Behind me, Rhys clears his throat. “I’ll leave you two alone,” he says, sounding amused.
Clever dragon. I pull Bastian closer to me and press my lips to his. He smells like coffee and smoke. I can feel the hard outline of his erection, and my insides clench with need. “When’s our next date?” I mutter into his mouth.
“Not soon enough.” he groans, pulling away. The next second, there’s a knock on the door, and Frau Ziegler re-enters the room with a tray. Coffee. Irritation about my interrupted make-out session wars with my love for caffeine.
Caffeine wins. But only for the moment.
The housekeeper sets the tray down on the coffee table. Bastian pours me a cup. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about,” he murmurs.
Alerted by his tone, I raise my head. “If you’re going to tell me that Zyrian is your problem, blah blah blah, save it. I’m not planning on going anywhere.”
“That’s not it. The Dark Dragon knows you’re our mate now. There’s no longer any need to keep it secret, which means it’s time to introduce you properly to the world as our mate.”
I have a bad feeling about this. “What does that mean, introduce me properly?”
“In the old days,” he replies, “there would have been a special betrothal ball, attended by every magical who could make it. Essentially, a really big engagement party.”
No. No. Hell no. That sounds awful. “Bastian, read my t-shirt. Books and cats, that’s what I like. Not a whole roomful of people who’ll be staring at me and calling me a slut behind their backs because I have five mates.”
He frowns. “There isn’t a single magical who will think that.”
I sip my coffee and wonder what to say to him. Guys can be so infuriatingly naive sometimes. Bastian’s not the one that’ll get judged. I will. It’s infuriating and sexist, and yet, sadly, it’s the way the world works.
So far, the only people that know that I’ve got five dragon mates are Silas and Bea. My inner circle. Even when I went to see Pieter, I was careful not to refer to the dragons as my mates.
The twin threats of Raedwulf and Zyrian mean that I’ve been living in a bubble, one that’s insulated me from the real world. But a party will drag me right into the spotlight, and I’m not ready.
“That’s not what they’re going to be judging you for,” he adds dryly. “Not the magicals, at any rate. No, the fact that you are Norm will be a much bigger scandal.”
I look up. “Wait, what? I thought you’d say something reassuring like ‘Don’t worry, Aria, no one will judge you.’”
He raises his eyebrow. “You’re not a fool,” he points out. “I could say that, but you wouldn’t believe me. Trust me, five mates are the least of your problems, but it doesn’t matter, Aria. Whatever people say, you’re strong enough to ignore it.”
I hope he’s right. “I’m still not ready for a party,” I reply hesitantly. Bastian probably has symbolic reasons for announcing my existence. Dragons have gone without finding their mates for five hundred years, and their numbers are dwindling. There’s fewer than three hundred of them left alive. Telling them that the dragon princes have found me will bring hope to a long-besieged people.
But when I think of a roomful of people staring at me, my heart sinks, and my palms go clammy. “I know you’re my mates, but I’ve also only known you for three weeks. Everything’s just moving so quickly. Can it wait?”
“Of course.” He pats my shoulder. “Whenever you’re ready, mausez?hnchen.”
I pour myself a second cup of coffee. “So having five mates won’t raise any eyebrows? Really?”
“It’s not unheard of for magicals to take multiple mates,” he replies with a shrug. “The mating bond is magic. No one will judge you because no one understands it.”
“And the fact that I’m Norm?”
“That,” he admits, “will cause quite a stir.”
“I don’t understand.” I frown at him. “I know shifters who’ve married Norms back in New York. It’s unusual, but it’s not unheard of.”
“Shifters, yes. Dragons, never.”
An unreasonable hurt fills my chest. “Am I not good enough for you?”
“You misunderstand me, Aria,” he replies. He sits down on the couch, pries my coffee cup from my fingers and sets it on the table, and takes my hands in his. “I’m five hundred,” he says. “I’ll live for another six or seven hundred more years. Dragons only mate with their own kind because anything else would be too painful.”
How did I not think about this? A hard knot fills my throat. “You’re saying I’ll grow old and die and you’ll all still look exactly the same. But if that was the case, why didn’t you fight the mating bond?”
“It’s not possible to fight the bond,” he replies with a smile. “And in any case, the moment I set eyes on you, I didn’t want to.”
I’m freaking out. Why isn’t he?
He seems to read my mind. “I stayed awake most of the night,” he admits. “I was angry at my mother for what she did. Halla Northridottir might have chosen to sacrifice herself, but you didn’t. If she knew what Zyrian was going to do, why didn’t she try to stop him? She was powerful enough. Only one thing gave me a shred of hope.”
“What’s that?”
“My mother knew Zyrian’s vengeance was coming, and she made a plan. She deliberately chose a Norm to be our mate and to break the curse. I must have faith that she thought about the lifespan difference and has a plan for it.”
Yes, but is it a plan I’m going to like? I don’t voice my concerns though. Like Bastian, I too need to hope.
“We better go eat lunch,” he says. “The cook gets very cranky if the food gets cold, and then I’ll be in trouble with Frau Ziegler.”
Lunch. Yes. Like I told Rhys last night, I can’t allow myself to give into my fear. I need to train for my role in all this, even though I still don’t know exactly what I need to do.
After lunch, a magic lesson awaits. Last week’s attempts were disasters. Hopefully, this afternoon’s session goes a lot better.
4
Aria
After lunch, Mateo walks with me to the library. “This is good,” he says. “Now that we know that you have magic inside you, we’re going to focus on getting you to use it.”
“Lovely.” I know I sound like a sulky teenager, but the lessons last week were disasters.
He gives me a stern look. “Nothing worthwhile is easy,” he points out. “But if it makes you feel better, you’re doing much better at your lessons than I did.”
Every time Mateo has used his magic, it’s looked effortless. “I find that very hard to believe,” I reply.
He opens the door to the library, and I gasp. The room is spectacular. A mural is painted on the ceiling. It shows thirteen dragons sit around a circular table. “The Council of Thirteen,” Mateo says to me.
I study it with interest, wondering if I can recognize any of my dragons’ ancestors. No surprise—I can’t. Transferring my attention to the rest of the room, I take in the space. The walls are lined with carved wooden shelves filled with books. There’s a large globe on a pedestal in one corner, and in the center of the room is a long wooden table. Casius is already there, reading a scroll that looks like it should belong in a museum. He looks up when we enter and gives us a smile of greeting before turning his attention back to his work. I bite back my smile. Typical booklover. I’m the same way.
“It’s true,” Mateo insists. “It took me months to feel my magic. To sense the threads all around us, the way you already do. You’re very impatient, tesoro. You’ve just had three lessons so far.”
Okay. That does make me feel better. “What are we going to do today?”
His lips curl into a smile. “Simple stuff,” he assures me. “Let’s start with some levitation.”
“You can do this, Aria.”
Mateo’s unending patience is equal parts annoying as fuck and sweet. We’ve been at it for two hours. So far, I’ve managed to levitate the paperweight off the desk just high enough to send it crashing down to the surface, startling Casius out of his studies.