The Moon, the Madness, and the Magic (19 page)

Celeste said, “I want more, crave more, more of the emotional connection between us, the rich mental bond as well as the sexual one with both of you. Do you feel it calling to you, too?”

“Fuck, yes!” Rourke whipped around and faced her. “Minus the sexual attraction to Dane, yeah, I do.”

Celeste put her hands on her hips, exhaled, and frowned at Rourke and Dane stepped up. “Shit, Rourke, I got the point. It’s not like I’m panting for you,” he said. “You don’t have to keep repeating yourself. I’m clear on that point. You don’t do guys.”

“Just so you understand where I’m coming from, bro. Your hairy ass just doesn’t turn me on.”

Celeste laughed. “I know both of your deepest feelings, and Rourke, let me assure you, this will be different when the time comes.”

“Fine. I’m not promising anything.” Rourke snorted.

Chapter 17

Rights of Beltane

By the time all three wolves returned to the lodge and shifted back into human form, they were in agreement on one thing. They’d relax and talk through the facts as they saw them. Rourke decided they’d meet back in Celeste’s room because it opened to the hot tub deck.

As usual, Dane analyzed everything scientifically while Rourke looked for a solution. Holding out for something reasonable, something tangible in a reality gone haywire, Dane joined Rourke’s refusal to accept their fate without question. Tonight, Rourke’s approach leaned toward denial, as ludicrous as that seemed after recent events.

Celeste was the only one of the three who seemed resigned to their future. She announced she was going to soak in the hot tub and relax. “This is perfect, very relaxing.” She moaned as she sank down in the bubbling water. “You should both join me.”

“In there with you? Relaxing? No, I don’t think so.” Rourke sulked on a lounge chair with a bottle of beer poised at his lips, never turning away from her. “Later.”

“Uh, me, too.” Dane couldn’t take his eyes off her naked body, either. The hot tub didn’t hide her assets from him. “Maybe later. Right now, I want to think clearly.”

Rourke did turn away then, just long enough to glare at him. “Well, if you really want to think clearly, maybe you should stop staring at her like she’s the main course.”

Dane moved and sprawled in the chair ten feet away from either of them. Rourke was right. After his seething glance, Dane decided to keep his distance from everyone. He wasn’t sure what his body wanted. He read what Rourke’s wanted in his expression. Sex? Definitely. Blood, flesh, violence? Perhaps.

Staring at the empty glass of wine tilted dejectedly in his hand, he refilled it, took a long sip, and then put the uncorked bottle down beside him on the deck.

He glanced over at Rourke and wondered what facts Celeste had kept from them. Without thinking, he leaned forward in his chair, and a question spilled out of him. “Celeste, do you know who Rourke’s biological father was?”

“No, but Aryan, the dragon-shifter, is the most likely one to have sired him. There hasn’t been a pure dragon-shifter around Enchanted Mountain in a thousand years, and none at all since Aryan was banned.”

“Can’t you put on that bathing suit thingy you had on the other day?” Rourke fidgeted in his chair with a towel over his hips and grimaced when he looked at her.

“Don’t be ridiculous. What with all the shifting we’ve been doing recently, and everything else, clothes just get in the way.”

“I’m not being ridiculous. I’m hard. Dane can’t concentrate with you naked in front of him. Look at him. No, don’t. His cock is at full mast.”

“I’m fine with his cock.” Celeste smiled at Dane.

Dane smiled back, stopping when Rourke grumbled under his breath.

Dane shrugged. “No, really, it’s okay. I’m not having a problem.”

Rourke shook his head. “I doubt that. All the blood drained out of your head when she shifted back.”

“Could be, but we should probably get used to this, this being naked together under all circumstances,” Dane said.

“Let’s just say I’m not convinced you can concentrate and leave it at that,” Rourke snapped back.

The dirty look he gave Dane turned deadly when he caught him glance over at Celeste’s breasts again. Then a rumble of angry growls rippled out of Rourke and resounded like a restrained warning.

Dane shrugged. “Okay, I admit it. Maybe we’ll need a little more time to get used to this arrangement.” He ran hand over his erect cock and got up. Turning his back to the others, he walked to the gate, focusing his attention away from Celeste’s bobbing breasts. He figured it was safer to concentrate on the surrounding landscape. “The mountain is…really big.”

Great, couldn’t he have come up with a more pertinent comment? He didn’t have to turn around to tell what they were thinking. He felt their eyes boring into his back. Sure enough, when he turned around, both Rourke and Celeste looked incredulous.

“Ah, have you finally lost it?” Rourke asked.

“That’s a real conversation starter.” Celeste followed the dry comment with a smile then didn’t bother to repress the giggle.

They all seemed to relax a little. Even Rourke’s shoulders shook with amusement when Dane said, “Well, it is big. And pretty damn impressive, with the mist swirling around the summit.”

He was determined to get out of this mess without looking like a complete ass.

“Usually if there’s mist on the mountain, it’s caused by magic. Someone or something has conjured it to screen their presence.”

“Shit, you’re kidding, right?”

“Could Aryan be hiding up there right now?” Rourke asked.

“No, not Aryan. He might return, but he isn’t here yet. He’s not stable enough to hide. At one time he was the most powerful and one of the most lethal killers of all shifters before he was banished.”

“If he was so bad, I’d like to meet the one who had the power to banish him.” Rourke sounded impressed.

Celeste turned and gave him a small sad smile. “In a way, you did, Rourke. Your mother banished him.”

“His mother banished her mate? The dragon?”

“Yes. Only a bonded mate can banish. She went to the Council and requested the fae to devise a magical force field to keep Aryan out. Until he realizes the field no longer stands since her death, he can’t enter the lands of the Lore.”

“Why wouldn’t he try coming back before now?”

