Page 25 of Dragon Rivals of New York (Dragons of New York #3)
Chapter 25
Jethro
S ora is wrapping my back with clean gauze when I hear Cyrus yell, “Where is he?”
My best friend storms into the bathroom a second later, his new wife close on his heels.
“Are you okay?” Finley asks, looking from me to Sora.
“We’re fine.” I tuck the last of the gauze in on itself and pull Sora to my side. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon?”
Cyrus chuckles and wraps an arm around Finley. “You think I could keep this one away after she heard her best friend was attacked?”
“Hey, you wanted to come back just as much as I did.” Finley pokes him in the rib with her elbow .
“How did you even hear about it so soon?” Sora asks.
“Athena was missing her Auntie Fin, so I was on the phone with her and Jeslyn when Kyro texted Midas.” Finley’s features tighten. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” Sora reassures. “I’m good. But… what about the temples?”
“Midas sent scouts. We should hear—”
“They’re back,” Kyro says, entering the bathroom and cutting Cyrus off. “There are Ruby Diamond dragons at the Silver Temple, but only three.”
“Why send so many to the Gold Temple and so few to the Silver?” I ask.
“Maybe there are more coming? Or they assumed we’d go to the Gold Temple.” Kyro leans against the bathroom sink.
“It is the superior temple.” My rib is good-natured, but Kyro just glares.
“Midas and Adrianna are here talking strategy now,” Cyrus says.
“Strategy for what? So they can fight?” Sora’s voice raises an octave. “How many will die if we do that?”
We’re all silent. Dragons aren’t easy to kill, but we’re extremely lethal. And we don’t know how many the Ruby Diamond Horde sent. There were at least twenty outside the Gold Temple, but there could be more inside. Their horde is three times the size of any other horde. Even with both the Silver and Gold Horde fighting together, we’ll be outnumbered.
“They’ll leave once Goddess Week is over, won’t they?” Sora asks the question I don’t want her to ask. I can see the wheels turning in her bright little mind. Her jaw sets, her shoulders pull back, and tears leak from her eyes. “We can’t fight them. I won’t let anyone die just so I can become a dragon.”
“It’s not that simple, lovely.” I brush her hair off her shoulder and turn her to face me. “You heard the priest and priestess. The goddess wills it that our hordes combine. We have no way of knowing what might happen or what consequences there might be if we don’t.”
“There might not be any consequences. But if we fight, we know there will be. People will get hurt. Some could die. No.” She shakes her head. “We can’t.”
She pulls away from me and leaves the bathroom. Kyro and I both move to go after her, but Finley stops us. “Let me talk to her.”
The two of us share a look before nodding in agreement. Finley follows Sora while Cyrus stays with us. There’s an awkward, thoughtful silence before my oldest friend says, “ Seems you two have made your peace.”
“He’s in love with me,” I tease, smirking at Kyro.
“Never.” He crosses his arms over his massive chest, the veins in his forearm popping.
“Oh, it’s happening, Ky,” I say. “Just wait.”
Cyrus laughs at my antics, but Kyro stomps out of the room.
“Are you really okay?” Cyrus asks.
“Truthfully, I feel like shit, but I’ll live. The important thing is that Sora got through it without a scratch. That’s all I care about.”
“I know what you mean.” Cyrus looks through the doorway to the bedroom where his mate and mine just left. “How are you feeling about being mated to Kyro, too?”
“Oh, you know how much I love an ornery grump.” I wink. “He’s perfect. And goddess, how that man talks in bed.”
“Yeah, that’s more than I want to know. I’m out.” Cyrus leaves the bathroom, and I follow him to the living room where Midas, Jeslyn, Kyro, and Adrianna are waiting.
The way everyone is avoiding the stain on the couch has me smiling, despite our dire circumstances. Yeah, I’m pretty happy with this mating arrangement— if we can just figure out how to get the three of us into a pool.
“Where’s Sora and Finley?” Kyro asks as we walk in.
“Finley took Sora for a ride,” Jeslyn says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Midas is bouncing his child on his knee as he talks to Adrianna about the best strategy for an attack.
“What?! You let her leave when the Ruby Diamond Horde is here in New York?” Kyro yells.
“I didn’t let her do anything,” Jeslyn says, a firmness to her that makes her the perfect queen. “She wanted some space to think. You can’t just lock her up.”
I touch Kyro’s shoulder, rubbing my palm down to his back, steadying myself as much as him. “I’m sure they didn’t go far.”
“We need to talk about what we plan to do,” Adrianna says. “Midas and I agree that it’ll be easiest if we go to the Silver Temple immediately. We don’t know how long it’ll be before they have more dragons there.”
“That would be a lot easier to do if my mate was actually here!” Kyro’s voice is deadly.
Adrianna doesn’t flinch. “A team is securing the Silver Temple as we speak. By the time your mate returns, it’ll be ready. ”
I’m going to mate my girl. By sunrise, she’ll be a dragon. I’ve waited so long for this and now, with our hordes at our back, it’s finally time. I take Kyro’s hand and squeeze it. He doesn’t pull away, but squeezes back.
There’s a tension in the air as the severity of what’s about to happen lands on all of us. By sunrise, I won’t just have a mate. I’ll have a new horde. Possibly a new ruler.