by Cecilia Lane
Mate.
It was still a strange and foreign concept to Adrien. He’d scented her before and now she’d appeared. Their lifelines crossed at the depth of his unhappiness.
The string quartet played on and he spun her around the floor. “I’ve seen you before.”
“Here? Impossible.”
“Not here. Denver.”
A faint shade of red colored her cheeks, but cold armor made up her expression when she lifted her eyes to his. “That’s more home than here.”
“And yet, you’re here where they make you feel like you don’t belong. Why?”
“Curiosity. If you hold them in such contempt, why are you here?” Fire burned in her eyes.
Adrien huffed a laugh. Clever girl. “Duty. My clan leader ordered me here. And then I found you.”
He dipped her and slowly pulled her back to standing, letting the tangy scent of her roll through him with his long inhale. Her eyes darkened when he pulled her tight against him. He wanted to feel every inch of her without all those clothes in the way.
“Here’s the thing, princess,” Adrien growled. “I caught your scent and lost you before. You drove my dragon mad when you slipped away from us. You have taken over my mind and banished my beast.”
“Impossible,” she murmured again. “Conris only mate wolves. Dragons are... dragons aren’t—”
“I don’t see a line of suitors waiting for you,” he said, more harshly than intended. “Even if there were, I’d fight every last one of them for you.”
He tried to soften the blow with a kiss on her open palm, but his words were full of possession. Too bad. She needed to learn he wouldn’t let her go.
The mask dropped entirely. Any bit of learned snootiness fell away and she was simply Rory. His mate. A kindred spirit trying to dodge the life around her. She felt a pull to somewhere she didn’t belong and that drove her to the ball and straight into his arms.
“They’re coming.”
The catch in her voice jerked his dragon to attention. He followed her gaze to one side, then the other. Between dancing couples, men moved solidly forward. They dipped to the sides and hid themselves, sure, but they didn’t retreat. They didn’t pull off from the hunt.
They were caging them—Rory—in a circle that would only grow smaller and smaller. Then they’d nab the princess and steal her from him.
His dragon tried to burst out of his skin. Scales rose under his flesh, mostly hidden under his suit. But his eyes went black, that he knew. Rory’s own dazzling green eyes widened in surprise.
Cursed Conri she might be, but no one would take her from him. He’d steal the princess away that night, not them. His dragon would slaughter him, them, every single person in Wolfden if he parted from her now.
Rather than let the Conri enforcers steal her away or his dragon unleash death and destruction on innocent lives, Adrien grabbed Rory’s hand and urged her through the crowd with him.
They tumbled through billowing curtains and onto a balcony overlooking the enclave. The manor wasn’t the only scene of partying that night; noise and lights rose from the streets below.
Adrien didn’t take more than a brief notice of the revelers. He shrugged out of his jacket. His hands worked the buttons of his shirt before simply tearing through the final few. The horrible bowtie fluttered to the ground like a discarded wrapper.
Wings ripped out of him with a flex of his arms. She had no time to admire them, though she craned her neck to see. He pulled her close to his body and wrapped them tightly inside the enclosure he made.
Steps hurried through the curtains. “They went this way,” one of the enforcers growled. “I’m sure of it.”
“Can you smell anything?”
“Just that fucking burning stench. Fuck! Who’s going to tell old Donal we lost them?”
“Fuck that. I’m not poking the old wolf. We’ll keep looking until he calls us off. Get someone up to the roof, and remind them to keep an eye on the skies.”
Footsteps retreated. Adrien cocked his head and listened closely to be sure they were gone.
“How did you do that?” she whispered.
He grinned down at her, unwilling to let her loose. “Dragon magic, princess. Only another dragon could sense us and my twin isn’t here.”
“There’s two of you?” She pushed away from him. Sharp suspicion entered her scent. “This isn’t some scheme to share a woman, is it?”
“No, princess. We’ve never shared a woman. But if that’s what you like...?” He circled her slowly, dragging his fingers around her throat and across her shoulder. “Double the hands? Double the tongues? Double the cocks?”
The only movement she made was to turn her head as he appeared on her other side. “You mean double the pain and heartache? Hard pass.”
“Good.” He pulled her close to him again. The tangy scent of her filled his nose and grabbed him by the balls. The urge to devour her grew to a white-hot intensity until his dragon roared in his head. “Because I don’t want to share you with anyone.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want you to be mine. You’re my mate.”
Chapter 5
His.
The word resonated through Rory. It was like some far off bell vibrating on a level she couldn’t hear, only feel. It shook her to her very core.
And that unfamiliar feeling stroked her mind.
She should be terrified of his words. He was big, brooding, and wanted to lay claim to her when every last male of the enclave ran in the other direction. This dragon, this beast, wanted her.
His.
It couldn’t be true. It had to be a joke, with her as the butt.
Rory deflated under his eyes. “I can’t be your mate. I’m not a wolf. I’m cursed.”
It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to play a trick on her. Only a handful of times, but then, she’d rarely been inside the enclave since she could be sent off to school. Boys, mostly her brother’s friends or the children of high-ranking wolves, would press close to her. Ease her worries. Pay her attention, not the other girls. Then they’d say the word. Mate.
