Chapter 20
I had so many thoughts inside me, most of them surrounding her.
And some of them were very unfamiliar. In all of my years, I’ve restricted myself from pleasure—not because I hated it, but because my inner dragon only longed for intimacy with its mate.
Whenever I slept with someone, there had been this chaos inside me, while I just yearned to let loose, the dragon within me wanted pain and destruction.
I knew I was only allowed to feel this sort of intimacy with my mate, it would be the only person the animalistic side within me could accept.
And now I’ve found her… it was all I could think about. Claiming her, owning every single inch of her skin, marking her with my claws.
But I needed to be patient. She was a human, fragile and sensitive. In addition to that she had been just getting used to being mated to a vampire. It was such a shock for her to also get to know being also mated to a dragon and an angel… my brother who I haven’t seen in almost fifteen years.
My own abilities had always been a curse to my father.
He couldn’t fathom the scar on my eye, but later interpreted it as a gift from the devil himself.
The first time I transformed into a dragon, he tried to kill me.
Aetrum was the most traditional Elven Kingdom, blessed with the Silver Forest and the Lake of the Moon.
Our palace was even older than the one in Marabour, being gifted the Eternal Throne by the ancient gods and goddesses.
The older I got, the more the effects of divine blood showed on me. My father hated that I possessed more power than him, although I’d never considered usurping his position as King of Aetrum.
My brother Malakai was my only light during this difficult time.
He protected me from my father’s wrath, especially during the times when I couldn’t control my dragon form well enough.
My father never saw Malakai as his own—too jealous of the fact that he was the product of an angel.
A creature more holy and divine than all of us combined.
During my childhood, the storm raged outside for many nights, it was torrential.
At some point my father noticed that it was my sadness that was affecting the weather outside our palace.
He locked me in the basement and covered my eyes to disturb my senses, hoping it would mute my powers so the storms would stop. But they only grew worse.
My mother was one of the first elves to carry divine blood. She was descended from the goddess of nature and wind. Born of fire and water, blessed by gods and goddesses, she was said to be expecting a water god with the help of an elven man of royal blood. The first in five thousand years.
There had been reports of dragons before, but none described one without wings that could control water and people’s emotions.
My father always saw me as a threat, while my mother regarded me as just her child.
Driven by desperation and fear that my father would later exploit me as a weapon—or worse, even plan to kill me again—she took me far away from Aetrum. Away from her, and away from Malakai.
Xavier was a few years older than me when I found him at Carnivalland, and I stayed here.
Even though I was safe now, my father had to choose a future successor in order to preserve his reputation. This served as security and reassurance for his people that the newest generations would also be ruled by their own kind.
Nathaniel was my cousin. We often played together as children, but at some point, Nathaniel started to isolate himself from everything and everyone.
As if something had happened that he couldn’t talk about.
Unfortunately, at that time my skills were not yet so well developed that I could use them to understand his feelings and thoughts.
And even now I’d finally found her… found the light of my life, the only essence I needed. There had always been this side of me wondering where he went.
I felt like my powers were more of a curse than a blessing, and then the ridiculous legend of the nightmare bringer spread around the kingdoms, only made my situation worse.
A Veil had to be erected around Carnivalland to prevent potential enemies and assassins from entering or hurting the people in it.
They thought my dragon transforming into a possible threat for Gwendolyn was my biggest fear.
Fear was the most dangerous feeling for my strength.
It paralyzed my thoughts and caused violent storms to appear.
It caused lightning to strike the moonlight garden one day, narrowly missing Xavier by a few centimeters.
I swore to myself that I would never allow fear to take away my control again.
At some point the time came when I no longer felt fear, but rather hope.
It was when a girl with long ginger hair fell through the portal and came to Carnivalland.
To Xavier. To me. Because of her, I began to think there were indeed so many things possible.
If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.
Only because of her love and her affection, she gave my world colors, dreams, and a purpose.
She was the key to everything. I would never have been able to mentally locate Malakai if it weren’t for my connection to her and my brother.
Right after I listened to Gwendolyn speak of the angelic presence and the unfamiliar feeling she felt. I knew it was my brother, Malakai. Wherever he was, no force in this world could truly sever the thread that bound him to her. They were meant to be, just as I was meant to be hers.
But before I could face what was meant for us, I had to burn off the pressure coiling inside my chest. The dragon inside me needed release, and there was only one way to silence the storm brewing under my skin.
I shifted and flew high through the clouds above Carnivalland, until the ache behind my ribs dulled and my thoughts began to clear.
Until I saw her…
The way her silky legs were wrapped around Xavier’s shoulders, her head tilted back, lips slightly parted. She resembled a vision torn from the spheres of my deepest desires. And her eyes… they weren’t on him.
They were on me.
Xavier hadn’t noticed me at first, too lost in the rhythm of his mouth worshipping her, too consumed by the raw need between them. I couldn’t blame him. If it had been me between her thighs, tasting her pleasure, I wouldn’t have looked up, either. I wouldn’t have cared who was watching.
Unfortunately, the sight of her didn’t really help with my stress relief, so I needed the coldest shower of my life, before I asked Sparrow for help.
As soon as I knocked at his door, weird noises erupted from inside the room.
Xavier’s brother opened the door, his hair a tangled mess, the clothes half-hanging off his body. He looked completely disheveled… obviously fucked.
I sighed, dragging a hand through my hair.
It looked like everyone was having sex in this castle… except for me.
