by Tate James
“And yet…here he is.” As I said this, my former mentor appeared in the doorway wearing—of all fucking things—a hibiscus-printed shirt and white pants. White pants!
“Boys! I am hoping by the fact that you rang my doorbell you’re not here to kill me?” Yoshi gave us an easy smile that looked totally alien on his face. Tattoos still curled out from his collar and sleeves, but if it weren’t for them, I’d have thought this was a doppelgänger.
“Why would we want to kill you, Yoshi?” I snarled, bounding up the front steps and grabbing his shirt in a fist. “It’s not like you tied me to a chair and slit my throat or anything.” Using my grip on his revolting shirt, I slammed his back into the wall beside the door and held him there just a fraction off the ground.
Since River had bonded Christina, we had all experienced a certain boost in abilities, like we were sharing shadows of one another’s gifts. It made holding a full-grown man off the ground with one hand all too damn easy.
“You know why I had to do that, Aus. It was for your own good.” Yoshi didn’t even seem the slightest bit apologetic for his choices, and my lip curled in a sneer.
“Let him down, bro,” Caleb interjected before I could yell–or break this fucker’s nose. “We came here to chat, remember? Not throw punches.”
“Speak for yourself,” I muttered, but did let my former mentor down slowly and with a look that promised all was not forgiven. Not by a long fucking shot.
Yoshi cleared his throat a couple of times and tugged his gaudy shirt back into place before sweeping a hand at the open front door. “Well, in that case, please come in. I was always hoping you two might come to visit sooner or later. I have spare rooms all ready, and my cook is preparing lunch. Hope you like crab! They were caught right here on the beach.”
He was nervously babbling, something I had never seen him do before, but I just rolled my eyes and stalked into the stark white house. “Not here for a holiday, Yoshi,” I snapped over my shoulder as I took in the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the crystal-clear waters beyond. “Nice shack.”
The older Mage—or, I guess, now just mage—had the good grace to look at least a little shamefaced as he admired the view. “Uh well, yeah. Turns out, I wanted to actually enjoy my retirement. So, what brings you two here? I take it things are not going well with the mother-in-law?”
“How do you know about her?” Caleb asked, taking a seat when Yoshi indicated to the wicker-framed sofas. “And more to the point, why didn’t you warn us if you already knew?”
The tattooed ancient just gave a shrug and sat down himself. “Politics,” he said by way of explanation. “Anyway, I’m not too sure how much help I can be now. The bulk of my magic has passed over to Austin, and I’m just keeping my nose clean down here. Staying out of everyone’s way.”
“Awfully brave of you,” I remarked with a healthy dose of sarcasm, which Yoshi chose to ignore.
Caleb gave me a sharp look, though, and then turned his charisma back on Yoshi. “We recently found out that Bridget’s third dianoch could be our secret weapon to shut her down once and for all. But we also learned he is in some sort of magical coma so she can’t access his magic.”
Yoshi nodded. “Yes, that is correct. So, what can I do to help?”
“We were told that there is a way to break the dianoch bond. If we can do that, then it will be safe to bring Lachlan back to the land of the living, so to speak.” Caleb narrowed his eyes as he spoke, scrutinizing Yoshi in a way that told me he’d picked something up in his body language. “Do you happen to know anything about how we might do that?”
Yoshi blinked at us both for a moment, and I sighed heavily. This was a waste of time; he knew nothing.
“Come on, Cal. He’s useless.” I pushed off the pillar I’d been leaning on and made to leave.
“Wait!” Yoshi snapped, halting my departure. “I do know. I just also know it’s an impossible task. One I gave up on a long time ago.”
This caught my attention. “You were trying to break a Ban Dia’s bond? Why?”
“Because Lachlan was my friend. Is my friend. When things turned bad with Bridget all those years ago, he came to Jackson and me, pleading for us to help. We did all we could but...” He trailed off with a small shrug. “Like I said. It’s an impossible task, even for two badasses like yourselves.”
