Chapter 16
THANE
T he bedroom door creaked open, and Thane rolled over.
In the low light he only saw her curvy hourglass frame, her hips swaying side to side as light footsteps tapped on the floor.
He sat up with a jolt realizing who it was.
Black hair glistened in the pale moonlight cascading in from the sheer curtains. She wore nothing at all.
“Thane,” Valeen whispered and stopped at the side of his bed.
“Did something happen?” he asked, dropping his feet to the floor.
She put her fingers to her lips to quiet him. Stepping between his thighs, she pushed her hands into his hair. “No, my love.”
His own hands slid up her hips, up bare skin, to her waist then heavy breasts. Her nipples were peaked and begging for his mouth. “I knew you’d come to me. I knew it wasn’t over.”
She pushed him back on the bed and crawled onto him. “I still want you,” she whispered. “I want all of you right now.”
Her lips crashed into his, tongue slipping into his mouth.
He closed his eyes and moaned. Teeth bit into his bottom lip hard enough to sting and his eyes shot open…
blonde hair draped over him, tickling his bare skin.
Valeen was gone and Katana was naked, smiling on top of him.
Her bright lavender eyes locked onto his, then her tongue slid up his bare chest.
She curled a lock of his hair between her fingers and tugged. “Kiss me again. Kiss me until you can think of nothing else.”
Thane flew up in bed, and blinked at the bright sunlight filling his room. Birds chirped outside the window and the cool morning air brought goosebumps along his sweaty skin. Maker above, it was a dream. Just a dream.
Shaking his head to clear the thought of her naked body on him, he hopped out of bed and stepped into the adjoining bathing room, pouring water from a gold pitcher into his hand and splashing his face and neck.
After burning down Rogue’s study and traveling through the realms, he’d crashed out all night. None of them were counting on Rogue to come through with the location of their immortality, but it was enough to show the council they could get to them just as easily as they could send assassins.
He lifted his face to the mirror. His thoughts should be on battle strategy, on gaining the dragons as allies, on what the council might do next… anything but envisioning Katana naked. He needed to go for a run and shake this edge.
Once he was dressed, he slipped out the door.
This floor of the castle had once been his fathers, and well, Tenebris didn’t need it anymore.
His rooms had been the largest and most extravagant and were meant for the High King.
Even if the thought of being next to Hel and Valeen was what drove him into a new room, it was time he took it anyway.
The paintings he passed on the stone walls were of the elf kings from his family line, all seven of them.
Even Tenebris’s portrait still hung. Despite Thane’s hatred of him, he was still part of their history and kept it there to remind him never to become like him.
He quickly made it down the stairs to the next level where Piper, Fennan, Leif, and Katana all had rooms. If they were up this early, they wouldn’t be ready for the day yet.
But nonetheless he hurried past Katana’s door.
The dream was still all too heavy on his mind.
He was almost to the end of the hall at the set of stairs when the quiet squeal of door hinges made him slow.
The arched windows let in the morning sunlight shining over the red carpet down the center of the corridor.
The heat from the sun warmed his already too-hot skin. Please don’t be her.
“Hey, Thane.”
It was Leif.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned on his heel and faced him. Leif’s hair was still a tangled mess, and he only had on a pair of trousers. “What are you doing up this early?” he asked.
“I’m going on a run. I’ll be back shortly.”
“As much as I’d love to join you, sire, I’m not ready.” He folded his arms over his bare chest. “I was going to ask if I have your permission to bring a date to your mother’s celebration of life this evening.”
“Bring whoever you want, Leif.” Thane shrugged.
Leif smirked at him. “I was going to ask Katana. She’ll need an escort.”
A slow heat burned its way up his chest and to his face. His heart started beating harder. He shouldn’t be angry at the thought of that. “I already asked her,” he lied. “As a friend of course, not a date.”
Leif chuckled. “Oh, sure, sire, just as a friend when you’re now single and she happens to be single too? Let’s not forget to add she’s positively stunning. If you only want to be her friend, I’ll take my shot.”
“Go back to bed, Leif.” He shook his head at Leif’s laughter chasing him down the hallway.
Boots pounded the grass in a steady rhythm.
