by Lili Zander
“It means exactly what you think it does, love,” he murmurs. “You. Are. Ours.”
24
Aria
You. Are. Ours.
The words bounce around my head, reverberating against the walls of my mind. I don’t reply—I can’t reply. What the hell do they mean? What the hell is going on?
Rhys cradles my cheek in his big palm. I want to sink into his touch. I’m being tugged toward him, toward all five of them, even the two I don’t know at all.
This is batshit crazy.
I flinch away from Rhys. An expression of distress briefly clouds his features, and I feel a pang at hurting him. Then I shake myself. I have far more important things to think about than Rhys’ feelings.
Like Drakkar Raedwulf’s threat. If I don’t get the contents of the dragon princes’ safe to him by five in the morning, he will kill Silas. Of this, I have no doubt. I have to do something before that happens.
But how? Erik is blocking the only exit from the room. Lord Jaeger—Bastian—is in front of the safe. I have no way out of here.
For now.
You could try telling the dragons what’s at stake.
I quell that inner voice ruthlessly. That voice sounds like hope, and she’s whispered her seductive promises to me for twenty-four years, and she’s always been wrong. Maybe this home will be the last one. Maybe these people will love me enough to become my parents. Maybe the man who’s offering me a meal wants nothing in return.
There are only two people in the world I trust. Two people whose actions have proven, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that they have my best interests at heart. Silas and Bea.
So far, the dragons have given me no reason to believe that they deserve a place in that inner circle. Even Rhys, charming and flirtatious, lied to me downstairs.
Invisible threads might tug me toward them, but I’ve got to resist.
I lift my chin up. “Am I your prisoner?”
Bastian Jaeger gives me a half-smile. “Of course not.”
“Great.” I pick up the backpack I dropped when I approached the safe. “Then I’ll be off.” I give them an artificially cheerful smile. Surely it can’t be this easy. “It was lovely meeting you.”
Erik snorts. Bastian seems to size me up, and his mouth curves into a full, wide smile. “I’m sorry, mausezähnchen,” he says. “We’ve looked for you too long, and I can’t risk anything happening to you.” His eyes soften, and his voice turns understanding. “You probably have no idea what’s going on,” he says. “I promise, we’ll explain everything in the morning.”
Explanations would be wonderful. It’s a pity I have no intention of sticking around to hear them. “If you’re not letting me leave,” I snap, “then it doesn’t matter how you sugar-coat it. I am your prisoner.”
Just then, my stomach rumbles, ruining the effect of my little speech. I flush. I’d been too nervous to eat all day, and now, my body is reminding me—loudly—that I’m starving.
“You’re hungry,” Casius says. “I’ll call for room service.”
Have I mentioned I find men with glasses incredibly sexy? Because I do. That’s got to be the reason that I feel the strongest tug toward Casius. It takes all the willpower I possess to stop from throwing myself at him. My chest rises and falls with rapid breaths, and my knees seem to turn to water.
Get a hold of yourself, Aria. You don’t even know him.
“It’s because of the blood.” Casius adjusts his tie, looking a little sheepish. “The do-not-notice tattoo on your arm, there’s dragon blood in it, right?”
I nod wordlessly, fear twisting in my gut. Rhys knew about the rune that helped me pass as a fox-shifter. Now Casius knows about the do-not-notice tattoo. I’ve underestimated the dragon princes. Badly.
“It’s my blood,” Casius continues. “I don’t know how the tattoo artist got a hold of it, but the moment my blood touched yours, it created a link between us.” He smiles faintly. “We’re connected.”
Crap on a cracker. Now Pieter is at risk too. If Casius knows about him, he’ll soon learn that the blood Pieter used was stolen from MagLabs. And then…
I’ve got to get away before the dragons find out everything. Before they find out I’m working with Drakkar Raedwulf, before they find out I stole the dragon’s blood from the research facility.
I wrap my arms around my chest. My fear for Silas is threatening to overtake me. Anxiety buzzes through my bloodstream. It’s almost nine. I have lock picks in my backpack. If I can convince the dragons to leave me alone…
“What would you like to eat, tesoro?” Mateo asks me.
