Chosen Mate

by Juniper Hart

  “It’s not for you to like,” Bryn lectured him. “I am in charge now, and you need to follow my directive.”

  “You are only in charge because we are ill,” Artemis reminded her, bitterness lacing his words.

  The sentence brought another question to Keppler’s mind. How had Bryn managed to escape the plague that seemed to have overtaken her brothers? She was smaller, which meant she was also less powerful than them. Wasn’t she?

  But that was a matter for another time. Keppler forced himself to watch the road as Bryn tried to basically explain the situation to her brothers.

  “The princes had nothing to do with our parents’ deaths,” she started, but there was a roar of denial as the three men began to squawk in protest.

  “Of course they did!”

  “Have they blinded you?”

  “If not them, then who was it?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Bryn answered. “But I will if you help us.”

  “I am not helping any Parker prince!”

  “You have betrayed us, Bryn!”

  “Stop this vessel at once!”

  Keppler ignored them, though he could see Bryn’s face twist into an expression of anger through his peripheral vision.

  “You will shut up and listen!” she ordered, her voice like whiplash. “If it wasn’t for me, you would all be fossilized in the barracks right now! Everything I have done, I have done for our family, so I suggest you heed what I’m saying.”

  A deep silence fell over the car, and Keppler felt a rush of pride. Bryn cleared her throat and continued.

  “The princes are not responsible for what happened,” she said. “I am telling you this as your blood and as someone who wishes to see our parents’ murderer face justice. I did not bring you here to listen to you squabble like infants, but to help us get to the bottom of what is going on.”

  Keppler’s cell began to chime, and he darted his eyes away from the road to glance at the dashboard.

  “Who is it?” Bryn asked nervously.

  “No one,” he said quickly, flipping the device face down so she wouldn’t read Wilder’s name on the screen. “Go ahead.” The ringing stopped, and Bryn turned back to her brothers.

  “You must think back to the time we spent in the palace. You were almost men then, while I was just a girl. Your memories of that time have to be clearer than mine.”

  “I remember,” Jace conceded, and Keppler felt the hairs on his neck rise in anticipation.

  “Good,” Bryn said. “I need you to recount everyone who was alive at the time, their names, their relationship inside the palace.”

  “There were so many!” Gregor groaned. “That will take days!”

  “You don’t have anywhere to be,” Bryn interjected, and Keppler swallowed a smile. The brothers fell into silence again, and Bryn settled back against the seat, eyeing Keppler. “I’m starting to think this might not have been such a good idea,” she muttered. “Maybe we should go to the sorceress. She has the ability to see the past.”

  “Asuncion is our last resort,” Keppler whispered, careful not to arouse the attention of his guests in the back seat. “Her prices are high.” He didn’t mean in a monetary sense, but that went without saying. Using the sorceress would be costly to everyone involved.

  “We’ll call that Plan B,” Bryn agreed, turning her raven hair to peer into the hazy San Francisco morning. Keppler could feel the stress emanating from her shoulders, but he knew it had less to do with the task at hand and more to do with the new arrivals.

  She was right; there was no semblance of the herculean men who had once padded through the palace with him and his brothers, ruling the Hollows. In their place was a group of weakened, petulant children who were completely out of touch with reality.

  If those were my brothers, broken and beaten, I would feel helpless, too, he thought. Knowing that there was nothing he could do for them filled him with hopelessness.

  The phone rang again, jarring Keppler’s nerves, and he couldn’t resist peeking at the screen.

  Castor. Why is he calling me like this so early in the morning?

  “Answer it,” Bryn urged, but he shook his head. Whatever Castor wanted would have to wait. He had Bryn and his brothers to worry about now.

  15

  The tabloid headline read, “Dragons: Myth or Reality?” followed by a picture of Chester and Alma in their prison clothing, looking wide-eyed and unbalanced.

  “Morons,” Keppler sighed, throwing the paper aside. Gregor snatched it up, his eyes wide with shock.

