by Skye Jones
Mia followed the other woman’s gaze and frowned. Oh, her poor feet. At this rate, she’d end up hobbling around for the rest of her life.
“What the hell happened?”
“We made love, all three of us.”
Rhiannon stopped her and gave her a piercing look. “Did they both take you at once?”
Oh, the mortification. Face burning, she shook her head. “No, erm…Steffan and Aiden, and then Aiden and me…we… You get the picture.”
Rhiannon frowned. “I don’t see the problem.”
“These, like…smoke dragons appeared from out of us…and merged.” Mia dashed angrily at her tears, totally exhausted from it all.
Rhiannon swore, “Fuck. Shit. I mean, shitty fucking fuck.”
Mia almost laughed at the other woman’s swearing jag. She’d seemed so sedate and calm until now.
“Then Aiden lost it. I think he panicked, and he started to accuse Steffan of doing it on purpose. Of forcing it on us. Steffan lost his temper and they fought. I think they are going to kill one another.”
“They won’t. They are bonded and mated now. They won’t seriously do any damage to one another. This I swear to you. But this isn’t good. You’re not ready for this level of commitment.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she wailed. “You didn’t see them. Steffan’s going to kill Aiden.”
“He won’t, child. He’s an ancient, extremely powerful dragon and with his age and experience comes great control. He’s fuming with Aiden, but he won’t go further than teaching that young male a lesson. What Aiden suggested is a form of heresy amongst us. It’s the worst insult, the worst accusation. But Steffan and Aiden are bonded. Males can be violent, and Steffan may, as I say, teach Aiden a painful lesson, but he won’t kill him or seriously harm him in any way.”
Rhiannon turned to side-eye her. “You, on the other hand, have gone and mated yourself to two incredibly volatile males. Or at least, they are when they get together.”
“What do you mean, mated?”
“The thing with the dragons?” Mia nodded. “You mated with one another. There’s no going back now. It’s a done deal. Signed on the dotted line. No wonder Aiden’s losing his mind. It’s not supposed to happen without you wanting it to, and it normally happens after the formal mating ceremony. But I have known of cases such as this. Not for hundreds of years, but your bond is even stronger than I believed.
“The males will be fine. I’m not worried about them. But you, my child. You’re in for a crash course in what it means to be a dragon.”
They reached the top of the steep incline, and Mia nearly fainted with relief when, instead of dragons fighting, she saw two naked men lying on the ground. Aiden’s shoulder bled, and Steffan had deep scratches all over his chest and arms.
“I see you two males have sorted your differences out. You’ve terrified your mate in the meantime. What kind of a welcome to our way of life is this for her? Just when she needs help and caring and a gentle hand, you two lose it.”
Neither said anything, but Aiden picked himself up and brushed the dirt and mud from his body. “I cannot deal with any of this. I’ve got to go and pack.”
Steffan sat. “What? You can’t leave.”
“Watch me. I’ve got to go to a dig. You don’t own me, and you can’t make me stay here in this shitty village as nothing more than some sort of half male, fetching and carrying for my mates. I don’t want that life. I won’t end up like my father.”
“Who? Hedron?” Rhiannon’s brow knitted together.
“Yes. I’m not going to waste my life full of regrets as he does.”
“His life is not full of regrets.”
Aiden pushed by them and headed down the hill, seemingly unaware of being naked and ignoring Rhiannon thoroughly.
“Aiden,” she called after him. “You have this wrong. Speak with your father.”
Steffan scrambled to his feet and started go after him, but Rhiannon put a hand on his chest and shook her head.
“Let him go. He needs some time.”
She turned to Aiden and called after him once more, her voice carrying down the mountainside. “Aiden, listen to me. You have your father all wrong. You ought to speak with him before you mess up your own life and your mates’ lives too. Go and do whatever it is you have to. Take some time, but make room in your temper tantrum to speak to your father.”
Aiden nodded once and carried on down the hill.
Mia realized tears were streaming down her cheeks and didn’t know why.
