“Mother? Should we go to him?”
She shook her head. “You go home. None of us can predict what will happen next now that the disaster has been curbed. I imagine we’ll see news choppers and military aircraft soon.”
“But Father—”
“Go home,” she repeated. “Let me have words with him.”
Saul bowed his head but his reluctance was clear. “I will make things ready for him, should you manage to bring him home.”
Mahasti reached up and took Saul by one of his huge claws. “Come, Saul. Let us give thanks to our friends and leave your mother to handle this.”
Before Saul could protest, the genie took them away in a puff of smoke.
Time to face the impossible…
“Fafnir?” Ēostre glided down to the crater rim and found a solid perch.
The world beyond the mountain looked dull and lifeless, crushed beneath the rubbish expelled prior to their arrival. Had it been a normal event, seismic activity and other signs may have given the locals a chance to save their possessions and their lives. They weren’t so lucky this time.
Fafnir resembled a wild animal. The intelligent light was gone from his eyes. He scrambled along the edge, keeping her within his sight but refusing to approach. His body was poised for the attack, his wings unfurled and ready to take flight.
“Fafnir. It is me. Do you not recognize your…” Mate? Did she dare to call herself his mate now?
He didn’t answer. Instead, he continued to stare at her with the same dispassionate eyes. A cool, yellow-eyed glower that traced icy fingers down her spine.
“Fafnir?” she whispered again in their draconic tongue. “Please answer. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me how you’re here before me now. We saw your body. You died!” Tears welled at the corners of her eyes and slid down her cheeks. He chuckled, unmoved by her show of emotion.
“What does it matter how I am here?” he finally rumbled. “I am awakened, I am here. Perhaps I never died.” He moved closer to approach, reminding her of a predator stalking a rabbit in the field. “I smell the stink of another male on your flesh. What have you done in my absence, Ēostre?”
“I…” Could he possibly blame her for moving on after more than a century of mourning, she wondered? He’d been lifeless at the time, not in a state of torpor, and yet somehow his body seemed exactly as she remembered. “You were dead, Fafnir. It took me years to move on without you.”
“And yet you seem to have no difficulty now,” he said snidely.
Ēostre recoiled from the stinging words. “I mourned you for over a century after we laid you to your final rest.”
The larger dragon snorted.
“And what of our son? He passed my vision once as I regained my wits, but where has he gone? Why is he not here beside me?”
“I sent him away for his safety until I could verify you were indeed… you,” she answered. “He has mated and fathered a child of his own.”
“My son has a cub? Ah, Brigid must have given him such fine, strong children. And you told me it couldn’t be done. That the girl was too willful and disobedient to Maximilian.”
She hesitated a heartbeat, then shook her head. “No, Fafnir. Not Brigid. Please, come with me. Come with me far from this mountain to meet the rest of our family. Saul is eager to speak to you.”
Ēostre noticed Maximilian climbing the crater at a sedate pace, bits of magma still clinging to his hide. Once or twice, he paused to preen the bits of hardening slag from his feathers then his eyes met hers, and she realized for the first time through the emotions flooding their link, that he was afraid.
Afraid of losing her.
Never, she thought, when he stopped to watch from a safe distance. Fafnir caught his scent and turned his head sharply toward the other red dragon.
“Belenos, why do you smother and calm my volcano?”
“There were many humans nearby who suffered and died during this eruption,”
“Humans,” Fafnir spat. He whirled to face his fellow fire dragon with both wings spread and his feathers fanned in a dominant display. “Since when have they ever mattered to you?” His booming voice carried for miles across the skies.
“They’ve always mattered to me, Fafnir,” Max replied uncertainly. He held his ground, choosing neither to approach nor yield. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten that during your century of sleep.”
“A sleep during which you saw fit to steal Ēostre from me.”
Maximilian flinched. “I would never have stolen Ēostre from you. After she found your lifeless corpse, I buried you myself with my own two claws. I took you into the heart of this mountain and laid you to rest in the rivers of magma below Rainier.”
