As Mikkel’s dark gaze pins me, and Lærke looks at me as well, I know it’s going to be a very long night. Because I can feel with my dragon senses that the night is over and the sun is already rising, somewhere beyond the club’s vaults.
But Mikkel and Lærke are creatures of the night; they probably don’t even wake until the sun sets. This is all par for the course for them, staying up until sunrise. For me and my mates, however, it’s going to be an endless night. I nod, then gesture us back to the couches.
Ready to get started, though I have no idea what’s going to happen next.
26
GAME
Lærke settles beside me on one chaise now, as Bjorn and Ström sit on my other side, ready for her to touch Aesa’s Truthstone on my chest. Mikkel is separate from us, sitting by himself on the other chaise beyond the coffee table, just in case. The twins have several bouncers on alert outside the door, ready to rush in here in case anything disastrous happens with Lærke. She takes a deep breath and I do also, but she doesn’t touch Aesa’s stone on my chest yet.
Merely twines her fingers in mine.
“Let’s try something a little gentler than my brother’s approach.” She gives a wry smile as we turn to face each other on the couch. “I’m going to open up my magic and touch you with it; not to control your body, just to touch your dragon, deep inside. Try to open to me and let me do it, though I know my magic makes you go on defense. I felt what you did to my brother’s and my talisman when it tested you at the Gilded Cage. I didn’t know it was you tonight, but I felt what happened. You have monstrously powerful magic, Rikyava, and it doesn’t like mine. We need to play nice… if anything constructive is going to happen here.”
“I agree,” I say now, though it’s a surprise Lærke felt what happenedwhen her magic tried to kill me via that little dragonfly talisman, and I defeated it. It’s interesting to note she can feel objects at a distance that are imbued with her power. Another part of her intense security abilities.
And probably something that helps keep her and Mikkel safe.
I take a deep breath now, willing both sides of my magic to be calm as Lærke unfurls hers. I feel her dragon like some dark midnight wind, blossoming out beside me as it fills the room with a deep violet, white, and spring green power.
Just like her cool-as-cucumbers demeanor, Lærke has a smoothness to her power Mikkel lacks. Her dragon is all business as it comes out now to test my waters and see what we can do here.
She’s a vastly passionate person, deep inside; I feel it now as her magic touches mine. But as it curls around my inner dragon-magic, coiling me up in a far gentler way now than when I held that talisman, I feel how her intense inner passion is cooled by her cool security persona.
A deep instinct tells me she has to be that way, as I feel the place where those two aspects of her collide. Lærke has to be cold, I understand, as Aesa’s Truthstone begins to hum upon my chest, because her passion runs so hot, deep inside.
Lærke’s pale eyelashes flicker as I find her out. Her lavender gaze pins me; for the first time, I see vulnerability in her, as she hesitates. Aesa’s silver stone is singing on my chest now, however. As my own magics come out to play, drawn out by Lærke’s touch and the Truthstone ringing all through me, I feel our darker magics resonate.
Lærke’s Bone Magic is vast, as it suddenly opens all the way to mine. Like Mikkel, she’s a powerhouse to be reckoned with; too bad I’m not attracted to drakainas, or I would seriously consider taking her into our Bloodbond as I feel that immense, dark magic swirl all through me.
She’s not my mate, though, and not bound to me by my power. Still, something in our dual magics resonates, thanks to Aesa’s stone. Battle-brimstone red, white, and gold flashes hot inside me as my Bloodwalker power twists into Lærke’s darkness, resonating with Aesa’s stone.
And Lærke gasps—as the curse inside her breaks.
Memories flood back to Lærke in a rush now, unleashed by my power resonating with Aesa’s stone. I can’t see or experience them with her the same way I could with Ström, since Lærke and I aren’t bound in our magics.
Still, I get glimpses of heists she and others pulled, and people they associated with a hundred years ago. Not only that, but all those missing memories are run through with countless recollections of that red-haired woman.
Alfhild Fey.
There’s plenty of memories of Ström, too—and Mikkel, as Lærke’s memories come rushing back. As he feels what’s happening with his twin, Mikkel launches over to our chaise, sitting beside Lærke now and gripping her free hand.
Shaking, shuddering hard in shock, Lærke’s eyes are shut tight against the pain of remembering, as Alfhild’s curse inside her breaks and it all comes flooding back. She’s shaking so hard, vibrating with power now, as her aura seethes all around her in a powerful Bloodwind. I worry she might shift up into her dragon.
But as Mikkel grips her hand, steadiness floods into Lærke.
The memory-opening jumps to him now—crashing into him as he abruptly retrieves his own lost time. Mikkel gives a painful roar as his own curse breaks, and his memories come flooding back.
Lærke is growling now, as she is inundated and so is Mikkel; his own dragon-power flashes out like a deadly black mamba with violet and bright green streaks, as I feel him flood his massive mind-control ability into them both.
I feel how his incredible power tries to slow that tirade and make it water they can tread, rather than drown in. The raging torrent steadies; Mikkel and Lærke can handle it now as their painful shuddering subsides to shivers.
As their magics pulse and roar, absorbing their lost memories as theyall come thundering back, Ström scoots to my side. As Bjorn moves to my back, wrapping his arms around me to hold me steady, Ström takes my free hand.
The power of Aesa’s Truthstone also jumps to Ström now—flooding his own missing memories through him as he grits his teeth and weathers it. Bjorn removes a hand from me, setting it on Ström’s shoulder. As we all roar through those missing memories together now, an incredible amalgamation of all our magics pulsing through the room, Bjorn and I get the full picture, while Ström relives them.
It goes on a long while; there are a lot of missing memories to retrieve. Countless hours, days, even weeks are missing from Mikkel, Lærke, and Ström; though the memories return in fast flickers like a flip-book rather than the full movie, it still takes a while.
