by Anya Nowlan
Everywhere they went, the Goldplains were welcomed with open arms and happy greetings. And Jade? Well, they seemed even happier to see her.
Jade couldn’t even count all the happy, welcoming hugs she had got. And never in her life had she been told that she was pretty and looked like a ‘nice girl’ by so many strangers. She was half-expecting a throne to show up somewhere and the locals to carry her up to it, making her queen supreme of Gold Way. It was odd, to say the least.
“Can either of you two explain to me why they’re all looking at me like that?” Jade asked finally, peeking over the top of her menu and getting a friendly wave and a smile from an elderly man across the restaurant.
“Like what?” Alexander queried nonchalantly, sipping on his rum and coke.
“Like… that!” Jade said, making a sweeping motion across the patrons, ducking back down behind the menu when she got more waves.
“We don’t get a lot of outsiders here. They must just be curious,” Alexander said lightly.
“Dragon magic, you see. The place exists on all the maps but no one really feels like coming here much. Would get a bit awkward, explaining why giant dragons roam the mountains and the valley to every hiker and tourist, you know?” Apollo offered, kicking back with his beer.
The explanation didn’t really do much to soothe Jade’s confusion, but she was pretty sure that it wasn’t meant to. She was reaching the end of her rope, though, and if the Goldplains didn’t start spilling their secret plans soon, she’d have to stop pussyfooting around. Though she wasn’t entirely sure what that entailed.
Just then, a perky looking waitress sauntered over to them, giving Alexander and Apollo a dazzling smile and barely glancing at Jade. Jade relaxed immediately. Finally, someone who treated her like she was expecting to be treated – like she barely existed next to the forces of nature that were the Goldplains. Jade smiled and slumped back against the backrest of the booth they’d taken up right under the big windows overlooking Main Street.
She could deal with catty women and bitchy servers. It was much easier than wracking her brain over what the hell was going on.
“Hey, boys! Haven’t seen you around in forever!” the waitress purred, her long legs seeming to go up forever.
Jade watched with guarded interest as Apollo and Alexander greeted her. She knew Apollo’s reputation. He was an absolute womanizer. Jade wasn’t sure what she was hoping to see, but one thing was for sure – Apollo wasn’t doing it. He barely seemed to notice the hot, redheaded waitress, his attention mostly flickering between his beer and Jade, whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.
But Jade definitely noticed all the looks she was getting from him. How could she not?
“Yeah, Katie. We’re back in town for a little while. Can we have the regular? I assume the fish platter hasn’t changed?” Alexander said, flipping together his and Apollo’s menus and picking up Jade’s as well.
“Nope, still the same. Some good things never change,” Katie said with a wink, accepting the menus.
Alexander nodded, giving her a mild smile, and Apollo just tipped his beer in reply. The leggy waitress looked at Apollo long and hard, but he remained as impassive as ever. Katie didn’t even look at Jade as she spun around and trampled off, obviously a bit taken aback by her reception. Jade noticed that even when she was pissed, she could keep her hips swinging back and forth in that exaggerated, sexy walk that women sometimes did when they thought they were being watched. Except that this time, the only one watching was Jade.
“What’s her deal?” Jade asked, grabbing for her bourbon and taking a long sip.
“We sometimes hook up when I’m in town. Nothing serious, though she might not agree with me on that,” Apollo said grimly.
Jade smirked. Of course it was Apollo, who was getting up to no good. She’d expect nothing less from the charismatic singer of one of the biggest rock bands in the world.
“Is that what you do? String women along?” Jade teased.
The look she got from Apollo surprised her. He seemed almost… hurt. Or at least a bit unhappy that she would think that of him. She filed it away for later. There was a lot of stuff she found herself wondering about all of a sudden, most of it having to do with the Goldplains and how she was going to survive being alone with them for so long without doing something… umm, silly.
“No, I don’t. I made it clear to her that I wasn’t looking for a relationship. She knows what I do.”
“But?”
“But what?”
“Aren’t you going to see her now that you’re in town this time?” Jade asked, genuinely needing to know.
She wasn’t sure why Apollo or Alexander’s love life was of any interest to her right now, other than the fact that she couldn’t help but imagine herself in it, but her curiosity spoke louder than her rationality.
“No,” Apollo said simply, finishing out his beer and waving at a waitress for another.
“Okay. I think it’s time we explain something to you, Jade,” Alexander said as Apollo’s beer arrived into his awaiting, thankful hand.
“That’d be great! I’d love to hear what it is that I’ve managed to rope myself into,” Jade said, nursing her bourbon.
She had a dozen theories, each sillier than the last, but she’d forced herself to not mull over any of them. Thankfully there wasn’t too much time to drive herself crazy between enjoying the presence of the Goldplains and reminding herself that she’d chosen to trust them.
“The reason why you’re getting so much attention from the town, and the servants, is because you’re our mate. Our bride. And we’re going to get married in about a week, during the gold moon,” Alexander said like it was the most natural thing.
