How did this affect him? The fact that he even asked himself that question shocked him, but he had to be sure of where he was going with this. He’d take nothing for granted as so much was at stake.
If he didn’t ask himself the difficult things at this stage, he wouldn’t be much of a mate. If he did, he might be somehow failing himself. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t … But he owed her something, at least; he felt it in his bones.
The anger had faded. He and Kseniya might have bonded in the dragons’ way, but he didn’t own her. They had mated when they’d made love that first time, but they were mates, not each other’s property. He didn’t own who she’d been before they’d met and would never, ever own her. For dragons, freedom came as a cherished commodity. Furthermore, that wasn’t how mating worked. But, he could have expectations going forward. He was, after all, the future king. The issue was to figure out just what to expect.
She could still reject him, stubborn, independent woman that she was. But he couldn’t let that happen for he didn’t just want her, he needed her.
In watching her, he saw what he needed to be, how he needed to handle things. She’d bowled him over with her fearlessness and lack of hesitation. Knowing where you were going and how to get there had to be the most important thing in anybody’s life. Especially his. So, if he thought half-assing things at any time would work, she’d have other ideas. She wouldn’t let him give less of himself than he should or allow him to cut corners.
A good influence was what she’d be.
And she wasn’t a killer. Well, not exactly. That had to count for something, right?
More shocking, though, was the fact that the initial thought of her being an assassin had gotten him quite excited—a detail he’d never admit to her or anyone, for as long as he lived.
His phone rang, and the screen lit up in his hand. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding it this whole time. “Hello, Keith.”
“Hey, bro. How ya doin’?”
“Eh, I’m good. Will be back to work soon.” He didn’t feel like giving Keith more fodder for ribbing him. Some things were sacred.
“Cool. Just wanted you to know I called Trevor at the ITF and he set up a three-way convo with Yakob at Tis Abay. Remember that investment they were considering?”
He let out a weary sigh. “The one that fell through?”
“One and the same, but it’s back afloat. Let’s say it will cover expenses for a state-of-the-art day care wing and cafeteria, as well as the glasshouse and indoor and outdoor gym. The pro sports training facility is covered through the fundraisers of the past three years. Soon, we’ll be kicking that project off, too, along with the community-directed initiatives we discussed. I’m talking about a school and youth center now because why take only a finger when we can grab the whole hand?”
He blinked. Keith had been going on a mile a minute. “Wait. What?”
“You’re never gonna believe who came through! You must have heard of Dynamogenics, right? Well, they’re the ones behind this. I got off the phone with Vero, the CEO’s PA, this morning, and she just emailed that Dynamogenics also want to partner up with Sportology; something about offering us the full scope of their R&D labs for whatever we want to come up with next!” Keith let out a whoop. “Fuck, man! We must have lucky stars shining out of our butts or something, for them to have reached out like this!”
One, actually. Their lucky star was named Kseniya Dmitriievich Sokolova.
But Keith couldn’t know how all this had come about—let him think it was Lady Luck at play.
“As long as Trevor doesn’t tell you and Yakob to fuck off, I’m good. This is way more than we expected already.”
“Trevor is my bitch, you know that. But we also have others on board from UEFA and the NFL. Oh, and the WWF, as well as Silicon Valley people. Having Dynamogenics on our side is gonna open loads of doors for us, man.”
“Yeah. Aiming low, huh?” Djibril laughed. “Seriously. Don’t be too heavy-handed.”
“Jokes aside, Gabe, I got this. Trust me,” the man said in a serious tone, sounding even a tad offended.
“I do.”
“Okay, then, speaking of Trevor. Call him when you can. He’s tired of speaking to your manager.”
“Thanks, I will. Talk to you later.”
“Hey man, before you leave. Are you okay? You sound … different.”
“I’m fine, bro. Just a ’lil tired is all. I’ll be seeing you soon.”
“’K, then. I’ll let it slide for now. Peace out.”
He slipped his phone in the jeans’ back pocket and went to the kitchen to grab some water. Ash sat at the table, eating a sandwich. The man looked up from the newspaper he was reading.
Djibril smiled. “I haven’t seen anyone reading an actual paper in ages, except in hotel lobbies, maybe.”
“I do use my tablet, but sometimes, nothing beats a sheet of cheap ass paper, with the ink bleeding in the pads of your fingers. And I don’t mean the kind of printed paper they use to wrap your burger and fries. My wife hates that I contribute to the murder of trees with this.”
“Does she not read physical books?”
“She has a whole floor to ceiling library that’s running out of space.” Ash shook his head. “But I find it best not to remind her, especially if it means I get to keep my balls.”
Djibril chuckled. He found some bottles of water in the fridge and took one. After screwing the cap open, he downed half of it in one swoop, then released a deep breath. Thoughts kept swirling inside his head.
“Damn, man,” Ash said after a short silence between them. “You look like me when I was coming to terms with who my wife was. That was brutal—definitely don’t miss all the drama and issues.” He bit into his sandwich and chewed, then washed it down with orange juice. “That was one hell of a ride. I got shot, she got shot, and we both almost died. Not to mention all the secrets coming out … It was like a house of cards falling all over me, you know.” He sighed. “But I don’t regret any of it.”
