The Unseen Read online

  She said with perfect sincerity, “I think this is the nicest thing you’ve ever done for me.”

  He still looked faintly mystified as he stroked along her cheek with his thumb. “I’ve bought you plenty of jewelry that cost a hundred or a thousand times what this makeup box cost.”

  Amusement curved her lips. Yes, he had, and it was a measure of his love for her that he was able to actually give the jewelry to her after he had acquired it. But as much as she loved that the dragon gave her jewels, those outrageously expensive pieces never meant as much to her as they did to him.

  This, however, was purely about her. He had seen her struggling to let go of something that was pretty minor in the grand scheme of life, and he had taken steps to make sure she didn’t have to. He could have had the makeup inserted into disposable cardboard shapes, and that would have been astonishing and thoughtful enough, but, being Dragos, he had to turn the whole project into treasure.

  “Thank you. I love it with all my heart,” she said. Hooking an arm around his neck, she drew his head down to hers.

  “That’s all that matters, then,” he said against her lips. His voice had turned husky.

  She had told him what she could of the things she struggled with, but there were some things she could never tell him. Never. Savoring his mouth and every sensual detail of his long, hard body pressed against her, she locked down those secrets tight in the deepest, most private part of her soul.

  After all, they had already discussed it, two months ago after Pia and Rune’s mate Carling had been kidnapped. The kidnapping had been a ploy by a crazed and embittered Elf to trap and destroy Dragos Cuelebre, who was known throughout the Elder Races as the Great Beast. During that nightmare, Pia had been forced to give birth to Niall in a cave and had met Dragos’s brother, Lord Azrael, the god of Death.

  Once, she had just been a New York girl who wore makeup from Target and got freaked out over having feelings for a dragon. She was an herbivore who had to keep her Wyr nature secret, while he was the ultimate predator. Falling in love and mating with him had felt earthshaking and immense all on its own.

  But coping long term with the reality of mating with Dragos was like opening an infinity of nesting puzzle boxes. As soon as she opened one and thought she had a grasp on things, she found another box to open, another reality even more immense than the one before.

  She remembered the conversation they’d had after the kidnapping as if it had happened yesterday. How many Primal Powers are there? she had asked. The Elder Races only have seven in their pantheon.

  You got me, Dragos had said with a shrug. I don’t really have anything to do with them, except I used to have a…let’s call it a certain rapport with Azrael.

  He hadn’t been lying, exactly; her truthsense was deeply attuned to him and she was certain of that. But his gold gaze had slid away from hers when he had said it.

  And Azrael had said to her, You, of all people, should know how closely related death and the dragon are.

  She did, or at least she had thought she had. But there were consequences to that close relation that she had never before queried, until then.

  When she’d talked to Dragos, she’d tried to make light of it. To make it safe, as she’d asked him, We’re not going to talk about the pressures of godhood or anything like that?

  And he’d brushed the whole thing off. Pia, what does godhood mean? Tiago is a thunderbird. More than half my sentinels have been worshipped as gods in Egypt. Look at the Djinn and what they can do. Hell, look at yourself in the mirror—look at yourself when you’re in your Wyr form. Unless something or someone kills you, you are going to live indefinitely, and your blood heals any wound. That’s pretty damn miraculous in my book. There are many of the Elder Races who have been called gods at one point or other in history, and just as many who have been called demons.

  His logic had been unassailable. He was right, but….

  But.

  Dragos was her husband, her mate, her dedicated lover, and most fierce protector, and yet in many ways he was still a total mystery to her. Some days, she couldn’t help but run that conversation through her mind again. Some days, she felt just like a New York girl who had gotten lost on a lonely road in a country so foreign she didn’t even know its name.

  And the only thing that brought her home again was this: his mouth, his hands, his scent. Her body knew every exciting detail of his and craved it. She craved him.

  When he shut the door to his office and turned back to her, his movements were tight with the hunger that drove him. She was already moving, stripping off her shirt and wriggling out of her jeans.