“How about you let us be the judge of that?” I suggested as politely as I possibly could when I was picturing my hands around his tattooed throat.
Yoshi huffed an indignant noise and pushed up from the couch. “I will get you my notes. But why you think you can succeed where Jackson and I—who have five hundred years of experience each—failed, I have no idea. No accounting for the arrogance of youth, I guess.”
He was still muttering as he stalked out of the room, and I raised my eyebrows at Caleb.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he told me. “I said Yoshi would know something, not how useful it would be.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, slouching down beside him and picking at the wicker frame of the seat. “I just want to get back. I don’t like leaving Christina to do all those tattoos alone, and I didn’t even give her that artistry spell. She’s probably botching them all up something wicked.”
Caleb snorted a laugh. “Have a little faith, brother. She might surprise you.”
“She’s constantly surprising me,” I replied in a dark tone. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
Yoshi rejoined us then, carrying a folder of papers several inches thick. “Here,” he announced, dropping it onto my lap with way more drama than it really needed. “Everything we gathered on the Ruptura Amulet. A whole heap of dead ends.”
“Ruptura Amulet?” I repeated, raising my brows at him as he took a seat opposite us. “What is that?”
“That,” he replied, nodding to the first page I had flicked open, “is what you need to break a dianoch bond.”
The page in question held a faded drawing of a necklace. One large, red stone was etched with Ban Dia runes and strung on a chunky chain.
“It’s one of the original Ban Dia artifacts and the most powerful of them all. Its name defines what it is. Ruptura, to break. It contains the power to break bonds, strip magics, or dissolve matter like it never existed. That necklace in the wrong hands could level the entire human world to nothing more than dust. Its nature is to destroy.” Yoshi pursed his lips, tapping at them with steepled fingers. “It is only with that amulet that Lachlan’s bond to Bridget can be broken.”
I ran my fingers over the ancient drawing, feeling power in the ink and shivering. “It was this that Bridget was missing, wasn’t it? This is why her spell to steal Christina’s magic didn’t work. She was missing this amulet.”
“Probably,” Yoshi replied. “She likely doesn’t even know about it. This is an artifact that well predates her time on Earth, and I highly doubt Tasha would have shared sacred knowledge of her ancestors with the girl who was doomed to end our world.”
“So how do you know about it?” Caleb asked, and I nodded my agreement. How did Yoshi know all of this?
“I was good friends with Tasha, back before... well... before Bridget was born. Everything started heading a bit downhill from there.” He grimaced at some memory. “Anyway, that’s unimportant. The point is, the Ruptura Amulet was deemed too dangerous by Ban Dia elders some millennia ago, so it was decided that they would destroy it.”
My heart sank. “So, it’s gone?”
“Don’t be foolish, boy. You can’t destroy Destruction itself. All their efforts achieved was to break it into four pieces. Since they couldn’t destroy it, they then decided the best course of action was to hide the pieces as far apart as they could in the hopes that no one would ever piece it back together.” Yoshi eyed us both up. “But that’s exactly what you two clowns are going to do, isn’t it?”
“If we can find them,” I admitted, “yes. Not only will this help us free Lachlan, but it could really help Chri
stina when she faces Bridget.”
Yoshi snorted a laugh. “Your girl has six bonded dianoch; I doubt she will need the help of Ruptura to win this fight.”
Caleb and I exchanged a glance. It was something we had all discussed at some point or another. “Technically, yeah, she is stronger,” my twin agreed, “but Bridget has four hundred years of practice and planning. What good is all the magic in the world if you don’t know the best way to use it?”
“Or worse yet,” I added, “if you’re shackled by compassion and morality. Things Bridget seems to be severely lacking.”
The former Ink Mage nodded his understanding. “Well, like I said, this is a bit of a dead end. No one knows who possesses the remaining three amulet shards, and without them, you’re as good as wasting your time.”
“Remaining three?” Caleb repeated. “You mean you know where one of them is?”