He had no direction in mind. He just needed to move.
Standing in one place made him feel like water on the edge of boiling.
Horses grazed in the field surrounded by a soft brown wooden fence near the stables.
A golden mare with a white mane lifted her head and neighed as Thane tore by.
He nodded at the guards at the entrance of the bridge.
The sprays of water from the falls misted across his skin.
His mind flashed to Katana in the hot pool wearing her white bralette and underwear. She may as well have not been wearing anything at all with how sheer the fabric became when wet. He’d badly wanted to join her. Wanted to pull off what fabric was left on her wet body.
He was used to females throwing themselves at him, as a god and as High King, and typically they didn’t get under his skin, didn’t burrow themselves into his mind.
No one had since Layala. Why should Katana be any different than any of the beautiful elves who’d lusted after him for years?
Or the goddesses he’d bedded and felt nothing for long ago.
Varlett had hooked him when she was a young dragon princess, but he rarely found himself daydreaming about her.
Yet that image of Katana standing in the hot springs was burned into his mind like a brand.
Maybe there was something about primordial goddesses he couldn’t resist.
Shit .
He ground his teeth. Shit shit shit .
The wind tore through his hair as he pushed himself hard. He didn’t want to think about anyone. He couldn’t let himself fall again just to be left shattered with nothing. His legs and lungs burned, keeping his focus on his body.
When he reached the wall surrounding the city he found the hidden door and shoved through, then kept going to a small wood a few miles from the castle and finally came to a stop and put his hands on his hips.
A flicker of movement caught his eye, and he turned to find nothing, but his skin prickled from the presence of another.
“Hello, dear.”
“Varlett,” he mumbled before facing her. “What are you doing here?”
She smiled and tilted her head, making her black horns glisten in the sunlight atop her golden head.
“I was out for a morning stroll and saw you. I thought you might be running to something and needed help, but I get the impression you’re running away from something or,” she arched a brow, “someone.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’m sorry she hurt you. I’m sorry she didn’t choose you.” The softness of her amber gaze would say she meant it, but she was apologizing for the wrong thing.
“ She hurt me?” he growled. “You did this. And you knew as well as I did the moment they left together it was over for both of us.”
“It was over the second he woke up. You just didn’t know it yet. I did.”
“Did you ever even care for me?” Not that it mattered.
Her reptilian eyes lifted to the canopy of the tree branches above her, and her long ebony talons clicked together in a drumming motion.
“You were my first love, War. A dragon never truly gets over that.” She paused and lowered her voice, shifting her stance nervously.
He hadn’t seen her nervous—maybe ever. Was this a new act?
A new form of manipulation? “It drove me mad to see the way you looked at her, to know you loved her. And I don’t mean that as a figure of speech. Do you understand?”
He swallowed hard… madness? Once a dragon made their choice, they typically mated for life.
Of course, he knew this but back then the young dragon princess had always been so blasé about her feelings toward him.
He believed she was using him to gain status as much as he was, but had he been wrong?
Did Varlett see War as her mate? Did she still feel this way?
And when she felt betrayed, when she realized his heart belonged to someone else…
“So you orchestrated her falling right into my arms? No, that makes no sense. You’re lying.”
“I—If I wasn’t going to be happy with you, I wanted none of you to be happy. I wanted to see her fall.” She ran her long fingers through her golden hair and looked away. “I’m not saying it was rational. I was young.”
“What you did was one of the worst things anyone could have done.”
“Dragons mate for life,” she bit out. “We cannot stop the bond that forms. Don’t you see that? Couldn’t you see how I loved you?”
His mouth nearly dropped open. “You loved me then with your body but not your heart. It’s a bond of the heart, not through sex.” He started to walk away, and she gripped his wrist, forcing him to turn.
“I was a young dragon, and you were a god! I was terrified to let you see how much I loved you. I didn’t feel like I deserved you, and I was scared you’d leave me—a mortal—like so many other gods do.
I didn’t want to form a bond to you in my heart, but it happened.
Especially when I saw the way you watched her .
And how could I ever compare to a primordial goddess? ”
“So now you’re claiming you weren’t in control? That madness overwhelmed you? You’re unbelievable.”