Chapter 7

Jaegar

I FLEW THROUGH THE winter sky, my beautiful mate on my tail. In this form, all I could feel was happiness. I had no worries. There was only beauty and pleasure. It was everything I’d ever hoped for and more.

We flew up and around the castle, moving away, then flying back. Tumbling through the air and dancing through the clouds. But where should we go? I didn’t want to go back to the party, and I didn’t think my mate wanted to, either. But my home was too far, and as soon as I shifted back to human, I knew that I’d want my mate. Naked and in a warm bed—in that order.

Finally, we spiraled down together into the courtyard at the castle, and my mate released her dragon, shifting back into her human self. Her naked, human self. She was slender, with just the barest hint of curves, but undeniably beautiful. Her long, dark hair flowed over her body, covering her breasts. She looked like a pale, Gothic goddess.

I let go of my dragon too, knowing full well my cock wouldn’t be soft.

We stood there for a time, staring at each other, caught between worlds, neither of us daring to move or breathe.

Then the door opened, and servants rushed out with robes.

My mate cast me a final, longing glance, before bustling inside and into the warmth of the castle.

I took my time, pulling the robe on and letting my body cool down, literally and figuratively. When I finally walked inside, the servants shut the doors behind me.

My mate was standing nearby, shivering hard. The poor thing didn’t have an ounce of body fat to help keep her warm.

I couldn’t stop myself. I walked over to her and wrapped my arms around her, tugging her into the heat of my body. “Are you all right?” I asked.

She nodded but didn’t curl into me the way she’d done when we’d first met.

I smiled, unable to be sad at this moment. “You know, I don’t actually know your name.”

She chuckled and lifted her head, staring at me with big, soulful eyes. “I’m Vanya.”

“Vanya...” I let the name roll off my tongue, enjoying the sound. Where had I heard that name before? “How are you related to everyone here?”

Her dad... she’d said someone was her dad. Who was it? I shook my head, trying to clear away the fog that surrounded our meeting.

Her jaw dropped open, and her eyes widened. “Weren’t you here when I opened the party?”

I shook my head. “No, I was talking with Theo outside. Why? Did you—”

The doors to the small room burst open and two women came rushing in.

“Everyone but Jaegar and Vanya, out.”

They weren’t just two women. They were queens. Cass and Lucy both hustled over to us, their arms laden with clothes.

“We thought it safer for us to come than your fathers,” Lucy said with a smile. “We figured we’d be less likely to set off Jaegar’s shifter again.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Vanya said, reaching for her incredibly sexy, tight dress.

“Mom?” I repeated. “Lucy’s your... mom?”

How the hell did I miss that?

Lucy laughed softly. “Did you think your fated mate would be a commoner?”

“Well... yes,” I said. “Because I’m a...”

Lucy and Cass exchanged glances.

Vanya turned away to slip her dress back on, demonstrating a little modesty in front of the queens.

I forced myself not to stare as her robe dropped to the ground.

“Vanya is one of my triplets,” Lucy said, grabbing my attention. “And her younger brother, Iain, is married to Veronica.”

I pressed my lips together, holding in any cracks about things getting a bit incestuous. Fate obviously wanted our bloodlines joined. “Okay.” I didn’t know what to say or think. My mate was a princess? A princess of an incredibly wealthy kingdom?

I began to shake my head. “No... Wait. Hang on.” And then as the haze of our meeting cleared, I recalled what Vanya had said when I’d growled. Stavrok was her father.

Holy shit.

Vanya was never going to agree to come back with me to live in a one-bedroom shack in the poorest part of the Winter Kingdom. Her bathroom would be larger than my whole plot of land.

“You’re not a commoner, Jaegar,” Vanya said, and it was the first time I’d heard her real voice. She was strong and commanding. She stared at me with a piercing gaze. “You’re the eldest son of the King of the North, Jaegar. And you’re my mate.”

I looked from her to Lucy, to Cass, then back to Vanya once more. “Your father really is—”

“King Stavrok,” she said with a nod and another lift of her proud chin.

