“Okay.” Devon tried to disguise her disappointment. “This place feels sacred, like a sepulcher beneath an old church.”
“That’s exactly what it is.” Jace motioned for Devon and Beau to follow him.
Devon gazed back at the pool. “Maybe we shouldn’t have done what we did here? Was it irreverent or taboo?”
“It was perfect,” Jace corrected her. He pointed the beam of the flashlight away from the ancient skulls and the pool. The cavern reverted to its natural state of utter darkness. “Come.” He placed his hand on Devon’s back and guided her forward. “I want to go back to the fire.”
They ascended the twisting volcanic corridor more quickly than they had come. For Devon, walking a path was much easier the second time. A certain tension hung in the air, and little was said beyond the most neutral of Jace’s commands, such as, “Step left, or Watch your toes near those rocks.”
When they reached the main floor of the cave, Devon saw that the fire had burned to an orange smolder.
Beau was quick to add more wood while Jace stacked and rearranged a pile of blankets to make a single sprawling, thickly padded bed. He dug through a backpack, retrieved a plastic bottle of water and a small packet of toiletries that included a toothbrush and toothpaste, and handed them to Devon. “Take a moment to get yourself ready for bed.” His gaze never broke from hers. “I want you to sleep beside me.”
Devon looked at Beau as he crouched beside the fire. “Where will Beau sleep?”
Beau didn’t even blink. “On the other side.”
“That sounds good to me.” Devon opened the bottle of water and took a long drink before wandering toward the mouth of the cave. The idea of being shared and cherished by two wonderful men was exhilarating, and far more than she’d ever expected life to offer. Two dragons had claimed her, and there were a few things she had to get used to, like where the hell to go to the bathroom in a cave. “I’m walking onto the ledge.”
“Be careful!” Jace lunged forward. “I’ll go with you.”
Beau brought Jace to a halt with the light tap of his hand. “She’ll be all right. Devon needs a moment alone.”
“I’ll be fine.” Devon stepped outside the cave onto the ledge. The cold night air was too much on her bare legs and left her shivering. She knew she couldn’t stay out there long, and inched her way toward the far side of the ledge to squat and pee while wondering how her life had gotten so weird so fast. That odd meeting with Witch Casey had turned into a prophecy fulfilled.
She gazed outward at the clear night sky. The ledge was perhaps only halfway up the mountain, but it was impossible to get a sense of scale at night. Except for a crescent moon, it was so dark that the stars shone bright almost to the horizon. That was something she’d never seen near a city.
As quickly as possible, she finished peeing. She stood and decided to brush her teeth closer to the fire and warm up, so she walked back into the cave.
Jace was already facing the entrance of the cave, waiting for her to return with an anxious expression on his brow.
“See, I’m fine.” Devon opened the toiletries bag, stripped the plastic wrapper from the new toothbrush, and squeezed a small amount of toothpaste onto its bristles. She stood near the fire and halfheartedly brushed her teeth.
Jace glanced at Devon from the corner of his eye. “What are you thinking?”
“That’s an ironic comment coming from you.” She tried to speak clearly without spitting out the foamy toothpaste. “If you really wanted to know what I was thinking, maybe you shouldn’t have shut me out.”
“That’s not fair, Devon.” Beau was quick to defend Jace. “Jace could have been completely selfish with you. He could have dragged you here and done as he liked. He has a whole arsenal of things he could use to keep you off-balance and distracted. He could have kept you incapacitated with swoop spells, or lust-drugged with kisses, and you already know what that feels like. Once a Marduko’s tongue has stroked you and the pheromones have entered your bloodstream, you can’t even think clearly, let alone walk away—you can only lie there and beg for more. What do you think several dragon bites in a row would do to your judgment?”
“All right, I got your point.” Devon spat toothpaste into the fire and it hissed.
Beau’s cheeks colored. “Jace’s fighting all his strongest Marduko instincts, and so am I.”
