“What did he say?” Blaise asked.
She smiled warmly. “That he never wants to be a dragon again. You can keep your smelly old body.”
Blaise snorted. “Can’t blame him there.”
Her eyes twinkling, she took his hand. “And he said he’d see about my list that I gave him. I’d hate to be Morgen right now.”
“Not too sure I want to be us.” Medea glanced around at the restless dragons, who were still eyeballing them a little too closely for her happiness.
Xyn held her hands out in an arc. “How long have we slept?”
“Centuries,” Blaise and Falcyn said simultaneously.
An unhappy murmur ran through them.
“Simi eat them now since they all grumbly?” Her wings twitched with expectation.
The dragons quieted immediately.
Medea laughed. “Nice to know you don’t just scare Daimons, Simi.”
Simi pressed her finger to her lips and cocked her head to an adorable expression. Yeah, that made no sense to Falcyn. How could such a lethal creature be so uncommonly charming? The dichotomy of the Goth demon had never failed to amaze or surprise him.
She scowled, then smiled at Medea. “The Simi knows you! I’s seens you lots and lots. You’re the evil princess who libs with the Simi’s akra in Kalosis!”
“She’s also my sister.”
Simi gasped at Urian’s words. Then caught herself. “Oh yeah. I should have … but wait. Your daddy is fake-akri.” She pressed her hands to her eyebrows. “The Simi is so confuseled!”
Urian laughed. “So am I most days.”
Sobering, he gently pulled one of her hands down until she opened her eyes to look at him. “It’s just like your daddy, Simi. I was taken out of my mother’s womb before I was born and put into the belly of another. So the Apollite who birthed me wasn’t really my mother. And Stryker wasn’t really my father. Styxx is my father and Bethany is my real mom.”
“Ah! Like Simi you’re adaptable!”
Urian’s grin widened. “Yeah.”
“Wait…” Brandor scowled. “Does she mean adopted?”
“No, silly!” Arms akimbo, Simi rolled her eyes. “Even though we both were adopted, the Simi meant adaptable, ’cause Akri-Uri had to libs with people not his people. He not really a Daimon, he a demigod. Which is better. Sometimes, anyway.” She tsked as she looked back at Urian. “I’m sorry, Akri-Uri. That why you have sadness besides Phoebe-sadness?”
His eyes darkened. “No, Sim. Mostly I just have Phoebe sadness.”
She held her barbecue sauce out toward him. “Wanna eat a dragon? Make you feel all better. Give you warm and fuzzies in the belly.”
And that succeeded in driving the dragons toward the shadows and Lombrey into a fit.
“No! No! No! You’re not to hide in my domain! Get out, mangy beasts!”
Brandor cleared his throat to disguise his laughter. “You know, with all this noise, Morgen is bound to realize what’s happened. We might want to think about getting out of here before she sends something or someone to investigate.”
Falcyn nodded to his sister. “Granted, she should be a little preoccupied with the Crom after her, you still should take them to my island. Just to be safe.”
She arched a brow at his order. “All of them? You really plan to tolerate us in your personal space?”
He tried not to be agitated at the thought of that many encroaching on his territory, but … “It’ll be the safest place for them.”
Xyn kissed his cheek. “Love you.”
Falcyn tried not to let those words weaken him. But they always did. Only his sister had ever said that to him, and meant it. “You, too.”
She scoffed at his response. “I live for the day, Veles, when you can say that word without choking on it.” And with that, she gathered the dragons and left.
All except Maddor.
“Aren’t you joining them?”
“How can I?” His tone was as bitter as the light in his eyes. “I’m bound to Morgen. As are all mandrakes. Thanks to you. Bastard.”
Falcyn cursed himself for not remembering that. “I should have left you in the Crom’s body.”
“I didn’t want to be there.” There was no missing the fury in his voice.
“Maddor—”
He brushed past Falcyn. “Don’t say anything. There’s nothing left between us.” His eyes betrayed his torment as he neared Blaise. “I should never have tried to kill you. That was wrong of me. Had I known you were mine then, I would have protected you.” With those whispered words, he vanished.
“What kind of apology was that?” Falcyn wanted to beat his son. Yet he couldn’t blame him. Not really. It was his own ass, and Max’s, he wanted to thrash most.
Blaise sighed. “For Maddor, it was major. Believe me. That’s as close to an apology as I’ve ever heard him come.” He swallowed hard. “I can’t believe you’ve kept this secret for so long. Damn.”
“It was never easy.” Falcyn braced himself as he asked the question he couldn’t avoid. “On a scale of one to ten, how mad are you?”
“I don’t know.… Eighty.”
Falcyn winced.
“But strangely, not at you.”
That shocked him. “How can you not be mad at me?”
“Don’t know. I want to be. I feel that I should be, but then I remember all the times you’ve been there, and … I still want to kick your ass.”
Falcyn snorted. “I am sorry.”
Simi pursed her lips. “Don’t be so sad, dragon people.” Her wings rippled, then feathered as she walked over to Blaise to hug him.
Needing comfort, Falcyn slid his hand into his pocket where he kept his dragonstone.
His heart stopped as he realized that Maddor hadn’t left empty-handed.
“What is it?” Medea asked.
“That bastard.… Maddor stole my dragonstone!”
17
Alone in his room, Maddor opened his hand to study his father’s dragonstone.
His father.
That knowledge pierced him like a lightning bolt. He still wasn’t sure how to handle it. All this time, he’d thought himself abandoned. Unloved. Had imagined a total bastard who’d screwed his mother and then left him to die.
Then Morgen had concocted a much more sinister tale of a bastard who’d rejected him, then killed his mother. In his mind, his unknown father had taken on an even more horrific persona.
Now he knew the face of the dragon who’d created him.
And a whole different story. One he’d never dared dream existed.
Not a bastard after all, if Falcyn’s lies were to be believed.
Part of him didn’t care. None of it mattered, and most likely every word out of his mouth had been a lie.
Either way, it damn sure didn’t change his past.
Yet …
I have a father who’s alive.
And a son.
He tried to get a handle on the moment, but none would come. Worse was the knowledge that he held a vital part of his father in his hand. A vital part of the world itself.
With this, he could destroy him.
Much like Excalibur, the dragonstone was able to take life and to give it. The power of it emanated and vibrated through his hand. Through his whole body.
This was rare, primal power. The kind that could take out Morgen and the whole of her Circle.
Forever.
With this, he could rule not only Camelot and Avalon, but the entire world.