“What is wrong, Brother?” Iolanthe set her red mug down and her face filled with tenderness and concern that warmed him, lifting his mood and chasing away the black storm clouds, leaving him on the verge of sighing into his coffee like some damned female as he contemplated an answer to her question. “When you came to us tonight looking for a place to rest, you did not look tired… you looked weary. Something is troubling you.”
It was, and there was little point in denying it. Iolanthe had been born stubborn, a determined little thing from the moment she had been brought into his world like a ray of purest sunshine, a gift from the gods themselves. She had quickly learned to bend him to her will and the ways of getting whatever she wanted from him, and he had always had difficulty denying her.
“I am hunting the dragon again,” he said and the look she gave him warned that he wasn’t giving her what she wanted—he was giving her excuses.
She folded her arms across her chest.
He sighed into his coffee and couldn’t believe he was about to do this. He was going to talk to her. Hell, his world had already changed beyond recognition. He might as well keep rolling with it and change some other things too.
Or roll them back to how they had been centuries ago, when he had shared everything with Iolanthe, before he had closed himself off.
He needed to do that now, getting it all off his chest, or he would probably go mad.
“Why were you in the mortal realm?” she said before he could speak and he knew she wasn’t going to like the answer.
“I came to see Vail about tracking the sword.” He frowned at the table. “Fuery was there.”
He didn’t need to look at his sister to see the black scowl she was giving him, or reach with his senses to detect the anger that rose in her.
It wasn’t anger towards him.
She was angry about what Vail and Fuery had done to him, and had been all her life.
“If I ever see that male again, I will not be held responsible for my actions,” she bit out and he almost smiled.
Fuery had always borne the brunt of her anger, and part of Bleu cherished how fiercely she reacted whenever his name was mentioned, turning into a vicious little thing on his behalf, filled with a hunger to act out some sort of vengeance on the elf male.
Her violet eyes landed on him and he looked up at her, his amusement falling away as their gazes locked and she stripped away the barriers around his feelings. He cursed her and the way she had always been able to do that, tearing down his carefully constructed defences. He had tried so hard to hold her at a distance as he did with others, not allowing her to see how deeply things affected him.
“You have that look again,” she whispered with a knowing half smile. “You hate it, but we are siblings, bound by blood.”
He huffed. “I do not hate it.”
Iolanthe leaned forwards, reaching across the white plastic table top to place her hand over his. She squeezed it and he looked down at their joined hands and then up into her eyes.
They were soft and warm, filled with affection. “You always were easy for me to read… but perhaps that is only because you showed yourself to me… before you shut that male away behind a wall of false smiles and easy laughter that never reached your eyes. I know you, Bleu. I know you because I know me. We are cut from the same cloth.”
He wanted to look away from her, to bring up that barrier she spoke of, but he didn’t have the strength.
Her smile turned sympathetic. “You are passionate… emotional… and though you try not to be… you are. You love deeply and that only makes you easier to wound without people realising it, especially when you refuse to show those feelings. You ache for your fated one, and so you foolishly fall for any female who bestows smiles and affection on you.”
He pulled his hand away from hers and glared into her eyes. She didn’t repent.
With a smile, she said, “Do not pretend you do not want your ki’ara.”
He never had and he saw little point in attempting such a farce with his sister, since she had been the one he had subjected to his ridiculous prattling about finding his mate all those centuries ago.
A sigh escaped her and she leaned back. “I wish people did not hurt you. I wish Vail had not darkened your heart and Fuery not slammed the barriers around it shut.”
Bleu set his jaw and kept glaring at her. Suddenly, talking didn’t sound so appealing, not when she was determined to drag his heart through the darkest reaches of Hell.
He stared into her eyes, silently challenging her to dare to say more on the subject. He knew his past. He knew the pain Vail and Fuery had caused, the scars he still bore inside. He could never forgive them for what they had done to him, and he could never forgive himself for allowing such a weakness to gain a hold inside him.
He had been weak. Young and foolish. He had admired and respected Fuery. He had admired and respected Vail too.
He had damn near adored them.
That adoration, that devotion, had only got him wounded.
The story of his fucking life.
Iolanthe’s knowing sigh grated on his last nerve and he bared his fangs at her.
She scowled at him. “Do not blame me for the actions of others.”
Why not? Hadn’t she hurt him too?
Hadn’t Loren and Sable?
She talked of him holding himself at a distance and closing himself off in order to avoid being wounded, but such tactics didn’t work. The evidence of that was right in front of him. He had built walls around his heart, determined to never allow anyone into it again. He had refused to feel deeply for anyone, so he wouldn’t be hurt again. He had fought to purge that weakness and never allow it to infest him. He had decided to be strong.
Invulnerable.
Yet, Iolanthe and Loren had somehow breached that barrier, and even Sable had broken it.
