by Zoe Chant
"I don't care," Loretta sobbed against his side. "Darius, shift back, so I can see your face."
"Not sure if I can." But he made an effort and suddenly he was man-shaped again, sprawled in an undignified position on the grass with his head in her lap. The transition to sudden winglessness was more startling than usual because he could still feel them hurting, like phantom limbs. For the first time it occurred to him to wonder how wings healed when he was in human form.
"Darius, you wonderful, amazing, stupid idiot," Loretta said, petting his face. "Do you have internal injuries? Do you need a doctor? Do they even have doctors here?"
"I'm good where I am," he mumbled, closing his eyes.
"What happened?" Loretta asked, cradling him. "It felt like an earthquake. And Sharpe—they're saying he's dead—did—?"
"He killed himself. Drew too much power trying to move the earth." Words came harder; he was slipping off into a much-needed healing sleep, but he didn't want to go, didn't want to relinquish this moment with the soft grass under him and his mate's arms around him.
"Oh. Well. Good riddance. I'm glad he's gone." She stroked his face some more. That was nice; he hoped she'd keep doing it. "Are you sure you're ... well, not all right, obviously, but not about to bleed out from internal injuries or anything?"
"Probably?" he ventured.
"Darius!"
"Just gotta sleep for a little while."
"Darius!"
"It's okay," he whispered, reaching up to take her hand as the world slipped away. "I promised. I'll never let you fall, and I'm never going to leave you."
Never.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Loretta
"I'm convinced that you passed out just to get out of having to deal with the cleanup after the fight."
"I did not pass out," Darius retorted. "I fell into a healing sleep. My kind do that."
It was morning, and the two of them were sprawled on the bed in the suite Heikon had lent them, with a tray and the demolished remains of an enormous breakfast spread out between them. In the sunlight slanting through the half-open curtains, Darius's body was a map of hurts, healing scrapes and fading bruises in a patchwork that hardly left an inch of him undamaged.
He'd still managed to bring her to three screaming orgasms the night before, so clearly at least one part of him was working fine.
The suite had survived the fight and earthquake with no visible damage aside from a few items knocked off shelves. Overall, the Aerie remained structurally sound, and the cleanup was mostly a matter of fixing the damage to the gardens and other external structures from plummeting stoneskins and boulders. From what Loretta had seen yesterday, the gardens would not be restored to their former beauty before the seasons rolled onward and winter came.
But that was the thing about gardens. There was always another summer, a fresh start.
A knock on the door of the suite made her scramble to reach for a blanket. So much for lounging around naked eating pastries. Darius simply reclined where he was, looking unconcerned and even slightly amused as Loretta tried to cover herself with the blanket he was lying on.
The knock came again. "Heikon, or whoever this is, if this can't wait five minutes—" Loretta called, trying to figure out where her underwear got off to.
"It's Tessa, and it's not that important. We're out on the balcony and we just wanted to see if you wanted to join us. Come on up if you want, okay?"
Darius sat up, looking suddenly more interested.
"There's a balcony?" Loretta said.
***
There was indeed a balcony, one floor above them—built into the stone of the mountain, commanding a striking view over the valley. It was so large that Loretta thought the term "gallery" might be more accurate; she'd read about those in romance novels set in big southern houses. It was open to the air, but the stone sheltered them from the sun, and there were also wooden shutters that currently stood open but could be closed in case of storms or winter weather. The room was large enough to accommodate a number of tables and other small conversational groupings of patio furniture. It seemed to be a shared lounge space for several of the neighboring suites.
Ben and Tessa and Skye were at one of the tables, with someone else that Loretta didn't recognize until she and Darius were closer. Then she broke into a run.
"Maddox!"
Maddox looked astounded to have Loretta drape herself on his neck and hug him. He was considerably the worse for wear, bruised and battered with a crutch leaning against the back of his chair, but he gave her an awkward hug back before gently trying to extricate himself.
