Chaos (Dragon Reign Book 4) Read online

  Chaos

  Dragon shifter Kate has some tough decisions to make, and so does her heart. She and her dragon are torn between Forrest, a dragon shifter prince and Craig, a half-demon bastard.

  And they’re constantly avoiding enemies and fighting rogue family members. To think, not so long ago, Kate’s biggest concern was homework.

  Join Kate, Craig, and Forrest on their journey of adventures.

  Chaos

  Dragon Reign

  Kit Bladegrave

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Afterword

  1

  Craig

  There was no sunrise or sunset, not in this dimension, so I had no way of knowing how much time passed since Kate disappeared.

  I stood in the doorway to the sorcerers’ home, straining to see beyond the mist and catch a glimpse of her coming back, saying she was messing around and she hadn’t decided to run off to face the darkness alone.

  I stayed there and prayed to whatever gods would listen for Kate to come back to us.

  My knuckles throbbed, but I ignored the ache and the split skin, results from hitting the stone walls in my room last night over and over for letting my guard down and thinking Kate would never do something so rash as this.

  I was meant to be her protector, the one to keep her safe and bring her back alive, and she took off on me… on us. Left us here children she didn’t trust to be careful.

  I knew seeing that mural messed with her head, convinced her the only way out of this was for her to become this sacrifice to save the world. But she was wrong, so horribly wrong. Every time she caught a glimpse of the past, it dragged her further away from us as if only they mattered, Malcolm and Broden.

  My hands itched to hit something again, anything, never knowing how much anger I could feel at someone I cared so much about at the same time.

  “Craig,” Forrest called behind me, but I didn’t turn around, afraid I’d miss a glimpse of her.

  I heard his rushing steps, and then he leaned in the doorway beside me.

  “The portal’s almost ready.”

  “They’re sure they can get us there?”

  “As sure as they can be I guess,” he replied honestly. “We’ll find her, we have the bracelets, remember?”

  “How do you know?” I growled. “How do you know they’ll work? Or that she hasn’t already been found by Allis or some other plagued beast? How do we know she’s even still alive!”

  I roared in a fury and punched the doorframe, buckling it as pain radiating up my arm, but it helped me focus.

  So much for not losing it anymore.

  Forrest’s brow rose, but he didn’t scold me, smart dragon.

  “If she was dead, we would know,” he said quietly. “You can’t tell me you don’t still feel her out there.”

  I closed my eyes as I rubbed my knuckles and thought of Kate, thought of everything she meant to me, and how my blood boiled when I was around her, not with anger, but with the strongest connection I’ve ever felt to another living being.

  At first, nothing happened, and I was ready to curse Forrest for making me even try, but then…

  There!

  Just a spark of power, but it was her. Barely a breath of air and then it was gone.

  “Fine, she’s still alive,” I admitted. “But we’re dragging her back here kicking and screaming if we have to. We are not prepared to face down this Zohar, not yet.”

  “Probably have to knock her out.”

  “I don’t give a damn. She’s coming back with us,” I seethed, daring him to challenge me.

  The determined glint in his eyes said he was all for doing whatever was necessary.

  We stayed in the doorway watching a few moments longer before he nudged my arm, telling me it was time to head back inside.

  Reluctantly, I left my post and stalked after him into the casting room the sorcerers used, next to the hall. They stood together in a large circle, Crane and Greyson, the only two not in it, waiting for us.

  “We cannot be certain of where the portal will open,” Crane explained, “but it should get you to the Burnt World. Once there, use the coin she has to come back.”

  Greyson motioned to a small table nearby loaded with daggers and swords. “You may want to arm yourselves, just in case.”

  Forrest and I each took four daggers, two in our boots and two more at our sides. He chose a sword he sheathed on his opposite hip, while I settled on deadly looking mace that would be perfect for smashing the face in of a plagued beast.

  I gripped it hard in my hand, ignoring the curious look Forrest shot me as we made our way into the circle where Crane motioned. He might not feel the need to beat the crap out of something to deal with his emotions, but unless he wanted me to deck him instead, he would leave it be. Not all of us had such good control of our anger.

  “Once the chant starts, the portal will open, but it will not stay that way for long.” Crane looked like he wanted to say more, but his mouth remained closed.

  “Got it,” Forrest replied for us.

  “Good luck,” Crane said hastily then he and Greyson closed the circle, and the fires in the room dimmed to nothing more than embers.

  A warm wind picked up, gusting suddenly around the room as the sorcerers’ voices joined together in a deep chant that reverberated off the hard stones.

  It nearly knocked me off my feet, so I braced myself, Forrest doing the same, but the sorcerers barely budged. It gusted fiercer with each round of the chant and power crackled through the air like electricity.

  Forrest and I stepped closer together, waiting for the portal to appear.

