Heavy is the Crown: A Gothic Grove Novel, page 17
I scream again, grabbing my desk and flipping it up. The wood splinters and cracks, much like how my chest feels right now. I want to deny it, but the pain in my chest tells me everything I need to know. He left us.
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” I can’t stop pacing, can’t stop moving, as I feel my world slipping away from me. The world I’ve tried so hard to keep together. Panic compresses my lungs, cutting off my breathing.
“Drago.” He steps forward. “Breathe. We get Ava first, then we get Shadow.” Logically, I know he is right. Shadow is safer than Ava; they aren’t after him. Without her magic, she is vulnerable to whoever is after her, and if they know about us, then Shadow’s show at the harbor will alert them that she is unguarded by at least one dragon.
I finally manage to pull air into my lungs. First one breath, then two, then three, until my chest no longer feels constricted. My mind starts to clear again. I straighten up and smooth my hair back.
“Has anyone seen Ava since she left the parking garage?” Breathe in. Breathe out, I keep reminding myself.
He shakes his head as he sends out a text, presumably to our men.
“Get people to The Playground. If she is there, keep her there. Close the fucking club down, no one in once you have her.”
He nods, sending out texts rapidly. “What are you doing?” he asks without looking up.
If he had looked up, he would have seen my shift, seen the golden eyes replace the blue, seen my hands start to turn skeletal. My dragon is no longer content with sitting back.
“I’m going hunting.”
Ava
(“Down With The Sickness (feat. Ai Mori)” – Violet Orlandi)
The music shifts, the sounds vibrating over the roar of the engine, as I enter the last mile or so of road before The Playground. My attention is solely on the small amount of traffic that has suddenly appeared, so I don’t notice the subtle change in the air around me until the massive shadow passes over the car, causing me to slam on my brakes. The sound of tires screeching fills the air as all the vehicles on the road come to a halt.
Dread fills me as I fling the door open and spy a massive skeletal dragon clinging to the side of the nearest skyscraper. Glass and metal fold under his weight like they’re paper as he crawls down the building. He’s only a football field’s length away from me when he lets out a great roar, black flames shooting from his maw. People scream around me, fleeing into buildings or down the road, but I stand stock-still as he slowly approaches.
“Shit . . . Drago . . .” I start, holding my hands up, palms out in surrender, expecting him to shift back.
But he doesn’t. Instead, his dragon shakes his head, snapping that massive jaw. I growl at him, snapping my own dull human teeth. His golden eyes flare at my defiance. “Fine. You want to do this? Let’s fucking do this.” I spin on my heel and take off at a dead sprint, adrenaline pushing me forward as he lets out a devastatingly loud scream that rains glass down around me. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I chant as I dodge and weave through the discarded cars. Drago’s dragon barrels through them, not stopping, and I realize it may have been a bad fucking idea to run from him.
Death Dragon
She ran. Like a little rabbit. And when I catch her, I’m going to fucking devour her.
Ava
Heat blasts overhead as he lets loose a volley of flames, his massive skeletal wings pushing me forward as he takes to the skies. And how the fuck did you think this was gonna go, Ava? You are running from a gods damn death dragon. If I was smart, I wouldn’t have fled from him. I would stop right now and submit. But the rational voice in me that says to give up is ignored and overpowered by the one that's pissed and hurt and tired of playing it safe. My magic swims up around me, but I push it back down, still clear-headed enough at least to refuse the risk.
My body screams at me as I throw myself around a corner into a dark alley. My hands scrape against the brick wall as I try to avoid falling face-first onto the dirty cement. Behind me, I hear a screech of frustration as Drago’s massive body overshoots the alley I’m bolting down. A satisfied smile plays over my face, even as sweat drips down my temples. My lungs burn but I force myself to keep taking in air. Up ahead, I can see a chain-link fence separating this space and the next.
“You can do this, Ava. Go, go, go,” I pant.
But Drago cuts off my escape, his black flames lighting up the fence and causing me to skid to a halt. Seamlessly shifting from dragon to human, his body drops down behind me, blocking my escape both ways. Neither of us say anything. The only sound is my uneven breathing. When I finally look at him, his eyes are golden, blazing bright like fire.
