by Kelsey Soliz
“I think sex hangover is a thing you guys.”
“No, that was probably the four bottles of wine we polished off.”
I groaned as I felt the tell-tale sign of an actual hangover. Too proud to admit it though, I stuck with my story.
“Nope. Pretty sure your cocks did this to me.”
At the mention of the word cock, Declan’s sprung to life behind me.
“Woah, down boy. I think I’m sore in places I didn’t even know existed yesterday.”
Declan rolled on top of me, taking stock of me from head to toe.
“Bath?”
“Oh God, yes please. Pretty sure it’s big enough for at least two of you to join me.”
After all four of us squished in together and got real pruny, we knocked back a pot of coffee and dug into the fresh pastries that kept appearing. There was plenty of hot food prepared too and the guys loaded my plate up with protein and I kept finding places to stuff the food into. I was ravenous.
“Damn girl. We must not be feeding you enough. I think you just out-ate me.” Lander looked honestly surprised.
Thankful I hadn’t put pants on yet, I just leaned back in my chair and pulled my robe tightly around me, rubbing my food baby contentedly.
“I’m telling you, you destroyed me last night. Had to replenish all the energy you took.”
Declan gave me a little side eye as I rubbed my stomach, and I realized what it probably looked like.
“your fault I have a food baby. Also, your fault I now have to show it off in that RIDICULOUS bikini. Tomorrow is our last day and I am not leaving the beach today. None of you can make me. Got to soak this up while I can.”
I felt Declan’s mind slip into mine, gently nudging me as I acknowledged it.
Just kind of sexy seeing you rub your stomach like that. Makes me think about what else would make you do that.
You mean like an actual baby?
Yeah, I do. I know we talked about you wanting to wait, and that’s still completely okay. I’m just looking forward to seeing you round with our child.
About that…
We were interrupted when Maalik came back into the room, a little bit of panic on his face.
“What’s up man?”
“Maybe nothing, but I’ve been trying to touch bases with our parents the past few days just to check in, and I haven’t been able to. Today is Saturday, there’s no way they’d be so busy they couldn't at least pick up the phone. I just have this feeling that something’s off. They never avoid our calls.”
“That is weird. You’ve tried the land line too?”
“Yeah, I just did. It didn’t even ring. It just gave that irritating busy signal. I’ve been trying all morning, trying to hold off from freaking out but I’m worried they might be in trouble.”
I perked up at this, remembering the awful visions I’d had before the weddings of the kingdom in disarray and under control of a witch.
“Maybe we should head back early? Was there anything going on when we left that would make you nervous?”
The guys all looked at each other sheepishly and I knew I was onto something.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Declan pulled me onto his lap. “Well, you know that we put Adyson under lock and key, in the cells that are supposed to be top notch security and strength. When you were with Maalik overnight before Lander’s claiming, it was brought to our attention that she, well, disappeared…”
I sucked in a breath, instant panic crashing over me as I recalled how twisted she was and everything she had said to me. She had some plans that didn’t align with ours. This was my kingdom, damnit. She had already tried to take it away from me once, I’ll be damned if I would let it happen again.
“We would have told you, Isles, but we didn’t want to taint your wedding day or bonding ceremony, then when we got here, I guess we kind of forgot…are you very mad for keeping it from you?”
I looked up at Declan, processing what he had said. Was I mad? No, I understood why he hadn’t told me. It wasn’t necessarily to protect me or because they thought I couldn’t handle it, it was because they wanted me to get every happiness I could.
“I’m not mad, love. I’m assuming we don’t know how she escaped or where she went?”
Atticus piped in next. “Somebody must have infiltrated the guards. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Her cell wasn’t broken, no magical residue or any signs of breakage. It was simply open and empty.”
“Right. Her mom was a mage, right? Does that mean Adyson has powers like her? That vision I had of her back at the house…you don’t think that’s what we’ll be walking into, do you? The kingdom destroyed and your parents captive? She was so powerful…she had this like force field around her.”
“Couldn’t be.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Declan rubbed his neck, something I was realizing he did when he was a little stressed out. “In your vision, what were we doing, hmm?”
“She had the four of you chained…”
“Exactly. You have us, don’t you? You must have seen one possible outcome. As for her powers…mage powers work a little differently. Her mother was born with them, but it’s not like dragons where we inherit things from our parents. She’s not guaranteed to have anything naturally, if she did then she likely would have used something on you when she got you. Instead, she resorted to barbaric techniques that required no finesse.”
“So you think she’s just human? Why did she seem so powerful in my vision then?”
“When I started digging around for histories of our kingdom to teach, I read quite a bit about the curse. I told you that I decided to help the kingdom in other ways, yeah? I let them take over in looking for you and I focused my energies on the legacy that I could perpetuate in the minds of the next generation. If they couldn’t shift, I wanted them to know everything about where our kingdom came from.
