by Ophelia Bell
“Someone was paying attention in history class,” Eddie taunted from behind us. Chayton made a rude gesture and kept going.
“Meri also imprisoned us, forced our kind into breeding experiments to try to create the perfect vessel for herself. The problem with stealing human hosts is that they never last long enough. Humans have needs that the higher races don’t. She needed a body that wouldn’t age, or be destroyed if she channeled too much power through it. We barely destroyed her before she succeeded.” He glanced around the room at the others. “The six of us fought beside each other in the war to end the Ultiori. It’s one of the reasons we’re so close. But it means we were also there at the end and got to witness our enemy’s death. It took nothing less than a god’s blood sacrifice to kill her. That sacrifice burned through the entire Bloodline, replacing Meri’s blood with the blood of the god. It was that divine blood that awakened the higher races blood you carry.”
“So you’re saying I’m the result of hundreds of years of experimentation. Am I one of them? An Ultiori?”
“Not just hundreds—thousands of years of experimentation. At least since the time of the Pharaohs in ancient Egypt when the six members of the Dragon Council were worshipped as gods. But no, you aren’t an Ultiori. There might be a few people who were part of Meri’s inner circle who survived, but the organization dissolved the second divine blood and a magic dagger erased Meri from existence.”
Tate let out a harsh curse that made me whip my head around. Gray was on his feet a second later, rushing to his friend, who stood at the shelf where most of the St. George family photos rested.
“You want to revise that answer?” Tate held up a framed photograph, jabbing a finger at one of the faces. Chayton rose, his brows furrowed, and went to look.
What in the world they could have seen in those old pictures was beyond me, but I went out of sheer curiosity.
Chayton took the photo from Tate and held it out. “Who the hell are you, April?”
I blinked and shook my head, looking at the photo that had been snapped more than twenty years ago, out on the rear deck of the house facing the Sound. My mom, my grandmother, and my grandmother’s close friend and colleague, Adele, all sat on the benches that lined the rails. Next to Mom sat Dad holding an angelic, curly-haired toddler in his arms. Me at around age three.
All six of the men stared at me like I was some kind of monster. Gray mostly looked disappointed and confused, but the rest were downright pissed, and I had no idea why. I suddenly felt like I was on trial, and I didn’t even know what I’d done.
“Guys, please. What am I supposed to see? It’s just my family. I don’t even remember when that photo was taken.”
Gray reached for the photo and pointed at my grandmother’s old friend, Adele, a strikingly beautiful woman with long, dark hair. “I missed it earlier, but now I know why this picture caught my eye. This woman was the leader of the Ultiori at the end. This is Meri.”
22
Tate
Despite the alarm bells clanging in my head over this discovery, my arms itched to embrace April when her world began to crumble.
It began with a small shake of her head, a whispered denial, but I was sure the others could see as well as I could when she first questioned what she knew as the truth. I wasn’t clear on many of those details beyond what Gray had shared, but clearly, she’d been left out in the dark about a lot.
“This can’t fucking be true. How could Dad never say anything? And my mother… Was she part of the Ultiori too? Was Adele the reason why Mom left us? Fuck, I think I’m going to be sick.”
She wrapped her arms around her midsection and slunk back to the sofa, plopping down and grabbing the bottle of vodka. I winced, seeing where this was headed, and strode to her, pulling the bottle away before she could swallow more than a shot.
“I’m going out on a limb here and guessing you had nothing to do with that woman,” I said, settling beside April and resting a hand on her back.
Stuart moved to sit on the hassock in front of her and leaned on his knees, looking into her abnormally pale face. “I’m sorry we jumped to conclusions,” Stuart said. “You were clearly just a baby in that photo. But do you have any memory of that time? Do you know anything about Adele Waters?”
She shook her head. “No, but if Dad were here he’d know. Grandma passed away, then Mom disappeared not long after that photo was taken. But there’s a whole fucking pile of signs around this place suggesting Mom’s been alive all this time. Even though I was told she’d died five years ago and deeded this property to me. Someone built that entire fucking studio for me within the last five years.”
