The hardest part about living a life not bound by linear years was gauging length. But then, even those bound to finite life spans in sequential order occasionally suffered from a form of temporal displacement where sometimes a single year could seem like a blink or a week could last an eternity.
With Illarion, he kept drifting back to his days in Greek captivity when they’d forced him to become a man against his will.
To those escape attempts with Max when he’d been reliant on his brother.
Probably because he felt that way now. Only this wasn’t a physical need for protection. It was emotional, and he hated that even more. He wasn’t physically weak and unable to fight. In fact, he’d never been stronger in that regard.
It was his spirit and soul that were sick. The need inside him to feel connected again.
He’d never craved that. Not until Edilyn. Her absence left such a vacuous hole inside him that it was as if a part of him had been carried away into the grave with her.
It didn’t help that he was here with the Peltier bears and Kattalakis wolves and their mates. Daily reminders of what bonded mates were like.
What they should be like.
Max was his brother, not just in blood, but in misery. A mated dragon whose partner had abused him to such extent that Max had left her in the Stone Age and sought refuge thousands of years out of her reach.
Yet he would sometimes mumble Seraphina’s name in his sleep. Illarion never mentioned it to him, and if Max remembered doing it, he never spoke a word about it. Nor did he ever talk about Sera at all.
In fact, no one here other than Illarion even knew Sera existed.
Max kept that as his personal hell.
So on the night when she and her Amazon tribe made a thunderous appearance in the Sanctuary bar and grill, Max turned more than a few Were-Hunter heads.
But the bomb she laid on them all was the one none of them, especially Max, have ever suspected.…
Blaise shoved at Maxis as Illarion joined them in the private room inside Sanctuary that was reserved to isolate rowdy patrons. He’d been awakened by their shouting. The last thing he’d expected was to find his two brothers embroiled in a heated argument in front of Seraphina.
“Max is planning to leave us behind and go fight demons on his own for his dragonswan. Go on and tell him how stupid he is, Illarion. I tried and he’s too stupid to listen.”
Illarion arched a brow at that. His sharp, steely gaze went to the titian-haired bitch who’d all but destroyed his brother and narrowed with a bloodlust that visibly scared her. And well it should, since he meant it.
Shaking his head, he let out a frustrated sigh as he returned a furious glower to Maxis. So can I kill her now?
Eyes wide, Seraphina stepped back. “Excuse me?”
“No!” Maxis snapped. “And stop asking me that.”
Illarion looked up at the ceiling. It’s so not fair. I lost my Edilyn and yet this bitch lives and returns? Why, gods? Why? His jaw ticcing, he looked to Blaise. Is there not some transmutation of souls we can do? Place my mate’s soul in her body?
“Maybe.”
Max growled at them. “Stop it! Both of you! You’re not going to swap out her soul.”
I don’t understand why you continue to protect her. She’s never brought anything save utter hell and misery to your door. You told me yourself that she could barely look at you when you lived together. So why are you so eager now to die at her command? Let her rot in whatever mess she’s woven. It serves her right.
Seraphina winced.
“Enough, Illarion! She’s the mother of my young and I will not have you say another word against her.”
That news cold-cocked him. You spawned with her? Are you infinitely stupid? The answer to that was obvious.
Instead of saving their race, Max, you should have cut that ungrateful whore’s throat and devoured her unborn young when you had the chance. Saved us all the misery and heartache they’ve caused us since then. Not to mention indigestion and ulcers.
Illarion raked another cold sneer over Seraphina. Be grateful you’re his mate. That alone stays my hand from ripping out your heart and feasting on it … Arcadian.
But Max wasn’t in the mood to give him any reprieve. “If not for them, Illarion, you’d have never met your Edilyn.”
Illarion winced at his brother’s cruel reminder, and looked away. You’re not helping your cause, brother. You’re only reminding me why I hate them all and what they’ve viciously taken from me.… Now, what’s this infernal madness you’re on about?
Max glared at him. “You’re the only being alive who can talk to me like that and not be gutted on the floor.”
“Um, yeah,” Blaise said in an irritated tone. “Why does he get that favoritism? You’d lay me out cold for it.”
