“Thought you might have turned into a pain since you’re mated now.”
Remy snorted then grumbled, “The mated part is exactly why you’re safe. Mia insists it’s her duty as my leman to stop me from getting too big for my britches.”
Georgios’s lips twitched. “These females…their duties seem to involve anything other than stroking our egos.”
“As long as they stroke other things, I’m okay with the situation,” Remy admitted, making the two of them chuckle in agreement.
“Actually, it’s because of a promise I made to Lara that I asked you here, Remy.”
“What kind of promise?”
“She said that as a leman herself, she can’t understand why my mother would have done anything to make my father jealous.”
Remy shifted in his seat, his discomfort more than evident. “Why is she dragging all that up again? Doesn’t she know how it upsets you?”
“Sure, she does, but it affects our relationship. I didn’t claim her because of my parents and only went through with it to save her life. She knows that, and it pisses her off.”
Remy contemplated him a second, and then, he cocked his elbow on the armrest and supported his head in his hand. “It did come as a surprise to have you bursting into the Queen’s court that night, declaring your leman was dying… Especially as, the last Mia and I knew, you were refusing to go search for her.”
Georgios grimaced. “I’d already found her by the time Mia blasted me. Word had spread that you’d found your leman too, and I went to the other realm to find mine pretty soon after I stirred.”
“There’s an irony to the fact she was the first on my list… let me guess, she was your last?”
Georgios grunted. “Of course. The Mother can only be so kind to us without making us work for our presents.”
Laughter trickled from Remy. “I’ll be sure not to tell Mia she’s a present for me.”
“Why not? Lara gets moon eyed when I say she’s a gift from the Mother. She might not be Lara’s God, but it still irons over anything I’ve done wrong that night.”
Remy clicked the fingers of his free hand. “You’re right. I shall use that later in bed.”
“You’ll owe me if it softens the bristling wench up.”
Remy snorted. “I’ll be sure to gift you some books sometime. But, as to what you want to discuss, I can see why Lara would feel that way.
“Jealousy isn’t a necessity… I dislike if Mia looks at another male, but it doesn’t hurl me into a jealous rage. And if it’s true what they say about the bond only intensifying the pleasures between mates, then why would that cause your father to go into a tailspin?”
Georgios shrugged, unease slithering through him. “My main desire is to protect. Then to hoard her, I suppose. But at the same time, she’s strong and sure, independent. So, my principle desires are pushed aside as even my Dragon, who clamors at me to keep her safe, revels in her strength. It makes me fear for her less, just for the joy of watching her power her way through things.”
It would disturb Lara greatly to know he’d had a hard on when she’d had to execute the traitors in her coven.
Of course, the act hadn’t been arousing, but she had. The display had taken its toll on her, which had immediately sliced at his pleasure, but that she’d had the fortitude to act?
How could any beast not find that the most incredible turn on?
His Dragon and the man were in accord—she would make a fantastic mother to their ‘ling.
“What are you thinking, Georgios?” Remy asked, breaking into thoughts that had nothing to do with his parents and everything to do with pinning his mate under him the minute he got back to the other realm.
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t discuss this with you if it weren’t for the fact Lara made me promise I would.” He sighed. “She says there are medications, poisons, that will turn a sane man insane. That will make him hear whispers where there are none, make him see shadows where there is sun.”
“You think the Goblins had something to do with it? Or the Elves?” Remy scowled, managing to surmise Georgios’s direction with this conversational gambit. “But why?”
He could think of only one reason why.
It was time to reveal the first of many truths.
Without saying a word, Georgios got up from his armchair and strode across the way to his reams of bookshelves. There was one in particular that would give his best friend a hard on.
Encyclopedia Dreconica.
Before Dragons had transferred to this realm, when they’d outgrown the world Lara called home, they had lived individually. Houses were a new concept, well, new to this realm. As a collective, they had noticed the variances in beasts were little.
Living singly and in the other realm, they had bred more colors, had varied in stature and size. Each Dragon now had sixteen thousand and seventy-two scales. Exactly. With the loss of one, a Dragon was grounded. Before this realm, that hadn’t been an issue.
It was like their new society had bred out the feral attributes that made them fully Dragon, and they were, in essence, tamed now.
This book was a list of the original breeds of Dragon.
It had been lost to their race since the earliest days of this realm.
He gathered it carefully in his hands and headed back to Remy. When Remy saw he was holding a book in his hand, he cocked a brow. As Georgios approached, and the book’s title revealed itself, Remy froze.
“The Encyclopedia?”
“The one Arista has been searching for for millennia? Aye. It’s the Dreconica.”
It was hard to shock Remy. The man had gone marauding with Vikings. It took a lot to get a reaction out of him. But this, today, Georgios could safely say if a reaction had been his goal, he’d achieved his target.
He passed the book over to his House Head who stroked his fingers over the spine like he was touching the most delicate piece of silk in the realm. A fabric so fine and delicate that it would crumble to pieces if a person so much as breathed on it.
“I bespelled it,” Georgios informed Remy. “You don’t have to handle it with kid gloves.”
