Flame Bound (Seeking the Dragon Book 2) Read online

  “Hang on!” I shouted. “I’m trying to get back!”

  I hunted around for anything that might help, panic rising as the silver tear continued to shrink. I guessed I had less than twenty minutes to find a way through by how fast it was closing. There was nothing in the clearing except for grass, dirt, and a few chunks of marble that must have broken off the trees. None of it would help. I needed something sharp, something that could cut…

  I gasped and yanked open my canvas bag, digging through it frantically. My hands closed on the plastic handle of the little knife I’d found in the first aid kit. I pulled it out, grinning like a lunatic.

  “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!” I murmured. And to think I’d been so close to leaving it behind… I held it high, blade turned out like the villain in a slasher movie, and slammed the sharp tip down into the middle of the gauzy, rubbery haze as hard as I could. It pierced deep, far deeper than my hands had gone, and I let out an excited cry. But the cry became a wail as the blade stopped and slowly reversed. The air forced it right back out, just as it had done with my hands.

  I stood dejected, staring at the closing gap with the knife hanging limply at my side, feeling more helpless than I ever had before.

  My sister’s voice called to me faintly and insistently from within. “Ella? Ella! Talk to me.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I was stuck in the Ether-Realm with no way out, lost in a stupid crystal forest, so near to home and yet so far away. I’d probably die out here, frightened and alone, while my family went on with their lives and always wondered what had become of me. What had I ever done to deserve this? My situation didn’t seem like it could get any worse.

  Then I heard the crunch of a step behind me. I spun around, holding the knife up menacingly.

  A tall figure stepped from the trees dressed all in black. My heart sank into my stomach and sweat sprang out across my whole body.

  He was handsome and gaunt, with long, thin fingers I recognized only too well, and a sinister smile that spread from cheek to cheek.

  And he wasn’t alone.

  Ella

  Twelve gaunt figures emerged from the forest and fanned out in the clearing around me, one after the other, all dressed in the same black clothes, all looking exactly alike. The eyes of the smiling men were as empty as ever, and the creepiness factor of having twelve identical guys with dead eyes staring at me drove me into a series of uncontrollable shudders. My fear was so thick it was choking me. I put my back to the closing portal and swung the knife in wide arcs, holding it out toward them like I’d actually be able to cut someone with it. My hand shook so badly that the blade’s edge formed a blurry, indistinct line.

  “Stay back!” I warned them, voice quavering. I knew they were just playing with me. If these things even could feel fear, a teenager with a knife wasn’t going to inspire much terror in their hearts. I considered running, but I didn’t think I’d make it very far—I remembered how quickly they’d moved when Rhys fought them. If only I could conjure up magic, fiery lances like he had… but I was no Aethling sorcerer. What was I going to do? Sing at them?

  They all took one step forward, moving in unison, and closed the half circle a pace tighter.

  “Kaden!” I shrieked. “Kaden, Rhys, anyone! Help!”

  The smiling men inhaled deeply through their noses and let their breath out with a long, happy sigh. Their faces stretched tighter as the grins grew wider, and they cocked their heads as one. I felt sick. The bastards were enjoying this too much, feeding off my fear, and I couldn’t stop them.

  Then a low rumble sounded in the woods behind them. The men turned back to look. My pulse quickened. Did Kaden come for me after all?

  The rumble escalated to a crashing as something big forced its way through the trees. But rather than seeming alarmed, the smiling men turned back to me and waited. My muscles tightened. That didn’t seem right.

  The crashing stopped just outside the clearing, and then something horrifying crawled out from the shadows of the treeline. It was huge and bulky, twice the height of the smiling men, and it looked like some kind of Frankenstein monster grafted together in a mad scientist’s lab. It was part chitinous insect, part octopus, and also gruesomely humanoid, with too many eyes and too many mouths in places where it should have had neither, all black and green and shining slick. I could hardly bear to look at it—my brain didn’t want to accept the thing’s existence and my stomach twisted at the awful snuffling, chuffing noises it made as it lumbered forward. The smiling men parted to allow it into the circle and then closed ranks again. It loomed over me. I feebly brandished my knife, trying not to cry.

  Then its many mouths opened and began to sing a horrifying, dissonant song in a language whose words made no sense. The sounds began to claw at the edges of my brain, and I fell to my knees and tried to cover my ears. Tears streamed down my face. It felt like the horrible song was tugging at the threads of my sanity, pulling my brain apart, and forcing hideous, terrible thoughts into my head. I began to feel like it was whispering to me, telling me awful stories about the things it would do to me, telling me it wanted to eat my spark, telling me it was going to rip all that was human out of my body.