“Guys, take a look at this.” Chayton slipped back into the armchair he’d been in earlier and leaned forward. He held the same photo in his hand, without the frame, turning it over to point out the writing on the back.
“Three generations of St. George women, plus friends, Andrew Vincent and Adele Waters, May 1993.”
“Does the name ring a bell?” Chayton asked.
“We already know Adele Waters was Meri’s alias. She always assumed the lives of her victims once she took over their bodies,” Gray said.
“No, the other name. St. George.” When the others just gave him blank looks he shook his head. “This may as well say two generations of Meri’s meat suits. April’s grandmother was Adele’s predecessor. She led the Ultiori in that body until around twenty years ago, which would have coincided with Adele’s time here with you. My guess is that Meri groomed Adele to be her host so she’d have one ready to go when your grandmother’s body wore out. What do you know about your grandmother, April?”
“Oh, wow.” April sat back and scrubbed her hands over her face. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glossy, though I guessed it was more from the vodka than the overwhelming emotions at this point. “Grandma was someone important. I mean, look at this place—she had money. She was the director of some fancy research institute. Alcatraz something?”
Putting the pieces together, I let out a curse. “The Alexandria Institute. Meryl St. George was the director for several decades. I remember now. When I was a guardian at the Windchaser portal, we’d receive files on the most wanted Ultiori every month. Meryl was at the top of the list for years. Then it was Adele. And this woman…” I pointed at the third woman, who had short, curly brown hair and an athlete’s physique.
“My mother. Cassandra,” April said.
“She was in the files too, but nobody knew her name, just her face. She was pretty high up the list, right there with Marcus, Naaz, and Sterlyn, the deadliest of all the Ultiori soldiers.”
“The Elites,” Chayton muttered. “I’m fucking glad they’re on our side now.”
April didn’t look comforted. “Was my mother one of these Elites?”
“We only ever knew of three. The Elites were soldiers with particularly strong concentrations of power thanks to their origins. They were all dragon-blessed as babies in their mothers’ wombs.”
“It’s a nice way of saying their moms all banged a dragon while they were pregnant,” Murdoc chimed in, then let out a sharp oof when Stuart whacked him in the center of his stomach.
April’s eyebrows shot up. “No shit?”
“It’s rare, but true,” I said. “And we know that the only way to create an Elite is to infuse a Dragon Blessed child with pure higher races blood. We didn’t know whether your mother was one, but we definitely suspected.”
I didn’t want to speculate out loud on whether this meant Cassandra St. George was still alive. She hadn’t been present during the war we’d fought. Every member of the Ultiori army present that day had been slaughtered, along with hundreds of members of the higher races. But there had been Ultiori cells all over the world, so if there were any that sat out the war, she could have remained hidden away in one. There was also a possibility that she defected when the other Elites did, but remained in hiding for April’s sake.
She could very well be al
ive, particularly since Elites were almost impossible to kill. They were infused with immortal dragon blood so could only be killed by dragon fire from the owner of the blood that gave them their power.
“It definitely explains the strength of your dragon magic,” Gray said. “As for the ursa side…maybe Tate can offer a theory on that.”
“Let me see the photo again,” I said, reaching for it. I studied April’s dad, who appeared every bit the perfectly nurturing father holding his young daughter on his lap in the photo. He had a mess of curly blond hair and a thick beard that the young April tangled her fingers into. The sight made me smile and brush a hand over my own beard, imagining how it would feel to have such a precious creature as a cub to hold.
The picture had been taken in the summer, and sunlight gleamed in April’s pale curls. Her other hand rested on her dad’s forearm, where it curved protectively around her. Partially obscured beneath her tiny hand was a swath of dark ink.
“Do you remember what this mark looks like?” I asked, pointing to the tattoo.
