And why did he hurt worse with every moment that passed?

  “What’s wrong with you?” Gia asked, her voice soft with concern.

  “There’s nothing wrong with what I did with Blaze!” Griff forced himself to uncurl and flop onto his back. He looked at Gia. “Why is it a problem that he’s a dragon? He was a man when I was making love with him.”

  Gia’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Making love?”

  Griff blushed furiously, the heat of it causing sweat to break out on his upper lip. “Sex. I mean, when I was having sex with him.” The cramping in his gut increased. “Oh—” Griff moaned and closed his eyes.

  “Griff?” Gia touched his cheek. “You’re hot. What’s—”

  “Why did you take me away from him?” Griff panted out. “You should have left us alone!”

  “Oh no. Oh, no no.” Gia kept muttering as she ran her hands over him, the cooling power of her healing ability not really helping Griff much. “Griff, what did you do? What did you do?”

  Chapter Ten

  “Blaze! Blaze!”

  Blaze groaned, his head pounding much like it wanted to just explode. At least that would end his misery.

  “Blaze, brother, open your eyes.” The urgency in the voice pulled at Blaze.

  He wasn’t sure when the last time someone had sounded so worried about him, so that was a shocker. Oh. Shock. Shocked. Shit!

  Blaze whimpered when his shoulder was gripped and given a hard shake.

  “Blaze!”

  “Ow,” he whined, trying to get his hands to move, needing to cradle his noggin and cushion it against the gods-awful nag ripping him from sleep.

  But he remembered the shock, and Bonny, and Griff—Blaze forced his eyelids open. It took as much effort as anything in his life ever had. Maybe more.

  His vision was blurry.

  “Blaze?”

  Wait, he knew that voice. Blaze tried to speak, but his mouth and throat were dry and he instead made an embarrassing bleating noise.

  “Shit! She fried your brain, didn’t she?” King Fyre muttered. “What am I going to—”

  “Nngh.” Well, that wasn’t a word. Even Blaze could tell in his screwed-up state. He blinked and swallowed a few times, then was able to make out his brother’s face. Sheesh, Fyre looked like he’d spent a night in the lowest level of all hells. “Whaa?”

  Fyre wasn’t wearing his kingly gear. The ridiculous jewel-encrusted crown and heavy gold and purple robes were gone. A wave of yearning hit Blaze. This was his brother Fyre, not the king, and Blaze didn’t get to see him often anymore.

  Fyre eased Blaze into a sitting position, guiding him with a gentle but firm grip. “Gods, I’m sorry. I didn’t know she’d do that.”

  Blaze found himself propped against a pile of pillows, seated atop an ornate bed that was not his. The gilt and gold and decorative overkill clued him in. “Why’m I in your room?”

  Fyre pushed some hair off Blaze’s brow, then tucked some more behind his left ear. Tears stung Blaze’s eyes. He closed them and tucked his chin to his chest. “What?” He didn’t even know what he meant by that one word—it just slipped out.

  Fyre’s heavy sigh gusted across his cheek. “I love Bonny, but sometimes she scares me. I don’t always think she does the right thing, but she doesn’t always do the wrong thing, either. This time…” Another wistful exhalation. “This time, she overstepped. I’m sorry, little brother.”

  “You always think I’m a pest,” Blaze muttered, unable to keep the accusation back. “You think I’m a total fuckup.”

  Fyre cupped his chin. “Look at me.”

  Blaze didn’t want to. He liked hiding behind his eyelids. But he knew Fyre. He’d wait until Blaze obeyed, even if it took all night. So Blaze opened one eye, a little.

  Fyre snorted, amusement making him grin. “You are stubborn and unique, and I love everything about you, even the troublemaking part.”

  Well, Blaze had known that he was a pain in the ass.

  “Stop it,” Fyre snapped. “Whatever you’re thinking, just stop it. You aren’t—what’d you say I thought you were? A pest and a total fuckup?”

  Blaze nodded, gulping down a knot of emotion that threatened to choke him. “Yeah.”

  “I have never said anything like that,” Fyre growled. “I’ve never put you down, and not once have I regretted raising you! Stop putting your own insecurities on me. Projecting, right? You think those things, and just assume everyone else does, but we don’t. I don’t.”

