Dragon Twins Bride: A Paranormal Menage Baby Romance Read online

  She hoped that he was safe in their den. She missed him like a fifth limb, and she knew that she wanted to see him and send word to him as soon as she could. She was beginning to fall in love with the princes, but she also wasn’t a fool. Phuong wasn’t about to tell them where her safe haven was. If they ever turned on her, she would be left without a place to flee to. And she couldn’t go herself yet, just in case they had guards that would track her.

  Since she’d just been sick with the transition, she was going to go earlier than her mates would permit, but that meant figuring a way out of the castle that her mates and none of the Yore staff would notice.

  She heard a clicking sound and left the library. The clicking was almost a tune, a hypnotic lullaby. Her steps were slow, going to the beat of the tune. She felt like there was a lasso around her middle, pulling her out of the castle.

  “Where are you going? You’re supposed to stay in here.”

  But Phuong swept past the door attendant.

  “Hey! Aren’t you sick? Come back!”

  Even though Phuong wanted to turn back, she couldn’t.

  All of a sudden, the air around her was full with dozens of butterflies.

  Pretty. She reached out her hand, mesmerized by the patterns on their wings.

  “Phuong!” Gahariet shouted.

  She snapped out of her butterfly and tune-induced daze. She saw one man dressed in black running away. Was he there to snatch her?

  “Did you not notice that there was a team of mercenaries trying to grab you?”

  “No…the music…the butterflies.” She couldn’t really understand what had happened.

  “Let’s get you inside,” Gahariet said softly. Olivier was behind Gahariet. The three went back inside.

  31

  Lagoon

  Olivier

  Olivier watched Phuong slide into the water of their private lagoon. Her eyes were closed, her face showing that she was immersing herself in pure ecstasy.

  He’d seen Yore like this before. He’d always wondered why something as simple as water would bliss them out. She looked like she was orgasming, pleasure taking over her body.

  Stars, she was beautiful. Her dark skin was glowing slightly in the sunlight. He stood by the shore and watched his mate relax in the lagoon for a while before he felt his twin approach behind him.

  “What are we going to do about Marc?” Gahariet asked his twin.

  Olivier turned. “Do we have to do anything? I mean, we’re safe inside of our own grounds and castle. We should be able to protect her.”

  “He has her blood. He clearly wants to use it to control her.” Gahariet was frowning.

  “She doesn’t belong to him.”

  “He’s not going to accept our claim.”

  “I don’t care.” Olivier’s fists were clenched.

  “You should care. As long as someone like Marc wants her, she’s not going to be safe.”

  Olivier turned and glared at his brother, who took a step back. Gahariet took a second step back and put his hands up.

  “Pursuing her any longer wouldn’t be safe for Marc,” he told him, menace clear in his voice.

  “We’ll do the best we can, but there aren’t any guarantees. And we still don’t know where her brother is.” Gahariet shook his head.

  “We can find Xuan, I’m sure. It’s not safe for him to be on the streets, not when Marc is out there. We just need a little more time, that’s all.”

  “I don’t know if we need more time to find him. He’s pretty well hidden. Do you think that our mate knows where he is hiding?”

  Both of them looked at their floating mate, whose eyes were still closed.

  “We’ll do everything we can to keep her safe. What if she’s pregnant with our babies?” Gahariet asked.

  “I don’t know what would happen if he kidnapped her while she was pregnant.”

  “Well, I don’t want to find out.”

  “He’s not going to touch her,” Olivier promised.

  Gahariet shook his head. “I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll talk to you both later.” Gahariet left the lagoon, leaving Olivier and Phuong alone.

  Olivier shucked off his clothes. The Draka didn’t care much about nudity, and he didn’t mind getting a little dirt on him.

  He waded into the water, then he began to float next to Phuong. It had been a long time since Olivier had taken the time to just float around…maybe a decade. Maybe more.

  Her eyes were still closed, but she reached her hand out to him. The two of them floated together in the pool in a perfect moment of peace and silence, a stark contrast to the kidnapping attempt that Marc had perpetrated.

  Olivier wished that their peace could last forever, but he knew that it wouldn’t.

  32

  Demand

  Gahariet

  Gahariet went back to his office. He looked at his twin’s empty seat and shook his head. Olivier would dodge his responsibilities as often as he could. He lived for the moment, which for him meant spending as much time with Phuong as possible.

  Gahariet supposed that someone needed to watch Phuong, so he didn’t mind going through all the paperwork on his own.

  Today, the paperwork seemed even more boring than usual. There were a bunch of Assembly arbitration decisions that he had to make. He shuffled through them, sighing. Sometimes, being the responsible twin meant that he was inside a lot more often than his brother was.

  There was one envelope that wasn’t like the others. It had the Alrech Auction House wax seal on it, the wax as red as blood.

  He took a slender letter opener and opened the envelope.

  In crimson ink, Marc had written: “Return my property.”

  Gahariet tossed the letter down on his desk. Phuong was more than just a valuable auction item. She was a Yore princess in her own right. She was a wonder and a mystery. Above all of those things, she was their beloved blood-bound mate.

