That explained why the cause of death hadn’t been apparent. Though, to be fair, the labs would have isolated any foreign toxins given time to run proper tests. This nugget of information might also explain the secondhand illness affecting humans who had contact with the corpse. It also fingered one of the aquatic helpers as being to blame for nibbling the last victim. All I could say was I hoped it didn’t get sick.
Wu noticed the look and eased closer to me. “What is the purpose of this meeting?”
“Where is Nicodemus?” A frown creased his brow to find Wu at my side. “What I have to say must be heard by you both.”
A fission of unease accompanied his casual use of the name I had only just learned, but I locked down the burgeoning sense of foreboding.
“I’m here.” Cole strolled down the path then veered off to join me. “How are you, old friend?”
“Hold up.” I whipped my head toward him. “Old friend?”
“This world is all we were promised and more.” Janardan raised his left arm to show off the smart watch strapped to his wrist. “I have seldom beheld such wonders as the human mind conjures.” He laughed at the bauble then patted it fondly. “This is the end we foresaw all those centuries ago. There are no promises to be made now. None we have any hope of keeping. I’m afraid that means the time to square old debts is upon us.”
The words punched Cole, hit him low and hard, and I wasn’t sure he had sucked in a breath to recover before I demanded, “What does he mean?”
“I have long been the keeper of something that belongs to you,” Janardan explained. “I vowed to protect it with my life in exchange for amnesty for myself and my mate when the cadre reached this terrene.”
A shocked laugh burst out of me. “What could you possibly have of mine that’s worth a free pass?”
“Luce,” Cole rasped, tormented, as he reached for me. His thick fingers closed over my wrists, drawing my hands against his chest, and through them I felt him tremble. “I can explain.”
“Is this explanation going to include how you failed to mention Conquest is your mate?” I actually looked around like the words might have shot from someone else’s lips, but no. I tasted their residue on mine. “War told me I was owned. A mating bond—is that what she meant?”
“No.”
Casting my memory back over that night, he had seemed enraged to discover another claim on me, but I had been in shock, and a lot of what I heard then evaporated between that terrible night when I lost Mags and the next morning after I fully grasped my life was no longer my own.
“Otillians own their mates,” Janardan told me. “The bond is only reciprocal if their partner allows it to be so.”
Cole bonded with her. That was his secret, the source of his shame. Did that mean . . . ?
Had he loved her? Before it all fell apart, had they been . . . together?
Unable to breathe, to think, I started walking. Distance. I needed distance. From him, from this, from her.
A mountain loomed on my periphery, and in two long strides planted itself in front of me.
“The connection we have is ours,” Cole growled fiercely. “I gave her obedience, not my heart.”
Stupid tears clogged my eyes until I could no longer see him. He was being so careful with me, they all were, so afraid that one wrong word might crack the shell holding Conquest hostage. “I want to believe you.”
“This is all the proof I can give you.” He released me and thrust his arms out in front of him. “Will it suffice?”
The angry ridges encircling his wrists were exposed. Both of them. What amazed me most was not that he was showing them to me, but that they were healing. Not just from where Lorelei had brutalized him to harvest enough rosendium for the cuffs, but deeper. He had a long way to go before his skin smoothed around the bands, and there might always be scarring, but he wasn’t prying the mark of ownership from his flesh. He was surrendering to it, honoring it—honoring me.
And I knew in that moment I would do anything, give anything, to free him.
Cole loomed over me, a thing he did better than anyone I had ever met, and his presence comforted me as I traced the warm metal with a fingertip. “You’re healing.”
“Yes.” He shivered beneath my touch. “I am.”
“What does this mean?” A thrill zinged through me, shot with anticipation. “For us?”
“I want you, Luce.” He rested his forehead against mine, and his breath filled my lungs. “Be mine.”
“I think we both know that’s never been the issue.” I laughed softly. “Be mine too?”