“If your words are true then how am I here?”
Ēostre and Maximilian exchanged looks.
“That, Fafnir, is exactly what we intend to find out.”
***
Max couldn’t stop looking at him. He’d spent decades missing his friend, wondering if Fafnir had truly joined the Ancestors who watched over them. Most dragons, especially their earth dragon kin, believed the souls of the departed became butterflies who guided their loved ones in death.
Once, when explaining it to Brigid, she’d asked why dragons could go from being so awe-inspiring and powerful, to something so fragile. It hadn’t made sense to her.
“Because they leave their strength to those who loved them, my dear,” he’d said to her then. “As we are still alive and need it much more.”
Getting Fafnir away from the volcano became easier after promises of bringing him to both his son and hoard. With Mahasti’s help, they teleported him to the manor and provided the naked dragon shifter with appropriate clothing to don before meeting his grandcub. Max had to explain the child wasn’t accustomed to nudity, much to Fafnir’s confusion.
“Why,” he asked suspiciously, “is such a trifling matter as nudity a problem for my grandchild?”
“You’ll see,” Max said. He sighed and prepared himself. With luck, Watatsumi had lingered in the manor to help reacquaint their old friend with the modern world.
Fafnir plucked at his borrowed clothes with a look of disgust on his face. Max sympathized. It had taken him a long time to adjust to the modern era’s restrictive clothing styles and synthesized fabrics.
“Tell me, what do you think of the manor itself?” Max asked, quickly changing the subject. They walked from the garage to the front of the home, where Fafnir admired it with him.
“My son has made a palace of my former hoard,” he remarked with awe in his voice. He craned his head to gaze up at the extravagant stretch of glass windows and metal framework built into a mountainside — a work of art any dragon could love.
“They’re called manors these days, Fafnir,” Max said. Fafnir shot him a dirty look, but Max grinned and shrugged back at him.
“But why do we stand about here? I can smell the presence of many others inside this dwelling and yet we are unattended.”
“You must understand, Fafnir, your… return has been a surprise to all of us. But yes, you are right. Let’s enter.” Max opened the door wide and gestured for Fafnir to enter, and within moments, they received an enthusiastic greeting.
“Father! Welcome!” Saul called from the top of the stairs.
Max breathed a sigh of relief as the younger dragon bounded down the flight of stairs. It was shaped like an elegant horseshoe, leading up to a landing and railed corridor that divided the home into an east and west wing. Chloe descended the stairs moments later in one of her best dresses. The cream fabric hugged her curves and flared at the hips into a knee length skirt.
“Welcome to our home,” Chloe greeted the two men in strong, fluent Draconic. With nearly eighteen years to learn the ancient language, she spoke it as well as a born dragon. It was a beautiful language, lyrical and harsh like the bastard child of German and Tolkien’s Elvish.
“Ah, my son, look at you.” Fafnir grasped Saul by the shoulders and studied h
im in quiet approval. “I see you have done well.
“Hello, Chloe,” Max offered quietly.
“Hi, Max.”
Undeterred by his father’s dismissal of Chloe, Saul grinned broadly and gestured with one hand to a wide archway. “Please, come with me. Let us be seated and comfortable while we catch up. I have much to tell you.”
Moving in a brisk pace, Fafnir moved ahead of them and breezed past Chloe without even a glance. “Where’s the cub? I would like to meet the fine child produced from our line.”
“Mother wanted to talk to her. They’ll be down in a moment,” Saul said.
“Ah, good. Then send your girl for your finest mead. We must celebrate this joyous reunion.”
An awkward hush fell over the assembled dragons before Saul cleared his throat. “Father, Chloe is not my servant. She is my wife, and mother of my child.”
Fafnir snapped his gaze toward Chloe then back to his son. He laughed.
“You were always prone to jokes, my son. As if I would believe this concubine to be anything more than a mere pet. Now, enough games. I wish to meet your mate and cub.”
