by Kenna Bardot
“It means I’m not with Mireyah,” he said, biting his bottom lip as his eyes glazed over. Whatever image he concocted in his head nearly made me lose my shit, but I forced myself to smirk back at him and remain unruffled.
“You aren’t a threat to me. You never were,” I said.
The smile faded off his face. Ashric never liked to be reminded of the rivalry between us, since he so often trailed behind me. I couldn’t guess how much of his obsession with Mireyah was because her resistance was addictive and how much was a consequence of that rivalry.
We’d been foes our entire lives. It seemed only fitting that we would compete for our bride.
Like all the other challenges, I’d defeated him.
Mireyah was my favorite victory.
“How is she?” he asked. “Is she coping with the Dragon Guard well?” The lilt of hope to his voice sent shivers down my spine. “Does she miss me?”
“I won’t discuss her with you, but it would be safe to say that she has never once mentioned you,” I told him, crossing my arms over my chest.
He grinned, studying the motion. “What does she feel like? When she’s so mindless she forgets her own name? Does she feel like fire when you’re inside her? Or is it more like Northern ice?”
I bit down, resisting the urge to hit him only barely. A physical fight with him would undo everything I’d achieved, so for Mireyah’s sake I couldn’t risk it. I leaned forward, transforming my face into a bright smile that seemed to confuse him.
Like he thought I might tell him about sex with Mireyah.
“You’ll never know,” I whispered, turning to stride away from him.
“Charolais!” he called, and I turned to find him studying me intently. “Tell her I miss her. None of my substitutes compare. They never will.”
He still shouted after me when I turned and walked away.
✽✽✽
Mireyah
Hollis came for me when I told them I could finally come home. Hydra, just as thrilled, wrapped herself around Hollis’ shoulders the entire time we’d walked home.
When we finally stepped foot inside the front door of the house, I expected the guys to be waiting for me or at least be happy that I was actually finally there. Instead, they were just gathered at a table, heads together and mumbling to one another.
They didn't turn their heads until Hydra trotted over and rubbed her head against Ryle's leg. He startled, turning his eyes our way finally to find Hollis and I hovering just inside. I knew he hadn't expected me, but he cast a wary glance to the others before he stood and the shadows faded from his face. "What's going on?" I asked, catching the attention of the others.
"Nothing," Ryle murmured, wrapping me in his arms. He lifted me off the ground, a genuine smile taking over his face. "They finally let you leave?"
My vision narrowed along with my eyes as I squinted down at him in suspicion. "Hydra is all better finally, so they couldn't keep me there any longer," I admitted. "I missed all of you and I wanted to be home." I touched my wrist. “I needed to be home.”
"We're so happy you're here," Ryle whispered, stretching his neck up as far as he could in an invitation. I gave him, touching my mouth to his firmly and tangling my fingers in his golden hair. He touched his lips to my wrist, and it was like a spear of sunshine through my body. Like I could handle whatever the world threw at me.
When he set me down to my feet finally, Tate stepped into my side and pressed a kiss to my lips. His hand touched my cheek, studying me intently with inquisition in his eyes. He wasn't reading me, simply waiting for me to talk to him in the aftermath of our argument.
"I'm good," I answered with a nod.
Shep swept me into his arms as the twins bent down to give Hydra the love she needed so desperately. Spinning us around in a circle, he turned to the rest of my husbands with a smile on his face. "I call dibs." I smacked his shoulder, giggling with a scoff.
Like they wouldn't all enjoy me.
"I meant to hold you while you sleep," he said tenderly, and my hand ran over the shoulder I'd swatted as my cheeks heated as though Hydra had lit me on fire. Shep chuckled, reaching up a hand to touch the flaming skin. "I love that we can still make you blush. Even after all this time."
"You'll always make me blush," I admitted as he lowered me to the ground. "Especially when you're sweet. I'm far more used to you being an asshole," I teased, kissing the underside of his jaw when he threw his head back to roar a laugh.
