Mikolas (4 page)

Voshkie found herself crashing into the wall and claws tearing off her leathers. It made her wetter, hotter. Wings sprouted from his back as he used his dragon’s strength to hold her higher and more easily than any human male ever could.

The sight of them entranced her. Part of her declared they were dragon, and therefore to be feared. But they weren’t just dragon, they were Mikolas.

And they were beautiful.

Colors played across his wings making them look almost like carnival glass from the bottle green to the iridescent purples and oranges.

“You’re stunning,” she whispered, reaching down his back to touch them.

Voshkie hadn’t really been able to see them that night when they’d took to the skies to flee the ghoul horde. The majesty of him…

He hauled her up higher so that her legs were propped on his shoulders and his hands cupped the globes of her ass.

Then his tongue,
holy shit
, his tongue.

The texture was different. It was like coarse velvet and the pressure of it against her clit make her weak.

She was grateful he held her up—that in itself was hot. Voshkie was no waif-like creature. Her body was sculpted for war, she trained hard for her muscles—she was solid, tall and strong.

Yet, he held her like this so easily.

She ran her fingers down his flexed biceps, his shoulders, and down to the root of his wings.

He shuddered when she stroked him there. “Careful, nymph. I like that too much. I might drop you.”

She knew that he wouldn’t.

“Whatever, dragon. You don’t have time to chat, you’re devouring the damsel.” Voshkie pushed her fingers through his hair and pulled him closer.

That devilish tongue was at work between her thighs again and this time, she didn’t fight the ecstasy he offered.

T
he mate
of his dreams was an Alpha.

His brother was possibly infected with ghoul blood.

They’d lost two brothers and a third was missing.

And the Orlaith stronghold they’d just entered could possibly be their tomb.

Yet, it wasn’t all bad. He still had the taste of her on his lips and they were together. He had to tell Ondrej what had happened between them, but now wasn’t the right time. Not with him fighting this sickness.

“Do you know if Aranka and Imre made it, yet?” she asked as they descended to the tunnels.

“Ondrej told Imre to stay away. It’s not safe for either of them here. If things go poorly…” He let the outcome they both feared go unspoken.

She nodded. “Good. If anyone could actually keep Aranka away, I’m betting it’s Imre.” Voshkie paused. “It’s this way to the pools.”

Fear coiled in a tight spring. He tried to steel himself for whatever awaited him.

“The gold and the amulet will help him. Your brother will beat this. Krysanthe won’t let it be any other way,” she reassured him.

The veins of gold in the wall called out to him, pulled at his insides, but he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted now. Not even by gold.

They emerged into a series of chambers that had been cut from the mountain and the veins of gold here were more like rivers.

Yes, exactly like rivers—he was momentarily transfixed by the stream of glittery fire that rushed past them deeper into the mountain.

“We follow the stream, Mik. Your brother is that way.”

His dragon wanted to dive into that flowing stream, to submerge himself if the gold and feel it rippling over his scales. He wanted to drink it down, he wanted Voshkie naked and wanting in that golden brook.

But his brother took priority for both the man and his dragon.

Finally, they came to a chamber that was more gold than rock, and in the center the stream emptied into a bath of what seemed like molten gold.

Krysanthe sat, half in the pool and half out, with Ondrej’s head in her lap as she sponged his forehead and spoke quietly to him.

Ondrej reached out to him and Mik didn’t hesitate to dip down into the pool, clasping his brother’s hand.

“Is he infected?” The veins in his neck and face stood out, like they’d been pumped too full of something black and rotten.

“I think so, but it’s not progressing like we’d seen before.” Krysanthe shook her head, seeming to be at a loss. “The Aurelieus Amulet seems to be helping, as does the gold bath.”

Mikolas experienced a strangle tingling. It was as if he’d become a conduit for the power of the gold. He felt his life-force leave his body, felt his brother absorbing his strength. Yet, it was as if as soon as it was taken from him, the pool re-energized him.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Mik. He’s breathing better already.”

Voshkie’s strong, scarred hand slipped into his and it was like being hooked up to a battery. The current they generated together ripped through him and caused Ondrej to spasm—his emerald dragon eyes turning black as onyx.

Ondrej’s hand tightened around his and his claws dug into Mik’s palm, but he didn’t try to get away. His brother seemed to need more of whatever it was they were giving him.

Until wings burst from his back—and they were not his wings.

They were brown like a bat’s, wet and covered in mucus—they were thin, almost too thin to keep a dragon in the air. It was like what his wings would like after he’d been dead a century.

