by Ophelia Bell
A low rumble rose up in his chest and he cupped her jaw with one large hand. “The next time, I intend to bury myself inside you and fuck you until you scream my name. I am yours, Vrishti. Yours if you choose to have me …”
“Mine …? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
He stroked her cheek and gave her a soft smile. “Go learn what it means to be an ursa female. You’ll understand soon enough.”
Speechless, she could only nod in reply. Then she turned on shaky legs toward the path. The others were all hovering in the snow several yards away, smiling at them. When she got close, Gavra let out a whistle that made her blush and wrapped her in a tight embrace. The others all hugged her in turn.
“We’ll see each other again, I hope,” Nicholas said when she reached him. “We are going to be neighbors, after all.” He glanced longingly down the path, then up into the sky with a terrified look.
“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” she said, trying to comfort him even though she was almost shaking with anxiety herself. “You’re about to meet your real family, after all.”
Looking at her again, he shrugged. “It isn’t that … it’s that these guys want us to fly there, and … well, me and the sky aren’t exactly on great terms.”
“Oh, Nicholas,” she said, pulling him into a hug and squeezing tightly. “You’re in love with a dragon. Get over it.”
Chapter 25
Nicholas
Nicholas stared after Vrishti as she made her way alone down the snow-covered path, her boots crunching in the cold, white powder. Her words echoed in his head, leaving him feeling utterly chastened. Yet his feeling of dread wouldn’t dissipate when he thought of the wide-open emptiness above him. The fear was completely irrational, yet that understanding didn’t help matters any.
“It’s time, Nicky,” Gavra called. Nicholas closed his eyes, already feeling the telltale shifts in air pressure that signaled a dragon taking its true form. When he turned around, four gargantuan heads stared back at him.
He swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat. His heart thudded so rapidly he was sure the entire forest could hear it. Making matters worse, Aurum’s huge, expressive eyes were filled with disappointment.
Turning back to Numa and Aodh’s massive green and white forms, he said, “Hit me with your magic. I don’t think I can do this without it.”
Their smoky breath swirled around him in a thick, aromatic cloud. He inhaled, and within seconds, a sense of euphoria filled him. His limbs loosened, the nausea disappeared, and his senses sharpened.
Eyes wide and excited, he said, “Holy shit, you guys should bottle this stuff. I feel like I can do anything.” His smile faltered when Numa lowered herself to the ground for him to climb on her back.
“I thought Aurum would carry me,” he said.
“Better if you’re close to my sister’s magic, Zhrihiva,” Aurum said. “If it wears off in flight, she can give you more. Just know that I promise you are in no danger of falling.”
He clambered onto the huge green dragon’s back, found purchase with his hands clutching at the grooves in her scales, and a moment later they launched into the sky. The sudden rush of air left him breathless and invigorated. The height didn’t bother him—in fact, being so high, overlooking the nearly boundless mountain ranges of his home, he wondered why he hadn’t asked to fly with them sooner.
Now he had a visual of the full scope of their mistake, however. The highest peaks of the mountains were fully white now, heavy snow blanketing the trees. The lower elevations were still a lush green, but gradually fading to white as well. At this height, the shimmering layer of the barrier above them was clearly visible, its power fluctuating with brightly colored lights in kaleidoscopic patterns. At points the colors appeared almost opaque until vast breaks appeared in the membrane, allowing the snow to come through from somewhere beyond.
The instability was painfully apparent, yet worse was the knowledge that he had caused it by bringing the dragons through.
“Ah, fuck,” he muttered when a prickling sensation began at the base of his skull and his blood pressure started inching up again.
“Close your eyes, child,” Numa said. “I will get us there safe.”
“It isn’t the flying,” he said, though he knew he was lying. “I think we really fucked up.”
“So we’ll fix it if we can,” Aurum called from Numa’s left flank. “The important thing is that we are here now. The damage can be remedied—it’s only an imbalance of power. I wager if each of us had passed through separate portals at the same time, this would not have happened.”
