“Or Aldrich binds her powers and we give her a fresh start.” A small smile. “On Earth.”
Seconds passed while Dillon’s brain scrambled. Maybe it was already scrambled. “Earth?”
“Yeah, Earth.” Harper grinned. “The next realm over, remember?”
“I remember, I just…” His head swung toward Isabeau. “That’s your call, sweetheart.”
“Keep in mind the colony and the consulate are off limits,” Emma warned. “Preserving that mine and the safety of our people must come first. Exile sounds harsh, but it’s your only option if you stay in this realm.” She shrugged. “You could leave Askara, but with a young girl in tow…”
“It would be too dangerous.” Harper frowned. “At least if you remain in Askara we can get supplies to you. There’s not much between here and the Gray Sea, but you could make it home.”
“What about Earth?” Isabeau’s voice was a bare whisper. “What would I find there?”
“Earth is…” Dillon struggled for the right words but settled on one. “Home.”
Surprised at the longing in his voice, Dillon fell silent. Sure, part of him had known he was hanging on to his good memories by telling the Feriana colony’s children stories of animals they would never see except through his words and carvings, but he hadn’t realized until this moment how much he longed to see overgrown yards and dusty roads, rusted cars and porch swings. He’d left part of his heart one realm over, and bringing Isabeau and Brielle there with him felt…right.
Squaring her shoulders, she asked, “What about Lindsay?”
“I’m a legionnaire. Besides,” she said, smiling, “I’m already stationed in the outlands.”
Releasing Dillon’s hand with a final swipe across his knuckles, Isabeau faced him.
“You have a life here.” If she kept picking at her nails, she wouldn’t have any left soon. “So I understand if…” She tore a nail to the quick and stuck her thumb in her mouth. He noticed how it bought her a minute to gather her nerves. “Harper needs you. I’m sure he could find a way—”
“You heard Emma, the colony is out.” He measured her response. “I guess the outlands are a choice for me. Sounds like there’s more than enough work there to keep me occupied. Unless…”
“Unless…what?” She lowered her hands, hope creeping into her tone.
“Earth can be confusing for new arrivals.” He cupped her cheek. “If someone asked nicely, I might be willing to play tour guide.” He ignored the drumming of his heart while she made him wait. “I do have a house there.” He couldn’t help but add, “And I’d be able to support you both.”
Dillon’s head snapped up as Harper stifled Emma’s low sound of disgust.
As if those two weren’t worse than teenagers, necking every chance they got.
Using a finger to turn his head, Isabeau said, “I thought we had an understanding.” Her first step into him made him groan. “You’re mine. I know it’s selfish, but it’s been a long time since I took what I wanted, and you’re it.” When Emma tried to interrupt, Harper slapped his hand over her mouth. Dillon broke into a grin, and Harper returned the favor. Isabeau cleared her throat, and Dillon stared at her. “Dillon Preston, before these witnesses, I claim you as my male, as is my right.”
His eyes widened, and his jaw might have come unhinged.
“Dillon?” The uncertainty in her voice sliced his heart to ribbons.
Of all the ways he imagined being claimed, this topped every one. As Isabeau stepped back, her face pale and eyes liquid, he wanted nothing more than to tie his heartstrings to hers forever.
Backing her into a corner, which took all of two steps, he said to hell with his fear. “Is that a fact?” he teased. That stubborn chin of hers kicked up, and right then, he knew he loved her more than words could say. Instead, he showed her. Glamour slid from his skin as his wings enfolded his mate and gave them the illusion of privacy. Behind their cover, his lips pressed against hers.
Emma’s bark of laughter made him lift his head with a growl. “Is that a tail?” she asked.
He tucked it behind him. “Why do females always—?”
Isabeau trapped his face between her palms and dragged his head lower and his mouth closer to hers. Laughing as she sighed into his kisses, she confided, “I told you it was a very nice tail.”
His rumble of appreciation was cut short by a series of soft cries. Isabeau froze, then shoved him aside as she raced for the bedroom. He followed on her heels, arriving as Aldrich recoiled at the sound of the wailing child. Even Dillon winced. The girl had a healthy set of lungs for sure.
