They chatted about nice things, and the boy nibbled Aiden’s woman’s nipple.
If shattering the boy’s skull had been an available option, his brains would have spilled onto the pillow, over the mattress, and seeped into the granite below. But shatterings were not an option, so Aiden held his desires. He allowed them to cool and crystalize so that he could ignite them later, when he emerged into the Burning World. This boy would die in the way Aiden prophesied: The entire world would watch and the entire world would understand the difference between the strong and the weak.
The boy lay on his side with the rib carrying the glass splinter pressed into the mattress. Aiden closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead against the nape of the boy’s neck. He would feel, damn it. Know his skin again. Understand the flutters against his fingertips and the beat of a heart against his face.
If he found sensation, he would find his exit from his shell of new-space. He would emerge a new man, one brightly burning and unforgiving. Would he walk the earth untouchable and unreadable, like the Tsar? Would he manifest all abilities, both Fate and Shifter, like the half-breed? Either way, he would take from this kid what was rightfully his.
Aiden slid his hand down the boy’s chest.
Did he feel the smooth fabric of the interloper’s t-shirt, or was his mind filling in details it wanted to sense? Was he falling to expectation?
Aiden fell to no one’s expectations. Not his mother’s, nor his sisters’. Not his father’s or his uncles’. Most definitely not Daisy’s. The hard-bodied child he pressed against fell at Daisy’s feet like the lamb he was. Daisy needed a wolf of cleansing fire, not a panderer.
Aiden pressed his fingers into the boy. No change. No reaction. Yet…
He felt the burned-on handprint Daisy left behind when she embedded the splinter. Nothing else, not the boy’s shirt or his skin, only a sense of edges, of the change from one type of energy to another. A boundary of transformation. A place between the old and the new.
A portal.
Could he force his hand inside the boy’s body? No attempts at contact had yet manifested, but none had been against the hand of his goddess.
He cuddled closer and splayed his fingers over the force edges of the handprint and—
The full force of the boy’s sexual desire for his Daisy rippled through Aiden’s body. The tightening of the boy’s gut rode in on the horniness—the kid feared many things Aiden could not sense or parse. Nor did he care. Daisy breathed against his side. Stray strands of her hair tickled his ear. Her heart beat against his body.
He wanted to lick her. Stick his tongue into her mouth or stroke it across her cheek. Press it against her nipples the way she should be licked.
The boy jolted.
Did he know Aiden—
He was in Pavlovich’s room, on the floor now cuddling with nothing but the air he did not sense. The Russian asshole sat on his bed surrounded by a pen and notepad, three tablet computers, and a paper report scattered over his bunched-up blankets. He’d changed into actual pajamas—forties-style black silk man-jamas complete with stitched piping and a monogram.
Dmitri Pavlovich wore monogrammed pajamas. If Aiden didn’t want to rip out the man’s eyeballs, he would have laughed.
“What did you do, semi-Tsar?” Aiden threw a full-on right hook at Dmitri’s face. Nothing happened. Again. “Did you pinch your wee little pinky?”
He’d felt Daisy. The kid reacted. Only a day as a phantom and Aiden had already gained a sliver of control.
Perhaps he could control Pavlovich through the glass in his hand. “No more distracting me.” He’d hoped to kill Daisy’s father in front of her, to show his seriousness. But maybe he should pull that glass and stick it in the man’s eye right now.
Pavlovich stared at his unhealed, pierced hand. He wiggled his fingers, flexing them one by one, and the eddies and torrents of power around him flexed and wiggled in response.
Aiden leaned over so that they’d be at eye level with each other. Pavlovich was a tall man, taller than Aiden, but sitting lowered him to child-height. Aiden’s satchel flopped forward and slapped against Pavlovich’s chest.
The man flinched. Slowly, he raised his good hand to his heart.
“Oh, look at that.” Aiden flicked Pavlovich’s forehead. No response. He roared and slapped. Again, no response. “What’s the key, old man?”
Maybe… Aiden flicked Pavlovich’s head again, but this time, with the hand embedded with the dragon talon—the same hand he had used to touch the glass splinter inside the interloper.
