Con waited until Henry left before he shifted his gaze to Darius. “Something on your mind?”
“So Rhi comes and goes as she wants?”
Con closed the file he had been reading and leaned back in his chair. “She’s as she’s always been.”
“I see.”
“Our conversation earlier has brought to my attention that I’ve been lax.”
Darius snorted. “You? Lax? I doubt it. What are you going to do? Wake every King who is sleeping?”
“Aye.”
Darius sat up, his face a mask of confusion. “Are you serious?”
“I am. I’d like you to begin waking them. Tap whoever else you want to aid you, but make sure everyone wakes. We’re going to need them in this war.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Lily couldn’t look away from the three colossal silver dragons sleeping so peacefully within the cage deep underground in the mountain she had stared at so often from the store.
“This is what I promised to show,” Rhys said from beside her.
“I saw you instead.” She glanced at him. “Can I touch them?”
“Of course.”
Lily recalled how warm Rhys’s scales had been. She gently rested her hand upon the head of the closest Silver. Once more the scales were warm.
“You’re right, you know,” Rhys said. “We do have many enemies. There’s a war brewing, Lily. You saw just the tip of what is coming.”
Ever since she’d been brought back from the dead, she was slowly forgetting what the place she had been in was like. All the fear she’d felt within that place was also leaving her. To think that fear had almost made her walk away from Rhys. Had he not pressed her, had he not spoken such sweet words, she might have walked away.
“Do you want me to leave?”
Rhys grasped her face in his hands and stared deeply into her eyes. “Never. I want you as mine for always, but you need to know what you’ll be getting.”
She pulled her hand away from the Silver and faced Rhys as he dropped his arms. “Then tell me.”
“The Kings doona marry. We have a ceremony that bonds us to our mates and vice versa.”
“All right,” she said with a nod. “That sounds simple enough.”
He looked down for a moment. “You’ll be marked with a tattoo of a dragon eye on your arm, and you’ll become immortal. The only way you die is if I die.”
Lily raised both brows. “Wow.”
“That’s the upside. There’s a down.”
“Of course,” she mumbled. Lily took a deep breath and waited for him to explain.
“There are no children.”
Her disappointment was intense. She had always dreamed of children. “At all?”
“It takes a lot for a mortal to become pregnant with our children. Worse than that is that most times there is a miscarriage within a few weeks. In the verra rare instances that a mortal doesna miscarry, the child is stillborn.”
This certainly was a downside. No wonder Lily never saw any of the women pregnant around Dreagan.
“That’s no’ all,” Rhys continued. He turned his face to the side to look at the Silvers. “Your family can no’ know of us. Even if our secret is kept, they’ll begin to notice you doona age.”
“Which means I’ll need to sever all ties with them?”
Rhys nodded slowly. “Cassie, Elena, Jane, Denae, Sammi, and Iona had no family to speak of. Shara does, but they’re Dark and already know of us. Your situation is one we’ve no’ encountered before.”
For four years all Lily thought about was returning to her family. How could she sever ties with them for good, especially now that Kyle was dead? It was Henry who had informed them that Kyle was killed in an accident, his body burned beyond recognition. There would be a funeral to attend as well.
“I know it’s a lot to ask. I willna willingly let you leave, but it is your family,” Rhys said. “I’ll continue to fight for you and our love.”
Lily thought about walking away from Rhys, and she knew she would never bear it. Nor could she lie to her family over and over. “I’m not ready to say good-bye to my family, but I also can’t leave you.”
“I understand your need to be with your family after how you left four years ago. I need you to also understand that we need our secret to remain that way. Guy can wipe your memories of everything you know about Dreagan as well as anything about Dennis from your mind. That should keep Ulrik from you.”
“So I’ll forget about you,” she said slowly. “Will you have your memories wiped?”
Rhys shook his head.
“I didn’t lie earlier. All of this frightens me tremendously. I don’t know how I would fit into this world, but I don’t want to leave it. I love you, Rhys. I look into your eyes and I see our future there.”
“Then be my mate, Lily. We’ll figure out about your family along the way. I willna lie. Ulrik is out for blood, and he’ll stop at nothing to bring us all down. If you’re mated to me, you’ll be hunted just like I will.”