Marigold
On the whole, I wasn’t expecting for Jax to bring up the dragon shifters when Asher returned his call, but I guess I should have been with what I knew about the fire.
I had already travelled far outside of my comfort zone just coming to the Eastern Province with Asher, but I couldn’t see myself being separated from his side at this point.
Therefore, I knew from the second my mate had gone into more detail about Ryker’s intentions for him to seek out the dragons that I would have to go with him.
The thought was speckled with apprehension, but there was a level of trust that had formed with Asher, and I felt confident he would keep me safe no matter what came our way. I was also excited with the prospect of seeing more of this world, having spent so much of my life cooped up in the humans’ territory.
So, after gathering my resolve, it had been simple enough to wholeheartedly throw myself down the path life had chosen fo
Marigold I watched as my mate warred with himself over my request for a minute, but he caved in the end, my wolf virtually bursting free with enthusiasm at his eventual submission. While I knew the province wasn’t precisely the safest for the time being, I also didn’t care for the idea of being stuck by myself for hours on end again, disregarding the minor point that I needed to go through my belongings still. Asher started to lead the way outside, but I’d outpaced him in my hurry within a few steps. At any rate, before I could shift shapes, his smooth voice stopped me in order to go over some safety measures before we set off. In principle, I knew it was a smart idea to listen to him, but my inner animal didn’t give a damn right this second. I did my best to focus on my mate’s cautions, but my wolf insisted on crashing against my barriers in a desperate bid to break free all the while. The chance of the brisk air sifting thro
Marigold Asher rested one massive palm against my ass and the other against my upper back, securing me tighter against his body as he moved down the hall. My mind was spinning, but I knew I was all in for whatever my other half had in store for tonight. I’d never felt like this before, and the endorphins arising inside me as a result were spurring me to heretofore unknown heights. It was heady, and I wrapped my legs around his lean waist in a death hold as he ascended the stairs, ravenous for the bliss I’d only gotten a glimpse of so far. Alas, a hint of my fear persisted in spite of the fact that I had made up my mind, but I was able to ignore the niggling qualms with the sexual tension adding kindling to the low blaze smoldering from deep within me, drawing all my concentration. My timid actions were swiftly fading, and I let my hands rove the muscles of his shoulders as we came closer and closer to the impressive bed, feeling
Asher I was near full to bursting with the emotions coursing through me. I hadn’t been thinking when I’d sunk my teeth deep into Mari’s neck, letting my body do all the thinking for me, but I would never regret my action. I had been worried Mari wouldn’t be okay with me claiming her, especially when she didn’t bite me back, but her relaxing against me just now told me everything I needed to know. My wolf was semi-satisfied with our mate bearing our mark, but I wouldn’t deny the disappointment I felt either. Howbeit, I knew from the beginning that Mari was shy, and I had expected it to take a hell of a lot longer for us to even make it into bed. Now that we were here, I had no intention of leaving for a good amount of time, though I did divide a fraction of my attention so that I would be able to keep a watch over our surroundings with my superior senses. My dick was already hardening against her thigh de novo, and I moved my h
Asher I’d felt my pack bonds snap into place early this morning, alerting me that Jace had employed whatever distraction he’d managed to come up with on such short notice, and I felt my males drawing nearer as the day passed. Mari had wanted to return to the pack house a while after lunch, but her absence was stark as I continued cleaning up what I could of the town, our distance adding to my swelling agitation. My wolf’s surly attitude only deepened my inner conflict, and I ultimately opted to give up on my task for now, stripping as I called forth my inner beast seconds later. The pain washing through me aided in clearing my mind, allowing me to focus on what was coming, both later tonight and over the next few days. Handing the reins over to my wolf, I relished the fresh air sweeping over me as he kept his nose to the ground, searching for any signs of intruders. Things had been quiet since the attack, but th
Asher It took longer than I wanted to get my males situated, but I oddly felt a little better when I noticed my mate’s stunning white wolf keeping my conquered beta company where he was now slumped in the passenger seat of the car. A few of the guys had asked about Mari, but no one bothered her with more than a few curious glances after I’d announced that she was mine. I gathered as much information as I was able before returning to Nicolai and Mari, but I was unhappy with what I’d uncovered. Hopefully, Jace would be able to fill in the gaps if he did manage to make it sometime between now and when the rest of my pack arrived over the next twenty-four hours. Ryker had thankfully loaned out some of his warriors to drive my pack across the country, so my males were well rested and ready to begin patrolling the lands, which gave me leeway to spend the evening figuring out what the hell was going on with my friend. “Are you guys r
