by Ophelia Bell
“What do you mean, the First Shadow. I asked for the message to be taken to the Void.” His hand tightened around his glass, his scalp tingling with rising anger at his missive being disregarded.
“Do you have any idea what you were asking? Carry a message to the fucking Void. If he wanted to, he could carve your mind out and leave you with nothing but an empty core, with your worst nightmare the only thing left behind for you to live with for eternity. There’s a reason access to him is limited.
“The First Shadow is the highest ranking black dragon those of my family’s rank can speak to. My mother took the message to the former First Shadow shortly after you gave it to her. She begged for an audience with the Void, but was denied. There was nothing more she could do. I followed up last week with the new First Shadow. He assures me there are dragons tasked with finding this woman, but it would have helped if you gave us a more precise location.”
“If I were to tell you, my master would find out and either move her or kill her. I can’t risk it.”
“Then you’ll just have to fucking be patient,” the man sneered at him. “No one wants to risk pissing off that dark bastard just for the life of one female who isn’t even a dragon. If you want to find the Void, go after him yourself.”
Marcus gathered his power and raised his hand, prepared to introduce the man to his own brand of darkness, but stopped himself. He lived with that void inside him already. He was weary of using it on others. Weary of carrying the burden himself and being forced to do precisely that to the myriad of victims his master had sent him and his brothers out to capture over the years. No. If Evie could be sent away to safety, he would stop, regardless of the torture he had to endure in the aftermath of her escape. And, God willing, he could actually die.
Marcus would love to meet this Void before he died, though. To curse him for his contribution to the last fifty years of purgatory he’d endured. To every dragon he’d met in the intervening years, his own power was considered a cosmic balance of a sort. No one questioned exactly why Marcus and his brothers had virtually the same powers as the dragons, even though they manifested theirs a little differently—through their palms as well as through the power of their lungs. But he knew the truth. The trio of males the lower-ranked dragons revered as demigods were the reason for Marcus and his brothers’ very existence.
Marcus shut his eyes and laughed softly. He finished his drink and ordered another.
“I’m in the mood for a void of a different sort tonight, my friend,” he said to the man beside him. “I have a few hours before my brothers find me. I’m not at liberty to share my reasons for doing what I did, but if you get me drunk enough, details may slip. In the meantime, I’d love to hear more about your mother. She was a lovely woman.”
The man’s brow furrowed and a perplexed half-smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “You’re nothing like I expected for an Elite. In stature, certainly, but demeanor… you look hopeless.”
“Not for lack of trying,” Marcus said.
The man’s gaze drifted over his face slowly, cautiously, and Marcus caught a glint of something more curious and bold in those blue eyes. With a jolt, he remembered this was a dragon he was becoming far too relaxed beside. The fire of attraction in the man’s eyes made him realize he’d taken a bigger risk than he intended. He was still a Blessed, and this blue dragon before him wanted a taste as strongly as his mother had. The idea of giving in to someone else’s craving for his sex energized him, but not in the direction his companion might have hoped.
“I apologize,” he said, flinging cash onto the bar and standing. “I’d love to stay, but I just realized I have somewhere to be.”
* * *
With the power of the drift, he returned to the “dungeon,” as he liked to call it. He ignored Sterlyn and Naaz’s objections when he immediately headed down the hallway that held Evie’s cell at the end. Their master was due back within days, but Marcus wasn’t about to waste time now that he knew they were coming for her. He wanted just one night before she left him.
He paused outside her cell and closed his eyes, making an effort to gather his wits. He’d been too long apart from her, and his need overwhelmed his senses to the point that he couldn’t remember the key code that would let him into her room. When the keypad beeped and flashed angry red lights, he stared blindly at the message on the digital readout. “Biometric Scan Rejected,” was all it said. He mashed his thumb onto the tiny surface of the scanner and received the same message.
Marcus was on the verge of smashing his fist into the screen embedded flush into the wall in front of him, the little lights and messages taunting him. He needed to get to her.
“Marcus,” Sterlyn said, gripping his shoulder tightly. “You’re not authorized to enter her room.”
“I have to get to her tonight! You don’t understand…” He looked at Sterlyn and snapped his mouth shut immediately when he saw the look of warning in the other man’s eyes.
With a soft curse he lowered his hand from the panel. “He’s here early.”
“Something’s happened,” Sterlyn said. “He wants all three of us with him tonight. Special assignment, he says. Naaz is on his way up. He sent me to find you and bring you, too. I think he’s found her, finally.”
The “her” in question didn’t need clarifying, but Marcus’s sense of dread heightened. He’d heard stories about the dragon that had made their master who he was, and the idea of the pair of them getting back together could only mean more suffering for them all. But he had no choice.
Before him, the opaque white of Evie’s door faded to transparent and her petite form came into view on the other side. She gazed up at him wide-eyed with a hesitant smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.
Her lips moved, mouthing the word “hello,” though Marcus couldn’t hear her. He pressed his hand to the glass and said, “I’m sorry. I love you.”
Again, her lips moved, forming the words he still didn’t feel worthy of. I love you, too.
