Immortal Dragons: The First Four: Prequel + Books 1-3

by Ophelia Bell

  “Lukas…” the other brother said, in an admonishing tone.

  “Iszak…” Lukas retorted sarcastically. “I’m curious about him. Want to know what lengths he’ll go to for her. If he’s telling the truth, this could be fun…”

  Nikhil heard Lukas stop just behind him. He wished he’d stood up before engaging them in conversation, but thought that remaining on his knees might make them more receptive. He’d been right, but now sensed he was at an unpleasant disadvantage and had no idea what Lukas was going to do. What, exactly, constituted “fun” for the man?

  Lukas moved closer and warmth radiated through Nikhil’s clothes into his back. A pair of hands rested lightly on his shoulders, long fingers splaying down across his collarbone. The contact was oddly comforting—not invasive or threatening as he’d expected.

  He swallowed, glancing up at Belah and Iszak who stood just a few feet away, watching. Belah’s eyes were wide with wonder at the scene. Iszak looked like a tightly coiled spring, his gaze boring into Nikhil. He wanted something… Nikhil guessed it involved introducing both fists to his face.

  Lukas, on the other hand, seemed to want something different. His hands traveled down Nikhil’s arms and grasped his wrists, then twisted his hands behind his back. The rough sensation of rope snaked across his skin, tightening as Lukas bound him with a quick knot. Then a hand grabbed his hair and yanked his head back hard.

  Until that moment, he’d imagined he was simply being prepared for torture. It’s what he would have done had he been in control. He’d eventually have told Lukas that he couldn’t feel any of the pain inflicted on him, but the inflicting of it might have allowed Lukas to trust him at least a little bit.

  But when Lukas’s mouth descended on his in a brutal, demanding kiss, his entire body went rigid with the realization of what he was truly in for. And when his groin tightened with arousal as Lukas bit down hard on Nikhil’s lower lip, it became crystal clear.

  Nikhil hadn’t had a hard-on in ages, but the last time had only been when he’d managed to arouse his partner by inflicting pain on her. Just like his own pain, he felt none of it, but any pain or injury he gave another would cut him as surely as if the knife had pierced his own flesh. So it was with pleasure—he only felt it when he gave it to another and it was all the sweeter when that pleasure came from pain.

  Lukas was desperately turned on by tying him up and torturing his mouth with the most destructively passionate kiss Nikhil had ever had. The other man’s arousal flooded Nikhil with unexpected heat that wasn’t entirely unwelcome—not when he could tell Belah enjoyed the show.

  By the gods, his Belah would not have mated a pair of men who would simply bow before her, would she?

  When Lukas finally released him, Nikhil saw the others through a haze of lust. Belah’s excited gaze met his but he could only blink dazedly at her. Iszak, he saw, had become just as aroused by simply watching Nikhil’s domination by his brother.

  “What in the everloving hell is happening?” Iszak muttered.

  Nikhil could only shake his head in wonder. “I- I couldn’t tell you. I don’t swing that way, but if I must…”

  Iszak chuckled. “I don’t either, but this jury’s still out on what to do with you yet. It seems we may not have a choice thanks to fucking Fate.”

  “Ah, speaking of Fate, I’d like to take Belah to her children soon. I’d prefer to keep that promise while the two of you are making a decision on what to do with me.”

  Belah’s excitement was almost palpable, but she seemed to be waiting for her mates’ permission. Was she always this way with them, or was it simply his presence that shifted the dynamic between the three?

  “We do have to consider these developments,” Lukas said, moving to face him and squatting so he was at eye level with Nikhil. Their gazes held for a long moment, Lukas’s desire radiating off him like a furnace that warmed Nikhil from the inside out. “I can think of all sorts of ways to torture you. I imagine Belah has a few tricks up her sleeve she’d love to share, too. Maybe if Iszak and I are satisfied with your penance, if Belah still wants you when we’re done, we’ll let her have a turn. Until we decide, you had better not lay a hand on her. I want your word, monster.”

