Chapter 8 #3
Drey stands up again and paces the room angrily, waving at the computer.
‘See for yourself. They tried to take Mari this morning from my private rooms. Luckily, she was able to hide from them. But I couldn’t smell them in there, Del.
Scent masking is a rare gift. I thought I alone had that ability in the faction. ’
‘As far as I know, that’s right,’ she assures me, taking his hand and squeezing.
‘But dragonsbane can also mess with your dragon’s senses,’ Del says as she stares at the screen, her eyes widening and then narrowing when her name is mentioned.
‘Those motherfuckers,’ she snarls. ‘Chain me up and fuck me? Ha! Those weak cunts wouldn’t know what to do with me even if they did get me there.
’ Her eyes change, irises morphing into golden slits.
‘I am going to tear them apart for this.’ She looks up at us.
‘But first I’m taking a copy and I’m showing every female in Stormriders.
If they think they’re going to lock us up and try to breed us, they are sorely mistaken! ’
‘Show everyone you need to,’ Drey says. ‘How long before I’m myself again?’
‘On the pills and making sure you’re not absorbing anymore of the stuff? Three to five days at least.’
Drey nods. ‘We can’t stay here, Del. Aziel wants Mari, and I might just be too weak to stop him. We need a plan.’
Del nods and then pulls out her phone. She frowns as she reads and then her eyes fly to mine. ‘Mari?’
Something in her tone has me standing up, needing to be on more equal footing with the dragon female.
She steps closer. ‘You didn’t sleep with any humans before you came here,’ she says quietly.
I shake my head.
‘No,’ I whisper.
‘Holy shit,’ Del breathes in awe.
Drey looks from her to me and back to her again. ‘Pretend for a second that I’ve been poisoned by dragonsbane and my mind is sluggish. What’s going on?’
‘Mari hasn’t been with anyone besides Tor and Brax.’
He snorts. ‘Don’t fuck with me right now. That’s impossible. She’s—’
‘Pregnant. Yes.’ Del turns back to me, her eyes shining with unshed tears as she smiles. ‘And the blood tests came back with markers for enzymes only found in dragon embryos, Drey.’
I stagger back, sitting down on the couch hard, wondering what Drey is going to say. ‘Tor and Brax told me it wouldn’t happen. They said we weren’t compatible. They…didn’t lie to me?’
Del shakes her head. ‘They didn’t lie to you, Mari. I’ve never seen this before. It shouldn’t be possible. But one of them is the father without a shadow of a doubt. Which means it’s growing more quickly than I realized.’
She looks down at my belly that’s only just protruding. ‘I need to do an ultrasound, but I can already tell that the gestation won’t be a human one. For dragons, four weeks is like twelve. You’ll probably be giving birth in about two months.’
‘I’m having a baby in two months?’ My heart is beginning to pound. ‘A dragon baby?’
I swallow hard, my ears roaring. ‘This can’t be happening.’
‘Mari,’ I hear Drey say, but his voice sounds a million miles away. ‘Mari, Del is a doctor. She’ll make sure you’re okay.’
‘It’s not enough,’ I wheeze. ‘The town medic couldn’t save my mom or my baby sister. She just bled out all over the bed and then he just left.’
Tears flood my eyes.
‘Listen to me.’ Drey takes my shoulder gently. ‘Look at me.’
I try to do as he says, blinking at the fuzzy shape in front of me rapidly to clear my eyes.
‘Del isn’t a town medic. She used to be a human doctor. She’s the only person I’d trust to see you through this.’
‘He’s right. Yours won’t be the first baby I’ve delivered.
You’re in good hands, Mari. Probably the best for five thousand miles, okay?
All the tests I’ve already done have come back normal.
You’re in pretty good health considering.
You just need to put on some weight. That’s it.
Nothing bad is going to happen. I won’t let it. ’
I grip Drey’s tree-trunk-like biceps, trying to calm down, letting myself believe their words, and my chest begins to unclench.
‘There we go,’ he praises. ‘Good girl. Nice and calm.’
I rest my head on his chest. Being close to him like this makes it easier to not freak out. When I eventually look up, it’s to find Del watching us with a puzzled expression.
‘Can I ask you something?’
I nod.
‘When you met Tor and Brax, did you feel a kind of pull toward them? Like a need to be with them? To do…other things?’
‘Yeah!’ I exclaim. ‘That’s exactly what it felt like. It was weird. I’ve never felt like that before.’
‘And do you feel it with Drey?’
I glance at him a little shyly and nod.
‘And you feel it too, don’t you, Drey?’
‘Yeah,’ he says on a sigh. ‘ I feel it.’
