Chapter 175: Narrate One More Goddamn Thing

Brennan’s first clean portal was, statistically, overdue. He’d been a mage for years. The odds demanded that eventually, just once, everything would go right.

He raised both hands, blue light pooling in his palms.

"Their wards have gotten exponentially better overnight," he commented, fingers tracing invisible architecture in the air, reading a blueprint only he could see. "Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing and had the reserves to do it twice for good measure."

"Can you get through?" Nicholas asked, the gold still fading in and out under his skin.

"Through? No," Brennan replied. "The port harbor sits outside the primary perimeter. I can land us there."

Damon:’Outside the perimeter’ is his way of saying he found a loophole.

Nicholas:I gathered that.

"Do it," Nicholas said aloud.

"Consider it done, Alpha."

Brennan planted his feet, squared his shoulders, and channeled everything he had.

A portal tore open with clean edges. Stable frame. No smoke, no fire, no secondary explosions. For the first time all day, it looked like Brennan knew what the fuck he was doing.

He stared, failing to hide the ’holy shit’ look on his face, before clearing his throat.

"After you, Alpha."

With great reservation, Nicholas stepped through. Damon followed. Brennan brought up the rear.

They were in a dark alley. The kind where hepatitis thrived, toddlers carried switchblades, and grandmas had criminal records.

The portal closed behind them with a soft hiss.

Damon looked down at his own body. Two arms attached. All fingers accounted for. He looked at Nicholas, who was performing the same silent inventory.

Their eyes met.

The exchange lasted one second and contained the full, unspoken relief of two men who had genuinely been uncertain whether they would arrive at their destination with their original number of body parts.

Damon gave Brennan a single nod. The most approval his face had produced all day.

Brennan received it like a medal.

"Hoods up," Nicholas ordered, pulling his forward.

A full face mask materialized from Brennan’s coat and was on his head before Nicholas finished the word ’hoods.’

Nicholas didn’t notice, already walking.

Ten steps later, he caught a masked serial killer in his peripheral vision.

"WHAT THE—"

He whipped around so fast that Brennan let out a girlish shriek.

Behind him Damon was hunched over, shoulder shaking, like he’d been waiting for that exact scene to play out.

"What the hell is that?" Nicholas snapped.

"I have an extra," Brennan offered. "One for the Beta."

"I would rather be arrested," Damon said.

"Plausible deniability in textile form," Brennan explained, undeterred. "Keeps my identity a secret."

"No shit." Nicholas dragged a hand down his face. "There is no universe where three hooded men, one of whom is wearing THAT, walk into a dragon Keep and are not immediately tackled."

He pulled it off of Brennan’s face and handed it to Damon. "Burn this."

The harbor was busy. The three of them moved through the crowd quickly.

"I can wait here," Brennan offered. "Guard the portal exit. Ensure our retreat is—"

"No." Nicholas kept walking. "You’re my master mage. That means you’re coming."

Brennan’s chest inflated.

The inflation was immediate, involuntary, and so pronounced that Damon watched it happen with the detached fascination of a man observing a bird puff its feathers during a mating display.

"Right." Brennan straightened his spine. Adjusted his coat. Lifted his chin by three degrees. "I am your master mage. So that means I am coming with you. Into the Dragon Keep. Where we are going. Together. As a unit."

"Brennan."

"Yes, Alpha?"

"Stop narrating."

"Understood."

They made it eleven paces before Brennan opened his mouth again.

"Small problem, Alpha. Administrative in nature."

"What."

"The last time I was in this Keep, it was under siege, and I was the one who built the ward system and portals that made the siege possible. Technically speaking, I am a fugitive on Drakencrest soil. If their elders see me, they might arrest me. Or execute me. The execution is more likely."

"I was there, Brennan," Nicholas sighed. "Keep your goddamn hood up and don’t show your face to their elders."

Simple instruction. One sentence. Even Brennan couldn’t complicate a one-sentence instruction. Nicholas told himself this.

"Understood. Hood up. Face hidden. Totally normal. Nothing suspicious about three hooded men walking into a dragon keep at dusk."

"Brennan. Stop talking."

"Stopping."

He did not stop. But the volume decreased, which Damon chose to count as progress.

That’s when Nicholas saw him.

Thirty yards ahead, at the junction where the harbor road met the merchant quarter, a man was raising the hood of his cloak.