Grateful for the reprieve, Aldrich skulked from the room, eyeing Dillon warily as he passed.
Once Isabeau tugged Brielle’s hands from her eyes, the girl’s sobs turned to shrieks of joy. Brielle leapt into her mother’s arms without hesitation, never doubting Isabeau would catch her.
“Oomph.” Isabeau staggered while adjusting the girl on her hip, then spun them around the room while kissing her face and neck and hands, anything within her reach. “I’ve missed you.”
Skinny arms wrapped around Isabeau’s throat. “Not as much as I missed you.”
“You can’t even imagine.” She sighed against her daughter’s cheek.
Doorknob in hand, Dillon backed from the room with a smile.
“Who’s that?” Brielle asked.
“He’s a friend. A very special friend,” Isabeau said. “Would you like to meet him?”
He guessed the answer and cracked the door wider. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you.”
“My name’s Brielle.” Her tiny chin lifted, just like her mother’s.
“I’m Dillon.” He looked to Isabeau for guidance. She gestured for him to come closer.
The second he cleared the door, Brielle squealed. “He has a tail.” She gasped. “And horns.”
Crawling from Isabeau’s lap, Brielle hit the floor and circled him, prodding at his wings and sliding her hand down his tail as she went. Dillon sighed and stood still for her inspection. When she finished, she stopped before him and curtsied…with his tail in hand. When she launched herself back into Isabeau’s arms, still holding firm, he lurched with her or risked a de-tailing.
“I think he’s a dragon.” Brielle flipped the tip of his tail under her mother’s nose as proof. “He’s a real one. Like the ones in the storybooks you used to read me at bedtime, the ones who eat princesses.” She informed him, “You won’t eat me. Mother wouldn’t like that.” Studying him a moment longer, her dark eyes brightened. “Can I see your teeth? Are they sharp? Do you bite?”
Firm knocks on the door gave Dillon the excuse he needed to postpone answering Brielle.
Harper hesitated at the threshold. “It’s time for us to go.”
“Brielle, do you think you’d like to try and eat something?” Isabeau grinned as her daughter’s head bobbled. Setting Brielle on her feet, Isabeau patted her bottom. “Why don’t you wash up, and I’ll see what Lindsay brought us from the market?” She pointed. “The bathroom is right through there.” She smiled. “Take your time. Call if you can’t find the soap.”
With the child out of the room, tension ebbed. Brielle was in high spirits, and no one wanted to bring her down.
“I appreciate you coming out here,” Dillon said. “But you should head back.”
“He’s right.” Emma peered over Harper’s shoulder, pressing their cheeks together. “It was dangerous letting you come into the city in the first place. Your diplomatic immunity only extends to the colony’s borders, and that’s where I want you to be.” To Dillon, she said, “Well?”
Dillon let the question roll off his back. “It’s your call, Isabeau. I’ll follow where you go.”
“I won’t make this decision alone.” She reached for his hand. “This is your life too.”
Obviously the female had missed the memo that she was his life now.
“When Harper brought me to Earth, I thought I’d found paradise. It’s lush
and green, unlike anything I’d ever seen. Dempsey colony is self-contained. The only humans there are married to other Evanti. They’re good people.” What mattered most was, “Brielle will be safe there. You’ll be safe there. If she was my daughter…and I was in your shoes…that’s where I’d go. No doubt.”
“All right.” Isabeau nodded, exhaling slowly. “I trust your judgment. If you think Earth is the better alternative, then that’s where we’ll go.” She met Emma’s stare. “When will we leave?”
“It depends.” She held up a finger, then turned and asked a question into the room behind her. A low voice rumbled in response. Emma snapped back, leaving him no doubt she spoke to the priest. “Aldrich says it will take several hours to bind your power if you agree to our terms.”
“How can we trust that’s what he’ll do?” Dillon growled. “Or that it’s all he’ll do to her?”
“He’ll play fair,” Emma said grimly, “or Nesvia will toss him out on his wrinkled ass.”
Having witnessed the priest’s fervent devotion to his queen, Dillon let the offer stand.