  Fate itself had determined their path. The three of them belonged together. It wasn’t an accident that they had been in the auction house on the same night. If they hadn’t come by… Phuong would still be trapped with Marc, probably. Stars only knew what he would’ve done to her.

  Gahariet ran through the possibilities in his mind. He hoped that the fight wouldn’t have to get nasty — he was a royal, after all — but he would do what it took to protect his mate, no matter what the cost.

  Gahariet was lost in thought when he heard the door of his office slam open.

  “She’s sleeping,” Olivier announced.

  “I got a letter,” Gahariet said softly. “Maybe you should read it.”

  “A letter?”

  “From Marc.” Gahariet pointed.

  “Let me see.”

  He reached for the letter that Gahariet indicated was from Marc.

  Olivier read the single sentence there and snorted. “Phuong is not his property.”

  “It means that he’s discovered that the simulacrum isn’t her.”

  “Good. Then I can just let it dissolve. It was taking a lot of energy, anyway.” Olivier closed his eyes. “It’s gone now, just so much smoke.”

  “Not everything about this is going to be resolved that easily, Olivier,” Gahariet warned.

  “Marc can bring it. He thinks that he can take on two Thrones? Ridiculous. We will crush him.”

  Gahariet didn’t sigh, even though he wanted to. His brother thought that if you fought as hard as you could, you’d always win. Gahariet was his twin, but he knew that even if they gave it everything they had, it was possible that they could lose.

  Marc had shadowy connections to the underground market, which Gahariet didn’t like at all. The black market was unregulated and beyond their control.

  “I’m starving,” Olivier complained. “Do you want to grab something downstairs?”

  “Why don’t we eat in Phuong’s room?”

  Olivier licked his lips. “Mm, I am pretty hungry.”

  Gahariet shook hi
s head. His brother loved getting sweaty.

  Gahariet did, too, of course, but he didn’t need it the way that Olivier did. He had a reputation as a playboy prince which was very well deserved.

  “I’ll meet you there in ten. Can you grab the food?”

  “Sure.”

  Olivier walked out of the room while Gahariet arranged all of the paper in proper stacks. It was true that technology could keep everything much more orderly, but the older Draka were used to printing things physically, and they highly preferred actual paper for legal proceedings.

  Gahariet tucked everything away properly before going to Phuong’s room.

  33

  Feverish

  Gahariet

  As Gahariet approached her room, he could hear the sound of his twin’s voice. “Your eyes are red.”

  “Are they?” Phuong sounded startled. Gahariet began to walk faster towards her room.

  Then he heard the thump of something hitting a headboard. He broke into a full-out run.

  When he got into the room, Phuong was in Olivier’s arms. He was checking her head.

  “She’s going to have a big bump there.”

  “What happened?”

  “She fainted. Feel her. She’s burning up.”

  Gahariet reached out, stopping with his hand only a half inch from her forehead. But then he finally connected with her and he saw what his twin had been talking about. Her inner fire was consuming her. Her body had no idea how to regulate her temperature as the dragon blood mingled with hers.

  “We can’t keep her here. We’ve got to cool her down.”

  “Ice?”

  “No, water. The Yore feel the best in water.” Olivier stood with their mate in his arms. “I think that I have to carry her down. If I carry her in my claws, I might drop her or hurt her.”

  “Why don’t we put her in a cart and wheel her down together?” Honestly, Olivier never planned ahead. With an ounce of foresight, the journey to their private lagoon would be much faster.

  “That’s a good idea.”

  Gahariet went to a nearby storage closet and pulled out a wooden cart. He made a face, because it smelled musty, as if nobody had used it for a while. But he went back to Phuong’s room. He took the blanket from her bed before Olivier set Phuong down gently inside of the cart.

  “How are we going to get the cart down the stairs?” Olivier asked.

  “We’re going to just carry her instead of wheeling her down.”

  Gahariet picked up the front of the cart and walked backwards, carefully stepping down the stairs one by one.

  When they were at the bottom, they slowly set the cart on its wheels and began to pull their mate towards the lagoon.

  They didn’t anticipate quite how bumpy the ground would be. It jolted her unconscious body over and over again. Gahariet gritted his teeth. It turned out that his plans weren’t necessarily the best, after all.

  But then they were finally there. Olivier picked her up.

  “So how are we going to do this? Just throw her in?” Olivier asked.

  “She’s unconscious, so, no.” Gahariet pulled her body from Olivier’s arms. “We’re going to just walk in with her.”

  “We’re fully dressed,” Olivier protested.

  “Do you care about ruining your clothes?”

  “Not really, not right now.”

  “Then walk in with me.” Gahariet walked into the cool water of the lagoon. He was relieved to feel that Phuong’s body temperature instantly got a little lower.

  “How long is her molting going to last?”

  “I have no idea. I know that some of the Yore-Draka mixes turn into dragons, but I don’t know what it’s like if you’re full Yore, like she is,” Gahariet admitted.

  “Do you think that it could hurt?”

  “It might. I have no clue.”

  “Do you think that it’s worth it?” Olivier asked.

  “Of course. She’s our mate. She’s going to be a dragon.” Gahariet shook his head.