The first tender brush of his lips over mine had me smelling smoke. What little brain I had left sizzled and popped beneath the gentle pressure of his mouth. The brush of his tongue against the seam of my lips asked me to open for him, and I did, groaning at his taste.
“Always.” He spoke against my mouth, his taste filling my head. “For as long as you love me.”
A bittersweet promise that should Conquest ever wrest away my control, that this spark died with me.
“Charun don’t love,” I told him, and even I heard the sadness in my voice. “Not the way humans do.”
“A human heart only has so many beats.” He flattened my palm against his chest. “I’m not capable of a love so small or finite. What I feel for you can’t be confined to the lifespan of a century. My heart speaks the language of eternity, and the name it whispers is yours.”
Unable to see past the tears veiling my eyes, I whispered, “I more than love you too.”
“I was wrong about one thing,” he murmured, his gaze sliding past my shoulders.
A flush warmed my nape. “We have spectators.”
Now that he had mentioned it, I felt Wu’s gaze boring into my spine.
“Impatient spectators,” he agreed.
“Come on.” I stared up at him, my heart expanding against my ribs. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”
I led Cole back to where Janardan stood with his bare feet in the water. I smiled in response to his broad grin when they shook hands.
“This is what I always wished for you,” Janardan said. “A true mating, one dictated by hearts instead of heads.”
“You dreamed bigger for me than I ever dared, Jan.” Cole did some complicated back-slapping thing with him then cupped my cheek in his wide palm. “This is Luce Boudreau, my mate.”
The way he growled the word my left me lightheaded.
I might have thought I was dreaming if I couldn’t still taste him on my tongue.
“I had heard Conquest suffered a fracture.” Jan examined me now that he stood much closer. “I had no idea the host was so fully formed as to be her own person.”
“There’s more to Luce than a simple husk,” Wu said crisply. “She is a person in her own right.”
Learning Cole considered us true mates was less shocking than hearing Wu stick up for me as being a Real Girl.
“I meant no offense.” Jan bowed low to me. “I am honored to meet the woman who stole the heart of a dragon.” He rose and exchanged a weighted glance with Cole. “I understand now, why you hesitate.”
Meshing my fingers with his, I anchored us both for what came next. “Cole?”
“I struck the bargain with Janardan centuries ago. Conquest was still enamored of me then, and her affection was genuine. She granted me a boon for good behavior with the caveat it couldn’t be used against her. I asked her to grant Death and Janardan immunity from her wrath, and she laughed. She was young then, and she couldn’t imagine her sisters ever betraying her, or her betraying them. She agreed, and the deal was struck. She had no idea what I bought with her favor, and I would have died before letting her discover the truth.”
Yet here he stood, offering full disclosure to me. He had come here knowing the outcome, or guessing at it, and made no move to prevent this meeting from unfolding. Perhaps he saw this as inevitable. Or maybe he viewed this as atonement. I wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t convinced I want
ed to know, but we were here now. Another truth bomb was about to drop on my head, and there was no shelter from the blast outside of his arms.
A lump formed in my throat. “What did you need to protect, even from her?”
Cole gathered my hands in his. “Our child.”
The world slid out from under me, and I hit the mud on my ass. “Our . . . child?”
He sank beside me on his knees. “Our daughter.”
A fracture blazed through my skull, splitting my head wide open, and memories oozed in.
“Atru, Atru,” a breathless voice calls. “Atru, Atru, Atru.”
Hidden behind the planter, sheltered by its crown of fronds, I watch the small predator flare her nostrils as she homes in on her prey. Her head jerks toward me, crimson eyes as vivid as spilled blood, and she smiles.
She will make a glorious huntress one day.
“Atru,” she cries in triumph, toddling up to me. Her pudgy hands fist in my skirt. “Atru.”
Unable to resist, I heft her up and settle her on my hip. “Atruhadael.”
Coiling her hands in my hair, she lowers her head and yawns against my throat.