  As she kicked out of them, he wound one hard arm underneath her hips and lifted her onto the desk. They often took their time with foreplay and teasing, laughing together under the velvet cloak of an indulgent midnight, but this was not one of those times.

  He yanked off her underwear, and she eagerly wound her legs around his hips while she pulled his T-shirt over his head to reveal the heavy musculature of his tremendous chest. When he eased the thick, broad head of his erection against her opening, she was wet and ready. Her head fell back, eyes closed, as he entered her.

  They fit together like the oldest, truest magic: yin and yang; female and male; dark and light.

  It was only during times like these when she felt relief from the doubts and insecurities that plagued her. When all her doubts were vaporized in the heat of passion, and the deepest, most private part of her soul said to him, I don’t care who or what you are. You’re mine.

  You’re mine.

  Chapter Two

  Finally, everything was done. Dragos had given away his demesne. It turned out, an old dragon could learn new tricks, do new things. Could decide on taking new adventures.

  The gryphon Rune, Dragos’s former First sentinel, and his Vampyre mate Carling left their home in Florida to settle in a spacious apartment in Cuelebre Tower that had been specially fitted with Vampyre safety shutters, and Dragos had to admit that was one thing he never thought he would see happen. Turns out, an old dragon could also let go of engrained habits. He had distrusted Carling for so long, it was only when Carling had been kidnapped with Pia that Dragos had finally been able to fully accept her relationship with Rune.

  All necessary paperwork was completed, the t’s were crossed, the i’s dotted. The official shit had been vetted by demesne lawyers. As for the unofficial shit…

  Well, the Wyr sentinels were well versed in handling any unofficial shit.

  They’d had a huge going-away bash in the Tower ballroom. The food was fabulous, the liquor ever-flowing, and people gave them presents even though Dragos and Pia had specifically stated in the invitations, no presents, please. And if Dragos’s eyes glazed over at the excruciating number of Wyr who got all fucking weepy at him, nobody mentioned it. Pia kept a close eye on him and rescued him whenever things became too heartfelt.

  The main thing was, everybody survived and had a good time.

  Pia got to dance with Quentin, her old friend and former employer. Now Quentin, a Wyr panther, was a sentinel—another thing Dragos had never thought to see—and he was mated to another sentinel, the harpy Aryal, who had the dubious honor of being the most insane female Dragos had ever met.

  Aryal tried to needle Graydon, also a gryphon and one of Dragos’s original sentinels, into a wrestling match. Graydon had resigned his sentinel position and was moving to Rhyacia with his mate, the Elven lady Beluviel. They were new parents also, and Pia and Beluviel were close friends. While Pia did have Eva, who was her best friend and personal bodyguard, Eva didn’t have children, nor was she mated. It would be good for Pia to also have Beluviel in Rhyacia, and Dragos had to admit, it would be good for him to have Graydon.

  Annoyed with Aryal’s antics, Graydon kept brushing her off until she threw up her hands and walked away, only to circle around and tackle him from behind. That cleared a space around them quickly.

  Startled into laughter, B
eluviel dashed away from the pair. Graydon roared curses as he fought to get out of the harpy’s clutches. A betting pool was established within moments; the inhabitants of Cuelebre Tower were well experienced with how to respond to this sort of thing.

  As Quentin wandered away from the fight with Pia on his arm, Dragos heard him say to her with a smiling shrug, “She’s my mate, not my problem.”

  Dragos and Pia’s oldest son Liam took leave from college to attend the party, and Dragos used the opportunity to study Liam as his son cruised through the crowd, a smiling, easygoing predator.

  Liam was one of the many changes Dragos and Pia had gone through. If Liam had grown like any other child, he would still be a toddler. Instead, being the progeny of two intensely magical and Powerful creatures, he had burgeoned into existence with the kind of speed reminiscent of the first generation of the Elder Races.

