Dragon's Desire (The Dragon Realm #3)

by Selena Scott

  "Drake the snake!" O yelled and squeezed the kid hard enough to make him grunt. "How ya been living?”

  “Good! Uncle O, I got a new bike and Lila got my old one!” Mel pegged the kid at 5 or 6 years old.

  A little curly black head of hair poked out around Amos’ legs, a little bit shyer than her brother. She was maybe 3 years old.

  “Uncle O!” she clapped her hands over her mouth like she was embarrassed that she’d spoken up.

  O’s grin for her was earth-shattering. He dropped Drake in a laughing heap on the ground and swooped the little girl up in the air. “Well, if it isn’t Lila the croc-o-dila. What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” he asked, with a loud smacking kiss at the end.

  She giggled and squinched her face against his whiskers. “I live here, Uncle O.”

  “That explains it, then. Wait a second.” O furrowed his brow and pretended to think. “Who else lives here?”

  Lila’s face lit up with the answer. “Me and Drake and Daddy and Mommy and Rudy.” She threw her voice into an intense whisper and held a pudgy finger in front of her mouth. “But be quiet because Rudy is sleeping.”

  The man, Amos, softened a little as he watched O greet his children. It would take a heart made out of stone to not be softened by that. A moment later, a small curvy woman with a mess of curly black hair nudged the man aside and stood in the doorway, too.

  "Oh, jeez," she said when she saw who was at the door. "We didn't expect you back so soon, O. Is it good news or bad news?"

  Mel's heart sank at the woman's tone. Regardless of how these people felt about O as a person, they obviously deeply dreaded seeing him. Being an oracle, she supposed it was natural for people to assume that he was always bearing some sort of news. But what a burden. She wondered if all of his friends treated him in the same way.

  "No news," O said, a lazy grin on his face. If their reaction to him bothered him, he didn't show it. He tossed Lila back through the air toward her parents and she squealed in delight as her father snagged her safely out of the air.

  "We're actually here trying to get some information from you."

  At the word 'we', the woman looked behind O and saw Mel and Ike standing down on the sidewalk.

  "Oh, I'm sorry. You brought people. Come on in." The woman gestured for all of them to come inside, a genuinely friendly smile on her face.

  Mel still wasn't sure if she liked the man, but the woman seemed nice enough. Taking her son firmly by the shoulder, Mel and Ike trudged up the stairs and inside.

  "I'm Mel and this is my son, Ike," Mel held out her hand to the woman. They shook hands.

  “I'm Lucy. This is Amos, my husband. And this is our son Drake and our daughter Lila. Our youngest, Rudy, is asleep in the other room."

  Amos nodded to Mel and Ike as they walked into the small house. It was surprisingly spare for such an obviously loving family. No decorations or anything. The bare minimum. It almost looked like a hotel room.

  Mel and Ike settled themselves on the couch as Lucy came in from the kitchen with a pitcher of iced tea and a glass of juice. "Hey, muscles, will you grab that banana bread I baked yesterday?"

  Mel grinned at the woman's nickname for her husband. It was incredibly apt. Ike looked up and caught Mel's eye. The same smile swept over his own face.

  "So how do you two know each other?" Lucy asked.

  Amos walked back in and set the banana bread down on the coffee table. Both waited for O's answer.

  "Oh. Mel's my wife,” O said, as he distractedly watched the kids start building block castles.

  Lucy froze halfway through setting down their drinks. Amos' mouth dropped open. Ike turned to stare at his mother. Mel felt herself slowly lifting away from the couch like a helium balloon on a very long string.

  O looked around at all the shocked faces and grinned sheepishly. "Ah, crap. Sorry. I was distracted. I guess I got the future confused with the present." He dragged a hand over his face in an embarrassed little gesture that strangely endeared Mel to him even more. She’d never seen him look embarrassed before. “I haven’t asked you yet, have I?”

  For a second Mel thought he was talking to her, but then she realized that O was looking at her son. Ike just stared back at O, a completely blank expression on his face.