The sun hung lower when I blinked free of the vision but not by much. I had slipped down the slope of the past, but I hadn’t gone under. That had to be progress, right?
Turning my head caused dried mud to flake off my neck and crumble onto Cole’s shirt. He cradled me in his lap, tight against his chest, and his mighty heart drummed in my ear.
Wu sat beside us, his hand on my shoulder, his eyes on my face. Warmth spooled into me from his touch, and I might have shrugged him off if I hadn’t remembered his claim of being a healer. That shined a new light on all his past acts. Any show of affection might have been an act of mercy in disguise. I didn’t have much pride left for him to spare, but I was grateful all the same.
“I remember.” A thickness banded my throat and made my tongue hard to operate. “Not the girl, but . . . a memory of her.”
“From when you blacked out,” Cole said, more confirmation than question. “You told me you saw her, but you didn’t say who.” The torment edging across his features told me he had guessed. “We were talking about Lorelei, so I couldn’t be sure.”
A rubber band of thought snapped in my mind, and the memory of our conversation surfaced with stinging vividness.
“She wanted a child from you.” A blade of agony twisted in my heart. “You looked—” like he might consider granting her wish, “—sad.”
“Our species is rare, almost unheard of this high in the terrenes. Odds are she will never have children, and that is a pity.” He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “The sadness you sensed was far more selfish. I see her, her need for a child to love, and I can’t help but remember what it was to witness my daughter take her first breath, to hold her in my arms.”
“I thought you wanted her,” I admitted weakly. “That you might want to be with one of your own kind.”
“Hmm.” His lips skimmed my temple. “You’ve glossed over an obvious detail.”
Learning I had a mate, that we had a child, had kind of blown my mind to smithereens. “What?”
“You were born Otillian.” Heat curled through his voice when he rumbled, “You’re Convallarian now.”
Black spots winked across my vision, and I dug my fingernails into his skin to keep my eyes from rolling back.
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
Wu’s grip bit into my shoulder, and the flare of pain helped center me even more.
“I’m a . . . a . . . dragon?” Mouth gaping, I let him take possession of my lips. “I can fly?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” he teased, his adoring kisses making my head spin.
“You still have to consider—” Wu interrupted our not so private moment, “—the price of Janardan’s gift.”
“Amnesty for Death.” I glanced over at him. “What is her usual role?”
Thom once told me she tended to work alone, the same as Conquest. But he also warned that the rules changed with each world and that the first one to learn them won.
“Death is no less brutal than her sisters,” Wu confided, “but she tends to be the least vicious. Death wins in the end, with all of us. She doesn’t work too hard at reaping souls when her sisters are eager to deliver them into her hands.”
A caricature of a grim reaper flashed in my mind’s eye. “You left your child with her?”
“There was no other choice. She couldn’t travel with us, Conquest and I were the only members of her coterie then, and I refused to leave her to be raised in the ashes of my city by tutors imported from Otilla.” A sigh moved through him that lifted me too. “She would have been groomed to carry on your legacy. She would have been named the next Conquest.”
“It’s a hereditary title?” That raised all sorts of interesting questions about my birth parents. And it made me curious why Sariah wasn’t the next War. She couldn’t exactly be poised for her own reign of terror if she was already tagging along after her mother.
“It can be,” he allowed. “It’s rare for one of the cadre to mate so soon after beginning their ascension. The pregnancy almost killed Conquest. Otillian biology adapts quickly, but she wasn’t wholly converted when she discovered she was with child. She was too sick to continue, so the ascension stalled out waiting on her to recover. Afterwards, she was eager to leave, and she had no qualms about entrusting the child to her own tutors.”
“How is that possible?” Human pregnancies lasted nine months. Reptilian gestation periods varied, and that was the only point of reference I had for dragons. Boa constrictors, for example, are ovoviviparous. They give birth to live young. That sounded like what Cole was describing. If that was the case, the pregnancy might have only lasted four months. That would explain why her condition progressed too rapidly for them to risk moving on, but it didn’t explain the memory. “The child I saw was a toddler, two or three years old.”
