Rake My Lust (Dragons of Blood and Bone #3)

26. Game

26

GAME

L ?rke settles beside me on one chaise now, as Bjorn and Strom sit on my other side, ready for her to touch Aesa’s Truthstone on my chest. Mikkel is separate from us, sitting by himself on the other chaise beyond the coffee table, just in case. The twins have several bouncers on alert outside the door, ready to rush in here in case anything disastrous happens with L?rke. She takes a deep breath and I do also, but she doesn’t touch Aesa’s stone on my chest yet.

Merely twines her fingers in mine.

“Let’s try something a little gentler than my brother’s approach.” She gives a wry smile as we turn to face each other on the couch. “I’m going to open up my magic and touch you with it; not to control your body, just to touch your dragon, deep inside. Try to open to me and let me do it, though I know my magic makes you go on defense. I felt what you did to my brother’s and my talisman when it tested you at the Gilded Cage. I didn’t know it was you tonight, but I felt what happened. You have monstrously powerful magic, Rikyava, and it doesn’t like mine. We need to play nice… if anything constructive is going to happen here.”

“I agree,” I say now, though it’s a surprise L?rke felt what happened when her magic tried to kill me via that little dragonfly talisman, and I defeated it. It’s interesting to note she can feel objects at a distance that are imbued with her power. Another part of her intense security abilities.

And probably something that helps keep her and Mikkel safe.

I take a deep breath now, willing both sides of my magic to be calm as L?rke unfurls hers. I feel her dragon like some dark midnight wind, blossoming out beside me as it fills the room with a deep violet, white, and spring green power.

Just like her cool-as-cucumbers demeanor, L?rke has a smoothness to her power Mikkel lacks. Her dragon is all business as it comes out now to test my waters and see what we can do here.

She’s a vastly passionate person, deep inside; I feel it now as her magic touches mine. But as it curls around my inner dragon-magic, coiling me up in a far gentler way now than when I held that talisman, I feel how her intense inner passion is cooled by her cool security persona.

A deep instinct tells me she has to be that way, as I feel the place where those two aspects of her collide. L?rke has to be cold, I understand, as Aesa’s Truthstone begins to hum upon my chest, because her passion runs so hot, deep inside.

L?rke’s pale eyelashes flicker as I find her out. Her lavender gaze pins me; for the first time, I see vulnerability in her, as she hesitates. Aesa’s silver stone is singing on my chest now, however. As my own magics come out to play, drawn out by L?rke’s touch and the Truthstone ringing all through me, I feel our darker magics resonate.

L?rke’s Bone Magic is vast, as it suddenly opens all the way to mine. Like Mikkel, she’s a powerhouse to be reckoned with; too bad I’m not attracted to drakainas, or I would seriously consider taking her into our Bloodbond as I feel that immense, dark magic swirl all through me.

She’s not my mate, though, and not bound to me by my power. Still, something in our dual magics resonates, thanks to Aesa’s stone. Battle-brimstone red, white, and gold flashes hot inside me as my Bloodwalker power twists into L?rke’s darkness, resonating with Aesa’s stone .

And L?rke gasps—as the curse inside her breaks.

Memories flood back to L?rke in a rush now, unleashed by my power resonating with Aesa’s stone. I can’t see or experience them with her the same way I could with Strom, since L?rke and I aren’t bound in our magics.

Still, I get glimpses of heists she and others pulled, and people they associated with a hundred years ago. Not only that, but all those missing memories are run through with countless recollections of that red-haired woman.

Alfhild Fey.

There’s plenty of memories of Strom, too—and Mikkel, as L?rke’s memories come rushing back. As he feels what’s happening with his twin, Mikkel launches over to our chaise, sitting beside L?rke now and gripping her free hand.

Shaking, shuddering hard in shock, L?rke’s eyes are shut tight against the pain of remembering, as Alfhild’s curse inside her breaks and it all comes flooding back. She’s shaking so hard, vibrating with power now, as her aura seethes all around her in a powerful Bloodwind. I worry she might shift up into her dragon.

But as Mikkel grips her hand, steadiness floods into L?rke.

The memory-opening jumps to him now—crashing into him as he abruptly retrieves his own lost time. Mikkel gives a painful roar as his own curse breaks, and his memories come flooding back.

L?rke is growling now, as she is inundated and so is Mikkel; his own dragon-power flashes out like a deadly black mamba with violet and bright green streaks, as I feel him flood his massive mind-control ability into them both.

I feel how his incredible power tries to slow that tirade and make it water they can tread, rather than drown in. The raging torrent steadies; Mikkel and L?rke can handle it now as their painful shuddering subsides to shivers.