Marching over to the couch, I sit down and fold my arms over my chest. “Stop trying to pretend like I have any choices,” I announce. “I’m not talking to any of you.”
If I’m enough of a brat, will they get tired of me and head back to the party downstairs, where there are hundreds of willing, cooperative, beautiful women waiting to throw themselves at the dragon princes? I can’t escape when they are here, but if they’re gone, I might still have a chance.
Don’t underestimate them again, Aria.
“Don’t be like that, tesoro,” Mateo says, his voice half-laughing, half-pleading. “You are infinitely precious to us, and if our enemies find out about you, they will try to use you as a way to get to us. We can’t risk your life.” He joins me on the couch and takes my hand in his. “You’ve taken us by surprise,” he says. His lips graze the inside of my right wrist, his lips warm on my skin. “I should have guessed who you were when my gaes didn’t work on you.” He looks at me, his luminous blue eyes alight with joy. “From the first moment, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. There was something special about you right from the start.”
The soothing murmur of his voice pulls me deeper under his spell. Then his words permeate. “You put a gaes on me?” I ask sharply, pulling my hand free from him. “What gaes?”
A gaes is a spell prohibiting an action. What was Mateo trying to stop me from doing? And when?
Another realization hits me at the same time. Mateo is a magic user.
I am so screwed.
“It was the day after we first met you,” Mateo replies readily. The others are watching us with varying expressions on their faces. All except Erik, who’s half-turned away from me, saying something into his phone. Definitely not charmed by me, Erik. “I was concerned that the wolf who was harassing you in the club would come back, so I asked Erik to track his scent.”
He half-turns to Erik as he says this, but Erik ignores us and continues to carry on his phone conversation. Mateo turns back to me. “We followed the trail to Preston Memorial. The two of us were deciding how to proceed when you came out with your friend.”
My spine stiffens. “Silas is my father.” I need to wrap up this conversation because I’ve got to call him. Warn him not to open the door to anyone.
Unlike the rabbit-shifter at the hospital, the dragons don’t contradict me. “We didn’t want you to spot us, so I cast a gaes on the two of you,” Mateo continues. “You weren’t supposed to notice us. It worked on your father, but it had no effect on you.” He traces the faint mark on my wrist, which looks like a five-pointed Celtic knot, intertwined with a circle. “Now, I understand why. You are ours, tesoro, and we are yours. My magic won’t work against you.”
It’s too much. Every time one of them tells me that I’m theirs, my heart starts racing, and I’m completely overwhelmed. I’m Norm. As Drakkar Raedwulf’s paid muscle had pointed out at Cellar, my mother abandoned me when I was two. I went from foster home to foster home, never fitting in. I ran away when I was eleven. I spent three years on the streets. I work in a minimum wage job.
I do not belong in the dragon princes’ world.
“Guys, back off,” Rhys says sharply. “We’re throwing too much at her.”
Bastian nods. “For a change, I agree with Rhys,” he says. “Aria, I’m sorry. We can’t let you go tonight, but I will do everything in my power to make you comfortable. What
do you need?”
His voice rings out, sincere and open. The thought of trusting him seems so seductive, so tempting. Then I remember the poster on Pieter’s wall. Drakkar Raedwulf, wanted by Lord Bastian Jaeger for questioning.
Will Bastian be quite so understanding when he finds out Drakkar hired me to steal from him?
I very much doubt it.
“I just want to be left alone,” I whisper.
“She can take my bedroom,” Rhys offers.
“I’m not in the mood for company,” I snap. My mind immediately throws up a picture of Rhys kissing me at the ball earlier this evening, his eyes clouded with desire, and my insides clench with need. What is the matter with me? My mystery mark on my wrist is making me act like some kind of raging nymphomaniac. I want them to dive into my lady-cave, plow my garden, and feed my kitty. “Unless I don’t have any choice about that either?”
Once again, hurt flashes on his face before he schools his expression. “I wasn’t propositioning you, love.”
