Dragons were said to be ancient. Living lives ten times as long, sometimes longer than most other Breed.
Phoenix’s kind—the grizzlies—could live well into their two hundreds. Which meant the dragons below could be over a thousand, if not more, years of age.
What had they seen in that time? What sort of changes had they witnessed?
It wasn’t often that Phoenix felt inferior, but he felt it keenly now.
The fiery red head stepped forward, and lifted her arms, holding her palms a few scant inches above the eggs and muttering something beneath her breath.
Phoenix couldn’t make out what type of chant she was saying, but soon everyone was clamoring in, joining voices, and then a loud buzz moved through the ravine, echoing off the steep, cliff walls.
Completely entranced, Phoenix didn’t move so much as a muscle. Holding his breath, nerves taut with anticipation, his gaze never wavered from the nest.
The right egg moved faster, and just as before, the cacophony faded to silence as everyone else held their breaths now too.
Crack.
The sound was like lightning the way it thundered around them.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
And then...fingers tore through the shell.
Phoenix had never witnessed a dragon being born, he’d always assumed they’d come out as their Breed form. But finally the last of the shell fell, and kneeling in a pile of tacky, clear ooze was a child.
At first the little one didn’t move much, but soon the muscle spasms began. First it started with the legs, and then the arms, before finally the neck began to move from side to side. The movements were oddly reptilian looking to Phoenix. Then the child, in a strange, fluttering undulation gingerly got to his feet.
He had a shock of bright red hair, but kept his eyes firmly sealed shut. And looked already to be Chance’s age. This was no type of baby Phoenix had ever seen before, although he supposed for beasts as large as dragons, this was as small as any of them would ever get.
The boy stood tall and proud, notching his chin high. It seemed the hubris of dragons never had to be taught after all.
The man who Phoenix could only assume was the father, laid a heavy hand on the boy’s head before glancing at his mate and giving her a small nod.
Suddenly another woman walked up to the nest. She didn’t seem as mature as the rest of the females in the assemblage. She was nubile of form, with small adolescent breasts, at a guess Phoenix thought maybe a teenager. Though it was hard to tell an accurate age considering how old the children already looked when birthed.
The father tapped the boy’s shoulder once the female stood in front of him. Only then did the child open bright green eyes the same shade as his mother’s. Immediately the dragons began a high-pitched, keening sort of noise that made Phoenix tremble.
The intense wave of their excitement was palpable even from this distance. The child grabbed hold of the girl’s hand and knelt, then pressed a kiss to her palm.
Roars of excitement reverberated throughout.
Clearly there was some significance to what’d just occurred. But Phoenix had no idea what it could have been.
And then the other egg began to tremble...
~*~
Madison
Everything was dark and warm.
She knew it was time to come out. But she didn’t want to, not just yet. Something tenuous, but all-encompassing beckoned to her. Something that would change her life forever.
She had no name yet, but she had the memories of her brethren, her people rushing through her veins. She knew who she was. What she was.
She was dragonborne, the most feared of all Breed. Someday she would rule the skies and all who moved in it. She was royalty, of the line of Draconian. The eldest of all dragon lineage, save for the queen herself.
Her heart quickened as she felt the flutter of her people’s will press against her. She felt their call. Their whispers for her to come out and greet them. To come out and grant her favor upon them.
But she was scared.
She was still only a child. And the mantel they’d place upon her the moment she opened her eyes, it was all too overwhelming.
Come little one...come...
Their call grew stronger. At first like a gentle zephyr, but now something much stronger, much more powerful pushed against her.
She flexed her fingers and took that first step to freedom.
Push.
Harder.
More.
Digging her fingers through the yielding metal prison she’d called home for the past three years.
Then with one final massive flex of untried muscle, she finally burst through. The sunlight hurt. Instinct forced her to squeeze her eyes shut.
The crowds roared, they chanted to their heiress. Her breathing spiked as a wave of dizziness rushed through her bones.
And then a voice she’d known from the moment she’d heard her first sound, spoke.
“Welcome, my daughter. Who now, and forevermore shall be called Madison of the line Draconian.”
Again the crowd roared, feet stomped, hands clapped, and Madison reached out her hand to her nest mate, her brother. Mother had given him a name too. Urich.
He latched onto her hand, his small claws digging almost painfully into her flesh. Dragons were never allowed to show their nerves. But the pinch of his claws let her know she was not alone in this.
She plastered a crooked smile on her lips, being brave.
“And now, you are to meet your future mate!” Her father’s voice was strong, proud, and carried through the mountain.
Madison knew that the moment she opened her eyes, the moment she latched gazes with the male they’d chosen, she’d be lost forever.
Just then a gentle spring wind rolled across her sun-warmed flesh, and with it carried a scent as unique and individual as a dragon’s egg. Man and beast, that smelled of a glen after a good hard rain.
Not that Madison had ever smelled a glen, or rain, but her memories were her people’s memories and she understood that it was so, even if she herself had no point of reference for it.
There was something else in the scent too. Something that called to her on a deeper, far more visceral level. Something that her young mind could hardly comprehend, but that she understood to be vital and necessary.
