The Fire Eater and Her Dragon: A Dragon Rider Urban Fantasy Novel (Setting Fires with Dragons Book 3) by S. W. Clarke & Ramy Vance & R. E. Vance

Author:S. W. Clarke & Ramy Vance & R. E. Vance [Clarke, S. W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Keep Evolving Studios
Published: 2021-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

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I hadn’t seen Valdis since I’d re-entered his mansion, but I had a feeling I knew where he’d be.

Maybe it was Mariana’s intuition that carried me through the living room, past the dining room and into the same study that Percy had slept in during what I’d already come to think of as The Night of Living Hell.

When I came through the double doors, a small glow greeted me. A desk lamp had been turned on, casting its halo in a circumference large enough to see a metallic object laid dead-center atop the desk.

Was that a dagger?

“Snowdrop,” a haggard voice murmured, barely audible above the sound of the crickets outside.

My gaze shifted beyond the desk to the figure seated in the wingback armchair. A pale hand, wet with blood, pressed against the torso. And wisps of his long white hair hung limp at the fringes of the light.

White hair. His hair hadn’t been white the last time I’d seen him.

I took two steps forward, that old hatred surging in me. “That dagger would have been useful in the fight.” My mouth closed, and then the next word forced itself out of me. I couldn’t stop it. “Coward.”

Here was the moment I’d waited five years for. This was the moment I’d envisioned time and time again—standing above him, his life in my two hands. I’d planned a small speech I would deliver, a la Inigo Montoya.

You killed my family. Prepare to die.

I would use my best performer’s voice, the one reserved for moments of peril. For terror. For the promise of death.

Deep. Low. Lethal.

And I wouldn’t hesitate. I would pull both throwing knives from my boots, gripping one in each hand and with all the finesse of years of practice, I would lodge them right in his heart.

One, two. Just like that.

He’d deserved it. He was a murderer. He was irredeemable.

But now that the moment had actually arrived?

I knelt. I retrieved my knives from my boots. I held them one in each hand. And then ...

I hesitated. I GoneGodDamn hesitated.

A soft noise came from his throat. His breath hitched, and then, “Come here. Come to me, quickly.”

Death. I heard death in that voice, and my eyes narrowed. Had he really burnt through the vast well of time his ritual had afforded him?

He had a bad chest wound, but he could have burnt time to heal it.

He hadn’t.

So what had he done with his time?

“Come,” Valdis repeated. “Hurry.”

My grip on the knives loosened. Without a word, I took slow steps until I came to stand in front of Valdis.

His hand left his wound, reaching out to me in the semidarkness. “Mariana.”

All at once, I understood.

These were his last moments. This was the end of the vampire who had destroyed my entire world. Who had consumed the last five years of my life with thoughts of revenge. Who hadn’t fought for my dragon.

I hated him. I wanted him to die.

Or did I?

Now that I knew the truth—I had left Thelma alone in that circus tent—I found I couldn’t despise him with quite the same righteous venom as before.

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