  The wind grew hotter, and I smelled the familiar tinge of burnt flesh and foliage that hit us the first time we entered the Burnt World.

  The mace was a reassuring presence in my hand, ready to take my rage out on the first creature we encountered. A violet light sparked to life in front of us and grew as the chanting became louder.

  The crack between worlds pulsed, growing larger each time before it was nearly big enough for us to jump through.

  Through it, I could just make out the darkened trees and blackened bushes, and thankfully no plagued in sight. Once we were through, Forrest could track her by her emotions, and the bracelets, as long as she had not thought to ditch hers somewhere along the way… or worse, had someone take it from her.

  I growled, thinking of her harmed. But she was alive, and that’s what mattered. We’d find her and get the hell back here, and kill anything that got in our way.

  Or at least that was the plan.

  The portal opened wider, but a tinge of darkness seeped into the violet light surrounding it, and I stepped back, sensing a change in the air.

  The wind turned violent and cold as a horrifying cackle overrode the chanting men. It drowned them out until my ears throbbed and I growled, trying to cover them and block out the sound penetrating my skull like a knife.

  The cackling turned to words that scratched harshly over me until I swore I was bleeding from thousands of open wounds.

  Words I couldn’t understand and didn’t want to.

  The wind swirled around faster and faster then, with an ear-splitting crack, the portal exploded outward, thr
owing us all to the floor.

  Silence fell over the room, and I painfully lifted my head. “No… no! Damn it!”

  The portal was gone.

  The fires had gone out, and all that sat in the middle of the room was dead air.

  I hurried towards the area and reached my hand out, hoping that maybe we just couldn’t see it, but there was nothing to walk through, no portal, and no way to get to Kate.

  “Bring it back!” I snarled to Crane, whirling around to see him still trying to find his feet.

  “We can’t,” he insisted, shaking his head, appearing visibly shaken. “I’m sorry, but we can’t get it open, not with the little power we have.”

  “Little?” Forrest questioned. “You have plenty of power.”

  “Not to face the darkness that shut us down.” He straightened his robes and clasped his hands before him. “We’re going to have to call in more help, I’m afraid, to get the portal to open and for you to go through.”

  “Which means what exactly?” I dug my nails into my palm to try and get hold of my anger, but it was a losing battle.

  The bones in my face shifted, and I shut my eyes, turning away from all those prying faces to force myself to think of something else, anything else than being too late to save Kate.

  “It means we will be contacting the coven to come and aid us, but a spell of that magnitude using that much power at one time… it will be dangerous to say the least, for everyone involved.” Crane hesitated before he added, “Especially if what we just faced now was a glimmer of the power Zohar controls. He clearly does not want you both interfering with whatever plans he has for Kate.”

  My blood boiled, and I stormed out of the room as anger and fear warred to take over, dropping the mace on my way, so I didn’t use it against the sorcerers.

  Forrest called my name, but I didn’t turn around, too worried about ripping his throat out on accident with this blind rage.

  I couldn’t see where I was going, couldn’t see anything but red, and my pulse pounded in my ears, drowning out everything else.

  As if a weight crashed down on my shoulders, I sank to my knees hard, holding my head as it throbbed in pain.

  Images flashed before my eyes, too fast for me to follow.

  But then Forrest, I felt his hand fall on my shoulder, and my vision came into sharp focus, letting me see what was happening.

  But the moment I did, I wished I hadn’t seen anything at all.

  Kate stood in a room lit only by torches. She leaned over a table, the Executioner blade at her back and a strange gauntlet attached to her left arm. Her eyes narrowed on whatever she studied. The room seemed strange and familiar at the same time until I realized this was the war room at the old Darrah fortress.

  But this one was far from ruins, and the racks were filled with weapons against the far wall, gleaming in the torchlight. I reached out, trying to touch her, but I wasn’t physically there.

  Time seemed to skip, and suddenly another figure appeared in the room with her. I couldn’t see a face, but it looked like a man.

  “What do you see?” a deep voice asked, sounding nothing like what we just heard, but I made me cringe, wanting to get away from it.

  Kate shifted and tilted her head. “I see a way in that will suit our plans perfectly,” she replied, but her voice was cold, so cold it sent a shiver shooting down my spine. “By the time they realize what’s happening, it’ll be too late.”

  “And then there will be no stopping us.”

  “No, no there won’t be.” She lifted her head, and when the firelight caught her eyes, I was thrown out of the vision with such force, I landed hard on my back, the air escaping my lungs on a pained gasp.

  “Craig! Can you hear me? What happened?” Forrest shook my shoulders until I grunted I was alright.

  Even though I was not even close to being alright.

  I blinked, but no matter what I did, the image of those eyes, those once entrancing green eyes replaced by darkness was all I saw.

