Page 39

Chapter 39

MUSIC AND CHATTER TICKLE MY senses as I survey my Naming party from the shadows of a side entrance no one is paying attention to. Drakes dance in the center of the large ballroom or mill about around its edges. It’s all very civilized for a species that can be anything but.

The impressive glass ceiling allows the night sky to look down on us, and it’s so beautiful I thought it was a painting at first. I almost wish I could stand here all night under the protection of the stars and the great mythical beasts carved into the columns that border the room. There are snake-like creatures with wings too small to ever ride a current. Great sea beasts with fins and gills. And wingless monsters with heads that look like some mix of lion and leviathan, and long ribbons for tongues.

I think they’re depictions of dragons, or what some ancient cultures thought dragons looked like, but I can’t say for sure. The people who thought such things are either long dead or now know that our kind can walk among them just as easily as we can turn into the great winged beasts of their nightmares.

Well, most of us anyway.

A strand of flame-orange hair falls in my face, and I smooth it back. My updo is a little looser than it should be thanks to all the pins I used to open the door. I’m also a handful of butterflies short, but their wings helped me finally wedge the door open, so I consider their sacrifice worth it.

Slipping a calm apathetic mask in place, I abandon my hidden perch and step into the ballroom. The Syphons know most of the big players in the hierarchy, but our intel is a hodge podge of hacked files, gossip feeds, and back channel rumblings. I can identify all of the dukes and duchesses, probably half of the counts and countesses, but when it comes to every lord and lady, I’m done for. The same can be said for their military leaders. I have the generals and commanders locked in, and maybe a few captains, but trying to identify all of the Wings, Flights, and Squads is impossible.

I study the drakes that I pass, while making sure I don’t run into any hovering trays holding cocktails and canapés. I skirt the crowd and open my senses, combing through the various scents and sounds for anything noteworthy. All too quickly, I pick up on a murmur spreading through The Horde like fire eating through dry brush. People watch me intently, bowing and curtsying when I pass, and it’s plain to see that my days of just being another face in the crowd are over.

Tonight, my anonymity was officially stripped from me. I was willing to trade it for a name and a place amongst the dragons, something I’ve wanted and thought about since I was old enough to understand the magnitude of what was taken from me. And yet it all feels surprisingly…empty.

Maybe it’s because I’m here alone and still only on phase one of the Syphons’ plans to reclaim what we lost. There’s so much left to do before it will be us in this ballroom, together, laughing and prattling on without a single other care or worry.

“We weren’t expecting you for another half hour,” Lorn declares, and I turn to see him striding toward me.

“Expecting?” I ask, confused, and then quickly throw a hand up to stop the scion just as he’s about to invade my personal space. “You need to stay two feet away from me, or you’re going to set off my dress,” I warn.

“What?” he questions, confused.

“My dress will turn on you if you get any closer.” I gesture to the deceptively calm butterflies, and Lorn’s gaze alights on one that has dried blood on its wings.

“Got it,” he murmurs warily, taking half a step back while he studies me a little more intently. “Where are your guards?” he asks after a beat.

I shrug and once again point at the fluttering kaleidoscope. “Best body guards I’ve ever had. Ten out of ten, highly recommended.”

A flicker of suspicion moves through the scion’s features. “Better yet, where is Aeson?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I answer flippantly as I resume the circuit I was making around the room. “He has a tendency to run off, but if you see him, feel free to strongly encourage him to stay the fuck away from me.”

Lorn snorts and falls into step next to me while carefully staying more than two feet away. “I take it things are going well?”

“Dandy,” I deadpan.

Lorn’s grin is pure amusement. “He cares for you, you know.”

I scoff and roll my eyes. “He’s got a funny way of showing it.”

“Mm-hmm,” the scion hums. “I suspect you both do.”

“He doesn’t know me well enough to care for me, none of you do,” I counter, dismissing Lorn’s obvious fishing expedition.

“That’s not how it works with our kind, you know that. He doesn’t need to know everything about you to form a bond.”

I laugh and Lorn’s brow furrows. “Bond? That’s not what’s happening here. I can’t bond, I haven’t revealed.”

