by Ophelia Bell
Erika’s mouth dropped open. “Did I just hear you right? You met Iszak, too? I think I need you to back up and tell me everything.”
Belah recounted the events of the evening, her skin growing flushed and her core aching at the memories. But the ache settled deeper in her soul when she got to the part where Lukas discovered her with his brother, the pair of them hovering in mid-air while Iszak made love to her.
“They were so angry, so hurt. The winds that blew around them were too much for me. If that’s the way they feel about me being their mate, I’m better off staying away from them both. Besides, something happened … someone they love dearly was taken by the Ultiori. They still hold deep anger for my part in the Ultiori’s existence, and they don’t even know it was me. I can’t lie to them if I’m to mate them. It’s bad enough that they hate each other right now. I couldn’t bear it if they hated me, too.”
She also couldn’t bear the looks of pity on her hosts’ faces, and the glimmer of a tear in Erika’s eye when she looked at Geva in appeal.
The Red dragon frowned. “They’ll tear themselves apart over this. Once a turul’s found his true mate, that’s it for him. If they can’t be with you, it’ll destroy them both. Let’s just hope they care about each other enough to work out their own differences. They know well enough how dragons work—multiple mates are by no means unusual for us.”
“They’re good guys,” Erika said. “I can’t believe they wouldn’t come around, all things considered. I mean, you’re the One. Give them another chance, for their sake, Belah.”
Belah smiled sadly. “I think I need to give them space.” And just hope that her week with Nikhil was over and done with by the time she sought the brothers out again. Because if there was one sure way to prove she wasn’t the monster they believed she was, it would be giving them the ashes of their enemy.
Chapter Sixteen
Lukas was wired from worry over Belah’s safety. Even though he knew his brother’s perpetual scowl meant Iszak was just as worked up over the situation, he hated the silent treatment. In spite of the liquor-soaked talk they’d had earlier that morning, and the revelation of the danger their mate might be in, he still resented the fact that she’d wanted Iszak in addition to himself. She’d responded to Iszak’s music so instinctively that she’d sung the words to a song she couldn’t have possibly heard before. The lyrics hadn’t been uttered in five decades, and the latest brood of dragons had only just ascended within the last year.
But that was evidence enough that the song his sister had written had served its purpose of luring their true mate to them. And what if Evie had been here to sing it? Would it have called another dragon for her?
He and his brother hadn’t played the song together in just as long. Even though they had a standing date at the Gatormouth, they stuck to the popular blues songs of other artists when they played together, only occasionally filling in the set list with their own arrangements. Their band hadn’t been anything special in many years, so he hoped the club’s manager would be willing to move up the date for their show.
The alley door that led the back way into the club was locked. Iszak leaned on the buzzer while Lukas paced impatiently.
“He’ll do it,” Ozzie said, trying to calm them down. “Davis owes us.”
But when the door opened and Davis, the bleary-eyed old blues man who owned the club, stood frowning at them, Lukas wasn’t so sure.
Davis ushered them in and they made their case anyway, sitting in the dim interior of the club around one of the tables, surrounded by the scent of stale beer and sweat.
Davis continued to frown while he listened, arms crossed across his thick midsection. His expression didn’t bode well, but Lukas couldn’t get a bead on any kind of reaction from him. Finally, Davis nodded and uncrossed his arms, hooking his thumbs into his suspenders.
“Best I can offer is to move you three to Tuesday. That’ll mean giving that night’s headliner Saturday, along with Saturday’s take—you’ll be losing money, but if it’s that important to you to play sooner, it’s that or nothing. Tonight’s off the table. Mind if I ask why the fuck you guys want to make such a boneheaded switch? You pull in more than most of the other acts. More single women come for your shows, and that means a bigger audience all around. If I didn’t know you guys better, I’d think you were doing this for a lady.”
All it took was Lukas and Iszak’s glance at each other and Davis let out a thunderous guffaw.
“Well, I’ll be. Which of you landed a bird finally? After all these years of you nailing whatever pretty girl had the guts to sneak backstage …” He shook his head and then tilted his chin at their cousin. “Does this have something to do with Ozzie’s messed up face? It’s an improvement, if you ask me.”
Ozzie reached up to test the cut on his forehead and shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter which of us it is, does it?” Lukas said. “We’re just hoping she’ll show.”
Davis shook his head. “Boys, you know my ad budget doesn’t reach that far. Even if folks knew it was you guys playing on Tuesday, it’s too short notice. I sure hope your girl has wicked ears on her, if you think she’ll come just because you’re playing.”
“We’re willing to take the risk,” Iszak said, finally entering the conversation. He reached his hand out to Davis and the pair shook. Lukas and Ozzie followed suit.
Lukas’s stomach churned as they said farewell to their friend. Davis had been a fixture for them for longer than the old man knew, but the Wind had the uncanny ability to convince humans that their memories were faulty. And humans were nothing if not adaptable. Davis loved to tell them that they reminded him of an old, unknown band he’d played with in his youth. Lukas regretted never reaching for the limelight, but they knew better. Less public presence meant less opportunity for their enemy to find them.
