by Ophelia Bell
Her eyes suddenly widened and she clamped her mouth shut, covering it with one hand. The other hand rested protectively over her midsection.
“What the fuck?” Iszak said.
“Christ,” Lukas muttered. “Evie’s pregnant, isn’t she? Is it yours, Marcus? It had better fucking be yours.”
Marcus braced himself for the confrontation, but refused to dismiss Belah’s odd behavior. He turned to the brothers who now stood blocking the path ahead of them, holding his hands out in surrender.
“Evie’s been locked in a cell for fifty years. I knew she was about to be rescued and so I went to be with her. We were making love when she asked me to share breath with her. I think that extra bond plus my link to Ked are what enabled her to conceive.” He kept a solid wall of dark power in his mind between his words and the knowledge of the other experiments Evie’d been forced to endure while inside. All that mattered was that she was out now.
He stared at both men who he had once considered as close as brothers. “Now, if I understand correctly, her unborn child needs me because of my bond to her true mate as much as the fact that I am the father. Which means you had better not fucking stand in my way of seeing her.”
The wind kicked up around the North brothers, rustling the trees around them. Now that Marcus knew what kinds of creatures the pair were, he recognized the signs of turul power being gathered. Belah swiped at her tears and stepped between them, facing her mates. “This isn’t the time…” she began, but was cut off by a loud yell from some distance away, and the sounds of running footsteps and flapping wings around them.
Then a dark turbulence pummeled at Marcus’s mind, an incoherent rage rising in him that made his blood boil for no apparent reason. Above them the clouds drew together, the the full moon snuffed out behind whatever power had overtaken the night.
A thunderous roar shook the entire mountain. Belah cursed and started running up the path, with Marcus and her mates close on her heels.
“What is it?” Marcus called after her.
“I don’t know!” Belah yelled back. “You have a link to my brother, ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing!”
As they ran closer to the source of the disturbance, the anger built inside him. It took all of Marcus’s will to remain in control, but the need drove him to get to Ked, to make sure that Evie was all right. What else could possibly cause the dragon to react this way?
Marcus reached the top of the hill just behind the others. Before him was a huge, circular clearing that reminded him of a heliport. Dozens of dragons of various colors sat around the edges in states of agitation. In the center of the circle, three huge, white dragons paced in circles around a pair of figures Marcus could barely see between the gaps in the dragons. On the opposite side of them, Ked landed in all his black dragon glory, a full head higher than the largest dragon in the clearing. He roared again, the power of the sound causing Marcus and the North brothers to stumble back a step.
Out of the corner of his eye, a figure jogged toward him and he didn’t even stop to think before turning in her direction.
“Marcus! By the Winds you’re alive!” Evie yelled as she leaped into his arms.
The clearing erupted into chaos then, and Marcus bent over Evie to shield her from the cacophony of roars and gale force winds. For a second he thought Iszak and Lukas were reacting to his contact with their sister, but when he turned to look, he saw a blue dragon facing off against the black one, and a pair of huge falcons circling overhead. Clouds seemed to form like contrails behind the birds and with each circuit the winds grew stronger.
The warmth of Evie’s slight body against him made all the rest fade away and he looked down into her storm-gray eyes. She looked haggard, but beautiful.
“Is it true?” he asked, and even though there was no way his voice could be heard over the noise, she nodded. He held her tighter and kissed her.
“What’s happening?” she said when they parted.
Marcus shook his head and looked toward the chaos. The three white dragons had disappeared, but had been replaced by an even larger white dragon, and the three now seemed to be in a standoff over the pair of figures in the center. Marcus knew Ked as he knew his own skin, could feel the barely restrained rage that simmered beneath the surface. Rage toward the newcomers, he realized, and tugged Evie closer so they could get a better look.
The blue dragon must be Belah, though he’d missed the moment when she or her mates had shifted.
“Who is that?” he asked, pointing to the white dragon and tilting his head so his mouth was close to Evie’s ear. He felt a small tingle of affinity to the white one, but it was nothing like his connection to Ked.
Evie shook her head, uncertain. “Must be their brother. But who is th—”
They moved clockwise a few steps around the group and Evie suddenly grabbed Marcus’s shirt. He shot a look at her and then back toward the group and saw what had startled her.
In the center of the clearing on their knees, looking like they were about to become dragon snacks, were the unmistakable figures of Sterlyn and Nikhil.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nikhil
Dragon Monastery, Sunda Islands
Present Day
The fact that chaos surrounded him now was no surprise to Nikhil. He was more surprised that he’d succeeded in making it this far. It must have been the fresh drop of Belah’s blood she gave him before they parted that allowed him to find her so quickly. Not just a drop, he realized, though that second memory was not entirely his own. He had hurt her—had spilled her blood deliberately and greedily and in the process had consumed more than just that one drop. He hadn’t earned it because she hadn’t given it willingly, and for that he knew he deserved whatever punishment these dragons wanted to give him now, but the blood had served a purpose in the end. It made it easy for him to mentally lock onto her location and drift himself and Sterlyn straight to the dragons’ secret stronghold after they had completed their task to secure Belah’s children.
