He carefully extracted himself from under Clarissa and reached for his phone, moving into his library and closing the door before placing the call so that he wouldn’t wake her. When his friend answered, he got straight to it.
“Wallace, I have a favor to ask.” He explained how he wanted to meet the doppelgänger.
“I’ll get them here. I’ll be in touch with a place and time,” Wallace said in his typical no-nonsense tone.
Once his old friend ended the call, Nathaniel reached for his tarot cards.
“Tell me about the queen of Paragon.” He dealt his usual spread. The ten of wands stood out immediately. “Oppression,” he said, and it was related to the four of swords. The card could have many meanings, but the one his mind attached to was coffin or tomb. Perhaps his mother’s death, the literal oppression of her life. The other cards in the spread seemed to enforce something more though. Oppression due to her death? Perhaps the new queen was exceptionally cruel. The last card in the spread was the Wheel of Fortune. He sat down hard in his chair. Were the cards suggesting it was his destiny to set things right? He swept the cards back into his hand.
He was getting ahead of himself. One step at a time. He would meet this doppelgänger and see if she could provide clarity in the interpretation of Grindylow’s words.
His phone buzzed in his hand. A text from Wallace.
My office. 1 pm.
After a glorious breakfast, most of which was spent with Clarissa on his lap, Nathaniel explained his plan to his new mate. She enthusiastically agreed it was the best place to start.
Several hours later, he escorted her to Peter’s office. The warm wood paneling and heavy mahogany desk was as welcoming as the man who greeted them both with a tight hug. “My dear friend, it is a pleasure indeed to see you again.”
“You too, Wallace.”
“And you, Clarissa. I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but I’d wondered if you’d return to us. I am relieved to see you back in the fold.” He embraced her with a steady thump to her back before releasing her.
“No offense taken. I’m glad to hear you’re in good health.”
Nathaniel took a seat with his back to the door, Clarissa next to him. “So, where is this mysterious book and the owners you mentioned?”
“On their way,” Wallace said.
There was a knock on the open door and they all turned. Nathaniel almost fell out of his chair when he saw who stood in the doorway. His dragon twisted. His senses snapped to attention, his nose attempting to confirm what his eyes were showing him. It had been centuries, but his sister hadn’t changed all that much.
“Ms. Valor. Thank you for coming,” Wallace said.
Nathaniel’s jaw worked uselessly, his gaze locked with the dark-haired woman in the doorway. Finally his voice gave way with one breathy word that escaped his lips. “Rowan?”
“By the Mountain!” She ran to him and hugged him as hard and as certainly as she had when they were kids. She kissed him firmly on the cheek. “Nathaniel!”
When the hug broke, he looked at her in confusion. “What are you doing here?”
She opened her mouth to speak but paused when another woman appeared in the doorway. Nathaniel’s voice failed him again. It was Clarissa. Younger than she was now and with the natural black hair she once had as a young woman.
The newcomer’s gaze darted between each of them and then locked on Clarissa.
“Oh my… You’re Clarissa. Like the Clarissa! I have all your music!” She held out her hand, and Clarissa shook it robotically, staring at the woman with an expression of shocked silence. “Believe it or not, people say I look like you.”
Rowan turned to the young woman, “This is my associate, Avery Tanglewood.”
Clarissa finally found her voice. “It’s nice to meet you. You, uh, you do look…” She trailed off, her lips parting.
Rowan grabbed Avery’s elbow. “Avery, this is my brother Nathaniel.”
Peter Wallace straightened. “Brother?”
All Nathaniel could do was repeat himself. “What are you doing here?” He felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under him and he was falling fast and hard toward the floor.
Rowan grabbed his hands like an anchor in a tumultuous sea. “We were wrong, Nathaniel, about everything. We don’t need to stay apart. So much has happened. Please, come with us. There’s something we need to show you.”
Nathaniel didn’t understand, but he nodded his head. He reached for Clarissa’s hand. She was still staring at Avery like she was entranced. Shocked silent, he moved to follow Rowan from the small office.
