Chapter 7

Nikolai is a weird combination of ‘he’s so sweet, my parents love him’ and ‘don’t ever fuck with that guy, he’s a crazy mother fucker.’

-Brooklyn’s secret thoughts

Brooklyn

I opened my eyes to darkness, and a solid massive male, who wasn’t Nikolai, standing over me.

And I might, or might not have, reacted badly.

Out of sheer instinct, I launched myself off the bed, then hovered there in the corner.

Then imagined myself being protected by Nikolai, and suddenly, I was.

Nikolai appeared as if out of thin air, and he was spitting mad.

He launched himself at my unwanted intruder. The two of them went down in a pile of big limbs, strong punches, and bellowing roars.

“What the fuck is going on here?” the man that looked like death reincarnated, screamed.

Nikolai didn’t talk, only kept attacking.

Except, the more I looked, the less and less real it seemed.

Because Nikolai wasn’t doing much more than distracting the intruder, stepping in front of him, knocking him down.

It wasn’t anything like the fight I’d seen last night.

What the fuck was going on, indeed.

From the corner of my eye, I saw movement in the doorway, and looked to see a crowd huddled there, Nikolai in the very front.

He was looking at the scene with an impressed air about him, and suddenly, I wasn’t scared any longer.

Which meant the illusion I’d unwittingly created dissipated in a cloud of smoke.

“What are you doing out there?” I asked Nikolai in confusion.

Then understanding dawned as he grinned and watched Keifer stand up and brush off his shirt before turning to me.

Why he was hovering in the doorway in a dark room scaring the ever loving crap out of me while I was sleeping was beyond me.

It wasn’t Nikolai who answered.

“I was letting your cat back inside, she wouldn’t shut up,” Keifer explained.

“Ahhh,” I said. “How’d she get outside?”

Nikolai shook his head and finally breached the room, walking to the bed, and taking a seat like there weren’t fifteen people in the room.

Well, more like five, but who was counting?

He was wearing exactly what he’d had on last night when we’d gotten into bed, which wasn’t much of anything, corroborating his story.

The night before, Nikolai and I had fallen asleep in his bed, talking about this and that.

We’d…or at least I’d…had a great time.

We’d stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, talking about dragon riders. My life with my parents. Nikolai’s life before he’d come into his powers. What I wanted to do with my life.

And sometime between my explanation and his offer, I’d fallen asleep.

Only to be woken up so rudely by the behemoth standing at the end of the bed, glaring down at me like I’d outsmarted him, and I was an interesting new toy.

“Hi,” I said, waving.

“You have a mating tattoo,” the man said.

“That’s very observant of you, Keifer,” Nikolai said dryly.

Keifer turned his glare to his brother.

“How long has this been going on?” he challenged.

Nikolai grinned. “Since you left.”

Blythe, who’d been standing in the doorway, gasped.

“And you didn’t tell me?” Blythe said accusingly.

I held up my hands. “I was just trying not to freak out. He said to give it time, so I did that by not talking about it…at all.”

Blythe’s lips tightened and she turned to regard Keifer, revealing a small bump that I hadn’t seen before.

“You’re pregnant?” I screeched.

Blythe blushed.

“You’re accusing me of not talking to you, and you have something this huge, and you didn’t tell me?” I yelled, standing now.

“I’m not huge!” Blythe screeched back.

I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling.

“That’s not what I said, and you know it,” I stated.

She furrowed her nose at me.

“So…how was the sex?” Blythe asked.

Nikolai coughed.

“I…” I hesitated. “We haven’t…uhhh…had sex yet.”

Blythe’s mouth dropped open.

“You…then how…you have his mark!” She pointed at the tattoo.

I looked down, only now realizing that I was practically naked, only in a bra and a pair of panties.

“Shit,” I said, standing up and reaching for the blanket that was on the bed. “Why are y’all still in here while I’m naked?”

“You’re not naked,” Keifer argued.

Nikolai grabbed his brother in a choke hold and took him out of the room, leaving only me and Blythe.

“You’re my sister for real now!” Blythe said, jumping on the bed and rolling until she was lying on the made side of the bed.

I blinked, laughing under my breath as I realized that Nikolai had made the bed around me instead of waking me up.

“I haven’t decided to actually accept the mating yet,” I hedged.

Blythe gave me an eye roll.

“If you’re bearing the mark…something I’m still not sure how you’re doing if you haven’t had sex…then you’re his and he’s yours. No ifs, ands or buts. Trust me on this, you can’t run,” she said.

