I raged against the walls of my cell. I kicked, screamed, and pounded my fists.
My body was not mine. That thing was inside me; controlling me.
I have underestimated you far too many times.
The voice was cold and deep, but I recognized him — from the bar. This was Fausto. Except, Fausto was more than what we’d thought he was. Not just a mortal.
“Get out of me!” I raged.
If I do that now, you will fall five hundred feet to your death.
“Get out!” I screamed.
Aren’t you a cute one.
“Stay calm, my love,” Raw’s voice echoed in my ear. “Stay calm, stay centered, think.”
My connection to Kane advised me to see the truth of all things. I took in a breath, exhaled, and as I did I heard the words of Ore, and without thought or effort, I stepped away from Fausto, leaving him above me. Falling, I turned in the air in time to see the confusion on his face.
“Two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time, asshole,” I said, as I fell.
I thought of the dragon on my back, and called it to come. A cold shiver trembled my spine and the dragon swirled into existence, falling with me for a time and then gently rising again with me on its neck. This wasn’t Ore, it was just a conjuration, I learned through my connection with Ore.
“This is impossible!” the winged figure of Fausto demanded.
“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you,” I told him as the dragon lifted me back up to his elevation where I could look him in the eye.
“I am a Lord of the Seelie Court. I have woken a Sleeper. His power is at my command. I am the greatest power here,” he warned.
“Nice,” my connection to Quinn said through me. “I’m not from here.”
When I reached for my gun, my connection to Slate told me no, The nail. Trusting him, I took the horse shoe nail from my bra, and felt it grow into a two foot spike as it had in Rome last night.
What the hell was the Seelie Court? I asked myself, and in a flash my connection to Slate and Quinn told me it was the ruling political power of those known as the Fey.
I didn’t bother with the questions about the Fey being real, or the Seelie Court for that matter. After all, I was riding a dragon conjured from a tattoo on my back, put there by a dragon lord earlier today. Once shit like that’s going on, real becomes an abstract idea.
I looked Fausto in the eyes. “Reality is, you are causing too much death, and making criminals powerful. So, I don’t care where you’re from, you need to go back there. Because, this is done. Tonight.”
“And you are going to send me there?” he asked grinning like an idiot.
“No, they are,” I said, nodding my head to the green, blue, red, gold and white stars in the night sky, falling closer every second.
In no time, they had landed, the bulk of them in dragon form almost too much to take in. I’d thought they would take over. Come to my defense. But looking from one to the other, I realized this wasn’t the case at all.
“You’re strong enough, Misty. Stronger than you know,” I heard Quinn say.
And then Fausto turned, his wings spreading out full as he charged toward me. I ducked and he missed me by a measure as thin as a thread, but didn’t give much pause before he attacked again.
I watched him move, my mind spinning faster than minds should be able to spin and it was as though every move he could have made was a move I’d already invaded. I ducked and I leapt and I jumped. The look on Fausto’s face, the fury burning in his eyes, grew and grew and when his wings spread once more, I knew that if I didn’t make the right move now, I’d learn just what death was about. And I didn’t want to die. These men, my men, they believed in me, trusted me, needed me.
Without another thought, I threw the iron spike at Fausto.
It flew like a small javelin, which I had learned to throw in college. When it hit his back, I half expected it to bounce off, like the bullet bounced off my belly on the streets below. He screamed as it pierced deep. The smell of burning flesh touched my nostrils. From around the spike, came the sound of sizzling meat.
He fell from the sky, trying to pull the spike from his back. I had no problem with watching him fall. He tried to possess me, to make me a puppet. He meant for me to watch from inside, helpless and trapped behind my own eyes, as he used my body to commit atrocity.
Fuck him.
Cold Iron. Iron forged as tools, not weapons. Inanna was correct, I read my classics. I knew about the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the war with them; the discovery of cold iron’s effect on those known as the Fey. They had no deference against cold iron. Their armor, their magic and their flesh was destroyed by cold iron. Even their lands were scorched by that metal.
I looked at the men now standing where dragons stood only moments ago. In their eyes, I saw something identical, something that I knew would be the end of me. There was a choice to be made. Feelings were bound to get hurt, disappointment was bound to set in and I didn’t know how to handle that. Funny how taking down a Fey seemed easy in comparison to choosing a man to love. But the choice to be made was simply impossible. So much so that I wanted someone’s arms around me after this whole ordeal, the only problem was, when I looked at them all, I didn’t know who to run to.
I told my conjured dragon to take me to my hotel.
***
First we flew low enough for me to connect with and recall my drones. All but two were able to return.
Alighting on my balcony, I willed my dragon to become my tattoo again, and felt the chill of it reforming on my back. Once inside, I spent several hours composing the story of the Fall of the Cortez Cartel, while listening to my emergency radio, and adding in various details as they happened.
It was one hell of a night, and the closer I came to running out of things to report, the more my confusion about the brothers grew.
I began with Kane, and after less than an hour with him had fallen into a love I had never experienced before. I wasn’t a prude then, but sexual relationships weren’t important to me. I loved my work, and my status as an investigative reporter. I was good at it too. Hell, I got fan mail all the time. Sex was nice, but so was just being held. Kane changed all of that in a heartbeat; the beat of my heart next to his.
Then Slate came into my life, and he was more than amazing, and I loved him, and loved who I was when I was with him. That felt so unique. Yet there was nothing unique about it now, except that they were each unique, and I was a unique person with each of them.