  O sighed. “Ike, in the future, I ask you if I can marry your mom.” O’s eyes were a little cloudy, as if he were both in the present and in the future at the same time. “You give me a hard time about it for a few weeks, but eventually you say yes.”

  Ike was still frozen, staring at the Oracle. O wasn’t finished. “I ask you in about 6 months.” Now he was talking to Mel. “We’re lying next to a river after a long hike. You say no to me at first, when I ask.”

  Amos let out a little chuckle from across the room.

  Ike stared back and forth between O and his mom.

  O continued on. “You tell me that you would never say yes without talking to Ike first. So, you go talk to Ike. He says that you should do it, that he’s kind of looking forward to having a guy around. This time, you ask me. I say yes. I give you a ring, but you don’t really like it. You don’t say anything, though, because it was my mother’s ring. And in a few months you start to really like it.”

  Mel held her hand up into the air, indicating for him to stop. Silence pulsed in the room as Mel felt her life list to one side. She watched pretty much all her plans for the future tip right off the seesaw.

  Lila lifted a little action figure, making him fly through the air. The sounds of the toddler playing jolted Mel back into reality.

  “I. Um. Wow.” It was the best she could do.

  “Of course, it’s not gonna happen that way now,” O continued, an intriguing blush playing over his cheeks. “Because I told you about it. So, that changes our future from what it was gonna be. But, you know, that’s what was gonna happen. If I hadn’t said anything.”

  Ike leaned forward and picked up a slice of the banana bread. “Shouldn’t you guys kiss or something?” he asked his mom and O.

  “What?” Mel felt like everyone’s words were coming to her through a bowl of Jell-O.

  Ike shrugged. “Isn’t that what people do when they’re gonna get married?”

  “Are we gonna get married?” Mel asked. But she wasn’t asking the Oracle. She was asking her son. For permission? Maybe not. For his blessing? Maybe.

  Ike took a honking big bite of the banana bread. “This is good,” he said to Lucy, spraying crumbs on the couch. “I don’t know.” Ike turned back to his mother. “I’m confused with all this past and present stuff. But if you’re asking me if I’m okay with it, well, it feels kinda weird. But it sounds like I’ll get over it.”

  Ike turned to O, a question forming on his face. “Hey, what does the future say about you and me? Am I always gonna call you O? Or am I gonna start calling you dad?”

  O turned an even brighter pink and tucked the hat a little further down his brow. “I’d uh- rather not say.”

  “Holy SHIT.” Mel covered her face in her hands and leaned forward, taking deep breaths. “What in the name of fuck just happened?” She didn’t even care that there was a toddler within hearing distance. She was beyond caring.

  The couch dipped beside her and O’s arm came around her shoulders. When she uncovered her face she looked up to see O gripping Ike’s hand. Ike’s eyes were closed. When they fluttered open, he immediately sought out his mother’s gaze. “Whoa. Mom. You gotta try this.” He picked up his mother’s hand and shoved it into O’s.

  Immediately a feeling washed over her. Not images. Just a feeling. One that she could tell was coming toward them soon. It was a family feeling. A tether that went from Ike’s heart to hers to O’s and back to Ike’s. In the future, they were a unit. That much was clear. O wasn’t showing them the details. But he was showing them enough.

  She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. When she opened them, she realized that Amos, Lucy, Drake, and Lila had cleared the r
oom. Given them a little space.

  “Crazy, huh?” Ike asked, scooting a little closer to his mom. “Can’t you sort of feel the echo of the feeling? Even after he stops showing you? Can’t you feel it right here?” Ike touched his own chest. Then his mother’s. Then O’s.

  “I feel that feeling all the time. Since the moment I met you guys,” O said. “Most of the future I block out. It’s too much. Too much information, too much wasted time trying to sort through it all. But that prophecy? That one just keeps banging down the door.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mel had decided that it was time for her and Ike to take a stroll around the neighborhood together.

  "I think everybody needs a break after that one,” she had said. So with a sweet little closed-mouth kiss for O, she and Ike disappeared out the front door.

  O flopped back onto the couch and grimaced at Lucy who had just come back into the room.

