Chapter Ten Draco
I’m alone in the den, spraying the last dregs of extinguishing foam over the smoking remains of that Molotov cocktail those Tiberius meatheads lobbed through the window at Zara.
That’s when I feel Jean-Emilien falling.
He’s a strong telepath and we’re closely bonded. Even if he’s still fiercely resisting a mating bite, on account of that whole misogynistic belief he harbors that he and his breed are monsters.
If anyone in this place is a monster, that’d be the stone-cold killer standing right here in my shitkicker boots.
I’ve spilled so much blood for the Mars family business in my short but violent life, I’ll never wash that shit off.
Now, as my guy’s possessive rage floods through every synapse—the mindless, wordless, helpless rage of his wolf—my entire body clenches in shock.
For fuck’s sake, he just ducked outta here a minute ago to check on Mallory. How is this even happening?
He’s fucking falling from the high cliff behind the domus .
He’s falling to his death .
Yet his dominant emotion is a vicious sense of satisfaction that his mate’s hated enemy—Mallory’s enemy—is falling to his own death right alongside.
A raw curse punches from my diaphragm and rips outta my lungs.
I fling the extinguisher aside and hurl myself headfirst through the open window into the moonlit night. I land in a tight roll to let a snowdrift absorb the impact of my big body hitting the ground. Ice crystals burn and abrade my naked torso, but that doesn’t matter. I’m already flowing to my feet—
Just in time to see Mallory throw herself off the cliff and vanish.
My chest splits wide in a primitive roar of anguish.
Both my mates—a label I don’t stop to question— both my mates are falling.
Howling like a banshee, I pound the final meters through the snow to the cliff. Even though I know in my bones it’s already too late.
Far below, three distant figures pinwheel through the air. One is irrelevant—at a guess, one of our arsonists, so good riddance.
Then my Jae.
Then Mallory.
Except…
Mallory isn’t falling.
She’s fucking flying .
With the prettiest pair of silver wings you ever saw sprouting from her slim back, an incongruous pair of bright blue moon boots capping her long legs, and the rag of my torn shirt fluttering bravely around her elegant frame, she’s plummeting after Jae like an avenging angel. She’s arrowing through the night in a dive that makes the wind scream around her.
I fall to my knees, clench snow in my anguished fists, and watch with my heart jammed all the way up against my tonsils.
They’re way outta range of my telekinesis. Still, my psychic senses labor and strain.
Oh gods of my fathers, they’re so close to those jagged rocks.
Please, Odin, I know I ain’t a praying man. Know I don’t deserve shit.
But if I ever needed your help…
With a scream of elation that spirals over the churn and snarl of fighting dragons somewhere over my head, Mallory snatches Jean-Emilien out of free fall into her arms and twists in a graceful spiral. Together they soar upward, just short of the silver sea. Powerful wings thrash the air as they climb.
That other guy—the one Jae loathes with a red hatred—he’s still screaming when he hits the rocks.
I barely even notice.
What’s another death to a butcher like me?
Every cell in my body is straining toward my mates. Those two, precious, fragile souls. The cherished bodies of my loves.
Jae’s sinewy frame wraps tight around Mallory, clinging in a way that doesn’t hinder the steady beat of her wings. His dark braids and her fiery curls unravel through the air in a banner of ink and copper.
Her mighty wings beat in time with my heart.
Shit’s going down behind me that I’m barely tracking. The bone-rattling ring-a-ling of the fire alarm falls mercifully silent. Those two dragons are down. Now there’s a whole Shakespearean drama with the Gemini queen and her harem—everyone alive and breathing, but arguing like blazes—playing out on the open ground in front of our domus. The entire school seems to be gathered there, mesmerized by the shitshow.
The cutting voice of Vasili Romanov—Zara’s dominant alpha, who was MIA till now—slices through the night like a javelin.
I normally keep a wary eye on that snake whenever he’s around. He’s a nasty piece of work, that Romanov warlock, always has been. (And they call me psycho?) Suffice it to say, even I give that one a wide berth.
Right now, I don’t even look at him.
My entire being is riveted on my mates.
Mallory angles her flight away from the soap opera playing out on our front porch. In breathless silence, she soars toward the dark tangle of forest that lurks behind our domus. That’s a strategic choice. A Mallory choice. A smart choice that keeps her invisible to the bystanders out front.
In fact, I get the very strong sense she doesn’t wanna be noticed.
At all.
Of course, that modus operandi , when you’re Mallory McSnicker, is nothing new.
I break into a jog along the cliff and beeline toward the forest like I’m pulled on a towline. I’m only wearing my shitkickers and a pair of leather pants, but I’m íslendingar , for Freyja’s sake. I can handle this mild Mediterranean winter.
I gain the concealment of the trees right as Mallory spirals through a low sweeping descent and alights on an open patch of earth. The minute their feet hit the ground, Jean-Emilien scrambles out of her arms, then whirls around to face her.
“Mallory, chere… ” he breathes, more or less human, but husky with shock. “You… how…?”
I don’t bother with the hey how are ya ’s. I shove roughly through a tangle of skeletal branches right into the grove, throw my arms tight around both of them, and drag them hard against my chest with a growl. I breathe in deep and fill my lungs with their familiar scents of patchouli and moss and soft spring rain. Jae’s half-naked form is sandwiched between us like an accordion.
Fokk, we’re all half-naked.
