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Chapter 12

Augustine

T he lair was just as brightly lit and lovely when Augustine finally returned, but nothing about it felt as homey as it had when he’d been building it.

What was the purpose of all his lovely things?

He’d gotten them for his mate.

Perhaps he should become like the dragons of old and live in a barren cave, sitting on his pile of gold. It sounded uncomfortable and hard, sitting on a pile of gold, but his scales could handle it. He didn’t need such mundane conveniences as a magical oven and a pool.

He could eat fish fresh and raw in his winged form, and swim in the ocean if he wished to swim.

He didn’t need a bed, he could live wild and free in his winged form, sleeping anywhere.

His father, having managed to read his entire library with his magic, would have called his urge to run away an “unhealthy coping mechanism,” or something like that, but August wasn’t sure he cared right then. Running away sounded like the ideal way to handle being rejected by his mate.

For a long time, he stood in the doorway to his bedroom, thinking about what he’d like to bring with him... but why? Why would he bring anything with him? He had no need of luxurious bedding or beautiful clothes if he was leaving society itself behind. The mountain did not care at all if Augustine had a silk tie that matched his eyes.

Even his books were pointless. Declan had not read a single one of them.

A loud crack drew his attention from where it had drifted, off to the land of what ifs and likely-nevers, and he turned to see where it had come from. Not the main room of the lair. Nothing there had changed at all there, that he could see.

The noise hadn’t stopped, though. It was coming from... from the antechamber.

For a fraction of a second, his heart soared. Declan. It had to be Declan, come back, because he had finally realized?—

“Got it?” a rough voice asked, followed quickly by a grunt of assent. Neither voice was Declan.

And yet, how would anyone have found his lair, if not for Declan?

The bitter tang of betrayal hit him, the realization that maybe Declan not only hated him, but hated him so much that he had sent men after him.

He was glad, suddenly, that he hadn’t gone to talk to his father again. To give him the whole pitiful tale about how he’d realized Declan would never love him, so he’d let him go. It would be so much more pathetic followed up with the tale of how his own mate had sent humans after him in his lair.

He rounded the corner into the room to find three men inside, one helping another up and over the ledge, the lot of them having climbed up the cliff face. The other, though... he held a gun, pointing it in Augustine’s direction.

“Now dragon,” he said, in a placating tone that was more infuriating than truly calming. “We don’t want to have to kill you.”

“Lose a fortune if we have to kill him,” the last man to make it inside muttered as he hefted himself off the ground. He squinted over at Augustine. “’Specially if he doesn’t revert to being a dragon when he dies.”

To call the words chilling was to reduce them in importance. They were looking at August like he wasn’t even a piece of meat. As if he himself were a pile of gold, and like human cartoons of old, he expected that any moment, dollar signs would appear in their eyes.

For a moment, Augustine froze. What was he supposed to do? He didn’t think a human gun would hurt him unless the man was a very good shot and managed to take him right in the eye. Humans in days of old had managed to murder dragons, catching them by surprise like this, but they had come in numbers—not just three men and a single weapon.

On the other hand, what did August have to lose? These humans could not go through the portal to his hoard. Likely, they would not even see it on the wall of his bedroom. All they could steal would be the lair he’d built for Declan. The beautiful furniture, the computer pieces, the books.

And what did Augustine care about that?

On the other hand, it sounded as though they expected to sell August himself, and that was unacceptable.

As much as a part of him was grateful for the idea of someone taking away the memory of the mate who didn’t want him, no one was going to make Augustine a prisoner.

He bared his teeth at the man with the gun and rushed him.

A jolt went through Augustine’s whole body, and the last thing he heard before everything went black was the crackling of something that sounded like electricity... or magic. Fuck. They weren’t armed with human weapons. They were armed with magic.