I glanced at the golden chalice that we’d set near the table. Last night, the five of us had made an offering to the goddess—three bejeweled eggs, one made of emeralds, another with sapphires, and the third with rubies. Each one about the size of my palm. Ethan had brought them in his pack—don’t ask me what else he had in there, but I was sure as hell glad he’d had the foresight to do so—and then we’d placed them in the golden cup.
That was a good offering, right? We’d all thought so. But then…nothing. Not a vision from the goddess. Not a message. Not even a sign of some sort.
Even now, the eggs still glistened within the chalice. Did the goddess not want them? Clearly she liked us, or otherwise she wouldn’t be pampering us in the love den, but why wouldn’t she speak with us?
Maybe the offering wasn’t good enough. Maybe she wanted more. More jewels? Something rare? Possibly another magical artifact? I drank a glass of juice as I pondered this dilemma.
Ethan had tons of goodies in his vault, as well as loads of connections, but how long would it take for something else to be shipped to us? I sighed. I didn’t think we had time for that.
I plucked another pastry off the table, eating the entire thing in less than four bites while I made my way down the tunnel to the tiny cavern we’d discovered last night. It was almost like a private bathroom, with its one-person sized hot springs tub. I entered the rock-hewn space, and small crystals in the ceiling immediately flickered softly, illuminating the room. Smooth metallic stones lined one wall, giving it a shimmery, mirror-like appearance.
Pausing to look at my reflection for a second, I placed my hands upon my belly. Nine months! Could I really wait that long, or would I die of complete and utter impatience? I wanted to meet the baby now!
Hey! I told my dragoness, who was unusually quiet this morning. Aren’t you excited?
My dragoness said nothing, even though I could sense her there, sitting placidly near the surface.
I shrugged and submerged myself into the perfectly hot, bubbling water. A wooden basket held five new toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste, and I thanked the goddess again as I brushed my teeth.
A super-comfy love nest? Toiletries? Holy smokes. The goddess had really gone all out for us.
A hook by the entrance held a fresh pair of clothes—a woman’s T-shirt, shorts, panties, and a bra. I assumed the goddess had left these for me, too, unless she wanted one of the guys to wear a pink thong.
I enjoyed the water for a few minutes, letting the bubbles massage my skin. Another flutter of excitement zipped through me. What would happen when the baby came? Would it be a boy? Or a girl? Of course it didn’t matter—I’d be overjoyed with either! Or both! There’d be plenty of opportunities, especially since I wanted more kids. At least two. Maybe three?
Heck, maybe we’d have more. I laughed as I thought of our ridiculous dragon brood. Four dads. A bunch of kids. Total shenanigans.
I quickly shampooed my hair, and while I was allowing the conditioner to set, I lathered up with some sweet-smelling soap.
My thoughts soon veered to a wedding, which would certainly be the next step. Maybe not before the baby was born, but definitely after. Shay could help me find the perfect wedding dress, because of course she’d be my maid of honor. We could pick out some bridesmaid dresses, and flower colors… Oh, and the food. We’d need lots of that, especially if we invited a ton of dragons to the wedding.
I climbed out of the tub and wrapped myself in a fluffy towel while all the happy thoughts continued to zip around in my head. Glancing at myself in the mirror, I could see that my cheeks were bright and rosy.
Yeah. Happy. Content.
A big grin plastered itself on my face.
Then I heard Drake’s loud laugh echo down the tunnel. Another fuzzy tingle erupted in my belly. My dragons were up!
I quickly towel dried my hair, wondering what the expression on Drake’s face would be when he found out about his baby. Thrilled? Overjoyed?
Oh fuck. I paused my hair drying while a wave of uncertainty washed over me.
I didn’t know for a fact that it was Drake’s baby. It could very well be Trey’s. Or Ethan’s. Or possibly Jackson’s!
I’d had all of them. All at the same time. And now, with the powerful energy of the fertility cave, the paternity could be completely up in the air.
