Chapter 17
When his sons had demanded a 'boys' day', Cosimo had assumed it would end at a winery. He hadn't expected to drive an hour outside of the city to an empty field. It was surrounded by high hedges that acted as a windbreak and hid the field from the road. There was nothing there but grass and rocks.
"I don't understand," Cosimo said from the passenger seat.
"It's a surprise adventure!" Apollo replied from beside him. He had insisted on driving, and they were happy to let him. He was the only one of them who drove as crazily as the Italians.
Cosimo snorted. "Doesn't look like one."
"Let's go," Valentine replied from the back seat before they all got out of the car and waited for Cosimo to follow. He had no idea what they were up to. His sons had strange ideas when it came to surprises.
"Who owns this place?" he asked.
Lachlan picked the padlock on the wide gate and opened it. "A friend?"
"I doubt that somehow," Cosimo replied with a pointed look at the padlock.
"Does it matter? There's no one here, so everything is fine. We aren't hurting anyone," Valentine argued.
As soon as they were through the gate, Valentine's magic burned, and the hedges surrounding the field lit up wards and invisibility glamor.
Cosimo crossed his arms. "Okay, boys, what the fuck is going on?"
"This is in an intervention. Sorry, Dad, it's for your own good," Reeve said, looking guilty.
Apollo was unbuttoning his shirt, a big smile on his face. "We are going to help you shift. You're driving us all crazy, and your dragon too."
Cosimo groaned. "The dragon will do it when it wants to. It's not going to be triggered by a fucking field or violence or sex, for that matter."
"You wouldn't know, old man, because you're too chicken shit to make a move on Marcella," Bas replied.
"Marcella has nothing to do with this," Cosimo said stiffly.
"The fuck she doesn't. I'm not even a dragon, and I can see she turns you inside out whenever she's around," Lachlan said, leaning back on the fence. "Your dragon wants her."
"But she doesn't want us! It! You know what I mean," Cosimo snarled, the beast in him rising at the provocation. "I've tried to tell the dragon, but it won't listen."
"Why don't you let it out, and we can have a chat about it," Valentine said, his eyes turning scarlet. The wave of alpha power rolled out of him, smacking into Cosimo like a challenge.
"Don't fucking try that on me," Cosimo's dragon lashed out, taking over his mouth. The magician was pulled to the back of his mind, and he couldn't stop it. His eyes shifted to purple, and his canines lengthened, wanting to fight back.
"There you are," Valentine said with smug satisfaction. "Why are you hiding?"
"I'm not. He is too scared to let me out," the dragon replied, pacing about.
"He wants the woman as much as I do. He won't stop fighting me on it, so I'm not going to shift until he gives me what I want.
.. Fuck!" Cosimo gripped his head, forcing the dragon back down.
He leaned over and clutched his knees, wanting to throw up.
"Dad, you are hurting yourself," Bas said, placing a hand on his back and passing him a bottle of water. "It's going to start tearing you apart if you keep this up."
"I can't... I can't do it again. With her," Cosimo panted, his body aching.
"Why not? I know you guys have this not sleeping with colleagues rule, but what about after the job is done?" Apollo tried to reason.
"If he can hold out that long without going insane," Valentine muttered.
Bas said, "Well, he needs to get his shit together because I've decided we are keeping Marcella one way or the other."
"That's not your decision," Cosimo snapped.
Bas gave him an uncharacteristic sneer. "I seem to recall it wasn't yours either when you said that we were keeping Bridget."
"That was different! I'm the head of the house for a start," he replied before adding, "and I needed a good research assistant. Anyway, she is your mate. It is different."
"Doesn't matter. I'm with Bas too. We all like Marcella. She needs people who have her back, so we are all keeping her," Apollo said stubbornly. "You just have to get with the program."
Cosimo took the water bottle that Bas was still waving at him and drank half of it. It didn't help cool the burning in his chest. Nothing did. He looked at his eldest son. "Can you tattoo a sigil on me to keep it down?"
Valentine's expression turned thunderous. "Never. You don't know what you are asking. It almost destroyed me, and I won't inflict that on you. We can try and help you shift without involving Marcella, but I won't bind your dragon because you are too fucking scared of it."
Cosimo wanted to snarl at him, but Valentine was right. He sat down on the grass and put his head in his hands.
"Dad, come on," Reeve said, kneeling down beside him. "You are allowed to be nervous, but being afraid of your dragon is like being afraid of your kidneys. It's just another part of you."
"A part of me that has no control or discipline and who would send Marcella running for the hills before we find Maria or the grimoires," Cosimo replied. He tugged at his hair. "It wants to hunt her."
Apollo grumbled. "You both want to hunt her.
We have eyes, you know." He sat down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.
"It's okay to want someone this much again after so long.
You were never going to end up with someone who was like Mom.
You are a different person from who you were back then, and it's okay to want someone who suits who you are now. "
Cosimo let out a choked laugh. "I can't believe my children are giving me dating advice."
"You had to deal with finding your mate when your dragon was barely awake. We have had to do it while ours are fully conscious," Bas explained. "In this situation, we are the experts."
Cosimo looked up at Lachlan. "Are you on my side at least?"
"Sorry, Cosimo. They are right. You might not be able to act on it yet, but you need to be honest with yourself when it comes to Marcella," Lachlan said, his dark brows drawn together. "You know, even we humans can feel the bond. Charlotte, Bridget, and I all felt the connection to our mates."