It didn’t mean he liked it.
“I hate tying your hands and tossing you into a new world, but my sister is there.” Emma’s expression softened as she met Isabeau’s cautious gaze. “I won’t risk Maddie when I’m not there to protect her.” She sighed. “I’d like to say I trust you, Isabeau, but I don’t. I understand your situation, but this is the best offer I can make you. Trust must be earned, and you just lost ours.”
“I understand, and I’d do the same.” Isabeau paused. “Brielle won’t come into her powers until puberty. Can we revisit the issue then? I can train her without my powers, but her transition would be less…problematic…if I could control her powers until she can learn control herself.”
“Wait—Roland said she was a null.” Dillon frowned. “That means no magic, right?”
“It means my mother bound her powers. It’s a common practice until puberty. It makes the children harder to track should their fathers take an interest in them.” Her smile was sad. “Such relationships were frowned upon by the priestesses. Knowing who Brielle’s father was, Mother thought it best her powers be bound at birth. Now I wish… I never thought she might need them.”
Dillon squeezed her hand. “You couldn’t have known he’d come after her the way he did.”
Isabeau didn’t answer, which was answer enough. She blamed herself for that decision too.
“Okay.” Emma shared a glance with Harper. “That sounds fair. We’ll see where we stand when the time comes. If that’s all, then I’m taking Harper home, where he’s safe.” She glanced past her shoulder. “Aldrich says he can have you bound by sundown. He’d like to stay and watch Brielle for residual effects from Roland’s sedative. So we’ll have Lindsay ready the horse and cart. We’ll plan on meeting at the gateway between realms by midnight. How does that sound?”
Again, Dillon deferred to Isabeau.
“We’re going somewhere?” Brielle entered the room and drifted to Isabeau’s side.
“Yes.” She smiled. “We’re going on an adventure. Are you up for it?”
Silence greeted her announcement while Brielle regarded her mother for a long moment, her clear gaze baring a soul much older than this child’s years. “We can’t go home again, can we?”
“No.” Isabeau studied her daughter. “We can’t go home.”
Brielle stared right back. “Is it because of Grandmother?”
Isabeau covered her flinch by shifting on the bed. “I—well, in part, yes.” She pasted on a bright smile. “But you and I will make a new home, far away from here, and we’ll be together.”
Squaring her shoulders, Brielle gave a stiff nod and stuffed all that hurt inside her tiny body. Pursing her Cupid’s-bow mouth, she said, “Let’s go then.” She glanced his way. “Is he coming?”
Isabeau kept her tone neutral. “Would you like him to come?”
With a shrug, Brielle dismissed him. “He does have a tail. I suppose it’s okay if he comes.”
Flicking said appendage, Dillon experienced a moment of clarity. Life would never be the same again. Already he heard her bantering with other children. It was easy enough to imagine.
Brielle would affect a solemn expression. “He’s got a tail.” Her peers would grumble their disbelief. “No, he doesn’t.” An imperious flick of her hand. “Come on then, and I’ll show you.”
“What are you smiling at?” Isabeau asked him.
Crushing his visions of their future, Dillon said, “Life is never going to be the same again.”
Try as he might, he just couldn’t feel bad about that.
Chapter Twenty
Midnight crept over us as I snuggled with Brielle beneath a quilt in the bed of the cart. I was blindfolded, not that I minded the precaution. Even Brielle wore a blindfold, but hers was meant as an accessory. We were princesses, you see, captured by a villainous dragon with wings and, of course, a tail. While she was busy concocting our elaborate escape plan, something she did with such ease, I wondered how many nights she’d played this game alone while in her father’s care.
Biting back another round of are you all right and are you sure you’re all right was difficult, but I managed, largely because Dillon had promised there were counselors where we were going whose job it was to help new arrivals adjust and deal with the trauma of their pasts. Perhaps they could help Brielle. One mention of my mother had left her shaken for hours. That worried me.
Fisting my hands in the quilt, I replayed the grimoire’s draining of his essence yet again.
Dead. Roland was well and truly dead. He was never coming back.