  “You have my word that no harm will come to her. I owe my life to her, and I owe my sanity to your sister, and so I am your humble servant. Anything you command, I will do.”

  Lukas’s eyebrow twitched and his lips curled in a wicked smile. “I will hold you to that when the time comes.” Then he leaned in and captured Nikhil’s lips with his again. This time the kiss was soul-deep and filled with tender passion. How a man who’d been filled with hate only moments ago could turn his emotions around so swiftly left Nikhil dizzy with confusion. Then he remembered that these were the lips responsible for coaxing pleasure from his lover’s body now, and the image of Belah bound and at the mercy of these two powerful, dominant males made him hungry for more than just a kiss. It made no sense, but he went with it, kissing Lukas back with desperate hunger.

  “By the Winds you taste like her,” Lukas whispered huskily when he pulled away again. “Now I know why Evie still wants Marcus even after everything. You will keep her safe, monster. But Iszak and I are not done with you yet. There’s no way in hell we’re leaving you alone with her. Wherever she goes, we go, too.”

  He moved away to stand beside Belah and his brother. At their nods, Belah gracefully bent by his side and tore the ropes from his wrists.

  “Thank you,” she breathed, and kissed him on the cheek. He still felt flushed and hot from Lukas’s attention and her lips were smooth and cool against his skin, the sensation giving him a rush of sweet pleasure he didn’t expect.

  He raised his eyebrows at her. “Please tell me you’re ready to leave now. I don’t think I’m ready to deal with whatever those two have in mind for me, even if it would mean getting to make love to you again.”

  Belah gave him a warm smile. “I would like that, but what’s most important now is seeing my children. We are ready to leave when you are.”

  Nikhil stood and rubbed his wrists. “I need Sterlyn…” He turned, searching for the path he thought he’d seen his Elite run off toward. Instead, he found Belah’s huge white-haired brother who had somehow silently manifested only a few feet away. Nikhil wondered how long he’d been there and how much of the scene he’d just witnessed.

  “Sterlyn will stay here,” Aodh said in a deep, even voice. “I will go with you to my sister’s children.”

  Nikhil nodded and pulled out his blade, preparing to cut his palm. Aodh grabbed his wrist, stopping him before he could break the skin.

  “You don’t need blood if you have me, brother. Just lead the way.”

  Knowing better than to question the word of an immortal, he linked hands with Belah and her brother, Belah’s mates closing their circle, and he fixed his mind on the time and place where his daughter was. A moment later the drift carried them to her.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Marcus

  All the way back along the path, Marcus only had the strength to focus on a single thought.

  Evie. Our baby. Ours.

  When they reached the bungalow at the top of the hill, Ked helped him inside and guided him to the bed, but Marcus refused to lie down. Instead, he turned and just stood there, all the remaining strength draining out of him at the sight of her.

  She couldn’t have been more beautiful to him, even though what he saw was a pale, haggard woman. Beside her stood a contradiction to the power he’d witnessed earlier—a huge man with a look more tortured than Marcus’s own soul. Evie’s slight body was dwarfed in the man’s arms when Ked swiftly scooped her up just as her strength appeared to give out. Evie clung to him like her life depended on it.

  Evie’s eyes met his and he ached to touch her. She only watched him from the arms of the man who held her.

&n
bsp; “You look like shit,” he said to Ked. As surprising as it was, the man really did look like he hadn’t slept in days. His strong face was drawn with worry, dark circles under his eyes.

  “Sorry,” Ked said. “Looks don’t matter when we’re dealing with Ultiori torture.”

  Marcus himself had done this. He’d been reckless enough to wish for one night with her before she was saved.

  “Her wings…” he whispered, venturing closer. “God, he was so brutal.”

  “Her wings are restored,” Ked said, brushing a hand over her back.

  Evie shivered under Ked’s touch and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You guys like talking about me like I’m not here? If that gets you off, I’m game… Unless we’re talking about the baby.”

  Marcus’s eyes shot to her midsection and then up again.

