Chapter 2
~Evira~
I couldn’t find it.
I couldn’t find it anywhere.
I didn’t understand. I'd had it last night. Every night for that matter.
Son of a bitch.
I stared down at my two duffel bags that I’d packed to the brim with my clothes, toiletries, and personal effects, even down to three bottles of my coconut body wash.
Well, packed was a nice way of putting it. Barely anything was folded, let alone settled inside either bag in any sort of strategic fashion. I got like that more so when I was super excited about something.
Just like I was about starting at Loxley Academy.
It was gonna be the beginning of something major.
A start to my own life, a life that I could actually determine for myself without the burden of expectations or any of the duty crap that attached itself to me all the while I remained here in the Dracoryn Realm as the only child of the reigning leader of the ruling house—House Vortimer.
My father, Draven Vortimer, was the High Regent of the Dracoryn Realm. My grandmother, revered ice dragon warrior, was even First Regent. And that made me Crown Heir. I’d thought my fate had been set in stone. Limited.
But my dad had recognized my rebellious spirit as a cry for liberation, wanting something beyond all of this, needing to explore.
And now, albeit technically a little late, with me being twenty years old, I was leaving for four years to attend Loxley Academy. To carve out my own path, to figure out what I wanted. To find me.
So, yeah, I was beyond excited.
Fine, it wasn’t straight down the line like that—I was also kind of nervous.
But that was normal when big change came about.
Or so I’d heard. This was my first time.
I scanned my room again, the bright morning light filtering in via the tall arched windows from the snowy mountains and the glacial surroundings.
The frosted marble floors sparkled, and the light bounced off the pale-blue stone walls too, along with the decorative crystals interspersed about the space.
I snatched up my fluffy white pillows and tossed them aside, accidentally throwing them too far.
They fell off the pale-wood bed that had beautiful blue streaks running through it, topped with snowy white silk sheets that were the softest material ever.
I smiled at the ice dragon motif of my headboard surrounded by shards of icy feathers.
I was going to miss looking at it every morning and before I went to bed at night.
There was one thing I was going to miss more than that, though. As much as my dad and grandmother.
“So, you were right.”
I smiled. It wasn’t the first time I’d been thinking of him and he’d shown up shortly afterward.
I looked up from hauling my pillows back onto my bed, ending up in an awkward position of being on my hands and knees as I looked out at him standing there in my doorway.
My best friend.
Well, really he was like my big brother. We referred to ourselves as pseudo-siblings.
Torvek Titanus.
He stood there in all his fire dragon glory, tall and broad-shouldered with an athletic build rather than bulk.
He was precision and control, not brute force.
His dark, thick hair was a little wilder than its usual just slightly tousled state.
It meant something was wrong and he’d been shoving his hand through it anxiously.
His molten gold eyes were flickering erratically, his gaze bouncing from me to various places in the room.
Yeah, he was stressed, all right.
He was wearing his go-to black button-down shirt open at the collar, and even that was kind of ruffled.
I noticed him rubbing the ornate ruby dragon’s head pendant that had been gifted to him by his older brother, the infamous Vorzyr Titanus—something that connected them and enabled Vorzyr to feel that he was well.
It had been turned from a pendant to a bracelet when Torvek had been a baby.
Then in his teen years, Torvek had asked Kai—one of his brother’s boyfriends—to return it to necklace-form.
Besides, he already had his black coiling wristband that he needed to wear for temperature-control here in the Ice Dragon Quadrant.
Twenty-one years ago, just before the overthrow of House Titanus and their awful totalitarian parents by my dad and grandmother, Vorzyr had been exiled when he’d turned on House Titanus for the good of the Dracoryn Realm.
It had been an honorable decision, but despite that, as per draconic nature, any disloyalty was frowned upon so Vorzyr had been tainted in the eyes of the Realm.
That had been the official reason cited, anyway. There’d been a little more to it.
Fortunately, Torvek hadn’t been exiled. He’d only been a baby at the time. He’d been placed into the care of my dad and my grandmother while also being around fire dragons like himself to learn from. The two of us had grown up together right here in Vortimer Palace.
He shifted, folding his arms that were covered with black dragon markings across his chest, and his tailored black coat strained with the movement.
He rubbed his boot on the cuff of his black trousers, something he did when he was agitated.
