by Crymsyn Hart
“What’s the matter?”
He glanced at Savanna and saw the concern in her eyes. “Nothing, love. Sorry. I’m distracted.”
“You have every right to be. This is all new to you, and I understand you feel like you’re being put under a microscope.”
“It’s not just that. You were dead. A miracle brought you back to me. I don’t have the words to describe how happy I am for that.”
“I don’t think you need words. You did just fine tonight.”
“Well, thank you, but something is missing, and I think we both know what that is.”
She pulled away and rested her head on the pillow. “Yes. And I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about that. Orlana suggested I go demand that he makes love to me, that Drake lets Meruke into the mix because he owes me after what’s happened.”
“I think it’s a fair trade.”
“But I don’t want to leave you out of this. You’re a part of it, and it wouldn’t feel right.”
He smiled at her. “I don’t want to come between you and him. If it means you are the key to fixing him instead of staying as the ass that he is, then I’m okay to be on the sidelines.”
“But I’m not.”
“Then we will do it together.”
“And if that’s the way he wants it?”
“Then we’ll just play it by ear.”
His love snuggled up against him and in a minute she was content and sleeping. He listened to her gentle breathing until it lulled him to sleep.
The next few days around the mountain were a whirlwind. He wasn’t alone long enough to think, let alone to ask about Drake. If he wasn’t being pulled off somewhere, or being asked questions about what he did and his life back at home, then he was with Savanna. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone much. Ralag had wanted to see if she was able to cast some spells and when she was off doing that, he was left alone with Andrik as he interrogated him about Drake and his own family. Half of them he didn’t know, but Wyeth was glad he was finally able to help with something when the river had receded around the mountain. They needed to clear the debris that had washed up from the storm. He went to work and soon had the other men helping him out in a more efficient way than what they had been. Much of it was timber, mud, and other refuse. It gave him something to focus on.
By the fourth day he had set up his crew at the base of the mountain. Wyeth squinted from the sun and gazed up at the peak. It was taller and wider than he had expected. A ring of clouds hid the peak, leaving hundreds of feet above it. Dragons circled the mount and others came with riders. He was told they were spellcasters with the dragons they had been bonded to. Those dragons weren’t able to shape shift. Besides the magic and the dragons, he hadn’t come across anything too unfamiliar. Wyeth took a break, noticed something off in the distance that looked familiar, and wanted to check it out. As he got closer, he examined the object and realized it was the top of the lighthouse. Off to the side of that was part of his mansion. With the extensive winds, he figured the house might not stand up to the high velocity. It appeared that several of the rooms had been picked up and dropped in this world. Hopefully, the house hadn’t fallen on a witch of any kind. It was in bad shape and ready to cave in on itself, but he wanted to take a look.
Wyeth moved carefully inside and discovered he was in the remnants of the kitchen, except it was on its side. All the appliances were toppled over. He moved slowly, listening to the creaking of the structure, and came to the hallway where he found the living room and the mantle with the stone dragons. The room was empty. He made it halfway and his foot went through the floor, but he made it out and came to the part where the ballroom was. At the very end, attached to some of the studs from the wall, were a couple of bags. He stretched out slowly, feeling the weight of the floor starting to give, but he was able to grab both. He glanced down and realized he was staring over a cliff. At any moment the wood could give way. It shifted beneath him, but he would not let them go.
“No, you don’t.” Someone grabbed him by the back of his pants and hauled him back into the house as he had the bags. When he looked up he saw Drake. The other man was sweaty as though he had been helping out as well.
“Thanks.” They walked back outside of the house and onto firmer ground. Wyeth dragged his hand across his forehead to swipe the sweat away.
“Strange to see your house and part of the lighthouse here. Reminds me that we came through that storm. We made it all in one piece.”
Wyeth glanced at Drake and gritted his teeth, trying to remember that he didn’t need to agitate the situation by stirring the pot. “Not all of us. I’m sure you heard Savanna was dead when you landed, and they took her away. It’s a miracle that she’s alive.”
Drake nodded. “Right. H-how is she?” The softer tone in his voice made Wyeth wonder if the dragon really had an interest in Savanna.
“I’m surprised you’ve asked. She’s alive. Came back from the brink of death so that she could be with the both of us. Oh wait, you don’t want anything to do with her because she fulfilled her end of the bargain and brought you here. Aren’t you supposed to be one of her mates? Our mates, according to everyone I’ve talked to about this connection we have.”
“Enough!” Drake held up his hand, the muscles bulging on his neck and the veins pounding in his temples. “If you want me to go visit her, then fine. I’ll go tonight and pay my respects. This link that we have. You don’t need to keep bringing it up. Now that I’m home, I’ll find a dragon of my own, or a human, and we can count this mate bond to be over with.”
“Fine. Do you think that you can find one among your kind?”
“Yes. I just saved you, so can you shut the hell up for once? What was in the bags you were trying to rescue?”
Wyeth opened the one he recognized as Savanna’s and inside were some of her clothes, her cards, and other implements of her trade. In the other were some of his things that he had thrown into a bag just in case. The rest of their things he had set aside were nowhere to be found. Then again, half of his house had ended up here.