Quinn, even though our time was short together, the shortest of all so far, had my heart. He let me ride a dragon under the stars, let me see faith, and belief – just words to me before, now they were emotions and sources of power, and happiness.
Raw taught me so much, I couldn’t begin to list how he changed my world, how he changed life and living for me.
And Ore. The closeness, the protectiveness. There was too much to put into words.
All of them swirled into my soul, brilliant, and devastating, at once.
***
Ore woke me with a tray of food, which he called Lunch in Bed. I smiled, and scooted over, inviting him into bed with me. I felt so young with him – so open and playful. He told me he was the Dragon of Wonder and Discovery, and perhaps that was the cause for the alteration in my mood. Because I felt wonder with him, the wonder that young people have. Kids, looking at the stars, wondering…
After I ate, we lay together, heads on pillows, talking. My hands removed his clothing while we kissed. His lithe muscular body was hairless, his skin smooth and he smelt of fresh hay and leather. His hair was a textural fascination to my fingers. While his body was a young man’s, his cock was a full size model. Until he hardened though, it really wasn’t all that important to me. When he did, however, it was my pleasure to bring him to bliss.
“Are you the oldest?” I asked, after.
He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said with a shrug, “I don’t know. By the time the question of who was oldest came up, we had forgotten who came first and when. Then, as now, it felt like we’ve always been together.”
Other than each of them having strange blue eyes and an odd feel about them – as being human and ancient at the same time – they were very different in size, shape and even skin tone. “The others seem to hold you in high regard, and it feels like they see you as the eldest,” I ventured.
“It’s my powers,” he told me. “For some reason, my powers affect them, but theirs don’t affect me or each other.”
“Also, you were the first with Inanna, I was told,” I pressed, though this news about his powers was interesting as well. “What did you say to her? What did you say that swept her heart away?”
He turned and looked up at the ceiling, his eyes looking back over the distance of more than ten thousand years. “I told her, that sex wasn’t a conquest, and war was not love. That subjugation was not marriage. To kill me if those were the things she respected, because I had no wish to live in a world where my wife was my slave.”
Wow. I thought to myself.
He turned his head, meeting my eyes. “I’m not sure of my exact words, but beating a woman into submission, so she would agree to marry me, had no interest for me. If that was what she needed, I was never going to be her partner, or husband.”
That would have done it for me.
Mostly we remained in bed, then we went out on the balcony after sunset and looked at the stars. He told me stories, showed me constellations from Egypt, China, India, and Greece.
“Really, it’s better to see them up there,” he said, still looking up there.
“Up where?” I asked. “Above the clouds?”
He glanced at me with that soft boyish grin. “Above the moon.”
I gasped.
Taking my hand, he asked, “Want to go?”
Oh my god, I thought, yes. Then realized I hadn’t said anything – “Yes?”
He was no longer man and I realized something I’d probably already known- there’s no fucking way I’m ever getting bored of seeing him in his dragon form. Of seeing any of them in this form.
His wings lifted us higher, majestic strokes carrying us to a place mortals only dream of. I held on tight, not afraid at all.
We continued to soar, higher and higher. Snow fell around us out of a clear sky. The flurry grew thicker, and then into a white out. I felt a rush of motion. Cold laced and licked my skin. Then the suit that Raw created for me, covered my skin.
I felt weight, like I grew in size and pounds – and then sudden weightlessness took over and the snow drifted away like cherry blossom petals do in Japan. We were out past the dark side of the moon; drifting in the nothingness of space.
How was I breathing? How could I be here and not explode? Why did my blood not vaporize? Panic seared my mind! Terror. There was nothing to touch – until I felt his hand in mine.
I looked to him and he smiled, then he looked up toward the Milky Way. I looked there too and lost my terror, and my breath. Then, my eyes focused on Ore again, and his one mine.
Ever since meeting these brothers, I’ve learned more about intimacy than I ever expected I would. Gained more experience in those short moments than I was able to acquire my entire existence before them. I wanted to kiss Ore. I wanted his tongue slick against mine, his body so close it felt more a part of mine than the suit I wore. But standing where I was, chin up, my gaze fixed on his, I couldn’t move. I’ve learned intimacy from these men. So many different kinds and in so many different ways. Now, I was learning an intimacy that didn’t require physical touch.
Ore’s eyes were a window to his soul. They pulled me in, did things to my heart that should not be possible. Did things to my body that bordered on impossible. So much meaning. So much unspoken pain. Not of all he’s experienced, but of all he would experience once a decision was made.
In his eyes, I saw that he needed me. Not just to strengthen his influence on the world, but to strengthen the beats of his heart.
In my eyes, I’m sure he saw the same thing.
How long we were away from earth, I don’t know. Wonder filled me, as if my blood were replaced by its liquid form. Much too soon, if any time could have been too long, the snow returned, and then the feeling of weight, and then the balcony in Tijuana. I felt like I was a spirit, fallen and now trapped in flesh. It took a long time for that sensation to leave me. Long after a hot shower, three drinks and a mind ripping orgasm from him in my bed.
Nude, I sat with him out on the balcony. Looking at the stars, only now, they felt like a place I longed to be, again.
When I woke, he was gone. So was my ring. Sunlight, for the first time in my life, felt dingy.
Out in the main room, on the desk was a small jade bowl, with the sides so thin they were translucent. Inside the bowl were five rings. My rings.
My choice.
Fuck.