  Now fully as tall and as powerfully built as Dragos, his handsome features, blond hair, and blue eyes were like catnip to most of the women and several of the men. He fended off advances with casual poise, and Dragos smiled to himself as he realized Liam had learned a lot more from college than schoolwork and magic spells.

  He was the golden son, the heir apparent. New York was his for the taking if he wanted it, and New York was speaking its mind loud and clear as it said yes, please. But when the time came, would Liam choose to take over ruling the demesne in New York? There was no way to know yet how that story would play out.

  Dragos kept the penthouse at the top of Cuelebre Tower. Maybe, eventually, he would give it to Liam, but that also had yet to be decided. For now, it remained his and Pia’s.

  He also kept most of the money. (There was quite a lot of it.) Sorting out the money was the biggest headache of everything, because Dragos had always treated his finances as fungible and moved funds from his personal and business accounts to the demesne, or back again as needed.

  In the end, he kept his favorite business ventures, all of them steady money earners and capable of operating efficiently without his constant hand at the helm, and he resigned from the boards and signed over the stock from others. Nation building in Rhyacia was going to be expensive. He felt no compunction about keeping most of the liquid assets, while leaving the demesne enough in its operating budget to see it to the end of the first calendar year.

  With the businesses he signed over and some decent management, the New York Wyr demesne would remain solvent and build back up to affluence within five to seven years. The rents alone from the businesses and restaurants located in Cuelebre Tower would fund the essential functions of the Wyr demesne. They had enough to pay the bills, all administrative, legal and sentinel salaries, and to keep the lights on. They would do just fine.

  One night, when Dragos had traveled to New York for business and had left Pia and Niall at home upstate, the sentinels threw him and Graydon another unofficial bash at Quentin’s bar. This one was a much more private and raucous affair. During it, Aryal and the others gave him a large, oddly shaped present. It stood waist high, and when Drago tore off the wrapping, he discovered it was a gold sundial.

  “Get it?” Aryal nudged his shoulder. “It’s a gold retirement watch! But this one will work in an Other land. Hahaha!”

  As Dragos raised his eyebrows, Quentin said, “She’s been waiting weeks to say that.”

  Aryal confessed. “Actually, it’s so big it’s gold plated—it’s not solid. But it’s plated with quality gold! We made sure of that when we stole it. Don’t you fucking love it?”

  A giant gold watch made with purloined treasure. Dragos laughed. “I do. I really fucking love it.”

  “Booyah,” the gryphon Bayne said, eyes gleaming with a smile. “We thought you might.”

  Eventually, close to dawn, that party wound down too. Graydon walked away with a giant bag of cloth diapers and a case of antique scotch. Dragos returned to upstate New York with the sundial and a smile on his face.

  All final tasks had been completed in a reasonable amount of time, and all challenges had been surmounted. While Dragos would never lay claim to understanding women, he had listened to his wife air her issues and he had pleased her well with her gift of toiletries. For someone who knew he was not a very good man, he liked to think he was a good mate and husband. He was a good dragon.

  Liam promised to visit them in Rhyacia within the next month. The sentinels swore they would rotate in visits for their vacations, and by the eagerness in their expressions, Dragos knew they meant it. Dragos, Pia, and Niall’s clothes were packed. Earlier that day, Graydon and Bel, along with their baby daughter and Bel’s cadre of dedicated Elven attendants, had already crossed over.

  Everything was well in hand. Life moved on, even if not all of it was rosy. Over the weekend, Eva had broken the news that Elizabeth Creedy, one of Liam’s old elementary school teachers, had died in a car crash on Friday night. That saddened Pia deeply as she had liked Miss Creedy, but Dragos barely remembered what the woman looked like.

  “She was so young, only in her forties,” Pia said. “And I don’t think she had any family. I remember she once said the children in her classroom were her family. Liam’s going to be sad to hear she died. She was so nice to him.”

  Liam had also grown at such an accelerated pace he hadn’t stayed in one classroom for very long, so he hadn’t formed lifelong attachments to anybody. Dragos was rather proud that he avoided mentioning that, since he knew he wasn’t always the most tactful of creatures.

