Page 7

7

TRUST

I wake the next morning, snug in bed. I’m cuddled naked between Bjorn and Strom in the cobalt silk sheets of our big canopied bed at Chambord; everything feels right with the world, as I snuggle between them, warm and safe.

As I lay there, just soaking it in after Strom’s and my crazy night of lovemaking, I realize neither Bjorn nor Strom have woken. I look at them now, letting my magic spiral deep into them through our bonds, and feel how tired they both are. I decide to let them sleep, sliding out of their arms and out of bed without disturbing them.

Though I give each a tender kiss before I go.

Dragons have mean appetites after late nights of partying and sex. My belly grumbles for food now as I sling on a light blue silk robe and head for a breakfast spread that always seems to appear at dawn in our rooms.

It’s good; full of lox and eggs, croissants and flaky pastries, there are a few nods to our Blood Dragon cuisine in here that the Chambord chefs haven’t neglected. I’m all about the coffee and pastries, however, as I indulge in a chocolate croissant, a ham and gruyere one, an almond one, and a plain buttery one, just because they’re the best .

It makes me miss the Red Letter Hotel Paris, as I sip coffee and stare out at the bright summer morning. Reginald would want me to be here, though, sorting my shit out some place safe.

And I do feel safe here, despite everything we’re up against. It gives me a peaceful feeling this morning, though I can already feel my memories fading again, despite all the ridiculously hot sex Strom and I had last night, and how it helped me.

I know I should take advantage of a moment of calm before shit gets crazy again, however; I decide to wander through the palace to see if I might find my cousin this morning and have a chat before he has his all-day matters of state to attend to.

I dress simply in jeans and tall russet boots, plus a moderately sexy, black silk-and-lace T-shirt with accents of my signature color, dark plum. Adding the silver hoops and chunky bracelet I wore last night, I think about Strom and smile.

I glance at the bed as I affix my earrings and do one side of my long Swedish-blonde hair up in a quick braid, so it’s out of my face. Bjorn and Strom are still out, Strom breathing gently as Bjorn snores.

Strom has cuddled up to Bjorn now with an arm slung over the other man’s waist; it’s cute and makes me smile as I blow them both a kiss. I head out the door, making sure I have my cell phone with me in case they wake and wonder where I am.

I don’t know where I’m going, as I nod to the guards on our doors and move out into the quadrangle of the palace proper. I think about checking in on Mikkel and L?rke, then decide against it as I move past their doors, wanting to just take some time for myself this morning.

Though I wander to Rhennic’s rooms and inquire about him with the guards on his doors, I find he’s gone out already to the Storm Dragon state meeting I wouldn’t be allowed to attend. It gives me nothing but time now, as I wander through the halls, the beautiful gardens of the inner bailey, and stop in to get another snack of cheese and grapes at one of the opulent kitchens .

At last, I find myself near the doors of a large gaming room in the palace. It’s in the royal suite area of the inner palace and is a good spot for me to wait until Rhennic is done with his meeting; I head on in, feeling like a solo game of pool would be just the thing this morning.

I enter, but stop cold, because I’ve just walked into a simmering megawatt-blast of dragon energy occupying the gaming room.

Blood Dragon energy—as I see Mikkel straighten from a game of pool.

Mikkel’s alone in the large gaming hall. Our eyes lock the moment I push in through the doors; I let them close behind me, not caring that they bump my ass because I’m standing that close as I stop dead at the entrance.

Mikkel says nothing, merely straightens at the table as he sets the butt end of his cue on the floor. Our eyes are locked, my lavender ones to his intense black. Heat floods me as my inner dragons careen in my veins now; I know my gaze has just flooded brimstone red as I see an answering chartreuse fire in Mikkel’s.

He does nothing, only watches me as we both stand there, like a mongoose facing off with a snake. At last, he steps back, opening a hand to the table.

“Care for a game?”

I don’t know if he means me joining him in playing pool, or this intense game of carnal sex and magic that always possesses us the moment we meet. Though I think Mikkel’s offering for me to play pool, it’s something else that possesses us, as I slowly move into the room.

I come to the table, but stay on the opposite side of him. He moves towards me now, but not, as we circle the pool table like sharks. With our eyes locked, neither of us blinks from our intense standoff as we slowly circle.

In a dragon-dance as old as the Void is black.

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” I say as we circle the table, both equidistant, neither of us closing the distance or catching up .

“I needed a break from L?rke’s constant scheming for our clubs.” Mikkel watches me, hot, dark, and intense. “She’s got me on it morning, noon, and night while we’re here, not in-residence at our clubs anywhere. I can’t help it—when she says jump , I do, generally. She’s really the brains of our operation. Always thinking twenty steps ahead. I’m the show.”

“And you’re both the muscle.” I watch him, aware of just how many people Mikkel’s killed for crossing him in his business dealings over the centuries. “You’re the brains too, though… far more than you might admit.”

