“And yes, he’ll keep Wesley and Elise safe,” Ben answered my earlier question. “If Ivan crosses into our territory to the north, he’ll let us know immediately—but this Ivan won’t be able to harm the humans my ata protects.”
His voice rang with confidence, and it put my mind at ease about the safety of our friends. And with three dragons here on the island, Maks’s brother wouldn’t be able to hurt any of us… especially not our child.
25
~ Maksim ~
Devin had already gone to bed by the time Dane arrived later that night. Ben and I met him down at the beach, and instead of heading to the house, we stayed down there to talk about Ivan. Ben gathered some driftwood and started a fire, and without having to talk about it I knew that all three of us felt better out in the open, where we could shift at will if needed.
“It’s disturbing to think that your sire has been tracking us all these years,” Dane said to me, frowning. “I don’t understand how he’s managed it.”
“Probably humans,” Ben said, matching Dane’s frown. “Based on the stories that my ata has told me, I’m sure he compelled them to act as his eyes and ears.” That made sense. “I just don’t understand why he’s so set on getting his hands on your child,” he added, turning to me.
My dragon raged at the mention of it, and Dane answered, sensing my distress.
“Our kind is too long-lived,” he said sadly, shaking his head. “The dragons I knew in my youth saw the world as nothing more than a territory to be continuously divided up, conquered, and fought over. They keep themselves so removed from humanity that the only thing that matters to them is the strategic power plays among their own kind. Maks’s sire fathered him not because he found the love of a mate, but because he wanted a pawn to help continue building his legacy.”
“He’s never forgiven you for ‘stealing’ me from him,” I said to Dane. “But it’s Ivan and his human father who paid the price.”
Mating for dragons was rare, and I knew that my sire wouldn’t have fathered another child after me for hundreds of years, if ever, had he been able to shape my destiny the way he’d intended. When I rejected him, he’d impregnated another human man as quickly as possible.
Without giving the man his fire, though, carrying Ivan had used up the human’s body, draining it of all vitality until the pregnant man had practically been a walking corpse. And then my sire had ripped Ivan from the man’s emaciated body, making him a corpse in truth and raising my brother to believe that it was his right to use, manipulate, and even kill humans for his own pleasure and convenience.
Thinking about how Ivan must view my mate—as a disposable vessel for the child within him rather than the necessary piece of my soul that Devin actually was—made me see red. But it also made me sad. Ivan had no doubt been so indoctrinated by our sire that he wouldn’t recognize his own fated mate if the man was standing right in front of him. My brother would never know the love and wholeness of that bond, and even now, two hundred years after I’d failed to save him, I was swamped by guilt.
I should have tried harder.
“We won’t let anything happen to your family,” Ben reassured me, squeezing my shoulder. “I can stay as long as you need me—until the child is born if you’d like—and Ivan will not get past the two of us.”
“Three of us,” Dane said. “I don’t really want to be away from Wesley that long, but if we can’t convince Ivan to leave you alone, I’ll stay, too.”
“If we truly can’t convince Ivan to leave you alone, we’ll need to decide what to do about him,” Ben added. “In the end, the dragons that my ata fought could not be reasoned with.”
“He killed them?” Dane asked, wincing. It was hard to kill a dragon, but Dane had done it, once.
“He killed two of them,” Ben said, his face full of regret at the necessity. “And then the others left.”
“No one is going to kill Ivan,” I said forcefully.
“If he won’t leave—” Ben started to say, frowning.
“No!” When Ivan had threatened Devin, I’d wanted to kill him myself—but when he’d stood before me on the beach in pain, my first instinct had been to ease it. Not that he’d welcomed my help, or even wanted it—and of course I would protect my family first—but no matter what else he was, Ivan was still my family, too.
Even if I had failed him when he was born.
“He’s still my brother,” I said. “We’ll find another way.”