Second Coming

ZAYDA

My hands shook around Freesia’s spellbook.

The baby growing inside me scared the shit out of me. And I didn’t know how I would take care of it when it finally arrived.

These were the anxieties of any woman preparing to birth and raise a child.

In that way, my experience was that of any other mother.

But I knew that I wasn’t just any other woman.

I was trapped by a cursed fate.

I was pregnant with a dragon’s child—a dragon who I loved, but who was not my true mate. Still, my heart was bound to him, even now that he was hardly a man.

I refused to let Xythor go.

I needed him because I loved him…and also because I needed him to help raise our child.

~The child.~

With every kick that rattled my spine, I knew with terrifying certainty that the baby inside me was no normal child…

No, my baby was cursed too.

Though the possibility of following in Freesia’s footsteps chilled me to my core, with every passing day, I understood the woman more.

I understood what it was like to be bound to a dragon, a creature close to human, but who could never truly understand what it was to be human.

I understood what it was like to have a child stirring inside me who would face challenges greater than I could even fathom.

But that didn’t mean I would ever do what Freesia did.

I might have been her second coming, but I wasn’t about to kill my baby. Even if the pregnancy would make no such promise to me.

Still, as I left the freaky dungeon beneath Freesia’s Rock, I brought the leather book with me.

Maybe there was more that I could learn from it—from Freesia’s own thoughts and experiences.

What other secrets had the troubled woman kept?

MADDIE

~Glug…glug…glug!~

Adara finished her third glass of water and passed it back to me. She was relaxing on the couch in the penthouse living room, supported by approximately a dozen pillows.

She was covered in blankets and surrounded by Loch, Hael, Darren, and me—all of us waiting on her hand and foot.

“Bring me more, will you?” she asked, “I am just…so…parched.”

Adara’s hand fell to her forehead in a dramatic display of fatigue. I bit my tongue as I headed back to the kitchen.

Truth be told, my patience for Adara had run out an hour ago.

Of course, I was thankful she was alive. But Adara was always difficult, and now that she had a reason to be, she was being a full-on princess.

I was the only one who seemed to notice.

As I filled the glass from the cold watercooler in the fridge, I heard Loch and Hael waiting on their sister.

“Are you hungry, my angel?” Darren asked.

“No, no,” Adara dismissed dramatically.

“Adara, you should eat something. You want chicken noodle soup? I can make soup,” Loch offered.

“How about ice cream? Want an ice-cream sundae?” Hael added.

I bit my lip as I smiled. Adara drove me crazy, but I couldn’t help it that my heart was turning into a milkshake.

Maybe it was just because it didn’t happen very often, but when my mates were sweet, they were ~so sweet~.

As I walked back to the living room, I encouraged myself to think more like Loch and Hael.

They were focusing on what really mattered: Adara was still here. We were lucky. And we should be happy.

I handed Adara the glass of water and she drank from it thirstily.

I was standing above Loch and Hael, and I rested a hand on each of their shoulders. Though they were both still staring at Adara like they were afraid she would spontaneously combust, Loch covered my hand in his and squeezed.

“Oh, my love,” Darren said softly, holding a cool cloth to Adara’s forehead as she reclined back into her pile of pillows.

He stared at her like she was the only thing in the world.

“When I didn’t know if you would make it,” he whispered to her, “I felt like my world was ending.”

Darren, the guy who I had seen wearing a leash ~and~ a ball gag, who had hustled overhead by my side, now looked like a completely different human.

He was sincere. He had always been in awe of Adara, but this kind of unadulterated adoration was what I imagined to find in a church.

Adara’s accident had changed all of us. But nobody more than Darren.

“I won’t take another moment with you for granted, Adara…my soul mate.”

In Requiem City, it was normal to talk about “mates.” But ~soul mate~ felt like a whole other level of intimate. And fuckin’ weird.

When Hael stood up beside me and glanced at the doorway, I strode out of the room. Those two needed some time alone. And I was more than happy to give it to them.

I was heading down the hall to the bedroom when Loch swept me off of my feet.

“Hey,” I mumbled, though I wasn’t really annoyed.

My hands were wrapped around Loch’s neck, and he looked down at me with a sweet smile. His green eyes were so intent and…romantic that my stomach flipped with nerves.

“I see the romance has rubbed off on you,” I said, unwilling to admit that it had rubbed off on me too.

“I guess I’m just feeling thankful, mouse,” he replied.

Hael entered the bedroom first and Loch lowered me down onto the thousand-count sheets.

