by Ophelia Bell
For a turul to find a second true mate in a lifetime was unheard of, yet here he was, as frightening for his size and potency as for the feelings he incited in her in the aftermath of losing the man she’d believed she was meant to die with.
She had to remind herself that her situation had been an anomaly from the start. Her rebellion against her race’s traditions was what made her impulsively seek out a distraction after years of frustration waiting to stumble across her true mate—her One. Marcus hadn’t really been hers, that first day they’d met—she knew that much—but over the next year, she’d fallen in love with him in what she believed was a more enduring way. She’d lost that only briefly after her capture by the Ultiori, then during the early part of her captivity, somehow, her feelings shifted.
Marcus had come to her one day, filled with promises of escape and apologies for bringing her there to begin with. On that day, the very sight and nearness of him had struck a bright flame inside her that had refused to die, even after five decades of wishing she could hate him for betraying her. The irony of that moment tortured her.
Now she knew the truth—that Marcus and Ked weren’t separate beings. Marcus had only been an extension of her true mate, and she was grateful for being granted the gift of being able to love the man as her true mate before he died, even though he’d ultimately been taken from her.
The flame of that love she had for Marcus had only brightened when this dragon appeared, so dark and intent now as he shifted into his full form over Marcus’s inert body. A wave of his power washed over Evie as though drawn in by her mere attention. It made her quiver with need for him in spite of the searing pain that covered every inch of her back. The black dragon’s gentle treatment of Marcus’s body made no sense to her. He was dead, yet the dragon cupped his large foreclaw and let her brothers lay Marcus carefully across his palm in a reclining position before closing his other claw around him. Marcus might have merely been asleep, as comfortable as he looked.
At her side, another large, red dragon lowered his head to eye level and lifted a massive talon to nudge gently at her chin.
“Who are you?” Evie asked, in awe of all three of the dragons who nearly filled the entire clearing now, dwarfing even her brothers once they shifted into their massive falcon forms and readied for flight.
“I am Gavra,” he said softly to her. “Ked, the one who brought you out, is my brother. He bade me to guard you with my life.” He let out a gust of red breath that enveloped her. “And I will heal you on the way to our destination.”
His breath tingled as it seeped into her wounds, stinging just slightly before easing the pain. The names tickled at her memory, but the pain of her injuries still throbbed too much for her to comprehend the full truth.
“I thought Reds only seduced with their breath,” Evie said, attempting a light-hearted tone in spite of her pain. “I’m not in danger of that, am I?”
Gavra let out a low chuckle. “No. You belong to my brother. If he wants to share, I wouldn’t object, but you are in no condition for seduction. Sleep, if you can. It will be a long flight.”
The lumbering form of a huge white dragon ventured near and gusted pale smoke over her, then spoke. “He is right; you should sleep. We will keep you safe.”
Soon after, Evie found herself lulled by the comforting stream of wind over her skin and the undulations of Gavra’s body, from the slow, even pumps of his wings in the currents of air high above the earth.
She dreamed of flying. The caresses of her Goddess, the North Wind, kept her aloft and gave her hope again for the first time since her captivity began. The ordeal was over now, but the pain of grief loomed at the edges of her mind. She would mourn Marcus soon, but not until she could do it wholly, and without the distractions of a damaged body and the pull to the black dragon that reminded her so much of her need for Marcus.
Rather than give in to grief now, Evie reverted to her old habit during her worst days in the Ultiori clutches. She played over and over in her mind the memories of her best days with Marcus.
The day she and Marcus met had been a revelation to her, yet she would always especially treasure their last night together, before his life ebbed away in her arms.
* * *
Central Park
Spring, 1965
The steady clink of coins almost drowned out Evie’s voice. She smiled as she sang. Every coin dropped into her brother’s guitar case meant someone loved what they heard. Lukas strummed while Iszak goofed around with his saxophone, flirting with the women who wandered past their spot near the Bethesda Terrace in Central Park.
They weren’t here for money, though. Nanyo Sofia had sent them out to find mates, as if a day in the park was enough to snag the one person each of them were meant to be with for life. Her brothers loved music enough that they went along with it, but they were petering out, too. Finding a mate in a day was ridiculous, but Nanyo would make them head out again until she was satisfied they’d exhausted their efforts.
“The One is there for each of you. You never know where he or she will turn up. It could be in the library, or it could be on the street. Give yourself as many chances as possible to find him or her. It will happen, I promise you.”
Evie wasn’t even sure if she believed in the One. She and her brothers were still young by turul standards, but still over one hundred and fifty years old. She’d have thought at least one of them would have met their true mate by now. Whoever it was, it wasn’t another turul. The first thing turul parents did when their children were old enough to fly was introduce them to the other enclaves, to try to find their match among their own kind. She and her brothers knew all the turuls there were to know, yet not even a glimmer of interest occurred for either of them.
Humans were so prolific it could take another century to find a mate, if hers was one of them. That is, if she even believed there was one true mate for her. She could probably have picked one out of the crowd of onlookers, if she wanted to. The second she had that thought, butterflies erupted in her belly and she nearly lost track of the lyrics she sang. Could she throw caution to the wind, choose her own mate, and prove to everyone that the ridiculous waiting and searching was bullshit?
