Chapter 16
KIEREN
Ihear Roark going upstairs with her, and a minute later, Evander’s in my office. I’m trying to finish up the work I left to fly off home. I got back with only a few minutes to spare before dinner.
“You didn’t stay with them?” I ask Evander.
“We don’t want her on edge. You know, they say that those who are under stress can block the whole process. Both of us going up there would have given her cause for worry.”
“He told you to butt out?” I close the ledger.
Evander laughs. “Yes and no.”
“So yes.”
“We’re going to do the ceremony tomorrow?”
“I can’t. Mother’s being—”
“The stubborn queen we all appreciate?”
“Yes, and a mother. Who’s concerned that Aisling’s in danger from the Firested at the academy.”
“Your sister’s a lot younger than us, and I’ve been scared of her on more than one occasion. She can handle her own shit. Plus, she has allies at the school.”
“How very reasonable of you. But the queen is beyond that now. I’m also thinking she’s figured out we’re ready to give up.
We can’t have a leader of Crest Wing who’s not in a thunder.
The Crest Wing citizens wouldn’t stand for it, in the long run.
There’s bending tradition and then there’s shattering it.
” My mother’s not one for even leaning against tradition.
“Well, break out Thor’s hammer because we’re going to have to smash some shit,” Evander says.
“If that’s what needs to happen, I’m not opposed to breaking shit. I have to go back tomorrow. We can’t do the ceremony now that my mind is elsewhere. I have to get Aisling back to school, and soon.”
Evander sits on the corner of my desk. I’ve given up telling him not to. “She won’t be able to catch up with her studies if we don’t. I have some connections with a few teachers. I’ll see if they can get her classwork to her in the meantime.”
I cock my eyebrow at him. “By teachers, do you mean females you’ve fucked?”
“Is it a problem that they’re one and the same?”
“I suppose not. Are you ready to be in a closed thunder, anyway? One female shared between the three of us for the rest of your life?” I ask Evander. Because lightning mate or chosen mate, that’s what we’re destined for.
“It sounds crazy, but yes. I am. But I’ve got no more oxygen left for candidates.
That’s the horrible part. I meant what I said the other night.
The witch and the fae with the fucking prophecies could be wrong.
They can be wrong. I like Raine. I have a good feeling about her.
But if she’s not it . . . I’m done. I’m tired. Aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
The door opens and Roark strolls in, taking his normal position on the other corner of the desk. “I like her.”
“Me too. I think she’s the one,” Evander replies.
“How can you know?” I ask. “We haven’t done the ceremony.”
“I feel it in my mark.” Evander cocks his head to the side.
“You felt it in your mark when you got food poisoning in London ten years ago. And in the middle of a battle when we were fighting the Firested during the last uprising. Remember, we were searching for female Firested warriors for three years afterward. I don’t fucking trust your mark. ” I push him off my desk.
“What does yours say, Roark?” Evander asks. “No, forget it. Yours tingles every time your cock gets hard. It’s no good.”
“My cock is amazing.”
I scrub my hands down over my chin. The two of them can go at it like this for hours and not stop.
Children, men, my best friends, the ones I trust with my life.
The ones who will be with me forever. The ones I don’t need to guard myself around.
But right now, if they don’t stop arguing, I’m going to shift a talon and draw some blood.
Evander sits back down on the desk. “It’s big enough. Not as big as mine.”
“It knows what to do better than yours.” Roark laughs.
“You have no idea. I leave females speechless, unable to move.”
“From boredom, because they fall asleep?” Roark pushes Evander from the desk, and he flops onto the sofa. Roark moves next to him.
“If you’re going to come to blows, take it to the roof,” I say.
“Forget blows on the roof. I could go for a good shift. I’ve been penned up on security detail all day.” Evander drops his shirt on the sofa and heads up the circular stone stairs. He’s running ahead of Roark and me.
I left the dining room because my dragon was pushing at me.
Pushing for me to touch Raine. So while I’ve got plenty of work to do—the ledger from Crest Wing and the spreadsheet from the Earth accounts—a good shift is exactly what I need.
