Linus had expelled a frustrated breath and stomped his foot like a petulant child. “It’s not fair! I’m a prince. Second in line to the throne. I should have my choice of animals I want to merge with!”
Dagon had passed an irritated glare at the younger man. “You’re lucky your father’s half sister is a goddess whose devoted husband is willing to do this shit for you. So instead of bothering me with your insipid complaining, you should be saying, ‘Thank you, Uncle Dagon, for doing everything you can to save my life and for not merging me with a hyena or a donkey.’”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
Dagon turned on him with an evil smirk. “I’m a god of black magick and possessed with a wicked sense of irony and hostility, you really want to push my patience, boy?”
Linus had wisely backed down and left Dagon to pull a lion from its cage toward the room where he performed his grotesque experiments.
Alone, the prince had drifted to Max and Illarion. His gaze tinged by insanity, he’d stared in at them. “You can understand me, can’t you? I know you can. I want to be a dragon, too. Like you. To have your power and strength. Imagine what we could do together… the power of a dragon and the bloodline of a divine prince. We could rule this earth and all the kingdoms and peoples. Then we’d show my father and brother who the real heir should have been…”
As he wandered off, Illarion had glanced over to Max. Are you going to tell the god what his nephew thinks?
No. Let Dagon merge him with one of us. The best thing that can happen for this world is that Prince Linus explodes and dies. Preferably in a great deal of pain.
Maxis! You can’t do that. We’re supposed to protect human life.
He’s not human, Illy. He’s Apollite and he’s insane.
Even so, I think we need to tell Dagon.
And I think we should stay out of it. No good has ever come from drakomai meddling in the affairs of gods or man. They dragged us into this, and we need to extricate ourselves as quickly and cleanly as possible.
But true to his most irritating nature, Illarion hadn’t listened. He’d told Dagon of the prince’s illustrious plans. And to protect his nephew from them, Dagon had lied and told Linus and his father that he didn’t want to risk merging the prince with the dragons. Rather, Linus’s elder brother, Eumon, had been crossed with them, and Linus with the wolves.
An even more dangerous concoction and not the safer alternative Dagon had imagined. Since the merging heightened the essence of both species, it’d taken the ambition of the Apollite prince and crossed it with the extraordinary cunning and bloodthirsty ruthlessness that marked the wolves.
By trying to save his sons, Lycaon had damned them all.
Thus proving that even the gods and kings could be stupidly blind when it came to family and wanting to do their best for them. Feelings forever got in the way of common sense and blinded the most intelligent of beings.
And because of that, Max and Sera were about to be eaten by gallu.
Max groaned in frustration. His entire life had been screwed by the gods messing with things they should have left alone. And that included his mother and her fascination with his father. But for one horny afternoon, he wouldn’t have even been conceived.
Right now, Max would have been deeply grateful had his father kept it in his pants and not gone dallying with the bitch who spawned him. How much alcohol had his mother plied him with, anyway?
Irritated about it, Max gently grabbed Sera back from the way they were headed, and pulled her down an offshoot. He had no idea where this led. But it seemed a bit safer than the way they’d been going.
All the powers he had and not a one could help them out of this. What then was the use?
“It’ll be all right, Max.”
He hesitated at her encouraging tone. “I’m glad you still have your optimism. Mine slammed into a wall a while back. I think it now has a concussion.”
“I have faith in you.”
“Since when?”
“Always.” She placed her hand on his arm. “Do you know why I chose you that night in the drinking den?”
“I was the only sober male in the room?”
She laughed. “No. In that room full of warriors, you stood out as the most fierce. While they clumped together for protection and safety, you stood alone. Fearless. Defiant. It was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. You were everything I’d always wanted to be, but never had the courage for.”
Max paused as her words struck a tender place in his heart that left him feeling strangely vulnerable. No one had ever said anything so kind to him. Oddly enough, he’d never felt particularly heroic. Most days, he just felt lost and adrift. He barely got through them.
But he wanted to be a hero for her.