Marigold It was interesting getting to meet the male I’d heard so much about. All right, I’d been told some about him, anyway, but that didn’t mean I was at ease being in the same room as him yet. I couldn’t resist the urge to fidget, but Ash’s large palm rested on my thigh a minute later, aiding me in relaxing. Scarlett wasn’t a huge sharer like me, but I knew enough about Jace’s character to be unsurprised when he revealed his motive behind helping the wolves from our pack escape from the rogue dragon. I was a little surprised he was willing to take on the security of the Eastern Province while Asher and I were away seeking the Draconis species, but I was confident he could handle the hefty role. Howbeit, what really shocked me was the fact that he’d announced that he had found his mate and that he would be bringing her with him if he was planning to extend his stay here for any length of time. Asher had mentioned that the o
Marigold I wasn’t sure if my mate was awake, and I didn’t know whether or not I still had time to go back to sleep before my day began. Irrespective, my churning thoughts told me it was unlikely I would get any more rest, and my nerves only increased as I continued thinking about the daunting days ahead of me. We had the memorial later this morning, and then we were setting off for the unknown. Asher had informed me that there hadn’t been a land-dwelling shifter cross the sea to the dragons’ land before, at least that we were aware of. It only made the rogue dragon who’d attacked our province all the more out of place. Hopefully, we weren’t making a mistake by extending ourselves this far from our homes, but at least my wolf seemed to think we were following the correct path. I shifted restlessly in my soulmate’s arms as I continued pondering the future, but I halted my squirming when his strong hand snaked out,
Asher Guilt sat like a lead weight in the pit of my stomach as I steered the car straight into the sunlight, feeling torn inside as I left my province behind yet again. Not to mention, the emotion was fresh in my mind after the memorial for the males, the ones who had been slain while I was gone. This was one of the hard parts about being an alpha, but I would never give up the privilege it was for me to defend my land and my pack. It was one of the few things I could say I was proud of in my life. I knew I was doing the right thing by leaving to find the dragon shifters, as difficult as it was for me to do, and I was comforted some by my mate’s presence within the small space. Switching my hands on the steering wheel, I reached out to grasp Mari’s tiny hand in mine as I attempted to recenter my focus. I ran over the conversation I’d had with Jax this morning in my head, remembering that I’d forgotten to
Hello wonderful readers, This is the end of 'The Luminary Quartet." Thank you so much for reading and for all the incredible comments y'all have left along the way. Please do me a huge favor and leave a review on the book's homepage (for this book and any of the other three if you haven't already!) I need twenty something different reviews for my rating to officially show, and the first is the only one I've managed to accomplish this with so far. My next book is titled 'After the Downfall," and the cover is already up on social media. I'm tweaking the blurb, but it will be up tomorrow, as well. I'm going to start uploading chapters this weekend to the website, but I will be getting it signed ASAP so it shows on the app, too. This book was intended to be a standalone, but I may reevaluate depending on how well it's recieved. It is another werewolf romance with a post-apocalyptic spin, but I do want to stress that this does not mean I will only be limiting myself to these types of
Marigold Five Years Later Glancing around the large clearing here to the north of Forest Glen, I let myself revel in how far we’d come over the last five years. Dragons, wolves, bears, and, hell, even a few humans, all coexisted in peace as they had since that final fight, interacting without any drama in the wide-open area before me. Granted, it wasn’t all smooth sailing at first, and there were still the occasional troublemakers to deal with every now and then. It wasn’t a walk in the park to push past the prejudice when it did occur, but we’d found that most of it was due to misinformation that my father and the other former elders had spread throughout the years. For that reason, I’d advocated for the annual gathering that we were all enjoying now, ensuring it was open to everyone. Initially, there was more friction on the human side of things, but Finn and Maverick had handled any issues on that front in the aftermath of all the mayhem my father had caused. I’d felt guilty
Marigold I was locked in place as turmoil ruled around me, Maverick and his team of males trying their damnedest to pull a miracle out of their asses. Nicolai was unconscious, badly injured from an ambush during his rescue mission with one of my true mates, and now both pieces of my soul were bounding off into danger de novo, my sister still in the clutches of my manipulative father. How much more fucked up could my family get? Letting the terror win as I drowned in my misery, I don’t know how long I stood there before someone broke me out of my stupor, but once the haze cleared, I was searching for some way to contribute, not wanting to be the damsel in distress. Still, I was being yanked out of the street by one of the healers before I could move an inch myself, and one look up told me the reason why. The dragons who were at the root of Nic’s suffering had decided to try their hands at finishing the job. To further complicate the situation, the humans impending arrival couldn’t