Remy’s mouth worked, but silence spewed from his lips, until moments later, he asked, “How?”
“You remember Hyldegard of Vortar?”
“That Goblin who complained to Arista about your stealing thirty of his sheep?” Remy asked with a frown as he tried to remember the piddling little bastard.
“His great-grandsire stole it. The sheep he complained about were, in fact, this book.”
Remy held up a hand. “Do you mean to tell me that when the factions have complained about you, it’s because you’ve been stealing back stolen books from them?”
Georgios grinned. Nodded. “They can hardly tell the truth. It would rain a torrent of shit on their heads from Arista’s quarter. Maybe even start a war with some of the beauties I’ve managed to find.”
“But, Georgios,” Remy whispered thickly. “Barely three months pass without you getting into some trouble. It can’t all be to do with books, surely?”
“It was my one way to make up for what my father did to our people,” he said, tone thick.
“But you didn’t tell anyone!”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t about the glory of it, and some of the books needed care. All of them required spells. But Arista, though kind to me, would usually do something to piss me off, same with yourself, so I just hoarded them.”
“It’s in our nature,” Remy stated, immediately forgiving him because Georgios knew any Dragon would have done the same.
“Aye.” He let out a soft breath. “However, now I have a leman. I want her to be able to hold her head up high in court. My heritage may be shamed, but its might will be replenished by the treasures I bring back to our fold.”
“You’ll do more than replenish it, Georgios.”
His smile was grim. “But, the truth is, Remy, that I knew the locations of all these books because of research my f
ather had done.”
His head of House’s nostrils flared. “Your father was investigating the disappearances of our lost treasures?”
“Aye. He was.” Georgios firmed his jaw. “I’d never thought it a possibility that one could drive someone mad. If there is a spell or a toxin that the other factions may have used to stop my father from looking into our losses…maybe they did.”
Remy’s eyes widened, but Georgios could see his friend’s memory was peeling back the years, going back to that most painful of moments in Georgios’s life.
“It did seem to come from nowhere, didn’t it?” Remy said softly, pensively. “No one realized what was happening until it had happened.
“And after, when my father had to sentence yours to death, he was so lucid, and it just painted the guilt deeper upon him.”
“I had my own cavern, but I’d been visiting, because I knew about his research. There was nothing between my parents then. No bickering, no discord. Whatever happened, happened fast. And Lara has made me realize that those kinds of sentiments don’t appear overnight. They’re dormant, but signs are there. My parents were deeply in love.” He closed his eyes. “I have never shared with anyone the truth of what my father was doing before his death. Maybe I should have, but he made me swear I wouldn’t. And even after what he’d done, I couldn’t break that oath.”
“It changes things, Georgios.” Remy looked back at the place from which Georgios had retrieved the book and, once again, started shaking his head. “Are they all as unique as this?”
“Aye.”
A whimper escaped the brutish, ‘brick shithouse’ as his leman called Remy, and the House Head whispered, “If this, our greatest treasure, was sourced by information collected by your father…that is information worth killing for.”
Georgios firmed his jaw. “I know.”
“The question is, why do what they did to him but not you? You, who have stolen these treasures back?”
“I had no leman. I was outcast.”
“All the more easier to kill you off. The factions don’t know we’re the closest of friends. If you’d gone missing, I’d have hunted you down. But they weren’t to know that.”
Georgios jerked a shoulder. “I have no answer, Remy, and this might be a wild goose chase, but I would consider it a boon if you looked into it.”
Remy nodded, his gaze constantly switching back to the library to his side. “I know you dislike Eirik, Georgios.”
“He’s a snitch.”
Remy pulled a face. “Which is why he’s so good at what he does. Because, like it or not, he is the best.”
“Set him on this then. I’ll break bread with him if he discovers a different truth to the ones we have always believed.”
Formally, mouth grim with regret, Remy stated, “I apologize, Georgios, if the House unfairly handled your father.”
“There’s no need for apologies, Remy. Had I not been able to forgive your family or understand the need for my father’s punishment, we would not still be friends.” He smiled a little and got to his feet. “Now, the serious talk is done.” He wafted a hand toward the treasures his people had lost for centuries. “Would you like to explore?”
Remy’s eyes widened and he grinned. “Do bears shit in the woods?”
A laugh escaped Georgios as he watched Remy scramble, honest to God, scramble over to the books.
He had received his boon. Lara would be pleased, and now, he could explore his treasures with the one man who had stood by him through thick and thin.
If his father had been sabotaged, then it would be a sad day for the kingdom. However, at this moment, it was a good day to be alive when a man was surrounded by people who loved him even when his past was painted black.
Thirteen
When Lara awoke that night, it was to find her mate wasn’t in bed with her.
It came as no surprise. Yesterday, he’d told her he’d be going to the other realm, early as the larks, to see Remy. To fulfil the promise he’d made to her on Valentine’s.
Of course, it was typical that the evening he wasn’t there was the evening the mark manifested.
She’d spoken with Mia once since the Sanguenna had helped treat her.