She scanned the crowd in front of her, thrilled with the idea of an experiment. Could she forge a deeper bond with someone by choice? She was no stranger to playful trysts with other turul, but had never had a non-turul playmate before. Unless the other person was definitely The One, coupling outside the enclaves was frowned upon. And she’d never been inclined to have anything deeper with one of the turul males she knew.
I’m probably nuts, but I’m doing this.
She paused for breath in between songs. The crowd applauded and tossed more coins and crumpled bills into the guitar case. Her brothers continued to play random tunes but would easily pick up whatever song she started in with next. It came to her the second she set eyes on the perfect target. She broke into her favorite Beatles song when a tall, striking man shifted to the front of the crowd and stood, tapping his boot-clad foot in time with the music. Except she switched the lyrics the way she always did, swapping “her” with “him,” when she saw him “standing there.”
If she had to conjure her own ideal mate, at least in appearance, there he was. A little bit bohemian in dress, with a mop of ruddy waves atop his head that was trimmed more neatly from his ears down. He was unique enough that her Nanyo might believe she’d found her One—but not so much as to raise suspicion. He had a wicked twinkle in his eyes when he looked at her, and Evie stared right back, letting her voice and the power of the Wind do all the work of letting him know she noticed him watching her.
She wished she felt something deeper now. The mated turul she knew all claimed that the second they set eyes on their One, they knew instantly. She wasn’t sure she believed it, because it still hadn’t happened to her. Maybe with this guy, she could take matters int
o her own hands.
I’m going to fall in love with you, she thought, just as she sang, “And before too long, I fell in love with him.”
He bobbed his head and clapped after the finale, beautiful white smile beaming at her. She and her brothers took a bow, and while she did, she tried to formulate an excuse to go talk to him. But when she stood up, he was nowhere to be found.
“Dammit!” Evie scanned the dispersing crowd. He’d been a good head taller than most of the other patrons in the park, and his gorgeous, russet hair had caught the rays of the setting sun making him look aflame. And those shoulders—wow, not even her brothers were quite as built as that, though they were sturdy men. He could’ve been a dragon, as striking as he’d been, but she hadn’t sensed a hint of anything magical about him. No, the man had been pure, perfect, human male, through and through. He shouldn’t have been very hard to miss, even among the other humans in the park, yet she didn’t see him.
“Evie,” Lukas called, forcing her to turn her attention back to them. He was squatting beside his guitar case, sorting through their take, and held up a creased piece of paper. “You’ve got an admirer.” He grinned at her.
Evie’s stomach fluttered. She took another cursory glance at the surrounding area, then reached for the piece of paper her brother held out to her.
The messy scrawl was almost illegible, but the note was simple enough. “Angel Mine, Meet me by your sister’s fountain.—Marcus C.”
“Angel Mine, huh? Do you know this guy?” Iszak looked over her shoulder. His tone was unmistakably suspicious and more than a little bit protective. Evie elbowed him in the ribs.
“Just met—sort of. But I’m going to fall in love with him.”
“You didn’t just find your One, did you?” Lukas said, standing up and dropping the handful of coins he held back into the case at his feet. “Holy shit, Nanyo’s going to be impossible to deal with if you did.”
Evie rolled her eyes. “I’m going to prove to you guys that we don’t need to wait for some perfect mate to magically appear. I’m going after this guy because I want to. Screw tradition, screw…”
She almost said “the North Wind,” but knew better than to test their protector, their creator, the Goddess who had blessed their parents with three perfect children, then graced those children with the honor of Her name.
She shrugged. “Guys, a hundred and fifty fucking years. With my luck, he’s a dragon and I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait for the next brood to wake up before I find the One.” She made air quotes and rolled her eyes. “I might die of horniness by then.”
Lukas laughed and shook his head. “Sister, have you ever been with a dragon? They like it if you wait for them. The hornier you are, the better. I guess you have to make up for not having actual horns.”
She knelt down beside her brother and made quick work of sorting the coins and bills he’d missed. The money would go to a local homeless shelter—it wasn’t like they needed it. The enclaves were wealthy in spite of their preference for simple living. They always tended to send their excess to the other wanderers of the world.
She wondered if he—Marcus—would enjoy the simple life. He’d been dressed simply enough, in a pair of dark brown khakis and a loose white shirt—nothing like the mod crowd or the hippies. She suddenly felt a little self-conscious of her own attire. She’d emulated Cher at first, because she had long, straight, dark hair, though she was more pixyish in stature. Her own outfit was racier than Cher’s, though. Her brothers had objected, but held their tongues after her first day singing, when they saw the response from the men in the audience.
She couldn’t complain, either. It was comfortable, if a little chilly, to wear in early spring. She smiled at the thought of Marcus seeing her nipples pressed against the sheer fabric of her peasant top.
Even if she didn’t fall in love with him, she needed a day of fun. No matter how distasteful it was for her to stray from the enclave for release, she really, really wanted something different for a change.
“You want us to stay close?” Iszak asked, drawing her up from the closed guitar case and gazing into her eyes.