He had no idea how much everything would change in a matter of days.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Marcus
Dragon Monastery, Sunda Islands
Present Day
“You should have left me behind,” Marcus said to the shadowy entity still lurking in a dark corner of his mind.
He sensed Ked rousing to his communication and the male’s voice replied, “The two of you are a package deal, at least where she is concerned. And you intrigue me. I killed the last Ultiori Elite created with my blood, and it has haunted me ever since. Killing you would destroy another piece of my soul.”
Perhaps if Ked felt that strongly there was hope for him. Especially if the dragon was entertaining the idea of saving Marcus for Evie’s sake. The prospect of living sparked a glimmer of energy deep inside him and Marcus forced his eyes open, blinking into the dim room. Once his eyes adjusted, he was greeted with the scowling looks of Evie’s brothers yet again.
Despite recent moments when he hoped they might have forgiven him, the fact that she’d arrived here damaged had clearly not helped their opinion of his worth. The pair of them would definitely prefer it if Marcus disappeared, but he cringed at the idea of being sent away.
“If I agree to stay, I want your word that I’ll have sanctuary. I can offer my knowledge in exchange. Your kind fears me and my brothers, but believe it or not, the most terrifying person on earth isn’t you and your siblings—it’s our master.”
Ked’s essence shifted in Marcus’s mind, as though he’d become more alert. “I am aware of Nikhil’s methods. I am also aware of what you did to help my sister’s mates locate her when she was held by him. But I need more from you than your knowledge. You are far too valuable to simply give safe harbor to.”
Marcus closed his eyes again to block out the scrutiny of the two men he regretted displeasing the most. Perhaps if he acq
uiesced to Ked’s demands, he could find some way to regain Lukas and Iszak’s trust. He would do anything.
“What is it you need me to do?”
“The same thing I must do: be a father to your unborn child. Without its parents’ energy, the baby will die.”
Marcus sat up and opened his eyes wide. He struggled to rise from the bed and Lukas and Iszak both snapped to attention, stepping in front of the doorway that led out of the bedroom.
“I need to get to her!” he said, swaying on his feet as he scanned the room for clothes. He spied garments hanging on hooks along the wall beside a large, wooden bureau and stumbled toward them, the room swimming as he walked. His vision blurred and he stumbled, flailing forward. Two pairs of large hands grabbed his arms and held him upright with vicious grips.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Iszak growled. He turned Marcus back toward the bed while Lukas snagged the garments from the wall and followed.
“Evie, I need to see her. Just… talk to Ked.” How in the world it had happened, he couldn’t begin to fathom. He and Evie had only had the one night together. That a child could have been conceived in the midst of the horrors Marcus and Evie had endured was beyond his ability to comprehend. Besides, he really didn’t want to be the one to tell her overprotective brothers that their sister was knocked up.
His savior arrived in the form of the brothers’ mate. Belah opened the door and came through, followed by a man Marcus had never met, but who definitely carried himself with the same regal stature that most dragons possessed. The man was shirtless, clad only in a wrap-around sarong, his torso covered in the most elaborate tattoo Marcus had ever seen. A huge dragon wrapped all the way from the tops of his shoulders down to disappear beneath the top of the sarong.
While Belah had a quiet word with her mates, the man scrutinized Marcus so closely, Marcus shivered and reached for the clothes, his hands trembling as he struggled to dress himself. The man’s eyes were unlike any dragon’s eyes he’d ever seen, but it took him a moment to grasp exactly why.
When he did, his head shot up and he stared, open-mouthed at the man.
“You’re a Prismatic,” he said, dumbfounded. He’d only heard of the existence of Prismatics once or twice—whispers from their prisoners or dragons he and his brothers eavesdropped on when they were hunting. In all his years as a hunter, not once had he encountered a prismatic.
Marcus managed to get the lightweight drawstring pants pulled up to cover himself before Belah turned to face him, though his modesty was far from preserved after the unraveling power of the man’s gaze.
“Marcus, this is Kris. He’s going to help you regain enough energy for me to take you to Ked and Evie. Ked wants you conscious. He says you can be trusted, which my mates may not yet believe, but I have faith in you as I have faith in your former master.”
“Did he tell you?” Marcus croaked, glancing between Belah and Kris, still marveling at the swirling spectrum of Kris’s eyes.
Belah smiled and Kris raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, but my mates don’t know yet. I will acclimate them into the idea when the time comes.”
Marcus heaved out a sigh that eased one worry but left behind the true anguish he’d been seeking to let go of with his death. Fuck him for wanting the easy way out. He knew better.
Kris knelt before him. “I have to touch you for this to work. You might feel a little aroused when it happens, but that’s natural. Save it for her.”
Marcus nodded. He wanted this as much as the shadow did. The shadow tickled at his mind, impatient for his presence.
Kris’s hands gripped his thighs and squeezed. Kris didn’t move his hands, but a surge of energy pulsed into Marcus that made his dick instantly spring to attention.
“Fuck!” Marcus blurted, but gripped the bedsheets behind him while the man closed his eyes and let more power flow between them. Within moments, Marcus felt entirely energized. He stared down at Kris, confused by the desire he had to kiss the man—and not in platonic gratitude, but to take his mouth and plunge himself inside with his tongue, devouring him to the point he begged to be fucked.
