“A demon uprising?” Leksander growled as he stalked into the throne room.
He and Erelah had conjured clothes and hurried across the keep. Lucian and Leonidas were already near the dais up front, conferring in hushed tones over Lucian’s phone. Erelah strode by his side, once again in that revealing toga of white that she’d worn most of the time he’d known her. The snowy white of her wings brightened the room, fully extended like she expected to take off at any moment and strike out against this apparent demon horde in Seattle.
Lucian and Leonidas stopped their whispering. Both of their eyes had gone wide, but Leonidas spoke first. “So the white wings are back,” he said with a dip of his chin to Erelah. “Good to know.”
“I have True Love of your brother,” she said, like declaring her love for him was as simple and obvious as the weather. “It has banished my shadow side.”
Leonidas just nodded, giving Leksander a pointed look.
Lucian simply looked stunned. “Are you mated?” he choked out.
“Not yet.” Leksander scowled. “I was working on that.”
Erelah gestured to the phone in Lucian’s hand. “What is the meaning of this?”
“I don’t know,” Lucian said, his face still frozen in disbelief. Then he shook his head and focused on the phone, swiping up a video and playing it for them, soundlessly. “There are attacks all over the city. We knew, of course, that the demons were still present. Leonidas and I have been taking turns patrolling and hunting, while you’ve been, well, occupied.”
“But we had no idea this was coming,” Leonidas cut in. “We wouldn’t have interrupted you two—I’d be the last one to stop you from getting busy.” He gave Lucian a pinched look then turned back to face Leksander. “But something is going down here.” He lifted his chin to Erelah. “We could use a legion of angelings right at the moment.”
“She’s going nowhere,” Leksander said, his voice more harsh than he intended. But there was no fucking way he was letting Erelah leave the keep. Not until she was sealed and carrying his child. And then, not until the baby was born. After that… well, his possessiveness might ease in another hundred years. But he’d just gained everything he ever wanted—the world could go literally to hell before he would risk losing her.
“Leksander,” Erelah scolded him. “This is no small infestation.” She snatched the phone from Lucian’s hand and thrust it in Leksander’s face. “Humans are at risk. I must go.”
“No.” It came out with a wisp of dragonfire. He grabbed the phone from her hand and threw it back at Lucian, who awkwardly caught it. The idea of her running around Seattle, hunting demons… it was insane. Not with the shadow realm after her. But he couldn’t stop her, and knowing her, she would go no matter what he said.
“You do not command me, dragon prince.” Her wings stretched wide, and her feathers bristled. There was that stubborn fire in her eyes, the one he loved, but it felt like it might tear him apart.
Leksander struggled to choke down his rampant and sudden fear. While he was grasping for the right words, Leonidas shoved a hand into Lucian’s shoulder and started cursing him in dragontongue. Leksander yanked his attention back to Erelah. Some of the righteous fury had gone out of her eyes.
“You wish to protect me,” she said, her voice far calmer than he felt.
“Yes,” he gushed in relief.
She nodded. “Because we have yet to complete the mating.”
“Because I love you.” The words felt like pain wrenched from deep in his chest.
She moved closer, fast, with magic-assisted angel speed, and her hand was suddenly on his cheek, those beautiful blue eyes gazing into his. “My love for you,” she whispered. “It consumes me and drives me and…” She blinked. “You must live, dragon prince. For that, we must mate. And soon. All depends on it. I will stay in the keep, as you wish.”
The tension in his shoulders released. He took her cheeks in both hands and kissed her. It felt like a seal of that promise from her. And the need to claim her—to seal her with his fire as well—coiled tight inside him.
Someone coughed. “We’ll find another way to contact the angels.” It was Lucian.
Leksander broke the kiss; otherwise, he’d be bending Erelah over the throne and sealing her right here, and not giving a fuck who was watching.
Leonidas was glaring at Lucian, but then he waved his hands at Leksander and Erelah, shooing them from the room. “You two run along and get busy.”
“How will you make contact with the angelings of Markos’s Dominion?” Erelah asked, not moving from his side.
Lucian scowled. “We’ll figure it out.”
She turned to Leksander. “They may draw the shadow realm. They are alerted to our presence now, and they would take delight in destroying us both. We have already seen this.”
Leksander frowned. “Exactly why I don’t want you running off—”
She held up a finger to stop him, so he did. “You need only drop the wards around the throne room. I can summon Markos and explain—”
“No,” he said, his voice hiking up again. He reined it in. “If we drop the wards, the shadow realm can find you. And with you turned back to light…” He gestured to the brilliant white of her wings. That would piss off every shadow angel even more, he was sure of it. “You have to stay behind the wards, Erelah.”