"But she's not my mate," Cosimo argued stubbornly.
Lachlan shrugged. "If she is, she will feel the bond. She might not know exactly what it is yet. Maybe she thinks it's just lust, but if it's there for you, it will be there for her too."
Cosimo's chest squeezed so tight, he felt as if he was going to have a panic attack. "I don't know what to do."
"The mates possibility aside, maybe admit to yourself that you want her, and it's okay not to feel guilty about it," Valentine suggested.
Cosimo exhaled slowly and thought of Marcella's smile, her intelligence, the way she could light him on fire with a glance.
"I do want her," he whispered. "I also don't want to scare her off.
We might all understand this because our family is so full of supernatural beings.
She is a human who has been hurt deeply by a man who was meant to love her.
She's not going to want anything more than a fling, and I don't blame her, but I won't be able to handle it.
I'm not a 'fling' person even without the dragon awake. It will want all or nothing too."
"Then don't make it a fling," Apollo argued. "You are the most charming bastard around when you want to be. Focus some of that on her and court her properly. Make a deal with the dragon. Promise you will try after we find Auntie Maria, and it might relent in trying to tear you apart."
"It's like negotiating with a terrorist," Cosimo grumbled.
"It's negotiating with yourself," Valentine said stubbornly. "At least try to make a temporary peace with it because if we go to Forli tomorrow, we can't have it trying to tear our Marcella's ex's throat when he won't stop harassing her."
Cold fury seeped through Cosimo's veins, and he leaped to his feet. "What do you mean he is harassing her?"
"Yelena and the girls are with her now," Valentine replied, not moving as Cosimo closed in on him. "Carlo was sending her messages all night. Including one of his dick, which apparently wasn't very big. His magic has been sleazing all over her wards, trying to get to her."
Claws burst out of Cosimo's hands, scales rose out of his skin up his arms and along his cheeks.
"Val, what the fuck," Apollo hissed, stripping off his clothes.
"He needs to know that this fucker is going to be even worse in real life. He needs to be able to control it," Valentine argued back.
Apollo, Reeve, and Bas shifted effortlessly, shaking their large dragon forms and prowling about the field, readying for the fight that could come.
"You know Carlo is going to provoke you and Marcella, and fuck knows what his mother Renata will be like if Marcella is afraid of her," Valentine said to Cosimo, his dragon rising and making his scarlet eyes shine brighter.
"They might threaten to keep her. It could all be a trap to get her to go back to Forli. "
"No one is taking her from me." Cosimo whirled on Valentine, grabbing him by the shirt. "She is mine. Mine."
"She is no one's because you haven't claimed her." Valentine knocked his hand away. "Would you even fight for her if they try to take her from us? Or are you going to be scared to step in because you don't want to tell her how you feel?"
"Val! Stop it," Lachlan said, taking a step back out of the way. "That's enough."
"It's not. He needs to remain calm, or he'll end up killing them all in a tantrum. Come on, Dad. Let it out." Valentine's body shimmered with scarlet and black before twisting in on itself and shifting.
Despite his fury, Cosimo stumbled back from the sight of the huge three-headed dragon.
Valentine's wings opened, showing the scarlet on the fine membrane of his wings.
He roared in challenge, and Cosimo screamed back at it.
He could feel the dragon holding out, refusing to be provoked to reveal itself.
I won't do it for you. I will only do it for her, the dragon lashed out at him. Cosimo scratched at his skin, trying to free the scales beneath it.
Please, please stop. We can't make demands on her until she's ready for us.
If you keep fighting me, we won't be able to protect her!
Do you understand? We are going into enemy territory tomorrow.
We have to make peace so we can look after her, Cosimo tried to reason with it.
He was on the ground, his clothes torn from his scales and claws shredding them.
I will help you protect her from them. In return, you will fight for her. The dragon in him finally relented. We need our mate. She is ours. You know it, you just won't admit it.
Something deep in Cosimo's chest crumbled, the truth of the dragon's words pushing past all his protective barriers to the rawest, most vulnerable part of him.
It had been trying to tell him the truth since he had first scented her.
Cosimo refused to listen, and even his sons suspected the truth. Now he couldn't fight it anymore.
I know we need her. We will have to work together to protect her and make her ours.
Cosimo tried to tell the dragon without words that she wasn't going to be won over by a few charming smiles, that the wounds left in her heart were deep when it came to trusting or loving. They had both vowed that they were incapable of loving again.
The dragon listened for once before it said, We will heal her wounds and our own.
She might not let us, Cosimo replied. Marcella was so strong, so independent. She won't give in to us easily.
I wouldn't want her to. The dragon's excitement was palpable. It is not a worthy hunt if the prey gives in too easily. The harder she fights, the sweeter her submission will be.
"Gods, don't think like that," Cosimo muttered. The thought of Marcella pinned under him was more than his control could handle.
I will stop hiding that I'm attracted to her, but you have to let her come to us. It must be her choice, Cosimo insisted.
The dragon growled, Agreed.
They had a plan, and the beast settled into his skin, leaving Cosimo aching but calm.
Lachlan's face hovered above him. "You okay down there, Cosimo?"
Cosimo let out a tired, shaky laugh. "Despite being covered in dirt and blood? Yeah, I think I am."