I ran a hand through my hair, my arm shaking as I gave voice to my earlier thought. “Holy shit.”

This time Lucy laughed, loudly. “You’ve got that right. Now... Jaegar, get dressed and come and rejoin the party. Then we can all work out where you’re going to sleep tonight.”

I frowned at the queen. “But I’ve already been assigned a bedroom.”

Lucy and Cass exchanged a long, knowing look before Cass turned to me. “You have... and you’re totally fine with sleeping alone tonight?”

My gut churned at the idea, and my gaze slid across to my mate, the heat of desire rising within me once more.

“Exactly,” Cass said with an understanding little chuckle. “We were fated mates of dragon kings back in the day too. We know we won’t be able to keep you two apart long.”

Vanya growled a little. “Mother! We just met. You don’t think—”

“Oh, I know, darling daughter,” Queen Lucy said with a wide grin. “I remember what it was like all too well. But anyway, I think we need to give Jaegar a moment and then return to the party.”

Lucy and Cass walked toward the door.

Vanya meandered behind them extremely slowly. She was playing with her hair and adjusting her dress, even though she looked absolutely perfect.

“I won’t be long,” I said, forcing a smile to my frozen features. How cruel could Fate be to me? My mate couldn’t be the Crown Princess of Bravadok. That made no sense. And what it meant for my future was as scary as it was baffling. I’d grown up poor, while the princess had grown up entitled and rich.

I wasn’t interested in living anywhere other than my mother’s small, humble cottage, whereas I was almost certain that Vanya would want to live here and remain in her father’s castle. Or at the very least, she’d likely expect to live in the Kingdom of Winter’s refurbished castle.

We don’t suit, not at all.

My head pounded, and I dressed slowly, giving myself time to think of a solution, or at least, my next few steps forward. And when no path made itself clear, I paced in front of the fireplace, unable to do what needed to be done.

“What are you doing in here?” My father’s voice was so new to me, and yet so familiar somehow.

I mutely nodded, because there was no answering that question.

Damon walked up to me, and as I stared into the flickering flames of the fire, his shoulder pressed against mine. “Tell me what’s going through your head.”

It sounded like a command, and yet I heard the question behind the tone. “I... don’t know,” I said, then added, “and that’s not my cowardly way of lying, because I really... don’t know. It’s blank inside my head and cold. I feel lost.”

“You’re afraid,” Damon said, “And that’s understandable. You spent your whole life on the outskirts of the city when you should have been in the palace. You were born a bastard when you should have been a prince.”

I rolled my eyes and turned to the man I should have called my dad all these years. “I was never meant to be a prince.”

Damon lifted his hand and stabbed me in the chest with his finger. “Well, that tattoo says otherwise. You can hate me all you like—fight me all you want—but as a man who has felt the pull of a fated mate in my life, I can tell you, son, you’re not winning this battle. Even if you are stupid enough to run away from Vanya.”

I glared at him and pushed his arm away, my temper flaring in my frustration. “I’m not stupid. And I don’t run.”

“Then get back out there,” Damon said with a head flick towards the door. “Go and show those royal, uppity asshats that you’ve got more class than all of them combined.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. I didn’t have the guts to tell him that not only did I not have the class, but also did not I want to go out there again. But I’d done lots of things in my life that I didn’t want to, and this was going to be one of them. A man always rose to the occasion, even if it killed him. “Okay, fine. I’ll go back out there and smile and pretend like everything’s fine.”

Damon chuckled. “Well, you don’t need to pretend anything. Just don’t run, okay? And maybe speak to Carlak. You might just find he may have a similar story to share.”

“And Carlak is?”

Damon sighed. “Carlak is the Crown Prince of the Black Mountains—Marienne and Erik’s eldest son.”

And he has a similar story? That, I’d like to hear.

I nodded my head at him. “All right. Introduce me, please.”

Damon nodded and turned toward the door. “Then come.”