  I dropped the knife and doubled over crying, trying to shut the terrible song and the terrible whispers out of my head, paralyzed by sickness and fear. I couldn’t do anything but watch in horror as two thin orange tendrils worked their way out of it and extended toward me, rippling through the air like worms, reaching for my face. The thing’s hideous odor poured over me, death and rot and brine, gagging me while it overwhelmed my consciousness.

  I let out an ear-piercing scream when the first tendril slid slowly across my cheek. I expected it to be slimy, but instead it was sharp and rough like the edge of a dull stone knife. Pain blossomed in a thin line on my cheek, and the tendril came away bloody. I felt too nauseous and faint to put together rational thoughts any more. The horrible song was deep inside of me, picking my mind apart. My vision fluttered, and darkness grasped at the edges.

  A shadow flickered over the clearing. As though faraway, I heard several thumps, like great wingbeats. Then the ground shuddered.

  The nameless horror yanked its tendrils away from me and skittered back into the line of the smiling men, chuffing angrily. I blinked and swallowed, gasping for breath as I tried to pull my mind back together. I glanced over my shoulder, trying to see what had frightened it.

  Kaden stood over me in his billowing cloak, hands raised toward the smiling men, his face twisted into a snarl of rage. His gold-flecked eyes blazed with sorcery and fury in equal measures.

  “Kaden…” I gasped. My tears kept coming, but now they were tears of overwhelming relief. Kaden had come to save me, just as he’d promised.

  The huge, hideous creature roared a challenge and all dozen of the smiling men charged Kaden at once, but he leapt over me and pressed the attack. Watching Kaden fight was a thing of beauty. I couldn’t take my eyes away from the gorgeous man who flowed among the Eldritch like a dancer. Rhys’s magic had been cold and controlled, flinging his molten spears out with careful precision, but Kaden moved like a living flame, matching the smiling men’s attacks with motions almost too quick for my eyes to follow. Flames erupted wherever Kaden struck with hands or feet, and though his cloak fell away and was torn to pieces, the smiling men couldn’t otherwise touch him. In a matter of seconds they were all dead, burned to piles of ash on the ground around him. It was the first time in my life I’d been happy to see open flames around me.

  The bellowing monster roared again, twitching and shuddering in place, as though it was unsure of whether to attack. Kaden settled the question as he charged toward it, hurling balls of flame into the creature. They exploded against it and left scorch marks on the greenish-black skin. The mouths cried in agony and it fled into the woods before he crossed the distance. But rather than pursue, Kaden turned and rushed back to my side.

  He fell to his knees and seized my ch
in, inspecting the cut on my face. “You were injured,” he said. His eyes glowed deep red and he slid his warm, gentle thumb across my cheek where the tendril had scraped me. The pain stopped and his thumb came away clean. “And now you are not.”

  I reeled in shock for a moment. “It… it was taking my mind apart, and then when it cut me… it was so awful.”

  A low growl came out of his throat. “I will slay every last Eldritch for harming you, Ella.”

  My heart nearly broke in gratitude as I realized that I was really safe. Kaden was here now, and Kaden wouldn’t let them hurt me anymore. I slid my hands around his neck and pulled myself against his chest in a fierce hug, nestling my face into his neck as I sobbed. “Thank you, Kaden,” I said through my tears. “Thank you, thank you. I’m so sorry I ran. I just miss my family.”

  I think at first he didn’t know what to do, but then he returned my embrace and stroked my hair, holding me tightly. His body felt so warm and solid, and I inhaled deeply, breathing in his scent. Right at this moment I wanted to melt into him and stay there forever, letting him hold me and reassure me.

  “It’s okay,” he said, rocking me softly. “You’re safe now.”

  After a moment or two, I’d composed myself enough to let the tears trail off. I pushed away from Kaden, suddenly embarrassed, and remembered that he was the one I’d been running from in the first place. He released me at once and helped me to my feet.

  “You’re lucky that it was just the Eldritch that found you,” Kaden said. “Far worse creatures pass through the Ghostwood.”

  The idea of anything existing that was worse than the horrible creature who’d cut me baffled me. “Are you kidding me? Did you see that thing?”

  “The Eldritch abominations feed on your fear and pain, which gave me time to reach you.”

  “That’s what you call it? An abomination? It’s like something out of my worst nightmares…”

  He nodded gravely. “There are many like it among their ranks, and creatures still more horrifying.”

  I shuddered. The Ether-realm grew more terrifying with every moment I spent here. I gestured toward the silvery tear behind Kaden. We had maybe five minutes before the rift closed entirely. “You know I don’t belong here,” I said. “Please. If you truly care for me at all, send me home. I don’t believe that I’m any safer here than there.”

  Kaden considered the rift for a long moment with shadowed eyes. His face was full of sorrow and longing, and I wondered what he was thinking. Had I touched some old wound in him? I had the sudden urge to go to him, to stroke his handsome cheek and comfort him with soothing words.