Loch closed the door. A moment later, my mates were on either side of me, and the pink sunset through the thin curtains turned the whole room a heavenly color.

For the first time since the disaster at the casino, we were in total silence. And we were alone.

We all relaxed into the bed, and I closed my eyes, soaking in the peaceful feeling.

I felt Loch wrap his arm around my waist. It felt good to be held, and I relaxed more into his touch. I felt Hael hold me too.

The brothers pulled me closer and closer until they were hugging me so tightly I could hardly breathe.

I waited like that for a moment, sandwiched between my mates, until they loosened their grip.

“What was that about?” I gasped.

Loch and Hael were both looking down at me with intense expressions.

“I can’t take anything for granted right now,” Hael explained.

“Especially not you,” Loch added.

The sentiment was unexpected, but extremely sweet.

I hugged them back, pulling them both to rest on my chest.

“Everything is okay,” I reminded them.

“But Nautica got away,” Hael said softly.

“What kind of message does that send to the dragon slayers?” Loch spat. “They can hurt our sister and get away with it?”

I wanted to comfort them, but I understood their frustration.

“You’ll show them,” I assured my men.

“We have to, mouse. We have to make sure they never hurt anyone close to us again.”

HARRY

Glass crunched under my boot as I traversed the marble floor. It was covered in broken chandeliers and a sticky pool of blood.

The cleaners would come tomorrow, and then the builders, and by the end of the week the place would be restored to its former glory.

But that didn’t make the pit in my stomach go away.

The casino had already become a target.

But then again, dragons were the best fighters in the world. And the casino had more than a few on our side.

~We can’t be so careless…~

Just then, a smoky red-and-black dragon landed on the outside patio.

My heart swelled with relief. Though Maddie had texted me that nothing had happened in the dragon slayer chase, I had still been nervous.

I’d just met Onyx. I couldn’t lose him yet.

Through the floor-to-ceiling window I admired Onyx’s powerful form. He stretched out his wings before shifting to his human body.

He took a moment to look up at the stars. I felt shy watching him while he didn’t know I was there.

But still, I couldn’t look away from his muscular back and the way his biceps bulged with his hands on his waist.

He started walking toward the front door, still not noticing me, and I became increasingly flustered.

~He isn’t going to put on clothes?!~

I tried to look busy, but picking up broken glass didn’t seem like a reasonable thing to do.

~What do I normally do with my hands?~

Onyx burst through the front door.

He paused for a moment, looking at me so meaningfully I knew I didn’t have anything to be shy about.

Then he moved toward me.

“Watch out for the broken glass!” I panicked.

It shattered under Onyx’s bare feet and he didn’t stop until he was right in front of me.

I was dizzy because of his nakedness and the intense look in his eye that made him ~that~ much more handsome.

“My human form is strong too,” he said.

I mean, I knew ~that~, but I didn’t think he was walk-on-broken-glass strong.

Unsure of what else to do, I shrugged.

“The place looks worse than I remember,” Onyx said without looking around. He kept his gaze right on me.

“Yeah. They made a mess, those fuckers.” I tried to smile. But it didn’t work to lighten the mood. “I was worried about you when you left, you know.”

Onyx smiled. That huge, mischievous smile that had seduced me in the first place.

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“It was an intense day, I guess.”

Onyx continued to stare at me.

~What the fuck is he thinking?~

He reached out and took my hand.

“I have to see if something is true,” he said mysteriously.

He moved quickly, pulling me over to a nearby roulette table and pushing me down on top of it.

“Wha—?” I began, but immediately, Onyx shifted to his dragon form. The card tables on either side of him tipped over, adding to the mess.

His head nearly took out another chandelier before he lowered it down over my body.

Then Onyx opened his mouth and exhaled a large, red flame over me.

I closed my eyes, overwhelmed and confused by maybe the most unexpected event of the past few days.

Was Onyx trying to kill me?

When I opened my eyes, I saw the flames playing over my naked skin. My clothes had smoldered and burned away to ashes.

But my skin only tickled pleasantly.

~Could it be…~

Onyx turned back to his human form and collapsed on top of me.

The decimated roulette table buckled beneath us and crashed to the ground. But I hardly noticed. All I saw was Onyx.

And all I could feel was his naked skin against mine…his growing erection against my leg.

“We’re mates,” I gasped.

He smiled that smile I loved, the smile that was all mine, and leaned in so close to me I could taste his smoky breath.

“Yes, we are.”