Illarion cut another malicious glare at Seraphina before he answered Blaise’s question. Before you were born, Blaise, I was the one who found Max after her tribe all but gelded and skinned him alive. They had him muzzled with a metriazo collar that restricted his ability to use his magick in any way. He couldn’t even transform to heal himself. Had I not found him when I did, he would have died. I doubt he’d have made it through another three hours in the condition he was in.
Blaise sucked his breath in sharply at what that meant as Seraphina closed her eyes in sympathetic pain and horror.
Giving her no reprieve from his wrath and hatred, Illarion circled her. Had an enemy found him, he’d have been gutted and tortured even more. I don’t say worse, because no one could have done him worse harm.
“Enough,” she breathed.
But he refused to take mercy on her. They’d even clipped his wings to ground him.
“Stop!” Max snarled.
Now even Blaise glared at her.
Maxis broke between his brothers to approach her. True to his damnable Arel blood, he gently lifted her chin until she met his haunted gaze. “My wings grew back together.”
After two hundred years, Illarion reminded him. Leaving you at the mercy of enemies you couldn’t escape until you could fly again.
He glanced over his shoulder toward Illarion. “It taught me to be a stronger fighter. Now leave it. This isn’t about me or the past. It’s about my dragonets and their survival today.”
Illarion moved to stand at Maxis’s back. He placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder. You are the only parent I’ve ever known. And you’re my best friend. I will not let you fight alone.
Blaise nodded. “Three dragons are better than one.”
Scoffing, Max dropped his hand from Seraphina’s face. “Two dragons and a mandrake.”
“How exactly are you a mandrake and related to them?” she asked.
Blaise sighed wearily. “My father was the leader of the mandrakes under King Uther Pendragon. When I was born looking like this—” He held his hands out to show off his features that clearly betrayed his albinism. “—our demonic mother decided she had no use for her special mandrake son. She handed me over to my father, who then took me out to the woods and left me to die.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged at Sera’s sympathy. “Don’t be. Got over it. And given my mother’s wonderful personality, and my father’s oh-so-kind temperament, prefer it to having been kept by either of them. Normally, I just tell folks I know nothing of my parents and leave it at that. It’s easier than dealing with their pity over something that really doesn’t affect me.”
Like him and Maxis. It’d never bothered them, either, that their mother had abandoned her nests and left them to either die, or survive on their own. It was the way of their species.
Tears gathered in Sera’s eyes as she stared up at Max. “Gods, I thought this would be easier to do.”
“What?”
“Consign you to death. Again.” Seraphina bit her lip as she glanced between them. “I don’t know what to do, Maxis. Even though they can’t use the hearts of our children for the spell they have, Nala will gut them if I fail to deliver the Dragonbane’s heart to her.”
Why him? Illarion asked.
She shrugged. “The spell they have requires the heart of the father of our race. The firstborn Apollite-dragon who drew first blood.”
The Dragonbane.
Max met Illarion’s gaze and knew the secret the two of them had shared for five thousand years. They weren’t just bound by their mother’s blood. They’d been bound by one prince’s and pantheon’s savage cruelty.
Blaise cleared his throat. “You know … having been raised around the queen bitch of the fey folk and watching the nasty shit she’s pulled on everyone … The backstabbing. The lies. Half-truths, et cetera, I just have to ask one simple question.… Has anyone bothered to find out what this spell will actually do once it’s cast?”
Max laughed bitterly. “I have a really good idea since they have Hadyn’s Emerald Tablet.”
Blaise’s eyes bugged at the mention of that. “Combine that with what you guard—”
And your heart, Illarion finished.
“Bishhhh!” Blaise made the sound of an explosion as he flung his hands out.
Seraphina scowled. “I don’t quite understand what you’re saying.”
Max locked gazes with her. “They’re not just planning on destroying this Daimon leader, Stryker. They’re planning on releasing the Atlantean Destroyer, reuniting the gods of Chaos, and reestablishing the old order.”
Blaise nodded. “If they succeed in this, honey, it ain’t just your kids they’ll kill. It’s every creature who has an ounce of light energy in them.”
Illarion let out a silent sigh. Which means all of us and everyone we love, and a few we’re not that fond of, either.