April leaned over and furrowed her brow. “Yeah, it’s a tribal bear paw. Is that significant? The ursa are bear shifters, right?”
“It could be. There have been human villages and tribes that were magically tied to the ursa for centuries. Families that acted as waypoints for young ursa on their pilgrimages. If your dad belonged to one, it would explain your concentration of ursa power. They’re all heavily charmed to compel loyalty. When the Bloodline was activated, that ursa magic must have been magnified with the divine blood. How are you feeling now, by the way?”
She pressed her hand to her lower abdomen, looking thoughtful. “I still feel it in me, but at least it doesn’t feel like it’s fighting to escape. Which is a relief because I’m kind of exhausted.”
We had all congregated back around the crackling fireplace, and April looked around at us, then sighed. “As much as I’d love to stay up to try to sort all this out, I think I want to take advantage of the fact that I don’t need sex for five minutes and go try to regroup. Get some real sleep.” Her gaze rested on me, then Eddie and Chayton for a second longer. “There are more than enough bedrooms in the house for all of you, so take your pick. Just not the one I’m in. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” I said, the words echoed two more times from the other two ursa. The dragons remained silent, evidently having already picked up on her needs in a way an ursa wouldn’t be able to.
We all stood when April did, and watched as she left the room. The farther away she got, the stronger my urge to follow her, to the point that it took effort not to take a step in her direction. It didn’t take a genius or an empath to see she struggled with something—even if it was only all the unanswered questions.
Just before she left my line of sight, I called out.
“April, wait.”
She turned with such raw hope I couldn’t help but stride through the arch to catch up to her. I stopped just short of pulling her into my arms. Instead, I rested my hands on her shoulders and brushed the sides of her throat with my thumbs. She took a shaky breath, her big eyes staring up at me. “What is it?” she breathed.
“If you want something…anything…from me or Chayton or Eddie, we need to hear you ask for it. Out loud.”
“So you guys aren’t telepathic like those nosy dragons, huh?”
I chuckled. “No. But it’s a rule embedded in our behavior. We respond to direct commands from our females. The more direct, the better.” I widened my eyes to emphasize how important this was.
“Am I your female, then?”
“That’s a question for you to decide. Or more appropriately, are we your males? Your mates. If you choose us, then yes.”
“I guess that means the ball’s in my court, huh? The thing is, Stuart already told me you guys won’t fuck a woman you aren’t mated to. But I refuse to commit to a man I can’t fuck first. So unless you guys can figure out a way around that, then no, you can’t be mine.”
I wanted to emphasize that she needed us to help her through her estrous, but we’d already established that her glassblowing by itself was enough to manage her magical surges, and she had three very capable, willing dragons to pick up any slack.
I dropped my hands to my sides and nodded. “Understood.”
She turned to go again, hesitated, then turned back. “Just to be clear, what I want is for you to find a way. Find a way for me to be with you three all the way, so I can make that choice, because I already feel like I’ve known you guys forever.”
“Can I offer a compromise?” I asked, unwilling to give up.
“I’m listening.”
“If you need someone tonight, or any night, let us come and show you what it means to be serviced by an ursa male. Because I promise that between the three of us, you will not be left wanting. If you still need more after that, maybe you’ll choose us as mates so we can give it all to you.”
Her gaze fell to the floor as she chewed her lip. Then she stretched up on her toes, wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed me. It was so unexpected I fell back a step, but managed to catch her waist in both hands and pull her to me as I responded in kind. I let out a pleased rumble, kissing her back while trying not to be too greedy, too desperate. But the fact was, I wanted April with every ounce of my being, and I knew that I’d do whatever she asked. I’d find a way to give her whatever she wanted, and I was sure the others would too.
The kiss ended too soon, and she was gone, leaving me in a daze as she trotted up the stairs.
