by Ophelia Bell
The ritual had been necessary, but I’d avoided it like the plague. Dragon and nymphaea rituals were debauched spectacles. Once upon a time I’d have participated whole-heartedly, shoving my dick into any and every orifice available and lending whatever power I had to offer to the mix. The only way for a Catalyst to absorb the required power was through sex, and the only way to release it required a climax, or Nirvana as the dragons referred to it. Lately I had no interest in that kind of party, so I’d stayed away, happily hanging in the Sanctuary with all the offspring too young to participate in such hedonistic excess.
Deva should have been there safe in the Sanctuary with the other toddlers. With me. Not in the Haven, not with this satyr, not as the—Boreas fucking save me. I clenched my eyes shut as Llyr confirmed my worst fears.
“Deva was the only creature who possessed a balance of all the aspects of our five races. She is equal parts dragon, nymphaea, ursa, and turul. Most importantly she is human at her core. She is the most potent member of the bloodline because Meri originally intended Deva’s soulless shell to be her vessel. Thanks to us, she had a chance to live her own life, be her own woman. Thanks to you she’s alive, Ozzie.”
Despite the gratitude that tinged his words, I couldn’t miss the lingering accusation. He had to know turul could hear the secrets beneath the words. Perhaps he didn’t care.
My eyes closed, I filled in the rest. “But thanks to all of you fuckers, she was forced to be the core of a fertility ritual. She was innocent.”
“Do you have any idea how many people tried to make that fucking decision for her? And by make that decision, I mean stop her from being involved. Nikhil was the most vocal objector. Your cousins backed him up.”
I snorted. “They would. Lukas and Iszak are wrapped around his little finger. And they’ve always been overprotective asses when it comes to the women in their lives. What about the others?”
“Opinions varied, but trust me, she had ample opportunities and support to avoid it if she wanted to. Nobody forced that woman to do anything she didn’t want. In the end, she demanded they allow her to do it and they crumbled instantly.”
I shook my head in denial over his assessment of her. The picture Llyr painted was a far cry from the shy, music-loving young woman I’d kept under my wing during the war. I’d been her escort, her chaperon, into the realm of the gods and stayed with her until the war had ended. It was the only place where our enemy couldn’t reach her, and keeping Deva away from Meri was the only way to ensure we could kill the bitch once and for all. But as much as I cherished that period, it was dangerous for me to dwell on it or else I’d risk falling into a pit of regret.
I lifted my gaze to his and was astonished to see pain and regret reflected there, as though he’d become a mirror to my own emotions. I couldn’t mistake the hint of blame that remained, and dropped my gaze because even though he couldn’t know what had happened, that blame wasn’t unwarranted.
“Go on,” I croaked, tired of waiting to have the bandage ripped off.
“She was perfect,” he almost whispered. “By the end of the ritual she’d absorbed enough power to reach the entire bloodline. She was so fucking magnificent. In retrospect I don’t think she knew her own power . . . at least not when she sang to me.”
My gaze snapped back to his at the accusatory tone in his voice. “What are you getting at?”
He snorted derisively. “I’m a fucking three-thousand-year-old satyr. One of Nereus’s first recruits to the Thiasoi. I can resist a siren’s call, deflect dragon fire, and ignore most elemental magic thrown at me. But one sweet verse from her throat and I was done for. Her magic isn’t mature. She can’t even fucking drift properly despite being part nymphaea, and that’s something we learn before we can walk. Yet her mating song had me entranced the moment it hit my ears. I was hers in the span of a breath.”
I sneered at him. “You sure that isn’t just your dick talking?”
He gave me a rueful laugh. “Trust me. My orders from Neph were to guard and teach, not touch. I had every intention of obeying him, not just because he’s my Dionarch, but he’s Deva’s fucking father. The only one of her fathers who terrifies me more than Neph is Nikhil. I assisted her through the ritual as chastely as possible—she was only tasked with being a conduit, not a participant, after all—but she was never oblivious to the requirements, and knew her own power could mean the difference between success and failure.”