  "Okay. Scale of one to ten, how bad was that, Luce?"

  "O, honey. That was awful. Train wreck awful. Seriously, I couldn't look away!" Lucy flopped onto the couch next to him.

  Amos came back into the room holding a squirmy baby girl in his arms. "Lila went down for her nap but look who woke up."

  O held his hands out for baby Rudy, whose eyes had lit up at the sight of him.

  "But," Lucy continued, a grin growing over her face. “You know, it seemed like she was into it. Into you. I think she might love you, O.”

  "Are you guys talking about that marriage proposal bloodbath that just went down in here?" Amos asked and took a seat in a lazy boy across from them.

  O made a face for the baby and she started to giggle in his arms. “I swear, Mel’s got my head on backwards. It's been a really long time since I made a mistake like that. Failed to distinguish the future from the present."

  Amos crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair. "So all of that, past, present, future, that's all just floating around in your head constantly?"

  O blew a raspberry on Rudy's neck and nodded at Amos. "All that. Plus there are prophecies, which can tell the future, but are often more metaphorical than anything else. There are people who are crying out for help, praying to anybody that will hear, but as far as I can tell, I'm the only one who can hear them. When I touch someone, I can see their life, their feelings, their spirit. There are ghosts and signs, and babies getting ready to be born. You'll never believe how chatty this one can be.” He held up their daughter and, much to her delight, made her legs dance around. “Damn near talked my ear off whenever I'd come visit her before she was born."

  "Jesus Christ," Amos pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned forward. “I had no idea it was that constant for you. That’s horrible. God, O. Nobody deserves that. No wonder you're so fucking weird."

  "Yeah," O looked up, completely unoffended. "It's kind of a miracle I made it this far, right?"

  Lucy leaned over and wiped some spit bubbles off of Rudy’s chin. "If you can do all that, then why can't you find our mystery man? Why can't you see the outcome of the revolution?"

  O bobbled a toy for the baby and was quiet for a while. "In something like the revolution, there's no one definite future. It depends on so many choices that so many people still have to make. If you asked for something more specific, like, will Solar survive the revolution-”

  Amos snapped to attention. Solar, the leader of the Surgere, the rebel army that was the heart of the revolution against the king, also happened to be his best friend from childhood.

  "I would tell you that, yes, he's going to survive to see the end of it, no matter what the outcome. There was only one path that led to him dying and that road ended a long time ago."

  "What was it?" Amos asked, a small hoarseness in his voice.

  O weighed his options, figured it was worth telling them. It would only make Amos feel good.

  "If you'd chosen to keep guarding King Dalyer, if you'd turned away from protecting Lucy and let Dalyer take her for his wife, then Solar would have been killed in the battle she would have waged." O set Rudy down on the ground so that she could practice her crawling. Her parents didn't know that she was only a few days out from a true cruising. "But you didn't. You chose the right path. The hard path. You chose Lucy. And in doing so, you saved Solar."

  If O hadn't known the hard-ass former bodyguard for damn near 20 years, he might have thought those were tears glistening in his eyes.

  "I would have waged battle?" Lucy asked, pride and astonishment coloring her tone.

  O nodded and reached for another slice of banana bread. "If Amos had turned from you, Luce, you would have burned the entire castle down, taken Zara, and started a full on Surgere war."

  "Holy hell. Baby, I would have started a war!" Lucy called over to her husband.

  He raised his eyebrows indulgently. "I heard, hatchling."

  "Yeah," O said through a mouthful of bread. "A lot was riding on whether or not you two boned."

  "You say that with pride in your voice. Like you had something to do with it," said Amos.

  "I did!" O insisted. “You remember all those dresses the King demanded that Lucy wear? Who do you think arranged for all of them to be so small? Remember that? She had to squeeze ten pounds of soup in a five pound bag."

  "Remember it?" Amos exclaimed. "I still daydream about those dresses."

  Lucy rolled her eyes at the two men. “If we’re done discussing my soup, do you mind answering the question about why you can’t locate the man from your visions the way you can everybody else?”

