“Maybe,” Maddox allowed grudgingly.
“And a voice that occasionally talks to you inside your head. I thought so.” He nodded as Maddox’s frown confirmed the statement. “I also don’t think your age is the thirty-five you claim it is. That you’ve been on the earth much longer than that.”
“Why would you think that?” Maddox probed guardedly.
“We’ve told you that our brother Gideon died,” Dylan continued gently. “What we didn’t tell you is that his death occurred fifteen hundred years ago, alongside our brother Arthur during the battle of Camlann.”
“You can’t be referring to the legendary King Arthur?” Carys gasped incredulously.
“I am, yes,” Dylan confirmed simply.
Maddox snorted. “I can see how, because of your surname and living in Pendragon Castle, you’ve allowed yourself to believe you’re related to King Arthur Pendragon. But there’s no way I’m going to allow you to succeed in pulling the two of us into your delusion.”
Dylan gave a rueful shake of his head. “I understand how neatly that would fit in with your belief we’re imagining all of this. But the truth is, we, the ten Pendragon brothers, were born all those centuries ago to ten different Welsh goddesses and Uther Pendragon, who, as you know, was also Arthur’s father.”
“That is all a fairy tale,” Maddox bit out impatiently. “There has never been any historical proof that King Arthur, his knights, or the Round Table existed.”
“The knights are indeed fiction, because Arthur didn’t need them.”
“Because he had you?” Maddox taunted.
“Yes.” Dylan gave an inclination of his head. “The round table was actually rectangular. But Arthur was very real. As for proof, I doubt there are any artifacts confirming the existence of Meg Jones from Caerdyf—Cardiff nowadays—but I can assure you that she also existed fifteen hundred years ago.”
“We are living proof that Arthur existed,” Nathaniel continued. “Because we were born for the sole purpose of being able to shift into dragon at the age of thirty-five so that we could become Arthur’s dragon army and protect our brother until his predicted death at the Battle of Camlann. Having goddess mothers ensured that we’re immortal, and so we’ve continued to live on all these centuries since Arthur died, searching for our fated mate to complete us. During the last two years, we have all been blessed with finding and claiming those mates.”
Dylan smiled warmly. “I have a theory as to how it is Gideon, even though he seems to have no idea why, finally managed to find his way back to us.”
“Carys,” Grigor guessed.
“Exactly.” Dylan nodded. “A part of Gideon knew that his mate was here, in his home.”
Carys looked stunned. “Do Chloe and…and the other women all know about and believe the things you’re telling us?”
“They do.” Grigor took over the narrative again. “No matter what the two of you are trying to tell yourself, neither of you imagined seeing Rhys as a dragon just now,” he continued gently. “We can all shift into dragons the same color as our eyes.”
She swallowed. “And you—you really think Maddox is your dead brother Gideon?”
“Well, obviously he isn’t dead,” Deryk put in dryly. “But he’s definitely as much of an arrogant bastard as he ever was,” he added with genuine affection.
“Pot kettle,” Maddox snapped.
Carys shook her head. “Please allow Dylan to explain why he believes these things.”
Maddox scowled at her. “You aren’t really buying any of this?”
Her chin rose. “I’m at least willing to listen. Are you?”
His nostrils flared as he fought an inner battle with himself. On the one hand, he still thought the whole of the Pendragon family lived in la-la land, but on the other, it was Carys who was asking him to hear whatever else the brothers had to say.
“Okay,” he finally grated through clenched teeth.
“Good.” Dylan nodded. “Maddox, I have no idea how any of this is even possible, or why you disappeared for fifteen hundred years, but science doesn’t lie. And the results of the tests Holly and I did on Carys’s blood and saliva—twice—confirm that you aren’t distantly related to us but that you are our brother. As you look like and sound like Gideon, then that is who you are.”
Brother.
Kin.
“The voice you hear in your head is your dragon talking to you,” Dylan added softly.
“My dragon?” Maddox repeated incredulously.
The other man nodded. “I believe whatever caused your own loss of memory as to your true identity has also damaged your connection to your dragon. But he’s still there, probably as confused as you that he can’t talk to you or shift into dragon the way he used to,” Dylan added kindly.
“You’re saying that I can also shift into a dragon?” Maddox scorned.
Dylan smiled at his skepticism. “Logically, if we can shift into a dragon, and you’re our brother Gideon, then it means you can also shift into a dragon.”
“But I haven’t done so for centuries because our connection has been damaged.” The quote/unquote marks could be heard in Maddox’s derisive tone.
“Will his dragon be the same color as his eyes?” Carys sounded excited at the prospect.
“Please don’t let them pull you any deeper into their delusion,” Maddox begged before placing her on the bed and rising abruptly to his feet. His fists clenched at his sides, the rage returning, now that he no longer had physical contact with Carys. “This, everything you’ve said, is all nonsense. Absolute fucking nonsense, and I just want to take Carys away from here.”
“Before you decide that, can we ask some questions about you and have you answer them honestly?” Grigor probed.
Maddox tensed. “The only thing you need to know about me of any relevance to this situation is that I’ve already decided you’re all completely insane!”