I followed him, though it irked me to do so, back into the fray, the heat, and the noise. There was nothing like the sound of dozens of people talking and music pounding in a room that still somehow seemed too small for so many personalities.

Damon made his way to the edge of the room where three young men stood, all a few years younger than me. “Carlak, this is Jaegar,” Damon said, nodding between us. “I told him you’d tell him about what happened on the triplets’ twenty-first birthday, while I deal with Stavrok. I’ll be back.” Damon turned on his heel and left me with three men, probably all princes.

I forced a smile to my lips. “Hi, I’m—”

“You’re Damon’s son,” Carlak said, nodding his head at me, then indicated to his side. “This is my brother, Anthony.”

“Nice to meet you both.”

Anthony held out his hand to me.

I reached out, not willing to refuse an introduction to the Prince of the Black Mountains. But the moment my hand connected with Anthony’s, I was thrown into the future. I gasped as my eyes slid shut, and a vision projected into my mind of a castle bedroom. Vanya was there, lying on the bed, crying out in pain. It was immediately evident she was in labor. Her belly was huge and swollen, and there was an alarming amount of blood on the bed.

“No!” I said out aloud and tried to pull my arm back.

“Wait!” Anthony grabbed hold of my arm with his other hand, unwilling to let me go.

My heart pounded in my chest as I waited to see if my mate was going to die. But the door opened, and I watched myself as I raced in, followed by Lucy and another woman I’d never seen before. Then people surrounded her, and I watched as Vanya pushed and strained a child into the world. A squalling, crying, happy baby that was lifted straight onto their mother’s chest.

My heart swelled and tears burned in my eyes. There I was, a woman in my arms and a new baby to live for. A family.

My own family.

Anthony finally released me, and the vision faded.

“No...” I whispered as my waking vision returned and I was back in the real world, my future now nothing but a hazy image in my mind. “How...”

Anthony rubbed his hands together and smiled, a faint purple light glowing in his eyes.

“What are you?” I asked, a shiver coursing up my spine and making my shoulders shake.

“I’m a sorcerer,” Anthony said as he tilted his head. “ And a dragon shifter.”

“And my husband,” said a soft, female voice from the side.

I looked to my right and a beautiful woman glided up next to Anthony and slid her hand around her husband’s arm. “You must be Jaegar. You’re the talk of the party.”

I groaned. “I didn’t want that.”

She smiled at me, and her eyes lit up. “You’re also fated to... Vanya. Is that right?”

Carlak stared at me, his shock a palpable thing. “You’re... what?”

Anthony smiled sincerely, and I had to assume that he’d shared in the vision he’d shown me. “She’s waited a long time for you.”

I cleared my throat loudly and looked at Carlak. “Damon said that you would share an experience with me that was similar.”

Carlak nodded, suddenly as serious as the grave. “Yes. The triplets’ twenty-first birthday was when I realized that Jessa was my fated mate.”

There was a moment of silence, and they stared at me as though I should say something.

“Ah... okay.”

Anthony’s wife chuckled. “Jessa, Anselm, and Vanya are the triplets.”

I began to understand. “So, Jessa is married to the Crown Prince of the Black Mountains, and Anselm married a human?”

“And Veronica is married to Iain,” Carlak reminded me. “So your families are intrinsically linked.”

More than I ever imagined.

“What happened on the night of their birthday?” I asked, curious more than anything else.

Carlak’s lips twisted as he recalled his evening with his mate. “I got so drunk, I could barely see straight, but it helped keep my dragon in check.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” I muttered, shaking my head.

Anthony laughed. “Your path is different from Carlak’s.”

“And how fixed are your visions?” I asked the young sorcerer. “Does what you see always come to pass?”

Anthony pressed his lips together into a thin line. “I don’t know if, I’m honest. I’d have to ask my mother to know for sure. Her magic is far greater than mine.”

“But if you had to guess?” I pressed, my stomach churning over the fading image of my own little family.

Long moments passed before Anthony finally answered me. “Things can always change.”

And that was exactly what I was afraid of.