Now they needed to be found, and despite several hours flying over the city after leaving their grandmother’s, they’d caught no glimmer of the other end to the blurred thread that connected them to Belah. She was hidden well, which should have comforted Lukas, but he still vibrated with the need to be close to her again. Even though he’d found her—his true mate—they hadn’t sealed the deal.
For a turul, that meant the very intimate process of sharing breath, because the Wind was everything to them. The air in their lungs was sacred. The dragons knew how much it meant, even though their power resided elsewhere.
Lukas’s own lungs ached now with the need to sing to her, to share that breath, first calling to the heavens before letting himself breathe for her.
Boreas breathes for us, we breathe for each other. It was a simple wedding mantra, but the one they held to as members of the houses of the four Winds.
He had no idea how it would work with Iszak in the mix, but if Iszak’s story could be believed, Belah had lungs on her enough to accommodate them both.
They exited the club into the alley again, and a rough hand gripped Lukas’s shoulder as he reached for the helmet dangling off his bike’s handlebar. He turned to see his brother, lips firm amidst a rough visage that made Lukas wonder if he looked as rough himself.
“We’re finding her. We’re making her ours, brother. Both of us. Right?” Iszak’s fingers dug into his shoulder painfully. His brother wasn’t fucking around.
“We’ll find her somehow. But I think the rest is up to her. Dragons are possessive and controlling as fuck. You gonna be okay with it if she wants to boss us around?”
Iszak’s frown deepened, and Lukas wondered if he should let his brother off the hook and tell him he was joking. He decided he enjoyed Iszak’s discomfort too much. Both of them had enjoyed seeking solace in dark places after their sister’s disappearance. It had started with Vietnam, but letting themselves sink into violence only highlighted their need for better balance for their dark cravings. A desire for bondage and discipline in the bedroo
m was yet another thing he and his brother had in common, but where Lukas could at least be more reasonable outside of his kinks, Iszak had gotten used to being an alpha asshole. He wasn’t about to tell his brother that their mate had loved being tied up—it would spoil the fun of watching Iszak discover it for himself.
But now that Lukas had uttered the words, he decided if Belah wanted to turn the tables and boss him around, he’d kneel for her. He’d do anything for her.
Surprisingly, Iszak smiled. “I’d do whatever the fuck she wanted, if I could have her right now. We need to get her back, brother. Evie’d want it.”
“Do you guys feel the chill? I think Hell just froze over,” Ozzie said, drawing their attention to him. He stood, leaning against the leather seat of his bike, slowly shaking his head. “I can’t wait to meet the girl that did this to you guys. I’ve seen you around women my whole life, and never once did you actually agree on anything so easily.”
Lukas tilted his head toward the street. “C’mon and follow us back to our place, man. If you want to find your own mate, we’ve gotta teach you the song.”
Ozzie’s eyes lit up. “The actual song … not the alternate arrangement we used to play?”
“The one and only.”
Beside him, Iszak slung a leg over his bike, already humming the tune. Two more days and they’d play it again together for the first time in ages. They’d play it like their lives depended on it, and she would come back to them.
She had to.
Chapter Seventeen
Waiting was torture, but Belah couldn’t do anything else. She would’ve retreated to the Glade, but was too close to everything she’d ever wanted that she didn’t dare leave. The revelation that true happiness might be within her grasp made her restless. She wanted to do something, anything, to move the process along.
After three thousand years of simply existing, this impatience was foreign. The dread of fulfilling her promise to Nikhil tangled with her hope that Iszak and Lukas would be receptive to sharing her, once she’d given them time to work things out.
The only thing that helped distract her in the meantime was flying, which was tricky enough to do among the monolithic towers of the City. Her breath could cloak her somewhat, turning her scales reflective so that if anyone chose to gaze up at the sky, she was effectively transparent—but for the sake of complete concealment, she chose to have two Shadows accompany her when she went out. Nikhil would probably still be able to find her when he chose to call in her promise to him, but she could avoid betraying her true nature to the humans in the city while she flew.
Humanity itself was more fascinating up close than she could have imagined, even after watching the race’s progress through her reflecting pool. When she wasn’t flying, she let Erika and Geva be her tour guides, showing her around the city and introducing her to all its wonders. If she hadn’t found Iszak and Lukas so quickly, she would have enjoyed living in this world while she searched, simply existing as one of the billions of humans who had spread across the Earth in her absence.
A few nights after flying away from Lukas and Iszak’s anger-induced storm, Belah launched herself off the roof of Erika and Geva’s building and spread her wings wide to catch the thermal currents that constantly blew between the tall buildings. Her two guards followed close behind, their breath concealing them all so they looked like nothing more than wisps of fog drifting through the night. She’d promised herself she would wait until after she’d dealt with Nikhil to seek out the brothers again at their home near the water. But with each passing night, she could feel the link to them both tug at her. The bond was a strong one, and she wondered whether they would have sought her out directly if the Shadows hadn’t been there to blur the connection.
It didn’t matter, though. Not yet. She was still the Blue Beast who’d been responsible for creating their enemy. She couldn’t go to them again until she could prove she was worthy of their love.