I glanced over to the man who hadn't bothered to vacate his seat, making my way to the table and perching on the edge in front of him.
"You were fine when you visited me a few days ago. What crawled up your sphincter?" Behind me, Hollis plopped onto a seat and tried to contain his laughter and failed to do so when he snorted. It was so far from what one would expect of the uniquely beautiful Svadeni that I just about died.
Char glared over my shoulder at him, finally leaning forward in his seat to place a hand on each of my knees. Even through the fabric of my pants, tingles of pain similar to that moment when feeling returned after a limb went numb shot through me at his touch. Whatever had aggravated him, had done so to the point that he was near to losing his shit.
Still, he was nothing but calm in the face of his icy fury.
He didn't answer, running his hands over my pants and seeming lost in thought. "He had a run in with Ashric Tovenaar today," Ryle said behind me, standing tall after Hydra moved to climb into Hollis' lap. The chair groaned with the added weight, because I would swear the dragon was like a sack of rocks, growing bigger and heavier with each passing day.
"What happened?" I asked, spinning my attention from one to the other. I hated that he still had power over me, that I still remembered how terrified I'd been to think they might force me to spend an eternity with him.
But it wasn't because I feared the God himself, necessarily. I feared him because he reminded me of a time when I'd been weak. All I wanted was to be strong, stand on my own, but I had to find the way to balance that with being who my Sires needed me to be for them.
"He asked about you. Wanted to know how you were doing," Tate answered, and he shrugged. I knew he was trying to feign casualness and trick me into thinking they'd told me everything.
"He asked if you missed him," Char said, turning his white fiery glare up to me. "Like you would ever miss that fucking rotting piece of death," he growled, and I reached out a hand to touch his cheek.
It wasn't that I didn't feel angry at the thought of Ashric asking after me; I did. I could even picture his face as he asked, that somehow terrifying mix of mocking and genuine curiosity in his face. Like he cared, but couldn't let anyone know how much.
Like he was on the verge of coming totally and completely unhinged.
His face was permanently etched in my nightmares. Full of desperation and fury and the willingness to do anything to get what he thought he deserved. No matter what it was.
"He's trying to goad you into a fight," I told Char. My fingers wrapped around the side of his neck, leaning forward to touch my forehead to his. His lashes fluttered slightly, the most subtle giveaway of emotion other than rage inside him. My Vide loved to focus on his pain, on the anger that dominated his psyche and made his body vibrate with the need to inflict that on others.
"Don't let him win, and don't let him take from the time we have together," I murmured, glancing at the window. Light shone off each blade of grass in our yard, and I knew the sun would soon fade behind the horizon. Standing from the table, I took his hand in mine, letting out a sigh of relief when he let me pull him to stand and guide him for the back door.
"What are we doing?" he sighed.
"You got over Lathyn. You can get over Ashric too. We’re going outside. It's a beautiful night," I whispered. "And I want to spend it with all of my Sires." A little of the tension drifted off his face, easing as I grinned at him and pulled him to a lounge on our patio.
I'd do what I had to do to get r
id of the rest of it later.
I raised my arms up high and danced, my body moving to a rhythm inside me, throbbing to the beat of my heart. I dragged Char towards me, forcing him to move along with me. He shook his head and stood still as I danced around him.
Hollis strode up to me and we danced under the moonlight while the rest of Demiorgo slept. Danced because at that moment, everything was right and wonderful.
Feeling breathless, I snuggled into Char’s side, feeling Tate come up behind me. Hydra enjoyed the attention of Hollis, who collapsed onto the ground and Ryle as they played with her in the grass, Shep watching like the protector he always was.
It was home. Nothing more, and nothing less.
✽✽✽
The next morning, I squirmed on Ryle's lap, trying to find a way to be comfortable on what felt like a rock beneath me. It amazed me how sometimes, in certain positions, he could feel perfectly comfortable beneath me, but others it felt like my ass was too bony.
I knew it was anything but.