Pavlovich’s brow knitted. He rubbed his forehead.
Aiden stood up and wiggled his dragon-taloned fingers. Pavlovich responded, as had the boy.
“Are you pulling me back on purpose?” Aiden swung again. Both the talon sliver and the glass in Pavlovich’s hand were influencing Aiden’s placement in the world.
He needed his Daisy. He needed company, and to touch her again. An Emperor needs an Empress. She would be his and he would accept no substitute.
He unfurled his seer. His Andreas Sisto-based death washed through him, but he pushed through it. He focused. What do I need to do to rise above my shackles? Because he would. No one restrained Aiden Blake.
No one.
Chapter Forty-Two
Daisy dangled her legs under the ornate wood banister at the lip of the upper library level. The room behind her, though shallow, held a multitude of books both old and new. Most were enclosed in glass cases, but some sat on open shelves at least twelve feet tall. A gliding ladder attached to rails circled the cove, though she figured the dragons probably took care of most of the upper shelf duty.
The cove opened into the cave and offered a view she did not have access to from any other spot.
AnnaBelinda had given specific instructions. No one was allowed on the spiral path to the storage rooms above the apartments, so like a good guest, Daisy stayed away. The library’s upper level was high enough to provide a view over the kitchen area and its walls of cabinets. Daisy was pretty sure Anna had placed the kitchen area between the grand, bank-like entrance vault bulkhead door and the rest of the cave to block sightlines. The kitchen served its purpose without obviously doing so, and also provided easy food access to the library and work areas.
Anna had an entire steampunk-worthy, non-electrical, mad scientist setup in the lower library. Sandro had been like a little boy in a toy store when he walked in. Her father grumbled and frowned and took copious notes about “upgrades” now that his precious Praesagio instruments were living here with the Dracae.
The banister where she sat wasn’t much more than two ornately carved horizontal beams, one a foot and a half off the floor, and the second at elbow level. About every five feet or so, an equally ornate support column kept them steady, but the structure wouldn’t stop someone from tumbling. It did, though, make a nice place to rest her arms while she sat on the edge.
She swung her legs absently as she leaned against the lower rail, the way a kid would sit on a fenced retaining wall to watch a baseball game, or in her case, the grand and wonderfully masculine show below the fenestra draconis, the swirling stained glass rosette through which the mirrors piped sunshine. All she needed was a bag of popcorn and she’d be set for the rest of the afternoon.
Everyone kept themselves busy while they waited for Rysa and Ladon to return from the upper reservoir. Daisy might have to climb up there and remind them that they were getting married tomorrow, but from the amount of rumbling rolling down into the baths, she figured it would probably be less embarrassing to leave them be for a while longer.
Anna kept Sister-Dragon busy helping Sandro, and her father busy with all the nifty toys in this part of the cave. On the table in the upper work area behind the cove, one of the Dracae’s mechanical sword scabbards lay spread out like a dismantled bug. Before AnnaBelinda and Derek left to come to Minnesota, Anna had been cleaning and adjusting it to better accommodate Stab, the Praesagio midnight
blade stashed in the cave’s armory.
Not that Daisy knew where the armory was. At this point, she doubted her father knew, and Sandro and Mira obviously did not, though Mira could probably find it within fifteen minutes if she put her seer to it.
Honestly, Daisy didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to see centuries’ worth of hacking blades and battle axes. She was queasy enough.
She had been planning to talk to Sandro about her tummy and the loopy headache this morning, but he had his hands full outfitting the lower workroom with dragon medical equipment. Every few minutes, either Sandro or her father would issue some stern warning about the fragility of a piece of electronics. A dragon flash would follow, along with terse words from Anna. Then Mira would step in and calm everyone down.
Derek and Gavin had wisely decided to move into the gardens and add the finishing touches to the wedding gazebo. They measured and hammered out of harm’s way. Derek promised a wedding light show tomorrow when the mirrored-in sun hit solstice, and it seemed final adjustments needed to be made.
It also meant that today, the gazebo sat in a nicely bright spot of warm sunshine.