  “The mortals know about us?” he gasped. “When did this happen?”

  “It didn’t happen,” Bryn and Keppler answered together, exchanging a quick look. “This newspaper is called a gossip rag. It’s not real,” Bryn assured Gregor.

  Her brothers seemed nervous, and Bryn didn’t blame them. There was a reason she had left them in Greenland and not sent for them sooner. Without their powers, they were far too exposed anywhere else. Without their shifting abilities, they were no better than Neanderthals.

  The memory of how powerful they had once been was still fresh on Bryn’s mind, and it broke her heart to see that they, too, longed for the days of unlimited strength and no fear.

  This was a bad idea, she thought as Keppler went to take a phone call and left them inside his suite at the Saltwater Inn. Gregor was flipping through the TV channels while Artemis poked around on the computer with his two index fingers. Bryn felt like she was babysitting them all; except for Jace, who seemed to be brewing a cloud of venom as he stared out the window in silence.

  “What is this named?” Gregor asked, gesturing at the television.

  “Television,” Bryn reminded him. “You watched one on the airplane.”

  “Not like this!”

  “Cable,” she offered and turned her attention back to Jace. He concerned her the most. His coughing seemed to have amplified since they had returned from the airport, and she knew he needed a doctor, but she dared not bring up the idea. There was no explaining to her brothers that modern doctors were not what they used to be. Even in Nuuk, the physicians seemed primitive in comparison to what could be found in a nearby hospital.

  Cautiously, she approached Jace.

  “You need to eat something,” Bryn urged him. “You haven’t eaten since we got here.”

  “This is not food!” he scoffed, gesturing around the suite in disgust. “I can taste the poisons. The prince has brought us here to finish us!”

  “I brought you here,” Bryn said. “Do you think I would plot to kill my blood?”

  Jace glared at her. “I did not,” he replied shortly. “But I also did not foresee that you would align with the enemy, the very same you were sent to destroy.”

  Bryn was getting annoyed. “How many times do I have to explain to you that the princes are not the enemy? Think about it, Jace. If they wanted us dead, they would have killed us a long time ago, not waited five millennia to finish us off!”

  Her brother shot her a look oozing with distrust, but he didn’t answer, turning his face back toward the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. It was only then that his face seemed to soften, and Bryn realized that the water brought him a sense of peace.

  “’Tis too hot here,” Jace mumbled, as if he needed to have one last word spoken. Bryn grinned to herself.

  “You’re a dragon,” she told him gently. “The heat is in your blood.”

  Jace turned slowly to look at her with such sadness, her stomach flipped sickeningly. “Am I?”

  The sliding door opened and Keppler re-entered the apartment, saving Bryn from having to answer, though she could not shake the permeable misery seeping into her bones.

  So what if I manage to avenge us? she thought with anguish. They will never get back what they have lost.

  Keppler’s eyes rested on hers, and she stared at him, trying to keep her chin from quivering.

  “Are you okay?” he asked softly as he reached her side. “Wha
t happened?”

  “Nothing,” Bryn answered, blinking away her frustration before it could materialize in the way of tears. “Who was on the phone?”

  “I need to get back to the Hollows for a bit,” Keppler said, which wasn’t exactly an answer to her question. “There seems to be a situation, and I need to deal with it.”

  Bryn’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of situation?”

  “You have enough to worry about without adding to your stress,” Keppler replied, gathering her in his arms. He placed a gentle kiss on her lips, seemingly oblivious to the stares of her brothers. “I won’t be gone long,” he promised, but the shadow in his eyes told her differently.

  “Keppler, what are you planning?” Bryn demanded. “Who was on the phone?”

  He kissed her again, but Bryn suspected it was more to silence her than as a sign of affection. She accepted it anyway, knowing she wasn’t going to get more from him than what he had already told her.

  “Hurry back,” she sighed with resignation, shooting her gaze toward the gaping men in their midst. “I can’t guarantee I’ll keep it together without you.”