I blinked at my reflection in the mirror. Double fuck. I really hadn’t thought this through, had I?
I finished towel-drying my hair, wondering what in the hell my dragons were going to think, when I felt my dragoness stir within me.
You know, you’re the only one that cares about this, she pointed out. The rest of them don’t.
Well, Jackson doesn’t, I said. But the rest do. Drake and Trey for sure. And I’m sure Ethan does, too.
My dragoness paused while I pulled on my clothes. How do you know that?
How did I know that? Well…I guess I had never really discussed it with any of them except Jackson, so I really didn’t know. But it was important. Wasn’t it?
Nervous thoughts and excitement swirled around in my head as I hurried down the tunnel toward the main cavern to meet my dragons.
None of it really matters right now, anyway, said my dragoness.
What? I shot back, only half-listening to her, happy to see the four handsome faces of my mates. They were all sitting around on the cushions, eating off plates piled high with food.
I felt another big grin cross my face as I catapulted myself onto the cushions between them. The soft pillows made my landing nice and squishy, and I bounced a few times before sitting up to gaze at all of them in turn. “Morning!”
Ethan took a big drink of his coffee. Drake popped a few small sausages into his mouth. Jackson gave me a small smile, while Trey immediately stopped eating his toast and set his plate on a cushion.
“Well?” I said, my face starting to hurt from all the smiling I was doing. Of course the dragons could smell my pregnancy on me.
Couldn’t they?
Yet no one said anything. The cave pulsed gently around us, slowly filling with the uncomfortable, almost unbearable silence of my mates.
I met each of their gazes, one by one, and I felt my smile begin to fade.
My hopes fizzled and a big weight plonked down into my stomach.
But…the mating heat. The ancient, primal, lusty energy. The fertility cave, and all five of us supercharged by its intense power.
How could it not be?
Finally, Jackson reached over to squeeze my fingers. He shook his head.
No.
My face flushed hot and I battled the tears that threatened to roll down my cheeks.
I’m sorry, said my dragoness. I wanted this, too.
16
Ethan
The look of pain on Lyssa’s face made my heart wrench in my chest.
Fuck.
She wanted this so badly, and the rest of us did, too.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We can try again. A million times if we need to.”
Lyssa nodded, but lowered her gaze, not making eye contact with any of us. I had a feeling she was trying to keep the tears from falling down her cheeks.
“It seems like the dragon goddess is taking care of everything we need,” added Jackson. “Why not just stay here for a few more days?”
Well…we could, but it wasn’t really the best use of our time. We had a mission, and we needed to complete it. And the fertility energy was strong here—if Lyssa hadn’t been able to conceive with all four of us last night…
Hell. I didn’t know if it could happen right now.
Maybe she was stressed. Or maybe we were all stressed. Not a doctor by any means, but I knew what pressure could do to the body.
It would be much better for us to wait until we’d cleared everything with the orestaia. Then we could come back, or simply use the energy of the stone. But I knew Lyssa…she wanted to start a family. Now. And as her mate, I wanted to do everything I coul
d to make her happy.
Making her happy made me happy.
Lyssa plastered a fake smile on her face, even though I knew she was still hurting. “Well, we’ve got a lot more important things to worry about than this. Like, the offering to the dragon goddess. She didn’t accept the first one…do you think she didn’t like it?”
All of us guys shrugged. I honestly had no idea. The three bejeweled eggs were some of the most valuable treasures I owned. Although I hadn’t known about the offerings before I left for Sedona, I brought the eggs with me in case I needed a form of payment worth more than money could buy.
But I had also brought something else.
My most valuable treasure.
“Let’s try something else,” I said, retrieving my bag. Trey had made fun of me for bringing such a large backpack, but I’d needed to be prepared.
I pulled out the sheathed dagger. Trey raised his eyebrows, and Jackson and Drake made noises of appreciation.
