Chapter 4 Guardians of the Fallacy
Flint
Jaxon’s words chase themselves around in my head as I make my way up to my father’s office. Part of me wants to totally discount what he’s saying—I mean, the whole idea is freaking ridiculous.
This is my family, my home. I’m the crown prince, for God’s sake. I’ve got the run of this entire Court, so why the hell do I need an escort to my father’s damn office?
The short answer is I don’t, and haven’t since I was about three. But I’ve got one nonetheless. Melanie and now Aritzia, who, for some reason, meets us just around the corner from Jaxon’s suite, are flanking me on either side. And neither of them will meet my eyes.
It’s that fact, more than any other, that has the fine hairs on the back of my neck standing up. It’s also what makes me think that maybe, just maybe, Jaxon is right.
Damn it. I really fucking hate it when he’s right. Things tend to go really, really bad when he is.
It doesn’t help that he’s had such a dim view of everything and everyone since the Order died and the Bloodletter started putting Mekhi into the Descent. Then again, maybe he’s always been this way and I just never saw it until recently.
To be fair, if I had grown up the way he did—a pawn between Cyrus and the God of Chaos—who knows how I’d feel about the world?
Just the thought of Cyrus and everything he’s put Jaxon through in his life has my fists clenching and rage churning in my belly.
I know Grace is the gargoyle queen now and it’s her job to bring balance and fairness to our world, but damn if I don’t think that girl was too lenient on the bastard when she trapped him in that ice cave with Delilah.
I’d rather have him somewhere close, where I can torture him every day for the shit he’s pulled—shit that’s left his kids damaged, my mother without her dragon, and my brother dead among many, many others.
Considering Grace is mated to Hudson, who had an even harder time from Cyrus than Jaxon did, I consider it a supreme act of will that she hasn’t strangled the ex–vampire king with her bare hands.
She really is the perfect choice for the gargoyle crown.
Both Melanie and Aritzia are completely silent as we wait for the elevator, even when I try to make small talk. That, along with the weird heaviness in the air around us, has my own guard going up another notch or ten.
I check my phone to see if my dad or mom have sent me any kind of warning, but there’s nothing from them. Which only makes this whole thing stranger.
That belief is reinforced five minutes later when I walk into my father’s office and find him sitting alone, not surrounded by the Dragon Council as Jaxon had made me begin to fear.
“Flint, son, take a seat.” My father’s dark green eyes sweep over me from head to toe, like he’s looking for…something. They linger on the bruise on my cheek, then get caught on a smear of Jaxon’s blood on my forearm that I must have missed when I washed up.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, rushing around his desk to get to me.
“I’m fine.” I take a perverse satisfaction in shutting the door in the faces of the two dragon guards who all but dragged me here. “But do you want to tell me what this is all about? I felt like I was coming to my execution or—”
“Don’t say that!” my dad snaps. “Why would you even think it?”
“Maybe because everyone is acting freaking weird around here—including you?” I move deeper into the room, with its bleached wood desk, gold carpet, dark navy walls, and huge leather chairs. “What was that whole escort thing about, anyway?”
“Just wanted to make sure you understood the urgency of the matter.” He shrugs, but it feels jerky…
and a little off. As does the way he leans against the edge of his desk, his legs in their pinstripe trousers extended out in front of him.
“I also wanted to ensure that you came alone. That vampire seems pretty possessive of you these days.”
“That vampire?” I repeat, feeling like this is going straight into Twilight Zone territory. “You mean my boyfriend, who also happens to be a prince in the Vampire Court? Not to mention the—”
“I know exactly who he is,” my father snarls before I can remind him that Jaxon is also the guy I’ve been in love with since middle school. “The asshole who took your mother’s heart and threw us all into this mess.”
For a second, I’m too stunned to speak. He’s never said one resentful word since the fight that nearly killed Jaxon—and did kill Luca. He’s always been supportive of my mother’s decision, always acted like Jaxon was welcome in the Dragon Court…until now.
“That’s not fair,” I finally manage to croak out. “Jaxon didn’t take anything. Mom gave her dragon heart to save him—”
“And look where that’s gotten all of us.
” He gets up, starts to pace from one end of the expensive rug to the other.
“Don’t even try to pretend you didn’t get jumped today.
Your knuckles are scraped, there’s blood on your arm, and there’s a scratch on one side of your face and a bruise on the other.
I know what the aftermath of a fight looks like. ”
“Yeah, well, Jaxon saved me in that fight. He’s the only reason I don’t have a bullet wound through my chest right now.”
My father’s already pale face turns even pastier as he shoves a hand through his shock of bright red hair. “What happened?”
“You know exactly what happened,” I tell him with a snort. “We got jumped by a bunch of human lackeys hired by the Dragon Council.”
“Do you know that for sure? Do you have proof?” His eyes zero in on me, and for the first time I can see not just the frustration in them, but the fear.
It has something uneasy crawling through my belly, has my hands clenching and the breath I just took clogging in my throat.
