by Eden Glenn
If Phaux died, so would he. If he and his dragon could heal then, later, there would be time to deal with the mental effects of their captivity.
A glimmer of a memory about a fae woman telling him something important flashed and was gone. He packed the thoughts of his dragon away in a dark corner of his mind where he didn’t have to think and shut the door.
The Mane’tung stood flanked behind him, on guard. He was rogue, they the enforcers charged with dispensing justice. Caleb and Ethan glared threatening him subtly without words.
Wren sat across the room in a tall backed chair looking like the high fairy queen on her throne, dressed in his skin. He couldn’t resist a surge of pride watching her. Bonded to the Mane’tung’s lineage, she would be a Queen.
They were a much better match for her than he could ever be as a simple warrior. Hell, who was he kidding? They were Arach he was Wyrm, two completely different beasts.
He didn’t need a Dragon Guardian to tell him her destiny was upon her. His loss stemmed from wanting something so precious and innocent that it would help him escape for a moment what he was, a stone cold killer.
≽∞≼
Isobeau held her breath. Giving up her need to breath was easier than having it taken by the male presence in the next room. She had to go in there. She couldn’t stall much longer.
His thoughts invaded her, suffering, searing pain and loss. There was no inkling of bonding with Wren, only an instability that rocked everything he believed or knew as true.
Isobeau would have to confess her crimes in front of him. Kiernan would channel all his pain into a raging anger at her. He would be free to return to their society filled with righteous hatred of her. She would be free to continue to live out in the open, half a person, unable to be acknowledged in dragon form, unable to ever love again.
His emotions were wide open as if he’d no filter to prevent invading her with his raw pain. The other males didn’t seem to notice it. Oh dear Goddess, perhaps she was the only one sharing his psychic projections.
Her brothers wanted to take him apart piece by piece for daring to question their prerogative to mate Wren. She’d not initiated a merge to claim them as was her right, technically they had no official bond. Like so much Swiss cheese, full of holes and it stunk. They didn’t have the marks of Goddesses confirmation or anything else from which to speak with any authority over her.
Isobeau’s situation was another matter. She’d been trying to protect Wren. She’d had Kiernan declared rogue, then thought he had gotten word and gone into hiding, never expecting he’d been kidnapped and tortured. She should have kept closer track of his whereabouts.
The whole thing was a mess. Now she had to go in there and help figure it out. She would have to be close to him, breath the same air, smell his delicious scent, resist the urge to rub all over his muscular chest, curling into his lap like a kitten drunk on catnip, to bathe in his utterly heavenly aroma.
She could do this. She could remain stoic. She had to prevent her eyes meeting his or she knew she’d dive into his soul and grab him for her own. That would never work. He didn’t need to know the extent of her desire for him. Hell, who was she kidding? Instead of being the invisible Isobeau she would become Isobeau the enemy, Isobeau the hated, Isobeau the destroyer. She opened the door stepping through to finish ruining her life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kiernan studied her as Wren stepped closer to allow Maxwell to finger the skin and look at it under the same magnifying glass. He spoke so neutrally as if his words had no further importance than what cook might serve for dinner. “You are aware of the tradition of females being clothed by the skin, a sidhartha of their chosen mates not by any random male skin offered?”
Wren blushed. “I am not of your kind and I didn’t know this was dragon skin.” She plucked at the wrap with her fingers. “I was just trying to cover up after I got pulled through the portal. If you could help me get it off, I’d appreciate it very much.” Yes, they’d established that Wren had accidently triggered a portal. Something about Kiernan’s crisis had pulled her to his location.
The little man cleared his throat with a “humharumph. There is no coming off. Once you’ve taken the sidhartha it is yours forever. Normally it is a symbolic small piece of dragon exoderm that your body uses for minor covering. Did this absorb into your skin and disappear then return?”
“No its always been like this, wrapped around me. It never disappeared.”
“Harrumph, quite extraordinary, perhaps your body hasn’t really received it yet. It is quite unusual to have such a large offering to work with. You can learn to use it. Perhaps if the Goddess accepts your mating to another, his skin. . .ah can be added to supplement this one.”