He broke the contact and Ondrej spasmed, sinking back down into the healing gold.

“What the hell just happened?” Krysanthe asked.

“It felt like scratching everything that itches under my skin,” Ondrej muttered.

He was infected.

Ondrej was going to die.

Mikolas would be faced with watching his brother become something unnatural and evil, or putting him down.

He didn’t think he could live with that.

Mik couldn’t be the Alpha of a decimated pack. He couldn’t take his brother’s place.

Or maybe he could.

He looked at Voshkie. She’d given him the burst of power. What if she could be the conduit between them? What if she could push the infection from Ondrej to him?

Would she be willing to?

The wings were obliterated and seemed to dissolve in the gold.

“What’s happening?” Krysanthe demanded.

“I’m not sure,” Mik said. “But I have an idea.”

“Why is his infection like this? Why did it take days to cultivate when in others it was immediate? What does anyone have to gain by infecting him?”

“Azazel infected Dezo, or maybe they’re both working for someone else. Another player in the game. With Dezo out, they’d need another dragon, and why not an Alpha?” Mik asked.

“Maybe Dezo was always a throwaway—the pawn. Maybe Ondrej was the end goal the whole time,” Voshkie said.

“How could anyone know that my father would get the dragons to escort me?” Krys asked.

“Maybe it was never about you. Maybe you were just in the way when you started talking peace with Borgia Remus,” Mikolas said.

“So we know that Remus is at war with other wolf nations. They’re at war with the Woolvens, with whom you have an alliance. Is Blake Woolven the kind of bastard that would sacrifice one of his own as a rallying cry to war?” Krys searched his face.

He’d met the wolf, spent time with him and his pack. They were fierce, but Blake Woolven was an honorable wolf, even though he played up his playboy image in the press. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Who else is on the field with this kind of power?” Krysanthe asked.

“Peter Breslin,” Ondrej murmured.

Mikolas nodded in agreement. “We were just talking about this the night that we lost Jakob. You know he’s Turned and has an immunity to silver. It was the Rommulus Alpha’s mate who did it. That’s why the werewolf nations are at war. The Council voted even for and even against to punish her with death. And he’s been raising an army. Maybe a ghoul army. With an Orlaith Princess under his control, he’d have almost endless assets. Especially if he manages to take the mountain.”

Voshkie sat on the edge of the pool. “Our spies tell me there’s a price on his head and his sister, Lenore has taken the contract. They also say she’s mated to Luchataine. We always assumed he was a myth. I mean, in all my time at the front, I never saw anything remotely representing a wolf that old or powerful.” Voshkie shook her head. “You know how stories grow. Supposedly, I can bring golems of gold to life to do battle for me.”

Mik eyed her. “You mean you can’t?”

She gave him a soft smile and it was the kind of expression that made him want to haul her over his shoulder and drag her back to a cave and keep her and that smile just for himself.

He turned his mind from her to Ondrej and he saw that his brother was breathing more regularly and those dark tendrils he’d seen under his skin had faded.

“Give us a moment, Krysanthe,” Ondrej managed.

“Ondrej,” the princess began.

“Drago Knights business. I’ll be fine.” He sounded like he was anything but fine.

Voshkie stepped up. “Krys, come on. We need to talk alone anyway and it can’t wait.”

Krys pressed her lips together and reluctantly stood after she made sure that Ondrej could hold himself up.

He locked gazes with her and he saw she understood everything, even his gratitude.

Pride surged in his chest at her strength, her intuition, and the way she supported him. They were already acting as one unit. A twinge of grief flared when he thought about how they’d have to murder this thing growing between them. It could never be allowed to breathe in the world. She didn’t want it and he couldn’t betray his brother. Not even for her.

Voshkie led Krysanthe out of the chamber.

Ondrej sat up then, all pretense of weakness gone.

“My new voice is silent when she touches me, and it makes me weak and sick to silence it. It hates her.” Ondrej cocked his head to the side. “It hates you, too. So much hate, my brother.”

“What can we do?” For a brief moment, Mik wasn’t sure if it was Ondrej looking out through his eyes or someone—something else. Whatever this was that Ondrej said hated.

“Let me say goodbye to her tonight.”

His meaning was clear. He wanted Mikolas to do for him what Ondrej’d had to do for Jakob.

So many emotions surged within him, and his heart screamed no. But his dragon wanted to breathe fire at this thing within his brother, wanted to burn it out like an infection because he recognized after it had its way with him, it would be his brother no more.

The part of him that was beta of the Drago Knights MC knew what would benefit the pack. What was left of it.