Both her cousin and her gorgeous boyfriend worked shirtless. Both were distractingly sweaty. Gavin did more measuring than hammering, with his rib. Twice, they stopped to compare tattoos and scars—Gavin’s Daisy-caused handprint on his side and Derek’s sprawling dragon along his shoulder. Gavin laughed and slapped Derek’s arm, and every fiber of Daisy’s body responded with the same happy glee that made her want to get a bowl of popcorn and a lemonade as she sat on the ledge watching the show.
With her upset tummy, she shouldn’t care, but damn, they were two fine-looking, happy, twisting, hammering, muscle-working men.
So she watched and wiggled, and swung her legs absently. For the first time in almost twelve years, she let herself just be.
AnnaBelinda and Ladon had allowed her into a magical place and for once, she felt safe.
Aiden wouldn’t get in. She had to believe that. She was safe; Gavin was safe. They were surrounded by family.
Out in the garden, Derek stepped back to admire his work. The gazebo was big enough to accommodate the entire wedding party, dragons included, with Rysa, Ladon, and Brother-Dragon in the center under the open roof. An arch stood at the four points of the circle, one each for the four seasons—and the four breeds.
Her father would be taking Andreas’s spot under the spring arch decorated with snapdragons and lavender. Anna, Sister-Dragon, and Derek would stand in the fall arch of oak, sunflowers, and citrus. Daisy and Gavin had volunteered to take summer, with its bright red roses and warm, sunny daisies. Mira and Sandro would stand in winter with the holly and mistletoe.
Ladon and Rysa would marry tomorrow surrounded by family and friends, at the moment the light returned to the world.
She had to admit that Ladon had a knack for the romantic. When Anna found Derek, she snuck him out from under the Shifter Progenitor’s nose. They picked up an official license at the town hall in Rock Springs and that was that. Mira and Sandro married while passing through Las Vegas on the way to California.
Gavin looked down at his feet, then up at the gazebo. He said something to Derek, who looked shocked for a second before gripping Gavin’s shoulders.
Then Derek, wearing a huge smile, looked directly at Daisy.
Her stomach did a little flip-flop. Not a queasy flip, but an I know what that look means flop.
Gavin started his med school applications at the end of the semester. He was twenty-one. They couldn’t get married yet.
Yet, she thought. She’d thought “yet” because…
Because she wasn’t going to think about that right now. She had bridesmaid duties and Aiden-killing duties, and vet duties and…
The mid-notes of a chimes-in-the-wind present-seer rolled from the workroom space behind Daisy. Mira must have come up the stairs.
The blonde Fate stopped next to Daisy and held up two glasses of fresh-squeezed lemonade from one of the Dracae’s many citrus trees. “Mind if I join you?”
Daisy, thankful for the distraction, nodded yes and scooted over to make room. She was probably reading things into Derek’s look anyway.
Mira handed Daisy a glass before she gracefully dropped to the edge and swung her legs over as well. She sipped at her lemonade and nodded toward the gazebo. “Did you know Rysa brought her little dragon stuffed toy home from Portland?”
The toy Daisy took from Rysa’s home right before she and Mira moved from San Diego and Daisy got entangled with Aiden. Daisy had given the little dragon to Sandro before he vanished into the desert. It turned out that the toy had played a small but important role in getting Sandro to his daughter when she needed him the most.
“I didn’t know.” Daisy sipped at her drink. Tartness rolled over her tongue, followed by the cleanest, richest sweetness she’d ever tasted. “Don’t give Dad any of this.” She took another sip. “He’ll want to patent whatever plant Ladon and AnnaBelinda use as a sweetener.”
Mira smiled. “I’m glad you’re here, Daisy.”
What was she supposed to say to that? “Really? Why?”
Mira chuckled. “That afternoon in San Diego when you showed up on my doorstep—the day before I ran from California with Rysa—when you came to tell me Sandro was okay, I knew you’d be future-important.”
“The angel Fate kept telling me the same thing.” Daisy rolled her eyes. She half-believed the whole “future-important” thing with both her and Gavin was more a ploy to keep their behavior under control than anything else.