"Can I help you with something?" he asked, his voice dripping with amusement as he bent down and his lips touched the top of my head. His chuckle vibrated his chest against my spine, jostling me even more. I fought the urge to pick up my fork and stab him in the thigh.
Maybe it would tenderize him like meat.
"Did you pack bricks in your pants today?" I scowled at the table, finally relenting with a sigh when he spread his legs and let me drop to the chair between them. The wood was firm against my seat, but at least it was smooth and flat. Not a lumpy mess of muscle.
Hollis snorted on the other side of the table. "I'm pretty sure those aren't bricks, Pet," he teased, shoveling a bite of fruit into his mouth. Char chuckled quietly as he sipped his tea. Hydra nuzzled into my side, bumping my belly with her nose to get my attention as I ran a hand over her head. She looked up at me, red eyes soft and as adoring as I imagined mine probably were when I looked at her. It amazed me to think of how instantaneously she'd become the center of my world, right alongside my Sires.
The others had already left for work that day, but I intended to fully enjoy my last lingering moments with the other two before Hollis had to rush off to make a Goddess more beautiful Char had to venture to the Unwanted, and Ryle had to flex his muscle and build houses. I settled my back against Ryle's chest as Hydra laid down next to us, wanting the contact that I'd lost with the shift in his body.
Stabbing a piece of dijari fruit with a fork, he lifted it to my mouth and I let the decadent flavor explode on my tongue. I nearly winced with sugar overload as I chewed the too-ripe piece. Opting for the berries instead when Ryle went to feed me, I ignored the curious look Hollis shot my way as he shoveled more dijari into his mouth. Leave it to the Svadeni to tolerate the sugar. He was a sweet food fiend.
The berries were better, more tart as I chewed them and sipped my morning tea.
The bang on the door was beyond unusual, because no one ever came to our home with us being so far out of the way. Hollis stood from his chair, pursing his lips and furrowing his brow. Ryle shifted behind me, turning the chair with us in it so he could see the door as Hollis pulled it open. A Springen female stood on the other side, her yellow hair pulled back into a loose knot to keep it out of her face. The nondescript box in her hand had Hollis tilting his head.
"A delivery for a Mireyah?" she asked, glancing at me. I foolishly wondered how she knew it could be me, before realizing that I was the only woman in the room.
"That's me," I confirmed, standing to accept the box ever since I’d promised that I would accept everything so I was never surprised again. Once it settled in my hands, she gave a polite smile and went on her way down the path before she jumped in a haze of yellow and disappeared.
Glancing down at my hands, I took in the small box. Plain and white. There was no sign of who might have sent it as I set it on the table and opened the lid. Red decorative paper filled it, looking jarring against the white of the box, like blood splatter on snow, and something about it immediately put me on edge. The combination seemed so deliberate, so meticulously planned. Ryle seemed to agree, reaching his arms around me to pull the paper out bit by bit. As soon as it was gone, the rose gold metal and twisted leather in the box appeared to be all that remained save a note at the bottom. Though the setting remained empty, never blessed with the Bloodstone in the way the one on my forehead was, there was no mistaking the two halves of a circlet. Split down the center where the Bloodstone should have been.
Snapped in half like garbage and not a sacred symbol of the Dragon Guard.
I lifted the pieces out, cradling them in my hands as I looked down at the box again. The note was more visible with them missing, and though the words were simple, the meaning was clear.
"To fail is to break," Ryle said, reading aloud so that Hollis could hear us. At some point, he'd shut the front door and stepped to the other side of the table where the note would have been upside down for him to read.
"Who would send you something like this?" Hollis asked, lifting a hand up to scratch at his nose like he was too deep in thought to control the inane impulse in the way he usually would have.
"I imagine it's from Jarek, Arkin and Yula," I sighed, setting the desecrated object back in the box and closing the lid. I suspected they'd made an imitation of it somehow, because no matter their hatred for me, I couldn't imagine them using something so significant to the Dragon Guard in such a manner.
They might hate me, but they worshiped the dragons as much as all the rest of us.
