The obnoxious beeping of my cellphone alarm woke me with a jolt, and I fumbled for it on the bedside table, intent on turning the wretched thing off. Of course, it was nowhere to be found.
“Where the fuck?” I growled, withdrawing my hand back under the covers and burying my head under a pillow. It was way too freaking early to be awake, but the guys had taken to setting my cellphone alarm when there had been a few incidents of me lashing out when someone tried to wake me gently.
“Vixen,” Cole’s deep voice came muffled through the pillow, and his warm hand stroked down my back under the blankets. Mmmm, that was right; I’d crawled in with him to warm up after my flight with Vali.
“Cutie,” I mumbled back, fishing around until my hand touched his warm skin and then scooting closer to him. Now if only that fucking beeping would stop.
“Vixen, generally that noise means it’s time to get up.” Cole’s words made sense, yes. But was I going to be sensible and actually get out of bed? Hell no.
The mattress dipped on my other side, and the infuriating alarm stopped.
Hallelujah. Back to sleep time.
“Uh-ah, don’t even think about going back to sleep, regina mea,” Vali scolded me, peeling the pillow off my face. “I only turned it off because it hurts my ears.”
Blinking my sleepy eyes up at him, then looking at Cole beside me, then back to Vali, an idea crept through the wool of sleep.
“I can think of other things to do if I’m not allowed to sleep,” I proposed, letting a wicked grin creep over my face.
Cole snorted a short laugh and kissed my cheek. “Tempting, but not with my brother, babe. Throw him out and yell for River, and you’re on.”
“Asshole,” Vali muttered, whacking his brother on the shoulder. “But in seriousness, as much as I want to continue what we started last night, I have something to discuss with you. Both of you.”
“Is it a discussion we can have with less clothes on?” I suggested, making one last bid for a dragon sandwich and getting eye rolls in response. “Fine, I’m getting up,” I growled, clambering over Cole and grabbing jeans off the floor. “Would have rather got you two up, but we can discuss this another day.”
“Playing with fire, regina,” Vali called after me, and I slammed the bathroom door behind me.
“I wish I was,” I whispered my dirty retort to the empty bathroom and turned the shower on hot. I don’t know why people insisted on cold showers when they were worked up. Scalding hot worked much better for me.
When I was done, I quickly towel-dried my hair and yanked on the same clothes I’d worn the day before. Turned out, none of us were particularly amazing at doing laundry, so we were sort of recycling until someone cracked and took a load to the laundromat.
I had money on Wes. Or River.
“All right, speak,” I ordered Vali, dropping into the couch seat beside him and accepting the mug of coffee he held.
“I did some thinking on what we discussed yesterday,” he started, flicking an almost nervous glance at Cole before refocusing on me. “About other dragons.”
“Other dragons?” Cole frowned. “What other dragons?”
“We were just speculating that there might be other dragons,” I filled him in. “Not that there are. But just that it’s not something to rule out as a possibility, right?”
Cole nodded. “Yeah, I sort of assumed there were somewhere.”
“Right,” Vali agreed. “Well, I didn’t. I figured our species probably died out a long-ass time ago, and it was just through that dormant DNA that we became what we are. Anyway, after our chat, I called Bunica.”
Cole’s eyes widened, and I glanced between the brothers. “Who is Bunica?”
“Our grandmother,” Cole replied, still staring at his older brother. “We haven’t spoken to her since Father took us out of Romania. I bet she was thrilled to hear from you.”
“Uh,” Vali grunted. “Something like that.”
“So, what did she say?” I pressed. “She was the one who used to tell you stories of dragons when you were little, right?”
“Yeah, she was.” Vali rubbed at his eyes, looking tired. “So, I asked her about those stories and if there was any truth to them. She laughed at me.”
“Of course she did,” Cole groaned, and I frowned my confusion.
“She laughed at me, then said she had seen the video on the news of two dragons showing their scaled asses to the whole damn world, and she should have guessed they were her two dipshit grandsons.” Vali heaved a sigh. “Anyway, long story short, she wouldn’t exactly confirm the existence of other dragons, but she did say if we had any interest in our ‘heritage,’ then we would need to visit her in person and she’d take us to meet our străbunic. Her father.”
“Well, that sounds promising,” I announced, beaming. “He would surely be something more than human if he’s still alive. You could have a whole dragon clan, er… flock? What is the collective noun for dragons anyway?”
“Wing,” Cole responded, and I snapped my fingers.
“Yes! You could have a whole dragon wing in Romania that is just waiting to meet you! How cool is that? There are more of you out there.” I tried to keep my encouraging smile in place, even though a little pity party was throwing streamers around inside me. It was genuinely awesome that they had people. Others like them. As far as I knew, Bridget was the only other Ban Dia, and if all went to plan, I would soon be the last of my kind.
