Sorcha's Heart Read Free

Fire.
    “ I sang it into the link as you slept. Your courage demanded my respect.”
    “ Courage? I don’t understand.”
    His mind-voice rang through her very soul. “Open your eyes, little one. Raise your head and accept your destiny.”
    Caedyrn’s words bewildered and annoyed Sorcha. What did this dragon know about her, or her destiny? She tried to push her annoyance away; clear thinking was required. Everything had changed. Her adversary seemed to admire her and now offered support. She needed to throw off her lassitude, face the physical pain and discover what had transformed her enemy into a would- be guardian.
    Consciously holding her pain in check, Sorcha opened her eyes. The world looked wrong. Details too distant for human sight snapped into focus, while items close by dissolved in red haze. She lifted her head and swung it around, searching for Caedyrn. Her first glimpse of him wavered in that bloody fog, then her head came into alignment and his features snapped into precise focus. She wanted to shake her head. Instead, she blinked several times in rapid succession. Halfway through pushing herself up—hands planted in the sand, head oriented on Caedyrn—she froze. Information assailed her: focused sight required her snout be pointed forward; her lower lid flew up when she blinked; claws flexed in the sand at the end of her arms...
    She opened her maw and screamed at Caedyrn, “What am I?”
    Her words rumbled in an avalanche whose overtones assaulted her sensitive ears. Worst of all, the act of speaking agitated a strange little lump on the roof of her mouth and flame scorched the air as her scream hiccupped into silence. Cautiously, she explored the bump with her tongue, amazed that the flame hadn’t burned her mouth. A slightly acrid taste remained, but seemed to be the only after-effect. She sniffed delicately, and detected a faint sulfur odor. Her human intellect catalogued the smell, but her dragon senses found it comforting rather than frightening.
    A thought intruded on her inner confusion. “Speak to me here, little one. Human speech, as we produce it, pains our ears, and as you’ve seen, it can trigger fire if not carefully controlled.” Caedyrn’s words poured across her fear in soothing waves. “But to answer your question, you are a dragon. The Heart of Fire transformed you.”
    His words snapped her attention back to the larger issue. “That’s impossible,” she cried, forcing herself to use the link instead of her voice. “I can’t be a dragon!”
    “ Rise, little one. Unfurl your wings. Feel the power at your command.”
    Sorcha stood. Four sturdy legs held her gargantuan body above the sun-warmed sand. She swiveled her head and felt the Heart of Fire thump against her breastbone. Pink ridges undulated down her back, ending an incredible distance away in an arrow-tip of tail. The length of beach she covered told her she had to be at least twenty-five feet long, snout to tail.
    The pale pink color disturbed her. She turned back to Caedyrn and asked, “Am I ill? This color looks sickly.”
    His laughter bubbled through her thoughts. “You are no ordinary dragon. Your color reflects your essence; the pink of human flesh combined with the opal’s milky fire.” Sound thrummed from his body, and Sorcha realized it indicated happiness. “I find your color exotic — and attractive.”
    Confusion besieged her. She didn’t have the experience necessary to decide if the innuendo implicit in his last comment was intentional. Dragons obviously didn’t blush, or her strange color would have deepened to scarlet across her entire bulk. Lord, she was bigger than many of the huts in the village where she’d grown up! So much for feminine vanity, at least of the human variety. Were female dragons vain?
    “ I don’t understand your question,” came his immediate response. “If you mean, ‘are they prideful,’ then the answer is often yes. If you mean, ‘are they concerned with their