Never once.
He was always abandoned during those darkest hours of his life. Left alone to ache and bleed until he’d learned to expect nothing else.
From anyone.
But instead of rejecting her for her unique kindness, he lifted his hand and buried it deep in her soft hair so that he could hold her close and savor the novelty of this moment. The novelty of being held and soothed by someone who smelled like gentle lily flowers.
Damn.
The warmth of her skin was unlike anything he’d ever felt or known. It shook him to the core of his being. And touched him more than he wanted it to.
He felt her smiling against his cheek. “Your skin really is cooler than most, isn’t it?”
Again, such a comment would have normally moved him to righteous anger, but he didn’t hear disdain or mockery in her tone. She was amused by the fact that he was a cold-blooded creature.
“My basal temp is significantly lower than yours, yes.”
“It’s nice. My skin’s always hot. I can’t stand it most of the time.”
“Anytime you want to cool off, I volunteer to suck all the heat out of you.”
Smiling even wider, she placed the most chaste kiss imaginable to his cheek before she stepped away, and yet it fired his blood more than any he’d ever had before.
How screwed up was that?
Even worse were the sudden fantasies in his mind of holding her in a much more intimate setting. Of making love to her for the rest of the day until they were both sweaty and spent.
Consequences be damned. And it left him harder than he’d ever been. Needier than he could stand. All he wanted right then was to be inside her.
Unaware of his hunger, Medea headed deeper into the forest to search for the others.
“My brother.”
She paused at Falcyn’s barely audible words. “Pardon?”
“You asked me why I wasn’t around my son. My brother cursed him.”
Medea froze instantly. Those words shook her on several levels. Not the least of which was the very personal one over what had resulted after her grandfather had cursed her entire race to die. While she didn’t know Falcyn’s brother, this knowledge made her instantly hate him. “What kind of curse?”
“That the mandrakes would never be able to sustain their dragon forms for long. They can fight in them, fly in them, but they can’t live permentantly as dragons. Mandrakes are basically nothing more than men who have the ability to assume a dragon’s power when they need it.”
She scowled at his words. “Why would he do that?”
“For their own good and mine, he said.”
She didn’t miss the note in his voice as he spoke. “But you don’t believe that?”
He let out a bitter, scoffing laugh. “My son’s mother was so infuriated when she learned that Max had cursed them that she took Maddor to Landvætyria where I couldn’t get to him. When Igraine and her sisters could find no way to work around Max’s spell, the entire mandrake race they conceived was enslaved and tortured because of it—with my child being their primary whipping boy and the focal point of their hatred. So how can I? I was banned from ever seeing my child. From protecting him from their cruelty. He could stand beside me to this day and I wouldn’t know him. I’m sure he hates me. Who could blame him for it?”
With a ragged breath, he shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe Max was right. The Adoni would have most likely still found a way to enslave them for their purposes, and sooner or later, we’d have been at war with them because of Morgen and her ambitions. Evil bitch that she is, she would have eventually pitted us against each other. That I don’t doubt. It is how she is. War would have come regardless. Had Merlin not sequestered the mandrakes here behind the veil centuries ago, we most likely would have been forced to put them down for their sakes as well as ours. But the father in me doesn’t care about any of that. I would have found a way to save my son.”
“And your sister? Why is she trapped here?”
He winced. “She came here because of me and Maddor. While I was banned from visiting Landvætyria, she wasn’t. Morgen and her aunts set about trying to breed more mandrakes with other dragons. They would lure them here, breed them, and then kill them. I didn’t know the latter part until after Arthur’s son, Anir, brought word to me that Xyn was dead. That she’d died while trying to free Anir, his army, and Maddor from Morgen.”
“But she’s a statue? Not dead?” That was what Brandor had said.
“I should have thought of that. It must have been what she was doing instead of killing them.” He released an elongated sigh. “It was always Morgen’s special cruelty for her enemies. Anir and every soldier under his command were turned by her magick into her personal Stone Legion.”
Medea scowled at the unfamiliar term. “Stone Legion?”
“An army of gargoyles. The only reprieve Merlin could give them from Morgen’s evil is that under the light of a full moon, they turn human until dawn. Otherwise, they’re frozen statues during daylight and are her army whenever she needs it.”
So she cursed them and then forced them to fight for her? Yeah, what a cruel bitch. Not even her mother was that bad, and her mother could be brutal.
“That’s horrible!”
He nodded. “Compassion isn’t one of Morgen’s virtues.”
“And Maddor’s mother? Who was she?” She hoped it wasn’t Morgen.
When he spoke, she learned she was right. But the truth was even worse.
“Morgen’s mother.”
Medea felt sick at that news. “Morgen le Fey is the half sister of your son?”
A tic began working in his jaw. “Indeed.”
“Morgen knows this?”
“I’m sure she does. Not like Igraine or her sisters ever hid it.”
And still Morgen had enslaved her own brother.…
Then again, why was she surprised?
If the legends were true, Morgen had done much worse than that to her family. Especially her brother Arthur. So why she’d expect her to have any compassion for Maddor, she didn’t know.
This was why Medea had no regard for humanity. Why she viewed them as parasites. Their cruelty was truly spectacular and surpassed only by the gods themselves.
Wishing for a better world for all of them, Medea paused in the middle of the woods as she realized everything here looked the same. A person could easily get lost and never find a way out of the forest. Get turned around and walk in circles without ever knowing.
Yet Falcyn navigated the landscape as if he knew exactly where he was headed. “Where are we?”
He gave her a droll smirk. “A dark and enchanted forest.”
She rolled her eyes at his sarcasm. “Uncalled for. Where are we headed?”
“Merlin’s palace. Since it was the last place we discussed, I figure it’s where we’re most likely to find the others.”
“And you know the way … how?”
“While my powers aren’t up to par, I can still feel the heart, as it were, of this place. Can’t you?”
“I thought it was indigestion.”
He snorted. “Yeah, sure you did.”
But he was right. She could feel those sharp, emanating powers. Had he not been with her, she would have avoided them. Not out of fear. Out of respect. One didn’t walk into the den of a sorcerer without knowing what you were getting into.
With no better solution on how to get out of this place, she followed after him again. “So how did you get hooked up with Igraine, of all people?”
“Dragonvane.”
That didn’t make sense to her. “I thought that repelled you guys.”
“Not bane. Vane. It’s a special scent that mixes amber and musk with myrrh. Sadly, we find it as irresistible as a cat with catnip.”
Ah, that explained it. “You were drugged.”
“I promise you, I wouldn’t have slept with her otherwise. While Igraine was highly attractive, I was well aware of how she’d brutally killed her second husband in order to seduce and then marry Arthur’s father. Given her track record of murdering husbands and lovers, I would have never taken a dip into her pool, had I been in my right mind. No woman is that attractive.” He let out a tired sigh. “Makes me wonder what spell she used on Uther Pendragon. I find it hard to believe he’d have succumbed any quicker than I did.”