Page 41 of Ink Sworn (Greatdrakes #3 | The Fae Universe #24)

I t was over an hour's drive back to Dublin from where Midir had his ancient barrow in County Longford. Valentine helped Yelena take off parts of her bloody armor before they had gotten into the car, and they both had fallen asleep on the way home, wrapped in each other's arms.

To Valentine, it had only felt like he had been in Midir's kingdom for a few hours at most, but two days had passed for Yelena.

Valentine didn't think he would have handled the situation as well if their positions had been reversed. Two days with her gone in enemy hands? He wouldn't have tolerated that at all.

As it was, now that the immediate danger had passed, the dragon that lurked in his head was burning with need to get Yelena fed, warm, and safe.

Valentine made a mental note to ask Bas about how to be more nurturing because he had no idea what to do.

"This is your stop, Mr. Greatdrakes," their hunter chauffeur said, pulling up to the pavement at St. Audoens .

"Thanks for the ride," Valentine said before jumping out and offering Yelena a hand.

"You live in a church?" she asked, holding parts of her armor and looking about. He grabbed the rest, smearing gods only knew all over his already filthy clothes.

"No. It's just hidden, and the hunters have no idea how to find it. The church is their only point of reference," Valentine replied and took her hand. "This way."

Valentine led her down the street and couldn't help but hold back to see if she could see through the house's glamor or not. He shouldn't have worried. As soon as they drew close enough, the tall gates appeared in the ancient stone wall, and the wards lit up.

"I can see your handiwork and many others," Yelena said, staring at them with a magician's eyes.

"Do you want me to disable them? Or would you like a go?" he asked.

Yelena raised a brow. "Watch and learn, sorcerer."

Valentine expected her to do something amazingly complicated to unweave the protections, but she surprised him by biting the pad of her thumb and flicking her blood at the gate.

"Surely it..." he began.

The house wards flashed a haze of blue and white before opening for her.

"How?" he demanded, thrilled and confused at the same time.

Yelena smirked. "I am your mate, and the house knows it. It's designed to recognize family, is it not?"

Valentine couldn't resist kissing that smirk. "You are too clever for your own good sometimes."

"Try not to feel so intimidated by my brilliance," she said and pushed the gate open.

The lights in the garden lit up the path for them, and Yelena looked around with wide eyes. It was easy for Valentine to forget that the house was beautiful because every inch of it was so familiar to him.

Watching Yelena's reaction to it filled him with pride, and a warm feeling seeped through his chest. Yelena dropped her armor and hurried to look around, the sensors picking up wherever she was, lighting the gardens up for her.

"Can you feel it?" Yelena asked and sank to her knees. She rested her hands and cheek on the grass. "It's all around me, I've never sensed anything like it."

"What are you feeling? The magic?" Valentine asked, smiling at her enthusiasm.

"Magic, yes, but it's love. Everything is pulsing with love. Generations of it," Yelena replied, her voice dreamy and her eyes filling with tears. "The house loves you. The family loves the house, and it goes around and around."

Valentine looked up and saw the dark stone, the statues of dragons, and the stained glass, which he knew would shine so brilliantly in the day.

"Yes, we love it. A house that was built and lived in by generations of magicians is never going to be normal. You can't see the towers from the outside, but they are there," he replied.

Yelena got up off the grass, her smile so bright that it made his heart hurt with how much feeling and love pulsed through it.

"Show me everything, Valentine," she said breathlessly.

They left her armor, their weapons, and filthy boots in the mud room on the way into the house.

A few weeks ago, Valentine's soul would have recoiled to leave them like that.

A lot had changed in those weeks, him most of all.

The house cleaning spells would tend to them.

He didn't need to do it himself, so he could stop thinking about it.

He no longer felt the obsessive need to control everything around him.

"You can wander the house as much as you like tomorrow. For now, I need to show you to the kitchen so I can feed you," Valentine said, guiding her down the halls.

"I don't know what I expected from your house, but I didn't expect it to feel so…right," Yelena commented, stopping to look at a painting of Cosimo's parents with him and his sister, Maria. "This feels so welcoming."

"It's because you are welcome, now and always. You aren't just a part of the wider family. You are my family. A Greatdrakes. This can be your house as much as it is mine. You can even have the last name if you want it," Valentine assured her.

"I think I would really like to be a Greatdrakes," she whispered, as if she was scared to say it out loud.

Valentine recalled the wards around her tower in Faerie and the way those outside of Taranis and his knights had treated her. Had that ever felt like a safe place for her? Her blood family had abandoned her, too.

