Fire of a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 3) - Paranormal Fairytale Romance (5 page)

“Oh!
Wow,”
Arabella breathed. There was awe in her voice, and Lucian could only imagine how it must feel to be on the receiving end of an angel kiss. Erelah, for all her awkwardness, gained an esteem in Lucian’s eyes that would never be diminished—she was bestowing a blessing, a very real and tangible blessing, that might enable his son to live through the difficult pregnancy and birth ahead.

It took three long seconds, but Erelah finally finished and rose up again, her face flushed with the glory of bestowing her gift. It reminded Lucian of when she brought the demon-infected human back to life in the alley—that same fervent, almost sexual rush of pleasure that seemed to set her face alight. Angelings were generally very chaste, but some of their strange acts seemed rife with the kind of pleasure Lucian normally associated with the bedroom.

“Thank you, angeling,” Lucian managed to get out past the lump in his throat.

Erelah beamed, her face radiating joy. “I have yet another gift, but this one is for your mate.”

Lucian nodded his permission, not that she needed it. He was still overcome with what she had just done. But when she whipped out an angel blade and held it up high, panic surged through him. Before he could choke out words or even move, Erelah turned the blade around and held it out handle-first to Arabella.

She was equally stunned and just stared at the blade for a moment.

Lucian cursed under his breath and glared at Leksander. His brother’s eyes were squeezed shut momentarily. He opened them and wordlessly gave Lucian an apology for his angeling brandishing the one thing besides dragon talons that could pierce Arabella’s skin and take the life of both her and his dragonling.

“It’s beautiful,” Arabella said, tentative, and still staring at the blade without taking it. “Are you sure you want to part with it?”

“I’ve fashioned this one especially for you,” Erelah gushed. “It has been imbued with a blessing just for you and your child. It’s meant to protect you and him throughout both of your very long lives and bring you many blessings.”

The tension seemed to go out of Arabella’s body. She took the blade and held it up. It truly was beautiful, like everything made from angel magic. It glinted in the early morning sun, its white blade glowing with pure angel energy and the carved handle gleaming ebony.

“Thank you.” Arabella gave her a slight bow. “It’s the perfect gift. Both of them.” She leaned forward and embraced the angeling, a move that seemed to light Erelah up from within. A humming sound, high in pitch and booming in nature welled up from somewhere inside the angeling’s body. It was only an echo of an angelsong, but the power of it vibrated through Lucian’s body. Leksander was struck by it, too, given the way his eyes filled with longing and desire. Even Arabella seemed struck by it, and their hug went on and on.

Lucian was ready to break it up when the door toned.

“That must be Leonidas,” Lucian said.

Leksander was transfixed by his angeling.

Arabella and Erelah were still locked in their embrace.

“I guess I’ll go let him in.” Lucian just shook his head and went to the door.

Once it opened, Leonidas asked without preamble, “Where is our princess?”

Lucian gestured him in. “Receiving her gifts from the angeling.”

“Nothing horrifying, I hope?” He strode inside, peering down the entranceway toward the great room, looking for Arabella.

“Only slightly,” Lucian said. “Thank you for coming.” He managed to keep most of the sarcasm out of his voice, given that Leonidas was only a few minutes past the appointed time.

“I had trouble selecting the proper gift,” he said tightly, striding into the great room.

Lucian caught up to him just as Leksander and Erelah were turning to leave.

Leksander gave Leonidas a nod of hello, which Leonidas barely acknowledged, his gaze already locked on Arabella. Lucian didn’t like the intense look on his face. Erelah was still floating on her high of interaction with Lucian’s mate and unborn son. The giddy look on her face was carrying her toward the front door without noticing the fact that Leonidas was even in the room. Leonidas broke away from them and headed towards Arabella.

Lucian was about to go after him, but Leksander caught his arm and said quietly, “I figured it was time for us to leave.” He flicked a look at Erelah floating toward the door on light angel steps. Her angelsong had shifted to a frequency so high that most humans wouldn’t be able to hear it.