  “See if you can’t pick their brains now that they’ve been here a couple days,” Keppler said quietly. “See what they remember, if anything. They seem to be adjusting and letting their guards down.”

  Artemis and Gregor are, she thought. Jace is still very far away. “All right,” she agreed. “But I’m not promising anything.”

  Keppler smiled wryly and kissed the top of her head before turning to her brothers.

  “I’ve gotta go to the—” He abruptly stopped his sentence, as if he realized his words might cause an uproar. “I’ve gotta go out for a bit. You guys need anything while I’m gone?” They shook their heads, glowering. Jace, however, continued staring at the water, like he hadn’t spoken at all. Keppler shrugged his shoulders in defeat. “Okay. Text me if you think of anything.”

  And then he was gone. Bryn’s brothers nearly pounced on her as soon as he was out the door.

  “He is courting you?” Gregor asked.

  “How long has this been occurring?” questioned Artemis.

  Bryn wished Keppler had not produced such a display of affection before leaving her there to answer for it. They had purposely kept their distance until that moment; Bryn knew exactly how her brothers would react to her being with a Parker prince.

  “Times have changed,” she told them for what felt like the hundredth time in two days. “It is none of your concern.”

  “Have you married him?” Gregor demanded, and the question was enough to turn Jace’s attention back inside the room. He began to cough again, loud and spastically, as if the news was making him sicker.

  “Jace, please sit down!” Bryn cried in a panic, noting his face tinging blue with the effort. The others rushed to guide him.

  “Breathe, breathe,” Artemis encouraged as Gregor ran for a glass of water. Finally, Jace’s fit of coughing subsided, and he flopped against the sofa, his face beading with sweat.

  “How long has he been like this?” Bryn yelled. “He is desperately sick!”

  “A year?” Gregor guessed.

  His apparent nonchalance made Bryn furious. “Why didn’t you send for me?”

  “What could you have done?” Artemis snapped. “We are all on our way out. It is what the princes wanted for us all along, to die slowly and painfully.”

  Bryn didn’t like how resigned he sounded. It made fear course through her body, and she shook her head vehemently.

  “No one is dying!” she exclaimed, glaring at them. “And the princes were not responsible!” She wondered why she continued to have the same argument with them when it was clearly falling on deaf ears. There was only one way to show them that the princes had not been responsible, and that was by finding out who was. “Drink,” she ordered Jace, pushing the water toward him. “You’re seeing a doctor, whether or not you like it.”

  Jace opened his mouth to protest, but Bryn only shoved the water down his throat, silencing him as he sputtered on the liquid.

  “Put your shoes on,” she said, and Jace stared at her defiantly.

  “I will not go—”

  Without warning, Bryn’s face shifted, and she exhaled a guttural, furious roar, smoke wafting from her wild, iridescent nostrils. Her three brothers jumped in unison, apparently forgetting that there was still one of them with the capability to shift. They fell back as she glowered at them, her yellow eyes glimmering with irritation.

  “Get. Your. Shoes.” The growl was unmistakable, ominous, and left no room for argument.

  The men scrambled to obey, tripping over themselves as they kept her in their peripheral vision. Bryn slowly permitted herself to shift back into her mortal shape, clenching her jaw in frustration. Why do I have to resort to threatening them? she asked herself, shaking her head as they fell into line.

  “We are prepared to leave,” Gregor announced begrudgingly, and Bryn nodded curtly.

  “Good.” She gestured at the doorway and then marched outside, watching as her brothers followed behind her in single file. She couldn’t help feeling slightly pleased at the sight.

  It’s taken thousands of years, she thought, but I finally have the respect of my brothers.

  Yet at the same time, she was sad that it had to come at such a cost.

  The line-up to the free clinic was longer than Bryn had ever seen it, and she grunted, looking at her cell for the tenth time.

  “What hell is this?” Jace muttered, his question interrupted by another bout of coughing. Bryn had to agree with him.