“B-but what about the book?” Wallace asked before they could leave.
They all turned to him for a beat. Nathaniel had to blink a few times before he remembered what his friend was talking about.
He exchanged glances with Rowan before admitting, “I am fairly sure I wrote it.”
Rowan gave Wallace a warm smile and shrugged. “Keep it.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Clarissa tried to concentrate on what Rowan was saying but her mind kept fading in and out. This was important. Nathaniel’s mother was still alive and ruling Paragon. The queen now called herself empress and had masterminded the coup that had exiled the dragon siblings.
They’d returned to a flat in London where Rowan claimed she had something Nathaniel had to see. That something was actually a someone. Clarissa met Rowan’s mate, Nick, who was a giant of a human and greeted her with a warm hug and a thick New York accent. She’d also met Nathaniel’s brother, Alexander, who was thin for a dragon and whose rumpled T-shirt and jeans told her he was possibly less refined than his siblings. He’d introduced his mate, Maiara, whose quiet disposition left Clarissa with more questions than answers.
But as they all gathered around a table in the dining room, it was Avery she couldn’t stop staring at in absolute wonder. It wasn’t just that the woman looked like her. Clarissa felt the strangest sense of connection, like she’d known her for a very long time even though they’d just met.
“Here’s a picture of Raven,” Avery said, holding out her phone.
Clarissa perused the screen. Raven’s build was less curvy than her own and Avery’s but she still looked enough like Clarissa one might assume they were related. Sisters. Was this who Grindylow had been referring to?
“Where is Raven now?” Clarissa asked in a whisper, not wanting to interrupt the conversation between Rowan and Nathaniel.
Avery threaded her fingers. “She’s a prisoner of Paragon. Aborella abducted her along with Gabriel and Tobias the day after the baby was born. She’s been gone two weeks now.”
“Baby?” Clarissa asked.
“Yes.” Avery smiled. “Gabriel and Raven have a child.”
Clarissa’s hand shot out and squeezed Nathaniel’s arm. He’d just discussed with her how the mating of a dragon and a witch was illegal in Paragon and how the greater fear there was that the offspring of such a union would be too powerful to allow to live. A sick feeling wormed its way into her gut. Gabriel was a dragon. Raven was a witch. Had Avery really just said they’d had a baby?
Nathaniel turned narrowed eyes on Avery, and the dining room went eerily silent. “Did you say baby?”
Nick chuckled. “I never get tired of the look on people’s faces.”
Rowan gave him a hard nudge.
Avery stood and motioned for them to follow. She led them through the kitchen and into the living room where a fire burned in a sleek, modern-looking fireplace despite it being a warm day in summer. There, in the fire, was what Clarissa could only describe as an egg, although it was unlike any she’d ever seen before. Slightly bigger than her head, it had a bumpy exterior as if it were made from a wound string of pearls interrupted by a ribbon of smooth shell that spiraled from top to bottom. The entire thing pulsed with teal light.
Clarissa placed her hands on her hips and opened her mouth to speak, but the words caught in her throat. Her hands slid off. She pl
anted them again. They slid off again. “Is that… a … um?”
Nathaniel held her by the shoulders. “It’s a dragon egg.”
“Half witch, half dragon,” Rowan said, “to be exact. We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, so we’re calling them Li’l Puff.”
Nathaniel’s eyes widened. “And Aborella captured Gabriel’s mate, who is a witch?”
Rowan nodded. “Along with Gabriel and Tobias.”
“Does Mother know about the baby?” Nathaniel asked. Clarissa didn’t miss the ice that had slid in behind his gray eyes or the menace in his tone.
“We don’t know,” Rowan said, her fingers finding Nick’s beside her.
Behind the two, Alexander wrapped Maiara more tightly in his arms. The sick feeling was back, and Nathaniel confirmed her fears.
“It’s forbidden,” Nathaniel mumbled to her. “They are all in great danger, and if Mother finds out about this baby, so are we.”
The fire danced around the egg. Through the smooth strip of shell, Clarissa glimpsed a silhouette shift inside. A baby, by a witch and a dragon, just like her and Nate. Her heart ached. She had to protect this little one. She squeezed Nathaniel’s hand.