“Hush, child. He’ll be back. What a baptism by fire. I suggest you spend a week or so here, learning our ways and our history, and perhaps you and Steffan ought to go and spend some time at your abode by the sea. Some painting and time getting your head around all of this you’ve learned may do you much good.”
Right then, she only wanted to curl into Steffan’s arms and be held by him. As if reading her mind, he wrapped one meaty arm around her shoulder and pulled her into him as half the village clambered up the hill toward them.
“I’ll deal with this lot now the danger has passed.” Rhiannon smiled at Steffan. “I didn’t believe for one moment you’d hurt him. But I didn’t think I ought to leave it to chance. The bite you gave him will drive him crazy over the coming days.”
Steffan gave a low laugh. “Yep, that’s the idea.”
“Why? What’s with the bite?”
Rhiannon smiled at Mia. “These days, most dragons take a vow in front of their clan and let their spirits join. We don’t do some of the things we used to. One of which would be to mark and bite our mates. The bite burns and itches, but it also fills us with pleasure. I have one.”
She slipped her dress off her shoulder and showed Mia a large bite mark. “It slowly fades, and as you become more closely bonded with your mates, it stops driving you as mad. But at first, it’s like the world’s most pleasurable itch. One you need to scratch over and over again. There’s only one way to scratch it, though. If you know what I mean. Aiden’s going to go out of his mind wherever he’s going.”
She glanced at Steffan’s leg. “It already looks much better.”
Then she took off down the hill.
“Come on. I think you need a large brandy, a hot bath, and then bed.” Steffan pulled her after him and glanced at the glass on the floor of his cave. With a frown, he swung her into his arms as if she weighed nothing.
She didn’t disagree. The fact they’d had the whole conversation with Steffan naked as the day he was born had been quite surreal enough without all the rest of the day’s events.
She followed Steffan back into the cave, wondering how the hell he’d fix the doors…and where did they go from here?
Chapter Ten
Aiden hated himself. He couldn’t focus on the dig. All he wanted was to be back in that cursed village with Steffan and Mia. He tasted them on his lips still, for fuck’s sake. At night, as soon as he closed his eyes, he saw them. Saw Mia’s huge, tear-filled eyes as he walked away. Saw the broken expression on Steffan’s face the moment he’d accused him of about the worst crime of their people—a forced mating. Okay, he hadn’t fully accused Steffan of such a thing, but he might as well have. He’d said as much in coded language.
He hadn’t meant it, but in the moment, he’d panicked horribly. All he’d felt had been sheer terror. He’d seen the prison bars clang shut as he faced a lifetime stuck in the tiny clan village. No more digs. No more travel and freedom. He had run away, and even running away didn’t bring relief. He’d spent four days here now, and instead of the calm and happiness he usually found once he got involved in a dig, that wonderful sense of flow, all he experienced were day-in-and-day-out anxiety attacks. He missed his mates physically, as if he’d lost a limb and still felt it or something. He ached for them, and the damn bite from Steffan plagued him. It burned and itched but in an insanely pleasurable way. At least four times a day, he found himself sneaking off into the woods to take care of business bec
ause, otherwise, he thought his cock might explode.
So, basically, he was fucked. Either he stayed physically trapped in the village. Or he left his mates behind and traveled but found himself trapped in a totally different way.
Sighing, he glanced at his backpack off to one side. Maybe he ought to do as Rhiannon suggested and phone his father.
He dug for another hour, but when he almost broke a tiny piece of a vase he’d been digging out due to his inability to concentrate, he finally called it a day. Calling out to the others farther down the trench, he clambered out and grabbed his backpack.
Not wanting to risk being overheard, he walked far from the site until he deemed it safe to call his father. His heart pounded as he dialed the familiar but rarely used number.
After a few rings, he’d almost hung up when Hedron’s deep but worn voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Father.”
A beat of silence and Hedron laughed. “You must be psychic, son. I only spoke of you earlier today.”
“How are you?” He didn’t know how the hell to take the conversation in the direction it needed to go.
“I’m fine, but I hear you are not.”