Now here they were, with three of the most magnificent beasts he’d ever seen looking like they were about to rip him and Sterlyn apart—or rip each other apart, Nikhil couldn’t quite decide which.
He dropped to his knees and urged Sterlyn down as well, but that didn’t make a difference in the demeanor of the dragons. He turned to look up at Belah, his breath escaping at the sheer size and beauty of her.
“’Iilahatan!” he yelled. “I have come to keep my promise to you!”
The huge blue dragon craned her head around and peered down at him. “You have angered my brother and my mates, my love. They do not understand what happened to you. They do not believe what I have told them. And even if they did, you should not be here.”
“He must die for what he’s done, Belah!” the black dragon roared. “Use your fire and kill him and his Elite now!”
Beside him, Nikhil heard Sterlyn utter a foul curse. A huge, white tail smacked down right in front of them, causing dust to billow up and leaving a long indent in the earth.
“No one is setting fire to anyone here!” the white dragon bellowed. He moved closer, his tail snaking around the pair of them protectively. “The Elite is mine to dispose of. He carries my blood!”
Nikhil hadn’t recognized him in his dragon form, but that brief statement confirmed that this was Belah’s brother, Aodh.
He stood again, holding out his hands and turning slowly to look at all of them. An audience had formed around them, and close behind Belah he saw Marcus standing stock still and glaring at him, an astonished Evie held close to his side.
“I will not make excuses,” he said, directing his words to the couple he had nearly killed and raising his voice so he could be heard above the wind. “The things I have done are unconscionable—actions deserving the worst kind of punishment and death. I will accept any punishment you wish m
e to take, but please allow me to speak first.”
He turned his eyes skyward, recognizing the pair of turul above by the power of the winds that howled around them. These were the brothers of the female he had harmed, and his true love’s new mates. “Please allow the Winds to prove the veracity of my words. I will not lie to you now. If this is the last moment I have to speak the truth, let it be the truth that lies in my soul, then you may do with me what you will.”
Belah bobbed her large head and let out a trumpeting call. “Please hear him, for my children’s sake. All of you, please!”
Nikhil stared at her, dumbfounded by her defense of him after the way he’d harmed her. She was magnificent in her true form, and when her huge body shimmered and shrank, her human beauty took his breath away. She walked toward him clad in a flowing blue gown, her shining midnight hair cascading in waves down her back. The two falcons descended and shifted at her sides, naked for a moment until an almost invisible breath flowed from Belah’s lips and simple blue trousers materialized to cover them.
The two men fixated on him in the strangest way, their steps as sure and deliberate as Belah’s, but when they stopped in front of him he could sense the confusion of hostility and hunger warring in them both.
Belah’s shadowy brother’s feelings were not so ambiguous, however. A wash of dark energy hit Nikhil’s back, making his skin prickle with the absolute lust for vengeance that flooded from the other man. The feeling was beautiful in its stark simplicity. He remembered that feeling well, because it was the one emotion Meri had latched onto in the beginning. The spark that she had found and fueled with her own agenda until it became an all-consuming wildfire he no longer controlled.
The feeling burned in him once more, but this time he controlled it, and knew precisely where to direct that rage. He turned to face Ked now, stared into the Void of the black dragon’s eyes and silently dared the man to look into his soul to see the truth.
Around him, the others took a few steps back, Sterlyn moving toward Aodh’s side as though he were a moth drawn to a flame.
Darkness hit Nikhil like a tidal wave and he fell to his knees, gasping. The sensation of utter nothingness flooded through his mind, ten times more powerful than the drift, leaving behind a stark landscape of regret in its wake. As the darkness filled him, bits and pieces of his unconscious slowly began to rise up to the surface, like flotsam from a shipwreck, the only lucky pieces that made it to shore.
The sensation was not unlike his strange conversation with Zorion, though that one had not been so brutally efficient at picking out crucial details from his memories. Now, he was powerless to control what Ked did inside his mind, and astonished at what the dragon’s power revealed to him.
His true desires were the brightest—his love of Belah and his craving to have a child with her. Beyond that, his regard for his Elites stood out, his pride in each of them and his love for them as surrogates for the child he longed for but could not have. Finally, he saw his grief over the loss of Benedetta, one long-dead Elite who was the only other Elite he’d ever created besides the ones who still lived. An Elite who he’d seen as a daughter as much as Neela had always been, but more than that, she’d been a close friend. Her death at the hands of this creature who invaded his mind now had been one of the few moments of pure rage he’d felt in all the hundreds of years since Belah’s death, and one of the few memories he was certain was wholly his own.
That bright flame of emotion seemed to burn through the darkness and Ked’s power retreated suddenly. Nikhil found himself face-to-face with a man in utter anguish, crippled by his own eternal regret.
“I loved her,” Ked said, and Nikhil knew he spoke of Benedetta. “I thought I might never love another after her, until I learned that Evie was out there.”
“Benedetta loved you, too, and you killed her,” Nikhil said, then immediately backpedaled, holding his hand up to stall Ked’s reply. “No. I am not such a fool now that I cannot accept half the burden for her death. We killed her.”