But I’m stressed out beyond belief. I can see both my mother’s point of view and my sister’s, and the two of them are no longer talking, which brings things to a boiling point.
Normally, I’m on my mother’s side. She’s logical and has been queen for a hell of a long time.
But right now . . . it doesn’t fit what I need, and that’s a new feeling. It’s not sitting right with me.
I strip my clothes off in the alcove before the door to hang them on the pegs on the wall. The same pegs my grandfather and his father used when they visited the castle. I kick Roark’s clothes out of the way and open the door. The evening wind blows over the shifting balcony.
Evander’s already shifted, his dark green scales glistening in the dappled moonlight.
Roark jumps from the buttress, diving and shifting as he goes.
He soars upward, the flash of his blue-black tail taking off in the night.
I bend my knees and jump into the air. My dragon takes over.
Bones crack and my stretched skin vanishes, replaced with light blue scales.
The heir of Crest Wing. I’m camouflaged for a bright sunny day with large cumulus clouds.
On a night like tonight, if I’m moving fast enough, I’m a dusky, blurred cloud.
It doesn’t matter, not now. I thought I’d get a flight in when I went back home, but it was less than five minutes.
Just enough to get from the portal to the castle my parents call home without having to walk the long trail along the mountain.
Then I waited. Being the heir doesn’t get you access.
Being the heir most of the time means I wait longer.
I speed my wings and speed up catching up to Evander, who is flying upside down like a dragonet. Prince, are you feeling better now?
I will be.
Good, you’re no fun when you’re grouchy.
Roark appears on my tail.
Where were you? I ask.
Peering in windows like a creep? Evander counters.
Her shades are closed.
That’s good, I say. Common sense. You think she’s the one?
I do. Evander rights himself and speeds along the tree line.
It’s a lot more enjoyable to fly around Cloud Rift’s estate now that humans know of shifters.
Thirty years ago, things were far more complicated.
That doesn’t mean that the castle or my family have a good reputation in the area.
No, we’re still feared. Which is for the best—it means less traffic up our driveway. And no tourists looking in our windows.
Evander’s in the lead, which normally I don’t like. He tends to have too much curiosity, and we stay out too late. Or end up swimming in a lake.
You love it, he counters.
Stay out of my head. I’m too tired to push you out. I growl and spit fire around his tail. He’s as immune to my fire as I am to theirs.
That’s the thing with thunder mates. Most dragons, not all, can read thoughts. Some can even plant thoughts into those with weak barriers. Most can communicate telepathically when in scale. But thunder mates? Thunder mates can communicate all the time.
This morning when the candidate, Raine, left her phone on the table, I searched her mind for the login.
What? Evander hovers mid-flight, and I have to soar upward to avoid crashing into him.
The device was making too much noise. I found the code, but her defense is beyond what a normal human has.
What happened? I’m hovering above Evander.
She passed out.
She didn’t sleep in? Evander always seems to be more aware of things than me.
No, I carried her to her suite.
Did she see a doctor?
Why does everyone keep asking that? Her heartbeat was normal. I stayed with her for a while. She was fine.
She’s human. And a candidate, Evander says.
She woke up, worked, and ate dinner, no worse for wear.
I don’t like it. Evander swings around, heading back to Cloud Rift.
I have to admit I don’t like it either. But I also don’t have time for it, no matter how attractive and intelligent she is. The odds of her being our fated mate? Not good. Still, I follow Evander. And Roark follows us.
There’s a growl in my gut from my dragon.
The cool air from the mountains has settled in the valley like it always does on hot summer days after the sun goes down.
My dragon’s not happy with having our flight cut short, but the smells wafting from the pastures around the lake make me remember happier days.
Evander swoops up the driveway the same way he does when he’s driving, only a hundred feet in the air.
And that’s when I smell it. The same tantalizing scent as yesterday.
Raine. She’s outside.
I saw her go to bed, Roark counters.
She saw you walk to your room too, Evander says.
We’re like three hawks hunting mice in the field. I couldn’t stop my dragon if I tried. My dragon pulls at me. He’s furious that we haven’t touched her yet. Damn the ceremony.