  “Vision,” I managed to growl. “Saw Kate.”

  “Where? Was she alright?”

  I covered my face with my hand, replaying the few moments again over and over.

  “No, no she’s not. Something’s wrong.” I sat up, and my head pounded. “She was with someone there… I couldn’t see his face, but they were planning an attack.”

  “An attack?” Forrest shook his head. “No, that can’t be right.”

  “It was, alright?” I snapped. “And her eyes…”

  “What? Craig just tell me what you saw!”

  “They were black!” I shouted, hating to hear the words coming out of my mouth. “Black like the plagued we’ve been fighting. It had her, took her over, whatever it does. She wasn’t Kate, not anymore.”

  Finding my feet, I shoved past him and the sorcerers towards my room. I needed time to think and sort out what I just saw.

  Those eyes, I couldn’t get over that cold, calculating look. The desire to kill, to destroy. The lack of caring for anything or anyone. This vision, it couldn’t be true, and I refused to believe it ever would be.

  I rubbed my hands fiercely over my face, grunting in annoyance at what I’d seen. It couldn’t have been anything helpful, like how to get to where she was, but simply showing me a dark future I had to stop.

  When I reached my room, I slammed the door shut behind me and paced from one end to the other, straining to not lose it completely. Seeing her like that, taken over by the plague… there was no way in hell I was going to let that happen to her.

  But right now, I had no idea what she was doing, or who she was with. Who that man was in my vision. For all I knew, she’d already met this person in the Burnt World, and even now he was twisting her around, changing her.

  Possession. That’s what it had to be.

  The Kate that left us behind to save us would never let herself be willingly taken over like that.

  No. No, she had to be possessed, or would be.

  Whatever the sorcerers were going to do to get us to the Burnt World, they had better do it fast.

  Otherwise, I was going to find my own way to rip a hole between worlds and ensure this vision did not come true.

  2

  Forrest

  My head shot up when Crane dropped another heavy tome on the table in the vast library.

  “Huh? What time is it?”

  I was halfway out of my chair, ready for an attack, anything, but it was only the old man, and I sank back down, holding my head and trying to shake the nightmare that consumed me of watching Kate be killed, or worse, having her turn into a plagued dragon come to burn us all to death.

  “Late, or early,” he said with a soft smile. “You should get some sleep, in a bed, and not at this old dusty table.”

  I stretched and yawned as I muttered, “I’ve slept on worse, and I don’t think the location will matter. Not sure I’ll be able to sleep until I know Kate’s safe. Seen Craig yet?”

  “No, he may need more time to process what he saw.” Crane tapped his fingers on one of the leather-bound books as he studied me closely, though something told me he wasn’t seeing me. “I must say, we never did expect to have the three of you back again to face this plague. But, it does give me hope.”

  At least one of us had hope.

  The moment Craig told me of his vision, of Kate being taken over by the plague, doubt took root in my mind, and for the past few hours, nothing I told myself could shake it free.

  I reached out several different times, straining to sense her emotions, to understand what she was going through at this very moment, anything to prove she was still our Kate, but I wasn’t strong enough to stretch across dimensions.

  “Any word back from Lucy yet?” I asked, glancing down at the ancient text I fell asleep on, remembered there was nothing useful in it, and shoved it aside.

  “Not yet, but I have no doubt she’ll send help.”

  “How many witches will you need?”


  He sighed, sounding more like a tired old man than a powerful sorcerer as he sat down across from me.

  “The entire coven would be most helpful, but if she is, in fact, busy brewing the potion to fight against the plague, they will not be able to send everyone… speaking of which, Greyson and the other alchemists will have need of your assistance soon.”

  “For what, exactly?” I asked, not sure I liked the sudden glimmer of excitement in his eyes.

  “We need a more efficient way for you to be able to use that potion against the plagued,” Crane explained. “Use your natural born talents against them as they were meant to be used, if you catch my drift.”

  For a few seconds, I wasn’t sure what he meant, but then my eyes widened. “You want to experiment with my dragon fire? No, no I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Nothing will happen to you. I’m not about to risk the life of the dragon prince, not when we’re about to need you most.” Crane shifted a few more heavy tomes towards me, opening the top one. “Until you are needed, I thought you might find this text of interest.”

  I took the tome and squinted at the tiny scribbled writing. “What is this?”

  “A very important bit of your past.”

  “Mine… or Malcolm’s?” I had to use my finger to guide my eyes along the tightly packed lines of words.

  Malcolm’s name was mentioned several times in the first few paragraphs, as well as Celandine’s.

  I frowned. “I thought you said nothing existed of them anymore? Not since the realms were separated?”

  “Nothing telling us about the plague,” Crane corrected. “This is all about before the plague.”

  I nodded absently, flipping backward a few more pages and settled deeper into my chair to read.