  “You pregnant with my baby does a lot more than get me off.”

  Evie grew still, moving her pale forearms to lay across her abdomen. “The baby happened in there.” She had a haunted look on her face which he studied. He knew the truth of all the pregnancies. All the losses and heartbreak that occurred afterward.

  “And our child will be raised out here,” he said, aching to tell her how much he wanted exactly that. To have their child raised in a good place. Maybe it was foolish of him to wish for, though.

  “All the others died,” she said, finally looking at him with tears in her eyes.

  Ked shifted with her movements, moving to sit on the edge of the bed and holding her with her back to his chest, his arms protectively wrapped around her waist.

  “This one won’t die,” Marcus said. “We won’t let it, will we?” He looked at Ked and the man nodded.

  Marcus bent to his knees before them and opened his arms. “I’m not letting this baby go without a father. Trust me.”

  Evie sank into his arms with a harsh laugh and he let her fall into him, reveling in the familiar contact and summoning every last bit of strength he could find, just to hold her.

  They’d done this so many times. This back and forth of planning for their offspring’s future. Before, it had been a fictional child they planned for, but now it was so very real. But only if she let it keep being real.

  “Love this baby with me?”

  “You bet.” He said it as his skin prickled with the presence of their savior.

  Ked’s dark eyes bored into his when he looked up. A wash of darkness and doubt overtook him, stripping away all his senses, all his emotions, but the one thing that mattered. He was of this man, so he knew exactly what he looked for—the truth about whether Marcus still wished to die.

  He fought back, flinging a hand out and gripping Ked’s arm. He threw his own power at the intrusion.

  He gave himself over then, willingly submitting his every desire to the man who had invaded his mind. But he would take the same if he could.

  Ked’s mind was less willing, but when Marcus’s secrets seeped in, he felt the barrier weakening. Soon enough, he saw everything and what he saw staggered him. In the blink of an eye the full scope of Ked’s and his siblings’ pasts were revealed, including the origin of the man who had created Marcus and his brothers, and who had been indirectly responsible for the child he and Evie had created mere days ago.

  “You’ve seen my darkest secrets,” Ked said, speaking into the shadows of Marcus’s minds rather than aloud. “There are no more secrets between us. Let me mark you. It will keep you alive. It’s the only way, save giving you my blood, but to shed our blood again would be to give tacit acceptance to his ways.”

  Marcus answered silently, “If the mark will work, I’ll do this, but you need to tell me what it means for the baby that I have the blood of three dragons running through my veins.”

  Silence.

  He stared into Ked’s face, waiting for an answer, but the man simply stared back. Evie finally broke the silence.

  “Guys, this is a little uncomfortable. If you can’t actually talk to each other, I am going to go take a walk.”

  Marcus grabbed her arm in desperation as she walked past. “I just got you back, baby,” he said, though missing her was only half the reason he panicked at the idea of her leaving the room. He cast a sidelong glance at the large, black-clad man still seated on the bed.

  “I’m not going far,” she whispered to him, and kissed him gently. “I’ll be with Sterlyn right down the path. You two need to work this out,” she said.

  Left alone in a room with the man who’d saved him shouldn’t have felt uncomfortable, but it did.

  Ked didn’t smile. He didn’t do any of the things Marcus expected a man might do to encourage him to mate a dragon. That was part and parcel of receiving a dragon’s mark, he knew at least that much, and he would do it if it meant allowing his and Evie’s child to live, but that didn’t mean he’d enjoy it.

  “I’m not going to mate you unless you ask me to,” Ked said, standing and moving to the bureau at the side of the room. He poured a cup of water from the ewer and drank, then poured another and offered it to Marcus, who licked his lips and accepted the glass. “But you should be able to tell by now that the power Kris gave you is waning. If you want to live, you need my energy. Nikhil’s attack the other night nearly bled you dry, and without enough of my magic running through your veins, you will remain too weak to provide enough energy for the child. Your powers will eventually fade, your humanity will return, and you will grow old and die within a matter of weeks. I can sense the power already fading from your body as it regenerates the blood you lost.”

