by Ophelia Bell
Checking to make sure all my buttons were still fastened that could be, I made my way up to the fifth floor and down to the ward where I had said goodbye to Bodhi and his mother the morning before. I hoped they’d be gone, in all honesty, because that would mean they’d managed to get Susannah discharged and gone home, but I hoped to look in on John Doe, too. Perhaps he’d at least be awake and I could ask him a few questions.
The faint beeps and rhythmic noises of the machines greeted me as I passed through the doors. Moving with sure, confident strides, I only attracted passing glances from the nurses.
Once around the nurse’s station, I paused, startled, yet pleased by the sight through the glass doors leading to Susannah’s room. A very different patient lay there now, a young woman with a bandaged head surrounded by worried family.
I shifted my sight quickly and examined her aura and her soul. I felt no link to her and her aura and soul were entirely human. She was not one of the bloodline. Curious, I walked past the other rooms on the way to my second destination, checking the other patients as well. None of them were bloodline either.
I strode hopefully around the corner to the other end, and stopped short outside John Doe’s room. His bed was empty and freshly made as though he’d never been there.
My heart dropped and panic threatened to rise as my skin chilled. He couldn’t be dead. I’d felt every single death of every soul in the bloodline since I first became aware of them. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and focused, drawing on what remained of my power to seek out the threads and find the ones I needed. I hoped like hell that Susannah and her family really had gone home, and that if I found them, they might know what happened to John Doe as well.
Soon the flickering lights of the souls I sought came into focus. They were not far from here, and they were all together, their glows much steadier than they’d been, and to my surprise they were surrounded by about a dozen other members of the bloodline. With a sigh of relief, I left the ICU and headed back out.
The guys stood abruptly from the benches outside the hospital’s entrance where I’d left them, but I kept walking toward the car. “They’re not here anymore, which is good, but we need to go find them. How well do you two know this city?” I asked, looking between Rohan and Keagan.
“Well enough to navigate if you tell me where we need to go,” Keagan said.
“Good. I have a general direction in mind but don’t know the streets beyond the area right around here.”
“I can drift us if you let me link to you,” Llyr offered. “We don’t need to waste time driving.”
I tensed and shook my head. “No thank you. Linking to you is the last thing I need right now.”
Llyr’s aqua gaze churned with disappointment, yet he nodded and stepped back, allowing Keagan to take the front seat when we reached the car. After sliding the key into the ignition, I closed my eyes again and pointed. “It’s that direction . . . Southeast, and I see a street leading straight to the ocean, but there is still water, too. Canals?” I rattled off some other names that flashed through my mind from signs I captured glimpses of from my links to the Dylans.
“Venice,” Keagan said. “Take a right out of the parking lot.” Trusting his local knowledge I followed his directions and was relieved to feel the link strengthen as I drove.
“How far is it?” I asked.
“A ways. At this time of day on PCH, it’ll take about forty-five minutes,” Keagan said, reaching to the radio and flipping it on.
A familiar song flooded the interior of the car, making me press harder on the gas. It was the ballad Bodhi and I had sung together at the hospital right before he and his mother had been attacked.
“Dude, turn it up,” Rohan called from the back seat. “It’s our song!”
Keagan chuckled and turned the volume knob until my entire body vibrated from the beat of the song. Something about it had spoken to me since the first time I’d heard it over the hospital’s sound system, but when Keagan and Rohan started singing along, suddenly I knew the song was special.
It was a duet called Gentle Winds, Tender Flames and the chorus incited a deep longing in me for a love like I could hear between the two people singing. When it ended, Keagan turned the volume down and said, “I don’t know if we’ll ever do the original justice, man. Lukas and Belah are just too good to top.”
I shot a wide-eyed look at Keagan. “Lukas North? That’s who that was on the radio just now? And . . . did you say Belah?”
“Yeah, baby. You knew we weren’t the original members of Fate’s Fools, right?” Rohan said. “The Maestro’s cousins were the ones who started the band. That song was the last single they recorded as a band that made it to the radio.”
“Did you guys miss the part about who my dad is earlier? You know, Nikhil . . .” I trailed off, hoping I didn’t have to explain. When they just shot me blank looks, I huffed and said, “Lukas and Iszak North are my stepdads, and Belah’s my stepmom. My dad is mated to the three of them.”
Rohan sat forward and propped his elbows on the backs of either front seat. “Wait, that is the same Nikhil? Former leader of the Ultiori? The one who’s mated to Belah and the North brothers? No fucking way!”
Keagan was slouched in the passenger seat chuckling to himself.
“What is it?” I shot.
He pointed at the radio. “Are you trying to tell me that old butcher is the guy who wrote all those songs? Mind fucking blown.” He lifted his hands to his head and mimicked an explosion.
“What do you mean wrote them? Dad couldn’t sing to save his life.”
“Maybe not sing, but he is definitely a poet. I’ve been in awe of that guy ever since they released their final album last year and I saw his name in the liner notes. Here, I’ve got more you’ve got to hear.”