  “I don’t know,” O said and leaned back on the couch. Lucy exchanged a quick glance with Amos. Neither of them had ever seen him quite so solemn before. “The only thing I can think is pain.”

  “What?” Amos asked, his brow furrowing.

  “The only thing that consistently blurs or obscures my powers as an oracle is pain. After my injury, my powers were considerably weakened.”

  “Injury? What injury?” Lucy leaned forward, her compassionate heart had her taking O’s hand in hers.

  The front door opened and Mel and Ike tromped back into the house, both of them looking considerably lighter and more relaxed for their walk. But Mel’s face pulled tight at the tension in the room.

  “What’s going on?”

  O nodded his head for Ike to come over. “This is Rudy.”

  Ike plopped down next to the baby and picked up her doll, made it dance around a little bit. Rudy’s smile for him lit him up in a way he never could have imagined.

  O looked back at Mel and gestured for her to come sit with him. “I was just going to tell them about my injury.”

  Mel’s brow darkened even further as she sat on the couch. She immediately put a protective arm around O’s shoulder. O sent out some feelings toward her. Hoped she would get the message. He didn’t want to talk about it. He wanted her to tell them.

  Mel’s eyes searched his for a moment and they cleared in understanding. She gave him a little nod and a squeeze of her hand.

  “Dalyer did it,” she told the group. “They fought a few months ago, in dragon form. He almost took O’s wing clear off.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Fuck,” Amos growled and was suddenly standing, war in his eyes. “Goddamn it. O, are you okay?”

  The concern and rage she saw in Amos’s eyes, all on O’s behalf, instantly warmed Mel’s heart to the gruff stranger. She’d wondered if maybe O’s friends took him for granted a little bit. Her loyal heart had been mildly standoffish toward Amos. But she could see now how long their history was. How complicated their friendships were. And how much Amos cared about O’s wellbeing.

  “The pain was bad at first,” Mel continued, sensing that O still didn’t want to talk about it. Some of this story she knew, and some of the details he was sending her way as they all spoke. “He didn’t know if he’d be able to keep his wing. And if he’d ever be able to fly again. But then he- he met me and Ike. And the pain started to lessen. He could feel his dragon
form healing inside him, when he was in human form.” Now she added her own information. “He shifted for us yesterday, just to show us, and he said it looked about a million times better than before.”

  Amos leaned forward. “How did you shift?”

  “O sniffed out a portal,” Ike threw in casually from the floor.

  Amos and Lucy looked at each other. “Sure, okay. The Oracle can sniff out portals. Of course,” Lucy said.

  “He took us through and showed us,” Ike said. “He wanted to be honest with us. It was cool.”

  "You're gonna be fine, O," Amos said. "Anybody who has enough power to, you know, sniff portals or whatever, is bound to be able to heal up a scratch or two."

  O grinned, but Mel could see the strain behind it. Mel watched O’s hands fidget a little and did the only thing she could think to do. Rearranging herself on the floor in front of him, Mel tipped her head back into his hands.

  O grinned down at her hugely before immediately starting to braid her hair. Mel let the gentle touch and repetitive motion soothe both of them.

  "Wait a second, though," said Lucy. "What does pain have to do with you not being able to find the man from your visions?"

  "Pain obscures my power, even stops it. You know when you stub your toe and all you can do for like 20 seconds is hop up and down and curse like a dog?" O, busy braiding hair, was back to speaking for himself.

  "Sure, of course," said Lucy.

  "Well, it does the same thing for oracle powers. I think there's something about this guy that causes me pain of some kind. Maybe something that I'm blocking out?"

  Amos and Lucy exchanged another glance. "Are you sure you want to find him, O? Are you sure you can handle it?"

  He shrugged. “We don't really have choice. He’s the only way to stop Dalyer. Something about him. I can’t quite place what. But it has put him in the way of Dalyer’s destiny. We need him. Which is why we came to you. Four years ago, I asked you to start looking for him. Four years you’ve moved from temporary house to temporary house.” He gestured around at the simple house, their few possessions. “I can tell that we’re all getting closer, but at this point we really have to put everything we know in one pot and try to bang this thing out.”