“Yes,” Mikkel says, as a dark shimmer takes him. I think it’s just his eyes, glowing with a seething chartreuse darkness from just how deep his ruthless ambition goes, until I see it’s also his dragon-magic, lifting to shimmer all around him in the gaming room like a snake’s scales.

Deadly and brilliant.

His response leaves us without words now, as we circle and evaluate each other. Unfortunately, I can feel my inner drake and drakaina rising to Mikkel’s hot promise of death, sex, and violence, which shimmers in his magic and in his eyes. He’s calm right now, but his indomitable energy floods me through our week-old bond.

Insane, with its need to rip and shred all enemies apart.

But it wants to rip and shred me, too, in the most impossibly hot way, as he circles me. Mikkel’s not closing the distance on me yet, but I can feel it in the air this morning from all the hot monkey sex Strom and I had last night.

Because Mikkel felt it too, through our bond—and I know he wants some, as we watch each other and circle.

Something we haven’t done since our initial bonding.

“How are your drakes?” he asks now, as if reading my mind through our bond. Mikkel has a plethora of mind-magics; I’m pretty sure he can read my mind anytime, as he watches me, intent.

“You’re my drake, too,” I remind him, though I know his choice of phrasing was intentional .

“You know I’m not.” His voice is quiet as he watches me, circling. “I may be bonded to you. I may feel metaphysically connected to your needs and desires just like they do, but I’m not one of them. Not by a long shot.”

“You could be, if you let yourself. I’ve felt it in you. Goodness.” I’m picking up on what he’s saying, but I think about that hopeful brightness I’ve felt in him a few times now, especially in the amphitheater yesterday, though Mikkel would never admit it.

“My goodness is a show, Rikyava. You know it and I know it. We both know what I am,” he says without missing a beat as he watches me.

But what he’s said is off. Whether it’s a flicker of his long, dark lashes, or a buzz of discontent upon my chest from Aesa’s Truthstone, or just my inner dragon-instinct, I know that what he’s said isn’t right.

I already know that somewhere in there, some part of Mikkel is still good. It’s some part of him that’s been strangled for so very long, however.

Still struggling to get out.

“You’re afraid that being noble or compassionate would make you weak. I get it. Every true warrior faces that insecurity inside themselves at some point,” I say now as I watch him. This time, I do see Mikkel’s eyelashes flicker. His smile twists, becoming wry and hard rather than sexy. Because I’ve just called him insecure , and that’s a big deal for a dragon.

It’s ruffled his scales, and I can practically see his metaphysical tail lash as he grips the pool cue in his hand tighter into a fist. He doesn’t crack the wood from his strength; Mikkel has too much control over his dragon-power for that. But it makes his casual movement become threatening now, as he steadily walks around the table.

I don’t know what he might do with that pool cue—but then I get a flash of memory from him. It’s of Mikkel killing an entire room full of dragons with a pool cue, in an ornate Victorian gaming hall not too dissimilar from this one.

Not only that, but he did it while they were all shifted and he was not. In human form, he somehow killed ten dragons in that vicious brawl. The memory flashes out like he didn’t mean for me to see it, and my eyes go wide. His are unapologetic, however, as he stares me down. I see retribution in their dark depths.

And wrath.

“They had L?rke. They were holding her prisoner, manacled by magic, so she couldn’t escape. They deserved it.” He watches me, endless wrath boiling from his cold, dark eyes, rather than heat.

“How old were you, then?” I breathe, as I get the feeling Mikkel wasn’t all that advanced in age when that event happened, or the twins’ empire much solidified.

“Seventeen.” We’ve not stopped circling, but the heat and power in the gaming hall have thickened a lot.

“That memory wasn’t all that long ago. Mid-1800s, maybe,” I say now, cocking my head as I finally have some sense of Mikkel’s age. “You and L?rke really aren’t much older than Strom, Bjorn, and me, are you? But you’re both beyond powerful.”

“I knew what I was, even back then, Rikyava. I knew I had what it took to overcome L?rke’s and my start in life and come out on top.” Mikkel gives a soft growl now as he watches me.

“What was your start in life? What made you this way, Mikkel—so vicious for retribution, and for building an empire to solidify your power?” I have to ask, as I wonder for the umpteenth time about the twins’ backstory.

“That’s for me to know, not you.” Mikkel stares me down, but then he takes a deep breath, as if surfacing out of the black depths of his inner demon of a drake. He thaws, his smile still wry but more gentle, his eyes softer, too. “I don’t want to burden anyone with that, Rikyava. Truly, I don’t. The less you know about L?rke and me, the better. Your drakes, too.”

“Even Strom doesn’t know the whole story, does he?” I say as I understand, and Mikkel nods.

“And he never will.”

I stop circling the pool table and Mikkel stops, too. It leaves us at opposite ends of the table with the sensation of a gulf between us, though I know we should be trying to get closer and solidify our bond.

