Chapter Three
Trey
A s many times as I’d imagined holding Angelica, life or death situations with magical explosions had never entered the daydream.
Still, I couldn’t really complain as I cradled her against me and flew over London. It had been a year since I’d last touched her, or been close enough to smell the vanilla citrus of her skin.
The funeral rites had been as horrible as I’d thought they’d be, and then the Elders had hit me with my task for the Kingship trial. It was supposed to be a formality, a holdover from ancient times when Kings needed to prove their ability to protect their Dragons. But these bastards had given me one of the most impossible tasks I’d ever heard of, hoping I’d fail: Find the magical sundial of Alexander the Great and destroy it so the magic could return to the Well of Time.
That sundial hadn’t been seen since the beginning of the Ptolemaic period in Egypt; it was lost somewhere in the sands. But they had ordered me to find it anyway. Likely to keep me away from Avalon long enough to consolidate their power base and dethrone me.
Part of me wanted to just let them have it. But my father had let the kingdom fall into a terrible state. The powerful didn’t protect the weak anymore, they exploited them. And there were rumblings of trying to take over the Mundane world again. I doubted the Dragons would be successful, but no matter the outcome, it would result in loss of life on either side. I had to stop it. And to do that, I needed to find the damn thing, and secure my throne.
All the contacts I’d built up over my existence gave me tiny pieces of the puzzle until they had led me to a man named Viktor Raines in London. The fury I’d felt seeing him with Angelica couldn’t have been understated. And then he’d grabbed her. I’d almost revealed myself right there when Angelica put him in his place.
Fates above and below, I missed her fire!
I’d wanted to see her while I was here, had planned and thrown away so many scenarios.
Should I run into her at the book market?
Should I reach out and invite her for dinner?
Should I send her flowers?
Apparently the answer was save her from being attacked by Viktor’s cronies.
If I had been any later, she would’ve been killed. As it was, Angelica had still been injured and scared because of that man.
My chest began to vibrate, low and soft, as a purr rolled up through my body. It warmed my scales and soon Angelica’s shivering ceased, and her heartbeat calmed.
“What is that?” she asked, her uninjured hand pressed to my chest. “It’s…it’s coming from you. Are you purring?”
I cleared my throat and tried very hard not to be embarrassed.
“Yes. It’s something Dragons do to soothe those close to us when they are scared or injured.”
“I’ve never heard you do that before.”
Because you’d never been in this much danger before. Crazy woman.
“I can stop,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure I could.
“No, it’s…nice.”
Angelica, the woman who had so many walls up she was her own fortified city, actually cuddled in close to me and I held her tighter. This was heaven and hell, bound up in a moment I didn’t want to end.
“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.
“The airfield, where my plane is waiting for me.”
“For us.”
“You’re not coming with me.”
“Yes, I am.”
She let out grunting huff and glared up at me.
“You’re gone for a year—”
“Because I had to be.”
“— and you come bursting into my penthouse—”
“To save your life.”
“— like you haven’t been stalking me this whole time—”
“It’s only been two weeks.”
“— and now you’re demanding to come with me?”
Her voice became louder with each part of her question. And while I had to admit that there was something damn appealing about rousing Angelica to anger, I could’ve kicked myself for ruining that brief moment of cuddling.
She’s kidding herself if she thinks I’m letting her out of my sight now. Besides, she’s caught up with the sundial and I have to destroy it. Maybe the Fates have given me a gift with the Elders ridiculous task.
“Yes, I am demanding it,” I answered. “But I’d rather you realize that I can be an asset to you on this mission.”
“You don’t even know what this mission is.”
“I’d bet it has something to do with that man you met with today.” I couldn’t keep the growl out of my voice when I mentioned Viktor.
He was around her age and there was definitely a history there, two things that I didn’t have. I may have been nearly three hundred in Dragon years, but that translated to late thirties for a Mundane. Maybe the age difference didn’t really matter to Angelica, maybe it did. But I hated anyone who didn’t have that obstacle to contend with regardless.
