by Ophelia Bell
“What Lukas means is that, in a really fucked up way, we owe you for what you did. If she hadn’t been taken from you, she may never have been ours. And the shit with Evie… I don’t think she’d change things if she had a do-over, either, because she wanted Marcus so fucking bad at the start but knew he wasn’t destined to be hers. What you did changed that.”
Nikhil frowned. “What I did was the worst kind of torture. No one deserves what your sister had to go through, or Marcus. I would sooner kill a captive than put them through that. They weren’t my enemies. Nor were they the enemies of the only goddess I have ever worshiped.”
“And who would that be? Are you a follower of any of the old gods?” Lukas asked, seeming genuinely curious.
Nikhil glanced over his shoulder with affection before meeting Lukas’s gaze. “She was Isis to her followers back then. My ‘Iilihatan. My goddess. I never stopped worshiping her, but the darkness that had hold of me twisted my adoration to make me do unspeakable things in her name. Now I will do nothing without her explicit consent. Nor yours, for that matter. I will be her champion once more, willing to die in battle for her, until I can earn the right to be her lover again.” He considered his position for a moment, then added, “Or even her pet, for that matter. A toy she keeps in a box and only takes out when she wishes to pleasure herself.”
“By the Winds are you whipped,” Iszak said, chuckling and shaking his head.
“If that’s her wish, I will happily provide the whip.”
Both men grew oddly silent, their tension growing until it seemed to tap at the shell of their defenses—a desire seeking escape but not yet equipped to peck its way out. Rather than use his power to push his way in, Nikhil continued his earlier thought as if he’d only paused mid-sentence. “… though she prefers the lash herself. When she initiated me, she used other means besides pain. She’s adept at domination, but prefers submission. I assume that’s why she was drawn to you?”
“Fate’s what put us together,” Iszak said gruffly. “Ropes are what keep her happy.”
“Or candle wax,” Lukas interjected, darting a glance over his shoulder.
Nikhil smiled at a particularly vivid memory he had involving candles and Belah’s sweet, round ass. “Aye, she does enjoy candle wax. The whip was always her favorite, though. Or the cilices.”
“I think that’s where we’re falling short,” Iszak said. He cleared his throat and looked at Nikhil, folded and unfolded his arms, then rubbed the back of his neck, clearly discomfited over whatever he needed to get out.
Nikhil said nothing, waiting for the other man to find a way to say what needed saying, though he had a good idea what the issue was.
Lukas said, “She needs more than we’re capable of giving. She even tried to incite our rage at you to get us in the mood to … to beat her the way she wanted. I just can’t… I mean, a little pain I’m cool with. It’s fucking hot when she gets wet from having her nipples pinched or seeing her ass all red from being smacked. I can even do a belt. But a whip… she wants to bleed, I think. Or at least be abused in a way that would make a normal woman bleed.”
Lukas paused and Iszak filled in. “And now that she’s pregnant, the baby’s making it even more difficult for us to please her. It gives her these cravings that are so deviant they make my head spin. I hate feeling this helpless to give her what she needs. It isn’t enough just to whip her, but we need to be able to get off on it, too.”
“Not as sadistic as you thought you were?” Nikhil asked, a surge of hopeful anticipation warming his chest.
“Not even fucking close,” Lukas said. “So, man, you’ve gotta do whatever it is you need to do to get square with your conscience. We’ll work on our side of it, but the sooner the better.”
Get square with his conscience… There was the rub. How long would that take? He’d only begun to start searching for the insidious creature that had taken over his mind and now seemed to be systematically taking control of his entire organization. Now that he was so close to having Belah back that he could almost taste it, he ached to stay and offer to give her mates the help they needed. But his honor dictated that he exact retribution on their enemy for what she’d done, and he couldn’t be square with his fucking conscience until he knew where to find the slippery nymph who’d ruined his life and the lives of so many others.
Before he could formulate any kind of response, Aodh called to them.