23
April
It took every ounce of will not to invite the three ursa to my bed that night. I couldn’t deny how much I wanted all three of them. Part of it was not having had them yet, but I couldn’t reconcile the desire with the knowledge that we couldn’t fully make love without breaking their rules. But I also had a reprieve from the constant need for sex and wanted to reassert my boundaries with them for as long as I could, which meant not jumping into bed with any of them again until I was positive it was my own rational decision and not my body’s magical urges dictating my actions.
Ultimately, I wound up lying awake after showering, wondering what the six of them were up to. Were they thinking about me? Had they been too thrown by my mother’s affiliation with their enemy to be interested anymore? Did they see me as somehow tainted because of her? I didn’t really want to know the answer to that question, but their actions would the indicators.
Eventually, I drifted off and didn’t rouse again until sometime the next morning. Delicious scents wafted up from downstairs, and I was aware of my hunger only a few moments before the niggling tug of carnal need. It was more insistent now than it had been when I went to sleep, but still not so strong I couldn’t ignore it long enough to get into the studio. But I had survived an entire night without turning into a sex-crazed fiend, so that was something.
All six of the guys were up already and looked freshly showered and energized. Stuart held dominion in the kitchen, and the table was piled with plates of food. The second I walked in, Tate greeted me with a smile and guided me to a seat. Then he set down a steaming mug of fresh coffee, sugar, and powdered creamer.
“Sorry there’s no fresh cream. We’re light on fresh stuff that isn’t growing outside, and sadly, there is no cow,” he said.
I gaped at the spread and shook my head. “No worries. I’m honestly amazed at how much we do have. Was this all in the freezer?” I hadn’t done a full inventory when Gray and I arrived. Most of the containers and parcels I’d seen in the huge chest freezer had been too difficult to identify at a glance.
Stuart came in with a plate loaded with fresh pancakes and another piled high with bacon and sausage. “Most of it, yes, or on the shelves in the pantry. A pair of us should head to the mainland for more at some point though. We don’t know how long we’ll be here. With any luck, Vesh and his brothers have lost our trail thanks to Deva’s intervention, but until we hear from her, I think we need
to assume you’re still being hunted.”
I dug into my food, humming happily around the first delicious bite, then took a big swallow of coffee to wash it down before answering. “Now that I have a studio to work in, they can take all damn month if they need to. I just hope it doesn’t disrupt my show. But with everyone’s help, I think we can finish the project ahead of schedule, at least if we keep up last night’s pace.” A thought occurred to me, and I glanced up with another bite poised. “That is, unless you guys have other responsibilities. I guess I kind of hijacked your lives.”
Tate settled into the seat next to me, his brawny frame crowding me and his shoulder brushing mine as he reached for the orange juice. “There’s no place I’d rather be,” he said, giving me a warm and genuine smile. I had to admit to myself that I’d been a little disappointed I hadn’t needed to call on him and the other two ursa during the night. But on the other hand, I really didn’t need an excuse, did I? They’d have said yes no matter what.
I reached out and squeezed Tate’s forearm, seeking to give some sign that I had no intention of retreating. “Thank you for being so understanding last night,” I said in a low voice.
“We’re here for you, April. And I mean that literally,” Tate said. “We all hoped that by separating, we would make it easier on ourselves to find mates, but it wasn’t really what any of us wanted. I’m not exaggerating when I say you’re perfect. No one else has ever come close. So I know I’m not alone in saying we’ll be right here until you’re ready.”
I swallowed and looked around the table at all six guys. They gave me smiles and nods, and Murdoc winked playfully. Not a single one contradicted what Tate said.
When my gaze landed on Stuart, I winced, recalling the state he’d been in when they brought him here the day before. Gray had sustained wounds like that too, in an effort to protect me. How much more damage would they take on my behalf? Was it fair of me to hold out on them when they’d be willing to go so far for me? Not that I wouldn’t repeat what I’d done with Stuart to heal him, but surely there was a better way to use this magic in a fight, especially if it was so dangerous it took multiple men to keep it in check.