His black coiling wristband encircling his right wrist glinted in the light of my room with the slight movement.
It was an enchanted band that maintained his body heat so he could withstand the frigid environment of living amongst ice dragons.
“Right about what? What’s wrong?” I asked, climbing off the bed and walking to him.
He pushed off my door and met me halfway.
And that was when I saw it, his hand emerging from behind his back.
With what I’d been looking for clasped in it.
“Nuvri!” I cried. “You found him!”
He grinned and handed my plush polar bear cub over.
I hugged him to me, his soft white fur brushing over my chest. I gazed down at his round cobalt-blue eyes shining up at me.
His paws were weighted and gave him a realistic, grounding feel.
Torvek had given him to me when I was little to help with my nightmares after I’d had an incident of accidentally burying myself beneath my own ice and frost. He’d enchanted Nuvri to hug me when I was super anxious until my heartbeat steadied again and my panic subsided.
“He was down in the entryway where you left your boots and coat earlier—in your right pocket.”
“Of course! I can’t believe I couldn’t recall that.”
“You’re busy and excited. You would have. And you’d clearly prepared ahead of time. You’re more organized than you think, snow cub.”
“Wow, you’re giving me way too much credit and you know it.” He was gonna miss me too.
As I placed Nuvri carefully into one of my duffel bags, I asked him, “So, what’s going on? You’re clearly majorly stressed out about something.”
“Like I said, you were right—about Fanor.”
“She made a move on you?”
“Let’s just say she made it clear she wants to take things to the next level.”
I arched an eyebrow. “I’m gonna need much more than that, flame bite.”
He glared at my use of his nickname and I grinned. What? It fit him perfectly—he had a bite to him when he was provoked, a very fiery sort of bite too. Although, it took a hell of a lot to push him to that point. He was known for his control and discipline throughout the Realm.
“She invited me to Ignis Row.”
“Well, fuck.” It was a known erotic place, like several levels beyond a make-out point sort of venue, located in the Fire Dragon Quadrant.
“I’m sure that’s the idea—to fuck. She wants to… do that with me.”
“That’s a bit presumptuous.”
“Is it? Really, Evi? That place is a signal for exactly that.”
Ignis Row had started off as a venue for debauchery just for fire dragons, but since the Dracoryn Realm had been under my dad’s rule, ice dragons, wind dragons, and water dragons had come together more, as the Realm had unified into much more of a community-style state.
So now, even though it was located in the Fire Dragon Quadrant, it was definitely not just relegated to fire dragons.
“Not everyone who goes there actually gets their fucking on. It’s just about sexual expression; it doesn’t have to culminate in that.”
“Gets their fucking on?” he said, shaking his head.
“Come on, one of us has to bring the vulgarity.”
His lips quirked. “Very true.” Unfortunately, that humor was too short-lived for him and he started pacing deeper into my room and shoving at his hair. “What am I going to do?”
“Well, the two of you aren’t just friends anyway, right? You told me you’ve kissed and even fooled around.”
He stilled and eyed me. “Fooled around, meaning I… you know… tasted her.”
“You ate her out. Got it.”
He screwed up his face. “Way to take the romance out of it.”
“See?”
“What?”
“You’re not just friends and you’re not wannabe fuck buddies either. You really care about her. You might even… love her.”
“Love? I… I don’t know.” He fisted his hands. “And I can’t even entertain that, can I? I mean, after I… pleasured her, which, yes, I really liked doing with her, and she made it very clear she liked it too… she wanted to reciprocate.”
“To suck you off.”
“Evi!”
I chuckled. “Just trying to give it a bit of normalization.” And to help him to see just how much he adored her, that things were naturally escalating, and something he needed to start dealing with, instead of pushing off to the side—and repressing.
“But I couldn’t have her… do that to me.”
“In case you lost control?”
“Right. In case it revealed what your dad and grandmother have worked so hard to keep secret. That my brother suffered to keep secret for me too.”
Yeah, Torvek wasn’t a regular fire dragon—and not just because of his tainted heritage, or the fact that before the war he’d technically been next in line to rule the Dracoryn Realm.
It was because his bloodline had been experimented on by his maniacal grandfather, Malrik Titanus, and that horrific fallen Celestial being, Draco. It meant that Torvek possessed Celestial-level abilities.