Jordan shook her head, quickly dismissing the thoughts. “Nice to meet you, Levi,” she said. And the Stockholm Syndrome had just been cemented. Holy mother of mercy, what was she doing? Where was she standing? How was any of this real?
The third male in the great room had been lounging on a plush leather couch, the color of copper in autumn leaves, and he rose from his perch, took five generous strides forward, and actually extended his hand. “Welcome to the Sapphire Lair,” he said softly, although his voice was as masculine as the rest.
Jordan took his hand, more gingerly than usual, and shook it lightly, noticing that he had light-brown pupils within his sapphire irises, and a small, strange, archaic tattoo over his otherwise smooth left temple: something that looked like a winged cross etched inside a flowing circle. She tried not to stare too hard. “And you are?”
He released her hand and clutched his amulet, and that’s when she made the obvious connection: Each and every male, when he spoke his given name, unwittingly clutched his sapphire amulet. Was this on purpose? By design? Or just some unconscious habit? “Nakaitheros Saphyrius,” he said.
She stumbled over the ten-gallon word. So, he didn’t use a shortened version? “Na…kai…ther…os.” She tried it on her tongue.
“Nakai,” he supplied, letting the name linger before he turned his attention to Zane. “Brother, you got a missive from the Seven. It’s on the—”
“The two of you are brothers?” Jordan interrupted, immediately cringing at how rude that was. Holy hell, she was just so nervous! Defensively, she thought, Well, shit, what do they expect? I’m here against my will!
Zane tightened his hand against her waist, and then he slowly rotated her body until she was facing him.
Why did he do things like that? she thought.
Take such casual liberties with her body?
Did he want his lair-mates to think the two of them were intimate?
They weren’t!
“We are brothers of the lair,” Zane replied, seeming indifferent to the rudeness of her interruption—or the content of her thoughts.
Jordan swallowed her angst and continued with her original line of questioning; at least it was a distraction. “But not by blood?” she asked.
Zane tilted his head back and forth in a measured gesture. “Well…sort of.” He looked off into the distance as if searching for just the right words. “I am a Genesis Son, so Lord Saphyrius is my maker—my father.” He immediately amended the word. “But my brothers were consecrated to his lair when they turned eighteen, so they also share his spiritual essence.”
“We’re brothers in the only sense that matters, here in Dragons Domain,” Nakai supplied.
Jordan blinked her eyes. Okay, so she sort of got it: Axe, Jace, Levi, and Nakai all had different biological fathers—probably males who had found their dragyras—but they had been more or less adopted by Lord Saphyrius and ushered into a common lair…into his service.
“Exactly,” Zane said aloud.
Jordan huffed. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?” Zane asked.
“Reading my mind.”
“You’re projecting,” he whispered.
She sighed. “Stop it…please.”
He smiled. “I’ll try.”
The short exchange seemed to humor Nakai, and he chuckled softly. “Well, now that we’ve got that straight, back to the missive from the Seven?” He posed it as a light-hearted question, and Jordan felt like a heel, once again, for interrupting earlier. On the other hand, she sort of felt like slapping the dragyri for bringing it back up.
“I’m done,” she whispered, shrugging the subject off.
Nakai politely turned his attention back to Zane, started to speak in a strange, foreign language, and then immediately cut it off, switching back to English. “You’ve been summoned to the temple…at twilight…along with all the Genesis Sons. No idea what it’s about.”
Zane’s eyes shot immediately to Axe’s, and he raised his brows in a subtle question.
Axe shook his head. “No idea,” he repeated, punctuating the words with a shrug.
Hmm, Jordan thought. So were Zane and Axe closer than the rest? Did they have a special bond? Why had he looked to Axe for information? She knew she was overanalyzing everything—her mind churning a mile a minute—it was just what she did when she felt out of place.
Zane nodded slowly, then released Jordan’s waist and reached for all three of her bags. “I’ll check it out after I show Jordan to our room.”
Jordan felt her face flush, and she wasn’t exactly sure what she was feeling.