Mikkel’s just too prickly a kitty to get to know well, however, and I know now that he will not let me in. Not unless I force my way there. Which I could do with my magics, I also know, as I feel Aesa’s Truthstone hum upon my chest.

But forcing my drakes to spill their secrets just isn’t my style. I abandon the thought, even as Mikkel cocks his head, watching me with curiosity.

“You just had the thought that you could force me to tell you about my past… but you chose not to. Why?” he asks now, genuine befuddlement on his face, as if that’s the exact opposite of how he would have done things.

“I’m not like that, Mikkel,” I say as I regard him, “and being with me isn’t a chore, or a drag on your ruthless ambitions. I’m sorry I bound you—that I had to. I’m sorry fate put us in this situation, to bond or die from everything we’re up against. I will not apologize for what I am, though, or how I’ve chosen to be in life. I got a rough start, too; my entire family is dead, and you don’t see me carrying a massive vendetta like some huge fucking chip on my shoulder to the end of my days. Does my family’s death still piss me off? Absolutely. Do I let it define what I am? No. That is my choice. And it always will be.”

I see Mikkel take that in as he startles at my tirade, then goes stock-still. It’s almost like he’s turned to stone; he’s gone quiet in a way I’ve never felt, from his massive, indomitable energy.

As if both he and his dragon have been shocked by the idea that they have a choice about what and how they might be, I see him expand his thoughts on the matter.

And wonder if he’s made the right choice all these years.

“You think I’m a bad man,” he says abruptly now.

“Yes and no,” I say back, truthful. “You’ve done bad things in your life; I’ll give you that. Was some of it warranted? Maybe. You make a choice, however, to continue being ruthless, rather than taking a proper look at your life and wondering if there is some other way you could be. Amassing clubs, influence, money, and power is one way to do things—and making people shit-scared of you with how your monstrous energy can change on a fucking dime. But now, you’ve got a chance to do something else with it. What will you choose, Mikkel? What will you choose…?”

I leave it hanging as I give it to him straight, because someone needs to. I see Mikkel ponder it now as his head cocks and his grip upon the pool cue flexes and eases, then flexes again.

It’s as if he can’t decide whether to be furious with me right now for giving him a piece of my mind in the way he only allows L?rke, or be ruthlessly attracted to me, for being such a ballsy drakaina that I would speak to him this way.

Absolutely zero fucks given about his power, influence, or his money.

“No drakaina’s ever spoken to me like this, no one but L?rke.” He confirms my suspicions as his full lips twitch into the most perplexed smile ever. “No one’s ever dared to—or they wanted something out of me and chose their words far more carefully.”

“Hey, if your Bloodmate can’t give it to you straight, then who can?” I chide now, pretending to be lighthearted, even though I’m still staring him down.

I feel a deep movement in his aura, then. At the word Bloodmate , something in Mikkel flinched. I can see it now, feel it, as his black aura swirls all around me in the gaming hall. It flickers just the tiniest bit copper, though it soon fades to its regular vicious chartreuse green and black.

“Do you want to leave this bond, Mikkel?” I ask now, as we come to it at last. “I don’t know how to do that, but I can sure as hell find some way to make it happen, if that’s what you want.”

“No,” he says at once. Closing his eyes, he takes a moment before opening them. “I don’t want to leave your bond. L?rke seems to think it’s good for me, and I trust her opinion. I feel it too, strangely, though I do not know how.”

“Then you need to let me in.” I speak on instinct now, knowing it’s right as Aesa’s stone hums upon my chest. “If you can’t trust me and my drakes to have your back, Mikkel, then we can’t trust you to have ours. And trust is what we all need to go up against the Black Dragon, the Knights, and anything else that assails us. And whatever makes you so ruthless, and so protective of L?rke… well, we’ve got your back on that, too. Because you’re one of us now. Just like we helped Strom with his memories, and we will help Bjorn when he finally faces his father, we’ve got you, too. We might go about helping with your problem a bit differently than you’ve been doing, but we’re here for you, Mikkel—you and L?rke, both. You’re a part of this now, a part of us. I don’t take that shit lightly. You get me?”

Mikkel stares at me, and I feel something inside him churn. He’s got such a tremendous lock on his mind and magic that I feel little of it, and see nothing inside my mind.

But it’s as if something inside him has been waiting all his life to hear that someone’s got his back. I see him swallow hard, his dark eyebrows pinching ever so slightly into a look of pure hope, despair, and woe.

That one moment transforms him from sensually diabolical into absolutely stunning, as I watch his almost vengeful-angel handsomeness flip into heartache and hope.

With that tentative hope, however, comes so much despair. It makes my entire heart ache now for Mikkel, and for L?rke both, as he stares at me. His lips have fallen open; slowly, he shuts them, but not before I hear a sigh escape him.

Mikkel sets the pool cue down on top of the table.

Then comes to me, as I stand my ground and let him.