He nodded. “Yes, Jackson and I had a piece to guard together, passed down through our Mage line. The fact that a piece was given into the protection of the Blood and Ink Mages of the time leads us to think that the heads of the strongest supernatural factions were chosen as the amulet guardians.”
“So, then surely this is easy—work out who they would be and ask if they have a piece.” I frowned, failing to see how this was such an “impossible” task.
Yoshi gave me a pitying look. “This was done thousands and thousands of years ago, boy. Who is to say which species were considered the most powerful at that time or that they even still exist today? What if one of the factions chosen was the titans? They died out long before the plague, so what then would they have done with their shard?” He squinted at me. “See where I am going with this? Even if we did know—and in some cases it wouldn’t be hard to guess—there is the small problem of getting them to admit it and then part with it.”
“So, what you’re saying is that it’s not impossible, it was just too hard for you.” I nodded and returned his pitying look. “I think we have learned all we need to know from you. We’ll be heading off now, if you could please give us your amulet shard?”
Yoshi gave me a sarcastic smile. “Give it to you? You already have it.”
I froze, and Caleb frowned at me.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I demanded. “I’m fairly sure I would remember you giving me a piece of an ancient magical artifact.”
Yoshi snorted a laugh. “Not if I didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t. Take your shirt off and turn around.”
Suspicious, I didn’t make a move until Caleb whacked me in the arm to hurry me along. Curious fucker. I could see he was dying to see what Yoshi was going on about, and if I was totally honest, I was too.
Eyes narrowed, I slowly did as instructed, yanking my cotton top off and presenting my inked back to the artist responsible for most of those designs. The unmistakable tickle of a ballpoint pen traced over a spot somewhere near the center of my back, and Yoshi murmured a couple of power words, too quiet for me to hear. When he was done, there was a strange sort of creeping sensation in my skin, and then then feeling of something being ejected. Like a huge blackhead. Oddly satisfying.
“Holy shit,” Caleb breathed. “Are you serious? You hid a piece of an ancient amulet inside Austin’s skin? Are you insane?”
With his words, I whipped around and glared at the shard of red gemstone sitting in Yoshi’s open palm. What the fuck?
“Seemed like as good a place as any.” Yoshi smirked at me. “It was inside your tiger’s stripes, in case you were wondering.” He held out the shard to me, and I resisted the urge to hit him in the face. That was a Cole response and not going to achieve anything here. Instead I took the warm piece of stone and tucked it into the pocket of my jeans.
“Any ideas where we can get the rest?” I prompted him with a scowl.
He folded his arms over his chest. “That’s something you’ll need to take up with Jackson. He was the one working on tracking the others while I kept that one safe.”
Caleb groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Fan-fucking-tastic. Don’t suppose you know how we can find that dickhead?”
Yoshi’s lips pursed and his eyes darted between us in a way that suggested he was keeping secrets. “I can arrange something for you, yes. Give me a couple of days, and I’ll be in touch.”
I glared back at him for a long moment, weighing the sincerity of his offer before breaking his gaze. “Fine, set it up as soon as you can. If you think of anything else...”
“I will let you know immediately, Mage Austin.” The edge of mocking in Yoshi’s response was clear, but I couldn’t be bothered arguing with him. We’d gotten what we came for—another puzzle piece. Now I just wanted to get the fuck out of this stinking hot country and back to my Princess.
“Austin means ‘thank you,’ Yoshi,” Caleb corrected me and gave me a jab in the ribs that I ignored. Instead, I tucked the file of notes under my arm and headed for the front door, not waiting to hear Cal’s polite goodbyes to the asshole who’d almost decapitated me.
We had a fuckload of work to do, and once again I was thanking our fates that Wesley wasn’t really dead. He was just the man for this job.
I tugged my phone from my pocket and dialed, holding it to my ear as my twin hurried to catch up and the two of us departed Yoshi’s ‘beach shack.’
16
KIT
The obnoxious beeping of my cellphone alarm woke me with a jolt, and I fumbled for it on the bedside table, intent on turning the wretched thing off. Of course, it was nowhere to be found.