  Blaze really hoped that wasn’t a tear slipping out the corner of his eye. “But I can’t—”

  “No, don’t start that. You start with what you can do.” Fyre let go of his chin and sat back on his butt. “Apparently, that includes seducing fairies. At least your fairy wasn’t part of King Artaxis’s harem after all. That would have been a nightmare.”

  “He’s not?” Blaze suddenly felt a lot better than he had. His heart even seemed to tingle and beat faster. “Griff’s not a part of the harem?” he asked just for extra clarification.

  Fyre shook his head. “No. However—”

  Blaze cringed. “However’s never good.”

  “You’re telling me,” Fyre groused, glaring at the ceiling. “Artaxis was not happy about you and this… Griff-fairy getting it on. He’s very protective of Griff.”

  “How unhappy?” Blaze sat up straighter, the need to go find Griff hitting him much like Bonny’s bolt had. “Is Griff in trouble? I’ll tell Artaxis it was all me. I’ll tell him Griff felt sorry for me and—”

  “He isn’t in trouble, and you will do no such thing.” Fyre got up and paced a few steps. “Artaxis said Griff is vulnerable because his brain has been damaged, and he has no wings.”

  Blaze frowned and pictured Griff. He hadn’t even noticed the lack of wings, though if he had, he’d likely just have believed the fairies could make them go away. Was that possible? “He’s supposed to have wings?”

  Fyre turned back toward him. “Yes. All the fairies flew in, remember? Except Griff.” He arched one brow at Blaze. “According to this Griff’s sister, you should know how Griff arrived.”

  Blaze blushed hot from head to toes. He wanted to look away from Fyre but didn’t. “On a dragonfly. I screwed up.” Pain shot through Blaze, and he wasn’t sure if it was physical or not. “I could have killed him because I wasn’t paying attention.” Gods, his chest burned, and something deep inside him felt like it was going to break.

  Fyre knelt on the bed, his expression once more conveying concern. “Blaze? What’s wrong?”

  Blaze pressed both hands to his chest. “I can’t think of what could have happened. It makes me ache.”

  Fyre touched Blaze’s top hand. “Just breathe.”

  Blaze tried, but he couldn’t stop fretting about Griff. “His brain is hurt? How? Where are his wings, if he’s supposed to have them? Why am I in trouble for having sex with him? He came to me. He…” Blaze shivered with the memory of what he was about to say. “He took control. He wasn’t hesitant. If his brain is hurt, I saw no evidence of it.”

  Fyre hummed and patted Blaze’s hand. “Is that so? He came to you, and he, er, took control? I’m still not thrilled about the interspecies thing, but…but you seem to really like the fairy, and you two won’t make some odd fairy-dragon hybrid. Am I right in what I’m thinking that you like this guy? That you want more than just this one sexual experience with him?”

  Blaze cleared his throat. “Yeah?”

  Fyre snickered and gave him a nudge. “Scoot over. I need some room, then I’m going to call a snack for us and some wine, and I’ll tell you all that I know about your Griff.”

  Blaze scrambled over to allow his brother to share the bed with him. This camaraderie was so strange and so much like what Blaze craved from his brother. He was probably still unconscious, dreaming this all.

  “Why was I in so much trouble before?”

  “Because we overreacted,” Fyre admitted, and it sounded like he might have actually been pained by having to say so. “I thought you’d banged someone from the harem, and there’d be a war with the fairies. We could defeat them easily, but…” He shrugged. “And being the king, sometimes I…I screw up, brother. I should have listened. When you didn’t wake up right away, and you started moaning and—” Fyre inhaled shakily. “I thought—”

  Blaze didn’t want to hear any more of that. “I’m not dead,” he pointed out. But he still hurt, that deep, in-the-core pain that was steady, not fading. He had a craving that wasn’t related to food or drink. He lusted for Griff, and it was all he could do to keep himself there, on the bed, with his brother. Even though he appreciated the time and attention, and he desired the closeness with Fyre, he felt the need to be somewhere else.

