48. YOU WANT HIM TOO
Chapter forty-eight
YOU WANT HIM TOO
Amira
“ W hat is a Dowrra?” Orion asked, barely waiting for the portal to close behind King Balor and Clodagh. He did not seem nearly as suspicious as he had been in the past about me, but he was definitely feeling uneasy.
I focused on dispersing my salt circle as I debated how to answer him. I certainly had not forgotten this shocking revelation from Balor either, but I was not sure I had the energy to examine it yet. Since it meant that my mother may have lied to me about my father after all…
“Amira,” insisted Orion, and I knew he would only get more anxious if I tried to put off the conversation.
“Dowrra Choose a mate like griffins do, but it is more unconscious. Instinctive. The bond they create allows the Dowrra to take on characteristics of her mate,” I began to recite what I knew without looking up at either griffin. “As far as I’ve ever heard, they are female and usually mate with vampires, so they tend to gain immortality and bloodlust. Vampires covet them because they—”
“Go on,” Orion encouraged me when I wavered with a startling realization.
“They… magnify power. In the offspring,” I clarified, finally looking at Riordan who was fully absorbed in me. “Whatever traits of power their mate has, they magnify it in their offspring. Vampires will often fight to acquire a Dowrra mate. That is all I know,” I assured him even as my mind began to race with possibilities.
So then Castor’s concerns about you making my heirs weaker is entirely unfounded, Riordan teased, and I shot him a wide-eyed smirk.
“The king called you an affliction,” Orion reminded, clearly worried that I was withholding information.
“To someone who does not want to be bound to just one mate, yes, I suppose a Dowrra would be an affliction. The bond makes it impossible for either of them to take any other lovers.”
“But you kissed—” Orion bit off his words, but I knew exactly what he had been about to say.
“If Dowrra exhibit traits of their mate, then that is how you were able to create the taíri bond with me. It is why you feel the pull to my skiá like a griffin female would,” Riordan pieced together.
Orion’s eyes widened at our king’s unabashed words, and then he turned away from us both as if to think.
“I also noticed lately that my power seemed… deeper. Stronger. It hasn’t felt as intense as the first time I used your magic to kill those vampires, so I didn’t realize it, but I think I have been using yours all long,” I admitted. “Only now… it feels like mine .”
I was expecting Riordan to be impressed, but he was not even a little surprised by this.
“You knew! Why didn’t you tell me?” I gasped.
“Whenever we practised, it seemed you struggled to tap into my power. But when you treated it as your own, then it came to you naturally. I wanted you to be able to protect yourself and our friends instead of overthinking,” Riordan explained himself.
“Like… when I trapped Balor. He knew it, and that is why I scared him so much,” I realized aloud.
“The way we use magic is different. I will use it as a brute force to alter the laws of this world when I build a home for the Spring Court fey here. But you have spent your life learning spells to achieve your will, and it has taught you a finesse that is more useful for certain types of magic. We have unique strengths,” he pointed out.
“But she could also alter this world the way you do?” Orion verified. “Balor said… she could take your will.”
“I think the only limitations she has now will be the ones she imposes upon herself,” Riordan admitted with a fond smile for me. “As for my will… it is hers.”
Orion was clearly not nearly as comfortable with that as Riordan seemed to be.
“Dowrra can only use their mate’s gifts when they are close to them,” I tried to reassure Orion. “All you would have to do is remove him from my proximity, and my ability to use his power is diminished.”
Maybe other women aspired to have power, but I was rather content in my role. Safety, love, and respect were all I’d ever wanted, and I now had it all with my mate. Perhaps my interests would evolve in the future, since we had established I would not age in the Vale, and Dowrra tended to live as long as their mate did. And I knew that if I ever did decide I wanted a different role, then Riordan would support it wholeheartedly.
But for now, I was just a witch in her late twenties with zero yearning to rule over a kingdom.
“How is it that you were not aware of this heritage?” Orion wanted to know.
“My mother never told me. This means I am a hybrid, which is illegal in my world after… the Iscariot War when hybrids were used to slaughter nonhumans,” I reminded them with a glance at Riordan. “But witch magic has been in decline for centuries, so my coven must have started breeding with Dowrra to increase their power again.”
“So there are probably more hybrids in your coven. More witches that can take on the strengths and talents of powerful mates,” Orion verified, and I winced.
“Yeah, probably…”
You kissed him.
I was exhausted, barely keeping my eyes open while Riordan flew us back to Kórinthos from the meeting with King Balor. But I still shivered at the deep timbre of his voice in my mind. He sounded like he had been fixated on this for some time and had finally relented in asking me.
It was very brief.
He was quiet, but I could feel him sort of hovering at the edges of my memories. Like he wanted to know more, but he also wanted to respect my privacy.
So I intentionally began to remember how Orion had kissed me. How his hand fisted in my hair. How his lips guided mine with such subtle but undeniable command. The way his breath hitched. How he gently used his teeth to draw my lower lip into his mouth to suck on it…
I was sure to focus only on the physical sensations in order to keep Orion’s secrets private. But I could tell that Riordan was far too captivated by the details I was giving him to worry about what I was keeping back. I could feel how he savoured every memory of the experience with a zeal that rivaled the delight I had felt in the moment.
Dispelling any lingering uncertainties I might still have had about how he felt concerning his skiá…
You want him too.
I had known it was true for a while now, but we had not yet acknowledged it between us. Although I was not at all prepared for the scope of Riordan’s admission…
I have for a very long time, he revealed.
“But…?” I blurted out loud, unable to focus enough to project my thoughts to him when his admission took me so completely off guard. “You said you only just started to feel things like sexual desire,” I reminded him.