She flew through the city, easily shutting out the din of wide-open human thoughts and emotions clamoring to reach her. In a way, the utter transparency of the race’s needs and desires comforted her. Humanity hadn’t changed a bit in all the centuries, despite their numbers and amazing advances in technology. They still craved a connection with others, and that craving was infectious. Belah wanted that, too.
Now that she could be an equal to a potential mate, she wanted that more than she ever had. She wanted to walk among the humans and be a woman—not a queen or a goddess. Iszak and Lukas made that desire ache even deeper inside her, because that’s all they knew her as—she may have been a member of the higher races, but to them, she was still just a woman. Not someone to worship without question, or grovel before because of the power she held. If anything, the music they played made her want to kneel before them and offer up her soul.
Because the place they took her was higher than she’d ever been, yet still provided an anchor. Their music was the anchor, she realized. In fact, it was more than that—it was an inexorable link that tethered her to them, and despite blocking out the sounds of everything but the wind, that music rose into the air and called to her even now.
At first she wondered if her mind had simply wandered back to her dreams, but when she focused, she knew she was hearing it again, and this time the score was whole. It wasn’t the incomplete half of a song that she’d heard from Lukas once, and then the other half from Iszak later. She didn’t have to fill in the blanks between their notes with her memories of her dream this time.
“Mistress, are we changing course? If we return to the city, we’ll need to scout a secure place to shift when we land,” the Shadow flanking her on the left asked.
“Just head toward the music. We’ll find a place there.”
“I hear no music, Mistress. You’ll have to lead us to it, if that’s where you wish to go.”
The music called to her, urging her to answer, and she couldn’t help herself. She sounded out a trumpeting cry that mimicked the lyrics she had sung to Iszak the other night, before realizing that the Shadows’ cloaking magic also dampened the sounds they made. She had to go to them, if only to hear the music in its entirety. They didn’t need to know she was there—not yet.
Belah tucked one wing closer to her body and banked to the right, homing in on the direction of the music. The Shadows adjusted their direction and picked up the pace to match. Within a few minutes, they circled above a brick building, and the Shadows led her down to the dark and deserted end of the adjoining alley.
The heavy beat of the music was as clear to her as if they were playing right in front of her. She should stay out here in the darkness and just listen, but a compulsion gripped her. She had to see them, had to know that the brothers had reconciled and were, indeed, collaborating on their mating call for her.
She swiftly shifted into her human shape, and with a breath clothed herself in an outfit similar to that worn by one of the women leaving the club. A second later, Belah stood clad almost entirely in black leather, with a filmy, blue camisole beneath a fitted jacket that had the same supple weight as the jacket Lukas had let her wear. Tall boots hugged her feet and calves.
Beside her, the pair of Shadows followed suit, both large males choosing to conjure jeans, boots, and worn leather jackets.
“We’ll keep you cloaked, if that’s what you wish,” the larger Shadow offered in a deep voice.
Belah paused before stepping out of their hiding place, undecided. Should she let the brothers see her tonight? Let them know she’d answered their call? It was too soon yet, but she had no idea how long until Nikhil came for her. She had to see them, at least—just once more before she had to fulfill her promise to Nikhil.
“Yes. I’m not ready for them to see me again just yet.” But Sweet Mother, did she want to. Without another word, she strode out of the shadows and toward the circle of illumination that surrounded the club’s entrance
.
A few feet away from the guards standing outside, she expelled a long breath, sending it ahead of her to drift around their heads until they breathed her magic in. Mindlessly, one of them opened the door, and without any further interaction, she and her Shadows walked inside.
The music enveloped Belah, drawing her further and further in. She obeyed its undertow, allowing the Shadows to push ahead of her through the throng of bodies. The human patrons moved aside without argument.
Finally, they reached a dance floor where couples moved together, entwined in almost overtly sexual embraces, hips locked and rocking to the music.
The music took on a different rhythm and slightly different key in the dim interior of the bar than it had when she’d heard it in her dreams. There it had been an extremely sensual sound, but here, the beat of it rose through her feet, vibrating through her bones until Belah’s core ached to feel her own body moving in time, entwined with those two men who stood on stage, side-by-side, with their shining instruments to their lips. The heavy tremor of the bass drum and the bass guitar that beat behind them lent a hungry, primal sound to the song.
She needed contact. She needed to dance, because she knew she couldn’t sing if she wanted to remain unnoticed. She grabbed the hands of her Shadows and the pair moved in close, surrounding her.
“Dance,” she said to them both without speaking.
Neither hesitated, despite the whirl of uncertainty that she sensed in their minds. They were both unmated and would happily bed her if she asked, yet their task of protecting her came first. They may have doubted the wisdom of her request, but didn’t want to disobey her.
They slid into place, one in front and the other in back, their hips pressing to hers while they moved. She closed her eyes and imagined they were the pair on stage, holding her and writhing against her.
The music drove her on, the contact of the two dragons as arousing to her as it was to them, and she twined her arms up around one Shadow’s neck, pulling him down into a kiss. The second their lips met, she knew she shouldn’t have. It didn’t feel right and she pulled away, abruptly putting space between her and her guards again. The Shadow looked surprised, then worried.