Lorn reaches out a hand to stop me and then quickly pulls it back before a butterfly can nick him. “You’re kidding, right?” he asks, his eyes raking over my face. “Who told you that?”

My grin falters. “What do you mean? Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone most certainly does not,” he contends. “You can’t go into estrus unless you’ve revealed, but once you’ve matured, you can absolutely bond. That sort of thing is innate. There have been plenty of cases in our people’s history where a dragon took time to reveal, but they were still able to bond.”

My thoughts stutter, and my mouth drops open and gets stuck as I try to process what he just said. Lorn’s eyes flick back and forth between mine, growing more troubled with each pass.

“Ever, you do understand that’s what’s been happening between you and Aeson since you met, right? It’s very serious. You almost sent him into a frenzy the night you got here. He can feel your dragon calling to him. You most definitely triggered a bond.”

“I did not,” I argue, immediately defensive, confused, and really fucking concerned. I press a palm to my chest as though it will help my racing heart chill the fuck out.

He can feel my dragon?

“Wait, why is it serious?” I demand, bafflement temporarily staving off the rising tide of my alarmed astonishment.

“Because bonds can be tampered with if they’re left unfulfilled,” he explains. “From the second a bond forms, your instincts go into overdrive. You’ll become more possessive, more restless, more volatile, and more vulnerable. The bond will relentlessly push and push until you give in. If you don’t, you’ll reach a point where your instincts no longer care who you bond with, just that you do. Anyone at that point could step in and trap you in a warped bond, and you’d be so crazed with need and driven to the edge of your instincts, you wouldn’t stop it even if you wanted to.”

I stare at Lorn, completely dazed. I wait for him to crack a smile and fire off a got ya before he starts laughing hysterically at my expense. Instead, he looks just as worried as I feel.

What the fuck? Where was any of this in the Growing Up Dragon books the wyverns told us covered the basics? I mean, I knew my education was lacking, but I didn’t know I could be turned into a sex-crazed maniac who’d settle for absolutely anyone if I didn’t hop on the magic dick my instincts decided was just right .

My chest starts to feel tight. Did it get hot in here, because I’m suddenly roasting. I start to fan myself, my eyes darting around with the realization that far too many people are probably listening in on this very private, very messed up conversation.

“Don’t worry, your dress has its tricks, and my suit has a few precautions of its own. No one can hear us.”

Well, thank fuck for that at least.

Lorn looks at me like I’m some kind of enigma. I’m pretty sure he’s horrified by my clear lack of understanding when it comes to my own nature, although why he’d assume I know shit about our kind, I don’t know. To be fair, I haven’t exactly been forthcoming with my ignorance. I was so worried that they might use it against me, I never thought that I might be setting myself up for something like this simply because I didn’t know better.

“Your dragon has claimed him too,” he tells me, like it should be obvious. “Bonds aren’t one-sided. That’s the pull you feel. That’s why you’re territorial of him and your nest.”

“That’s not fucking possible,” I whisper-shout, my eyes flicking around us as I try to school my features.

The drakes around us may not be able to hear what we’re saying, but they can still read body language. I don’t want it to look like I’m fighting with the scion or like I’m on the verge of losing my shit.

“My dragon hasn’t claimed him, Lorn. I don’t have a fucking dragon!”

“Ever, you are a fucking dragon! Just because you can’t reveal or manifest affinities doesn’t change what you are at your core. Aeson is your Bonded Mate and you’re his.”

I shake my head like it will clear it of everything Lorn is lobbing at me and round on him. “Then why in the fae fuck is he so mad about the deal I made with the king? I agreed to be his mate; isn’t that what he wants, what will keep us both from going crazy?”

“Yes, but he wants you to agree willingly , not be coerced into it,” Lorn argues. “No honorable male would accept that.”

My thoughts dart back to the conversation I heard the night before. King Noctis mentioned they would take more drastic measures if I didn’t accept Aeson’s claim, but it wasn’t about my political influence and using me, it was about what would happen to us if I kept fighting the inevitable.

