Page 30 of Heavy is the Crown
“Ava?” he whispers. His cracking voice is gutting me.
“She’s fine with this. It’ll be easier if we are together first. My dragon will help yours.” I know him well enough to know he’s terrified of hurting her, and I know Ava well enough to say she won’t give a shit that we bonded first. She might care that she missed watching it, but she’ll understand. “Please,rakkaani.”
He takes a step toward me, and another, his teeth elongating and his eyes golden. I close my eyes in anticipation, but insteadof his teeth meeting my neck, he shoves past me, fleeing the room like a Hellbeast has given chase. I hear the door slam from the bedroom, the sound breaking me. My fist lashes out into the mirror. The glass shatters around me, a visual representation of how my chest feels right now after watching my mate reject me.
SIXTEEN
While our power is great, it would be wise to align with The Order. They can give us access to unimaginable power. With Kara’s son, we have an in.
– Mori Family Grimoire
Ava
(“Lovely” – Tommee Profitt and Fleurie)
I grimace as the haze of sleep slowly departs my brain. My mouth is sticky and dry from crawling into bed so late. And maybe from having a little too much to drink after Ciaran had left with Kallen and her men. Seeing her had driven my anxiety to new heights, made the vision feel that much more real. After I had gotten good and fucked up, I had attempted to sleep it off in my own home below the club, but Drago had returned for me and dragged me back here. To the place that provides relief to my anxious mind but also spurs it forward. The dichotomy of it is exhausting.
I reach out to the side and find the bed already cool. The bathroom door is ajar, and I can hear the shower running. Imove to stand up, then halt as I hear the low moans of two unmistakable voices echoing out of the bathroom. Shadow and Drago. I smile to myself and lie back, stretching out my body as the noises send jolts of arousal through me, straight to my core. It’s a nice way to cover up the stiffness that has seeped into my joints and the tightness of my muscles. My body has not recovered from helping Astrea and Ciaran, not that I would tell Drago that.Or Shadow, if he actually stuck around long enough for us to talk.
My magic, while powerful, is weakening the longer I go without replenishing it. Not for the first time, I send out a curse to my ancestors. Sure, I could maybe find someone who could perform a ceremony, but the likelihood that there is a priestess here in Gothic Grove is small. If I went home, I could try to convince someone to help me and not tell my family, but the risk is too great. The priestesses aren’t particularly loyal to the royal family, per se, but I don’t think they would harbor the lost princess.
Mating is my best option. The least dangerous and only long-term solution, if I could just get Shadow to be willing. With the future barreling toward us like a train, I can’t help but wonder if we will survive this. Everyone talks about wanting to see the future, but no one understands the implications of it. It’s not as if I’m watching a movie play out in my mind; it’s fragmented pieces of a timeline that may or may not come to pass. Like looking at yourself through shards of a broken mirror, everything changes depending on the way you look at it.
The bathroom door slams open, and I startle fully upward to see Shadow storm out. His scent washes over me as he flees, pausing only to grab his pants and a shirt before he exits the room. For a moment, I debate on going after him, but the shattering of glass in the bathroom has me vaulting out of bedand running toward the sound, away from the retreating form of my other mate.
Entering the space, I see Drago’s half-naked body silhouetted by the lights as he braces himself against his dark countertop, his white hair a curtain around his face. He leans over the sink, blood dripping from the knuckles of his raised fist into the basin. Pieces of the now shattered mirror are scattered over the black tile in the steam-filled bathroom, the scent of sex heavy in the air.
“Do you want to talk about it?” When he turns to look at me, I see his eyes flash gold, pain evident on his face, before he schools his features. My own chest pulls tight, and I know sadness flares over my face as I fully take in his form.
Dried on Drago’s lips is blood.
“Oh, Drago,” I say quietly and move over, careful to avoid cutting my bare feet on the sprinkled glass, and wrap my arms around his massive body.
He lets out a long sigh and wraps his uninjured arm around me, pulling me closer. “I shouldn’t have done it; I knew he wasn’t ready. I knew he was saying yes to sex, not mating.” My heart breaks even more when I hear the pain woven into his voice. “He needed to escape, and I took advantage of the moment.”
I peer up into his eyes, the blue swimming with emotion, and take his face in my hands. “You didn’t take advantage of anyone. He wanted you. And like it or not, the bond will help him. He’s just too stubborn to realize it,” I say gently. My heart warms at the idea of their bond, the bond that will keep them tethered.
He grabs me around the waist, hoisting me onto the counter as he turns on the faucet to start washing his cut hand. While the wounds are already healing, he still takes care to pull the glass from them and wash the blood away. For a moment, I’m mesmerized by the ripped flesh of his knuckles, the ghost of my vision pulling at me. I shake it off and focus on the red washingdown the drain to ground myself back into the present.You don’t know how this will end; you don’t have the full picture. Panicking isn’t helping. You sawafuture, not the only one. We might all make it through this.
“The moment my teeth were in him, and I tasted him, I thought . . . fuck, I don’t know. But he’s so fucking afraid,” he speaks. “You can taste the fear in him. It’s bitter and acidic.”
My feet swing back and forth, a nervous habit of being unable to remain still. The cool granite countertop rubs against my bare thighs. “He’s spent a very long time blaming himself for his mother’s death. And you know what his father was like, he didn’t allow Shadow to believe he was worthy of love. Ciaran may have rescued him from the physical cage Alexi put him in, but Shadow has been in an emotional one for far longer.” I grab my pink hair and twist it up into a bun, wincing at the slight pull of my shoulder muscles. “We need to give him time.”
He catches my eyes, and his stare has my heart skipping a beat with its intensity. “And how much longer doyouhave, Ava?”
I roll my eyes in a desperate attempt not to show the truth. “I’m fine.”
But Drago growls low, his dragon pushing forward. “I want the truth. How bad is it?”
My body tenses as the command ripples through me, and I fight it as long as I can before the words are inevitably pulled from me. “If I don’t replenish, I’ll die next time.” The moment I say the words, the spell breaks, and my hand whips out and slaps him across the face. “Don’t you fucking use your compulsion on me, you asshole.” I try to hop down from the counter, but he grips my forearms hard. I let out a feral hiss at the contact. “We made a promise long ago about that power. Don’t start breaking it now,” I growl.
“You have to go home if he won’t bond.” His voice is dangerously low. It’s at this moment I regret ever sharing knowledge of my magic with him. And while he promised to never use the information against me, I know when it comes down to it, he will do what he feels is necessary to protect me.
“Absolutely not,” I say. “And if you command me, I will get Astrea to have her snakes fucking eat you.”
He chuckles a bit, as if I’m joking, before his face goes grave again. “What if we just completed it?”
I groan, my whole body responding, the space where the bond should rest flaring with need. “It would help short-term, but you know that's not the solution long-term. I need both of you. Want both of you.” But the thought of Drago fucking me after he’s just been inside Shadow has my veins heating. The sounds I heard just moments ago echo through my head.