Nicholas clenched his eyes shut and leaned over to press his face against Numa’s hot scales.
“Then why didn’t we?” he called back.
“Because there was only one Windchaser on hand to take us through. It had to be you, Nicholas,” Aurum said.
Of course, it had to be him clinging for his life on the back of a dragon. The back in question tilted downward, and Nicholas’s stomach went along with it, seeming to slide right up into his throat. He gritted his teeth to hold back a cry of panic at the sudden shift of what had been a stable, solid shape beneath him. He couldn’t even get enough air into his lungs to beg Numa for another dose of magic smoke.
So he just clung to her until the air stopped moving around him and the steady, rhythmic beat of their wings ceased. Numa was moving again, but this time he heard footsteps rather than wing beats and opened his eyes.
Snow-covered ground filled his field of vision and he sat up, exhaling slowly and looking around. They’d made it.
A new rush of excitement filled him, replacing the lingering exhaustion now that the dread of being airborne left him. Ahead loomed a massive post and beam building with a meandering wooden porch. The clearing it sat in like a giant bird of prey was filled with people milling around. As they approached, he heard cries of excitement.
Dozens of figures ran toward them, mostly children chattering and pointing, but they all stopped just inside the vine and flower-covered arbor entrance to the gardens surrounding the lodge.
Nicholas stared in wonder. There must have been some kind of celebration going on, but amid the excited cries of the children dancing in the snow were much sadder expressions among some of the adults. They all had a wariness about them, and many were looking toward the front of the lodge expectantly.
He directed his gaze ahead of him and saw a voluptuous woman in a flowing green dress with a crown of spring flowers atop her head. She sat on a huge throne, flanked by two large, imposing men. They stared at Nicholas and the others, on alert, and might have been more intimidating if not for what looked like a baby rattle one man held in his hand.
The Queen, he thought when he looked at the woman again. She had a baby cradled against her bosom, fat little legs kicking and tiny fingers tangled up in her mother’s long hair while she suckled at a full, creamy breast. That couldn’t be right. This woman was far too young to be the mother who had lost him two centuries earlier.
The woman’s reddened eyes and tear-streaked cheeks made the truth clear. With a sadness he could never have been prepared for, he slid off Numa’s back and walked toward her.
The woman rose from her throne after a brief greeting, carrying her child at her breast as she approached.
“A nursing mother,” Numa said, lowering her head to gaze down at the ursa queen. “I am comforted that all the high races haven’t given up the old traditions. You are a worthy queen.”
“Thank you,” the woman said.
Numa let out a deep, resonant laugh. “You don’t need my input for validation. What you do need is what I bring you.”
The four dragons changed forms, their bulky bodies briefly obscuring his view of the queen.
When Aurum and the others had clad themselves in fine clothing, they moved apart, making a path between him and the queen.
The queen stared at him, blinking as he walked toward her and stopped. The pair
of males who had been by her side moved close again, but the child at her breast continued to suckle ravenously.
Around him, Nicholas heard the children calling, “Santa’s real! Santa’s real!” and had to suppress a smile. The poor kids would be sorely disappointed when they learned he was just a lost boy looking for his home.
Bowing his head when he reached the woman, he said, “My name is Nicholas, my queen. And I am your brother.”
Several excited cries sounded around him, but he kept his gaze locked on her. This woman was his sister, the ursa queen. Every particle of his being told him so, and he gave into the urge to drop to one knee in front of her.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, stand up and let me hug you!”
He looked up at her, surprised by her language. She beamed back at him and pulled the baby away from her breast, hurriedly tucking herself back into the bodice of her dress. She thrust the child into the arms of one of the men beside her and immediately fell to her knees in front of him, wrapping him in her arms.
“Welcome home,” she said in a voice thick with emotion.
