Dragon Void (Immortal Dragons Book 2) (24 page)
Read Dragon Void (Immortal Dragons Book 2) Online
Authors: Ophelia Bell
“Why did he leave the two of you behind?” Ked asked warily.
Evie already knew the answer to that as well, but decided she’d let the man answer.
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug.
“I think I do,” Marcus said. “You were the only male captives still alive. And it’s human males he needs for what he’s doing. Blessed humans, to be exact—like me. He never considered either of you a threat and since you weren’t any use, and he couldn’t kill you outright, so he let you go. He left you for dead though, didn’t he?”
Evie’s skin prickled with goosebumps that had nothing to do with the chilly air. She saw no scars or signs of injury on the man, but at Marcus’s suggestion, his eyes clouded and his expression grew pinched.
“He gave up on Calder a long time ago. I think he hoped for more from me, but when I refused again to share the secrets my mother bestowed on me, he tortured me.” His eyes fell on Evie again. “Nicholas is the name
he
gave me because I was his first successful attempt toward breeding a hybrid, so he considered me his own offspring, in a sense. My mother did not have the chance to give me my ursa name before I was taken from her. I need to go home so I can learn my true name. And if you take me, I can help find Calder.”
* * *
Evie watched with a pounding heart as the four dragons she’d come to love rose into the air. Nicholas rode on Numa’s back, his pale shape stark against her shining green scales.
The wind swept around them, carrying the dragons up the second they stretched their wings.
“Why are you crying?” Ked asked, sliding his thumb down her cheek.
Evie sank into him and let her tears flow. “To be taken from his mother so young and not even know his true name must have been horrible.”
“She gave him what magic she could to protect him. Being born outside the Sanctuary that was a wise thing for her.”
Evie nodded and accepted Marcus’s large hand in hers, squeezing back. She hadn’t considered names for her baby yet, but suddenly knew that she needed to go home before the baby was born. If the ursa were anything like the turul, they would have a naming ceremony, too, and Maia Stonetree would not have wanted to give her son his ursa name until she could do it in their sacred place.
“I need to go home,” she said.
“We can be back to the Monastery by sunset tomorrow if we leave now,” Ked said.
“No,” she said looking up at him. “I need to go to the Enclave where I was born. It’s closer, for one thing, and my family will be there for the winter. Plus, when our baby is born, she can be named on the mountain peak where I was named, with the North Wind to bless her. Belah and my brothers can join us.”
“In that case, we’ll be home by morning.” Ked released her and in a cloud of swirling shadow shifted into his majestic black-scaled true form.
As Marcus helped Evie climb onto Ked’s back, he asked, “Will your grandmother have breakfast ready for us? I’ve missed her cooking like you can’t even believe.”
Evie laughed. “Nanyo prefers ice cream for breakfast, but I’m sure she can accommodate you if you ask nicely. Just don’t make demands while she’s in the kitchen. She’s scary with a carving knife.”
Beneath them, Ked let out a deep rumble of laughter. “I will never again argue with that woman while she’s cooking.”
Still vibrating with humor, Ked spread his wings and launched into the air, and with the rise in altitude Evie’s spirits rose. She leaned back against Marcus and closed her eyes, happier than she’d been in as long as she could remember.
Epilogue
Marcus
Turul Enclave, the Appalachian Mountains
Present Day
A
fter a few weeks at the Monastery, followed by the even more rustic amenities of the turul Enclave, Marcus was a little ashamed to admit he missed some features from his life as an Ultiori Elite. Hot, running water and electricity were two of those things. Evie and Ked didn’t seem fazed by the change, and adapted swiftly to the otherwise comfortable quarters the three of them had been given in one wing of the rambling stone lodge that was the focal point of the turuls’ community.
The building seemed to have sprouted organically from the earth and trees of the mountain, part stone and part wood, added on bit by bit over the centuries, so he’d heard, until it was a warren of cozy nooks and crannies mixed with huge rooms for larger gatherings. Every room seemed to have a window looking out over the rolling hills of the Appalachian mountain range that was now covered in its first dusting of snow.
Their rooms were warmed by a huge fireplace that burned day and night. Unlike at the monastery, they weren’t waited on. As Evie explained when they arrived, they were expected to be self-sufficient, and so he and Ked took it in turns to ensure they were well supplied with everything Evie would need to be comfortable and cared for.
Most days, she insisted on spending her waking hours among the other turul, usually helping her grandmother in the communal kitchen and sharing meals in the huge dining room with the others.
He and Ked sat alone together at their regular dinner table, silent and immersed in their own thoughts. Evie would get her fill of socializing and join them, but until then, they both had taken to brooding over their own worries again.
They weren’t the only strays in residence in the Enclave, though Marcus and Ked were given the widest berth of any of the outsiders, and he was sure it wasn’t only because they were so new. Marcus was still an Elite, in spite of now being marked and mated by the most powerful dragon on Earth. Ked, being that dragon, was avoided as much out of fear as respect. So they often found themselves isolated from the bustling community with only Belah and Evie’s brothers for occasional company once they arrived and announced their intention to stay until their own child was born.
Evie seemed to thrive in the attention of her fellow turul, so he and Ked subsisted with each other’s company during the days, making sure to get their fill of the woman they loved in the evenings.
There was only one thing missing, something that had nagged at Marcus since the day Ked had marked them both. Those marks meant that he and Evie belonged to Ked, a fact that Marcus couldn’t deny. Yet he had known her and loved her for so much longer. He still couldn’t shake the memory of the day he’d decided to run. The day that would have gone so differently, had he not received that letter.
It wasn’t until Marcus sensed an amused presence in the corner of his thoughts that he glanced up to see Ked watching him with a half-smile over his dinner plate.