“You were her master. You could have released her from her bond to you.” Ked’s voice strained with emotion, with the need for absolution, but Nikhil had none to give.
“I would have, had I been in full control of my mind then. There was a time when my Elites were truly loyal to me, when I considered them close friends. Benedetta was my closest friend during a time when I had very few. Being loyal to me and loving you at the same time tore her apart. I remember it because she told me she would rather die than choose between us. The Nikhil that once possessed a soldier’s honor would have released her from her bond and allowed her to be with you. Please believe that I am that man again.”
He turned to look at Marcus, whose face appeared more ashen than before and he leaned on Evie as though he’d fall over if not for her support. “Marcus, this may be long overdue, but I release you. I have already released Naaz and Sterlyn, and all the prisoners that were held in the facility where Evie was kept. I know you have no such conflict of loyalty toward me, but my only wish now is for you to find a way to be whole again. I will not stand in your way.”
Turning back to Ked, he said, “Your mates appear to need more healing. If Sterlyn is willing to stay, I’d like to recommend his services, but only if his mate may join him later.”
Ked tore his gaze away from Nikhil, his anguished look receding to be replaced with tenderness, and then his brows drew together with worry. He stepped around Nikhil to get to Evie and Marcus, then slung Marcus’s arm over his shoulders and wrapped both arms around the waists of his mates.
The display of decisive action gave Nikhil hope. If the three of them could find a balance with each other in spite of Marcus’s history, perhaps his sister and her mates could find a balance with him. But when he shot a hopeful look at the three of them, his heart sank.
“How can we believe you aren’t somehow hiding your true monster inside you?” one brother asked, his anger evident in his clenching fists and lowered brows.
“Because Belah’s brother just stripped my conscience naked and seems more concerned with other things…” Nikhil gave the man a small smile and shrugged. “And because your sister sang it away,” he said, and launched into a poor rendition of the tune that had been constantly running through his head for the past two days.
The North brothers both looked startled, their heads jerking back and their mouths hanging open.
Nikhil stopped singing. “She’s much better at carrying a tune. Belah is, too…” he said softly, recalling the nights she’d sang him to sleep with a very similar tune.
Slowly, the two men relaxed a tiny bit. The less serious of the two took a tentative step toward him, a look of hungry curiosity burning in his eyes.
“Lukas, what are you doing?” the other brother snapped.
“I need to know if what I felt when we saved Belah was real or not.”
“Don’t fucking go near him!”
Lukas glared over his shoulder at his brother. “Don’t fucking deny you feel it, too, brother. It’s the same goddamn thing that Evie has with Marcus. Evie, tell your brother he’s a fool not to try to at least understand.”
Nikhil observed the exchange, perplexed by what was transpiring. What was it that Evie had with Marcus? To him it seemed like any bond between two lovers, no different from his bond with Belah. That Belah’s brother wished to collar two submissive lovers seemed like a perfectly reasonable arrangement to him.
He watched Evie roll her eyes at the more obstinate of her two brothers. “You can’t help it, you big dummy,” she said to him. “He did horrible things, but that doesn’t change the fact that Belah’s blood runs in his veins and you used to hate her, too. Her blood makes him your One as much as Belah. You can’t not love him! Just let it happen. You’ll be much happier if you do.”
Evie turned, clearly finished wasting time on her brothers, and walked with Ked and Marcus
away from the clearing.
Sterlyn cleared his throat. “Sayid… er… Nikhil… I’m going to stay and do what I can for the others. I expect there will be more dragons arriving from the Institute soon who will also need assistance. Aodh says that Zamirah will find her way here with the others when they’re released. Somehow she knows the way even though I never knew she did. He says all dragons know the way here, even the ones who have never been. Find me when you are ready to go back.”
Nikhil nodded at the knight, who simply waved as he trotted off after the large, white-haired dragon. The white brother, Aodh, reminded Nikhil of a certain young ursa who was likely still locked in a cell in the compound and would stay as long as his satyr lover stayed.
Nikhil turned back to the three remaining figures. He sat back on his heels, regarding them. Belah seemed hesitant to approach, as though she were waiting for her mates to make the first move.
“I meant it when I said I’d accept any punishment,” he said. “But I must request that it be postponed until after we’ve located the bitch who had me controlled all this time. I have allies who are helping with this task as we speak.”
Lukas moved to stand in front of him and bent down, eyes narrowed as he scrutinized Nikhil’s face. The young turul was strikingly handsome, cleaner of feature than his brother, with a sardonic half-smile on his lips and a dark lock of hair covering one eye.
“Allies, huh?” he asked. “More Ultiori thugs?”
“Not Ultiori,” Nikhil said. “Former prisoners, in fact. We think the creature that is responsible is a nymph. One of her own kind wants to find her and punish her. The status of the Ultiori organization is … uncertain, but the allies I still have inside are helping determine the truth. My Elites are with me, and I have one of them investigating to find out where the other Ultiori hunters and scientists’ loyalties truly lie. If there are any loyal to me still, I can build an army from them.”
“Hmm, an army you say? To command the way you commanded Belah?” Lukas said, standing up and walking around Nikhil.
