Kiss of Darkness (The Dragon Legion Novellas) by Deborah Cooke

“I refuse to believe that my son is as good as dead just because some woman in a grotto uttered a verse.” She jabbed her finger at her own chest. “I will believe in his safe arrival. I will believe in his good health. And I will do everything in my power to give him exactly what he needs.”
    Damien might have been chastened, but those people turned to stone just steps away couldn’t be forgotten. Petra’s stern tone and his uncertainty about her powers made him fear the mother of his child. “I don’t think I want to know what ‘everything in your power’ might mean.”
    She smiled coolly. “No, you’re just a dragon. Run away, Pyr warrior, if that’s so much easier than trusting in me.”
    Damien was offended. “It’s not easy to trust someone with hidden powers...”
    “And it’s not easy to believe in love. I thought you were more than a man, not less than one, but you’re afraid.” Petra straightened and glared at him, her expression filled with challenge.
    “I’m not afraid.”
    “Then stay and see what I am.” Her eyes were bright with challenge and there was a rosy glow surrounding her body. Damien wanted to stay and see her truth, just to prove her expectation wrong.
    But when the ground rumbled beneath his feet, he shifted shape intuitively, taking flight in his dragon form. He hovered in the courtyard, but Petra stopped her humming and shook her head. She spat on the ground beneath him, her disgust clear. “Run away, dragon. I’ll wait for a man bold enough to love me.”
    Damien knew he could have melted Petra’s resistance with a touch, but he didn’t want to reconcile. The idea that he could be mated with the woman who would destroy him was too real a possibility for him to try to stay. He’d watched his father’s powers ebb away to nothing, leaving him a shell of a dragon. And there hadn’t been a prophecy. He’d never be able to sleep again in Petra’s presence.
    He gave her one last look, yearning for what he had believed to be true of her, then flew high in the sky. He flew over the strange frozen company of villagers with a horror that told him he was right, then beat his wings hard to ascend over the hills.
    He’d always said he’d never fall in love. He’d always said he’d never surrender his future to one woman. He’d fulfilled his firestorm and very nearly succumbed, but had escaped the consequences in time. Damien told himself that he had done the right thing, that his son couldn’t be saved, that the oracle was right.
    But Petra’s disgust echoed in his ears and his heart.
    Little did he know then that it always would.
     
    Damien came to a breathless halt in the endless forest of the underworld. He was panting and winded, feeling an exhaustion that wasn’t characteristic of him. He looked down at the wound on his leg and his leg was turning black. His toes were numb. The rest of his skin was becoming pale.
    Petra was right. Time was running out.
    He spun to examine the grey trees. They were just trees now, trees without human faces or captives, and he wondered if his eyes had deceived him.
    He swallowed, knowing the prophecy had deceived him. There had never been a woman who had made him feel as powerful and alive as Petra, never a woman who surprised him and captivated as she had done.
    He realized then that even though he’d left her, against every inclination of his heart, he’d still been turned to stone.
    Damien gone on that mission with Drake and the others, the quest to oust one of their own kind. They’d followed a dark trail into the depths of the earth, the evil spell of the viper winding into their ears. Many had their hearts turned against their true intention. Many fell back, unable to continue. The trail had led those who could endure the viper’s chant to one of their own.
    Cadmus.
    And in the battle to defeat him, those who fought at Drake’s back had been enchanted.
    Turned to stone.
    And trapped for centuries.
    The prophecy had come