Page 37

Chapter 37

MY LIFE IS GOING TO shit in every possible way, and tonight is only going to make it worse. But, hey, at least I look good.

I twist and study every angle of my body in the Syphon Glass I’m pretending is just a mirror. The crystal butterflies that adorn my dress glitter with my movement as they catch the light. The dress hugs my torso like a second skin, while leaving my back bare. It drapes beautifully to the ground. The fabric the jeweled insects are clinging to is some kind of gossamer, ethereal material I couldn’t name if my life depended on it. It’s a shade rosier than my complexion, and there’s a sheen to it that gives off a subtle glow. It’s the perfect canvas for the butterflies of all shapes and sizes that cluster around my bust, flutter down my torso, and gather in droves around my hips. The crystalline creatures cover every private part of me while giving the illusion that they could fly away at any second, leaving me completely exposed.

The gown is a stunning work of art, and I’m not even mad that it doesn’t appear to have any lasers.

I lean closer to my reflection and marvel at the beautiful updo my hair has been styled into. There’s zero chance I could ever replicate it on my own, but it doesn’t stop me from studying every detail. I brush the tips of my fingers across the rosy apple of my cheek. The dye applied to my face has even me questioning if there might actually be a deity perched on one of the branches of my family tree.

I’ve never looked more beautiful, or felt more doomed because of it.

“Do you like it?” Nixy asks softly as the drone projecting her image circles me.

If she was here in person, she’d be fluffing my skirts and fussing over the jeweled butterflies that have been pinned in my hair even though they’re fine. Her blue-hazel gaze studies my face, but I know the concern I see steeped in her features isn’t about the dress, it’s about everything that just happened between me and Enslee.

I don’t know how Nixy listened in on the conversation, but from the moment the wyvern blinked back into existence and told me that Aeson’s Wing should be able to get a message to the king, it’s clear that she heard every sniped word.

“It’s incredible,” I tell her, a hitch in my tone.

I drop my eyes from hers and run my hand over a butterfly near my shoulder. It really is the perfect camouflage I need for tonight. With so much of me on display, people won’t know where to look, or where to leer. If the nobles are busy ogling and judging, maybe they’ll miss what’s not there to stare at…like a dragon mark.

Divided attention makes it easier to overlook the enchanted anklet I’m wearing, or keep The Horde from noticing how intently I’m watching each and every one of them while searching for any signs of malice or recognition. They can look their fill while I gather useful intel the Syphons will need when this forsaken curse is finally broken and we once again claim our rightful place.

Arguing starts up behind me, and Nixy and I both turn to watch Azo and a couple of my newly appointed guards locked in a heated exchange. Things have been tense since the guards stormed in here in search of the unauthorized signal being flagged as a security breach. They scanned the room several times and found nothing. Farrow and Karis accepted those results before they left to deliver my simple message to the king. However, two of the initiates haven’t been as willing to let it go. A hairy male named Shaw, who looks more lycan than drake, and the Channeler from earlier with the crooked nose and olive green scale armor, Julian.

Azo shoots a pleading look at either me or Nixy as the two drakes do their best to intimidate him into giving them answers. With a huff, I abandon my reflection in the Syphon Glass and stride to the human’s rescue.

“I assure you, the signal the security system picked up on has to be that,” Azo affirms, gesturing to the small black remote that Shaw is holding in his hand. “It’s the only thing it could be. If you would just allow me to turn it on, you’d see what I mean.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” Shaw growls at the human. “We turn it on, and boom, you take out everyone in this room in one fell swoop. Is that the plan?”

Azo sighs and deflates with defeat. He put on a good act of being terrified when the guards first started questioning him, but now he’s starting to look tired of the endless loop of accusations.

“It’s not an explosive,” Azo argues. “If it were, the four scans you’ve already done would have picked up on it. It’s for her dress. It arms the butterflies.”

“Arms the butterflies?” I ask as I join the keyed up huddle.

“Yes, it’s the security measure Nixy programmed at your request,” Azo tells me.

My head snaps in the direction of Nixy’s semitransparent visage. “Do the butterflies shoot lasers?” I ask excitedly.

The flat, troubled line of her lips lifts into a smile. “No, dragoness, I couldn’t get authorization for that…though I did try.”

My eyes flare with surprise, and my grin suddenly matches the wyvern’s. I can only imagine how that conversation went with the royal planners. If Nixy wasn’t already on a watchlist, she sure as shit would be now.

“While there are no lasers involved, the butterflies will serve as a dance deterrent once they’re activated,” Nixy explains.

“Say less,” I chirp, and then I snatch the remote out of Shaw’s hand before he can stop me.

“Dragoness, don’t!” several drakes shout at once, but I’m already pressing the button on the device marked on .