Damn Rhiannon. Steffan wouldn’t have called Hedron. Not his style to interfere in such a way.
“So, Rhiannon called, did she?”
He laughed again. “No, I called Kate. I do it often to check how you are, and she told me some of what has been going on.”
“You call Kate? To check on me?” How did he not know this? “Why?”
There came a long pause and a sigh. “I don’t know… I’ve lost the ability to communicate easily with you, son. I don’t want you to feel pressured to talk to me—I know you don’t enjoy our calls. So I leave it, and I phone Kate to check all is okay.”
How did he go around giving everyone the impression he wanted nothing to do with them? Mia thought he hated her. Steffan believed he didn’t want him, and now his own father thought he didn’t like their calls. But then, a small voice niggled at him, telling him he did always cut the calls short. He loved his father, dearly, but he saw his life as sad, as wasted. And talking to him depressed Aiden, he supposed.
“I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Crap, I feel awful now.”
“Don’t go feeling badly. You are a busy young male. You do this amazing archaeology, and I am so proud of you. But now…now, I think you have some choices to make.”
“I don’t want to end up like you.” Oh, shit! He clapped his hand over his own mouth as if to stuff the nasty words back in.
“May I ask why not?”
Christ, to give him his due, Hedron sounded calm considering he’d been royally insulted.
“That came out wrong, I’m sorry. I meant to say, I know you’ve been sad. That you have some regrets. When I was young, you used to talk to me about the things you’d seen and experienced as a young dragon and all the other things you might one day do. But…you never did. You sacrificed your dreams for your mates. And I know it is the way of our kind, and what I am about to say is heresy…but I don’t want to do the same. I like traveling and I like learning.”
Silence. Nothing but a long beat of silence. “Oh, son. I have gone so wrong somewhere along the line.”
Shit. This conversation proved harder than he’d imagined. He braced himself for a real telling-off.
“Aiden, I have never once regretted my choice in life. Not once. That I led you to believe I did somehow is wrong of me. But you see, it was a choice.”
“I know.” He spoke over his father. “I get it, you chose your mates, and you can’t say you regret doing so. But…it feels like a horrible choice for me. I either leave them behind. Let them go, which…fuck, it hurts. Or I give up part of myself.”
“Firstly, you always give up part of yourself when you make a commitment, but if you make the right one, it shouldn’t be an important part. We all give and take, but we should never have to give something vital to our soul. But, you’ve misunderstood me. I didn’t have to choose between my mates and traveling. They fully supported me doing so if I wanted to. I didn’t want to in the end. Yes, I loved talking to you about it. Giving you the fire for knowledge and for learning, and I still did learn, but I didn’t feel the need to travel anymore. I didn’t have to choose between two things. I simply decided I preferred to be with the clan. When I lost my mates, and you were traveling so much, the clan became a lonely and sad place for me. I wanted to be with family again, so I came back here. I think I may have made a mistake in doing so, given you the wrong impression. Made you think I couldn’t wait to get away or something? When in reality, I only felt the need to get away from there once my mates were gone.”
Okay. Wow, this wasn’t what he’d been expecting to hear. But still, Aiden didn’t believe he’d be happy at the clan, spending every day there, stuck. Trapped. “I don’t think I can be happy stuck in one place, though. Not in the clan, it’s so…insular—and too damn cold and dark in winter.” He gave a small laugh.
“Then talk to your mates. Mine were more than happy to either come and travel with me on occasion or let me go off on my own. I simply didn’t wish to any longer. I lost the desire for travel, I suppose. I still loved to read about far-flung places and even plan trips. Only when it came down to it, I found I never wanted to go. If things are different for you, perhaps your mates can come to an understanding.”
Hedron sighed down the phone line. “Of course, if they are highly traditional, you might find they are not flexible in this, but from what I hear, they are not.”
“I have mentioned it, and they didn’t seem willing.” He had…hadn’t he? Sort of. He’d made jokes about Steffan’s cave and… Yep, he’d basically insulted Steffan and not broached the subject with Mia in any meaningful way. Great, more assumptions he’d made.