Saul’s polite smile wavered and finally vanished. “No game, Father. I speak the truth.”
“Impossible. A dragon born of a human woman?”
“Quite possible, Father. Chloe nearly died birthing her seventeen years ago. If not for the healing magic Mother taught to me, Astrid and I would be alone. She has dragon’s blood in her veins now and appears to be as immortal as we are.”
Proud as ever, Saul held Chloe against him with an arm around her waist.
Ēostre and Astrid’s appearance at the door stalled any further argument from Fafnir. Max resisted the urge to cross over and take Ēostre in his arms, unwilling to openly flaunt their bond in his friend’s face. Things were complicated enough.
“I’ll get the drinks,” Maximilian offered. Fafnir’s arrival had made an outsider of him, no longer necessary, and certainly unwanted. He felt the hatred brimming off of the other dragon every time their eyes met.
He’ll never forgive me for taking her away, and how can I blame him? He’s right. I took her.
“Thank you, Max,” Chloe murmured to him in passing. “Astrid, honey, come say hello.”
Fafnir nodded his head in approval. “I see you have named her after one of the Ancestors.”
The girl took three shy steps forward before she shook her head and ducked back toward the doorway. Saul caught her around the waist and turned her toward his father.
“No! No!” Astrid screamed, wriggling in his hold. She squirmed her way free from his grip and bolted behind Maximilian. Saul blinked and tilted his head down to appraise his daughter. Of all the people to use as cover, she’d chosen Max. She shook and trembled behind him.
“Astrid? Come meet your grandfather,” Ēostre said.
“I don’t want to.”
“Astrid, please,” Saul repeated. “Your grandfather would like to see you.”
Astrid buried her clawed fingers into Max’s slacks, achieving an unexpected partial transformation most dragons didn’t master until they were decades old. He couldn’t have parted her from him without losing some skin for his trouble. She hid her face into the small of his back and made a pitiful sobbing noise.
“She will come to see me now.” Fafnir’s voice took on a sharp edge.
Like hell if he planned to just peel her off and hand her over. Max frowned and felt behind him until he found Astrid’s shoulder. “Worry not, young one. Why don’t you go and play in your room. Your grandfather must be very tired.”
“He isn’t my grandfather. You’re my grandfather.”
The room became completely silent. Still. Listening to the thundering sound of his own beating heart, Max watched the other immortals in the room and waited. Chloe spoke first.
“Do as Maximilian says, Astrid. Go play with Svetlana.”
Astrid bolted away without needing to be told again.
Fafnir’s face contorted into a mask of rage. “What right does this human cockpuppet have to send my grandchild away? Saul, remove your pet from my sight.”
“She is my mate, Father.”
Ēostre also jumped to her daughter-in-law’s defense. “I don’t blame Chloe for sending her away. And you have no right to insult her in her own home. How dare you!” she cried.
“What is she to me? Where is Brigid? How has she tolerated this blasphemy?”
Once again, a hush fell over the remaining adults. Max struggled against the surging of emotion, until Chloe, sensing his pain, stepped forward and raised her chin.
“I killed her. She refused Saul one too many times, and after we mated, Brigid chose to claim him. She challenged me to a fight to the death and I killed her.”
Fafnir snarled. “Is this true, Maximilian? How could you bear to defend the human responsible for your cub’s death?”
“Brigid made her mistake. She had every opportunity to accept Saul. We knew this, Fafnir. From the moment I told her of our decision, she hated him. We laughed and told each other she’d grow to love him in time, continuing our plans and ignoring your son’s discomfort. Chloe cannot be held responsible. As her father, I bear that sin, and I alone.”
“You have grown weak in the time since my hibernation. You are not the Belenos of my memories. Be gone from my sight. You are a fraud.”
“Father—”
“And you, my son. I never thought the day when come when you humiliated my legacy in such a way. A mortal and a half-breed spawn who has no respect for her elders.”