“Why?” Devon wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Obviously you can get away with whatever you want.”
“Because it’s not right for humans.” Jace patted the blankets beside him and motioned for Devon to join him. “That’s not how humans build relationships. If I took complete advantage of you, you’d only grow to resent it. I want your trust, and I’m willing to earn it.” He held out his hand to Devon. “Come over here.”
Slipping the toothbrush back into the bag, she set it down. They’d made mistakes but they were trying. She walked toward Jace, knelt on the blankets beside him and offered a shaky smile. “This has been one crazy working vacation.”
“I know it has.” Jace wrapped his arms around Devon and pressed her down onto the bedding as he stretched out beside her. He pulled a blanket over them both. “Do you think you could sleep for a few hours?”
Devon nodded. “Yes. I’m exhausted and jet-lagged.”
“I think we all need sleep.” Jace drew Devon close to his chest. He kissed her forehead and allowed his lips to linger on her skin.
She cuddled against Jace and made herself comfortable. “Do you know those kind little kisses are just as powerful as a dragon bite?”
“I know it now.” Jace kissed Devon again.
Beau slid under the blanket behind Devon. He brushed a soft kiss against her nape “Good night.”
Devon snuggled against Beau. It felt wonderful to be sandwiched between both men. She knew she would be asleep within minutes, but Jace remained somewhat tense and alert. He allowed his hand to absently travel up and down her back, and she sensed there would be no restful sleep for him.
Chapter 11
Jace lay awake watching the fire burn low until the flames died away to a crackling heat mirage rippling across a bed of red cinders. His body was exhausted, but his mind was alert. If Devon had not been nestled in the crook of his arm sound asleep, he might have gotten up and walked around, but her warm body pressed against his chest and pinned him to the spot as surely as if he’d been nailed there. Her alluring mating scent covered his skin, leaving him painfully hard and shifting uncomfortably beside her on the blankets. Beau’s dragon bite and their lovemaking had literally gotten under her skin. She’d fully taken in their pheromones and was now mirroring back the female version, and it drove him crazy.
He wanted Devon again, and considered taking her in her sleep with lazy ease, but thought better of the impulse. It was essential he slow things down. On a physical level, Devon was a perfect match as a mate to him and Beau. She was curvaceous but also athletic and strong, and more willing than many to take a physical risk. The dragon in him loved her scent; the man in him thrilled to the innocent mischief that shone in her kitten-soft eyes.
More than anything, he wanted her safely at his side from here on out, but he knew he couldn’t have it. Devon would certainly protest such suffocating possessiveness. He had to have faith that this was meant to be and she would come to them willingly. Her body had already said yes to them both, but her mind was still catching up to the new reality. This situation called for patience. Above all, he needed to form a bond strong enough to endure all the hardships life with two dragons might bring.
With a light touch, so as not to wake her, he carefully brushed a few strands of glossy hair from Devon’s brow. She and Beau, the two loves of his life, were opposites and his heart melted when he looked at them. He’d always loved brunettes. The woman who’d first captured his heart was brunette....
His mother, Alair, had thick, wavy hair the color of rich black coffee, and large brown eyes. He had inherited his father Il
an’s muscular build and fiery personality. Every Marduko always had and displayed the traits of his two fathers, but his long, straight nose and high cheekbones proved he was the male version of the artistically inclined Alair.
He was an only child, and his mother had greatly loved and somewhat spoiled him in an attempt to make up for the fact that when he was nine, Ilan had been slaughtered by a covert assassination team of zealots who knew of the Marduko and hated them.
All his life, it was apparent someone important was missing. Ilan’s death was something that always hung silently over their home and had nearly caused the death of his beta father, Kostas, from sheer grief. Following the tragedy, he and his mother had struggled for months to drag a languishing Kostas back from the brink. As a family they had grown so close.