  He wanted Griff, to see him and hear him, make sure he was okay. “Griff’s not in trouble?” he asked again, clenching his hands against the blanket.

  “No, I don’t think so. Artaxis is furious with you, as is that Gia-fairy, but they said nothing of Griff being in trouble.” Fyre scowled. “And I’d hope that this attraction you feel for your fairy works both ways, and he doesn’t play himself off as the victim.”

  Blaze didn’t believe himself to be the smartest dragon around, but even he figured that one out. “He won’t, or else Artaxis would be back here, demanding my head.”

  “True enough,” Fyre agreed. He sighed as he got comfortable, then pressed the button by the headboard that would have a servant racing up to the room. “So, we’ve established that you and Griff were consensual lovers, that Bonny and I overreacted. You like Griff. I don’t see the attraction, but hey, whatever sparks your fire. Now, about his injuries…”

  Blaze tensed up at the plural usage there, but he kept his mouth shut, and he listened as his brother talked.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You did what?” Gia shrieked. “Are you stupid?”

  Griff threw his purple shoes at her, both with one decent toss. “I’m neither stupid nor deaf,” he said calmly, though inside he felt like a troll turd. At least the agonizing pain had stopped and it was now only a dull throb.

  “But you were saying the binding words!” Gia continued, dodging both shoes easily. “Griff, come on, I’m not trying to be a twatwaddle, but you’re telling me you might be mated to the dragon shifter! You don’t even know him! How could you let your control slip like that?”

  “I wish I knew more bad words,” Griff muttered, sitting on the bed. “You should have some bad words tossed your way for all the shouting you keep doing. Gia, my head hurts. Stop already.”

  Gia huffed and puffed and finally sat on the floor in front of him. She looked at him with compassion and concern, and Griff wanted to cry.

  “I’m worried about you,” Gia said quietly.

  That was the last straw. Griff’s defenses collapsed just like he did. He flopped backward and shoved a pillow over his face as he stopped trying to hold back the tears.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Gia said, sliding onto the bed to lie beside him. “Come here. I’m sorry I was so harsh. I’m just scared, and we have no one but Artaxis to ask about this.”

  “No,” Griff managed to say, lifting an edge of the pillow. “I call a sibling swear. You can’t tell him.”

  “Argh.” Gia pushed a tissue under the pillow. “Here. Don’t get snot all over the pillow. You have to rest your head on it tonight.”

  Despite his foul mood and achy everything, and despite the fact that he might have done something more stupid than Gia had accused him of being, Griff laughed.

  “That sibling swear is outdated,” Gia mumbled. “We’re grown-ups now.”

  “But still siblings, so it stands,” Griff pointed out. He gave his sister a wobbly smirk. “You are bound by it.”

  “I know,” she groaned. “The hardships of being your favorite sister.”

  “My only sister,” Griff said, the argument a familiar one he could remember even despite his injury.

  “That you know of,” Gia shot back at him right on time. “Mom wasn’t monogamous at all. She didn’t stick to our kind of fairies, either. That’s why she said our fathers could be anyone in the fairy kingdoms, just about. Who knows where she went off to.”

  Griff often wondered. “She left when we were just kids, right? I’m not remembering that wrong?”

  “Yes, not even in double digits yet.” Gia shrugged like it didn’t matter, but Griff knew it hurt. “Guess she had better things to do.”

  “Maybe something happened to her, like it did to me,” Griff said without thinking. He put the pillow aside. “I’m sorry. Don’t be upset.”

  Gia sniffed. “I’m not. You could be right. I suppose it makes me a rotten fairy to hope that there’s a reason she abandoned us other than she just didn’t love us enough to hang around.”

  Well, when she put it like that, Griff was wounded that their mom had vanished, too.

  “I didn’t have to try to remember the way to his room,” Griff said a moment later, sharing with his sister even though he suspected he might regret it.

  Gia sat up and stared at him.

  Griff fidgeted with the blankets. “What?”

  “You remembered where his room was?”

  Griff couldn’t tell if she was surprised or irritated. “No. I traced it out on my window, but I didn’t have to look at it. I just found him, on my own.”