Nicholas hugged her back, burying his face against her shoulder. She smelled like pine and mother’s milk and spring flowers and it brought back a sudden, long forgotten memory. His earliest memory. Without warning, tears brimmed in his eyes and spilled over. He clutched hard at his sister, comforted by her maternal scent and shushing coos as she cradled him in her arms as well as she could.
He was home, but where was his mother?
“Nicholas, Zhrihiva, it’s all right,” Aurum said behind him. A moment later, a familiar touch rustled his hair and the faintest scent of citrus reached his nose, instantly pushing his overwhelming emotions at bay to replace them with a more present joy.
Realizing he was very publicly making a spectacle of himself, he sniffed and stood, helping his sister rise at the same time.
He smiled and gave Aurum a grateful look. She nodded back at him, smiling in spite of her own eyes being glassy with unshed tears. They looked like happy tears, though. Loving tears.
“You all have me at a disadvantage,” he said, looking around at the large group of people who had gathered close, while the multitudes of other revelers looked on.
With a shocked expression, his sister waved her hands. “Oh! I’m so sorry. My name is Emma. This little beast here is baby Mai … short for Maia.” She reached for the wriggling bundle, who lurched into Emma’s arms with a squeal and immediately started rooting at her breast again.
Emma went down the line, introducing each person.
“My mates, Gus and Jules. My … our cousins, Jasper and Jade and their mates … more little monsters …” She gestured with love at three more infants.
The introductions and greetings seemed to go on forever, with each new person hugging Nicholas warmly and welcoming him to the family.
By the end, he was too overwhelmed to speak and just followed their lead when they invited him and the dragons to the porch above, where a huge outdoor dining area was set up. More settings were placed and everyone slid onto the long bench seats, squeezing together to make room. The tables were arranged in a “U” shape, which barely accommodated the two dozen or so members of the extended Stonetree family.
Beside him, Aurum reached out and squeezed his hand.
“You can stop feeding me your magic now,” he murmured under his breath to her. “I feel fine.”
“I haven’t given you a single breath since we left the Glade. Whatever you are feeling now is all you, zhrihiva coro. Welcome home, my love.”
Something was missing, though, and he could read it in the tinge of bittersweet sadness that hung over the entire crowd. Turning to Emma, who sat to one side of him at the apex of the group, he opened his mouth to ask.
Before he could get the words out, she rose to her feet, giving his shoulder a soft squeeze.
Raising her glass, she made a toast. “If you had asked me a year ago what my life would look like today, I would have given a very different answer. I had dreams, of course, but never in my wildest ones could I have conceived of what I see before me now. The only thing missing from this scene is my mother …” She reached down and tugged Nicholas to a standing position. “Our mother.”
She looked up at Nicholas, her eyes bright with emotion and a message that he knew must be on the tip of her tongue. He swallowed, holding his breath and waiting for what she would say next.
“Nicholas, our mother loved you. I didn’t even know you existed until moments before you arrived. Mama told me at my coronation, and when her spirit filled me, all the love she felt for you came with it.” She pressed his hand to her chest, the strong thud of her heartbeat heavy against his palm. “That love is inside me now, along with the immortal spirit of Spring that gives my position its power. Everything our mother was still lives on in me—all her experiences, her memories. She may be gone in body, but like all the seasons, she lives on as long as the Earth revolves around the sun.”
Nicholas bit the inside of his cheek, feeling like he should say something, but sensing she wasn’t finished yet.
Turning back to the crowd, Emma raised her glass high. “To the eternal life and love of Spring!”
With a cacophony of hoots and hollers, the entire group raised their glasses and toasted. Around the lodge, similar calls sounded, and the ursa revelers out among the grounds made their own toasts to the memory of the former queen.
Emma clinked her glass to Nicholas’s and they both drank.
When they sat again, he finally asked, “Is she really gone?” The slight tremor in his voice made him flinch. Having an instant family who welcomed him was more than he had hoped for, but the one person he’d wanted to meet wasn’t here, and he was at a loss.
