Chapter 164 The old queen
I slipped my hand out of Finn’s and moved towards the ottoman where I peeled my ballet slippers off and wiggled my toes.
The air hung heavy with the smell of green tea, polished wood and testosterone. And in this masculine heat and presence, I felt like fragile glass. My skin prickled.
But Mordaine moved to sit beside me, his shoulders brushing against mine. My heart slowed to a normal pace again, and my eyes fluttered shut to that comforting heat his body housed, as relaxing as a deep tissue massage.
I opened my eyes again to find Hale staring right at me.
I shivered, startled. A vein was beating across his forehead, every muscle on his face folded in pain like he was having a literal heart attack.
“Hale?” I flew off the bed, but a hand grabbed me, and tugged me back to the bed again.
I whipped my head to the dragon, my eyes growing wide. Every chance they got, they joked about whose wife I really was, but not once have they ever held me back from the other.
Mordaine’s face was blank, and when I turned back to Hale, he was sinking into a couch. Finn tore his tux off and lowered to sit at his feet. Their eyes locked, and I saw the pain in Hale’s eyes reflect in Finn’s, then he turned around and leaned his head against Hale's knee.
It was such an intimate gesture I hurriedly jerked my gaze away.
The dragon gently took my hand then, and I stared at his thumb, moving over my knuckles again and again. Then I moved my gaze up to those silver eyes that were just like mine.
“How do you feel?” His voice was kind and soft.
I swallowed. “Good.”
“Do you need something? Dinner, snacks?”
The one thing I needed right now was answers. I wanted to know why they all looked like someone just died. But I shook my head gently.
He gave a single nod, and his eyes strayed to the center carpet. I frowned, this was the strangest thing yet. The dragon staring at the floor, hesitating.
“I wish there was an easier way to tell you this, doll.” He met my gaze again, but my eyes dropped to his hand, now trembling against mine, even as his thumb continued to move over my knuckles. “You are my wife.”
I looked up with a nod of agreement.
That was the one thing I had never resisted. I belonged to him as much as I did Hale, my true mate. And from the moment they gave me those toe rings, I never took them off, not even in the shower.
But he shook his head now, and sucked in a tortured breath that made my shoulders jump. “You are my wife, sweetheart. MY WIFE.”
I stared at him, unblinking. Everything around us went eerily quiet, even the distant sound of the city traffic from below vanished, like some unknown hand had pressed mute on a remote.
The dragon’s hands came up to my face, slowly tracing the shape of it like a blind man feeling out a statue. And then his body shook in a dry sob.
I blinked then. It was odd, the room seemed to take on a dream-like atmosphere.
My mind drifted somewhere far, to our kitchen back home. That rainy morning when my mind had been clouded with sexual desire and climaxes. The questions, the attitude I had misjudged at the time as him being irritated at me.
Astre, operas, the French palace where I was born.
I shivered and flinched. Immediately, I pulled away from him as goosebumps, hot and itchy as hives started to spread across my body. My scalp prickled and then hardened like a clay mask, numb.
“No.” I shook my head.
“Yes,” the first ragged tear ran down his cheek, a jarring sight from such a powerful creature. “You are Nymphaea.”
I looked around at that point, to see if the others could hear this. If they felt a similar urge to laugh at an idea so ridiculous.
Over the past weeks, I had come to realize just how different I was from that woman. The more stories he told me about her, every picture I saw and diary entries I read, the clearer it became that she was not the average woman. She had become some sort of idol in my mind.
I was not naive, I knew no one could be perfect. But in the ranks of femininity, she was really close.
She was the kind of woman kings went to war for, the kind that sent heartbroken artists to madness where they painted her face on every available canvas.
Our similarities ended with our sex. I could not even describe us as oil and water. If she was a rock, I was a leaf, green, vibrant but a shred-able leaf still.
“Finn is Nymphaea.” I was staring at him now.
I had been present in that room when those Ashbounds said so. They had real evidence to back it too. And just one look at him, you could see it for yourself.
He was tough, with a temper that would match a dragon’s.