The gentle glide of feet drew closer, but Madison was no longer interested in who they might belong to. Because the breeze drew her face upward, her lashes fluttered.
“Madison, wait, not—” Her mother’s voice was a sharp reprimand, but she didn’t care.
Snapping open her eyes she immediately looked up the ravine, and that ancient spark of magic that would forever bind her to her future mate wrapped like a band around her heart and squeezed.
And though the strange male was nothing but a small shadowy image high above her, he was all she saw. All she knew. Her heart and his suddenly beat as one.
And she was snared by the sight of that strong powerful male with one blue eye and one green eye.
Then a roar of outrage sounded, and her father called down his spark of energy. It rolled through the ravine like lightning, quickly every other male in the place—to include her newly hatched brother, Urich—shifted form. One by one they jumped into the sky, flapping powerful wings as they made chase for the interloper.
And that male, whoever he was, turned and ran. But Madison knew she would find him again, she had his scent now, and he belonged to her.
Chapter 2
Phoenix
Present Day
“Yeah, baby, I bet you like it like that, huh? You dirty little thing.” Phoenix grinned as he tugged on the bar fly’s thick, golden curls.
The woman, whoever the hell she was—cuz he never knew any woman by name, giggled, and skimmed her fingers along the inseam of his thighs, getting inches away from his stiff cock.
Next month was the mating ritual. He was desperate to outrun
his fate, to outrun the truth, to pretend that none of this was real. None of this was happening, that what he felt now for Madison would finally go away. That he’d be free of the mistake he committed all those years ago. That finally he’d be his own man.
“Janet, how many drinks you had tonight?” August, always the buzz kill, strolled up to them.
August, proprietor of the Junk Yard—Kodiak’s local watering hole—buzz kill extraordinaire, and oh yeah...his moron of a younger brother eyed Phoenix hard.
Obviously the woman’s name was Janet—hiccupped and held up two fingers. “Five,” she slurred and then giggled harder, and Phoenix’s boner deflated like a popped balloon.
Not that he could have done anything anyway, but hell...he could have at least gotten to second base this time.
“C’mon then,” August glared frostily at Phoenix, before jerking his chin in Urich’s direction. “Get her out of here.”
Urich—sovereign heir to the Draconian line—worked as a sometimes bouncer, sometimes mixologist, and for some damned reason had become August’s right hand man.
Phoenix clenched his jaw, as Uri—as Phoenix now called him behind his back—growled beneath his breath in Phoenix’s direction, before gently grabbing hold of the cat shifter’s forearm.
“Upsie daisy,” he said with the typical dragon burr in his voice.
Janet, still giggling, twisted her ankle, practically falling on top of Urich—a solid two hundred and fifty pound man made of nothing but gristle and muscle. He stumbled back into the tabletop behind them, and in one swift move tucked one arm behind her back and the other behind her legs before lifting her easily in his massive arms.
“Too damned drunk to be getting hit on,” Uri snarled. The barb was obviously intended for Phoenix who just rolled his eyes and watched as they walked out the door.
“Way to cock block,” Phoenix snapped the second Urich was out of earshot.
August leaned over, fisting Phoenix’s collar before giving it a sharp jerk. “You’re a fucking mess. You know that.”
August had his own issues when it came to the mating ritual. Said issue sauntered by, casting them both a worried frown before nibbling down on her lip and scampering off.
Phoenix wolf whistled at Jackson’s retreating backside.
“Do that again,” August snarled, letting the grizzly leak through his voice, “and I’ll snap your balls off.”
“Bah.” Skunked off his ass himself, Phoenix threw a sloppy right hook at his brother’s big, fat head.
August swatted it away easily, causing Phoenix to practically fall onto his face as he slipped off the chair, and cracked his chin on the bar top on the way down.
He sat there dazed, reeking of whiskey, and shook his head.
August hopped the bar, and was crouched down at his feet a second later. But the look of obvious disgust on his face was hard to ignore, even for someone as inebriated as Phoenix now was.
“What if Madison had seen that, huh?” August asked with a stern shake of his head. “Bad enough that Urich saw it. Dammit, Phoenix, do you want the entire Draconian nation razing our asses? Because that’s exactly what’ll happen if you keep this shit up.”
“What if she did see it!” Phoenix snapped, angry himself now. Losing what precious relief he’d found in the bottle as the alcohol burned right out of him with his rage. “She doesn’t fucking own me.”
August’s jaw clenched down hard and he shook his head and Phoenix knew, just knew that his brother was fed up with him. Upset, and probably even ashamed of him.
And though Phoenix would never own up to it, that thought was like a blow to his gut. Because August’s opinion of him had always mattered to Phoenix, though he’d tried like hell to deny it through the years.
It was only thanks to August that Phoenix had even survived the night after royally fucking up Madison’s binding ceremony. August had been the one to talk down Madi’s birth parents. Explaining that Phoenix was just a shithead who was too dumb for his own good, but that he’d make sure to keep Phoenix “untainted” for their daughter.