“Please,” Grigor pressed.
From the way that word was ground out from between Grigor’s teeth, Maddox would guess the other man didn’t ask very often, that he usually took. Maddox glanced at each man in turn, knowing they possessed the same arrogance as their eldest brother, but were holding back.
“Please, at least give them a chance, Maddox,” Carys appealed.
Mate.
Maddox drew in a deep controlling breath before nodding abruptly.
“Are you older than thirty-five?” Nathaniel prompted.
“Yes,” he bit out.
Garrett pursed his lips. “A lot older?”
Maddox glanced uncomfortably at Carys before answering. “Yes.”
“Do you hear the voice in your head?” Bryn continued.
“I didn’t for a long time, but for many years now, yes.” He wasn’t about to reveal how many years that was. “I usually only hear single words. But the voice has become a little more talkative since I arrived in this part of Wales,” he admitted reluctantly.
“Did you feel an inexplicable pull to come to the castle?” Aeran encouraged.
“Yes.”
“A castle most people can’t even see,” Bryn put in softly.
Maddox glared at him. “How the hell can you not see a bloody great castle sitting on the side of a mountain?”
“Compulsion,” Aeran supplied. “Our dragon compulsion can be exerted on anyone who isn’t closely connected to us such as our mates, our brothers, and their mates. Everyone else can be influenced into believing what we want them to believe, and one of those things has been that there is no Castle Pendragon.”
In the same way that Maddox hadn’t been able to find the castle on the many maps of Wales he had looked at yesterday before leaving the inn to walk up here and find it again for himself?
“Did you feel the need to claim Carys as yours the moment you met her?” Deryk raised blond brows.
“Yes.”
“What did the voice in your head say when you first saw her?” Dylan smiled his encouragement.
Maddox swallowed before admitting, “Mine.”
Rhys nodded. “What did it say when you met me?”
His jaw tensed. “Brother.”
Rhys’s expression softened, those aquamarine eyes now glittering with emotion. “That’s because it’s what you are. You’re our brother, Gideon Pendragon.”
“You’ve all stated that he’s dead.”
“Obviously we were mistaken,” Grigor drawled.
“I don’t—”
“Rhys speaks only the truth, my son,” a melodious voice assured gently.
Maddox turned to stare at the woman who had suddenly appeared in front of one of the mullioned windows. She seemed strangely ethereal, dressed in a long and flowing green gown, the sun’s rays shining through the stained glass window and appearing as different colors on the long dark hair that reached almost to the woman’s slender waist.
She crossed the room until she stood in front of him. “You are Gideon Pendragon, a son born to me and Uther Pendragon, and whom I have believed lost to me for so many centuries.”
Maddox stared at her. “You’re saying that you’re the goddess Rhiannon, and my mother?”
She smiled warmly. “That is exactly who I am, Gideon Pendragon, protector and dragon shifter.”
Could it all be true?
Arthur.
Dragon shifters.
Was it possible that all these years Maddox had been wandering lost and alone, with no idea who he was or why he never aged and continued to live century after century when everyone around him died, he had actually been Gideon, son of Rhiannon and Uther Pendragon, brother to the powerful Pendragon brothers, and also a dragon shifter?
Chapter Twelve
“I sent word to Annwn earlier.” Garrett spoke up ruefully. “I thought it might help to resolve the situation if Rhiannon came here and confirmed Maddox is Gideon.”
“We would have appreciated being informed of that,” Grigor reproved. “We could perhaps have prepared Maddox.”
Garrett grimaced. “Nothing we’ve said so far seems to have convinced him we’re telling the truth,” he said knowingly.
Maddox was no longer listening to the brothers bickering. Because something had and was continuing to shift inside him as he stared at the ethereally beautiful woman who claimed to be his mother and smiled at him with so much love glowing in her green eyes. For him.
It was as if that penetrating and deep love was breaking down the walls of a dam inside Maddox’s head, allowing all the memories to break free before they began to tumble over each other in their haste to be seen and heard.
First came the memories he had held secret within him for so long, unable to share them with anyone without risking being accused of sorcery and witchcraft.
How he hadn’t even known his own name, let alone how he came to be there when he regained consciousness inside a cave carved into the side of a mountain. He had remained a prisoner in that cave for many years, too many to count, unable to climb up or down the sheer cliff face above and below the cave. Food was occasionally lowered down to him by whoever held him captive at the time, but not often enough. Through it all, he was always alone, until he had thought he would go insane from that aloneness. Perhaps he had a little, because he had no memory of anything that had happened in his life before he woke in that cave.
His escape happened completely by accident, his tormentors forgetting to raise the rope one day after lowering his food. He had climbed up that rope and learned that the reason it hadn’t been raised was because the settlement above had been attacked by marauding soldiers and everyone in the village lay dead or dying. He had felt a shudder of bone-crushing relief at how close he had come, with his captors all dead, to his belief that he would one day starve to death as a prisoner in that cave.
After his escape came bewildering and then agonizing centuries of roaming the world, of having no idea who he was or why it was he remained unchanged and alive while everyone around him aged and died. Year after year, century after century, and necessitating the need to change his name and location constantly, before anyone could question why it was he never aged.