Keagan produced his phone from a pocket and proceeded to tap at the small screen on the dash of the car. A few moments later, more beautiful songs flowed from the speakers. I’d heard my dads and Mama Belah sing before, Evie too, but hadn’t ever heard these songs.
“When did they record these?” I asked, so fixated on the music I barely heard Keagan’s reminder that we were getting close to our destination. I had to force myself to shift focus back to the task at hand.
“Just the middle of last year. After their little girl was born,” Rohan said. “That makes Layla your sister, doesn’t it?” He met my glance in the rearview mirror and frowned. “Shit . . .”
Keagan shot him a bemused look. “Dude, stop trying to do the math. Deva and her sister are four months apart, yes. But Deva is still a grown woman, so you can chill about those dirty fantasies you keep having.”
“I have an older sister too, if it helps,” I said. “Asha is older than all of you, and I promise she looks even younger than me.” I darted a look back at Llyr, who’d remained stoic the entire time, just staring out the window. “Llyr’s met her, haven’t you Llyr?”
Llyr blinked and frowned, rubbing his hand over his mouth. “Ah, yeah, your sister’s pretty old, but sorry to burst your bubble, I’m still older than her. If you want an honest opinion, I think the two of you look about the same age, but humans are the only ones who really give a fuck about numbers. I still want you and I don’t care that I’m a few thousand years older. Asha might be the only dragon who’s mated to a man her own age, if you can believe it.”
Rohan’s expression clouded and Keagan said, “Don’t complicate things you two. You’ll break him.”
Keagan and I burst out into laughter and even Llyr managed a chuckle at Rohan’s agonized look. We turned up the music and all four of us spent the rest of the trip singing along with the Pacific wind rushing through the car.
Eventually we turned off Pacific Coast Highway and wound up creeping down a palm-tree lined street with quaint little houses mixed with larger ones. The pressure of the link grew stronger with every block. Soon, I hit the brakes and pulled to the curb across the street from a huge blue house with dozens
of people milling about in the small front yard and on the porch. The sound of a piano drifted out into the afternoon air.
The four of us approached cautiously at first, then when the general mood of celebration took over, we relaxed and increased our pace.
“Looks like a party. Celebrating their recovery from being bitten you think?” Rohan asked hopefully.
“I don’t know.” The revelers simply beamed at us as we walked up the front steps and I gawked at the enormous banner that hung over the doorway. “Congratulations!” it read, with white streamers and puffy paper bells hanging from the sides. The welcome mat was covered in rice and confetti.
“Looks like someone got married today,” Keagan said. “Are you sure this is the right house?”
The sound of the guitar grew louder as I opened the door, and I heard a piano accompanying the tune, two familiar voices raised in song. Welcoming smiles greeted us as though we all belonged, even though these people were all strangers. But they were bloodline, and clearly happy to have a few members of the higher races in their midst during a celebration.
I wandered through the milling crowd into a big parlor filled with more revelers, and in the center were Bodhi and his mother singing happily to an older couple clasping hands on a loveseat by the window.
I blinked in surprise at the incongruous sight. The older couple was familiar to me, but as far as I knew they were strangers to each other. That had clearly changed, because seated there, basking in the glow of sunlight and the love that permeated the air around them, were Susannah and none other than John Doe who had lain in a coma no more than a day ago.
Before I could wave and greet them, my breath stopped. Lounging on the carpet to either side were both of the hounds, and they were looking straight at me as pleased as ever.
22
Deva
“Not a fan of the happy couple?” Rohan asked at my elbow.
I jerked and looked at him, confused for a second before realizing he was talking about Susannah and John and not the hounds.
“They’re here,” I said, my voice strained.
He just stared at me before my meaning sank in and his eyes widened. “The . . . creatures?” He took a step back, darting his gaze around the room. I rested a hand on his arm, shooting a pointed look toward one of the hounds to indicate where it was.
“It’s all right. I don’t think they’ll bite you again. I can’t say the same for the rest of the room.” I looked around at the party. “This place is filled with members of the bloodline. Susannah’s family, I suppose.”
The hounds themselves seemed perfectly content to sit by Susannah and her new husband, as if they were basking in the glow of the couple’s newly linked souls.
That thought made me pause and look harder. Susannah’s soul looked different now than it had when I left her at the hospital the day before. She had lost the link to the hound that bit her the moment the creature moved on to Bodhi, yet I had clearly seen the remnants of the bite; a collection of dark puncture wounds had remained behind, scars that no longer bled. But now her soul was entirely pristine and whole with no sign she’d ever been bitten. When I shifted my gaze to her husband’s soul, I saw the same thing, and what’s more, their souls were joined, a brilliant band of golden light stretching between them. The magic overflowed in cascades so powerful both hounds seemed to be happily soaking it in where they lounged at the feet of the pair of lovebirds.
The creatures seemed utterly disinterested in anything else, and I hazarded a look at Rohan’s soul. The wounds were still there, his aura a bit weaker than it had been when we left the house, and the flow of magic had waned to a trickle. Probably because the hounds seemed to be gorging themselves on whatever amazing magic was voluntarily flowing off the happy couple.
The song faded and the room erupted into cheers and hoots. A moment later another began, more energetic this time, and I saw Bodhi lean over and urge the newlyweds to get up and dance.