“Were those things so important that you had to risk your life getting them?”
Wyeth glanced at the luggage and then at the dragon as the absurdity of the question hit him. “It is if it makes Savanna happy. Then yes, it does. Everything she had was burned up in a fire you set. Then, once more, she lost the things I got her, and now we’ve come to this place, so yeah. I think everything from our old life is important. Wouldn’t you think it would be important for our mate? For her to have even a slice of her old life?”
“I’m glad you’ve accepted her as your mate, but you don’t know the half of it and how mates are supposed to be.”
Wyeth stepped closer to the dragon who was slightly taller and more built than him, but he wasn’t going to be intimidated. “I don’t need to know what it means in this world, because I already know in my heart what she is. And you should, too. I don’t care what you say about it. But I’ve been the one who listens to her cry at night when she thinks I’m sleeping. I feel her ache in my heart. If you weren’t such a selfish bastard, I’d say you might even feel it too, but the way you are now, denying the part of you that knows the truth but can’t admit it—I should be pissed, and I am, but I feel more pity for you. How can you know love when you harden your heart to it?” Wyeth grabbed the bags and headed back into the mountain so he could show Savanna what he had found.
Chapter Twenty
Drake slammed his fist against into the wall. Meruke stayed silent as Wyeth’s words ran through his mind. After cleaning up the whole day and more days to come, he had washed and was invited to have dinner with his mother and the rest of his kin. It was something he wanted to avoid, as he just wanted time alone to ponder the place he had come back to. For the days he had been there, he had hoped things would change, that he would find comfort in the things he had left behind. However, the world that he knew was no longer. He had grandiose ideas of rulin
g. Those ideas had been dashed. They had welcomed him into their home and showed him the past and how the family had expanded. He had spent great length answering the questions they had about the spell he had cast on the Blackmores and how it seemed related to a mate bond. He didn’t care about the logistics of it. He had done it at the time because he thought it was the best thing to do to integrate into the human world.
The stinging in his hand made him pull back from his thoughts as a servant came in and brought some of the clothes he had tailored for him. Drake dismissed the man and changed his clothes for dinner. He studied his hand. His knuckles were cracked and bleeding, but he wasn’t too worried about that. They would heal. Drake had done everything to keep himself busy so he didn’t have time to think. Meruke lingered in the back of his mind, but he made it aware when he wanted to be known. Drake thought about some of the fine women he had seen walking around the mountain, all of them who were ‘kin or related to the ‘kin in some way. The dragon part of himself was true to his word and made it blatantly clear he was not going to let the man be attracted to the women. His body wouldn’t respond. Meruke was sticking to his words about not letting him think about anyone but Savanna, and he replayed the night they had spent together in his mind while Drake slept as dreams of the night that he had pleasured her with his mind.
Now Wyeth told him about Savanna being heartbroken. As much as he didn’t want to acknowledge it, his heart did turn for the woman. He felt some warmth toward her. He tried to push those feelings away. Drake shook his head and looked at the blank walls of this cell. So far they had not moved him to better sleeping quarters, but he didn’t spend much time in them anyway. He was either being asked questions, or he was making himself useful. Anything to make the days go by, so he didn’t have to think, so he could work himself into exhaustion. Not many truly knew who he was, just that he had come from the storm with two others. Some were afraid of him.
Ralag was surprised he had lived for so long. The old advisor was already five thousand years old and ancient. Orlana had stayed the way she was because of the all the magic she had woven over her cave for so many years. It was clear that she had to return there if she wanted to continue living. And knowing his mother, she was not going to end her life easily. For all he knew, this was her farewell dinner, and they were sending her off with fanfare. From what he could tell, Andrik and Kestrel were good and decent rulers. Andrik reminded him of his father being stern, but underneath that stern and stoic king, Drake saw the caring man he was.
A few minutes later someone knocked on his door. “Enter.”
“There you are, Your Highness. I was hoping I could accompany you to dinner.”
He glanced over and saw the old advisor, Ralag. He was Andrik’s uncle. Drake sensed the dragon within him, but he was not a shifter. It had happened to Drake’s sister, as well. She was no shifter. However, she was a powerful spellcaster, the same as their mother, and had learned much. Drake had been saddened to learn that she had gone on to become a spellcaster and bond with a wild dragon. It was a tragic loss to the family, but apparently they had fought well in battle in some of the wars that had happened over the ages, and she had died a hero. However, it was his younger brother, Naran, who had ruled after him. That was where Andrik’s bloodline had come from.
“I’m no longer king, Ralag. You don’t need to call me that,” he sighed. “I’m no longer a lot of things.”
“Forgive an old man for years of habit. You still look as young as you did from what your mother said when you left. Did you even age in the other realm?” They walked out of the room together, and he shut the door.