Zacharias I didn’t jump at Asher’s disruption, not surprised in the slightest. Rather, I used the opening he afforded to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak. Launching myself headfirst into the commotion, I maneuvered my arm up into the gap between Magnus’s and Iris’s bodies, using it to block the blade he still wielded as I concurrently swept his feet out from under him. The stinging ache from the knife slicing deep into the muscle of my forearm hardly registered in the heat of the moment, relief being the chief emotion in my head at averting the male’s sinister plans from coming about in his final act of desperation. Both of his fists unclenched as he tumbled to the ground with a growl, releasing Iris’s blonde tresses and the gore-splattered knife in the process. The blade clunked heavily as it dropped to the floor in front of him, and I hurried to kick it out of reach. As much as I wanted to stick around and deliver some of my own vengeance for present and past hurts, Ir
Asher One second, I was sprinting for cover as we came closer to saving Iris, my gaze pinned on a nearby building, but then Nicolai was roaring in alarm, his body crashing into me and bringing me down face first into the concrete sidewalk in front of me. The nasty collision set a chorus of bells off in my brain as my senses picked up on several things simultaneously, time seeming to slow to a crawl as anguish exploded from my head down. Heat was rapidly spreading from behind me until it became equally as unbearable as the ringing in my mind, yet I didn’t miss the agonized howl piercing the air above it all before darkness reigned, my body shutting down to protect itself. When I came too, it was by increments with pain radiating out from multiple points, but it was the ache from my face that commanded the bulk of my notice. It took me a minute to comprehend that someone else was moving my body, flipping me over so that I could see the smoke darkening the sky, and it took another on
Zacharias Finn had contacted me earlier during our flight into the Western Province. He’d let me know some of our males would be arriving throughout the day, but he’d also mentioned that he was planning to scout ahead in order to get an idea of what we were looking at. I let the others know as much before Asher and I escorted Mari up to the room, the fatigue crashing down on her all at once by the looks of it. When we returned, those that were left for the meeting had moved into the living room. Our location made no difference to me, so I took a seat in a recliner, listening as Nicolai and Asher discussed different tactics for approaching their mission to extract Iris. Mari had given us as much as she could recall of the secret route into the town earlier. It turned out to be an underground tunnel, which wasn’t surprising given all I’d discovered about the former elder of the lupine species. Moreover, I would be able to give t
Marigold My mind was a million miles away as I went through the motions of getting ready for our flight the next morning, every waking thought reminding me that I’d failed to keep Iris safe. Rias and Asher had taken care of packing any supplies we might need, so I’d only been responsible for making sure I dressed appropriately for the trek to the Western Province. More than once, my mates tried to pull me out of my own head, their delectable fragrances and compelling personalities enough to give me a fleeting reprieve from the recurring thoughts, but I was left with an abundance of free time while they ran around, tying up loose ends before we set off. Annie and Ruby joined us for breakfast, but no one was in a talkative mood with the daunting next couple of days ahead of us. Hence, it was a quiet affair before we said our goodbyes. Nevertheless, Annie hurried forward before I could follow my mates out the door a while later, stopping me in my tracks as she wrapped a heavy coat ar
Zacharias Mari was practically falling asleep in her food, but I knew she would resist any attempt I made to take her up to bed, so I didn’t bother wasting the effort. We’d been holding off on strategizing while everyone devoured the food someone had thoughtfully prepared beforehand, but I could see Ruby and my mom were finishing up their meals now, both of them slipping off a few minutes later. Nicolai and Maya had drifted towards the living room, but Asher and I had remained at the kitchen island with our mate sandwiched between us while she picked at her food. There wasn’t much conversation between anyone given the somber mood surrounding us, but I wasn’t idle in the silence. I may have botched rescuing Iris before those bastards stole away with her, but I was doing my damnedest to make up for it now. As it so happened, I had males positioned in the Western Territory still, keeping an eye on what the Western Clan of dragons
Zacharias My dragon roared to life within me, slashing to be set free with the impending danger heading our way, and I was already ripping my clothes off as I left Mari, racing towards the clearing so that I could take to the air. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind, there was no coincidence about the timing of the stray rogues’ and Keith’s assault, and there was nothing that was going to convince me otherwise. As I flew over the land, scanning my surroundings for any signs of intruders, my sharp eyes picked up on movement towards the north. Utilizing my shrewd senses, I zeroed in on the figures winding their way through the trees, realizing these were the rogues who were trying to infiltrate our territory after another minute of observation. I took note of their activity, making sure I didn’t miss anything. Honestly, there didn’t seem to be many of them, but I shot out a warning with the intel to Asher anyway while keeping the ma