The words had the power of a thunderclap, forcing all of us to take a step back, including Chase, though he didn’t look happy about it. He shot one last longing look my way, prompting Tate and Stuart to step in front of me. From just behind me, Gray muttered, “Wow, she really is a power to be reckoned with, isn’t she?”
“How did she do that?” I asked.
“Her turul soul grants her voice the power,” Stuart said. “Plus, she’s a goddess.”
I squeezed between the two bulwarks shielding me to watch as Chaos himself surrendered to a woman no bigger than me. He reluctantly nodded, and the sky cleared once more. A second later he was gone, and the Sound was calm once again, without a trace of the monstrous creature that had been hiding beneath the surface.
“That was fucking badass. No wonder I love her music so much. Hey! Do you guys think I could get Fate’s Fools to play at my show’s opening party this weekend?”
“It can’t hurt to ask,” Tate said, leading me toward the woman who was officially my new hero.
“She’s your hero? After all we’ve been through?” The trio of dragon voices spoke as one inside my mind.
I turned to face my three dragon mates, walking backward as I blew them all a kiss. “You guys know I’ll make it up to you.”
33
April
An abundance of naked male flesh surrounded me and the only two other women in the bunch. I walked with Mom on one side and Deva on the other as we made our way back to the house. The afternoon sun still shone, gracing us with one of the most beautiful spring days so far this season.
“So, I have questions,” I began, darting a look to either side at each of the women I walked with. “I’m just not quite sure where to start.”
“You aren’t the only one with questions, April.” Deva looked past me to my mom. “I thought my mother, Neela, was the last living female Elite from the Ultiori army.”
Mom sighed and nodded. “Neela was the first, I was the last. Meri had just enough immortal dragon blood left to create one more Elite after the one before me was killed.”
“I didn’t think Elites could be killed,” Deva said.
“They can’t, really. And if you ask me, I have my suspicions that we are as immortal as the blood that makes us. We’ve always believed that the only way for an Elite to die is in the fire of the immortal dragon whose blood runs in their veins. The thing is, I know for a fact that immortal blood mixes in odd ways with immortal fire. I think you might agree, wouldn’t you, Deva?”
Fascinated by their discussion, I looked at Deva, waiting for her response. Her lips twitched in a smile and her eyes sparkled.
“Is she right?” My skin prickling with excitement. “Is it a secret?” I whispered when she didn’t immediately answer.
“No,” Deva said, shaking her head. “Your mother is right. My mother and her twin brother were the first two Elites. Not that long ago, she was nearly killed by immortal dragon fire. Or rather, she did die, but she was resurrected by the very fire that destroyed her. That’s what happens when love gets thrown into the mix.”
Mom sighed and squeezed my hand. “Doesn’t love always provide the strongest magic? It’s the thing Meri never accounted for in all her experiments because she didn’t believe in it. I think she hoped to control me better than the other Elites since she was responsible for my existence as an Elite to begin with. She made me what I am. She mistook my obedience for true loyalty, but I couldn’t let her realize I was never really under her control.” She gave me a tender look. “That was why I had to leave you, honey. I promise you, if there had been any other way, I would have stayed. But I saw your potential back then and knew that if I stayed close, it wouldn’t take long before she saw what you would become and would take you from us.”
I swallowed past the giant lump in my throat, silently cursing the evil woman who had forced my mother to run from me. “So it’s true. I’m a Chimera? I’m not even sure what that means.”
“I can answer that,” Deva said. “It’s a word we use for higher races hybrids. When the higher races interbreed, the offspring can only be born as the race of the strongest parent. To have a true hybrid requires a binding element to merge the souls, which is where humans come into the mix. Only a human of the Bloodline has the potential to become a Chimera. It’s because you possess high concentrations of multiple races’ blood, activated by the divine blood you carry. So you’re both dragon and ursa, with strong enough traits that you can manifest magic of those races, and may even be able to shift as your power matures. Your father is not a Chimera, since his Bloodline blood is purely ursa, but it’s strong enough in him to allow him to shift.”
“So anyone with strong enough blood can shift?”
“Potentially. Manifest powers, at the very least. I’ve met a lot of Bloodline humans with even faint traces who were able to manifest powers to some degree. Humans with turul blood who are great musicians, with ursa blood who are skilled botanists, nymphaea blood who are beautiful dancers, but otherwise lack any more detectable magic.”
“And dragons? What’s their defining skill?”
“Sex,” came a deadpan reply from just behind me. I turned and gave Murdoc a glare but only received a wicked grin in response, followed by a suggestive squeeze of my ass through my damp jeans. He trotted around us and up the steps onto the porch, giving us a perfect view of his round, toned ass.
The men all filed in through the french doors, the conversation raucous and celebratory as they began cleaning up the glass and making a plan for the afternoon. In the midst of the activity, the room filled with swirling white and golden smoke as the dragons exerted a little power to conjure clothing for the lot of them. That settled, the focus shifted to feeding everyone, and four volunteered to fly to the mainland for supplies.
Mom led me to the Adirondack chairs situated around an open fireplace on one corner of the deck overlooking the Sound. With a flick of her wrist, the coals in the center were ablaze. My skin tingled with awareness of the magic.
“A dragon’s skill always depends on its color,” Deva said. “Your three dragon mates are Guardians to their core. They’re the protectors and the architects. Not only will they build you the most beautiful home, they will defend it to their dying breaths. Ursa are craftsmen at heart too. It always surprises me how well my fate hounds do when matching souls with their mates, but mine have outdone themselves with you, I think.”
“I’m not even going to ask about these mysterious hounds. But what I would like to know is whether the band would honor me by playing at my gallery show this weekend. Assuming my sculpture is still intact. If this latest attack ruined it again, I’m going to have to ask for Chase’s address and go break some of his shit for a change.”
Deva laughed. “I will not only give you his address. I’ll drift you there myself and hand you the hammer. But if you really want to stick it to Chaos, take away his chocolate.”
34
April