Bodhi grinned when Susannah and her husband laughed and stood and the crowd cleared away enough to give them space to dance. Yet despite the flush of happiness throughout his aura, there was a dark pain that lingered. That was when I saw the marks still buried in his soul. Somehow Susannah had been fully healed, but Bodhi hadn’t yet. I tilted my head to catch a glimpse of Maddie still seated at the piano. The same darkness plagued her aura as well. The smiles I realized were forced, but not for lack of pleasure at Susannah’s union. That happiness was genuine, but it seemed like they were making quite an effort to let it out beyond whatever darkness tried to push it back.
“Something’s wrong with their auras,” Rohan said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like they desperately want to be happy but something’s keeping them from feeling it.”
“They’re the victims I met yesterday. The hounds attacked Bodhi and his mother right in front of me. Just a couple hours before they moved onto you and Willem.”
“How are they not dead?” Keagan asked. “Something that drains power the way it did to Rohan would’ve killed a human.”
I grimaced, remembering Rohan’s plea to keep Keagan in the dark about the way the bites seemed to work. Glancing at the dragon, I raised my eyebrows. He exhaled sharply through his nose and turned to Keagan. “Seems that the second Willem and I got bit, these nice folks stopped being drained.”
Keagan’s gaze sharpened as he looked between Bodhi and Rohan, then at me. “They’re still damaged,” I said. “That’s why their auras look sick. Their souls are scarred. But I think there’s hope. Susannah’s completely healed, and so is her new husband. If we can find out what they did to erase the damage, we can fix the others. We can fix you, Rohan.”
I gazed up into his eyes, and he smiled. “I’m going to hold you to that,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’ve got a little energy to spare for those two.”
Before I could stop him, he closed his eyes and exhaled a lungful of golden smoke.
Keagan nudged him and leaned in close. “Dude, this room is all bloodline. You know they can see what you are, right?”
I didn’t see the point in correcting him. It was only half bloodline and they were sworn to keep our secrets. They wouldn’t dare give away our presence to the humans in the mix. Still, it was better to be safe.
“Save it for another time. It will keep,” I said, squeezing Rohan’s arm.
“You don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head adamantly. “That kind of pain hurts me to witness.” The tendrils of smoke split, and the color faded into a glistening, barely there stream that could have just as easily been mistaken for an errant beam of sunlight before it disappeared into Maddie and Bodhi’s mouths, inhaled between words as they finished their song. By the time the last note had faded, their auras were steady and they both bodily relaxed.
“You know what time it is?” Bodhi boomed over the noise of the crowd. “It’s time for the toast!” He stepped up onto the piano stool next to Maddie, towering over the room. His gaze passed over our little group, landing on me for a split second. He gave me a wide smile and winked before looking out at the crowd.
My heartbeat sped up at that wink, warmth teasing up over my chest.
“Should I be jealous?” Rohan murmured in my ear.
“Do you even get jealous?” I asked, tilting my head to look at him and giving him a sideways smile.
“Nope. Which means I think you need another treasure to hoard with the rest of us. I’ve made it my mission to teach you the old ways of the dragons. My great-great grandmother kept a harem of twenty human mates. Don’t you think we should bring that tradition back?”
“Twenty?” I gawked at him.
Llyr scowled at us and I clamped my mouth shut, but not before I caught a suggestive eyebrow wag from Rohan. I shouldn’t mate even one of them if Fate already had mates chosen somewhere. Much less twenty.
I dismissed the idea and redirected my attention to Bodhi, my stomach flipping again at the sight of him. He’d dressed up for the occas
ion, in a starched cream-colored button-down shirt with short sleeves that exposed his mesmerizing colorful tattoos. The ink was enhanced by the warmth of the light, which also made his gray-green eyes gleam and his black hair shine as it curled around his jaw. His warm, light-brown skin looked like burnished bronze in the sunlight streaming through the high windows that graced two walls of the parlor, and his tattoos looked more vibrant than ever.
If I could let myself want what Rohan hinted, I’d happily invite Bodhi to be a part of it, but I knew better than to tie a man to me who would be better off finding someone who could be a true soul mate to him. With a soft sigh I resigned to hearing his toast and simply being happy for the couple.
Bodhi lifted his glass and directed his gaze toward his grandmother. “You all know Susannah Dylan as the woman dedicated to both family and music. Her house has always been filled with both. I know this because I live here. I grew up with her love and wisdom and there has never been a day when we didn’t have music in our lives.”
His strong voice must have carried outside the house, because the entire place had shushed, and when I glanced around past the wide shoulders of my three companions, I saw every hallway and room beyond packed with heads tilted up to listen. There had to be easily a hundred people here, if not more.
“Until three weeks ago, anyway,” Bodhi said, his voice turning somber. “When Grandma got sick, we all learned quickly what life would be like without her here. But I believe Fate had a hand in our lives that day, because now I know if she hadn’t been in the hospital, she’d have never met Gus. Those two old fools somehow found each other even though one of them was in a damn coma!” He paused while the crowd laughed, then shot a look at me before speaking again.