“Thank you, my brother.” He looked to the angeling. “And to Erelah. Thanks doesn’t seem… enough.”

Leksander nodded and straggled after her.

Lucian turned back to find Leonidas already holding Arabella’s hands while talking quietly to her next to the window. Lucian was struck by a strange jealousy—he knew his brother would never threaten his treasure in any way, but the primal part of him that wanted to protect her from anything and everything still surged at the sight of another man’s hands on her.

He strode over to the window to join them.

Leonidas dropped her hands and stepped back as Lucian approached, his head deferentially dipping to acknowledge Lucian’s primacy in the situation. Just for extra measure, Lucian slid his arm around Arabella’s waist, claiming her with his touch.

Leonidas’s smile was genuine but sad. Lucian felt a strike of shame for his possessiveness, given the curse that his brother carried that would never allow him the same pleasure Lucian had with Arabella.

“Leonidas was just telling me how happy he was for us,” Arabella said, her gaze flicking between the two of them. She seemed to sense the tension.

Lucian tipped his head to his brother, his grimace hopefully seen for the apology it was. “Uncle Leonidas does have a certain ring to it.”

His brother sprouted a smile, then averted his gaze out the window. Lucian just prayed to all the forces of the universe that Leonidas would actually be able to claim that title.

Then he looked back to them and smirked. “I’ll be the debauched uncle that teaches him how to drink hearty and chase women.” He gave a mock look of shock to Arabella. “I’ll wait until he’s of age, of course.”

Arabella was stifling a laugh behind her hand.

Leonidas’s humor fled, and a serious expression took its place. “It is fortunate that this child will not be female because I am sure to love it, and that might spell disaster for me personally.”

The humor dropped away from Arabella’s face as well.

Lucian doubted she really understood the full measure of what Leonidas meant. “She’s our princess now, Leonidas,” Lucian said, gently. “She should know the truth of your situation.”

“Yes, I suppose.” Still, his brother seemed to hesitate.

“If you do not wish it…” Lucian was doubly a fool for bringing it up. It was bad enough that he flaunted his own love in the face of his brother’s tragedy. He really didn’t need to poke at old wounds as well.

Leonidas held up a hand to wave him off. “No, it is after all four-hundred-year-old news.”

“Is this about your curse?” Arabella asked, her eyes keen upon Leonidas.

He gave her a bemused smile. “Yes. My curse.” He drew in a breath and let it out slow. “Once upon a time, there was a witch who loved me. Sadly, I was a young and stupid dragon, hardly ready to settle down but very enthusiastic in bed.” He was scowling as he said it, but then he lifted both eyebrows and smirked at Arabella. “My princess, now that you are a mated woman, you might understand my fascination with sex with a witch. I’m told it’s much like mated sex in its rather…
enhanced
features.”

Arabella’s eyebrows lifted as well. “Oh. It’s the…” She gestured between herself and Lucian. “It’s like that?”

Leonidas nodded. “Oh yes. It’s like
that.”
He shook his head, becoming serious once more. “Unfortunately, I experienced all of that way too young in my somewhat doomed dragon lifetime. And in my youthful stupidity, I failed to see that this young woman, this young witch…” He went back to staring out the window for a moment and seemed to be mustering words.

Lucian felt a stab for his brother’s loss. And what he would never gain.

Leonidas cleared his throat. “Well, let’s just say that she deserved better than me. And she was well aware of that fact.” He looked back to Arabella. “She put a curse on me such that I will never be able to love another woman. If I do, I’ll turn wyvern, just as Lucian was threatening to do before you saved him, my dear princess, from that fate. You and my little nephew.” He dropped his gaze to Arabella’s belly. He reached out a hand and gently held it to her womb.