Gods, was there no way to protect himself?
“Speak to me, Bleu,” Iolanthe whispered and he realised he had stopped again.
He had withdrawn into himself, something that was habit now, difficult to break even when he wanted to talk with his sister in the way he had long ago, telling her everything that was on his mind and in his heart.
She moved to the seat on his left, placed her hand over his on the table, and stared at it, her expression shifting towards sombreness.
“You are not alone.” She kept her gaze on their hands but he felt as if she had pierced his soul with the awareness in those four words, had looked right down into it and had seen the truth he tried so hard to hide. “You are not unloved. I am sorry that she hurt you… that I hurt you.”
She lifted her bright violet gaze to his.
“One day you will hurt me back. One day you will find that ki’ara you dreamed of and she will steal every drop of your love.”
Bleu couldn’t ignore that, or the ripple of hurt that went through his sister. He turned his hand beneath hers and clasped it as he looked deep into her eyes.
“Ridiculous. I will always love you. Forever, Iolanthe. No one can take my love away from you.” He wasn’t sure anyone even wanted to try, that he would ever find his fated one, but he was sure that if he found his mate, his love for her wouldn’t diminish his love for Iolanthe.
She toyed with his fingers, her eyes on them, and smiled mischievously.
“Since you know that in your heart, and our hearts were created the same, you must also know that mine is as constant in its affection as yours.” She slid him a sideways glance. “Do you not?”
Bleu nodded and then frowned as he realised she had tricked him into admitting that he did know that, had made him realise that he knew it to the very depth of his soul.
“My love for Kyter does not take any of my love away from you.” She swept her fingers across his cheek and frowned back at him. “I am sorry it has troubled you though. I never wish to hurt you… although I do seem good at it.”
He managed a smile at her attempt to lighten the mood. “I hav
e lost count of the number of bones I have broken because of you… or the number of assassins and mercenaries who count me among the list of foes they wish dead the most.”
She shrugged and smiled, an innocent little one that might still work on her mate when she got herself into trouble and needed help but had long ago lost its effect on him.
“So what was your nightmare about?” That question hit him hard in the gut and he could only stare at her as he considered his answer.
As seconds ticked past, her gaze grew more curious, venturing deeper into his eyes as if she could find the answer there.
“It was just a nightmare.” He hadn’t told her details about his dreams in the past and there was no damned way he was going to start now.
“Do you often have nightmares about the dragon?”
His breath left him in a rush and his eyes darted between hers, and he might as well have just tossed all his cards onto the table because her little smile was victorious. Damn, she had played him again and he had fallen right into her trap. He had to be more careful around her. She was clever, used to winkling information out of people who didn’t want to talk, a trick that was useful in her line of work.
His eyebrows knit in a tight frown and she huffed.
“Do not give me that look. It was not difficult to put two and two together to come up with four, Brother. You came here looking weary, and you spoke of hunting the dragon again. I know that it plays on your mind now as it did in the past, and it was easy to guess that the dragon was the focus of your nightmare.” She always had been able to see right through him, and perhaps talking a little about his mission would prove helpful.
Iolanthe had travelled across Hell during her adventures, into areas most didn’t dare traverse, including lands bordering the Devil’s domain. There was a chance she would be able to give him information that could lead to him finding the dragon.
But he had to be careful, gathering the cards he had scattered in front of her and holding them close to his chest this time, because if he talked too much about the female dragon, his sister would probably see through him again.
He needed to keep her thinking this conversation was all business, that the dragon was just a mission to him.
He paused.
Was she something more?
He really wasn’t sure, and he was too tired, too fresh from the dream, to consider an honest answer to that question.
“The dragon surfaced again a few months ago, and since I had free time, I decided to track it across Hell and see if I could uncover where it had gone.” He leaned back in the chair and Iolanthe rose from hers, took their two coffee mugs and walked to the opposite side of the room, to the kitchen there. She lifted the jug from the machine, refilled their mugs, and brought them back to him. He looked down into his as she set it on the white table in front of him and took the seat across from him, gaze growing unfocused as he stared at the dark surface. “When I returned to Prince Loren, he tasked me with hunting the dragon and allowed me to pull together my old team.”
Iolanthe laughed. “And is Leif still in love with Prince Loren?”
Bleu smiled, couldn’t really contain it as he caught the mischief shining in his sister’s eyes, and the way her lips curved said that she liked seeing him smile again. It fell from his face as he considered how much he had changed from the male she had grown up with and faced the truth she had put out there—that he forced smiles and laughter when the situation called for it.
He hadn’t really had much to smile or laugh about in the last few millennia. It felt as if he had slowly forgotten how to do such things, each false smile or laugh stealing more of his ability to allow real ones out.