Djibril sat down across from him. “So you didn’t know about her.”
“Are you kidding me? That woman is more deviant, crooked and manipulative than anyone I’ve ever known.” He shook his head. “Love her to bits.”
“You proposed after you found out everything then?”
Ash shook his head. “We were already married. Vegas. I don’t remember a thing of that trip. Told you—deviant, crooked, manipulative.”
He blinked. “What?”
Ash nodded. “We were on our honeymoon, in the south of France. I didn’t know at the time that she was after a rogue group of agents from the agency, and she booked us that stay in Arles because it would allow her to check some intel. That’s when I got shot, by the way, following her one night.”
“And you didn’t think once to leave? Seeing as she’d lied to you?”
“I did. Then it took her almost dying and someone who is now a close friend to show me that I needed to get my head out of my arse before I lost her for good.”
“You guys make my head hurt,” Djibril said, incredulous.
Ash ran a napkin over his hand and arched an eyebrow. “You think you can’t handle Anna Pavlovna? No way. She’s a sweetheart, except when you tell her you’ve run out of chocolate. In that case, be afraid.”
Not the first time he’d heard Ash calling Kseniya by that name. “Why do you call her that?”
“Oh, I can recognize the face. Who wouldn’t? But that’s her name inside the agency, the one we go about officially.” He made inverted commas with his fingers when saying the last word.
Djibril nodded. Why did she have that name? It was the moniker of the scheming socialite in Tolstoy’s War & Peace.
“And now, my friend,” Ash started. “Now it’s time for me to tell you to get your head out of your arse. Or you’re going to lose her.”
Djibril could hear Keith’s voice in his head, speaking about holes and asses in his New York accent, but
likely in a much less restrained manner than this Brit sitting with him at the table.
At Ash’s words, he shook his head. He wouldn’t even conceive of not having her in his life any more. “It’s not that. It’s just … I don’t even know anymore.”
He suddenly felt ridiculous for making this into a mountain of nothing. They were dragons, dammit. Yet, he was hung up on some stupid issue which didn’t really matter or make any sense.
“I suppose you’re right.” He drank a few more sips of water.
“There you go.”
In guy speak, that meant the matter had been settled and the conversation was over. Done. Finito.
The dragon moved inside him, creating a sound like static on a TV screen. He could sense her now, near or far, but the communication felt flawed, like a shoddy Wi-Fi connection. Until Kseniya recovered fully, it would be this way. Connected as they were, this was one thing she couldn’t hide from him.
No turning back now.
He downed the rest of his water while trying to decide if he was a complete loon or a patented fool. Probably a bit of both.
Within the next forty-eight hours, at Kseniya’s insistence, they were on their way back to Shadow Bridge. Alexis had offered a half-hearted protest as her doctor, but she knew the young woman’s obstinate trait had no equal. So, she’d backed off, even after Kseniya refused an escort on their journey.
“We must go as … ourselves, so we can enter Shadow Bridge. You know the drill with us,” she said in a private conversation with only Djibril present.
Alexis was the only human on the planet who would understand what she meant by this. Not that this was accurate—they’d flown over the veil once, so it would know their signature. No, they were worried the veil wouldn’t recognize the Phoenix’s essence in him and thus negate the power they so desperately needed to convey to Séraphine Dionysios.
“Are you sure?” he asked when she ended the call. He was worried she hadn’t recovered enough to sustain the trip in dragon form. He was the one who needed to fly over the veil. Not her.
“As sure as I ever will be.” She smiled. “I’m fine. Promise.”
“I know.”
A chill threaded up Djibril’s spine, signaling she was saying the truth, her ice energy powering up in his system. It then faltered—she seemed to struggle with something.
“Thank you,” she finally said, her voice small.
She stared down at her lap, at the wall, never at him. She also kept a few feet between them.
“For what?” he asked.
“For everything,” she said. “You took care of me.”
“You expected me to leave you there and fly away?”
That was meant to be a bit of a joke, but she didn’t smile.
“You’re the prince.”
He frowned. She was getting at what, exactly? “What does that have to do with anything?”
No response—only a shrug. No matter how long he’d live in this world, he’d probably never understand women.
“All right, then. Maybe it’s best I go and get things sorted for departure.”
A nod. Still no words.
“Talk to you later.”
And he ran away off as fast as his legs would take him, which was pretty fast. Kinda like vampires when they just materialize in front of you from a soccer field’s length of distance away. That worked differently, but it looked pretty much the same to the naked human eye.
After speaking to Adri to let her know the good news, he arranged for their stuff to be packed and sent ahead of them to Shadow Bridge. She, too, had advised that they fly over the veil in order for it to recognize the Phoenix energy.
The next day, they were up early. Outside, it was still dark, in that blackest hour just before dawn.
The time had come to depart, so they climbed to the upper floor and a roof that served as a secret landing pad for a helicopter.
Her face glowed as the crisp breeze touched it. He liked to think he had something to do with that, that his presence was soothing her and bringing her comfort and strength. He’d give his last breath to make her feel good.