“We’re taking them to the sacred hibernation temple,” Belah’s brother said. “They’ll be safe there until their fated mates can seek them out.”
“And you just have one of these temples lying around?” Lukas asked.
“There are seven of them, in fact,” Aodh said. “One for each generation of dragons who have ascended since the hibernations were instituted over three thousand years ago. The newest was completed several years ago, and was intended for this Ascension’s children, but it won’t be needed now that we’ve abolished the hibernation law. The temple would be unused otherwise. It’s equipped with every safety precaution required to ensure no one but the intended mates of the hibernating dragons within are given access.”
“The Ultiori can’t get in?” Nikhil asked, this new knowledge filling in several gaps in his understanding of how dragons worked.
“The temple is heavily guarded with wards and locks. The keys hidden in separate secret locations, all of which require a trial for access. Within the temple we’ll station guardians and shadows from the recently ascended brood. With the proper incentive they’ll be willing.”
Nikhil frowned. “The hibernations lasted five centuries. What kind of incentive are you giving these dragons to be imprisoned again for the rest of their lives?”
“They won’t be,” Belah said. “My children’s mates are already born. They just need to pass the trial to prove they are the true mates of dragons. Any dragon who agrees to be a guardian or a shadow will only have to endure it for a short time. Their incentive will be their own mates arriving at the same time as Zorion and Asha’s. The temple is designed to call to the mates of its six highest-ranking inhabitants once the dragons are asleep inside. The rest will take care of itself.”
“I don’t like it,” Nikhil said, his gut clenching at the thought of his daughter being taken from him for an indeterminate amount of time. “Will I be able to drift in to see her?”
“No…” Belah said, her expression softening. She stepped toward him and rested a hand against his cheek. “I missed her, too, and the idea of being apart from her again so soon hurts, but this is the best way to keep them both safe until they can defend themselves. Hopefully it won’t be more than a few months or a year, and then we can be with her for good. You’ll be able to look into her eyes and tell her how you feel. Hold her in your arms, protect her. We can be a family.” She glanced between Nikhil and her two mates. “All of us,” she said, resting her hands against her belly.
Nikhil closed his eyes and took a deep breath, reaching out his mind to his daughter’s.
“Asha.”
“I am here, Papa. This is the way it should be, you know. You must focus on getting Mama back while I am gone. Please find a way to make things right between you and my little brother’s fathers. Make things right for all of them.”
“I will,” he said.
“You will see me soon, I promise. I love you.”
Nikhil dropped to his knees beside the beautiful effigy and cupped her face in his hands. “I love you, too, Asha,” he said, pressing a kiss to her smooth, cool forehead.
As an afterthought, he rested a hand on Zorion’s obsidian shoulder. “Be well, son of my goddess.” When he said the words, a sharp jolt hit the center of his palm, the pain surprising him. He snatched his hand away as if he’d been burned.
“What the fuck?”
Before he could ask Zorion if he’d offended him somehow, the familiar shadow
darkened the edge of Nikhil’s consciousness. “You will need those blessings intact to do what needs doing, so I have repaired them for you,” Zorion said. “Seek out my uncle’s secrets if you want to find the truth. Do not let his silence fool you—he has much to say, if you choose the right time to ask the questions.”
Nikhil carefully refrained from looking in the direction of Aodh, though his skin prickled at the bit of knowledge this strangely powerful creature gave him. He had no reason to doubt Zorion’s word. In fact he was certain of the truth in a way he hadn’t been about anyone’s words in eons. Those blessings were the wedding blessings he’d received on the day of his marriage to Belah more than three thousand years ago. They’d been corrupted as a result of his atrocities not long after he’d lost control over his mind. But now they were whole and pure once more. To test it, he pinched himself, the little zing of pain inciting a giddy sense of elation that he had to bite his lip to suppress. He’d never enjoyed pain so much as he did in that moment.