  I could call on my emergency doctor, the one we have in case heists go wrong, she thought, chewing on her lower lip. But he’s a stitch doctor, not a real x-rays and test kinda guy. Maybe the hospital will be better. She doubted her own thoughts.

  “How much longer must we remain?” Gregor bemoaned, and Bryn suppressed the urge to lash out at him.

  “Why don’t you try to think of some information that will be useful to our cause?” she suggested like she was their preschool teacher, thinking of fun games to keep them entertained. Or their mother.

  “It was so long ago,” Artemis whined. Bryn whipped her head around to glare at him.

  “I have more pressing issues than your comfort at the moment!” she snapped. “In case you haven’t noticed, our brother is ill!”

  “I daresay that sitting here among the infected is not helping his cause,” Gregor piped in, and Bryn chewed on her cheeks to keep from screaming at him. She knew he had a good point. Besides, would a human doctor really be able to help him? What if his test results revealed something about his dragon DNA?

  There’s only one place we can go right now that will ensure he is cared for immediately, she thought, glancing around at the mortals who hacked and moaned around them. If they were sick, too, and Jace’s immune system was compromised, she figured it was best to figure out a plan B. She glanced at the cell in her hand, clucking her tongue. She should probably text Keppler and tell him what she was planning, but then the image of his distracted face popped into her mind, and she shook the idea away.

  He’s got a lot on his plate right now without worrying about what we’re doing, she reasoned, but a big part of her also feared that, if he knew of her plans, he would try to stop her.

  Again, loud, spasmodic coughs wracked Jace’s body, and he quivered with pain, trying to catch his breath. A mild panic jolted through Bryn, and she made up her mind, jumping to her feet.

  “Where are you going?” Gregor asked, looking up at her in surprise. “You were insistent on staying lest they called upon us.”

  “We’re leaving and going somewhere else,” she replied, waving them to their feet as Jace’s coughing subsided. He seemed uneasy when he rose.

  “Where?” he asked. “You said yourself that all of these clinics are all like this.”

  “I know one which won’t be,” Bryn insisted. “Come on.” Her three brothers glanced at her. To her
relief, they followed her as she led them away from the waiting room.

  “Miss! You can’t leave!” the nurse called to her from the reception area. “You’ll lose your spot.”

  “It’s fine,” Bryn said dismissively. “We’re not coming back.”

  As they exited onto the humid street, Bryn felt an unexpected chill at her own words, a strange sense of foreboding. Were they truly not coming back?

  She pushed the thought aside, grabbing Jace’s arm as he swooned slightly, the movements apparently too much for him.

  “Bryn, where are you taking us?” he murmured, as if he could sense the tension she was experiencing in her body through their contact. “Why are you so grim?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she reassured him. “You’re going to be fine. You have to trust me.”

  Jace stopped walking and stared at her, his inky eyes widening. He must have realized what she meant.

  “No!” he whispered, shooting his oblivious brothers a look. “You mustn’t!”

  “Things have changed dramatically,” Bryn told him flatly. “The population has tripled. No one will notice us.”

  “Bryn, if we’re caught—”

  “We won’t be,” she said, “and this is what we have to do, Jace. Nothing you can say will change my mind.”

  Brother and sister peered at each other, but Bryn could see he had relented. His desire to survive outweighed his will to fight, even if Bryn’s plan could cost them all their lives.

  “Come on,” she urged again, tugging on his arm. “I know a fairly discrete access a few hours from here.”

  “Access?” Artemis echoed. “Access to what?”

  Bryn sighed heavily, wishing he hadn’t heard. “Access to the Hollows.”

  16

  “How long have you been betraying our family?”

  The question was simple, and it was spoken almost casually. It also filled Keppler with a dread like he’d never felt. His four brothers smiled at him pleasantly, waiting for a response. Keppler was not a fool—their demeanor did not match the sense of animus oozing through the dining hall. For a fleeting moment, he considered rising and excusing himself, but he knew he wouldn’t get very far.