“Hey guys,” Wesley greeted us, coming into the room with his phone in hand. “I have just been chatting to Austin and—” He broke off when he looked up at the three of us. “Sorry. I’m interrupting something, aren’t I?”
“Nope, come join us,” Vali replied without hesitation. “No secrets in Ban Dia club, right?”
I snorted a laugh. “Keep working on that name, but yeah, come join us. What’s up? What did Austin call for?”
“Okay, well… If you’re sure?” He hesitated, and I smiled at how damn adorable he was sometimes.
“We’re sure, Wes,” Cole assured him. “We were just discussing the possibility that we might have dragon family in Romania.”
“Oh, really? That is… oddly coincidental on what I’m about to tell you. Not that I really believe in coincidences, but that’s sort of beside the point.” He rambled a bit but sat down to join us and placed his phone on the table. “So, Aus called from Barbados or wherever and said that they’d found a way to break Bridget’s dianoch bonds. Short version or long version?”
“Short,” all three of us replied, and he gave us a sheepish smile.
“Okay, so, we need this amulet that was broken into pieces back in the beginning of time and all the bits were split up. Austin and Caleb have one of them already and are hopefully getting the second one within a few days, but Aus wanted to know if I could think about who might have the remaining two pieces.” Wesley was practically buzzing with excitement over this news, which was to be expected. This was like an academic version of visiting a strip club or something.
“Do you?” I asked him, seeing he was practically bursting to tell us the rest.
He nodded frantically. “That’s why I said it was coincidental that you were discussing dragons. I think they have one of the pieces.”
There was a long pause as we all considered what he’d just said. Could it be that easy? And if so, why had no one else gathered up all these pieces before?
“Okay, so here is my reasoning,” Wesley continued on, like he had heard my inner musings already. “Aus said Bridget doesn’t even know about the amulet, so she hasn’t been looking for it. Apparently, your grandmother decided pretty early on that Bridget wasn’t super-trustworthy and never passed down any of the Ban Dia history to her. Anyway, what makes me think the dragons have one is because of us. Or, you two.” He indicated to Cole and Vali.
“Us? How so?” Vali asked, intent on what Wesley was saying, even as his fingers danced patterns along my thigh.
Wesley glanced at Vali’s hand on my leg, then darted his gaze back up to us and licked his lips. “Well, all of us, really. It was something I had been thinking about for a while now, and Austin’s call just gave me an idea. Why is it that Kit’s guardians are all one-of-a-kinds, so to speak? We are all either the strongest of our kind or the only representatives of what seemed like extinct species, right? The twins were destined to rule as Blood and Ink Mages, and with their familiars they’re the strongest ruling Mages that have existed in thousands of years. I’m quite literally the only babdh here on Earth right now. You two, well until today we were pretty sure you were the only dragon shifters in existence, and River…”
“Is something else altogether,” the man in question finished for Wes, coming into the room and sitting with us. He looked impeccable, just like the first time we’d met. Sharply ironed suit pants and a crisp white dress shirt open at the neck made me want to rip it all off him and…
“Hey!” I frowned. “You’re in fresh clothes! Who did your laundry?”
River’s lips pulled up in a hint of a smile, and he winked one of those gorgeous golden eyes at me. Bastard.
“Unimportant right now, sweetheart,” Wesley scolded me. “My point here is. I think that it was more than mere coincidence that we all became Kit’s dianoch. I think that there is something more at play here. Maybe that was also why Director Pierre had kept us all in the dark on this whole thing. I don’t really know. But what I’m saying here is—”
“That together we represent some of the strongest factions of supernatural kind. So, it stands to reason that if there are any elders or ancients in each of our species, they might hold the amulet shard we need,” Vali finished for him, and Wesley nodded.
“Or at least be able to point us in the right direction,” River murmured. “I think you’re right. It’s worth investigating.”
I glanced between the four of them, feeling excitement bubbling in my stomach. I really shouldn’t be excited at the prospect of piecing together an amulet that was broken and hidden for probably a damn good reason. But still. There was something about questing that seriously got my blood pumping.
“So, who do we visit first?” I asked, even though the answer was clear.
Cole sighed heavily, and Vali grinned. “Looks like you’re getting to visit our home country sooner than we thought, regina mea. I will call Bunica back and let her know we are coming.”
I bounced in my seat, trying and failing to contain my excitement. “In a couple of days. We should wait for the twins to get back, and I need to get some new instructors selected from the agents I tattooed today. Something tells me we all need to stick together through this next phase. Just having Austin and Caleb away right now is making me nauseous.”
“Agreed,” River concurred. “Now, go and grab all your dirty washing. I’ll teach you a cool trick.”
My jaw dropped, but I wasn’t giving him a second to rethink his offer. My knee practically clipped Cole in the cheek, I scrambled off the couch so fast and into the bedroom to collect up every scrap of clothing I had inside the apartment.