Jade just about choked on her bourbon, some of the heated liquid going down the wrong pipe and making her cough and sputter. When she regained her ability to talk, she stared at both of the men with wild eyes, trying to make out whether or not they were trying some odd rendition of a joke.
“WHAT!?” she screeched, loud enough to get a bunch of looks from the people around them. “Sorry,” she said, motioning to everybody, before turning back to the Goldplains, leaning across the table and glaring at both of them. “What!? Marriage!? Gold moon? Bride!? What the hell are you on about?”
“It’s like this,” Apollo started, leaning towards her as well.
That devilish smirk on his face made her want to scream. This was no time to be cute or sexy or breathtakingly hot or… Dammit.
Focus.
“We’ve been thinking about it a little. The Blackscales and the Goldplains… well, there’s some history there. They’re not going to let up on you. It’s one thing that you saw them shift, giving them more than enough reason to treat you as a problem that needs to disappear. It’s a whole other, greater issue that you’re with us now. It’s a long story, but trust me when I say, the Blackscales are not going to ease up until you’re gone or until they can’t get at you,” Apollo said.
Jade’s stomach fell through the floor. All that happy warmth she’d been feeling around Apollo and Alexander suddenly disappearing like dust in the wind. A shiver ran down her spine, and she felt tears threatening to well up in her eyes. She quickly forced them down. This was no time to panic. She’d got herself in a mess, and apparently, no matter what she did, it just kept getting worse.
Alexander reached his hand out across the table and took her palm in his. His heat radiated through her, and the shudder slowly subsided. Jade let out a breath and nodded.
“Okay. What does it mean?”
“It means, we need to make you ours. As long as you’re merely our bassist, the Blackscales have free reign to fuck around with us and try to get at you. But when you’re our mate, officially our bride and wedded to us under the gold moon, anything they do against you would be an act of war towards the whole family. And trust me, they don’t want that.”
Alexander’s explanation rung in her ears, mixing with her haphazard hear
tbeat. She didn’t know what to say, and that cotton mouthed feeling she’d got during the audition was back in full force again, making her feel painfully awkward. For the umpteenth time, she cursed herself for ever having tried out for Death Wing.
She could have been in a little garage band somewhere, playing for fun, maybe getting a job as a veterinarian’s assistant or something. With a husband, a house, three kids – the whole nine yards. And here she was, sitting in a booth in a magical town with two full-grown dragons who wanted to make her their bride. And she couldn’t feel guiltier if she tried.
The fact that they were telling her that she would be marrying both of them, at the same time, didn’t quite make it to her senses. That would be a blow for later – one that would bring plenty of flushed questions.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, causing Apollo to lay his hand over hers and Alexander’s.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about, Jade.”
“I’m ruining your lives just because I thought… I… I don’t know what I was thinking. I should never have involved you in any of this,” she said, her heart breaking right inside her chest.
Like a bullet from a gun, Alexander had slid to the other side of the booth and was sitting right next to Jade now. His arm went protectively around her, pulling her against him and letting her head rest on his wide shoulder. She could hear his heart pounding in his chest, and it was as loud as Jade’s, booming with each beat.
“You did the right thing, Jade. If you’d gone anywhere else, they would have found you and got rid of you already. We can protect you. And you’re not ruining our lives. You’re making them better.”
She wanted to ask why, but she didn’t. As if instinctively, they told her anyway.
“This is not something we’re doing because we have to, Jade,” Apollo said.
His usual happy grin was wiped off his face, and he looked serious and in control. She could see the resemblance between him and Alexander more than ever now. Her body molded against Alexander’s touch, and her fingers gripped Apollo’s. As he spoke, calm slowly settled in her again – an emotion she had found to be fleeting lately.
“It’s hard to explain this to you now, but we need this as much as you do. This is not you messing with our lives or changing something we didn’t want changed. When we met you, we knew there was something special about you, and that feeling has only grown. I promise you, we’ll explain everything over time, but for now, just trust us when I say that we couldn’t be happier to do this. I couldn’t think of anyone else as our mate,” Apollo finished.
His blue eyes drilled into her soul, and she nodded meekly, pushing down the last of her impending sobs. Alexander squeezed her arm, and Apollo’s fingers brushed over the top of her hand, sending a different kind of tingle through her. Her core pulsed as if her body had decided that the emotional turmoil she was going through was something that could be dealt with later. Much later.
“Okay. I trust you,” she said finally, smiling gently.
The men relaxed. It was like the air cleared suddenly, and Jade could feel relief flood Alexander. He relaxed his muscles, which had been coiled and hard as iron, and pressed a small kiss on the top of her head. It came out of the blue, but it felt so inexplicably natural that she couldn’t think to be surprised by it.
Apollo thrust his hand into his pocket and conjured up a small, worn-looking black velvet bag. He turned Jade’s hand around and placed it in her palm.
“What is it?” Jade asked, opening it gingerly.
She spilled the contents on her palm and gasped as the heated stone touched her skin. An odd, dark pendant with a simple chain rested on her hand, the stone seeming to both glow under the light and consume it all at the same time. It was hot to the touch, just like the dragons themselves.