There’s a mild rebuke in his voice. I feel about two inches tall. I’m pouting about being held a prisoner when the reality is that I was caught mid-heist. I was stealing from the dragons, and the five men haven’t once mentioned it. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to Rhys. “That was uncalled for.”
He lifts his shoulder in a shrug, and I have a sinking feeling that I’ve broken something between us. “Come,” he says. “I’ll show you to your room.”
I grab my backpack and follow him.
I wish I knew what was going to happen.
25
Bastian
“She’s going to run,” Erik says, his voice a disapproving rumble, once Aria is safely ensconced in Rhys’ bedroom. “You know that, don’t you? Why did you let her take her backpack with her without searching it?”
I fix my gaze on Valder. “For the same reason you spent the last five minutes on the phone with room service ordering every single thing on the menu,” I reply. “Because she is my mate, and I will move heaven and earth to see her happy.”
Norms don’t understand the mating bond. How could they? The bond is primal and powerful and is linked to the very nature of our magic. The bond feeds the magic, and the magic feeds the bond, and this cycle, constant and enduring, is what Zyrian’s curse disrupted.
After countless years of searching, we’ve found Aria. She is our secret weapon. With her, we will throw free our shackles.
But first, she needs to trust us. Right now, she wants nothing to do with the five of us, a sentiment that I can understand, even if I’m not too thrilled about it.
“She’s afraid of something,” Casius says quietly. “What?”
Rhys laughs without humor. “Let’s see,” he says mockingly. “Her father is ill. She met two men at a bar, and they turned out to be dragon princes. And, there is the matter of the open safe and the fact that she was trying to steal from us. Each one of these things alone is enough to terrify someone. But together?”
“Did we ever figure out what’s wrong with Silas Archer?” Aria called him her father, and there’s no doubt of the bond between them, but according to Tomas’ investigation, she’s not related to the wolf-shifter by blood.
No, she’s not a wolf, and she’s not Norm either. Every instinct in my body tells me she’s something else entirely. But what?
“He has a debilitating blood disease,” Mateo replies. “So far, they’ve kept it under control by monthly plasma transfusions, but his most recent tests show it’s taken a turn for the worse.” His lips curl into a grimace.
I feel a surge of sympathy for my mate. Ongoing medical treatment doesn’t run cheap, and Aria works at a mall.
Everything that’s mine is hers. She will never have to worry about money again. “I’ll call Dr. Burdick. He can examine Silas Archer in the morning.”
“Don’t overwhelm her,” Casius warns me. “I know you want to enter her life and solve all her problems, but Bastian, she’s used to managing on her own. If you act like the master of the universe, she’s just going to get her back up.”
Damn it. This is the second time in a week that Casius has been right. He’s already too smug for his own good.
“Fine,” I concede. “I will suggest that Dr. Burdick, one of the foremost authorities in the world on shifter diseases, examine her father, but the decision will be Aria’s alone.”
“Well, that’s a first,” Rhys says dryly. “Bastian admitting he’s wrong about something.” The smirk on his face widens. “I’m still waiting for you to thank me, by the way.”
“Thank you for what?”
“For finding Aria.” He gives me a superior look. “Had I not gone looking for pussy, as you so eloquently put it last week, we’d have never run into her.” He pauses for effect, tilting his head to one side. “Did I ever tell you that the Picasso I won arrived at my castle? It looks spectacular in my bedroom.”
I give him the middle finger, though I can’t bite back my grin. The search had seemed more and more impossible with each passing year, but we’ve found her. And though I’m never going to admit it to him—Casius might be smug, but Rhys takes self-congratulation to an extreme—I do owe the Welsh dragon a debt of gratitude.
There’s a knock at the door. Erik answers it, and a team of waiters wheels three carts in. “How much food did you order?” Mateo laughs, shaking his head. “There’s enough here to feed an army.”
“I didn’t know what she wanted,” Erik says defensively. “Besides, it’s on Bastian’s tab.”
I shrug, unconcerned. Whatever Aria wants, if it’s in my power to get, it’s hers. “I’ll tell Aria the food is here.”