“You were there then.”
I glanced down at her, and smirked at the sour shape of her kissable lips. There was no reason to answer her, so I just kept flying.
The purring grew louder and soon I was hearing that harsh, throaty voice in the back of my head, the one that belonged to my primal Dragon. He’d been silent for the past year, since I’d walked away from Angelica, likely sulking and angry that I hadn’t claimed her. But over the past two weeks, he’d made himself known again by demanding to be let out.
“If you won’t claim her, then I will!” he’d snarled at me last night.
I’d been able to keep him locked down, thank goodness. My hybrid Dragon form was unusual enough, but the primal side was everything Mundanes had been taught to fear about my kind.
Enormous and hard to control, bent on conquering and gathering treasures to hoard.
Starting with the most beloved treasure of all, our mate. I hadn’t let him out since my trials many, many years ago. And I didn’t intend to do it again any time soon.
He clawed at my consciousness, and my chest burned with his hunger for Angelica.
Easy. We have to approach this with care. Otherwise she’ll flee.
My primal side huffed, but retreated all the same, much to my relief.
We landed at the airfield where I knew Angelica’s plane was kept, the jet already fueled up from the looks of it. When my feet touched down on the rough, cold pavement around the back where no one could see, Angelica pushed against my chest with one hand. I set her on the pavement but I didn’t let go of her hips.
When she made no movement to step out of my arms, I tightened my grip, careful not to rip her pants with my sharp claws.
“I can take a look at your wrist when we get on the plane,” I offered.
“You get a medical degree since you’ve been gone?” she asked, though some of the bite was gone from her voice.
I huffed out a laugh and shook my head.
“No, but I’ve seen enough injuries to at least be able to tell if something is broken or not. At the very least, I can wrap it up for you.”
Her eyes were so blue in this light and her mouth so close. I leaned down enough to feel the feathery brush of her breath on my face, minty and warm.
“Thank you for…helping…saving, er…flying me here,” she said, clearing her throat at the end.
I grinned down at her, charmed by the flush to her cheeks as she tried to get control of herself.
“You never have to thank me for that. I’ll always be here. Even when you cuss me out first thing.”
Angelica swallowed, her fingers fidgeting against my chest. She seemed to realize then that I was only wearing pants, that she was touching me in an intimate way she never had before. Each brush of her fingers sent shivers through me that coalesced in the sheath that held my cock. A year away had done nothing to cool my need for her. If anything, it had only fed those flames.
One glance at her face told me that she was about to bolt, and I wasn’t ready for her to stop touching me. So I put a hand over hers, holding her there for just a second longer.
“Please let me come with you,” I whispered. “Let me help you.”
It was as close to begging as I’d ever come, and I would’ve gotten on my knees if I thought it would do any good.
I could see her thinking it through, a war of logic and emotion in her eyes. Angelica calculated her decisions, as if any misstep would result in something worse than death. And from what little I knew of her life before the Archive, I supposed that had been true. But now, she was also calculating for hundreds of others too. That weight had become so heavy before I’d left, I could see it pulling at her, draining her of the light that had made me love her.
“Alright,” she broke eye contact with me and stepped back.
This time I let her withdraw and slipped into my Mundane form, a tall, leanly muscled Korean man, a handsome one if I did say so myself. The designs in bright blue on the backs of my hands that trailed all the way up my arm, across my chest and shoulders looked like elaborate tattoos, but they were the markings of my family. When I finished this task, the King’s marks would be added to the center of my chest and down to just above my pubic bone. Unlike the marks I’d been born with, these would be burned into me, an agony all Kings endured to remind us that leadership was sacrifice.
“You cut your hair,” she said as we walked toward the jet.
I nodded, the dark strands now short on the sides and back, a bit longer on top.
“And changed your wardrobe.”