“So I’m stuck like this until I mate a dragon?”
Ethan glared, advancing on the dwarf. “I’ll not have a mate clothed in the fucking, sidhartha of this rogue,” flinging his arm toward Kiernan to emphasize his anger. Caleb pushed around the couch to get to his brother. Maxwell scurried from Wren trying to get the desk between himself and the Enforcers.
Wren’s face became a mask of stricken grief. She sat stiff in the straight back upholstered chair. Kiernan didn’t have to guess what Ethan’s words did to her. He also noticed that Ethan was oblivious to the pain he caused. Couldn’t he feel her bleed emotionally at the words, I’ll not have a mate…?
Wren stood to go. “I’m sorry, I don’t want this. I don’t understand what you expect from me but I just want to go home. I have a business to run.”
“I’m very sorry Lady Wren but you are not permitted to leave. Your store will be taken care of. Isobeau will arrange staffing.”
Caleb and Ethan had him cornered behind the heavy walnut desk. “She will leave if she wishes to go and you will not stop her.”
Maxwell’s voice had risen to an undignified squeak. “You are supposed to be guarding that rogue.”
Kiernan heard the door open and the room filled with blessed warmth as if the sun itself had finally risen to light his darkness. He watched the woman carefully close the door and turn to face the room. A line of Watchers followed her in blocking anyone’s exit. All activity ceased.
She moved away from her escort, keeping her eyes down she searched the floor. “Kiernan is not a rogue. I reported him when he showed an inordinate interest in Wren, a woman I suspected of being important to the kingdom. His attention threatened to expose her and I needed his access to her blocked.
“So, I reported him. The only thing he may be guilty of is being on this side of the dimension instead of attending to his duties in Wyrmarach. It’s not for me to say if those very same duties brought him here. I knew he was cunning enough to go into hiding and evade the Enforcers. I didn’t realize he had been taken by an enemy.”
This woman that had brought him the heat he never expected to feel ever again was the one responsible for his losing everything that mattered in his life. In the stunned silence filling the room, he launched himself on her before anyone could react.
He pushed her back against the wall with his hand across her throat, pinning her to the door. “Yoouu.” He hissed in her ear. She accepted his attack passively, her eyes still hooded. Caleb and Ethan roared and surged toward him.
Kiernan wrenched around holding her in front of his body. “She took everything from me. She ruined my life.” He held Caleb and Ethan back “Take another step and I’ll snap her neck.” Wren motioned them back with an urgent wave of her hand.
Psi-energy tingled across his skin seeking entrance to join with his. He blocked the power questing for him. No one in this room was going to manipulate him. He shook his head trying to dispel the images seeking his mind, holding the woman against him.
Her heat became a kernel lodged in his chest trying to expand to drive the cold from his body. He closed his eyes, turning his face into her hair. Breathing deeply he inhaled her exquisite feminine scent.
Her arousal hiding in the light aroma of
citrus and ginger caught him by surprise. She remained quiet in his arms submissive to his will over her life or death as much as she was aroused by his power over her. This was impossible, a trick.
Wren’s voice broke through his revere. “Kiernan, listen to me, don’t do this.”
She stood right in front of him. Had he checked out so far that he didn’t notice her moving in on him? A detail like that could get a man killed. She lowered her voice.
“You don’t really want to hurt her. Let her go. She isn’t the one, Kiernan, Ron is the one who hurt you, Not Izzy. She didn’t know what Ron would do to you. She was trying to protect me.”
Wren was right. He had never hurt a woman in his life. Life that he fought so desperately to hold onto through all the torturous hell he’d experienced. What had Wren called her? Izzy, what kind of name for a woman was Iz? Izzy Ah, Isobeau. Why had she not struggled and blocked his attack? He felt her sinewy muscles. She had the build of an athlete and could have made a defensive attempt.
She fit perfectly to the contours of his body. Her warmth enveloped him. “E-sa-bow” he rolled the name off his lips without realizing he had spoken out loud until he felt her gasp.