Emma grabbed his hand and held it. “She held on for as long as she could, but she’d grown too weak from the power she gave up to protect the Sanctuary. I’m pissed as hell at her for never telling me about you sooner. I always wanted a big brother, you know …”
“What am I, chopped liver?” a male voice called from nearby. Jasper was giving Emma a mock look of offense.
Emma laughed. “You might be bigger than me, but you’re still my little squirt of a cousin, Jasper.”
“I wish I’d gotten here sooner,” Nicholas said. “But we couldn’t come in until today, and I was still in prison on the Equinox.”
“It was Mama’s last wish that I find you,” she said. “I’d have come to you, if you hadn’t shown up. I don’t care what kinds of rules we set about who gets to go through the barrier … I’d have found you somehow.”
“About the barrier …” Nicholas began, fully prepared to confess his mistake and start trying to fix it.
“Not right now,” Emma said with a shake of her head. “Enjoy yourselves, all of you. We are allies tonight, and the barrier may be shaky, but the power is stronger than it has been. Tonight we celebrate the life of Maia Stonetree and rejoice in the turning of the seasons.”
She glanced around the table, giving the dragons slight nods. Nicholas wasn’t oblivious to the furrow of her brow when she looked at his friends, and that look worried him. But he did as Emma asked and let the energy of the boisterous reunion infect him. In spite of his grief over missing his mother, it was probably the happiest day of his life.
After the meal was over, he fielded multiple invitations to spend time with his cousins and their families, as well as his aunt and uncle. Emma soon retreated with her mates and a very cranky daughter. Aurum and the others disappeared without a word, escorted by a pretty ursa named Metilda to quarters where they could rest.
Exhausted and full from the meal, buzzed from copious amounts of delicious wine, he sat staring off the edge of the porch into the snowy night.
White flakes still filtered down from the sky in lazy, floating paths, and the forest around them looked like a winter wonderland. Its meaning might not be good, but it was certainly a beautiful sight.
A gentle touch roused him
from his reverie and he looked up into a face that somehow seemed familiar to him.
“Mama?” he asked suddenly, then blinked in confusion.
The the beautiful older woman smiled at him. “Mona, actually, but I understand why you’d be confused. I’m your mother’s younger sister. Come with me, Nicholas. I have something for you.”
He rose and followed her into the lodge, up a massive staircase built from rough-hewn logs worn smooth from constant use.
They reached a large sitting room with a huge stone fireplace, the fire in it crackling with comforting light. Mona shut the door behind them and walked across the thick, woven rug to a chest on the other side.
“Nicholas … ” She said the name thoughtfully and looked back at him. “Who gave you that name? Was it the Ultiori?”
“Ah … Their leader did. Nikhil. He saw himself as a father figure to me, I suppose, and since I never knew the name my mother gave me, that’s all I’ve ever known.”
Mona scrunched up her nose in distaste. “Not an ursa name, by any stretch. Is it true what we’re hearing from the outside? That he’s no longer in control of the Ultiori? He’s turned sides?”
Nicholas faltered, remembering the last night in his cell when Nikhil had offered to release him and Calder along with all the other captives.
“He is an honorable man, if that’s what you want to know. Something else has been controlling him all these years … taking advantage of the power he had.”
“And you believe that?” she asked.
“I do. I saw the change in him when he regained control of his mind. He’s not a petty man … I wouldn’t want to ever be on his bad side, especially not now. He made me a promise after he was himself again—that he’d avenge my capture and captivity. But then there’s a lot the creature who controlled him has to answer for, not just what happened to me and my mother.”
“They took you before she could give you your name,” Mona said with a nod. “What a horrible thing for a child to grow up never truly knowing who they are. Nicholas is not who you are, nephew. That name belongs to the boy from the prison cell. The foster child of a mind-controlled puppet.”