Vertigo hit me and I sat back and squeezed my temples with my thumb and forefinger. Yet again, the sensation had nothing to do with Llyr’s gaze, though I wished I could have blamed him for it.
“I know you’re close to her,” he said in a low voice. “She asked about you. I was sure there had to be something more between you two.”
“She’s barely more than a child,” I said. “I can’t be responsible for her misplaced affection, but she hasn’t contacted me.”
Llyr lifted an eyebrow at me. “A child? Are we talking about the same woman here? I will spare you the details of my time with her, but while she is naïve, she is far from childish.”
“Yes, a child!” I said. “She might not look like it, but I was there when she was born. That fucking ritual happened on Deva’s first birthday.”
The bastard didn’t appear fazed by that revelation. With a patient look that made me want to punch his pretty face, he took a breath and began to lecture me. I ground my teeth.
“You might not understand the power of a blood meld the way I do. I’ve been linked to her since she was barely conceived. Trust me when I say that Deva was never a child. Despite her somewhat unconventional origins and path to maturity, she is very much a woman with blood as ancient as the oldest of us.”
I exhaled a long breath through my nostrils, careful to keep my mind empty to avoid giving away more secrets to my nosy grandmother than she already knew. The images of Deva’s first day of existence wouldn’t stop flashing through my minz. Within the span of that single day, I’d seen her emerge from her surrogate mother’s womb, take her first breath, and test her infant lungs for the first time in a powerful cry.
Every hour she’d grown, too fast for her small body to endure, thanks to an unfortunate mistake of magic. By mid-day she was already a stunning young woman with a talent for singing, whose preferred mode of comfort during the agony of her growth had been my voice raised in song. She’d needed protecting and I was the likeliest volunteer to protect her.
I was the last person who should fulfill that role now. Llyr was far more worthy of the honor.
“You—” I coughed, finding it hard to speak, then tried again. “You should find her. Take care of her. You seem to hold some affection for her, and as much as I hate saying this because your fucking face makes me want to smash it, I can tell your intentions are honorable.”
Llyr’s lips twisted in a sardonic smile. “Your platitudes are appreciated, but that doesn’t help the issue at hand. The fact that she didn’t come to you leaves only one other possibility. She is seeking out whatever mysterious danger she believed is after the bloodline. When she disappeared, she was charged with power from the Source itself and whatever residual magic was left from the ritual.”
I grunted, seeing his dilemma. “She could be anywhere. Your blood-bond or whatever doesn’t give you GPS on her?”
“It isn’t that precise. All I know is that she’s nowhere close to this location.”
“You said she sang to you. Any chance you remember the song enough to play it? If we split up and both use the music, it may draw her to us. If she’s out there, she’ll respond eventually. A mating song’s as good as getting marked by a hound of Fate.”
Llyr shook his head. “Do those things still exist? I figured they’d be obsolete by now.”
“Fate’s nothing if not set in his ways,” I remarked. “Her ways? I never know what to call the fucker.”
“You don’t call Fate if you know what’s good for you,” my grandmother interjected. “And do
n’t joke about his hounds. If he sics one on you for crossing him, you will wish you were dead.”
I chuckled and shook my head. “Don’t worry, Nanyo. I’m sure no pesky dogs are going to come after us.” Standing, I nodded at Llyr. “You should remain here in the city for now. Borrow whatever instrument you need from my grandmother and head up to the roof and play that song Deva sang to you. I’ll head back to LA. If you’re right, she may turn up there yet.”
I only hoped like hell Llyr would find her first. If she came to me and Fate got wind of what I’d done to protect her, he’d very likely sic all his hounds on us.
11
Deva
Weariness took over as I stroked Rohan’s head. When his voice faded and his body relaxed into sleep I leaned back against the pillows and gazed out at the brilliant blue sky. At some point I must have closed my eyes and dozed because when I opened them again, the sun was low on the horizon, casting the room in a glow that gilded my golden dragon as though it recognize his true nature.