For two long centuries, he had continued to live that lonely life, free but separated from the rest of humanity by his strangeness. Until the voice began to talk to him. Encourage him. Warm him. To become the only constant he had in a world that was forever changing.
Maddox stared at the woman who now claimed to be his mother, the Welsh goddess Rhiannon, before his hungry gaze moved to the eight Pendragon brothers in the room. His brothers?
The expectant expressions on their faces indicated they certainly hoped that was the case.
Brothers, the voice confirmed.
His dragon confirmed?
Rhiannon placed her hand against his cheek. “I am going to share with you our memories of you before you disappeared. I will also convey your own memories of your years away from us, with your brothers,” she said softly.
Dear sweet Goddess, he was Gideon Pendragon.
He frowned at the eight men as their expressions became ones of pain for how he had suffered. “Why did no one look for me after the battle?” he choked.
“We did,” Grigor promised. “We all searched. All we found was your armor. Your body was not there, but neither were you on our emotional link. Where you had been was only darkness and silence. We believed the enemy soldiers had taken you and killed you elsewhere with your own sword. It is one of few ways in which we can be killed.”
“They speak only the truth, my son,” Rhiannon assured lovingly. “You have suffered terribly, but they too have all suffered your loss these many centuries. As has your dragon.” She gave him an encouraging smile. “It is time you allowed him his freedom, for he truly has been denied and confined for too long.”
Maddox closed his eyes in order to open his heart and mind to listen to the voice that had been his only comfort and companion for so long. He gasped as he sank deeper inside himself than ever before, becoming aware now of teeth, scales, and unlimited power.
Dragon.
Yes, dragon, he acknowledged as he was filled with an inexplicable warmth he instinctively knew was that connection with his dragon.
Gideon.
He balked slightly at hearing himself addressed by that name. Even though he knew—at last he knew and accepted—that was exactly who he had been and still was.
He was Gideon Pendragon, son of Uther Pendragon and the goddess Rhiannon, brother of the other nine Pendragon brothers and the beloved Arthur, for whom the Pendragon dragons had all been willing to lay down their lives if necessary. For all these centuries, Gideon’s brothers believed he had done exactly that.
He gave those brothers a pained look. “How did Rufus die?”
Grigor sighed heavily. “His life was claimed by dragon hunters in the nineteenth century. We did find his body. He’s buried here in the grounds of the castle.”
Maddox felt the belated pain of that loss.
Because the return of his memories now made it impossible for him to deny that Rhiannon was his mother.
Or the sense of belonging he felt in knowing the Pendragon brothers and their wives and children were his family.
And the absolute joy of learning Carys was his mate.
Claim.
He looked at Carys, uncertain as to how she felt about all the incredulous things she had just heard and those he had yet to confide to her.
Although there was no denying she had seemed excited enough at the possibility of him being able to shift into a dragon!
Carys, easily able to read the uncertainty in Maddox’s—Gideon’s?—expression, wrapped the duvet more firmly about her before crossing the room to stand in front of him. “No matter who or what else you are, you’re also the man I’ve fallen in love with and have promised to stay with forever.”
His throat moved as he swallowed. “Even if I’m everything they say I am?”
There was no denying it was a shock for Carys to be told th
at the Pendragon brothers had been alive for centuries and could shift into dragons—there was no denying the truth of that when she had seen Rhys do so only minutes ago. Even harder to believe Maddox was actually Gideon, the brother they had long believed dead.
But if all that was true, and it was becoming more and more obvious that it was, he was still the man Carys had fallen in love with the first time she looked at him. Fallen deeper in love with him the first time he kissed her. Become his irrevocably the moment his cock entered and claimed her, even if their lovemaking had been interrupted.
She smiled warmly. “Especially then.” She linked her arm with his. “Perhaps you would like to introduce me to your mother?” Her lashes lowered shyly. “After all, she might be my mother-in-law one day.” The Welsh goddess Rhiannon might be my mother-in-law!
Maybe Carys was more than a little in awe of this incredible situation after all!
Maddox’s hand tightened on hers. “You’ll marry me?”
“Yes.”
“Mate me?”
“Yes.”
“Stay with me for as long as we both live? Which, you should know,” he added huskily, “once we’re mated, will be for a very long time.”
“I have no doubt I want to be with you always,” Carys promised.
Maddox took her in his arms and held her close against his chest, where she could hear his heart beating strong and steadily.
“There are a few things we need to discuss with you concerning the mating,” Dylan put in ruefully.
“And on that note, I believe it is time for me to leave.” Rhiannon chuckled. “There are some things a mother does not need to know about her children, and the mating is one of them. After the mating, you will both be able to visit me on Annwn.” She hugged the two of them in turn before straightening. “Whether you choose to remain Maddox or return to being Gideon, you will always be my son,” she assured him emotionally before disappearing as suddenly as she had appeared.
Maddox turned to Carys. “What do you think?” he prompted. “Do you prefer Maddox or Gideon?”
Dragon Reunion (Dragon Hearts 8) Page 8