“You still want to propose marriage to her. Why didn’t you share this detail before?”
Marcus’s cheeks heated and he stared back down at his meal—yet another gourmet concoction from Evie’s grandmother that left his mouth watering more with each bite. He chewed and swallowed, enjoying it enough to savor it the way Evie would, then took a breath.
“It’s a little late for something so human and frivolous, don’t you think?”
“Yet you kept the ring all this time. Was that what took you so long to come back out of the enemy’s compound when we were there? You went back for it, didn’t you?”
“It was the only thing of value I’d left behind. Even if I never gave it to her, I wanted a keepsake to remind me of when I first fell in love with her.”
As Ked studied him, Marcus had the strongest sense of deep understanding. Sometimes the dragon surprised him with the well of wisdom he possessed, though he shouldn’t have been. He still wasn’t quite sure how old Ked really was, but was occasionally privy to memories that must have predated most civilizations.
Today, Ked’s ever-present connection to him somehow managed to discern the precise source of that hesitant tangle in Marcus’s gut.
“She won’t say no, and you know it,” Ked said. “And she won’t think it’s a ridiculous question, either. She grew up among humans. She loves human traditions as much as any of us. Dragons rarely celebrate their matings publicly, but the other races do. She won’t get a traditional turul mating ceremony because she shouldn’t shift during the pregnancy. Not to mention, you can’t fly.”
Marcus only stared across the room to where Evie sat chatting with some new friends—two of the other dragons in residence and their human mate, a blonde woman who glowed as much from her own pregnancy as from the adoration of her mates. Melody was another Blessed, like him, but her mates had been less than hospitable to Marcus, just like almost everyone else at the enclave. He was less concerned about the others’ opinions than he was about how Evie would respond if he actually managed to find the balls to propose to her for real.
“Turul love a good excuse for a celebration. Besides, the weight of that ring in your pocket is only going to get heavier the longer you wait. It’s starting to weigh me down, too.”
“Fuck, I feel like I’m back in high school, trying to get up the nerve to ask out my crush. Like it doesn’t even matter that I woke up this morning with my dick halfway down her throat because she’s decided I am breakfast for the foreseeable future.”
Ked chuckled. “You aren’t alone. In fact, I’m going to give you a little push.”
Before Marcus could object, the world abruptly went pitch black, causing the entire dining hall to erupt in alarm. He cursed under his breath, but was acutely aware that the darkness covering them now was the cozy, cuddly version of Ked’s power, though he doubted the rest of the enclave, aside from Evie, and perhaps Belah, realized it.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Ked said through the thick, velvety blackness. “This is only a friendly nudge to my mate to take care of some long overdue business.”
Around him the darkness lifted, light seeping in from a source Marcus couldn’t discern. It was enough to illuminate him entirely, as though he sat in a spotlight. Around him, the others all stared from the darker shadows.
Across the room, Evie’s startled face came into view in a similar circle of light. She turned and gave Marcus a bewildered smile.
“Marcus? What is this?”
Taking a deep breath, Marcus stood. He spent a moment trying to gather his thoughts, mostly sending a barrage of rude words to Ked, whose grin was almost bright enough to glow.
“Evie,” he said, moving to walk toward her. “I think I have loved you since the first day I laid eyes on you, singing with your brothers in Central Park. It was spring in 1965, and it took me about a week to work up the nerve to even talk to you. The day you sang to me, I knew my life had changed. I had no idea what I was then, or what I would become. All I knew was that my life would only have meaning with you in it.”
Evie’s eyes widened and she turned in her seat to face him as he walked closer. God, could it have been any longer a journey to get to her? She was so beautiful, illuminated the way she was on that dark backdrop. A few faces were visible in the shadows around her, but Marcus only had eyes for her. In his mind, Ked was similarly enthralled, and Marcus sensed that the light that surrounded both him and Evie could only have been given to the two of them in that moment. He felt bathed in love so complete, it spurred him on to finish what he needed to do – what he had needed to do for five decades.
“I would have died without you, Evie. Now that we’ve made it through the darkest part of our lives together, I know we were always meant to travel that path, because it was the only path that led us here, to this place, to this day, to this moment.
“Fifty years ago, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you,” he said, finally reaching her and falling to his knees before her. Their shared bubbles of light brightened around them enough to illuminate most of the room. Tears glistened on her cheeks and she bit her lower lip, watching him. “At the time I thought we’d spend fifty years happily married, have children, grow old together. Now I know we were given a much greater gift. We have forever now. I was going to ask you then, but I’m glad I had to wait. Angel, will you spend forever with me? Will you marry me?”
He held up the tiny circle of silver with the simple setting of three diamonds. It seemed such a trivial thing now, after everything they’d been through.
Evie’s eyes brightened through her tears. “Yes, Marcus. Always.”
She let him place the ring on her finger and then launched herself at him. Marcus laughed as he stood. He kissed her madly, barely aware of the return of the light and the rising sound of singing and music around them.
As the gathering erupted into an all-out celebration, Marcus found himself suddenly the center of attention. Praise and congratulations came at him from all sides, but none of it filled him with as much joy as Evie’s kiss and the sparkling jewels on her finger.
“I’ve waited two hundred years for this,” she said to him, curled on his lap where he sat, chatting now with a few turul who had barely even acknowledged his existence until moments ago.
Ked moved toward them finally, his smile fading and a look of longing in his eyes. In the back of his mind, Marcus received an impression of his mate, of eons of self-subjected loneliness. Now the loneliness was gone, but the memory of it had yet to fade.
“A drop in the bucket,” Marcus said, his eyes meeting Ked’s.
The Shadow’s approach caused conversation to halt around them.
“Five thousand, give or take,” he said. “Not that there’s a competition, but you both are mine now, so I’d say I won, either way.”
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