My dragon. Uncertainty fluttered in my chest. I couldn’t think that, despite my longing for a soul-deep connection with another, my songs were only ineffectual wishes. If there had been any power behind them, I’d have kept the first two men I’d sang to.
Resting my hand atop Rohan’s head, I sighed softly. This man may not be mine in the way I wished, but he was my responsibility. There had to be a way to fix him, to repair the damage done to his soul, and I had to find out what it was. Did I need to hunt down and kill the hounds? Was that even possible?
I replayed the day’s events. The creature had run as though in pain after Rohan had burned it. He’d handily disintegrated my conjured clothing at the same time, while the beast had yelped and fled with its tail between its legs. Perhaps dragon fire could destroy them. Sandor’s lightning had similarly affected the other hound who had attacked Willem.
Guilt at the thought of going to that extreme gnawed at me. When the hound had returned a little later, I’d had the strongest sense that it believed I would be pleased by its actions. They were just beasts. But beasts had to have a master, didn’t they? Or were these beasts wild, feral creatures like Rohan might have become if we hadn’t restored his energy?
Could they be tamed?
Rohan stirred under my hand and my focus shifted to him. His embrace tightened around my hips and he nuzzled against the sheet that covered my lap, inhaling, then releasing a deep rumble.
His eyes opened as another rumble echoed through the room and he gave me a sheepish stare. I laughed. “Don’t tell me that’s your stomach.”
“I missed breakfast thanks to this mysterious woman walking into the music shop this morning. Somehow serenading her sounded like a better idea than eating.”
“I guess that’ll teach you to sing to strange women,” I said.
Rohan’s stomach grumbled again, and he rolled over and sat up, his legs hanging over the side of the bed. He clutched his head and grew still, his aura shivering with faint gray light around him.
“Ro, what is it?” I said, crawling over and placing a hand on his shoulder.
He shook his head weakly and I urged him to lie back down. “You stay. I’ll go find you food.”
With barely a mumble of thanks from him, I left the bed and started to exhale a breath to conjure myself some clothes, but stopped. I might need every ounce of magic to help him, so I shouldn’t waste it on something as frivolous as an outfit when there were perfectly serviceable garments scattered around his room.
“You don’t conjure your own clothes?” I asked, picking a shirt up off the back of an armchair and holding it up. I studied the threadbare fabric, frowning at the design that filled the front of it. It was the same design that he had tattooed on his chest: a pair of abstract black wings with a brushwork spiral in the center. Were those letters? I felt like I should know what it meant but it didn’t come to me.
Rohan grunted and hugged a pillow to his chest, looking pale and drawn. “I do, but I like the permanence of some things too. Things that are crafted, not conjured, have more meaning. That’s my favorite shirt, by the way.”
My eyebrows went up as my head popped through the top of the shirt. The thin fabric draped softly over my breasts and smelled a little like charred wood and citrus . . . like him.
“Should I find something different? I don’t have my own clothes. I usually conjure them but it seemed like a waste of energy under the circumstances.”
His lips quirked into a half smile, his gaze fixed on my chest. “No, I like it on you. Wear whatever you want, just take it off when you get back in bed.”
I glanced down with a smirk. The shirt came almost to my knees, but stretched tight across my breasts, and my nipples were hard, poking at the thin fabric and leaving nothing to the imagination. Once upon a time I’d have been self-conscious about this level of exposure but I liked the attention coming from him.
I sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his head, pushing a bit of power into him as I did. His stomach growled again in response, but his sallow complexion brightened a bit. “I’ll be back in a few.”