Del walks the length of the room and then turns to face us. ‘But you haven’t felt that with any of the others here, Mari?’
I shake my head. ‘I mean I’ve only met a few, but I didn’t feel like that at all with them.’
‘What are you getting at, Del?’
Del sits down slowly on the couch next to me. ‘They’re mate bonds. They have to be.’
‘But we can’t bond with humans,’ Drey begins.
She cuts him off with a wave of her hand.
‘We couldn’t. Mate bonds and offspring are so rare, practically nonexistent in our faction.
But life finds a way, Drey. Maybe things have changed.
Maybe in order to save ourselves, we have to find human mates.
It would make sense for it to start with the Tribute.
A human meant to be chosen by Fate itself. A way of ensuring we survive.’
Drey doesn’t look convinced. ‘It’s a stretch, Del. Don’t you think?’
‘A theory,’ she amends. ‘A provable one given time.’
‘We don’t have time,’ Drey reminds her, his hands still resting on my arms while my fingers flex into his biceps.
‘If Aziel finds out about this theory of yours, what do you think he’s going to do?
Invite me for tea to discuss it? He’s spent the past year moving against me, inciting human hatred within the faction, dividing us, and now I find out that he’s been poisoning and sabotaging me as well.
He already wants Mari, but what will he do to her if he suspects she’s carrying a dragon baby?
If he learns that Tor and Brax could be her true mates?
‘He’ll kill her,’ Del says, giving me an apologetic look for putting it so bluntly. ‘But if this is true, and if I can prove it, this is what we’ve been looking for, Dreythos. This is what will unite us.’
Drey comes to stand in front of me. He pulls me up to stand gently and puts his arms around me. ‘I’m so sorry for all this, Mari. You don’t deserve it. It’s not your burden to bear. If you ask it of me, I will order Del to terminate your pregnancy.’
He ignores Del’s shocked gasp. ‘You can’t mean to—’
‘I can hide your scent from the others,’ he continues as if she hasn’t spoken, his eyes not leaving mine, ‘and I’ll personally fly you to a place where you will never be found. All you have to do is say that’s what you want, and all of this will be over.’
I stare at him. ‘You’d do that? You’d give up the chance for your kind to survive?’
‘For you? In a heartbeat.’
‘Why?’ I ask so quietly that I’m not sure how he hears me.
‘Because I’ve spent the past month trying to get home early just so that I can smell you.
Because even though we’ve barely said a word to each other, your mere presence has somehow changed my entire existence.
Because you’re my mate. I’m sure of it and so is my dragon.
I tried to resist at first, but I might as well try to stop the world from turning.
The truth is, I’d do anything to keep you safe.
Anything. Even if it means the Stormriders die out. ’
He lets out a long breath. ‘Maybe we should.’
I stare up into his eyes and I caress the bump.
I’m scared, sure, but could I really do that?
Just…not have it? Pretend this never happened?
Could I leave Tor and Brax? Drey? I focus on the pull that’s drawing me to him, the same one that I felt with Tor and Brax, and I pull Drey’s face to mine, kissing him hard.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I whisper at his shocked face as I pull away.
I look at Del. ‘You better keep me alive.’
She gives me a wry grin. ‘I think you and Drey need to go then. Before Aziel’s buffoons try to take you again.’
‘Where?’ I ask.
‘The Lake,’ she answers and Drey nods.
‘What’s the Lake?’
‘It’s an old place that only a few of us know about now.’
‘But fuck knows what state it’s in now,’ Drey says with a frown. ‘No one’s been there for over a hundred years.’
Del gives him a devilish look. ‘I go there for a little R&R once in a while. I just take a roundabout route so anyone who’s paying attention thinks I’m hunting.’
Drey lets out a chuckle. ‘Devious female.’
‘Lucky for you,’ she snorts. ‘Everything you need is there including some stores in the basement and a phone you can use. Go now. Take nothing with you in case it’s not just the food they contaminated.’
‘Wait,’ I say. ‘How long for?’
‘Until you deliver,’ Del says. ‘I’ll come as soon as I can.’
‘I’ll need to explain my absence,’ Drey mutters as he grabs his laptop and some paperwork.
‘Send a message to the council that the trouble in the Borderlands requires your personal attention. You know the signal there is patchy, so turn off your phone and they’ll assume that’s why they can’t contact you.’
‘What about Aziel?’
Del rolls her eyes. ‘He’ll be too busy creaming himself that both you and Brax are gone and he’s finally getting his chance to step up to the Commander seat.
I doubt he’ll even question it. He’ll probably send someone to the Borderlands after you to stick you in the back while you’re weakened from the dragonsbane though.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t found a way to neutralize Tor and Brax too. ’
‘What are you going to do?’