“Where the fuck?” I growled, withdrawing my hand back under the covers and burying my head under a pillow. It was way too freaking early to be awake, but the guys had taken to setting my cellphone alarm when there had been a few incidents of me lashing out when someone tried to wake me gently.
“Vixen,” Cole’s deep voice came muffled through the pillow, and his warm hand stroked down my back under the blankets. Mmmm, that was right; I’d crawled in with him to warm up after my flight with Vali.
“Cutie,” I mumbled back, fishing around until my hand touched his warm skin and then scooting closer to him. Now if only that fucking beeping would stop.
“Vixen, generally that noise means it’s time to get up.” Cole’s words made sense, yes. But was I going to be sensible and actually get out of bed? Hell no.
The mattress dipped on my other side, and the infuriating alarm stopped.
Hallelujah. Back to sleep time.
“Uh-ah, don’t even think about going back to sleep, regina mea,” Vali scolded me, peeling the pillow off my face. “I only turned it off because it hurts my ears.”
Blinking my sleepy eyes up at him, then looking at Cole beside me, then back to Vali, an idea crept through the wool of sleep.
“I can think of other things to do if I’m not allowed to sleep,” I proposed, letting a wicked grin creep over my face.
Cole snorted a short laugh and kissed my cheek. “Tempting, but not with my brother, babe. Throw him out and yell for River, and you’re on.”
“Asshole,” Vali muttered, whacking his brother on the shoulder. “But in seriousness, as much as I want to continue what we started last night, I have something to discuss with you. Both of you.”
“Is it a discussion we can have with less clothes on?” I suggested, making one last bid for a dragon sandwich and getting eye rolls in response. “Fine, I’m getting up,” I growled, clambering over Cole and grabbing jeans off the floor. “Would have rather got you two up, but we can discuss this another day.”
“Playing with fire, regina,” Vali called after me, and I slammed the bathroom door behind me.
“I wish I was,” I whispered my dirty retort to the empty bathroom and turned the shower on hot. I don’t know why people insisted on cold showers when they were worked up. Scalding hot worked much better for me.
When I was done, I quickly towel-dried my hair and yanked on the same clothes I’d worn the day before. Turned out, none
of us were particularly amazing at doing laundry, so we were sort of recycling until someone cracked and took a load to the laundromat.
I had money on Wes. Or River.
“All right, speak,” I ordered Vali, dropping into the couch seat beside him and accepting the mug of coffee he held.
“I did some thinking on what we discussed yesterday,” he started, flicking an almost nervous glance at Cole before refocusing on me. “About other dragons.”
“Other dragons?” Cole frowned. “What other dragons?”
“We were just speculating that there might be other dragons,” I filled him in. “Not that there are. But just that it’s not something to rule out as a possibility, right?”
Cole nodded. “Yeah, I sort of assumed there were somewhere.”
“Right,” Vali agreed. “Well, I didn’t. I figured our species probably died out a long-ass time ago, and it was just through that dormant DNA that we became what we are. Anyway, after our chat, I called Bunica.”
Cole’s eyes widened, and I glanced between the brothers. “Who is Bunica?”
“Our grandmother,” Cole replied, still staring at his older brother. “We haven’t spoken to her since Father took us out of Romania. I bet she was thrilled to hear from you.”
“Uh,” Vali grunted. “Something like that.”
“So, what did she say?” I pressed. “She was the one who used to tell you stories of dragons when you were little, right?”
“Yeah, she was.” Vali rubbed at his eyes, looking tired. “So, I asked her about those stories and if there was any truth to them. She laughed at me.”
“Of course she did,” Cole groaned, and I frowned my confusion.
“She laughed at me, then said she had seen the video on the news of two dragons showing their scaled asses to the whole damn world, and she should have guessed they were her two dipshit grandsons.” Vali heaved a sigh. “Anyway, long story short, she wouldn’t exactly confirm the existence of other dragons, but she did say if we had any interest in our ‘heritage,’ then we would need to visit her in person and she’d take us to meet our străbunic. Her father.”