  But then he bent down and picked up the tiny knife I’d discarded on the ground.

  “Kaden?” I asked.

  Ethereal light flared in his eyes, gold and crimson dancing, and the knife began to pulse with an eerie blue glow. He thrust it into the top of the tear and pulled down in a single, fluid motion. The thickened air parted like butter and the edges of the rift peeled back with the sound of torn cloth. A sucking wind rushed through the gap. I could see the sides of the silvery tunnel clearly again.

  Then Kaden took my hand in his and laid the knife’s hilt in my palm. He gently folded my fingers closed around it.

  “This blade will allow you to cut through the other side as well,” Kaden said, his voice thick with emotion. “Goodbye, Ella. I’ll close the rift after you go and do all I can to prevent them from coming after you.”

  I gaped at him. He was really letting me go? Just like that? I straightened the bag on my shoulder and gripped the knife more firmly. Kaden’s hands dropped to his sides.

  The silver tunnel beckoned. Katie and Nick. My whole family. I almost started crying again.

  “Thank you,” I said. “From the bottom of my heart, Kaden. You don’t know what this means to me.”

  “How very touching this is, Kaden Kolrath,” said a voice I’d never heard before. I jumped and turned to see a man I didn’t recognize entering the clearing. He was dressed in black clothing that was simpler and more old-fashioned than the suits of the smiling men, and a sheathed sword hung at his side. His skin and hair were both as white as snow, and the ends of his shoulder-length curls twisted into frosted blue tips. The man’s beautiful, ageless face and faintly glowing blue eyes made me think he might be an Aethling at first, but I hadn’t seen an Aethling with his coloring anywhere in Alkazar.

  “Vash Olkarian,” Kaden whispered. His eyes widened. The note of command I was accustomed to hearing in his voice was absent, replaced by something like awe. Awe and maybe fear.

  Vash’s lips twisted into a haughty smile of disdain. His palm rested casually on the hilt of his sword. “I thought I smelled dragon blood,” he said. “You’re far from home, little prince.”

  “Who is Vash Olkarian?” I asked.

  Kaden’s stance shifted into a defensive posture as he put himself between Vash and me. His red eyes glowed brighter than I’d ever seen before, and the air crackled with energy around him.

  “Run, Ella,” he said. “Run home fast and don’t look back.”

  Thanks for Reading

  Thanks for reading Flame Bound, Book 2 of Seeking the Dragon! Read on for a free preview of Book 3, Flame Stirred.

  Excerpt from Flame Stirred, Book 3 of Seeking the Dragon:

  “It sounds like I’m screwed no matter what I do, so why don’t you leave me alone to puzzle through it myself, okay? If everyone wants to kill me anyway, it hardly matters who ends up doing it.”

  “It should matter a lot to you.” Rhys’s eyes glittered. “Falling into the wrong hands can mean a fate worse than death, and the Dragon won’t always be around to save you.”

  “I have to go,” I said, trying to push past him. But he held his arm out and barred my way. I blinked at him angrily. “Let me pass,” I said, annoyed at the slight shake in my voice.

  “Has the Dragon made use of you as his concubine, yet?”

  “Excuse me? No, of course not.” My face flushed at the images which flitted through my mind at the suggestion, though. Kaden looked awfully good shirtless. He hasn’t …used… other women like that, has he? But of course he probably had, if that was normal here. I couldn’t quite say why the thought bothered me so much, but it did. “Kaden hasn’t been anything but proper toward me, which is more than I can say for other people around here.”

  If Rhys caught the insult, he didn’t give any indication. “Foolish. It’s his right to do so if he wishes to. I guess he only wants you for your spark. It’s even more of a waste.” Again he studied me in that way that made my skin crawl. I clutched my bag tighter and tensed. Would anyone hear me if I screamed?

  “Kaden will be furious if I don’t get back to my room,” I said. “And Rowan is waiting for me.”

  “Kaden is busy healing from the injuries your little jaunt caused him, and I don’t know or care who Rowan is. If Kaden is just interested in your magic, maybe I ought to claim the rest of you.”

  I opened my mouth to scream, but Rhys’s eyes blazed with their ethereal light and I found myself totally paralyzed. Icy fingers of fear skittered up my spine as I tried in vain to struggle against his sorcery. Why had I thought I’d be safe anywhere on my own?

  “Shhh,” Rhys whispered as he approached. “There’s no need to panic. I think you might even enjoy this. I certainly will.”

  About the Author

  Alexis Radcliff is an author, gamer, unashamed geek, and history junkie who spent the better part of a decade working in tech before dedicating herself to her first love, literature. Alexis lives and works in the Portland area with her adorable (if surly) cat and her equally adorable husband. When not writing, she spends her time reading, running, playing way too many videogames, and thinking too much about everything.

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