“Grindylow mentioned three sisters,” she mumbled, thinking about Raven. Nathaniel focused on her in that intense way that always made her feel like the center of the universe.
“It has to be you, Avery, and Raven,” Nathaniel said. “Avery found us. Just as she predicted.”
“Who’s Grindylow?” Rowan asked.
Nathaniel raised one finger toward his sister. “What is it, Clarissa?” He must have noticed her frown.
“I was just thinking about what Grindylow said… Raven was captured two weeks ago. My power was taken after she was captured.” Clarissa turned toward Avery. “Did you lose your power too?”
All the light drained from Avery’s eyes and she shook her head. “I was never a witch. I have no power.”
Clarissa looked at Nathaniel in confusion and he shrugged. “Well, I am…” Clarissa corrected herself. “…I used to be a powerful witch until someone stole my magic. A strange redheaded woman plucked a hair from my head just before it happened.”
Avery bristled. “What did the woman look like?”
“Tall, sophisticated.”
“Did she seem too perfect? Like she’d had extensive plastic surgery?”
“Yes, now that you mention it.”
Avery lowered herself to the sofa. “That’s Aborella. The same illusion she used when she was controlling me.”
Rowan moved closer to the fire. Nick didn’t seem happy to let her go, and Alexander’s and Maiara’s expressions were murderous. Whoever this Aborella was, she was hated among this crew. “Nathaniel, you’ve always understood magic better than the rest of us. What do you think’s going on here?”
Nathaniel reached into his pocket and pulled out his pipe, lighting it up and sending a ring of smoke toward the fireplace. “Clarissa, Avery, and Raven don’t just look alike.” Nathaniel cast her a glance and Clarissa nodded, reassuring him it was okay to share. “Clarissa and I visited an oracle recently. A very dangerous but very powerful demon oracle. It is known her words are never untrue, although they’re sometimes open to interpretation.”
Avery was rocking slowly now, her arms wrapped around her waist as if bracing herself for something horrible. “What did she say? Is my sister d-dead?”
Clarissa shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”
“She said the three of you are sisters and that Mother and Aborella took Clarissa’s power and presumably Raven’s by unbinding you from one another.”
There it was. Clarissa hugged herself against the tension that rose in the room.
“Sisters?” Avery said, spreading her hands. “Raven and I are sisters, a year apart. Clarissa just looks like us.”
A ring of smoke blew over their heads, two smaller rings poking through its center. “I think it might be a metaphysical sisterhood. You are practically doppelgängers. Perhaps Grindylow was referring to a sisterhood in the magical sense rather than true heredity.”
That seemed to unsettle Avery, and she stared at Clarissa with a strange sort of wonder. “How old are you, Clarissa?”
She balked. “Rude!”
Avery blushed and shook her head. “Raven and I are twenty-three and twenty-four. I was just wondering if there was any chance… You see, our father is kind of an asshole.”
“Thirty. And no. My parents were killed in a car accident when I was baby. I don’t know much about them, but I was told I was their only child.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Rowan ran her hand along the mantel, frowning. “Nathaniel, what makes you so sure Raven is still alive? I want to believe they are, but after what Mother and Brynhoff did to Marius…”
“Grindylow told us Clarissa could get her power back if we bound the sisters again. If that’s a possibility, she must be alive.”
Rowan let out a relieved breath. “Then Mother probably hasn’t killed Gabriel or Tobias either.”
“Who knows how long that will last?” Avery said, becoming agitated and pacing behind the sofa. “If Raven is still alive, we have to get her back.”
“I agree,” Nathaniel said.
Rowan’s gaze grew hard. “You do? But there’s not enough of us. We can’t take on the Obsidian Guard. Even if we find Xavier, Sylas, and Colin, we’ll need help on the inside to free them.”
Nathaniel leaned an elbow on the mantel and stared into the fire. “No, we can’t take them by force. Thankfully, we won’t have to.”