“Offspring are rare for my people, and our world harsh. Each birth is celebrated as a divine blessing. Our children develop at an accelerated rate—mentally and physically—until they reach sexual maturity to give them the best chance of survival. After that, their growth normalizes.”
A thought struck me, and it left my ears ringing. “She’s an adult.”
“That changes nothing.” Bittersweet regret softened his features. “She’s still our child.”
An adult capable of defending herself struck me as more appealing than welcoming a child into our war, but she wasn’t our child. She belonged to Cole . . . and to Conquest. I wasn’t sure where that left me.
“Your bargain granted Death and her mate reprieve from Conquest.” I was thinking it through. “That means Conquest can’t harm them, likely me too, and neither can the coterie. Anything else?”
Cole must have already been reciting the verbiage to himself. His decisive nod came quickly.
“All right.” I looked to Wu. “The enemy of my enemy is still an asshole, but it will take a power to nuke Death if this bargain goes sideways.”
It was a testament to Wu’s quick mind that he caught on so fast. “Father.”
“Got it in one.” I dusted my hands. “If this goes south, she can be his problem. We’ll hand deliver her to him. I’ll tie the bow myself.”
A slow grin spread across his mouth. “All right.” He inclined his head. “Make your bargain.”
“Atruhadael.” I pegged him with a look. “It means mother.” I studied him. “How long have you known?”
“Until you triggered the full message,” Wu said, “I couldn’t be certain.” He shared a look with Cole. “The news about your daughter wasn’t mine to share, but I would have if he hadn’t been honest with you.”
The threat to his family coaxed a warning growl from Cole, but he didn’t tell Wu he was in the wrong.
“My brain is a minefield.” I stroked Cole’s arm, soothing him, while I spoke to Wu. “We’re all trying not to step on
the hot spot that makes me implode. I get that. I appreciate it even, but thank you for being willing to set off a few explosions when it matters.”
“That’s what partners are for,” he murmured, smiling when Cole renewed his rumbling.
Yep. Hormones or not, fifty percent of Wu’s attraction to me was in annoying Cole.
Climbing off Cole’s lap, I searched for Janardan and spotted him sitting in lotus position out in the shallow water. Wu stood as well, but he made no move to follow us. This was coterie business—no, it was family business. “Do the others know?”
“No.” Cole exhaled softly. “I was afraid she might be discovered and used as leverage against me.” His lips thinned. “I was on polite terms with the other cadre mates. Though meetings between all eight of us were rare, Janardan and I struck up a friendship.” A grim smile tugged up one corner of his mouth. “Conquest tried many times to cut him from my life, she hated the competition for my affection, that I actually liked him, but she couldn’t afford to alienate Death when theirs was a true mating.”
How surreal. Death and Janardan. Sittin’ in a tree apparently.
“Death never blabbed to Conquest?” That was the most remarkable thing to me.
“She values Janardan too highly to risk the advantage on what promised to be our final battlefield.”
“Why didn’t you give me a heads-up that Death might be an ally and not an enemy?”
“I prayed the bargain I struck with them would hold, but I wasn’t willing to risk you if Death had a change of heart. I would rather greet her with a sword at my hip and not have to pull it than meet her empty-handed and pay the ultimate price.”
When he put it like that, I couldn’t fault his logic. Better safe than sorry was my motto where the cadre was concerned as well, even if it still smarted to learn there was hope of a relationship with this final sibling when it was too late to prefer for such a possibility.
“Ah.” Janardan made to rise at our approach, but I indicated he could remain seated, and he nodded his thanks. “You have come to a decision?”
“First,” I said, just as calmly, “I have a question for you.”
“Of course.” He kept emoting serenity. “Ask.”
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