There, on top of the gated home where the closest neighbors lay sleeping feet away beyond the high walls, they prepared to shift. The darkness would aid them, and it was a fact the Corpus had been engaging in covert activities here for years without detection.
Fortunately, he managed to get into his beast suit more gracefully than the previous time, even with Vadim Damian’s energy swirling inside him and giving him something extra to think about. He didn’t even get a smirk from Kseniya as she watched him discard his shower robe and change first. A few more times, and he’d get the process down pat.
But, would there be more times with her? As far as he was concerned, he knew the answer to that now—it was a done deal. How to convince her, though? She didn’t seem particularly keen to be around him lately.
On a flap of their mighty wings, they took flight and soared westward, even going through a storm over the Devon cliffs. The night air might have been freezing around them, but as her ice mingled with the fire within him, nothing else mattered.
He looked ahead, knowing what he had to do once they left the Dionysios home. It involved the royals of Fire Island and those gilded chairs they’d been bound on, a promise to be extracted from Kseniya as he pledged even more to her.
First things first, though. A young woman needed saving; when that was done, he’d think of the rest, especially the complicated protocols of such an endeavor which had last happened centuries ago when his parents had met.
They flew quietly for a while, getting to the open sea. Kseniya’s dragon enjoyed herself in the air, playful in this form, which completely contrasted with her earlier behavior. Would he ever be able to make heads or tails of her? When he overtook her at one point, she caught up and nipped at his neck, teasing him, then raced ahead. Her giggles rang inside his mind. Looking back at him, her dragon winked, enticing him to a game of catch. The ice energy grew stronger, giving him that now familiar feeling. Oh, yeah? You want to play games? Challenge accepted.
They cut through the sky, soaring, dipping, inhaling the scent of freedom together. The daylight never came as they flew into a different time zone, which helped their cover. The air bounced with salt and moisture, tingling his skin under a carpet of stars. The bright moon showed their shadows dancing over the vast expanse of ocean and, with every wingbeat, he fell deeper in love with her. This was how it should always be. He stared into the bottomless pits of her sapphire blue dragon eyes, and the flames raged inside him at what he saw there, sending his brain all the messages he wanted to hear. He could just feel her strength growing as they went on, engaging in carefree shenanigans.
The horizon seemed to go on forever, but it had only been two or three hours since they’d left. Peace reigned firm until a buzzing sound started, getting louder, closer. Couldn’t be a commercial plane. They knew those routes and made sure to avoid them. Surprised, Djibril turned in the direction of the sound.
A fighter jet made straight at them. Instinctively, he swerved toward Kseniya to get between her and the aircraft. Multiple shots fired as he eased her away. A couple of bullets ripped into him and killed his breaths for a moment. As he dipped, he caught her eyes widening in shock and fear. She flew beneath him fast so he landed on her back with a thud. This wasn’t good. His weight would bring the both of them down and drown them. Nobody would be able to find them, except the military trackers of Fire Island. For the human world, they’d have simply disappeared from the face of the Earth.
Pain tore through him. These were no ordinary bullets. He thought of what Kseniya had been through and watched the plane keep going in the distance and then looking like it was circling back toward them as they fell, fell, fell …
No! They were coming for her, now. He had to protect her!
Suddenly, an opposing force lifted him up in a jerking motion and then raced on, adding more and more speed. Kseniya!
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“Hold on tight,” she told him.
He could feel her struggle, but she was determined to catch up to the bastard who’d shot them.
In seconds, they were riding his coattail, as close as she could muster. As the plane managed to make a U-turn to take a stab at shooting them once more, a column of white mist escaped her gaping mouth—a rush of ice she sent straight to the plane, freezing it in space, frost growing on the windshield to obliterate the sight of the two people inside the cockpit. The engines died, and it stopped for a second in mid-air. All around them, a dead lull settled, broken only by the swish of her dragon’s wings, the momentum contributing to push the aircraft down until it had dropped right into the ocean, disappearing to its depths.
Kseniya kept going as though she hadn’t just killed two people in a coldblooded manner. People who’d tried to kill them, true, but it didn’t make it any less difficult to wrap his mind around. The thought made his blood ring in his ears … or it could be the bullet fucking with his head.
She’d saved his life, without a moment of hesitation. As his senses got hazier, her voice entered his consciousness.
“Use Vadim’s power, Gabe! You have enough of it to spare. Use it now to kill the poison! He told me he hadn’t been able to as the power activated in him too late after he was shot. But you still have time! Channel it—it’s fire. You know how. You can do it!”
Poison. Damian. Killers. Hadn’t the Corpus gotten them all?
“Must be a straggler. We got all the others, Gabe. Stop thinking. Focus, or I’ll kill you myself!”
Suppressing a laugh, he looked inward. Locating the energy gifted by the Phoenix, he concentrated hard. The mass pounded and throbbed, like a restless lion itching to escape its cage. That fire belonged to Séraphine Dionysios, but he could use some of it without impairing the mission, and his dragon’s energy would contribute to help.
Sirens and Scales Page 281
