Seff was morose as he hovered in the doorway, drying his hands on his trousers after washing up after breakfast. He was on kitchen duty as the youngest of all of us, at least until our mate got here and took over the domestic jobs. She'd need time to recover from her ordeal, of course. Seff could manage for a little while longer.
None of us wanted to voice the fear that we would fail, but it hung heavy in the air with us. The cold terror that our mate would never physically be here with us occupied the sixth spot in our flight, where she should be. We could fail today. The fae girl, Ffion, could fail to break the wards. She could get herself captured and be of no use to us.
The Castells could retaliate before we got to our mate. Hurt her. Kill her. There were many ways in which today could go wrong, and I had a disturbing lack of control over a great deal of them. It was unacceptable.
No, I wouldn’t focus on that. We would succeed today. This very night, she would sit with us in this room, as happy and in love as we were. We had prepared for her arrival. We’d made up the children’s beds in case she was more comfortable sleeping alone for now. One of Oren’s sisters had filled the wardrobe with suitable clothes. Hiram had worked hard to acquire more gems for the hoard and we’d created a comfortable den. Any female would be happy to have such a comfortable, well-stocked den. Not that it would matter if we couldn’t get her back.
Both my family and Oren’s lived on this mountain too, making it a more secure location for our flight. We would always have backup, even if all of us were called out on a job. Our mate would never be left on her own.
Not ever.
May the gods give us many happy decades together, and may our mate not spend a single second of them alone. I always knew I’d be a demanding, possessive mate one day, but knowing she had been alone, imprisoned, probably terrified…
Once we got her out, she would never be in danger again. Whatever locks we needed, whatever sacrifices we had to make to ensure we could watch over her, we would make that happen. Nothing would pass through these doors to take her from us, and she would never, ever leave.
Just the thought of being separated again made my dragon want to rip out of my skin in a rage, and I hadn’t even met her. I was totally irrational over this female. I’d kill for her. Die for her. Burn the entire fae race to the ground for her.
“Do we need to run through the plan again?” I asked the quiet room.
“Doubt it,” Hiram said with an arrogant shrug. His cockiness would get us killed someday. “Fi the Fae creeps in, takes the wards down, we follow. Levi and Seff free the prisoners. The three of us find our mate, and then we go on our merry way. Return to the den, mate in hand. Live happily ever after.”
“You are grossly oversimplifying things,” Seff muttered, reassuring me that at least one of them was taking this seriously. If Hiram’s arrogance cost us our mate, I would kill him myself. It went against the very nature of a flight to harm each other, but there was nothing more unnatural than being without our mate. Our gold.
“Ffion and her mates wanted us to be discreet,” Levi said hesitantly, looking at me like he already knew what the answer to that suggestion would be.
“I don’t give a single fuck about what the fae want,” I growled. “Our priority is our mate.” Levi nodded once, not looking surprised in the least.
"Ready?" I asked my flight, already striding past them out the front door. They had to be ready. There was no other option. We were going to get our gold.
✽✽✽
We flew to the outskirts of the Castell Estate in silence, waiting patiently as Ffion and her mates — Arthus, Marlen, Eamon, and Bryn — arrived. Fae females also had multiple mates, but usually only two, three if they were magically powerful.
Ffion had four males in her mating circle.
These five fae weren’t terrible, as far as fae went, though I still didn’t trust them. Brently had shown up too. He could deal with any other prisoners we released today, I was only interested in one.
The five of us said nothing as the fae males said their emotional farewells to their mate. Only Ffion could pass through the enchanted wards as she’d been escorted in before. The rest of us couldn’t even see beyond the illusion Glendower Castell had covered the property in. It all looked like a forest to us, but Ffion had assured us there was a stately home and caves within the forest where she’d been kept, and she was confident our mate was there too.
Ffion passed through the barrier and disappeared from sight. Her mates looked visibly pained to see her go.
I added it to the list of reasons I didn’t respect the fae. Who would let their female attempt such a dangerous task alone? Walk back into enemy territory without protection?
I would never permit my mate to take such a risk. We would furnish the den however she liked, bring her everything she needed so she would be comfortable and wouldn’t have to leave. Whatever ingredients she wanted to cook, any materials she wished to sew, she would have them. Of course, we would add jewels to the hoard for her to look after.
And we’d give her children. As many as possible.
She would live in perfect happiness once we got her out of this hell.
Where were my mate’s fathers? Brothers?
For their sake, I hoped they were dead already, or I would kill them myself for not protecting her. I would never let my mother or sisters be taken from me. Certainly not by the fae. They barely even had magic, their obnoxiousness had made even the gods give up on them. It made sense that the Castells had taken Ffion. Fae could take magic from other fae.
Why take a gold dragon? Golds had no elemental magic. They had healing magic, but they could only use it on their own flight.
My stomach churned at the idea he’d taken her for any other reason. For her body, perhaps.
No. No, that couldn’t be the case. Glendower had a mate, he wouldn’t be interested in other females. Surely. I couldn’t rule it out. Fae were notoriously untrustworthy.
Black scales rippled over my arms and chest as my anger rose. The rage felt like it would choke me some days. Oren’s eyes, as pale and cold as ice when it came to me, gave me a warning look. As Beta, he’d take over if I couldn’t keep my shit together. I wasn’t about to let that happen.
“That’s three down,” Marlen, the red-headed fae said, monitoring the bond he had with his mate and updating my flight and Brently, who hovered nervously nearby, as Ffion disabled the four wards placed at each corner of the property one-by-one. They were large chunks of crystal, buried in the ground, filled with Glendower’s blood magic.
Dragons didn’t need cowardly tricks like wards to defend our property. If anyone dared approach our den, I’d face them head on and rip them apart myself.
“She was faster that time,” Bryn, the most surly fae of the bunch, added.
“Good,” I gritted out, muscles coiled tight, my wings ready to spring free as soon as possible.
“I think I can see something in the distance,” Seff announced, squinting through the barrier that was by the second becoming more hazy and insubstantial, smoke wafting off his skin as he tried to keep his anger — and his fire dragon — under control.
“I see it too. It looks like the outline of a house, but it’s kind of fuzzy,” Levi added. Green scales briefly flickered up his arms. We were barely keeping it together.