Julian leaps toward me and tries to make a grab for the remote, but it beeps and the on button turns green. I can just make out the sound of tearing fabric over the alarmed shouting, and for a second, I worry I’ve ripped my dress. Then, out of nowhere, a kaleidoscope of butterflies breaks free from the bag still hanging on the rack across the room. They quickly flash my way, and the next thing I know, I’m surrounded by flying, bejeweled magi-tech that starts to dive bomb and slash at the guards with razor-sharp wings.

I watch in rapt shock as the crystalline butterflies attack. They draw blood and elicit chaos as they push back the small contingent of guards tasked to protect me. One of the Channelers blasts the swarm with air, blowing them away from me and everyone else, but the fluttering little weapons simply regroup and renew their charge.

“If you back up, they’ll stop!” Nixy shouts at the guards, her drone joining the melee. “They’re programmed for a six-foot radius, but it can be adjusted if you’ll just back off for a second so I can fix it!”

I look down at the remote and hurriedly click another button. It starts counting down from six with each press, and I stop when I get to two, resetting the attack radius for the dress. I look up and the butterflies instantly calm. They pull in closer to me, some of them landing and blending in with the others already attached to my dress, while the rest of the kaleidoscope continues to flutter around my body like they’re nothing more than innocent animatronic accessories.

Bloody scales, that just might be better than lasers.

My smirk is wide and elation percolates through me as I survey the cuts and scrapes marring a handful of very pissed off drakes.

“Please don’t do that, they’re very hard to make,” Nixy pleads, and I look over to find a Burner melting butterflies with the blue flames floating in his hand, while a Thrasher works to crush the ones he managed to catch.

“Hey!” I shout, rage and possession surging in time with my dragon as it unexpectedly swells and presses against the confines of my body. “Those are mine .”

Something in my voice has every head in the room cautiously turning to take me in. The blue flame in the Burner’s hand sputters out, and the Thrasher opens his fist and lets two butterflies fly away. I glare at both guards while internally trying not to freak out over the unexpected possessive show of my broken other half.

“What is going on here?” Farrow demands, drawing everyone’s attention as he strides into the room, Karis tight on his heels.

Both Wing members look pissed, but that could have everything to do with my refusal to explain my cryptic message to the king before I ordered them to deliver it, and nothing to do with the face-off that’s occurring between me and the guards they left behind.

“We leave you alone for ten minutes and come back to this,” Farrow barks with obvious disdain.

“It’s the butterflies, sir,” Shaw rushes to explain while gesturing wildly in my direction.

I bite back a laugh at the incredulous look that crosses Farrow’s face.

Karis turns to me and notches an eyebrow. “Explain.”

For some reason, that makes me want to laugh even harder, and I press a palm to my mouth to keep it in.

Nixy’s projection zips forward a couple feet, and she squares her shoulders. “The dragoness requested a proximity trigger be added to her gown. She wanted to discourage anyone she wasn’t comfortable with from getting too close. We were just arming it, and they reacted before we could set the parameters for the tech.”

“That’s the addition to her clothing that had to get approval?” Karis asks, his eyes tracking the innocent laps the butterflies are now making around me. “Proximity bugs?”

Nixy nods. “Yes.”

Karis opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but then he seems to think better of it and simply shakes his head.

“On a positive note, we know that everything works now,” Azo adds cheerfully as though that makes all of this better.

A guard with a good size gash on his forehead glares at the human, and I lose the battle with the giggles I’ve been trying to fight off. It’s probably some sort of stress response and a surefire sign that I’m losing it, but there’s no holding back the peals of laughter that pour out of me.

“You got your asses kicked by…butterflies,” I howl, pointing at the guards before bending at the waist to help me breathe between guffaws.

“I’d hardly call it an ass kicking,” Julian grumbles as he studies the already healing cuts on his hands.

“What would you call it then?” I titter. “A butterfly beatdown?”

An amused smile replaces Julian’s scowl. “We’re all still standing, so it falls miles short of a beatdown . And if you hadn’t gotten all possessive when Lahar started torching them, we would have had everything under control in no time. I’d say it was a wing whoopin’ at best.”

His brown eyes drop to my dimple when my smile grows even wider. “A wing whoopin’ it is then,” I agree brightly.

“Enough,” Farrow interrupts, a disapproving look fixed on Julian. “I want everyone cleaned up and ready to go. We move out in five.”

The order has everyone sobering and snapping to it, including me.

I look over at Nixy. “Any way you can lengthen the proximity to twenty feet instead of two?”

She huffs out a small laugh. “Afraid not, dragoness.”

I sigh. “Worth a try.” I turn to Karis. “And I definitely have to go to this? We can’t pretend I’m sick or something?”

“We move out in five,” he repeats, stone-faced and firm.

