The color drained from her face. “You’re serious?”
“I would never joke about the end of all existence, or something that could open the sacred gates and unleash all manner of hell onto this earth… That tablet was what my brother protected. What Hadyn gave his life for.”
She dropped her hand. “So you know this object?”
“I know of it. Hadyn would never allow me to view it. That is the curse of my race. We keep our secrets from all. Even blood kin.”
Seraphina silently winced as those words reminded her of her betrayal against him. Sadly, it wasn’t the nature of her species. But he was right. The drakomai were bred to be the sentinels and protectors of sacred objects for the gods and fey. It was hardwired into their DNA to savagely defend whatever fell under their protection. To let no one take it from them so long as they had breath in their bodies. The need to keep that pact was so strong that they’d been known to regenerate limbs and even heads to continue their fight against any enemy who tried to take their charges from them.
There was nothing like their will to survive and to protect. They were truly the most vicious and loyal creatures ever born.
And she had callously thrown that away for a group of bitches who lacked all understanding of real loyalty.
I am all kinds of stupid.
Wishing she could change what had happened between them, she brushed her hand against the area of his thigh where he’d been branded as a young drakomas.
He caught her wrist to stop her from touching him. Those golden hazel eyes seared her with the fiery beauty that had always been her Maxis. How could she have ever chosen someone else over him?
“Where are my dragonets?” By his tone, she knew he intended to go after them. Alone. But then, that was the nature of the beast.
“They’ll kill you.”
He scoffed. “Let them try.”
Ever brave.
Ever stupid.
“You are one. They are many.”
And still that old light burned deep in his fearlessly ferocious eyes. Nothing could ever deter a dragonswain when he was set on his course.
Even one of suicide.
“Draki don’t scare me. I was a natural-born drakomas long before they were created or birthed. Not half-bred. Fully blooded and vested, spawned from the egg of my demon mother. If they think they can stop me, I defy them to bring the best they have and I shall roast them over a pit of their own arrogant stupidity.”
Reaching up, she cupped his cheek in her palm. “And you were merged with an Apollite prince. That blood and form weakens you. They know how to force your change and lock you in this frail body where you can’t fight with your full drakomas power.” Tears choked her as the past came back with a vengeance and she remembered what they’d done to her proud mate. “I can’t watch them do that to you again. I barely survived your last harrowing.”
He stiffened as the fury returned to his eyes and his cheeks darkened, warning her that he was barely holding on to his human form. “That makes two of us.”
A tear slid from her eye as her memories surged again. For a moment, she saw him as he’d been when they met. Wrapped in the furs and hides of the Arcadian Were-Hunters he’d vanquished who had foolishly tried to slay him, he had been sitting in the rear of the small kapeleia, drinking alone. His long, dark blond hair had held tiny braids in the front like many Thracians, and Gerakian feathers had been braided into it. His beautiful face had been painted like a thousand other barbarians’ with a spiraling Celtic or Pictish pattern.
At the time, she’d thought nothing of it because she knew naught of his breed. She hadn’t realized that the feathers in his hair were trophies from Were-Hunter Sentinels who’d once hunted him for sport and found him a far worthier adversary than their advanced martial skills had been prepared to handle. Rather, she’d assumed he was of some human nomadic steppe tribe that was passing through Scythian territory.
Her Amazonian sisters had spread out through the crowded drinking den to find partners, who’d eagerly greeted them with drunken revelry.
Grief-stricken, Maxis hadn’t even looked up at their approach. His golden gaze haunted, he’d been lacing a silver chain through his fingers. One that still bore the bloodstains of his slaughtered brother.
When she’d neared his small table, he’d given her a look of warning that said he wanted to be left alone. She should have listened.
Rather, that aloof arrogance had beckoned her toward him against all common sense. And of course, it hadn’t hurt that he’d possessed the best body and handsomest face of any male there. Even better, those long legs and arms had told her he was much taller than the average man. Something that she’d always found desirable and sexy. Irresistible.