“The dagger of Baldur,” said Trey.
Lyssa eyed the weapon. “Can I see it?” I nodded and handed it to her. “I remember this myth,” she continued quietly, turning the dagger in her hands so its sheen flickered under the glowing cave crystals. “The dragon goddess gave this to Baldur. One of the three guys that impregnated her with the golden dragon.”
“Right,” said Trey. “The second guy got the chalice. And the third got the bracelet.”
“Lyssa, where is the bracelet?” I asked, noticing for the first time that she no longer wore it on her wrist.
She rolled her eyes. “In yesterday’s pants.” She got up and retrieved her jeans from where she’d left them on the floor last night, and tugged the bracelet from the back pocket.
She dropped the bracelet into the chalice along with the eggs, placing the dagger on top. “So, what do I say? How do we invoke her?”
I ran my hand across the stubble on my jaw. Fuck, I didn’t know. “Just…whatever comes to mind, I think. Whatever comes naturally.”
“Okay.” She took a big breath and kneeled in front of the chalice. “Dear dragon goddess…thank you so much for your hospitality. We have traveled here to seek your guidance. We would like to offer you these three gifts. Will you please speak with us?”
We all waited for a few long, silent minutes. The cavern pulsed with its fertility energy. The crystals continued to glow in the walls.
But no sign from the goddess.
I felt my jaw clench and my fists tightened at my sides. We’d just offered the three most valuable dragon magick artifacts that I knew existed to the goddess, and she hadn’t accepted?
I’d thought for sure the dagger of Baldur…
And the golden bracelet…
Fuck.
I couldn’t think of anything more to offer. Nothing else in my vault or the Sedona house compared to these invaluable objects.
“Perhaps we simply need to wait a little while?” Drake suggested. “Maybe the goddess is…busy right now.” He shrugged.
Waiting a while? No. We needed to keep going. Not just for the sake of the orestaia and the future of the dragons, but for Amelie, and her family. For all of us.
Dragging this out and having an even more pissed off Torm on my back wasn’t my idea of fun. I thought about Amelie at the Prague house, and a sudden fear rattled me…my home was well guarded by Crimson Forge, but should I have increased my security even more?
Torm wouldn’t think to send anyone there…would he?
A feeling of dread settled on my shoulders. Shit.
“We don’t have time to wait,” I blurted out, feeling all the muscles in my body tense as everyone’s gaze landed on me.
“Why…what’s going on?” asked Lyssa, standing from her kneeling position to face me. Worry crossed her face.
“It’s just…we need to keep forward progress,” I said, immediately regretting my outburst. Lyssa didn’t need to know about Torm’s threats, nor did anyone else. If only we could keep going, working on figuring this out…
“No, that’s not it,” she said, her brow furrowing. “There’s more to this. What’s going on, Ethan?”
I shook my head, trying to look reassuring. “Everything’s fine—”
“This is about the phone call, isn’t it?” she interrupted. “Who was on the other line?”
“What phone call?” asked Trey, his voice clipped. I hadn’t told him about the Torm situation, either.
Hadn’t told any of them.
I had this under control. Didn’t I?
Jackson’s easygoing look suddenly turned serious. Puffs of smoke swirled from Drake’s nostrils, and these weren’t the happy kind.
Dammit.
I exhaled and ran a hand across my face. “Torm Troilus has been…on my ass.”
“You have been speaking with him?” demanded Drake, standing up from the cushions. His bodybuilder’s frame suddenly seemed huge and hulking, more so than usual.
I knew I couldn’t keep this from any of them any longer.
“Yes, here and there. With updates on our progress.”
“And you didn’t think to tell us?” demanded Lyssa, fire and anger in her eyes.
“I didn’t think it was necessary to worry everyone. We’ve all got plenty on our plates.”
Looking around, I realized immediately I’d said the wrong thing. Four pairs of eyes narrowed and glared at me.
