The silver flash of a knife in motion caught Noah’s eye, and his heart dropped as he watched the third mage plunge the sharp point deep into Raven’s chest. Shock and overwhelming rage slammed into him, and he dropped the two men from his hands. An unholy sound ripped its way out of his chest as he launched himself over the table at the last man.
Surprised by the sudden attack, the mage ripped the dagger from Raven’s chest and stumbled backwards as Noah flew towards the man’s throat. He raised the knife to defend himself, but Noah ignored it. The tip of the blade caught Noah in the chest just over his heart, but the man was obviously not used to hand-to-hand combat. The blood-soaked dagger slipped from the man’s hand as Noah crashed into him, and the pair went down to the floor.
There was a sickening crunch of ribs breaking as Noah landed on the man’s chest. His hands were already around the mage’s throat, crushing the life from him. Unable to control the rage sweeping through him, Noah slammed the injured man’s head into the ground twice, crushing part of his skull.
Noah sat on the dead man for a moment, panting as fury burned within him. The sudden desire to mutilate the man’s body pounded at him. Ripping the dagger from his chest, he slammed it into the mage, pinning his body to the floor, but pushed the urge to do more damage away. There was something more important that needed his attention at the moment. Turning, he looked up to Raven laid out on the table. She looked as if she were asleep, but the blood flowing from the wound in her chest ruined the image.
Fear raced through him, and he scrambled up from the floor to her side. Pressing his hand over the cut, he tried to staunch the heavy flow of blood. His gut clenched as he felt the cut under his hand. The wound was deep and fell directly over her heart.
“Raven,” he called softly as he touched her cheek with his free hand. He had to wake her up. “Raven!” he said again as he patted her cheek. Pain squeezed at his heart as dread filled him. “Raven!” he cried loudly, desperate to get her to wake. He gave her a soft shake, hoping the movement would register in her mind.
She moaned softly and shifted her head.
A tiny spark of hope glimmered in the despair that was setting in. “Come on, lover,” he coaxed, trying to get her to wake.
A groan of pain came out as she moved.
“Be still, lover,” Noah soothed as he pressed on the wound. He whispered the one healing spell he knew. It slowed the bleeding, but it wasn’t nearly strong enough to repair the damage.
Raven let out a pained laugh as she reached up and covered his hand. “Nothing you can do can fix this, lover.”
“I can try, damn it!” Noah concentrated on the wound and willed it to heal. He was a powerful mage who could pick apart trap spells and hurl fire bolts all day long, but healing was not his forte. Knitting together flesh was one thing, but this wound went clear to her heart. The fact that she wasn’t dead already spoke volumes of her strength of will.
“Noah.”
The use of his name drew his attention from his work, and he looked up into her dark eyes. In the entire time he had been there, it was the first time his name had graced her lips.
She smiled at him. “Thank you.”
“No!” Noah turned his attention back to the wound and pressed on it harder, determined to save her. There was no way he was going to let her die on him. He could feel the spell that bound them together. It was still strong. If she were truly dying, that bond would be weakening. She gasped in pain as he worked, but he could feel her life slipping away under his fingers.
Reaching up, she touched his cheek, turning his face to look at her. The distant look in her eyes drove shards of ice deep into Noah’s heart. “I love you,” she whispered as she stroked his skin. “Save the dragon.” Drawing in one final breath, she shuddered as the life drained from her.
Noah caught her hand before it could slip away from his skin. Tears poured down his face as he clutched her hand in his. “No!” he screeched. Grabbing her limp body, he dragged it off the table and folded her into his lap on the floor. Her life was gone, but he could still feel power in her body. He held her to him, chanting every spell he could think of. Nothing helped.
Slowly, his rage subsided into despair. She was gone. Soul-deep pain like he had never known ripped through him. Throwing his head back, he screamed out his loss. True, he had only known her a few days, but those days had been intense. Tears slipped down his face as he held her, thinking of what could have been. He had accepted her bonding, but he never got to experience what it meant. His fingers rose to the buckle at the back of his neck. Without her, there was no reason for him to keep the spelled collar on.
“No!”
A voice rang through Noah, making him gasp. He clutched at his head as the world waved in and out of focus.
“Save me!”
Noah swallowed hard as he sat up and looked around for the source of the call.
“Save me!” it cried again.
Noah clutched his ringing head. “Where are you?” he called out.
“I am here. Save me.” The call came again, but this time it was a desperate whisper that continued to repeat in his head.
Something powerful needed his help. Closing his eyes, Noah pushed his emotions away and listened with his heart. In his calmer state, he found the trickle of power whispering to him and followed it to the woman in his arms. Opening his eyes, he looked down at her lifeless body. How can she be calling out? She’s dead.
“She is. I am not,” the voice answered him.
Noah studied her for a moment. There was definitely no life in her, but there was still power. “Who are you?”
“I was hers. We are bound. You are mine. Save me!”
Working this over in his mind, Noah thought about it. The only binding he could remember was the collar that bound him to Raven and her dragon. The epiphany rang through Noah’s soul. Her dragon!
“Yes,” the voice echoed through his head as if it were picking up his thoughts. “I was hers. We are bound. You are mine. Save me!”
“How?” Noah asked the dragon. A flash of knowledge slammed into his head, making him gasp. A spell. Very old and very powerful.
“Free me. Save me!”
Noah nodded as he started to draw the power he would need to work the spell. He now knew what the mages had been trying to do. The spell they had been using was a poorly managed version of the one the dragon had just given him. Placing his hand over the wound in Raven’s chest, he poured the power out and chanted the words. He wasn’t quite sure what they were, for they were in a language older than most could remember, but he knew what the spell would do. The dragon had shown him.
As the words flowed from him, the air around them shimmered with energy. The power trapped in Raven’s lifeless body condensed and crystalized under Noah’s fingers. After a few moments of concentration, he held a mass of diamond shards the size of a baseball. He rolled the ball over, careful not to cut himself on the razor-sharp edges. The center of the crystal pulsed with a reddish light. He knew what this was. A dragon heart.
Back in the days of old, dragon-heart stones were used to bond mates together. Unlike the sharing of a scale, a heart stone wouldn’t just give the mate the life of the dragon. It gave them part of the powers of the dragon. A heart stone was formed, and the bonded pair would use the crystal to divide the dragon’s power in half. But the spell was risky. If the human accepting the bond wasn’t strong enough in mind, the dragon would take over and run rampant through the country. It also took a powerful dragon to withstand being fractured. As time ran on and the dragons’ powers were divided, fewer and fewer dragons could stand the split. The art of sharing a scale came into practice, and heart stones fell out of use and onto the pages of mythology. Noah knew of the archaic custom because he’d come across it in an old text while they were researching Michael’s situation, but it had only been mentioned in passing. He’d found other references to heart stones scattered through several old vellum volumes—warnings of the dangers of the practice, but nothing on how it was done.