"You will be a Greatdrakes as soon as you want to be." Valentine took her in his arms. "You will never have to protect yourself here either, baby girl. No one and nothing will ever hurt or harm you. You are always going to be safe here with me."

Yelena pressed her face into his chest. "Thank you, Valentine. Thank you for choosing me to be your mate and loving me."

"You are easy to love, Yelena. I'm the grumpy bastard."

She sniffed. "You had your reasons. I'm sorry. I don't know why this is making me so emotional."

"It's been a trying day, and we are both exhausted. Don't cry, love. We are home, and that's a good thing," he said, rubbing her back.

"It's been days for me, Val. I thought I was going to lose my mind waiting for you to activate that token," Yelena corrected, letting him go.

"Tell me about it?" Valentine asked .

Yelena wiped at her cheeks. "You first."

They washed their hands in the kitchen sink, and Valentine talked.

He got her seated at the kitchen table before he went hunting in the fridge.

He wanted to hug Bas a million times over when he found frozen minestrone soup.

His brother's meal-prepping tendencies were always a good thing.

Valentine heated the soup, poured wine, and toasted bread while telling her about Midir.

"It felt like hours to me in that place. I knew time was screwy in there. You only have to look at the ageless, young fae in there, but I didn't realize how messed up it was," he said, setting her up with a steaming bowl, an extra glass of water, and bread for dipping.

"Sit, Val. This is more than enough," Yelena said, amusement in her eyes.

"My dragon is worried. It needs to look after you. I don't know how and..."

Yelena took his hand. "Val, it's all I need. Sit down and eat with me."

Valentine sat. His appetite was usually nonexistent, and he was surprised by how ravenous he suddenly felt. "How did it go with you? Two days is a lot more time than I thought we had to get people in place."

Yelena swallowed a mouthful of soup. "I'm glad you wrote them letters because they were all mad. We expected that, but I honestly thought Cosimo was going to shift. He was scared for you."

Valentine pushed a hand through his hair. "I knew he would be. I thought now I had shifted, he would have trusted that I could handle the situation."

"He knew you could handle it, but he's your father. He's always going to be scared for you."

Valentine tore up a piece of toasted bread and gave her half. " Thank you for getting everyone where I needed them. I knew it was risky, and that Midir's barrow would be hard to navigate in a fight."

"We got through it. Taranis and the others will deal with the fallout. Midir's warriors, maybe even his whole kingdom, have been controlled by his magic for so long, it might not even hold as a kingdom now that he's gone," Yelena commented, tapping her spoon against her lip.

"What do you mean? How can a whole kingdom disappear?" Valentine asked, his food momentarily forgotten.

Yelena put her spoon back into her soup.

"Well, a magician's spells generally fail when they die.

The whole of Brí Léith was a kingdom built on Midir's family's magic.

The Hunt would cut him off from it completely, like he's dead.

Taranis and the other kings will have to take all of Midir's people in.

You saw those warriors. They had no idea where they were or what had happened to them.

While you were gone, the kings had already discussed the possibility of the barrows disappearing if Midir died and were planning what to do with all the fae that were trapped there. "

Yelena ate more while Valentine thought through her explanation. The kings wouldn't have an extra kingdom to run, but they would have a hell of a time finding places for all those people.

"What a mess," he said after a while.

Yelena's foot tapped his under the table. "But not our mess."

"No, not ours. I have enough plans for us to get through," Valentine replied with a grin.

"And what are these plans?" she asked sweetly.

"Very simple. Food, shower, sleep," Valentine said before taking her hand and kissing her knuckles. "Then I'm going to make you my mate and fuck your brains out. Any objections?"

"None. That sounds perfect," Yelena said. Her smile dimmed for a brief second, and Valentine ran a thumb over the back of her hand.

"What is it?"

"I'm not human. I'm not fae. I don't know how to do a mating bond with you," she admitted, her brow furrowing. "Wild dragons don't do it like the fae do either."

Valentine kissed her hand. "We know how our magic binds, and we are very clever. We will figure it out. The elves can sense who their mates are, but they use their magic to do a final binding, and the tattoos. We can do it that way if you like."

Yelena brightened again instantly. "I would like that. I want you to tattoo me again. Do you want to make a design together like we did with my hand?"

"I would love that," he replied, and he suddenly remembered the design he had been toying with for weeks. Fate had bitten him in the ass again, and he laughed. "I think I know the perfect place to start."