“You shouldn’t have run, Ava.” His voice isn’t human. He may have shifted back to human form, but Drago is not in control.
Drago
Ava’s scent hits me full force. Sweat, lilacs, and arousal. I shake my head, trying to regain some type of control. But my dragon has lost his patience with me and our mates. We push forward. Ava’s eyes dart around for escape, but she has none.
“Drago—” she starts, but I lunge forward, pushing her body against the rough brick surrounding us. Her eyes go wide as I smile, my teeth still elongated.
“You smell so fucking good.” I breathe in deep, eyes closing as I enjoy her scent, bask in it. My claws dig into the wall as I slide my hands down on either side of, leaving deep indents in the faded red brick, until I plant them on her hips. When I open my eyes, she’s breathless, cheeks flushed a crimson shade that spreads down her neck. “Why did you run like a little rabbit? Hmm? Did you want me to hunt you? Catch you and devour you?”
She wiggles slightly, biting her lip hard. I allow my hand to slip into her clothing and down toward her core. I groan as I come in contact with her slick arousal. “Rakkaani . . . you are so wet. I want to fuck you against this wall. Claim you for my own.” She whimpers at the idea. I drag my nose along her neck, stopping briefly at the mark that Shadow left. Anger pulses bright and hot through me. “He fucking left us.” The words tumble from my mouth before I can yank them back.
“What?” Ava asks, her voice breathless.
I nip at the mark, careful not to bite over it but enough that I know I’ll leave small indents where my teeth have pushed at it. I move to the unmarked side of her neck, my dragon in full control. “He fucking left us, left you in danger like this. I should take you right here, against the wall. Mate you without him.”
Ava’s small hands shove at me. “What the fuck are you talking about, Drago?” I press my full body weight into her, eliciting a gasp as I push my fingers inside her. “Stop, Drago. What do you mean, he left?”
But I don’t stop, I keep slowly pumping my two fingers into her heat. “Why do you think I hunted you down?” I growl, my voice having lost all trace of being human. “He left you exposed with his little tantrum. You need magic, you need to mate. So, we do it without him.” Her walls clench around my fingers.
“Drago, wait . . .” But I can’t, I press my teeth into her neck and lay my own claim opposite of Shadow’s.
Ava
In a dirty back alley of Gothic Grove, Drago claims me as his mate. The euphoric feeling, electric as it runs through my body, has me coming on his fingers as they plunge deep within me. A scream rips from my mouth and is only silenced when his own mouth crashes down on me. We fumble with my clothing, ripping and tearing until my legs are wrapped around his naked body and his cock is pushing inside me. There is nothing romantic about this moment, and maybe it’s better that way, given Shadow mated me in a cell. We rip at each other's flesh, my nails digging into his skin and leaving long rake marks that stand out brightly even in the dim light of the alley.
When he pulls off my neck, I know it’ll look just as savage as Shadow’s mark does. “Gonna fill you up, rakkaani, going to pump you so full of me, you won’t be able to forget who owns this cunt,” Drago growls as he viciously fucks me into the wall. His piercings hit the perfect spot and send me reeling as another orgasm destroys me. “That's it, give it to me. Fucking give me everything.”
Drago is lost to his dragon, and I’m lost to the sensation of the bond between us. My own magic pushes up toward him to complete our bond, but I shove it back, refuse to allow it to bond, refuse to allow myself to take from him. No, the first time I feed, it’ll be with both my mates, and not in some fucking alley.
I feel the moment Drago starts to come, his body locking up as he pumps his hot release into me. Our skin is flushed and slick with sweat. We fall back to earth, and the noises of the city filter back into our reality as his cock slips from me. We both stand there, his come dripping down my thighs, his cock glistening with mine, and look at each other. He reaches out his hand to me, a peace offering, his dragon receding now.
I don’t move for a full minute. I just stare at his hand. “You hunted me down.” It’s not a question. It’s a fact.