On the way back down the hallway, I had a chance to take in the house. It seemed all the bedrooms were situated in an arc around the western side of a huge outer courtyard, with windows overlooking the bluffs and the sky. Rohan’s was the farthest from the center of the house, and I passed three other doors, one of which was open and displayed a cave-like room with an abundance of lush green plants and wooden-slatted shutters opened to the sunset. That must be Keagan’s room. A handful of instruments were propped around the room, including a polished mahogany electric bass guitar as well as an enormous upright bass near a music stand in one corner. The next bedroom was empty and spartan with only a neatly made bed and a chair and wardrobe in opposite corners. The last room was behind a closed door that I guessed must belong to this mysterious Maestro they’d mentioned a few times.
A short set of steps led down into the sunken living room and I paused at the top step, blinking at the rearranged space. When I’d left, it’d been a disaster, but now looked perfectly serviceable, though lacking several pieces of furniture that had been there before. The window was still broken, a comfortable breeze trickling through. Beyond it was a pile of rubble made of the furniture that Rohan had crushed.
The heavy, quick thump of muffled music carried from the other side of the house as I explored, seeking out a kitchen. I poked my head into another room in the southern wing of the house beyond the living room and found what looked like a library, with bookshelves lining three walls and an even more spectacular view through another set of floor-to-ceiling windows. From this room I had a clearer view of the courtyard outside, which had a swimming pool surrounded by several lounge chairs, and a hot tub that steamed serenely at the far end. At the closer corner peeked the top of a set of stairs that led over the edge of the bluffs.
Turning back, I followed the music and finally found the kitchen just past a spacious open dining room and through a swinging door. The music came from beyond another door at the back of a kitchen. I moved toward it and stopped, finally hearing the intermittent hammering over the sounds of a singer belting out an overwrought, angry song from the stereo.
Hesitantly I opened the door and popped my head through, peering past into a space that looked like a big workshop, with worn wooden workbenches lining the walls and the strong scent of cut wood wafting to me. In the middle of the space Keagan was hunched over what appeared to be one of the sofas Rohan had crushed earlier that day. His bare, muscular torso glistened with sweat despite the cool temperature, and bunched with the effort of his hammering, causing his collection of intricate tattoos to ripple like they were alive. The one covering his back looked like an enormous tree with stubby branches and pointed leaves, its roots disappearing past his waistband.
I rapped my knuckles against the door when he paused and his head whipped around, his light brown eyes lighting up expectantly.
The se
cond he saw me his expression darkened, leaving me feel distinctly unwanted. I suppressed the need to apologize for the intrusion. “He’s doing better. Asking for food. I just wanted to let you know.”
Keagan grunted a thank you and I retreated. As I was closing the door behind me, his gaze drifted down and I caught a heated look before he was gone from sight.
Sighing, I turned back to the kitchen and aimed myself at the immense stainless steel contraption that had to be the fridge. I just couldn’t win with men, which I supposed I should’ve chalked up to simple lack of dating experience. Except none of the members of my family had what I’d have considered conventional courtships. Hell, “conventional” for us was everything but.
It wasn’t that I wanted to pursue Keagan, but after having a guy’s dick inside me, I’d at least have hoped for a somewhat warmer demeanor after the fact.
I opened the fridge and stared inside, at a complete loss as to how to fulfill Rohan’s dietary needs. Should I cook for him? What did he like to eat? How much of it would he want? I grabbed a container and opened it, frowning at the contents. I sniffed and wrinkled my nose. “Ugh, what the hell do you guys feed yourselves?”
A big hand appeared and wrested the container out of my grasp. “Not that week-old takeout, that’s for sure,” Keagan said, taking a few steps and tossing the entire container into a bin.
I nodded and turned back to study the options, self-conscious now that I had an audience. Finally I grabbed an armful of stuff and closed the door.
Keagan was leaning against the counter with his arms crossed when I turned, and I halted, then veered around him to deposit my choices onto the counter. He gave the pile of food a dubious look and scratched his stubbled jaw. His dark brown hair was a wild mess with specs of sawdust clinging to it, and a fine dusting of the stuff covered his thick forearms. The scent of the wood reminded me strongly of the ursa Sanctuary and a pang of homesickness shot through my belly.