"Dragon Guards?" Ryle asked behind me, and I could hear the uncertainty in his tone. He didn't like the fact that there was a threat within the Reserve any more than I did, but I would never have considered them actually harmful toward me.
Killing me would mean killing a dragon - the ultimate sin for someone who pledged their lives to protecting the species.
“It’s Ashric,” Char inserted, eyes wide as he stared at the band in my hands. I shook my head because how could he have managed to get a circlet?
“Char, you’re a little biased right now because of your encounter with him yesterday. It can’t be him,” I tried to soothe him, but he shook his head.
“No, it’s him. How could it be anyone else?”
"Not everything goes back to Ashric Tovenaar. Trust me, Char, it’s Jarek, Arkin and Yula and I'll deal with them when I go back," I bit out. "It's no worse than anything else I've faced as a human or Sylfe. Petty jealousy and games, like they can frighten me into backing down when they decide they want to have it out with me. We had an argument recently, and I don't think they appreciated that I made them look pathetic," I murmured, tossing the box to the spot next to the door so we could toss it on our way out later.
I pushed on Ryle's shoulders, making him sit back down in the chair we'd shared before, and then I perched on his lap once more. I tried not to wiggle, content to just feel his mass surrounding me.
I'd survive whatever they threw at me, so long as I had my Sires.
Twenty-Eight
Mireyah
"She really has recovered so well. As a professional, I have to say, you did a wonderful job with her." Jas touched her nose to Hydra's snout and my dragon cooed before rolling over on her stomach, where the Leven obliged her by giving her a belly rub.
"I figure that taking her home when she's just gotten better and then starting up with Unwanted training again means I’ll put her through the wringer. There's nothing I won't do for her." I touched my circlet, and the bloodstone embedded into Hydra's scales, my jaw tightening when I remembered the gift that morning.
The insult of a broken circlet was still at forefront in my mind. Given the very recent deaths, the sender predicted I would be next. It had been a petty and ugly move that undermined the honor that was serving in the Dragon Guard.
I'd played with the thought of telling Elin about what had happened, but I was scared that they would take it too seriously, and I would have to stay in t
he Reserve indefinitely. After the time I spent with the five the night before, I knew that I was not willing to put our relationship in the back burner.
I wondered if that was being selfish. I said I would do everything and anything for Hydra. Perhaps it was a hard line. I’d already tested it, and I knew that being apart from my men too long was not good for my health. And when my health was bad, it undoubtedly affected Hydra too, or so that’s what I told myself, which meant I had to be extra careful.
"What are you thinking about?" Jasmine gave me a curious look as she prepared a plate of food for Hydra. It was just a snack-sized serving, but anytime we went to visit her, she always had something for my dragon. Hydra enjoyed it, no doubt about it, but I knew she liked the Leven, regardless.
As she put the plate down with a gentle pat for Hydra, I had to admit I did too. "Just went back to that night," I lied without a moment's hesitation. "The bone-tingling, soul-crushing terror when for a single moment I thought she was lost to me forever."
Jas closed her eyes, resting her cheek against Iva’s, who walked over to nudge at her carefully. “Yes, the connection is so great that in times of great emotional surplus it takes everything to survive that. I can't imagine the gravity of the pain when one loses…." she broke off and tears filled her eyes.
"I'm sorry.” I reached over and touched her hand. We were silent for a moment, a comforting presence as I’m sure we both remembered Madi. I didn’t have much of her in my memories, surely not as much as she did, but they were impactful.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss her.” She tried to crack a smile. “Especially when Hydra is due her reproductive checkup, and I have no choice but to do it. I can, but it doesn’t come as easily to me as it did Madi.”
She sighed, and I wondered how I could lighten the mood when we both started when the door banged open behind us. I turned around to see Haisley, starkly pale against her deep purple hair, eyes too wide in her tiny face. Jas stepped out from behind the counter and raced to Haisley. "Haisley, sweetie, what happened? You look horrible."