He had not seen his family in a long while. For fifteen years he’d not been allowed to set eyes on his mother or surviving father. He did not even know if they were still alive. Separation and isolation from family was one of the necessary prices the Marduko paid to the modern world. A nest of dragon shifters was simply too threatening to many people in high places, so the Marduko had become masters of getting lost and seldom found. If a Marduko went underground, they stayed there, and it was nearly impossible to find them. Even the people he loved most in the world could disappear from the social radar and never resurface if they chose.
The last time he’d sat face-to-face with his mother, she’d not been her usual serene self, and had looked harried. She’d called him home from his first year in college for a family emergency.
JACE ARRIVED AS QUICKLY as possible at his parents’ remote mountain cabin in the Sierras, only to find his mother alone with a row of reeking gasoline cans cluttering the front porch.
With lines weighing on the edges of her soulful eyes, his mother led him toward her paint-stained art table and urged him to sit for what turned out to be their last conversation.
Once he was seated, his mother slid a large manila envelope across the table until it tapped his hand. “Open it,” she commanded.
“What is it?” Jace cautiously grasped the envelope and peered inside. “Where’s Father?” Alarm rose within. “Shouldn’t he be home from Geneva by now?”
“I have to ask you to do something very difficult.” Alair spoke in a soft French patois, and crossed her arms over her chest as if hugging herself for comfort. “I wish I did not have to ask this of you and there were another way, but there is not.”
“What’s wrong?” A sickening feeling settled in his gut. “Is Father okay?” Jace emptied the contents of the envelope onto the tabletop: bundled stacks of large-denomination bills, a birth certificate, a passport, and a lavender, partially crystalline stone rolled across the table. He snatched up the stone to prevent it from falling over the edge. “That’s your dragon egg. Why are you giving it to me?”
“Because I want you to have it. I want you to have a good life and pass it on to your mates if you are lucky enough to find them.”
He gazed down at the stone in his hand. He wasn’t anywhere close to being ready for that level of responsibility, and almost handed the stone back to her. “This is coming to me too soon. I haven’t even made my first shift.” He felt terribly self-conscious discussing something so personal in front of his mother. “I may not even be full Marduko. Who knows what will happen?”
“You are. You will be,” Alair said reassuringly. “You will be a powerful Marduko. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of Ilan’s old-stock bronze- or iron-armor scales came through in you.” She gently grasped Jace’s hand. “Don’t give up hope. I’m convinced there are still a few of us out there.” Her voice quivered. “My heart tells me this. I just don’t know where they are.”
His alarm turned to enraged frustration. “Why are you saying this? What’s going on? Tell me now.”
Her voice faltered. “There’s been another attempt on your father’s life.”
The breath left his lungs. “Where? Is he all right?”
“Kostas is alive, but he’s injured, and he can’t come home. It’s not safe. We’ve been spotted by the Order of the Knights of Saint George.”
“Oh God.” Jace groaned in despair when he heard the name of Ilan’s killers spoken aloud. “How did the OKSG find us?”
“It’s unclear if they have identified us as Kostas’s family.” Tears welled in Alair’s eyes. “Kostas is so careful about covering his tracks when he comes and goes from home. But the OKSG did find him, so I have to assume the worst.”
“Are you in danger?” He stared at his mother’s tapered hands, which suddenly looked so worn and delicate.
“We’re always in danger. With the Marduko, what happens to one happens to all. The membership of the OKSG becomes better funded and more sophisticated every year. Your father believes the team that attacked him contained members of the Swiss Guard and a high-level operative from Interpol. The OKSG is not the blindly raging group of zealot knights and priests we once faced. These men hunt dragons with military helicopters and satellites.”
Jace grew more anxious. “What happened?”
“Your father was returning from presenting a week-long university lecture series on dragons in antiquity.”
“Why does he keep doing that!” Jace exploded. “It’s a huge risk. Does he want to die? Even with a false name, did he think the OKSG wouldn’t notice? He practically gave the lecture in the OKSG’s backyard. He threw a glove in their face. They had to respond.”