As their magics pulse and roar, absorbing their lost memories as they all come thundering back, Strom scoots to my side. As Bjorn moves to my back, wrapping his arms around me to hold me steady, Strom takes my free hand.

The power of Aesa’s Truthstone also jumps to Strom now—flooding his own missing memories through him as he grits his teeth and weathers it. Bjorn removes a hand from me, setting it on Strom’s shoulder. As we all roar through those missing memories together now, an incredible amalgamation of all our magics pulsing through the room, Bjorn and I get the full picture, while Strom relives them.

It goes on a long while; there are a lot of missing memories to retrieve. Countless hours, days, even weeks are missing from Mikkel, L?rke, and Strom; though the memories return in fast flickers like a flip-book rather than the full movie, it still takes a while.

We’re all exhausted by the time it ends, but we have the full picture now of what happened. Not only that, but we have the identities, secrets, and rendezvous locations of the thief ring Strom was working with back then.

All of it, controlled by Alfhild Fey.

As it ends, L?rke’s hand falls from mine. She’s sweating, her cocktail dress drenched, as she sinks back into Mikkel. Their powers shut off with a snap in the quiet room.

Mikkel’s exhausted, too, as he falls back against the side of the chaise, cradling her. Strom is no better as he, Bjorn, and I sink into a puddle on the other end of the chaise, supported by Bjorn.

We stare at each other, heaving hard breaths as we recuperate. Unleashing all of that magic has taken the mickey out of us, and though no one shifted, our dragons feel like we’ve flown ten marathons.

Everyone is shaken to their core by what we just experienced. Because we’ve just learned copious information about the thief ring Strom was running with back in the day.

And Mikkel and L?rke were part of it.

“She used you. She bound you to her with sex and Bone Magic, so you would do her bidding and be besotted with her… and forget all of it.” L?rke’s gaze pins Strom. Like L?rke, I didn’t miss that part of the show during the memory retrieval. Strom’s missing memories included endless episodes of sexual intercourse with Alfhild Fey, boiling hot and heavy, in as many positions as a person could count, including as their dragons.

With that knowledge has come an understanding of how Strom was ensnared to Alfhild. She was a sexual predator, always taking any dragon she thought she had a use for, and binding them to her via sex.

It doesn’t shock me that both Mikkel and Strom have memories of sex with Alfhild, but it surprises me that L?rke also has a memory of sex with the lead thief. For L?rke, it was just once. A drunken dalliance she thought would be good fun, while Mikkel had a handful of them.

Each of them was bound to Alfhild’s power in this way, however—the head thief writing her intense memory-erasing curses through all of them from their very first encounters. It makes a blistering hate sear all through me now, for this drakaina I’ve not met.

And I’m going to tear her to pieces once I do.

I can see I’m going to have to fight Mikkel, especially L?rke, and not to mention Strom for that honor, as all three of them fume upon the couch. L?rke is the hottest of the lot, as she sears with a terrible passion at what Alfhild did to them.

Strom was the only one Alfhild chained to her side like a dog, however. He was her special little pet, thanks to his uniquely powerful curse-breaking magic. She pulled Mikkel and L?rke into their thief ring whenever she needed them for special jobs because of their mind-controlling powers.

The twins had been rewarded for their efforts in those escapades; money had poured into their clubs from Alfhild, and none of it had to be secured by mob relations. Still, it was just as nefarious a beginning for their empire, as it fueled their expansion from this first flagship club.

Blood money—paid for by their lost time.

“Now we know what all those mysterious cash influxes a hundred years ago were.” Mikkel laughs sourly as he shakes his head. “Finally, all our ledgers make sense. At least we don’t owe it back to anyone.”

“We paid quite enough.” L?rke is bitter as she glances at her brother. We’ve all regained enough energy that she can pull away from him, and she does.

Going to the built-in bar in the gaming room and pouring herself a stiff whiskey.

“We have the locations of all the thieves’ storehouses, meeting areas, and heist-planning locations,” Strom says now as I feel him process the memories he’s retrieved, sorting them out. “There are dozens of places they could be. Where do we even start?”

“I say flush them out,” Bjorn growls now as he joins the conversation, just as much a party to Strom’s missing memories as I was. “Get help from your great-grandfather the Jarl, and raid every fucking location you’ve remembered, all at once, with muscle. They can’t predict our moves if we hit them with all guns blazing.”

“The Jarl of Copenhagen would never allow such a thing.” Mikkel dismisses Bjorn now, as he waves a hand. “He lets no other Jarl send forces here without direct permission from him, and getting that could take weeks… if ever.”

“Precious time we don’t have.” I look at L?rke. “What about the club’s defenses? Could your guards and bouncers be amassed to do a raid like that?”