Finn put a stop to those games as soon as he heard they were being played. Only, as they grew older, he had other responsibilities and wasn’t always around to protect her.
Rory glanced toward the balcony entrance, then to the windows of the manor. The curtains still blocked her view into the ballroom and she saw no laughing faces peering down at her.
Adrien’s growl centered her attention on him. He dragged her hand over his heart. Thump-thump, thump-thump. Each beat galloped on the heels of the last.
“Look me in the eyes, princess. Tell me I’m lying to you. Tell me you don’t feel that same pull I feel to you.”
Rory dared meet his gaze. Black flooded the whites of his eyes as his dragon reared up inside him. Something dark and smoky entered the air, so thick even her dulled senses could pick it up.
The pull he spoke of hooked around her heart and in her stomach. It rumbled to life inside her, threatening to spill over and erupt into the night. A cord existed between them, binding them together if she would just accept him and acknowledge his importance to her.
Unnatural, she’d say in the light of day. Just right, she wanted to name it then.
She’d heard how the sense of mates fell into place. Some felt it like a lightning strike, while it grew slowly for others. Regardless of how it sprang to life, the feeling was sealed with a claiming mark to announce to the world.
She never expected to feel anything like it. Despite the Conri blood flowing in her veins, she had no wolf or sense of shifter identity.
Rory whirled and tightened her hands around the railing. She needed to put her thoughts in order. She needed to find the exact moment the night turned upside down. When she decided to abandon her apartment shared, however sporadically, with Todd the Toad? Or when she arrived in Wolfden with the idea to attend the Solstice Ball?
No. She’d known th
e night was going to be important the moment she paused on the landing and spied her Stranger.
The air shifted and warmed right before Adrien’s fingers traced a path along her bare shoulder. He caged her lightly, one hand on the railing next to hers, and his body against her back.
“Will you tell me about this curse?” His breath tickled her skin a moment before he dropped a kiss on her neck.
She tilted her head to give him better access but didn’t close her eyes. She stared a challenge to the enclave below. Every last one of them would rather avoid her. She wanted to see the world that ostracized her when she spilled the reason for her rejection to her mate.
“The day of my birth, my parents invited a fae queen to bless me. It’s our way. Has been for thousands of years. Instead of the usual tidings of health and prosperity, she took one look at me and said these words. ‘Darkness rises and darkness comes. With it, the House of Conri falls. I curse this babe at her mother’s breast. The day she finds her mate will be Wolfden’s last.’”
How many times had she heard those words growing up? Only her family knew the full words. A blessing, that. She didn’t want to imagine how the enclave would react if they knew everything. They were already prepared to keep her down for being shiftless.
Rory let years of hurt and frustration tear out of her in a heavy, angry sigh. She turned to face Adrien. “It’s all crap, anyway. Just an excuse to keep me away from Wolfden. No Conri wants a shiftless mate. I’m practically human. A human princess? Unacceptable. I guess my parents thought it easier to stomach a fae curse than admit they bred a defective wolf.”
“So you don’t believe you’re fated to bring down your family line?” Adrien shrugged and looked bored. “Pity. That sounds exciting.”
She narrowed her eyes. His mouth twitched with a smile and his teasing washed away her temper. “You’re laughing at me! I’m telling you true, this is the dirty family secret.”
He pulled her close. “I’m not laughing at you, princess. I feel sorry for you. It couldn’t have been easy with that hanging over your head. I’m sorry you had to endure it.”
Was he being honest with her? She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. He wasn’t the only one over the years to try comforting her. The others had done it in jest, however. They wanted to make her squirm.
She envied the shifters and their ability to sniff out a lie.
Rory reached up slowly and peeled away the strip of mask that covered Adrien’s face. He hesitated, then did the same to her. Her heart thudded in her chest as she moved trembling fingers over his face.
He was real. He had a hold over her. Even if he wasn’t her mate, he was something special.
Bells chimed through the night, marking the end of the ball and the beginning of the midnight run. One, two, three…
“It’s my birthday now,” she said softly.
Five, six…
“Perfect timing. New year, new life. With me.”
Howls sounded from inside the ballroom. Shifters inside the enclave would take to the grounds and let their animals loose. Some of the humans would follow, surely, but none would be able to keep up.
Ten, eleven...
Adrien lowered his face to hers. The twelfth bell tolled just as his lips pressed against hers.
The first touch ignited a spark inside her. She gasped and parted her lips, allowing Adrien easy access. His tongue swiped against hers and another spark flickered along her skin.
She felt too tight, too close. And still not close enough. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself closer. Their kiss grew heavy. Frantic, even. His fingers dug into her hips and yanked her flush with his body. Hard planes everywhere greeted her softer curves.
And it still wasn’t close enough.
Mate, he called her. He wanted her. She didn’t fully believe him until their lips touched and tongues twined. The perfectness of the word couldn’t be described in simple, human language. What existed and grew between them transcended the physical and delved into the magical.
They were one. Hearts and souls belonged to the other in a union she couldn’t have imagined.
Mate.
