Blood Oath (Darkest Drae, #1)

by Raye Wagner

The bloody Drae had dropped me. I was pummeling toward my death. I opened my mouth to scream, but my voice was trapped. My heart pounded, and I berated myself for ever trusting him. Irrik was the enemy, and this was probably just some form of— I opened my eyes in time to see Lord Irrik snap into his human form as he hit the ground in a roll. Before I could blink, he was up and running. I crashed into him, and he absorbed my force as we fell to the stone path. I lay sprawled on top of him, panting to catch my breath. “You need to work on your passenger landings.” He pulled me up next to him. Be brave today.

Khosana, his voice echoed in my mind, heavy with pain, I am so sorry. Please, forgive me.

Irrik tugged at my arm gently, but I couldn’t look at him. When he lifted me, I buried my face in his aketon and continued sobbing. The silence in the foyer did nothing to halt my harrowing pain. But when Irrik turned to go to his tower, something penetrated my cloud of despair. I sucked in a breath and shouted, “No.” Irrik’s tower was a gilded façade, shielding me from the malevolence of Irdelron’s power. It would be wrong to be in a soft bed or couch, to have food, warmth, or comfort. It would be wrong to delude myself that any of those things meant safety or approval. The dungeon offered no such mask. I saw through the faux freedom Irdelron had given me.

I wanted to loathe him, to hate the Drae with everything in me. I wanted to beat him and kill him for the death he’d caused and the blood he’d spilled. But the pain he radiated was mirrored by the haunted look in his dark eyes. I’d seen through the Drae’s fearsome mask. Underneath it was the wretchedness of his life in chains. A life that was now mine, too. We were both of us slaves. “Why do you look at me like that?” he whispered.

“Every time I do, it is worse. Worse for me and for the victim of his brutality.” I furrowed my brow. How could that be? Dead was dead. “I know the limits of my oath,” he said after catching my frown. "The king can't make me kill anyone but those threatening his life or his rule.” Arnik and the rebels had been after both. “For traitors,” he continued. “There is a difference between a quick death and one that is drawn out and painful. When I have attempted to refuse him, the compulsion to act builds and builds until it seizes me and I cannot resist. I have nailed my feet to the floor to try to deny him.” He swallowed hard, his jaw tightening. “So, when he gives me a command, and I can choose to make it fast . . .” He turned his face so I couldn’t see, but his pulse feathered in his neck. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t imagine living that way for decades, and still . . . existing. There would be no part of me left. None. I tightened my hold and closed my eyes, terrified to see his reaction.

“Will you kill me, if I ask one day?” He was silent as we continued our descent. “No.” His chest rose and fell, and he said, “I’m sorry. I could never do that.” I nodded.

A small spark of compassion welled inside, and still in his arms, I glanced at the Drae. “Let me heal you.” Surprise and then confusion flitted across his face before he scowled. “Why?” I rested my head on his chest, weary beyond measure, and let the steadiness of his heartbeat ground me.

“Because even though you are the one to inflict the pain, you are not the creator of it.” We were both captives to the king, and for the first time, I felt a connection, an understanding, with the feared Drae. “And because if I heal you, I’ll be defying him, just a little, in my own way.” Lord Irrik rested his cheek on top of my head and, to my surprise, he sighed. How very un-Irrik-y.

Two tears escaped my eyes, and two more tears chased after them. “I’m sorry I hated you so much. You aren’t responsible for his maliciousness.” I stretched onto my tiptoes and pulled his face to mine. I closed my eyes as our lips touched, and I willed him to not only feel better, but to be better.

He sighed again and wrapped his arms around me, and I longed for his heart to be whole and his mind to be clear. He ran his fingers over my cheeks, and I wished for the scars in his heart to be gone and the ache in his soul to find peace. Except when his lips parted in front of mine, I forgot to will anything and a wave of emotion rushed over me. I lowered with a gasp. “Ryn,” he murmured, touching his forehead to mine, warm breath caressing my face. “What was that? I’ve . . . I’ve never felt anything like that before.” I stared at him, having no idea myself, but understanding on some deep level that we’d just shared something beautiful.

His skin was smooth and almost glowing with health. His arms held me close, protectively. “Do you feel better?” I asked breathlessly. He nodded, blinking as he clenched his fists and moved his head. “Yes, Khosana.” An ache in my chest lightened. “Good.”

The Drae pursed his lips and gave a curt nod. “Toliko vam volim kraljicu.”

I crossed my cell, and he reached for me, pulling me to him, the bars between us. As soon as our skin touched, I heard his thoughts. I’ve been so worried. He brushed his lips to my forehead. I have no time to explain. Please listen. When I said nothing, he continued. My love, you must escape. My heart stuttered and I blinked several times. “You love me?” I have loved you from the first moment I laid eyes on you. “In the torture room?” He pressed a whisper of a kiss to my lips. Before that.

“I love you, too, Tyr.” We shared an intense, desperate love born of the constant threat to our lives. My heart was full of this man, and my soul knew him. I sighed. “I’m not leaving without you.” How was it possible that Irrik told me to leave and then maybe a dozen hours later Tyr showed up to let me out? Even in my exhausted stupor I knew they must be working together.