Mira’s seer chimed again. “It would be nice to know who the angel Fate is.” She sipped at her lemonade. She, too, seemed to be impressed by the view.
“Why?” Daisy had no desire to be between Mira and a Fate who the present-seer believed needed to be taught a lesson, and from the look on Mira’s face, a vendetta might well be in the making.
And between them she would be. The angel Fate told her to never speak her name. She—or he—had trusted Daisy. Upsetting that trust might bring a whole new level of vendetta down on Daisy’s head. But the angel Fate told her that she would know when to speak the Fate’s name. She’d said “it will be a difficult time.”
Right now, sitting here with a queasy tummy and her friend’s mother, did not seem particularly difficult.
“She owes my daughter and me a decade without my husband.”
“She felt she had to do what she did.” Or so Daisy wanted to believe.
Mira watched Derek and Gavin work. “No one is as bound by fate as the Fates themselves, Daisy.”
No one but the people they carried right along with them into their binding fate.
Mira inhaled. She held her breath for a long moment, then slowly exhaled. “Did Sandro tell you I’m pregnant? Rysa’s going to have a little sister.”
Mira was pregnant? “No.”
Mira grinned. “He’s having a tough time not telling everyone he meets. He would jog the streets of Rock Springs yelling into the wind and handing out baby-bottle-shaped candy if he thought he could get away with it.”
Daisy could see Sandro reacting that way. “I’m guessing he reacts that way to everyone’s pregnancy news? Because I suspect this isn’t his second—” She nodded to the gazebo “—or third rodeo.”
Mira sighed again. “We have not yet introduced Rysa to the idea that she has several half-brothers and -sisters out there in the greater world.” She wisped her fingers through the air. “We figured it would be best to allow her time to acclimate to being the Draki Prime first.”
“Probably a wise plan.”
Mira glanced first at Daisy’s lemonade, then at her belly, then out again at Derek and Gavin. “Shifters are notoriously fertile.” She sipped at her lemonade and nodded her head downward, toward the lower workroom. “The big and handsome so many Shifter males show? That’s one hundred percent Andreas’s genes. I have thanked him many times for gifting the world’s women with h
is offspring.”
Daisy almost spit her lemonade out over the ledge.
Mira chuckled. “You think they were that handsome before he was born?” She shook her head. “I think Dunn was trying to make up for Vivicus.”
She set down her glass. “Shifter babies sleep well. They eat well. They grow and they’re happy. I have spent many years toiling at the labors of a woman with a babe strapped to my chest and another at my foot and my Shifter babies were the easiest, Rysa included.” She patted Daisy’s knee. “Now Fate babies, that’s a whole different story.”
Why was Mira telling her this? Daisy sipped her lemonade.
Mira’s seer pinged. “My guess is that dragon babes will be strong-willed, big-hearted, and faster than—” Her seer screamed outward like a tentacle, very much in the same way that Rysa’s seers felt for information.
“Get up, Daisy,” Mira said.
Her voice held all the authority of her centuries. It resonated with her Prime Fate capabilities. She spoke and everyone, no matter who she used her words on, would respond.
Gavin wiggled his shoulders in a way that was not Gavin-like. Not at all.
He touched his head as if adjusting a non-existent, douchey hat and smiled a wicked smile.
“Get AnnaBelinda and Sister-Dragon.” Mira pushed her body under the rail. Her seer sang out, but felt more as if it trickled down the wall than roamed outward, toward the men.
Mira very quickly climbed down the wall to the floor twelve feet below.
“No…” Daisy pushed away from the edge. “No no no.”
He got into the cave.
Aiden got into Gavin.
Chapter Forty-Three
Gavin…
I’m not wearing a hat, Gavin thought. Or a shirt. I’m hot. The sun is bright. Why did he feel neither hot nor cold and… disembodied?
Once, at a party, he’d put on a gamer friend’s virtual reality headset. The feeling had been unnerving—he’d felt blinded because the images he saw did not, at all, match his haptic sense of touch, or the sonic input of his hearing aids. Someone had pulled a brightly colored bag over his head and all he’d wanted was to rip it off.
Men And Beasts (Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon Book 6) Page 27
