“Come with me to the portal. I will shift. Your heat, already kindling, will burst into life. If you are my mate, that is.” Which she was. She had to be.
She let out a sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”
Words to please any man’s ear, but at least he was getting his way and without having to promise her a scale—from this place alone, he knew she was business savvy, which meant she was letting him off lightly with a blood oath. Getting to his feet, he held out a hand. “The vow stands. You are safe in my care.”
Her eyes narrowed upon his hand, and when she slipped her fingers against his palm, he felt more honored than when his Queen granted him a boon.
“I never doubted otherwise.”
Her words set fire to his heart, making his beast preen, and he knew, without a moment’s hesitation that she did belong to him.
She could try to fight it, but there was no fighting the bond once it had begun, and Mia, did she but know it, had been lost to the maelstrom of their connection since the moment they’d met in their dreams.
Months ago.
Three
The portal was on Fire Island. Two hours plus from Tribeca, she’d had to travel by car. It didn’t matter that Remy had provided a limo, she hated driving.
If she couldn’t walk to it or reach it via train or subway, she usually refused to leave her home.
In this instance, she had no choice but to comply if she wanted this night to be over with. A harried missive to Brady, and some quick instructions to Elenor were all she’d managed to impart.
In her absence, Brady and Elenor could and would cope well. She’d instructed Brady to call on one of her most esteemed nightwalkers, Sebastian, for sustenance while she was away, and knew that if Brady needed to use force for anything, Sebastian would aid in that too.
Still, she hated not knowing when she’d be returning to her coven. She was a control freak. Perhaps that was part and parcel of what made her a successful Sanguenna. She liked everything organized. Everything in its proper place.
It made life far easier when it came down to it.
She had too many businesses, too many lives under her watch not to have everything pigeonholed.
So what if it made life boring?
So what if it meant there was no room for error?
She’d done it for so long now, it was second nature, and she deeply resented this intrusion into her packed schedule for making her question things. Even if…
Inwardly, Mia winced.
She’d been questioning things for months. Doubting herself, wondering if the path she was taking was truly right for her. Remy barging into her life was only making the doubts crystallize, and all crystals broke with the right amount of pressure.
Tilting her head to the side, she stared out the window. The moon was full and it highlighted the way her hands were knotted together at the knuckle. As she stared at them, she thought about how it had felt for Remy’s fingers to be entwined with hers, and had to ignore the sudden surge as her heart started pounding at the sheer memory of his touch.
Forcing her thoughts elsewhere wasn’t difficult. One, because she didn’t want to think about the way her belly had turned molten at the simple, innocent connection, but also because she saw in the distance the long road morph into a roundabout. The portal, according to Remy, was housed in the Robert Moses State Park, but even knowing that didn’t prepare her for the exact location. Mia grimaced as the limo drove over the curb and up onto it. Actually parked up on the damn roundabout. Beneath the vehicle’s weight, she felt the grass sink as the wheels dug deep tracks into the earth. Horns blared, agitated drivers shook their fists at the atrocious place they’d chosen to stop, even though it was pitch black and quiet out, but Remy and the driver paid it no mind.
“What the hell are we doing?” she burst out, when Remy climbed out onto the grass.
In the middle of the roundabout, there was a water tower. She knew of it. Had heard about ley lines before and knew there was one that crossed through this particular place. It was why the decoration at the bottom of the tower was there. A merging of female and male energies symbolizing balance that came in the form of a vesica piscis. A six-pointed star that was the basis for the flower of life: overlapping circles that, when combined, created the petals of a flower.
The grass verge spoke of a need of watering, but then, it had been a long, hot summer that had drifted into an overwarm Fall. It was currently bitterly cold but dry, and the blades were crisp under her feet as she climbed out beside Remy and felt the salty spray hit her in the face thanks to a deep bellow of wind from the ocean behind the tower.
It was brick, built with a pointy spire the color of oxidized copper, and it sat on a pedestal with three broad steps leading toward the main edifice, which was partly revealed in the limo’s headlights.
Behind, the ocean was a vast expanse of darkness that would be blinding in the bright light but was Stygian at night.
Her vision was perfect. She saw the world as though the sun was bright, and maybe, that gift was why she saw the waves of energy around the middle of the tower’s length.
In the daylight, it wouldn’t be easy to spot. But at night, with the moon illuminating the world, she saw the energy and knew that was why the portal was based here.
Remy’s pace was slow as he led her to the tower. They crossed through the demarcation lines, where the flower of life had been forever commemorated, and headed up the three steps that ran around the tower.
She peered up at the building, wondering what happened next, and then, before she could do little more than screech, a sucking sensation tugged at her skin. It increased in strength and pace. Not stopping until she was feeling more than a prickle of pain, but one of extreme discomfort.
Before she could open her mouth to complain, she turned around and saw she was no longer on Fire Island but the other realm. Had it really been so easy to pass over?
Her kind and all paranormals knew of the realm’s existence.
They were all raised with the fairy stories and the tales meant to inspire horror about this place. But visiting wasn’t easy. It was close to impossible unless you knew someone on the other side, which few did.