Saul was stunned to speechlessness, and Max couldn’t believe his ears as Fafnir continued to rail against Chloe. A quick look at the other adults revealed similar states of disbelief, tears in Ēostre’s eyes, and fear on Chloe’s face.
“Slay her now and I will consider this behind us and in the past. Kill her.”
“Father… I cannot. And even if I were able, I could never harm the mother of my cub. She gave me Astrid.” Saul paused, inhaled another shuddered breath, and whispered. “She carries my second child, and I would die before I allowed either of them to come to harm.”
Fafnir sneered. “Another abomination. I see what little respect you have taught the first for her elders. I refuse to remain among the disgraced.”
He strode from the room without further word, leaving everyone in stunned silence. Ēostre sank against the couch and dropped her face into both hands. Saul, frozen to the spot, merely stared.
“I don’t… I don’t understand. What’s wrong with him, Mother? He’s never behaved… the father of my memories wasn’t like this.”
“I don’t know, Saul.”
“Is it truly him? Perhaps it’s an imposter,” Max suggested, clinging to shreds of hope.
“I considered that, Belenos,” Ēostre whispered. “But he is aware of things only my Fafnir would know. He knows secrets kept between the two of us.”
Her Fafnir.
The words stabbed him with the might of a thousand lances. At the same time, Ēostre recognized her mistake and threw her arms around him tightly. “He was my Fafnir once, Maximilian, but you are mine now. You,” she whispered harshly. “I don’t know what that thing is, but he isn’t the man I once loved.”
“He can’t be allowed to leave,” Watatsumi interjected from the couch. Through it all, he had been a silent spectator to Fafnir’s explosion.
Max fell into the seat beside him. “Of course not. Where could he possibly go when he only speaks Old Norse and Middle English?” Max muttered. “He had begun to shy away from mortals long before Saul was born, and if he finds a world populated by them, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”
“He is in the hoard. As long as he is there, I see no harm in him remaining in our home,” Saul said. He folded his arms against his chest. “I will keep Chloe and Astrid away from it, and him, for now.”
“What are we going to do?” Ēostre asked. “What if he’s dangerous? I am not afraid of your father, b
ut what will you do if he snaps or decides… Chloe’s presence is intolerable?”
“If he decides such,” Saul said dryly, “we have a dragon-slaying sword and a pregnant woman who knows how to use it. I think we’ll survive. I don’t want to harm my father, but I won’t allow him to threaten my mate or my children. We also have—”
“Me,” Mahasti said as she materialized. A hazy outline appeared first before the rest of her body followed, trailing smoke. “I will remain vigilant while Fafnir is present. I give my word he will harm no one for as long as I am here. In the meantime, Astrid is safe with Leiv in our home, and the timing is perfect since she and Svetlana asked me about a sleepover only a week ago.”
“Perfect timing,” Saul agreed.
“What will you do?” Chloe asked Max. “You guys are plastered all over the news. It’s panic out there between all of the scientists trying to identify you, the evacuees Saul and Mahasti saved, the government clamming up about it, and the media swearing it’s a conspiracy.”
“I don’t know. Right now, I need to get to the White House. The world knows we exist and want answers. They’ll expect me to make a statement about what’s happened.”
“There’s some guy on the television claiming it’s aliens, so you better hop to it,” Chloe replied.
Ēostre turned to her son and embraced him tightly. “Saul,” she whispered. “I am sorry. I am so sorry for this. I will stay to watch also. You should not have to do this alone when he is also my responsibility.”
“No, Mother. Maximilian needs you by his side.”
“I will stay,” Watatsumi informed them. “Perhaps I can make Fafnir see reason in a world gone mad.”
Chapter 17
Maximilian and Ēostre discovered a circus awaiting them at Washington, and it worsened when they stepped through her portal into the middle of the panicking vice president’s office.
The security agents whirled, one with a hand on his gun, only to freeze before it even cleared the holster.
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