  “No wrong turns?” she asked, tipping her chin down at him.

  “None, and before you ask, I’m sure.” Griff closed his eyes and imagined it. “The path to his room was the clearest one I’ve ever taken.”

  “Oh, hells and demon spawn,” Gia groaned. “You are his mate.”

  Griff’s heart stuttered. “But a fairy and a dragon?”

  Gia poked him in the belly. “Why not?”

  “Because it hasn’t happened before!” Griff exclaimed.

  Gia pulled one of his eyelids open. “Someone’s gotta go first, so why not you and dragon boy? Hey, is he hung like a dragon?”

  “Gia!” Griff whipped his head aside and opened both eyes before she ended up damaging him somehow. “Gah!”

  “Prude,” she teased. “I mean, he is a dragon shifter.” Then she became serious. “I don’t know how Artaxis is going to handle having one of his fairies mated to a dragon shifter.”

  As bad as Griff wanted to say it was none of Artaxis’s business, it kind of was. That was the way things were in the magical realm. In each species, the king or queen ruled, period.

  But Griff had a rather brilliant idea, and it perked him right up. “Artaxis wanted an alliance with the dragons…”

  Gia’s lips parted. “Ohhhh, I like the way you think.”

  It might not have been the alliance Artaxis wanted, but if Blaze held any authority at all, had any important connections, then it might be beneficial for the Love fairies in the long run if Griff was mated to Blaze.

  He still thought if, because he hadn’t said that last line, so he wasn’t convinced he was fully attached to Blaze.

  Never mind the dull ache, the longing, the worry or that horrible, horrible pain he’d felt earlier. “Gia, would I know if Blaze was hurting? I mean, if the mate bond happened, would I feel what he felt?”

  Gia frowned. “I have no idea. Maybe? It depends on the connection. You didn’t say the last line, but I think…” She took a deep breath, then expelled it. “Maybe you didn’t have to. Maybe the connection between you and, er, Blaze, was so strong you didn’t have to say it. You just had to, you know, think it.”

  Griff gawked at her, speechless as he did so. He really did need to learn more bad words.

  Chapter Twelve

  Blaze didn’t have to worry about sneaking out of the main castle silently. With all the shouting coming from Fyre and Bonny’s quarters, and allllllllllll the eager eavesdroppers—although, was it eavesdropping when they were yelling so loudly no one could avoid hearing them?—were lurking closer so they could watch the doors and see if Bonny or Fyre ran out. Or were thrown out. Either was possible, what with the ruckus they were making.

  So it was no hardship for Blaze to slip out of the castle, where he had been told to stay, and into the night. Fyre had said it was for his own safety since the fairy king might want to hurt Blaze for what he and Griff had done.

  Blaze was willing to take that risk. He needed to see Griff and make sure he was okay. Knowing now that the adorable fairy had been injured in what should have been an impossible manner, Blaze felt the need to comfort him, and reassure himself that Griff was still there.

  But Fyre had said Griff’s memory was screwed up. What if Griff didn’t remember him?

  The pain in his chest was entirely out of order, Blaze decided, even as he rubbed at it. He shouldn’t be so attached to Griff.

  And yet, there he was, tiptoeing past the guards at the palace gates. Both guards were snoring. Blaze might have to mention that to Fyre if he could find a way to do it without landing himself in a steaming heap of trouble.

  Blaze noted the moon, a bare sliver of light that seemed to flicker. An enchanted moon, that was what it was called, when something in the atmosphere caused such an effect.

  It always freaked Blaze the hells out. He was afraid one night he’d look up, see the moon waver, then it’d explode and they’d all die.

  Sometimes, just sometimes, he was given to melodrama and paranoia. At least he had enough sense not to tell anyone else.

  The castle the fairies were in was lit up, every window shining with a bright light. Blaze stopped behind a row of golden hedges and tried to figure out his next move. Sneaking in to find Griff wasn’t going to be possible if everyone in the stupid place was still awake.

  And fucking. They were probably all fucking, except hopefully not Griff.

  Blaze scampered over to the next row of hedges. From there, he could see Griff’s window. He stared as hard as possible—which, surprisingly, made his eyes throb.