Dragons, Goblins, Elves. They lived in this realm.
If you knew one of them, even then, there was no guarantee you’d ever get an invite.
She’d never been all that bothered about coming, but now she was here, she could see what all the fuss was about.
The portal had dropped them at the top of a mountainous cliff. The drop was sheer, and hundreds of feet of air was all that stood between her and the ground. But the views were spectacular.
This mountain range was incredible. It spanned as far as the eye could see in all four directions. Peaks higher than Everest added to the craggy landscape.
Far ahead in the distance, she could see signs of an ocean. It was a little greener than the blue of her realm’s, but otherwise it was the same, and from this distance, she couldn’t see anything other than its color any way.
Townships were evident on the mountain range. Hardy souls who had made their lives, and those of their people, on the rock. Only small, nevertheless, she could see at least five of the villages, all with less than six or seven dozen roofs. Even they were different. Unlike her realm’s, they were as pointy as the spindly water tower’s roof, and gusts of smoke puffed through the chimneys, creating a bright plume of smoldering air that didn’t pollute, but somehow merged with the clouds.
What astonished her more than anything, however, were the colors. They were a thousand times more vivacious than those of her world. The rock beneath her feet wasn’t just gray. It glittered with silver flecks, which blinded in the moonlight. The moss and algae, tufts of grass and bunches of wild flowers, weren’t meek and mild in color, either. They were a treasure trove of rich hues that both staggered and awed.
It was like having seen the world in black and white, and it suddenly appearing in all out HD. The
y stunned; that was how bright they were. And this was in the dark of night, Mia had to remind herself.
Each petal or blade or frond glimmered in a way that mesmerized.
She gulped at the sight of them, felt tears well in her eyes at a nature few would ever see.
“It’s so beautiful,” she gasped out, spinning around on her heel, as she took in the panoramic view of this strange, new world around her.
As she did, spinning away from the outrageous vista before her, she saw Remy and gasped again.
He’d been handsome on Earth. More handsome than was good for her. But now? He was like a walking God.
His height blended into the awesome grandeur of the mountain range behind him. His black hair was so densely onyx it was like light didn’t reflect from it. And his skin? It was burnished gold.
Tingles shot from her core and down her limbs at the sight of him. When his eyes, those diamond-like gems, flickered with that strange membrane, she noticed the whites turned a strange silver.
She blinked, surprised at the change, then laughed at her shock—he was shifting.
That’s the deal, Mia, she chided herself. He’ll shift, and you can see if you’re going to do the bang-bang with this dude.
As she watched him shift, the process was simultaneously agonizingly unhurried and crazily turbocharged. Whether the slower passage of time affected its momentum, or he was doing something so she could see every part of the process, Mia didn’t know. All she did know was it was fascinating.
Sucking in a shaky breath, she watched as his skin changed from burnished gold and hardened. The pores developed into scales, which glimmered like diamonds in the bright light about them. His back arched, turned deformed, before sprouting out two huge wings, which were three or four times her length. Legs and arms transformed into a Dragon’s, while his jaw grew and strained as the beast’s maw appeared. Thousands of teeth, sharp and pointy, were suddenly visible as he roared, belting a gush of flame skyward. Somehow, she knew that roar wasn’t to frighten her, or to make her cower, but to rage at the pain of the shift and to glory in that pain for it made him into this glorious beast that reigned over all he saw.
Before she knew it, where man had stood, a Dragon now was.
If she’d doubted before, there was nothing left to ponder.
The fire inside her must be like what he had in his belly, ready to roar out onto anyone unsuspecting.
The tingles that shot from her core to her extremities upon seeing him in this realm detonated like dirty bombs. Each place a piece of shrapnel landed, it exploded again, burning her with a heat so intense she shook with the strain of containing it.
A panting breath escaped her as she tried and failed to deal with the inferno blazing away inside her. Panic welled as she felt it overtake her. Inside out. It took control of her limbs then went deeper, her organs, her nervous system. Her entire being was overwhelmed in the conflagration.
As she burned and roasted alive, the beast just stood there. Watching her. Then, she saw a tear form in the creature’s eye. It was the size of her fist and so glassy and pure it glittered like a diamond in the sun. As it fell to the ground, twenty feet beneath it, it didn’t splash and part into further drops—it shattered as though it truly were a crystal. And as she gawked at that, the fire overtook her sight and other senses. Until she saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, and her body shut down in self-defense.
As was tradition, Remy shifted back the moment his leman fainted. He wanted to go to her. In fact, his beast demanded it, but there was the ritual to see to.
It had been instilled in him for too long to ignore.
So, though it pained him, he walked over to the place where his tear had shattered into a thousand pieces and carefully gathered each shard.
A Dragon shed two tears in its lifetime. The first, the night it discovered its leman. The second, the night his ’ling came into this world.
The teardrop was Mother’s blessing. As it crashed into the ground, shattering into a million pieces, those shards would become a part of the leman’s ceremonial outfit, a must have if she were to be accepted at court.
It was why it was vital he gather them now and not wait to tend to Mia for fear the wind would disperse the diamonds.