Some noise grew in her middle and rumbled outward. Surprised, she pulled back and pressed her fingers to her lips.
Adrien’s eyes widened and surprise danced across his face. “Your eyes… They’ve gone gold.”
She tried to move her lips. Tried to force words out of her mouth. She watched her own panic mirror on his face.
Then she collapsed.
“Guards! The princess has fallen!” Adrien shouted into the ballroom.
The howling, jovial cries of the midnight run fell to a shocked silence. Whines of wolves and a wave of murmured confusion swept through a crowd she couldn’t see.
Adrien ignored it all. He returned to her side a moment later, stroking her cheeks. “Come back to me,” he murmured. “I can’t lose you again.”
His words were unyieldingly true and broke her heart. He’d scented and lost her before, and it ate him up inside. She’d had mere moments with him, and she felt the loss down to her bones.
She couldn’t see when the curtains parted, but she heard the reactions. A tiny, choked scream came from her mother. Her father let loose a ferocious growl.
Finn crouched on her other side. She tried to reach for him. Even a twitch of her fingers, a blink of an eye…
Nothing. She could see and hear and think but her body refused to move.
“What is the meaning of this?” Finn demanded. “What have you done to my sister?”
“I have done nothing, pup. She fell and—”
Finn passed a hand over her eyes and her lids fell closed.
“Murderer,” Finn hissed. “She doesn’t breathe, her heart doesn’t beat. She’s dead by your hand!”
“I didn’t kill her!” Adrien insisted, his voice sounding like gravel. The power of his inner beast pulsed away from him but did nothing to calm the others. “I wouldn’t harm my mate!”
NO! Rory tried to scream, but not a single sound entered the air.
The snarls all around her intensified to a frightening level. She couldn’t bear if her mate and her brother came to blows over her not-dead, very-much-alive body.
“Your mate?” Donal said in a chilling tone. “Wolves, do your duty and bring me this murderer’s head!”
Cloth ripped and hard nails clattered against the balcony floor. More growls rushed near her head. Three snapping jaws replaced every yelped cry.
Rory thrashed inside herself, desperate to break free of whatever spell trapped her. The only movement of her body came from rough hands grabbing her shoulders and dragging her back into the ballroom.
“We need enforcers on the roof with weapons!”
“You won’t keep her from me, wolf. She is mine,” Adrien thundered from overhead.
Wolf. The word triggered another response. The faint, stroking sensation she’d felt since spotting Adrien blasted into her consciousness.
Fur rubbed against her. Images of the moon and sun, rising and setting, filled her head. A baby cried, a wolf howled, and then both were torn apart.
“Shit! He’s gone! How did he vanish?”
Rory still couldn’t move, but she had a wolf trapped away with her.
Chapter 6
She wasn’t dead.
Those were the words Adrien whispered to himself when he tried to get some sleep, or took a piss, or shoveled tasteless food into his mouth.
She wasn’t dead.
Short of seeing her body and feeling the chill of her skin, he wouldn’t be convinced she died on that balcony. His mate still lived and he’d murder every last wolf keeping them apart.
The mourning bells announced the arrival of the new day and Adrien heaved himself off his bed. The bells had rung at dawn and dusk for seven straight days. Leaders from other enclaves were arriving to pay their respects. Rory was given more consideration in death than ever in life.
His dragon rumbl
ed a warning growl. Adrien clenched his fists and dug his nails into his palms. The sharp pain brought him back from the edge of madness. He needed to keep himself together and stay in his human form. A dragon would slash and burn until nothing was left. A human could steal into a funeral and prove the Conri pack wrong.
She wasn’t dead.
He replayed that night over in his head. He reached for her, touched her. She healed him with one kiss and pushed him and his dragon back together again. The baggage they both carried didn’t matter. The Conri pack that never wanted her, his Bloodwings that wanted too much of him... None of it would bring them down.
For a brief moment, they threw off the chains of their families. They had each other. Then she collapsed.
She wasn’t dead.
Her brother’s words were right. She didn’t breathe and her heart didn’t beat. But something had tied her to him and he knew down on a cellular level that she still lived.
He was running out of time. Rory’s body had been placed on display for the week. The seventh day was the burning. The morning would see a line of mourners decorating the glass casket with flowers, and then the pyre would be lit at sunset.
He had to stop her pack from burning her alive.
Adrien passed a hand over his face and quickly dressed. The cave system was full of activity when he finally stepped out of his chamber.
Damien approached him first. He rose to his feet and clasped his arm. “We’re ready, brother.”
Adrien nodded in appreciation. He’d been set to watch his twin like a guard, but Damien was the first to take up his defense. He’d be eternally grateful for each and every dragon that came to his aid.
Bloodwings, all of them, were prepping for the battle ahead. Some would stick to their human forms, and so they armed themselves with freshly serviced guns and sharpened knives. Those flying in the sky ate a heavy meal to keep their dragons energized. None knew exactly what to expect when they moved on Wolfden.
They’d been lucky to find the caves. They could move quickly on wing and hide themselves, but Adrien couldn’t stand the thought of being even five miles away from Rory. So they did as dragons of old and set up camp inside a mountain.