Chapter Twelve
A few hours later, Edmund stood back watching as two other water dragons retrieved Drake from the rubble inside the gallery.
Cassandra spoke softly to the one. She patted him on the cheek and smiled. He looked at Edmund, nodded, and made his exit. “That was Alin.”
“I assumed as much.”
“When did you say the others from your herd would arrive?” She pushed her hair back from her face. Slowly, the color had returned to her cheeks.
“Bogdan and Sigurd will arrive shortly. It would not be wise for Blake to leave his fiú and mate at this time.”
“I called to check on my mother. Mary says a man came to visit her today and brought her some yarn. She’s making arrangements for the move.”
“Bogdan. Says she reminds him of his own mum, with her knitting.”
“Thank you for bringing Mary along with Mum to the island.” Cassandra hugged him. He felt that little tremble in her heart flutter in his own.
“She’s my family, too, now luv.”
Cassandra smiled and nodded.
“Now what is it we came here for in the first place?”
Cassandra bumped the wall with her foot. Then she kicked it harder. “It’s supposed to move. There’s a vault on the other side.”
“Let me try.” Edmund felt around the wall, found the invisible crease and saw where the claws had dug inside it. “Would Margaret have known it was here?”
“No, but she may have suspected. She told me where to store them, but never nor asked what I did with them.”
Edmund ran his hands down the claw marks, praying at the largest gash in the wall until he found a hole. He yanked, and the section of wall popped out.
Cassandra tried to slide the piece of wall, but it wouldn’t budge. Edmund gave it a hard nudge to make it move out of the way.
She punched in a code of numbers on the digital keypad and pressed her hand to the palm reader of a steel door hidden behind the wall. The keypad beeped at her.
“I’m glad you didn’t let him shift. If he’d have breathed his cold ice in here, it would have frozen the eggs.” She smacked the door, yelped and shook her hand. Edmund took her hand in his, rubbing where it smarted. “I couldn’t let Drake get a hold of these eggs.” She looked up at him, her eyes filled with agony. “They’re alive, Edmund. They are the last of their bloodline.”
“Which is why Margaret is collecting them.”
Cassandra shook her head. “We’re supposed to protect them, she told me to keep them hidden. These ones are not for sale.”
“They’re priceless,” Edmund said.
“It took me a while after my father died to understand why the eggs never got sent to the hatchery with Uncle Istvan. It’s a game to her. They’re just pawns like in a chess game.” Cassandra pressed her hand to the palm reader.
“Which explains why she tried to take the fiú from the island.” Edmund cursed then slammed his fist against the metal door. One by one the locks released. “Melsunia and Blake were the last two sun dragons. With Melsunia gone, the egg is the last pure blood besides Blake.”
“Sun dragon eggs are the most sought after of your kind. No wonder she got angry and sent Drake and Alin after Jacques. But she didn’t do anything to Emily.”
“Emily’s safe on the island.”
“Or is she? You said yourself she and her mate have been summoned to the draconian counsel.” Cassandra walked past him, pushing the door open into the temperature-controlled room.
“But even as the leader of your Keeper society, Margaret holds no weight with the draconian counsel.”
She closed the door enough to leave a crack for them to escape. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. How would Margaret have known about your pendragon, Blake’s, fiú?”
“Olaus,” Edmund growled. His dragon raging inside him. “When Blake hears of this…”
“Margaret has too many powerful connections for us to stop her alone.” Cassandra went from one glass incubator to the next. “First Emily, and now me? She won’t take us turning on her lightly. She so much as said so when I called. I didn’t tell her about us.”
“Better for us,” he said. “Margaret’s scent isn’t as strong as the others, but I have no doubt she was here tonight.”
Cassandra glanced at him, hovering over one of the incubators. “You’re sure?”
Edmund glanced around the temperature-controlled room. “As sure as I’m a dragon.”
“Then it’s good for us Drake didn’t get what he was looking for.” Cassandra stepped away and showed him the eggs nestled in the incubator. “Meet Peter, Bob, Joe, John, and the newest one. I think I’ll call him Ike. He’s from Iceland.”
Edmund’s brow rose. “You named them?”
Cassandra swept her hand over them. “Of course. All babies need a name.”
He could see now her personal attachment to them. The way she’d hidden them so that not even Margaret could find them. He grinned.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he chuckled.
“What?”
He snickered. “I was just thinking of what names you’d choose for our future fiú?”
Her jaw dropped, he grabbed her hand before she could punch him. Kissed her knuckles and asked, “Now luv, what shall we do with all these little ones?”
“What we Keepers were meant to do all along. Protect them. Make sure no one, especially Margaret Moldvan, can use them for their own gain again.”
“I think I know how we can arrange that.”