Standing again, he forced his composure back to a solemn mask, said another silent farewell to Asha and turned toward the others. He regarded Aodh for a second before nodding at the huge man to indicate he was finished with his farewells.
He would have to tread carefully with Belah’s brother, but he wondered if the power the dragon had to drift wasn’t innate after all. According to Calder, none of the other races were able to do it without an infusion of nymphaea blood, and even then the ability faded over time.
“We must part ways now,” Aodh said, stepping between Nikhil and the two effigies of Belah’s children. “I will take them to the temple and arrange for their protection. Take Belah and her mates home.”
As Aodh began to turn, Nikhil grabbed his arm. “You promise they’ll be safe?”
“I swear on my own breath, and on your love for my sister,” Aodh said.
Nikhil relaxed. Whatever the white dragon was hiding, he had no intention of letting any harm come to those who shared his blood.
They stayed long enough to see Aodh rest his hands on the two hibernating dragons. A moment later all three forms shimmered as though they were immersed in clear water and then disappeared.
Nikhil took a moment to allow the ache of Asha’s departure to fade, grateful for the feel of Belah’s hand as it slipped into his own and squeezed.
“We’ll see her again soon,” she said softly. “Will you take us home now?”
With Lukas gripping his other hand and Iszak holding Belah’s, he let the drift carry them out, but found he could only travel as far as a deserted beach on the Indian Ocean.
“Without you up there, I can’t get to the top,” he said to Belah.
“I’ll fly us,” she said, her skin shimmering like sapphires in the sunlight as she began to shift.
“No, Belah,” he said, putting out his hand to stop her. “I would love nothing more than for you to take me home with you, but there’s too great a danger still out there for me to go. I have to find out who was responsible. I promise as soon as I have a lead, I will find you, but I have done too much harm to you and your family to accept any forgiveness yet. Let me prove my worth to you again. Let me be your greatest general, conquer your enemies for your glory, so you have a reason to love me once more.”
“Nikhil…” she began, the glimmer of a tear clinging to the corner of her eye. At her side, Iszak and Lukas watched silently.
“No, little beast. Obey your mates and go with them until I return. I promise to come back to you as soon as I can.”
“I have always loved you,” she said, allowing her mates to pull her away.
Nikhil stood on the beach and watched while the three of them shifted, their wings kicking up sand as they rose into the air and flew off. He remained there until they were no more than specks high in the sky, indistinguishable from the seagulls.
When they disappeared into the band of fog at the top of the mountain, he turned and looked out across the water. The rhythmic sound of the ocean filled his mind and he closed his eyes. Once more he surrendered to the drift, bidding it to take him to the next location on his list: Alexandria, Egypt, where the Ultiori had first been born.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Evie
Dragon Monastery, Sunda Islands
Present Day
Waiting to find out whether or not her baby survived was the worst kind of torture for Evie. The not knowing haunted her even worse than the pain of having her wings ripped off.
She stood on the wide porch, naked in the morning light and flexed her wings again for the fourth day in a row after having them restored. She tested the muscles that had seared with pain when Ked found her a little more than a week ago. They still ached from disuse, but not from injury. The urge to shift and fly to truly test them was like a deep itch in her soul—to commune again with the wind for the first time in decades would do so much to improve her mood, but she didn’t dare shift until after the baby was born.
Her mind wandered to the pair of dragons who had succeeded in making her whole again. Ked’s brothers, Gavra and Aodh, had healed her completely during the long flight that brought her and Marcus to the safety of the monastery. She had been resigned to being flightless after Nikhil had ruthlessly, brutally taken that from her. The two dragons deserved her thanks, and she had forgiven the man who had done the damage because she knew the moment he’d heard her song that he’d been a puppet for something far more vicious and evil.