“It’s a dragon stone,” Alexander said, taking it from her hand and carefully putting it around her neck. “If you ever need us or are in danger, you can use this to call for us. You just have to think of us and we will know where you are. We will find you and come to you.”
“You need to wear this so we know you’re safe. Okay?” Apollo asked.
Jade thought he looked nervous for that passing moment between him asking and her answering. It made her wonder how much of themselves the Goldplains were truly putting into this – to being there with her.
“Good. Let’s eat!” Apollo said with a grin, as Katie wobbled to the table, carrying the biggest assortment of fish and other seafood Jade had ever seen.
You’ll figure everything out later, Jade told herself as Alexander reluctantly let go of her.
That was something she’d been telling herself a lot lately. But as it often happened, the Goldplains could fill her with hope, and she didn’t have to feel bad about it. She just hoped that they were right – that she could give as much to them as they gave to her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Alexander
He hadn’t felt this way since he was a teenager, and frankly, it was a bit unnerving.
It’s just a walk by the riverside. You’ve been around her countless times already. Just don’t freak her out and everything will be fine.
But how was Alexander going to keep from freaking himself out?
He paced back and forth nervously, his hands shoved into the pockets of his light pants. In an effort to make Jade feel more at ease around him and Apollo, the Goldplains brothers had made a pact to try and not overwhelm her at first, to give her time to get to know them, and vice versa. The only problem was that Alexander, always the patient one, had found his patience waning rather quickly.
So, he had done what any sensible man would have done and took charge of the situation. On their way back from the restaurant the previous evening, he’d arranged to take Jade for a walk along the riverside and tell her a bit about the Goldplains heritage.
“Just a friendly walk and a chat,” he’d said, trying to be as nonchalant as he could.
He had to physically stop himself from skipping a little when she said yes. And now here he was, nervously awaiting her arrival. It was both as sweet as hell and the bitterest thing he’d had to do in a while. Any moment away from her was brutal, despite not even knowing her for that long.
All the things his mother and fathers had told him about the bond between a dragon and his mate turned out to be true. How his whole perspective would shift in a matter of moments, and how he would only truly know what kind of man he was when his mate was in danger. He’d thought all those things silly at best – finding a mate to match both him and Apollo had seemed little more than a pipe dream, something that would obviously never happen.
Alexander smirked to himself, thinking of the intense change his little brother had gone through. As if by magic – which it certainly partially was – the womanizing bad boy had been collared and made behave, and he seemed to be enjoying it immensely. Alexander couldn’t remember a night in the last five or ten years when Apollo wasn’t drunk and out partying with one nameless bimbo after another. Yet here he was now, mostly sober, completely blind to any other woman but Jade, and fully committed to making sure that she became theirs – it really made a dragon proud.
“I’m so sorry. I slept through most of the afternoon. I don’t know what kind of mattresses you guys buy or if you sprinkle sleeping dust in the vents, but whatever it is, I love it! I haven’t felt this rested in forever,” Jade said, exiting one of the backdoors that led out to the gardens.
“No worries. I didn’t wait too long.”
Even if it felt like a lifetime. Dragons above, you’re in deep, Alexander thought, reaching out his hand to Jade.
To his great pleasure, she took it without hesitation. However, as they started their walk deeper into the gardens, she seemed to consider the way they held hands as something surprising – as if she’d only just realized what she’d done. Alexander didn’t let himself be bothered by that. He was sure she’d grow used to it soon enough, as would he. Provided they were given enough time,
that is.
“So, you said you’d tell me a little bit about the history of this place,” Jade started as they made their way through roaming rose bushes and lovely lengths of flowers, all kept in pristine order.
“I did,” Alexander agreed.
They made it to the place where the river snaked past the mansion, and he guided them down the narrow path that led downstream. The road, worn into the lush grass by generations of Goldplains, was adorned by the clear, blue-watered river on one side and heavy green oaks on the other, creating a sort of alleyway hidden from prying eyes. That’s just what he wanted – a bit of privacy.
“I think it’s fair to say we’ve been here for just about forever. Treasure Lane – an area that now comprises Colorado and parts of the surrounding states – was founded by dragons long before humans were even a speck in time. We’ve always ruled here; it’s just that there used to be more of us. While you couldn’t walk a straight line in the old days without stumbling upon a dragon, we now only have four families in Treasure Lane. At least officially. The Goldplains are one of them.”
“And the Blackscales aren’t?” Jade asked, catching a leaf from a tree and twirling it between her fingers as they walked.
“No, and they haven’t forgiven us for it. They were the original owners of Gold Way, according to our family history. But it was common practice to challenge other families for their areas back then, and so we did. And we won. The Blackscales have threatened us with war a few times over the centuries, but we’ve never got along.
There have been a few challenges, but nothing big enough to warrant an all-out war. Dragons have always shared the feeling that any drop of dragon blood wasted is a drop too much. But of course, there are always those who do not agree,” Alexander said, trying to keep the grimness from his tone.
“You think Cameron and Colt would go that far? Try to… fight you?” Jade asked, her voice getting smaller.