“Not in so many places at once, no.” L?rke scowls as she shakes her head. “We have good security and dragon-power here, if it comes to a fight. It’s not enough to amass a strong enough raid on so many locations at the same time, though. We’d need our best guards from all our clubs all over Blood Dragondom to do that. And we can’t summon them on a moment’s notice.”

“What other options do we have?” I ask as I look at Strom.

He goes quiet as I feel him churn deep inside. But then, something in him locks into place—for the worst sort of retribution .

And I know he has it.

“We hit Alfhild where she thinks she’s strongest, but is, in fact, weak,” Strom says now, gazing into thin air like he’s watching his old captor from afar. “We invade her boudoir—the place she called her Sanctuary Vault. It’s her most private residence where she rests between heists and keeps her most cherished stolen items far underground. She blindfolded me and put wards on my ears so I couldn’t see or hear where we were going when she took me there to fuck. She undid extensive Bone Magic wards in various places to get there, however—and I felt all of them. With Mikkel and L?rke’s help to enhance my Bone Magic-tracing ability… I might just be able to find those wards and reverse-track them. Until we find her heart.”

“And bury an axe in it,” Mikkel says with the darkest look ever, stone-cold sober. With a shake, he rouses himself out of his merciless killing-mode… but I know what I saw.

The veritable beast that lives inside Mikkel—that wants nothing but blood from those who’ve wronged him.

I make a mental note to never cross Mikkel as I nod. “It’s a solid plan, and if we strike at Alfhild’s heart, her most sacred personal space, she won’t have time to amass her thieves and jump us. She’s got a lot of protective magic if she’s able to put curses on other dragons and erase their memories; she won’t rely on any ability to fight us with her power, but will rely on her wards to keep her resting place from being discovered. That’s where we win. If Strom can get us in, with Mikkel and L?rke to boost his power, plus me, we can take her down. Because we all have powers good for fighting—and she just sneaks around in the shadows.”

“As long as I can get us in without tripping any of her copious wards, it’ll be great.” Strom rubs his neck. “The question is… am I that good at curse-breaking?”

“You’re good.” Bjorn sets his big hand on Strom’s shoulder now, squeezing it. “Trust yourself, Eriksson. You got us all the way into Unhaemmerten with your power. Don’t gainsay it.”

“True.” Strom is thoughtful as he considers that .

But we’re all exhausted, as Mikkel, and even L?rke, stifle a yawn. I’m bleary, wavering in my seat, as I see Strom shake his head to clear it from a drowning fatigue.

Bjorn’s somehow gotten the worst of it, however, as if dealing with all this Bone Magic has swamped his bright Blood Magic, pulling him under. His head droops, his shoulders jerk twice even as I watch him struggle to stay awake.

I know we need sleep before we can do any of this.

“We need rest, for a few hours, at least.” I stifle a yawn with the back of my hand. “We should head back to Emil’s?—”

“Nonsense.” L?rke pats my hand and rises, waving her long fingers towards the rear of the gaming room. “Mikkel and I have apartments here on the club’s premises, and we also have a guest suite for visiting VIPs. It’s safer if you three stay here, since our wards on the club can conceal you better than if you’re popping in and out going back to Emil’s. The Black Dragon Knights are still out there. Even though we have big fish to fry at the moment, they are the biggest fish. We can’t forget that.”

“Nor will we,” Mikkel says sweetly now as he rises from the couch, kissing his sister on the forehead. Linking his arm in hers, he turns to me. “The three of you stay; the guest quarters are just through that door there.” He nods at a door near the bathroom I used earlier, before covering his own yawn. “We will all get a decent rest, then return here later to plan. We’ll set out tomorrow night; thieves do their thing at night, so we can get into Alfhild’s residence, then jump her when she comes back from a heist.”

“Assuming she still lives there,” Bjorn says as he helps Strom and I rise, though he’s the one who looks like he’s about to fall over from how hard he’s had to steady all this incredible Bone Magic in the past hour.

“It’s the assumption we’ll go on.” Mikkel flashes Bjorn a tight smile. “If she’s no longer using it… we’ll hit up every warehouse, storehouse, and secret planning location they have. Until we finally blast her out of hiding—for go od.”

I know Mikkel’s going to do far more than that, as his dark eyes rage copper and cinnabar. He says nothing more, however, merely pins me with his intense gaze before turning and taking the exhausted L?rke towards their own suite at the far back of the gaming room.

It leaves Bjorn, Strom, and me all standing by the dying fire. As I look down, contemplating the twins’ chess match upon the coffee table, I see white’s nearly in checkmate.

I make the last move, swiping black’s queen from the board and placing white’s queen in the final position to checkmate black’s king. But as my mates and I head towards our guest apartment, I hope with all my heart that black’s queen isn’t already poised.

To take our own heart—and finish this game, before we’ve even started.