“Sarah’s life span should have exceeded her short thirty years.”

“Was it his demon blood that drove him insane?”

“In a way.
Dragon-shifters with demon blood usually bond with two mates. Aryan refused to bond with any other besides Sarah. That’s why he was so uncontrollable. He
refused his other bonded mate. No one knows who it was or why he wouldn’t accept the bond, but now, I suspect it was Rafe.”

“What happened?”

“Everything was fine until he turned dragon. Then Aryan went berserk and murdered first one human for her flesh and then a fae for her blood. He didn’t stop killing until Sarah put a stop to the massacres the only way she knew how. She rejected him. After binding with him, banishing would have killed her if she hadn’t been claimed immediately by Rafe. I bet she didn’t know she was carrying Rourke when she turned to him for protection. It may have been why she asked Grayland to hide Rourke when she was dying, knowing Aryan could return after he discovered her death. The forest fae concealed her death until Rafe’s death last year. Then without a leader, the news leaked out.”

Dane thought of something. “Aryan’s heritage was dragon mixed with demon, right?”

“Yes.” Celeste hesitated. “Why?”

“Just wondering. There was more in Rourke’s
DNA
.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what you found?”

“I didn’t know what I found, for God’s sake. They don’t have a category for dragon that I’m aware off.”

“So you found demon DNA in Rourke’s blood?”

Rourke’s shoulders slumped, and he dropped his head to his hands. “What other kind of evil
DNA
is floating around in my genes?”

“
DNA
isn’t evil. It’s what you do with it that determines good or evil,” Dane said.

“Aryan is the purest dragon-shifter alive and has outlived all the rest. It’s the demon blood in his background that makes him aggressive. Your demon
DNA
would be diluted with human and wolf-shifter DNA.”

Rourke stood and began pacing. “I want to sort through all this. I need to run.”

“Come here, Rourke.”

He raised an eyebrow at her order but walked over to the hot tub anyway.

She held up a finger and waved him in closer to her. “Here. Right here.” She touched her finger to her lip. “Kiss me.”

“What?”

“You bound me to you, right?”

“I guess—”

“Then kiss me good-bye before you go, like a real husband.” She puckered up.

Rourke let out a loud bark of laughter. “You sure know how to break a tense moment.” He walked back to her and pulled her halfway out of the hot tub.

Dane watched the tension ease out of Rourke when his mouth grazed her cheek. The tension in the air visibly lifted when his lips touched hers. He kissed her softly at first, and then his mouth claimed hers possessively, and a tangle of tongues turned into an open-mouthed fuck. She looked pink and breathless when he released her, and the heat level in the air turned up several degrees.

“Wow!” she said.

Rourke shifted into the alpha wolf without so much as a tremor and headed for the gate. “
I need some space.”

Dane let out a sigh as Rourke ran off into the star-filled night.

“Do you need company?” Celeste shouted after him. “Or do you want some alone time?”

“Alone. I need to think.”

“Whew!” Celeste leaned back and relaxed. “That man is coiled tighter than a steel cable.”

Dane rolled his head and loosened his own shoulders. His cock felt like a steel something and throbbed with desire, wanting to be buried inside Celeste.

He needed a distraction. “Tell me more about his father before he gets back.”

“For the last thirty years, Aryan’s been raising hell all over the world with no one powerful enough to stop him.”

“Do you think we can?” Dane asked.

“W
hen Rourke shifts, we don’t know how much of his human thought process he retains. You did say he has human DNA, right?”

Dane nodded. “Not much, but there’s was a human in his genetic woodpile somewhere.”

“His dragon is larger and more deadly than any other shape-shifter beast alive in the Lore. I can’t hold my dragon form yet for very long. Once you take enough of his blood, you may be able to shift into the dragon, too. Maybe not right away, but eventually. When this Beltane comes and the moon eclipses, there won’t be any power strong enough to control Rourke. Only his mates. Only us. We have to make sure we’re all bound up nice and tight before then.”

“Us? I don’t understand.
What
us
are you talking about?”

“According to legend, no one is safe from the dragon’s bloodlust until he binds his mates to him. He bound me, and now he must bind you. Aryan raped and murdered humans, Lycans, and fae alike. Nothing would deter him, and he continued his killings every full moon when the seasons changed until he was banished. We don’t want the same thing to happen to Rourke.”

“Like all the males of the Lore, won’t I be affected?”

She nodded. “Every seasonal full moon, you will turn Were, and Rourke will go through his shift and hunt as the dragon. Both of your beasts must be kept under control, and we can help each other at that time.”

“What’s your secret?”

“You know I’m a succubus. My mates keep me from taking the souls of the innocent in dreams. I, too, will be affected by the seasonal full moon.”

“So what you’re saying is we save each other from our inner monsters.”

“Yes, I’m beginning to think Aryan is the danger the prophecy warned the Council about. The only way Aryan can be defeated is with a creature of equal strength. The Lore’s numbers are dwindling. Each of us has the necessary genetics to control Rourke’s dragon, my succubus, and your Were. Maybe the three of us can protect the mountain and the Lore from his sire.”

“Okay, I think I understand the reasoning for all this. So what do we have to do?”

“Dane, it’s not so much what we have to do, but apparently the rules have changed. The three of us have to complete the bond we started to form so we can lead our people. We represent the most important elements of our heritages.”

“Like merging our DNA and our abilities with each other?”

“Yes, exactly. We’ll share my fae magic, the demon strength, the dragon’s stamina, the stealth of the wolf, and the Were’s cunning.”

Dane asked, “What about the succubus? How will we put that talent to use?”

“It’ll help when we form the ménage bond. Once fully bound, our union will be permanent. Eternal. There’s no changing our minds once we’ve made the commitment to each other and the Lore.”