His intensity always threw her when it came out. “Iszak, fuck. I can take care of myself.” She brushed his hand away from her shoulder where it gripped her tight.
Iszak grumbled. “I don’t know this guy.”
“He’s just a guy. A human. I know that much. Don’t you want to know if it can happen? If we can choose who we love? Never have to wait until they find us?”
Iszak grunted and shook his head. “Fine. Just be careful.”
“I’m always careful. It’s my nature as the eldest.” She grinned at him over her shoulder as she ran off down the path. Iszak grimaced, but didn’t follow.
Evie giggled at her joke. Both her brothers were protective in the extreme, even though she was technically the eldest of the three. Not that the timing mattered much; they were all conceived and birthed within seconds of each other, though her brothers liked to consider their hatching the moment when they were truly born. If they went by that, she came third, but she was first out of their mother’s womb. She wondered if that should make her more cautious or more reckless. At the very least it did mean she was slightly more attuned to the messages carried on the Wind.
Or maybe she was just trying to make up for lost time.
She felt a little silly, running as she was, but the rush of a new experience excited her. She had a good feeling, especially when she slowed to a walk on the path as the fountain with the angel came into view.
Marcus lounged at the edge, relaxed and handsome. When she drew closer, he turned his head and saw her, his face splitting into a wide grin that made pleasant tingles erupt all over her. It was an entirely superficial feeling, though—she felt this way every time she met a potential lover among her own race, but it never lasted.
His gaze roamed over her in an overly familiar way that made her pulse pound. By the time she reached him, she was more breathless from the arousal that simple look inspired than from her jog to get here.
Marcus gazed up at her when she paused in front of him.
“You came,” he said.
“You must’ve really wanted to see me alone, if you couldn’t come say hi while my brothers were there. The cloak and dagger was a nice touch.” She waved his cryptic note in the air. Instead of sitting beside him, she stepped between his spread knees. He widened his legs to accommodate her and she moved in until they were nearly touching. She knew exactly what she wanted, so there was no sense skirting around it. She had a pretty good idea he wanted it, too.
Yet he didn’t touch her.
“True, I wanted to see you alone. Mostly I wanted to see if you really were more beautiful than the angel behind me. I usually just come here and enjoy her presence, then go home. But today another angel was singing, and I couldn’t help but follow the sound.”
“And you found me.”
“I found you.”
“So, what’s the verdict?” Evie asked, glancing behind him to the winged figure in the center of the pool, then back to him.
“I’m a little too dazzled to look at anything else right now,” he said, his pale green eyes locked on hers.
Now that made her heart do a somersault. Nobody she’d ever met had been quite so fixated on her. It took her breath away.
“I’m so going to fall in love with you,” she whispered, more sure now than ever. Even though there was none of that tugging feeling her mother described as the moment when she knew Evie’s father was the one, Marcus had succeeded in capturing her attention enough that she really wanted to know more about him. And she really wanted to know if it were at all possible to cultivate love with someone she wasn’t fated to be with.
Marcus laughed nervously. “Oh? That’s a little quick, isn’t it? Or are you some kind of psychic who can see the future?�
�� He slid his hands down his thighs until they were aligned with her legs, yet he still refrained from touching her.
“Marcus, you are a mystery. I like mysteries.” She brazenly threaded her fingers through his hair, breaking the invisible barrier between them for the first time. She’d been itching to touch those russet locks since she’d first laid eyes on him.
Marcus shivered and closed his eyes. Evie tangled her fingers in his hair, enjoying the smooth, silky feel of it sliding through. He sighed.
“You’re the real mystery. I don’t even know your name.” He opened his eyes to look at her, his gaze growing darker as she let her fingers stray down and scraped her fingernails through the shorter hair at the nape of his neck.
“Evie North. What does the ‘C’ stand for?”
“Calais,” he replied, sighing and tilting his head down, eyes closed as though her touch were the best feeling in the world. “You must be an angel to make me feel so blessed. I bet you’d look good in wings.”
Evie paused, surprised by his comment. It sounded sincere, but hit so close to home that it made her wonder if he really was as human as she’d first thought.
“Worship me enough, I might grow a pair. Of wings, I mean.” She grinned down at him.
“Oh, that won’t be a problem,” he said, his words trailing off into a rough laugh. “But I’m a bit of a bad boy. I’m worried that if I touch you, my hands might burn with holy fire.”
“Marcus, even if I do grow wings, I promise I’m no angel.” She let her fingernails dig into the back of his neck just enough to reinforce her statement.
His eyelashes fluttered and his gaze slid down her body again. Finally, he ventured a hesitant touch, raising his hands to her hips and resting them there.
Her skin tingled under the warmth of his palms, and holy shit if she didn’t dampen her panties a bit. The man had some alluring quality that drew her to him, even if it wasn’t the one thing that signaled they were meant for one another. The idea suddenly frustrated her. How in all the winds could he not be the one for her? He pushed all her buttons. She wanted him. And she’d have him. But there was still that glimmer of truth that never left her. The piece that always knew the right path. The piece she was about to ruthlessly rebel against right now.