Had he lost his mind? I am Sorrow. I am Strength. You are Sigh.
The woman’s body molded more to his, a perfect softness to his hard muscular frame. “Esabow do you relinquish your life so easily?”
I trust you, drifted to him on a psychic wavelength.
He pulled his hands away from the girl as if her heat burnt him. He retreated to the corner of the couch, ice settling around him once again. He wasn’t worthy of anyone’s trust.
He needed to get away from all of them before he hurt someone. He’d get to the mountains, hide out and heal. He’d pick up a bug-out pack of supplies he had stashed at his apartment and then be gone. He may have been worthy at one time, now he was simply a tool, a tool for killing and an unstable one at that. So, keep the damn prophecy to himself and get the hell outta dodge.
≽∞≼
Crisis averted Wren hoped everyone would freaking calm down. Another twenty minutes of Maxwell studying her like a bug and she knew this wasn’t going to end well.
Maxwell may have drawn confidence from his men in the room. “Lady Cathwren, you are being hunted and for now, you are under the protection of the Watchers for your safety. The Mane’tung will be released from responsibility for your care and to return to their duty.
Ethan drew his sword prepared to fight their way out of the room. “Wren is our duty. No one takes her from us.”
Ethan and Caleb moved forward on either side of her.
Caleb drew his dual blades from sheaths on his back as he growled. “We came here for your assistance. You will not take her from us.”
Caleb took her arm and pulled her behind his body. “We’re leaving.” Ethan stepped in beside her.
She felt Kiernan slide off the couch to stand behind her, ready to act on her behalf. Five minutes ago her mates and Kiernan had gone against each other. Now they banded together against a common enemy.
There were things the Goddess had told her, the thing about choosing her inner circle well. Maybe this mark on Kiernan had something to do with that. Wren had distinctly felt power around her when she’d touched him. The guys had seen it. Why weren’t they telling the little man what she’d said? Gram’s voice spoke out of a memory. You can’t trust everyone you meet.
Watchers lined the door, armed with knives and swords. Caleb and Ethan were completely out numbered. Kiernan was in no shape to fight. Wren groaned in frustration. Her men had a one track mind.
They didn’t want her anymore but they still held onto her like a prize they refused to give up on principle. She had to do something. Izzy stepped forward between the two groups. “Caleb, Ethan we are not trying to take her we are trying to protect her. We have the resources to keep her safe.”
Ethan growled. “We’ll protect her.”
Izzy shook her head. “Ethan, if you are spending all your time guarding Wren you won’t have the time to search out her enemy and end this. Let us protect her so you can hunt.” Wren recognized the logic in what Izzy was saying. They were definitely at a stand-off. She felt for Caleb and Ethan with her thoughts. The wall they had thrown up remained intact.
When Izzy didn’t get a response she continued. “Until the woman claims you and our Goddess sanctions your bond with marks, you have no mate authority over Wren. Your duty is elsewhere.”
Ethan couldn’t be convinced. “We trusted you. Now, this? It’s wrong to separate us, we were moments from claiming before all this. You know that.”
Wren sent a tendril of thought toward Ethan and Caleb to batter on the wall between them. Hey. I want to get out of here but the odds don’t look too good with all these armed soldiers. She couldn’t penetrate the blockade between her thoughts and theirs. Their mental passageway was a stone shield.
They weren’t using good sense. It was up to her to keep them safe. Their pride would block them from giving in to the reasonable request Izzy offered. Unless, Wren took action to end the confrontation. She couldn’t think about the possibility that her solution would drive Caleb and Ethan farther from her.
“I want to stay here with Izzy for a while.” She stepped toward her friend and away from her lovers. “I’ll stay with the Watchers, just put your weapons away.”
Caleb’s cutting words laced with sarcasm, twisted in her sharper than a knife. “I guess The Guardian has chosen, an army of Watchers as trump. I’m outta here.”