I’ve never seen my father afraid before.
I’ve seen him nervous, seen him concerned. Hell, I’ve even seen him worried. But afraid? I’ve never seen him so afraid that he looks like he’s about to jump out of his skin.
It shakes me more than I want to admit.
My mother is the indomitable one, the one who rules the Dragon Court with both love and power—an iron fist in a fur-lined leather glove.
But my father is the steady one, the one who keeps her and me and all the dragons on an even keel.
So, if he’s worried, if he’s afraid, we’re in more trouble than I thought.
“Of course I don’t have proof,” I say in answer to his question. “It’s not like they just walked up and handed me the Council’s calling card. But this isn’t the first time we’ve been jumped by a bunch of incompetent humans with more weapons than sense. You know it’s them.”
“It doesn’t matter what I know,” he snaps back. “It only matters what I can prove. And we can’t prove they hired them to attack you. And even if we could, it doesn’t matter.”
Now I know I’m in the Twilight Zone—and not just the TV show.
The real thing. Because there is no world, no dimension, in which Aiden Montgomery doesn’t fight back against a threat to his family.
No world, no dimension where Nuri Montgomery doesn’t make them pay—and make examples of them so that no one ever threatens her rule, or her family, again.
Instead, my father is holed up in his office, railing against my vampire boyfriend, and who knows where my mother is—probably hiding up in the penthouse and letting the normally level-headed one of their pairing do whatever this is.
Too bad there doesn’t appear to be anything level-headed about my father right now.
“What is going on here?” I demand. “I know things are tense at the moment, but this is the third time we’ve been jumped.
Plus it was more blatant this time than ever before—they flat-out admitted they were hired to attack us.
Not to mention one of them fired close to a dozen bullets at me.
In what world does someone try to assassinate the dragon crown prince and not have to answer for it? ”
If possible, my father looks even paler. But his eyes are fierce as he stares me down. “In this world, where things are too unstable not to let the Dragon Council get away with it. We can’t afford to antagonize them right now—”
“They’re already antagonized. They smell blood in the water, and they’re going for it, Dad.
The more we let them get away with, the more emboldened they feel.
The more power they take, the more power we lose.
The Circle is already unsteady enough because no one has taken Cyrus and Delilah’s places.
And the rumblings against Mom are getting louder—”
“Why do you think that is?” he fires back at me.
“Because she has no dragon. I know that—”
“No, it’s because she gave her dragon to a vampire.
And not just any vampire—the brother of the killer of our crown prince.
Then we moved that same vampire into the Dragon Court as, quite possibly, the next dragon king.
” He moves toward me again, and this time he doesn’t stop until our faces are inches apart.
“The Dragon Council did not destabilize this court. You and your mother did that all on your own. They’re just taking advantage of the rumblings that have been there since you brought Hudson Vega—the vampire who killed your brother—not just into our Court but into our most sacred holiday tradition.
How did you think people were going to react? ”
Shock rolls through me at his words, sends me reeling as memories of Wyvernhoard crowd my mind, vying for space with everything else my father just laid out for me.
Could I really be responsible for the mess the Dragon Court is in right now? Could I really be the one who broke my parents’ reign of peace and prosperity, just by bringing the boy I love into our midst?
“Is that why Mom threw Hudson in the dungeon as soon as we got here that time?” I ask hoarsely as more and more memories crowd my mind—and I see them in a different light.
“She did that because she wanted to,” he answers dryly. “And she enjoyed every second of it. But did it also send a message that she wasn’t happy he was here? Of course it did—and that message put the rumbles to bed, until—”
“Until she gave Jaxon her heart and saved him at the expense of her own dragon.”
“Or, as some Council members argue, the expense of the entire Dragon Court. It’s hard to fight an enemy who doesn’t attack you directly but instead incites people to believe that you are attacking them.
That you and your entire government are a threat to their way of life.
Suddenly, they aren’t the interlopers trying to overthrow a functioning government.
We’re the abusive, corrupt government—and if they need proof, they just need to pay attention to who we, the royal family, keep company with. ”
His words feel like body blows, like knives slamming into my chest and cutting off my oxygen supply. Over and over and over again. “All this because I’m with Jaxon?” I whisper through my suddenly thick and aching throat.
“All this because you brought the son of the most psychotic vampire king in history right into our seat of power—”
“He’s my boyfriend—”
“But not your mate.” His voice slaps out at me through the air, my entire body tensing like it’s just been hit. And maybe it has been. No real slap or punch could possibly hurt this much.
“Does that matter?” I ask, though I’m desperately afraid I already know the answer. “I love him.”
“More than you love this family?” he asks in a voice that’s part challenge and part heartbreak. “More than you love your people?”
“Of course not. But I’m not breaking up with him because a bunch of assholes want me to. That’s not going to happen.”
“Well, then, we have a problem, son.” My father’s eyes are solemn, his voice absolute. “Because there’s no future where this works out for our family, for our people, and for you and Jaxon. Not now, not ever. You have to let him go.”