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“What are the nightmares about?” I pushed the limit.
He growled so hard and loud, I swore the Earth quaked with it. “That’s too far, female. Not yet, Freya, please.”
Please. The plead hung in the night air and pierced my heart. “Nico, one day will you open up to me?”
He chuckled. “One day, are you actually going to accept us as mates? Fully? Completely?”
I laughed in return. “Too far, dragon.”
Nico shifted so that his body was facing me. He took a strand of my golden hair, in this light more shiny than ever, and brought it to his nose. “Did you realize that you twirl this piece of hair when you read and when you are watching TV with Jude?”
“Do I?” I asked breathlessly. He was touching me willfully, purposefully. My core warmed. This was more than lust, I realized, as he looked inside me with those heart-shattering green eyes. This was him, seeing me, for all I was.
“Yes, you do. I always wondered what your hair felt like.”
My heart fluttered and it was all I could do not to reach for him, but my gut told me that was a limit not to cross, not yet. “You can touch my hair anytime you like, Nico.”
His eyes searched mine. “Just your hair, female?”
“No. All of me.” I watched the words hit the air as if they had substance…what was I saying?
He reeled back and let go of my hair. “Just words, Freya. If you wanted to mate us, you would’ve by now. You think we’re keeping our distance, not letting you in, but we’re not the only ones.”
With that heartbreaker of a sentence, he got up and left me there, in the dark, and the clouds above me covered up the moon.
Chapter Ten
A few days after the cookie-baking night, I was curled up in a big chair by the living area window, reading a book I’d taken from Soren’s library. I hadn’t asked his permission, but he’d never told me not to anyway. I had been looking for something to help me understand my own body’s reactions to these dragons, maybe some relationship guides, but I found nothing like that. Of course, in those thousands of books, I might have missed them.
Soren’s books were organized in a way only he understood. Not by author. Not by genre or topic…not even by color. Ancient volumes stood side by side with books published only this year. Since I didn’t want to explain to him what I was looking for, afraid my cheeks would burst into flames, instead I had chosen a recently published biography of a historian who focused on the “legends” of shifters.
It sounded interesting but instead was dry as dust, and my eyes were heavy, the book lying open to the same page for at least a half hour when Soren arrived, letting the door close hard behind him. He didn’t slam it—none of them would do something so out of control, but his body practically vibrated with tension.
“Where are the others?” he demanded. “We are summoned.”
“What?” I snapped into full wakefulness, the thick volume tumbling to the floor. “Oh, I’m sorry.” I hurried to pick it up, expecting him to chastise me for my poor care of his book. “I didn’t mean to drop it.”
“Have you seen Jude or Soren?” No comment at all about the book? This was alarming.
“Not for a while. Do you want me to let them know you’re looking for them if I see them? They both went out earlier, but they didn’t say where.” And I didn’t feel like I had the right to question their comings and goings.
“No. I’ll find them. I—”
The door opened again, and the other two entered, deep in conversation.
“Finally.” Soren sounded as if he’d been waiting an hour instead of about thirty seconds. What on earth was going on? I’d never seen him this rattled, or really rattled at all. “The council summons us. We need to go now.”
Jude took a step back, but Nico held his ground. They didn’t say a word, though, all three turning around and exiting the suite. These princes were as close to royalty as we had in the caves, but they did not sit on the council. Those positions were occupied by quite elderly dragons who were long past raising their own hatchlings. The only time they’d ever even acknowledged my being alive was when they announced my mating to the trio who now occupied so much of my thoughts.
As the door clicked closed behind them, I looked at the book in my lap, which wasn’t managing to occupy any part of my mind. The book Soren had offered me had disappeared again, no longer on his desk, and I was afraid to ask him for it, since doing so might be construed as a commitment to our mating—and I still wasn’t quite there.
With nothing else to do, I was wondering what reason the council had for calling my almost-mates to them. If it was only one, it could be for any reason, but all three? It had to relate to me. And the idea that it did, that I was being discussed behind my back as if I had no say-so in my life—again—had me on my feet and headed for the door.
I had to veer off into my room, at the last minute, because I was barefoot and the tunnels I planned to follow were not well maintained. Never used by the highers, and probably not even on their radar, they could be used to get almost anywhere in the caves unnoticed. Vents close to the floors and ceilings in various chambers allowed those in the tunnels to listen in on conversations or even watch what went on in the world of their betters. Not that many did. Most of what could be viewed or overheard was not especially interesting. So far as I knew, none made it possible to watch intimacies…even if anyone was into that.
But the tunnel I raced down led to the council chambers where my mates would be facing the group of elderly statesmen, some so old they could no longer fly. I often wondered why we were ruled by those who didn’t really participate in life anymore, but maybe that made them less likely to benefit from their decisions and therefore fairer in them.
As I approached the last curve in the stone tube, I slowed down. Nothing in my experience led me to believe these dragons were fair. Lessers lost every time, and higher-ups continued to benefit. Legend had it that once we were all equal, but if that was true, it was a very long time ago.
