Free Shadows by Ophelia Bell Page A

considering the child wouldn’t have been born until after the temple was sealed. But he hadn’t left anything behind but regret and a now dead lover.
    It happened sometimes. Young dragons breaking the rules prior to their slumber. The marked mates often died of sorrow if the dragon had no elder family to take them in. Any children of such a union would be taken and raised by the council, but would grow up nameless, forbidden from acquiring treasure. They would spend their lives in service to the council and tended to die young, only living out roughly half of a dragon’s multiple-century life span. Slavery and grief were the last things Kol wanted for a mate and child of his own. His lover may have grieved him, but at least he’d left her with the freedom to move on.
    Eveline.
    Even thinking the name after the centuries without her brought back the memories of their time together. The loss twisted painfully in his chest, as sharp as a blade. The discomfort was enough to make him pause in his mindless patrol of the temple corridors. Sleep would be nice right now. Sleep would have been nice for the last five hundred years, but it wasn’t for him. And he didn’t want to be the one who slept on the job, even if it were a possibility. Hah.
    At least he had the Guardians for company during his daily patrols. They were the second defense if their temple were ever prematurely breached, so they existed in a more aroused state of wakefulness than the rest. Kol chuckled at that thought. All of them were asleep in an aroused state, even his massive slumbering form in the room beside the Queen’s sported its own huge erection. They had to be ready when the awakening ritual began. The Guardians were just the most visible. He often wondered what they would look like if the temple were ever actually attacked and they were forced into action. White dragons with massive erections might distract even the most determined grave robber.
    The thought made him laugh.
    “How goes it, Roka?” he asked, pausing on his rounds in front of his closest friend of the Guardians.
    “You tease me with your voice, Shadow. If I had breath, we could have a proper duel and see who triumphed.” The voice permeated Kol’s mind rather than the air between him and the rigid white statue he stood before. Kol still reached out a hand and rested it on Roka’s shoulder.
    Kol laughed. “If you had breath you know mine would overtake yours in a second.”
    “We’ll see who gathers the most treasure when we awaken. I’ll wager I get more, even as a guardian.”
    “I’ll wager you do, too, friend. I don’t see the allure in treasure. Not even humans, as pretty and vibrant as they are.”
    “You deserve more after this cycle. You deserve concubines.”
    “I do, do I? You know that the Court is already entitled to a multitude of partners if we choose, right?”
    Kol smirked at the silence his friend responded with.
    “Then why don’t you seem happy about that prospect?”
    Mother of all… Roka did always ask the most irritating questions.
    “I just want one woman. One sweet morsel to savor for the next few decades after this temple is finally opened. Someone whose world I can change enough to see in her eyes how much I mean to her and her alone.”
    “But you’re not a collector? It’s our nature. I want at least two. At least I know what I would do with two. More than that might be… complicated.”
    Kol laughed. “Yes, more than two becomes problematic. All I want to collect is the touch of her skin, the silky dew between her thighs, the little sounds she makes that lets me know my touch is affecting her.”
    He wandered away from the conversation with his fingertips tingling as though they’d already touched hot skin, memories of Eveline playing over and over in his mind.

Chapter Two
    T he sweet dark of sleep was a hard commodity to retain. Hallie questioned her own sanity every morning when the camp awakened and she was forced to rise with