AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There are levels of dominance when a Morgon man wants a woman. When he wants a lover, he’ll mark her as such, a subtle trait to let other Morgons know she’s off-limits, unless the woman deems otherwise and rejects his scent. When they’re through with each other, she’ll shrug off his scent like an old coat.”
I frowned. “Rejects?”
He propped the poker against the river-rock hearth, then clasped his hands behind his back, ignoring my question. “Then there’s the marking a Morgon man gives when he claims a woman as his own. His one and only. This is very different, the scent acting like a palpable barrier, a physical threat to other would-be suitors.”
“So, what you’re saying is Kol has claimed me.”
He shook his head.
“More than that,”—his smile widening—“you’ve accepted him as your own, as if you were already mates.”
“What?” I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense. He didn’t even ask anything. I sure as hell haven’t consented to anything.”
A bark of laughter escaped him. He crossed his arms, his smile no less arrogant. Now I really wanted to slap him.
“Yes, Moira darling. Apparently, you have. There’s no way he could burrow that deep otherwise. The marking is…violent in its possession. Only the seal of soulfire will ease the fierce nature of the aura he’s cast over you.” He gave me a mischievous wink. “You must’ve consented in some way other way than using words.”
Had I? Perhaps I had. Why didn’t that anger me?
I pondered the reactions of Morgon men around me since Kol and I’d spent the night in each other’s arms. All of them had been hesitant, edgy around me. Even the Nightwing guards back at Lucius and Jessen’s place. All of them except the king. But he wasn’t a normal Morgon. He was something…other.
Even Gaius, who had only touched me out of necessity, seemed wary. Gaius. I still couldn’t believe he was gone. I couldn’t believe his confession at the end. Forced to become a murderer to save his own family. And in the end, he saved me from untold horrors. He ended his life well, despite what he’d become in the viper-pit of Palace Prime.
My emotions see-sawed, my thoughts flipping from one thing to the next. Rather than being furious by Kieren’s revelations about scent-marking, I had a wonderful, unexpected reaction. My heart soared at the thought of bonding with Kol. I wanted even more. I wanted to be heartbound. I wanted soulfire.
Kieren stoked the embers, adding another log. The door alarm beeped. I jumped off the sofa as Kieren stepped in front of me. The door slid open. Valla and Bowen rushed in and sealed the door behind them.
A red slash cut across Bowen’s shoulder. Valla was perfect, untouched.
“They’re all dead,” she reported almost cheerfully. “Bowen, there’s a bathroom through there. A medicine kit in the cupboard.”
He crossed the room in swift silence and shut the door behind him in a bathroom off the main living area.
“No injuries, Valla?” asked Kieren.
“No. Of course not.”
“You’ll make a good assassin, sister.”
“I am a good assassin, brother.”
She stepped in front of the fire near me. “Now, we need to make contact with Kol and let him know what’s happened and where we are,” she said, eyeing Kieren.
“Right. I’ll take care of it. I’ll use a bedroom upstairs.” Kieren whipped out his wings and flew up to the loft as he did before.
I already knew what he planned to do. “He’s going to dreamwalk, isn’t he?”
“It’s the safest way since we don’t know how much of our comm net has been compromised. We need to keep this place as secret as we can. Obviously, our safe houses are no longer confidential. The enemy knew we’d be there.”
I stood next to her, letting the damp towel fall from my shoulders.
“Surely Kol won’t be sleeping. How will Kieren make the connection?”
She eyed me, still damp and cold. “Come on, let’s get you into something dry.”
She slipped through the kitchen and led me through a door on the other side. She twisted a knob at the entrance that lit four gas lanterns ensconced on the walls around the room. Many Morgons used electric lighting, but it seemed everything was done old-school at this hide-away.
The huge canopied bed was draped in shades of lavender and gray. Valla opened and stepped into a walk-in closet. I studied several photos on the wall above the vanity. One of her as a young girl squeezed between two smiling brothers. My heart leaped at seeing Kol, unscarred, before the rift between the brothers. There was another picture of a lovely Morgon couple—a dark-haired man with a square jaw, broad brow, and intense blue-fire eyes wrapping his arms around a beautiful platinum blonde with soft, almond-shaped eyes, her white wings open and out of the way so her lover could hold her close. She looked more like a butterfly than half-dragon woman, the love she felt for the man at her back shining in her eyes. I hadn’t known Kol’s mother was of the Icewing clan. I thought of Petrus, wondering if there was any family connection. I strolled, finding another of a scarred Kol and an older Valla. She held two long daggers in both hands as if showing off a gift. I laughed inwardly. While my father was buying us Primean silk gowns for balls, Kol was buying Drakonian steel weapons for his little sister, Valla. Funny that I felt such a connection with a stranger I’d just met, yet we were raised so differently.