“Yes.” A pause, and then, “He left us.” As if that is explanation enough, as if mating me would heal something broken in us from losing him.
I nod. My heart hurts. Drago and I knew this might happen someday, yet to realize that it is reality hurts more than I thought it would. Shadow didn’t choose us. And now we have to face the reality of the situation.
TWENTY-THREE
The covens know who Ciaran’s father is.
– Kara Carmine
Drago
(“Tell Mama” – The Civil Wars)
It’s been three weeks since I fucked Ava against that alley wall and laid my mark on her neck. Three weeks since my dragon laid waste to a section of Gothic Grove. And three weeks since Shadow disappeared. The harbor is still smoldering, the air thick with smoke even in the heart of the city. No one has seen or heard from Shadow. It’s like he disappeared into thin air. The coffee in my hand turns bitter in my mouth as I touch the hole in my chest where his bond should be. Sleep has evaded me, or maybe I’ve refused to sleep. Either way, I can’t remember the last time I closed my eyes. I need to go to bed. This isn’t healthy.
Instead, I choose more caffeine. I can rest when he’s home.
If he comes home, my dragon huffs.
He will, I respond, but I think we both know I no longer have the same conviction in that statement that I used to.
“You think he’ll come home?” Ava moves up behind me, looping her arms around my stomach and burrowing her face into my bare back. My dragon preens at the contact, and I allow my eyes to close briefly. Her small fingers splay across my abs and draw tiny circles over the muscles as we stand in the large window. After the call from Jax, I moved us to my home, the one where it all started with Ava.
“If you had asked me a month ago, I would have said he would never have left to begin with. But now, I have no idea,” I reply honestly. She continues to draw on my stomach, her breath leaving small puffs of warm air against my skin. “We need to make a plan, Ava.”
Her movements pause for a moment but resume before she replies, “He’ll come home.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
Her movements pause again, and this time, she pulls away from me. Turning, I watch her walk over to the coffee maker. “Both?” She offers a tentative smile over her shoulder.
I cross my arms, and feel the sweats I have on shift a little lower on my hips. Her eyes track downward, her tiny pink tongue licking her bottom lip. “You need to feed, Ava. Complete our bond. I can't lose you, too. We’ve been fucking lucky so far that The Order hasn’t caught up with us here.”
She huffs out a breath and turns away, pouring herself some coffee and adding a pound of creamer to it.
“Jesus, Ava, could you get that coffee sweeter?”
She smiles at me, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Probably.” Moving past me, she walks over to the large leather couch and plops down, pulling the fuzzy blanket over her lap. Samhain flutters down from his perch, settling next to her.
Silence descends upon the room as we each retreat into our own minds.
“He’s out there alone, Drago,” she says quietly after a few minutes. Her voice breaks. “He’s hurting, and we can’t help him.”
“I know. I fucking know he is, Ava, and it kills me. But I can’t control what he is doing. So, I’m choosing to focus on you. I can keep you safe,” I respond as grief settles over us again.
Neither of us acknowledge what might happen if I can’t keep her safe. Instead, we sit in the silence, drinking our liquid gold and hoping it’ll heal that space that's so raw in our chests.
TWENTY-FOUR
The future is fickle. Having the ability to see the future is a curse.
-Hansley Mori
Shadow
(“Let It Go (with Lø Spirit)” – Chandler Leighton)
“Why the fuck do we have a dragon in our yard?” The female voice pulls me into awareness. My sight is still through my dragon, but my mind is slowly coming back online.
This is where I leave you. Figure your shit out, my dragon says before forcing the shift back and dumping my naked body in a pile at Astrea’s feet. She cocks her head, assessing me as her long burgundy-and-white hair blows in the breeze. The cool air sends chills over my body.
She offers me her hand, a dark snake peeking out from her sleeve. When I hesitate, she grumbles, “Jesus, Shadow, just fucking take my hand so we can get in the house.”
A smile breaks my face, and I grab the outstretched hand, hauling myself to my feet. She quickly turns her back to me, allowing me some privacy.
“Do not tell Ciaran I’ve seen you like this. I have no interest in having the conversation with him about whose dick is bigger,” she mutters as she walks forward, motioning for me to follow her.