He was beautiful too. The rare kind that made people freeze up when they first saw him. Now, he turned those hypnotic eyes to me, and my heart stopped.
But he, too, was shaking his head, large curls shitting at the movement. “Never felt like her.” His voice came out raw, a lost look in his eyes. “It sorta makes sense now. I never felt any connection to her.”
“But you did with Konrad.”
My head swiveled back to Mordaine, who had his eyes on Finn. “Do you remember what you said to me after the Berlin dream? Your emotions were accurate. That man was you.”
Now, I was truly lost.
What was a Berlin dream? Who was Konrad? And why was Hale sitting stiffly like he had been struck with a bolt of lightning?
I stood up, my eyes beginning to itch.
I was uncertain whether I wished this dragon would come to love me or not. But it definitely hurt that he loved this woman so much he kept seeing her in everyone. First Finn, now me, and when he found the next person he would leave me feeling as crushed and dumped as Finn was feeling right now.
“If your Ashounds were wrong the first time, their error this time around is catastrophic.” I swept my hand over my body, “Look at me. I look nothing like your queen.”
His brows jumped, startled. Then he winced and said, “You said those exact words as Astre.”
I stiffened.
He rose, and moved towards me. Once again, he was the calm god, his face hard. He stopped before me and sunk his fingers in my hair. My eyes closed unbidden in spite of the turmoil I was in.
I shivered when he pressed his lips to my forehead. That toasty heat from him was so comforting my body was now melting against his.
“I hope you one day come to remember me, Ma Royne.” His voice was soft as his arm cradled me to his chest. “I waited for you, I waited for us to be as we were, and it kills me every day that you do not remember me.” His fingers continued to move in my hair, massaging my scalp in that unique way of his that turned every bone in my body to liquid. “But I can help you remember you.”
He kissed my head again and stepped back.
“I told you were not a wolf once.” His eyes burned into mine from the nest of the dark silk hair falling over his face and chest and brushing along his waist. He ran one hand through it now, pushing it back. His head turned towards Hale, “Bring him.”
He grabbed my arm, and walked towards the door. We walked through the doorway right onto a… beach.
I staggered back, blinking in the open air as the wind whipped me across the face and caught my hair. My gaze dropped to the beach sand. The sudden feeling of grainy sand beneath my feet when, only a second ago, I had been standing on polished wood floor was jarring.
I swiveled around to find Finn looking as dazed as me, staring slack jawed at the ocean flowing back and forth against the dark skyline. Behind him, Hale moved slowly to take a seat on one of the jagged rocks, his hair like the moon in motion.
I winced. Despite all the madness that was happening right now, I was worried about him. I had never seen him like this.
“Selenied.”
My head jerked towards Mordiane again as the foam sliding on the ground near me hissed. I moved away from the edge of the water.
“You never reincarnated with that ability… until this time.” He sunk his hands in his pockets, and in the darkness, I could barely see his face.
“What are you talking about?” The wind took my words as my hair flapped around my face.
He moved towards me, his shirt billowing in the wind. He stopped and stared down at me. “You are too young to have heard about them, but the people in Donna’s generation knew all about Selenieds.”
I blinked at his casual use of my grandmother’s name. Then I remembered that he was not really in his thirties as his body portrayed.
He inclined his head, and I followed the direction to find Hale watching us intently now. “Daine.” He whispered with a confused tone.
But the dragon turned back to me. “You were the one they prayed to. You are the unstable version of me.”
I frowned, “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I can show you better than I can explain it.” He brought his hand up to cup my face, tilting my head back, so I was staring up into his eyes. “Do you trust me, little wife?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation.
“Forget that you do for a second.”
I blinked, confused for a moment about what he could possibly mean. Then his hand closed around my throat. I stiffened, staring in his eyes as they became flames.
At first, I stood still, watching, but a second later, I realized this was the real thing and not foreplay. The pressure from his hand threatened to snap my neck.
My body went into fight mode, kicking and scratching his arm. I was quickly losing consciousness, but I still heard the other men charge towards us.
Through a blurry vision, I saw Mordiane turn his head and roar in their direction, his eyes burning like actual flames.