Nor were his powers as dark or sinister. This wasn’t a creature who took pleasure in harm. Indeed, he seemed good-natured.
Falcyn tsked at him. “Now, Blaise, why would you go and bring Xyn into this? Especially given what a sore topic that is?”
Blaise let loose a charming grin. “Felt the need to rankle my big brother. Besides, everyone else fears you so. You need me to even you out.” It wasn’t until he stepped forward with his hand raised to feel his way through them that Medea realized Blaise was blind. “And if you’re through scaring the natives, I’ve got something I need to speak to you about.”
Falcyn sneered. “Rather spend time scaring the natives than listening to your petulant whine.”
“Ah, now, you’re going to hurt my feelings.”
“You don’t have any feelings.”
“Not true. I had a lot of them, until you, Kerrigan, and Illarion shriveled them into oblivion. But I think I managed to salvage one or two. Please, try not to kill those last two off. I might need them one day.”
Falcyn made a rude noise of dismissal. “Those are called hunger pangs.”
Laughing, Blaise shook his head. “Hungry for a kind word, you mean.”
“Well, you won’t be getting it here.” Falcyn gestured toward the stairs as if his brother could see his movements. “So off with you.”
Blaise sighed heavily. “’Fraid not. Must intrude. Can’t wait.”
Falcyn made another sound so deep in his throat that it vibrated through Medea’s body.
Urian pulled her back. “Well, then. We’ll leave you to your argument. Come, big sis. Let’s get out of here before Godzilla and Mothra go at it and we’re caught in the cross fire.”
“Before who and what?”
Urian groaned under his breath. “One day we’ve got to do an all-day movie marathon to catch you up on my references.” And with that, he pulled her toward the stairs.
But Medea couldn’t resist one quick glance back at the stranger whose presence still haunted her. Worse? He continued to watch after her with that penetrating stare like she was a hare he was planning to devour as lunch.
“What are they?” she asked Urian as he led her upstairs to the less crowded area of the bar.
“Blaise is a mandrake. Falcyn … hell if I know. He’s one of the dragon breeds, but not a Were-Hunter.”
“If they’re brothers, he’d be a mandrake, too. Right?”
Urian hesitated. “I don’t think they’re really related. The dragons have an even more peculiar idea of what constitutes family than we do.”
She was so perplexed by that. “But if he’s a dragon and he’s not a mandrake or Were-Hunter, how can he be human?” Those were the only two kinds of pureblood dragons who could take human form.
At least that she knew of, and given the fact she’d walked this earth for more than eleven thousand years, she knew quite a bit about shapeshifters and the preternatural world that had birthed her.
And them.
Especially since her father was one. But his dragon form came from the fact that he was a demigod, not a true shapeshifter. Unlike them, he couldn’t hold his form for long, or live in it.
Urian paused to look from her to the two dragons in the crowd below. “That, Medea, is the question we’ve all asked and no one will answer. All we know is that he’s a bloodthirsty beast who’s best avoided.”
2
“So what is your trauma?”
Blaise snorted derisively at Falcyn’s growled question. “Lack of parental support. Failure to bond. Kerrigan knocking me into one too many walls for lipping off whenever he was in a foul mood, which was pretty much always. Fear of fluffy bunnies, but that’s not why I’m here.”
“Fluffy bunnies?” Falcyn wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to that question, but it was so out of place for this audacious, lunatic mandrake that he just felt compelled to hear his explanation, even against all common sense.
“Ever seen the movie Bambi? Those little bastards are some strange brew. And don’t get me started on Monty Python’s Holy Grail and that hare-y nightmare.” Blaise visibly shook. “It’s to the point I don’t even want to see that stuffed pink thing Nim carries.”
At the mention of the harmless slug demon, Falcyn rolled his eyes so hard back in his skull, it actually burned. “You’re so effing weird.”
“Oh yeah, ’cause you’re hogging all the normality. Have you ever bothered to look into that abyss, my friend? I promise the pot is calling the kettle twin.”
“Have you a point to this mission, other than to piss me off and insult me? In which case, mission accomplished, but your life is drawing perilously close to its end as a result.”
“Wow, that’s some serious hostility you got going there, buddy. Need to chillax.”
Falcyn arched a brow at the uncharacteristic word. Chillax? “Who have you been around that you’ve picked up this all new vocabulary?”
Blaise grinned. “Morgen’s new toy. He’s addicted to all sorts of peculiar things.… And not just porn. Which is why I’m here.”
“What? For porn? Sorry. Not a pimp. Don’t need a pimp. Don’t want a pimp.”
“Wasn’t planning to act as such. Nor did I know you were into guys.”
Falcyn grimaced. “Talking to you always gives me a brain tumor. Explain to me how it is that no one’s murdered you to date?”
“Not from lack of trying on their part, I assure you. Let me revisit the whole Kerrigan slamming me into walls. But I’m just that fast with my reflexes. And lucky for me, you’re an old dragon. Decrepit.”
“You really want to test that theory?”
“Not without backup. So to the point of my visit…”
More agitated than he wanted to be, Falcyn crossed his arms over his chest as he waited for Blaise to finish that sentence. “Have you lost your thought, your mind … or just your nerve?”
Cocking his head, Blaise narrowed his gaze as if he were listening intently to something. “They’re here.”
“They?”
“Morgen’s dogs. That’s what I was trying to tell you. She was given a hole, and while she can’t come through it, her Circle now can.”
“So? Why should I care? That’s your battle, brother. Not mine.”
And before Blaise could let out another word, the door behind him opened.
Falcyn’s gut drew tight at the sight and arrival of Narishka duFey Morgen’s right-hand bitch.
And the creature Falcyn hated most.
So much for this being Blaise’s battle alone. Falcyn’s blood flowed thick through his veins as he started for the tiny blond Adoni who’d robbed him of everything he’d ever hoped to love.
Holding her hand up, she caught him with her powers and tsked. “You know better, dragon. What were you thinking?”
“How much I want to feast on your entrails, fey-bitch!”
And still she didn’t flinch. Rather, she shook her head at him. “Now, now, is that any way to speak to the stepmother of your child?”
Those words only fired his anger more as they awoke a pain so profound inside him that not even all these centuries could quell it. “You mean the murderess of my son, don’t you?”
Blaise gaped. The birth of his son was something Falcyn had never mentioned to another living creature.