26
Aria
The moment the door shuts behind me, I’m rummaging through my backpack for my cell phone. I see a bunch of texts from Bea.
Have you reached the ball? Send me a picture!
Are Rhys and Mateo there? That particular text is followed by a string of eggplants.
Which one looks hotter? Send me a picture, Aria!
Somebody’s getting her garden plowed.
There’s more, but they’re all variants of the same theme. I grin despite myself. Bea is rooting enthusiastically for me to get laid. If I tell her that there’s five of them, and they’re all dragons, she’d about lose her mind with excitement.
My smile fades. Drakkar.
With shaking fingers, I dial Silas’ number. It’s a little after nine. Silas is probably at the pub, drinking pint after pint, shooting the breeze with his buddies. Unless Drakkar already has him in his clutches… Fear stabs my heart as the phone keeps ringing. I’m ready to give up, throw myself at the dragons’ mercy and beg for their help protecting him.
I’m on the verge of opening the door to do just that when Silas answers. “Aria,” he shouts. “I didn’t hear my phone ring. It’s busy here tonight.”
Busy’s good, right? Drakkar won’t be able to attack Silas in a crowded bar. Or am I just grasping at straws? “Silas, listen. This is important.”
His tone changes at once. “Are you in trouble? Is something wrong? What do you need?”
His words tug at my heartstrings. The questions, with their undertones of love and concern, is so typical of Silas. “I’m fine,” I assure him. Hopefully, that isn’t a lie. The dragons might change their mind and snack on me, but somehow, I can’t really see it. “But,” I continue, swallowing the lump of fear in my throat, “I might have gotten you involved in something.”
“What’s going on?” There’s not as much background noise now. Silas must have stepped outside.
“I’ll tell you in the morning,” I promise. “But Silas, please just listen to me. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t be alone, and whatever you do, don’t go back home tonight. Go to Pete’s place.” Pete’s Norm. Most shifters believe that the magical and the Norm can never be friends. With any luck, Raedwulf is one of them. Tomorrow, Silas and I can pack our belongings and run, fleeing Drakkar Raedwulf, fleeing the dragon princes. Al
l we have to do is survive tonight.
He takes a sharp inward breath. “Okay.” His voice is grim, but he doesn’t ask me any more questions. Thank heavens for Silas. In a crisis, his calm demeanor is exactly what I need.
I hang up and immediately dial the one number that I’ve spent a lifetime hoping never to have to use. Hagen Nygaard.
Mariana is an ally, as is Pieter. I might not fully trust them, but in general, I don’t expect them to stab me in the back.
Hagen is a very different story. I met the Arctic fox-shifter crime lord when I was a street rat. Hagen’s men ensured I didn’t get raped, and in return, I picked pockets and surrendered my earnings to the large blond man. “Not for long though, Aria,” he’d said to me once, his black eyes greedy. “Once you turn sixteen, you’ll be working in my brothels.”
Make no mistake, I was Hagen’s property. He was fond of children, and so I was allowed to grow up, unmolested. But once I turned sixteen, my life would have turned out exactly as he wished.
Until Silas came along. The wolf-shifter had paid Hagen off and taken me to live with him.
I hoped never to speak to Hagen again, but if there’s one person who can provide the kind of protection I need, it’s him.
“Aria. It’s been quite a while.”
Of course Nygaard would know my number. “Hagen. How are you?”
“Better than you, I’d imagine,” he replies. “You tried to break open Lord Jaeger’s safe, and he’s missing from his own party. Putting two and two together, I’d say you’re in a world of hurt.”
I rub the mark on my wrist absently. Hagen knows a lot, but not everything. “I need to buy some protection.”
“For you? Sorry, my dear. My reach is vast, but if I oppose the dragons, I will be annihilated. You’re on your own.”
“Not for me. For Silas.”
“Who’s threatening dear old Papa Wolf?”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. My mystery client had called Silas Papa Wolf. Is Hagen working with Raedwulf? “A wolf-shifter called Drakkar Raedwulf,” I reply. “Friend of yours?”