“The wards will hold against angels of the light.” Erelah’s frown was deepening. “But I’m not sure of the shadow realm. Their magic is darker, and if there were to be a war declared… Leksander, it is vital your brothers do not…” She glanced at them—they were holding back, watching Erelah and him fight it out. She turned back to Leksander. “Whatever is happening in Seattle, it could be far more than we realize. And your brothers might inadvertently draw the war here.”
Leksander shook his head, but he could see her point. A demon uprising in Seattle? What the hell was that all about? Whatever it was, he needed to make sure the fight was kept far from his soon-to-be mate and their dragonling. “Okay, here’s what I’ll do.” He grimaced and lifted his chin to Leonidas and Lucian to include them in this. “Erelah goes back to my lair. Once she’s safely behind the wards, we’ll slip out to the weigh station to call Markos.” Erelah looked about to object, so he rushed out, “I’m not bringing them into the keep, not even just into the throne room. This all stays outside. And I’ll be fast about it, only staying long enough to summon Tajael or Markos or whoever’s listening in his Dominion. Besides, I left your crystal at the weigh station before I came for you in the shadow realm, and I’ll need that to call them—there’s no way anyone in the shadow realm would hear that, right?”
She looked like she was raging some kind of internal debate, and several emotions flitted across her face. At that moment, all he wanted was to take her in his arms and kiss her concerns away, but he had to let her come to this on her own. “That is the most secure way to contact them. My call would be heard throughout both realms.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Relief gushed through him. “And if something goes sideways, I don’t want it happening in the throne room of the keep.”
She nodded, but her agreement seemed tenuous.
He pulled her close and kissed her tenderly. “Go back to my lair. Wait for me. I’ll be back soon, and then we’re not coming out until we have our baby in our arms.”
He could feel the shudder go through her body.
And he felt it too. The aching need to have her, possess her, to turn their love into flesh in the form of a baby of angel light and dragon magic. It was perfect… and it was just within their reach. He kissed her again, hard, and whispered, his voice full of need. “Go now before I ravish you right here in the throne room.”
Her eyes burned with a fiery love that sent his heart soaring. Her wings wrapped around them both, hiding them from the view of his brothers just for a moment. “Make a vow, dragon prince,” she whispered, lips brushing his.
“A vow?” he asked, just as quiet.
“Vow you will be mine. Forever. That you will let nothing stop our love.”
“I made that vow a hundred years ago,” he said, voice hushed even more by the rising lump in his throat. He kissed her again, lightly. “Go. And take my heart with you.”
She spread her wings and lifted into the air, flying out of the throne room in a rush of magic and feathers. He just watched her go, as he had a million times before, only this time was different—this time there was an invisible tether binding them. What he said was true. Even without the mating magic, he had always been and would forever be irrevocably hers.
“Damn.” There was a light chuckle behind him. “You really did it.” It was Leonidas, and when Leksander finally turned to face him, his brother had a mile-wide smile on his face.
“Did what? Win an angeling’s love?” Leksander asked, barely able to keep the smile off his face. Beyond the pure joy that Erelah loved him, he had no small amount of masculine pride in winning her heart.
“You turned a stone-cold angel virgin into a smokin’ hot angel vixen.” Leonidas looked impressed. “And she’s even hotter with the white wings back.”
“I don’t know,” Lucian said with a smirk. “I kind of liked the black wings and leather.”
Leonidas whipped a surprised look at him.
Leksander just laughed. “Oh, believe me. Pledging to love her whether in shadow or light? Really not hard to do.”
“I’ll bet.” Lucian’s humor tempered. “Let’s get this over with so you can get back to fulfilling that mating promise.”
Leksander nodded but held up his finger for them to wait a moment. He reached out with his fae senses to make sure Erelah was back in his lair. Then he raised the wards there, encasing her in protection from any immortal being, although her concerns about a coordinated attack by the shadow realm haunted the edges of his mind. He dropped his hand and said, “She’s all set. Ready when you are.”
The three of them hurried out of the throne room and down the hall to the side entrance to the keep normally reserved for visiting immortals, usually during one of the official functions welcoming a new dragonling to the House of Smoke. Leksander was determined that one day, those ceremonies would be honoring his dragonling and his mate… and for that, he needed to get this shit done and hurry back, just as he promised Erelah.
Leonidas dropped the wards at the entrance, and each of the three brothers leaped out into the cool mountain air by turns, shifting as they went. Lucian’s golden scales glinted in the midday sun as he soared off Leksander’s left wingtip. Leonidas’s bronze ones likewise shone to Leksander’s right. They had automatically taken up defensive positions flanking him. Each of his brothers had already fulfilled their duties—won the True Love of their mates and produced a dragonling to fulfill the treaty. Everything now rode on Leksander’s shoulders, and he’d already summited the most difficult part in winning Erelah’s heart. He believed, deep in his core, what he had once told her—that with her love, all things were possible.