  “Let’s not interrupt him any further while he’s at school,” he suggested. “He’s had enough disruptions this year. We can always break the news when he comes to visit.”

  Pia gave that some thought. “That makes sense, I guess.”

  The conversation moved on to other things, and the last hours of their remaining time on Earth flew by, until at last it was their final evening. Dragos looked forward to a good night of sleep and sex, not in that order, enjoying a great, homecooked breakfast in the morning, and making a leisurely crossing over to Rhyacia around midmorning.

  Of course, that would be when things slid sideways, as they did every fucking time things went too fucking smoothly in his life.

  That night, he lounged on their bed watching the late-night news, feet crossed at the ankles. He was going to miss the twenty-four-hour news channels. He’d hired someone to compile a summary report each week of the world news, both human and Elder Races, and to collect various newspapers to have couriered to him. He might be withdrawing from Earth, but he wasn’t going to stick his head in the sand. It always paid to stay informed.

  Pia lay back against a pile of pillows. She had just finished nursing the baby, and Niall had fallen asleep on her chest. The French doors were propped open, as they so often were, to the cool evening air that smelled damp with impending rain.

  Stroking the baby’s dark, downy head, Pia crooned, “Who’s my stabby little psychopath?”

  Dragos chuckled as he curled a hand around her knee. “You better not let him hear you say it like that when he’s in his Wyr form. He might get the idea that being a stabby little psychopath is a good thing.”

  “I would never.” She grinned. “At the moment, he’s just a baby and he doesn’t know any better, but in his Wyr form he understands every single thing we say.”

  “Only goes to prove what I’ve been saying for centuries,” he remarked lazily. “Animals are the most intelligent of all creatures.”

  “Yes, and that’s not just the Wyr,” she agreed. “Mundane animals are super smart too. Anybody who is a pet owner can vouch for that…” She frowned. “Mundane. Pet owners. Oh no.” Holding Niall firmly, she lunged upright. “Dragos, get dressed. We need to go to Miss Creedy’s house—we have to find out where she lived.”

  She spoke quietly so she didn’t wake the baby, but the urgency in her words had him launching into action. Eva, he said telepathically as he yanked on a pair of jeans. We need you now.

  Be right there, Eva replied. Even thou
gh he had probably woken her up, she sounded completely alert. What’s wrong?

  I don’t know yet. He could already hear Eva running through the house toward them, so he switched to verbal speech. “What’s going on, Pia?”

  She had already eased Niall onto the bed and was dressing quickly too. “Miss Creedy rescued a dog while Liam was in her class. He adored that dog. Said it was the ugliest thing, but so sweet and smart, and it really loved to learn tricks.” She looked at him, distressed. “She didn’t have any family. What if nobody’s thought about the dog and it’s still at her house? It’s been three days since she died.”

  “I’ll find out her address.” As former lord of the Wyr demesne, Dragos still had access to certain databases. He passed Eva in the hallway and jogged down the steps to his office.

  “Eva—oh good, there you are,” Pia said. “We need you to watch Niall for a while.”

  While Eva and Pia’s voices floated downstairs, he logged into his computer and ran a few quick searches. When Pia’s quick footsteps sounded in the doorway, he had already stood. He angled his way around the desk.

  “Got it,” he told her. “She lived on the other side of town. I can shapeshift and fly us there in a few minutes.”

  “Okay. Hold on.” She dashed to the kitchen and came back carrying a Tupperware container filled with the bacon she had cooked for breakfast. “I hope somebody already thought to check her house for pets. If they haven’t yet…well, I hope it’s still alive.”

  Dragos didn’t understand the need to keep pets. To him, animals were either predator or prey—and since he was the ultimate apex predator, he didn’t concern himself too much with the niceties of those distinctions.

  But he did understand the emotions people attached to their pets, and he understood all too well the emotional upset that now darkened Pia’s scent. And the thought of any mundane animal being neglected or abused was distasteful, to say the least.