Then she did something with her fingers, and all of a sudden a fireball formed in her hands.

I gasped.

“Your hand’s on fire!” I screeched.

Apparently, screeching was the only octave I could handle this morning.

She looked at me curiously.

“You made my mate fight a figment of his imagination…and you’re saying something about me holding a ball of fire?” she asked.

I blinked.

Now that she put it like that, it did sound odd that I would question her use of a magical ability.

“I don’t even know how I did that,” I said.

Blythe smiled.

“The first night I started exhibiting powers, I caught my panties on fire,” she said.

I waited for the punch line, but there wasn’t one.

“You’re…what?” I asked in confusion.

She nodded as if I was in on some insider’s scoop.

“I really did. But I didn’t burn my skin. But I’ve miraculously never had to shave again since I burned off the hair. It’s been rather…interesting. The major thing is that I can hear other people’s thoughts…when I want to,” she added quickly when she saw the worried look on my face.

I visibly relaxed.

“Good,” I said. “Do you think you could make it so I didn’t have to shave anymore?”

She gave me a droll look.

“You’re weird,” she said. “Tell me how you and Nikolai got mated without actually fucking.”

I curled my lip at her. “Don’t say ‘fucking.’ It’s crude,” I said. “As for the ‘mating’ part of our ‘mating’, which I’m still not sure about; apparently the tattoo can appear without actual intercourse. Mine appeared after he touched me. When his sister was working on me, apparently I became very near death, and the mating was forced to save my life. I drew a monumental amount of energy from Nikolai that was able to heal me physically. Mentally, it took a little bit longer…or so I’m told.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Do you want to fuck him?”

I glared at her and she held up her hands.

“Sorry,” she said. “Keifer has a dirty mouth.”

I sighed and finally sat down, letting the sheet I’d grabbed in my haste to cover up drop as I did.

I reached for the shirt Nikolai had taken off the night before and shrugged it on before lying down next to her.

“I want to,” I said.

“Then why don’t you?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I’m nervous. I want to be with him, but to have it forced upon us makes me feel like it’s wrong. What if he resents me? What if I resent him?”

“Trust me on this,” she said. “You won’t resent each other. Everything you’re feeling now will all be clear after, and you’ll feel even more deeply and strongly for each other.

I sighed.

“I’m hungry,” I said.

She jumped up.

“Me, too!” she said, clapping her hands.

Then she jumped forward, tossed me a pair of sweatpants that were on the floor, and said, “Get them on.”

Needless to say, I ‘got them on’.

They were too big.

They were, of course, made for a man that was six foot three and two hundred twenty pounds.

Not me at five foot six inches and a hundred and thirty five pounds.

Well, a hundred and thirty five pounds when I was still working out. There was no telling what I weighed now.

Blythe walked with me to the kitchen, seemingly having no problem navigating the hallways like I had.

We were almost there when we heard a commotion that had us both running.

“Fuck!” came the booming bellow of Keifer.

We were in the kitchen within moments, and I froze when I saw Keifer as pale as a white sheet.

“What’s going on?” I cried, seeing Nikolai not in much better of a position.

He was leaning heavily on the counter, Keifer’s hand wrapped around his bicep.

He had his head leaning against the cool granite countertop as something was exchanged between them.

“Hurry, put your hand on him,” Blythe dragged me to Keifer.

Except my mind was all on Nikolai, as worry poured through me. Was he okay?

The moment I touched the skin of Keifer’s arm, lightning jumped from him to me.

My skin seemed to pulse as whatever power communication between the two males poured into me as well. My skin felt hot, and my eyes burned like they did at the end of a long day of working outside under the sun.

My breathing came in short, ragged gasps, and my eyes inadvertently closed as I, too, slumped onto the counter.

It was like when I was sixteen and accidentally touched an exposed wire from a box fan I had plugged into the wall. It was a distinct buzz of energy that jolted up my arm and shot straight to my heart…only multiplied times a thousand.

I could feel my residual aches and pains flowing away.

My hearing and vision became sharper as my knees grew weaker.

Pictures started to flow through my brain of a tow-headed boy running after a much larger man that was carrying a cane.

Then another where two teenagers fought, ones that looked impressively like much younger versions of Keifer and Nikolai.

Then there was the moment Nikolai first laid eyes on Perdita.

