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My brother nodded. “Yeah, as positive as I can be. She doesn’t look good, though. In fact, she looks like death’s knocking on her door.”
My stomach plummeted. I’d hoped that I’d have good news to give Blythe, but this didn’t sound like good news.
“How’d you find this place?” I asked, eyes scanning the small meadow that led to the cabin.
“Joseph’s good, I’ll give him that. It took me a long time, but I had to trace what I didn’t find that day in the park. Which wasn’t much. But then I started to notice how it was too clean. Too pure. And I started to follow that trail. It led me to a house in the suburbs. Although it was days too late. Went in and searched, there was nothing. No one in or out of it until last night. Last night, a young man dressed in Amish clothing with a long beard,” he gestured to his chest around nipple level before continuing, “came in and picked up a gym bag of what I can only guess was clothes. I followed him, expecting him to go back to his little village at the edge of the county, but he didn’t. Rode his horse and buggy to a house. This house.”
My brother hadn’t gone in.
He’d left that decision up to me.
It was more than obvious something was going on, according to the pictures.
A large steel frame of some sort was being erected on the back of an eighteen wheeler.
Further beyond that was a massive pole barn.
Hundreds of people milled about, fixing this, moving that, building there. Then, in the very middle of it all, was a single house surrounded by a large open meadow.
“What the fuck is that?” I asked, squinting at what looked like a pond, but I wasn’t quite sure.
“It’s a water tank. Or what they use as water. It’s fed by an underground spring that I followed out to the old Tankard place. They purify the water on site. Everything they eat or drink is made there,” Nikolai told me.
Before I could question that, though, my soon-to-be wife butted into my thoughts.
I’m going in, she sent me through our link.
Going in where? I asked worriedly.
To the dragon’s den.
I started screaming at her before she’d even disconnected from me for seconds.
But something shut me off.
Kept me out.
Refused to let me in, and I started to fucking freak.
Before I could even get a word out edgewise to my brother, an almighty rush of power poured through me, and I dropped down to my knees.
I tried in vain to regulate my breathing as more and more power rushed into me, so much that I felt my vision going black.
In and out it went as my body tried to find a place for the power but it was for naught.
With nothing else left to do, I started doling it out down the line.
Which was how and why I came to be.
Why there was a King in the first place.
He could share power with anyone he was bonded to.
Which meant that all my overload of energy and power went out to Nikolai first, since he was the closest, as well as my second.
I wanted to smirk when the rush brought Nikolai to his knees right along with me, but only managed a small huff of laughter.
The second to get it was Derek, followed shortly by Ian. Then Ford, Alaric, Jean Luc, and Dorian prospectively.
Long minutes passed as I tried to breathe through it.
My brain finally came back online once I could get a breath of air, which I gulped in like a drowning man does once he’s on solid ground.
Deep, long pulls filled my lungs, and I fell to my back, eyes closing as I tried to make sense of my scattered thoughts.
“What the fuck,” Nikolai breathed. “I’ve never felt anything like that.”
I hadn’t either.
It’s because you’ve taken up the mantle of power. It’ll get easier with time.
That wasn’t Declan. It was Angus.
Angus? What’s going on?
My voice sounded faint, but I couldn’t help it. I still felt tingles racing through my body at so much pent up energy.
Come to me.
I opened my eyes and forced myself to sit up. Then even further to my knees.
Finally, to my feet, I offered my hand to my brother.
“What happened?” He gasped as we stumbled out of the trees where we were hiding.
A slow smile crept up over my mouth.
“My son has bonded.”***
“I thought babies couldn’t bond!” Blythe screamed. “He’s supposed to be twenty-one!”
I closed my eyes as Angus’ words flowed through me.
Not true. Your child just has to come of ‘age.’ Which is a relative term. Once his power level is at a certain percentage, they’ll bond with their dragon. Although most dragon riders don’t reach it until they’re around twenty-one. Your son is already at that level.