“Hey, Damien,” he said, leaning against the doorframe, a slow, knowing grin pulling at his lips as he crossed his arms over his bare chest.
I glared at him, feeling the last shreds of my patience fading.
“I need to talk with you...”
“Really? You look like you need to get laid,” Sparrow replied. He stepped aside, gesturing to me to come in.
I stayed rooted to the doorway, my jaw clenching. I hated that he never seemed to be serious when it was important. “I need to talk. I don’t care about who you had your cock buried in.”
He snorted, completely unbothered by the urgency in my voice, as he adjusted his earring.
“Yeah, well,” he shrugged, “maybe if you stopped walking in on people mid-orgasm, you’d be less uptight.”
I growled under my breath. Behind him, I caught a flash of movement. Sparrow noticed my stare and grinned even wider. Xavier’s brother was absolutely shameless.
“Jealous?” he asked.
It wasn’t the first time Xavier’s brother used his siren powers to flirt, and due to my connections to sirens, it was even inevitable for Sparrow to crave the dragon powers within me.
“Of you?” I hissed, annoyed at his arrogance. “I’d rather carve my own fucking heart out before I’d give you a second glance.”
Sparrow just chuckled, clapping a hand on my shoulder like nothing had happened before.
“Relax,” he said. “You’ll get your turn with Gwendolyn eventually. If she keeps screaming the way she does for Xavier…” His eyes gleamed wickedly as he put on his clothes. He was teasing me. “It won’t be long before you lose your fucking mind and snap in your dragon form.”
He wasn’t wrong. I could still hear her moans echoing inside my skull, could still see the way her body squirmed against Xavier’s mouth. My blood pounded hot and violent through my veins.
I needed to focus on finding him and not imagining how she’d taste on my tongue. As I went past Sparrow into the room, my eyes were overwhelmed with decorations and sea foam green silks and fabrics. Almost like he wanted to create an underwater cave for himself and…
My eyes drifted to the side, taking in Nathaniel. His state was nearly as disheveled as Sparrow’s. I had no idea they were even a couple… until I burst into the coffee shop last night, with the goal of drinking myself to sleep.
I’d left Aetrum a long time ago… and I’d never looked back, not even to the people who had nothing to do with my father’s wrath.
“Damien,” Nathaniel said warmly, “it is good to see you well today.” And I knew he meant it.
Nathaniel couldn’t lie. No one was more generous or truthful than he.
Even his powers couldn’t be transformed into something evil.
One of the reasons my father wanted him as the prince… he would be no danger to the realm.
“So, how can I help you?” Sparrow said, leaning against the wall.
“I need your siren powers…”
“The most powerful and only existing sea-dragon… asking me for help? Truly, this is a day for the history books.” Sparrow smirked, pressing a hand over his heart in a theatrical kind of way.
I didn’t respond to his provocation. I just stared at him until his smile sharpened.
“It’s not because I want to,” I bit out. “I have no choice. You can get secrets from others. For me, I’d need to reveal myself in the dragon form to do that, and you know I can’t.”
His amusement faded as he pushed himself off the wall. His posture shifted, and suddenly he became more serious. He must have sensed the urgency.
“And whose secrets are we trying to find out?” he asked, his tone lower now, seriousness rising from beneath all the teasing.
“Seth,” I said. “Your sister’s mate. The commander of Vad.”
Sparrow stilled completely, all traces of his previous humor vanishing from his face completely.
“He regularly visits Marabour. I need to know if there is a place… somewhere where even my own magic can’t sense people and emotions. Somewhere hidden.”
Sparrow narrowed his eyes, the weight of his power swirling just beneath his skin.
“And who exactly are we trying to find, Damien?” His voice was dangerously soft, almost deadly. It must have been the connection to my sea-dragon making him act on his siren-powers, but I hated how he tried to play with me.
“Malakai, my brother.”
There was a beat of silence between us.
“Shit,” he said, raking a hand through his long hair. “You’re asking me to betray my sister’s mate?”
“I’m asking you to help me save my brother,” I corrected, my voice harsh. There was no way I’d allow him to say no to this. But I still wanted to ask him, to make him believe I was giving him a choice.
Sparrow chuckled darkly, but there was no real humor there.
“Fuck Damien,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t make things easy, right?” He paced a slow circle around me, his siren magic humming faintly in the air.
“You know,” Sparrow said, grinning again, but this time it was sharper, more dangerous, “I always thought it would be my brother who’d have you begging me for something… And now here you are,” he whispered with a teasing tone. “On your knees, without even realizing it.”
He was trying to provoke me; it was pure enjoyment for him that I was asking for help.
“For family, yes. I know you’d do the same… we’d crawl for the ones bonded to us.”
My eyes wandered over to Nathaniel standing there, and I knew as much as Sparrow tried to use his siren powers to intimidate me, he’d do anything for Nathaniel and his siblings, just as I would.
“You’re right,” he muttered. “I guess I can talk to him.”
Relief washed over me, too heavy to show on my face. I nodded once and turned, ready to leave the room.
“Hey, Damien,” Sparrow called after me, his voice more serious.
I paused, not glancing back over my shoulder.
“Yes?”
“There are things… secrets… even you don’t want to know. Once you unravel them, there is no going back.” He was warning me of the truth, of the things that might come out.
But it didn’t matter what would come… I’d risk it all for the ones I love. Especially if it meant our bond is whole, and so is Gwendolyn.