“You sound disappointed,” I said with a sidelong glance. “I can put the suit back on if you want.”
I had needed to be discreet and blend in, so my designer clothing had been replaced with a simpler wardrobe of dark shirts and jeans. Right now it was a dark blue Henley and jeans, both were what I’d been wearing before I’d put on my hybrid form, a rather handy bit of magic. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her constantly looking over at my body and smirked. The shirt hugged my lean muscles quite nicely and my inner beast, the distilled, primal essence of my Dragon nature, preened.
“Do what you want,” she finally said with a shrug.
Oh my darling, if only I could right now. I’d have you panting and whimpering before I…
I stuffed down those fantasies and got control of my dick, which had started to extrude.
We got settled inside the gorgeous jet, the seats a soft leather that hugged my body perfectly. The chairs were in sets of two and two, facing one another. I took Angelica’s bag from her shoulder and stowed it overhead. When I took my seat, an attendant came over with a glass of scotch for each of us and the promise of a steak dinner once we’d reached our cruising altitude. In this light, Angelica’s wrist was bruised and swelling.
“Can we get some ace bandages and ice, please?” I asked.
The attendant didn’t even seem all that shocked that I asked, just nodded and came back with the supplies, along with two aspirin. I placed my glass in the holder and sat next to Angelica, taking her wrist delicately in my hands.
I pressed as gently as I could and was relieved that there didn’t seem to be any broken bones. Angelica’s face paled a few times, especially when I asked her to rotate the wrist, but she didn’t pass out. I wrapped it and placed the ice pack around it before taking some tape and securing it.
“Now,” I handed her the aspirin, “take two of these and call me in the morning.”
She snorted and took them with her Scotch. We were about to go airborne, so I stayed next to her, the injured wrist between my two hands. I loved that she didn’t try to pull it away, or complain that I was holding her. Even this little bit of contact soothed my instincts and I started to purr for her again.
We’d reached cruising altitude before Angelica pulled her hand out of my mine.
“Whatever that is,” she said with a drowsy smile, “I like it.”
My chest warmed and I brushed some hair from her face.
“Would you like to lay down? I can have dinner delayed.”
“No, I need to eat and brief you about all of this because apparently I can’t get rid of you.”
I grinned.
“Just like old times.”
She snorted and shook her head, but I could see the amusement lighting up her eyes before she turned her focus to stare out the window.
Just being near her, though we were in silence, not touching, made the constant ache in my chest ease to a dull throb. I had been missing a piece of myself since I’d left her and it had only been growing, a vicious black hole that had threatened to swallow me. But in an hour, despite her ferocious attitude, I was already feeling like I could breathe again. Dragon mates weren’t meant to be separated for so long, even unattached ones.
If she sensed my eyes on her, Angelica didn’t make it known. Her brow was furrowed as she plucked at the skin of her lips absently, lost in thought. It was that focused look she always got while on the job, only this time there was much more worry in that frown.
The attendant snapped us both out of our thoughts when she set down plates of steak, salad and a warm roll with butter, which made my stomach let out a long, loud growl. Angelica glanced up at me and laughed.
I missed that sound, missed making her do it. I don’t care what my obligations are, I’m not coming back until she either accepts my bite or rejects me outright.
“Hungry, are we?” she teased.
“Ravenous,” I growled, making sure to look her right in the eyes.
She blushed fast and deep before clearing her throat and resolutely ignoring my meaning.
“First things first, this is not a sanctioned mission. In fact,” she sat up straighter, “if you come with me, if you help me, you’ll be putting yourself at risk in more ways than one. I should have reported this to the council, but…it’s personal.”
“You decided to take matters into your own hands.”
“Yes.”
“Good, I’m in.”
Her eyes narrowed on me, examining my response.
“Why are you so eager to do this?”
“You have a habit of getting yourself into trouble. And I happen to not like the thought of anything happening to you.”
She flushed even deeper at that and broke eye contact for a moment to take a bite of her salad before responding.
