Hidden Dragon (The Treasure of Paragon Book 7) by Genevieve Jack (best book club books .txt) 📕

of those on the island before, have you?” Raven squinted against the sun. The bird was definitely watching them.

Avery shook her head. “Isn’t that called a peregrine? I’ve never even seen one in real life. Just in the movies.”

Clarissa agreed. “It’s my first time too. It’s beautiful, but I think you’re right, Raven—it’s completely out of place. He belongs in the mountains, not the tropics. What are you doing here, sweet bird?” Clarissa made a kissing sound toward the branches.

“Hmm. I’ll have to ask Gabriel about it when we get back.” Raven leaned on her elbows and stared out over the water.

“Can we just stay here for a while?” Avery asked. “I am not looking forward to the conversations with our mates about how we have to go back to the realm we literally just escaped from.”

Clarissa shook her head. “No rush. Plenty of time to break the news, perhaps after a few drinks and a little soothing magic.”

Raven leaned her head on Avery’s shoulder. “I wish just one thing about all of this could be easy.”

Avery took her hand and joined it with Clarissa’s. “It may not be easy, but we can do this.”

“How are you so sure?” Clarissa asked with a laugh.

“Because we’re the three sisters,” Avery said. “We can do anything so long as we’re together.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Stretched out beside her husband, Dianthe admired his naked body in the sliver of moonlight that shone through the tent flaps. He lay on his stomach, barely conscious after a marathon session of lovemaking. She ran a nail along the golden skin of his shoulder, under his wing, along his spine to the top of his buttocks.

“You’re insatiable,” he murmured against the pillow.

She sighed. “I’m just relieved to have you back. It’s good to be home.”

His eyes opened wider. “Our home burned down. We’re in a tent on a benevolent goddess’s island.”

A lazy smile split her face. “It’s home if I’m with you.”

He kissed her forehead. “You’re right. We’re home.”

“Besides, Aeaea is where we met and fell in love. If anyplace could be called home for us, it’s here, don’t you think?”

He ran his fingers over her hair as he pondered that question. “I’d lived here a long time before you and the other rebels made your camp here. Honestly, when I look back on that time, it feels like limbo, almost as if I were in a state of suspended animation. I came alive the day I met you.”

She had to look away as her eyes pricked at the sweet sentiment. “I know the feeling. It’s hard to remember what life was like before you.”

He rolled onto his back, tucking his wings away and pulling her onto his chest. “I had a thought today when I saw you with Charlie.”

“She’s a sweet baby. Strange but sweet. When I saw her hands pass through that orb, I just kept thinking she was truly the one from the prophecy. She’s the baby destined to bring about Paragon’s fall.”

Sylas nodded. “I felt it too. But I felt something else as well.”

Dianthe propped herself up on her elbow. “Tell me.”

“I thought it suited you.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “What suited me?”

“A baby.”

A laugh cut through her throat like a bark. “If dragons could impregnate fairies, we’d have a dozen children by now. Goddess knows we’ve given it our best shot these many years.”

His expression remained serious. “It doesn’t have to be our natural child.”

Something in his eyes melted her heart. “You’re thinking about adopting.”

He nodded. “When we were in Everfield, there were many children orphaned by the raids. There are so many. They are going to need homes.”

She remembered their faces. The hungry look in their eyes. She’d wanted to do more for them at the time but couldn’t. “A tent on someone else’s island is no place to raise a child.”

He scooped an arm under her and pulled her on top of him. “I didn’t mean now.”

“No, I didn’t think you did.”

“It’s just that your vision of the future, Raven and her daughter playing in the garden, it made me think that one day this would be over. One day—maybe not this year, maybe not next year—but one day we are going to win this war. And when we do, it will be the first time since we met that we won’t have the resistance tugging at our corners. We can have a home with a yard. Maybe a dog. There will be no more missions. No more dungeons.”

“Sounds heavenly.”

“It will be. And when we’re there, in that place in the future, I don’t see us being alone.”

She pressed her lips to his. “Sometimes, Sylas, you are absolutely brilliant.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I am?”

“You are. I never thought of it before. I’ve been fighting this war for so long. Since I was a child. I never pictured how my life would be when it was over. I can’t see my own future. I never imagined something different for myself until now.”

“What’s your opinion of the picture I’ve painted?”

“I like it very much.” She had loved holding Charlie. Whenever she’d encountered children, she’d always wondered wistfully about how it might be to have her own. Oh, how she could see it now, nothing more stressful than a tray of cookies in the oven. Children laughing in the yard. Friends and family. Celebration. Warmth and kindness. She wanted it all, even the dog. “Four.”

“You like it very much for…”

“No, four, as in the number four. That’s how many children we should invite into our home. When this is all over, of course.”

He smiled as if she’d turned on a light inside his soul. “If it doesn’t happen for some reason,” he added. “If you change your mind or the world is turned upside down and it doesn’t make sense, I love you, Dianthe, just as you are. You’re enough. This is enough for me.”

She straddled him and gave him a kiss she hoped he could feel in his toes. “I love you