And Mia’s conversation had consisted of a lot of curse words as well as a lot of bitching about legs and feet that wouldn’t work, and then, a weird combo of pain/itchiness when the mark came through.
Lara had seen the faint ruffles of the scales on Mia’s leg. So, when she awoke, aware that her belly was different, that she had sensation back, she peered down at herself with a lot of unease.
She couldn’t see it at first. Her belly was covered in the shadows of the duvet she lifted to peer down at herself. It prompted her to switch on a light to find out just what the fuck was happening.
What she saw didn’t freak the shit out of her, but it didn’t fill her with joy either.
It started on her side. A few inches away from her navel. Then, it trailed down over her abdomen, and she knew, could feel the difference there too, that it had manifested on her back as well.
The ruffles were… there was no other way to describe it other than discomforting to look at.
They were the color of skin. Not green like a lizard. But having seen Georgios’s beast, she knew their scales were colorless for camouflage purposes. But the skin, the scales were raised and ruched and enough to make her feel a little queasy at the sight of them.
Skin should be smooth. Not fucking textured.
Shuddering a little, she scrambled off the bed to switch on all the lights this time, and after the room was fully illuminated, she did a three-sixty turn, wishing like hell she had a reflection in the mirror, and slowly saw the extent of the scales.
She’d kill him.
Jaw firmed, she strode toward her closet, dressed, and headed out of the townhouse.
With her cell in hand, she contacted the café, as well as HQ, to let them know she wouldn’t be coming in and grabbed a cab to the portal.
It was only as she approached the mural that a little trepidation overcame her. This had been the site of her attack, after all. It was only natural for her to feel uneasy here.
But that very sense of unease pushed her on. Urged her forth. It had her acting when she’d have preferred to scurry back to the coven where she was safe now.
Having escaped her assigned guards by leaving the house and getting in a cab, and not walking to the coven’s headquarters as was usually the case, she was alone.
Vulnerable.
The street lamps were poor illumination. They deepened the shadows, added to her vulnerabilities. But that sense of weakness had her gritting her teeth and striding toward the mural once more.
She saw the waves of energy, which were revealed to her in the moonlight, saw them and reached for them as Remy had urged her to do all those months ago. That was all she’d had to do then, and as she hadn’t heard him utter anything to trigger the vortex, she had to hope reaching for the energy was enough.
When she was sucked into the channel, it came as both a relief and a worry. The sensation was of being in a vacuum. Of being picked up in one location and spat out in the next.
She staggered forward and fell onto her knees, as she made it through.
Then, as she scrambled upright, realized she hadn’t particularly thought this through.
What if Georgios took ages to return? They didn’t exactly have cell service over here, did they? She’d let her unease and fear prompt her into doing something foolish, and as she turned back, and failed to see more wavy lines of energy that would guide her back home, she realized she was stuck until he came to take the portal back to her.
Great.
Thank God for Kindles was all she could say as she settled back against the craggy mountain while she waited for her mate. She crossed her legs at the ankle and tried not to flip out at the extent of the scales on her.
It was a curiously suffocating feeling. The sensation of wanting to r
ip them off was heavy in her thoughts, at the top of her to do list, but at the same time, it would be like ripping her nails off.
Painful and pointless.
Surely, they’d just grow back?
It wasn’t useful or helpful to sit there and seethe, but the other realm actually helped in that. It was so peaceful and so weird to be here on her own merit that she did read for a while, and then, she began to explore. Of course, at the back of her mind was the terror that the scales were contagious or something. That they’d take over her entire body until she replicated some kind of Fifties’ Sci fi-horror movie monster, a train of thought that didn’t exactly improve her mood, but nosing around the portal’s locale did help take her mind off things.
The rocks here were matte gray. They twinkled and sparkled like the ore deposits in them were made-up of glitter glue. The sky made the deepest darkest black look washed out. The stars were like none she’d ever seen on Earth. Not just the constellations but their brightness. They were like mini suns. Hard to look at directly. Especially the big ones.
And then, there were the villages and towns where the Goblins lived.
Goblins.
Jesus, her life had turned into Ios’s favorite wizard movie.
Rolling her eyes at herself, she peered at the spindly pointed roofs, which reminded her of church spires, and was kind of enchanted by the curling puffs of smoke that were expelled into the sky from the fires that warmed their hearths.
It was then, as she stood closer to the edge of the clearing, peering into the great distance at the pretty scenery, that she heard a squawk.
A Dragon.
It flew by, trumpeting a call that was distinctly…female?
How she knew that, Lara had zero idea. But she guessed if she shrieked, it would be different to Georgios’s shriek. It made sense, kinda, that it worked the same way with their Dragon halves.
She couldn’t see the beast, though, not until it came close to the clearing. Their scales were weird enough to make them almost invisible, but the noise of the Dragon’s arrival had her backing against the rocky wall.
Knowing that the beast wasn’t Georgios was when the precariousness of her situation hit home. She’d done something that was blond-in-a-horror-movie dumb. How the hell had she dragged herself into this situation?
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