“It’s beautiful,” I breathed. “But you didn’t have to do this.”
“I wanted to. It’s a bonding bracelet. One ring for each of us—see, there are attachments for more little chains. I took the center one,” he said with understandable smugness. “I know I’m no longer a Dire, exactly. But I will always be one where it counts.” He bumped a fist lightly off his chest and continued. “The other blokes can handle their own. There is enough crystal in this to get you through any gate, just in case you lose your ear cuff.”
My throat was so closed up I couldn’t speak. He helped me with the bracelet, showing me how the rings slipped on—the angel wings over my thumb, and the Dire’s head spanned between my knuckle and my middle finger joint. I looked at the fingers to each side of the handsome Dire head, and I suddenly couldn’t breathe.
He pulled me into him.The Dragon will come to us, Angel. We just have to give him time.
And Sebastian?
I don’t believe Fate would offer him, only to take him away. We will find him. And bring him home.
39
Sebastian
I smelled them before I saw them, and my entire body tensed.
Usually, it be just Finn that came to haul me out for my daily training sessions. Which most often ended with me semiconscious and bleeding. As I no longer healed like a Bellati, my once-sleek hide be a morass of whip wounds and burns.
This time, Galeran and Isobel came with Finn. And that meant all kinds of trouble.
Galeran surveyed me through the bars. “I’m overjoyed to see you are settling into your new role.” His eyes gleamed—they be more edged in red than before. “I thought I’d come to oversee your progression.” He gestured to the stalls around us.
The mercenaries Finn used as stable staff had been shuffling Trantils all day, pulling out the old residents and bringing in new. I’d hardly paid any attention to it. But now, Isobel’s hands glowed as she moved along the stalls, enveloping each Trantil with her vivid-red energy.
Galeran and Finn watched her. The bloodpower also danced around the Bellati as he watched Isobel with complete and obsessive fascination. Finn be not oblivious to it—lust lit in his eyes, and he licked his lips as he leaned closer to the bars.
“We’ve got something special in mind for you today,” he crowed. “The origin of a whole new species.”
My eyes widened as my nostrils flared. The air be redolent with a scent that I’d automatically dismissed, but now identified.
The Trantils be all mares. And they be in heat.
No.I hadn’t taken their earlier comments seriously, not really. My own lack of interest aside, the biology didn’t work. Even deprived of its horn, my beast couldn’t impregnate Trantils.
At least, it shouldn’t be able to.
But as I watched Isobel, I knew biology would have very little to do with this. I didn’t understand the bloodmagic she wielded. As it flooded over the Trantils, the mare’s scent intensified. They shifted restlessly in their stalls, and pressed their noses up against the bars. Their large, liquid eyes focused on me.
Galeran smiled. It be a singularly evil thing. “Now, you will discover you are truly nothing more than a beast.”
Finn swayed from one foot to the other, his expression a mix of glee and lust. “We have an audience waiting for you in the arena. We’ve taken bets as to how long it will take you to mate all of them.”
Then Isobel walked up to my stall. I flattened my ears and bared my teeth at her. “Neveer.”
She merely smiled and raised her hands.
The power hit me hard. I fought it with desperation, but it permeated my every cell. It spread like a plague through me, ripping my consciousness away from my physical self.
To my horror, my beast rose to it. Its nostrils flared to drink in the mare’s rich aromas, and it responded as a stallion would.
With the desire tomate.
Galeran’s eyes glowed in triumph as I screamed.
A stallion’s scream.
And the mares replied to me with their siren’s song.