Now he just had to make it happen.
Most of the House has already deployed to Seattle. Lucian’s thoughts slipped into Leksander’s mind as they flew the short jaunt to the weigh station.
How bad is it, really? Leksander asked in return.
It’s like the city has gone mad, Leonidas’s thoughts broke in. The demon possessions were escalating—we knew that—but it’s like someone told them to go Full Metal Demonic all at once.
Our warriors are doing their best without us, Lucian added.
The princes with their fae blood could slay demons who possessed humans, but their fellow dragons of the House of Smoke, in possession of only dragon magic, would have to kill the humans to destroy the demons. Which went against everything dragons stood for.
We had to keep watch over you two, Leonidas added, although Leksander already knew—he was a mess when he arrived at the keep with Erelah, and his brothers would have made guarding them top priority. He understood that. They would stand by him just as he had stood by both of them while they were winning their mates and creating their dragonlings.
It was everything the House of Smoke was built on.
I’ll summon Markos. Leksander landed with his brothers on the thin rocky ledge that served as a weigh station for visiting immortals just outside the perimeter alarms. He shifted human and finished the rest of his thought out loud. “Tajael has to have briefed him by now on what’s happened.”
His brothers had shifted human as well. Lucian nodded, and Leonidas warily scanned the horizon, as if he expected the demon horde from Seattle to make a sudden showing. But if the shadow realm knew Leksander was outside the wards of his keep—and if they still held a grudge, which he imagined they were the sort who would—they’d wink into existence right next to them.
And he and his brothers would never have a chance.
Leksander hurried to retrieve the crystal from the small rocky ledge where he’d stashed it. Then he held it up to his mouth and spoke as if it were a microphone. He still wasn’t sure how it worked, only that it did. “This is Leksander Smoke of the House of Smoke calling Tajael or Markos or any angel of light that hears this. We have a crisis here in the human realm, and we need your help—”
The flash of light and pulse of air that presaged the arrival of someone through an interdimensional portal came almost immediately.
Tajael’s eyes were wide as he quickly scanned Leksander. “You are well!”
“Yes, but—”
Tajael cut him off by rushing at Leksander and grabbing him by the shoulders. “And Erelah?”
“She’s fine.” Leksander scowled. “We need—”
“Dragon prince.” Tajael’s voice rose sharply, nearly to angelsong, bruising Leksander’s eardrums. “What news have you for me about our angeling?” Tajael demanded, his green eyes flashing as he stared into Leksander’s.
It took half a heartbeat for Leksander to put it together. “She’s returned to the light, Tajael. She’s fine.”
His face lit up with joy, and he hugged Leksander, hard. It was awkward—not to mention that Leonidas and Lucian were flat-out gawking at them—but Leksander couldn’t hug the overeager angeling back if he wanted to. His arms were trapped at his side.
Tajael released him and clasped his hands together, his smile wide. “I knew it was possible. Tell me—have you successfully had sex?”
“Tajael, what the hell?” Leksander stepped back just in case the angeling decided to hug him again.
His face fell. “You have not? So when she healed you, she didn’t… your love was not enough to…” Tajael trailed off, but his wings drooped.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, just tell him,” Leonidas said, a hand covering his mouth like he could barely contain his laugh. Lucian looked like he was about to cry from the effort of keeping his laughter inside.
Leksander growled. “Yes, we’ve made love, Tajael.”
His eyes lit up again. “And she retained her wings?”
“They’re white if that’s what you mean.” All of this was rubbing him the wrong way. “But I would love her in shadow or in light, so fuck you for asking.”
Tajael wasn’t deterred in the slightest. “Oh, it’s a miracle!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up as if praising the heavens. Then a frown grabbed hold of him. “Have you mated?” he asked Leksander.
“Not yet,” he grumbled. “Something I would dearly like to get back to.”
The angeling’s face scrunched up in an almost comical way. “Whatever are you doing here, talking to me? Do you not realize—”
“For the love of magic, shut up, angeling.” Leonidas was still laughing, which just seemed to confuse Tajael even more.
“I need your help,” Leksander said quickly before the angeling could ramp up again. “The demon uprising in Seattle. We need a legion of your best to keep that under control, maybe even figure out what’s happening there, so I can get busy with impregnating Erelah with my child.”
Tajael’s face took on an expression of wonder that seemed to short him out for a moment. Then he came back to life. “Of course.”
Then he turned and disappeared in a burst of light.
The silence stretched a moment in his absence.
“Um… what the hell is he doing?” Lucian said, all humor fled.
“Going back for reinforcements?” Leonidas asked, but it was more hope than a real question.