Oh yeah, that undine had screwed him hard.
When Phoenix had shown up that morning, all proud and stupid and arrogantly eighteen he’d never dreamed that it’d been so much more than just a hatching ceremony.
That dragons, the moment they opened their eyes and latched onto the face of someone, bonded for life. That when he’d seen that dark haired child come out of her shell, standing tall and proud and lovely and for just a split second—a fucking split second—he’d leaned too far over the cliff to look at her he’d lose himself that day.
That ever since then Madison would have no choice but to follow him around, to seek out her mate and be bound to him for all time... Fuck man.
He closed his eyes, memories scrolling automatically through all the times he’d watched her watching him with her heart in her throat and her face that’d gone from prettily young to something heart achingly gorgeous as she grew. The bite of rage (at himself) sat heavy like a sack of stone in his gut.
But her life hadn’t been the only one to get screwed up. His had too. Dragons would kill anything that smelled too strongly of their mate. Meaning, Phoenix was as good a virgin now. And had been ever since that damned morning on the cliff. He might be a heartless bastard, but he’d never willingly screw someone knowing that would be the last thing they’d ever do again.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There’d been an incident between him and Madi last year. He’d been drunk. She’d been drunk. He was pretty sure he hadn’t breached her, surely he’d remember something like that. But her hatred of him had no doubt sprung from that fateful night when he’d gotten just drunk enough to forget his rule about not touching her. All he knew was August had flipped his shit after that and told him that if he ever, ever laid a hand on Madi again it had better be to mate for life, or not at all.
Wasn’t often that his brother threatened him with bodily harm, but August had been deadly serious that day.
And now his own mating ritual was upon him. August was sure that Madison was his one true mate, but Phoenix wasn’t so sure. Because though he could admit that there wasn’t anything hotter on two legs than that woman, all he felt when he looked at her was guilt, shame, and regret.
Phoenix didn’t want to go through with this shit. In fact, he was half tempted to become a eunuch, but then he’d wake up with morning wood and rocking into his hand for any kind of relief from the constant ache of blue balls and he knew there was no damn way he could never not have sex again.
Only problem was, unless he did it with Madison, he’d never actually get to do it with another person again.
And Madison wasn’t that keen on him anyway, not after that night. He only fucking wished he could remember what exactly he’d said or done to make her go from looking at him like he was her hero, to the male she wished to obliterate.
Yeah, she practically lived with him and his brothers now. Her cabin was only a few hundred meters from theirs, she worked as a waitress in August’s bar full time, and even showed up to every family function they had.
But Phoenix was pretty sure they’d not said more than a handful of words to each other in all those years. He knew she resented him. And deep down, he hated himself for what he’d done to her too.
A dragon stuck with a fucking bear, life wasn’t fair sometimes.
In the end, the undine had definitely gotten the last laugh.
“Fuck man,” he squeezed out, rubbing his brow and growling, “what if it’s not her? What if I screw her over again and fall in love with someone else? What then, August? You know what her family will do to me.”
Phoenix had gone through the pros and cons of this ceremony ad nauseam at this point. There was really nothing more to say that was going to make any of this all right. The only possible pro was that maybe, just maybe August was right and by some fluke of fate Madi really was his mate. Way he figured, that would probably be the only way he’
d ever be able to let go of the guilt he shouldered from that day.
But even if she was his mate, how would he be able to make this up to her? She’d lost years to his stupid mistake, and so had he. And though it sucked like hell not to be able to have sex, the worst part of the whole thing was knowing he’d royally jacked up her life.
She was a species that could live thousands of years; he wouldn’t come anywhere close to that. Once he passed on, she’d still be bound to him. Not much in life had ever fazed Phoenix, he’d been reckless, wild, and stupid. But that day on the cliff had changed him forever, and for him, that’d been one sin there’d be no coming back from.
So even if he was able to finally try to make things work with them, there was nothing saying she’d be ready to now, or even ever.
Dragons were built different than other Breed. Just because you were mated, didn’t mean you were ever safe from their wrath.
August gently slapped Phoenix’s cheek, jerking him out of his dark thoughts.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about this ritual, and I gotta believe that even if things look bleak now, they’ll get better. They have to, Phoenix, otherwise what’s the point?”
Jackson walked by again lugging a crate full of beer bottles, pointedly ignoring the two of them, and August turned to look at her, his heart in his eyes and his face looking shattered.
Phoenix wasn’t the only one dealing with shit right now, he knew it. And he also knew that being in this bar and drinking his problem away wasn’t helping matters either.
“Shit,” he drawled. “I’m a damn mess.” He ran his fingers through his hair.
Just then Urich came back in, but he didn’t bother sparing Phoenix a passing glance.
Urich had never been his biggest fan, and was even less so now that the ritual was nearly upon them. Phoenix was almost sure that unless the ritual revealed Madison was his intended mate too, her brother would very gladly and happily eviscerate him.
Standing, August held out his hand to Phoenix, which he took. His brother helped him to stand, and the world swam all around him.
Phoenix (Bears of Kodiak Book 3) Page 2