My ripped shirt barely clings to Mallory’s front. Under my desperate hands, both my mates are icy to the touch, shivering with adrenaline and nerves. I’m determined to protect the hell outta both of them.
The downy softness of Mallory’s wings tickles my arms. Over Jean-Emilien’s bent head (because he’s scenting her neck and hair with protective fervor), her wary eyes meet mine.
By starlight, those wide eyes of hers aren’t gray anymore. They’re pure silver.
Just like her wings.
“ Hjartfólgin. What are you?” I breathe, gently, like she’s a sparrow I could startle into flight.
“No one can ever know,” she says, just as softly. Her shimmering gaze searches my face like a spotlight. “I mean it.”
“Ah, chere .” Jae stops frantically scenting her neck long enough to voice a breathless chuckle. “Who will we tell? Who would ever believe, oui ?”
“I know how to keep a secret,” I say gruffly, because isn’t that the truth. “Pretty sure right now the whole school’s one hundred percent focused on the fighting dragons in our front yard.”
“Right.” She sighs. “Dragon shifters in a rage beat my new power-of-flight parlor trick hands down. But it’s nothing Zara can’t handle.”
Mallory’s wings fold gently against her back. With a rustle, the feathers melt into the tattooed skin of her back and vanish.
Her entire body sags with exhaustion. Now the adrenaline rush is easing, she’s crashing hard. Jean-Emilien too.
He almost fucking died.
If he did, he woulda taken my heart with him.
My arms clench around both of them, biceps flexing, until Mallory squeaks. I know I’m crushing them, but I physically can’t bring myself to ease up.
Hel. I coulda lost them. I came so fucking close to losing them.
Jae shifts his weight so he can wrap one arm around me and one around Mallory. After a careful pause, her delicate limbs fold hesitantly around both of us.
Clearly, she’s afraid we’re gonna push her away.
Like that’s happening.
Ever.
But we’ll deal with our whole relationship—because the three of us definitely have one, whatever the fokk she’s thinking—later.
Gently, so I don’t scare her off, I lay my big hand against her cold cheek. Under the flush of wind and excitement, nutmeg freckles dust her petal-soft skin.
I wanna kiss every one of them. This girl—this shy, smart, skittish creature, whatever she is—she’s mine.
Ours .
It’s the three of us now.
“What are you?” I repeat, before I lose my soul forever in her silver gaze.
“So, uh, that’s kinda complicated.” She shuffles awkwardly in her moon boots. “I’m half mortal—just plain old witching race, my dad’s clan Virgo, but with close to zero witchcraft. I’m also half Seelie, from my mom. She’s pureblooded Light Fae. Because the Fae… we’re a thing.”
“Fae, as in fairies ?” I stare at her in raw disbelief. “Fuck. Me.”
“We’re a lost species. We’re in the lore.” Her shoulders lift in a meek shrug. “We’ve actually been hiding, camouflaged in plain sight among the normals for, like, a thousand years? Because the Dark Fae, the Unseelie, they’re our mortal enemies. So they hunt us—”
Jean-Emilien bares his white teeth in a wolfish growl. “No one is ever hunting you or hurting you again on our watch, you.”
“Well, that’s the thing.” Uncomfortably she shifts in our arms. My chest contracts with worry. Mallory’s no íslendingar , and my girl’s getting cold.
I’ll smuggle them both into the domus, where it’s nice and warm, in a sec.
I say smuggle , because they’re both spending the night (and every night from now on) in my room and nowhere else, Academy Codex be damned.
“Go on,” I urge, to keep our girl talking.
She bites her lip and glances around like she’s afraid of being overheard. Jean-Emilien and I both tighten our grip and hold her safe in our shared embrace.
“Pretty sure the Dark Fae will be hunting me specifically,” she confides at last, with an apologetic look at both of us, like she’s really sorry to be such a bother. “The Dark Fae King stole my big brother Ash—the Seelie Prince—like, years ago. Straight up kidnapped him. Just whisked him away to Avalon. That’s the Unseelie Realm. Ever since Ash vanished, my parents have been totally obsessed with keeping me hidden.”
“Bon bagay,” Jean-Emilien murmurs in total awe. “The Fae. They’re real.”
I’m right there with him.
“Oh, we’re real all right.” Mal’s teeth sink into her soft lower lip. “Now that I’m coming into my power, I guess, I’ll be a whole lot harder to hide. And now that we know I’m apparently not a complete failure in the Light Fae magic department, there’s a much greater risk that the Unseelie will find me.”
Jae growls low and fierce in his chest. A meathead like me, I’m slower on the uptake. So I’m still piecing this shit together.
“If your brother’s the Seelie Prince,” I say slowly, “then…”
“Yeah,” she finishes in a whisper. “I’m royalty. The Seelie crown is matrilineal. It passes from mom to daughter, as long as the heir manifests the power. Otherwise there’s a whole ritual that happens—you know, to crown someone else. But there aren’t many of us left, we’re almost extinct, and I’m the only daughter of our house. So there hasn’t been a crowning since my mom. Now that I’ve claimed my wings—because tonight’s the first time I’ve ever flown—I think they’ll crown me .”
Her eyes lock on mine and cling, like my gaze is all that’s holding her up. I squeeze both of them, both my precious mates, into my chest till my arms ache.
And just wait for the rest.
Finally she pulls in a slow shaking breath. “As soon as the Seelie find out what’s happened, they’ll crown me, whether that’s what I want or not. I’ll be the Light Fae Queen. That’s when the Unseelie will come.”