“Your stalker tendencies aside, why are you insisting on going with me? You don’t even know what the mission is.”
I set my steak knife and fork down, and braced for her reaction to my secret.
“I told you that I had to return home and see to my father’s affairs, but I never told you what they were.”
I held out my hand and let the royal markings glow. These were the ones I’d been born with. They’d always been there, but now they were a different color and she stared at them in awe.
“These are the markings that designate me as my father’s heir. Our family is very old and has gone by many names in ancient times. Joseon (??) in Korea. Pendragon in Europe. Ragnar in the Viking lands. Tang in China. We used to be very large, at one time we ruled most of the known world from several Mundane thrones. But over time we shrank, retreated from public life. Now, we rule through business, both legal and illegal.”
“So,” her voice was rough and she took a moment to swallow repeatedly before continuing. “You’re…you’re a Prince?”
I cringed.
“Yes, but I honestly hate the title. It’s never brought me anything but pain and isolation. I left home a long time ago and foolishly hoped I’d never have to return.”
“Okay,” she stared down at her plate, then up at me, then back down before taking a long sip of water. “So…so this whole time, you were royalty?”
“I was me , just Trey, the annoying Dragon you couldn’t get rid of.”
That made her chuckle and my shoulders relaxed a little. If I could make her laugh at this, help her see that I was still the same male from before, then maybe this would be nothing more than just another thing she could give me shit about.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I wanted to tell you that night but—”
“You don’t owe me your secrets.”
“No, but I would give them to you all the same. I want you to know me, Angelica. Just not that part, not the ugliness of my family. They…well, I wasn’t wanted, even before I hatched but they didn’t have a choice. It’s punishable by death to kill an egg with royal markings. And that did nothing to endear me to my father. My mother did the best she could but…in the end it wasn’t enough and I left right after I succeeded in the trials.”
“Did you have siblings?”
The bite of steak soured on my tongue and I nodded.
“Five brothers.”
“But none of them could take the throne?”
“No. In addition to them being dead, there’s also the matter of the royal markings. For a Dragon to be an heir, the Fates must mark your egg, as they did mine. The problem was…” I hesitated, hundreds of years being shunned making the words a little hard to get out.
She reached across and covered my hand with hers.
“You don’t have to tell me, it’s alright.”
“No, I want to, it’s just…whenever a Dragon discovered this part, they retreated from me.”
“Well, I’m not a Dragon, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
I turned my hand so our palms touched and ran my finger along the inside of her wrist, relishing the gooseflesh that ran along her skin. Just as I was about thread my fingers between hers, Angelica withdrew.
“I’m a runt,” I said, my eyes on the spot where her hand had rested on mine. “It doesn’t mean much to a Mundane but it’s… well, we are seen as a burden on most families, and certainly a stain on a royal family. My mother had to guard my egg relentlessly. I was marked for death before I was even born and afterward, it didn’t get easier. I was royal, so they had to show respect, but they didn’t have to be nice. Each of my brothers challenged me when I came of age for the right to be the heir. It’s not done often, but if they’d succeeded during those trials, my mark would’ve transferred to one of them.”
“You still have them so I’m assuming you won.”
I nodded, still able to recall the taste of their blood when I ripped out their throats.
“I killed all five in a single day and then bathed my wounds in the Pools of the Fates where I—”
I stopped myself before I revealed the best part of that entire day, the part that I’d dreamed of ever since.
The moment I’d seen her face in the pools, felt her kiss against my scales.
I glanced up, looking for horror at what I’d just confessed, or curiosity at why I’d stopped so suddenly. But I found neither.
“That must’ve been hard to kill them,” she said. “No matter how they treated you, they were your family.”
“Would you think me horrible if I said it was quite easy, more of a relief than a regret?”
Her smile was sad and she shook her head.
“No. I have one of those moments in my own life.”
“Beheading Francesca?”