I take in what’s around us as we walk. The woods are thick with evergreen and spruce trees, and the air has a chill to it that indicates mountains. Mist gathers in the air and fog billows through the trees, making the woods eerie. She’s dressed in thick leggings and a long flannel, boots covering her feet as she walks over the frost-covered grass toward a small cabin. Not dissimilar to the one she left behind.
When she pushes open the door, the porch is flooded with warm light before I hear a hiss and the scurry of nails. “Fucking hell,” I growl as Poppy flings herself out of my way, her fur standing on end. Astrea laughs, grabbing a blanket and throwing it at me. “I hate familiars,” I grumble.
“The feeling is clearly mutual,” she says, laughing. “Cover up. I’ll grab some of Ciaran’s clothing.” She moves with ease through the front room into a dark hallway.
“Where is he?” I ask as I pull the thick green blanket around my shoulders. I move over toward the crackling fireplace. The hearth is large, with a fur rug in front of it. Pillows piled up around it indicate it’s been used for a bed at some point. A wine glass sits on a low wooden table stationed between two large high-backed chairs. The room adjoining is a small kitchen. A pot on the stove lets off steam, and the aroma of food hangs heavy in the air.
Astrea comes back into the room holding a pile of clothing. “He’s out getting supplies. He’ll be home soon.” She tosses the clothing at me, causing me to fumble to grab them without dropping the blanket. “Now, get dressed so you can tell me why the fuck you are here and my best friend is heartbroken in the city.”
I let out a low groan as she points toward a closed door, indicating I should get changed there. I shuffle past, but just as I’m about to open the door, her voice stops me. “Shadow, I’ll say this once: Ava means a lot to me. She took care of me when she could have just as easily told me to fuck off. She had my back in a fight that wasn’t hers. But she also means a lot to Buttercup, and I will warn you once and only once. My magic has no interest in excuses.”
When I look back, her normally green eyes are a shade closer to black, her face hard.
It’s the face of the Harbinger.
Astrea shows me to a loft-style guest room after I’ve pulled on the borrowed clothing, before leaving me alone to contemplate my choices. The sounds of her cooking below are strangely soothing as I lie on the soft bed and look up at the cracked ceiling. My dragon slumbers inside, staying true to his word to leave me alone for now. I often wonder what our relationship would have been like if I hadn’t been forced to hide him so long. Would we be in this same space? Would I be as broken? Would he be as feral? For so long, I’ve kept him locked away, kept us separate because that’s what I thought I needed after everything. But maybe I shouldn’t have.
The questions whirl in my mind until I’m overwhelmed, and I dig the heels of my hands into my eyes.
“Can I offer you some advice?”
I startle upward, not having heard Astrea approach up the stairs. She’s filled out since I last saw her, the curves on her body finally back. She moves into the room and sits down on the chair opposite the bed. “Go ahead,” I say. “I think you're going to offer it anyway.”
She lets out a laugh so unlike her. I’m envious of her, envious of the freedom she seems to have found despite being on the run. “Well, I mean, you did drop down in full-on dragon form, so I think I’m entitled to a little advice giving,” she says with a wink. I watch as she pulls her hair up, looping it into a bun before tucking herself deeper into the chair.
“That wasn’t my choice,” I grouse.
She only rolls her eyes. “Look, you’ve had three months to figure your shit out, and you haven’t, so now you get to listen to me. Shadow, when I say I understand how hard it is to fight your demons, I truly do understand. You pulled me from Alexi, you know what I went through, maybe even more vividly than Ciaran does. You saw me at times he didn’t, cleaned me up before bringing me to him.”
I cringe thinking about how I found her at times. How I attempted to spare my friend from seeing her like that.
She continues talking, ignoring the ghosts that are looming over us. “I’ve spent most my life living in fear, that anxiety so fucking overwhelming I thought I might die from it. And at times, I honestly would rather have died. It was exhausting dealing with it, but it also seemed exhausting to try to die. So, instead, I remained in this self-inflicted purgatory. For years.”