Emotion surged through Lucian again as the runes on Leonidas’s arm scurried down to his hand. He was bringing his healing magic to bear on the child.

“Forserum transpara thas sharon et sutta es. En domini et domini et domini.”
It was dragontongue. With a little bit of fae thrown in. An ancient spell. A healing spell. A protective spell. Leonidas lifted his hand free and smiled at Arabella.

“I don’t have much to give you that you don’t already possess. This small protective spell might ease this young dragonling into the world. That is my hope, at least.” Leonidas’s eyes glittered with what Lucian feared might be tears.

He turned to face Lucian. “My brother, you have found a treasure indeed. My happiness for the two of you knows no bounds. You and your princess and your beautiful son will live long past me. I hope you will understand if I spoil him mercilessly in the time I have left.”

Arabella looked stricken, but Lucian was compelled to pull his brother into a fierce hug. “He will be as your son as well,” Lucian choked out.

Then he roughly shoved his brother away as the two of them worked to get their raging emotions under control. The struggle was made infinitely harder when Lucian saw Arabella’s face streaked with tears.

“Oh, for the love of magic,”
Lucian complained. “These rituals will be my undoing.”

Leonidas laughed, but it seemed a little choked. Then he reached out and grasped hold of Lucian’s shoulder. “My brother, just wait until you go before our mother.”

“Waiting sounds like an excellent plan. Perhaps until after the birth.”

Leonidas truly laughed then. And when he hugged Arabella this time, there was not a shred of jealousy in Lucian’s body. Nothing but love and heartache.

His brother exited quickly, leaving Lucian alone with his treasure once more.

“My heart hurts for him,” Arabella said after he was gone, her tears still flowing.

“One of the many reasons I love you.” He was struck dumb with the realization that he had never actually uttered those words before.

He gathered her gently in his arms and held her for a long time after that.

Arabella had been pregnant for three weeks.

It was both the longest and shortest three weeks of her life—it stretched with endless rounds of mind-hazing sex, and yet, suddenly, she was halfway through what might be the last six weeks of her life.

If she even made it to the end. But right now, the most threatening part of her life was how she would make it through the next hour without her dress falling off in the most epically awful wardrobe failure of all time.

“I still think you should put your hair up,” Rachel said she wound a curler into Arabella’s hair. She had invited Rachel to Lucian’s lair to help get ready for the big presentation in front of the king and the queen and the entire House of Smoke.

Her and a barely-there dress that was held on mostly by magic.

Lucian had conjured it for her, and it seemed like a cross between French haute couture and medieval royalty. It was snug in the front, shoving up her breasts and making her look twice as endowed as she actually was—and the pregnancy had already pumped her up in that department. She appeared ridiculously voluptuous up top, then it was snug right down to her baby bump, then it flowed long, white billowing layers to the floor. A million of them, light as feathers floating in the breeze yet woven with crystals that sparkled in the afternoon sun. The sleeves were skinny and long, draping across the tops of her hands and then sporting long wing-like things that dropped to the floor. And the back… the back was basically non-existent. She was bare all the way down to her butt. If she moved the wrong way, she was certain she’d be mooning everyone in the royal court. Lucian said it was to show her seal—his mark on her, the writhing magical dragon tattooed on her back. It showed she was mated and carrying the baby prince. She got that, but she was both encased in fabric and bursting out of it.

And constantly afraid of falling out.

“This dress is insane,” Arabella complained as Rachel tugged another roller into place. “I mean, it’s beautiful, but damn, could my breasts be any more huge? I need my hair down to cover them up.” In truth, even with her hair loose, it wouldn’t provide anywhere near enough coverage.

“At least now we know which part of you Lucian likes best,” Rachel said with a smirk.

“Oh, trust me, that’s not his favorite part,” Arabella deadpanned.

Rachel snorted and then laughed outright. “You guys still going at it like rabbits? I mean, Jesus, you’ve already made a baby. You can stop practicing now.”