The moment he realized that he needed to change his life to be a better man.

Then more of Nikolai excelling at using his powers, fighting more with his brothers. Swinging his sister around in his arms. Cooking with his mother. Throwing the football to a bunch of smaller dragons.

And finally…the first time he saw me.

How he felt when he first laid eyes on my broken body. How tenderly he’d held me when he’d finally gotten me away from there. How he’d cared for me, day in and day out. The moment that the tattoo appeared on both of our bodies. How he’d take his shirt off after a long day of wearing it, and carried it down for me to wear.

The moment he placed the shirt next to my face, I’d calm instantly.

And I finally knew.

He was mine, and I was his.

I opened my eyes, eyes full of wonder, as I stared at the man at my side.

“What was that?” I breathed.

He grimaced.

“What was what?” he asked, standing up like an old man.

“All of that,” I said.

My brain wasn’t working right. Little zips of power went into my fingers where I still touched him, causing me to twitch every now and then.

I watched him now, not as the man I was stuck with (even though I wanted to be stuck with him), but as a different man. A man that I was in love with, and I never knew it’d happened.

Sometime in the last couple of days, he’d wormed himself into my heart, digging in deep, and making a spot for himself there. Permanently.

I studied his face. The scar that ran across the bridge of his nose, knowing exactly how he’d gotten it, even though I’d never worked up the courage to ask.

I saw the beautiful, silky brown hair. The olive green eyes that had a smidge of honey brown encircling his irises. The beautiful lips that were a stunning shade of red. The slightly pointed out ears. The beautifully defined chest.

His tattoo that matched mine.

The abs that looked like they should be illegal in forty-nine states. The way he had deep ridges that formed a V to his bottom half.

And I fell in love. I fell in love so deep and hard that I would never be able to dig my way out.

He was mine.

And I was his.

And I saw the moment he saw me realize it, because those beautiful greenish brown eyes of his flared, his pupils dilating until they took up the majority of his eyes.

His arms tensed. Abs flexed.

“That was my life,” he said quietly.

“I know,” I said back just as quietly. “What happened?”

“Someone came into power. Keifer is King of the Dragon Riders; when a dragon rider does come into their powers, he feels it. All the excess energy that’s given off the dragon rider can’t handle is shot back to him by some cosmic wave in the universe. He then distributes that power, first to himself, and each person he’s bonded to, either by blood or blood bond,” he said. “I didn’t realize, though, that I could pass it on to my mate seeing as you’re not directly bonded to him in any way. This mating business is still new to us.”

“Yeah,” Keifer said, picking himself off the ground. “I’ve only gone through that three times now, and it hasn’t gotten easier.”

“It was faster this time, though,” Blythe said.

Keifer and Nikolai snorted.

“And it didn’t leave you on your ass this time. Only your knees,” Blythe continued.

I smiled, sensing a sore subject when I heard one.

Blythe had a way to badger you to death. She was awesome like that.

“Shut it, woman,” Keifer growled. “Now cook me something to eat. Suddenly, I’m fuckin’ starving.”

“Hmm,” she said. “What do you want?”

“Meat.”

“What kind of meat?

“Good meat. Manly meat,” he teased.

Blythe raised her brows.

“Steak? Chicken?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Anything, as long as it comes from an animal that has legs.”

“I’m out of everything but eggs,” Nikolai said. “We haven’t gone to the grocery store since you left.”

“Well, fuck,” Keifer said. “Guess it’s breakfast. What about bacon?”

Nikolai shook his head. “That’s gone, too.”

“I know how to make pancakes,” I offered.

Keifer nodded. “That’ll be okay, I guess. Do you cook any good?”

I shrugged. “Better than Blythe.”

A dish towel hit me in the face, and I laughed.

“Well? It’s the truth,” I said.

Blythe stuck her tongue out.

And I started cooking, Blythe at my side offering to stir or add ingredients when I needed her to.

“So, tell me what happened today. You said in your message that you were attacked,” Keifer said, taking up a spot at the counter.

Nikolai sat down beside him, and they discussed what had happened earlier in the day.

“You think it was her uncle?” Keifer asked, gesturing to me.

“No. It had nothing to do with him, I don’t think, and everything to do with her uncle’s cronies,” Nikolai said. “They clocked me the minute I got out of our territory, so they at least tracked us to our line but couldn’t see any further past it.”

“Well, that’s just fucking perfect, isn’t it?” Keifer growled in frustration.