"I thought you were dead," Loretta said, wiping at her eyes.
"Nah. I'm harder to kill than that."
"But how did you get out?"
"That'd be my doing," said an all too familiar voice behind Loretta.
Distracted with Maddox, she hadn't heard Darius's ex approach. For a moment the two women sized each other up. Esme looked fresh and well put together in a green jacket and long skirt, while Loretta was all too aware of the heavy rope of her shower-damp hair hanging over her shoulder and her rumpled clothes from yesterday.
Then Darius's arm wrapped around Loretta's shoulders with a comforting squeeze. The message was clear.
"Oh, please," Esme said, rolling her eyes. "There's no need to go all 'Grrr, aargh, mine.' I get it. Anyway, we were over years ago. No, I'm their ride back to civilization." She gestured to Ben and Tessa. "I'm not stealing them yet; I just dropped by to mention that I'm going hunting with some of Heikon's flight and I'll be back a little later."
With that, she whisked around in a swirl of skirts and was off with a brisk and businesslike air.
"Thank you!" Tessa called after her.
"She seems to approve of you," Darius murmured. "She and Avril couldn't be in the same room together without trying to tear each other's hair out."
"As if I need her approval," Loretta said tartly. "Do I want to know who Avril is?"
"My mom," Ben said. "She runs a catering business and she found her true mate in a very nice falcon shifter a decade or so after she and Dad split up." He patted the chair next to him. "Come on, sit down, you two. We ate all the food but there's still coffee. And we could probably have some more pastries if no one minds fetching them. The Aerie has more on their minds than waiting on us this morning, but there's a ton of food."
"We ate in our room," Loretta said, as Darius pulled out her chair for her. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if Darius can pack some more in. I still can't believe how much shifters can eat."
Tessa laughed. "I know, right? I always thought I was a healthy eater until I met Ben."
Darius gave Ben a critical look. "Should you be out of bed?"
Ben smiled slightly. He was bruised and pale, with his hair tousled and damp from a recent shower, moving very stiffly and carefully—in short, a lot like Darius. "Et tu, Dad?"
"I'm perfectly well," Darius said, and then paused with a wince as he started to sit down, hesitated, and sat a little more carefully.
"Uh huh," Ben said. "To answer the question you didn't quite ask, I'm feeling a lot better. You?"
"Worse than he'd like people to think, but better than he should be considering that he fell out of the sky yesterday from about two miles up," Loretta put in.
"I didn't fall all the way to the ground," Darius grumbled. "No need to exaggerate."
Skye, in Tessa's lap, interrupted the conversation with a cheerful squeal. Loretta's heart did a flippy thing as she watched Darius's expression melt as soon as his eyes fell on his granddaughter.
Tessa, apparently noticing the same thing, grinned and passed the child into Ben's lap. "Here, hand her over to Grandpa for me, would you? I would appreciate having my lap back for awhile."
"I seem to recall the last time we gave our daughter to you, you took her off to explore a condemned building," Ben remarked, but he handed her carefully to Darius.
"A mere trifle," Darius said. "She quite enjo
yed it."
"She's six months old, Dad. I think she's a little young for urban exploration."
"Don't listen to him," Darius informed the baby as she fisted his collar. "Your urban exploration skills are second to—hmmm."
What caused him to break off was that he suddenly was no longer holding a dark-haired baby, but a tiny dragon, with little fledgling wings, her scales as delicate and glossy as a string of beads. She was purple, with a string of golden dots down each side.
For a minute, everyone at the table just stared at her, including Maddox. Then Skye, much more nimble as a dragon than as a human baby, scrabbled her way up Darius's shirt with a flutter of tiny wings and tucked her blunt baby snout behind his ear.
"There, there, child," Darius murmured, patting her back. "Yes, everyone's staring at you. You're the center of attention. Well done, little one."