“Don’t be angry with your father. There are sound reasons behind everything he does. In the lectures Kostas always presents the facts as mythology. He thinks it’s important for the world to know that humanity and the Marduko have secretly lived together in peace for a very long time, and we don’t need to war with each other.”
“It’s so dangerous for him to expose himself like that,” Jace grumbled. “And he exposes you too.”
Alair pointed to the dragon egg. “I accepted the risks when I accepted Ilan and Kostas as my mates. I knew there were certain dangers, and to be truthful, I would make all the same decisions again.”
“You said Father was injured.” He leaned closer. “How badly?”
“I’m not completely sure. He admitted to a couple broken ribs, some burns, and a shoulder injury sustained during a violent shift.”
“God help him.” Jace gasped. “You know it’s much worse than what he’s saying.”
“I know.” Alair paused to catch her breath. “Kostas was driving on a twisting mountain road when he saw a black SUV speeding behind him, and another black SUV speeding toward him. He found himself trapped between two colliding vehicles on the narrow pass. The SUVs spun his sedan around and tried to force him over the side of a cliff.”
“What happened?”
“Kostas’s sedan was pushed over the guardrail and plummeted down a steep ravine. But one of the SUVs’ bumpers had locked on to his sedan, and they tumbled over the side as well. The SUV burst into flames when it hit the bottom. Your father was forced to climb through the sunroof, shift, and take flight to escape the flames. No doubt the survivors in the second SUV saw and possibly recorded everything.”
“We have to go to him! Pack what you need.” He felt stricken. “We’ll go straight to the airport and book the first flight to—”
“No.” Alair shook her head. “Your father has asked us to do something else, and I won’t argue with him. Kostas knows with fatalities on their side, the OKSG will hunt us with unrelenting resolve. He’s afraid you’re the next target. If you come into the open to rescue or defend him, the OKSG will know with certainty you are his son, and they won’t wait until you make your first shift to kill you.”
Rage that had been simmering for years exploded. “I can’t sit back and let my father be persecuted!”
“You can’t help him if you die. Don’t you understand? If you live a good life and take mates, his losses—my losses—will be avenged.”
Jace couldn’t bear to look at th
e anguish in Alair’s beautiful face a moment longer, so he glared at the birth certificate on the table. “That’s not my name.” He snatched the passport off the table and riffled through the pages. His photo was the same; the edges of each page were convincingly weathered and stamped with the many places they had traveled in the world, but the passport’s number and name were not the same. “Who made these forgeries?”
“Someone I trust.” Alair rocked slightly in her chair. “Jace, I have to ask a lot of you.”
His breath caught from the raw desperation in his mother’s voice.
“You cannot return to the college or even your dorm room. That life is over, and a new one is starting. You have to walk away from everything. Drive your car into a lake or burn it as soon as you can. The OKSG will be looking for hair, skin cells, or shed scales if they can find them. They’ll catalogue the DNA samples and use the information to trace families. Let’s not make their task any easier by returning to familiar places.”
“Where will you go?” He was stunned and heartsick. “Will you join Father?”
She shook her head. “Kostas will go in another direction. We will be out of contact, at least for the near future. I have to be on my own for a while, but that’s not the hardest part.” Alair grasped Jace’s hand. “I have to break my psychic link with you, and you must promise not to attempt to link with me for any reason. It’s too dangerous.”
“What?” The link held the Marduko together. It was an unspoken, virtually telepathic form of communication that alerted family members to another’s distress or need. Now it became clear to him that his mother and father had already done this, leaving him alone in the dark. “Is that wise? What if you’re in danger and need me?”
“What if I’m compromised?” Alair knotted her slender fingers. “If the OKSG captured me or your father, do you think they would hesitate to torture us in hopes of drawing you into the open? If we were mentally linked, how long could you bear my suffering before you rushed to help? The OKSG have already taken Ilan from me. I refuse to give them my only son.”
The Lady Prefers Dragons Page 19