Wren watched Ethan and Caleb turn to leave without even a glance in her direction. She wanted to hold them close and tell them to watch out for each other and come back to her, safe. But she was mad at them.
A dull ache chewed inside her, fighting to erupt in a scream. She bit her tongue knowing once she let the shriek claw its’ way up her throat there wouldn’t be a way to contain the voice of her grief.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They had retreated to Kiernan’s apartment, mostly because they didn’t want to take him to Wren’s, it didn’t feel right to split up, so naturally they followed him to his place. The confines of his small apartment closed in on Kiernan with Ethan and Caleb taking up space planted in his kitchen.
Kiernan hated his part in accidently disrupting the age old mating customs of his race between Wren and these males. Kiernan owed Wren. He had wanted her himself, ached for her, and hoped that the two of them had a future together. His effort focusing on her had actually helped keep him alive.
He felt an overpowering protectiveness for her. However, he had a hard on for the dark haired healer, Isobeau. If a paring were occurring between he and Wren it would not be possible to think of another woman much less have one so solid in his memory that he couldn’t forget her. Thanks to the Goddess above he wasn’t mated. He was screwed up enough without that complication in his life. No, it was more a curiosity for what color the woman’s eyes were and how she warmed him. After being held for six months he just needed a night of good hard fucking to help him get his head together.
He slipped his fingers beneath his jeans into the small pocket the size of a sim chip in his sidhartha. He’d ditched his phone when he was captured but salvaged the brains contained on the sim chip. Sometimes phones were a casualty of battle. He pulled open the kitchen drawer retrieving a spare phone to house the chip. For now the spare would get him back on line and reconnected.
Caleb and Ethan filled up his small kitchen. They hadn’t spoken a word since separating from Wren. They were a sorry pussy whipped pair. It was discouraging to see two vital strong warriors brought so low by a woman.
Despair laced Ethan’s voice as he sat with his head in his hands resting his elbows on the table. “Well if that don’t beat all fucking hell, she left us.”
Caleb paced back and forth across the small kitchen area. “What did you expect with you going all demanding on her ass. You talk to her like she’s baggage. You didn’t give her a
way out.”
“Give her a way out. I didn’t have a way out. She fucking put her mark on that beast.” Gesturing toward Kiernan, “Our bed is full enough without bringing home every stray rogue she comes across. Plus now his stink is all over her. She doesn’t listen. If she’d have fucking stayed put like I told her, none of this would have happened.”
Caleb stopped in the middle of the floor, squaring off against his brother. “First off, his stink isn’t that bad once you mix it with Wren’s scent, so get over it. And second, it’s,” He gestured furiously between them. “--our mark she put on that beast and lastly, now the Watchers have taken her so you don’t have to worry about it anymore, anyway, do you?”
Ethan reached a critical mass of pissed off. “Not worry about it, not worry about it, our mate chose to fucking go with those Watchers and we’re fucking stuck here with him. I don’t care how she fucking marked him, he’s not our mate.”
Kiernan opened the fridge. “Whoever said the old cliché’ two heads were better than one, obviously never met you two. You’re both morons. And, just for the record, I’m not interested in becoming fuck buddies with either on one of you.”
Ethan turned toward him. “Oh, just give me a reason to take some of this pissed off ‘tude out on your sorry ass.” Caleb held him back from launching over the table at Kiernan. “You useless piece of crap, we want our fe-male, no man love interests here a-tall.”
“Yea, well, I didn’t ask you to follow me home.” He handed each of them a cold beer. “Here. Think for a minute.”
Ethan settled back into the chair.
Maybe Kiernan could lead them to where they needed to be spending their energies. “Why did she volunteer to go with the Watchers?” Kiernan stopped talking to take a long swig on the bottle draining half of it-- wonderful, cold beer, nectar of the Goddess.
Ethan took a pull off the long neck. “Because she chose the strength of their numbers over the two of us.”
Kiernan smiled. “Oh, so she is a manipulating female, only in this for the power she can command. Well you’re better off without her.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Me, on the other hand, I’m all into power hungry conniving women.”