“Yes. I should feel regret for taking a life, but all I felt when her head hit the ground was relief that she was no longer able to torment my family.”
The words sat between us, stirring the ghosts of our pasts until the air was thick with them.
“What does this have to do with why you want to go on this mission with me?” Angelica asked, bringing a welcome break to the tension.
“Before a Dragon can ascend their throne, they have to do a task assigned by the council of Elders. Usually, it’s something fairly easy, like climb Kilimanjaro in their Mundane form or steal one of the crown jewels.”
Angelica choked on a sip of water.
“Seriously?”
“Oh, completely, most of them are fake at this point. We don’t give back treasure once we have it.”
“Alright, so what’s yours? Annoy a friend?” she asked with a smirk.
“That’s a bonus,” I replied. “The main task is to recover the sundial of Alexander the Great and destroy it.”
Her entire body froze, eyes wide as she stared at me.
“I was there when you met with Viktor,” I admitted. “Not to spy on you but him. I didn’t know you were meeting with him. But now it’s obvious that we’re both after the same thing, so why not help each other?”
“Except you want to destroy it. I want it contained.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“I can’t—”
“This isn’t up for discussion,” my voice rumbled and then I took a deep breath to steady my anger. “I’m sorry. That artifact has history with Dragons, it’s a sensitive subject.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“What do you know about it?” I asked, my eyes darting to the journal on the seat next to her.
“That the Ptolemaic astrolabe that Viktor stole contains the dial part of the artifact, while no one is quite sure where the bowl part of the artifact is. The sundial enabled Alexander to conquer most of the known world by the time he was thirty and made him into one of the most feared, most successful generals in all of history. Legends say it was blessed by the brothers and gods Kronus and Kairos, and was then gifted to Olympias from Zeus for their son, Alexander. The sun dial can reverse time and allow the user to correct a mistake, to alter what has been.”
“Kronus and Kairos weren’t gods, well not Greek ones anyway,” I said. “They were two powerful Draconian brothers who were in charge of the Well of Time. Kronus helped keep the part of the well that ruled linear time, Kairos kept watch over the more elusive part of time, what you Mundanes call luck. Olympias stole a cup of water from their well to make that artifact.”
“And that’s why you want to destroy it, to return the magic to the wells.”
“Yes, that magic belongs to us, not out in the world.”
“So you tracked Viktor to London, that’s why you came back. Because you want to get…your throne.”
There was a tone in her voice, there and gone again so fast that I wondered if I was hearing things. Was she disappointed that I had come back for the artifact and not for her?
“I was going to call you. I just…the last time we spoke was…”
“Intense.”
“Yes.” I leaned forward, needing to say multitudes with a single word.
Our eyes clashed and held for a moment and then she looked away, raising her defenses once more.
“Did you get the chance to talk to Viktor or were you just following him?”
“I was observing him, and by the way,” I pointed my fork at her, anger sparking in my chest, “what the hell were you thinking meeting him like that?”
She waved my concerns away and I saw blue flames dance in my vision. When would this woman get a little bit more self- preservation? Just because she was the Director of the Archive didn’t mean she was impermeable to harm!
“He wouldn’t have killed me in public, that’s not Viktor’s style.”
“But breaking into your home and doing it there is?”
She rubbed a finger across her forehead, and I suddenly noticed how tired she looked.
And probably hungry too, the woman never remembers to eat. I should let her do that a bit more before we get any further into this.
“Take a few bites of food and then answer,” I said.
She glared at me and I knew Angelica hated it when I micromanaged her, but she still did what I asked. In fact, she took more than a few and the silence helped us both calm down. I didn’t want to argue with her, not after so long apart. I wanted to hear about all the stupid things the council had done, about her children and comfort her when she told me how much she missed them. I wanted to know all the tiny details of her days and nights. And I wanted to be involved in every single one from here on.
“I didn’t expect that,” she admitted once she’d finished her salad. “He must be desperate.”
“For what exactly?”