“It’s not like angelings don’t enjoy the hell out of a good demon kill,” Leksander said, tentatively. He wasn’t sure at all what Tajael was up to. “I mean, it shouldn’t be hard to recruit—”
The boom of the returning angelkind nearly knocked Leksander off the ledge. Suddenly, a host of angels—a legion he supposed, at least fifty—hovered in the air above the ledge. Their wings shone bright white, reflecting the sun and turning the sky into blinding spots that hummed the air with their power. In the middle, descending quickly to land next to Leksander, were Tajael and Markos. The angel’s oversized form was barely clad in the same shining white toga they all wore. The air seemed to quiver around him, and Leksander could only imagine how much power the angel had. After having Erelah squirm under him in bed and feeling the full force of her barely-restrained power during their lovemaking—plus watching shadow angels create magical storms with their fighting in the shadow realm—he appreciated the power he had just summoned to help them.
“Holy shit,” Leonidas whispered behind him.
Leksander faced the angel, Markos. “We need your help to put down a demon uprising in the city.”
“We have sensed it,” Markos said, his voice booming a little louder than necessary.
Leksander frowned. If they sensed it, why didn’t they take care of it? But now didn’t seem the right time to chastise an overpowered angel. “I must remain here at the keep, but my brothers would appreciate any help you can give.”
Markos raised his hand, two fingers giving a small flick that seemed to ripple through the gathering of angelings above him. “My Dominion lives to serve. They will follow the House of Smoke into battle.” He lowered his arm.
Leksander nodded to Lucian and Leonidas. “Make haste to the city. There’s no time to waste with this.” They both nodded and shifted to dragon form as they leaped up from the ledge.
Tajael and Markos exchanged a brief look, but then Tajael’s wings unfurled, and he leaped into the air after Leksander’s brothers, leaving him alone with Markos on the ledge. The legion of angelings was already speeding toward the city, holding back enough so the dragons could keep up.
“Tajael says you’ve yet to mate with Erelah,” Markos said, his cool gaze steadily holding Leksander’s.
“Is that going to be a problem?” he asked. Tajael seemed to think Markos wanted them to mate, but who knew with angels and angelings.
“If she can remain in the light, it will be a new day,” Markos said solemnly.
Leksander frowned. “A new day for angels.” Was that Markos’s main concern here? He couldn’t be sure.
“And the House of Smoke,” Markos said smoothly. “I wish to speak to her.”
The wards would keep out Markos—and any other immortal, at least, that’s what he hoped—so the angel was truly asking permission.
“I appreciate your help with the uprising,” Leksander said as diplomatically as he could, “but no one gets in the keep at this point. Not until our dragonling is born.”
Suddenly, Markos reached out an oversized hand toward Leksander’s head.
“Whoa!” Leksander stumbled back, out of reach.
Markos’s face remained impassive. “I wish only to give you a blessing, dragon prince of the House of Smoke.”
“A blessing.” Leksander stood his ground.
“To strengthen you,” he said, coolly, hand still extended. “To ease the compatibility of your species with Erelah’s. It is in everyone’s interest for this mating to succeed.”
Well, not everyone’s interest. Leksander wasn’t a fool. But he stepped forward until he was back within reach. At this point, he would take any advantage he could get.
Markos’s palm met Leksander’s forehead, and the instant elation he felt was like nothing he’d ever experienced. He rose up—literally lifted into the air like he was a puppet dangling from Markos’s touch—and power pulsed through every fiber of his being, traveling from that touch and radiating out to his limbs, his hands and feet, and finally electrifying every finger and toe. When Markos released him, he slumped back to the rocky ledge, landing hard but still feeling enervated by the blessing. His fae nature fought the surge of power, and even his dragon seemed to be in retreat. But if he mated with Erelah, who was half angel, he figured it couldn’t hurt to have angel magic pulsing through him to lead the way.
Without a word, Markos turned and vanished.
Leksander stood alone on the rocky ledge.
It took a moment to summon his dragon and shift to that form to fly back to the keep, but he finally managed it. His own silver wings glinted in the bright afternoon sun as he soared across the mountain crevices between the weigh station and the keep. He was still vibrating with the power of the angel’s blessing, and a deep satisfaction filled him.
He was on his way to his beloved.
They would make a child that would literally save the world.
For once in his life—at least in all the time he could remember—everything was exactly, precisely as it should be.
He was halfway back to the keep when something boomed the air behind him. He twisted his serpentine dragon neck to see, assuming that Markos had returned for some reason. All he saw was a black shape before something hit him with the power of a rockslide, knocking him from the air and sending him tumbling toward the ravine below. Just as he flung out his wings and surged his magic to slow his fall, he was struck again…
And this time, the world went black.