to start with?” Nikolas asked, surprising me again.

I didn’t need to think about it; I immediately went for one of the crossbows. It was a lot bigger and heavier than the one I’d used in Los Angeles, and it felt awkward in my hands. “How do you use this thing?”

Nikolas took it and explained all the parts to me. “This is a recurve bow,” he said as he put it to the ground and cocked it. “It’s a little harder to load, but it has more power than a compound bow. It’s a great weapon once you get a feel for it.”

“I’ve never seen you use a bow,” I said as he brought the bow up and faced the first target.