Angelica nibbled on her roll and took her time swallowing before answering me.
“There was a time when David and I had thought that this sundial was the key to curing him. If we could prevent him from touching the artifact that had infected him, we could save him, and our family, from going through all that darkness.”
Her voice cracked a little at the end, and she cleared her throat as if to pass it off as something other than emotion.
“Viktor needs the information David and I cobbled together over the years,” she continued. “That was why he wanted to meet, to try and convince me to join him, to save David and let him have that power.”
“What did you say to him?”
Her gaze lit up, cheeks flushing with anger.
“Do you really need to ask me that, after all this time?”
“I just thought…I mean, saving David, that must’ve been tempting.”
“It was, for a second. But…,” she shook her head, “the lives my children have built for themselves, the people they love, my grandchildren, that would all be gone. There’s no guarantee that changing something so significant would still lead them to the happiness they have now.”
“Death has always followed that sundial,” I growled. “Destruction, misery. Nothing good comes from its existence.”
“Some would argue that Alexander used it to do some good.”
“He was a selfish fool that died young, trading his youth and vitality to ensure that he never lost a single battle.”
“We don’t know how many of those battles he used it for.”
“No, but I can tell you this, the sundial drained him, body and soul. And for what? His empire failed after his death, carved up by squabbling generals. There’s a price to using something that powerful, and Alexander paid it, again and again.”
“How do you know this? Legends aren’t good source material. Unless…did you know Alexander?”
I chuckled at that and shook my head.
“I’m old but I’m not that old, my dear. No, my great-great grandfather knew Ptolemy. And every one of Dragon kind has heard about Olympias and her theft from Kronus and Kairos. The tale has been a warning about trusting Mundanes for millennia. My kind tracked the sundial throughout Alexander’s life, and when he died, we attempted to get it back. But, the dial was lost toward the end of the Wars of the Diadochi. There’s a story, more of a legend really, that I’ve heard since I was young, about a young Dragon who found it at the temple of Zeus-Ammon in Siwa. He foolishly took it upon himself to separate the pieces and try to destroy it. The release of power caused him to go insane, seeing past, present and every possible future of anyone he came in contact with. To this day, they say you can hear his ghost whispering in the ruins of the temple in Siwa, his soul unable to rest because of the power he toyed with.”
Angelica tapped her fingers on the arm rest, looking out the window as she absorbed my words. Finally, she looked at me again.
“Do you know how to destroy it safely? I can’t allow you to do something that would risk those I love, or harming innocents.”
“I was told that there’s a spell that will unbind the magic from it, and that I will find it in that same temple in Siwa.”
“David and I collected writings about the sundial, some from Siwa supposedly. I might have what you’re looking for in the journal but we won’t know until we look through it. There were many things we couldn’t translate accurately, but with Max’s help, we may just be able to figure it out.”
“Where’s the journal now?” I asked.
“I gave the safe where the journal and a few other things were kept to my eldest son, Derek. That’s where I’m headed now.”
“So…if I can do this safely, you’ll let me destroy it?”
“Safety is the key. But yes, I think you’re right. This is too dangerous to exist, even at the Archive.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. “I didn’t want to fight you on this.”
“I suppose this means you’ve found a reason to be indispensable to me. Again.”
I gave her a sardonic grin and shrugged.
“I guess the Fates just want us together.”
Angelica rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated grunt.
“Come on,” I nudged her knee. “Admit it, your life wasn’t nearly as interesting with me gone.”
“You mean without your constant nagging to eat and sleep, and always questioning my decisions?”
“Don’t forget how pretty I am.”
“Oh, how could I? You remind me constantly,” she chuckled and then fell silent, as if she were considering her next words carefully. “I did miss you though.”
Hope was a terrible thing, extending the possibility of what we most desired again and again. And yet I found myself welcoming it.
“I missed you too,” I admitted, not trying to hide all that I felt. “Every moment of every day.”