"Well, I guess that answers that question," Ben said, reaching for Tessa to squeeze her hand. Tessa, however, had both her hands busy: she'd taken out her phone and was busy snapping pictures of her daughter's first shift. "Where does she get the purple, do you think? You and Melody are both silver."
"Her grandparents, I expect." Darius looked slightly dazed. "My mother was purple in her shifted form, my father silver and gold. I recall there was quite a lot of gold and copper among Mom's relatives, as well."
"I never knew that," Ben said softly. "I guess ... I never even really wondered about it."
"They were dead long before you were born."
"Yeah, but ... they're still part of me, right?"
"Obviously," Darius said, as Skye shoved her snout down the back of his collar, and then took another look at his son, thoughtful and soft. "Obviously."
Maddox cleared his throat and started to rise from the table. "Sorry to stick a monkey wrench in the family reunion. I'm gonna just—"
"No, wait, don't leave!" Tessa said quickly, looking up from her phone. "I want to get a picture of everyone."
She stepped back from the table and took a quick photo, then Loretta volunteered to take a picture so Tess could get in it too, with one arm draped over Darius's shoulder and Skye nuzzling at her mother's short hair. At that point Skye apparently had enough of the attention, because she shifted back to a human baby and started fussing. Tessa took her back.
"Guess I'll be heading out, then," Maddox said, getting up stiffly. He reached for his crutch. "Thanks for havin' me."
"Wait, wait," Darius protested. "Is there anything you need? You've been injured—and I realize that you lost everything in the explosion as well—"
"Nah. They're taking good care of me here."
"Yes, well, there's also the matter of hazard pay; I won't be ignoring that, as soon as I get my money back—"
"Actually," Maddox said, not looking at any of them, "you can forget about that, boss—er, Mr. Keegan. I think I might stay here for a little while. I already asked Lord Heikon if it's okay."
Darius went still. Loretta wasn't expecting the hurt in his face; she thought Maddox wasn't, either. Then he straightened himself, getting control over his features, and some of the stoniness she remembered from their early days crept into his expression. Was it always like that, she wondered: Darius using that calculated lack of expression to cover the depth of everything he was feeling inside? Of course it was.
"Well, it's up to you, of course," he said with a brisk and brittle calm, reaching for a napkin on the table (that wasn't even his own) to fold it. "I can't say I blame you after everything that happened. Your employer failed to protect you, and you nearly died. Of course you'd—"
"Oh, knock it off," Maddox said, and Darius dropped the napkin, while Loretta blinked in shock. She'd never heard Maddox talk to Darius like that, and from the look on Darius's face, he hadn't either. "This has got nothing to do with anything you did. It's just, almost dying makes a guy take a look at himself, you know? I've done other people's dirty work my whole life. Yours. The mob's. I think it's time to figure out what else is out there for me."
Darius looked up at him for a minute, and then got up from the table and held out his hand. "I expect you wouldn't say no to a very generous severance package."
"Thought you didn't have any money," Maddox said, but he was smiling as his big hand engulfed Darius's.
"A temporary state of affairs," Darius said stiffly, and then a smile broke through on his face, too—a little wistful, but sincere. "If you need a letter of reference, I'll provide the highest one. And know there will always be a place for you in my employment if you wish to return."
"Employment, nothing," Loretta said, jumping to her feet. "You're always welcome to come back as a friend, Maddox, just to visit. You know that, right?"
"I guess?" he said, and then huffed out a breath as she hugged him. Tessa got up to hug him too, baby and all, to his obvious surprise and discomfort.
"And there you have it," Darius said. "If you want to argue with these women, you're a braver man than I."
"Hell no," Maddox said, and grinned. Loretta thought that he looked much nicer when he was smiling, more approachable and handsome than his usual forbidding demeanor. "Guess I'll see you folks around."
He'd just limped out, leaning heavily on the crutch, when Heikon came in. "I trust all is well? Do you have everything you need?"