“Don’t be sad,” I said, choking on the words. I would be in the stars with Mum and Arnik in the blink of an eye. “I’ll be free.” “Už ti nikdy neubližujem,”

I knew what happened next. I’d seen it happen to my mother. His movements stopped. Irrik crouched next to the king, staring into his fading eyes. “You sealed your fate,” he said, jaw clenched. “With the command to kill her.” The king’s expression slackened, and he looked past Irrik to where I was curled. Irdelron clearly understood what Irrik meant.

couldn’t tear my eyes from Irrik, and finally, finally he met my gaze. “How did you do that?” I managed, glancing toward the king’s blood nearly touching my extended foot. “Not here,” he replied tersely. His hand had shifted back to human, and the king’s blood coated Irrik’s fingers. “No!” I shouted. I extricated myself from Dyter’s arms and sprang to my feet, ignoring my shaking legs. “I want to know right now. Right now!” Cal and Dyter gasped to my right at the way I was speaking to the king’s Drae. Not the king’s anymore. Irrik’s fangs appeared again, and he forced them back, the struggle evident on his face. “There are too many ears here.”

He sent the emperor the females, and I was the only Drae left with him, so there was never any danger of the oath being broken, before now. I’ve always been the only Drae in Verald.” “What are you saying?” I whispered. Irrik opened his eyes, human once more, and faced me. He slid back the sleeves of my shift. “Drae cannot kill each other. I cannot physically kill one of my own. It is not magically possible. To tell me to do so would shatter the blood oath and allow me the freedom to protect my fellow Drae.” He glanced down and, frowning in confusion, I did the same. I gasped at the sight of the lapis lazuli gems stuck to my skin. Except . . . I stepped away from Irrik. They weren’t gems. I swallowed. I thought I was Phaetyn?

“What am I?” I screamed at him. He tried to get closer, but I shifted away to keep distance between us. His eyes went inky again, and when he spoke, his menacing Drae voice rumbled through the throne room. “You are Drae.” My legs folded underneath me, and I sank to the ground, staring at my arms. My blue-scaled arms. “I can’t be,” I said. “I’m Phaetyn.” “You are Drae, too,” Irrik said.

“When is your eighteenth birthday?” Cal asked. Irrik asked me that same question not long ago. I had no idea how much time I’d lost recovering from my injuries, so I took a guess. “A few days. Maybe?” “A Drae does not come into their powers until adolescence,” Irrik said. “Males come into them earlier, at age twelve.” He fidgeted then met my quelling gaze and said in a strained voice, “Females later, usually around eighteen, when they are of mating age.”

The color drained from his face as the king finished speaking. “You revert to your own house now, Lord Tyrrik.” Lord . . . Tyrrik. The stunned silence gave me ample time to put it together. I turned toward Tyr’s decapitated head again, taking two steps toward it before clutching the sides of my head and whirling back. “Tyrrik,” I shrieked. “No.” I chanted my denial over and over again, pressing my knuckles into my mouth with bruising force. “No,” I gasped again. Black agony filled my chest, and I looked up to Irrik, willing him to assure me that I’d misunderstood. Certainly, he wouldn’t have deceived me, betrayed me, like that.

“You,” I choked, unable to articulate the storming thoughts in my head through the ripping hurt inside. Something torn flashed in his dark eyes, and then I watched as the darkness came to him, wrapping around him, shrouding him. My throat constricted as he became a hooded figure, slightly shorter, with light stubble lining his jaw. His eyes and most of his nose were beneath a shadowed mask. I looked down at his hands, but he had no reason to change them. His fingers were long, and my eyes burned with tears as I remembered their gentle touch. His lips on mine. His tender treatment and whispers of love. “Tyr,” I said, choking on my sob.

“Yes,” the Drae spoke. Except it wasn’t in his voice. It was Ty’s voice. My dungeon buddy’s. Not raspy because acid had been poured down his throat or because he was a Druman spy. Raspy because it came from the partially shifted throat of Lord Irrik. “You were Ty, too?” I choked. Ty. Tyr. Tyrrik. He’d lied to me this entire time.

“Then why ask me to contact Cal in the first place?” I shouted at the unmoving Drae. His body vibrated. “Because I needed to get you out, but not while I was still under Irdelron’s control. He would’ve sent me to retrieve you. I had to find a way to break the oath so you could be truly free, and you were the only way to do that. Drae cannot kill Drae. I thought I could play both sides and manipulate the oath without too many people getting hurt.”

fell to my knees. “Why would you do this?” When he didn’t answer, I screamed, “Why did you do it?” I sobbed, digging my nails into my skin as though clawing to reach my heart. “Ticho teraz, moja láska. Ste v bezpečí,” the Drae said in his language. Then he placed his hand on my arm, and in my mind Tyr spoke, I will always keep you safe, my love.

“He wasn’t real,” I said, staring at the Drae. My heart was shredded and the coward wouldn’t even face me. Snarling with disgust, I snapped, “None of it was real.” Only then did a tear escape his soulless, empty eyes and trickle down over his sculpted cheekbones and clenched jaw. But still, Lord Tyrrik said nothing.

After a long moment, Dyter said, “He followed you when you left, did you know? He’s been there, all night, watching over you.” My mentor tilted his head to the rolling hills behind us. “If I could kill him, I would.” He cleared his throat and added, “But being a Drae and all . . .” His comment startled a laugh out of me. A strong reminder I hadn’t lost everything. “Thank you, Dyter.” “What for?” he asked. In his haunted eyes, I could see he blamed himself for everything. For being alive. “For being here,” I said.

My heart squeezed, but I took a breath, and air finally filled my lungs. “As do I, Dyter.” My gaze flickered to the rolling hills concealing Lord Tyrrik. In a handful of days, he wouldn’t be the only Drae in Verald anymore. I’d be a monster, just like him. I took a shaking breath. “As do I.”