He closed his eyes to suppress that urge. Fucking dragon magic. When he opened them again, the urge hadn’t gone away and he clutched his fingers hard to still that need. He felt the mattress underneath his hands rip until his fingertips punched through the woven barrier.
“You’ll want to take care of that,” Kris said, smiling and pointing at Marcus’s raging erection when he stood to leave. “I would, but I have my orders. You should have enough power to make it through a bonding.”
Marcus had never felt more alive in all his life. He lifted a shaky hand and cupped his aching cock. After the threat of death, he didn’t believe he’d ever perform again. He had been thankful that his last lovemaking with Evie had probably been his best performance ever.
But he had a bigger mission now.
“Take me to her,” he said to Belah after Kris departed.
Belah’s blue eyes twinkled with inner light and she gave him a sweet smile. “Good. Just follow me…” She trailed off when he stood, her eyebrows rising when she saw his discomfort and the tent in his pants. She tutted softly and stepped toward him. “Kris has a wicked sense of humor. That wasn’t very fair of him. Here, take a bit of my breath and you’ll feel better.”
Belah cupped both sides of his jaw, holding him steady with cool, soft hands as she parted her lips. Between them, a faint wisp of blue smoke escaped her mouth. Marcus obediently inhaled and the tension in his groin eased to a dull but pleasant ache, his hard-on disappearing.
“Now, are you ready to see her?” Belah asked, taking his hand.
“More than ever.” He let her lead him to the door. Beyond the opening, Lukas and Iszak waited warily, falling into step on either side of them as Belah led him through the lush foliage up the flagstone path.
Marcus took a deep breath, trying to quell the anxiety inside him. The power of Belah’s smoke had left a tingling sensation deep in his lungs, reminding him of sharing breath with Evie.
“Do turul have power in their breaths, too?” he asked, hoping to engage the North brothers in conversation and perhaps regain some balance with them, if he couldn’t get them to actually trust him again.
Neither man answered, their only response was to glance at him with open hostility.
With an exasperated glance at her mates, Belah sighed and said, “Our breaths are sacred, for both dragons and turul. For the dragons, the magic we wield comes from our lungs. You would know this as an Elite—since my brother’s blood runs through your veins, you are a part of him and carry his power inside you. You use your breath to manifest it, yes?”
“I do, but something happened when I was with Evie the other night.” Or was it last night? He had no frame of reference now for how long it had been. He shook his head to dispel the sense of discontinuity he felt having spent his dreams reliving the last fifty years.
“What happened with Evie?” Iszak said, his words clipped and harsh.
Marcus cursed himself for mentioning it now. The experience had been the most intimate moment of his life, and of his entire relationship with Evie. He had no business sharing it with her brothers, except that he was curious about how much her magic might have affected him, if at all.
“We shared breath,” he finally said, opting for bare honesty in hopes that it might earn him points with the pair.
“Oh!” Belah said, stopping short on the path and facing him with a delighted smile.
Evie’s brothers had the opposite reaction, both of them ejaculating colorful curses to the heavens.
“Shit,” Marcus said. “I did something wrong by doing that, didn’t I? I mean, besides all the other things I fucked up, like nearly getting her killed.”
Belah let out a small laugh, still smiling, and laid a hand on his uppe
r arm. “No, Marcus. All you did was accept a turul mating bond with Evie. This explains quite a bit, actually.” She widened her eyes emphatically without elaborating.
Marcus opened his mouth, grasping her meaning. “Ah…” he said before stopping himself. Christ, that woman was devious. He couldn’t help smiling secretly. No wonder she’d gotten pregnant so quickly.
“Dragons do it, too,” Belah swiftly said, filling in Marcus’s pause and starting to walk again, gesturing gracefully during her explanation. “Not as part of mating, but as a way to share a closer bond with one we love, if we’re unable to mate with them for whatever reason. We’ve always had so many laws that kept some lovers apart. Until recently, two dragons were never permitted to mate each other. And now with you and your bond with Ked, we’re discovering that there are so many situations our laws could not have predicted.”
She paused and took a deep breath. Marcus couldn’t help but sense a kind of desperation in her tone when she spoke again. “It has forced the Council to consider what kind of precedent it sets when a human has been infused with a dragon’s blood. The bond goes deeper than the magical bond that’s made when Nirvana is shared. It is as if you are a part of him—a part of his soul—separate, yet still intertwined too closely for the bond to ever be broken.”
Marcus pulled her to a stop again forcing Belah to cease her increasingly frantic rambling. “I know about the bond,” he said gently. “You don’t need to explain it to me. I’m honestly grateful for it because it made Evie look at me with true love in her eyes for the first time ever. Now that I know…” He paused, glancing at Iszak and Lukas who both narrowed their eyes at him. “Now that I know she’ll still have me, I need to be with her, whatever the consequences.”
Belah’s smile looked forced now and when he met her eyes, they were brimming with tears. She swallowed and nodded at him. “Good. That’s good,” she forced out. “Because Ked can’t help but love you because of that bond, and Evie’s baby needs you even more.”