He let his heart speak, which is why he would never be a good Alpha.

“What if we tried something else first?” Voshkie had transferred immense power between them, had boosted it. If he could get her to agree maybe if they couldn’t eradicate the infection, she could transfer it to him.

Ondrej nodded. “Your gold nymph has power, doesn’t she? Something not wholly nymph. I felt it when she took your hand.”

He wouldn’t betray her secret. Only saying, “Yes.”

“We’ll try it, if she’s willing. There’s a rage in me now that’s bigger than this infection. I’m so angry about everything. I can’t leave Krys, I don’t want to put my responsibilities on your shoulders. I—”

This was what he didn’t want to show Krys. It’s wasn’t his weakness, but all the heavy things that came with his strength. The weight of responsibility he didn’t want to put on his mate.

“Brother, I’m with you.” Mikolas clasped his shoulders. “Whatever it takes.”

“If there was any other way…” Ondrej swallowed hard.

“If there’s any other way, we’ll find it.”

“Is Voshkie your mate?”

Mik knew the question was coming and he dreaded the answering. “It’s not meant to be.”

“That’s not an answer, brother of mine.” Ondrej chided him gently.

“Yes.”

“Then it is meant to be. What’s the problem?” Ondrej’s tired eyes searched his. “I want to know you and Imre won’t be alone.”

“I won’t be.”

“Why don’t you want the mating with her? Just tell me.”

“It’s not my secret to share, Ondrej. And that’s part of the problem. She would put me at odds with where my loyalties lay.”

“Your loyalty is to your mate. If she’s truly your mate, she won’t ask you to choose.”

“She didn’t ask. It’s complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it. You want her, she wants you. Don’t damn both of you to being alone.”

“I won’t choose her over the Knights.”

“Then make her one of us. Make her a Knight. I’d be proud to ride with her.”

Ondrej was offering him everything he’d have wanted, if only Voshkie wasn’t an Alpha.

“Think it over, Mikolas. We don’t have much time.”

“Let me talk to Voshkie about my plan. We’ll worry about the rest of it later.”

“What if there is no later?”

“She knows how I feel. I’m not one to hide my feelings from a female or my brothers.”

Ondrej clasped his arm. “No, we never the sort, were we? I love you, Mik. I’m proud to have been your brother in all ways.”

Mikolas pressed his forehead to Ondrej’s. “And I, as well. Honor before gold. Loyalty before gold.”

“Brotherhood before gold,” they said together.

“I’ll get Krysanthe.”

Mikolas took one last look at his brother and feared that it really would be the last time he’d look at that body and know in his bones that the creature there was his blood, his family.

Ondrej nodded and there was so much in that single movement. It was acceptance, forgiveness, fear, hope… it was everything.

He found Krys and Voshkie just outside.

“He’s ready for you.”

Krys put her hand on his arm. “You can save him, can’t you?”

“Yes, come hell or the hordes.”

She smiled at him softly. “I know you will. You needed to hear yourself say it. I have faith in you.”

Mikolas wished he believed half as much as Krysanthe did. That’s what was so special about the princess. It wasn’t her golden skin, her hair, or her ability to transmute anything other substance into gold.

It was her ability to transmute fear into hope.

“Voshkie, can we go somewhere private to speak?”

The warrior nymph met his gaze. “Yes, I know a place.” She took his hand and led him deeper into the mountain. Through more twisting turning hallways, damp passages, and down carved stone steps into a room that was similar to the one they’d just left, but the gold water flowed more slowly, as if thicker—heavier.

“This is my lagoon. This is where I come to heal. To rejuvenate. Sometimes, to hide.”

“So earlier, that was the princess’s? Is that why it helps Ondrej?”

She nodded. “In this place no one will hear us. So what’s your plan to save your brother?”

“Do you know what happened when you took my hand in the pool?”

“I’m not sure. Some kind of energy transfer. Like what happened when Ondrej gave himself to Krysanthe to keep her from hurting herself.”

Mikolas nodded. “Did you know what you were doing?”

She put a hand over her mouth. “Oh gods, Mik. No. Don’t ask that.”

All the tender things he felt for her welled. “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”

“Don’t I?” She pressed her lips together. “You’re going to see if I can transfer his sickness to you.”

“Maybe you do after all.” He took her hand. “Can you do it?”

“They are mated.” She shook her head. “We’d have to—”

“It would only be for a little while, Voshkie. Then you’d be free.”

He wasn’t expecting the fist to the gut that almost doubled him over.