  “I know. I can feel my body failing even with the magic Kris gave me. You just have to understand that as much as I may be a part of you now, I am not like you. Not that way.” Marcus leveled a steady gaze at Ked, and the man only stared back without blinking.

  “Evie’s child is ours,” Ked said. “Both of us created this baby. You, with mine and my brothers’ blood in your veins, and your seed in her womb that night. You have a responsibility to follow through.”

  “I’m not a deadbeat,” Marcus said.

  “Neither am I,” Ked said. “And fixing you means…”

  “Fucking me,” Marcus concluded.

  “It won’t be as distasteful as you seem to think,” Ked said, his deep voice resonating with suggestive, velvety smoothness that mirrored the heat in his dark eyes.

  Ked still kept his distance, but Marcus was acutely aware of the change in tension in the air between them. His skin tingled in a not unpleasant way and he forced his gaze away from the other man, staring fixedly out over the railing beyond the half-open sliding doors that served as one wall of the room.

  “Your brothers are part of it,” Marcus said, redirecting the conversation back to his earlier request. “Did I catch that right?” He swallowed thickly, throwing that detail back at Ked in an effort to delay the inevitable. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  Thankfully the observation shifted the focus of the tension, Marcus’s comment distracting Ked from what felt like a single-minded need to seduce him. He hazarded a glance only to see the other man smiling sardonically.

  “Yes, thanks to the little cocktail of blood that made you what you are, there’s also a small part of their essence inside the child. And yes, it means exactly what you think, but to a far lesser degree of need than the child has for your essence or mine.”

  “Does Evie know this?” Marcus asked, his ire rising at the thought that this man who was supposedly Evie’s soul mate would pawn her off to his own brothers so casually.

  “She’s not a stranger to our ways, Marcus. And my brothers are not monsters. If anything, they’re more gentle than I am. Aodh is a regular teddy bear, compared to me. They will do it out of need as much as desire.”

  “Good. Don’t be gentle with me. I’d rather you make it less palatable an experience.”

  “Far from
it,” Ked said, leveling Marcus with the full force of his dark gaze. Marcus struggled to suppress the tremor of anticipation that passed through him. “You’ll enjoy every second as much as Evie does. I am a dragon, after all. It is in my best interest to ensure your absolute pleasure.”

  Ked took a step toward him, followed by another. Marcus’s pulse raced and he involuntarily found himself retreating, but Ked just kept coming, as inevitable and ominous as a thunderhead. His eyes flashed with deep violet light that seemed to see straight into Marcus’s soul the way he’d looked into Nikhil’s only moments ago. What had he seen in the soul of his former master? Would Marcus’s own soul be as much of an abomination as Nikhil’s had to have been?

  Marcus’s back bumped against the sturdy wooden railing of the porch and he grabbed hold of it with both hands. He had nowhere to go now, and not even Evie as a buffer between himself and this man who had flowed through his veins for decades. Such an intimate connection as sex shouldn’t have terrified Marcus so much after literally being filled with the man’s very essence for so long. Hell, his life had been defined by Ked for the last fifty years. Perhaps longer if what he’d learned about himself and his brothers was true. He was destined to be the mate of a dragon, and the detour he’d taken into the Ultiori ranks hadn’t changed that.

  But to be mated to this dragon? Christ, he couldn’t even imagine himself with a female of the race, much less the most imperious and dauntingly male member of the race he’d ever met. He hated himself a little for how much Ked’s presence so close actually sent pleasant ripples of sensation over his skin, like that gaze sweeping up and down him had a tactile element to it—like he was, indeed, being physically caressed.

  Yet he had little enough strength left to object. He was living on borrowed time and if he ever wanted to see his and Evie’s child thrive, he had no choice.

  Ked reached him and rested his hands on the railing on either side of Marcus, not touching but so close Marcus could feel intense heat radiating from his skin.