“What are you talking about?” Alexander’s interest in the conversation seemed to have grown.
“I know Mother’s magic. With some planning and stealth, I can get us into the palace unseen. I am the only one who can slip through the wards. The guard won’t expect it. They don’t staff the interior of the palace like they do the grounds. With any luck, we can slip in, find them, and get out before anyone knows they’re missing.”
Alexander scratched the side of his jaw. “When you say you know Mother’s magic? What exactly do you mean?”
With a wave of his hand, Nathaniel disappeared and reappeared across the room. He took a puff from his pipe and blew out a smoke ring that expanded and dropped down the walls. A second later, they were all standing in a dark wood. The couch had become a log and the fireplace a campfire. Nick swore, and Maiara said something in a language Clarissa didn’t know.
Tiny bugs bounced off her skin. Clarissa smelled pine and smoke from the campfire. An owl hooted in the distance. And then with a wave of his hand and a flash of his amethyst ring, it was all gone.
“I mean that while you all were learning to be warriors or princesses”—he looked pityingly at Rowan—“Mother was teaching me magic. I helped her write her grimoire. And if what you say is true about her…” He looked at Clarissa. “…and she’s actually behind what Aborella did to my mate, she should be very afraid of me. I know her vulnerabilities, and I will exploit every one of them.”
Nathaniel Clarke was a dragon, a dark menace of power and magic, but Clarissa had rarely seen this side of him. Until now. His eyes were burning purple, and she thought in that instant that if she were Eleanor, Dragon Queen of Paragon, she’d be very afraid. Very afraid indeed.
“Now, as pleasant as this flat is, I’d like to invite you all back to Mistwood Manor to stay until we can make a plan for retrieving our brethren. It will be safer there.” His gaze fixed on the egg. “For all of us.”
The rage welling within Nathaniel was almost impossible for him to contain. He hadn’t believed Rowan at first. Their mother was still alive? How could that be? But his sister wasn’t given to speaking untruths. And once he’d seen Alexander and heard their story, it was clear that everything he’d believed about Paragon the past three hundred years was a lie.
The hardest part was thinking the worst of his mother. She’d been kind to him, always. He was her favorite. They’d spe
nt hours together in his youth, perfecting spells. Part of him still hoped that maybe there had been some mistake or she’d been compelled to do the things she’d done.
Grindylow didn’t lie though, and the oracle had specifically implicated the dragon queen in her answer. If his mother was still alive and she was still on the throne, she was queen no matter what she called herself. Considering his mate had lost her magic soon after Gabriel, Raven, and Tobias had been captured, it was relatively clear his mother was responsible. She’d survived the coup that resulted in Marius’s death and had intentionally never contacted any of them. She’d been involved in cursing Clarissa. There was no scenario where Eleanor was still in power, responsible for what happened to his mate and his siblings, and somehow was the same sweet woman who’d taught him magic.
Although he would love a proper explanation for all that and desperately wished he could confront his mother and Brynhoff about it all, he understood this wasn’t the time. His first priority was his mate, and rescuing Gabriel, Tobias, and Raven was the first step to making her whole.
“Welcome to Mistwood,” he said to his siblings. “Rowan and Nick, my oread Tempest will show you to your room. Alexander and Maiara, please follow Laurel.”
The oreads blinked into sight and led their guests toward the second floor.
Nathaniel turned toward Avery. “If you’ll follow Clarissa and me, your room is across from ours.” He didn’t miss how Clarissa beamed up at him when he said “ours.” Did she think he’d tolerate her sleeping in her old room now that they were mated? Not likely.
Clarissa’s phone buzzed, and she withdrew it from her pocket. “It’s Tom again. I need to respond or he won’t stop texting me.”
“Take your time.” He kissed Clarissa’s temple and watched her stroll off toward the library. Once she was out of sight, he turned toward Avery and lifted her suitcase. “This way. I’ll show you to your room.”
She was still holding the egg in a portable incubator. Nathaniel reached for it to help her, but she shook her head. “I’ve got it.”
The Dragon of Cecil Court Page 16