The hood went up a half-second too late. Nicholas caught his face. Renwick Lunaris was standing in the merchant quarter of a dragon keep, speaking with a dragon lord, and the conversation had the body language of two men who did not want to be seen having it.

Nicholas’s stride didn’t break, mindlinking.

Nicholas:You see that?

Damon:Yup.

Behind them, Brennan looked from Nicholas to Damon, then back to Nicholas.

"You two are mindlinking," he said.

Damon:Renwick Lunaris. Hooded. In a merchant quarter. Meeting a dragon lord off the books. Tell me that’s not the most Renwick thing either of us has ever seen.

Nicholas:Lord Falborne is the dragon lord he’s with. Not wearing his house emblem, but I recognize the bastard.

"It’s still happening," Brennan whispered. "I can see the micro-expressions. Something interesting happened. I’m going to need a verbal summary at some point or I’ll start making assumptions, and historically my assumptions are creative and wrong."

"Brennan," Nicholas said, without looking at him. "Hood up. Mouth closed. Eyes open."

"I can do that." He paused. "Two out of three guaranteed."

✦✦✦

DRAKENCREST KEEP

Nicholas sat. Damon stood. Brennan touched things.

"Don’t touch that," Damon said.

Damon:Quite the wait we have. I know we’re unannounced, but they could have sent us anyone by now.

Nicholas:Agreed. Five more minutes doing it their way. If no one shows up, I go find her.

The door opened.

Griffin Ironreach entered the room. He was the redheaded soldier on the strike team to rescue Guinevere. Nicholas and Damon both had interacted with him a few times.

"Gentlemen." He clapped his hands together. "Really sorry for the wait. The Dragon King is in the middle of a war summit. His Second, Third, and Fourth are all in there with him. It’s a whole thing. Very intense."

"Is Guinevere available?" Damon asked. "Or Blair?"

"Both are in the middle of a few things. Out and about. Not in the Keep unfortunately."

Nicholas gave Griffin the flattest look his face had ever produced.

"Don’t bullshit me, Griffin. Guinevere is in this Keep. You and I both know how I know that, so I won’t say it out loud."

Griffin’s brows furrowed.

It dawned on Nicholas that he actually might not know how matebonds work.

"I marked her to save her life. So I can feel her now. You were there."

A Eureka moment flashed behind Griffin’s eyes. "Oh yes, I remember. That’s how you know, because you can feel her. That would make sense."

It was at this point that Nicholas’s body lit gold.

He looked down at his glowing hands and exhaled through his nose with the specific exhaustion of a man whose body had been betraying him all day.

Griffin’s eyes went wide.

"One moment," he said, his voice three octaves higher than it had been, already mindlinking before the door closed behind him.

Damon:He didn’t know how matebonds work.

Nicholas:No.

Damon:He said ’one moment’ in a voice I’ve never heard from a grown man.

Nicholas:Yes.

Damon: Whatever comes back through that door is going to be significantly less friendly and significantly more dragon.

Blair Drakencrest blew into the room like a weather system with excellent bone structure.

She pulled Damon into a hug so sudden he rocked back on his heels. Before he could recover, Nicholas received the same treatment, his arms pinned to his sides by a princess who was significantly stronger than her frame suggested.

"It’s good to see you both."

Her eyes narrowed on Brennan, remembering exactly who he was.

"Our new Master Mage," Damon explained. His ears went red saying it.

Blair did not comment. She turned to Griffin, who was still lingering in the doorway.

"They’re with me."

"But the High General said—"

She held up a hand, stopping him mid-sentence.

"The High General falls under me."

Griffin blinked. "Since when?"

"Since right now."

The sentence left zero room for negotiation, appeal, or follow-up questions. Griffin’s mouth opened to attempt one anyway. Blair closed it gently with her hand and pushed past him.

"Follow me," she called over her shoulder.

They followed her through the Keep, stopping at a door in the royal wing.

Blair turned to face them with the expression of a woman about to issue a content warning.

"Fair warning. This room is the most disgustingly decorated room I have ever been inside of."

"We’ll survive," Damon said, his lips twitching at the corners.

"Oh, and right now we have a bit of a situation playing out. I recommend keeping your distance unless you want to get blasted."

"Blasted," Damon repeated.

"Yes." She looked at Nicholas. Her eyes tracked down from his jaw to his neck, staying there for a second too long.

Nicholas blinked down at her. "What?"

"I was looking to see if you had a matching one like my brother. You do not," she replied before pushing open the double doors.

Nothing could have prepared Nicholas for what he saw on the other side.