“Shit. This is actually happening,” I murmur, somehow surprised by that fact even though everything has been leading up to this since I got here.

Maybe it was all the time I was convinced someone would kill me before now, or the hours I spent just last night debating if I should try to make a run for it, but somehow, against all odds, I’m still here, and The Horde is waiting.

Azo starts packing up the table and chair into cases and loading them onto the floating rack. Nixy’s drone darts in front of me, and we stare at one another for a moment. There’s so much I want to say to her right now, but I can’t, not with everyone listening.

“Thank you, Fenox,” I offer instead.

She risked so much to let me talk to my sister, and I can’t help feeling like I squandered all of her hard work and disregarded the danger she put herself in with the way I handled that conversation with Enslee. My anger suddenly feels misplaced, and regret swarms me at how I left things.

Enslee and I don’t argue often, we never have. There’s always too much to prepare for, too much to do. It leaves no time to get tangled up in hurt feelings and ego. We both let ourselves get dragged down into the muck of stress and pressure today, and what’s worse is we did it in front of an audience.

“It was my pleasure to assist you, dragoness,” Nixy tells me, the picture of professionalism. “Azo has a clutch for you that will hold that remote. In case you want to disarm the butterflies.”

I nod and look down at the device I’m still holding.

“It’ll be okay,” she whispers. “Spark the fla—”

Nixy’s diaphanous image vanishes. I startle at the unexpected departure and look down to find Karis picking up the drone. He must have turned it off. Karis hands it to Farrow, who tucks the device under his arm.

“That was rude,” I chide.

Fast as a striking snake, Karis plucks the remote from my hands. The butterflies instantly react to his breach of the two-foot perimeter I programmed them to defend, but as soon as he backs away, they become docile once again.

“That was even ruder!” I snap.

Karis presses the off button, and outrage starts to surge through me until I notice that the butterflies are still flapping around like they’re blatantly disregarding the command to stop. The big Thrasher aims the remote at them this time and tries the off button again, but still nothing happens.

“It’s keyed to the dragoness’s biometrics,” Azo offers cheerfully.

I can’t tell if that’s the human’s default personality setting or if this is his passive aggressive way of saying nanny nanny boo boo to the drake that’s trying to ruin all of his and Nixy’s hard work.

“Escort him out,” Karis tells Farrow, and alarm permeates my indignation when Farrow grabs Azo by the arm and drags him away.

“What’s your problem?” I demand, growing even more pissed by the second because I want to stop what’s happening, but I’m worried if I try, it will show my hand and make everything worse.

“Aside from your mystery message to the king, your attack butterflies, or the fact that the human and the wyvern facilitated an unauthorized transmission to someone in the southern territories, I don’t have any problems. You, on the other hand, have some serious explaining to do. But that’s the commander’s problem, not mine. Let’s go.”

My heart drops like a cannonball into my stomach. I lock down every voluntary reaction I have and force myself to inhale and exhale evenly until any involuntary sign of panic or guilt is crushed under the force of my ironclad resolve to give nothing away.

“You’re hilarious,” I deadpan, desperate to throw him off. “Now answer my question truthfully this time.”

Karis gives me a look that makes it clear he’s not buying anything I’m trying to sell.

“Are you going to turn those off?” he asks, obnoxiously unfazed as he holds out the remote to me and nods at the winged security system gliding gently around me.

I let my gaze fill with a silent yet unmistakable fuck you and cross my arms in answer.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” Karis grumbles before he turns and walks away, the remote to my dress still clutched in his hand.

I have no choice but to follow, my heels clacking annoyingly on the dragon stone floor as I go. I need to warn Nixy, but as quickly as that thought surfaces, I already know it’s impossible. Even if I tried, I’d only dig a deeper hole for her and Azo. As much as I hate it, their best bet is for me to pretend like I don’t care for now and then set things up so I can fall on my sword for them later.

My mind gets busy trying to spin things into a story that’s true enough to stand up to a Thrasher’s lie detector abilities while exonerating Nixy and her assistant. Hopefully, they have contingency plans in place to destroy evidence and cover their tracks in the event something like this happened.

I trail after the big grumpy Thrasher until I’m once again surrounded by guards and being led out of the rookery. The halls and elevators we take are all familiar, but the final destination is not. Everyone is silent as we make our way, either due to vigilance or because they’re pissed like I am. When we stop at a pair of towering golden doors, I know my time is up. On the other side of this threshold is the king, The Horde, and the scion I agreed to mate. My past and my future are about to collide, and I have no idea who will be left standing in the wake of the impact. I’m also not sure I even care anymore.

“Ready?” someone asks me, but I don’t turn to see who.

I pull in a deep breath, raise my chin, and put my shoulders back as I whisper beneath my breath. “Spark the flames. Ignite the infernos. Ash the embers.”

And then, the doors open.