The curse that was enacted, the mage that performed them was a rare natural born magic wielder. Her father was from Nogalia, which meant he was a shifter. Her mother came from one of our neighboring countries, Manett. Manett’s legacy is magic, raw and pure.
Legends think that we get our shifting magic from a mage that was born there centuries ago. Everyone born there with natural magic has different abilities, and for the most part it is a very quiet, very peaceful country, not unlike Nogalia. Their leaders are strong and respected, and for the most part people that can wield magic from there only do so for a non-evil purpose. The rulers have incredibly strong bloodlines and lots of protective charms are in place so that no one can get out of control and cause harm.”
“Then how did…what was her name? The mage that enacted the curse?”
The guys all looked like they were sweating bullets at the mention of her, one of them whispered the name ‘Soren’ under his breath.
“Soren?”
They all inhaled quickly, shaking their heads.
“Okay, is this like Harry Potter where we don’t use the evil one’s name? Doesn’t that just give her more power?”
Maalik’s voice gentled as he explained. “It was a terrible time for the kingdom, Isla. We know that using her name can’t actually cause any harm but there was so much widespread panic…heartbreak, madness. For the first time in our kingdom’s history, a small faction of people actually rebelled against the throne.
They tried to hurt our family, because they thought it was our fault. They thought that if we had just given into…Soren’s….demands, that they would have retained their shifting abilities.”
“But that’s bullshit. Someone that had such dark intentions never would have just given up her plans because the rulers were willing to work with her. If they had, she likely would have just taken more from our country, from your family.”
“We know that, a lot of Nogalia knew that, but people were looking for someone to blame. Grief doesn’t always make us choose the most level-headed routes.”
“Hmm. Okay. So, Soren was an evil bitch. If Manett’s people are generally peaceful, how did they produce someone so awful? How was her power left unchecked and allowed to grow?”
Declan wrapped his arms tighter around me, giving me the comfort I really needed as I sought out the hard answers. When he spoke, I could feel the vibrations from his voice translating through to me and it was soothing.
“Nogalia and Manett have always had a special relationship. Being that we are believed to have descended from them at one point, and being that we are the only two countries known to possess magic, we have accords with them, treaties. Humans are affected by the wards in our borders and airport, so they don’t want to be here, have no desire to stay if they even manage to make it in.
Manett’s citizens are granted access with permission, but they have to formally declare their business before they're granted passage. Being that Soren’s father was a shifter, and there was no hard reason to turn her down, Soren had every right to settle here when she started feeling limited in Manett.
The country’s leaders must have sensed when she began to grow more powerful, and that her powers started to have less-than-good intentions. They would have tried to cuff her so they could control her reach in order to keep the country safe and peaceful.”
“Surely no one would willingly be cuffed though, right? How do they grow their powers? Aren’t they born with what they get?”
“Not necessarily. There are certain…things…one can do to raise the power threshold. Such things tend to be quite unsavory however, and are usually illegal.”
“Like what?”
“Like animal sacrifices…power theft from another mage, there is a dark history that suggests there are runes they can use to bring about greater powers but it usually requires a sacrifice from the power wielder as well.”
“So does that mean that Adyson could possibly do the same?”
“Unfortunately, yes. She has the magic in her blood, but because her mother was only half mage, she wouldn’t be full blooded mage even if her father was. That means her powers would be unreliable and would require quite a bit of work in order to fully manifest, if they ever could.
When people from Manett choose to marry or have children with someone from outside the country’s borders or with somebody that isn’t full blooded mage, they do so knowing that the resulting child wouldn’t ever gain full magic abilities. Most people don’t care, because the heart wants what it wants. The child would still have some magic, just not as much as their full-blooded parent.”
“Okay, so do we know who Adyson’s father was? What are the chances of her gaining even a fraction of the powers her mother had?”
“There’s speculation but no one knows for certain. Soren had an illicit affair with one of the heirs to the Manett throne, but he was engaged at the time and she was said to be unfaithful. He cast her aside to marry his intended, and that’s about the time her powers grew and she was cast out or escaped to Nogalia.”
“Okay, so that would mean Adyson had some pretty powerful magical blood then, right? If her father was a royal? How did Soren ever achieve such powerful magic if she wasn’t full blooded then?”
Lander reached out for my hand, threading them together to bring us a little closer. “She had to have committed unspeakable acts to get to where she did. Had she been full-blooded then the curse she cast upon Noglia likely wouldn’t have ended her. She went beyond her abilities and paid the ultimate price for getting too power hungry.”
“So Adyson could, in theory, get to her level?”
“She could, but it would take a bit of time and a lot of dark acts. I don’t believe she has gotten very far on her journey though, she may be getting desperate since her plans thus far have failed. Maybe she didn’t realize the time and sacrifice it would take for her to get to her mother’s level, maybe she was proud and thinks that she can gain the power quickly, we’re not sure. No one could get any answers from her, and in your experience with her she seemed perfectly human, right?”