Sweeping them and little rocks and bits of rubble into his palm in his haste, he placed them in the inner pocket of his suit jacket. Once safely stored, his distraction ceased as he rested his focus exactly where man and beast wanted it—his woman. Rushing over to Mia’s side, he saw she was still as death on the ground and seeing her thus hit his nerves hard, even though he knew, had been schooled on this at arm’s length, on how the mate bond worked when a Dragon met his leman.
He fell to his knees at her side then carefully placed a hand under her neck and the other under her knees. Lifting her onto his lap, he hugged her to his chest and straightened into a standing position.
Her weight was nothing to him, as he moved over to the cavern that ran behind the clearing.
It wasn’t cold, but his skin was tough and Vampires, even powerful Sanguennas, could be delicate with temperature. One way to kill them was to shove them in the sunlight like the tales of old recounted, but another way to rid the world of them was to freeze them. They shut down in a deep freeze. Neither dead, nor alive, just immobile. Forever still unless they were released and thawed.
As he sat back down, his back to the cavern wall, he let his gaze trace over her features. Now that she wasn’t glaring at him, they were gentle in repose.
Lady Mother, she was beautiful.
In the vibrant light of his realm, she glowed within its power. Her eyelashes fluttered against her high cheekbones, and the tips were brushed with a darker ebony, only visible in the light of his world. As they fluttered, they let off a tiny glow like fireflies against her cheek.
The lines of her lips were a lighter pink against the dusky rose, and he saw each one and longed to kiss the mouth that belonged to him now. Just as his mouth belonged to his leman.
He had her in his arms. At long last.
He huffed out a laugh of disbelief, holding her closer to his chest. He’d approached the mate hunt with disinterest at first, knowing he had many Sanguennas to cut from the list before he found her. With each name he determined wasn’t his, his excitement had stirred.
Meeting Mia, the final Sanguenna on his list, had been harder than any other meeting. When he should have been at his most charming and debonair, instead, he’d been a boor. He’d shown her his worst side, and all because his beast had been urging him to act.
The knowledge that she was his mate had made him want to pull her into his arms and drag her to this realm. His boorishness had been a lesser evil in comparison to that.
Grimacing, he bent his head and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
She moaned, making him freeze.
Those sparkling, twinkling eyelashes fluttered again until the ice white slash that was her nightwalker’s pupil was visible.
Fear flushed across her features, then, as she saw him, truly saw him, she sucked in a deep breath and he felt her calm.
“We are mated then?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
“Need you ask?” he replied gently, a faint smile curling his lips, one she joined him in—that definitely came as a surprise. He hadn’t expected a smile. He’d anticipated harsh words and agitation at a new reality for them both.
“That was certainly an experience,” she rasped, wincing when she tried, and failed, to raise her arm.
“One way of putting it,” he told her, quirking his brow in response. “How do you feel?”
She closed her eyes. “Strange.”
“In a good or a bad way?”
“Like I’ve been run over by a truck but as light as a feather too.”
“Well, that’s contradictory,” he teased.
She popped an eye open and glared at him, then scowled harder as her gaze drifted down to his curved mouth. “What happened to Mr. Grouch?�
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“He found his leman. No need to be grouchy anymore.”
“Did you just call me a citrus fruit? No way in hell am I letting you call me that in front of my coven.”
Her haughty retort had his lips twitching. Spelling out the word, he told her, “It’s Dragonspeak for mate.”
She rolled her eyes. “Then enunciate it better. Last thing I need is a power struggle because I let my mate give me cutesy love names.”
Those words resonated on a level that went beyond description. ‘My mate.’ She accepted him. As easily as the sun followed the moon. Because he wanted to roar with his delight, his beast wanting to trumpet to all in the vicinity that this female was his, instead, he just snorted. “Since when was ‘lemon’ cutesy? Hell, when was it ever a love name?” Even in his delight he knew she was sour enough to be a lemon. At least, thus far.
Though she shot him a dark look, he saw her lips twitch in amusement. “You know what I mean.” She struggled in his arms then grunted. “Let me up.”
“No. You’re still weak.”
“I’m in charge of my own body, buster. If I tell it to be strong, it will be.”
He eyed her a second, then seeing her stubbornness, shrugged. “Alright then. You know best.”
She shot him a triumphant look, which immediately faded when his arms dropped to his sides so he was no longer supporting her. Her head rushed toward the ground, as did her legs.
He raised his hands at the last millisecond and tugged her against his chest. “Trust the male who has heard about this moment from all mated males for the past millennia.”
She whimpered. “Jesus, my head.”
“I know, that was cruel of me, dearling, but you’re stubborn. As are all female Sanguen,” he grumbled ruefully. “Better to show you rather than tell.”
She blinked up at him. “I guess I deserved that.”
“Perhaps. Your body is reacting to the mate bond’s activation. It will take a few nights for you to be ready to do even the basics.”
She gawked at him in horror. “Are you being serious?”
Coven: (A Steamy Dragon Shifter/Vampire Romance) (Dragon Bound Book 1) Page 4