Yes, but love is not merely sexual, he insisted with a hint of amusement at my outburst.
“But… you never told him?”
No. I was not yet able to give him what he would have wanted from me. Sex is a core part of love for Ktínos, Riordan explained himself.
But now you are ready to give him what he’ll want?
Riordan was hesitant for a moment before he tightened his arms around me and buried his face in my neck in a deeply emotional hug while he continued to fly.
Amira, you are my mate. There can be no relationship in my heart that you are not a part of, he assured me.
Meaning that he would not act on anything with Orion unless it included me.
“I think…” I think we can explore that, I admitted.
“You want to bring the Spring Court King here ?”
I perfectly understood Isaura’s wariness when Riordan began to explain his plan to the council the next morning. The honest truth was that I wasn’t excited by the prospect of that creature living in our kingdom either.
“He needs sanctuary, and we need warriors. It will also prevent Rian from becoming even more powerful than he already is,” Riordan reminded them of his main points.
“Balor has a reputation as a conniving, ruthless tyrant,” noted Dio nervously. I did not think I had ever heard him disagree with my mate during these meetings, but he was clearly uncertain of this plan.
“What if all the fey in the Spring Quadrant defect?” demanded Riordan’s mother, Andromeda, whom he had asked to join the council for this important decision.
“I considered that and sent fey emissaries to gauge the attitude of the Spring Quadrant toward Balor weeks ago. They have not forgotten it was my brother who actively helped them come here to escape the Iscariot War when Balor refused to aid them.”
“You did that?” his mother blurted, clearly surprised and impressed with him. “You sent out emissaries?”
“Of course! Did you think I had come to this decision lightly or naively?” Riordan demanded.
I could tell the anger had come out of him from a place of frustration with his mother’s constant underestimating before he was able to catch himself.
“And of course, I’ll continue to communicate closely with the fey as I build the territory for the Spring Court,” he pressed on more calmly. “It is likely that word will get out to the Four Courts and even more fey will want to seek sanctuary and help us fight Rian.”
“Are we to house them?” asked Castor.
“We can support them, spacewise, and fey take care of their own needs, so there is no reason we cannot house anyone fleeing this war,” Riordan confirmed.
“Fey kings and queens are forces of nature. Are you sure you can control Balor?” verified Nyssa cautiously.
“Amira contained him with a salt circle. I will build him a prison,” Riordan advised them, drawing all of their shocked eyes to me. “He is weak.”
Balor was not that weak, but we could hardly tell the council that I’d actually used Riordan’s power to bind the Spring King. They might have accepted Riordan as king after they saw how easily he wielded his power, but they were still wary of me. If they heard I could use his magic, they would fear me as Orion had and assume that I might take their kingdom from their king.
“Balor’s own people distrust and dislike him. You said that many of them were even helping Rian hunt for him. Do you really want to help him?” Dio asked Riordan.
“I will not argue that he is not despicable or that I want him here. I do not . But it is in our best interest to shelter Balor and the other monarchs rather than allow Rian to consume their power,” Riordan pointed out.
This was something the council members had not fully addressed, Rian’s power, because none of them seemed to believe it was real. The whole reason the rogues had been able to take fey for so long was because their threat had never been taken seriously by the council.
“And besides all of that, we need allies, and it is my job as your king to find them for us. Your job is to advise me while I do it, so do so now. Offer me solutions and compromises. I am here for help to make the contract as ironclad as it can be,” Riordan urged them in earnest.
It was the first time I’d seen him offer them such raw and authentic emotion. They all seemed equally surprised by it, but Castor rose to reach for the rough outline of the contract which Riordan had written and read to them.
“We just want to know you have thought this through,” Dio assured Riordan.
“You know I do nothing without thinking about it,” Riordan insisted.
I was watching Castor reread the contract, his mouth pinching as he absorbed the words again.
“I cannot believe that he would agree to this. It is not in his favour,” he admitted suspiciously.
“He did try to get more, but he is desperate. Rian is closing in on his position quickly. He needs an escape,” Riordan explained, still clearly frustrated by their lack of constructive input for the contract.
“He really thinks this… rogue fey can take his power? Consume the very fabric of magic that is the integrity of his court? Do you fear the same?” asked Castor with his brows rising skeptically. “What kind of monster must this rogue be that eats magic and steals power?”
“I have explained about the ancestry of the Mavaari,” Riordan reminded him impatiently.
“It just seems… If this rogue can eat magic this way, then why has he not already done so? Why not consume the Four Courts, consume the Vale, rather than waste his time and energy building an army?” Castor insisted.
Riordan had not wanted to tell anyone about our trip to the Sylvan or about the potentially very dangerous dagger that we had been given. But we needed the council to understand the threat and start taking Rian seriously!
“You may have heard the whispers that we went to the Silver Moor. We went to meet with the Sylvan to discuss the threat of Rian DorTìodhlac,” Riordan began as he reached for the crystal dagger hidden under his cloak.
The council members leaned forward as he withdrew the knife, balancing the dimly gleaming weapon with both hands before setting it reverently on the table.
“A Sylvan blade,” murmured Isaura in astonishment, eyes wide and pinned to the dagger in disbelief.
“One has not been seen in centuries!” added Nyssa.
“I don’t know yet why Rian has not acted or even fully what he wants. What I do know is that I was given this dagger by the Sylvan to call them when Rian comes here because only they can deal with him. Only their Light can defeat his power. So if they are so wary of him, then you must understand why we need to act in defense of the fey monarchs before he consumes their power?”
No one spoke, but I could tell they understood.