Late that evening after an enormous barbecue, I stood on the top step of the deck, looking down the hill toward the studio. All the turul vodka in the world couldn’t fend off the dread over what I’d find when I rolled open that huge door.
A warm presence slipped up beside me, and I instinctively leaned toward it, sighing in contentment when Gray slid an arm around me and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.
“You almost make me believe everything will be all right.”
He hummed softly into my hair. “Only almost? If so, I’m doing a piss poor job of being your mate. Everything will be all right, April. Even if the thing is in pieces, we’ll work things out. The seven of us are a well-oiled machine.”
His statement evoked imagery of greased pistons, and I snorted at the natural progression of thoughts that resulted. I buried my face against his sturdy shoulder, his barely contained laugh vibrating through his chest when he picked up on my thoughts.
“Naughty girl,” he whispered, his breath tickling across my scalp, and my mind suddenly filled with a clearly projected memory of his full-sized dragon cock buried inside me.
I let out a sudden gasp as arousal blasted through me almost as strong as a spontaneous orgasm. I pulled away, smacking him lightly on the bicep. “Keep it in your pants while my parents are here, got it?”
He glanced over his shoulder to the fireplace and the circle of people settled in chairs and on the deck around it. A smoky haze of Murdoc’s enchanted dragon breath hung over everyone. Shimmering golden smoke wove through it from Deva’s dragon mate, Rohan. I’d enjoyed breathing the mix of drugging smoke for a little while, my overworked muscles relaxing and my mind succumbing to pure euphoria as I listened to them all swap stories of their dealings with Chaos and Fate.
“Your parents seem to have wandered off together. I doubt they’d notice if you did the same.”
“They’re making up for lost time,” I said, still a little giddy at the idea of them together at long last.
“Are they though? Meri’s been dead more than two years. Evidence suggests Cassandra has likely never been very far from this house for long. And a discerning dragon can tell their energy is as bound up as two soul mates can be. I’d be a fool to suggest Andrew Vincent managed to stay away from the love of his life if she was within his reach for the past three years.”
He was right, and I’d already made my peace with it. Mom had her reasons for staying away at first, then avoided returning when it was safe for fear of disrupting my career and success. I couldn’t say I agreed with her choice, but I understood it.
I didn’t need to worry about either of them now that they had each other again. What I worried about was down the hill behind that big barn door.
“I’m going to have to see if it’s still standing at some point.”
“Then let’s go get it done.” Gray threaded his fingers through mine and lifted my hand, brushing his lips across my knuckles. From the corner of my eye, I caught the movement of the rest of the group as they gravitated toward us, evidently led by Rohan, who I’d come to learn was a Gold dragon and had powers of psychic empathy. He gave me a cheerful smile and puffed out a breath that snaked its way toward me.
“A little confidence boost,” he said when the smoke twisted and spun its way toward me, circling my head and tickling my nose until I inhaled. Within seconds, my mood shifted, and I straightened my spine.
“Thank you.” I gave Rohan a nod, then started down the steps with Gray’s hand clutched in mine. At the bottom, my three ursa mates strode ahead, reaching the barn before the rest of us and waiting. I braced myself, anticipating the telltale sharp ache in my jaw that accompanied the lingering magic that Vesh had left behind before. But the closer I got to the barn, the more my sense of connection to my mates increased.
Pleased yet confused, I paused and blinked, shifting my vision to see the auras of magic that clung to all living things. My eyes widened, and I exhaled a sharp breath.
“What is that?” I asked, staring at the slowly pulsing cloud of vivid magic that swelled out from the walls of the barn. Marbled swirls of green and orange bled together, and when I stepped closer, my breath quickened.
Gray squeezed my hand. “Every artist puts a little of their soul into their creations. There were seven of us working on it. Not to mention, we did produce some pretty strong magic last night.”
Tate grabbed hold of the door handle and rolled it back along its track. I was no longer frightened about finding a misshapen hunk of metal inside, but with my sight shifted, I was unprepared for the kaleidoscope of tangled magic I’d see wrapped around the sculpture.
“April, oh my!” Deva exclaimed, stepping forward to stare in awe at the huge tree of life that stood before us. The trunk was a cage of twisted steel rods that were already slightly oxidized with a deliberate rust-colored patina. Within the cage was a core of translucent quartz that would be infused with dragon fire on the day of the show to make it glow with inner light.
Stretching up and flaring out from the trunk stretched the framework of branches, made of thinner rods bound together with green-tinted copper wire that was wound tighter at the ends of the branches. At the ends of each of the twenty primary branches were an assortment of the caged globes my guys and I had crafted, each one containing a miniature landscape of tiny plants waiting for my touch to awaken into blooming. Still smaller branches stretched between the others, tipped with glass leaves in a variety of shades from pale green to deeper green to brilliant orange to icy blue-white, the colors split into quadrants to represent each of the seasons.
“How is it not even slightly damaged? When Vesh came to my studio, his presence was all it took to destroy my work.”
Deva circled the tree, eyes wide and excited. “Because it’s alive, don’t you see?” She completed her circuit and stopped in front of me. “Your estrous has ended, hasn’t it?”
I opened my mouth then closed it again without answering. Turning my focus inward, I pressed my palms to my abdomen. The sense of barely contained pressure had faded to almost nothing. I stepped closer to the trunk of the tree and stared into its core, then gasped at the flare of brilliant golden magic that brightened inside the stone that resided there.
“Okay, that’s fucking amazing and wasn’t at all in the plans.”
“It’s as alive as anything you seven could have created by merging your souls. Your estrous would’ve only ended after a full month of episodes or if you’d conceived. But this beautiful creation is as much a part of all of you as a child would have been.”
I frowned. “I can still have a baby with them, right?”
Deva’s eyes flickered with magic, and she smiled. “Yes, but you’ll need to be more sparing of how much of you goes into your work at the beginning. Higher races babies demand a lot of magic, but they also produce an abundance of their own to make up for it, particularly ursa babies. This is why ursa females take multiple mates.”
The others were gathered in a circle around the tree, which upon my own circuit, I could find no leaf out of place. I paused when I had a view of the door and saw my parents walking down the hill hand-in-hand. They were so fixated on the sculpture they didn’t even see me wave, so I just stood back and basked in their wonder. My throat tightened when Mom met my eyes, and hers were glassy with tears of happiness.