Page 2 of Distinctly Daray
“We have a shifting sentinel,” Cassius responded. “Brynn is right there.”
Baxter rolled his sandy brown eyes. “I know that. He’s a Daray. We share a house. But he got his wyvern thousands of years after he was pulled across the veil and only because Chand shadow walked and found Morcant. Without his help, we wouldn’t have a shifting sentinel. I think we need one resurrected like Sam to even the score.”
Archduke Morcant Darayvipera had been born Brynnius’s brother in a previous life, and Chander had used a special tea and spell to visit the place where spirits walked. Morcant had agreed to a temporary resurrection to hopefully pull Brynnius’s beast through with him. Samson’s dragon had needed his wyvern mate. The plan had worked.
Eventually, as Morcant’s time had neared its end, he’d made peace with Brynnius and Samson. Morcant had grown enamored with the Council, and Chander had offered the often-quiet man immortality through resurrection. Victor was happy that the quiet Morcant had agreed; he loved him as much as every other Daray.
“As long as no one has to deal with the shit I had to, I’m all for another shifting fallen knight or sentinel,” Samson said, brushing a few stray hairs from Brynnius’s eyes.
“No one said fallen knight,” Baxter retorted. “We need a sentinel.”
“Perhaps we allow Fate to decide,” Ducarius suggested. “Instead of getting into a ridiculous argument since none of us have any chance of swaying the outcome.”
“Fate needs to focus on giving people mates,” Cassius corrected. “You, Victor, and Vellerynd are all single.”
“My brother isn’t in any hurry to find his other half,” Teverild replied, speaking of his younger sibling, Vellerynd Daray. “But Victor and Duc have already waited too long, for sure.”
Victor shook his head, and he flipped pancakes. “Duc has a few millennia on me. I beg Fate constantly to find his mate.”
“I have told everyone I am in no hurry to find my mate,” Ducarius argued with a furrow of his brows.
For as long as Victor had known Ducarius, the Skeleton Lord had insisted he wasn’t ready to be paired. But Ducarius was at the top of Victor’s list of people he wished were part of a happy couple. Like most of the Skeleton Lords who aided Lich Sentinel Alaric in ruling the Sentinel Brotherhood, Ducarius had spent much of his life as a skeleton—a state only possible to obtain if a necromancer forced them to complete tasks like murdering the innocent.
Chander and Alaric had broken the bonds between sentinels and necromancers so men like Ducarius could refute orders, but he’d once lacked the ability. It had cost him his flesh, and he’d been forgotten inside the walls of their former magical compound. If Alaric and Chander hadn’t met, Ducarius would still be imprisoned and broken.
The thought hurt Victor’s heart, and he was glad Fate had intervened. But unlike his brethren, Ducarius hadn’t embraced life fully. His bedroom was the same gray as his former cell, and he had to be prodded into trying new things. Most sentinels enjoyed learning, and the Daray Sentinel Complex, where most of Alaric’s men lived, had a long list of novel and ongoing classes.
Ducarius took none of them unless pushed into it against his will.
In the lively household of Darays, Ducarius only took part in family activities or events if they offered him no choice. Ducarius preferred to keep to himself and adhered strictly to his routine of eating, working, and training with his daggers. Sentinels had a notoriously inflexible code of honor, but no one was as rigid as Ducarius.
Victor wanted to hear his laugh more often—to see the Skeleton Lord wearing an unreserved smile and, for once, opting to do something spontaneous. What Ducarius needed was the other half of his soul, and Victor often asked Fate to take care of it. Thus far, the goddess in charge of pairing people and choosing leaders had ignored Victor.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Chander demanded as he sailed out of his first-floor bedroom with Alaric a step behind him.
“Um…” Baxter said, freezing on the spot.
Samson rolled his unique bisque and dark green eyes. “We told you not to do that, Bax.”
“Answer me,” Chander ordered.
Baxter’s shoulders sagged. “Pouring juice in your coffee cup.”
It took every bit of Victor’s self-control not to laugh. Sentinels were incapable of telling lies, so how Baxter thought he’d get away with his prank was beyond Victor. Each sentinel also had a healthy mix of respect and fear for the former leader of the Council, and Victor understood why. Chander was a force of nature, and it was impossible to ignore him when his shrewd pewter gaze fixed on something.
“Go get me a fresh cup, and put that one in the dishwasher. Stop making extra dishes for Victor to put away, and if you do that again, you’ll spend the entire fucking day in a magical black box,” Chander stated as he took a seat at the table.
“Ben would probably appreciate the break,” Teverild muttered.
Daemon Lord Benton Daray shrugged. “I’d miss him.”
“Go help Victor carry breakfast to the table, and behave yourself,” Chander told the sentinel as the two goblins Chander had summoned for Alaric rushed into the kitchen.
Both adorable little guys were roughly a foot tall and had the same blue-gray eyes as their creator. They were also pure chaos.
Rogue Daray grabbed one of his poisoned daggers from where it floated near his hip like a sentinel’s and twirled it in one black, plush hand. His mate, Pizza, wore a T-shirt with his namesake on it and produced a slice of the pepperoni treat with magic.
“Stop filling up on pizza; you love pancakes,” Victor told the little menace.