“I aged, but I slept much of the time, as well. I would wake, and sometimes I had shed and needed to eat, so I would venture out for food and interact with the people that I found. Although, for the past four hundred years I’ve been awake. It doesn’t feel as though I aged much. However, coming home, I feel as though I am certainly my age.” He glanced at his hands and didn’t see any changes in them. No wrinkles. His hair had not turned gray. Drake waited for the day when he would look in the mirror and no longer see the man of thirty five, but he would see something like Ralag, old and bent over with age and nothing to show for it.
“I’ve been doing some thinking on the matter. Because, as you said, there is no magic in this other reality, the magic you had within you was the thing that kept you from growing old. Sleeping would help, as well. And then you also linked yourself to this family. As long as one of them was alive, you also shared in their life force and vice versa. Did you notice if these humans lived longer than most?”
“I guess they did. I honestly didn’t notice. Time just went by, and I showed up when I felt there was a death. Wyeth is the only one left now. Not that it matters.”
“But it does matter, Meruke. You bonded yourself with a human, and just like the mate bond, if the other dies you are going to die as well. You could survive, because that link is now stretched between so many different generations and bloodlines. Of course, there is always the woman you are mated to. If you don’t finish the mate bond, it will leave all of you missing something and may leave Savanna slowly dying. It would take a while, but it could happen.”
“What are you talking about?” Drake stopped the other man as they descended toward the tombs. He realized this was where they were having dinner since his mother said the magic there was helping to keep her alive.
“It’s been a long time since you have been among your own kind. Forgive me, sire, for saying this as if you are a child hearing this for the first time. Once a mate bond has been initiated, once our mate has been identified, it is not something that can be put off. If it does, it can drive a dragon insane. It can drive the human insane. It’s not something we can fight. No matter what you think, if this woman is not the one you envisioned yourself with, you give yourself over to that feeling as it is encoded within us, brought down from your grandfather, the gift that the gods gave us. The ability to bond with a human. You and your mother were the ones who remember the very first dragon and how he fell in love with a human woman. The gods took pity on him because he was going out of his mind with not being able to be with her. She was able to share his fire, a sign they were meant to be one. And...”
“I know the story. I heard it from him as a hatchling,” Drake growled.
“Then what would he say when it’s obvious you’re denying the one thing that will bring you peace?” Ralag asked, and moved before him, taking the path to one of the lower rooms where his mother’s chambers had been set up.
Drake gritted his teeth and thought about what the old man had said. I don’t need to listen to this.
“Actually you do. Think about what Wyeth said. Savanna is suffering, and you are letting her because you deny her. She could make us whole once more.”
“And are you going to torment me about it all the time?”
“Who said I was tormenting you? It’s the other way around. You keep me locked away so I can’t be with the woman I love. Do you really think we can last like this? You’ll never fly again without me or make love to a woman. Two of the things you’ve wanted to do to take your mind off everything. Why can’t you admit that you want her, too? Or has pride made you so blind?”
If Drake could silence the dragon in his mind he would have, but to do that he would have to kill that side of him. How could he deny his heritage? It was like Ralag said, he was descended from the first dragon that had been granted the privilege to take human form and be with the woman that he loved. He sighed and followed the man down to the feast laid out. His mother, Wyeth, and Savanna were the only ones at the table. He had been tricked.
“Did you orchestrate this farce, Mother?”
Orlana flashed him a half smile as she sipped her wine. “Whatever do you mean? Meruke, I wanted to have dinner with your companions and you before I departed to my cave. Aren’t you going to join us?”
Drake could return back to his rooms, but his mother would force t
his upon him one way or another. She had not changed in that respect. She always got what she wanted. “Of course.” He forced a smile.
He took the only empty seat by Savanna. A strained smile turned up her lips, but then he looked back at Orlana. He tried to keep his eyes focused ahead, but it was clear that Wyeth’s gaze was filled with anger. Drake looked back down at his plate and tried to not look back at Savanna. The seats were so close together that he felt her body heat and was very aware of her. She was dressed in a flattering dark sapphire gown that brought out her eyes and showed off the tops of her breasts. She had some sort of corset that lifted her breasts up and made the ample swells all the more luscious. Between those plump mounds hung a simple silver chain with a clear crystal point on it. The citrus perfume that wafted from her was potent enough it caught his attention, and yet it wasn’t over powering. She wore no makeup, but she didn’t need it. Meruke raked along his brain to let him out so that he could talk to Savanna or just feel her. But Drake had the dragon on lockdown.
The servants brought in the first course which was some kind of soup. He tasted it and realized that it was his favorite, with fresh thyme, broth, potatoes, and other root vegetables that he hadn’t had in ages.
“Savanna, you were a merchant in the town that you came from?” Orlana asked.
His eyes darted to the woman next to him and saw her cheeks redden. She fidgeted and then flashed the woman a smile. It was quite clear she was also uneasy about this, and he couldn’t blame her for the setup. “Yes, ma’am. I had a small shop where I offered my services to people who wanted to know the direction of their lives. Sometimes I made contact with the dead and helped them in their transition with losing their loved ones.”
“You can contact the dead without the aid of a necromancer?” Orlana asked.