“Mentioning it isn’t discussing it properly. You can only try, or…you walk away from this without trying. I’ll support you either way. I only want for you to be happy.”
“Can I ask you something?”
His father gave a hum of consent, so Aiden plowed on. “You say you have no regrets, but I’ve sensed a lot of sadness in you. Why the sadness if you don’t regret anything?”
“I miss my mates. I miss you, but as I say, I can’t stay in the clan without them there. It’s far too raw. So, I returned here, to where I still have family, but I miss you, hence my sadness. I don’t regret one minute I spent with my mates. I only regret I didn’t have more time. It’s a lonely world without them, but if I could have avoided this pain by never having them in my life in the first place, I’d still do it all over again. You ought to come see me. You’d love it here. It’s beautiful.”
His stomach soured as he remembered all the years he’d avoided his father, chalking his melancholy up to a lifetime of regret. Maybe even regret of having adopted him as a child. When all along, his father had simply been lonely. Grieving. Shit, he’d been a crappy son.
“I will come and see you, Dad. I promise. Very soon. And maybe, if things work out, I will bring my mates with me.”
“I’d be honored to meet them. Now, go and sort things out. And, Aiden?” His father’s voice caught, and he cleared his throat. “It’s been really good to talk with you. Let us keep in touch more often.”
Aiden’s heart ached, and he too swallowed down his emotions.
They said their good-byes, and Aiden hung up the phone. He needed to go home, and he needed to do something he found hideously difficult. To talk…about feelings and shit. Gods, he hated touchy-feely stuff, but if he didn’t address this now, then he’d never get another chance. He’d head home the next day.
*****
Mia stared at the slim, toned young woman opposite her. Holy crap, her sister was stunning. Her sister! Those words gave her such a thrill. Claire smiled and threw her arms around Mia, pulling her in tight. Either side of her, the two males who were her mates stood guard like sentries.
Mia couldn’
t believe it—she held her sister in her arms! After thinking she had no family left, she now cuddled with her own flesh and blood.
“Wow, look at you. You’re so beautiful.” Claire stepped back and gave her another full-on grin.
“I can say the same to you.”
Claire wrinkled her nose as if she didn’t think herself beautiful at all. Her skin glowed, her hair shone a dark black, and her eyes were astonishing. Plus, she had a body to make any model jealous. Mia felt a tad dumpy next to her.
She flicked her gaze over the two men. Both tall and broad, the leaner of the two looked younger. His blue eyes marked him out as Dom, from Steffan’s description. Nathan possessed a similar build to Steffan, and his shrewd, dark eyes took in everything.
“Nathan.” Steffan pulled the man into a hug.
They slapped one another’s backs in that blokey way men had…and clearly dragon males too. Then Steffan greeted Dom in the same way. Finally, he gave Claire a brief hug.
“Come in and let us eat. I have made a great feast for us,” Steffan said, and he led the way past the newly repaired doors. He’d spent hours preparing the cave and making lots of mouthwatering delicacies for their arrival. When she’d offered to help, he’d turned her down and told her to go relax. It seemed these guys liked to take to care of their women. She could grow used to a life like this. But her stomach did the little drop it always did these days whenever she got too excited about the future. She missed Aiden. She hadn’t told Steffan for fear of upsetting him. Making him feel he wasn’t enough, but she desperately missed the other man. Despite his temper tantrums, when he wasn’t being an utter dick, he lightened the mood between them.
They all filed through into the kitchen area, where the dining table at the back of the room groaned with cheeses and meats, tasty vegetable side dishes, wines, chilled water, bread, and grapes.
Her stomach rumbled and she flushed, but Claire threw her head back and laughed. “My reaction exactly!”
They all settled around the table, and she found herself immediately drawn into conversation with Claire. She learned all about how her sister had met her men. How she’d learned to control her magic, something Steffan now taught Mia for an hour each day. Claire lowered her voice and told Mia all about what happened when Ellie took her and carved poison into her skin. The details were horrifying.