Embarrassed.
Angry.
Or humiliated.
He was going to show her to their room—like she was his.
She bit down against her lower teeth, raised her jaw, and drew back her shoulders in defiance. It was petty; it probably showed her insecurity; and it did nothing to elevate her status amongst these fearsome men—these fearsome males—but it was all she had at the moment.
Zane studied her features carefully and frowned. “Dragyra…” he whispered.
But that was all he said.
Ushering her forward by raising the duffels in the direction of the stairs, he nodded in the same direction and began to walk away.
Feeling lost, alone, and oddly tired, she followed him to the dual staircase.
What else could she do?
Chapter Fourteen
Six hours later
Since the Sapphire Lair was located within the highland region of Dragons Domain, on the western end of the province, Zane headed due east across the mountains on his way to the sacred temple. He was careful not to veer too far north, toward the Dragonian River or the Onyx Lair, lest he wander into the Garden of Grace, the final resting place of Dragyr souls: a cluster of seven white-clay mountains littered with gemstone statues, each one an eternal pillar erected from the soul of the dead.
He shuddered as he thought about the implications.
Considering the fact that he had just found his dragyra, the idea of the garden hit a little too close to home. If, for whatever reason, Zane failed to bring Jordan to the temple on the tenth day of their mating—to be consecrated by the dragon lords and reborn into the sacred pantheon—not only would she perish in her sleep that night, but Zane would find himself on that terminal mountain, a permanent fixture, erected as a pillar of sapphire stone.
He would find himself next to Jaquar…
Nothing would remain of his life but a perfect stone likeness, a sapphire sculpture raised in his eternal image. His amulet would be removed by Lord Saphyrius, and he would join all the souls that had perished before him, whether made by the gods, slain by an enemy, or born of a dragyra’s womb.
He brushed the back of his hand over his eyes, absently clutched his amulet, and turned his attention to the matter at hand: the summons he had received from the Seven, the reason he was heading to the temple.
Hells fire, it had been some time since he had gathered with his genesis brothers, and while he’d just as soon avoid the reunion, a part of him was always curious to see their faces, connect with their lives, and judge for himself how the males were evolving through time. After all, they had known each other for a thousand years.
As he climbed an especially steep incline, he thought of each Genesis Son in turn: First, there was Ghost, and gods bless the poor soul because he couldn’t help being the progeny of Lord Dragos, the darkest of the dragon lords. Since the time Ghost was consecrated, the male had been a fearsome, if not terrifying, force to be reckoned with, for sure. With irises the color of diamonds and pale, phantom-blue pupils, the male’s stare alone could send a heart into arrhythmia—it was like staring into the eyes of a Siberian husky, and the soul that leaked out beneath those ghostly peepers, well, it was dark, haunted, and angry.
Just one heartbeat away from brutality or madness.
And, frankly, who could blame him?
When Lord Dra
gos ordered the dragyri of the Diamond Lair to slay enemies on his behalf, he wasn’t satisfied with the mere consumption of blood, the natural act of draining a prey’s essence—consuming their fire and heat. He expected his soldiers to dine on their victims’ hearts. A dozen or so centuries of that, and yeah, crazed was the appropriate term, as well as the inevitable consequence.
And then there was Jagyr, made by Lord Ethyron, a Genesis Son of the Emerald Lair. He was a badass dragyri from the days of old, quick-tempered and hot-headed; but, thank goodness, he was quick to cool. Like Ghost, he had dark, almost-black hair, but he wore it in random, slicked-back layers and kept it rather long. His emerald eyes were offset by jet-black pupils, and he wasn’t crazy, per se. As the son of the second-most depraved dragon lord, he was just amped up, a bit too feral. He had a dark, crimson fire burning at his core, and a hair-trigger fuse attached to that flame.
Blaise Amarkyus was the fourth, after Zane, and he was consecrated to the Amethyst Lair. The most one could say about Lord Amarkyus was that at least the dragon was fair—he wasn’t dark, and he wasn’t light. He was somewhere in the middle, and Blaise walked that same tempered edge.