  “Ah,” Phuong moaned. Gahariet looked at his semi-conscious mate. Her eyelids were fluttering quite a bit.

  “Puzzle,” she sighed.

  “What did she say?” Olivier said.

  “She said ‘puzzle’,” Gahariet responded. “And look —she’s getting her scales.”

  She shifted in Gahariet’s arms, so he adjusted his position. She was a little lighter in the water, but it also made her slippery.

  “Scales?” Olivier leaned in to her skin. “She was getting shiny before.”

  He ran his hands over her skin, which seemed a little rougher than it had been before. “It’s like a scale pattern more than anything, not full-on scales.”

  “It’s still exciting.”

  Gahariet touched Phuong’s skin, too. It was starting to change just a little bit.

  “I hope she doesn’t have a fever the whole time.”

  “She should be fine in the lagoon, though, right?” Olivier was frowning at his twin. “It’s not dangerous?”

  “It shouldn’t be,” Gahariet replied, but he wasn’t so sure.

  34

  Warming Up

  Phuong

  Phuong opened her eyes. What strange dreams she’d had. Finally, everything had fit together perfectly.

  Why was she wet? Her body felt hot on the inside, but cold on the outside.

  She looked up at Gahariet’s sculpted face above her.

  “How do you feel, sweetheart?”

  “I...” She flexed her hands and then her feet. “I’m okay.”

  “You have scales now,” Olivier told her.

  “What?”

  “Look at your hands.”

  Phuong realized that Gahariet was holding her up. She lifted a hand towards her face and looked closely. Sure enough, there was some kind of scale pattern beneath her skin.

  “I’m a dragon?”

  “You’re turning into one, a very beautiful one.”

  Phuong frowned. Other than feeling hot, she didn’t feel that different.

  “Am I going to be half shifted like this forever?”

  “No. You’ll be able to control it with some practice.”

  “But right now, I’m going to have scales?”

  “It looks like it,” Gahariet said. “We don’t have definite answers, but I can tell you that we’ll be with you every step of the way. Now why don’t we go back to the castle and pump you full of fluids? We’ve immersed you in the lagoon, but you could dry out from the inside, and that’s not good. Dehydration can be a major problem during transition.”

  Gahariet began walking out of the lagoon. Phuong clung to him and threw her arms around his neck, her head against his chest.

  She shivered when she was out of the water. Her teeth were chattering.

  “Why is it so cold?”

  “The contrast between the outside temperature and your inner fire makes it feel cold. Dragons are cold-blooded anyway. We’ll take you home and get you out of your wet clothes.”

  Gahariet set her down gently in the wooden cart. All three of them were wearing wet clothes as they set off for home.

  They only went a little way before Olivier stopped. “I hate this shirt,” Olivier said before stripping it off and putting it over his arm.

  “It’s not that comfortable,” Gahariet agreed before whipping off his own shirt.

  Phuong tried not to stare, but both of the brothers had perfect musculature, their broad shoulders were probably twice the size of hers. Then their backs tapered into a perfect V-shape at their slim hips. She had an amazing view as they pulled her in the cart up the castle. She was perfectly capable of walking, but she’d rather sit in this cart, no matter how much it jolted her.

  Then they had gone all the way up the path and were at the castle.

  Gahariet helped Phuong out of the cart before stowing it beside the door.

  “Someone will know what to do with it,” Gahariet said. “Now, do you want to drink some hot xocolatl or get
changed?”

  “I need to change,” Phuong said, gesturing at her dress ruefully. “I’m afraid it’s a little more scandalous for me to take off my dress than it is for you to take off your shirts.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be scandalized,” Olivier teased. “You can take off your dress in front of me anytime.”

  Phuong blushed, which helped warm her up a little bit. The three of them went to her room.

  Gahariet said, “Give me your dress. I can send it down to our laundry room. It can be as good as new.”

  Phuong looked at her beautiful dress. “Okay.” She bit her lip. “Could you two turn your backs?”

  “No,” Olivier said bluntly. “You’re our mate. We’ve had sex. If you want to see us naked, too, we can go first.” Olivier stripped off all of his clothing so that he was naked. “Besides, I think that I heard that the best way to warm someone up was skin-to-skin contact.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Gahariet took off his clothes, too, draping them on a chair in her room. “Come on, Phuong, don’t you want to be warm?”

  Phuong looked between the two dragons. Both were aroused and coming towards her. What did she want?

  She tugged the hem of her dress over her head, dropping it to the floor.

  That’s when Olivier tackled her so that she fell back on her bed, his hands on her wrists, his mouth on her neck. Her back arched as pure dragon fire ran through her veins.

  “Oh,” she moaned.

  Not to be outdone, Gahariet pushed his brother aside a little.

  “I want to feast, too.” She felt her thighs being pushed apart. Gahariet’s hair was rubbing against her inner thigh.

  Then his tongue was touching her core. “Mmm, you’re so wet.” He licked her from top to bottom, paying special attention to her clit every time that he got up there.

  She bucked wildly, but his hands went to her hips to hold her still as he ate his fill of her.