From the corner of his eye, Geoffrey saw movement and felt the whisper of Matthieu in his mind.
Don’t look don’t look don’t look.
Geoffrey’s stomach sank. He felt like he wanted to be sick.
Sigric grinned nastily. “Unless you return to me and work on siring your new clutch, I’ll go to the council and demand that both you and the violet pervert are removed from your positions. How long will this unnatural attraction last when you are both cast out, welcome nowhere and accepted by no one? But come home and the lavender wretch can keep his life and go about seducing some other clan’s children.”
Ian snorted in disgust. “We met when I was over five decades old, Father. I was hardly a child. My choice was my own, just as it is now. What will you do if I refuse your demands? If I tell you that I’m no longer a Brand and a Topaz?”
“Then you’ve exhausted your usefulness to me.” Sigric’s voice was low and menacing.
Geoffrey saw Matthieu, but only obliquely. He moved his body, hoping to direct Sigric’s attention away from his brave, foolish, and reckless mate. “Why don’t you put down the child? Then we can discuss—”
“Shut up, lavender!” In his agitation, Sigric’s talon slipped and slid along the tender scales of the baby’s throat. “I’ve got nothing to say to you. Seducing my son, then stealing his chance at fatherhood! You’re older than I am, you disgusting piece of egg-snatching filth. You’ve ruined him. You’ve ruinedeverything.”
Geoffrey saw blood on Sigric’s hand and blanched. From somewhere behind him, Everard and Harry screamed in unison. The whelp who hadn’t scrambled back to his parents—Julius—gave forth a high-pitched trumpet of anger.
“Iseducedhim, father,” Ian said with chilly hauteur that belied the sick fear that Geoffrey felt roiling within their mate bond. “First in the council chamber’s restroom, then later I took him back to the consulate and fucked him there. In your bed. All over your sheets. After that, I gave the Attendants a day off and I fucked him, systematically, in every room. There isn’t a corner of the building we haven’t sullied, Father. Think of that the next time you have to stay there. I made an Amethyst dragon come again and again and again all over that house. Foryears.Because Ilove him.”
A sort of savage joy filled Geoffrey at his words, but he had little time with which to savor them. Sigric’s hand convulsed with rage and Darwin began to bleed and cry in earnest as the talon tore even deeper into his flesh. There was a scuffle and a cacophony of noise behind Geoffrey, and Geoffrey had no doubt that it was taking every bit of strength Sebastian had to hold Everard back from absolute slaughter.
“I’ll burn it down to the ground first!” Sigric roared. “Vile, disgusting, wretched—dammit!”
Julius launched himself at Sigric and clawed his way up the dragon’s leg, not caring what his claws shredded in the process. Still holding Darwin in a death grip, Sigric tried to shake off Geoffrey’s stubborn nephew with little success.
“I’ll kill you all, you filthy—” But before Sigric could finish his epithet, he crumpled to the ground.
Darwin fell out of his lax grip and tumbled onto the lawn, rolling a few times before coming to a halt. Julius used Sigric’s body as a springboard and leapt after Darwin. He nuzzled the baby and licked at the wound on his neck while letting out a keening whine.
“Let me go, damn you! I need to heal my son.” That was Everard, obviously back in human form. “He’s bleeding, you great big oaf!”
Geoffrey still didn’t turn around. All he could see was Matthieu, who stood behind Sigric’s unconscious form. He looked positively murderous, and he held aloft what looked to be a large and very heavy garden gnome. Matthieu gripped the gnome by the hat like it was an extremely strange sort of cudgel.
“Did I kill him?” Matthieu asked. He kicked the fallen dragon, then spat on him. “I really hope I did.”
36
Ian
Ian, too stunned to feel much of anything at all, looked at his father's fallen body. “No,” he said. “He's not dead.”
Matthieu raised the garden gnome over his head, murder in his eyes, but before he could bring it crashing down, Geoffrey swooped in and grabbed Matthieu by the wrist.
“No,” was all Geoffrey said.
Matthieu sneered and replied in rapid-fire French, “He tried to kill you! To kill your brother's child! To kill us and our eggs! In days past, he nearly burnt the leg off our mate, and who knows what other savagery he has done Ian in the past. A man like that does not deserve life. He deserves nothing at all.”
“Matthieu, love, where are the eggs?” Ian asked.
That seemed to partially wake Matthieu from his haze of rage. “Inside the house. Alistair promised to guard them, and I trust him.”
Geoffrey groaned. “Alistair?”
“I heard that,” Alistair called through the broken window. “Your eggs are all fine. You’re welcome, by the way.”
Ian felt Geoffrey’s frustration with his brother through their mate bond. Geoffrey dearly wished to ask why Alistair had let Matthieu go after Sigric armed only with a garden gnome while he stayed safely back in the house. For his part, Ian wondered the exact same thing. Ian supposed he’d have to be grateful that at least Alistair had stayed with the eggs. It didn’t make him any less irritated with Geoffrey’s brother, however.
“Set the statue down, Matthieu,” Ian said in a soft, sweet voice. “The law will see to it that my father is punished for his crimes. We are servants of the law and of dragonkind—we are not the law itself.”