Ked’s conflicted emotions made her wonder if she’d made the right decision, but she had managed to avoid dwelling on that fact for the last few days, content to stay in bed and make love to her mates over and over until virtually every muscle in her body ached pleasantly. Yet her mind still returned to Ked’s explanation that their baby needed the magic of all three brothers thanks to Marcus’s physiology having been altered by the blood of all three dragons. She needed Ked’s brothers more than she needed validation for forgiving Nikhil right now.
It hurt her to think of Gavra and Aodh, however, because when she saw the pair in their human forms, they reminded her acutely of Naaz and Sterlyn, who were still too wrapped up in the conflict that plagued the Ultiori to find their own peace and happiness yet.
“Good morning, angel,” Marcus said, slipping up behind her and brushing his fingertips over the top of her naked hip.
Evie furled her wings and let them fade back into her body, then shrugged back into her lightweight robe, tying it at the waist. She leaned against Marcus and sighed when he wrapped his arms around her and tucked her head under his chin, placing a soft kiss at her temple.
“There has to be a way to help them,” Evie said. “If he’s so powerful, surely he can hunt down the thing that’s responsible for all this suffering. Even Nikhil deserves to be happy, and you know Naaz and Sterlyn do.”
Ked’s deep voice carried from inside the room. “Easier said than done.”
Evie and Marcus both turned to watch him stride out toward them, his eyes so filled with devotion for them both, Evie’s chest grew warm.
“How so?” Evie asked.
“Nikhil allowed me to see inside his soul when he was here. When I did, the nature of the beast that held him in thrall was clear to me. The Lamia is the creature we seek, which means her true identity isn’t clear at all. She was once Belah’s physician, Meri, but has changed identities hundreds of times since. She’s been able to slip into the shadows of the minds of humans for ages. The human woman you knew as Dr. St. George was the Lamia’s last host, but that woman died several years ago. Nikhil’s mind didn’t have any fresh clues to her current identity, and there are thousands of humans in the Ultiori’s ranks who she could have taken over.”
Evie gazed up into his eyes when he came to the railing and bent to kiss her softly.
When he pulled back, Evie said, “There must be something we can do. Bring them all here, at least?
Or take them to a turul enclave.”
“Nikhil has control of the Canadian facility. They’ve set a trap there that they hope the true enemy will fall into, but she hasn’t taken the bait yet. In the meantime, he says Naaz has already identified a faction of the Ultiori who are still loyal to Nikhil. It seems the organization is pretty evenly divided between the military and science divisions.” He cast a meaningful glance at Marcus.
Marcus tightened his embrace around her and nodded. “Once the Canadian facility is secure, we’re planning to use it as a base for a resistance. With any luck we’ll have either captured the leader or at least someone who knows her identity.”
Evie looked between the two men, hope rising up within her like a strong wind holding her aloft. “So, what are you waiting for? Don’t you need to go do some securing? Help them with their resistance?”
“We have more immediate priorities,” Ked said. “Namely, you.”
“We’re still waiting for word from Naaz or Nikhil, but regardless, we aren’t going anywhere until we know the baby is going to be all right,” Marcus said. “And we’re not about to leave you alone for more than a day or two until after the baby is born.”
Evie’s hands drifted down to her midsection. Having a dragon hybrid child growing inside her was going to be interesting. The cravings she knew about, after talking with Belah, whose own pregnancy was no more evident than Evie’s. Ked’s other two sisters shared their own wisdom of motherhood with her as well, and Evie had left the conversation dumbfounded to realize that the six ancient dragon siblings were, in fact, the progenitors of the entire race.
This was only her first real pregnancy—though her heart still ached for the two she’d lost. Except for Belah, Ked’s sisters had all borne six children each, with human mates, thousands of years earlier. Ked and his brothers had also fathered eighteen children between them.
She gazed up at Ked with that awareness still fresh in her mind, simply taking in his strong features. This man—her One—was the oldest black dragon in the world, all other Shadows having descended from him. And the child growing inside her was as much his as Marcus’s. What nature the child would take remained to be seen. The higher races had never interbred before.