Nuri Onyhanzian was a son of the Onyx Lair, and his maker was honorable, but too eager to punish those who crossed him. Consequently, the dragyri could be ruthless, with very little cause. One did not cross Nuri Onyhanzian if one had any sense. Still, with his golden-blond hair, his onyx-and-midnight blue eyes, and his classical good looks, the male was the first to crack a joke or play a prank on another warrior. He was decent, loyal, and a prime choice for backup in a fight.
Brastonian Cytarius and Tiberius Topenzi—Brass and Ty—were the final two Genesis Sons, belonging, respectively, to the Citrine and Topaz Lairs. As the sixth and seventh dragon gods of The Pantheon, Lord Cytarius was generous and kind, and Lord Topenzi was downright noble: wise, righteous, and just. He was the kind of god a warrior would gladly bend a knee to and seek out for guidance or counsel. Needless to say, both Brass and Ty were fairly easy to get along with, just so long as one didn’t get it twisted—make no mistake, a dragyri of any shade was a primordial, savage beast at heart, all instinct, dominance, and untamed heat. All the males gave each other a healthy dose of respect and a wide berth when it was called for, and no one went out of their way to provoke another Dragyr.
They tried to live in harmony, brother to brother, lair to lair.
Zane rounded the last of the remaining mountain peaks, angled due south toward the entrance to the temple, and began to make his descent. After all these years, he didn’t give much thought to where he stood in the whole pantheon hierarchy, as the son of Lord Saphyrius. The dragon was the third god of The Pantheon, and that placed him two steps above Lord Dragos and one step above Lord Ethyron in terms of his immortal soul. Lord Saphyrius could be harsh, without question. He could be both kind and unforgiving; however, he had one thing in his favor, something he never let Zane forget: Lord Saphyrius loved his dragyri children—all of them—and that was evident to the entire Sapphire Lair.
If nothing else, Zane could reason with his master, petition him for leniency, on the basis of nothing more than his love. After all, he was the dragon who sought at least a small semblance of justice for Caleb by loaning Zane out to Lord Ethyron to extinguish the gangsters.
Zane only hoped that this meeting had nothing to do with that night.
He had done the gods’ bidding, and the matter was closed.
Now, as he approached the awesome white-marble staircase that led to the font of the temple, flanked by seven enormous, opulent pillars, he took a deep, cleansing breath, tried to bank his inner fire, and drew upon a healthy dose of humility.
He needed to cleanse his hands in the sacred fountain before he entered the sanctuary, and he needed to remember to avert his eyes in the presence of his lords. The difference between breathing—and burning—was often a matter of degree, reverence versus even the slightest hint of disrespect.
He retrieved the summons from his front hip-pocket and glanced at the missive one last time: Yep, it was just about twilight. The native sun was ebbing, the horizon was darkening, and the dragon moon was rising in the glorious crystal skies.
Zane was right on time.
f
Jordan’s eyes darted nervously around the enormous suite—Zane’s room—as she took a deep breath to calm her nerves and tried to come to grips with her situation.
She was alone…at last.
Granted, she was in a strange room, in a strange home, in a strange and distant land, one she had entered through an enigmatic portal. So yeah, there was that. But the air wafting through the open windows was crisp, cool, and refreshing; and the ambient sound in the background—the glorious waterfall behind the lair, flowing into a rushing river that winded beneath the lair—was as enchanting as it was beautiful to look at. And she and Zane had a direct view from the bedroom windows.
She and Zane…
Had she lost her mind?
There was no she and Zane!
And she needed to keep her focus.
Surveying the structure and contents of the suite once more—the enormous iron-and-wood bed that sat on a center platform and frankly made her shiver; the unobtrusive kitchenette against the rear, northeast wall that also sported a stocked mini-refrigerator and bar; and the plush but comfortable seating area in the northwest corner that housed a large flat-screen TV, mounted on a 360-degree swivel arm so it could face the sofa or the bed—she wondered at the luxury, technology, and obvious wealth possessed by these…dragons. After all, weren’t dragons supposed to be an ancient, barbaric species?
