Keeper of the Flame

A warrior, a maiden…and a passion that could set the whole world aflame.

Despite the fact he is the largest of his half-dragon brothers and better suited to fighting, Hugh has been sent on an undercover mission. Forced to stay in human form, he must discover if the land of Helios is truly the Draconian ally it pretends, or something more sinister.

When he witnesses injustice in the form of a misshapen baby gryphon kicked out into the cold, he cannot remain in the shadows and watch the child suffer. All he can hope for is that his act of kindness will go unnoticed so his mission can continue.

But someone does notice. When Lera cautiously approaches Hugh, she is drawn to his strange, foreign magic. She is entranced by its irresistible allure—until assassins come calling and reveal her true identity.

She is Valeria, queen of Helios, Keeper of the Flame. And she has been betrayed. Together they must risk everything to uncover the traitors and re-forge the alliance between their lands. Yet beneath their blazing passion, both are still keeping secrets. Secrets that the Sacred Flame will reveal—if their love survives its cleansing fire.

Winter rains in Alagarithia were truly awful. Hugh had been told they didn’t last long, but they persisted while the wind blew from the north, bringing bone-chilling rain and snow off the water. Lucia had remembered a great deal about the city in which she’d been born, even though she hadn’t lived there long. Hugh had spent an enjoyable dinner back in the Castle Lair in Draconia with Lucia and her husbands, the knights Kaden and Marcus and their dragon partners, Reynor and Linea. Lucia had told him all she knew about Alagarithia, though she’d been smuggled out of the city as a young girl when her family was slaughtered.
She remembered the rains, though. Hugh now understood why. Even gryphons stayed in their nests during the winter rains and the city hunkered down to endure the cold. Hugh wasn’t so lucky. He would have loved to build up the fire in his rented room and hide for the duration, but he had work to do. Shanya’s vision had been of cold rain from the north, so whatever was going to happen, it would be while the north wind blew and the weather of this normally temperate city was at its worst.
Hugh was as wet and miserable about it as anyone in Alagarithia, though he wasn’t quite as cold. Even in his human form, Hugh was a dragon. He carried that fire within, no matter what he looked like on the outside. It was something to be grateful for as he watched people huddling under doorways in tattered oilskins in the poorer parts of the city. He wore an oilskin coat as well, though his was in slightly better repair. His guise was that of a traveler and Hugh tried to look as plain as possible, neither prosperous nor poor. He adopted the guise of someone who was not an easy or fat mark for those who populated the less scrupulous parts of the city.
Drake, the famous bard and newly made knight, had given him pointers on blending in, though little could be done about Hugh’s larger-than-normal stature. Of all his brothers, Hugh was the tallest and broadest across the shoulders. In dragon form, he was the largest as well, though only by a foot or two when measured from tail to snout and wingtip to wingtip.
Hugh tried to slouch, but it was hard for someone as tall as he was to appear a more normal height. Still, he did his best, adopting the loose gait Drake had taught him and casting his shoulders downward. He did his best to look unremarkable, though truth to tell, most of the inhabitants of this lower-class part of Alagarithia were too caught up in their own semi-frozen misery to be looking at another fellow sufferer too closely.
Few walked on the slushy streets and even fewer in the back alleys that bordered the cliff face. Similar to Castleton—the city that had grown up around the base of the castle in which Hugh had been born—this city was built with a rock face on one side, the sea on the other. The cliff and the sea met, leaving only one front on which a potential enemy could mount a land-based attack.
The waterfront was well protected by Alagarithia’s famous fleet of ships and the gryphons took care of the cliffs. For it was in the caves that pockmarked the cliff face that most of the gryphons had built their nests. They flew from their lofty perches almost constantly. A trail of workers who cleaned their few belongings and did tasks their talons were not suited to walked up and down the small paths and stairs cut into the rock during daylight hours.
This wasn’t the safest place for Hugh to be hiding, but it was the most unexpected. The taverns in this part of the city catered to the working class and shady deals of all kinds were transacted in the back alleys every day. If there was information to be had, this was the place to learn it. Or so the Jinn had claimed.
The biting wind and icy rain pelted everything in almost horizontal slices, making most sensible folk stay indoors. It was the perfect opportunity for Hugh to scope out the Jinn trader Nico had arranged as an emergency contact. Hugh would not speak to the man this day, but he would learn the various approaches to his trading post and commit them to memory should it become necessary to seek his aid.
That task firmly in mind, Hugh used his slouched gait to cross the area around the Jinn trader’s colorful wagon a few times. He never got close enough to be seen by the occupant of the red and yellow conveyance that doubled as his shop wherever he put down stakes. Nobody stirred in the rain as it worsened and turned to true ice.
Sleet lashed him, but Hugh wasn’t cold. Not really. He wasn’t even really wet, except for the places the wind had whipped his coat away from his body from time to time.
He was about to head back to the inn, having learned all the pathways to and from the trader’s wagon when he became aware of eyes trained on him. Hugh didn’t flinch. He didn’t stop or deviate from his path. The eyes followed. The sensation of being watched increased as he walked along a darkened alley—the closest one to the cliff face he had yet traversed.
Hugh let his senses expand, opening his mouth slightly to taste the wind, but the eyes stayed cautiously upwind of him. He got the fleeting impression of an inhuman growl and then he heard the telltale pad of four feet. Not two.
Little feet. Taking little steps.
Someone’s pet? Hugh didn’t think so, though the size sounded about right—the intelligence behind the pattern of the little paws stalking him was unmistakable. Curiosity flavored its movements. Hugh’s dragon senses told him all this just from the sound of its paws hitting slushy ground.
A dainty sneeze sounded from around the corner just ahead of Hugh. The creature was running parallel to his path, watching him from the side alleys between the clustered buildings in this part of town.
Hugh made a decision and slowed his steps. Sure enough, a small furry head peeked around the corner to look at him. It drew back sharply when it saw him and he got the impression of wet fur and a forlorn look on a small cat’s face. At least, it looked like a cat from what he could see of it.
It had mottled gray fur and sad gray eyes. It looked like a cat, but the quick glimpse he’d gotten had not looked like any housecat he had ever seen. Hugh was familiar with domestic cats since every Lair had a few that hunted mice and kept the places free of vermin. It wasn’t uncommon for dragonettes to have a pet if they had no peers their own age to play with. Cats never seemed to be afraid or antagonistic to dragons. The same could not be said for most canines, unfortunately.
Hugh stopped in his tracks and waited. The little creature seemed to be in distress, but still curious enough to watch him. Something was off about the animal. For one thing, its eyes held even more intelligence than an ordinary cat. For another, it wasn’t hiding from the rain, even though it was obvious the little thing was miserable. Hugh wanted to know more.
A moment later his patience was rewarded when the small creature poked its head around the corner again, a little at a time. At first, Hugh could only see half its face. When Hugh kept still, the little one moved closer, exposing its head fully, watching Hugh with those big, sad, gray eyes.
It blinked once and Hugh sighed. He needed to know more, but his first instinct was to help this poor bedraggled kitten. For he could see now, it wasn’t fully grown, even though it was larger in size than a fully grown house cat.
Perhaps it was the young of one of the big cat varieties that were said to roam this land. Hugh didn’t know, but he wanted to find out. He wanted to learn this little one’s story and help protect it.
Backing against the wall of the nearest building, Hugh crouched down, putting himself nearer eye level with the creature, hoping to put it more at ease. He remained there, unmoving, willing the cat to come to him.
Slowly, paw by paw, it moved out from around the corner and that’s when Hugh realized what he was dealing with.
The cat had wings.
Which meant it wasn’t a cat at all. It was a gryphon.