I almost couldn’t bear to look at my mate’s face. Full of pain. Brimming with disappointment.
And mostly because of me.
“You think you need to be in charge of everything, Ethan,” Lyssa said, “but aren’t we supposed to be doing this together? All of us? Your way or the highway just isn’t going to work for me.”
Before I had a chance to answer her, she grabbed her backpack and was on her way out of the cave.
17
Trey
Really? What the fuck?
Thoughts ran rampant through my head as my gaze met Ethan’s.
My best friend. The guy who I’d been through good times with. Bad times with. Who knew just about every deep dark secret I had.
Hell, who I’d shared countless women with over the last hundred years.
This was the same guy who had been keeping a ridiculously important piece of information from me regarding this quest. Didn’t he think it would be important for us to know he’d been in contact with Torm? That he’d been discussing our progress with him?
Torm was bad news, and not only that, this involved all of us. Just because Ethan liked having his fingers in every fucking pie didn’t mean he could exclude us from crucial decisions that needed to be made.
It pissed me off. Really pissed me off.
Not only that, he’d upset our mate, who’d already been to hell and back in the past few days.
I watched Lyssa rush out the mouth of the cave, Jackson on her heels. Shit. I started to make my way after them, when Drake suddenly grabbed my arm.
“Wait,” Drake said, not in a dickface sort of way, as I would have expected of him, but…simply. Directly.
“Stay,” Drake continued. “Let Jackson go after her. He will know how to comfort her best.”
I blew out a big breath, nodding. Drake had a point. I wouldn’t know what to say to her. I would just stand there like an ass, words sitting on my tongue. And if the words did end up making it out of my mouth, they would come out wrong.
It’s not that I didn’t want to share my feelings with her. But sometimes I needed to process, and by the time that had happened, the moment was gone.
Long gone.
I was still working on all of that with Lyssa. Trying my hardest, but so far…not entirely satisfied with my progress. I hoped she’d be patient with me. I knew she saw the good in me, and trusted me despite my Seeker heritage.
Like Ethan always had. But now, as I looked my friend in the eye, I wondered if I could trust him, too.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I said finally, hearing my words come out
with an icy edge.
Ethan seemed taken aback for a moment. Good. He deserved it.
“Look, I didn’t mean to—” he started.
“But you did,” I said, cutting him off.
We glared at each other for a few moments while Drake pulled over three cushions and sat upon one.
“Sit,” he told both of us. The smoke from his nostrils still swirled around the room, but not nearly as much—evidently he’d calmed down quite a bit.
I lowered myself slowly on one of the cushions, and Ethan did the same.
“Okay then,” said Drake, scooting a little closer to us, causing me to bat away a few tendrils of smoke. “Ethan, my first urge is to punch you in the face.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, of course,” Drake continued. “Because what you did was not all right. To keep us out of the loop? I do not like that.”
“It wasn’t meant to keep everyone out of the loop,” Ethan said. “It was to make sure everything went smoothly. I didn’t want everyone to have to worry…why put undue pressure on everyone when I could do it myself?”
“Or why bother giving anyone else even an ounce of control when you could have it all yourself?” I couldn’t help adding.
Ethan blew out a huge sigh. “I know you like being a dick sometimes, Trey, but can you please give me a break?”
I wasn’t being a dick. Just factual.
“Look,” said Ethan. “Torm only wants updates. His goal is to have possession of the healthy stone, so of course he’s going to want to know our progress. He’s dangerous, but he also needs us. I can’t say he hasn’t demanded that we figure things out faster, or be a general pain in the ass, but other than that, I’ve done a great job placating him. And now all of you are pissed. I feel like that’s not fair.”
“You’re missing the point,” I insisted. “I’m not saying you haven’t been on the ball. But you’ve kept all this from us. That’s the issue. You have to let us be part of the plan.”
“And you cannot be a control freak,” said Drake. “At least not all the time.”
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