I bite back another round of tears. I had expected everythingexceptsolidarity. I hesitate for a moment, my eyes flicking towards Zale. “Unfortunately, my father.”
Altara puts her arm around Zale’s. “Oh, we know a bit about that, my lady. Come, let us sit together.”
I glance back at my mates, hesitating for a moment, but they’re waiting for my lead. In the end, it’s Henry who chirps with interest and zips over to Altara, crooning over her belly.
“Hello, friend,” Altara says with excitement. “I love you already! What’s your name?”
With that, the tension dissipates and Savage makes a sound that’s half sigh, half scoff.
Chapter 98
Xander
Aurelia seems quite taken with the Boneweaver, King Ashzale, who looks every bit of a kingly male for this island kingdom of animalia. Jealously seethes through me at the wonder that fills her eyes as she steals glances at him, but I have to remind myself that he may be her only living blood family.
And we all know how special Boneweavers are.
The place feels like magic lives here in the very air, so when Queen Altara indicates we should follow them, and the traitor Henry, down the stone path around the very ancient-looking temple, I can’t help but stare like a child in a confectionery store. They also have no trouble turning their unguarded backs on us, and I don’t know whether to be insulted by that as I stare at the naked, muscled backs of the beasts stalking behind their king and queen. These are a different sort of animalia, and I don’t think our modern rules apply to them.
The temple ends up being behind a house that might be a caretaker’s dwelling, and Zale levitates a table and chairs from inside the house like he does it every day. His accuracy and speed are like no feline or dragon I’ve ever seen. In fact, I thinkmy own father, who would sneer at everyone except dragon lords, would have been taken aback by this male.
I know how important family is, and this is something that has been stolen from my regina. She’s already looking at Altara with tears in her eyes and a smile like I’ve not seen before. If she can find kinship here, perhaps that will heal the piece of her heart that broke when serpent court exiled her.
We sit, and the white-haired Kai runs inside and brings glasses of cold-pressed fruit juice, which none of us are keen to drink just yet. Our new friends do the courtly mannered thing and pretend not to notice this, which already puts them higher in my books.
Aurelia begins explaining our situation straight away, and it seems like Queen Altara is using their helping us as a means to prove them all trustworthy. Lyle and Scythe sit next to her as her guards while Savage and I stand up, keeping an eye on the two beastly lords, who have no trouble staring at me.
“Ghoul is a basilisk,” Aurelia says. “Do you…have those here?”
The king and queen exchange a look before Zale says, “We have large serpents, yes. Also my cousins, in fact.”
Aurelia nods slowly. “He has power over shadows, and we discovered that he can use those shadows to build a big…cyclone.”
“Like a hurricane.” Altara nods. “We can get them here.”
“Except this cyclone is expected to send beasts to hell…instantly.” Aurelia clasps her hands on the table. “I’ve never seen anything like it, and now we expect my father to come to my…castle and annihilate everyone in it.
“Aurelia’s father,” Scythe says. “Wants Serpent Court to rule the state without any other competition. He will destroy all beasts except serpents.”
“And there is no way you can stop him?” Zale asks, raising his brows as if he thinks he’d have no trouble stopping Ghoul.
Aurelia’s eyes move as she ponders this. “Although he doesn’t want to, if he is ordered to do it, he will have no choice but to obey because of various enslavement spells. So there is that possibility.”
Zale’s face suddenly darkens. “He is a captive then, as I once was.” I’m surprised he’d reveal something vulnerable like that. He must really think we’re not a threat.
“That is quite an enemy,” Altara says. “We understand this type of foe, Lady Aurelia.” She rubs her stomach as if it bothers her, and Henry zips over to her stomach again, plonking himself down to sit on it. I wonder if she’s getting Braxton-Hicks contractions. “I am also familiar with dark magic. A powervacuumlike that would require an equal force as a counter to close it. This is a known rule of magic. Power must counter power of equal value to void it.”
Zale scratches his jaw. “As his bonded-mates, you are equally powered, yes?”
Aurelia goes still. Immediately, I know what she’s thinking. That fell light in her eyes as a dark idea blooms like a corpse flower in that mind of hers. While we males are equally powered, our regina trumps all of us.
My dragon takes over, firing me up and making my voice deep. I don’t fight him anymore, because we’re the same person and I understand him now. “Don’t even think about it.” My voice emerges guttural and deep, a living flame exploding from me.
The standing Boneweaver males take a step back, staring in disbelief, but my eyes are not for them. “You willnotsacrifice yourself for him, for us. Not in this life, regina.”
She looks at me with that perfect mouth parted, her eyes wide and fixed on me, her breath heaving with emotion. “Youdon’t get to tell me what to do,dragon,” she snarls, not blinking as she commands me.
“I will always do as you command, sapphire-of-my-soul, but not inthis.”