Magic inked into the slave bands across my wrists held no hum of power. I was free.
Oblivious to my dark thoughts, Lindsay chattered beside us, seeming more her old self than she had been. Or she acted as I remembered her. I wasn’t sure which her natural disposition was.
Hairs along my arms lifted. My first indication we’d arrived. Chills were the second.
“Mother?” Covers rustled as Brielle cuddled closer.
“It’s all right.” I kissed her hair, not my intended target. “It’s only the gateway.”
We rocked a bit as the cart slid to a halt. Footsteps sounded, muted by sand. Masculine fingers brushed my temples, and I blinked the night into focus. It had been dark when we left, and the view now was much the same. At least until the shimmer of a solid rock wall caught my eye.
Such a strange gateway it was. Sparks of magic embedded in a sheer rock face were the only indication this was no simple stone deposit or abandoned mine entrance. Hiding in plain sight, it was a reinforced illusion. Step through stone and tumble into another world, an amazing concept.
Harper and Emma waited to one side. He was doing a nibbling thing on her neck that made my cheeks flush, and I sought a safer focal point. Church, I think his name was, stood nearby. He kept an eye out as we approached, seeming relieved for an excuse to break up the kissing couple.
Done with playing hostage, Brielle yanked her blindfold down around her neck.
Lindsay hit the ground first, and I followed her, grunting as Brielle attached herself to my back. Once I’d hitched up my rider, we trailed Dillon, who went to shake hands with his friend.
“Church and Russ are green, but they’ll do.” Dillon paused, checking over his shoulder before adding, “I’ll admit, Russ reminds me of someone. Should I know him from somewhere?”
“You knew his father—Demetrius Addams.” Harper added, “From what Clayton told me, Russ made it to Earth a few months back, searching for leads on his father’s whereabouts, but Demetrius was already gone. No one knows where he went. He didn’t use the gateway and he’s not at the second colony site.” He frowned. “When I showed up and asked for volunteers, Russ was one of the first to raise his hand. Instead of waiting around for Demetrius, he decided he’d rather return to Askara. Since his legion record is solid, and his father is a damn fine legionn
aire, I figured I could do worse.” He grimaced. “Plus I hoped he’d balance out Church’s exuberance.”
“Good luck with that,” Dillon muttered.
While the males discussed colony matters, Emma sidled up to me. Tweaking Brielle’s nose, she said, “It’s going to be hard replacing you. I wish we’d figured things out sooner or…well…”
“That I’d been honest with you,” I supplied.
“Yeah.” She sighed. “Or that.”
“What happens to the consulate now?” Before I left, I had to know it was in good hands.
“With me moving to the colony, I’d already decided I needed to transfer the consulate too. I have the funds, a grant from Nesvia, to construct a building. As for the current consulate, I think if Helen and Joshua are interested in a permanent position, I’ll let them run the place. I still need rooms to board ex-slaves looking to transition into other work inside the city. The Lowndes had it rough, and some of that is my fault because I came into this job without a clue as to what I was doing.” Her silence held regret. “They’re good people, and I think they’d appreciate the stability.”
“I agree.” They were both Evanti, and a mated pair, a perfect fit. “I’m going to miss this.”
“Midnight rendezvous? Fleeing for your life?” Emma laughed. “Trust me, you won’t.”
I rocked my shoulder into hers. “I meant this—talking to you.” My smile was sad. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, the only friend I’ve ever had. I’m sorry things had to end like this.”
“I need some time,” she said softly. “Harper is…I can’t lose him again. The thought makes me crazy. Even though you had good reasons, you endangered him, and it’s hard for me to look past that.” She patted my shoulder. “We’ll be visiting Maddie and Clayton again soon. If you’re not too busy, Harper and I will look you two up. Maybe we can do dinner and a movie together.”
“A movie?” I frowned.
“Never mind.” She waved her hand. “You’ll see.”
Thundering hoofbeats interrupted our small gathering. Mason pulled up short beside Dillon and dismounted. His shirt clung to his back, his face ran with sweat and his chest pumped hard.
Eversworn: Daughters of Askara, Book 3 Page 23
