Valentine tore up a piece of toasted bread and gave her half. "Thank you for getting everyone where I needed them. I knew it was risky, and that Midir's barrow would be hard to navigate in a fight."
"We got through it. Taranis and the others will deal with the fallout. Midir's warriors, maybe even his whole kingdom, have been controlled by his magic for so long, it might not even hold as a kingdom now that he's gone," Yelena commented, tapping her spoon against her lip.
"What do you mean? How can a whole kingdom disappear?" Valentine asked, his food momentarily forgotten.
Yelena put her spoon back into her soup. "Well, a magician's spells generally fail when they die. The whole of Brí Léith was a kingdom built on Midir's family's magic. The Hunt would cut him off from it completely, like he's dead. Taranis and the other kings will have to take all of Midir's people in. You saw those warriors. They had no idea where they were or what had happened to them. While you were gone, the kings had already discussed the possibility of the barrows disappearing if Midir died and were planning what to do with all the fae that were trapped there."
Yelena ate more while Valentine thought through her explanation. The kings wouldn't have an extra kingdom to run, but they would have a hell of a time finding places for all those people.
"What a mess," he said after a while.
Yelena's foot tapped his under the table. "But not our mess."
"No, not ours. I have enough plans for us to get through," Valentine replied with a grin.
"And what are these plans?" she asked sweetly.
"Very simple. Food, shower, sleep," Valentine said before taking her hand and kissing her knuckles. "Then I'm going to make you my mate and fuck your brains out. Any objections?"
"None. That sounds perfect," Yelena said. Her smile dimmed for a brief second, and Valentine ran a thumb over the back of her hand.
"What is it?"
"I'm not human. I'm not fae. I don't know how to do a mating bond with you," she admitted, her brow furrowing. "Wild dragons don't do it like the fae do either."
Valentine kissed her hand. "We know how our magic binds, and we are very clever. We will figure it out. The elves can sense who their mates are, but they use their magic to do a final binding, and the tattoos. We can do it that way if you like."
Yelena brightened again instantly. "I would like that. I want you to tattoo me again. Do you want to make a design together like we did with my hand?"
"I would love that," he replied, and he suddenly remembered the design he had been toying with for weeks. Fate had bitten him in the ass again, and he laughed. "I think I know the perfect place to start."
41
The following day, Yelena was laid out on a work counter in Valentine's study. They had decided on a mating tattoo design quickly, and Valentine had completed his sitting in front of a mirror with Yelena chatting beside him and in utter awe of his skill.
"I've had a lot of practice tattooing myself over the years," he had reassured her, and neither of them wanted someone else doing it. This was for them alone.
Together, they had also purged the ink from Valentine's old binding sigils, leaving only the scars.
"Look at all this space I now have to work with," he said, smiling at his skin and the light dusting of dark hair over it.
It was a good day when Yelena could look at him without a shirt on. The black, red, and silver ink of his mating tattoo shone under his left pec, right over his heart.
"I'm going to need you to keep that shirt off while you tattoo me," Yelena said, wriggling on the counter. "I want something nice to distract me."
Valentine's eyes shone with magic and lust. "Trust me, you're going to be distracted. I've never felt anything like this before."
"The magic is already working, even though mine isn't done?" she asked, staring at the design.
"Oh, it's working. Now, I'm going to need you to stay still so I can concentrate. Having you all laid out for me like this is distracting enough," he replied, running one hand over her thigh.
He had given her one of his warm, burgundy-red robes to wear, and if it weren't for the need for them to be mated driving them, Yelena was sure he would have pounced on her as soon as she put it on. He liked her not only in his clothes but also in the color of his magic. It was good information to file away.
"I will be perfectly still and well-behaved," she promised and opened the sides of the robe over her pale stomach.
Valentine bent his head to kiss it before getting his pen to sketch the design. It was a shock to find that he had been drawing her dragon for weeks, but when he opened his journal for her, there she was.
Seeing the drawings, being in his tower, and the Greatdrakes house had finally settled the voice of doubt inside of Yelena that said she didn't belong to him. It was the first time she had been somewhere in both worlds where a sense ofhomehad washed over her. She was a Greatdrakes, and now they were going to make it official.