I press a hand over my mouth as though it will anchor my reeling thoughts. I’m dumbstruck, and yet…the pull, the awakening of my dragon and my instincts, the lust, the way my brain turns to mush the second he gets too close…the signs were there. I just didn’t know what they were pointing at, so I dismissed them.

Lorn sighs and his features soften. “I know you’ve been fighting practically your whole life, Ever, but you don’t have to fight him. Aeson is the best male I know, next to our father. He’d do anything for you, but not if you won’t let him in. I know you think you’re doing what’s right, that your silence and impenetrable walls are protecting you, but at what cost? You’re not alone now. Let your mate help. Let us help, as your new family.”

His offer both touches and terrifies me. It sounds so simple, and yet the opposite is true. My mind is a whirlwind of what the fuck , and I have no idea what to think, feel, or do right now. I close my eyes, desperate to recalibrate, to let my world shift on its axis so I can make sense of all of this.

Aeson Noctis is my Bonded Mate.

My. Bonded. Mate.

“I was wondering where you disappeared,” King Noctis exclaims, and with a jolt, my eyes flash open.

He knew. This was the reason for the deal. It wasn’t a political move, he was protecting his son, and maybe even me.

“Oh good, I see you found the lady of the hour,” the king declares with a wide smile, his eyes landing on me for a moment before they begin searching behind me. “And where is…ah…Aeson, there you are!”

I tense and my whole body grows frigid while simultaneously flashing with heat.

Shit.

I’m not ready! I can’t face him yet!

Desperate to escape, I start frantically searching for an exit, but the annoyingly familiar faces of Aeson’s Wing are spread out all around us. I start tabulating which one of them I might be able to get past, and then I feel a large scorching palm against my bare back.

“There you are,” Aeson rumbles, and I wonder if anyone else can hear the menace in it or if it’s just me. “I was just wondering where you snuck off to.”

He quickly steps away before the butterflies can get more than a few swipes in, and my skin instantly laments the loss of his touch. His presence is all at once overwhelming, even two feet away, and I know it’s too late.

I’m trapped…in every sense.

My blood is molten lava. My pulse is one continuous beat of shit, shit, shit . My body is aware of every shift in weight and intake of breath, and my dragon is demanding I close the distance between us immediately. I almost want to laugh, because how the fuck did I not see it before? It’s so damn obvious. I can practically feel the bond snap into place at his proximity, like a tight string on an instrument ready to play the perfect note if plucked, stroked, or caressed just right.

I brave a glance at Aeson’s face, and the second our gazes connect, I’m certain he can read every chaotic, confused, carnal thought careening within me.

You don’t have to fight him.

He’d do anything for you.

You’re not alone now.

Lorn’s assertions rebound through my mind, blocking out the pleasantries the three Noctises begin to exchange.

I study the commander, looking at him as though I’m seeing him for the first time. He’s no longer just my enemy, my captor, the itch I’ve been fighting not to scratch. He’s now the berth I’ll be moored to, the sun my instincts will forever orbit, the future I’m not sure I can ever have.

Lorn wants me to let Aeson in, to solidify this tether between us by giving him my trust, my secrets. But they’re not mine alone to hand over. I can’t compromise all the other vital connections that make up who I am, not even for my Bonded Mate. And that realization guts me.

King Noctis says something that has Aeson grinning and looking over at me with a curious glint in his eyes. “What do you say, Claws? You up for the challenge?”

“I’m always up for a challenge,” I answer evenly, proud that I sound calm and confident when inside I’m a screaming knot of nerves and exhilaration. I have no clue what I just agreed to, but I’m not going to admit that my brain is melting down over this mate shit and I haven’t been paying attention.

“Excellent.” The king nods and then tosses me a wide smile. “Any particular song?”

Song?

“It’s okay, I’ll choose one,” he dismisses and then strides off before I can respond or figure out what he’s talking about.

Puzzled, I turn back to Aeson. “What’s going on?”

His features fill with mischief, and he bends at the waist, offering me his hand like some gallant gentleman. “Ever Tenebrae, may I have this dance?”

Well, fuck.