“I believe Leif still holds a deep affection for our prince.” Bleu couldn’t hold that against the male though, because he had behaved in such a way once, desperately emulating a male he wanted to be more than anything in the world in the ridiculous hope that male would notice him.
The difference was, he had been a youth at the time and Leif was a grown male.
“You hold one too,” Iolanthe said and he frowned before he realised that she wasn’t talking about his feelings for Vail, ones that male had murdered together with most of his legion that night forty-two centuries ago. She was talking about his affection for Loren. “It is nice you have friends.”
Bleu waved her away and sipped his coffee. Not hiding in it. He just needed the caffeine. His sudden thirst and interest in the drink had nothing to do with avoiding Iolanthe’s knowing gaze.
“Ah… you are upset with Prince Loren too.”
He scowled over the rim of his stupid unicorn mug at her.
Her victorious smile pulled a sharp huff from him. Played again. Fuck, he needed to stop falling into her traps. Hadn’t he sworn to keep his cards closer to his chest? Yet here he was, tossing them all down in front of her again.
Iolanthe clasped her mug in both hands and held his gaze. “You will find your mate one day, Bleu… when you least expect it. You told me that only I could love you forever, that everyone only loved you for now or not at all…”
He was tempted to look away but he was damned if he was going to let himself go through with such a weak move, even when looking into his sister’s eyes only made him feel the depth of what she was saying and it scoured his insides, hollowing his chest out and leaving it cold. He had told her those things when she had been on the verge of mating with Kyter, when his guard had been broken by Sable and his heart left exposed and vulnerable. He should have known she would remember them.
She released her mug and reached across the table, holding her hand out to him. He just stared at it and she sighed, a soft one that conveyed a wealth of hurt.
“You are wrong, Bleu,” she whispered, her violet eyes round and filled with warmth as they held his. “The truth is, you will find your mate, and you will finally have the one female you have been waiting for and she will be worth that wait.”
He hated to admit it, but it felt good to hear that. It hit him with the force of a Hell beast in a raging charge, but was as comforting as an angel’s embrace.
He shook his head. “I am beginning to see why people dump their problems on others.”
Iolanthe’s laugh filled the room, a soft melody that almost made him smile again. “It is called sharing a burden and feelings, and you used to do it all the time…”
Her smile fell, sucking the light from the room, and she looked down at her coffee.
“Before I lost myself in the war with Vail,” he said it for her and she lifted her eyes back to his, an apology shining in them. “I lost hope… but the war and protecting Loren became my life and my purpose, and I was fine with that.”
“Was fine?” She frowned at him. “Past tense?”
“Am fine,” he corrected but she already looked as if she didn’t believe him.
“You were not fine, Brother. You merely thought you were. You gave up on something that had meant the world to you.”
He shrugged that off. “I’m fine with it now.”
The look she gave him called him a liar.
So it wasn’t the truth, and there was little point in trying to pretend that it was since he had just spilled the bloody contents of his heart to her. It was ridiculous of him to attempt to deny that he wanted to find the mate he dreamed of now more than ever, when she had pieced together how seeing everyone important in his life happily mated made him feel, but it was habit and it was old, and those ones were the worst to break.
“Will you answer a question honestly for me, Bleu?”
He didn’t like the sound of that, but he nodded, curious about what she wanted to know, even when he feared that it would hurt him.
“Actually… do not answer it… but think about it, as I have thought about it.” That sounded even more ominous to him, and he leaned back in his chair again, not sure he liked where this was going at all. “Were your feelings for the huntress real or a product of your circumstances at the time?”
Her lips moved and he had to focus hard to hear what she was saying above the riot in his skull.
“I saw at the time she had wounded you, and I believed you had loved her with all of your heart… but looking back now, knowing your feelings about seeing myself and Prince Loren find our mates… I am no longer sure.”
Holy fuck, he wasn’t either.
He had wanted Sable and that want had clouded his vision and his heart, but leaving the elf kingdom behind and focusing everything on pursuing the dragon female had cleared that vision and Iolanthe had just pierced the veil of shadows over his heart, allowing light to stream into it again.
That light washed over memories he had buried deep, feelings long forgotten, and he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs as everything he had somehow suppressed came rushing back to the surface.
Leaving him reeling.
Gods.
He slumped into the chair, staring at his sister but not seeing her as it all fell into place and he felt like a fool.
Because of what had been happening at the time he had met Sable, he had somehow tangled together his pent up desire with the loneliness he had felt on seeing Loren wrapped up in Olivia, falling in love with her and torn yet excited about the prospect of having a mate.
The result had been him believing that he felt something more than mere lust for Sable.
When all along it had been impossible.
Because he had already met his fated female.
CHAPTER 12
Taryn paced her room, her legs trembling and body aching, but not from fear or her brother’s attack. No. It was a dream that had left her weak and shaking, and in the most delicious way.
Possessed by a Dark Warrior Page 11