“Right. So, worse case scenario she has minor control over some underdeveloped powers?”
“That’s kind of what we think. It’s possible she has other help, but it would be hard to fly under the radar if she did. That kind of magic development tends to broadcast itself and my parents would have felt it brewing. That’s not to say she isn’t capable of other heinous tasks, even full humans commit horrors that no one should ever experience.”
I thought about this for a minute, knowing it was true. How many times had I turned off the news because of all the sickos out there?
“So what do we do?”
“I know this is supposed to be our honeymoon, Isla, but would you very much hate if we had to leave early?”
Maalik was kneeling in front of me now, his eyes pleading with me. I hadn’t seen him terrified like this before, I knew that none of us would be able to relax anyway.
“If you think your parents need us, then we need to go. I’ve already lost my parents, I will do whatever it takes to keep my new family safe. If Adyson had touched a single hair on their heads, she’ll have five badass dragons to deal with.”
“If Adyson is behind this, she clearly waited for us to be gone because she knew we were a threat. You hadn’t shifted yet when we left but she likely didn’t want to wait for your full powers to come in.”
“How soon can we take off?”
Declan eased me off his lap, stretching as he pulled out his phone to start making calls.
“I’ll call for a boat to get here asap, then contact the airport our jet is waiting at. We should be on our way by dinnertime if you think it’s doable.”
Maalik wrapped me in his arms, fusing our bodies together. “Thank you, Isla. I know how excited you were for this honeymoon, you have no idea what it means to us that you’re giving up your last days here to help our family.”
I pulled back to kiss him and look in his eyes. “They’re my family now too, near about all I have left. They’ve been nothing but good to me and they’ve given me all of you. I’m not ready to take control of that country yet, and your parents have way too much life to experience yet. We’ll get them Maalik, no matter what it takes.”
I felt Lander come up and wrap around my back, and I eased into the comfort they offered. I was scared, sure, but this time I wasn’t human and I knew a little better what to expect.
“So you said dragons heal faster, right? Anything else about my new body I should expect?”
“Yeah, but lets pack and we can talk about it on the plane.”
I leaned back to kiss Lander on the cheek and then we all spread out to start gathering our things. I would miss this place, but we had created so many good memories in the short time we were here and I was returning with my men and my dragon. I couldn’t be upset about that.
Thirteen
A few hours later we were finally on the plane, relaxing after the hectic afternoon had passed in a whirlwind of packing and plan making. We still hadn’t gotten a hold of their parents, but we had come into contact with a few of the palace guards and they had expressed similar concerns when the monarchs couldn’t be tracked down.
To my understanding, usually Saturdays were spent however they chose, often away from official duties and relaxing. It wasn’t abnormal for them to be occupied somewhere away from the palace, they had a vacation home elsewhere they often visited to escape the public eye when they wanted to, but it was abnormal that they’d up and go without notifying security.
Hearing the guys communicate with different royal officials made me realize how prepared they were to run this country when the time came. They were all perfectly at ease and completely knowledgeable in every aspect of leadership that was addressed. I was getting more and more nervous as time passed and we hadn’t heard from his parents, and we got even more concerned when search parties that had been dispersed never returned to report back.
I hadn’t even been named a princess a full month now, y
et I was expected to step into a major role to help the kingdom out, again. I was even more grateful to be here knowing my dragon could help protect the kingdom and hopefully find my in-laws and get them home safely.
We were all stretched out on the fluffy bed in the back of the plane, needing to connect to ease our stress. I was somehow laying on all four of them and they were all touching or petting me somewhere to comfort me.
“So dragon powers. I was promised information?” I tilted my head up to Maalik, rolling my head sideways on his toned stomach.
“Oh, yeah. So dragons live quite a long time and are quite difficult to cause real harm to. In dragon form, our scales are nearly impenetrable, and our sheer size and the fact that we can spew metal-melting fire means that most aren’t stupid enough to come after us. Other dragons could of course come after us, but being heirs to the throne means that the four of us are quite dominant. Subjects of our country would have a hard time not giving in to our orders, and even if lots of them came at us at the same time, we likely would be able to hold them off.
Our dominance means we can control them. We can order someone to freeze if we feel threatened and their dragon wouln’t have much choice but to acquiesce. Our country might be a monarchy, but the people live well and get immense protection because of it.
In human form, any injuries sustained would hurt, but the dragon blood would heal them at an accelerated rate. Even as a frail human we’re hard to kill, and when threatened our dragons tend to emerge anyways so if Adyson is thinking she can get away with something, she’s going to get a quick lesson on dragon power.”
That made me feel better. “So if we’re hard to injure, what could she possibly hope to gain from holding your parents? And how did she manage to gain control of three fully changed dragons?”
“The only thing I can think of is silium. She used it once before, what’s to say she doesn’t use it again? She doesn’t seem like a very original villain”