She rolled her eyes at her own inner discourse—she had truly lost her mind. Dragons weren’t supposed to exist. They were myths, fairy-tale creatures, the stuff made of nightmares and fantasy. She stared at the dual French doors that led to the wraparound-deck, followed the wall of thick glass windows that snaked along the porch, and tuned into the soothing sounds of the river below, forcing herself to readjust her thinking…
No, Jordan; dragons are real.
This is real.
Brushing her arms to stave off a chill, she stiffened her spine and strolled quietly to the corner desk, opposite the kitchenette, on the other side of the room. She had already made note of a yellow legal pad of paper and a container of expensive blue ink pens. And what she was thinking about doing—what she knew she had to do—was as dangerous as it was seditious.
But she was determined to go through with it, just the same.
Somehow…someway…she had to change her fate. She had to get some help from the outside. And the only thing she could think of—the only person she knew would fight to the death to save her—was Dan Summers, her ex-lover. Yes, the one who had broken her heart.
But what if…just what if…she could somehow manage to get a message to Dan, an SOS of sorts? What if Dan could marshal the forces or come up with a plan…find a way to rescue her, return her to her life?
She had to try.
As she reached for a blue ink pen, scribbled on the pad to make sure it was working, and bit down on her lower lip in trepidation, she slowly began to organize her thoughts:
Dear Dan, I need your help—
She dropped the pen and shivered.
Good lord, if Zane found out—if he found the letter…
What would he do?
Would he lock her up in this room, refuse to let her go back through the portal?
Would he chain her to the lair…or the bed?
Her stomach turned over in shallow waves of nausea.
Or would he punish her somehow…actually hurt her…kill her?
No! she immediately reasoned. He wouldn’t.
He couldn’t!
His future was tied to hers; he needed her to produce an heir…another mercenary…a future servant for the dragon lords.
At least, that was what he had said, perhaps in softer terms.
Steadying her trembling hand, she reached for th
e pen once more, flipped the pad to a fresh, new page, and began to draft her letter:
Dear Dan,
I know I have insisted on maintaining silence between us, so this must come as a surprise, but I’m in trouble. Real trouble. And I desperately need your help…
Chapter Fifteen
Zanaikeyros Saphyrius checked his watch, just to be absolutely certain, as he traversed the outer platform of the temple, entered beneath a high, open-arched doorframe into the inner foyer, and slowly approached the sacred, cleansing fountain.
Yep, it was 6:50 PM, ten minutes before sunset, and honestly, after living in Dragons Domain for a thousand years, the internal clock was built into his DNA: Regardless of the seasons or the day, the sun always rose at 7 AM and always set at 7 PM in homage to the gods.
He ignored the eerie echo of his boots against the solid diamond floor of the foyer, even as he found himself captivated by the light reflecting through the magnificent, priceless platform; padded his way across the plush, multicolored ornamental rug situated beneath the sacred fountain; and dipped his hands in the lukewarm basin. Not unlike the Oracle Pool of pearlescent water that ran along the northern end of the inner sanctuary, the cleansing fountain contained living water, full of undulating currents—diamond, emerald, sapphire, amethyst, onyx, citrine, and topaz waves—all swirling in a luminescent pool of amalgamated power.
His hands hit the water, and he immediately felt the tug on his essence: his heat, his soul, his dragon’s inner fire.
The gods were feeding from his core.
Purifying his essence.
And registering his presence…long before he entered the actual sanctuary.
No one—absolutely no one—could ever sneak up on the gods. If one tried to enter the temple without first cleansing their hands, the handles on the doors would singe their unclean flesh, burn it to the bones. If they somehow managed to open the mammoth doors anyway, they would perish the moment their foot crossed the threshold into the sanctuary—they would simply drop dead.