"You've been really wonderful to us," Loretta said. "As soon as we're done with breakfast, Darius should probably rest, but I'm going to help with the cleanup."
"I do not need to rest," Darius retorted.
"Excellent!" she said, squeezing his hand. "Darius will help with the cleanup too."
Heikon's mouth twitched in a suppressed smile, then went grim again. "That's appreciated, but it will have to wait a little while. There's something else I need you for first. Two more gargoyles were captured on the outskirts of our lands this morning, and they're asking for you, Darius."
***
When Darius and Loretta arrived in the chamber at the top of the Aerie, they found it packed. Without Heikon, they would have had to force their way through a crowd of what must be every resident of the Aerie, from old men and women to babies clinging to their parents' necks.
Seeing Heikon, the crowd parted, and the dragon clanlord was able to stride through the gathered humanform dragons to the front of the crowd. Darius strode after him, back ramrod-straight, and Loretta trailed along in their wake, feeling like a little tugboat bobbing after a pair of cruise ships.
Her first thought on seeing the gargoyles was, They're just kids!
They weren't literally kids, but they were to her. They couldn't have been older than their early twenties, a young man and a young woman, kneeling on the floor with a shifted dragon looming menacingly over them.
The gargoyles were in their shifted forms. Neither of them was as massively muscular as Sharpe, but they were both solidly built, the young man with a broad chest and shoulders, the woman statuesque. Their clawed bat wings arched over their backs. They were both very still, but not the utter unnatural stillness of stoneskins. Both sets of eyes moved, flicking around the room and then back to the floor, and their chests heaved with panting, their muscles twitched in minute ways as they both struggled to stay still.
"He is here," Heikon said. "Now you may tell him what you told me."
The two looked up as one. "Sir," the young man said. "We've come to talk." There was a quiet dignity about him, about both of them, that reminded Loretta of the dragons.
"Talk then," Darius said tightly. Loretta rested a hand on his rigid arm.
"The one who calls himself Sharpe in the human world is our uncle," the woman said. "We don't expect you to believe this, but we had nothing to do with his attacks on you."
"We know how this feud goes," the young man said, picking up when she fell silent. "We attack you. You attack us. It's been going on for centuries, for millennia perhaps. And look at us now. Your clan is diminished. Our clan is diminished. This is destroying both of us."
"Please," the wo
man burst out. "We have families. We were not involved in these attacks. We knew nothing of them—"
The man put his hand over hers. She turned her palm up and clutched his hand tightly, getting control of herself.
"My sister and I have come here to plead for the lives of our families," the man said. "We are not going to retaliate for our uncle's death. We know he brought it on himself. Please, we beg you, don't bring this feud to our homes. We are not your enemies. We only want to continue living our lives."
Darius took a slow, shuddering breath. "I was living my life," he said softly, "when your uncle attacked me, destroyed my home, hurt my family, and tried to kill my mate."
"We know that," the woman said, her voice desperate. "I could argue that it was only because your family attacked us, but that's exactly why this has gone on as long as it has. Listen, for Uncle Rodan, all of this was something that might as well have happened yesterday. He never let it go. But we were never part of that. We've been living our lives happily in the human world. We don't want to be part of your feud. We just want to go on living our lives."
"Darius," Loretta said, very quietly. "You can't possibly be thinking of attacking innocent people just because their relatives attacked you."
Darius's hands curled into fists. "They killed my family," he whispered. "They destroyed my clan."
"They didn't. Their ancestors did. Darius, look at them. They're not monsters. They're just people." She looked around at the gathered assortment of dragons, all of them (except the guard on the gargoyles) looking perfectly human, faces of every human color showing a mix of anger and doubt, disgust and pity.
"They're people," she said quietly, "just like all of you. Just like humans are. We're not different, humans and dragons; you know that. Look how hard you fought to protect me and Tessa. And they're not different either. All of us are victims in this war. All of us have lost people. All of us have families to protect. Darius. Think."
